Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  I walk on down the side-street, see a lady standing in a doorway.

  “Excuse me, please. I’m looking for the boats.”

  “How d’ja mean, boats?”

  “Well … my friend said a boat. I think she did,” I add. If I’m ill, I may have got it wrong.

  “Did she mean the Paddlewheel?”

  “Is that a boat?”

  “It sure looks like one, yeah. It’s a big entertainments centre – you know, hotel and casino and all the kiddies’ rides – skeeball alleys, video games, carousels – all that sort of thing. Or she could have meant the Showboat. That’s built like a model of a nineteenth century riverboat – real cute. It’s quite some way, though. You’d better take a taxi.”

  I thank her and walk on. I haven’t any money and I’d feel frightened in a taxi. Walking warms me up a bit and the streets are very empty, once I’ve left that big one with the lights. I’m looking for a pillar-box, but there doesn’t seem to be one. Perhaps they don’t have them over here. They may even read your letters first, like they used to do at Belstead.

  It’s snowing.

  No, it can’t be. I must be seeing things again. Carole said Las Vegas has no winter and the summers are so hot you can’t go out after ten o’clock in the morning or you simply frizzle up. She said they don’t have snow and not much rain. But it’s been raining since we got here and now it’s turned to snow. I can feel the flakes falling on my face, see them filling up the sky. Perhaps it’s artificial snow. I wish they’d turn it off.

  I start to run, back the way I’ve come. My shoes keep slipping off and my fingers hurt with cold. At last I see the lights again. Everything is whirling – snowflakes, colours, letters and my head. A huge hotel is glittering on one corner, silver letters written on the glass. I try to spell the words out: “PEACE,” “JOY,” “GOODWI …” I choose the door with “PEACE” on it, push it open.

  I’m hot now, boiling hot. I’m in a huge big room with crowds and crowds of people playing all those games we saw before. Everybody’s smoking like at Beechgrove, but fat cigars which smell. There are lots of different noises in my head, clatterings and clangings, constant whirrs and buzzes, horrid jangly music. I’ve never been this bad before. Perhaps I need new pills.

  There’s hardly room to move, but I find a corner, press myself against the wall. It must be a party because everyone’s dressed up. There’s a woman in an evening dress and a black man in a white fur coat which goes right down to the ground. My coat is fur, the Friend said, though it’s rubbed away in patches and the fastening doesn’t work. I brush the snow off, edge along the wall. I’ll never find Carole if I stay in this one corner.

  The music’s getting louder. Perhaps it’s the music from my room which I’ve brought with me in my head. I squeeze through all the people, reach another room. A band is playing on a stage – five men and two blonde girls. No, one. The same girl doubled. I shut my eyes, blink hard before I open them again.

  Still two, exactly the same in every little detail; not just their silver dresses and their scarlet shoes, but their hair and mouths and noses, their shape, their height, their hands. I feel very scared. I think I’m seeing double. That happened once before because I changed my drugs. Everything was blurred, but always two of it. These two girls aren’t blurred, though, but very clear and sharp.

  I’ll have to see a doctor, not here, but back in Beechgrove. They may send me for shocks. We all had shocks at Belstead, even children. A Dr Asif gave them. He wasn’t well himself. I used to hate the shocks. When they wake you up, you’re someone different, but you can’t remember who.

  Someone’s speaking to me. I think it’s someone real, though I may be hearing voices. A face looms up, a kind face.

  “Aren’t they great? They’re absolutely identical, you know. They were born like carbon copies, but it takes some work as well. I mean, they both have to diet and make sure they stop at exactly the same weight, and if one goes to a beauty parlour, the other has to follow and have just the same deal – same shade of colour-rinse or same half-inch off the ends. They say they’ve both got a mole on their right inside-thigh – exactly the same size and in exactly the same spot. Isn’t that something? I’ve seen twins before, of course, on stage, but never two as close as that.”

  “Twins?” I say. I feel a little better. We had twins in Beechgrove once, in Carlton Ward – Joan and Vera. They said Vera wasn’t ill at all, but they refused to be split up.

  “Can I get you something, Ma’am?”

  A waitress has come up to me. She’s forgotten to put her skirt on and is wearing just her tights with a jacket on the top. I walk away so I won’t embarrass her. I’ve got to look for Carole.

  It’s very hard to look. There are too many people and a lot of them just push. One man almost burns me with his lighted cigarette. The slot machines keep spitting out their coins. The noise goes through my head. There isn’t any air, only smoke. Coloured lights are circling from the ceiling so that people have green hands and purple faces. “Win a car!” the signs say. “Win a colour TV set!” “Win ten thousand dollars!” I’d like to win, so I could give them all to Carole. She feels stronger when she wins things.

  I walk all around the lounge, but I can’t see any sign of her. I find another exit which leads into the street. It isn’t snowing now. Perhaps it never was. There are puddles, though, with lights and pictures in them, and a tall glass building which bends and trembles as shadow-cars drive right through the glass. There are quite a lot of real cars splashing me with water as I walk along the street. The street is made of lights. Some of them have broken and spilt out onto the pavement in fizzy pools like Lucozade. I wish I weren’t alone.

  Suddenly I stop.

  CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS.

  It says “CIRCUS” eight whole times in different places. I’m counting all the letters, white letters and pink letters and huge red ones, higher up. My heart is beating very fast. I found a book called Big Top once. It was lying on a table in St Joseph’s. I don’t know how it got there because we weren’t allowed books like that, not happy ones with pictures and no prayers. I didn’t steal it, just looked at all the pictures – elephants and tigers, acrobats and clowns. I liked the clowns the best.

  There’s a clown in front of me, so huge he’s like a giant, taller than the buildings. The palm trees only reach his waist. Each foot looks bigger than a car. He’s holding a lollipop which is like a big red wheel. He’s made of lights and his body is a notice board. “FREE CIRCUS ACTS” it says. Circuses cost money. That’s what grown-ups always said when I asked if I could go. “FREE”, I spell again. The clown is pointing to a pink and white striped tent. No, it’s not a tent. It can’t be. It’s far too big and solid.

  I walk up to the entrance which is very grand with flags. There isn’t any queue and no one’s taking tickets. I hope I’m not too late.

  I push the doors, look around. It’s no different from the place I’ve just been in. The same flashing lights and rude machines, the same pale and angry people sitting at the tables playing games. I rush up to a waitress. This one has her skirt on, but it’s the shortest skirt I’ve ever seen seen, not decent.

  “Circus?” I gasp out. I’m so worried that I’ve missed it, I can’t form proper sentences. “The clown … Big top …” I start again. “Free circus acts, it said. Out there on that …”

  “Yeah.” She points. “Up on the first floor.”

  The escalator has broken, is jammed with people walking up. I join them, step off at the top. I can’t see anything. Only heads and heads and heads. Guns are firing all around me. It must be war again. I struggle to turn back, but I’m not me any more. I’m just a crowd, a crush of fighting bodies. A pushchair-wheel runs over my left foot. I swallow tears of pain. I trip on something. Impossible to fall. Too many people pressing round me like a wall. Nobody is whole, though, only feet and backs and elbows; bits of broken faces, gash-red mouths, sockets with no eyes in.r />
  “Let me out,” I whisper.

  No one hears. Everybody’s pushing. There isn’t any circus, only humans with clown faces, eating eating: bags of crisps exploding in their mouths, popcorn showering from a chute, black ice cream foaming into cornets.

  “Help,” I say. “Please help me.”

  A little boy with monkey eyes is staring. I try to smile, but my face is stiff and dry. If I smile, it might crack and split apart. I may simply smash to pieces like a cup. Now he’s got a gun, the monkey-boy, a gun as big as he is. I think he’s going to shoot me. I shut my eyes, hear the bangs. No pain.

  A long time passes.

  When I look again, things are clearer. It isn’t war. The guns are only toy ones; guns for shooting dolls off stands, guns for smashing clowns. There are darts to throw as well, and balls to roll, and hammers to hit moles with when they pop up from their holes. I watch a man kill seven moles. He’s laughing as they die.

  “Carole … ?” I say it very softly.

  There’s no Carole here, no river. There is a stage with wires and a trapeze, but it’s dead and dark and empty, and everything costs money, even killing moles. I pass a mirror, stop. I’ve shrunk – gone very short and squat, as if someone’s squashed me down and I’m oozing out both sides. I take a step towards the glass. An ugly dwarf waddles up to meet me, face flattening like a tea-plate.

  “Go away,” I say.

  The mirror-mouth is speaking, a squashed and bleeding mouth. Its feet are huge, bigger than its head. I back away, and suddenly I’m tall and thin, so tall I bend the mirror. Somebody is laughing, someone even taller, in the mirror with me. I turn around. He’s tiny. Tiny children should be tucked up safe in bed.

  I wish I was a child. Not tucked in bed, but sitting at the circus. Under the Big Top. Sitting next to Carole. I don’t think I’ll ever find her because I’ve forgotten what she looks like. I feel very odd and tired. I’ve also lost my card, the one I should have posted. They won’t know I’ve arrived now, may forget who Norah is.

  I sit down on the ground, shut my eyes. There’s too much noise to rest; bang-bang-bang of guns, screams from dying moles. I try to change the noise, turn it into circus noise: bells instead of bangs, bells on silver ponies, children clapping clowns.

  I force my eyes to open. I can feel something on my knee, something hot and damp. It’s a hand, a man’s hand, dark, with long black hairs on.

  “Hi,” he says. “You sick, Ma’am?”

  I wish he’d take it off. He’s an old man, rather fat, with a bald and shiny head and a brooch pinned on his coat. The brooch says “JESUS SAVES”. He must be a godman. Not the Reverend kind in suits, but a shabby one like Jesus.

  “What’s the matter with ya?”

  I’d prefer to think, not talk, but I explain I’ve lost my friend and I couldn’t find the circus.

  “This is Circus Circus.”

  I don’t know why he says it twice. “Yes, but where are all the clowns?” I ask. “And acrobats?”

  “You want clowns?”

  I nod.

  “Follow me,” he says.

  We go down the escalator and past all the games again, and along a corridor and up a lift and down another passage. Then he unlocks a door and pushes me in front of him. It’s a hotel room, his room, but nothing like as big and grand as ours. “You want acrobats?”

  I don’t say anything. I’m frightened now. He’s sitting on the bed, undoing his old trousers, just the front.

  “I’ll show you acrobats,” he says. “Hold this.”

  I don’t want to hold it. It’s very red and swollen, especially at the end. “I’ll go now, please,” I say.

  He grabs me, tries to kiss me on the lips. I keep my mouth tight shut. You make babies if you kiss.

  “Get your hands round that.”

  I shake my head. He’s holding it himself now. It looks raw and very puffy. I think he may be ill. He’s not talking any more. His eyes are closed, his face screwed up in pain. He’s making moaning noises.

  I don’t know what to do, so I stand still in a corner. “Hail,” I whisper silently. “St Joseph lily flower. Eden’s peaceful hail.” The words are coming back now, but all jumbled up together. I go on saying them to drown the other noises. The moans are getting louder.

  “Word made hail flesh husband of hail Mary chaste …”

  When I dare to look again, he’s gone. I think he’s in the bathroom. I can hear the water running.

  I creep towards the other door, the main one. It opens, just like that. St Joseph always hears you in the end.

  I tiptoe out. I’m shaking. “Hail,” I say again. It takes me quite some time to find the street. It’s raining, heavy rain. It doesn’t rain in Vegas, doesn’t snow.

  A siren howls. Another. An ambulance screams past; a red and rattling fire engine, a white police car. Sirens all around me now. Alarm bells, flashing lights. I’ve got to cross the road. It looks safer on the other side, darker, with more room to hide. The sign says “STOP”. I daren’t stop, dash between two cars. It doesn’t matter if I’m killed. Everyone will die, the Reverend said. I’m a sinner now, a real one. I think those germs got in. If you open your mouth even just a crack, they fly right in and crawl down to your stomach. Then you grow a baby.

  “Are you prepared?”

  No. I keep on running. I saw a picture once of the End Of The World. It was in St Joseph’s library, but I didn’t cut it out. There were clouds of thick black smoke and great high flames and devils in the flames with toasting forks and all the graves were opening and corpses stepping out in long white nightgowns. Corpses smell.

  I stop to block my ears. Sirens, sirens, sirens. Fire engines won’t help. You can’t put the fires of Hell out, not even if you used every drop of water in every sea and river in the world. There aren’t any seas or rivers in Las Vegas. Carole didn’t know.

  I’ll have to stop. It’s hurting when I breathe. I lean against a wall, shake water from my hair, dry my glasses on my petticoat. When I put them on again, a sign appears. I think it’s real, but the words are very long.

  “GUARDIAN ANGEL CATHEDRAL.”

  It takes me quite a time to spell it out, and when I have, I don’t believe it. It wasn’t a circus and it won’t be a cathedral. A cathedral is a church, a grand one with a shop which sells colouring books and cards. There’s one in Canterbury. We went by coach to Canterbury with the Friends, and had tea in silver teapots and cakes you ate with forks.

  The sign is pointing to the left. I run that way because it’s darker and further from the sirens which are starting up again. I need to go – not number two (the pains have gone), just number one. Rain and nerves always make it worse. I can’t see any toilets and if the End Of The World is starting, everyone will see me if I do it in the street, because God comes down to earth then, with all His saints and angels.

  There’s an angel right above me, hanging in the sky. No, it’s not, it’s hanging from a roof, a huge pointed roof towering over me. You don’t see guardian angels very much. We had them at St Joseph’s, but not at Westham Hall. One of the Catholics in my ward at Belstead said hers followed her about and she could hear its wings flapping just behind her, but every time I looked, it hid. I think they’re shy, like birds.

  I’m standing right beneath him now. The nuns said to call them “hims”, but they’re not real men at all. I’m glad. They have wings above, instead of red and swollen things below.

  It is a church, though it doesn’t look like Canterbury and there’s another sign above it saying “Bali Hai Motel” which they wouldn’t have in England. The door opens like a real door, and there’s the shop with postcards (closed now, but I can see them through the glass), and another door in front of me. I open it, step in.

  It’s very grand inside with great tall stained-glass windows and rows and rows of wooden pews and real carpet on the floor. I’ve never seen a carpet in a church. I don’t think you’re allowed it back in England.

  A sign says
“Restrooms” which Carole says means toilets. You don’t have toilets in cathedrals. You’re not allowed to go in church at all. I follow the sign, and find some real white toilets, very new and clean. I use them both to show I’m grateful and wash my hands, twice, in both the basins.

  I can still hear the sirens, but they’re fainter now, shut out. It’s quiet in here, much safer. If the world is going to end, the best place to be is in a church. During the War, we always went to chapel during air-raids. I wasn’t frightened because the nuns prayed out loud to drown the noise, and they said if we were killed, we’d all go straight to heaven because we’d died in God’s own house. Then I moved to Westham, where they didn’t have a chapel and the bombs were always louder.

  The American God must be bigger because His house is twice the size. I walk up and down a while just to feel the carpet, but stay down near the doors. The altar is where God sits and if we hadn’t sinned, we could see Him, really see Him, just like a real person with hands and hair and legs. The nuns knelt near the altar because they’re holier than children, and if you’d made your First Communion you could go right up there and eat Him. I never made mine. They said I wasn’t ready. I still wasn’t ready when they moved me to the Children’s Home, where we had castor oil each morning, not Communion.

  There’s nobody about, no men or priests or nuns, so I creep up to the altar. It’s very beautiful with white lilies in a vase and golden candlesticks.

  Then I see him. St Joseph, in his long brown robe. He’s standing by the manger. St Joseph never sits – he’s not allowed to. He looks far too rich and grand. All the figures do. The Mary’s like a princess in her expensive blue silk frock. And shepherds wouldn’t wear such fancy clothes, not for working in the fields with muddy sheep.

  Mary’s got her eyes closed. The Jesus looks so big, He must have split her coming out. He’s lying on green velvet, not on straw. And all around the crib are silver Christmas trees hung with fairy lights and big expensive plants. They didn’t have fairy lights in Bethlehem. Or plants with satin bows on top and ribbons round the pots. It was just a poor dark stable where an ox and ass were sleeping. There’s no ox nor ass in this crib. I expect they were too messy for the velvet, or would have dirtied Mary’s frock.