by Joe Stretch
28
Trinkets Our Element
IF YOU’VE GOT enough energy to walk with your head held high and with long confident strides, then the experience of exiting Piccadilly train station and walking down towards the Gardens can be extremely pleasant. Particularly when the weather is good and the sunlight is reflecting off the large glass hotels. The Rosetti, the Malmaison, the Holiday Inn. There’s nothing quite like the experience of public transport to instil a sense of urgency and purpose into a person’s behaviour. Businessmen gallop with briefcases held close to their chests. Students saunter, overgrown with eclectic luggage and beaming with a sinister sense of freedom. For those moments, on those rare warm days, the world you experience between Piccadilly train station and Piccadilly Gardens threatens to be your oyster.
It is six-thirty in the evening. The sun begins its descent and the automatic doors of the train station glide open, prompted by the arrival of Steve. Although he’s only carrying a small rucksack, his walk is laboured. It’s like he’s giving a piggyback to a lanky corpse. He creeps out of the station and begins stuttering past the restaurants and the newsagents, down towards Piccadilly Gardens. This world is not his oyster.
Steve’s role in establishing the White Love company was minimal, largely financial. In recent months, Frank has grown closer to Justin. He tends to seek his advice on most issues concerning the business, rather than Steve’s. The fact is, Steve struggles to be outside. He struggles to keep the company of others.
He takes a few steps from the station. The prospect of seeing people causes his anus to loosen; he needs a shit. In fact, he’s needed a shit for days, but the prospect of taking one causes his throat to throb with confusion. The ape in him has vanished. I’m a manmade man, he maintains. His eyes glance up from the stooping curve his body has assembled in time to see a surge of people power walking straight for him. He winces, shielding his body with his rucksack. He sidesteps cautiously towards a shop doorway to avoid the breaking wave of business-orientated life. As the people pass by, he holds his bag over his face and seems to bend his limbs inwards in an attempt to hide their precise function and appearance.
‘Are you coming in, sir? Would you like something to eat?’
A small Asian guy cuckoo-clocks out from a curry house, his face painted in jet black facial hair. Steve shakes his head and continues to sidestep alongside the row of shops, his chin hard against his collarbone as if his neck has been broken in the interests of hiding his considerable shame. In his peripheral vision the Malmaison appears, sunlight dimming quickly on its expansive glass structure. Nearly there.
On Frank’s instruction, Steve has spent the last week with his parents, in the hope that some kind of rehabilitation can be achieved. But the situation remains critical. His state of mind deteriorated rapidly following Carly’s release from hospital. He began to buy clothes and fashion accessories on a daily basis at an alarming rate. He started early in the morning when the shops opened, only returning to Carly and the flat late in the evening after the last of the boutiques had brought down their shutters and closed. It wasn’t uncommon for shop assistants to find him still on the premises long after the shop had shut. He’d be discovered fondling garments in some concealed alcove, running his fingers over the fabric, trying to work out exactly how fashionable the item was.
Financially, Steve’s discovery of retail hasn’t been much of a burden, coinciding as it has with Carly’s affair with the Sex Machine and her sudden apathy towards clothes and shopping. Carly spends every day in the flat with the machine. She liaises only with Frank when he calls round to assess her state, feed her and ask her questions about the machine. She nibbles at the food that is brought for her. She showers occasionally at moments of clarity; those rare moments of stillness that follow large periods of time spent in the company of the machine. Although Frank is retailing the machine under the name White Love 1000, Carly insists on calling it ‘Darling’. Her neighbours comment to each other about the late-night screaming; the near-deafening cries of Darling! Darling! Darling!
Steve darts across the road only when he’s convinced there isn’t a car in sight. His run is the run of a spindly-legged fairly-tale villain, his hands and his torso wrapped around his rucksack like it’s a snatched child. Passing cars are one of Steve’s biggest fears; you can never be sure of the expressions on the shadowed faces within. Never be certain they aren’t mocking your appearance, doubting your fashion. Once across the road, Steve scuttles the remaining few metres to the entrance of the Malmaison where he is due to meet with Justin. He enters, head bowed, eyes staring deep into the centre of the earth’s core.
‘Steve, over here!’ a voice calls to him from a table over by the window. Steve recognises it as Justin’s. And thanks God.
Justin had been reluctant to meet with Steve. He dislikes him. He finds it very difficult to believe the stories told to him by Frank regarding Steve’s past. In Justin’s eyes, Steve has always been a jabbering wreck, but this image jarred with the stories of the handsome and athletic academic told by Frank. At this moment, in Justin’s eyes, Steve is a giant pantomime rat, sniffing his way over to the table in a Stetson and a vile flowery shirt. What the fuck is he wearing? thinks Justin as Steve arrives nervously at the edge of the table, his lips quivering as if muttering minuscule words. Justin stands for the introductions.
‘Mr Franchesi, this is Steve, an acquaintance. Steve, this is Marco, a journalist.’
Steve lowers his arse carefully on to the seat beside Justin, refusing to look at anything but the floor. With eyes still nailed to the carpet, his mouth opens and addresses the Italian in an uneven, trembly voice, reminiscent of the croaking of reptiles.
‘Hello, Mr Marco . . . and are you a fashion journalist? Do you write about clothes?’
‘Eh no, I do current affairs, culture, politics etc. But I must say, my friend, that is quite an outfit you’re wearing today.’
With a sudden jolt, Steve straightens his spine hard against the back of his chair. He throws his neck back so his head is facing almost directly upwards. He looks a little bit like he’s lost, deep in some unfortunate thought.
‘Well, you see, Mr Marco,’ Steve begins, ‘what I’m wearing is incredibly fashionable today. On my head is a Stetson, like a cowboy. My shirt is crimped floral satin from Vivienne Westwood, if you look, it’s crimped floral satin, you see? If you could see my trainers, you would notice the beautiful gold embroidery and the shiny crystals in the tongues . . . You must see my trainers!’
Steve and Justin lurch suddenly in unison. Steve stands up and brings his left foot crashing down on to the table in front of Marco Franchesi. Justin dives forward and grabs the soft packet of cigarettes and begins lighting one with a matchbook.
‘Of course I smoke, I remember now,’ says Justin, his heart attempting to stop at the sight of Steve’s trainers on the table in front of him. His cheeks apple-like with embarrassment.
‘They are certainly a lovely pair of trainers, my friend,’ Franchesi mutters with a snigger, addressing Steve but with his eyes fixed on Justin.
‘There are small shiny crystals in the tongues,’ yells Steve. ‘There is golden embroidery. Look, Mr Marco!’
Justin dispatches the first lungful of smoke into the air and stares firmly into Steve’s eyes, offering a look that suggests he would rather he took his foot off the table. Franchesi sniggers again; an Italian sort of snigger. Hee hee hee as opposed to ha ha ha.
‘Look now . . . I suppose all I need to know, Justin, is what are your ethics?’
Justin, his eyes still on Steve and his brain simmering slightly at the Italian’s snigger, decides to scratch his head before speaking, it takes a moment.
‘I believe people should follow their instincts, should do what they want,’ begins Justin, turning at last to the spindly Italian. ‘People should disregard the modern beauties and the muscly foreheads, the websites, the star signs. I believe people should be a little dangerous.’
&n
bsp; ‘You mean that people should partake in recreational pregnancy, multiple abortions?’
‘No, I just mean that people should be a little dangerous. That’s my ethic, Mr Franchesi.’
The Italian is disappointed. He had hoped to learn more from Justin. He puts his cigarettes into his satchel and swings the strap over his bony shoulder. He looks at Steve, who’s licking his fingers and trying to remove tiny scuff marks from his trainers. ‘I think it’s time I left you boys to it.’
Yeh, so do I. So he does; the Italian leaves. He gathers up his dictaphone, and departs, clutching his satchel. He probably says things as he leaves, things like goodbye and good luck.
Justin neglects to smile. He swigs the remainder of his Coke and wishes, as we sometimes do, that his life was completely different. He’s fairly satisfied with today’s set of interviews; he’s given them nothing, as usual. He’s made no real sense; the last thing he wants to have is a proper opinion. He watches the Italian as he disappears into the hotel lobby. Moments later, he sees him again through the dark window, crossing he street, phone to his face.
At Steve’s request, Justin books a room in the hotel so they can be away from the public glare. Steve’s perspiring like mad and it’s causing his hair gel to liquefy, skim down his forehead and sting his eyes. Steve’s brief interaction with the journalist is as social as he’s been in a while.
The room in the Malmaison is what you’d expect: plush, dark, richly upholstered. The kind of room some people call ‘sexy’. Steve lies down on the bed and begins smoothing out the creases in his trousers and shirt.
‘I’ve come to the decision that I’m going to be more like you, Justin,’ says Steve, hopelessly fighting the creases in his satin shirt. Creases are my death, he thinks, hee hee hee. His brain is shrinking by the second, it sloshes about in tap water. ‘Yes,’ he says as Justin arrives at the edge of the bed, ‘I shall make Carly pregnant, hee hee hee.’
Justin sighs and looks at his watch, then grabbing his supposed colleague firmly by the neck, he pulls the Stetson down off Steve’s scalp so it’s covering up his entire face. A muffled voice squirms out from under the hat: ‘Sorry, Justin, I’ll stay under here for a while, it stills smells new . . . delicious.’
By the window is a table and chair. Leaving Steve under the hat Justin takes the seat and finds Frank’s number in his phone. On the bed Steve continues to blindly locate creases in his clothing and iron them out with his ringed fingers. Justin’s call connects.
‘Frank . . . I need you to come to the Malmaison and pick up Steve . . . yeh, I know, but it hasn’t worked . . . he’s worse than ever . . .’
From underneath the hat Steve can be heard muttering the word ‘Frank’ to himself, although it sounds more like ‘rank’. Rank, rank, rank.
‘Just come and get him, room sixteen. You’ll understand when you see his clothes, he’s still fucked. Chances are I’ll have already left.’
As soon as Justin hangs up his phone it begins to ring. It’s his mother; she’s been calling at least once a day since his name was splashed all over the tabloids. He cancels the call and sets his phone to silent.
‘You can remove the hat now, Steve.’
‘Thanks.’
Steve takes the hat from off his face in time to smile at Justin as he sits down beside him on the bed. Justin takes a moment, breathing deeply and staring into Steve’s glazed eyes, then at his dreadful floral shirt. Can he really have once possessed a brain?
‘What do you remember of your economics degree, Steve?’ Justin asks, noticing that Steve has at least two rings on each of his fingers and thumbs. Steve spikes his hair and adjusts his collar nervously.
‘Well . . . the thing is, Justin . . . I can barely remember anything at all.’
Justin watches as a layer of moisture develops on the surface of Steve’s eyes. The delicate skin that surrounds them begins to quiver frantically, his eyebrows crease into Ms and his cheeks clench.
‘I don’t remember anything hardly, Justin,’ Steve says, his voice delicate. ‘I mean, your name – I remember that, and Frank, Carly, the Sex Machine. Clothes shops. Colours. Cuts . . . but it’s like every day is a new life, for me. Entirely different from the previous one, and the next . . .’ The first tear falls from Steve’s left eye. He battles to get his words out. ‘It’s like clothes are the only real thing . . . trinkets our element . . . and . . . and fashion the only real time.’
Justin picks up the hat from the bed and once again places it over Steve’s face. He returns to the table and his mobile phone. Sobbing can be heard from under the Stetson, muffled, like a man weeping privately in an adjacent room. Justin locates a number in his phone and waits for it to connect, straightening his back and staring out the window towards Ancoats and its numerous renovated cotton mills.
‘Colin?’ he says.
There is a lengthy silence as Justin listens carefully to the voice on the end of the line, tapping his finger against the thick window pane to drown the sounds of Steve’s crying. It’s almost a minute before Justin speaks, by which time he is pacing the room angrily and occasionally slapping the window with the flattened palm of his hand. Steve continues to moan, both his hands pull the Stetson hard over his face in an enormous and desperate attempt to mute his distress.
More seconds pass until Justin slaps the window so hard he’s convinced it’s going to shatter and shower innocent people in broken glass. Steve screams and the window holds firm. Turning towards the door Justin holds his phone out in front of his face like a microphone. He’s shouting, his face stretched and red.
‘Is Rebecca pregnant or not, Colin? What the fuck have you done to her?’
29
A Good and Useful Life
COLIN KICKS REBECCA several times across her body. He bends down, lifting her by the neck, pointing her disastrous face at his own. Blood runs from her chestnut hairline. Blood runs from her mouth.
‘It’s love, is it?’ he says, crooked fingers digging into her. Rebecca. His last chance. Broken on the bathroom floor.
He allows her head to fall and join her body on the red tiles. He moves to the sink and watches his reflection in the mirror. He sniffs. Is this it? He wonders whether he should wipe his scarlet hand across his reflected image. But he doesn’t; what would be the point? In his inside pocket his phone begins to sing, the word ‘Justin’ flashing in the centre of the screen.
‘Hello,’ says Colin, somehow politely, one eye fixed on its reflection. Justin says his name and Colin walks calmly from the room.
‘She hasn’t been aborting them,’ he says, on the landing now, banging on the banister in an attempt to stay calm. ‘She’s been lying to us. She killed my first, but since then, nothing. She’s been carrying your kid for six months. She’s been lying to me and lying to you. Making us believe that she killed them at the clinic.’
Colin begins to turn in circles, kicking the same place on the wall with each rotation. ‘So it’s over,’ he says. ‘I’ve dealt with it and dealt with her. She should have known.’ The wallpaper splits and plaster trickles to the floor. ‘It has to be so boring now. Do you see, Justin? I’ve dealt with the kid. But all along it’s been lies. Do you understand? It has to be so boring from now on. Not a party, only a funeral!’
Colin pulls his foot from the wall, dropping his phone as he does so. Back in the bathroom. More kicks. Rebecca’s bloated stomach. Tears in both their eyes. Snakes alive in Colin’s veins, kicking her again and again, the treacherous dog, dressed in blood, kicks between her legs. Broken hearted.
‘Do you see what you’ve done?’ he shouts, fists at his eyes. He lets out a piercing high-pitched scream. ‘Do you see what you’ve done?’
Rebecca watches as Colin leaves the bathroom once again. Her senses are shadows of their former selves. Colin exits in a sequence of jumping images and scratched sounds. Rebecca is hurt. She has been vandalised by Colin’s heavy feet and fast legs. Her body feels like scattered stones. It’s incomprehensible t
o her. The pain is a powerful throb, like a heart beating inside her skull. Her blood surrounds her. It’s as if all agony is, is a pulse, a countdown, a mindset where all memory is rendered absurd. She can make out little of her surroundings. There is bleach where she lies. There is rat poison, too. Rebecca closes her eyes.
She has seen this situation before. In her mind. She has seen herself beaten in Colin’s home. She always knew it might occur. For months she has concealed Justin’s child from both him and Colin. She has continued to visit them both in ever more loose-fitting attire. Both boys have been surprised at their ability to conceive with Rebecca. Always at the first attempt. Both have declared their joy at creating a wordless, lightless being, unscathed by the shining boredoms of the outside world. Both have thanked her like rewarded infants as she left for the clinic to terminate the foetus and complete their fetish. But there was only ever one abortion.
Seven months ago Rebecca knocked on Colin’s door. It was as his arm wrapped round her and pushed her up the stairs that her mind began to change. She had lost interest in Dostoevsky. She had quit her job and abandoned her degree. She was enjoying the sensation of her life being dismantled, like a completed jigsaw puzzle being broken up into larger sections, then being frantically reduced to its hundreds and hundreds of different pieces. For Justin’s sake she went to Colin. She hoped that it was love all along.
Sex proved a protracted arrangement of mysterious jolts; Colin’s body whacking and aching around her. He came with eyes melted shut and Rebecca had to resist the temptation to laugh. She was certainly far from tears, even given the stench of Colin’s stale blue room. Experimenting with Justin had long since blunted her sexual fears.
A week later she pissed on a pregnancy test. She pissed on it in the very room in which currently she bleeds. She watched as Colin wept as it turned a chemical blue. Positive. Colin stroked her flat belly with a clenched fist. ‘A life that will never see light. Innocent,’ he whispered, causing Rebecca to shake her head and just watch as his tears fell.