He smiles back. ‘Well, then.’
He squeezes my arm and is his playful self again, pulling off my cap and waving it out of reach till we are almost breathless with our game of tag.
‘I need another drink now!’ he gasps. ‘A good long beer. What say you?’
‘Yes,’ I say, and his grin broadens.
‘Let’s find a tapster, then.’
‘Yes.’
A barrel organ cranks up a few paces away.
‘That’s more like it!’ he cries. ‘This way.’ He takes my arm and drags me towards the sound. ‘Don’t be angry.’
‘I am not.’
‘Let us not fall out with each other again.’
‘No. Let us not.’
The smile remains upon his lips. We buy two beers and drink them swiftly, and then knock back another two.
A rabble of women are kicking up their feet to the racket. I spot the pair who embraced us earlier, laughing raucously and swishing their skirts up to the knee as they scissor their feet in and out. They flick their eyes about the whole time, calling to any man who catches their attention, beckoning to him, calling out ‘dearie’, and ‘husband’, and enticing him with lewd gestures at their private parts.
‘You had your free kiss!’ the pale-haired one bawls at me. ‘Come and get the full works!’
‘You and your mate!’
‘We can take two in hand, no trouble!’
Alfred shakes his head. They shrug and turn to seeking out more interested parties.
‘Did you want to …’ he starts.
I think of the Lion-Faced Woman. She piques my interest far more.
‘No,’ I say.
‘No. Not to my taste, neither.’
We watch a while longer.
‘Do you dance?’ he asks, nostrils twitching.
‘I do not know.’
‘Oh.’
‘I mean, I don’t remember.’
‘Perhaps it is another of your hidden skills, Abel.’
The tune flourishes, finishes; ragged bows are made. A large man peels away from the dancers and approaches me, his arms broad enough to heft beer barrels with ease. He bows very neatly and makes a show of doffing his cap, at which the women applaud.
‘Charlie’s the name,’ he says, his voice oddly sweet for such a huge frame. ‘I’ll have this dance, if you’re not taken.’
I glance at Alfred, but this drayman grabs my hand and hauls me away to join the throng, beaming at me cheerfully. My breath catches and all at once my feet remember what to do: I find myself rising up on my toes, drawing first my left boot and then my right in a curve across the dirt, hands on my hips. I know how to dance, I think. Is there anything I don’t know, anything I’ve not done?
I spin Charlie beneath my raised arm, my other hand pressing lightly into the small of his back; for less than the space of a breath he hovers close to my body, then I swing him out to the end of my reach, steering his steps with confidence.
My heels spark fire from the stones. I hurl myself into lively twistings, skipping and hopping like a child; each time we circle each other I leap a little higher. I hear cheers that seem timed to my cavorting, and I realise the crowd’s approval is for my efforts. It spurs me to greater feats, and by the time the dance finishes I am breathless with delight at this discovery. I bend forward with my palms splayed on my knees. Charlie pounds my shoulder and I wheeze.
‘I’ll have you as a partner any time!’ he crows. ‘Never had a finer!’
Without thinking, I drop into a curtsey, to the great amusement of the onlookers. I stiffen, waiting for the taunts, but they are good-natured, clapping me on the back.
‘What a frisky dancer your pal is!’ grins Charlie at Alfred.
‘I’d curtsey to him and all!’ laughs the red-cheeked woman, snapping her kerchief across my buttocks.
‘He’s a good pal,’ says Alfred, very quietly.
The cry goes up: ‘Let’s have another!’ and coins are thrown into the organ-grinder’s hat. The pipes squeal, and I take Alfred’s hand and pull him towards me. For an instant he hugs himself into my arms; then he pushes me away.
‘Get off me!’ he declares. ‘What do you think I am, some kind of molly?’
The music stutters, the laughter stops, and the air is suddenly cold.
‘You got a problem with mollies?’ sneers the fair-haired female.
Alfred shifts from foot to foot. ‘What, me? Got the wrong man.’
‘Nah. I heard you.’
‘Seems to me he doesn’t like our Charlie.’
She jabs his shoulder with a sharp talon. The other women cluster around Alfred, joining in the poking.
‘Charlie’s all right.’
‘Looks after us judies, he does.’
‘We look after our own.’
‘Hey, Charlie!’ one shouts. ‘Someone here’s got a problem with your new dancing partner.’
Charlie lumbers towards us.
‘He needs sorting out, seems to me.’
It is as though I am seeing Alfred for the first time: the sunken cheeks, hungry eyes, shrivelled frame. He chews his moustache nervously.
I step forward. ‘Alfred,’ I declare. ‘We should go, dear boy. We have a long walk ahead of us.’
All heads turn in the direction of my voice.
‘My dear boy,’ I repeat. ‘It is late.’
I link my arm through his, carefully. They look from me to Alfred, and back again. Charlie is the first to laugh. He grabs Alfred’s hand and shakes it energetically.
‘It’s all right, mate,’ he purrs. ‘I won’t steal your boyfriend away. Just let me have a little polka with him every now and then.’
The women hoot with merriment.
‘They’re together!’
‘He’s jealous!’
‘That’s what it is!’
One of them pats Alfred on the cheek.
‘Aw, my pet. You should of said!’
Alfred’s face is crimson. The women giggle at him, their anger melted away.
The music starts up again and they caper off, leaving us alone.
‘You can stay with your new friend,’ he mutters, ‘if you want.’
‘Oh come off it, Alfred. You know that you’re my friend.’
‘Suppose,’ he grunts in reply.
A snail of doubt uncurls from its shell: Without Alfred, how would I find my way? I look around at the unfamiliar sights, unfamiliar buildings.
‘Also,’ I add, ‘you can lead me home.’
At this, he smiles. ‘Same old Abel. But I think you will have to lead me! That gin was bad. My eyes are swimming like eels in a tub.’
‘You are tired. Let us go.’
‘Oh, I am not so tired,’ he protests, staggering against me.
He attempts to straighten up, but the drink cuffs him on the jaw and he stumbles into the circle of my arms.
‘You are a good dancer,’ he murmurs into my shirt-front. ‘Oh.’ He clutches the side of his head. ‘Help me, Abel,’ he slurs. ‘I can’t hardly walk.’ He topples against me, legs buckling. ‘You’re right. I’m more tired than I think I am. I mean, than I know I am. Oh, Abel, you’ll have to be the clever one tonight.’
‘I shall help you home.’
‘You will?’
‘Of course.’
He grasps my arm in gratitude, running his fingers up the sleeve, squeezing the muscle within.
‘I could end up anywhere,’ he hiccoughs.
I put my shoulder in his armpit to lift him, and am buffeted by the stinking punch of his sweat. We sway in and out of the gutter, Alfred heaping drunken thanks on me at every step, breath thick with belched-out gin: he calls me ‘mate’ and ‘pal’ over and over, as though it is some urgent truth he must share. The moisture from under his arm soaks through to my shoulder. It takes a long time to get to our door, because I know only the streets close to our building and Alfred takes the wrong turn many times.
‘I can’t feel my feet,’ he groa
ns. ‘Will you help me in?’
‘Of course.’
I lift the latch and we almost fall inside, but I catch him and guide him to the empty kitchen, our shoes clattering on the tiles: the room is stifling with trapped heat and the odour of singeing tallow. I set him upon the bench, pushed up against the wall, and light one of the candle ends rattling in his pocket. He clasps his hand across his eyes, breathing heavily.
The flame hollows his cheeks and eyes, giving him a famished look. He claws at his cap, dragging it away from his glistening forehead, dropping it to the floor. I bend to retrieve it and a hand swipes the back of my thigh, curving round my hip so briefly I cannot be sure if I felt it.
‘Alfred?’ I say, turning quickly, but his fingers are at his throat, worrying at his neckerchief.
The tip of his tongue runs from one side of his mouth to the other; his lips appearing bruised in the uncertain light, livid against the dark graze of stubble on his chin.
‘Alfred. You’re ill.’
‘My stomach is heaving,’ he moans. ‘My own fault. Too much cheap gin and no food. Look at me. What a picture I make.’
‘You’ll feel better if you lie down. Come now.’
I begin to lift and carry him to the cellar. He grabs my collar.
‘Not yet,’ he growls.
I am surprised, for Alfred is always telling me to leave off and get some sleep. I sit next to him, and his body tilts towards mine. He picks at his cuffs; then his hand finds my knee and rests there the space of a long breath. It lifts away briefly, lands again, clasps the bone.
‘We’re pals, aren’t we, Abel?’
‘Of course,’ I say, wondering why he needs to ask a question with such a clear answer.
He twists his face to look up at me.
‘You drunk, Abel?’
I test my senses for light-headedness, but there is very little.
‘No,’ I say.
‘I am,’ he slurs. ‘Can’t hardly think straight.’
There is a pause. He is so still it occurs to me that he has fallen asleep.
‘Alfred?’ I say, quietly.
‘Abel,’ he blurts out. ‘I am not a good man.’
He hugs my knee.
‘You?’
‘I lied to you.’
‘When?’
He hiccoughs, and slides his fingers a few inches up my thigh.
‘Do you remember,’ he sighs, ‘a long while ago? You asked me if I had strange thoughts?’
I frown with the effort of recollection. Then it comes to me.
‘I do!’ I smack my palms together. ‘I do remember! I’d forgotten; but when you said the words, it came back to me.’ I realise I have spoken too loudly. ‘I am sorry, Alfred. I am excited. You know I can never remember anything.’
I brim with delight. I am holding on to memories. Perhaps I am not so irretrievable a dullard after all. Alfred stares into my eyes a long while, on the brink of speaking.
‘Alfred?’ I say to encourage him.
‘Oh. Yes. Sorry, Abel.’
‘Sorry? What for?’
‘My friend,’ he breathes. ‘Yes. Strange thoughts. Well.’ He runs his finger round the inside of his collar and undoes his shirt buttons. ‘It is so hot.’
I smell his musk, the scent of trapped meat. I look at him closely. He gazes back with a curious expression on his face. My hopes wilt. Perhaps I have been mistaken.
‘If you have changed your mind we can talk another time, Alfred.’
‘No!’ He grabs my hand. ‘No,’ he says, less urgently. ‘Let us talk a while. You’re my pal. I want to tell you. I do have thoughts.’ He coughs with the effort of speaking. ‘About – things I am afraid to tell.’
‘You are afraid, too?’
It rushes in upon me: all the frightening memories I have hidden from him, afraid to reveal them for fear they might become more real, more uncontrollable, more unbearable. How I have tamped them down, week after week, in fearful isolation. When, right before me, he was alone and hiding secrets too.
‘I thought you might hate me,’ I confess.
I think of the occasions I tried to tell him, how he shrugged me away. I was so afraid. But he is not shrugging me away now; his hand is hanging on to mine, tight.
‘Abel,’ he murmurs.
‘I thought you did not want to know,’ I say. ‘I tried to tell you before.’
‘Oh, Abel.’
He presses into my side, eyes swooning with drink; chucks his knuckles beneath my chin. My mind wavers in that way it does before I am plunged into a memory. Please: not now, I think. Not when I am so close to unburdening myself. I wipe at my face and my hand comes away clammy. It is exceedingly warm, for all that the fire is out: I open the neck of my shirt to the navel. His nostrils flare and he shuffles closer.
‘My memories plague me, Alfred. I cannot sleep. I cannot think right. Sometimes I am close to understanding, then all is snatched away.’
He breathes deeply, fingers tracing the edge of my cheek.
‘I can’t think right, neither. It’s the drink.’
‘I have such thoughts.’ My voice cracks. ‘So many pictures.’
I try to shake them out of my head, but now that I have opened the door to their knocking, I cannot close it again. His hands slide up my arms, cup the bones of my shoulders and squeeze.
‘Shhh,’ he says. ‘Hush now.’
He brings his face close to mine, eyes flicking over me like a tongue.
‘Help me understand,’ I hiss through clenched teeth.
‘Yes,’ he whispers, his features tight. ‘Hush now. You’ll wake the house.’
I clutch my arms around him, and cannot tell if he is feverish, or I am.
‘Yes. Help me,’ I say. ‘I’d give anything.’
‘I am so drunk, Abel. I believe I could do anything.’
He heaps his weight against me and we slide off the bench on to the floor. I try to get up, but he holds me down, teeth working their way up the column of my throat, hands grabbing the hair at the nape of my neck and pressing his face to mine, sticking his tongue between my lips.
‘Alfred—’ I try to say, but his tongue is in my mouth and I cannot get the word out.
‘Shhh,’ he wheezes.
He grips my hand, squeezing so passionately I wince; he guides it between his thighs and rubs my palm against the firmness there.
‘Oh, Abel,’ he pants, breath faint and fast as a rabbit, clutching me against the hardness, jerking my fist up and down in faster and faster strokes. ‘God, no,’ he whimpers, and hangs on fiercely.
The rubbing becomes ever more frantic; he groans into my ear, grasp tightening as his body begins to wind its spring towards release. Then he pauses, seizes my arms and flips me over, nose-down on the stamped-in grease of the floor. His fingers scrabble violently at the waistband of my trousers. I do not know why he feels he must force me. He could simply ask. I take a breath to tell him that I am quite willing, breathe in dirt and dust and hair and start to sneeze, my whole body racked with noisy spluttering.
As I catch my breath I become aware that Alfred has stopped grinding against me. I twist round to face him, straddled across my thighs.
‘You may continue, if you wish,’ I say.
‘What?’ he stutters.
He gawps at the palms of his hands, then at their backs, as though they are those of a stranger and he is discovering them for the first time.
‘You want this. You are my friend. I’ll give you anything, body and soul, if it’s your desire.’
I resume my prone position, propping myself on my elbows so that I do not breathe in more dust and set off another fit of wheezing.
‘No!’ he gasps. ‘You are shameless.’
‘There is no shame.’ I smile over my shoulder. ‘It is the pleasurable joining of bodies. You do not need to coerce me. I have done it before.’
‘Done it before?’ he repeats, slowly.
‘Of course!’ I laugh with the sudden flood of happ
y memories. Flesh sticky with joyful excitement, the delicious parts of women and men. ‘Many times.’
‘Many times? How – you—’
His face twists, untwists and twists again. I did not think it possible for a man to reveal so many warring emotions in so short a time.
‘You – you—’ He gathers in a deep breath and then hurls it out. ‘You bastard! You filthy sod! This is not my doing,’ he gulps.
He looks at his body as though it is suddenly foreign. He sees the tent in the rough fabric of his breeches and his fingers fly to cover the evidence of his arousal.
‘No. This is not what I want.’ He slams a fist into his groin and whimpers in pain.
‘Alfred, you are hurting yourself.’
‘This is you,’ he snarls. ‘You make a man do things he does not want to.’
I raise myself into a sitting position and lay my hand upon his shoulder.
‘Alfred. I am happy. Be happy with me.’
‘Let go of me, you bugger.’ He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, turning away. He will not look at me. ‘You’re evil. A perversion of all that’s clean and good.’
‘Please. Talk to me.’
‘Talk to you? You fucking nancy-boy.’
‘Alfred? You are my friend.’
‘Don’t say that. Never. Do you hear? Never.’
‘I do not understand.’ I try to hug him closer.
‘What are you doing?’ he gulps. ‘You’re fucking hurting me, you shit-stabbing piece of filth.’ He raises his fist and thumps me on the side of the head. I let go and he scrambles away. ‘You disgust me.’
‘Alfred, why are you being like this?’
‘Like what? Nothing happened here, and don’t you ever dare say any different.’
He tidies his trousers where they have fallen open and staggers to the cellar door.
‘Alfred,’ I call.
‘Leave me alone.’
I say his name again, but he is gone. I follow him down the dark stairs to my empty pallet. There is nowhere else to go. Alfred is breathing heavily on the mattress next to mine. I do not understand what has happened. I have no words to bring my friend back to me.
I lie down, open the gates of my being and wait for the pleasurable images to return, but the door swings loosely on its hinge. Nothing. I am an abandoned house, my lustful ghosts gone for the evening. No. Please. I want them. I can make them happen. I can bring them to me.
The Palace of Curiosities Page 10