Back Trouble

by Matt Kinnaird

  That was Monday. Tonight’s Friday, and I’ve been with her every night in between.

  She’d claimed we could fuck for hours. I might as well have tried forcing a damp baguette through a letterbox. I had all the sensation but none of the rigidity, and she was as dry as a box of crackers. In the end I strangled my semi-tumescent member to climax by myself while she hammered at her clitoris like it was a panic button. She got there at the same time as me, jolting twice as if defibrillated.

  ‘Thank fuck for that,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to sleep.’

  A sound I don’t hear bumps me out of my dream. I’d been holding something and grimacing. My bruises throb. The room I’m in is bright and hot, and smells of yesterday’s cigarettes. Motes of dust drift in the sunlight. All over my body I’m damp with sweat, and my brain feels dull and smudged. I want something but I don’t know what. And then I hear voices, muffled as if from underground, not the sharp chatter of the pedestrians on the pavement below the east-facing window. Emily’s sleeping next to me, sprawled naked across her parents’ bed, having thrown off the covers to combat the heat. Looking at her – pale, slender and arrogant – I want to bury my face between her legs and feel her waxy skin around my mouth, but something’s up. I shake her shoulder.

  ‘Wake up. Emily. Wake up.’

  Her eyes flicker into life. ‘What?’

  ‘Listen. Can you hear something?’

  Cars are passing in the street, vibrating the room, but then there’s the smothered sound of a female voice, and a deep bass rumble in reply. Emily gazes at the ceiling, her gaze picking out imaginary targets, and then her eyes widen in panic.

  ‘Fuck it, Simon, it’s Mama.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘And Lenny. What the fuck are they doing here?’

  We spring out of bed, treading lightly, and hunt for clothes. I can’t find any.

  ‘Where the fuck are my clothes?’

  Emily dashes for the door, beautifully naked, with her high, powerful haunches and pearl-white buttocks. She risks a whisper: ‘They’re all downstairs, for fuck’s sake! And there’s fucking coke everywhere. Hide! And don’t make a sound!’ She pulls the door closed behind her, her footsteps scamper down the stairs. The voices are getting louder. They’ve nearly reached the first floor, but it sounds like Emily’s beaten them to the living room. Shuffling sounds below me. Great. I’m bollock naked and I’ve got to hide. Two options: bed, or wardrobe. I can’t decide. Bed. I lift the divan sheet. Shit, drawers underneath. Wardrobe it is. I yank open the door of the left-hand wardrobe, and I’m confronted by a row of suits, arranged according to shade, cream to brown, grey to black. Thousands of pounds. Then Christine’s voice, then Emily’s, both raised. I push a path through Armani and Ralph Lauren, and duck through. The soft cloth whispers behind me. I turn my ankle on a shoe and bite down a rising curse. The voices continue as I stand up behind the rail and manoeuvre myself until I’m facing the door so I can pull it to. Emily’s telling her mother her friend kicked her out, as far as I can hear, and she couldn’t get … something. I guess at a taxi. Unlikely in this city, but maybe Christine would buy it. They’re talking over each other now. No sign of Lennox’s voice. I can hear my heart, feel it in my chest, the stuffy air around me pulsates with each beat. I’d give my left gonad for a pair of pants and I really need to fart, but would that give me away? There’s grumbling about smoking, but it sounds like Christine’s backing down. I don’t blame her; I wouldn’t want to argue with Emily. I wonder how she hid my clothes and her coke. Still nothing from Lennox. A verbal shrug seeps up through the floor. Feels like a truce. Short phrases, movement. Feet on the stairs. My throat constricts with fear. Again.

  In the last few weeks I’ve damaged a ligament in my spine, had beer cans hurled at me, crashed my car, been beaten up and locked in a car boot, and had to walk home from the countryside at an absurd time of night sporting fresh cuts and bruises in the middle of fucking winter. Now I’m cowering nude in a wardrobe, hoping not to be turfed into the street by a butler who’s taken a more than passing dislike to me, and a Lady of the realm whose daughter I’ve been shagging after she wouldn’t have me. I can’t work out if these are the kinds of things that happen to other people all the time. It’s certainly exciting. But on the other hand, I’ve been cheating on my wife for the first time (I dumped her before the other one, remember, and we weren’t even married back then) and been planning to commit the ultimate crime, although at least in the singular, not plural; I’m not greedy. I don’t believe in karma, divine punishment, all that guff, but the coincidence hasn’t escaped me. No. Bollocks. It’s as simple as this: do bland things, and bland things happen to you. Full stop.

  The bedroom door sighs across the carpet. I hold my breath. A hand on the wardrobe door. The light floods in. A whisper.

  ‘Simon, it’s me!’

  ‘Thank fuck.’

  She’s got her burgundy dress on, and her coat bundled under one arm. High-heeled shoes dangle from her fingertips by slim straps. Her bag is on the floor.

  ‘Shh. Quiet for fuck’s sake. I managed to get your boxers’ – she reaches into her the bundle – ‘but nothing else. It’s just shoved under the sofa.’ I snatch my shorts and start putting them on. ‘Now, I’ve told them I need to change, but you’ve got to fucking get out of here.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Daddy’s coming back from America, and they’re here to pick up his clothes! Don’t you see?’

  ‘What do you want me to do, jump out of the window?’ Emily pulls a hopeful face. ‘What? No way! No fucking way! We’re on the second floor!’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘Ok, but I can’t do it. So what if they catch me? We’re consenting adults, it’s ok.’

  ‘You fucking think? Never mind the fact that they both fucking hate you, don’t you see, Daddy’s coming back. Didn’t I tell you what he’s like?’

  ‘Well not really, no!’

  ‘I could probably stop Mama saying anything, but Lenny? No chance. He’d talk in a second. I only managed to stall him just now because he was so freaked out seeing me naked. And I told you, Daddy thinks I’m, like, celibate, and he’s old fucking school. It’d probably be pistols at dawn, you don’t know what he’s like!’

  ‘Bloody great.’

  She tosses her things onto the bed. ‘And my credit cards! Fucking hell, Simon, my gap year! I’d have to fucking work! Get out of there! Do something!’

  I duck under the hanger rail and out into the sunlit room. ‘Credit cards?’

  Emily’s eyes flash. ‘Yes fucking credit cards!’ She pushes at both hollow cheeks with the flats of her palms. ‘Right. Out the front, the beams stick out through the bricks. Use them for footholds, then you can get to the first-floor windows. Mama’s opened them because of the smell of smoke. If I get them both up here, you can swing in and dash downstairs. Got it?’

  ‘You have to be fucking kidding.’

  ‘And you can grab your clothes on the way out. Under the sofa furthest from the window, facing you. Ok?’

  ‘No it’s not ok.’

  ‘Fine! Or just stroll downstairs looking like that and say hello to my father’s ex-forces butler, who’s known him for thirty years.’ She turns away, proud, stiff-shouldered and used to being listened to. I notice she hasn’t zipped up her dress, and admire the luminous chevron of pale skin between the folds of fabric. She unwraps the bundle on the bed, shrugs her dress down her shoulders and reaches for her bra.

  Ex-forces? This is getting more ridiculous by the second. I’ve landed in a French bedroom farce, and I’m about to put my life in danger in full view of every commuter in Whitbury. I tiptoe to the window, and wrestle with the catch. It creaks open, and a fresh gust of dry city air blasts the moisture from my face. It’s a long way down.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘Fine! Just … Sod it.’ Poking my head out of the window and craning my neck to scan for footholds, I can
see the beams Emily spoke about. They poke out maybe six inches, enough for me to crouch on if I can get a fingertip hold on the window above. But then what? I’ll be very publicly stuck. One slip, and that pavement has never looked more solid. Without my permission my imagination changes into fast-forward, and no matter how many times I rewind and start it again in that long, long two or three seconds, the outcome’s always the same. Women and children screaming and my brains on the pavement. There’s no chance. Even if I wanted to, my body’s too sensible to let me try.

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘Jesus!’ She looks around for an ally, but can’t find one.

  I have an idea. ‘Look, I’ll hide in the spare room.’

  ‘He’s got stuff in there, too, you moron.’ A stamping gesture, and her knickers flap in her hand.

  ‘Listen, get them both in here and slam the door. Say the wind did it. On that signal I’ll scarper down the stairs, grab my stuff, and go. Simple.’

  ‘It won’t work,’ she says, hopping into her pants.

  ‘Are you scared? I didn’t think you could get scared.’

  She flumps onto the bed, and lifts a pair of scrunched up tights to her right foot. ‘Shut the fuck up, Champers Man, and get in the spare room.’

  I watch dry nylon climbing her thighs, and wonder how she can make such an awkward job look so effortless. I push my luck: ‘Kiss?’

  ‘Fuck it, come here. I’ve got out of worse.’ Her composure’s back. Her teeth dent my lip, then she slaps my thigh and screws a shapely foot into its shoe as I retreat. ‘Now get out. And don’t mess this up.’

  ‘Right.’

  The spare room smells of air-freshener and stale bed-linen. I ease the door shut and have a look around. Nasty, pink and white floral bedspreads, pine chest of drawers and dressing table, and a white wicker laundry basket which would make a perfect hiding-place if I could chop my own legs off. Three small, square windows look over the courtyard and the garages. Beyond those, a hotel car park and commercial buildings. On top of the hill, denting the horizon, a threadbare row of poplars and the blunt St Peter’s School mansion behind them. Yellow clouds behind that. It looks like the long, happy path to freedom. I try the windows, but they only tilt open thirty degrees; if I could get out, burglars could get in. Back to plan A.

  Emily’s on the move. I can feel my heart in my throat and I’m snatching at each breath. This is not going to work. Lennox will grab me by the shorts and bruise every inch of me that’s not yet bruised.

  More movement. Light footsteps down the stairs. Women’s voices. Here they come, but how many of them? Is Lennox with them, silently obeying, absorbing every fretful exchange, or maybe his keen eyes and snooper’s nose have detected that something’s amiss.

  They’re right outside, Emily and Christine. I tense up, and my right hand grips the doorknob.

  ‘Really, Emily, you don’t need to help. I don’t want you to.’

  ‘But I feel so bad, and I’ve made a mess and everything.’

  Their voices fade as they pass into the other bedroom. Then another clipped, deep male tone.

  ‘I should say you toss and turn a great deal at night, Miss Emily, in order to make two such pronounced indentations in the pillows.’

  Pandemonium. A banshee assault: What fucking business is it of yours how I sleep? … Mama, this stuffed old badger has always had it in for me … Why the fuck this, why the fuck that … You never fucking believe a word I say … I can’t stand either of you … And you can stay right here and pack yourselves!

  Slam.

  We nearly collide on the landing. She smiles, winks and mouths, ‘Go.’ I go. She’s good this kid; her storming out has masked any noise I might make. I sneak as quickly as I’m able downstairs and head for the sofa she mentioned, and all my stuff is there, bundled like hers was: socks, shoes, trousers, shirt, coat. I grab the lot and I’m on my way. A glance back up the stairs reveals Emily sitting on the top step, grinning, ready to intercept the enemy if necessary. I swell with pride at her resourcefulness, barely registering the feeling of surprise that emotion gives me. One blown kiss and I flee the scene, tiptoeing with exaggerated steps down to the front door like a cartoon burglar with an armful of swag.

  Dressed now and buoyant, I decide to buy a cup of coffee to help me face a morning’s work; although I’m giddy from my victory, a deeper, more sinister sensation is lurking. My mouth is dry, my head is thick and it feels as if there’s dust in my veins. I remember the drugs I took last night. The memory is enough to bring the feeling to the fore, and giddy becomes dizzy and the fresh air becomes cold air and the thrum of the passing traffic becomes a roar. At a guess, it’s getting near to nine o’clock. Faces in commuter cars are bleak, or bunched, or tired. None are happy. And then there’s the frown of the man with the briefcase, striding to his office as if it’s even minutely important he goes to work today. I should bop him on the head, put him out of his misery. Everybody’s in a hurry. People overtake me as I walk to the Western Gate and onto the High Street, but I don’t overtake anybody else. I had intended to go to Starbucks, but I catch a whiff of something brilliant from the greasy spoon on my right, and my saliva glands leap to attention. Wondering how much money I have, I reach for my wallet, but find my phone. I take it out and turn it on – I keep it off when I’m with Emily because I’m such a shit liar. The backlight illuminates the display, and it finds reception. I wait a moment: nothing. You’d think my bloody wife would at least leave a voicemail. Rogue images of her with the producer scud through my mind then scud away again as quickly. I’m too sensible to grab one, because I know it would stick. Phone back in jacket, other pocket. Nope. I pat my trousers, but I’d have felt my wallet there already. As expected, nothing. I try each pocket again, knowing my wallet isn’t in there, and pat my trousers. Where the fuck is my wallet?

  Of course it is. I pray to something benign that Emily finds it first.

  Chapter fourteen

  My zero-hours girl, Nicki, is waiting by the front door when I open up, chatting to a customer. They walk in together. I’ve never noticed before, but she comes across as a natural and it’s clear she’s learning our range of wines. A month ago she would have looked to me for help, but she’s now able to deal with a demanding order by herself. I leave her to it, stick the kettle on and take the boards outside, being careful over my posture. I don’t get a chance to return to the kettle. Customer after customer comes through the doors, all big orders, all complicated, but at least it isn’t dull. When the tills start ticking over like this and we’re able to provide what the customer wants, and recommend something we know they’ll like, a kind of energy builds up in the shop. Something about the briskness and efficiency of a good day unites us as staff and creates a bond with the customers. By noon I’ve got three bottles open for tasting, the customers are smiling and Nicki’s buzzing, responding to my words of encouragement, pleased with herself. But then Ruth’s twin Zeppelins appear in the doorway, shuddering with each of her stomping strides. She’s in a mood again. Her face is drawn tight into a frown, her scarlet nasturtium mouth puckered by invisible purse-strings. I’m talking to a young couple about port, but try to lighten Ruth’s mood by making a ‘smile’ gesture, with a finger and thumb pushing up the corners of my mouth. It seems to work, because she briefly smiles back and gets straight into her tasks. She restocks depleted wine displays from the cellar and beer from the garage. Shelves are faced up, price tags replaced and, finally, coffee made.

  Our first lull isn’t until one o’clock, and after so much activity the stillness is disquieting. I feel my level of adrenaline dip, strength washes out of my limbs and it’s as if I’m two stone heavier. The stool behind the counter takes the weight off my feet. For a second I can do little other than gaze out of the window. The rooftops prop up an ominous sky. There’s a traffic jam outside and the cars have their lights on. Gathering petrol fumes mix with the damp air, drift through my shop door and tickle my nostrils. As I’m reaching
for my coffee, hoping it’s still warm, the telephone rings.

  ‘Bollocks.’ I lift the receiver. ‘Hello, Viva Vino?’

  ‘Yeah, hi, Simon. It’s Mick’

  The Area Manager. ‘Oh, hello. You’re lucky you didn’t phone five minutes ago. We were heaving. We’re doing great business here. Great business.’

  ‘Good stuff. Knew you’d be on top of it, Simon. Listen, are you in the office?’

  ‘In the shop.’

  ‘Ruth there?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I just need five minutes for a chat.’

  ‘I’ll go right up.’ I place the receiver on the counter. The girls are talking at the back of the shop and sipping coffee. For what feels like the four-hundred-and-fiftieth time today, Noddy Holder’s buzz-saw voice tries to force exuberance onto the season. It’s not enough to enjoy Christmas, somebody’s got to shout about it. I wonder what Ruth has to do with this call.