by Paul Harris
We walked along the trenches that were still dug deep into the sand. They told me that they were relics of the war. The night air was cold. I shivered and wanted to be home. For a fleeting moment, a full moon appeared between the dense clouds above our heads. We could see the white cliffs floating vaguely on the horizon above the Channel like a gathering ghost army. One of the Frenchmen spat into the sea.
“Pah! Les Anglais! You hate the English too, yes?”
I put him in the picture and he looked at me with loathing. They drove off, leaving me standing on the beach, alone and lost. There was a clap of thunder and it began to rain. I cursed them, and I was glad that I’d been sick all over the paintwork of their Renault.
The only other time I set foot in France was even more harrowing. One of my travelling companions killed himself. He walked into a barn, sat on an oil drum and waited for it to explode. I believe that the French authorities found most of his body parts, albeit over a wide area and in varying degrees of recognisability. They needn’t have lost any sleep over it though, because nobody claimed the remains and the French had nowhere to ship them to. They reached a compromise and buried what was left, during a modest service, near Calais. I’m proud to say that I was one of very few who attended. In years to come, many more people would claim to have made that trip over the Chanel for Ian Bird’s final farewell. But, I know who was there, and I know who wasn’t. It became our very own Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall gig.
Don’t Forget
Columns of smoke billow from a city skyline. Fire rages in a residential tower block: a building that would not be out of place in any city in the world. Elderly couples cower in shop doorways as shells whistle by overhead. The shops are no longer open. “Opasna Zona!” scrawled in red paint on a crumbling wall. “Pazi Snajper!” They tread warily; only too aware of the danger that surrounds them. The warning signs are unnecessary; bullet holes scar the face of every building. A corpse lying in the road, rotting along with a bag of fruit, is warning enough. Only yards away, a patch of road is painted red, like a rose, to mark the scene of yet another murder.
Amidst the rubble, a child with a rifle strapped to his back swings from the gun barrel of an abandoned tank as grown men dressed in civilian denim strip whatever they can from the burnt out husk. Lost children with wide vacant eyes stare blankly at western camera crews and beg for food and plead for an end to it all. Blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers lean on a shiny white armoured personnel carrier that is parked behind a huge barricade; safe but ineffectual. A convoy of green army trucks weaves between abandoned cars and dead bodies.
In the distance, a ring of picturesque snow-capped mountains rises above the town. Once a natural fortification, the mountains are now home to the city’s assailants. There is no way out for the residents. They queue for bread and for water and squabble over the meagre rations. They are encouraged to go about their normal business, but what is normal business when you are surrounded by heinous abnormality?
A bridge straddles a muddy river and stands as a memorial to man’s inhumanity to man. Two figures lie at the foot of the bridge, dead and decaying, their arms entwined and their souls wrapped together in death. They had been promised safe passage across no man’s land but promises amount to nothing when the guns are driven by politicians who seek power regardless of the price others have to pay. In a world of lies, is there any truth at all? Two sniper rounds still resonate beneath a sky devoid of compassion and romance. Not even a bullet could separate them.
Cak Lazlo contemplatively runs a finger down the deep scar on his left cheek and recounts its history: a fight, another fight, pointless and without reason. He strains to recall the subject of the altercation, but can’t. A woman, perhaps? A bet? But, he only remembers a broken bottle appearing out of the darkness and the tearing of his flesh as it found its target; the dampness of the blood gathering on his shirt. And now that he has a reason to fight and a reason to die, he cannot. He cannot win this battle.
He is dressed in a filthy camouflaged jacket and a black woollen hat. A rifle is slung carelessly over his shoulder. His clothes have seen far better days than these and, so too, has Cak. He listens as the day’s last shell falls on the city with a dull thud and then something akin to a clap of thunder. A cloud of smoke and dust rises into the clear blue sky. The distant sound of automatic gunfire peters out. He stubs his cigarette out under his heavy boot. Two final gunshots resound; signifying what? Two more dead souls?
Cak spits on the ground and then grips his rifle in his hands. He begins to slowly walk the street, kicking lumps of debris from his path. There are heaps of rubble on either side. Four storey buildings that have paused halfway through collapsing teeter on the brink. The twin odours of dust and decay cling to his throat. As the echo of the gunfire recedes, there is silence. Not a bird sings, not a baby wails. Cak Lazlo’s steady metronomic footsteps are all that can be heard.
He stops and squints into the sunlight. Behind him is a crumbling white stone wall. On it, in foot high lettering, are daubed the words, in English, “Don’t Forget”. Cak won’t, but the rest of us, well… He looks along the river towards the city centre. The bitter burden of defeat hangs heavily in his deep dark brooding eyes, weighing on his broad shoulders, and holding him down, pinning him to the ruined ground upon which he now stands. On the horizon, he can see the towering office blocks that are now burnt out shells. In their shadow, the streets below lie quiet and trembling even in the warmth. There is nothing left but the resentment and the scars.
The Real Policewomen of Orange County
Several American ladies were shouting at each other. They were arguing about something that one of them had said to another one of them about a third lady who, by some coincidence, was also present. The ladies were dressed impeccably and appeared to take their lead from the fashion stylings of Mattel’s Barbie range. One of the ladies had sequins on her party dress. This made me wonder why the ladies wore party dresses in the middle of the day, sequined or otherwise.
According to the male narrator, there were four ladies arguing and one lady who was doing her best to mediate between the others. She had cast herself as the peacemaker, but, for the life of me, I could not deduce which of the ladies this was. This task was made all the more difficult by the startling physical similarities between some of the ladies. Long blonde hair was clearly in vogue, as were long sun-tanned legs, and Botox swollen lips.
For some reason, this divergence of opinion had broken out in what seemed to be a sushi bar. Its bright white walls sparkled and the floor tapped out a rhythm under the beating of stiletto heels. A Japanese member of staff watched on expressionlessly as the ladies continued to bicker. The shouting reached a crescendo. They used words and expressions that, although familiar, I didn’t believe were in common usage locally.
The ladies began to push and shove one another as if they were children in a school playground. Still, it was unclear as to which one of them was the peacemaker. Blonde hair and sequins flashed before my confused eyes, spinning and spinning, squealing incomprehensibly. And this was all in the name of entertainment.
I wondered to myself. I wondered why I passively looked on as my intelligence was subjected to a barrage of inanity. I wondered why it was that I made no attempt to change channels and search for programming more nourishing. I wondered when it was that I had lost touch with popular culture and become as an alien in society, with my own rare culture, dating back to a time that the mainstream no longer remembered, nor wished to remember.
The ring tone of my phone roused me from my resigned lethargy but not quickly enough for me to take the call before the ringing stopped. I lazily eyed the flashing light of the phone that informed that I’d missed a call. It distracted me as I groped for the television remote control, never moving from my post on the settee and nor from the cushion that had lately moulded itself around my anatomy.
I jabbed at a button with an arrow on it and, as television channel after television chann
el flashed before my eyes, I saw a caption that read, “Television Gold” and caught a brief glimpse of Ted Rogers holding his fingers up to the camera. I realised then that, actually, I had never particularly connected with popular culture, nor had I ever fully understood it.
I stood. My legs ached and so did my lower back. I limped over to the bookcase, picked up the phone, and checked the calls log. I’d missed a call from Angker. She had never phoned me before and had seldom even spoken to me. I wondered what it was that she wanted, and hoped that she and Thomas were okay. I pressed my thumb down on the green-coloured call button and heard the dull repetition of the dialling tone.
The ringing stopped but there was silence on the other end of the line, perhaps the sound of a feint breath, but no words of greeting were spoken. My daughter-in-law has a poor telephone manner, I thought to myself.
“Hello. Anyone there?”
“Rodney?” she breathed, and there seemed to be something of a nervous tremor in her voice.
“What’s up, Angker?”
There was another spell of silence while Angker seemed to gather her thoughts, during which I walked over to the window in preparation to draw the gaudily striped curtains for the evening.
“Can we meet?”
“You sound scared.”
“I’m okay.”
“Can’t you tell me what it is over the phone?”
She paused once more. “I’d prefer not to.”
I peered through the window into the gathering dusk. It was raining again. The street lights were beginning to cast reflections in the standing rainwater in the road. A car splashed by, moving far too quickly.
“Very mysterious. Where do you want to meet?”
“Do you know that diner in the High Street by our place?”
“No, but I’m sure I’ll find it without too many problems.”
“It’s American. It’s called Big Al’s. Thursday at two?”
“Make it four, can you? I still have to work.”
“I’ll see you at four then,” and as she hung-up without saying goodbye, I could see the silhouette of a man in the street below. He was splashing through the puddles like a four year old. He was bare-chested and was wearing high-visibility orange trousers. I wondered if the circus was in town. As he jogged further along the street and came nearer to my vantage point, I could see that it was Bo Billox, out for his evening constitutional.
I pulled one of the curtains to, hoping not to draw his attention, and saw him halt just beneath my window. He began to shadowbox with the bright red pillar-box on the corner of the street. Then, he began to land a torrent of punches on his hapless cast iron opponent. I snapped the second curtain shut, and shuddered.
Chapter Three
A Woman of Quite Indeterminate Shape
Imagine a tubular red neon sign spelling out just two words. The words, in themselves, are of very little consequence. They merely welcome us to our next port of call which, for the record, is a fifties-style diner. Think Happy Days or Pulp Fiction. Picture Mia and Vincent doing the twist, Arthur Fonzarelli punching the jukebox, a waitress in a polka dot skirt, and Chuck Berry records grinding away in the background. There is a bar that dispenses only milkshakes, sodas, and coffee. Stainless-steel barstools are screwed into the dark wooden floor. Burgers and hot dogs are brought to the tables on plastic trays.
Sally-Anne Sable sits alone at one such table. She clutches her ice cream sundae like Phil Etheridge clutching his microphone on stage at the Academy. She sits alone because she chooses to. This is her guilty little pleasure. She is on first name terms with the waitress and vaguely remembers her from her school days. She passes the time of day with her in a painfully high-pitched voice. Sally rolls her eyes beneath her painfully high-pitched hairline as they meticulously, and enthusiastically, disassemble the relationships of mutual acquaintances.
They smile insincerely at one another as they rattle out unsubstantiated gossip at a hundred miles an hour, pausing only occasionally, and very fleetingly, to cast each other surreptitiously suspicious glances. They wind their hair around their fingers and tilt their heads to one side to feign attentiveness. Eventually, the waitress tires of the charade, makes her excuses, and retreats to the kitchen where she commences to inform the cook about the insufferable gossip who is gorging on ice cream at table number three.
But, Sally-Anne’s ears aren’t burning. The ice cream is making her brain freeze. She drags the long thin dessert spoon through her lips, plunges it back into the bowl, and shovels some more into her gaping mouth. As she swallows, she spies an odd looking couple at one of the other tables. They are speaking in hushed but urgent tones and she attempts to over-hear their conversation. The man is shaking his head and the woman, whom Sally believes to be far too young for him, is nodding slowly and quite deliberately as if trying to convince him that it is over, that it can never work, that it is over for good.
The man, although far from pretty, has aged with a degree of durability and still has the lively eye and keenness of expression of a younger man. He irritably waves the waitress away as she approaches to take their order and wipes both hands across his face. The woman, wearing jeans and a maroon leather jacket, grabs one of his hands and nods more emphatically yet as she speaks clearly and slowly, driving her point home still further. Sally sniffs; the woman may be reasonably pretty, but she is far too thin, and her taste in men is verging on the perverse.
The kitchen door opens and the cook pokes his head through it. Seeing the waitress hovering aimlessly, he approaches her. He is animated, in a Latin style, as they engage in an exchange of opinions. He pointedly looks at his wristwatch with a flourish and wags a finger at the waitress. She reluctantly approaches the table, pen and notebook in hand, where the couple are now sitting in silence. She offers to take their order but their response is unenthusiastic.
The cook is young and handsome and dashing. He has shiny black hair swept back across his head. Even through his tight-fitting pristine white shirt, Sally can define the muscularity of his arms and torso. He smiles at her as he passes her table and scoops up, the now empty, ice cream bowl. She pushes her chest out, adjusting her brown cardigan to reveal a cleavage of which she is immensely proud, and sucks in her stomach, holding her breath and smiling inanely. As the cook, in his pristinely pressed checkerboard trousers, returns gracefully to his kitchen, she exhales loudly, spraying droplets of ice cream over the table. The skinny girl in the leather jacket peers at her, shakes her head, and then places her order with the impatient waitress.
I took a minicab and between us, the driver and I, found Big Al’s diner amongst the glittering shop fronts of Hampstead High Street. I paid the fare and when I found my bearings, I realised that I’d been there once before, long ago in my youth. It had been a bookmaker’s back then and had slyly seduced me into handing over nearly a whole week’s wages in only a couple of hours. Now, it had a neon sign above the door, was glass-fronted and air-conditioned. The clouds of smoke and desperation were gone, as was the carpet of discarded betting slips and cigarette ends underfoot.
I entered and took a table near to the door to wait for Angker. I flicked through the menu that lay in front of me but wasn’t in the mood for a burger or a soda. The shiny red cushioned plastic seats noisily expelled air when you sat on them, almost as if they were sighing under the weight. Dion DiMucci was loudly lamenting the many hardships associated with being “A Teenager in Love”. Everything was shiny, even the floor. I felt uncomfortable. A waitress was stalking my table, not three metres away. I avoided eye contact with her and continued to stare blankly at the menu. She retreated into the kitchen.
It was then that I noticed a young woman of quite indeterminate shape sitting at a table near to the kitchen door. She was reading a copy of Slimming World magazine and was holding it low against the table-top so that nobody could see the cover. I only noticed what it was that she was reading when she closed the magazine to stare back at me. I smiled but she didn’t r
eciprocate. I wondered if, she too, was waiting for someone, but she didn’t seem at all anxious. Indeed, she appeared to be quite at home.
Then the waitress returned, carrying a huge ice cream sundae on a tray. The woman of quite indeterminate shape’s whole face lit up with unrestrained glee. She plunged a spoon into the over-flowing desert bowl whilst the waitress was still depositing it on the table in front of her. She pushed the magazine away with her free hand and began to gorge ecstatically. The waitress approached me with the empty tray and asked me if I was ready to order yet. I declined and explained that I was waiting for someone. She sighed, somewhat rudely, and proceeded to peer over my shoulder as I resumed my futile perusal of the menu.
When Angker did eventually arrive, she didn’t seem particularly hungry either. She kissed my cheek, rather formally, and sat down opposite me. The waitress retreated a few steps, before withdrawing all together. But, before she could make the sanctuary of the kitchen, she was ensnared by the woman of quite indeterminate shape into a conversation. The waitress seemed to find the sight of molten ice cream streaming down the woman’s chin quite repellent, even more so when she poked out her yellowish tongue and made a desperate attempt to scoop it back into her mouth.
“So?” I smiled, wondering what it was that Angker needed to tell that was so important and could not be communicated over the telephone.
She sat in silence, gazing at me, screwing her hands together into a ball as if she were trying to wring the words from them. She seemed particularly uneasy and I consciously decided to refrain from pressing her.