Murmuration

by Robert Lock

  Julian’s finger hovered over the intercom button as though about to initiate a nuclear holocaust. “Tea? Coffee? Fruit juice? Mineral water? Something a bit stronger? I think we’ve got most things. Name your poison.”

  “Coffee’s fine, thanks,” David said. He chuckled and added, “I don’t think the sun’s quite over the yardarm yet, anyway.”

  Sammy shifted round in his chair so that he could glower directly at the pier manager. “Who d’you think you are, Prince fucking Charles?”

  “Right, gentlemen,” Julian continued, blithely ignoring this display of animosity and settling himself in his black leather swivel chair, “How are we going to make this year our best summer ever?”

  Two hours later, with ideas mooted, figures discussed, musicians and dancers shortlisted, and a theme for the show decided on of classic Hollywood films combined with 80s music, the EuroEnts Managing Director clicked shut the lid of his laptop with a satisfied flourish before looking back up at the two men on the other side of his desk. Jesus, what a pair of losers, he thought.

  “Nice work, boys,” he said out loud. “I think we’ve created something truly dynamic between us that will appeal to a broad demographic.”

  “Come again? Could you say that in English?” Sammy remarked.

  Julian looked amused. “I’m sorry, Sammy, I sometimes forget not everyone is quite up to speed with the current terminology. I spend too much time in meetings… we tend to develop a language all of our own.” He patted the laptop. “What I meant was it’s a good show with something for everyone. Mmm,” he savoured the sentence, swirling it round in his mouth like a fine wine. “There’s something to be said for plain speaking, isn’t there. Making a connection to the man in the street. My uncle would have approved.”

  The comedian scrutinised the younger man’s face, hoping to glimpse the slightest sign of condescension, because if he had he would punch him and accept the consequences later, but there was nothing but a bland, even scrupulous neutrality.

  David and Sammy were being ushered towards the office door when the managing director suddenly stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot. Sammy, can I have a word in private? You don’t mind, do you David? It’ll only take a minute.”

  The pier manager smiled and gestured magnanimously. “No, no, of course not.”

  “Good man. Appreciate that.”

  As soon as the office door clicked shut Julian walked over to the window and looked out. For perhaps ten seconds there was silence. Sammy stayed where he was, indifferent to whatever was to come.

  “Come and look at this,” Julian said at last. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Come on, it sums up what I’ve got to say to you.”

  Sammy sighed extravagantly, walked slowly over to the window and looked out. The EuroEnts offices were on the corner of the promenade and a street that led into the town centre, and from the managing director’s office there was a clear view of both the promenade and the pier. Several small groups of tourists could be seen battling their way along the prom, a firm grip on the hoods of their cagoules. There was also a young man in a T-shirt and combat shorts, posing near the promenade railings for his girlfriend as coffee-coloured waves crashed over the sea wall.

  “The British public at play,” Julian observed drily. He looked to his left at Sammy Samuels. “I get the impression you’re a man who favours plain speaking. Am I right?”

  “You are.”

  “Yes. Well, in that case, allow me to speak plainly. You do not fit in with my long-term plans for this resort. Your time has been and gone, and you’re now relying on former glories to draw in an audience.” Julian saw that Sammy was about to say something, so he raised one hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Which is fine, it really is. Honestly, it’s what most performers do, the ones who’ve been lucky enough to have had a career high point, anyway. It just doesn’t suit my plans. However, EuroEnts has a number of hotels and leisure complexes along the Spanish Costas whose clientele would, I’m sure, thoroughly enjoy watching a comedy legend at work. An hour a night, with the rest of your time free to soak up the sun and enjoy the rather more… relaxed tax arrangements out there. How does that sound? Be honest.”

  Sammy puffed out his cheeks and raised his eyebrows. “It sounds too fucking good to be true.”

  Julian’s expression altered subtly, conveying both an acknowledgement of the suspicious assessment and a rebuttal of it. “What if it wasn’t?”

  “Then it’d be fucking marvellous.”

  “That’s what I hoped you’d say.” Julian had turned back to continue his perusal of those hardy souls on the promenade, as though emphasising the clandestine nature of their conversation.

  “There’s only one problem standing between us and an outcome which will suit both parties.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ve gone through your contract, and our solicitors have done a very thorough job — as I would expect them to, of course — but it seems the only way you’re going to be jetting off to the Costa Brava is if it’s impossible for the summer season to go ahead.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I mean something physically prevents you from being on that stage. It’s the only get-out clause I can find.”

  Sammy’s line of sight raised slightly to the pier, which appeared both flimsy and vulnerable from this distance, a child’s model of papier-mâché and matchsticks that must surely succumb to the boiling seas around it. “Why not just sack me, and then sign me up again for the Spanish gig?”

  Julian grimaced, as though Sammy had thrust something unpleasant under his nose. “That brings my decision-making into question, don’t you think? It’s too obvious, anyway.” He ran the fingers of both hands through his hair. “I’m sure you’ll think of something, you’re a resourceful chap. Come on, we’ve kept David waiting long enough. He’ll be thinking we’re talking about him.”

  Sammy turned away from the rainswept promenade. “Oh, on a different subject altogether, there is one thing I’ve always wondered, and if I don’t ask now I never will.”

  “What’s that?”

  He reached the desk and lifted the heavy, prism-shaped black marble name plate engraved with Julian J Walker. “What does the ‘J’ stand for?”

  The EuroEnts managing director laughed. “You really want to know? If I tell you, can I trust you to keep it a secret?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “If you tell anyone you will. It doesn’t stand for anything. I haven’t got a middle name, but I once read an article that said using a middle initial confers added gravitas and memorability, so I thought I’d give myself one.” Julian took the lump of marble and rotated it, as though entranced by either the reflections or joyous concatenation of his engraved name. “I tried quite a few letters, but I liked how the ‘J’ sounded best. It does scan rather well, don’t you think? Julian J Walker. Much more interesting than plain old Julian Walker. I might even become JJ Walker when I’m a bit older, or even just JJ. You know you’ve made it when just two initials are enough. So, now you know my secret. We should pledge an oath of allegiance.”

  Sammy again looked closely at the younger man, and again failed to discern any particular emotion. “The only allegiances I trust are signed contracts.”

  “Very wise.” He replaced his name on the desk, positioning it carefully so that it faced the office door. “Come on, let’s get over to Franco’s before they give my table away.”

  A Heart Less Rosy

  MASSAGE, proclaimed the flashing pink neon sign in the window, its strident voice softened somewhat by the net curtains, which were a grubby grey save for the sign’s aurora, grubby grey curtains with a beating coral heart. MASSAGE was its collection of letters, but it might just as well have spelled out FRESH FISH, or NUCLEAR MISSILE SILO, for all that it related to the business within. But when the inaccuracy of its declaration was so widely ignored could it be seen as deception? Or was the sign’s fiction necessary in order that it might disa
rm the truth?

  Whatever the answer, Sammy Samuels was unconcerned with its procurement. He had been distracted with what the bogus-initialled Julian J Walker had said to him, in their slightly surreal moment of candour two days ago, regarding his future employment within EuroEnts. The shock of his brutal relegation, followed almost immediately by the managing director’s startling proposition, dangled before him like a mocking vision that could never be realised. At first the comedian had felt simply bemused, but now, now he was angry, not only because it had so clearly been formulated without any kind of acknowledgement of his standing in the business, his pedigree, but also because such blatant manipulation reflected Julian’s low opinion of Sammy. Was that all he thought of him, that he judged a crude good-cop-bad-cop stratagem sufficient? And what was he expecting him to do in order that it would be ‘physically impossible’ for Sammy to perform? Hire an assassin to bump off the rest of the cast? Feign temporary madness? Burn down the theatre? And then there was the business about his middle initial; was all that bullshit as well? Did that cretinous J really exist, or was it nothing more than the bastard offspring of Julian’s ego and some nonsensical bit of cod-psychology? And whatever the truth, was the managing director sharing his ‘secret’ as a roundabout way of eliciting some form of allegiance?

  The comedian decided, after going over these questions again and again without coming to any kind of satisfactory answer, that there was only one way to clear his head, which was what had brought him to his present location outside the massage parlour, silhouetted in the glow of the neon sign, a head full of cocaine and a heart less rosy than the one possessed by the grubby grey curtains. One of the girls would take his mind off the conundrums of Julian J Walker and give him a good night’s sleep into the bargain; it seemed the only times he slept well these days was after visiting one of these anaesthetising establishments.

  Sammy opened the door with the calm indifference of someone entering a newsagents, and the two girls, one behind a desk, the other perched on a stool next to the desk, turned to examine the customer and immediately noted this composure, because their senses were necessarily attuned to the demeanour of men. This was not a first-timer, they deduced, the ones propelled across the threshold with the slightest of hesitations, all stag night bravado lost in that one step, or virgins brave enough to seek professional assistance in the removal of their innocence. Here was a man well-versed in their trade, and in many ways as detached from it as they were themselves.

  “Hi there, love,” the girl behind the desk greeted him in a broad Scouse accent. “Y’alright?”

  Sammy looked at her huge hoop earrings and fake tan, then at the girl on the stool, and back to the earrings. He shut the door behind him with a bang. “Does it matter if I’m alright? Are you really interested? Yes, I’m alright. Is that what you wanted to know?” He made a dramatic show of taking his pulse at his wrist. “Yep, still beating.”

  There was a prolonged silence. The tan and earrings seemed unsure how to respond to this irascible customer. The tan paled, the earrings swayed backwards and forwards, dragging their suspending lobes with them, a fleshy undulation. Then the girl remembered her smile, which she brandished like some gaudy trinket, revealing large, slab-like teeth smudged with lipstick.

  “That’s good.” She shuffled slightly on her chair. “Are you looking for a bit of business, darlin’?”

  Sammy looked round the room, as though seeking some clue as to the nature of the business. “Well I’m not here looking for a lost cat.”

  “Alright,” she replied, finding her courage from the solidity of the desk between them, “there’s no need to be sarky. We only want to give you a good time.”

  “A good time,” he repeated, as though she was referring to some event from ancient history.

  “So, who would you like for your massage?” she said, maintaining the parody of the sign.

  The comedian looked from one girl to the other. The one behind the desk had dark hair scraped back into a ponytail, gentle hazel eyes and a curvaceous body that would, he thought, soon run to fat, her flesh constrained by a tight-fitting black-and-white striped dress. There was a tide-mark along the side of her neck where she had forgotten to rub in her fake tan. The other girl, who had remained silent throughout, had shoulder-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin stretched over a skinny frame. Her collar bones jutted out and there was a haunted quality behind her eyes, a shadow that spoke of some deep melancholy.

  “Is it just the two of you?”

  “There’s another girl normally, but her little girl’s ill so she’s had to stop at home to look after her.”

  “I’m not interested in your staffing problems,” Sammy snapped. He looked at them both for a moment longer. “You’ll do,” he said to the blonde, who immediately hopped off the stool and walked over to a cupboard, took out a towel and tucked it under her arm. She appeared to be completely insensible to the comedian’s disparaging acceptance.

  “Come on,” she said, making her way towards a doorway shielded by a curtain of sparkling silver ribbons.

  Sammy followed her through the curtain, which parted to reveal a dimly lit staircase. As he followed her up the steep stairs Sammy could see below the hem of her short skirt to the crease where buttock met thigh, alternating as she took each step, and a white lace pair of knickers, but for Sammy there was nothing remotely erotic about this view. A warm mouth and a lively tongue were all that interested him.

  She lead him into a sparsely furnished room, illuminated by nothing but a string of Christmas tree lights draped over the headboard of its rumpled bed. The only thing on the walls was a Johnny Depp calendar. Placing the towel on the bedside table, the girl sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed her legs and looked up at him.

  “So… what would you like?”

  Sammy looked down at her. In the oblique white light from the tree lights he could see small, scabbed puncture wounds on the girl’s forearms. Like so many of the resort’s addicts, this one funded her habit through prostitution. “A blow-job,” he pronounced.

  She nodded. “That’ll be twenty quid. Do you want to come in my mouth?”

  Sammy, who was already unzipping his trousers, looked up.

  “Yeah. Why, is that a problem?”

  “No, but it’s another fiver.”

  “A fiver?”

  “Yeah. Toothpaste… mouthwash… they all cost money.”

  The comedian had taken a shine to the girl’s candid, prosaic attitude. “Fair enough. I don’t want to leave you with a nasty taste in your mouth.”

  “Ha ha,” she said heavily.

  He unbuttoned his trousers, let them fall to the floor and stepped out of their crumpled concertina. When Sammy saw his legs — white and hairless, with almost no muscle tone to give definition to their bony cylinders — they reminded him of the ones which had dangled from beneath his father’s shorts during that last summer before he died.

  The girl began to unfold the towel and spread it over the bed, for all the world like a young mother smoothing the duvet cover of her child, because sometimes the only difference between the most virtuous and wanton of acts is context.

  “No, no,” Sammy said, “I prefer to be stood up. You can kneel on the floor in front of me.”

  The girl looked back over her shoulder. “Aren’t you the bossy one?”

  “That’s just how I like it.” The comedian had been accustomed to taking his pleasure in the prone position until, one evening in Newcastle, a bad back forced him to remain standing. The feeling of dominance and control had proved so satisfying that he had adopted it as his default option.

  The girl pulled an expression that said ‘fair enough, it’s all the same to me’, then without another word re-folded the towel, lay it at Sammy’s feet, knelt on it and reached up for his underpants. In an attempt to bring at least a notional eroticism to the act that was both touching and yet, in the circumstances, quite pathetic, she ran her fingers round the elastic wa
ist of his pants for a few seconds before slowly pulling them down, then opened her mouth and began to suck vigorously on his flaccid penis. Sammy lifted the flaps of his shirt out of the way to better observe the prostitute, whose centre-parted hair formed a dark-rooted pathway to his belly button. She was no expert, but the girl took to her task with a vigour that might have been relish, or more likely a desire to have the deed done as quickly as possible, and was encouraged in her work as she felt his cock grow firmer. Sammy sighed and closed his eyes. The swish of traffic on the wet street faded, carrying away on its flowing static the questions and internal debate that had plagued him, until all his mind could hold, all it wished to hold, was the wet roaming warmth around his penis and the occasional snag of teeth that, far from distracting or lessening the rising pleasure, served only to heighten the vulnerability demanded of him by the act, the vulnerability which a deeply buried remnant of Sammy Samuels craved.

  Her tongue ran around the rim of his circumcised glans, a deft manoeuvre that proved decisive, extracting a sudden tightening of his scrotum and a brief but intense orgasm. He ejaculated with a grunt, and to her credit the girl hardly flinched, accepting this stranger’s semen as professionally as she knew how. He managed another small dollop before withdrawing, the girl reached over to a box of tissues, plucked one out and spat her mouthful into it, folded it neatly and dropped it in a small metal bin which had Disney cartoon characters transfer-printed around it.