by Steve Finbow
***
Who’s that? Oh, it’s you. Is it you who’s been calling? Yeah, had the phone off the hook. Mobile’s dead. H said you wanted to see me. Come in. I am lost. H let you in, did he? Time to go on. Take a seat, if you can find one. I haven’t time. Yeah, of course you can stand. Never shall. Sorry about the mess. Any given moment. Sorry I’m a mess. A writhing mass of voices. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. I forgot. I can still taste the bubblegum of her lips – like Bazooka Joes, strawberries – sweet and moreish; and then there’s the tea, Orange Pekoe – I don’t think I’ll ever be able to drink a cup of tea again. No more answers.
When the shooting was over and the noise had died down, all I could hear was my own breathing, the animal grunts of Ozan and Martin Eaves wrestling in the mud, the pathetic sobs of Sarah Beckford, and I realised that, besides laughter, that’s all we are – breathing, grunting, crying things – and that the thing in front of me, in the grass, in the light of the too-late moon, was the thing I loved the most. She’d hate that. She’d want H to rewrite it for me. Give it a spin. A quote. A heft. When it rained, you were there. And she was gone. Just gone. To someday come back. When I got home, you know what I did first? I cleaned the bathroom. Close to me. Because if I’d have met The Mermaid the night before this all started – gone for that curry, ladled lime pickle on to my poppadoms, spilled ghee down my T-shirt, sneakily asked for that fifth pint of Lal Toofan while she was in the toilet – then we would have ended up back here and I wouldn’t have thrown up in the bathroom and we would have got up the next morning and gone for breakfast and that day would have been without all the hijacking, the drugs, the guns, it would have been without her fucking death. The bathroom would have been clean. Sparkling. Perhaps I hoped. Sorry. It’s not your fault. Without a word. You were just along for the ride. So much for our so-called superpowers, eh? Further and further. Most of the time even I didn’t have a clue where we were going. Let’s play a game. And now? Then. Now, I have no fucking idea what to do.
She grew up not far from here. A plastic toy. Nice house. Mother. Nice family. Father. Had that religious thing that drove me mad sometimes. His smile. And that weird power with photos and paintings. Still. The first time I saw her. She’s sitting on the terrace of a café overlooking the scuzzy Tangier beach. Reading. She’s reading some book on Sufism, Spaghetti Monster and The Bush are sunbathing. Together. You couldn’t say that Balthazar Zachariah and Meredith Le Fanu were made for each other. Never. No, you really couldn’t. Ever. We argued. Always. A lot. Together. But we got on. Forever. Slipped into each other’s bodies and minds. And. Like forcing jigsaw pieces together that shouldn’t mesh. Ever. I was the hammer. And. She was the glue. Ever. Together. We tessellated. Forever. H would love that. Forever.
The dust in the air forms clouds as it passes through the light, and I think that she must be in there somewhere, particles of her, skin cells, hair, dust from her eyebrows, fingernail parings, and I start to collect it, gather it in my hands, lift them to my nose to smell. Take me in. But there’s nothing there. Here. It’s not The Mermaid. Here. It’s me, it’s H, it’s everyone who has ever lived. Here. Now I’m starting to sound like her and her eternal recurrence and reincarnation. Here.
H is no doubt sitting in the pub nursing a pint – worst nurse there’s ever been, psycho-nurse, satanic sister – and I’m here nursing memories, trying not to nurse grudges and grievances. There. But memories arrive all at once and it’s difficult to separate the hate from the love, the past from the future, the loss from the… The what? There.
I want to show you something. Then she went away. See? Then she came back. That’s us in Malta. Then she went away again. We didn’t have a great holiday. Then she went away. We went there to sort things out. Then she came back. To see if we had a future together. Then she went away again. Pass the photo around. Then she went away. I remember we had a huge fight in a small fish restaurant in Valletta. Then she came back. She tied me in knots about my feelings for her, remembering lies I’d forgotten, things I’d told her that were half-truths. Then she went away again. I love her hair in that picture. Then she went away. Like a sunset. Then she came back. Look, do you mind cutting this visit short? Then she went away again. I’d like to be alone, have a drink, go to bed. Then she went away. I’ll be better in the morning. Then she came back. Yeah, see yourselves out. Then she went away again. Mind you close the front door. Then she went away. Lots of criminals in this neighbourhood. Then she came back. H tell you which bus to catch? Number 29? Right.
I sit down on the sofa and hold the photo on my knees. The only thing you must never say. We are holding hands, standing in front of a boat, its prow decorated with a huge eye. The only thing you should never do. I’m not smiling. The only thing you should never hold. I never do. The only thing you should never drop. I’m dressed as usual in Levi jeans, black and white high-top Converse, a blue Paul Smith short-sleeved shirt. The only thing you should never keep. The Mermaid wears a blue and white halter-neck one-piece trouser suit, very fifties, she looks like Rita Hayworth, she smiles, the small bow of her pink mouth stretched over her white teeth, the snaggled left canine shining brighter than the others, her small nose dusted with pale-brown freckles, her eyes are as clear as frozen bluebells. The only thing you should never throw away. My hands start to tremble, my eyes water as the photo ripples, and from somewhere I hear a voice – her voice. And then.
BONUS MATERIAL
Balzac and the Time Flies
Once living things – sycamore leaves, pine cones – crack beneath my feet, are driven further into the mud, the muck, the mulch, the place where beetles scurry, ants hurry, and earthworms graze on slippery stones. I stop, out of breath, panting – unfit as fuck – exertion is not my middle name, nor is rich, nice, and sober. I rub my blurred and furred eyes, wipe beer-whiffed sweat from my brow – even though it’s about minus fifty out here – flex my calf muscles (yeah, veal calf – pale and butcher spavined), and move on. The text message I received an hour ago said: ‘Find itches?’ I responded: ‘Where? What?’ And half an hour ago, I was sent a ‘Fallow the signs?’ More gnomic than an occult dwarf. I no longer wake up in the morning – ‘wake’ being a misnomer these days, more like ‘shove,’ ‘bolt, ‘hurtle.’
I hate this place. The depressed trees, the tootling darkness, the distressing memories. A year later. A broken year – sharded, shaded, shafted. Unmended, shattered, adrift. And I’m broke, skint, boracic. I swore on my mother’s dildo that I wouldn’t take on anything likely to bring me within screaming distance of this place. The forest. A year later. Unhappy, bereft, you might say. Broken – yeah, that’s what I started with. So, I took this job for the gelt, the golly, the gingangooly. I know money doesn’t equal happiness, but it goes a long way to help mask the opposite – it buys me beers, books, and the pretence (pre-tense?) of a life lived less in the past and more in the unforgiving present – the beer helps with the forgetfulness and the books take me someplace other – London in the sixties, New Orleans after the flood, the skyscraper-high waves of northern California. As for the future, well, as someone said about the past, that’s another cunt, and I aim to do it differently. For now, it stretches ahead like a grey and angry sea and I’ve lost my swimming trunks, forgotten my flippers, and misplaced my snorkel. Not raving but frowning.
I stop and double check the first text message, although there’s not much point, I keep hoping the ‘Find itches’ will morph into a map and lead me to whatever or whoever it is I’m supposed to find. Find? Itches. Scratched it. Well done, me ol’ noggin’ the nog. ‘Fin ditches’. The ditches. And I’m on it. I cracked the second one like a nut – fallow – fallow deer, follow deer. Don’t call me a sleuth for nothing, though lately it’s been more like sloth. Three-toed and hanging on for dear life. So, what dark treasures does this lead me to? And then I think, whoops, to what dark treasures does this lead me? One or the other. And then I see. Not so much dark and not exactly a treasure. More like a fat an
d half-naked local politician by the title of Councillor and the name of Barry Myers. Oh, dear, Bazza, what have you got yourself into this time? Beneath an old oak tree – like a giant pink acorn, like an alien pod pooped out by Shirley Temple.
Bazza’s in his mid-fifties, I’d say, still good looking in a paunchy, cruel, and bored sort of way. Well, he was. But he ain’t looking too pretty right now. He looks like he squatted to take a dump and froze in mid-evacuation. But what’s that shining where no light should? Step forward, saying,
‘All right, Baz?’
Nothing. What the fuck is that? I lean a little closer. Jeez. Bazza’s only got himself impaled on one of those Jedi light-sabres and it’s emitting a violet glow from its blade, the hilt buried in the earth. Ouch! Someone’s shaved Bazza’s legs, tied his testicles with elastic bands so that they’re swollen and purple. His cock seems to have done a runner, cos all I can see is a purpley mess. Those pesky elves. Above this monstrosity, he’s wearing a scarlet cummerbund, white shirt, tuxedo, and a pre-tied dickie. A nylon rope fixes his head and arms to the tree, his hands tied with what looks like schoolgirl panties to yet more rope, which is, in turn, knotted tightly to the trunk as if he were hugging it backwards. The light-sabre gutters as the batteries give. Down on my knees, saying,
‘I’d better call the busies, eh, Baz? Get you outta here.’
Then I think, ‘Do I really need this right now?’ I pull out my iDog, dial, and after two rings a male voice says,
‘Balzac.’
‘H.’
‘For what do I owe the dubious?’
‘You’ll never guess where I am?’
‘If I had to hazard, I’d say Epping Forest, the ditches, standing over a corpse that has the dubious distinction of having been Edward the Seconded.’
‘Fuck, yeah. Where are you?’
‘The isle of wind and fire, Costa Teguise to be precise, and I find myself in a similar predicament.’
‘Light-sabre?’
‘Metal cactus, old boy.’
‘Come again?’
‘I doubt he – ’
‘H?’
‘……….’
‘HSSJ? You there?’
‘……….’
‘Oi!’
Nothing. Must’ve found something more interesting – pub, bar, off licence. And what does he mean ‘The same’ or whatever he said. Have a look up the page, will you? My memory’s been playing nasty tricks on me. ‘Metal cactus?’ Ouch and double ouch. I’ll call the ancient William, get them to come and sort it.
As I turn to Baz’s corpse to get a better look, the trees shiver, and the moon blinks and flips across the cloud’s knuckles like an old sixpence, landing in a jagged bottom row of buildings somewhere near Upminster. The trees right themselves and there’s a whooshing sound as birds reappear in the branches, all of them staring down at me. The one-ball owl, the five-ball pigeon, the eight-ball crow. What the…? And I look down and Bazza’s gone. Scarpered. Disappeared. I look along the path. Nothing. He couldn’t have. Then I realize it’s light. It’s bloody daytime. But it can’t be. It was midnight when I got here. Something’s not right. Something’s definitely dodgy. Wrong is the word. Dead wrong. Iffy. Not ithyphallic. Just iffy.
This all started about a month ago. I take a wrong turn somewhere around London Fields and come upon a street I’ve never seen before. A shop shimmies on the corner of Martello Street facing into a Y section of cobbled alleys, the place looks like an old pharmacy with coloured-glass jars, wooden shelves; instead of unguents (not camels, stupid, ointments), soaps, and medicine, it sells food and newspapers. Crossing the street, I see what I think is an old woman in a short cotton dress, her legs still shapely and muscled above a pair of threadbare tweed slippers, her hair done up in what looks more like a wasps’ nest than a beehive, gingery blonde, papery, fizzing with anger. Something about her reminds me of someone. Bit vague, I know, but that’s the only way I can describe it. So I follow her into the shop, walking parallel with her to get a butcher’s at her boat. I mean, she could be some actress on the way to get a morning’s constitutional Lucozade and Crunchie. I mean, Red Bull and energy bar. She ignores my rudeness and enters the shop. About 65 years old, as far as I can tell, and apart from the shuffling gait, the yellow eyes, and chaotic do, she appears to be in good nick. But who does she remind me of? I mean, of whom does she remind me? Come on, Balzac. Think.
Childhood. Something to do with my childhood. She’s buying Jamaica ginger cake, Earl Grey tea, milk – whole not semi-skimmed – some Golden Syrup, a tin of Spam, a loaf of Mother’s Pride. Hang on? Mother’s Pride, didn’t that go the way of John Lennon around 1980 – brown bread and butter, dead in the gutter? She steps forward to pay and as she reaches forward, I check out her legs – tidy. Penny drops. Bingo. Leonora Marx – Lee Marx from across the street. My first crush on an older woman. Is it her? Can’t be. Can it?
I’m so absorbed in my erotic nostalgia that I inadvertently buy a tube of Olde English Spangles – I love the butterscotch ones – from the wrinkly geezer behind the counter. He shouts something about change but I ignore him – can’t be much less than 50p – and follow the old woman across the street. As she reaches the pavement, she stops and turns and smiles. And I say,
‘Mrs Marx?’
And she says, ‘You can call me Lee, Balthazar.’
And I go all wobbly.
Her eyes are blue and her eyelashes long, black, and curled. She is wearing immaculate make-up and her lipstick is full and red. Out of habit, I run my eyes over her body. Pretty fit for a sexagenarian and, damn, if that word doesn’t give me a semi.
‘Mrs Marx,… er, Lee,… I didn’t know you lived around here,’ I say, walking towards her. As I do, I can see the lines appear in her face, how thick the foundation and powder is, the eyes blue, yes, but dull. Drugged? Drunk? Senile? She smiles. Her teeth are a perfect white. Must be falsies. As must those things straining from the thin cotton dress. Now, I don’t mind a bit of mature ladies on jayarthur.com, but I’m talking forties not sixties and the effect Mrs Marx, Leonora, Lee, all three of them, is having on me is beginning to get a little scary.
‘How are you, dear?’ she says, ‘You were a cheeky little thing.’
And my legs buckle as I remember kneeling in front of the window, chin on sill, trousers around ankles, pants around knees, cock in hand, pumping away at the sight of Mrs Marx walking along the street in knee-high boots, short skirt, tight sweater, beehive all firm and golden. I was about 13 years old and she must’ve been 40ish or so. I’m sure she knew I was there, watching, wanking. She looked like a nasty piece of work in argument and bed. I tossed myself sore for a little drop of the clear stuff. I had a league going. I’d write it down in the back of my English composition notebook. In code, of course. It went something like this.
Yvette Masters 287
Mrs Marx (Leonora) 285
Julie Jenkins 152
Lee Goldsmith 54
Karen Higginbottom 33
Linda Elboney 25
Sandra Herbert 21
Debbie Chapman 16
Mrs John 15
Suzanne Bricker 15
Joanne Johnstone 14
The league had 11 wankees, in deference to the top half of the old First Division. Girls won promotion only if they reached 10 points and one of the others hadn’t ‘scored,’ so to speak, in a month. As you can see, it was a tough championship ding-dong battle between Yvette and Leonora – as I romantically called Mrs Marx – both swapping positions at the top on regular occasions. I think it works out at about 2.5 wanks a day. But that doesn’t include the one-off charity matches, the exhibition stuff, and the odd international – Kameljit Singh, Rupinder Kaur, and Suzie Wu.
Anyway, I find myself moving toward Mrs Marx and she’s getting ropier the closer I get. But I can’t stop myself. I reach out with my right hand and stroke the cotton beneath her left breast, brushing the underside of it with my index finger.
‘What t
he fuck are you doing?’ I say to myself.
I reach up and cup Mrs Marx’s fragile jaw in my left palm. I hear her false teeth clack together and then listen as she swallows. My right hand is now fully palpating her firm – firm, fucking hell – breasts. And then my arms are behind my back, pinioned. My feet off the floor. My chin straining forward and I’m looking around – right, left – at two blokes in their early twenties, suited and booted in the finest Italian wool and leather, white shirts, light-blue silk ties, and they’re wrapping one of those plastic tie things around my wrists.
‘Oi,’ I say.
‘Mrs Marx would like a word with you,’ one says.
My iDog rings. ‘Sorry, mateys, I’m busy,’ I gesture to the phone in the side pocket of my man bag. One of the goons unzips, reaches in and takes out the phone. I notice – that’s what I’m sometimes paid for – that Mrs Marx has gone, disappeared, poof!
‘Answer it,’ one of the gits says, pressing the green phone button.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Balzac?’
‘H?’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m a bit tied up in Hackney. Listen,’ I say, looking round at the suited and booted ones, who stare at me, ‘I’ve had a bit of a weird experience. Something to do with my childhood… er… longings, I think you might call them.’
‘Same here, old boy.’
‘Really?’ I say contralto. Wrong.
‘……….’
‘Really?’ I say. Basso profundo turning buffo. Right.
‘Hmmm… Something to do with Tintoretto’s Woman Who Discovers the Bosom and Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights,’ says H.