I pocket my change and step out onto the street. A fine rain has started to fall. I pull down my hat and wait to cross back over to the station, and then I see her: my black princess, threading her way between the commuters. She stops and speaks, she sways, and moves on. I follow her arse through the crowds. She re-emerges and starts bothering the people in the bus queue. I adjust my hat, stood in under the arcade, a light drizzle coming down. I push the brown bag down next to my throbbing groin. The streetlights flare up . . . orange . . . tail lights . . . taxis mostly.
She stops and talks with the berks in pinstripes. They wag their stupid heads and moo like cattle, adjust their brollies and look away. They make a great show of staring into the rain and checking their watches. Only when she moves on do their hungry, fearful eyes follow her. From man to man she goes, but no coins pass. Picking her way, soon she will come to me, my friends. I see the inevitability of it, position myself and step out of the shadows. I readjust my titfer, set my jaw, one leg out front, jaunty. The eyes follow her arse as she passes, but none can stomach the reality: hungry, asking, unashamed. She approaches, tottering, drugged and thick lipped.
‘Buy me a jacket potato!’
I look up and stammer, caught off my guard. ‘Where?’
She peers at me through dark glasses. Then she steps forward and her arm links mine; I look down at it, brown, skinny, entwining. And their eyes: the bugs of the commuters, my companions of old, are left rotting under the arcade. The rain glistening in their beards. They watch as we walk across to the station. Her brown back, then her arse, tight, muscled, a little shelf . . . resentful.
We try all the kiosks but none of them sell jacket potatoes, so we have to make do with scones instead. Dried out, yesterday’s I’d say, judging by the mouldy crust. And a piece of stupid butter, hard, as if it was frozen. The scone busts under the pressure of it. I unwrap it, gold foil.
‘This shit’s frozen!’
I talk to myself; I press it into the scone and it crumbles in my fingers, like dust. I pass the pieces to my black princess. She wants potatoes? Well, scones will have to do, and yesterday’s, judging by the texture. I put some to my mouth and swill it down with a swig of tea. Then we notice each other, under the strip lights, two ghosts, strangers who meet by night. We munch the dough, smiling. Then I light one up and offer her the packet, straights . . . She bites into it and spits tobacco, takes a lungful then lets it out slow, her nostrils flaring.
‘I want to have your baby!’ She says it like that, no beating round the bush. ‘I want to have your baby!’
I swallow a crumb, I pick at it, right at the back, I have to jam my fingers in.
She looks at me intently. ‘I’m a lesbian, you know!’ There she goes again. I pull my finger out and look at it, thin, glistening, a yellow bone, five of them, a whole hand.
‘A lesbian?’
‘Yeah!’
I nod, put another piece of dough into my trap and chew . . . I have found another one of my friends. The mad rush to me with open arms.
‘Do you smoke grass?’
I shake my head and try to swallow.
‘No, drink’s enough for me.’
‘I bet you drink a lot, don’t you?’
‘Sometimes . . . now and then . . . I do and I don’t.’
‘Do you want to have sex with me?’
I look her straight back, I’m not afraid to do that. Then I study my cigarette. The ash, I need an ashtray . . . I blink and look away, flick it to the floor and stammer . . . There’s skin coming off my fingers.
‘I’ve got to go home. I’ve got to catch my train . . . tonight, to meet my girlfriend, she’s expecting me . . .’
‘I want to have your baby!’ She places her black hand on mine and drags her cigarette down one inch in one puff, and then says it again, ‘I want to have your baby.’ The end of her cigarette burns red; I see it reflected in her specs. ‘My dad would like you.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Mister Sargent.’
‘Does he drink?’
‘Yeah, he drinks.’
‘Me and your dad having a pint together?’ I smile at that.
She finishes puffing, chucks her butt into her tea, grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. She leads me back out across the station . . . and the eyes follow us: it’s the dress, her dress shows her arse, I know the score by now.
‘I’m thirty-two,’ she tells me. ‘I’m thirty-two, and have to go up the hospital for me injections. I get them up me bum.’
She stops, twists and looks over her shoulder at it. Me too; I let my eyes rest on it.
‘I dunno why, but that’s where they do it. They put them in there . . . injections.’
I nod.
‘Do you want to fuck me?’
My braveness drains from my limbs. What terrible disease will this girl pass on to me?
‘Look, I’ve got to get my train, I’ve told you already.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘I told you, I’m meeting my girlfriend.’
‘Will I see you again?’
I shrug and I look away, the platform indicator clacks over. And a man in a kilt, sixty-fiveish stood to attention, every tendon in his neck showing, his tongue hanging out, with the crook of his walking stick wrapped round his neck, sticking straight out in front, horizontal, defying gravity, and his eyes staring, popped.
‘Yes,’ I hear myself saying.
‘Buy me a snakebite?’
‘If that’s what you want.’
‘I’m looking for a boyfriend . . .’
The man in the kilt is still stood there, his face bright red.
‘I thought you were a lesbian,’ I say absently.
Really, I’m trying a joke, trying to be clever. A proper smart-arse! I don’t mean any harm, it’s just that other people’s lives amuse me, I can’t help myself.
‘I want to have your baby. I want you to fuck me!’
I realise I’m not helping and pull a straight face. Even I can see it’s time to get serious, to make some thinking noises.
‘You need someone to look after you?’
‘No,’ she says, ‘just for sex.’
She takes off her sun-glasses and holds me with her eyes which terrify me. I dig into my pocket. I feel my way, exclude the five pound note and go for my small change.
‘Look, here’s a few bob for your drink, but now I’ve got to go, or I’ll miss my last train,’ I lie.
‘Give us your phone number.’ She holds me with her bulging, bloodshot eyes. ‘You don’t have to, only if you want sex.’
‘I’ll give you my address and you write yours here, in capitals, neatly . . . so’s I can read it.’
I pass her my special writer’s notebook and she scrawls it out . . . I go through my change and pass her 50p. I hand it over without a word, the coin. I drop it into her upturned palm, startlingly pink, but the lines are black. She smiles, puts on her glasses and turns to go.
‘You’ll be OK?’ I ask her.
She nods, goes to kiss me and she tries to put her tongue in my mouth. I have to shrug her off.
‘My train,’ I explain. ‘I’ll write to you . . .’
I wait for her to leave, to walk away. I have to watch. That’s my pastime, to watch her arse disappear off the station. Her back: brown, black straps, then the little shelf. First one side and then the other, beautiful, resigned. She looks back . . . We touched arms . . . she’s gone.
* * *
I climb into the carriage and head straight for the shit house, pull the magazine from my trousers, rip it out of its wrapper and start wanking myself into the sink. I have to study the pictures, to find my beauty. I grit my teeth and pull. I grimace in the mirror, wishing to recognise myself, to know who I am.
I’ve got these two dead teeth, and this white scum, I scratch at it with my thumb nail. That makes my gums bleed. I spit pink. I look to the pictures and wring the spunk out of me. I slobber on the page . . . I want this o
ver and done with, holding my breath willing it to come. I gasp and it jumps out of me.
Dear God, I am scum, a masturbator and a whore to boot! My bloated dick, my fist gone mad, too feared to even fuck! I eye that eggwhite-like puss, lean back on my heels and spurt it into the plug hole. I smear my nob over the page. My face gone ugly. I dab at myself with a tissue. I can’t breath. I am dying. I hold onto the sink and the magazine falls to the piss-spotted floor, slowly. I button up my flies and stand on the floor stud. The water comes in fits and spurts washing my children away.
I pick up the soggy magazine from the floor. I get out of there and head up the corridor, look both ways, slide open the window and chuck my ladies out onto the tracks.
‘Goodbye, you tarts! You fuckers of arseholes and breast! You slags of easy virtue! Thank-you, you sluts! I loved you once, but now it’s over, finito! Farewell! And I should tell you that in truth I never really loved any of you, nor you me! Our life together was nothing but a hollow sham! And to be honest, my dears, you disgust me! Your lips, your teeth, your strange bodies! Be gone with you, you harlots of the night!’
I watch the mag jerk like a white ghost, a ripped page, a sad tit, it flops and kicks on the tracks. A white torso, beheaded . . . then wrapped by darkness.
‘Bye bye! Farewell sweet maidens, you drinkers of spunk! I send you a kiss, for old times sake, no hard feelings . . . We were once young and carefree, but now we must part! Other men shall have you, men of the tracks, tough men, wanking and hateful. You have my blessings, I wish you every happiness.’
I spit and have to duck my head, the tunnel is approaching.
52. A PIECE OF SAD CURTAIN
I shut the window, climb into a compartment and sit with my companions. The hot faces and the damp mouths. We avoid each other’s eyes, staring to the ceiling, to the floor, to our papers, to our feet, but never smile or speak. Anything to avoid the eyes in case someone should read our shame.
The sweat trickles down my collarbone and licks at my ribs. I smell my own rancidness, the stench forcing its way up my nose. We’re drowning in a sea of piss. It sweeps the length of the carriage, knocking seats and commuters sprawling. Everything that isn’t nailed down twice comes adrift. The train crashing over bridges and down tunnels, kicking at the rails like an insane mule. Everyone’s mug gets compressed into their neighbour’s mug, a real chamber of horrors. Not faces at all, just monkey skulls coated in fat and fear. Their expressions melt away and drip like cooked cheese.
And it doesn’t seem that the living are quite living anymore, and the dead are more than just dead. Every corpse the world’s ever shunned is chattering its teeth and rattling its bones like a billion hailstones drumming on the inside of my brain box. And howling we climb out through the windows, and swarm across the tracks, storming the embankments. Chatham High Street, there’s not so very much of it left, a shopping arcade, a bus stop and a blown-out pub. The town cleaved in two, whole communities erased and zeroed. Their choice of wallpaper? It’s there for all to see, hanging off the wall, two storey up, cupboards, fireplaces . . . a piece of sad curtain. Whole terraces of buildings torn down. They’ve been wiped out, turned into nothing, turned into car parks, mostly . . .
The whores of Padgit Street? Atomised! The Brook? Supermarketed! It’s the greatest shopping expedition in the entire history of mankind! Everything must go! A last day sale at never to be repeated prices!
The air beats like a pulse, like wax in your ears. The shoppers swarm like angry flies, taking deep breaths and clasping their bargains to their chests with fear. The mayor togged out as Mister Pickwick, he inflates and turns pink as a plum. He grins, showing his teeth . . . He revolves in blue, like a television set, his head on a pole. It extends, the tongue comes out, that’s for sure . . .
‘Ga-ga!’ he says.
He’s smiling, both eyes. He blinks, he flutters, milky-white . . .
‘I’m true!’ he says. ‘Like you said it yourself in your own head.’
53. A CIRCLE OF LUST
The first thing I do is look up Dolli. I try the pub — no dice. I walk up to her gaff and hang about her doorway, moth-like. I try the handle but the latch is down on the inside. I walk back up the entrance hall and straight into this old wheelbarrow. ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’
A man could break his fucking neck on a thing like that! I kick at it, then I hear someone. I go dead quiet . . . It’s the old git upstairs arguing with his telly. Then I hear some footsteps. I get out of there and nip back down the boozer. A right and a left, round the side of the building, down the back alley, jump the railings and I’m on the High Street, again.
I cross to the George Vaults, take a gander in the window on tippy-toes: no one. I push the door and walk in. A regular pawn shop, busted furniture and a thousand tea cups hanging on hooks from the ceiling. I order a Guinness and a double off Old Noddy the landlord, stuffed behind the bar. He tells me all about the weather, what it’s been up to all week, and what’s in store for tomorrow. And all the time his head’s going up and down like a dog, agreeing with himself. A thousand tremors . . . I say ‘yes’ eight times then nurse my drink over to the corner table and hole up there ’til chucking out time. I bung a coin in the juke box to let him know I’m not for talking. I work alternate pints and doubles. I sink three of each before the bell goes and even then I have to argue the toss for a last shot, the mean-spirited old sod! Noddy takes my glass and pours it begrudgingly. One last gargle, I down it in one, say goodnight and take a stroll.
This time, I try Dolli’s back door. I climb through the fire escape and check the window. I have to flex my retinas to see past the cobwebs. She’s in there, alright, sat watching her stupid telly without her glasses on. I’ve told her about that before! And it isn’t even tuned in! No picture, just this voice barking out bullshit.
Dolli pushes the cat off her lap and walks out into the hall. I try the handle, the door opens and I let myself in. Then she comes back in starkers, that makes my heart hurt. She does a little circuit of the sofa, chasing pussy. I keep in the shadows, behind the dresser. I watch her magical arse walk round the room and feel the stout bottle in my pocket. She gives up on kitty and walks back out to the bathroom.
The kitten runs over to me, I rough up his ears and go down on all fours. We both go to the toilet door, listening for the little tinkle. I wait ’til she’s in full flow then stand and push open the door. She’s sitting there, brown as a berry, twiddling her toes. The daft bint isn’t in the least fazed, in fact she’s pleased to see me . . . I walk in, unbuttoning my stiffy. I wave it under her nose, her little tongue comes out and starts to lap at it. A hard jet hits her straight in the kisser — she screams and giggles. I squirt it over her tits, into her lap, in golden cascades . . . Dolli shrieks and leaps up. Still pissing, I lift her and push her down into the bath. I hose her down from head to foot, flexing my abdomen, pumping it over her face. She snorts it out, frothing over her lips, swilling between her fillings. She spits it out, choking, legs akimbo, her chin dripping. The dam has burst, I shake it, a last few droplets, little tears of Scotch.
Dolli reaches up and gives it a pull.
‘Make it thick!’ she says. ‘I want you to put it up my backside!’
She clambers around in the tub, banging it like a drum . . . She climbs out and bites at it, she slaps it against her udders, bends over the side and rubs its nose in the split. She sways it like a Hovercraft, and the rose on her left cheek, tattooed.
‘Put it in my backside.’
I kneel and kiss it, the little fan of black hair, just at the bass of the spine, two dimples and then her arse; I put my tongue in there. She looks over her shoulder, knees knocking. ‘I want you to put it in.’
I hop from foot to foot, I nudge it between the cheeks, but the thing’s blunt! It takes me eight goes, and then some more! She spits on her palm and wanks it, whimpering and chewing at her lips.
‘Put it in! I want you to put it all in!’ She reaches round and pull
s the cheeks apart. I have to ease my finger in there to release the pressure, to help tuck it in . . . And then the taps, I bang my knee. I have to climb off and try from another angle. The trouble is, is that I’m slipping in the piss, I can’t get a footing . . . I have to go up on tippy toes and try lowering it in from above, straddling the universe . . . my stomach and thighs cramping . . . I breathe on the mirror. A hideous mark . . . I snort through my nose, bug-eyed and drooling . . .
‘It’s getting thicker!’ she tells me. ‘It’s getting thicker and your balls are like a bag of marbles!’
I take a deep breath. I rest my hands on my hips.
‘Is it all in?’
I look down at her brown arse, I slap it, it flexes . . .
‘Just the head,’ I tell her.
‘Ooh,’ she simpers.
I hold her hand. ‘Feel how thick it is.’
‘Jesus! Put it all in . . . please, please!’
I try, but I can’t get the leverage; her arse trembling like a horse, she sways it through the steam.
‘I always forget how thick it is!’
I take her hair in my fist and lift her head.
‘Where do you want me to cum, in your mouth or in your arse?’
‘I don’t know . . . In my mouth.’
‘Say “please”.’
‘Please.’
I ease it out of her arse, put my foot on the side of the tub and feed it to her, holding it right down at the base. I wave it under her nose, then it jumps out of me, squirting on her tongue, hot little jets and her lapping at it, slurping at the juice. It shoots across her cheek, clots of the stuff, in her eyelashes . . . I wring the life out of me . . . I twist it like a knot, my knees shaking . . . gulping for air . . . And she smiles up at me through the spunk, piss dripping from her chin. I stoop and kiss her mouth and her hand goes for my wet dong, her tongue in my ear.
‘Make it thick again.’ Her voice is a hot whisper. ‘Put it in again, please.’
My Fault Page 30