He finishes his wine, watching you with what you begin to think of as the pleased eyes of a subjugator. As you put your clothes back on, the word abominable comes to you. Over breakfast that morning, Jaspar had asked what abominable meant. You’d told him it meant sort of awful. ‘What was so abominable about the snowman then?’ he’d asked. You had no immediate answer, but you’d never thought before about the strangeness of the word, the strangeness of the combination. You’d started playing around with it, and when Jed came into the room you called him the abominable husband, and Jaspar called him the abominable father, and Jed had done a few jokey sasquatch moves around the kitchen.
Now you truly are the abominable wife.
At the door he takes your mobile out of your hands and sends a text from it. You hear the phone on his side-table beep. ‘I’m here for a few months,’ he says.
For a second your eyes lock in a colluders’ pact. You know, though, that whatever had enabled you to do this – the permissive licence you’d temporarily granted yourself – will start to dissipate as soon as you step across the threshold. In the middle of the night, in the dark, with the summer rain storming outside the window, and with your husband sleeping lightly beside you, you wonder about that condom retrieved from his pocket. Quite a lot of preparedness in that, for something that happened so impulsively. And was it a casual choice that he was sitting there for that particular film? It occurs to you then that he’d actually said something during the sex. Partway through, he whispered something in your ear. You weren’t quite sure you heard correctly. Could that be what he said? Next time I will tie you to a chair.
Haley
The cool thing about having regular contact with a dog is when you first arrive it always makes you feel like you’re a pretty exciting person to know. Whenever I get to Marty’s door Rochester is thrilled to see me, wagging not just his tail but the whole back half of his body. On the end of the lead, he sniffs and scuttles and lifts his little legs against things, and loves to put his nose to the bottoms of other dogs he meets, especially small ones.
Turns out he really likes Jed Jordan’s dog. They meet again on the path going into the reserve.
‘Hey there, how’s the professional?’ Jed Jordan says to me. Don’t know what the hell he means so just say ‘Hi’ a bit shyly and keep on going. Further on up the path I remember the client thing and think he might’ve meant professional dog-walker.
We end up standing together in the field. Don’t talk much. Watch him throw the ball across the length of the park and our two dogs race each other to be the first to get it. After a while he says, ‘My kid and I have a code for when you’re out somewhere and you see a person that looks like their dog.’
‘What is it?’ His kid?
‘Scroogler.’
‘Scroogler?’ I repeat, because it’s a pretty weird name for that.
‘He chose it. Likes weird words. Sometimes we just say that, or try to use it in a sentence – that can be quite hard.’
He nods across the park at a lady standing there with a black poodle, and I’m relieved because for a moment I thought he might’ve been going to suggest me and Rochester were alike. She has mad curly hair and a poodle expression on her face.
‘Mmm, see what you mean,’ I say. ‘Total Scroogler.’ Have seen her before. She tapped me on the shoulder one afternoon and pointed to a poo that I hadn’t noticed Rochester doing. ‘Need a bag?’ she’d asked, all helpful citizen.
Today her eyes are glued to Jed. Wonder if he has a special expression for ugly old middle-aged women that stare and stare at him in the park as if they’d like to eat him up.
When I drop Rochester back at the house, Marty has a glass of wine on the go and is like a man with too many words and ideas trapped inside him. He always tries to get me into a conversation about something. Tell him sometimes that I have to get back to my homework, but quite often he hooks me in. Have quickly got used to his place. Have discovered you can make disorder and dirt less visible if you choose to. Obviously a skill he’s mastered long ago. If you brought my mother over here to visit or anything she’d get into such a twitch to clean that you’d probably have to put restraints on her, and maybe even nobble her, to get her to stop.
‘Listen to this …’ he says, and he puts some old CD on and launches off, talking so fast and dropping so many facts that sometimes it’s hard to follow.
‘Exile on Main Street. Not the Stones’ best album, in my opinion, but they reissued it a while back so I’ve been giving it another go.’
‘Stones?’
‘The Rolling Stones. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you? Mick Jagger? Keith Richards? This song, “Casino Boogie”, has all these obscure lyrics. Sky diver inside her and Million dollar sad. People tried to work out what the hell it all meant, but Mick admitted once that the song was done in cut-ups – they wrote phrases on bits of paper and cut them up and then picked them out of the hat, Burroughs style. Rumour was they were all so drug-fucked from Nellcôte that they were struggling to come up with any ideas.’
‘Nellcôte?’
‘It was a house in the south of France that they decamped to on a tax dodge. Most of this album was recorded there. It was Keith Richards’ house. By that time he was in the grip of a serious heroin addiction and they could never rely on him turning up to a studio, so they just built one in the basement of his house. Meanwhile a never-ending debauched party was going on upstairs until finally they were all busted and had to scatter.’
He has something to show me as well. Says, ‘Look at this.’ Has some weird book laid out on the table but acts as if it just happened to fall open there while I was out walking. ‘These are Nudie suits. This guy, Nudie Cohn, started off making G-strings for show girls, and then in the fifties he was approached by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to tailor these rhinestone-encrusted suits for them. He even once made a gold lamé version for Elvis. The most famous Nudie suit was one that was custom-made for Gram Parsons, and he wore it on the front cover of the Gilded Palace of Sin album. See. It was embroidered with marijuana leaves, poppies, red barbiturates, white-crossed amphetamines. Actually it was made by Manuel Cuevas, not Nudie himself, but it’s like the map that led Parsons to Villa Nellcôte.’
‘Is that the same Nellcôte?’
‘Yeah. People blame Richards for intensifying the habit that ended in Parsons’ OD, but Richards always reckoned it was the other way around.’
On the days I tell Marty that I have to go and do something else he shrugs as if it doesn’t matter, but disappointment reeks out of him. That’s partly what makes it possible to hang around sometimes. Always feel like the balance is tipped in my favour more than Marty’s. He wants to talk more than I want to listen. And when I do choose to sit down and listen, it isn’t uninteresting, because if you can keep up then Marty knows a lot of random stuff. Gives me the feeling that I might come away with something that could turn out to be useful in some way. It’s like he wants to lead me off into all these interesting worlds, and while those worlds have a fascination they also have some gluey surfaces you don’t want to accidentally lean against. But also we both know the real truth – if he wasn’t the source of money, I wouldn’t come. Some days it feels like exercising Rochester is not really what I’m earning the cash for.
Afterwards I walk all the way to the supermarket in the sunshine. Enter through the sliding glass doors and wander down the wine aisle. Don’t usually bother. Has always been the least interesting part of the supermarket before, rating below even the household cleaner aisle. Too young to buy anything here but also repelled by what it represents – the nightly wiping out of my mother. Even she hardly ever takes the time to walk down it, just grabbing whatever’s on special from the bins near the door. Today I notice how much choice there is – the section signs wave out into the aisle: merlot, cabernet, syrah, pinot noir, pinot gris, sauvignon, chardonnay, riesling, imported – and each type has multiple brands, some even mixed, like ‘cabernet merlot syrah’. I
t’s like a certain kind of language. And it’s also like people waving at you, saying, come join us, come be part of our special club.
Now I have a fresh ten-dollar note in my pocket. Mostly I like to put the money I earn into my leaving-home-soon fund, but since I’m already in the supermarket I buy a Snickers bar on the way through the checkout, also to provide some cover for the mascara I’m sneaking out under my waistband.
Is Marty one? Is Mum one? I don’t really know how you judge it. It’s easier to think of alcoholics as people who go out to pubs and party up and then do something cock-headed and embarrassing, like waking up in the gutter or driving their car into a tree. Mum isn’t one of those wasters that hang around the mall with a bottle in a paper bag. She just stays home by herself and drinks a whole bottle of wine, and sometimes two, in front of the television every night. It isn’t much of a party – mostly she’s like a big slow-moving slug lying flat out on the couch, too oblivious to even mute the ads.
Maybe it’s cos she works at Craftland – lamest job on the planet. Working all day with two old busy-bodies in the one kind of shop where you are guaranteed never to meet anyone interesting. Where, if you wanted to, you could give up on the possibility that life offered up anything more exciting than a new colour range of 8-ply merino coming out in autumn.
The heat is starting to go out of the sun by the time I get to my street and come across Sas’s boyfriend Wolf and another boy. It’s inorganic recycling week, and they’re picking through the huge piles of junk out on the kerb like the alien characters in District 9.
‘Hey,’ Wolf goes, grinning. He’s always grinning, and looking slinky, as if he’s just done something wrong and is about to be caught out. Other boy doesn’t say anything but leans his shoulder against a power pole and looks me up and down in an obvious way. Has got long lank hair, fat silver rings in each lobe. Tall and really skinny and a dangerous look about him, like he thinks he knows a lot more than you do.
‘You know Dylan?’ Wolf goes.
‘Nah. Hi.’ Do a little wave of my hand from my hip.
Dylan says nothing, just raises his chin briefly.
‘You should come over to Sas’s later,’ Wolf says.
‘Why, what’s happening?’ Feel the tops of my ears start to burn as Dylan’s eyes are lasering into me.
‘Nothing much. Just gonna hang out. Have a smoke and chill.’
Say: ‘’kay.’ Continue on my way home.
Think maybe I won’t go. Seems like it might be really intense. Don’t know how to deal with boys like Dylan. He looks complicated. Wolf is easier, always trying to get people to like him. Off-limits, though.
Turns out I don’t have to justify going out, because before I can bring it up Mum says, ‘I’m thinking of going somewhere tonight.’
‘Really?’ I go, surprised.
‘It’s this new group that have asked me to join them.’
First thought is AA have somehow discovered her. ‘Who?’
‘They’re called Tag Sublime.’
‘What? What kind of group is that?’
‘Taggers.’
‘What?’
Mum breaks into a smile. ‘See, this woman kept coming into the shop and buying up bin-ends of whatever she could get her hands on and the other day we got talking. It turned out she has this knitting group that are making street graffiti and she asked me to join them.’ Little bit of sneaky pride in her face.
‘When you say street graffiti … ?’
‘Well, they get together and knit, and then they go out at night and attach it to things in the street. Like lampposts, and bollards, and handrails and so on.’
‘Why?’
‘For art,’ she says, and then as if reciting something: ‘And to help contemporise and redefine public spaces.’
‘With sneak attacks in the middle of the night?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like a normal tagger does.’
A vertical line appears between her brows. ‘I suppose so. Yes.’ After a moment she adds, ‘But ours isn’t damaging, is it?’
Could argue. Could make a case that some graffiti that is regarded as damage is actually art too, it contemporises public spaces, just not in a way that adults appreciate. But don’t want to do or say anything to put her off. Say: ‘I think it’s great that you’re doing that,’ thinking but what if she doesn’t fit in? What if the group doesn’t like her? Realises how secretly dull she really is?
Later, as Mum leaves the house and goes off down the footpath, I open the window and shout after her, ‘Knit one, purl one a go-go.’ Give her a thumbs-up and Mum goes smiling on her way, her knitting bag sagging with the weight of a bottle of wine. Maybe boozing could be considered more legit when you’re doing it on a social occasion, if you could call a knitting circle that.
Sas’s mother is in the kitchen when I arrive: ‘Hi, gorgeous girl. Saskia is just upstairs having a shower. She’ll be down in a minute. I think the boys are in the basement. It’s an official no-go zone for adults down there, so why don’t you go and join them, and take these.’
She passes me a couple of large bags of crisps and a cream dip she’d been making. She’s good like that. In the living room I glimpse a bunch of blond-haired women with wine glasses in their hands and stacks of books in front of them. Their house is all art and styley furniture and big glass windows with a peek of the sea. No wonder she likes to have visitors over a lot.
Walk down the stairs to the basement, and Dylan and Wolf are sitting side by side on the old yellow sofa playing Call of Duty. ‘Hi Haley,’ Wolf says, not moving his eyes from the screen. Put the bags of chips and the dip down on the coffee table in front of them. Wolf says, ‘Chur.’ Lots of explosions and machine-gun noises are coming off the screen. Sit down in a chair and can’t think of anything to say.
There’s a sudden volley and Wolf exclaims, ‘Whaat – I didn’t even know he was there.’
‘Little fucken pussies hiding in the bushes,’ Dylan mutters, ‘pitching their tents.’
The dimmer switch on the light has been turned down low. Atmosphere in the room feels quite loaded, and actually there’s something quite intentional in the way they’re keeping their eyes away from me. Soon discover why. In a quieter moment between levels of the game I hear slapping and panting behind me. Turn round to see porn is playing on the computer in the corner. From a quick glance I get that it is two men and a woman. The men are going really fast at the woman. Feel myself go pale. Have to hunt around for what to say. At this moment the difference between us feels massive. Not so much the age gap, which is only a couple of years, but the basic male–female creature difference. A game character says, ‘Oi Numpty, watch your fire’.
Sas walks in and when she sees it says, ‘Turn that shit off, you creeps.’
Think: that’s what I should have said.
Dylan laughs, says, ‘Got a problem with it, Captain?’
‘What do you think, arsehole?’
Wolf goes straight over and logs out of the site. Sas says, ‘And now apologise to Haley.’
‘Sorry Hales, we only meant it as a joke,’ Wolf says.
‘Yeah,’ Dylan says. ‘Don’t take it wrong. Didn’t intend it to be mean or anything. Just a joke, but guess we weren’t thinking.’
Shrug. Get the feeling it wasn’t Wolf’s idea. But Dylan is looking at me, mouths the word sorry in a soft way, and makes a gesture with the palms of his hands turned up as if to say, shoot me I’m a fuck-up.
Night gets better. Watch some old episodes from the first series of Skins and Wolf lights up some weed. ‘This season was the best,’ Wolf says.
‘Yeah, but the next one was okay too,’ Dylan reckons. ‘Remember the episode when Cook goes to the mental hospital where Effie is locked up and he’s all like yelling “Fuck you, I’m Cook” and this guy runs at him with a baseball bat and there’s just blood splattered on the glass and you don’t know whose. That was cool.’
‘Yeah, that was okay. The whole thin
g went to pus after that but. They tried to get all romantic and shit. All teen drama bullcrap.’
‘Or what they thought was teen drama anyway,’ says Sas.
When the smoke first comes round to me, am careful not to suck too much down, but the second time I feel Dylan watching me. After the third time I don’t care anymore and just pass it on. Have had enough sessions with Sas to know how to be cool with it, but don’t like the feeling of being too stoned.
Pretty soon everybody’s talking a lot. Wolf is spouting gamer strategy as if he’s going to save the world: ‘I’m sick of all those fucken drop-shotters. I’m changing the bottom layout to tactical and I’m gonna do it myself.’
‘Nah,’ Dylan says, ‘you’re just a mud fucker.’
‘Give it a rest, you pair of ’tards,’ Sas says, annoyed. ‘Let’s call a halt on the stupid game talk. Why are you still playing that even?’
‘Prep for the end of the world,’ Dylan says.
‘Sometimes it’s just good to go back,’ Wolf adds.
‘What else then,’ Sas says. ‘Anything else? Anybody?’
Words bubble up: ‘Hey, do you know who Jed Jordan is?’
‘Yeah. He’s my neighbour,’ Dylan says.
‘Really? Do you talk to him much?’
‘He wrote that song, didn’t he?’ Sas says. ‘That famous one about being the captain of the something-something.’
‘. . . today the rules are gonna be remade …’ Wolf sings out in mock-rockstar mode, but then he chokes trying to think of the next line.
‘Turn it off,’ Sas says, giving his legs a shove. ‘That’s just bad, you douche.’ He’s the kind of boyfriend you can call things like that and he’ll laugh.
‘Not too much,’ Dylan says to me. Takes another draw. ‘He’s just around.’
‘Why?’ Wolf wants to know.
‘Yeah,’ says Sas. ‘Why?’
In the Neighbourhood of Fame Page 7