by Helen Zahavi
‘I can do what I like,’ the Fatman said. He gave another squeeze. ‘That’s my basic trouble.’
Mervyn looked at the girl and a thought occurred.
‘D’you think she’d like some too?’
His thin, wet tongue.
‘Cause I think she might. I mean she looks so full of herself.’
‘She does.’
‘And she could be full of me.’
‘She could.’
‘So shall I, then?’
‘Better not,’ the Fatman said. ‘He might not like it.’
‘Fair point.’
‘And we better not wind up Joey-boy.’
‘Be hell to pay.’
‘Have to go into hiding.’
‘The fear,’ Merv said, ‘I’d be sick with it . . . ’
‘Just vomit it up.’
‘Joe on the rampage.’
‘With his slow grin, and his soft cock . . . ’
‘That’s the feller.’
‘Thought it might be,’ Henry murmured. ‘Some girls, though, they prefer them like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that. Sweet-natured boys with gentle lips. Tender lads who can’t protect them. As if there’s nothing bad, out there. As if you can walk down the road with a gutless man, and God will protect you.’
‘As if . . . ’
‘Because they don’t like men with balls, any more. Not big, round balls they can kiss every night. Not ballsy men. Not men like me.’
Because that’s what Henry doesn’t get, he can’t understand their reasoning. Incomprehension, to be frank. Something there’s eluding him.
‘Because me,’ he said, ‘a man like me, a large and vicious man like me, I mean me,’ he said, ‘that’s only fair. Because I fuck them till they fall asleep, sweet and hard and in the hole. I stuff them till they’ve had enough, just shove it in and move it round, just do it till I’ve shut them up. So me,’ he said, ‘if they fell for me . . . ’
‘Make a lot of sense.’
‘Be logical.’
Joe and Donna. Weightless, in this world.
‘You know something, Merv? Some bird once said to me, some tart with a heart, some cunt from social services, she said: Why do you do these things, Henry? What things? I said. The things you do, she said. Because I can, I said. Oh, she said.’
Mervyn shook his head.
‘They don’t understand, do they?’
Henry nodded.
‘Very slow on the uptake.’ He removed his hand from Joey’s bulge. ‘We’re going now, Merv.’
‘Now, you mean?’
‘You got a date, son.’
Mervyn grinned.
‘Oh yeah, I forgot.’
‘Must have been all the excitement.’
‘Must have.’
‘So like I said . . . ’ Henry smiled at her. The Fatman charm. ‘Come round tomorrow, about four o’ clock. We’ll start again. Be friends, okay?’
He picked up his coat.
‘We’ll have some tea and take it slowly. No hassle, right? You be nice to me, and I’ll be nice to him, okay? All for one, and one for all.’
‘I saw that film.’
‘It was good, eh, Merv?’
‘It was brilliant, boss.’
* * *
CHAPTER 5
She pulled on her gloves.
‘It suits you, this car.’
He changed down to second, surged past a lorry.
‘I know.’
Rain spattered on to the windscreen.
‘Suits you more than it suits him.’
He flicked on the intermittent wipe.
‘I know.’
She stared out of the window.
‘You ever wonder, Joey, what it’s like, to be like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like him, Joe. What it’s like to be like him.’
They were passing through the back end of Kensal Rise. She’d been to a party round there once, a packed and raucous party, given by a guy called Tom. A sudden, fleeting memory of calvados and endless food.
‘I mean he ponces round,’ she said, ‘all fat, all rich . . . ’
‘Can’t help his size.’
‘ . . . always bragging . . . ’
‘He likes to talk.’
‘ . . . always sneering . . . ’
‘A very wordy man.’
‘ . . . all mouth,’ she said, ‘all fucking mouth.’
‘He reads a lot.’ Joe shrugged. ‘They get like that.’
He hung a right into Chevening Road. They were digging it up down the left-hand side, and the cars were stacked up thirty yards back. There was a lot of noise, for such a little street. A lot of sound, if you were listening.
He stuck two ciggies in his mouth.
‘You going to let him . . . ?’
‘Let him what?’
‘Let him you know.’
She turned in the seat so she could see his face.
‘You think I’d do that, to wipe your debt?’
‘Be a thoughtful gesture.’
‘You’re not funny, Joe.’
He got out his lighter.
‘But I look good, don’t I.’
He lit the ciggies and passed one over.
‘So what’ll you do, then, when he tries?’
She switched on the heater and turned it to max.
‘I’ll improvise.’
They ploughed on up through Brondesbury, and the houses got bigger, the hedges higher. Different route, same destination. Twelve more minutes, and they’re pulling up in Henry’s drive, getting his gravel stuck in the tyres. Joe swung the car round so it was facing the road. She watched him cut the motor, listened to the engine ticking.
‘You’ll be out here, right?’
He nodded.
‘Right.’
‘Cause I’m doing it for you, Joe, aren’t I.’
He stared at the bonnet.
‘Doing what, exactly?’
‘Sorting things out.’
‘So you’re going to let him.’
‘I’m going to sort things out.’
She unclipped the belt.
‘If you hear any screams . . . ’
He shoved open his door.
‘I’ll run for help.’
He heaved himself out and came round the other side, shielding his hair from gusting rain. He was polite like that, being well brought up. He’d always make sure that he helped the lady. He turned up her collar and touched her cheek.
‘I’ll be waiting, okay?’
‘Keep it warm for me, Joe.’
‘I’ll do that,’ he promised. ‘The engine too.’
She began walking up the drive towards the redbrick house, the solid, bourgeois, bay-fronted villa, that Henry had made his home. She placed her finger on the button and heard a bell inside. There wasn’t a nameplate to guide the perplexed, no printed sign that the Fatman lived there. There should have been, she thought. There ought to be some indication, perhaps a piece of paper stuck beside the letterbox on which was written: Here Lives A Cunt. Might have helped, she reasoned. Might have been of interest to the casual passer-by.
She rang again. The intercom crackled on.
‘Yes?’
Billy’s voice, lisping down the wire.
‘It’s me,’ she said.
The Donna bitch, she could have added. The sacrificial lamb, the mutely uncomplaining morsel, the piece of sweetly-perfumed flesh for Henry’s delectation.
There was an electronic whirr and the steel-backed door swung open. Joe had told her about that door. It was a special kind of door. You put your key in the middle, and you turned it twice, and four steel bolts shot neatly out, locking into the corners of the frame. So you couldn’t get in uninvited, couldn’t smash the locks and kick it down, go barging your way inside. You’d have to burn an oxy-hole, have to bring the gear and concentrate, and it makes a row and it takes forever. But that’s bosses for you, Joe concluded. That
’s how they live, see. Tucked away and out of reach.
Billy appeared in the porch, blocking the way, his pitted face consumed with doubt.
‘Expecting you, is he?’
He was picking at his rash. Not scratching it, exactly, just playing with his favourite spots.
‘I think he is, Billy,’ she said. ‘I’d have thought he’s in a state of fairly high expectation, if you really want to know.’
She watched him scrape a fingernail across his cheek, sending flakes of dead skin floating down on to the tiles.
‘So better let me in, my love. Don’t keep the big man waiting.’
He watched her silently for several seconds, observed her closely with his bleached-out eyes. The rain began slapping on the gravel. She could smell the wetness in the air.
‘Bit nippy out here.’ She hunched into her coat. ‘Be a gent, why don’t you.’
Some sound came from the back of his throat, some phlegm-embellished statement of his feelings, and he moved reluctantly aside. She stepped past him into the lobby. Mervyn was lounging against a hall-table, legs crossed at the ankles, hands plunged deep in trouser pockets.
‘Hello, darling. Come for a job?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Because we’ve got a cleaner already,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a woman who does.’
‘Does what?’
‘She does everything.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Certainly is.’
Billy pushed the door shut and came over. Eyeing her warily, like she was some disease.
‘We taking her up, then?’
‘Not yet,’ Mervyn said. ‘Make her wait a bit.’
‘What for?’
‘Good for her character.’
He waved a hand towards a dralon chair in the corner.
‘Have a seat, sugar. Give your feet a rest.’
‘I think we should take her up,’ Billy urged.
Mervyn shook his head.
‘She’s too early, Billy.’
The skinhead frowned.
‘Why’s she early, Merv?’
‘Because she’s eager, son.’
Billy gazed at her.
‘We don’t like it when they’re eager, do we.’
‘Bit off-putting,’ Merv agreed.
‘Bit slaggy, frankly, and we don’t like slags.’
Mervyn tilted his head, in the mood for reminiscence.
‘I had my first one down in Cornwall.’
‘That was very rural of you.’
‘She was so relaxed, down there.’
‘In Cornwall, you mean?’
‘In her lower parts.’
‘Her nether regions . . . ’
‘They’re the ones. I didn’t realize at the time, of course. But then I wouldn’t, would I? Being young, and being as it was my first. Only realized later, once I’d been in other ones, and it occurred to me she might have been unusual. So loose, she was, so overstretched, I hardly felt a thing.’
‘I think I might have met her sister . . . ’
Billy squinted at the ceiling. He screwed his eyes against the light, and tried to recollect.
‘ . . . a pleasant girl, but cavernous.’
‘She made me kiss her down below.’
‘On her thing?’
‘Had no choice. She spread her legs and shoved my face right in, the dirty cow.’
‘The filthy sow.’
Mervyn sighed.
‘I was only fourteen.’
‘Poor sod.’
‘Precisely.’
The rain was sheeting down outside. It was bouncing off the porch and hissing on the gravel.
‘I gave her something, after.’
‘A dose, I hope.’
‘My dad said always show you’re grateful.’
‘Your dad said that?’
‘So I gave her a fiver . . . ’
‘To please your dad.’
‘ . . . and then she hit me.’
‘Should have made it ten.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Yeah.’
Mervyn brooded on his misspent youth.
‘But she wasn’t worth ten,’ he pointed out. ‘And if they’re not worth ten, you shouldn’t give them ten.’
‘You should give them seven-fifty.’
‘You should give them fuck-all.’
They stood there, for a moment, in mute and pained agreement. Slowly Merv uncrossed his legs. His joints felt stiff. The damp, he thought. This filthy weather. He glanced at the girl.
‘Don’t mind us,’ he said. ‘Just having a chat, see. Bit of lad-talk, sort of thing.’
He shifted his weight, got off the table.
‘And might I add how ravishing you’re looking? That right, Billy? Wouldn’t you say that girly’s looking scrumptious?’
They came and stood in front of her, gazing down.
‘Nice lipstick,’ Mervyn said.
‘It’s very red,’ the skinhead added.
‘More like pink.’
‘It’s very pink.’
‘And it’s very nice.’
Billy frowned.
‘She’s looking kind of . . . ’
Mervyn nodded.
‘Isn’t she.’
He peered a little closer.
‘Do you think she’s had her shower?’
‘Today, you mean?’
‘Because he doesn’t like them over clean. He’s not obsessive, as he puts it. Prefers them in their natural state. Likes it when they’ve got that whiff.’
‘Not smelly . . . ?’
‘No. Just earthier.’
He cleared his throat and sniffed the air around her head.
‘So he won’t be pleased, then.’
‘We should have told her.’
‘Might have helped.’
Merv bent and stared, came right up close, could have pressed his putrid flesh against her cheek.
‘She’s all right, isn’t she.’
‘Very tasty.’
‘Reckon there’s enough, though?’
‘Enough of what?’
‘To go round, I mean.’
‘Bit coarse, there, Merv, but I take your point.’
‘I thought you might. Cause first there was Joe, and now there’s Henry, and what I’d like to know, the thing I’d really like to know, is—’
‘What about us?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Cause we’ve got feelings too.’
‘We have.’
Their scrubbed and shining faces hovered above her head. Merv and Billy being friendly, exuding laddish bonhomie.
A hand reached forward, plump and hairless. They hadn’t heard him coming down. Fleshy men are like that, sometimes. They can creep along, they can shift their weight without a sound, so that one minute they’re upstairs, awaiting little luscious, and the next they’re down here in the hallway, bending Billy’s ear.
‘My lady and I,’ he was speaking slowly, ‘don’t wish to be disturbed.’
He clamped his fingers on the skinhead lobe and began to twist it round.
‘That clear, son, is it? Cause if it’s not, please let me know. If I’m not completely bell-like in my clarity, just give a nod, just pass the word, and I’ll try to make amends.’
Billy’s pinkly insubstantial face had pulled into a grin of pain. His mouth hung loosely open, the tongue flopped out, saliva-bubbles formed and burst.
He’s right, she thought. His boys are dogs.
The Fatman took her by the hand.
‘Glad you came,’ he murmured.
He began to lead his guest upstairs.
‘And I trust you’re going to enjoy your visit, because if you don’t enjoy it, I won’t enjoy it.’
His face was glistening in the light.
‘Or more precisely,’ he explained, ‘I won’t enjoy it quite as much, for buried somewhere in my brain I’ll know my chosen lady of the day, the current queen of my desire . . . ’
‘ . . . is lying, sulking, underneath.’
They climbed two flights and stopped in front of a panelled door. He stood beside her, soft and panting.
‘So make an effort, is what I’m saying.’
A gracious Henry smile.
‘It’s only manners, after all.’
* * *
CHAPTER 6
She’d never entered an old man’s bedroom before, and a frisson of non-excitement, a gentle wave of premature ennui, engulfed her. This was where he lived and had his being, where he took himself in hand and stroked himself to sleep.
‘Have a seat, why don’t you.’
He nodded towards the mammoth bed, with its freshly laundered linen. So nothing too offensive there, nothing stale about the sheets. She keeps an eye on things like that, for she won’t be soiled by Henry’s sheets. By Henry, maybe, but not his sheets.
‘Stretch out on the bed, why don’t you. Relax a bit, see if the mattress suits.’
‘Looks fine to me.’
‘Test it, just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘In case you’d prefer the floor.’ He opened a walnut cabinet. ‘Like a drink, then, sweetheart?’
He peered inside.
‘We got whisky, brandy, bit of lemon vodka. Some Babycham for the ladies, Bacardi and coke for the slags.’
He opened a bottle of single malt.
‘Good stuff, this.’ He took a long sniff. ‘Helps the juices flow.’
He poured out amber liquid and held up the glass. She shook her head.
‘Bit early, thanks. But you go ahead.’
He took a slug, and she glanced around. It seemed a very Henry kind of room, thick with wood and dank with age. A packed and gloomy oldman room, and she loathed it, absolutely. She would have trashed the place, if she’d had the chance, just burnt it down and walked away. Just wrecked it, if she could, for that’s the kind of girl she is.
‘Nice,’ she murmured.
A blush of satisfaction spread across his neck.
‘You like it . . . ?’
‘Mmmmm. It’s very you.’
Looking pleased with this, looking gratified, he beckoned her over to the coffee table. It was laid for two, with bread and honey and a jug of hot milk. He poured out a steaming cupful, a look of quiet contentment on his face.
‘Want some, do you?’
The skin, she thought. He drinks the skin.
‘I’d rather not.’