Exposure

by Talitha Stevenson

  Sometimes he collected couples and he was equally amazed that they thought it was fine almost to have sex in the back of the car. Goran fixed his eyes dead ahead and wondered why the women weren't ashamed, why the men didn't have more respect in front of another man. And yet it was fascinating and exciting, particularly since Mila was often too exhausted from cleaning to make love. Sometimes he couldn't help looking. He saw a fragment of a scene in the rear-view mirror: a tangle of legs, a male hand unbuttoning, unhooking, a more precise female hand helping it out. On one of these occasions, Goran had been deeply embarrassed. A boy of about seventeen had caught him watching and said, 'Hi there,' into the mirror. There was lipstick smeared on his face. Goran's eyes darted back to the road. The boy said, 'That's OK, keep looking, friend. It's the closest you'll ever get to a girl like this.'

  The girl giggled, pulling her top down to cover her bra. 'Oh, shut up, Gus, you wanker.'

  Gus pulled up her top again. 'Come on, baby, share a little with the poor,' he said.

  On one of his shifts, quite unexpectedly, Goran saw Luke. It was peculiar to discover him in his real life. Zigana had just radioed a pickup from outside a bar called Blue Monkey, off Kensington Church Street, at the Notting Hill end. Goran was just round the corner. He said he would do the job and he took the relevant left turn. He drove along the empty street, past the darkened restaurants, their tables all neatly laid for the next day's lunch, their windows flashing his reflection back at him. He looked at it—now higher, now lower, now stretched across two long windowpanes. Who are you? he asked this picture of himself. He was a man in a maroon car, wondering if he had made a mistake. Should they have stayed in their own country?

  Then he saw Luke standing—or, rather, supporting himself—against the wall beneath the huge neon monkey sign. Goran was starting to worry about him when a girl rushed up and tapped on the car window, giving him a shock. 'Kwik-Kabs?' she said. 'For Claire?'

  'Yes,' Goran told her. 'I am Kwik-Kabs.'

  'Cool. Just be a sec.'

  As she got into the back, first giving repeated kisses to one of her friends ('No, seriously, we will, we'll do it again soon, sweetheart'), Goran asked himself whether he should call out to Luke. But there was something humiliated about the way Luke was standing, not just the indignity of his drunkenness but something deeper. It occurred to Goran then that Luke had developed the comical snarl of a kicked dog, a dog that cowers and growls at the same time, convincing no one.

  A group of laughing friends were all kissing one another goodbye on the pavement and a black cab pulled up in front of them. An astonishingly tall, good-looking couple separated themselves from the rest and got into it. As the cab set off, the girl leant out of the window and waved at Luke. It was then that Goran decided he must drive away: these glimpses of private trouble were not meant for his eyes.

  'Just off the Old Brompton Road, please,' the girl in the back said.

  Goran drove in silence, longing to get back to Mila and to the reassurance of her sleep-warm arms. He checked the clock. She would be off out to clean in three and a half hours.

  Cleaning and driving, cleaning and driving, he thought. The days rolled over into one another. Perhaps Luke would be too drunk to come today and they would have time alone to make love. With horror and concern, he remembered Luke's face as the beautiful girl in the taxi waved.

  Goran wished he could go straight back to Mila now. But there were more than two hours of the night still to go.

  Almost a month had passed before Luke had any real news of Arianne. And when it came he did not learn it from a friend in one of the bars where she went, or from the hairdresser's he had watched her go into; nor did he learn it from the usher he never dared to approach at the theatre. He didn't learn it from the maitre d' he had not yet spoken to at Lanton's, or from the bar girl at Noise, or even from the flirty gay man on reception at her gym. He learnt it at the breakfast table with his parents.

  An unquestioned routine had now established itself in the main house. His parents had now resigned themselves to their son's need for 'a bit of time off' and his father was plainly too afraid of self-incrimination to question it. And, in a way that Luke did not recognize, Rosalind was too self-absorbed to do more than worry about his food. Although this parental negligence shocked him, he knew it worked in his favour. He wanted to be left alone. Let them be cowardly and selfish, he thought, only don't make me go back to the flat without her.

  In fact, all three wanted nothing more than to be left alone. They risked only the most superficial interaction: 'Has anyone seen my glasses?' or 'I don't suppose anyone's interested in wine, are they?' or 'Anyone mind if I turn on the news?'

  Life functioned, life continued, and Luke became used to the way his mother left a room almost as soon as his father walked into it. This was precisely what had just happened when Luke put his hand into the pile of Sunday papers on the breakfast table, not knowing they contained a shard of glass. He picked up one of the magazines. 'You don't want this, do you, Dad?'

  'Please, go ahead,' Alistair said, without looking up from his book review.

  On the magazine cover, Luke read, 'A-list Eating, Drinking and Partying'. The cover shot was of the lower half of a girl's face, her pink tongue licking cream off the corner of her mouth. Luke flicked the pages, taking in the words and pictures in little flashes: 'Vitamin B12 ... day-patient procedure ... kitten heels ... ancient Jewish faith ... scallops with pancetta ... Palme d'Or ... Venetian blinds ... Japanese orchids ... Lapis-Lazuli.' His fingers stopped at these last two words. Lapis-Lazuli was the name of the bar Jamie Turnbull was planning to open with his footballer friend Liam Bradley. Luke had read about it on the Turnbull and Liam Bradley fan sites. Jamie had told Stars magazine, 'I was just fed up with the same old queues at the bar with no exclusive feel. This is going to be strictly members only.'

  The photograph in the centre of the article was of Liam and Jamie with their arms round each other's necks like Mafia brothers. In the background, Luke recognized the outline of Arianne's shoulder and arm. She was wearing a dress she had not owned when she was with him: it was high-collared and gold. Luke read,

  The opening party for the exclusive members-only club will also celebrate the recent success of Turnbull's girlfriend, Arianne, star of the surprise West End hit Hotel. Turnbull, known for his romantic gestures, recently hired disgraced TV gardener Owen Macintosh to replace flower-beds at his Kensington home. The beds had been planted to form the letters of Turnbull's previous girlfriend's name, Elaine Dance, in her favourite orange lilies. Owen Macintosh, 52, who is alleged to have used BBC hardware to download 'adult material', told Flash magazine, 'Jamie's dad and I go back a long way. Jamie's a great young guy and should not be criticized for it. There is something wrong with this country. I have no comment to make about the vicious lies said against me. This is all about gardening.'

  Plans for the party are said to include a troupe of cabaret dancers to go with the 'All that glitters...' theme. There are rumours the couple may also use the event to announce their engagement.

  Luke knocked his coffee cup on to the floor.

  'Luke!' his father cried out in surprise.

  'I—I dropped my cup,' Luke said. 'It was an accident.' Alistair stood up and reached for the kitchen roll on the sideboard. 'Yes, of course it was,' he said, observing his pale-faced son with concern. 'Not to worry.'

  Luke held up a dripping fragment. 'It is totally destroyed,' he said, his voice trembling with sadness.

  'Oh, well, never mind, Luke. It really wasn't anything special—just an ordinary cup.' Alistair tried to catch his son's eye and smile at him, but Luke was frantically scraping chairs across the floor—as if he had set fire to something and the blaze might catch.

  Rosalind came hurrying in. 'What a noisel What on earth's going on?' she said.

  The sharp anxiety on her face was a reminder to each of them that fear and mistrust lay just beneath the quiet surface on which they moved. They look
ed at each other, reluctantly acknowledging this. Then Alistair sighed and said calmly, 'Doesn't matter. An accident. Just an ordinary cup.'

  Rosalind shoved the table further to the side and fell to her knees with tears coming down her face. She began to place the fragments into her left hand. Through gritted teeth, she said, 'Actually it wasn't just an ordinary cup, Alistair. It was one of the ones I made in my pottery class.'

  She snatched the front page of his newspaper, wrapped the pieces in it and dropped the package into the bin under the sink. Then she went out into the garden, closing the door hard behind her.

  Luke spent the rest of the day on his bed. Just before six, when Goran usually woke and dressed for work, Luke went out of the front door and down the side passage to see him. He glanced back through the foliage of the tree peony at the empty-looking house. Then he did the special knock so Goran would know it was safe to answer.

  'Hello Luke,' came the call—as usual.

  Luke pushed his way in.

  Goran was standing in the doorway of the little shower room. 'I am washing myself. Be there in a tick,' he said. He was proud of his English idioms.

  Luke sat down on the sofa where Goran slept and put his head in his hands. He sat like this for a few minutes, unaware of the amount of time that had passed, or that he was being watched from behind. Goran stood with the yellow beach towel wrapped round his neck; his hair was wet and black and shiny as crude oil. He pushed it back with one hand, then rubbed it with the towel, still watching Luke. There was a feeling of deep anger in him and he would have preferred not to have had a visit today, no matter how lonely and desperate Luke was.

  'How are you, Luke?' he said.

  Luke started. 'Oh, you're there. You made me jump.'

  'I am sorry.'

  'Actually, I need your help.'

  Goran could not help but be struck by the unmasked pain on Luke's face. He dropped the towel and put on his shirt. 'OK, Luke, I owe you many favours.'

  'I only want one,' Luke said. 'Goran, I thought you might know where I could get hold of a gun.'

  Instinctively, Goran wanted to pull up a chair, clasp the back of Luke's neck and ask him what the hell he was talking about, tell him not to be so stupid. But the anger inside him told him to wait, out of a kind of spiteful curiosity, and see what the stupid idea was. 'What kind of a gun?'

  'Pistol,' Luke said simply. 'I don't know the names. One about this big. I'll pay. I've got plenty of money. Do you know who to ask?'

  'Yes,' Goran said truthfully. 'I know.'

  'Well ... will you do it?'

  Here Goran's resolve broke. 'No,' he said. 'Luke, are you crazy?'

  'No?' Luke repeated.

  'No, I will not find your gun.'

  Luke stood up. 'Then I'll ask someone else.'

  Goran laughed at him. 'Yes? Who else you will ask? Nice rich English boy—you know so many people who can find you a gun, Luke?'

  'You said you would help me, Goran, because I helped you!

  'Help you to become killer? Criminal?'

  'Why do you care?'

  They heard the door open. It was Mila. She was eating an apple and she smiled at both of them.

  'Hello, Goran. How are you, Luke?' she said. 'It is a beautiful evening.'

  Luke and Goran both stared at her. She was still smiling at Luke. She had tied her hair back in some new way.

  'Hi, Mila,' Luke said.

  Goran walked over to her and put his arms round her, but she pushed him away. 'Eeuch. You are wet! she cried. 'Like big wet dog!' She laughed with her eyes trained on Luke, inviting him to share the joke. Out of politeness, Luke smiled with her.

  Goran moved away and controlled his anger as he laced up his shoes. They were old trainers of Luke's. Suddenly he wanted to tear them off his feet. He wanted to walk out into the garden barefoot and wave his arms at the rich people in the big house.

  'OK. I go to take a shower,' Mila said. 'I do five flats today. Everybody have dinner parties,' she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  When they heard the water start, Goran sat down on the arm of the sofa. 'Why do you want this gun, Luke?'

  'To kill him,' he said. Then he lowered his eyes. 'Or to scare him. I don't know yet. I just need the gun, Goran.'

  Goran wanted to laugh because it seemed like a joke: a gun, here in Holland Park, where the houses were so tall and white; a gun in this beautiful boy's hands. But Luke's face was pale and sweaty, his teeth were gritted—it was a look Goran had seen often before in PriŜtina. 'You talk about this man who is with your French girl?'

  'Yes. Jamie Turnbull. You see, I know where they're going to be. He's having a party next week.'

  'You really think she loves you, she will come back to you, Luke?'

  'Yes.'

  Goran was not sure why, but he felt distinctly irritated by this response.' Why do you think this?' he said.

  'Because—because I believe it.' Luke clenched his fists. 'I really, really believe it. You know?'

  'No, I do not know.'

  Luke scrutinized him briefly with a sickly smile. 'Well, look, it doesn't matter, Goran, because I do know.'

  'Yes? What do you know, Luke?'

  Luke shrugged. 'I know God won't let this happen to me,' he said—and Goran laughed to see all the egocentric complacency that Western money could buy laid out so prettily before him.

  'God? Why do you say God, Luke? When I was young child, we had school teacher in Priština. A good teacher. He was maybe fifty years—he was old Communist like my father, always telling us kids about how great is "Mother Russia". I remember one day we talk him about God—we say, "What is he like, Teacher, does he love us, is he a nice old man?" and all this shit.' Goran shook his head and grinned. 'And this teacher said to us, he said, "Children, don't you know that in Russia the scientists have sent big space-ship up into the moon?"

  ' "Yes, Teacher," we say, "we know this."

  '"Well," this teacher say, "and don't you know, children, that your uncle Gagarin, he came out of this spaceship, he had a look around ... and—oh!—children, there is no God!

  Luke listened to the horribly caricatured voices and began to cry. At that moment, Goran felt pure hatred for him. Mila was flirting with this ridiculous English boy. That was the truth and he might as well acknowledge it.

  Could it really be true that like all those grabbing bitches in Priština, like his stupid sister Irena who had married a guy who pimped Albanian prostitutes in Milan just because he had a BMW, that even Mila was only interested in money after all? How could he help but notice that she would not even allow him to touch her in Luke's presence? Not that she particularly wanted him to touch her during their few moments alone.

  A 'wet dog', he thought. My Mila called me 'a big wet dog'.

  'OK, fuck what I tell you,' Goran said. 'I will get you this gun.'

  Luke smiled with relief and Goran smiled back, thinking, Yes, get yourself into as much trouble as possible. Go to prison and be locked away from us, away from Mila. If you are so stupid, then you deserve to go to prison. Stupid people are more dangerous than guns, he thought.

  Just then, Goran wished they had only stayed two nights in the annexe and then made their own way, even if it had meant sleeping in a stinking bed like Rajan's, rather than accepting charity from this mad rich boy. He hated Luke for his poindess angst, which was the agony of privileged people. He wanted to say, 'Do you know what real pain is?' and to tell him about the NATO bombings, when the noise of death made your teeth hum in their sockets. Or, before that, about the guilt and gut-fear you felt when, out of each bedroom window on Dragodan hill, you could see the Albanian farms burning all the way across the valley like little Christmas candles and, yes, it was silent but you knew that your own countrymen, dressed up in uniforms, were raping in the dark and that the screaming went on and on into the night. He wanted to tell Luke about what it was like to find body parts—a foot, a finger—as you walked down the street. And now, now that it was all su
pposed to be over, now that the churches and the mosques alike had been bombed, he wanted Luke to know about the thousands of unexploded landmines, all over the countryside, designed by a devil to look like toys.

  But he said nothing about any of this, because suddenly all he could think of was Mila's face, doing that shameless grin of hers for this stupid, rich young man.

  Luke stared at his own feet and noticed he was wearing odd shoes.

  Chapter 18

  It had been a lovely dream and Alistair had slept late. He sat up in bed smiling and drank some water. He had dreamt about his mother and Ivy. He could not remember the exact subject matter of the dream, but it had left him with a particular cosy excitement that he could only associate with the rainy afternoons of his early childhood.

  At one time there had been no happier circumstances than finding it was too wet to be sent out to play and being given 'a mug of something nice'. He would sit beside Geoff at the kitchen table and Ivy and his mother would lounge against the sideboard or the cooker. Occasionally his mother would wipe a surface or a cupboard door with the dishcloth, as if to justify their place in the room. She had always appeased her household gods in this way, never able to sit without dusting or straightening—or making an offering of some kind.

  Life was contained by domestic routine; the adult heart was slowed to acceptance of the way things were. But on those precious rainy days, something wonderful happened. It was as if the gently therapeutic gossip combusted and his mother and Ivy staged impromptu firework displays of all the local characters. They did men and women alike. Their impressions were frantic and absurd but accurate enough to seem deliciously wicked. The hostile tapping of rain on the windows didn't matter a bit.

  They all had mugs of cocoa, Alistair remembered: Geoff and his mother and Ivy had 'a little tipple' in theirs and he had marshmallows from Geoff's shop. (This was a treat American children had, Geoff had told him, tipping them into the cup like a wizard.) The marshmallows melted and could be pulled up in long strings and licked off the back of the spoon.