Meet Me Under the Westway

by Stephen Thompson

  ‘I do try.’

  ‘Er … no you don’t, Jem. That shirt’s as old as I am. Didn’t it used to be white?’

  ‘Oh, look, the food’s here.’

  While the waitress is serving our meals, I steal the odd glance at Rachel. She really does look nice. I wasn’t just saying it. I’d noticed it straight off, quicker than I would have done had we still been together. She’s wearing a marineblue sleeveless shirt with matching trousers. The effect is a decidedly mumsy but she manages to carry it off. I find myself wondering what colour knickers she has on. Perhaps they’re blue as well. Perhaps later on I’ll be sniffing them.

  During lunch, Rachel visibly relaxes. Food has this effect on her. She’s a real bonne vivante whose chief pleasure in life is dining out. It’s obscene the amount of money she wastes on restaurant bills but there’s no question she can afford it. She’s on a fat salary as a buyer for a top mail-order catalogue.

  ‘So where were you?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You said on the phone you’d been away.’

  ‘I didn’t say that – you did.’

  She waits for me to add more but I go on eating. Now she’s forced to back up, forced to approach from a different angle. It feels good to see her struggling in this way. A few weeks ago, she’d have demanded I be more forthcoming – now she has to play the unfamiliar role of diplomat.

  ‘How’s theatreland?’

  I shrug.

  She downs her cutlery and looks me in the eye. ‘Help me out here, Jem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Our waitress comes over, wanting to know if everything’s to our satisfaction. We reply in tandem, ‘Yes, thanks.’ The waitress smiles sweetly and leaves.

  The moment she’s out of earshot, Rachel’s on to me again. ‘Have you missed me at all?’

  I think before answering. Yes I’ve missed her but not in a pining sort of way. She pops into my head from time to time and I try to imagine what she’s up to and with whom and where and what it would be like to sleep with her again and whether she ever gives me a thought and so on and so forth. But it’s no more than curiosity. I don’t dwell on her, which is what she wants me to say.

  ‘Of course I’ve missed you. But …’ I hesitate.

  ‘What? But what?’

  ‘Hold on.’ A mouthful of rice has become wedged in my throat. I wash it down with a glass of water. It’s a good few seconds before I feel able to speak again. Meanwhile, Rachel hasn’t taken her eyes off me.

  ‘You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying … actually, what was I saying?’ I don’t want her to know I’m joking but my smile betrays me.

  She tuts and rolls her eyes.

  ‘Tell you what,’ I say, ‘why don’t we finish up here and go back to yours?’

  Her eyes light up. ‘Good idea! We can talk better there.’

  ‘Yes, talk.’

  She leans forward. ‘Actually, the food’s not very good here, is it?’

  ‘It’s minging.’

  ‘Should we just go?’

  ‘No point hanging around.’

  ‘Waitress!’

  * * *

  As soon as we enter her flat Rachel grapples me to the floor.

  ‘Jesus! You’re gagging for it, aren’t you?’

  ‘You have no idea, Jem. Take these off.’

  She tears at my shirt with one hand, yanks at my jeans with the other.

  ‘Steady on,’ I say. I’m all for a bit of passion, but I don’t want to go home with my clothes in tatters. I know she wouldn’t appreciate my ripping at her designer gear like that – which is why I’m having to be so careful with the buttons on her shirt. Too careful, as it turns out.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake. I’ll do that.’ She quickly removes the shirt, revealing a black Wonderbra, which she also discards.

  Mechanically, I reach up and fondle her breasts. They’re cold. By now she’s managed to strip me down to my novelty boxer shorts – the ones with the Dick Tracy cartoon strip. She hauls them off then straddles me. I’m not quite ready so she leans forward and offers up her mouth. For some reason I can’t bring myself to kiss her so I give her my neck in stead. She sinks her teeth into it with a savagery that makes me yelp.

  Meanwhile, I’m gripping her cellulite buttocks and nibbling her earlobe and thrusting my hips forward and panting and generally doing my best to get into the swing of things but the fact is I’m rapidly losing interest. There’s something too clinical about the whole thing. It’s in the middle of the day for one thing and only someone like Ollie could possibly find the setting erotic. I’m no slave to the bedroom but I do feel like a plonker lying there in the corridor with my head beneath the letterbox. Although it’s a Sunday, I keep expecting to be hit in the face by an avalanche of envelopes.

  Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’m getting too old for such student behaviour. Rachel’s not bothered, though. She’s really turned on now. I know because she’s started to hiss like a startled snake. I’ve always found this habit of hers most off-putting. I’m about to push her off when she rears up and says, ‘Now! I want him now!’

  Before I know where I am, she’s inserted my flaccid cock into her pussy and is riding away like a horse-tamer. I watch her bouncing up and down, her breasts rising and falling, rising and falling. She has a really lusty look in her eyes and I almost have to cover my ears against her hissing. At one point, she jams her finger into my mouth. It tastes of salt and old coins.

  I can’t stand it any more and decide to take action. I close my eyes and try to imagine I’m lying beneath Sarah. It’s not easy, largely due to Rachel’s hissing, but eventually I conjure Sarah’s face. I need all my powers of concentration to keep it in my mind’s eye but it works. I feel myself swelling inside Rachel (which makes her bounce even faster) and a few seconds later I come.

  I open my eyes to find Rachel gritting her teeth. She keeps telling me how ‘close’ she is and that I mustn’t move. Now I know from painful experience that a woman’s ‘close’ is not the same as a man’s. I make up my mind to give her a further five minutes, after which I’ll be shoving her off. She comes, thrashing and hissing, in just under that time. She leans forward and kisses me on the tip of my nose. I remove a few strands of hair from her eyes. We gaze at each other for a second, quizzically, then quickly look away. It’s not been a month since we split up yet already we’re becoming strangers to one another.

  ‘I need the toilet, Rachel.’

  She rolls off me on to the floor. I stand up, quickly gather up my clothes and head off to the bathroom. When I get there I launch straight into my investigations. My toothbrush is still there. I open the cabinet. No aftershaves. I put my foot on the pedal bin. No used condoms. I notice only one thing out of order – there’s a suspicious-looking razor, not Rachel’s usual brand. It’s hardly incriminating evidence but it does make me wonder. When I’m peeing, I deliberately splash a bit on the toilet seat and on the floor. It may no longer be my territory but I mark it nonetheless.

  I come out of the bathroom to find the corridor vacated. I don’t know why I should find this so strange. Rachel was hardly going to be lying there waiting for me. I find her in the living room, with her dressing gown on, staring out the window. She hears me enter the room, but doesn’t turn round.

  ‘Er…’

  ‘You’ve got to go, right?’

  I can hear myself saying that I’ll call her and that we should hook up again soon and that it was lovely to see her – but when it comes right down to it I can’t bring myself to utter the words.

  ‘Take care, Rachel.’

  ‘You too, Jem.’

  I wave at her back then quietly exit the stage.

  I get home and run myself a bath. I end up having quite a long soak, during which I reflect on the afternoon’s events. Why had I gone to see Rachel? I admit sex was a factor but mostly I was hoping to hear her beg. I wanted to hear her say she’d made a mistake and would I take her ba
ck. And I get the feeling she would have done had I been more encouraging. Then my ego would have been satisfied and she’d have felt humiliated. But would she have deserved that? I hardly think so. What I should have done was thank her because, in my heart of hearts, I was glad she ended it when she did. It saved me the trouble. I’d been looking for a way out for the longest time.

  I can’t believe we lasted as long as we did. We met at a party, had sex and somehow ended up as a couple. It was three months before I introduced her to my friends and I never met any of hers. Not because she didn’t want me to – I just wasn’t interested. If only I could have avoided meeting her parents. I saw more of them than I did of my own. And each time her mum would ask me the same question, ‘When are you going to make an honest woman of my daughter?’

  ‘The day you trim your moustache,’ I’d think then shrug and change the subject.

  Rachel was no help. She wanted marriage even less than I did but was happy for her parents to think it might be on the cards. The whole thing was dishonest and depressing and I never want to go through anything like it again. Looking back, I can see that Rachel and I were only ever pretending. What a relief not to have to pretend any more.

  8

  The following day, I head down to the Grain Shop. It comes as a shock to discover that Sarah isn’t there. Her colleagues inform me that it’s her day off and I go out and call her from a public phone booth.

  She answers on the third ring. ‘Ah, Jem, I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘You were?’

  ‘You sound surprised.’

  I am surprised – very – but I don’t say why lest I reveal my low self-esteem. ‘What were you thinking?’

  She asks whether I’d like to accompany her to an exhibition that afternoon at the Serpentine Gallery. She casually drops the artist’s name.

  ‘Never heard of him, which means he can’t be any good.’

  ‘Funny.’

  We spend the next few minutes arranging a time and place to meet. Just before she goes, Sarah says, ‘By the way, I’ve got some good news.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Tell you later. Bye.’ She hangs up, leaving me intrigued.

  With a bit of time to kill, I head off to Portobello Green. When I get there, I’m relieved to see it’s relatively empty. There are one or two sunbathers and a handful of winos but, other than that, the place is deserted. I find a comfortable spot on the grass and stretch out on it. I close my eyes against the sun and try to empty my mind of all thoughts. It’s no good. The winos are making too much noise. It’s not so much their chattering that winds me up – it’s all their blasted singing. Is there some secret ingredient in Tennent’s Extra that makes them howl in such a maddening way? Though every part of me wants to go and knock their heads together, I tell myself it’s best to ignore them.

  It takes a lot of concentration but eventually I manage to drive them from my mind. My thoughts turn back to Sarah. I can’t imagine what her ‘good news’ might be. I ponder it and ponder it but nothing comes to me and I’m again reminded of how little I actually know about her, how much of herself she keeps hidden from me, from the world. Perhaps I should show more interest in her, ask more questions, dig a little, but the truth is I’m scared of what I might unearth.

  Someone’s standing over me, blocking the sun. I can tell because my eyelids have darkened and cooled. I open them to see Mo and the Danish film crew. Mo looks haggard, unshaven and bleary-eyed, as though he’s been up all night. The Danes, by contrast, look hardy and indefatigable, ready to face the day, armed with their bulky film equipment. Each one’s wearing a black Elastica T-shirt, with old tour dates printed on the back. They look more like roadies than filmmakers. I labour to my feet and remove the grass from my clothes and hair.

  Mo and I greet each other in the usual way (sarcastically) but the Danes treat me to an excessive show of friendliness. It’s difficult to imagine that their forefathers once rampaged across Europe killing people. How did they manage it, I wonder? By smiling everyone to death? I ask how the film’s progressing and Marianne tells me it’s going very well.

  Mo, she says, has been a model subject. ‘He’s been very honest and co-operative.’ She pats Mo affectionately on the arm. ‘Haven’t you?’

  Mo looks bashful, which is a sight worthy of description. He twists his mouth and rolls his eyeballs as though he were taking part in a face-exercise class.

  Marianne goes on to recount what she describes as ‘a stroke of pure luck’. While out for a stroll the previous morning, she and her crew ran into none other than Damon Albarn. They didn’t have the camera but approached him anyway. He spoke to them for a good few minutes. It transpired that he has a soft spot for Denmark and has fond memories of playing there with Blur in the mid nineties at the Roskilde Festival. He had arranged to meet them to ‘say a few words’ to camera.

  ‘Like what?’ says Mo. “‘I’m an over-rated mockney tosser?”’

  ‘Now don’t be jealous,’ says Marianne, maternally.

  I stifle a yawn. The story had all the excitement of map reading.

  ‘Hang out with us for a bit, Jem,’ says Stig, the cameraman, with flawless English. Annoyingly, they all speak flawless English. ‘Maybe we can get some more footage of you and Mo together. You know – for continuity.’

  ‘What? You mean yet another boring day in the life of Mo Bartram and his saddo friends? Filmed by a bunch of pseudo Lars von Triers? No thanks – I’m not in the habit of demeaning myself.’

  Stig’s features harden and I begin to fear that he might strike me. Jan, the sound technician, does – or at least he tries to. Marianne has to step in front of him. He doesn’t give up, though, and keeps taking ineffectual swipes at me over Marianne’s shoulder. Meanwhile, Mo’s doubled over with laughter.

  ‘It’s about time someone gave you a good hiding,’ he says. ‘You’ve got a really big mouth, Jem. Go on, Jan, give it to him.’

  I wait for the right moment then run off. Once I’m out of harm’s way I stop and shout, ‘You can stick your stupid film!’

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, Sarah and I are in Kensington Park Gardens, near the pond, eating panini sandwiches and discussing the exhibition. We agree that it was only sporadically engaging. The paintings, though superbly executed, owed too much to Lucian Freud. The pieces of sculpture were better, more original, though we drew the line at the chairs made out of dried dog turds. They made no sense at all – not even in abstracto.

  ‘They were purely for shock value,’ says Sarah.

  ‘And yet they were shockingly un-shocking.’

  ‘I hate that sort of art. It’s creatively bankrupt.’

  The last remark jolts me. I want to compliment her on it, on its aptness, but I don’t want to appear patronising. Instead I say, ‘So how did you hear about this guy?’

  ‘From …’ she catches herself.

  I look at her. She’s picking at her sandwich and looking out across the pond. It’s full of ducks and swans and model boats, the owners of which are crouched pond-side operating them via remote controls.

  ‘You can say his name, Sarah. It doesn’t bother me. Bruce, wasn’t it?’

  She smiles and slaps my arm. My sandwich almost goes flying. Just then, a football comes hurtling towards us. Sarah manages to get out of the way but I get hit in the groin. It’s painful but not as much as I make out. I wince and place my hand on the affected area and it elicits a good deal of soothing words and caresses from Sarah. Then, in the distance, we notice a plump toddler running towards us, his chubby little legs going at a fair old rate. He keeps looking round to make sure his parents are still where he left them. Each time he does, they wave at him and urge him to go and retrieve his ball. I decide to play a game by putting the ball behind me. When the boy arrives, I notice immediately that he’s one of those spoilt children. He jumps all over me trying to get his ball and almost kicks me in the face. His own face, I notice, is covered in food st
ains and his nose is running like a tap into his mouth. I’m so appalled by the sight of him, by his aggressive attempts to get his ball, that it’s all I can do not to push him away. However, when he puts his grubby hands into my hair, I can’t help myself.

  ‘Oi! Take your fat, dirty hands out of my hair, you little …’

  ‘Jem!’ cries Sarah.

  ‘Here. Here’s your damn ball.’ I toss it away.

  He gives chase like a dog.

  ‘That’s right – beat it, you snotty-nosed little brat.’

  ‘Jem, will you behave?’

  The parents, too far away to know what’s going on, smile and give us the thumbs up. We watch the boy gather up his ball and rejoin them. He promptly throws the ball into the pond, disturbing a family of ducks. In no time, the ball has floated out of reach. The parents make a few half-hearted attempts to get it back but, fearful of falling into the water, they eventually give up and walk away, dragging the screaming little tyke with them.

  ‘Good. Serves him right.’

  Sarah laughs. ‘You’re wicked.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘You are. He was a child.’

  ‘And that gives him the right to be obnoxious?’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Er … you think he understands the concept?’

  ‘No but his parents must.’

  She shakes her head and I fear a telling-off.

  ‘Jem, you are a one.’

  ‘That’s the second time you’ve said that to me. Care to elaborate?’

  She’s about to say something but thinks better of it. It’s clearly a habit of hers and I’m not sure what to make of it. I like the fact that she engages her brain before speaking but sometimes I wish she’d trust her instincts more.

  ‘You’re always shaking your fist at the world,’ she says. ‘You seem to have a lot of anger in you.’

  ‘My parents are often saying the same thing and have been saying it since I was a child. Personally I don’t see it as anger. I’d say I’m more discontented.’

  ‘And why do you think you’re discontented?’

  ‘Because I’m a mass of suppressed desires. We all are.’