Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  We drive along an empty pitted road. Half a house has fallen down. An old car has split open and is showing its insides. Bernie slows.

  “This was a real fine city, can you believe, a wonder in its day, a boom town of ten thousand people where there hadn’t been a white man within fifty miles. They built to last, Norah, in stone and concrete – big three-storey offices, banks and churches, a school, a fancy opera house. There were twenty-four hotels, fifty bars, a stock exchange and dance halls …”

  I shut my eyes to try and picture it. I can’t see anything. Just black. I strain to hear the dance tunes, but the gramophone’s wound down.

  Bernie points through the window to a pile of crumbling stones. “That was once the biggest bank of all – in Golden Street. The walls were thirty inches thick and each vault-door weighed a good four tons at least.” We drive on slowly past. I see a rat dart across the stones. “By 1922, there was just one person left. The millionaires were lining up for hand-outs someplace else, or begging for free soup. They’d spent some seven million dollars winkling out three millions-worth of gold. Crazy, isn’t it? The biggest boom-and-bust that ever was.”

  He pulls up with a jerk, lets me out. An old mattress is lying in the ditch. I pick my way through rusting tins and pipes.

  “I’ll have to leave you, Norah. There’s this guy I got to visit. He’s ninety-three years old, but still a real live wire. He remembers Golden Street when it was crowded with prospectors who ate, talked, breathed and sweated gold. He found some real old snapshots when he was going through a drawer, and I’m hoping I can buy them for our records. Can you amuse yourself? I won’t be long. Why not go see the Bottle House? It’s built of fifty thousand beer bottles. And there’s a heap of stuff to look at. They’ve made it into a museum.”

  He checks on George who’s still asleep, tucks a rug around his legs. It’s getting cold. I walk across a little patch of snow. It scrunches. The land is mostly brown again, just a few white rags of snow. The sun has disappeared.

  Sad grey clouds are lying on the mountains with twists of golden ribbon threaded through them. There is soon more grey than gold. All the colours fade. I’m fading with them.

  This is called a ghost town. Bernie said. I can hear the ghosts, thin and very pale, limping after me. They don’t speak. Nor do I. There is no one else, no one still alive. Or maybe only one. The one he’s gone to see. He’s ninety-three. He’ll die soon. Bernie said families still live here; live in the museum, run a coffee shop. I think he was just joking.

  I pass some ruined houses. The windows are blind eyes. One last ray of sun pokes its finger through an open door. The houses have no roofs. The stones are gardens.

  I walk on, down the hill, find the Bottle House. There is rubbish all around it, bits of car, dead and cold machines, overflowing dustbins. It can’t be a museum. Museums are neat and clean with lots of rules and men in uniform who take your money, let you in and out.

  “Hallo,” I call. “Hallo-o.” I make it louder.

  “Oo-oo,” the mountains copy.

  The door is open, so I walk inside. There are three small rooms, all dark and very poky. Things are jumbled on the floor, or pinned up on the walls. They’re grey with dust, and mostly very old. Old clothes. Old snakes. Old furniture. The floor itself feels gritty and is covered with little bits of different coloured lino, with gaps where they don’t meet. A broken drum is cooking on an old iron stove. It’s rusty. Everything is rusty. Rusty saucepans. Rusty guns.

  I jump. I’ve seen a skeleton. A whole one in a coffin with its lid up. The skull is smiling at me. The photos smile as well. Dead and smiling photos all around me, asking who I am.

  I go a little closer. A dry black bat is pinned beside a women’s white lace glove. My mother wore white gloves like that. These could be her things.

  Better not to have things. They only rust and die.

  I touch a rocking-horse. It whines and starts to move, bumps into a sailor-doll which falls onto its face. I leave it there, creep out again. The pale ghosts point their fingers. The mountains move a little further in.

  I’m cold. I’d like a cup of tea. I walk down to the coffee shop. It doesn’t look like one. It’s all alone in the middle of a wasteland. A sign says “Open”, so I push the door. It’s locked. I knock. A dog barks. On and on. It may be a ghost dog. No one comes.

  I walk on down the track. I’m thinking of my mother. Her white lace gloves. Her skull.

  I come to a wire fence. I don’t know why it’s there. There’s nothing much inside it. Only stony ground and a few brown and thorny bushes.

  I squeeze in through the fence, find some wooden graves. They’re very old. Just piles of stones, or humps, with pieces of plain wood sticking up each end. The wood is rough and stained. No gothic script, or lilies, like that funeral place I read about. No beautiful Memorial Park. No grass at all. No flowers. Poor men’s graves. Men who lived on beans.

  Some of them have wooden cages round them. The cages are all broken, falling into bits. Millionaires begging for free soup, locked for ever in broken wooden cages.

  I walk back the way I’ve come, stand outside the coffee shop again. I knock, I call hallo. Oo-oo-ooooo. Still nobody. Just the tiny frightened rustle of a ghost-rat. I don’t think God wants people in the desert. They’d only spoil it. It belongs to Him. It says so in the Bible. God is very big and needs the space. If men lived there, they’d fill it up with buildings, make a lot of noise. God likes quiet brown peace, not coloured lights. He doesn’t eat or drink, so He wouldn’t waste the food or mind salt water.

  God made sky and mountains before He made us. I think we’re less important. That’s why I like it here. It’s so dark now, I can hardly see the path. The blue mountains have dissolved into blue night. I’d like to be a mountain. Then God would climb me, St Joseph lie on me.

  I find a rock, look up. The sky is full of stars. They’re very special stars here, much bigger and much brighter than in England. There are no windows in the ward, so I hardly ever see them back in England, but when I do, they’re tiny, just small dots.

  Bernie said there are ten thousand billion stars. That’s more than two hundred million. Much much more, he said. He told me there were whole worlds in the sky. Cold and shining worlds, so far away you could spend your whole life getting there and still be nowhere near them when you die. They don’t look far away. They look quite close. I think they can see me.

  The stars have names, like plants have names, or mountains. The names were very hard. I remember one, just one. Pegasus. That’s a horse with wings. I’d like to be a horse with wings. Flying with the stars.

  I keep looking at the sky, trying to find the horse. The sky is shiny black as if somebody’s been polishing it all day. The stars look polished too. Polished with that very special silver-polish which the nuns used for holy things like chalices, not common things like forks.

  My neck is aching, but I keep on looking up. That Reverend told us to. He said: “This New Year will be your year of miracles; your year of holding up your head and seeing all the stars.”

  Year of miracles. I’d like a miracle. To stay on in Death Valley. Live here with St Joseph and with Carole. Have her as my friend. Joined for ever. I don’t want Angelique.

  I close my eyes and wish. A star jumps in the sky. Horses jump. It must be Pegasus. I think he heard me, heard my wish.

  I smile.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  “There’s the sign,” says Angelique, as she turns left off the highway, following the arrow. The party’s over, Death Valley just a haze of gin and headache.

  “Silver Palm Brothel,” I spell out silently. I turn away, feel sick. Up till now, I haven’t quite believed it – that Angelique, my friend, my rescuer, is a … a … All the words are so repellent: whore, hooker, scrubber, tart. She calls it working girl, says she’s simply going back to work. Work! Getting paid for letting any freak or pervert hire her body, use it like a punchbag or a rubber doll.

 
; She kidded me she was a dancer (stripper). She was – for eighteen months. But prostitutes earn more, much more. Which is why I’m going with her. Yes, Carole Joseph, apprentice prostitute. It should have been quite different. Carole Ben Schmuel, Zionist, new wife. My Jewish bridegroom spent the wedding night in jail. He’s still in jail. His idealistic work for the Land of Milk and Honey turned out to be robbery, extortion, even accessory to murder. Oh yes, he loved the Jews. He kept nothing for himself. All the loot was sent to Tel Aviv. The murdered man was Arab. It’s God’s work to murder Arabs, God’s work to steal for Israel. A petty thug with high ideals.

  I don’t believe it – not a word of it. I keep thinking of his hands, blood on them, handcuffs round the wrists, touching me, exploring me, going everywhere. I’ve had nightmares. His black prick cocked and loaded like a gun. Blood instead of come. My orange-blossom wedding dress embroidered with black bullet holes.

  “Angelique … ?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry. I feel sick. Can you stop?”

  “Sure.”

  She pulls up by the roadside. We’re in a no-man’s-land. No fields, no houses, just a yellow-brown parched landscape with jagged mountains closing in around us like some prison fence.

  I scramble out, looking for a tree or bush, something to be sick behind. There’s not a tree for miles. Just a few bare rocks sticking up from stony barren soil. I crouch down on the ground, knees pricking on the grit. Throwing up is the most lonely thing on earth. You’re nothing but a heaving stomach, retching throat; a shameful smelly outcast. I want to sick up everything – my misery, my shock, the whole jumbled battleground of fury, guilt, horror, disbelief; leave it here in this shrivelled landscape, drive on somewhere new and green.

  I spit out a slimy trail of mucous, nothing else. I keep coughing and heaving to try and bring the rest up, but all I do is hurt my throat. I can’t even be sick. “Daddy,” I mouth silently. He always held the sick bowl. My mother couldn’t cope.

  I mop my face on a corner of my skirt, walk slowly back to Angelique. She’s flicking through a fashion magazine, looks up from the new Italian spring-knits.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  Angelique unscrews a Thermos. I drink too fast, scald my mouth. Simple sorts of pain block out the deeper ones, at least for a few minutes.

  “Look, I’d better drive you back, Carole.”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t said a word since we set out. You must be ill.”

  I force a smile. “I’ll survive.”

  “You can still change your mind, you know. I could probably wangle you some other sort of job. Jack Stein needs a waitress.”

  “No.” Waitressing won’t earn two air fares back to England, two sets of clothes, a suitcase. All our stuff is stranded at the Gold Rush, out of bounds.

  I daren’t return there. The police may be waiting for me, ready to arrest me as soon as I walk in. Oh, I know I haven’t done anything, but I don’t want to be questioned, labelled an accessory myself. They may find out I’ve already got a record. Okay, stealing a swiss roll is not exactly a big deal, but once you’re in their hands, they can blow things up, make them sound much worse, especially in Las Vegas where crime appears to be the local industry.

  They may even have our passports. I gave them both to Reuben. He said he had to have them when he changed our tickets over from London to Tel Aviv. Perhaps he didn’t change them, just sent them on to Israel as another sort of loot, invented the whole story of our new life on a kibbutz. But then why did he turn up for the wedding? Even Angelique can’t understand that. If he’s the crook she says he is, he should have grabbed the goods, then done a bunk, disappeared completely, not put himself at risk by appearing at the chapel. Would he have gone through with the marriage, caught that flight to Israel? God knows. I keep asking myself questions which don’t have any answers, going round and round in circles. Did he have the passports on him, or had he left them in his room? Or had he already doctored them, passed them on to someone? I’d feel a lot less frightened if I just knew where they were: on their way to Tel Aviv, in the Las Vegas Police Department, or totally destroyed.

  Angelique was horrified I’d lost them; even changed her tune about the cops – said I should report the theft, tell them all I knew, ask their help in getting back to England. No. I can’t betray my husband. Almost husband. It wasn’t theft, in any case. I gave them to him freely. I’m sure he meant it at the time – that we’d marry, fly to Israel. He was probably forced to change his plans. Some threat, or plot, or blackmail, by a member of some gang, someone much more ruthless who had him in their power. Reuben wasn’t ruthless. Okay, so he stole from other people, but not to make himself rich. And whatever else they say he’s done, they’re not crimes at all in his mind. If you believe in something passionately, you have to override the law. Even Christ was called a criminal.

  And yet … Oh God, it’s awful, but my own doubts keep creeping in. The thing’s so complicated. I’ve run it and re-run it in my mind – his ideals and his vision, and then what Angelique said, or read out from the newspaper: how he’d been in jail before, jumped bail, was a disturbed and violent drop-out who seized on the whole Jewish thing as an outlet for his own aggression. She said she wouldn’t even glamorise him with the name of terrorist. He didn’t have the guts or dedication. He’s also been in a mental institution – yes, that as well as jail. She hinted he was really quite unhinged. That’s upset me more than anything, except I still can’t quite believe it. You can land up in a loony-bin through sheer bad luck, or just with minor problems like worry or depression. Don’t I know that from my own case, or Norah’s, or Di Townsend’s? If Angelique’s still jealous, she could be blackening him on purpose. She told me she first met him in the brothel, as a client. Whose money paid for that, I’d like to know? Or is it just a lie? Another lie. As a child, you accept most lies as gospel. Being older means you never know, can’t tell friends from jealous bitches; unhinged crooks from husbands.

  Angelique refills my cup, extracts a cigarette from her initialled silver case, lights it for me. She’s acting like a friend, has done since she first showed up, providing everything – clothes, food, smokes, a place to stay.

  “Angelique … ?”

  “Mm?”

  “You … know I’m grateful, don’t you?”

  “What for? Turning you over to a life of vice, corrupting your young innocence, acting the procuress?”

  “Shut up.”

  Angelique laughs, swings her hair back. “Look, love, you’re intelligent. You don’t have to take the standard view of brothels. They’re a service.” She shrugs. “A social service. Providing sex for those who can’t get it elsewhere because they’re too busy or too old or shy, or their wives are sick – or selfish – or their girlfriends too uptight to give them what they want. Okay, some of them want the way-out kind of stuff, but so what? It’s not doing any harm. Better to do it safely with a girl who’s trained to handle it, than break a marriage or go out and rape some kid. A brothel cuts the risks all round. No pimps, no threats of blackmail, much less chance of catching a dose. We’re checked, you realise, every week. The doctor’s quite a sweetie, laughs and jokes with us, stays on to have a drink. It’s all quite civilised. Okay, so we charge. But everything costs money. Why not sex? You could say it makes it better. People only value what they pay for.”

  Angelique stows away the Thermos, reapplies her lipstick. I say nothing, simply watch her lips change from palely prim to scarlet. I keep wondering what that glossy mouth has done, where it’s been, how much it earns.

  She blots it, twice, smiles at her reflection in the mirror. “Our clients aren’t just nerds, you know. In fact, I’ve met a better class of person here than I’d ever meet back home in boring Watford – attorneys, film producers, top businessmen, high-ranking physicians – you name it. Some of them work sixteen hours
a day. They haven’t time for dating, so they come to us instead – get exactly what they want and what they pay for – then straight back to their desks. No need for smoochy phone calls, lavish presents, wining, dining, dressing up.” She crumples up her Kleenex, smooths her skirt.

  “Others are just lonely. They may spend six or seven hours with us, but only half an hour or so on sex. They want tea and sympathy as well, someone to confide in, someone they can trust. Some are handicapped, or have lost an arm or leg, or even both. One poor sod I saw last month had been smashed up in a car crash and still had all the scars. Others are too ugly to attract a girl, maybe very short, or hugely overweight. One guy who comes quite often – drives all the way from Utah – weighs three hundred and thirteen pounds. We need a winch to get him on the bed.”

  Angelique is laughing. I’m appalled. Bad enough to think of normal clients, but dwarfs and amputees, Billy Bunters, cripples …

  “We’re doing them a favour, Carole. They crawl in here feeling like they’re failures, and if we’re any damn good at our job, they ought to swagger out. We’re twenty girls in all, okay? Three of those are ex-nurses and two ex-social workers. One was a psychotherapist with her own private practice. Carl picks girls like that deliberately. Okay, we’ve got to be reasonably attractive, and ready to open our legs as well as just our arms, but if we’re not kind and sympathetic and good listeners, then better stick to stripping.” She sheathes her lipstick, starts the car.

  I say nothing. Who’s she kidding? Does she need to see herself as a Florence Nightingale, can’t face the sordid facts? Or is there some real truth in all that spiel? Is it any worse for Reuben to call robbery and murder Holy War than for Angelique to turn whoring into social work? Don’t ask me – I don’t know. I know less and less with each new day, in fact. All the uncomplicated values which my father taught me, or my school spelt out, seem too naive and simple for the real world.