‘There’s a man looking for me, can you hide me?’
I hear her talking to the driver. Say, I like that! I lift the chequered table cloth and play peek-a-boo . . . She’s playing hard to get . . . A little flirtation, half hearted . . . I invite her out . . . I suck up . . . I can’t help myself — my blood rules, my friends, not my brain.
I lead her through the throngs and out into it. Me and my little sweetheart . . . encircling . . . black . . . ice cold . . . we lose ourselves. I slip my arm round her middle, waspish . . . I lead the way, a real gent. I had the sad-sads, but now I feel a wee bit better. I choke back a tear and put a brave face on. My arm round her waist, leading the way through the fog, three or four miles . . . I find my door, the exact number.
She wants to see my masterpieces? Fine, I will lead her through the night, through this fog. We will leave these wasters and I will bask in the glory of her admirations . . . my hand on her hip. And none can say why the axe falls here or why the fearful live and the brave must die.
I bring her to my room, kneel at her feet, and in disbelief I sit staring up into her laughing gob.
‘What you got in there?’
She gurgles and covers her mouth. I stare up past her tongue into the metal of her mouth . . .
‘Shit, what you got in there?’
Silvery, reflecting, an armoury . . . a whole bank of the stuff! She slips her tongue in under her plate and slips it out, her front teeth sitting in the palm of her hand.
Sat crouched there on my knees I get cramps. I marvel, staring into her Turkish mug. I light up another ciggy and rest my chin on her knees, the pain shooting through my legs. But I stay there forever, my little prayer . . . martyring myself . . . because I know what’s right.
‘You saved my life tonight!’ I tell her. ‘You might not believe it, but you did, you saved my life!’
I repeat myself. I can’t believe that we’re alive and others aren’t. The world judges and damns but here we are! I marvel at it, at cruel fortune.
‘You saved my life, you really did!’
And my heart bobs to the surface like a beer bottle, and the night laughs with me, the fog, the street lights and all the angels. My face grins, I feel the skin pinching, the lines showing round my eyes.
‘You see these lines? I cut them myself, with a razor, then I put fag ash in ’em, it bloody stung! the ash . . .’
And then she shows me where she got knifed. She loosens her blouse. I see her dusky belly, fuzzy, a million hairs up to her navel . . . and the scar, the raised white line, high against her ribs, so she has to lift her breast.
‘A bottle,’ she tells me. ‘He did it with a broken bottle.’
I touch her skin. I feel it, I trace it with my knotted fingers. I weigh her heavy tits.
‘You can’t fuck me,’ she says.
I shake my head and grin like a fool, some kind of school kid.
’I don’t care. You saved my life tonight, you might not know it, but you did. The fog, it nearly got me, like a dog, crawling . . . a billion million droplets . . . You saved my life!’
I lay my head on her tit, a little bit of drool, and she strokes my hair. I think that she was a bit pissed off that I didn’t make a show of wooing her . . . Just to lie there with another human being . . . to still be alive, to wake not alone, to have a little hope . . . The fog came in through the busted skirting, I could smell that stuff . . . lying there, sleeping like a pup at the teat . . .
The day comes thick tongued, I mumble in my sleep, somebody’s shifting stuff, chucking it into a skip. I stare into the curtains. There’s a rip, and a man with a beard in there, like some kind of sea god, a Neptune . . . Shit, my head! It sings out, it must be gone ten. I roll over and stare into her pug, I focus on her moustache. Fine, intricate, almost invisible, and her beard, a little bit more robust. Aah, my saviour of the fog, I remember you now: Rosy of the waist of heaven . . . It all comes rushing back to me; I’ve seen her someplace before, Chatham Station or someplace.
Christ! My head clangs and a mouthful of snot . . . I go take a piss and clean my pegs. I scrape my tongue against my front teeth and spit yellow, a bit of blood . . . splash my face and make tea . . . a little tray, I bring the pot and wake her gently. She comes round, she smiles and she’s got her teeth in, a sweet crooked smile. She sips at her tea and lights up a cigarette.
‘You know, you saved my life last night. I’ll tell you about it one day . . . No kidding, you saved my life . . . I’ll write it all down.’
I say it plain, to make sure I’ve made myself understood.
‘Really, you write as well?’
‘Here, look . . . I’ll show you something.’
I reach for the pile of books and pull out a couple of my pamphlets.
‘This is some of my stuff . . .’ I hand it to her. ‘This is my shit!’
She beams, I’ve made her day. And she doesn’t pretend to look out of politeness either, not like all those other charlatans. She soaks it all in, her eyes shining through the mascara.
‘Oh, they’re lovely! Shall I pay you for them?’
‘No, no!’ I hold my hand up, I shake my head.
She goes for her bag.
‘No, they’re yours. Here, I’ll sign them for you . . . No, seriously, take them, they’re a gift.’
She fumbles for her purse, the stupid bitch goes for her coppers. I have to stop her, she’s ruining everything!
‘No, please they’re yours, it’s nothing!’
That’s me, Mister Modest. A real big shot. She lets the coins clink back into her purse, then snaps it shut. I breathe easy again . . . I shrug, I sling two of them on to the table nonchalantly. ‘Yeah, this is it, my stuff, a couple of them, anyway . . .’ I watch her eyes, reading my lines.
‘Did you do the drawings, too?’
‘The sketches? Yeah.’
Oh, dear God, I’ve found one here, a good one, one that appreciates my art, one that understands the struggles of a young writer, not a critic, but a connoisseur! I look over her shoulder -dear Lord, let our eyes lay on that glorious page together. Ah, what poetry, what prose! Just one of my humble efforts, you understand, not my best, not my worst, but I must admit some of it I like, some of it I like very much indeed! I place my arms round her, rest my chin on her head, and I bask in it. The warmth gushes out of me . . . She finishes the page, carefully closes the book and places it, as if a jewel, into her shoulder bag. She looks up and I make to kiss her . . .
‘Ooh,’ she squeals, ‘did you paint those?’
She jumps up and skips with delight in front of my canvases. I smile and wince. She enthuses, dashing back and forth, flirting between the doodles . . .
‘Oh, they’re wonderful! You use a lot of blue, don’t you? Do you like blue?’
‘Sure . . .’ I say. ‘Blue, black, red, green even, but mainly blue.’
She nods thoughtfully. I rack my brains, hungry for her attentions, trying to keep the subject on me.
‘Prussian, I enjoy . . . and a little cobalt. Always reminds me of Van Gogh, that cobalt.’
I bite my lips . . . She giggles and her tits jump up as she goes on tip-toe, her face jammed in amongst the paint.
‘I can’t see . . . My eyes, I’m nearly blind.’
I watch her arse, her calves flex and relax sending little shimmies right up to the divide.
‘I do fashion,’ she tells me. ‘I make all my own clothes . . . What do you think?’
She spins and twirls, still speaking, always speaking.
‘What I like about your pictures are the lines, black, aren’t they? Lots of black lines . . . You use a lot of black, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, and a lot of blue, lamp for the black, Prussian for the blue, with just a hint of cobalt . . . You can have one if you like, as a present, go on, take your pick . . . any one you want!’
She gurgles like a child, shaking her head in disbelief.
I repeat it. ‘Any one you like!’
I st
ick my thumbs in my lapels and swagger. The young artist, struggling, but generous. I lay it on thick.
‘The green one, I want the green one!’
‘Ah yes, a wise choice, a self-portrait. . . an early piece.’
I lift it from the wall and admire it at arm’s length, place it at the foot of the bed and take a pace back . . . ‘It’s yours!’ I say and let the smile come. I’ve been holding it off, pinching my cheeks, but it cracks, it breaks through and she smiles too and comes into my arms. I look at her little moustache, a shadow where the upper lip should be. I kiss her in the mouth, my tongue up against her plate. I push against the metal and we fall to the bed, always to bed.
45. TWO SOULS UNLOVED
It doesn’t take long to learn each other, to start growing sick of all those childlike qualities which we at first found so alluring. Conquest is all to a man who doesn’t know himself. To know the secrets of her unsheathed body, inch by inch, mole by mole, sag by sag. To wake to the bad breath and decay. And then you have to make the introductions, to kiss the mother and explain everything to everyone.
My little Sheila? I had to tell her of the new woman, of my twisted, self-serving manoeuvrings. And I leave her to carry my hopes, my beliefs, and my veiled betrayals. Because I’m not a man, I’m a man-boy, and to a man-boy a woman is there only to nurse his troubled brow, to understand him and to carry his vile crippling sickness.
And on the streets my head revolves on a spring, I stagger, a child lost in the realm of women. Hungry for their praise and recognition, for their bravery and forgiveness.
I’ve done a lot of musing over the years as to my hunger for women and hatred of self. So much so that I’ve grown dizzy of it. A terrible pounding fills my skull: the fear of the mother, of that power she holds over me . . . And I blunder through this world, and the women walk past and the days gleam like a gun. And I go down on my knees and adore them. To destroy them, to tread them underfoot! A cunt, after all, is such a fearful thing, with its folds and counter-folds. Whereas a pretty little arsehole is a much more pleasing fellow to contemplate, so much less threatening than the slug that sets it off, so to speak.
And I was saved that night by my Rosy, my Dolli, and I kneel to it, and kiss it. Stood astride the world, to be God in her eyes, for at last the degradation to be ours.
There’s nothing that bitch liked better than a thick one up her arse, looking over her shoulder, mascara like a spider. Then I’d pull it out, feeding it into her mouth, and she’d take it full in the face, laughing and coughing through the sauce . . . I look round for a spunk rag, pick up my mother’s kitten and wipe the gunk off her chin. Kitty springs left and right, she hops and goes meow, cute and sticky! And I fall back to the bed, and I taste myself on Dolli’s lips. And we’re caught here and now, trapped as two souls unloved.
46. THE FALKLANDS WAR
‘You don’t know how lucky you are. When we were kids we didn’t have any amenities! No running water, no fridge, no bath, nothing!’
‘I wish we didn’t have a bath.’
She looks at me and slams down the saucepan.
‘You’re worse than your bloody father! You should be grateful you’ve got a roof over your head!’
People are always at great pains to point out what you owe them, personally. The exact date, lists of debts and accounts . . . Purely by accident of birth, you’re in the red and have the honour of fulfilling their half-baked dreams. You’re their property, by virtue of capitalism.
‘You’re using my facilities! You can mow the lawn!’
Even my mother believed in the sanctity of the lawn. Then the old man chips in. ‘Straight lines, I want straight lines! And no toffee papers! Discipline! That’s what you need. Discipline!’ We’re caught in the gale, he’s off on one of his tirades.
‘Now, if you could only get a commission! You’ve always been interested in the sea. The Royal Navy! Now if you could just knuckle down, learn to read and write and get yourself a commission! You’re interested in Nelson, aren’t you, Steven? If I had my time all over again, I’d go out there, get myself a commission and go to sea! Like your grandfather! The British and the sea! Salt in our veins! You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Steven? You’re the expert on war! Well, aren’t you?’
‘I thought grandad was just an ordinary seaman.’
‘Ordinary seaman! Able-bodied seaman, I’ll have you know! A three striper! AB! My friend, Commander Philips, was only saying to me the other day, ‘The AB’s were the backbone of the British Navy!’ . . . I could put in a word for you if you’d just pull your socks up! It’s not too late to get a few O Levels under your belt!’ Him and his ‘why don’t you get a commission?’ And me dyslexic, dragged through the worst schools in Kent and not a qualification to my name! It took them three years to teach me one thing, how to write ‘STEPHEN’. Then on parents’ day my mother comes into the school and says, ‘Oh, it’s not spelled S-T-E-P-H-E-N, it’s spelled S-T-E-V-E-N.’ Oh how interesting! ‘Steven’ not ‘Stephen’ . . . Hip-hip-hoo-fucking-ray!
‘Why don’t you get yourself a commission?’
I eye the cunt sideways. He’s parked across the restaurant table from me, picking at his steak. ‘Are you sure this is well done? What do you think? The chips?’ He drops his knife and fork and swigs at the Claret. ‘The Royal Navy,’ he confides, ‘that’s the life!’ He strokes his whiskers, nods and takes another gulp . . . shakes out his napkin and dabs at his kisser.
That’s rich! And me with half an O level to my name, and that’s after adding all my subjects together . . . And him so interested, after what, eighteen years is it? Eighteen years going on twenty more like! Commission? Commission, humph!
He draws himself up, another flourish of his napkin, then peck-peck on each corner of his mouth.
‘Now, take the Falklands War,’ he announces. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be out there? That’s where the drama is . . . it’s all going on down there. Unfolding! Developing! A very good friend of mine sacrificed his life . . . an exocet right in the midships! You like guns? Well, the drama’s in the South Atlantic! The Falklands! That’s where the real theatre is!’
He licks his paws like a pussy-cat, pulls his tash straight, his eyes sparkling above his bags.
’I don’t want you bringing your whores round Appleton Place, Steven! This is my house! Do you understand me? Get out to the Falklands! Experience some war! Get yourself a real job! Make it happen!’
47. DOLLI BAMBI
The war of more and more and sex held us, and fear too.
‘If I just had a hundred pounds a week I could buy all my friends their favourite brands of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky for you.’
She dips a piece of toast into her boiled egg. ‘Have you noticed that I only eat yellow food?’
I stare at her. ‘What?’
‘I only eat yellow food, like dippy eggs are yellow, grapefruit, banana, butter . . .’
‘And?’
‘Well, they’re all yellow and that’s my favourite colour!’
‘What about toast?’
‘That’s not yellow!’
‘Exactly! That’s what I’m telling you.’
She stares into it, her little brain trying to think. She gives up and lights up another cigarette.
‘If I had ten pounds a day and a hundred pounds at weekends, I could buy all my friends their favourite brands of cigarettes.’ ‘What?’
‘I could buy two hundred Rothmans for me, and I s’pose you’d want Weights or Woodbines?’
‘That doesn’t make you generous, sharing what you’ve got when it’s not enough is generous. Any rich bastard can pretend to be generous. You are generous when you give and have nothing. You can be generous with nothing!’
She wedges her lips up under her nose and turns her eyes into slits.
‘But I’ve only got twenty cigarettes to last me! That’s five for the morning, five for the afternoon and ten for tonight . . . So, I haven’t really got any!’
&nb
sp; I stare into her miserly little gob. She spoons in the last of her ‘dippy egg’ and, still chewing, takes a puff and blows out the smoke, still sucking her teeth.
‘Jesus, you’re sick! You’re tight, you’re stupid and you’re thick!’
She scowls and sucks in another bitter lungful.
The war of more and more and sex held us, sex and fear too.
‘I didn’t abort that baby, I just wore my jeans tight, that’s all!’
‘Yeah? Well, why do I only get to hear of it second-hand? You could have asked me about it! You could of spoken to me!’
And so I confront her with it. She stands there blubbering, her mascara smeared across her face . . . All the hell and the bile of it. Righteous to the core, our Dolli never set a foot wrong in her life. I sit there mesmerised by the clicking of her plate, as she speaks, two clicks to every word. She spits it out, her dumb girlie stream of consciousness, in upper class Margate drool.
’I didn’t abort that baby, I wouldn’t, I just wore my belt tight, that’s all! I thought you’d be angry with me and say that I’d been irresponsible, so I just wore my belt tight and drunk a bottle of Pernod! I’m not saying it’s your fault, but I lost it two days after you picked me up and threw me across the room by my stomach!’
I stare at her in disbelief and her voice keeps going on and on, a mad noise like birds . . . And she repeats the whole scenario three times, four times. I’m supposed to read between the lines, to get the implications of her ongoing monologue . . . ’Til I slam my fist onto the table top. ‘Be quiet!’ I gasp, and drop my pen. ‘Be quiet!’ I stoop to pick it up. And then silence . . .
‘Why do you always write those things? They’re not nice! I don’t understand what you’re writing about or why . . .’
The war of more and more and sex held us, and fear too. And little Dolli Bambi, three years old, dressed up in white lace, ankle socks and a patent leather handbag to match.
‘We were staying in this hotel in Turkey, and every morning I’d come down the stairs and the man on reception would ask, ‘What’s your name then?’ And every day he asked me the same question ‘Aren’t you a pretty little girl then, and what’s your name?’ And I wouldn’t answer him. I just put my nose in the air and walked past. We were there for a whole fortnight, and then on our final day I came downstairs at breakfast time as usual and he says, ‘You’re a pretty little girl, what’s your name then?’ and I turn to him and say, ‘My name is Dolli Bambi!’ then sling my handbag over my shoulder, put my nose in the air and walk out!’
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