‘Just for a bit of food, like,’ he said, working for whatever I was prepared to give him. He seemed uncomfortable under my scrutiny, perhaps with my features. What he couldn’t appreciate, though, was that I was only doing my job. Even half-drunk, I did what I always did when I came upon vagrants or beggars (not necessarily the same thing): I gave them the once-over – all of us at the agency did – trying to catch any resemblance to photographs on our files, old images of persons gone astray, missing youths, absent husbands, absconded wives, even mothers or fathers who’d decided normal society wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. You never knew when you might strike it lucky.
He became uncertain, having had a good look at me as the glare from the headlights had peaked before moving on. He appeared very uncomfortable now that we were in the shadows again. He drew up his boots and curled up in the doorway, his body seeming to shrink.
‘It’s okay,’ I said quietly – soothingly, I hoped. ‘When did you last eat?’ It was important for me to know.
He didn’t answer straight away. His neck craned from the untidy bundle of clothes, and he looked around the doorway’s corners, up and down the street, as if searching out other company. This was a lonely little side road though.
‘This morning,’ he answered at last, his face featureless in the gloom. He cleared his throat, a nervous rasp.
I sighed and rummaged through my pockets, finding only a pound coin and a few odd pence. ‘Fuckit,’ I grumbled to myself and reached inside my jacket for my wallet. Pulling out a ten-pound note, I sensed a fresh, a more trusting, alertness about the boy.
‘Promise me you’ll get yourself something to eat, okay?’ I thrust the note towards him and he accepted it with both hands.
‘Bloodyell,’ he said in a low breath. ‘Thanks, man. I mean, really – thanks.’
‘Sure.’ I stepped away from him. ‘Remember: food. Right?’
I could just make out the nodding of his head before I turned away, already wondering if he’d stick to the handout’s condition, or if he’d head straight for his regular supplier. A tenner wouldn’t buy him much, so maybe he’d just drink it away. I let it go: I could only make the offer – the rest was up to him. I’d learned a long time ago it was all you could do.
As I neared the seafront there was more activity. Tourists strolled arm in arm along the broad pavements that edged the wide King’s Road, many of them still in shorts and T-shirts, despite the earlier drizzle and the lateness of the hour, all of this – the people, the coast road, the edge of the beach below the promenade railings – lit up by street lamps and festive lights, lights from hotels, restaurants, the big cinema and theatre complex, lights from traffic rushing by as if late for curfew. And noise came from all directions, the jabber of crowds and their laughter, and muted music from bars and clubs, the conversations of diners drifting from open doorways.
I stepped over a puddled gutter that rainbowed oil or spilt petrol in its waters, and waited anxiously for a break in the traffic, a chance to cross the broad expanse of road at my own lively but slow speed. The gay lights of the Palace Pier stretched out into the blackness, their mirror image on the sea below dancing with every wave that rushed to shore. The pier resembled an ocean liner in celebratory mood.
Taking my chance, I made it to the centre of the road, then waited for a gap in the opposite lane’s flow. Faces stared out at me from passing cars, one or two vehicles even slowing down so that their occupants could take a more leisurely look, and I saw myself with their eyes, a ridiculous stunted shape, bent as if cowering in the roadway, a clown of a figure whose mask was not funny in transient headlights, its shadows too severe, mien too crooked, the body too unseemly. Laughter passed me by as I waited; someone even took the trouble to wind down a passenger window and call out to me, call out something I didn’t quite hear and did not want to hear. I seized the moment to hobble the rest of the way, my bad leg dragging across tarmac as it does when I’m tired or inebriated, my left arm waving in the air ahead for balance. I arrived safely but a little dead in heart.
A group, a horde, of language students – Brighton is always full of language students – paused to allow me through, the hush in their voices as I avoided touching any of them making their alien whispers easy to comprehend. I lowered my head even more, ashamed, vulnerable – naked under their gaze – not even my alcohol haze dimming the ocular assault, and I kept moving until I reached the ornate rail overlooking the lower promenade and beach. There I leaned, my chest pressed against hard metal, my only eye watching the blackness of the sea’s horizon, a barely visible dark against dark, and I concentrated on that alone so that self-pity would not overwhelm me. My breath came in short heaves and my hands clenched the rail tightly until my thoughts, my feelings, began to settle; not calm – I didn’t feel calm at all – but to quieten down, become absorbed into me so that my hands on that rail no longer trembled, so that my gasps steadied, my breathing became deeper, more even. With the quietening, there soon came the question: why had I panicked so quickly, so easily? Ridicule was something I’d borne for as long as I could remember and pity for the same length of time, but I’d learned to cope; hadn’t accepted, could never accept either insult, but I’d learned to endure. So why this abrupt overpowering fright? Why had my mental equilibrium, that hard-earned stability gained only after a lifetime of abuse and sniggers and curious glances if not downright ogling and well-meaning but so often demeaning patronization, why had it so swiftly deserted me? Had I only kidded myself that I’d adapted to all those jibes and kindnesses? Well no, because I knew I’d only ever placed a barrier between myself and the prejudices and good intentions of others. I suppose my surprise tonight was that the shield was gossamer-thin instead of cast-iron thick. Even the whisky and beer I’d consumed that night had failed to dull the senses, to thicken that self-preserving defence even more.
An urge to be nearer the sea overcame me (because the sea was clean and as far away from people as I could get?) and I lurched from the railings, heading towards the ramp that led to the boulevard below. I was aware that my shambling walk was exaggerated by weariness – and yes, no excuses, by alcohol too – the limp now a parody of my normal gait, my hump even more rounded. Crouched and shuffling, I hastened down towards the beach, momentum increased by the slope’s angle.
The ramp was wide enough for wheelchairs and delivery vans alike, but not user-friendly for hunchbacks of awkward stride, and I steered myself to one side so that I could slide my hand along its rail, steadying myself, occasionally gripping to control the descent. Near the bottom, customers were overflowing from the Zap club, milling around its door, spilling out on to the level boulevard. Getting in my way.
Now I deliberately kept my head bowed, my one eye watching other people’s feet as the noise from the club’s open door became horrendous, the chatter of voices around me intimidating. I could tell by the shifting of legs that some of the crowd were anxious not to become an obstacle in my way; others failed to notice me though, only becoming aware when I tried desperately, solicitously, to nudge by without giving offence. A girl’s shriek was followed by laughter, a male’s derision followed by embarrassed shushes.
At last I was through, but as I raised my head to see the way ahead I was confronted by the customers of the Cuba Bar, a large section of its patronage seated at tables arranged in an open area outside the bar itself. I slunk around them, regretting my impulse to reach the seashore, aware that not only did people en masse stare harder but that they felt anonymous enough to voice their humour or shock. Several of them pointed me out, and one or two shouted comments, and only when my feet crunched pebbles did I stop running.
I sneaked away from the bright lights towards sweet covering darkness, away from mocking sounds and cries of pity, making my way diagonally across the beach so that I’d also be moving closer to home in my sea quest. Noise behind me became a general hum of voices and music, the stony shore grew dimmer with every shuffling pace, and I’d almost
reached my tidal sanctuary when I heard the insult that was the worst of all, the one I dreaded because it was never the end of it, it was always the precursor to further torment.
‘Oi, fuckin Quasimodo!’
They were sitting around in a circle on the stones, unnoticed in my rush, difficult to see in their mainly dark attire. They drank from cans of beer but the smell that drifted across our neutral ground was pure weed; their spliffs glowed in the gloom, bright one moment, a dull amber the next, each burning dot thick with Jamaican promise. I ignored the call, hurrying on, my feet sliding on the little pebble hills that spoiled any rhythm I could build, but something large and hard struck the hump of my back. The stone clunked on to the beach and I went on.
‘The bells, the bells!’ someone behind me wailed to much snickering.
I stopped, hung my head, closed my eye for a moment, then turned to face them.
I was between the group and the boulevard, between it and the broad stretch of light from the roadway above, so that as they collectively stood, some moving sluggishly as though heavy with dope and booze, one, the nearest to me, rising almost sprightly, fired by youth’s arrogance, I could see their shapes in the muted illumination, could take in their leathers and amulets, their spiked collars, their freaked hair and high, laced boots. They were an unlovely bunch.
I could just make out the peppy one’s leering grin, no mercy in that expression.
‘Going swimming, Quozzie? Only swim at night, do yer?’
The others enjoyed the taunt, adding their own drolleries. ‘Didn’t know the freak show was in town.’ ‘What yer do for sex, date a spazzie?’ ‘Didn’t know abortions could walk about.’ You know, remarks of that ilk, and others that were plain degenerate. Every one seemed to inspire the next, and the gang had great fun.
‘Oh shit,’ I said quietly to myself, then turned away and began moving again, not rushing, just taking it steady, not wanting them to see how much I was shaking. Shaking with rage, with fear, with impotence.
A beer can hit me this time, half full so that liquid spilt into my hair, ran down the back of my neck.
‘Hey, we’re talkin to you, ’umpback!’
I didn’t reply. I kept going.
Footsteps crunching after me.
Knowing I couldn’t outrun them, I whirled around and it must have been my expression that stopped them dead, shadows formed by the dim light probably deepening my scowl, maybe even making me look fearsome.
‘Listen to me,’ I said, allowing anger to override my nervousness. ‘I’m not bothering you, so just leave me alone. Okay?’
But the sprightly one, the arrogant one, the one I assumed was the leader, swaggered towards me, features screwed up into a grimace that was as ugly as mine.
‘You got it wrong, Quozzie. You are botherin us.’
Another step closer allowed me to see a face so full of loathing and bigotry that it surely must have poisoned this one’s soul; it came in waves, a silent rant against everything this zealot thought of as abnormal and not up to the perceived order of things. Although my gaze never left those venomous eyes, I was aware that the others were outflanking me so that soon I was surrounded. I took a step back; my main tormentor took a step forward.
I sensed no euphoria among them, no laid-back pleasantry that the fat Jamaicans and drink should have induced, and I began to suspect they had all been on something harder earlier that evening, maybe Ice, which was the drug of the moment in Brighton around that time, a street methamphetamine, pure crystal shit that gave a big rush that ultimately and invariably fucked up the brain with its worsening withdrawals. Sometimes the tweakers freaked out with meth psychosis and hallucinations, and that was never a time to be around them.
I consoled myself with the thought that this merry little band of junkheads could just as easily be on GHB, or Liquid Ecstasy, both popular drugs around the clubs, whose come-downs sometimes could be scary as well; then again, they could be on the nutter stuff, Special K. Whichever, I figured their smoking mixed with booze was their way of making the descent easy on themselves. Only it didn’t seem to be working: aggression was bristling from this mob.
‘Look,’ I said placatingly, hoping the tremble in my voice wasn’t too noticeable, ‘what d’you want from me? D’you want money? I’ve got money. I can give you some.’ I reached for my wallet, an action replay of a short time earlier when I’d willingly offered charity to the beggar. I wasn’t proud of myself at that moment, but if that was what it took to get me off the hook, then so be it.
‘Yeah, we want money.’
Eyes looked greedily at the notes in my hand. ‘But we don’t want some, we want all of it.’
My wallet, as well as the notes, was snatched away and when I reacted, reflexively reaching out to grab it back (cash was one thing, credit cards and driving licence was another) something whacked against my head. I think it must have been another, even larger, stone from the beach, because I heard it crack as it struck my temple, and it hit me so hard I fell to my knees.
My brain went numb for a second or two and I brought both hands up to the wound, rocking there on the beach on my knees. I remember crying out, pleading with them to stop it there and then, not to let it go further, that I was hurt enough, but then they were on me, kicking, punching, pounding me until everything became a blur – everything except the pain – and I was tumbling, tumbling forward and curling into a foetus position, a frightened, confused, malformed thing scrunched up as small as I could make myself, there to be pummelled and humbled because I was an oddity, because I was an oddity with money, because I was an oddity with money who wouldn’t fight back.
I don’t know how long it went on for – a thousand years, two minutes? In its way, it was a lifetime – but I heard them calling me names, snarling their hatred, screeching their bile, and I absorbed it, let the pain and the name-calling sink into my system, so that soon my body and my mind had swallowed it whole, and then I allowed it – blows and words – to deaden me. That was the only way I could make it tolerable.
And when it was finally over and the five leather and amulet clad girls had walked off, I cursed them under my breath and prayed that one day the sickness inside each and every one of them would cause them to suffer the way I had suffered that night.
It began to spit with rain again.
9
The wet stone steps to my basement flat were treacherous in my condition, mainly because my vision was still bleary with tears of self-pity and humiliation and my limbs were stiff, the joints almost locked; each movement, each lumbering step, took willpower, each draw of breath took an effort. Both body and mind were in a wretched state.
Practically falling against the front door, I dug inside my trouser pocket for the key and then, for the second time in two days, scraped its point over the paintwork to locate the hole. Once inside, I fell back against the closed door and blubbered there in the darkness. I was hurt, but by now I knew it wasn’t badly, and although I’d lost the cash, the girl-gang had contemptuously tossed the wallet back at me; it had struck my head, then lay open on the pebbles beside me. They hadn’t been interested in the credit cards, just the money for their next fix. No, I wasn’t crying because of the physical pain they caused me, nor the loss of hard-earned cash; I wept because of the dagger thrusts of their derision, their unconscionable and conscienceless verbal assault. And I cried because of their gender and their youth – two at least could have been no more than fourteen or fifteen years old. I had been broken by a team of young girls and it wasn’t their blows that had weakened me, left me foetal on the beach, absorbing every punch from their fists, every slap from their hands, every kick from their high-laced boots; no, it was the viciousness of their barbs that had struck so deep, words so vile and uncompromising that it seemed as if my muscles and my mind had atrophied, had become useless and limp. It was their disgust that had defeated me.
‘Oh God, why, why?’ I heard myself mumble between sobs. And when I asked again, it came
as a shout, a demand for an answer, and the question was full of loathing for myself and the Supreme Being who had created me, for I was not questioning the attack on me that night, not challenging the violence dealt to my miserable twisted body, but asking why I had been born this way, why had He created me as a monster to be reviled or pitied but never to be accepted as a normal human. How did He justify such cruelly protracted torment, a lifetime’s punishment which would only end when my lungs gasped no more breaths and my heart lost its beat? I needed to know. I had to know. Yet even as I raged, implored, I was aware there would be, could be, no response, because no matter how often I’d asked – how often I’d begged – the question in the past, never, never, never even in my deepest despair – and this was one such moment – had an answer been given.
And eventually, as I crouched there and the last tears flushed from the undamaged ducts of my one good eye, I berated myself for believing there was a God to give any such rhyme or reason. Nothing – No Thing – no Heavenly Creature, no Ruler of Heaven and Earth, no Divine Deity, no Almighty, no Omnipresence, no Allah, Elohim, Yahweh, or Jehovah, would ever devise such a hellish torture. Maybe a Devil could, but surely no God?
Finally, miserably, I dragged myself up from the floor and lumbered along the short hallway to the kitchen, where I flicked on the light-switch and knelt before a low cupboard. Opening it, my hand scrabbled around behind the tins of baked beans and pineapple chunks and all the other easy-cook packages sad, single people keep stored for instant sustenance, until I felt what I was searching for: a medium-sized square-shaped, coffee jar. I pulled it out and held it to my chest while I wiped the dampness from my face with the sleeve of my jacket.
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