Girl 99

by Andy Jones

  I’m just about to congratulate myself when Doug’s expression changes, first into bewilderment, then hardening into frustration and anger.

  ‘Y’ve a damn nerve,’ he says, slapping the box down on the table with enough force to slop beer from both our glasses. ‘A barefaced bloody nerve. The pair o’ yous.’

  Pair of us?

  ‘Doug?’

  He stands up from the table, points a finger at me, goes to say something then changes his mind, clenches his hand into a tight fist and walks away. I call after him one more time, but Doug is gone. My life seems to be stuck in a repeating pattern of people walking away from me, more often than not disappointed, angry, upset, or all of the above.

  I pick up the box of tablets to put it in my pocket. I have never examined it before, but now my eyes land on the small adhesive label stuck to the side. As well as the instruction to Take as directed by your doctor, is the patient’s name. Frederick Turnbull. Eileen’s husband Fred died before she met Douglas, and like most widows she has retained her deceased partner’s surname – so you really don’t need to be a professional sleuth to connect the name on this box to the woman Doug’s been dating.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  ‘So,’ says Ben, ‘what happened?’

  We’re sitting in a darkened room, drinking too much coffee, watching dozens of takes of dozens of shots, looking for the best bite, scream, smile, kiss. There’s up to an hour of footage per commercial, and we’re trying to find the best thirty-second combination. Attempting to stitch it all together so it makes any kind of sense.

  What happened?

  Took Verity home, humiliated her, slept rough, broke my toe, pulled my former bully’s wife, cried over old photos with Dad.

  ‘Not much,’ I say.

  The only light in the editing suite comes from a playback monitor about the size of a small portable TV, and even this is largely obscured by the silhouetted head of Vernon, our editor.

  It’s too dark to see Ben sneer, but I’m certain I hear his lips curl.

  ‘She went back to yours, though?’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Right?’ Ben tries again.

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘She came back to mine.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘How about this one?’ says Vernon’s silhouette, a pencil bobbing up and down in his mouth. On screen, Albert looms along a torch-lit dungeon corridor.

  ‘Perfect,’ says Ben to Vernon. ‘Fuck her?’ he says to me.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ I say, ‘but, no, I didn’t fuck her.’

  Ben grunts. A sound that says, Well, there’s a turn-up.

  I think about what Dad said about honesty.

  ‘I’ve got a confession,’ I say to the black outline of Ben, and I have a flash of me at twelve telling Father McKinley about the mucky book I hid under the carpet in my bedroom.

  ‘You shagged Kaz,’ says Ben.

  Vernon spins dials, clacks his keyboard. Maybe it’s the darkness, my invisibility, but I’m unperturbed by his presence. The professional discretion of priests and doctors and editors.

  ‘You asking or telling?’

  Ben laughs. ‘I’m knowing. You’re many things, my friend, but difficult to read isn’t one of them.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Here’s a good one,’ says Vernon, as Albert gurns from the playback monitor.

  ‘Nice one,’ says Ben. ‘Try it in between the close-up and that wide shot on the walkway.’

  ‘Right-o,’ says Vernon. ‘Funny little bugger, isn’t he?’

  ‘You can say that again,’ says Ben.

  I sigh long and noisily through my nose because it seems like an appropriate thing to do.

  ‘I like her,’ I say into the darkness.

  ‘Which one?’ says Ben.

  ‘Oh, piss off. You know who I mean.’

  Vernon clears his throat. ‘Take a look at this,’ he says, and runs a thirty-second edit of Frankenstein’s Albert.

  The film isn’t graded yet, there are no sound effects, no music, no voice-over, but that’s not what’s bothering me. The film feels awkward. Disjointed.

  ‘Not working, is it?’ I say.

  Ben ho-hums. ‘I think it’s the close-up. It throws the rhythm all out.’

  ‘Well, we can’t have our rhythm all out,’ I say. ‘It’s not decent.’

  ‘Want me to shave a few frames off?’ asks Vernon.

  ‘Go for it.’

  Vern twiddles knobs and presses buttons. ‘Right-o, how’s about . . . this . . .’

  ‘Much better,’ says Ben.

  And it is. It’s remarkable, in fact, just how much difference the loss of even the smallest moment can make.

  ‘So,’ says Ben, ‘what are you going to do about it? About Verity?’

  ‘I’m really not sure.’

  Because the only thing I can conceive of that might possibly work is figuring out a way to shave a substantial number of frames from the bloody awful mess that is my bloody awful life. But I don’t think that machine’s been invented yet.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  One thousand pounds in one-pound coins weighs nine point five kilos. It doesn’t sound like much, but my backpack feels like it’s dragging my arm out of the socket. Maybe it’s all the psychological weight on top of the physical.

  ‘Whass in the bag?’ El asks.

  ‘Surprise,’ I tell him.

  ‘Not movin in, are you?’

  Phil has been chilling a miniature bottle of Moët for me – two hundred millilitres of bubbles between the three of us; it’s not much, but El can’t handle much. And besides, it isn’t much of a celebration.

  On Sunday I spent the train ride back to London psyching myself up to call Verity. But my practice run-through sounded like so much insincere, low-budget romcom horseshit . . . and every time I ran through it the budget became smaller and smaller until, eventually, there was nothing left and the sound of my voice made me want to pull my teeth out. Last night, I spent two hours writing a six-page letter. More than a thousand handwritten words that sounded more incriminating than mitigating and ended up in shreds in the bin. I’m running out of time and options.

  Phil carries the bubbly and three glasses into the living room on a silver tray.

  ‘Explanaishun,’ says El, both feet tapping, head jiggling like a nodding car ornament.

  Phil shrugs as he opens the bottle, a plastic screw cap that gives with a hiss not a pop. ‘I am merely a dumb but beautiful assistant,’ he says.

  ‘Half right,’ says El.

  ‘I am rather intrigued, though,’ says Phil, distributing the glasses. ‘I thought perhaps you’d brought proof of a mission accomplished.’

  ‘A head,’ says El.

  ‘You’re not far wrong,’ I say, standing and unzipping the bag, and I begin to pour the coins onto the sheepskin rug. ‘A thousand heads, every one a queen.’

  Neither Phil nor El speak as the coins shish and clink into a spreading pile at my feet. Phil looks confused but amused, EI merely delighted – although he shows no sign of having grasped the significance of the bronze spill forming on the carpet. I shake the last few coins out of the bag and raise my glass.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Is iss real champagne?’ asks El.

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘D’you rob an ice-cream van?’ He points a finger pistol at my head. ‘Gimme the niney-nines or’ll blow y’brains out.’

  ‘Ninety-eights,’ I say.

  ‘Ahh,’ says Phil, ‘the penny drops.’

  I kick my foot through the mound of pound coins. ‘Tell me about it.’

  El continues brandishing his invisible pistol. ‘An the Strawberry Mivvis, an the Zooms, an all y’choc ices.’

  ‘Bet’s over,’ I tell him, dropping a handful of money into his lap. ‘You win.’

  ‘Bet?’

  ‘One hundred women by C-Day. One thousand
pounds.’

  ‘The bet!’ says El, scooping and dropping the coins. ‘The bet, the bet, the bet.’

  I raise my glass. ‘Cheers.’

  Phil laughs and sips from his glass, but El regards me with suspicion.

  ‘What daysit? Whassa date?’

  ‘July the second,’ says Phil.

  ‘C-Day’s in July. July . . .’ El snaps his fingers in the air, trying to summon the date.

  ‘Nineteenth,’ I tell him.

  ‘How farway’s at?’

  ‘Seventeen days.’

  ‘Senteen days!’ El points at me accusingly. ‘Quitter! You cn easy do a hunred.’

  ‘I hope I never do.’

  El scowls at me as if I’ve said a dirty word. ‘Whass he on about, Phil?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Phil. ‘What are you on about, Tom?’

  ‘I think I’ve met someone. Well, I have met someone, I just . . . It’s a long story. I’ve met someone.’

  ‘A girl?’ says El, as if we were thirteen-year-old boys.

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘Niney-nine!’ shouts El.

  I shake my head. ‘Nothing’s happened. Well, lots has happened, actually, but not that.’

  El throws a pound coin at me. ‘Cn you talk some fuckig sense? I’m cnfused enough without you talkin in . . . cnfusions.’

  ‘Can we just say, for the time being, that I’ve met a girl, I’m conceding the bet, and you, El, are now one thousand pounds richer.’

  ‘What in the f—’

  ‘I think we can manage that,’ says Phil. ‘For the time being.’

  ‘Name?’ says El.

  ‘Verity.’

  ‘Pretty,’ says Phil.

  ‘Is the spice of life,’ says El.

  ‘You don’t need to do this, Tom,’ says Phil, gathering up pound coins into stacks of ten. ‘It really isn’t necessary.’

  ‘Oh yes it fuckig well is,’ says El.

  ‘A bet’s a bet,’ I say.

  ‘Too fuckig right.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do with it?’

  El doesn’t hesitate. ‘Take him t’Disneyland,’ he says, pointing at Phil. ‘Dress up as sailors. Say hello to Mickey.’

  Phil tells El not to be silly, but his voice betrays his excitement.

  ‘Soon as possble.’ says El. ‘While I still can.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ says Phil, palming tears off his cheeks.

  ‘Donald Duck, Goofy, Snow White. Hey, we cn fix y’up with a dw. . . dw. . . dwarf.’

  Phil kisses El on the top of his head. ‘God, I love you, you little bugger.’

  ‘Almost makes the whole thing worth it,’ I say, and I empty my glass in one swallow. ‘Thank God that’s over.’

  ‘C’mon,’ says El. ‘Y’must’ve enjoyed it at least a bit?’

  I waver my downturned palm. ‘I suppose it’s had its moments. On the whole, though, I’d have to say it wasn’t one of our better schemes.’

  ‘Serves you right for lisnin to me then, doesn it?’ says El, his head jiggling. ‘I mean, do I look like someone in his right f. . . fuckig mind?’

  My bedside clock marks the transition into tomorrow, resetting itself to a neat line of zeros.

  I’ve been in and out of bed since nine o’clock, but I haven’t come close to anything resembling sleep. Still, I suppose it’s only fair.

  The morning after the Viagra incident, I knocked on Doug’s door, but if he was in he wasn’t answering. Neither has he returned my calls or answered my texts. I apprised Eileen of the way events unfolded, and she gave me a hot earful, as if the whole scheme had been my idea. I’d assumed the whole regrettable episode was over, but I had obviously underestimated Eileen’s resolve. When that woman wants something, that woman gets something.

  When I got back from El’s I was so tired I could barely hold my toothbrush, and was in bed a few minutes after nine o’clock. I began to drift off as soon as my head hit the pillow – my mind running a scenario involving Queen Elizabeth II, Donald Duck and an ice-cream van. Donald had just asked Her Majesty if she’d like raspberry sauce on her ninety-nine when I was jolted awake by the sound of someone hammering on the door downstairs.

  For a moment I thought I was under arrest for treason, but then I was brought to my senses by further banging, the doorbell ringing and someone shouting Doug’s name through the letter box.

  Footsteps downstairs; an internal door opening.

  Raised voices – one gruff and indignant, one sharp and insistent.

  A door closing; footsteps; silence.

  . . .

  The slow resurgence of impassioned discourse.

  I pulled a pillow over my head – but the muffled grunts and mumblings were punctuated with more solid sounds now, as if Doug and Eileen were assembling a complicated item of flat-pack furniture at fifteen minutes past nine on a Tuesday evening. After several minutes the noises began to take on a more rhythmic quality.

  I took Tropic of Capricorn through to the living room, turned on the radio and made a pot of tea.

  Since Verity walked out of my flat five days ago, Henry Miller has been my constant companion – a self-destructive low-life whom I can neither bear nor ignore. Sitting on the sofa, I had to force myself to open the book at the folded page marking my slow progress through the author’s sordid exploits. At the last count, Miller had slept with sixteen women, screwed a friend’s sister in a doorway, molested a stranger on the elevated railway and picked up a dose from a hooker. The temptation to skim passages, skip pages or just drop the whole damn thing into the bin was hard to resist, but the book had taken on the weight of a penance and I was determined to complete it.

  And so, while Doug and Eileen made whoopee, I opened Tropic of Capricorn and attempted to make amends. Twice I fell asleep. The first time I woke to the sound of the novel hitting the floorboards. The second time to the sound of Eileen hitting the roof. I cranked the radio up a notch, made more tea and pressed further forward. Around eighty pages later, the knock and thump from below subsided. I closed the book, washed my cup and returned to bed.

  And ten minutes after I resettled my head on the pillow, Doug and Eileen began again. And again I rolled out of bed and turned on the kettle and switched on the radio. By now I was too tired to sleep, and with the end in sight, and more tea in the pot, I advanced again, determined now to end my ordeal.

  The final assault was exactly that, and the old-timers had reached their climax long before I arrived at my own – rather less rousing – conclusion.

  The closing words: We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow . . .

  True enough, but hardly worth the effort. In the final pinch of pages, having inflicted himself on a total of seventeen unfortunate ladies, Henry Miller moves to Paris, meets the love of his life and lives, presumably, happily ever after.

  If he can do it, why can’t I?

  It’s been quiet in Flat 5a, Chaucer Road for over an hour now, and it would appear that the seniors’ bedroom gymnastics is over for the evening. My mind, however, is swimming in tea and turning somersaults. I turn on my bedside light and reread the passage where my old mate Henry meets the woman of his dreams . . .

  . . . and I throw the book across the room.

  It leaves a shallow indent in the plaster, just below the spot where my poster – Obstacles are what we see when we take our eyes off the goal – used to hang. Taped to the wall in its place is Verity’s sketch of me as a werewolf, howling at nothing and holding a purple umbrella.

  And I laugh out loud because, finally, I know what I’m going to do.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I ring Doug’s doorbell, and a female voice shouts for me to hang on a moment, she’ll be right there.

  This morning we presented the first Little Horrors edits. The client and the agency are, by and large, happy; they want to see more sweets, more eating, there are concerns over the ending. Other people’s concerns, not mine.

  A dappled figure grows larger in the frosted-glass panel,
and it seems to me that she’s taking an awfully long time to cross a short corridor. Finally, Eileen opens the door.

  ‘Flowers,’ I say, handing a gigantic bouquet to Eileen. ‘And’ – holding up a potted plant – ‘for Doug.’

  ‘Thank you, love,’ Eileen says, taking the flowers. She kisses me on the cheek and holds a finger to her lips. ‘Douglas is sleeping,’ she says, and as she turns away I notice that she’s blushing.

  I follow Eileen as she shuffles into the living room, and hold her by the elbow as – with a good deal of wincing – she lowers herself onto the sofa.

  ‘Hip again?’ I ask.

  Eileen nods sheepishly and makes herself comfortable in a nest of cushions. ‘If you want a cuppa, you’ll have to make it yourself.’

  ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘Go on, and bring some biscuits. And put those in some water while you’re at it.’

  ‘And your last slave died of . . . ?’

  ‘Exhaustion,’ says Eileen, and based on the kerfuffle coming from her bedroom last night, it might just be the truth. ‘And none of that herbal nonsense,’ she shouts after me. ‘A proper cup of Typhoo’s what I need.’

  While the kettle is boiling I use the toilet. It stings when I pee and there is a pink tinge to my urine – but that’s to be expected after the day I’ve had. I scrub my hands thoroughly before I make the tea.

  ‘Has Doug forgiven me yet?’ I ask once we’re settled with our tea and biscuits.

  ‘Doug’s fine, love.’

  ‘Sleeping, you say.’

  ‘Yes, love,’ Eileen says into her cup.

  ‘Tired, then.’

  Eileen dunks a custard cream.

  I go on: ‘Only, he’s normally so energetic.’

  ‘All right, smarty-pants,’ says Eileen, finally looking up from her drink. ‘Ha ha, very funny.’

  ‘You gave it to him, then – the Viagra, I mean.’

  An expression that manages to combine horror and relief passes over Eileen’s face. ‘Oh, Tom, I thought he’d never stop.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I say. ‘So, how did you talk him round?’

  ‘Didn’t have to, love. He called me. Took himself to the doctor’s yesterday, got his own prescription there and then.’