Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  “I don’t want to drag up Vietnam again, but you’ve got to understand – I was shit-scared out there, Carole – really not a hero. There were dangers all around us: not just the shelling, but mortars, snipers, booby-traps, maybe ground-up glass in a cup of coffee, or a tiny smiling kid with a gun behind his back. You relaxed for a minute, you were dead. You couldn’t even look forward to the next hour or day or week, let alone to going home. That was tempting fate, when each day might be your last, and when so many of your friends had died already.”

  Victor traps his hands between his knees. I copy him. I’m itching for a fag still, and all this talk of danger makes it worse.

  “Okay, we were all scared. If you haven’t been in combat, it’s hard to understand – the constant stress, the shakes, the cold-sweat nightmares when you’re wrestling in your sleep with bloody stinking corpses. It was far worse for the grunts, of course. They were in the thick of it. I had this friend in the marines who was out there several years. His nerves were shot to pieces. Even two years after coming home, he’d dive down to the ground if he heard a car backfire. I know just how he felt. I was in this restaurant when they were preparing Steak Diane – you know, the one they flame on a little charcoal burner at your table. They lit the match – I shot out of my seat. It was ’69 again. White phosphorous …”

  “Victor, that’s not cowardice.”

  “What is it then?”

  Imagination. Sensitivity. Honesty. All the things I love him for. I kiss him for reply. His own kiss is half-hearted now.

  “I’m not sure you understand, honey. It makes you real damn mean, that kind of fear. You see your best friend maimed or shot to pieces, and you’re thinking thank God it’s his smashed leg, not mine, or his corpse cold and stiff.”

  “But we all think that, not just in wars. It’s natural.”

  “It’s not. It’s sick, inhuman. You get so you can hardly feel a thing for thousands dead. You’re just scared out of your wits for your one puny little life.” He shakes his head. “I don’t care to be like that.”

  “That’s only because you’re nicer than most people.”

  “Yeah, I know – a hero.” He winces at the word, suddenly leans forward, takes my hand. “Carole, honey, you ask me can I love a thief, but can you love a murderer? I killed men, Carole, and not just men – women, children, too – innocent civilians. I can’t forget that, ever. It’s left scars, worse than these.” He gestures to his thighs and stomach, as if dismissing them. “Oh, I know it’s not called murder in a war. They dress it up with other names: self-defence, patriotism, defeating the red menace. You shoot a little gook kid and they give you a medal for serving Uncle Sam. You burn down a whole village and …” He breaks off, shakes his head.

  “We gunners were so out of touch. I mean, some of our guys never even saw the enemy. They just sat in their air-conditioned bunkers shooting at a map reference fifteen miles away. But this friend of mine in the marines was always needling me about having things too cushy – cold beer on demand and no dismembered corpses underfoot. So I joined him on a few patrols. I just had to see what was going on out there. I was really shaken, Carole, kept asking could I accompany him again, as if I couldn’t quite believe it first time round – the heat and stench and rotting limbs, and whole villages destroyed. The rest of the guys thought I was crazy, but it was far too easy shelling all those targets without seeing the results, with no real blood on our hands or boots or consciences.”

  He gets up, walks slowly to the window, stares out, frowning, as if at blood and carnage. “I’ll never forget it, never. Those villages were poor, dirt poor – just little shacks, with ducks and chickens in the streets, and old bent peasant women haggling for a banana or a cup of rice, and kids who could still smile, though God knows why.” He turns back to me, voice angry, both hands clenched. “Often, we’d just smashed them to pieces – nothing left at all – no kids, no houses, not even any corpses, or none that you could recognise. Just fire and smoke and rubble. Those villages were their life, and we’d destroyed them. I’d destroyed them. That’s hard to live with, Carole.”

  I say nothing. War for me is just a word – or has been up to yesterday; something historical and abstract which always happened long ago or miles away, not exploding in the present in a tiny charring room. Victor feels so passionately about it, even now, when all those years have passed. Isn’t that proof he’s not a brute, the fact he cares so much, feels so guilty still? I try to point it out to him. He interrupts.

  “That’s too easy, Carole. We were brutes, some of us. I’ve seen guys slice off ears and fingers from VC corpses, even … private parts, collect them up as souvenirs.”

  I shudder. There’s nothing left of our blue and golden day. It’s grey outside, clouds and darkness building up, winter-time again. “But you didn’t do that, Victor. I simply don’t believe it.”

  “No-o.” He spins the word out. “But I could have done. Those guys were normal decent men when they joined up – boys, not men – your age, Carole, barely out of high school, confused and scared and maybe trying to prove themselves. The training brutalised them. I saw one guy fire twenty rounds into a tiny kid of only twelve or so, and the look on that man’s face – my God! I can’t forget it. It was like he was enjoying it. Many vets admitted they got a kind of thrill from having power – power to rough up peasant women just for the sheer hell of it, or set fire to their houses and burn everything inside, even animals and babies who’d been left behind. The war turned them into thugs, taught them not to feel.”

  I grip my cup. That’s not so different from the Silver Palm. Young girls starting innocent, learning to be hard, becoming ruthless, callous, enjoying any chance to humiliate or even hurt the clients, relishing their power. Okay, it’s not a war, and outwardly everyone’s good friends, but I’ve still seen the equivalent of Victor’s tough GIs – bitter female veterans, unable to adapt to the normal world outside.

  Victor moves towards his fish tanks, stands between them, one hand on the glass. “They made us still more brutish by trying to convince us we were fighting some lower form of life. I swallowed all that shit at first – that the VC weren’t normal human beings with hearts and souls, just slant-eyed commie gooks who didn’t value life or mourn their dead. All Orientals were meant to be the same, not just inscrutable – inhuman. Then I saw a village funeral, and the grief was quite incredible. I cried myself, just watching.”

  “And you call yourself a brute, Victor?”

  He’s looking at his morays, not at me, as if he still can’t meet my eyes. “I did become much harder, Carole. You had to. I felt I’d lost all touch with that idealistic boy of twenty-two who’d never used a gun except to shoot a rabbit or racoon. I guess that’s why I’ve never been back home again – preferred to forget that kid, forget his high ideals.”

  I reach my hand out. “Do you miss your home town, Victor?”

  “Sure I do. It’s where my roots are, where I still belong. And yet I’m kind of nervous still. If I did go back, people might well gossip, maybe criticise, or …”

  “Criticise? What for?”

  “Well, some would say for fighting in a pointless war, but more would disapprove of the way I see things now, call me unpatriotic. And then they might object to my having run off to New York, cut my ties.”

  I spring up, kick my chair away. “God! They’re all the same, Victor. They were like that back in Portishead – all petty tittle-tattle. Why had I gone to London when Bristol was good enough for them, and what a louse I was to leave my poor sick widowed mother on her own. And when I landed up in court – jeez! the uproar. Jan’s parents wouldn’t even have me in their house and …”

  “Hush, darling, it’s not like that back home – not at all. In fact, if I’m honest with myself, I guess most of it is simply in my head.

  I’m just embarrassed about the way I look, and everybody knowing and …” He slumps down at the table. “I hate that pity stuff.”

  I hat
e it for him. I can suddenly see Laura, a stuck-up bitch like Suzie, walking out on Victor in the hospital. She probably had a doting living father, so she didn’t need him, didn’t value him. I’ll show her, show them all. I’ll have him walk down the main street in … in … tennis shorts, and if anyone so much as turns their head, they’ll have me to contend with. He will be a hero and so will I. I like the word, whatever Victor says. I pull him to his feet.

  “Victor, let’s go back – together – you and me.”

  He laughs. “Come on, honey. Time to change. Shouldn’t you try Norah again, tell her we’ll be leaving soon, give Angelique some warning that you’re bringing someone with you?”

  “Okay, in a sec. But, listen, Victor, I’m serious. I want to see your home town. I’d even like to live there, settle down.”

  He’s staring at me, stunned.

  “You don’t belong here, Victor. It’s not your home, not really. You’re a foreigner, like your fish. Even half your plants were brought in from somewhere else. Everything’s imported – lionfish, orchids, corals, flowers.” I trace the exotic lilies on the vase. They never grew in Vegas. And I’m even more a foreigner myself. I’ve been feeling really rootless recently. The fact I’ve lost my passport seems to have cut me off from England altogether. I’d never get a job there anyway, and I can’t go back to Jan’s now, and Beechgrove’s closing down and …

  Beechgrove. I think of Norah, alone with Angelique, nervous of her, shy, maybe scared to ask if she needs the toilet; stuck with George for a whole two weeks before that. It’s time she had a let out.

  “Victor?” I nudge his arm. “It’s not a bad idea, you know. We all three need a home.”

  “Three?”

  “Well, Norah. I feel sort of responsible, since it was me who dragged her out here in the first place. Would you mind if she came with us?”

  “N … No. Of course not. But …”

  “But what?”

  Victor’s leaning against the wall, as if he can’t support himself; looks rigid, almost paralysed. “Carole, I’ve got to get this straight. Are you talking about us …” He swallows, seems to find the word impossible. “Marrying?”

  I don’t answer for a moment. The word’s difficult for me as well, full of dangerous memories, betrayals. “Not necessarily. And certainly not yet. Not on the rebound, as you put it. I think we ought to wait. It’s like the … sex thing. I want us to recover first. From everything. From Reuben and the brothel and Vietnam and …”

  Victor’s sounding dazed still. “But marriage is for ever. You can’t mean …”

  “So you don’t want me then, for ever?”

  “It’s not that.” His voice is cold suddenly, cold and even hard. He’s moved away, right up to the door as if he’s trying to escape me. “Look, Carole, we’ve been over this before. I’m twenty-four years older.”

  “So? They can gossip about that, instead, in Bardstown. I’ll have to move in any case. Otherwise I’ll never live my past down. If we stay on here, they’ll tattle about you living with a tart. God! That reminds me – d’you realise you’re still paying Carl a fortune to keep me here at all? Even yesterday, he was gloating when I phoned. You could almost hear him totting up the hours, working out his profit. I’d better phone again, tell him you drove me to Angelique’s last night and I’ve been officially off-duty since then.”

  “I’ll call him, Carole.” Victor still sounds cool. His face is closed, defensive. He doesn’t want me, obviously. He’s not even looking at me, just staring down, as if regretting all the things he’s ever said.

  I march over to the phone, snatch up the receiver. “I’ll make my own calls, thanks.” I’m praying that he’ll follow, tell me he still loves me, that he’s thrilled by my idea. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move at all.

  “Damn,” I say. “I misdialled.” There’s a recorded message babbling on, some cheerful smarmy female I could murder.

  “Carole, let me handle this. You could land yourself in trouble. Carl’s a real tough guy. He may want you back immediately, insist you go on working there.”

  I shrug. Who cares? Okay, so it’s back to oafs and rotters, pricks and perverts, but rather them than bloody hypocrites who pretend they’re crazed with love for you until you actually let on you’d like to live with them. I steal another glance at Victor – face still shuttered, eyes not meeting mine. Fine for him to act the great romantic so long as he imagined it was all a fantasy and he could make his exit quickly if things became too real. Okay, so he still wants to “save” me from the brothel, but nothing else apparently, nothing permanent. And it’s “Carole” now, not darling, honey, sweetheart – “Carole” twice.

  I jerk back to the bookcase, lob out half a dozen heavy books, leave them scattered on the floor, retrieve my cigarettes. I ram one in my mouth, search round for a match. I threw away my lighter as a symbolic gesture yesterday. Symbolic bilge! All that stuff about love and sacrifice is just a load of claptrap. You’re always disillusioned in the end. Better to stay tough, grit your teeth and accept that men are shits.

  I can’t find any matches. I push past Victor, slouch out to the passage, search the bureau there.

  He follows me this time, asks me what’s the matter, what’s he done. As if he didn’t know. I don’t bother to reply, just doodle with my dead cold fag on the hard unfeeling wood.

  “Look, why don’t I phone Carl from my bedroom? Then you won’t have to listen if it bugs you.”

  I swing round to face him. “Forget the bloody phone-call. If you don’t want me yourself, Victor, I may as well go back to Carl. At least he values me. He was saying just last week that I’m …”

  Victor grabs my shoulder. “Don’t want you? Are you crazy? I want you more than anything I’ve …”

  “Yeah, and the minute I suggest we might shack up together, you go all cold and distant, can’t wait to get away. What d’you think I felt when … ?”

  He takes me back to the sitting room, sits me down, tries to calm his own voice as he crouches on the carpet at my feet. “Of course I’ve thought of marriage. I’ve been dying to ask you if you’d be my wife, had to try and stop myself at least a dozen times.” He turns away, frowning, stares down at his hands. “It simply isn’t fair.”

  “Not fair?”

  “In terms of poker, I’ve got a dead hand. There’s that great age gap to start with, and the … scars and …” He pummels his thighs, as if furious with them suddenly. His voice is low, embarrassed. “And I’m not sure I can have kids. You didn’t know that, did you? It isn’t certain. The doctors couldn’t say. They just said wait and see and …”

  “Who said I wanted kids? I’d be a rotten mother anyway.” I grin. “Always blowing my top.”

  “I’d love kids. Your kids.”

  “So you expect me to have them out of marriage, then? Poor rotten little bastards.”

  He shifts position on the floor, so that now he’s almost kneeling at my feet. “Carole, will you marry me?”

  “No, I won’t,” I say. “I asked you first and you said no. Typical male pride.” I’m laughing, almost crying. “Oh, Victor, d’you think we really dare?”

  “It’s settled.” He gets up, starts mixing two martinis. He needs a drink even more than I do. The gin’s missing the glasses, spilling on the sideboard. “We’ll go back to Bardstown like you said, and get married in the church where my parents had their own wedding. It’s a lovely little church – plain wood painted white, with trees outside and …”

  “No, wait. Don’t go too fast, Victor.” I’m the one who’s scared now, backing off. White dresses, wedding chapels, police cars, screaming sirens. “I … I’m not sure.”

  “Yes, you are. We both are. Absolutely sure.”

  “Well, just a simple wedding.” I hear my own voice peter out. I’m remembering all my childish dreams: the big white fancy wedding, froth of pink tulle bridesmaids, six-tier cake, huge marquee; the young and handsome bridegroom, jet-black hair, tanned and muscly to
rso, film star looks. The pictures fade and shrink. The church is strange – and tiny. No marquee, no crowds. Not a soul I know. The groom is greying, lined; his lower body scarred beneath his neat and boring suit.

  I get up, walk slowly to the window, keep my back to Victor. It’s silent in the room; only the throbbing of the aerators, which seem to mock me with their contented steady purr. I could still change my mind, return to England, forget Victor and Las Vegas altogether. Better that than say what I don’t mean, kid myself again. I haven’t said “I love you” all damn day. Deliberately. I’ve got to know exactly what I’m doing. No lies this time, no fudging, no rainbow fantasies. I find my crumpled fag, unlit. It’s like a warning, proving just how hard love is, what guts it may demand. I squash it in my palm. I’m scared of my own weakness, the way I grab and winge, my stupid sulks and tantrums. I’m not one of Victor’s “heroes” – truckers and commuters, nurses with those lunch trays, battling on through thick and thin without a moan or groan. I grip the windowsill, stare out into black.

  He’s there, behind me, accepting me – moody selfish me – arms around my waist, refusing to let me go or let me fail, insisting we go on. “We’ll get married in our trench coats, his and hers, okay?”

  “Okay.” I try to grin. “And Norah can wear her new blue men’s pyjamas.” I turn to face him. “Victor, will you really not mind if Norah comes to live with us? I know you said yes, but you didn’t sound that thrilled.”

  He presses closer. “I was simply stunned by the fact that I might actually live with you.”

  “She’s nowhere else to go, you see, and …”