by Bella Pollen
‘And nothing else. I just kissed her, all right. I wanted to kiss her and I’m thinking I’d quite like to kiss her again.’
Benj sinks onto the sofa. ‘Bloody hell.’ He shakes another cigarette from the pack directly into his mouth, ‘Go home, Rory, I beg you,’ he mumbles. ‘Go straight home and take a cold shower before you do yourself some serious damage.’
* * *
From up here the light changes in London are sublime exercise in kinetic art. Brake lights, headlights, traffic lights all vie for supremacy as the four million cars that make up the giant toy cars of London streets weave their way through each other – and it seems a miracle given the sheer volume of traffic that so few of them actually bump and collide. In Sloane Square, where incidentally I did once bump and collide my moped, destroying much of the charming Victorian municipal fountain in the square’s centre whilst oh dear me, Judge, severely under the influence, the lights have just completed another circuit from red to orange to green. Cars, jettisoning exhaust from their backsides, surge forth, breaking right and left around that comforting bastion of mediocrity, the Peter Jones department store.
All cars except one, that is.
The Rover remains resolutely at a standstill. Inside Rory sits motionless.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that pushing things further with Maggie is a bad idea. It’s not simply that everything Benj says is true, there’s also the fact that Rory doesn’t wholly trust her, all those nagging doubts he has conveniently pushed aside in the last few weeks. Who knows what draws him so strongly to this girl but let’s just say on their first meeting he suffered something of a coup de foudre. Love is the drug, as they say, or maybe love will be Rory’s drug of choice because when he thinks about Maggie he feels, well, literally sick – and he hasn’t felt that good about anybody in a very long time. So he’s running scared. He had decided to take Benj’s advice and go home, maybe even ring Stella for the full emotion-free fuck experience. Now as he grips the steering wheel, the traffic continues to split around him. Ignoring the hooting of horns and the gnashing of roadrage teeth, he wrestles the Rover’s clutch into reverse and performs a neat U-turn.
maggie
Wolf and Dwight hit the town. My guess was dinner, lap dancing and a friendly brothel. They made a big effort not to look relieved when I told them I wasn’t coming but I was grateful to them anyway. I should have felt excited about the Bevan story being back on track but instead I felt confused and uneasy. I was glad to be on my own. It was only while I was swiping the card through my bedroom’s security box that I realized Jay might be waiting inside. For the first time I disliked the uncertainty of it, then hated myself for feeling that way.
Alone in my room I tried twisting my hair round my finger Stella style, but I just felt silly. ‘Rory,’ I meowed. Then cut myself off. What a loser. The message light was flashing on the phone. I felt elated as I dialled nine to access voicemail then dashed when a voice announced my dry cleaning was ready. Finally I stood under the shower and let the water run over my head at full pressure but I knew that Rory was unfinished business and I’d go crazy if I didn’t do something about it.
The operator informed me with some sympathy that there were 139 R. Jones in the central London area and did I not have an actual address? Of course I didn’t have an address. I had no idea about his life, let alone where he lived or what might happen if I showed up on his doorstep. Would he offer me a Coke? Glass of wine? A tequila slammer? Would he invite me in to sit on a sofa? Or a beanbag? While he leapt up and put on some – Jesus, what? what? The Mamas and the Papas? Puff Daddy? Verdi’s greatest hits? I knew nothing about him. Fretfully I read through the leather-bound file of hotel services cover to cover. Then I read them through again in Spanish, French and German. After that I ordered a club sandwich. It appeared in a miraculously short time because when I heard the knock, I was still sitting in my underwear clutching the soggy bath towel to my knees. I wrapped it round my waist and opened the door but there was no trolley waiting for me, no smiling waiter holding a pen and a room service bill. Instead, in the corridor outside, arms crossed casually, Rory Jones was leaning against the yellow wallpaper.
* * *
‘This is the famous chippie of north London,’ Rory said. ‘People come for miles to this place. Look.’ He pointed to the queue of people stamping their feet in the cold outside. Inside, the fish and chip shop was decorated with tiles of sea life and lit with brilliant gaudy striplights. The front counter thronged with people holding out their hands for warm newspaper parcels of takeout. In the seating area it was hot and steamy in contrast to the freeze creeping over the city. ‘Unbelievably for England,’ Rory had said as we parked the Rover, ‘it’s actually going to snow.’
Flakes dropped silently past the window, blurring from white to blue to pink as they floated across the strobed restaurant sign. The smell of batter was overpowering, the feeling of goodwill overwhelming, and at that moment there was no place else on earth I would rather have been.
‘I used to have a fish you know,’ I told Rory between mouthfuls.
‘Really,’ he said. ‘Barracuda?’
‘A little tropical thing.’ In fact what I’d wanted was a sister. When that idea was shot down, I’d begged for a dog. The fish was a compromise. My father took me to the pet shop on West 67th Street. My heart was set on something exotic and colourful. We were directed to the tropical tank where the fish swam around like neon sweets – striped peppermints and rock candy with fins. I couldn’t choose between them, then I saw this creature under the plastic shipwreck at the bottom of the tank. It looked so persecuted with its sad bulbous eyes. It was on special offer for two dollars.
‘It was so cute, all black and velvety. I named it Magic Johnson … you know after the basketball player, but my parents told me it was racist.’
‘It was?’
‘I never really worked it out either.’ I sighed. ‘My parents are … well … it was always something; Vietnam, the plight of the Idaho potato pickers, support Lesbian Mothers.’
‘My mother wouldn’t know what to do with a lesbian. “Darling,”’ he mimics, ‘“Do peel this magnificent lesbian and pop it into the fruit salad.”’
I laughed. ‘You an only child as well?’
‘Brother … one.’
‘Yeah? Older … younger?’
‘Daniel was a year older.’
I picked up on the tense straight away. ‘Rory … Oh God … I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes,’ he said. He turned away, seemed to steady himself then turned back and said casually, ‘Ah well, let’s face it – as tragedies go, there are a lot worse.’
I was shocked by his tone. Oh no, I thought, no blood here, just terrible internal injuries.
But he’d already begun talking.
‘Number one bereavement hot spot is losing a child. Two is a wife or a husband – although there must be a qualifying factor of youth and major heart-wrenching element such as victim was mother/father of twins or died after a long period of suffering. Next we have losing a fiancée which scores extra points because of ‘blighted life’ syndrome. Your parents dying doesn’t cut the mustard if you’re over the age of twenty-five – it’s not tragedy if it’s not before its time – and losing a sibling if they’re under twenty is definitely considered losing a child for the parents, see category number one. After all those we move onto losing a sibling over twenty, in which case parents and other siblings get equal billing rights. Rock bottom on the list you get losing the sibling who’s not a child, who’s well over twenty – but neither a husband, nor a father, not anybody’s fiancé, and then when of course that person is naturally self-destructive…’ He broke off, put his head in his hands. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK, you should talk about it.’ I put my hand on his arm but he shook it off angrily.
‘I don’t want to fucking talk about it.’
After a second or two he said, ‘He liked to drink. One night he got into
an argument with a bus.’ Rory’s voice had a shrug in it. ‘He lost … I lost him.’
I twisted the napkin in my lap. ‘What was he like?’
‘Oh you know, charming, clever, funny, wicked. Everybody adored him. I did everything he told me to, of course.’
‘You adored him too, huh?’
‘Naaa, he was just a lot bigger than me.’
I smiled.
‘When we were small he was always in trouble, we were always in trouble. Then he’d hide in the linen cupboard and I’d get the blame.’
‘The linen cupboard?’
‘English word for the only warm room in the house – in our house to be more specific. We used to take our books, stay there for hours curled up on the shelf.’
‘God, I can’t imagine. You must really miss him.’
‘You know,’ Rory picked up the vinegar bottle and absently twisted its top. ‘I still shout at him for scratching my car when he hasn’t borrowed it. I get irritated when he leaves the top off the toothpaste, then I remember it wasn’t him, and I still celebrate his birthday every year even though he will never get any older.’
I looked down at my shredded napkin, moved beyond anything.
‘Of course,’ he said brightly, ‘he was also a right bastard. Nicked all my clothes and most of my girlfriends. Never even considered giving either back.’
I listened to him as he talked on and I breathed easier. The internal injuries weren’t fatal. He might still be bleeding heavily but I reckoned he’d pull through.
* * *
We walked to the car. Snow was settling in a milky film on the sidewalk. ‘You know if all British institutions are as delicious as fish and chips, I might have to change my opinion of your people.’
‘Oh?’ Rory raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you still need that much persuading?’
‘Why? You think you’re all so loveable?’
‘Actually, yes, I think on the whole the British are pretty nice people.’
‘Nice … Oh sure, just ask an Irishman.’ I broke off. Rory was scowling at me.
‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s that facile American attitude that the IRA are just romantic freedom fighters on a jihad … they’re nothing but a bunch of murderous thugs.’
‘Whoah, I’m sorry.’ I’d been teasing, nothing more.
‘Maybe you just had too much vinegar with your chips.’ Rory said nastily.
‘Maybe I did,’ I said, stung.
‘Maybe I should take you home.’
‘I guess maybe you should,’ I said stubbornly.
* * *
There was silence in the car.
‘You’re not going to sulk the whole journey are you?’ I said eventually. Rory looked at me suspiciously.
‘Because if you are, I’m going to have to talk … I mean haven’t you heard, it’s a question of manners.’
He laughed. ‘OK, OK, OK, I’m sorry. Now do you want to see something I’m really passionate about?’
* * *
He parked the Rover in front of an arched stone entrance next to a security box. Rory knocked on the window. The guard inside was old and had a grizzled crew cut. He turned reluctantly from his miniature television to the hatch.
Rory handed him a twenty-pound note.
‘You’re a very sick gentleman Mr Rory.’ He rubbed the money between dry fingers.
‘Thank you, John.’
He ushered us through the hut and out the other side.
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
‘Highgate Cemetery. Your parents would love it. Karl Marx is buried here.’
I gazed round in wonder. The whole world suddenly looked like it had been sprinkled with icing sugar. Snow had settled everywhere – it powdered the topside of red berries. It lay like a chalky overscore on the stone of gothic chapels and was piled into the crevices of gargoyles’ mouths.
‘We’re in Narnia!’ I said.
Rory squeezed my hand. ‘This is the west side, the wild-west side. Normally people aren’t allowed in here.’
‘Except us.’ I looked down at my hand in Rory’s and tried not to think of it as the betrayal it was.
‘Tonight we are exceptionally abnormal people.’
We wandered along the path, Rory pointing out sleeping stone lions, obelisks, headstones with funky engravings.
‘Look,’ he stopped in front of a tomb with an enormous effigy of a dog carved on top.
‘“Tom Sayers,”’ I read the inscription, ‘“last of the bare-fisted fighters.”’
‘The dog was the chief mourner at Tom’s funeral. Not a popular fellow it seems.’
He knelt beside another grave and swept the snow off with his arm. ‘Look at this.’ It was a cheap headstone, all the more poignant when compared with the elaborate splendour of its neighbours. A woman who had died in the plague was buried with her seven children.
‘Shit,’ I heard myself saying softly, and I looked at it for a long time.
* * *
We walked on. Snow continued to fall heavily. A fox stopped and stared at us from the middle of a pathway, his front paw raised questioningly. I was dazzled and in awe and I told Rory so.
‘They say that in a place this beautiful, the disappointment of death is softened,’ he said wistfully.
‘How come you know so much about it?’
‘I did some work here once.’
‘Grave robber?’
‘Archaeological work.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said curiously.
‘I worked for the V and A … still do occasionally, when not squiring unhousetrained Americans round the country.’
‘Whoah, wait a minute. You’re an archaeologist?’
‘Don’t ask.’ He gave a bitter laugh, ‘Let’s just say I got waylaid by family business. What? Now you hate archaeologists?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that.’ I’d been wringing my hands, trying to jump-start circulation. ‘Bit cold that’s all.’ I pressed them under my armpits.
‘We should have brought gloves … stupid of me.’
‘Oh wait,’ I said, struck by the brilliance of this notion.
I patted the gloves in the inside pocket of my coat. But when I tried to undo the buttons, my fingers were about as dextrous as raw sausages. I held them up helplessly.
‘They don’t seem to work.’
Rory took hold of my coat lapels. ‘Cold hands, that’s bad.’ He pushed the first button through the buttonhole. ‘Could lead to frostbite.’ He undid the second.
‘Frostbite’s bad.’ I couldn’t drag my eyes from his.
‘Very bad,’ he whispered, ‘before you know it your fingers turn green, drop off into the snow one by one—’
‘Surely that’s leprosy,’ I said.
We kissed. His hands were inside my coat, wrapped round my back. Snowflakes dissolved against my burning face.
‘Look at you. What a mess. Your ponytail’s all over the place, your cheeks are red, you look like one of the wild things.’ He pulled me to him. ‘A wild thing from the wild side.’ We kissed again.
‘Give me your hands.’ Obediently I stuck them out.
‘Rory … I.’ All evening I’d been wondering what to say.
‘What?’ He began putting on my gloves for me.
‘Nothing … hey you know, just don’t think I don’t do this all the time.’
‘What? Kiss Englishmen?’
‘Every time I’m in a graveyard, sure.’
‘OK.’ He kissed me again and I knew I couldn’t say it. Figured instead Jay was my problem and I would confront it later, when things were different, when my head wasn’t dazzled by snow, when my heart had stopped buzzing, when my – wait a second, why was my heart buzzing?
‘Your phone’s ringing.’
‘Leave it,’ I said shakily, but he was already feeling for it under my coat.
‘Seems rude not to get it while I’m here.’
‘Hey stop that…’
‘Stop what?�
�
‘That,’ I whispered.
‘Just trying to give you a hand.’
‘I hate to put you to so much trouble.’
‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it’s my pleasure.’
I swayed against him. His hands found bare skin.
‘Rory, uh…’
The cell buzzed so violently I jumped. Rory plucked it out of the breast pocket of my coat. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said, mock surprised. ‘It was here all the time.’
It continued to vibrate in his hand. ‘What’s more it appears to be rather sexually excited. No wonder you’re so attached to the damn thing.’
I laughed and made a grab for it, but it slipped from my woollied hands onto the ground. Rory dove for it. Pushed me down. Rolled me over in the snow. I squirmed and broke free, he grabbed my leg, pulled me back, I kicked him.
‘Christ, you fight dirty.’ He pinned me to the ground. I stopped struggling. ‘Come home with me, Maggie. Now, tomorrow, come up to my parents for the weekend.’ I lay on the snow, grinning, nodding my head. Of course I would come. And I didn’t care about Jay, I didn’t care about anything much until I remembered.
‘Oh Jesus,’ I sat up abruptly. ‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean you can’t?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got an interview.’
‘An interview? I thought you’d finished. With whom?’
Sheer instinct kept my mouth shut.
‘Can’t you cancel it?’
‘I can’t, it’s really important.’
‘Wait a minute,’ he joked, ‘what could possibly be more important than spending a whole weekend with me and my adorable family?’
I was silent.
‘Ouch,’ he said and his eyes had grown wary.
* * *
Inside my hotel room the phone was ringing. ‘I’ve just had a call from Washington,’ Jay said, ‘I think I could get to you by Sunday, so at least we could fly home together.’
Wherever he was calling from the reception was bad. ‘Where have you been hiding the last week?’ I could only just hear his voice through the crackle. ‘I’ve been leaving messages.’
‘I’ve tried to get hold of you too,’ I said lamely, but Jay was far too savvy.