She pulls up at the bottom of the stairs and surveys the situation.
‘He’s as bad as his father! Worse! At least his father can still stand when he comes home!’
‘Don’t worry, June, I’ll look after him.’
Dolli goes all lovey-dovey on me, stroking me hair.
‘Take my advice and don’t waste your time on him, let him rot! At least his father can still stand when he has had a skinful.’
I smile to myself, invisibly, on the inside. Oh, so she’s back on that old chestnut again, the ‘you’re worse than your father’ routine. ‘At least his father can stand when he comes home!’ . . . All bullshit, one hundred per cent lies and deception! She doesn’t mention him pissing in the wardrobe, or giving her a black eye.
‘He’s just like his father! Like father, like son! His father might be a drunkard, but at least he knows when to stop, at least he can still stand!’ (Bollocks!)
Dolli can’t wait to ingratiate herself. She bends over backwards. She embellishes. Absolutely no doubts about it, I’m a villain! A skunk! And a buggerist! An out and out queer, most likely!
‘I couldn’t get him to leave the party, June . . . Look, you see this? He hit me and he got us thrown out of the party! I had to call a taxi, to get him home, and I had to pay for it myself, out of my own money.’ (Lies!) ‘My last two pound, that’s all I had! That’s all I’ve got to last me the rest of the week, and now I’ve spent it on him!’ (Actually, she stole the money from my pocket!) . . . ‘My last two pound! And my cigarettes, I haven’t got any for tomorrow! I went out with forty, but now they’re all gone! I don’t know how I could have smoked all of them . . . I shouldn’t give so many away, I can’t afford it, I’m too generous. . . I don’t mind giving someone a cigarette if I’ve got enough for myself for later, but I’ve only got ten left, and I need those. . . That’s fair enough, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have to pay for that taxi, just to get him home! I shouldn’t have to pay for him!’
The old girl goes and fetches her purse. I hear her rummaging around in the drawer, then she returns and hands over the coins.
‘No, I couldn’t, June, I don’t expect you to.’
Dolli pockets it and they chew the fat, agreeing with each other ’til they’re sick. They completely sympathise with each other. I lie there motionless, memorising the bullshit, each answer. Then I feel them grab hold of my feet and try and drag me out into the hallway, they pull me by my arms . . . by my shirt sleeves. Dolli wants me upstairs but the old girl will have none of it.
‘He’s too heavy to shift . . . leave him here . . . he isn’t bloody worth it! Let him sleep it off!’
‘But I want him to go to bed with me, he’s got to go to bed with me!’
‘Leave him, he isn’t bloody worth it!’
The old girl is convinced, besides I’m too heavy. She’s all for leaving me where I am. She goes to the cupboard and throws an old duffel coat over me. ‘Let him sleep it off . . . He’s worse than his soddin’ father!’
The light clicks off and their voices disappear upstairs. It’s warm and dark on my piece of floor. I lie there, keeping dead still.
I can taste the sick in the back of my throat, mixed in with the blood. Carefully, I tuck my tender little pecker away and zip up . . . Suddenly, I sense her again, a presence, a creek on the stairs, and then another . . . It’s that hot little bitch on her midnight prowl. She tiptoes over, trips in the dark . . .
I feel her hot little mouth, her lips running over my face and neck, and her little worm, she tries to wriggle it into my gob. I keep my jaws clamped . . . A hot desperate whisper, low down, forced into my ear, repetitive, demanding . . .
‘Come on, you wanker! Fuck me! You’ve got to fuck me! Get up those stairs and fuck me! Get up, you fucking wanker!’ Breathy, hissed through her falses; they click when she talks, didn’t I tell you? It gives me another tune to listen to, its own little rhythm. Following behind her inanities, her demands for love and money: click-click-click! clickity-click! click-click-click! click-click-click! The dancing of her false pegs, an accompaniment, something else to concentrate on, to give a little variety.
‘Fuck me! Get up those stairs and fucking fuck me!’ Click-click-clickity-click! click-click! A symphony in Morse . . . her damp little mouth against my eardrum. And then her teeth sink in. Tears well up in my eyes, but I don’t let out a peep. I feel the blood, she grinds her maulers, little trickles . . .
‘Get up! Fucking get it up! You’ve got to fuck me! Come on, piss on me! You fucking bastard!’
She bites at my neck, little explosions of pain. Then it subsides. I breathe again, I let it out slowly . . . a sigh, low down, gentle . . . not to be heard . . . Then silence, a rustle of clothing, and she slaps it in my face, holds onto my ears, squats and rubs it right round my kisser, a mouthful of hair pie! Yeasty, a special stink, smack bang in the gob! I taste her snail, riding my face . . .
‘Come on, you fucking wanker, piss on me!’
She grinds her pelvis so hard you can hear the bones crack. She bounces and sighs. I’m choking on it, my mouth filling up with the glue. I can’t breathe. A gallon of syrup mushed in with the thatch, a fish moustache. It tickles my throat, I can’t breathe . . . I’m suffocating . . . But I daren’t let on . . . I gurgle through the paste . . . I flap my arms . . . I’m going under, one more gulp and I’m done for! She rolls off, cocks her leg and farts. She lets me out of those scissors . . . Sweet air, my lungs inflate, I suppress a cough, a splutter . . . She lets go my ears and my head clangs to the floor.
‘You’re pathetic!’ she spits.
Suddenly, the lights click on, my world goes red behind my eyelids . . . Then all of a sudden she’s kissing me, stroking my hair, whispering sweet nothings . . . making sure I’m all tucked up nice and snug. ‘Am I OK? Do I need anything?’ She’s playing the doting lover and she’s doing a grand job! What theatre, boy was I lucky! What a woman! A proper Florence Nightingale! The light goes on and in walks my mother. Dolli climbs off, she disentangles herself.
‘I’m just making sure he’s alright, June, that he doesn’t need anything.’
‘He’s not soddin’ well worth it!’ She spits it out with venom, my sweet mother . . . ‘Leave him to it! You’re wasting your time! Go to bed, he’s worse than his bloody father! He doesn’t deserve you!’
Ah, that’s rich. I’ve heard some old truck in my crummy life, enough bullshit to fill the Atlantic, and then some more. But that little gem takes the biscuit! The ‘he doesn’t deserve you!’ That’s what these cuties will never understand. I’ve got names, madam, addresses, and a memory. They think I’m dozing, half-pissed, but I’m wide awake! That’s right, I remember all of it, all the little indecencies, and I assure you, I’m quite willing to spill the beans, that’s right, lying here, soaking in slime. I know what’s been said and what’s been done unto me, I’ve heard it all! Two earfuls! In stereo! To the very last detail!
I sit up, open my eyes and say it straight to their faces, clearly and succinctly . . . I announce myself, the devil’s advocate . . .
‘I know exactly what you’ve been saying and I know exactly what you’ve been doing, I’ve seen it, I’ve heard it and I’ll remember it all in the morning, everything!’
Dolli minces up her little mush, she tucks her upper lip under her nostrils and scowls. Just then the wind changes, a perfect pug!
With that, I lie back down and continue my little nap.
You’ve got your face mirrors, your tweezers and your deodorants, but you’ll never stop the rot! I’ll strip you down and paint you as you really are, and not with gouache, madam, but with tar, this thick!
49. A SPECIAL DAY
I was half asleep, then there’s this crash, like something big coming through the letter box. I go check the front door, nothing . . . I go to the kitchen and put on a brew. It’s freezing out here. I stand on one foot, then the other. I put one foot on top of the other, a little balancing act, then go take a piss. I take anot
her look at the doormat, but there’s definitely nothing there. I make the tea and go upstairs to Dolli.
‘Did you hear anything? A noise? Like something coming through the letterbox? It sounded like something coming through the letterbox.’
I put the cups down beside the bed.
‘Don’t spill it, and don’t get it on my books, it’s not too hot, it’s ready to drink . . . Don’t forget to drink it!’
I place it on the chair. I don’t spill a drop, precise . . .
‘Happy birthday,’ she says.
‘What? Oh yeah . . .’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘I know.’
‘You’re old!’
‘Not so old.’
‘But still old, older than eighteen.’
‘I don’t look it though, do I?’
I go back downstairs and check all over, even out the back, but no signs. I swore I heard something. I double check, one last look . . . I make the tea and come back up. She’s awake, watching me...
‘Anything in the post?’
‘No, I thought I heard something. Did you hear a big bang, about fifteen minutes back?’
She shakes her head, cups it in both hands, blows and sips. ‘It’s your birthday today.’
‘I know.’
‘How old are you?’ She’s teasing me, playing games. ‘Twenty-two!’
She whistles. I put on my shirt.
‘Come back to bed.’
‘I got to go.’
‘What for?’
‘I’ve got to go out.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere . . . Up town . . . I got to meet someone.’
‘Who?’
‘No one . . . Sheila. I said I’d meet her . . . Just this afternoon . . . I’ll be back tonight. I won’t be late.’
‘But it’s your birthday! A special day! You should spend it with me! Don’t go!’
I slip my belt through the loops, buckle it and look down at her. Her lip, somehow it doesn’t look right, something about it bothers me.
‘I won’t be late, I’ll be back tonight, I promise. We’ll go for a drink . . . You can meet me at the Rose and Crown. I’ll call you.’ For a man who detests a lie, I’ve told a few in my time, a thousand porkers . . . And there’s always some glee, a joy in the heart that goes with it, a little echo from my childhood.
I buckle my belt and check my teeth, scowling to the mirror . . . She sniffles into the pillow. I hear it and I ignore it. I feel my bile rising.
‘I’m going now . . . See you later.’
I go as if to leave, look back over my shoulder. She looks up, panicked. I walk back in, lean over and kiss her. She lifts her stupid face and tries to pull me down onto the bed. I unlink her hands from round my neck, place them back on the bedspread and pat them.
‘See you later.’
‘I want you to fuck me! Come back to bed and fuck me!’
‘I’ll see you tonight.’ I make my excuses and leave. ‘I’ll see you down the pub.’
I leave it all behind. Love lives and dies. For those first weeks we fly with our hearts, marvelling at the glorious rediscovery of ourselves, our reflection caught bright and wondrous in that gleaming new mirror. We can’t believe our luck, and we thought love was lost, dead even. Oh, pity those who are not in love for we are the chosen, our bumptiousness knows no bounds!
I cross the street and buy cigarettes at the newsagent’s. Eyeing the paper whores on the top shelf, then look to my fingernails and pick at the dirt. It doesn’t take long to grow sick of a smile. We are filth, we demand much, and give nothing . . . Unloading our bitterness onto each other, dishing out gallons of grief. We exchange notes, we carp on about it. Never to be outdone in the realms of personal misery. But what’s more, it becomes habitual - we go and queue up for seconds, for thirds and fourths even. Smack! Bang! right in the kisser! (That’s where all the germs are.) We just can’t quite get enough misery jammed into our insatiable guts. We’re gluttons for it. . . Yet through all this, we still believe ourselves to be righteous, as if it is us who have been wronged, as if life itself had erred against us.
I get out of there and head down towards the station. I’m early and light one up whilst waiting for the train. Staring at the passing faces, shelf-stackers and till girls mostly. The old and the young, the sad and the glib. It’s hard for a young writer to find himself, to find that core of love, to even believe it’s there, and not just an echoing hollow. You ladies with prams, you taxi drivers, you drinkers of coke, you haters and lovers, where are the artists amongst you? Where are your gaily coloured clothes? Your smiles and your hearts? Here is a young man, doing his best, his utmost, without gods, without fear or favour. Looking for the brave.
My poor white hands, the skin peeling from my fingers. I pick at it in disbelief: Christ, I’m twenty-two years old and I’m decaying! My teeth rotting . . . headaches and herpes.
What we all need is a huge dose of luck, for it to land in our laps like a cooked ham, a tidal wave of pleasure. An impossible tit in our mouths, something to erase all our disappointments . . . But even that would never be enough, and still we’d be dissatisfied and sad, demanding yet more.
The train rolls in. Victoria? I check it, I make sure. I ask but no one seems to know, they don’t make announcements; you’d think they’d do that at the least. I climb on anyway and stand by the window. Somebody sweeping under the benches, a bent back and blue overalls. A lady with a little dog, she sits and pats her lap and the dog tries to jump up, it wags its tail like a little propeller, it jumps and slips, then she helps him up, his back legs kicking . . . He licks her hand and jumps at her face . . . The carriage gives a jerk . . . I watch the platform disappearing . . . A last glimpse . . . the little dog, on her lap, and the man at work, sweeping polystyrene cups onto his spade . . .
50. THE BARRIER BLOCK
I have a photo, and photos are sad things, but still I force myself to look, with a mixture of vanity and disbelief. And there she stands: little Sheila, wearing her grandmother’s straw bonnet, my old donkey jacket, and a sad little posie of flowers in her whitened hand. And that’s me: skull-faced with a twisted grin. Just a kid, twenty-two years old to the day. 1 December, a bitter cold afternoon, bitter cold, the sun slanting in, and us stood amongst the rubbish outside Brixton Registry Office.
When it comes down to it, maybe I should have stayed with my wife. Maybe I’d have steered clear of some of the grief if I had. People used to stop us on the street and ask us if we were brother and sister. Straight up, no kidding.
‘Excuse me, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you two brother and sister?’
At a market stall I think it was, an old man, he made the enquiry, and we laughed and said, ‘Yeah, we’re brother and sister.’ And we held hands, things like that. . .
We walk into the registry office. Those places are like funeral parlours: there’s always a queue and they leave you in no doubts that they’ll be glad to see the back of you. A little man holds up a card for us to read. We say the words and before you know it, it’s all over and they usher us out into a side room and point us to the till. Sheila coughs up £13.50 and they hand over the certificate, a receipt, something like that.
‘Are the couple going to exchange rings?’
We shake our heads. We have to sign the register and leave; the next couple are already waiting on the conveyor belt. No time for pleasantries, just get in, fill up and get out! So we mumble the words and we’re back outside, the cold afternoon light slanting in and the photographer took a photo. Us stood in front of the pillars at the entrance, a smile, crisp packets at our feet. We kissed and left.
It was a council flat — The Barrier Block — a skyscraper fallen on its side, nine stories high, curling round the back of Brixton. Sheila shows me round the gaff, built on three floors and still stinking of paint.
‘Look, you see that? the little concrete forecourt? They said that was a play area in case we have children.�
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I look at our children’s future, six feet by twelve.
‘Let’s go down the pub.’
We walk out through the maze, rising columns, red brick and concrete, unlit terraces, gangways and dungeons. She knows the way, I follow.
I bring a couple of take-outs after the pub, then unpack my stuff. There’s a pile of old blankets and a pillow on the floor. Sheila hangs two little plastic cherubs on the wall above our bed. I rinse my mouth with the beer and Sheila comes in from taking a piss and lays down beside me. It’s half one in the morning and the dull incessant beat of reggae music is thumping out round the estate. Echoing from below, from terrace to terrace. I stare out into the night.
‘Your second name’s Betty, isn’t it? I like that name Betty . . .’
I lift her vest and suck on her little white teat, I stare at the flesh . . . trying to find my heart, my meaning . . .
I can smell urine, the sour odour comes up from between our thighs, even the sheets take on that same sickly stench. And if I could I would pray and I would cry, but the chemicals are broken and all I know is I feel sad for something which has been inexplicably lost, a hole in my guts that can never be filled again.
I avoid her mouth and kiss her eyes. We lay back in that bed alone, the night getting blacker, the noise of the estate growing louder, the sirens sounding down on Cold Harbour Lane.
51. ELISABETH SARGENT
Before boarding the train, I walk over to the little porno shop behind the bus station, and feel the magical sing of danger in my belly. Of expectation and loss. I put my money on the counter. The character behind the till does the change, puts the magazine in a brown paper bag and hands it over. I walk out, check both ways, lift my belt and slip it down the front of my trousers.
I want to tell him that I know the mag is censored, that I’m not one of these other mugs, one of these old goats thumbing with their zippers. No, I’m not one of the duped, sir, I’m a young writer, with women queuing up to be fucked! Row upon row of them. This is purely for research purposes, you understand . . .
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