“Me?” She heard the surprise in her voice. Jim heard it too. “Mum,” he stumbled, “kept telling Dad, just before the end, how she’d wished you and Mike had got married. I think”—he laughed nervously—“she was disappointed that neither of us had managed to give her grandchildren.” Jim was gay. And Spike was Spike. “I mean I can quite understand if you’d rather not?” But she found herself saying she would.
The night of the phone call, Minerva couldn’t sleep. The reason she couldn’t sleep was because she couldn’t masturbate. Lord knows she tried, but the screen refused to show her fantasy movies of Spike. Just the real, flesh-and-blood Mike, memories she’d successfully walled up for years coming back to wind her up. When she gave up, got up, and poured the last third of a cheap bottle of white wine into a glass, her nerves were shrieking. Once again he had simply upped and gone, and she was left with nothing.
The next night was the same, and the next. The night before the funeral, Minerva lay in bed, rigid. Her jaw clenched, her temples pounded. She reached for her sleeping pills but stopped herself; they always made her look like a zombie the next day. Her fury at herself for caring how she would look for Spike made her tenser still. Her hand worked away uselessly like a worn-out sander as the memories flooded back.
She was living the other side of the river when he first moved in with her. A poky bedsit in Finsbury Park, conveniently near his parents’ place. Whenever he ran out of sofas to stay on or girls to doss off, Mike would go back to the bedroom he shared with his younger brother. Not the ideal setup for a rock musician—which is how he’d introduced himself to her that night at the bar.
“Hi, I’m Mike. I’m a rock musician. Who are you?”
Her friend was more enthusiastic. “Great! What band are you in?” But it was Minerva he was looking at. He had the most symmetrical features she’d ever seen on a man, like those impossibly chisel-chinned drawings of boys in the picture stories in teenage girls’ magazines. “He liked you,” her friend said afterward, a touch resentfully. “He likes himself more,” she replied. She started dating him the following weekend. Two weeks later a friend dropped him off with a guitar and three bin-liners of clothes.
She could see that room as clearly as if she were standing in the doorway—the sink in the corner with the broken cupboard underneath and the shelf above it with the mirror on it. The chest of drawers with a two-ring electric stove propped on top. The fireplace where they put the milk bottle to keep it cold. And most important, the bed, some indeterminate size between single and double, the sheets always smelling of damp and sex. Their sex life was adventurous and unflagging. The drugs came later—Mike’s idea. Because of her work she’d never thought of them as recreational. He changed her mind.
One night she’d come home from the hospital late to find a bunch of guys she didn’t know sitting on their bed, bawling along to some loud, distorted music she didn’t know either that was playing on her cassette player. “Mini, my most beloved,” Mike said grandly, “meet my band: Spike. What you are hearing is our first hit single.” Not long after, Mike razor-cut his hair and started using the name Spike for himself. He was not a natural democrat. For the next six months all her spare time was spent ministering to the group—funding their rehearsals, watching them play in an endless series of grim London pubs. Sometimes her nursing friends would come along to plump out the crowd. After a while it didn’t need plumping. Girls would hover by the back door after the set. Not that Minerva was the type to ask, but he told her they meant only one thing to him: record sales.
“I belong to you, Mini,” he declared as she woke up one afternoon—she was on night shift. “Body and soul. Especially body. Now close your eyes.” He was naked and holding something behind his back. She did as he said. Crouching by the top of the bed, he took one of the black nurses’ stockings he was clutching and tied her wrist to the top of the headrest. Minerva opened her eyes.
“I’ve got to get ready for work,” she protested. He went over to the other side of the bed and tied her right wrist. Then he sprung onto the bed and sat on her legs to hold them down. With a felt-tip pen he started to write “SPIKE” on her stomach. “Here!” he announced. “I’ll even give you my autograph.”
“Stop it, you’re tickling,” she said giggling. When he got to the letter I, he slid inside her. The pen fell on the bed, leaching a widening blue circle where it lay. That was the day he told her the band had been offered an American tour. Low-budget, bottom-of-the bill, but America for all that. “Brilliant.” she’d said. “Give me the dates and I’ll try to book some leave.” “That wouldn’t be cool,” he answered. “Most of the time we’ll be in the van or sharing the one room. Next time,” he soothed her, “it will be different.” It wasn’t. The second tour they’d agreed that none of them could bring their girlfriends. The third was a much bigger affair, almost three months. Halfway through he agreed, albeit reluctantly, to her coming for a long weekend in L.A.
He’d given her a shopping list and she brought it all: teabags, Branston pickle, Dexadrine, and Valium in squat brown prescription jars made out in her name, and all of the British music papers. They were scattered over the motel bed when he tugged off her panties and mounted her moments after she arrived. “Am I in there?” he asked. She only worked out later he was referring to the N.M.E., which he was reading over her head.
The next afternoon, out by the pool, everything felt wrong. Her legs looked deathly white in the harsh light, against the Heinz-baked-bean-can-colored sky. The air was weirdly buzzing, and hot and dry as dust. The same could be said for her vagina on the long plane ride home. Nothing, fortunately, that antibiotics couldn’t cure.
Her hand automatically pulled back from between her legs. She stared grimly at nothing. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a vision appeared, a multicolor CinemaScope special that covered the ceiling and walls. Spike. He was naked and more aroused than she’d ever seen him. His hands were tied down with stockings. She was looming over him. The orgasm knocked her out cold.
When Minerva woke up the next morning, the clouds had lifted. She cast a joyful eye on the grimy swab of South London visible through the condensation on the windowpane. When her cat pushed the door open and jumped onto the bed, Minerva picked her up and kissed her. The cat squirmed free and followed her into the kitchen, where she put a bowl on the floor and a frozen croissant in the microwave. While the water huffed through the coffee machine Minerva whistled—and she never whistled. She felt as if she had gone to sleep in midwinter and woken up on a fresh spring day.
The service was not until one o’clock, so she took her time showering and picking out what to wear. Naked in front of the full-length mirror, she sized herself up like a stranger—pretty good shape for a forty-year-old, a bit on the wiry side maybe, and overdeveloped in the calves from being on her feet all day. Her hair was still lush and long, though, and thanks to the bottle, dark brown. She pulled on a pair of opaque black tights, a black knee-length skirt, and a white cotton blouse.
“I look like a schoolgirl,” she told the cat. “But Spike likes schoolgirls, doesn’t he? Actually,” she frowned, “I look like a hotel maid. This won’t do.” She scrambled out of the clothes, leaving them on the floor, where the cat instantly curled up on them and went to sleep. Rummaging in the back of the wardrobe, she emerged with a black silk skirt, form-fitting, slightly longer, and a small, tight, long-sleeved shirt. In a drawer she found a long-abandoned suspender belt and delicate black stockings. A pair of high-heeled ankle boots finished it off marvelously. Turning from side to side, Minerva felt quite triumphant.
She decided to leave early, practice walking on her high heels to the tube station, and then find a café in Finsbury Park. The station escalator was out of order as usual; the sign apologizing for the fact had curled at the edges with age. A newer sign at the bottom of the stairs had another apology, this time that the destination indicator wasn’t working either. Minerva walked down the stairs, carefully, and along the platfo
rm to the one unoccupied bench. Opposite was an enormous advertising poster recruiting nurses for a private hospital. A perfect family—attractive blonde mother, little girl with pigtails, freckled young boy—was gathered around a bed where a ruggedly handsome man was lying in the kind of pajamas that a ruggedly handsome man would never wear. Hovering behind them, her expression simultaneously calm, concerned, efficient, simpering, and pathological, was a nurse. Florence Nightingale twinned with a stewardess. The caption on the ad said, “Daddy has cancer but the nurse made him feel better.”
“The poor bastard’s dying, for crying out loud. What did she do? Give him a blow job?” Minerva realized, when several people on the platform looked up from their papers to stare at her, that she had said it out loud. She found it almost overwhelmingly funny. Normally she would have hated this kind of dishonesty. That was the thing with Spike: When he’d phoned from the States to say their engagement was off—phoned; didn’t have the balls to tell her to her face—he said it was because she didn’t show enough interest in his “art.” If he’d just told the truth, said thank you very much but he didn’t need her services anymore, then fine. Before any dark thoughts could settle in on her sunny mood, the rush of cold air that heralded the train’s arrival swept them away. It also blew her coat open; a couple of male passengers glanced appreciatively at her legs.
Minerva took the long route to the church, past the winos and garbage congealed around the station exit, stopping at a Turkish coffee shop and ordering an extravagant pastry. Her taste buds were as hypersensitive as the rest of her. The cake and coffee seemed almost unbearably sensuous. Everyone around her seemed to be sparkling. She had to remind herself she was going to a funeral. Avoiding the street where the Mattocks lived, she headed for St Jude’s.
She was a little taken aback to see security barriers and immense men looking like concert bouncers monitoring the activities of a smallish, mostly female crowd. Some were carrying thin, cellophane-wrapped bouquets. For Spike, Minerva suspected, not for his mother. A steward with a clipboard ticked her name off the list and guided her into the churchyard. “I’d rather stay outside in the air for a few moments, if you don’t mind,” she told the usher who came over to take her to her seat. She leaned on the wall to one side of the Gothic doorway, watching people arrive, none of whom she recognized.
Eventually the hearse pulled up, camouflaged with flowers, and right behind it a black limousine. Jim was the first out, helping his father from his seat. Spike was the last. He looked about, as if he were checking out a new venue and wasn’t entirely sure where his dressing room was. Some of the crowd were calling out his name. Spike turned to look at them. Jim waited a few moments for Spike to join them, then gave up, took his father’s arm, and walked him toward the entrance. As they approached, Minerva tried to slip away, but Spike’s father spotted her. Coming over, he took her warm hands in his own cold ones and said, “Thank you, dear, it was good of you to come. Will you come and sit at the front with us?”
Jim correctly interpreted her look and said, “Come on, Dad, we’d best get seated.” As he passed Minerva he whispered, “Sit wherever you feel comfortable. See you afterward back at the house?” When Spike turned around to follow them in she found herself flushing scarlet. But he didn’t notice her. He walked straight past her and into the church.
She couldn’t help staring at him from her seat at the back as he stood at the lectern, reading a passage from the Bible. He looked even brighter in the gray stone building than he had in her home movies. His suntan looked almost tangerine. There were too-bright highlights in his hair. His suit, perfect for Los Angeles, looked too flash for a weekday afternoon in Finsbury Park. He was still a good-looking man—though nowhere near as attractive as he’d been in her fantasy last night. Still, Minerva felt herself moisten.
Suddenly she was aware that Spike had stopped reading. He had started to sing, a cappella—a song he said he had just written for his mother. When it was over he announced the title, “Love Eternal Guaranteed,” as if it were a performance, and received a small, inappropriate round of applause. His father’s head had dropped onto his ribs. Spike’s brother had his hand around his shoulder, comforting him, awkwardly, as if even this small physical display of affection might be too much. Afterward, when the three men walked together back along the aisle, there were cameras flashing outside. She saw that a second limo had arrived. Spike gave his father a fleeting kiss on the cheek, gripped his brother’s shoulder for a micromoment, then turned and got into the limo and went back to his hotel. He didn’t show up later at the house.
There was something Mike always used to say to Minerva: If you want something badly enough you will get it; all you have to do is focus and it will come to you. He was absolutely right. Minerva had no real plan for what she wanted but she certainly wanted it badly enough and, once she focused on it, it was astoundingly easy how quickly it presented itself.
The morning after the funeral, at 5.45 A.M., just as Minerva was coming on duty, a young hooker showed up at the outpatient department. Drug-thin but extremely pretty and with incongruously large breasts, she gave her age as eighteen but looked years younger. Her discharge was easily dealt with. Harder to fix was a methadone habit that neither her prescription nor the duty doctor were willing to satisfy. When she left Minerva followed her and took her to one side. Surreptitiously she slipped some flunitrazepam into the astonished girl’s hands.
“There’s more where these came from, and better,” Minerva whispered.
“What do I have to do?” said the girl, switching quickly into professional mode.
“Your name’s Laura, right? I’m Minerva.” She led the girl outside. The plan that Minerva now outlined to the girl came to her immediately. They agreed to meet later that day at a café in the center of town. Minerva knew that the other nurses would understand and fill in for her if she said she needed to go home early, that she was still feeling raw.
Nursing a cold cup of coffee, Minerva was getting frightened that Laura wouldn’t show when the young woman strutted through the door on kitten heels, twenty minutes late. All heads in the café turned. As she had promised, she had made a real effort with her appearance. She was wearing a short, flowery skirt, and a low-cut gypsy top and was swinging a small straw bag. Minerva thought she looked about twelve. Spike would not be able to resist. Minerva had been given Spike’s hotel and room number by Jim. There was a password, he said, to get past security, and she’d written it all down. She wrote it down again in the café for Laura on the back of a sealed envelope.
“I’ll give you the rest when we’re done,” Minerva said. The girl seemed trustworthy, but it wouldn’t help to tempt her to take what she had and run. Minerva had told her—convincingly, because it had been the truth—that Spike was an old boyfriend who had ditched her when he became famous and that she figured he owed her one last favor. The young girl would get into Spike’s bed and get him warmed up, then slip him some Rohypnol—the date rape drug—and Minerva would come in and take over. Laura thought it a brilliant idea. The only thing she couldn’t understand was why Minerva wasn’t wearing something sexier. She looked like a hotel maid.
In the couple of hours since she had left the hospital, Minerva had done a few necessary errands, then changed into the sensible black skirt and white blouse she had originally planned to wear for the funeral. She had also hired a rental car, which was on a parking meter outside. They got in and she drove to Mayfair. As they approached the hotel she dialed the number on her mobile phone, gave the password. When Spike answered the phone she hung up. Minerva stopped outside the hotel on a double yellow line and got Laura to repeat her instructions one last time. Then she kissed her on the cheek, wished her luck, and watched her walk through the hotel door. A police car pulled up behind her. At the same moment a car pulled out from a parking place directly opposite. She smiled in the rearview mirror and swung straight into the space, turned off the engine, and waited. The girl didn’t come out. Ever
ything was working fine.
At the allotted time, Minerva went into the hotel. No one said a word to her; she looked like one of the maids. As arranged, Laura had left Spike’s door unlocked. Minerva pushed it open gently, just an inch, and could see Spike’s arse pumping up and down. Laura spotted her and brandished the small hypodermic the nurse had given her, giving her the thumbs-up. Minerva nodded and Laura rammed the needle in Spike’s butt.
Minerva slipped into the room as Spike sank onto the bed. She closed the door, deftly propped him up against the headboard, and started to dress him.
“What are you doing that for if you plan to fuck him?” asked Laura.
“I’m taking him back to my place,” said Minerva.
“You’re joking! How do you plan on getting him out in this state?” But, like Spike said, it was all a matter of focus. Minerva poured a glass of water and dropped a pill into it. She plumped up his pillows and held the glass, professionally, to his lips. His eyes opened. He looked at her strangely, as if he might know who she was but his brain had no idea what to do with the knowledge. If she had expected a flash of wordless understanding, it never came.
He let himself be pulled off the bed, his arm draped over Laura’s skinny shoulders. Together the pair tumbled past the front desk like drunks; again no one said a word. Minerva, who was focusing harder than ever, followed a few steps behind.
They managed to prop him upright in the backseat of the rental car, Laura sitting next to him and making sure he didn’t fall, until Minerva dropped her off at Waterloo with money and pills. Driving carefully, avoiding speed bumps, Minerva headed south to her flat. She focused hard on avoiding red lights, on keeping her nosy upstairs neighbor from looking through the curtains when they arrived, on maneuvering Spike safely down the basement steps, through the door, and into the kitchen. When she propped him on the kitchen table, he played his part perfectly and passed straight out. Her cat came in through the flap and jumped onto Spike’s stomach, lifted a back leg, and had a wash.
Too Weird for Ziggy Page 18