Between cutting my wrists and attempting the odd doodle, I was making myself look pretty foolish; it was noticed that I was embittered, that I had green hair and an attitude problem. I back-chatted the tutors, and forgot to put my hand up when I spoke.
I hung on as long as I could in the hallowed halls of the aspiring famous, but I was thoroughly disliked. I had no talent, but worse than that, I had no money. They wanted me out.
38. EROL'S STORY
The first time I saw Erol was in the main hall, along with all the other mugs, getting the ‘you don’t know how privileged you are’ routine from the principal, stood there, greying at the temples, stuck behind his lectern, holding us with his gentle eyes. We stifle yawns, the dust settling. He pulls out his handkerchief and dabs at his eyes, recounting yarns about the good old days. Something about David Hockney and the great fire of London, seriously.
He smiles down at us, barely containing his anger. That’s some hairdo he’s sporting, the old fox. A regular bouffant, blue and purple highlights . . . And the sort of skin that you stare into, looking for the rouge, the blusher . . . the little holes around the nose, clogged and powdery — the truth.
We file in there, me following Erol. Then the lecture and the mug shots for our passes. I was right behind him so I had a good chance to soak him in, the whole persona. Nervous round the eyes, and the flesh, a little too much of it, babyish, and his fingers in his mouth . . . You go to talk to him and his hands come up and his fingers go in . . . He stands there kicking at the dust, a bus ticket? a coin? No, a piece of silver paper, crunched up . . . round, penny-like but false.
‘Watcha!’ That’s me talking, and his fingers go up into his mouth, his lips, heavy and negroid . . . and the teeth, white with the gap . . . ‘Alright mate!’
No dice, the eyes averted, the toe of his boot drawing circles. We file on in, get our mug shots. ‘Fine Art’, that’s the sign we have to hold up, and some kind of number, a code. You see, we’re artists, all us kids, we’ve been accepted, we are the chosen: me, Erol and all the rest. We have to have the mug shots so’s we can get into the building: no kidding, security, fine art! And we’re the students. Grammar school kids mostly, all except me and the kid, the one sucking his thumb.
‘Alright mate?’
Nothing! We trudge in, the pep talk from the silver fox behind the podium. We swallow it hook, line and sinker, the chosen few . . . allowed into the closeted, hallowed regions. Passes clasped tightly, certificates intact. We lap it all up, all the boloney, acres of bullshit. Then we go into the studios, told we’re men, but in truth still sucking on our mothers’ tits.
And Erol? The kid in front? Hmm, a mental age of five I should think, or maybe seven. The prodigy of the retards. Erol the orphan, short-changed . . . But the drawings? Ah, they like the drawings, that’s why he’s here; no O Levels, just the art. That’s the bit they’re always making the noises about, accepting someone on their work? That’s not bad for these shysters. It made you look again, that fact.
After break, I go to the office and queue up for my materials grant, sign a little slip and they hand it over, coppers mostly. I pocket them, drop the lot into my purse and head for the pub. I avoid the studios completely — I’m intimidated by the size of the canvasses and the smallness of the men. And then there’s the colours, hideous hues of blue, a whole oceans worth, and the orange, sort of marigold, fifteen square foot of it, mingled in at the edges . . . a brush mark, turning brownish, and twenty of those canvasses, stacked wall to wall in every studio . . . all individual, none exactly the same . . . Acres of abstraction, gallons of it. Witty, sophisticated, yet understated. Tactile, oblique, but still maintaining a certain lyrical quality . . . A beautiful canvas, painted piss yellow from head to foot.
I stare into the paint, dumbfounded. I look to my fellows mooing in the fields, totally at home, chewing the cud, not one voice of dissent; a bunch of nodding dogs!
I have to leave, to get out of there and onto the streets, to inhale the sweetness of the exhausts. I refuse to lift my brush, to paint another single smile, another frown, to ever paint again! I won’t be contaminated, I won’t be tainted! It took me time to learn my craft, my friends, and plenty of mistakes, but I don’t get cute, I don’t wait for inspiration, I leave that to my betters. I’m not looking for immortality or one man shows at the Tate. I’m looking for that little part of me, special, laughing and proud, momentarily mislaid, but sure to be found.
We don’t need interior decorators, lectures on Morse code, abstract expressionism or the tactile qualities. What we need is to be spoken to, right away, a direct line and connection, bang!
I make my little speech, I stamp my foot for emphasis. I tell them what for. I call their bluff. . . I stand back and fold my arms, they mutter under their breath and turn their backs . . . ‘If you can’t paint, learn to draw!’ I advise them. I feel my colour rising, I blush . . . They look at me pitifully, fix their berets on straight and stare back into their canvasses.
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
That’s Erol talking; he walks up to Canadian Pete.
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
‘Sure Erol.’
Pete turns and carries on sharpening his pencils.
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
‘Yeah, down the corridor, straight out the door, turn left . . . and it’s just across the way. Directly opposite . . .’
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
We look at him again, our friend in the woolly hat. He keeps going on about something, he wants the toilet.
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
‘Of course you can, Erol. You want to go to the toilet, you can go.’
Erol doesn’t twitch a finger, he just stands there looking at us with his big wide eyes. Canadian Pete smiles at him, encouraging him. ‘It’s out there, go on, Erol, you can go.’
Then he does, first the patch, then the puddle. His eyes go down and the thumb goes in . . . the knees vibrating, little tremors, coming together. Ah, now we get it, he wanted Pete to go with him to the toilet; he didn’t want to go on his own, he was afraid . . . Now we get the picture.
You see, Erol was a retard, five or six years old maybe. Six foot two, but at heart still a kid. He looks down at his feet, examining his puddle, warm, increasing . . . little wisps of steam . . . trickling towards the door.
It turns out that you had to look out for him, Erol. A baby in a man’s form. His big oval face, thick featured . . . He needed looking after. That’s why Pete went with him after college to buy Erol’s toy cars, two of them, London buses I think they were, red Dinky Toys. So Canadian Pete goes with him, to make sure he gets to the shops and see that he doesn’t have any mishaps on the way.
‘Buses!’ He grins from beneath his skull cap. ‘Buses!’
‘That’s right Erol, buses!’
They head off into the night, Canadian Pete walks him all the way to the toy shop and even helps him choose them, two London route masters. Erol stares through the glass, he picks them out, then they go in and pay the money. He puts them in his bag. Outside, Pete points him in the right direction, sends him on his way homeward. He waits a moment and watches him go, to be sure . . . just to be on the safe side.
Erol, wandering, meandering down the street, plastic bag in hand, a woolly hat . . . with his brand new toys, heading in the right direction, at first uncertain, but then more strident. Canadian Pete watches for a few minutes, ’til he disappears into the crowd, and then turns and heads off up the pub. And that’s when they must have picked him up: The Old Bill, the squad car cruised him.
It got to be in all the papers: Erol, mental age of five, could draw a bit, otherwise a pretty simple kid. The police went through his bag and nicked him on ‘suss’ for the theft of the red London buses, brand new, still in their boxes.
Erol, he couldn’t read or write, just an X. That’s all they wanted: a confession . . . So they got him to do it, Erol, ‘his mark’ on the bottom of th
e statement. They told him they was going to hang him, that’s how they got him to confess to the stealing of the buses . . . They got the confession by telling him that they were going to hang him.
The ‘suss’ law, the toy buses, and the threat, the ‘we’re gonna hang you nigger!’ It all got to be in the papers, and when it came to court Canadian Pete was Erol’s witness. He was there, he saw the buying of the buses. Two of them, both red, London route masters. He could swear to it on oath. And the grey-beards who ran the college got some copies of the article made up and pinned them up on the notice boards. You see, they were pretty proud of their retard, their five year old prodigy, black and arrested. They made a meal of it. Their star student — but that was before he did it . . .
But then he did. Erol, he disappears at break time with his grant cheque, cashes it and goes and buys an inflatable miss, from Soho. And he brings her into the studios with him. Pink latex, blue-eyed and a blond nylon wig. Washable, durable and double guaranteed against punctures.
Erol, just a big kid with desires, five years old, but sexist. That was the feminists’ opinion. You see, harmless little Erol walked up to one of the girls and asked her for a kiss. He wanted a peck on the cheek and that was bad, because he wasn’t the sweet little black boy anymore, oh no, he was a monster, a sexist, and he was out of control! That was the theory. The hero of the cells? The star of the retards? He blew it! He asked a girl for a kiss and they carpeted him, they rang up his step-parents and had him taken away.
Erol? We waved goodbye. The kid who could paint? They disappeared him. That’s sad. Erol: first they liked him, then he asked for a kiss, he overstepped his mark, as long as he stuck to the crayoning, fine, but retards having sexual ideas? Copulating? Asking for a kiss? He was too husky by half, the feminists were up in arms . . . What about their rights, their freedoms? Those grey-beards collapsed like wet paper bags . . .
Erol, our little pissing friend, the collector of the Dinky Toys? They stabbed him in the back! And not a murmur from the liberals. Hey, that’s not on! The bunch of turn-coats! So, me and Canadian Pete, we go see the principle, the silver fox of the podium. We can’t stand by and see them turning our little friend over! We get pissed off! We go see the cunt and reason it out with him, to point out the fact that the prim little miss who wouldn’t be kissed can piss off back to grammar school! So lay off the kid, Erol! The boy with the coloured crayons, the talent! His little hope, all gone, all washed up, on account of the asking of a kiss!
‘She has to walk through bloody Soho to get here! If she can’t handle being asked for a kiss, then what’s she gonna do on the streets, on the tube? This is London, Soho . . . There’s perverts out there, killers! The pubs! The factories! What is this place meant to be, a bloody church? Erol paints, that’s all he’s got! No choices! She can fuck off to university or some other fucking school! She can leave! Chuck her out now, string the slut up!’
We don’t get excited, we state the facts calmly and don’t really swear. There’s only us two, stood there, speaking up against cowardice. We let him know our objections, we paint him a picture, all the colours . . . real style, but the cunt’s blind . . .
We traipse back down those stairs stomping all the way, we kick at thin air. The feminists won, the Erol lost . . .
That’s the tight rope the liberals have to walk. They want to support the retards issue, but the feminist lobby is the loudest! They smile at everybody, they nod, they play sympathetic, but when it comes down to putting their jobs on the line, they wouldn’t say boo to a goose. High principles are all very well, but they had their mortgages to consider. That’s sad, our little piss-pot had to go, he outstayed his welcome. He wanted a kiss, but he scared the girls. Too threatening . . .
Five years old, maybe six, big lips and a woolly hat. He had the art but lacked the manners, the education . . . the formalities . . . The big black kid, the Erol? We didn’t see him again.
39. LITTLE SHEILA
The art colleges? I don’t even like to talk of them, but I do, begrudgingly, just to set the record straight. To get my views across, to set them down on paper so posterity knows that there was one, at least, a lone objector, mouse-like, squeaking in the distance.
I walk out onto Charing Cross Road, take a gulp of carbon monoxide, go down on my humble knees and beg for forgiveness. For all sins past and present. I pick up an old bus ticket and pocket it, always the artist . . . I’m joking now, I quit. I arrange to meet Canadian Pete for a coffee at the Polo cafe.
‘Eleven thirty, little Sheila will be there . . . she’s fourteen, still at school!’ I’ll tell him any old boloney, just to watch his face move, purely to string him a line. ‘She finishes geography at eleven, so she’ll be there by twenty past.’
He nods his head, his eyes question me but he nods anyway, the big lug. I have to look away, I can’t bear anyone believing a lie.
I stand around on Cambridge Circus waiting for a car crash . . . I pace up and down with my eyes closed . . . I play blind . . . A bus just misses me, I trip off the curb and see him just in time . . . No one cares in this great city of ours. A young artist could starve, could die under the wheels of a bus, and nobody would give a tuppenny damn!
We just hold onto our own cocks and fight our corner. I spent my whole youth looking for exits, for dodges and a way out . . . anything to negate the stinking boss man and his poxy clock. And here I am, a young writer, down on my arse . . . living on a fiver a week. Like all the greats, as brave as a Hamsun! As irrepressible as a Fante! A lover of man and beast and good red herring! I drag a match on the pavement between my legs and light up. I pull out the smoke and study my fingernails; a Henry Chinaski with a thirst for whisky and a dick like an iron poker! I puff out the smoke and study my fingernails . . . I adjust my hat, and here comes little Sheila, plaits flailing and her school satchel slung over her shoulder. I stand and we kiss, she takes my arm and we walk up into Soho. We go via the back alleyways; she pulls a half bottle out of her satchel. I take a nip of my father’s poison and we go in.
‘Little Sheila, Canadian Pete, Canadian Pete, little Sheila.’
I do the introductions, we sit and drink coffee . . . Sheila lights up and puffs the smoke out. Anorexic, big knees and her skin’s got a grainy feel to it. Her back’s like a fish bone, every rib and vertebrae visible. I have to feed her up, to get a square meal down her, something to eat between the cigarettes she’s always lunging on.
‘How was your geography class?’
She looks to Pete, I stir my coffee and nod.
‘We finished early today, Mrs Millington was bilious.’
‘This isn’t hot, is yours hot? Mine’s virtually cold . . . here taste that . . .’
I pass my cup to Pete. I don’t prejudge him, it isn’t my way, at least then it wasn’t. You see, I needed a friend, but it’s hard to trust, to become intimate in a world that’s been so harsh. And no matter how obnoxious I’ve been, I don’t believe that I deserved every beating that came my way. I would’ve liked some help, a little understanding.
Pete wants to know what subjects Sheila’s taking. I divert the conversation back to the kid Erol, the necessity of Kurt Schwitters, berets and a particular brand of shoes. I tell them I’ve got to go to the toilet. I’ve got a bit of a stiffy. I explain that I have to leave, that I’ve got an appointment, that I’ll see them later.
I slip out without them noticing, I offer to pay for the coffees, but they’re engrossed . . . I walk out past the Gaggia machine, tip my hat to the proprietor and exit. I take a right, then right again. I skip onto the pavement — two taxis, in unison, that was close, black and foreboding. The faces at the window . . . Berwick St, between the fruit and veg stalls, I walk on and on, walking funny on account of my stiff cock.
I search out the lowest clip joints. I drag my feet through the grime, I crawl on my hands and knees. Then I see this arse up ahead, it talks to me: ‘Hello’, it says. I can scarcely believe my ears, and then it says it again: ‘h
ello’ . . . I put my head down and push through the crowds. Then a tit waves to me, it blows a kiss. I ignore it and scamper along after the arse. I have to outstrip the devil and his wife as well . . . to get in front, to measure up it’s unholy mug, to know the truth.
I never want to be left behind in this world. I need to see everything in close-up, in the minutest detail. To shake hands with all that I most fear. Call it my artistic nature, if you like . . . I’m pushed aside, I’m slapped and trampled on. . . I want to destroy the legs, to stamp on the heels of the rich and the poor alike, to wave goodbye, to be lost in the crowds. I can never catch up, I’m done for.
‘Six films, two pounds! Step right this way, sir . . . Two pounds, one fifty to our regulars! Cut price, six films!’
He winks at me with his one good eye . . . Turkish, five foot one . . . I dig into my pocket and hand him my shrapnel. I get my reduction, he can see that I’m a hard-up connoisseur of the erotic arts . . . He fingers my ticket stub, licks his lips and passes it to me, he steps aside and ushers me through the back of the shop. Up a flight of rickety stairs and I stumble into that hot pit. I trip as I enter . . . Coughing and wheezing, the smoke of a hundred cigarettes and the shining pates of twenty-two men. I stumble about in that night, the projector clattering away to itself . . . They shout at me, that mob, with no manners whatsoever.
I edge my way a bit at a time, feeling for a seat, then my head accidentally blocks the screen. I duck and weave, my companions hissing at me, I mutter my apologies, I really did do my best to explain, but my honesty fell on deaf ears. I had to find a seat all by myself, in the dark. The contrast was too much, I needed time to adjust, but that didn’t get me any sympathies. And you have to watch where you put your hands in those shanties. I squint and stumble.
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