Not wanting to get straight back on the train, I decided to have a quick coffee in the Ride-Thru Pop-Up Cycle Café near the station. Inside, there was a man sitting behind the counter, and a couple of customers sitting around in Lycra. The man behind the counter wore a very low-cut vest, and across his bare chest I could see a tattoo of two swallows fighting over an anchor. Though at first he appeared to be talking to himself, I could see an earphone cord trailing down under his long, thick beard.
‘And I was like, Well, I’m going to Alibi, and he was like Agh, FOMO, and I was like, YOLO, mofo. And he was all like FML bro. Anyway, gotta go, I have a customer.’ He pressed his headset button. ‘How can I help you princess?’
‘Just a coffee please.’
‘To park or to ride away?’
‘Take away, please.’
He sized me up.
‘We only do flat whites, is that okay?’
‘I’m sure it’s fine.’
‘We just free-pour the stretched milk. You can’t customise it at all.’
I smiled at him. Eventually, he smoothed down his moustache, before printing out a receipt which included a service charge, and sliding it to me on a porcelain plate not unlike our nice set at home.
Another customer rode in, carefully dismounting his penny farthing and parking it in a spare bay.
‘Cycling is very popular here,’ I said as he made the coffee.
‘It’s the only way to travel,’ he replied. ‘Go fast, get fit, no carbon footprint.’
‘Apart from the carbon you eat.’
‘It’s basically about saving the planet. By the time our kids grow up, they’ll be like, what’s a bike yo? They’ll be travelling by pedalo. You ride?’
‘I, um. I do occasionally. When I can find the time. You know. When it’s nice weather.’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. You have to minimise your impact.’
‘But you sell your coffee in disposable cups,’ I said.
‘The customer experience is very important to us,’ he said coldly, handing me my coffee.
Back at the hostel, I gathered my clothes and gear. The Steppenwolf’s flat remained detached in my mind from what I thought of as ‘proper’ London, and I wondered how I might connect the two – the problem with the tube and the train was that they bypassed the normal human routes through the city, passing over, under and behind the streets and buildings. It felt like I just went in one station and popped out somewhere else. After a bit of googling, I discovered that there was a bus, which started in London Bridge and cut through the eastern part of the city, winding all the way up to London Fields, which might help me get my bearings, so I hoisted my things on my back and found my stop under the shadow of the Shard.
When the bus came, I sat at the front of the top deck and (in the privacy of my own head) pretended that I was the driver. We soon crossed the river, and I could see the great glass buildings of the City rising up ahead like an icy forest, each fighting its way ever upward to the light at the top of the canopy. The gherkin loomed up on our right – though I can tell you, a gherkin wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. The top of its bulging erection even had a sort of glans.
As we passed into Shoreditch, the glass offices gave way to brown stone buildings, railway bridges and big clusters of council blocks. We passed over a parochial little bridge where I could see canal boats and the bright little sprays of balcony gardens, and I saw that all the pedestrians had knapsacks, none of them socks. Yes, this was the place. I got off, retraced my steps to the flat, and was soon threading the white rod through the keyhole again.
The Steppenwolf answered the door apparently surprised that I had returned.
‘Could I see a copy of the contract?’ I asked, as I put my gear down.
He smiled yellow, his eyes almost vaulting the thicket of his beard.
‘We are not lawyers, Günter. Give me a deposit of £500. You will get it back, I think. You need not pay me anything further, but I am not very …’
‘Clean?’ I suggested.
‘Organised. If you simply do these things like washing dishes, and on Fridays take my fish from my room …’
‘You do love your fish, I’ve noticed.’
‘I hate fish. I eat them only for the important oils. The oil is very important to life,’ he said. ‘I explain in my book.’
‘How long until you finish it?’ I asked.
‘I am beginning to believe that it will be finished on the day I die,’ he said. ‘The book started off very large, about one and a half million words, and for the last fifteen years I have been stripping away the unnecessary. It must be an essential guide to life. Everything necessary, but nothing extraneous.’
‘Has anyone read it?’
‘No. On my days of contact, I may read brief excerpts to you to check the validity of my suppositions about the outside world. Tell me, do people still watch television?’
‘They do.’
‘Good, good.’ He stared at an empty wine bottle with unfocussed eyes. I backed away slowly, lest I scare away the idea that he was coaxing out of the dark tangle of his mind.
So, no rent but some cleaning. It sounded like a perfectly good plan to me. I took my wallet and phone and went to my nearest bank branch, where I deposited my £500 cheque, and then I went to buy a bigger T-shirt. I was conscious that my belly was beginning to protrude from almost every top that I wore, and that I should probably stop eating waffles for breakfast.
Since I was out already, I decided to go to Oxford Street to look for furnishings. My room was very bare, and if I was to live there I wanted it to feel like home. I made for the biggest department store I could find, strolling past electronics and kitchenware, sofas, beds, fireplaces and garden furniture. I mentally calculated the money in my bank account. I had earned five hundred pounds, but I’d spent a little on living costs, and the deposit was five hundred pounds, so I must have a little less than nothing.
I continued to wander idly through the various sections of the store. Max would have been in heaven. He lived for these rows of tat; his favourite tactic was to buy a budget-range item only to ditch it for a mid-range item and then later, if the object was to become an obsession, a premium-range item: overpriced and barely perceptibly better than the one he owned. If these objects really did bring meaning to his life, he wouldn’t keep replacing them so often. When I did finally have the money to spend on these things, I would simply buy one of each thing and make it last. If I wanted a telephone, I would save up for the sturdiest, most timeless telephone that money could buy. I would sit on the floor until I could buy my life’s armchair; the armchair that I would be sitting in when, pale and liver-spotted, my years outstripping my energy, I finally joined the rest of infinity. I’d rather have one perfect chesterfield than a whole room full of badly made MDF. For now, I couldn’t afford anything, so I bought nothing.
When I got back, the Steppenwolf was drinking red wine and kept playing and replaying the same thirteen seconds of a Gregorian chant. He was playing it on a turntable, and instead of moving the needle back to the start of the section, he would push the record anti-clockwise, playing the chant backwards. The effect was disturbing. It reminded me of Satanism,39 but I’m not sure what use Satan would have found for that particular exercise.
I picked up a call from Dad.
‘So. You lef’ me.’
‘I didn’t want to wake you. I’m going to be in London for a little while, but if you need—’
‘You di’n’even say g’bye.’
‘Dad, you’re drunk.’
‘No I’mno’.’
‘In fact, you’re not just everyday-drunk, you’re smashed.’
‘Wha’makesyu think tha’?’
‘For a start, you can’t even pronounce words like “you”.’
‘WHERE’S MY MONEY’40 he yelled. I removed the phone to a short distance from my ear.
‘I needed the money as a deposit. But now that—’
‘Y’ra fucking liar! LIAR!’ he shouted.
I’d never been called a liar by my father before. I was so hurt I couldn’t begin to formulate a reply. I looked at the screen and hung up with a firm press of my thumb. Frustratingly, there is no efficient way to slam a mobile.
A quick google revealed that Lieve lived in Baron’s Court, which was on the District Line (the Green One). Luckily I had left an hour’s leeway because, as I learned the hard way, there is more than one Green One – which, to my mind, slightly defeats the point of colour-coding them. I stood outside her house, just three minutes early, trying to think of any last-minute preparations before I rang the bell. I had eaten a mint. I had combed my hair. I felt like a schoolboy in my white shirt and black trousers. My shirt was still creased in squares where it had been folded in its packet. I tried to smooth it down. I looked at the label of the bottle I’d brought – it looked like decent plonk to me. My heart picked up pace. I rang the bell. I was excited. Or scared. Yes, scared.
Lieve let me in quickly, her fingers brushing my neck as she took my coat. She went to open the wine at the kitchen bar. I looked around. The walls and ceiling were decked with rugs and there were several mirrors decorated with sequins and semi-precious stones. Thick smoke trailed from an incense stick which was burning in the corner. The table, which was about knee height, rose up out of a pile of cushions, which had been herded into one half of the room in lieu of furniture. She came back with two massive glasses, each of which looked like it could hold a good litre of wine, and I sat cross-legged on one of the sturdier cushions, which may in fact have been a pouffe. She looked into my eyes. Her lips were very dark.
‘So what brought you to London, Günter?’
‘Don’t you already know?’
‘Why would I know?’
‘I thought you could see into the immediate future.’
‘Yes, but I’m asking about the immediate past.’
‘Oh I see.’ I didn’t. ‘I’ve moved here for a new job.’
‘Staying on friends’ floors?’
‘As a matter of fact I’ve just found a sort of … bachelor pad. There’s only two of us, it’s going to be quite …’ I couldn’t think of a good adjective for what I thought it was going to be like to live with the Steppenwolf.
‘Well you’re always welcome to stay here. I have a spare room.’ It did seem like a big house for one person.
She fixed a piercing look on me. ‘My husband left me two years ago. So, tell me about your eyes. Do you have to wear the glasses all the time?’
‘Yes. I mean, I thought about wearing contact lenses but the idea makes me a little squeamish.’
‘How bad are they?’
‘I suppose I’m about a minus 3.’
‘That’s not unmanageable. Any male-pattern baldness in your family?’
‘Um – not that I can think of.’
‘Any hereditary illnesses? Diabetes? Any early deaths?’
‘Well there was my mother. But she died when – well …’ I tapered off.
‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t look sorry. In fact she looked slightly pleased with herself. This wasn’t turning out at all as I had expected. Was this really what people talked about on dates?
She took up our glasses to refill them in the kitchen and I tried to guess how old she was. It was hard to tell. She had a very inexpressive face. It was hard to focus on the details. All I got was a strong impression of stern, raw sexuality.
I let out an involuntary moan of pleasure when I took my first bite of the starter. The flavours were familiar, like the best home cooking, but combined in such a way as to feel both comforting and new. The salad was like any Mediterranean salad, dressed in olive oil and vinegar, but she had added thorny caper leaves which prickled in the mouth before yielding to my frenzied mastication. The main course, lamb, had a sweet dressing which I hadn’t expected, sticky with the sort of plummy richness you’d expect with duck. The lamb itself had been slow-cooked and practically dissolved in my mouth, the flavour spreading like a warm bath all the way to the extremities of my tongue.
The presence of a starter had led me to believe that this was to be a three-course dinner, but before I could be offered any pudding, Lieve went and got her purse. She looked like she might be about to offer me money, and I began to worry that she might have invited me over to clean her windows. She took out a deck of cards.
‘Ooh, good idea! I was starting to worry that the conversation might dry up after dinner. Do you know how to play Steeplechase?’
Lieve laughed as if I had said something funny and took out the deck. It was printed with unrecognisable symbols and suits. She started sorting the picture cards from the numbers, and then she shuffled the picture cards and held them out to me.
‘Tarot de Marseille,’ she said. ‘What everyone wants to know more than anything is what the future holds. So hold it.’
I looked into her face to see if she was serious. I thought it was probably very stupid, but I didn’t want to offend her.
I turned over the first card. Le Bateleur. It looked like the joker with a big table of games in front of him. He looked like a bit of an idiot.
‘That’s you,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘It must be. Turn over another.’
Bloody insult, that’s what it was. I grabbed the pack from her hands and chose one from the middle, just in case the future was thinking about dealing me a mixed hand. La Maison Dieu. It looked like a big tower being ripped open by a sunbeam with two men falling to the earth.
I looked up at Lieve. She said nothing, but searched my eyes. I took two more from the middle. Le Soleil and Lemonde. I wished I had paid more attention to French at school. Lemonade, perhaps? The pictures didn’t give much of a clue, but there were two people with their arms round each other in the one with the Sun, so that was something.
‘Let me do it,’ she said. She pushed all the cards out the way except Le Bateleur and turned the next cards over from the top of the deck, which she put back in the centre of the table. L’Amoureux. Cupid shooting a man point blank. No prizes there. Next L’Imperatrice. It showed a woman on a throne, holding a shield. I had no idea what that might mean.
‘These are the cards of persuasion, love, and fertility,’ she said.
‘Fertility?’
‘I mean lovemaking.’
She stared at me in a manner I can only describe as forthright. To relieve my embarrassment, I turned over the next two cards to see what they were. Le Pendu was a man who was hanging upside down by his foot, and the next one, though there wasn’t a name on it, showed a grim skeletal figure doing some reaping.
‘You can’t just choose cards at random,’ she snapped, picking up the cards and shuffling them all back together.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ she said. Then she tried to shuffle the deck quickly, somehow causing cards to fly in all directions. I went to pick them up but she stopped me.
‘It isn’t important. They have told their tale. You are the magician,’ she said, regaining her composure. I looked at her black lipstick. I heard the candle flicker. She advanced towards me holding out her hand and I fell backwards over my pouffe, landing on the soft cushions behind me. She unbuttoned her shirt and straddled me.
‘Shh,’ she said. I had the urge to speak. I didn’t know whether I wanted to speak because she’d hushed me or whether it was the other way round. My head was sluggish. I’d drunk a lot of wine. And it was so dark in here. She pressed her great bosom against my face and my vision was eclipsed. All I felt was tugging and a great release of pressure as the button of my black trousers flew off. Was this romance? It seemed gentler in films. But even in the face of the evidence, it was hard to believe that I would finally be rid of that cruel nun Virginity.
She sat on me, knees pressed against my lowest ribs, her dark fine hair hanging down over my shoulders. I was pinioned by the soft, smooth flesh of her thighs, bare under her skirt. I c
ould just reach out and touch one. As we kissed, I raised my right hand and placed it gently on the outside of her leg, just above the knee. She didn’t stop me! I moved it up a little, towards her hip. If anything, she seemed to actively enjoy it. This was a surprise. Just as I began to contemplate the furtive, almost unbearable possibility of moving my hand over the top of her leg, and towards her inner thigh, she raised herself on her knees, tore my trousers and pants down, and began to touch me on … well, to touch me. I didn’t know what to think. I was still wearing my socks. Not that I wasn’t enjoying myself, but this was a first date, after all.
As she took my hand and guided it up her skirt, I felt my interior monologue begin to slow and fade, and even, for whole seconds at a time, to disappear.41
…
…
‘Stop,’ I whispered.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘No, nothing – it’s just that I’m sort of … I don’t want to jump the gun. Do you see? I don’t want a false start, or I’ll be … disqualified. For the, ah, tournament.’
‘Shhh.’
She kissed me and positioned herself above me before, finally, inevitably, we came together. I don’t mean to say that we both had an orgasm, as I’m quite sure only one of us crossed the finishing line. But we became together; we were intimate, together.
Somewhere, in a part of my mind removed from our grasping, heaving bodies, I wondered whether there was a word for a pleasure that was forced upon me. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been forced, but I was glad that I was doing it. There should be a word for this, I thought, for the moment a reluctant parachutist is thrown out into the glorious skies by his commanding officer. Perhaps there was a word for it in some other language. It was probably a German word, like Schadenfreude. Perhaps I could ask the Steppenwolf.
Her face had grown softer now. It was over. She stroked my cheek.
‘I’m going to get you dessert.’
She strode off to the kitchen, and came back through with a glass of tap water and a whole chocolate tart. We ate from the same plate. I’d never felt this sort of intimacy before. She had saved me from a life alone. It was as if I had gone back to visit the house that I grew up in, and discovered a whole new room that I had never been in before. It wasn’t just unlikely, it was a travesty. No wonder people went so far out of their way for sex, got themselves in tangles with their secretaries and launched fleets of ships.
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