Cedilla

by Adam Mars-Jones

  ‘All right, little man, no need to shout,’ said da Silva. ‘You’re quite right, though, we should attend to our cox. Our cox!!’ Finally there it was, out in the open, the double meaning that had been hovering over the conversation for so long. He fought off an attack of the giggles. ‘I could do with a bit of a slash myself.’

  As he was clearly the most unstable of the group, I tried to head him off. ‘Perhaps Benedict could oblige …?’

  ‘He has better things to do, my lightweight friend. He has important cigarettes to buy.’

  ‘I can wait.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t. Isn’t that what you were just saying?’ He looked hurt. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Your driving can be a bit erratic, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘I’ve got the hang of your buggy now. I’m sure of it.’

  I broadcast a general appeal. ‘Anybody care to give me a hand to the Gents?’ But Thomas da Silva had already grasped the handles, and we were off. The door to the Gents swung freely, or else it would have been agonising when he used my feet to push it open. I started panicking the moment I saw the wet floor of the Gents. A slippery floor is a death-trap in my book, much more so when I’m landed with an assistant who can hardly stand up himself.

  Pure jets of desperation

  ‘Do you mind if I go first?’ he said. ‘It turns out the need is rather urgent.’ He unzipped his trousers without waiting for an answer. I gritted my teeth somehow as a fierce bolt of liquid escaped him, bouncing noisily against the porcelain of the urinal. ‘I know, I know … not a good lookout for a tie with no Ps on it. But I expect it’ll be all right on the night.’

  The pressure of the urine-stream was so intense that like any other substantial fall of water it created a drifting veil of moisture, a fine mist which stung my eyes but cooled the backs of my hands. For a second I was transported back to the sea front at Bognor Regis, on a walk from Mr Johnson’s Home, safe in the care of people who knew what they were doing.

  I was so frantic to urinate myself that I had something close to an out-of-the-body experience. I felt I could see myself from above thrashing miserably about in the wheelchair, flailing my arms through their limited arc like a defective clockwork toy, a drummer whose sticks have been taken away. My mundane bladder was churning, and suddenly my astral body leapt upwards. Normally this can only happen in unconsciousness, with the arrival of a dream of knowledge, but I soared above the body on pure jets of desperation.

  Then Thomas da Silva finished his business and it was my turn. He came round to the front of the wheelchair, stooped and grabbed me. It’s not a good lifting position. It squashes me, it’s bad for the lifter’s back, there’s nothing to be said in its favour. I never allowed it in normal life, but then I had been not allowing things for almost an hour now without making the slightest impact on what is alleged to be reality. More frightening than being lifted in this way was the prospect of being dumped back in a chair that could easily roll backwards. There was some hope of a safe splashdown if I could at least get him to put the brakes on.

  ‘Put the Brakes On, Please! … BRAKES! … BRAKES!!’ I bellowed. I tried to pattern my intonation on the nurses at CRX, whose capitals and exclamation marks were palpable in their delivery.

  Thomas da Silva didn’t understand, or at least paid no attention. He lifted me roughly, agonisingly, by my armpits and yanked me towards him. There was a moment when his balance faltered, and the wheelchair (with the brakes disengaged) slid sharply backwards away from me. I had a limited choice: either to lean backwards, on the off-chance that the wheelchair, sentimental about our long association, would wait for me, or forward, into the grip of a tottering unmindful drunk. I leant forward with my full two or three stone (which at this stage of my life even Maya assessed at four-and-a-half), and Thomas fell backwards.

  This was both a lucky and an unlucky fall, depending on who you were. If you were Thomas da Silva, unlucky, since he fell on his back (unable to break his fall with hands that were fully occupied with me), with his head unpleasantly close to the trough of the urinal. Lucky if you were me, since I landed on top of him. Otherwise I could have been badly injured or even killed. It wouldn’t have taken much to break my neck.

  Landing on top of Thomas da Silva’s stomach was like doing a belly-flop onto that fantasy item of the time, a water-bed. The pressurised liquid with which my landing-cushion was filled was beer, of course, and not water, but the same hydrostatic laws applied. We were both winded for the moment, so there was no interference from breathing. The liquid was driven out to the edges of the organism, then surged back rebounding.

  My luck was about to change. Thomas took a slow rasping intake of breath, then his insides gave up its struggle to contain what in his folly he had taken in. He gave a groan, and the groan became torrential.

  Obviously the jet of vomit didn’t reach the wheelchair, far across the room, and slam it against the opposite wall. That was only the picture in my mind. Now I was experiencing something that was as far from my circumscribed reality as a water-bed. I was riding a roller-coaster. I didn’t like it. I wanted to get off. Though Thomas politely turned his head away from me, I was perched on a set of abdominal muscles which were being trodden on by a huge internal foot, and the violence of the ejection, its muzzle velocity so to speak, was awe-inspiring. From my skewed point of view he was a geyser rather than a human being, a personified hydrant of swill.

  I thought it would never stop, and then it did. He was sobbing with the effort of it. Otherwise there was silence, apart from the drip of cisterns refilling. My arms were hurting. I can’t lie flat on my front, the joints don’t permit it.

  Up to this point the evening had been a disaster in every way, but now it became something worse. A disgrace. I urinated on Thomas da Silva. There was no element of retaliation involved. I wasn’t saying, You soil me, I soil you. I just couldn’t hold it in. For so long I had been engaged in a battle of wills with my bladder, while no one helped or listened. Now this body had its triumph and my bladder won. Thomas’s vomit had sprayed far and wide, but he had been considerate enough to turn his head away from me. My released urine had nowhere to go but downwards, though capillary action ensured that the cloth of my trousers absorbed its fair share.

  And to think I had been worried that the beer-drips on my trousers in the Cambridge Arms would make people think I had pissed myself!

  Thomas didn’t move while my bladder added the finishing touches to the tableau of degradation. It seemed highly likely that he had passed out. My mantra flowed more cleanly in my head now that the tempo of events had slowed.

  The landlord came wearily into the toilet where the two of us were wallowing in the failure of our bodies to contain themselves. He asked, between his teeth, ‘Gentlemen, may I have the telephone numbers of your tutors?’ Then he said, ‘I thought I’d seen everything there was to see in these four fucking walls. But I was wrong about that, wasn’t I, gentlemen?’ The expletive was painful to listen to, since it seemed unhabitual.

  A basset-hound with a secret sorrow

  He picked me up from the stinking cushion that was Thomas da Silva and propped me competently against a wall. Unfortunately he didn’t hand me my crutch and cane, which would have made me feel less helpless. Was it really likely that I would make a dash for it, if my utensils were left within reach?

  The landlord looked from Thomas to me, directing his remarks in my direction, where they might have some effect. ‘If you find you have somehow forgotten those telephone numbers, gentlemen, I’m sure your colleges will be happy to supply them.’ He looked like a man who had come to a decision. To retire from the publican’s dismal trade, perhaps, to sell at a loss or simply walk away. He looked like a basset-hound with a secret sorrow. His breathing was the very respiration of exasperated reproach. Then he stood up and walked out of the urinal. He left us to think about our shortcomings as human beings, though Thomas wasn’t doing much thinking. It wasn’t
his style.

  The landlord had done me a service by picking me up off the floor, but I was in a very awkward position. Leaning against a wall without crutch or cane I was as helpless as a beetle on its back. In fact I had time to think, as urine seeped downwards from my crotch, that even after his traumatic metamorphosis Gregor Samsa could have run rings round me.

  It seemed that the other members of Write Off Tuesday, prudently treacherous, had disappeared. They weren’t far behind Thomas in terms of drunkenness, but some profound wastrels’ instinct must have enabled them to leave the premises while his vomit was still actually airborne. Benny had seemed to be the conscience of the group, but not every group has a conscience.

  To my astonishment Thomas opened his eyes and got to his feet. I could have sworn he was in a coma. He didn’t look at me, propped up against the wall as I was like a rank-smelling broom. He didn’t look around him at all. His eyes were entirely blank, but there was a lurking awareness in there somewhere, and a furtive purpose. I swear that he shook the worst of the mess off himself, the ejecta and excreta. Like a dog, more or less, except that he bounced feebly on the balls of his feet to start the dislodging process. Perhaps rough tweed, the material of his sports jacket, is especially prized for this resistance to defilement. Then he lurched with grim concentration towards the door and left.

  This was one more betrayal, of course. Leaving me in the hands of the enemy was as bad as abducting me in the first place, but I was fully compensated by the joy of being alone, however uncomfortable, ashamed and malodorous. The landlord might never be the president of my fan club, but he was certain to be better company than the polyglot hearties who had just absconded.

  Even so, Thomas as he left reminded me sharply of Julian Robinson from Vulcan. There was no physical resemblance, and loyal Julian would never have walked out on anyone. But Thomas walked out with a tottering stiffness, as if he didn’t trust what might happen if he allowed his knees to bend. It looked for all the world as if he was wearing calipers.

  A plump trout on the scales

  Left on my own in the squalor of the Zebra’s toilet, I cheered myself up with memories of Julian. We had ended up as good friends in the school, to the point where we had pet names for each other. Despite my childish gloating over the superiority of my chemistry set (Fun With Gilbert) over his (Lotts for Tiny Tots), the human chemistry between us was good. Julian and John became Tooley and Tonny. We were sublimely innocent of the overtone of tool.

  I don’t know why we didn’t go into the toilet cubicles, which were distinctly roomy, being designed to accommodate a wheelchair plus a person, but we didn’t. Perhaps we relied on the sliding doors in the toilet block, which weren’t lockable, to give our explorations the tension they lacked. Julian would lean against the wheelchair for balance and unzip himself, plonking his prize member onto the armrest like a fishmonger slapping a plump trout on the scales. I would squeeze it and prod it for a few minutes in the interests of science and then say, ‘Now put it away. I’ve seen plenty.’ Unresentfully Julian would return his parts to privacy.

  Then we would discuss how best to leave the toilet block without arousing suspicion. This seemed to be a friendship rooted in fantasy, and our solution was a rather far-fetched one. We decided that the best alibi for our risky intimacy would be to stage a fight in the corridor. I’d say, ‘Look here, I’d better knock you over when we’re in the hall.’ And he’d say, ‘Good idea.’ So I would steer the Wrigley so as to graze him, and he would cannon into the wall, shouting with outrage. Then I would cruise away at high speed, leaving him to shake his fist in my wake. I’d steam off as if I couldn’t care less what happened to him. This routine became slick with much practice – you go that way and I’ll go this – but I don’t see that it can ever have fooled anyone. Nothing could be fishier, in fact, than these aggressive displays of indifference.

  I was left, though, with a certain fondness for the atmosphere of urinals, which came in handy in the public lavatory of the Zebra pub. It can’t have been long before the landlord came back. Self-pity had yet to become entrenched. He was carrying cloths and towels, and a hose, which he attached to a tap in the basin. He had his sleeves rolled up. He was wearing Wellington boots and an apron. Seeing that I was alone, he let out a disgusted sigh, but set to work on cleaning up as best he could. Sensibly he started with the wheelchair, whose wheels had been well sprayed by Thomas da Silva’s own hose of second-hand beer. It wasn’t as vile as it might have been. The vomit was really only beer, though tainted by digestion. Still, a little of that gastric-juice smell goes a long way.

  I hoped he would come to me quickly, before I started sliding down the wall and had to scream for help.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he said wearily, ‘if this only happened once a year, say. But these days hardly a month goes by without something like this. When I took on this place I was told all this drinking-club rubbish was dying out, but I’ve seen no sign. Aren’t you all supposed to be smoking pot? Shouldn’t you be on a demo?’ It was soothing to be addressed in generational terms, to be treated as a standard aberration.

  At last it was my turn. He dried the wheelchair off roughly and sat me in it. I thought he might be tempted to use the hose on me too, in the manner of riot police, but he changed over to cloths and warm water.

  ‘I have to admit you’re a novelty, though …’ he said. There was a curious intimacy to those moments, intensified by the lack of eye contact. ‘I thought I’d seen most of the gimmicks. There’s a pack of toffs who do the Run on pints of champagne. The Pitt Club, they’re called. Champagne makes a bit of a change from beer when it’s puked up … but not as much as you’d think. Tell me, do you think this sort of thing happens a lot in, say, Ely? Do you think it happens at all? It’s just I’ve had my eye on a pub there. Perhaps now’s the time … Those lads aren’t your friends, you know.’

  At last I had my chance to explain. ‘I know they’re not my friends. That’s what I’ve been trying to say the whole time. I’ve never met them before.’

  He frowned as he went about his work. ‘I see.’ I found the deliberate tempo of his actions soothing. Most people who get that close to me are flustered and fidgety. All his movements had the buffered ease of a strong arm pulling pints. ‘And because you’ve never met them before you obviously can’t give me any of their names.’

  He assumed I was subscribing to the Colditz code of old-style undergraduates in trouble in the town, who would volunteer only name, college and tutor’s phone number, however gruelling the interrogation. Everyone knew that the police had little authority over university affairs, and couldn’t even enter the colleges without permission. ‘I hoped you weren’t going to be so loyal. Loyal and stupid. What’s your college, sir?’

  ‘Downing.’

  ‘But the missing gentlemen aren’t from there?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Never saw them before.’

  He shrugged but didn’t press the point. Nor did he make any comment about an idiosyncrasy of the way I dressed in those days. Having my laundry done and taking regular baths made the basics of hygiene simple in certain respects. I economised on others, because of the great awkwardness of dressing and undressing unaided. I solved the problem of vests by not wearing vests. I solved the problem of underpants by not wearing underpants. I solved the problem of socks by not wearing socks – since I walk relatively little, my shoes don’t have much chance to rub. I had pared my costume down to shirt, trousers and shoes. In winter I didn’t go out much.

  432,000 years in the dark

  ‘Did they shout out “Dead ants!” every now and then? And then lie flat on the floor?’

  ‘No, that’s about the only thing they didn’t do. What would that mean?’

  ‘Fitzwilliam. Never mind.’ His manner had a cosy gloom to it, as if he was an undertaker from a family firm. ‘Look, I haven’t any clothes for you to change into. You’re about three times too small. Best I can do is wipe you up, then stuff some toilet pa
per into your trousers to keep you dry.’

  ‘That seems more than fair, landlord.’

  ‘Don’t call me that. Arthur Burgess. Call me Arthur. Is that enough toilet paper?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Arthur. I think it is. By the way, I don’t want anything to do with that stopwatch’ – whose case he had wiped, whose string he had rinsed – ‘please keep it.’ What did I want with a stopwatch? As Hindus know, we’re in the depths of the Dark Age, the Kali Yuga, set to last 432,000 years. Time is going quite slowly enough.

  Arthur hesitated, until I added, ‘Perhaps they’ll come back for it. Perhaps that’s how you’ll nab ’em.’

  Arthur Burgess put no pressure on me for my tutor’s phone number. Unfortunately there was no one else I could call for help. The Mini was a good distance away, and I wasn’t in a strong position to ask favours from someone who had already cleaned me up.

  I had made no special effort to remember the number, but after my childhood tutor Miss Collins restricted my access to books I had come to rely more and more on memory, just in case I had to manage without books again. By my Cambridge days, it required an act of will for me to forget a phone number. I was half hoping Graëme would be out, though I had no idea what I’d do if he was.

  He was in. There are probably better times to be told that you need to retrieve a soiled student from a pub urinal than when you have just finished dressing for a formal college dinner, but the timing was not of my choice. It wasn’t long after 7.30, though to me it felt like midnight.