by Oscar Turner
‘Seymour will like you Simon. He's a bastard too.’
‘Where is he?’
‘At home, hopefully working.’
‘Let's go and get him then.’
Polly, surprised at the suggestion, took a moment to reply. It occurred to her that Carva was full of surprises, Polly's favourite trait.
‘Ok. Yes. Why not? Great idea! We live back that way, Shepherds Bush.’ said Polly pointing behind her.
Carva pulled over and turned around.
Seymour stood back and looked at the Vase Man: it wasn't going well. He was stuck with the idea of using the same shape vase as the Vase Lady, yet deeply masculine. It had to be; otherwise it would end up being the Vase Lady's sister or something. Could end up like those fucking Russian Dolls, thought Seymour. This was the problem. The Vase Lady was beautiful, no question. He loved the long-winded process of creating her and would happily live with her for the rest of his days. The Vase Man on the other hand, was forced on him by a confused response to a joke he hadn’t spot at the time. He suspected that Polly was winding him up about making a new Vase Lady, one that he was prepared to sell, but he wasn't quite sure. He was furious with himself. Misunderstandings between Polly and Seymour were becoming commonplace lately, usually over trivial domestic things. It probably had something to do with the copious amounts of hashish Seymour had pumped down his neck.
Polly was right, when she pointed out his strawberry eyes, dull conversation and half finished jobs around the house, like half peeled potatoes for example, that he was smoking far too much. He promised he would stop sometime soon, but he had to finish the Vase Man. The fundamental problem with the Vase Man was that Seymour always saw beauty as a female thing. All of his work was female, every thought he had about his work was female. This was quite a revelation when he realised it and explained why Polly had said the night before that the Vase Man looked like a homosexual. Maybe there is no such thing as a male vase, or anything ceramic come to that. You can't even make a vase up to be male. Male things are hard, potentially violent, stinking of mindless testosterone, competitive for the sake of it. Maybe Bodmin Moor at 10 o'clock was male? He had tried a chunky decanter shape for the Vase Man. But then it wasn't a vase anymore, which defeated the point. And all that time, the Vase Lady just stood there, watching.
The Vase Lady was back in his work space now, not on the wall but leaning against it. Polly had said one night that she was a little jealous of the Vase Lady, when she was hanging on the wall near the four-poster bed Polly had bought recently. He wondered if she was joking.
Frankly, he was ready to give up. The only thing that kept him working on the Vase Man, was that he felt he had something to prove to Polly. Which he didn't and Polly had no idea of the consequences of her flippant little joke.
Seymour went over to the stack of unfinished paintings leaning against the wall and flicked through them. Nothing caught his eye. He needed to work on something. He looked across at the Vase Man.
‘Fuck you.’ said Seymour to the Vase man as he grabbed it from the easel and put it on the front of the stack, facing away from him. He really wanted to put his foot through it. That would finish it.
Seymour had another joint and decided he needed to change his mood if anything was going to get done. Rosey's for a coffee, he decided. Rosey makes great coffee, she lived in Italy for several years and missed her caffeine hit so much when she came back to England with Marco Spinnelli -now in America with her best friend- that she opened Rosey’s Cafe. Because of her coffee, Rosey's Cafe was popular for miles around and attracted clientele of all sorts: mainly wannabe poets, suspended teachers, armchair philosophers, frustrated musicians and pseudo intellectuals, who loved debating things until there was nothing left but bones. It was always inspiring going to Rosey's. She also sold the best hashish in town, some of which, if you asked for a cafe loco, could be fast tracked into your brain.
Seymour always dressed up to go to Rosey's as did most of the clientele. She wouldn't have it any other way. Rosey, a loud luscious woman, always dressed well: her taste, eclectic, but somehow formal. She could make any dress steam with flamenco sex, yet she could, at the same time, pass as a Barrister. She never wore trousers, despite her trim figure; much to the dismay of Seymour, who suspected she had a wonderful ass that should be available for all to see. She thought trousers were vulgar and if a woman dared to go to Rosey's in trousers; they would be served like the unclean.
Seymour, still in his underpants, looked through his wardrobe and pulled out his suit. It was the same one he wore on 'that night' with Polly. It was slightly moth eaten, had a button missing and was generally well worn, but it still had a feeling that only an Italian suit can deliver. He'd since had it dry cleaned and patched up a treat. It was the dry cleaner who had pointed out that it was an Italian suit. It had no labels, but Mrs. Bruani could tell an Italian suit from 50 paces. From then on it did actually feel better to wear. Despite his anarchic views, rebellious streak and conclusion that everything in society was fucked and against him, personally: Seymour liked nothing more than wearing a suit. Maybe it was an illusion thing. Or a statement on respectability hijacking the suit for a uniform.
Seymour slipped on the silk lined trousers with ease and looked down at the turn-ups that settled perfectly on his feet. As he was putting on the oversized cream silk shirt he'd bought for two quid at Oxfam, the phone rang.
‘Hello.’
‘Seymour! Look out the window!’
Carva blew the impressive sounding horn of the Mercedes twice. Seymour went over to window and looked down at the street. Polly was waving with one arm and holding the car phone in the other. Carva too was waving, reluctantly.
‘Come on Seymour, get dressed, quick! We've got the show! Let's have lunch! Come on!’
Seymour knew that excited Polly voice well. It was always irresistible.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bruno’s new beginning.
Over the past few months, Bruno Costaldi's fortunes were pretty well how they had always been. Roger had revisited and given him top-up beatings on several occasions; just to remind him of how annoyed he was with him; as had his father Paolo and any hope of getting the money back from the robbery had all but disappeared. Bruno had never heard from Johnny: that bothered him.
There had been one positive event in his life however. He had been evicted from his bedsitter for failing to pay the rent and Roger and Paolo couldn't visit him anymore to renew the massive injuries they had inflicted on him.
He was now living in the bad end of Brixton, in an old Bedford van, parked at the back of a used car yard where he worked as car cleaner and odd job man. He was quite happy with his lot, given that at least now his life wasn't constantly under threat of termination by extreme violence.
Relatively speaking, things were on the up and up and his facial injuries were now healed and the resultant scars actually enhanced his appearance: he now looked rugged now, rather than disfigured. He had even had sex recently, with Ivan Bovowsky, a Russian merchant seaman he met one night at The Tradesmen’s Arms near the car yard. He never really regarded himself as homosexual and certainly wouldn't admit it, especially to himself, but, as they say, any port in a storm. At least he knew where he stood with men, they either beat him up or they fucked him and all women seemed to do was either ignore him or confuse him.
Ivan couldn't speak a word of English and Bruno couldn't speak a word of Russian but, with appropriate sign language, Ivan somehow negotiated Bruno into the back of the van and they both did their deeds. Bruno thought that Ivan wanted to see him again and Ivor thought that Bruno wanted to see him again. In fact both of them completely misunderstood each other and parted company with bad feeling after a confusing argument. But it was OK, Bruno liked his freedom and didn't want to commit, especially to a sailor, and a Russian one at that.
He had made token efforts to find Polly after the robbery, but the continually fresh injuries to his face made him conspicuous
and it was therefore difficult to maintain anonymity in his clumsy investigations. Besides, it wasn't the first time he had screwed up in his career as a criminal and so the incident at Hogarth Heavy Engineering was a timely final straw that led him to decide to try a life on the straight and narrow. It couldn't be that difficult surely.
Bruno Costaldi was a new man, no more prison, no more crime and no more beatings. He was going to work hard, become a good citizen and maybe, one day, be able to vote, just like everyone else. But these were still early days.
Paolo, on the other hand, wasn't quite so complacent about his misfortunes, as he was the wrong side of sixty and had little to look forward to, with the exception of inevitable death. His disappointment with Bruno, his son, haunted him endlessly. He had no money at all and refused to seek help from social security for, despite his unscrupulous profession, his pride and principles would never allow him to become a 'social security sponger.' He survived by petty theft and gambling, both of which were conducted badly on a small scale and barely provided him with the resources to survive, but survive, as always, he somehow did.
He had never been the best of role models for his son Bruno, but the blind loyalty Italians are blessed with made Bruno respect his father and to achieve equality with him had been his lifelong ambition.
But Bruno was on his own now, which, although a relief, the disgrace of his father's shame of him, haunted him daily. But then again, his father disowning him removed the pressure of this loyalty that had seemingly gone on for centuries, and at last he was now his own man. A free spirit that could blunder along in life, with nobody to beat him up and only himself to look up to.
He was good at his job at the car yard and his boss, Henry, an Eastender who boasted that his best friend's cousin worked for the Kray twins in the fifties, had a soft spot for him. He didn't pay Bruno much, but gave him perks, like letting him keep the small change he found under the seats of the cars he cleaned and let him live in the van at the back rent free, which suited Henry as Bruno could also double up as night-watchman and therefore protect the cars and himself from the revenge of several dissatisfied customers.
Once, Henry even let Bruno take a car out for the night when he had a hot date lined up. He had to put a stop to that when a client came in early to view the knackered old Ford Cortina and found a drunk, naked Bruno, crashed out in the back, plugged into a street boy. But Henry didn't fire him. It's hard to get good staff these days.
One night, Bruno was out doing a spot of shopping at the local corner store, the huge old lady at the counter saw him stuffing various packets of instant soup, frozen peas and a cucumber down his pants, then put various tins in his basket, carefully adding up the prices; continually referring to the loose change clenched in his fist, cursing his pledge to go straight, but feeling stronger for it. As he stood innocently at the counter the old woman rang up the total on the till.
‘That'll be free Poun' fifty.’
Bruno gave a filthy look. ‘Nah, that ain't right, I know 'cause I added it up see.’
She smiled, and looked down at his crotch.
‘I ain't been able to do that to a bloke since the war.’ she said.
‘What?’ said Bruno, as he slammed down his loose change and began stuffing the tins into his jacket.
‘Arfur!’ she shouted. ‘Come 'ere.’
Bruno looked across to a door that led to the back of the shop. It slowly opened to reveal an enormous gorilla like giant of a man dressed in a ketchup stained pair of overalls, its buttons bursting under the weight of his huge gut.
‘What's up, love?’ he grunted in a single drawn out deep syllable.
‘We got ourselves a feef.’
‘Oh, yeh?’
Bruno quickly checked out his odds of escaping: it wasn't good, he would have to negotiate a lot of obstacles to get to the door. The gorilla was ambling in his direction, his huge arms swinging like demolition balls.
‘You got something you shouldn't have sonny?’ said the ape, tomato sauce around his lips, chewing something. He burped and smiled.
‘What you talkin' about?’ said Bruno, looking up at Arthur, feeling the cucumber sliding down his leg and wobble out onto the floor.
The big man calmly bent down and retrieved it; smiling.
‘Fuck off,’ said Arthur.
Bruno sneered as he backed out past the bread stand, stepping into a box of stinking cabbage .
‘Cunt! Bruno turned and bolted, narrowly missing a crate of milk but tripping over a flimsy wire display stand. The stand landed on top of him, covering him in packets of crisps and sickly boiled sweets. By the time he had pushed the stand away, Bruno felt himself being hauled into the air.
‘What you call me?’ said the Arthur, about two inches from his face. His feet dangled helplessly in the air as Bruno closed his eyes and waited for the impact he expected at times like this.
After a moment he opened his eyes again. The smell of the Arthur’s breath was putrid, even overpowered his own stench.
‘I said what you call me?’
‘Um, nothing.’ whispered Bruno, relieved that his jaw was still intact.
The man reasserted his grip on Bruno's collar. He wanted an answer.
‘Cunt?’ whispered Bruno in resignation as he looked down at the ground far below.
‘Look at me,’ said Arthur, shaking him.
Bruno shouldn't have looked up, but he wasn't in a position to negotiate anything, especially the movements of his own body.
Boof! Bruno went blank as Arthur head butted him squarely on the nose and dropped him in a heap on the pavement. Bruno looked up and through the haze of shock, saw Arthur look down at him and smile a satisfying smile before ambling back into the shop, wiping his mouth.
Bruno lay on the pavement for a while until the fizzy sensation slowly settled into the pumping pain he was now familiar with. He felt his nose to check it was still there and not embedded somewhere in his skull where it felt and snorted out a hideous globule of blood, wiped it on his hand and looked at it.
‘You Ok?’ came a voice from above him.
Bruno looked up to see a young couple peering down at him.
‘Yeh, fucking great.’ said Bruno bravely, as he attempted to stand up. The couple took an arm each and hoisted him up onto his feet.
‘You want us to call an ambulance?’ said the smartly dressed young man. ‘Have you been mugged or something?’
Bruno looked at the couple, both staring compassionately at him. They looked like the sort of people he'd seen in adverts on the TV, the ones that have everything that he and everybody else wanted. Bruno looked down at the pavement and dusted himself down.
‘Nah, it's ok. Fanks. I'll be OK.’
The young man patted Bruno on the shoulder sympathetically, smiled and walked away, his girlfriend linking her arm in his, whispering something and shaking her head. Bruno watched them for a moment. He hated them for some reason, he wasn't sure why. They were smug bastards, he supposed. He looked back into the shop to see the old woman at the counter watching him, arms crossed. Bruno flicked several 'V' signs at her and staggered away, victoriously.
Well out of sight, Bruno slipped into a shoe shop doorway and leant against the wall in an attempt to gather himself. He could just see the reflection of himself in the smeared glass of the shop window. Ivan, the Russian sailor, had told him he was good looking, at least Bruno assumed that's what he'd said, they weren't actually face to face at the time. Ivan had made him feel good about himself, a major contribution to Bruno's resolve to rebuild his life and start again, again. In fact, of late, Bruno had begun to pay a lot of attention to his appearance. Cleaning cars had made him reasonably fit. He could see his distorted reflection in the car windows and paintwork as he polished them. He thought he was looking pretty good. Being around Henry had helped too. Henry was always dressed immaculately, he set high standards did Henry. ‘Presentation is all,’ he always said, ‘even if it's shit.’
Bruno ran
his hands lightly over his face and gently prodded at the bridge of his nose. It seemed OK. It had been about a month since his last beating and his nose had just began to feel normal again, whatever that was. He was hungry. All the tins he’d legitimately paid for had fallen out of his pockets when he fell and he considered going back to get them, but the thought of more humiliation stopped him. Slipping out of the doorway he limped along the pavement to head back to the yard, staring down at the pavement, his face pumping with pain in time with his step. His nose started bleeding, he had to stop.
Stumbling into another shop doorway, he sat down on the cold sticky tiles and threw his head back. The blood trickled down his throat; its familiar taste made him feel sick. It reminded him of the last time he had seen Paolo or was it Roger? He couldn't be sure.
Eventually he could feel himself calming down; the bleeding eased a little, enabling him to pull his head forward again.
He looked across the street. There was a shop with its lights on. There seemed to be a party going on or something, he could see several people inside. The mumble of chatting with the occasional cackle of laughter made him feel tragic as he sat there in the doorway, tired, hungry, alone, in pain, stinking and defeated.
He was still slightly dazed and had to steady himself with his hands as he tried to stand up. He felt something soft on the ground next to him. It felt warm and comforting and even though his sense of smell was severely challenged by splintered bone, blood and mucus, the unique aroma was unmistakable: dog shit.
He leapt to his feet. ‘Fuck!’ Bruno staggered away from the doorway, attempting to shake the dog shit off his hand. He wiped it on the shop window but as he did so, the stench seemed to take on a new lease of life. He took off his jacket, wiped his hands furiously with it and flung it down. He liked his jacket, Paolo had given it to him three years ago for his birthday, but he hated dog shit a lot more than he liked the jacket. He slumped down onto the ground again, his head was spinning so much that even the dog shit seemed unimportant. He had to get his strength back. He went into another doorway, laid down and looked up at the grimy peeling paint on the ceiling of the shop's entrance. The laughter from across the road seemed louder: echoing around him.