by Joel Willans
At first he thought she was being sarcastic again, but her lips fought a smile and she looked at him with genuine interest. Beneath her make-up, he could now see she was younger than he’d first thought. Nineteen, twenty maybe. He grinned. It would make things easier.
‘I can tell an artist a mile off,’ he said, taking out a cigarette. ‘My ex used to be a dancer.’
‘Really, what sort?’
He clicked his heels and a clapped his hands. ‘Flamenco.’
‘Was she Spanish?’
‘No, she was from Leeds. But she trained in Andalucia. When she moved her body to that Latino stuff, it made you forget everything.’ He sighed. ‘But you can’t make any money doing that, so she had to do other stuff too. Bet it’s the same for you, hey?’
‘I am used to being without money.’
‘Not nice though, is it?’
She shrugged.
‘You know what, I might be able to help you out with a job.’
The girl tugged at her hair, doubtless remembering all the warnings she’d ever heard about strange men. But Marcus knew he didn’t look strange. Stella reckoned that was why it was so easy for him to score.
‘Trust me, honey,’ she once said. ‘With those soppy baby blues and girly eyelashes, they’ll think it’s Bambi offering them work.’
The girl sniffed. ‘What sort of job?’
‘Let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you all about it.’ The offer hung in the air with the smell of cheap hotdogs and car fumes.
She checked her watch, then looked him up and down. ‘Okay, but only if you let me sketch you.’
‘What?’
‘I want to draw your face.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You’d make a great subject.’
‘You reckon?’ He clicked his fingers for the first time since Stella had thrown him out.
‘I do. You have a very fine bone structure.’
‘Sold!’ He held out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Artist. I’m Marcus.’
‘Lotte,’ she said.
Her grip was harder than he expected.
‘Cigarette?’
She took two.
As he walked her to the bar, Marcus told her how much he loved the summer. He told her how it had been scientifically proven that the sun makes people happier, and how you could see it even by the way people walked. He told her that one day he’d move to Faro in Portugal, because that was Europe’s sunniest place.
‘In the north of Finland, it does not get dark at all for three months.’
‘You’re kidding me?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. People go crazy with all that light.’
‘Maybe I should move there instead!’
When they reached the terrace, he pulled a chair out for her. She sat down without thanking him and rummaged around in her bag.
‘So what is this job you have for me?’ she said, yanking out her pad.
He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to show off his fake Rolex Steel.
‘It’s easy money for someone like you. My mate runs this gentlemen’s club and he’s looking for pretty girls to sell stuff to his clients. Drinks and cigarettes, things like that.’
‘Sounds like a brothel.’
Sharper than she looks, he thought. ‘No. No. It’s nothing like that,’ he said. ‘Gentlemen’s clubs are all the rage now. It’s twenty-five quid an hour and you don’t even need to wear bunny ears!’
A waitress interrupted them. Marcus could tell she recognised him by the way she blushed. He smiled, wondering how many girls she’d seen him with. Probably wouldn’t believe him if he told her he’d been with one woman for nearly two years. Trying to shake himself free of Stella thoughts, he ordered a Whisky Mac and a Razzmatazz for Lotte.
‘Twenty-five pounds an hour?’ She pulled out a pencil and started flicking it across the pad. ‘Plus tips?’
‘Yeah, you’d clean up. Want to go and have a look? Get introduced to my mate?’
‘Keep still!’ she snapped. ‘I can’t draw if you move around so much.’
He did as he was told. ‘You know you remind me of my girlfriend. She was a lot older, but otherwise…’
‘Why are you talking about her in the past tense?’ Lotte gazed at her pad. ‘Did she meet someone else?’
‘You could say that,’ Marcus lied, remembering the day Stella told him that she’d found herself a replacement. The way she’d delivered the news, so matter of fact, she might as well have been talking about the weather. He was happy when the waitress returned. It was easier to focus on the present with a drink in hand.
‘Cheers,’ he said, lifting his glass.
‘Cheers,’ she said without looking up.
He stared at her while she worked. She was frowning, and the tip of her tongue poked out of her mouth. After a few minutes of silence, she picked up her cocktail and knocked it back. The movement was so sudden that he jumped.
‘Did I scare you?’ she said.
‘Do all Finnish girls drink like that?’
‘Only on Fridays.’
He studied her for a hint of a smile, but her lips were pressed in a thin line. Her gaze was totally focused on the pad. It was like trying to interpret the emotions of a rock.
‘You keep staring. It’s rude.’ She held her pencil up, closed one eye and measured him. ‘I do the staring, okay?’
He nearly mumbled an apology but took another swig of his drink instead. The way she looked at him was making him feel uncomfortable.
‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I’ve never drawn a pimp before.’
‘What are you talking about!’
‘I might be foreign, but I am not stupid,’ she said, continuing her sketch.
He slammed his drink down and looked around to see if anyone was listening. ‘Look, I’m no pimp, okay. I’m the opportunity man.’
She laughed. ‘Sounds like a bad superhero.’
He sucked his teeth. ‘I’m not a superhero but I’m not a pimp either. I’m just helping my mate out.’
‘Of course you are.’
He clenched his fists under the table. His foot tapped the pavement. ‘Listen, sweetheart, I do this because I have to. It’s my job, all right.’
‘I think it is very sad. I think you are a fraud.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I can see what you are really like.’ She hugged her pad and tapped it with her pencil. ‘It’s Finnish magic. Want to look?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘What is it worth?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What’s it worth to see you through my eyes?’
‘I’ve just bought you a drink.’
‘My vision of you is not so cheap. I want fifty pounds.’
‘What?’
‘Fifty pounds or you never know what I see.’
He paused. Was it possible this girl really did see him differently? She sure acted like she did. Stella would have bawled him to hell and back for doing something so stupid, but Stella was gone. He looked around to see if anyone was watching them, then pulled out his wallet and quickly passed her a fifty.
Lotte tossed the pencil on the table and spun the pad around.
He gazed at the sketch. It wasn’t what he saw in the mirror every day. It was like looking at himself in soft focus. More boy than man.
‘Why did you draw me like this?’
‘This is how I see you.’
He stared at her. She didn’t flinch. He lit another cigarette.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but I don’t look like that. Got it?’
She ripped out the sketch and passed it to him. ‘This is how you look to me. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Most English people I sketch are like you. Pretending to be something they are not. It is not healthy.’ She packed her pad away and stood up. ‘You should take the opportunity to be yourself, Mr Opportunity Man.’
‘You have no
idea what you’re talking about!’
‘I only draw what I see,’ she said. ‘Now, I have to go.’
He watched her walk into the crowd then sunk back into his chair and stared at the portrait. Tracing the lines of the pencil with his finger, he wondered how she’d done it. He carried on wondering until the waitress came to clear their glasses. She leaned over so close he could smell her almond perfume. He wanted to ask her what she thought of the drawing. Instead, scared of what she might say, he thanked her and strode back into the square.
It was as buzzing as ever. The crowds were still packed with prospects, the air still warm on the skin and Marcus still had a job to do. Yet somehow the square had changed. It didn’t fill him with the same sense of opportunity it had just an hour before. He stood staring at people smiling. He listened to the laughter and the chatter. Then, when it became too much to bear, he lit a cigarette and walked away.
Buy Ma Biscuits Or Kiss Ma Fish
Out in the ocean, toward the horizon, a surfer rides a wall-sized wave. Nearer the shore, the sparkling heads of swimmers dive and surface; nearer still, at the ocean’s edge, boys and girls unsure of the water wade in slowly, daring each other forward. And then, on a blue and white beach towel far from water, there’s me, sweating as I hug my knees. The surfer skims across the wave, he flips his board one way then the other. Just when it seems he’s tamed it and will ride it home, it catches him. His board spears the sky and I see his body falling into the fizzing white froth.
That’s life, I think. That’s your life, the voice in my head says. It’s right. It’s always right.
I return to my study of the girl sunbathing near me. I try to laze back, adjust my sunglasses and hope against hope that I look cool. She is only five yards away. Her hair is piled up in a soft black curl, her body, shining with oil, is covered by a stripy yellow-green bikini that is held together with nothing more than colourful bits of string.
Five yards away, and yet it feels so far. I’ll not leave until I speak to her. Any minute now I’ll ask her for a light. I don’t normally smoke in the day, definitely not in this heat. But she’s smoking, this beach goddess, and that’s my way in. The cigarette I have been twirling through my fingers is all buckled and dirty, stained with sun-tan lotion, so I toss it aside and pull another from my packet.
Get real, says the voice in my head.
Thing is, this time I am real. It’s all about timing. I’m a devout believer in this. If I time it right, she might say ‘Yeah sure I’ve got a light’ and then she might ask where I’m from and do I fancy meeting up later in this cute little beach bar she knows with star-shaped lamps and cocktails the size of flower pots.
Dream on, the voice says. Yeah, I do, I almost shout. I dream a lot. I can fly with this as far as I like. We’re on holiday in Mexico. Now we’re in Copenhagen, drinking in a harbour bar. Now we’re trashing the snowman we built to save it from the slow death of thawing. She’s glowing with the cold, and she’s laughing.
First, I need to speak to her. That’s all I need to do. But there’s a problem; I can’t see her eyes. She is looking out across the ocean, wearing big wraparound shades that hide half her face. I need to see her eyes before I can make my move. For all I know, she is gawping at one of those pumped-up boys slicing across the sea on their boards. I snap my cigarette in half and grind it into the sand.
One of the surfers ambles past me. He is all pecks and tattoos, all bracelets and dreadlocks. If he wasn’t carrying a surfboard, he’d just be a hippie with a tan. A hippie with a tan and a six-pack. He has no beer gut. None. I’m not a big drinker, but when I look down there are a couple of little baby rolls of fat. Staring at my belly, those little rolls shining with coconut suntan lotion, I get that dizzy feeling again.
I know it well. It’s almost as frequent a companion as the voice. Apparently this feeling is the beginning of the downward spiral: that’s how the doctor described it, as though the loathing that fills me is some sort of sadistic fairground ride. Think positive, he said, you’re a young man with plenty to offer. I repeat this phrase, the way he told me to. I’m a young man with plenty to offer.
Yeah, the voice says. To liposuction professionals, maybe. I sigh and ease myself up from the sand. There’s a whining in my head as I stand, and my legs feel good to buckle.
Loser, the voice says. Loser. I clench my fists and wait to see if it has any other words of wisdom for me, but for now it stays quiet. I know it’s right. It always is. It told me I was shit at my job and should leave before they fired me, and it told me that Bella was too good for me and was playing around with my flatmate. It’s so damn smug, knowing everything, but then it’s easy for it to chirp away with these simple truths. It doesn’t have to deal with the things I have to deal with.
Even with my eyes closed, the sunlight makes everything orange. I take a deep breath and hold it for a count of ten. Then slowly I exhale. It’s a technique taught by my old sales trainer, meant to prepare us for big presentations. Of course that’s not something I need to worry about anymore, but it does the job and I feel my body relax. Opening my eyes I see that the girl has turned round and seems to be looking directly at me.
I want to run away. I want to bury myself in the sand. Instead, I look over her head as if I haven’t even seen her, stick out my arms and attempt to do a Tai Chi thing with my hands. Weaving them between each other, I imagine that I’m dancing at a club and slowly playing with the strobes.
What the hell do you look like? says the voice. She’s going to think you’re a right twat.
I don’t know if it’s the power of the sun or the sound of the sea, or both, but I manage to ignore it. When, eventually, she looks the other way, I drop to my knees, sweating more than I have all day.
I know life wasn’t always like this, but when I try to remember how it was before, it’s like trying to recall a film I watched when I’d had too much to drink. It’s pointless dwelling on the past, that’s another of the doctor’s classics, but sometimes the present is just so tiring. I have an urge to curl up in a ball and nuzzle the sand, or to walk steadily into the sea.
The voice usually keeps quiet if I stay still and do nothing. I could maybe just sit here and carry on watching the girl. The thought makes me blush. Perhaps I should just go to bed, neck a couple of pills and wait for tomorrow.
‘Buy ma biscuits or kiss ma fish! Buy ma biscuits or kiss ma fish!’
For a second, I think it’s the voice, messing around with me. So, when I spot a woman waddling across the beach, a box stuffed with cookies balanced on her head and a dead puffer fish in her hand, I grin. She wears a yellow smock so bright it looks like her dark head is fixed to a body made of gold. I must be staring, because she flashes me a big grin. I smile back.
‘Wanna kiss my fish?’ she says.
I shake my head, gazing at the dead thing she swings in front of my face. It looks like a grey football with fat lips and spikes. ‘I’m not that desperate,’ I say.
She laughs. Her chin wobbles. ‘Then you gotta buy my biscuits. That’s the deal. Biscuit or fish, your choice.’
The smell of that rotting fish is making me gag. ‘What if I don’t want either?’
‘Listen, junior. Sometimes life gives you difficult choices. So you can kiss this or eat one of these. That’s not difficult, is it?’ She shows me a biscuit with chocolate chunks as big as pennies.
‘What other flavours have you got?’
‘I got choccy, I got coconut, I got cinnamon. I got everything.’
Over her shoulder I can see the girl. She has taken her glasses off and is looking at us. She has eyes as green as glass, almost too big for her face.
I lean closer to the woman. ‘What do you think that girl over there would like?’
The woman glances round. ‘She’s a coconut girly. For sure.’
‘You reckon?’
‘I know a coconut girly when I see one, and she one all over.’
She doesn’t know shit, the voice
says.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Give me one coconut.’
My hand shakes as I pass her the money. She grabs my palm in hers. I’m surprised how soft it is. ‘You don’t need to get yourself in a tizzy. I tell you she’s a coconut girly then she is,’ she says, giving my hand a squeeze.
She doesn’t know what she is talking about, the voice shouts. The voice makes me jump. It’s loud, angry.
The woman stares into my eyes. ‘Listen, junior, if she ain’t a coconut girly, I’ll kiss ma own fish. Right here, in front of the whole damn beach.’
The girl is still watching us. I take a deep breath and take a step towards her. I hold the coconut biscuit flat upon my palm, and now the ache comes, twisting my stomach. I bite my lip and take two more steps. The girl is staring at me, not smiling, not anything.
You look like a loser, the voice says. I shake my head, trying to shut it up; another step, and then I freeze. It’s as far as I can go. It’s good enough, I think. I tried. I did something. The girl starts to turn away. Yes, the voice says, you did well. Now sit down and be quiet.
‘Remember, I’ll kiss it, I’m gonna kiss it for you!’ the woman shouts.
Hearing her, I stumble forward and I’m there by the girl’s side. She looks up at me. I swallow hard. I wish I’d never bothered, wish I’d just gone back to my room, blacked out the windows and sunk into bed. Now it’s too late. I will humiliate myself again. I want to throw the biscuits at the woman, but instead I hold out the cookie. Crumbs drop through my fingers.
‘Do you like coconut?’ I say.
‘What?’ the girl says
‘Do you – I thought you liked coconut?’
She looks at the biscuit and then looks me up and down and I’m waiting for the sand to cave in and the sea to wash me away. I want to punch myself for being so stupid and the doctor for telling me to take a little break and the woman for saying she will kiss her fish. Then her hand reaches towards mine, and with delicate fingers she plucks the cookie from my palm. She smiles.
‘Yeah, as it happens. How did you know?’ she says.
I shrug. ‘I just knew.’
‘I’ll share it with you if you want?’