Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  “Kyung.”

  He smiles, a sheepish smile, and suddenly he’s talking, letting out a flash-flood of Korean. I can hear the triumph in it, the relief. I start to laugh myself, crazy hurting laughter which catches at my chest, makes tears run down my face into my mouth. The bed is shaking under me, as if Reuben is still thrusting. I try to stop it, fight to get control. I can’t. Kyung will think I’m hysterical or mad. No. He’s laughing with me, God knows why. Maybe just elation or politeness. We lie together for a while; me heaving, choking, he giggling like a girl. At last, I peter out, just a few weak final spasms and dull pain in my ribs. He’s subsided too, his prick a tiny foetus, the immaculate satin sheets stained a bit with sperm. I want to rip them off the bed, hang them from the window as a sign to Reuben.

  “See, super-prick, I can do it too, betray you too. You’re not so special, are you? This boy really likes me. And he’s decent with it – sensitive and caring.”

  I squeeze Kyung’s hot hand. We’re bonded now, not by sex, by all that stupid laughing, letting-go. Mutual orgasm. I pad out of bed, pour out more champagne. Champagne to celebrate, not to boost Carl’s profits. I clink my glass to Kyung’s. “Many happy returns,” I say, wish he understood.

  He takes two sips, then reaches for his shirt. He’s going. It’s all over. I ought to be relieved. Instead, I feel a stab of almost panic. Once he’s left, I’ll be alone again, alone with Reuben. Until this afternoon. Then two more clients, maybe jerks or bastards, Naima’s sort. I was lucky with Kyung. I watch him do his waistcoat up, knot his quiet blue tie. He looks so neat and safe, I long to keep him here. If only we could talk, communicate. I’d like to ask him where he’s staying, what he does, how he lives back home. I can see his grey-haired mother serving rice, that pigtailed niece or sister playing chequers with him. Nice to join their circle, be another sister, with a proper family, somewhere to belong.

  “Don’t go,” I whisper silently. “You’re special. You’re my first.” Peg’s got this baby-book with photos of her grandson pasted in – first tiny tooth, first curl. I want to stick Kyung in my own book, snip off a lock of hair, scoop up a drop of come.

  Sentimental claptrap! This stranger doesn’t even know my name. He’s buckling on his watch, his mind already on his next appointment. There’ll be a string of others after him who don’t know who I am, don’t care; who’ve picked me from the line-up as just a new and different cunt.

  I replace my own clothes. The playsuit seems too tight now, as if I’ve spread and bloated. I pick up Kyung’s jacket, help him on with it. The formal suit makes us both more solemn. He even bows to me, a little nervous bobbing bow, as I hold the door for him, then escort him to Carl’s office. I have to report to Carl myself as soon as Kyung’s left. Meanwhile, I slink along the passage to my own room, glad no one’s around. Elation and revenge are like champagne – all fizz at first, then flat, then hangover.

  I flop back on my bed, light a cigarette. It’s odd to think that almost no one in the world knows where I am. I suppose I should be glad. At least I’m pretty safe, safe from the police, but it’s a horrid frightening feeling all the same. My pants are damp with Kyung, slimy, leaking sperm. Am I really going to stick this life? I haven’t got much choice. I’ve got to hide somewhere, make some money somehow. I’m responsible for Norah, for myself. If I give up now, we both could starve.

  Kyung’s taxi is pulling up outside. I hear a door slam, the engine starting up again; seem to fade and dwindle with it as it drones away, fainter, fainter, fainter. Silence for a moment. I take a deep drag on my cigarette, feel the smoke burning in my throat. A baby cries. I jump. Is Peg’s grandson still around? It feels as if years and years have passed, as if the kid should be grown-up now, not a wailing babe-in-arms. I’m surprised that Carl allows it here at all. Its crying sounds so desperate, so pleading sort of hopeless. Someone sings to shush it; not Peg this time, a younger voice. The lullaby’s the same, though – a threatening violent song.

  When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,

  Down will come Carole, Norah and all.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “If you have been raped, or sexually assaulted, then ring this number …”

  The number is a long one. It flashes on and off the screen. I know what rape is. Angelique told me. She said not to leave the house. There’s a doctor on the programme. He’s not like Dr Bates. He’s talking to six women who have all been raped. None of them is pretty. One of them is old.

  “Every man is a rapist,” says the old one. “In his mind.”

  I suddenly feel frightened. I’m all alone with George. The maid has gone out shopping. Someone came to fetch her. A dark man on a motor-bike. She’s never gone out before, or left us on our own. George sees me glance at him, stares back, keeps on staring. I look down, then up again. His eyes are on me still.

  “In America alone, someone somewhere is being sexually assaulted every three and a quarter minutes …”

  I’m not sure if George can hear. I switch the programme off, watch his face. It doesn’t change. His eyes are following everything I do.

  “Don’t stare,” I say. “It’s rude.”

  He takes no notice. He never ever answers if I speak. I still talk to him, just to be polite. Or because I hate the silence. It’s not Death Valley silence. That was safe, and stretched for miles. Here, we’re all closed in. There’s a fence around the house and trees around the fence. The trees are bare, but tall. They shut out half the light. The windows don’t open and there are three separate layers of curtains, the lacey ones stretched right across the glass.

  We’re both too old and shabby for the room. It’s full of new expensive things, which don’t like us being here. I’m scared to use the table in case the glass top cracks and the maid took the cushions off the chair-seats, because she said we’d dirty them. The seats are very hard. There’s a picture on the wall of a man with two heads but only just one eye. The eye has no lashes, never closes. Whenever I look up at it, it’s watching me. Three eyes watching me. His and George’s two.

  I don’t think it’s Angelique’s home. Carole said it was, but she said that just to trick me. They’re living in her real home. Angelique’s her friend now. Angelique is prettier. And younger. They left together on the Monday morning, disappeared before I was awake. Carole didn’t leave a note. She phoned me twice, but I don’t think it was her. She told me she was phoning from a place called New Orleans, where she was working as a dancer in a club, but the maid said no, the call was just a local one.

  George is still staring. “Do you know where Angelique lives?” I ask him, very loudly. He dribbles in reply.

  The silence seems much worse than yesterday’s. I put my earplugs in, to block it out. The ones from Flyaway. I didn’t steal them. I found them in the bottom of my handbag.

  It’s all I’ve got left, that old brown bag and Carole’s wedding dress. I miss my green two-piece. It had my smell on it. I left it in the Gold Rush and the Gold Rush has closed down. So has Beechgrove. Carole didn’t tell me. She’s kind like that. She knew it would upset me. But I guessed it anyway. We were meant to fly home yesterday, but we didn’t go. We couldn’t. Beechgrove is just rubble.

  I think we’ve moved to lodgings. Lodgings in America are very new and grand, but there are still a lot of rules. We sit in just one room all day, watching the TV. We can’t go out, or make tea in the kitchen, and usually we’re watched. The maid’s in charge. She shouts a lot, like Miss Johnson in my other lodgings. Her name’s Maria, which is Mary’s name. That’s wrong for her. God’s mother never shouted.

  I have to wear her clothes. I’ve got her dress on and her knickers. The dress is pink and shiny and smells of dead carnations, and the knickers have brown stains on. I don’t like them at all, but Angelique’s clothes won’t fit and I’m scared of wearing George’s any more. He’s very ill and some illnesses are catching. I’d hate to never speak. It makes you feel more lonely.

  I take my earplugs
out in case he’s talking now. He isn’t, so I put them back. I can hear things with them in. Noises in my head. Conversations. Sometimes Carole’s speaking. She says we’re friends again, says she’s coming back. She’s only been away two days. It feels longer. Much longer.

  I haven’t seen the house yet, only this room and my bedroom and three toilets. I sleep alone, which you have to do in lodgings. When Carole was here (which was only one night), she slept in Angelique’s room. I heard them laughing. I don’t like it on my own. I’m frightened of the wolves.

  I wish I could get up. I’m hungry. George and I have our meals on trays. They get smaller every day. It’s probably because I haven’t paid. I haven’t any money. On Sunday night, we had proper cooked tea sitting round a table with Angelique and Carole, and the maid brought all the food in (lots of food) and called Angelique “madam”. We may not get any meals at all today. Or drinks. I’m thirsty, very thirsty. I think I’ll go and find a glass of water. Water’s free.

  “Would you like a drink of water, George?”

  He’s gone to sleep. He only sleeps or stares. I have to ask him, though, in case he’s listening in a dream. Some people are more real in dreams.

  I creep out to the passage, stop outside the kitchen door. Not a sound. I’d like to see the kitchen. I push the door a crack, slip in. It’s very big and clean and reminds me of the chocolate factory because of all the white machines. There’s some food on the table. A loaf of bread with little bits of wood-shaving sprinkled on the top, some round red shiny apples and two big fat bananas. We never had bananas in the war. We don’t have them at Beechgrove. Only tinned fruit in bowls, with custard, for Sunday evening tea. I’d like a piece of real fruit, fruit with skin on and a smell.

  Eve stole an apple which is why everyone wears clothes. They were naked in the Garden before she ate the fruit. I’d rather wear my clothes. You’d get raped if you were naked.

  It’s hard to eat an apple with false teeth. Bananas are much softer. Even babies eat them. Even George. I eat one in my mind. It’s very soft and ripe. I can smell it through the skin. There’s cream on top, and sugar; that damp and yellow sugar which looks like sand.

  I miss the sand. I miss the walks with Bernie. Bernie liked me. Bernie was my friend. I was better in Death Valley. Here I’m worse, much worse. I must be. They’ve shut me up with George. George takes pills as well. More than I do. Yellow ones, and blue ones, and shiny red and purple ones at night. Mine are only white.

  I pretend I’m very full. I ate both the big bananas, all the cream and sugar, and half the loaf of bread. Now I need a drink to wash them down. I drink some water from the tap. I don’t know where the glasses are and even if I found one, I might leave germs on it.

  I wipe my mouth, start back to the sitting room. Then stop. If Maria’s out, I could look around the house, find out whose it is. There may be other patients, other lodgers. I’d like to talk to someone. I’d like to make a friend.

  Carole was my friend. Friends always say goodbye or leave a note. Perhaps she left the note upstairs, laid it on her bed. A letter with her name signed underneath. I could cut the “Carole” out, keep it in a matchbox.

  I creep upstairs to the room she slept in. The door opens with a groan, as if it’s ill. Thirty, forty women turn to look at me, women with red steel lips and nails. They’re pinned up round the walls. Some of them are naked; some are Angelique. She’s dancing with a bear. She’s shaking hands with people. A small bald man is staring at her bosoms. Another man is giving her a chalice. I don’t think he’s a priest.

  I’m scared of Angelique. She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t like her brother, never smiles at him. She only likes people if they’re pretty and not ill. She’s smiling on the walls, smiling thirteen times. I count the smiles. Thirteen is unlucky.

  The other women all look sad or cross. They don’t want me here, don’t like me in their room. I think they’re cross I came upstairs at all.

  “I’m looking for a note,” I say. “A letter from my friend.” I like to call her friend still. Sometimes if you say things, they come true.

  The room is sad as well, very stiff and clean as if it’s died and someone’s laid it out for burial. Everything is white. White walls. White curtains, drawn to keep the sun out, white shroud on the bed. I’ll never find the note. The Death Men have cleared everything away. At Beechgrove, patients have old dolls, or dirty bits of rag, or knitting bags, or fruit drops, spread out in a jumble on their lockers. The chest of drawers is bare here. And the dressing table. There’s just a vase of flowers standing on the sill. Pale green flowers which stare.

  I go across and smell them. There isn’t any smell. I’m not sure if they’re real or not. Flowers are never green. I’m scared to touch them, scared to move at all. I stand there for a while, try to think of Carole. The thoughts don’t work. I can only think of coffins and white shrouds.

  There’s a sudden cry behind me. The cat’s walked in through the open bedroom door. Carole said it’s Burmese, but she’s wrong. It’s a Russian Blue – Angelique told me so herself. It isn’t blue, but a dirty greyish brown. I’ve never seen a blue cat. A lot of things are foreign here. The maid is Guatemalan. I don’t know what that is, but most foreigners are cross.

  The cat is snarling at me, drawing back its top lip, showing yellow teeth. I squeeze behind the bed, crouch down on the floor. There’s something on the carpet, something small and coloured. I pick it up. It’s a hairslide, Carole’s hairslide. It’s shaped like a butterfly with pink and purple wings. She wore it for her wedding. The Death Man must have missed it, which means Carole’s still alive. I hold it in my palm, feel it flutter. The women on the walls are watching, muttering. I can hear them saying “Thief!”

  “It’s not Angelique’s,” I tell them. “It belongs to Carole. And I’m going to give it back.”

  They don’t believe me. I think I’d better leave. They may be men, those women. They had women in the show like that, with long red nails, and jewels, and even bosoms, but the lady sitting next to me told me they were men in female clothes. Perhaps I didn’t hear right. The pills affect my ears. I’ve started taking them again, but only half the dose. Carole said we’re short of pills. Sister gave me enough for fourteen days. We’ve been here twelve. I think. We should be home in England with more pills. If you stop or start your tablets or change the strength, they can make you worse, not better. I feel much worse since Carole left. Since Monday.

  I close the door as quietly as I can, walk on down the passage. I find another flight of stairs, just a short one, leading to a room all on its own. I walk up very slowly. I’m so hungry, there’s nothing in my legs. I didn’t take an apple. Eve stole just a bite of one and they had to leave the Garden and work all day instead of picking flowers.

  I try the door. It isn’t locked, so I push it and go in. I can see a pair of brown bare legs stretched out on the bed. Men’s legs. Hairy legs. There isn’t any head. The legs are jerking up and down.

  “Are you all right?” I ask. If these are patients’ lodgings, the man may be unwell, or epileptic. Some patients have bad fits and roll around.

  There’s a sudden shout and then two heads appear, one of them Maria’s. No. Maria went out shopping with a man. A short dark man with curly hair. This one’s short and dark. His hair is curly, wet with sweat. He’s shouting. Both the mouths are shouting. It can’t be Maria. She’s always spoken English. This is something else, a very angry language. I may need stronger drugs. It happened once before: I couldn’t understand what mouths were saying. I could see them moving, making faces at me, red and very rude, but silent rude. They gave me an injection and when I woke up, all the sounds came back again, though muffled.

  It’s happening now. The words are coming back. English words. Maria’s foreign English. It is Maria. I recognise her voice. I think she was undressed. She’s pulling on a skirt, banging things around while she searches for her shoes.

  “I’m sorry,” I keep saying. I don’t
know what I’ve done, but it’s something very bad.

  She pushes past me, crashes down the stairs. I can hear her shouting still, slamming doors. The small dark man is zipping up his trousers. He slams his door as well, almost in my face.

  I tiptoe down the stairs, hide in the toilet. I’m very frightened. I hate people to shout. She’s yelling things at George now, awful things. I wait for a long time. There are blue roses in the toilet. Angelique likes blue. I like brown and green. I clutch my old brown handbag very tight. I’m glad I’ve got it with me. I never leave it anywhere, not now. I sleep with it beside me on the pillow. Sometimes I don’t sleep at all. I’m frightened they may close the bedroom down, before I wake.

  There are no windows in the toilet, only blinds. But I hear a motor-bike roar off. That’s the dark man’s bike. It sounds angry like Maria. Maybe they’ve gone shopping. Really shopping.

  I wait a bit longer in case they both come back. They don’t. The house is holding its breath. I can feel its heartbeat, pounding far too hard.

  I go back to the sitting room. I won’t leave it again. George hasn’t any eyes now. They’ve disappeared and the skin around them is all swollen and puffed up. He’s crying. Crying silently. I’ve never seen him cry before. His lips are opening, wriggling, but no words come out. Or perhaps they do, but I’m just too ill to hear them. We’re both much worse, George as well as me.

  If the maid reports us, I expect we’ll have to move again. At least it’s very clean here, with lots of room. The new place may be dirty, or so crowded they run out of sheets and blankets and we have to sleep on mattresses with just old curtains over us. Perhaps they’ve told George that we’re moving and he’s scared.

  “You’ll have me,” I say. “I’ll help you.”

  Unless they separate us. They may send him to one place and me to somewhere else. I don’t think he could manage on his own. He can’t even dry his eyes. I dry them for him on a piece of toilet paper. I lost all my handkerchiefs. They were in my suitcase and those people on the plane confiscated it. They were angry because I stole the soap.