The Cheek Perforation Dance

by Sean Thomas

  Murphy:

  — I’ve never known two people talk such a fantastic amount of total crap as you two

  — Thanks

  — I’m serious …

  Sat in the pale rainy light thrown by the open Hampstead window, Patrick makes an explaining voice:

  — Becs is the only bird I’ve ever met who can talk rubbish like a guy

  — That’s good?

  — Of course

  — But it’s only cause you’ve got her smoking dope, that’s why she’s talking bollocks

  — I am still in the room by the way

  — Isn’t it, Patch?

  — If your head was enormously expanded what would you call your hamster

  — Bex!

  Rebecca grins:

  — oops

  — Rover. Father Gapon. Himmler the hamster??

  — Shutitshutitshutitshutit!!

  Vigorous, Murphy throws a bit of damp cotton wool at Patrick. For a second Patrick eyes the cotton wool on the floor, then he picks it up and throws it back. Across the floor Rebecca turns woozily, very stonedly, to the CD player, and presses a button that skips the C D to another track.

  Leaning back on one stiff arm Patrick inhales the last of the spliff Rebecca rolled; then he stubs the spliff in an ashtray; then he says:

  — We do talk about other stuff don’t we, darling?

  Rebecca shrugs; Patrick says:

  — Religion, we talk about religion don’t we?

  Rebecca says:

  — We argue about religion

  — Well …

  Rebecca:

  — Have you told Murphy your latest theory?

  Patrick has started on assembling another joint. Looking up as he does so, he says:

  — The Jesus-as-a-girl one, you mean?

  Nodding, confirming, Rebecca watches her boyfriend’s fingers as they do their expert artisan thing with paper and tobacco and bits of rolled-up cigarette packet. His eyes looking unblinkingly down, Patrick says:

  — It’s why I can’t believe in God …

  From her vantage, Rebecca notices that Murphy is also watching Patrick’s fingers as they roll the joint. The joint is nearly done. Practised and confident Patrick licks the last flap of cigarette paper, smooths and pinches the spliff, shakes the spliff by one twisted end, and then says:

  — You see I reckon God can’t exist because if he did Jesus would be a girl Murphy:

  — What?

  — Any truly creative God would not have missed the chance to make the Saviour a lovely young woman

  — Sorry?

  — Imagine the box-office appeal, a half-naked Jewish girl being hammered to a cross, the legionnaires looking up her skirt, the white skin and the blood and the blonde hair and all those thorns in her soft lovely flesh

  Murphy tries to make a bored face at Patrick; uncaring Patrick goes on:

  — You wouldn’t have much trouble filling the pews if that was the principal motif, would you?

  — Hn

  As Rebecca listens to Patrick waffling blasphemies to the brought-up-Catholic Murphy Rebecca fears for the calmness of the day, of the evening ahead; firming her yet-to-be-lipsticked lips she turns the CD louder in an attempt to distract herself and her friends from what she is hearing.

  Murphy is shaking her head. Annoyedly. Seeming to ignore this Patrick gets up and crosses the room in his jeans, and scuffed boots, and expensive but fraying shirt. As he does Rebecca glances at Patrick, feeling something as she looks up at the tallness of her boyfriend. While Rebecca looks at Patrick she takes a couple of timid drags from the spliff Patrick’s already given her; then she offers the reefer to Murphy who takes and drags on it vehemently yet sexily. The two of them are going quiet, quietly smoking, waiting for Patrick to finish whatever he’s about to say. As Rebecca watches Murphy smoking and closing her eyes and nose-exhaling smoke Rebecca finds herself thinking about what Patrick said about her Jewishness, about Jewishness, and Jewish girls.

  — Golly, all these theses

  Coughing quietly, Rebecca swallows her hashish-tasting saliva and shakes her head; the room is spinning. She has definitely smoked too much. Trying to focus and thus clear her head she looks up at Patrick who is examining her bookshelves; finally she hears what he is saying. He is reading out the titles of some of her started-but-aborted theses:

  —‘Justifiable Genocide: Faith and Violence in the First Crusade’ …

  Murphy titters; Patrick goes on:

  — Justifiable Genocide??

  Squirming inside Rebecca shrugs outside; she silently listens to him recite, as he pulls another file from the shelf:

  —‘No Scrabble in Heaven …’

  — Thank you so much

  He ignores Rebecca, goes on:

  —‘No Scrabble in Heaven? The Passing of Time in the Christian Paradise’ … hmm … – He grins, puts the file back, says – Well. Why not. What’s this? – Fearful of his sarcasm Rebecca watches wide-eyed with apprehension as Patrick pulls another couple of files down, and recites – ‘Leaving the Milk: Images of Abandonment in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath’ …

  Affronted, Rebecca interrupts:

  — You made that one up!

  But Patrick just snorts, and ignores her, and says:

  — What is it with you girls and Sylvia Plath? Anyway? What is all that rubbish about?

  Despite her hashed-out head Rebecca tries to explain:

  — It’s because she’s an archetype, the intelligent woman who yet

  — Exactly – Says Patrick – She was super clever yet she still liked Ted to give her a slapping, put her in her proper place

  Murphy stifles a laugh; Patrick, thus encouraged, goes on:

  — Because that’s what you all really want, even the brightest of you, isn’t it? A big brute like Ted to knock you about a bit? Give you a seeing to? Whack you on the arse like his best milking heifer?

  Cross-legged and barefoot, Murphy taps Patrick’s jeaned ankle and says:

  — You know it’s not like that …

  — Anyway. All this poetry – Says Patrick, ignoring them, tilting his head sideways so as to read the names on the spines of the thinnest books on the bookshelves – Hughes, Sexton, Carver … Heaney – Be-ringed hand up, Patrick pulls out a copy of some Seamus Heaney and says – Seamus Heaney?

  — Irish Nobel laureate

  — Right, yeah, we used to do Heaney at college … and Hughes for that matter

  — So you have read them, you’re such a liar

  Standing up, tall, Patrick clicks and tssks. A few yards away Murphy flashes a wry conspiratorial men? cuh! smile at Rebecca before returning her gaze to her bare feet, to re-admire her toenails shining in the smoky rainy afternoon light. Between them Patrick is still gabbling away as he flicks through Rebecca’s big compendium of modern poetry:

  — God yes I remember this fucking rubbish, I remember Heaney and Hughes – Rebecca watches as Patrick grins to himself, as he says – All they ever go on about is buckets – He prepares to read out loud – ‘In the slung bucket, the sun stood …’ – Flicking the page, then quoting again – ‘A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket’ – Patrick flicks the pages very quickly – Buckets buckets buckets, watertroughs, buckets, tractors, buckets, Jesus

  Murphy:

  — So you do read poetry then?

  — Buckettian, the buckettian school …

  — You kind of pretend to be stupid don’t you? But you still read poetry?

  Ignoring Murphy, Patrick slips the book back in its space on the shelf, then says:

  — Anyway, Plath, she’s overrated

  Rebecca looks for the spliff. Murphy sees her looking and hands it across. Patrick is still wittering:

  — Her use of the Holocaust, bit dodgy I think … – Searching the shelves Patrick finds a copy of Plath poetry, and opens it – All that Holocaust imagery, any of these artists who use Holocaust imagery, all they’re doing is plagiarising Hi
tler

  — What?

  — Don’t encourage him, Murphy

  Encouraged, Patrick says:

  — That’s what it should say at the bottom of the credits of Schindler’s List: ‘from an original idea by A. Hitler’ – Patrick shuts Ariel and slides it back – After all it was all Hitler’s idea, his conception, his Wagnerian imagination

  — Fancy a bagel, Murphy?

  — Why not

  Patrick, looking at the ceiling, goes on:

  — No. Listen. S’true. It was his amazing, awful, evil, brilliant idea. His alone. And what a fucking conception. To kill the most creative race in Europe. To kill the chosen people, in their entirety – Patrick inhales, exhales – And not just to kill them. Not just to kill the Jews. No, Hitler’s idea was to chase them down all over Europe and then drag them halfway across the Continent and install them in these special Satanic death camps with men in leather coats and trendy long boots and huge dogs. It’s brilliant. Poetic. Götterfuckingdämmerung. And he designed it all. Hitler. He did the costume design, the set design, the script, chose the music … – Patrick is almost yelling – He should get all the Oscars and all the Pulitzers and all the Bookers ever won by anyfuckingone who’s ever used the Holocaust to give any fucking power to their otherwise pisspoor artistic efforts, who use his evil genius as salt and seasoning for their otherwise bland and inane confections

  — Got any biccies?

  Says Murphy; but Patrick has shut up anyway. He has crossed the floor, shrugged his shoulders, and sat down on the bit of carpet by the window where he sits cross-legged and gazes across at Rebecca who is giving the re-lit spliff back to Murphy. As Murphy says:

  — Is it because it’s too gay to admit you read?

  — Your toenail varnish is smudged

  — Especially poetry, hey, Patrick? Hmm? Poetry?

  Patrick:

  — Why are girls like buckets, anyway?

  — Too girly for you is it?

  — Cause when they’re fucked they leak

  This last remark goes ignored. Clutching the spliff, Rebecca seeks around for the ashtray she and Patrick stole from the restaurant they ate in last night. It was a trendy white-painted restaurant, serving trendy offal. Thinking of this, tapping her ash, Rebecca remembers the meal in detail: the cool offcuts they ate, the cutting-edge kidney, the avant-garde faggots. Slipping into this reverie Rebecca feels the drawl of her own thoughts, thoughts of Patrick, food, last night, offal, chitterlings, middleside, the pinkredunder-cooked meat …

  — Guest list starts about ten

  — We could get a minicab

  Mechanically, Rebecca reaches out for the plastic case of another CD, the first CD having just finished. As she enacts this reflex, Rebecca realises she is suddenly self-conscious about doing this: about choosing some music for herself. From nowhere she is suddenly self-conscious about her musical tastes being exposed to him, in front of Murphy. She is so self-conscious she is self-conscious about self-consciously looking over at Patrick to check if he has seen how self-conscious she is feeling. Oh God. Why is she like this? Rebecca wishes she wasn’t; why does he make her at once so anxious yet turned on; why is she so in thrall to his tastes, his lower-class coolness, his manly confidence, his Clerkenwell hipness? Why? What is she looking for from him? Freudian affirmation? Fatherly approval? A smile that reminds her of the female offal she is that he nonetheless adores?

  — They always charge fifty quid and they come from Kosovo so they don’t know where London is

  — But black cabs are …

  Taking a breath, Rebecca sticks a CD in, and sits back. Her lover is arguing, again, with Murphy, as ever … As always. Always the two of them argue about politics, feminism, books, stamp collecting, cloud names, black cabs versus minicabs, everything. But this time it is different, this time Rebecca feels a pang of envy as she sees his blue eyes, his jazz-blue, his neon-in-the-rain-blue eyes shine and glance and glitter: at Murphy. No. Yes. Somewhere near her diaphragm Rebecca feels a stitch-pain of jealousy, a period pain of envy, envy for Murphy’s long legs and silver nose stud and cute cuttlefish tattoo, envy and hatred for the way the two of them, Murphy and Patrick, seem to get on in some obscurely cool London-trendy way, despite the fact that they always argue. I wish he were arguing with me …

  And now comes the paranoia. Even though she doesn’t want to, Rebecca feels like urgently saying something, anything, to interrupt, to stop the two of them talking, to stop the churny PMT feeling inside her stomach at the thought of her own possessiveness; her need to possess his possessiveness: to have his eyes upon her, to have him argue with her, to feel his eyes on her, the slap of his hand on her arse, like she is his best milking heifer

  — Are you coming to the Seder then?

  At last, somehow, Rebecca has managed to say something: she has spoken out now, so as to clear her head of these ridiculous thoughts.

  After a tiny pause, Patrick says:

  — What?

  Patrick has turned from his conversation with Murphy to look at his girlfriend. Patrick’s stare unnerves and pleases Rebecca. Rebecca:

  — The Seder, Dummkopf

  — That Jewish Christmas Easter thing?

  — Yyyyyyyes

  — But it’s miles away, months

  — Er yes but – Say something, say anything – But we have to know quite early

  Patrick shrugs:

  — Well, yes, of course I’ll come if you want me to – He grins, in a kind way – It’s an honour, yes?

  He is moving over, he is shifting across the carpet. Where he says:

  — I’d love to come, sweetheart

  And he kisses her bare shoulder. Slowed, slurring, Rebecca says mmmyes, mmyesss. At the same moment as she murmurs this, Rebecca looks up at Murphy. Her best friend is looking blankly but obviously back: at Patrick kissing Rebecca’s shoulder. Rebecca hates herself for feeling pleasure at the fact that she has perhaps made Murphy jealous.

  Too much dope? Too much dope. With a mental shake of her head Rebecca talks to her boyfriend. Her BOYFRIEND is asking about the Seder, the Jewish festival her parents are planning; he is talking about Jewishness and then suddenly he is widening his eyes and asking her:

  — Why do all Jewish people get more Jewish-looking as they get older?

  — You mean like Bob Dylan?

  — Yes. And Ben Elton and David Baddiel: they all start off looking normal and next time you check ’em out they look like Latvian rabbis

  Rebecca says, from somewhere:

  — Gerontology recapitulates ethnicity

  To fill the ensuing silence, Rebecca looks at her watch. Clocking the time she says:

  — God if we’re going out at seven I’d better get ready

  Half an hour later Rebecca makes her way back from the bathroom, still with the taste of mouthwash in her mouth, the prickle of the razor on her shins. Clean and happy and feeling young and in love Rebecca goes to open the door to her bedroom but before she does she hears laughter, low conspiratorial laughter. It is Murphy and Patrick; Patrick is saying some things in a special voice and Murphy is laughing after each time he says them.

  Her heart pounding Rebecca struggles with her conscience, then she leans as close to the door as she can without pushing it open with her ear. She leans, gently presses her ear, listens.

  With a congealing sensation in her stomach Rebecca realises why the two of them are laughing: they are obliquely laughing at Rebecca’s thesis titles. Patrick is making up ludicrous satirical titles for theses and reciting them in a plinky (Rebecca-y?) voice and Murphy is laughing guiltily but enthusiastically. Rebecca listens. Patrick recites:

  — ‘Who Pays the Gas Man: Female Selfishness and the Suicide of Sylvia Plath’

  — Patch, don’t

  — Hold on … ‘Gorilla in the Washing Machine: the Idea of Black Male Antipathy to Oral Sex’

  — You

  — Hold on, no, no, what’s this one, oh God – He laughs – ‘Usin
g the Colon: Thesis Titles, Received Punctuation, and the Compulsion to Write Unreadable Shite’. Jesus I …

  Enough. Gathering her angry wits Rebecca pushes the door open, and looks around. She hopes and expects to see them both looking guilty. But from his cross-legged stance at the other end of the room, Patrick is just smiling, just laughing, just saying:

  — Hi darling, you look lovely

  And across the room, Rebecca’s heart lifts.

  13

  Lilac. Pale lilac. Aqua. Dreams are like fishes, scattered when the hand of consciousness enters the water …

  Patrick slits his eyes. Closes them. Mmmm. Mnngg. Must. I must … Open …?

  Dragged from the tar pits of sleep Patrick rubs his eyes, and swallows, and unpillows his face and slowly remembers last night when he did something.

  Trial!

  Jumping himself down the bed Patrick leaps off the mattress and skids over the polished floor to a drawer. Late for his own trial! His own rape trial! The third day of his own rape trial! Shorts found, socks unballed, Patrick puts socks on, shorts on, and shifts bleary but quick as he can to the wardrobe, where he half blindly gropes. Clean shirt? Clean white shirt? Where’s his clean white shirt!!!?

  Shirt found, shirt cool on his back, Patrick looks and riffles and thinks fast and selects a discreetly indiscreet necktie, his second-most expensive suit, and the same need-a-polish shoes as yesterday. Then he trips to the door and opens it to jog upstairs to the bathroom where he makes lots of mess, noise, spittle, urine.

  Toothbrush lost, towels dumped, bathroom comprehensively trashed, Patrick goes back down to his borrowed room in Joe’s flat, the room which used to be his own room, where he adjusts his necktie and straightens a collar. Then he turns from the mirror and goes to a table and grabs keys, mobile, cash, another glance at a different clock.

  9.22!

  What would they do without him? Start without him? Forget the whole thing? Out of the door, halfway down the steps, Patrick opts to leap the rest of the steps and is already out of breath by the time he bursts out into an already lovely morning. This loveliest of mornings. How lovely this morning would be, Patrick thinks, if he weren’t on trial for rape. Yes. No. If the girl he loved more than the sun on his face wasn’t a lying slut who wanted to see him rot to death in prison.