Lying there naked with her, I swallowed down every doubt and qualm. Of course I’d go, I told her.
But now that I’d actually arrived, the warm, soft beauty of Diana felt a universe away.
The first thing I saw when I got off the bus, just up a side street, was a burnt-out car. It wasn’t smouldering, it hadn’t recently been aflame, there was no smoke billowing off it. No, it was what might once have been a Ford Anglia, which had been burnt right down to the chassis and left there as a blackened wreck. Nobody had towed it away, nobody had swept up the pieces of broken glass which had either been smashed out beforehand or burst in the heat. It was just the cremated remains of an automobile which had been left standing, maybe as some kind of warning, right on the corner of the street.
The street that, to my best recollection of the map, I had to walk down.
I kept thinking of Diana; the way she sat astride me, breasts so round and firm, nipples erect, the way she laughed lustily as she whipped her mane of red hair down onto my bare chest again and again, and took kisses and little bites from my neck. Her whispered voice as she told me she needed a man.
I tried to keep those memories front and foremost as I swallowed down the acidic vomit which had spurted up into the back of my throat.
Dusk was falling, which made me feel even stupider. Why was I there now? I’d left Diana’s house in Kingston upon Thames and gone to work first thing – there was no way we could pretend to have a two-day interview, after all – but I promised her I’d go over to Bermondsey as soon as the day ended. Couldn’t it have waited until morning? The answer was a firm “No!” Diana was beside herself.
So I walked past the burnt car. Walked by it as brave as Alan Ladd in Shane, or as determined as the Wild Bunch in the final scene. I tried to pretend that charred Ford Anglias were common where I was from, as if I were the kind of man who saw them all the time. Maybe it would have been better if I’d smelt the burning, if I could have had some indication it was a recent thing. But no, the only scent which assaulted my nostrils was that of rotting. The further I walked down this street, the more I moved into darkness beneath the broken streetlamps, the higher the rubbish piled up. Cheap black bags lay, burst open, on the side of the road, piled on top of each other, like last winter all over again. I didn’t see any rats, and I don’t think I even heard any, but I swear I could sense them. They were near, watching me, realising how hopefully innocent I was wandering into their barbaric domain.
Other eyes were watching me. A gang of black youths were hanging out on one side of the street, a gang of white youths on the other. They stared menacingly at each other, but then glared much more threateningly at me. I wasn’t just interrupting their hostilities, I was giving them something else to be hostile to. Right then I wanted to run, to turn and scarper as swiftly as I could. Even though my boots were heavy and sensible – they were from Clarks – and I knew that they’d never carry me fast enough or far enough. Somehow though, I steadied myself. A calm part of my mind – and right then I was amazed I had any calm part of my mind; was astounded I had any part of me which wasn’t terror-stricken – ordered me to just keep walking straight and unhurried. To try and give the impression that I was a man who could handle myself, that I wasn’t just some ten-stone wimp.
However, my heart quaked further when I turned the corner and saw the house that – according to that scrap of paper – Carlisle Collins lived in. It was on a small street of poky terraced houses, which seemed as though they’d last had maintenance done several years before I was born. There were about two dozen crumbling structures, forming the loop of a cramped cul-de-sac.
I didn’t linger, but in my cursory glance I didn’t spot a single one which was without a broken window or some bloom of graffiti. As far as I could tell, every house had an empty window frame covered by a few wooden boards, or the side of a large box of Golden Wonder crisps, or nothing at all. Just broken glass and the air of this cold, cold winter billowing in.
Number four, the house Timmy Williams had noted as the address, was by far the worst of the lot.
Some time ago, the upstairs had been gutted by fire. The exterior walls were still stained by the smoke damage. Not only was there no glass to the windows on the first floor, there were no window frames. That was the only regard in which the downstairs was any better: it did have window frames, at least. Probably they dated from when the house was built. Back then they’d been varnished brown, but now they were chipped, battered, broken and all completely without glass. There was nothing to stop the elements getting into that house.
Nothing to stop anything coming into that house. Not even a front door.
There was one, but the lock had obviously been smashed away, along with most of the timber around it. Someone had taken the effort to shove the rotting brown door back into place. It showed a real bloody-minded determination to close a door without a lock on a house without any windows. However, the door didn’t hang properly in the frame, as if the wood had warped, or it was the wrong front door hung there for some unknown reason.
I stood before it, terrified. It was a house that looked like death had taken possession of it. The kind of building no one in their right mind would dream of setting foot in. An abandoned hovel which warned any passer-by to move on quickly, in case the lingering decay and decrepitude got them too.
Apart, that is, from one incongruous touch. In the front window, despite the lack of glass, there was a small branch of a conifer, with cheap tinsel wrapped around it. The branch was jammed into what remained of the window-sill, or perhaps nailed there. Taking a step forward, the cold breath held in my chest, I could see the flickering glow of faint candlelight far back in the front room. Clearly the house wasn’t quite as abandoned as it appeared; there must have been someone inside who was aware of the season and was trying to give the impression they had something to celebrate.
The only thing that kept me going was the thought of Diana. Her staring up at me on the bed that morning, her milk chocolate eyes so wide and appealing and fretful.
“I’ve been mulling it over, my darling, and if it’s too much for you then you don’t have to go. I was thinking of it in the night, thinking of it in my dreams, and if you can’t manage it I’ll find another way, I promise you. I’m sure I could find someone else to go. I know it sounds silly to say…” She stared down, a blush rising up her cheeks. “I know we’ve known each other barely twenty-four hours, but it’s been so magnificent being with you that I already care about you so much. I mean that, Michael. I care about you and I don’t want you to be hurt.”
In the middle of the night, I’d sat bolt upright in something of a panic about it. But then Diana had woken too, and the touch of her naked skin had changed my mood almost immediately. We’d ended up making love slowly and gently in the darkness.
“I’ll do it,” I told her, so emboldened at that moment. “I said I’d do it and I meant it. I’ll go and see Carlisle Collins.”
“Oh, thank you, Michael,” she squealed. “Thank you so much. You’re my hero. If you do this for me, I will love you forever. I promise!”
Chapter Five
The door may have been pushed somewhat shut on Carlisle Collins’ house, but it was of no more practical use than some bead curtains.
My first instinct had been to knock, but the door swung back at the first tap of my knuckles, silently and eerily.
I nearly vomited at the stench that assailed me. Inside, the overriding aroma was that of rotting meat combined with the acidic stink of urine. But more than that, just inside the door – against the brown, battered skirting – was a big pile of shit. I did no more than glance appalled at it, but it looked and smelt distinctly human, and was substantial enough to suggest more than one bowel movement – as if the hallway was now the house’s toilet.
As carefully as I could, although it was impossible for me to tell what I was treading in, I moved noiselessly into the hallway, holding my breath. The light of the candle was c
learer ahead, orangey-red, flickering, destined to be extinguished by the first cold gust that rushed through from front to back. It shone out of a doorway at the end of the hall. I kept my eyes fixed on it, my mind trying hard not to imagine what might be squelching beneath the soles of my shoes.
“That you, Jimmy? Where the fuck you been?”
I froze. The voice sounded old and hoarse. Like my late grandad’s voice when he’d been out with his friends and smoked too many rollies away from my grandma’s eye. Except there was an unmistakable viciousness to it, a hardness that my avuncular old grandad could never have matched.
I took another step forward and found myself at the edge of the doorway. Leaning forward, I peered around, as terrified as I’d ever been.
The speaker was sitting at the centre of the room in an old armchair, the material of which had been worn, scuffed and seemingly burnt away. A plank of wood was hammered into its side, to keep it together in one piece. It was the only item of furniture and its presence made the room seem even more bare and empty.
I was hoping I’d get chance to compose myself, build up some confidence. But a pair of dark hunter’s eyes, sunk back in a withered face, spotted me immediately.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growled.
It was hard to imagine at first glance that this could be Carlisle Collins. Possibly he was half-black – it was difficult to tell with the sickly greyness of his skin – but surely he couldn’t be some kind of contemporary of Diana’s. He was an old, old man. His body was wasted and emaciated, his skin impossibly wrinkled and covered in sores.
I’d wondered when I entered what the rotting meat stench might be. It was him. His body was decomposing even as he still breathed.
“Mr Carlisle?” I did my best to make my voice strong, though probably only succeeded in evoking the principal boy in a school play.
“Yeah?” A snarl twisted his top lip, though his bottom lip was swollen and immobile. “Who the fuck wants to know?”
I stepped fully into the room, standing in front of that armchair, the candle nearly burnt out on the floorboards beside his limp, dangling left hand. My mouth so dry. It didn’t help that he stared up at me with an expression of unyielding menace. He didn’t even shiver. I was dressed in a parka and corduroys, and still felt the cold in my bones; his trousers were threadbare, and he wore only a thin jacket over a dirty and stained vest.
“I’m a friend of Diana Christmas.”
His dark eyes, which seemed without light as if they were all iris, regarded me long and hard. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears. Then a cackle rose up from the base of his chest, a wheezing rattle that turned into some kind of laugh. The burnt leather skin of his face cracked as his top lip dented his cheeks with a sneer of a smile.
I stood in front of him, my hands tight at my sides, not quite sure what to say or do. Slowly he got himself under control, but that sneer never left his face. I got the impression that it had been a long, long time since he’d done anything but sneer.
“Diana Christmas, ay? How is the little kitten? Still got her claws?”
Carlisle Collins was so emaciated in his filthy old chair that surely he couldn’t get up, but still I had to steel myself to speak.
“I understand you have something of hers.”
He glared at me with blank bemusement, not knowing what the hell I was talking about.
“Do I?” he asked finally.
“The film.”
The sneer stayed uncomprehending on his face.
“The film you made of her,” I pressed. “The film you’ve been blackmailing her with.”
Finally, illumination came to him. Although the brief spark that flashed in his eyes didn’t make him appear any friendlier. It was like poking a dead fire and finding two faintly glowing coals. You knew that, no matter what, the fire was still basically dead.
“Oh yeah, that.” He shook his head from one side to the other. “I remember that. But it was a long time ago now, such a very long time ago now.”
“I know that, but you haven’t let her go, have you? You’re still demanding money for it!”
“Am I?” His top lip pulled back over his teeth, or the decayed stumps he now used as teeth. I could have sworn that an all-too-early bluebottle flew out from the darkness of his mouth. “I know I have done, but needs must. It’s not like I’m living the fucking life of luxury here, is it, son? A man has to eat, a man has to have his pleasures.” He elongated that final word to suggest all kinds of unsavouriness.
“She’d like it back.” I took a step towards him and was momentarily impressed by my own bravery.
“Well, she can’t!” The sudden booming strength of his voice knocked it all straight out of me.
I just gawped at him, unsure what to do next.
Slowly he raised his thin and scarred right hand to his desiccated lips. Tucked away between his fingers was the yellowed stump of a cigarette. With great care, as if he couldn’t be sure he’d find his mouth, he took a long draw on it. He sucked it down, coughed a furious hacking cough from his lungs, and then sucked it down again.
“She can’t fucking have it!” There was nothing but malevolence in his gaze. “Well, she can’t have it from me, anyway.”
I rocked back on my heels again, my voice rising a bit higher. “What do you mean?”
“Just open your four-eyes and stare around you, son. I don’t have any valuables here, I don’t even have a place to put any fucking valuables here! Do you think I might have another house somewhere? A fucking safe deposit box? A safe with a combination? No, this is all I have in the world. Everything! There’s no place for any fucking film and so I don’t have any fucking film, no matter how sweet the memories.”
“But you’re blackmailing her?” I spluttered.
He shrugged, and it seemed to hurt him to even move that much. “I may have done in the past. Her old husband was a very accommodating man, a proper gent, and would do anything to look after his dear, darling Diana. So I may have put in a request from time to time, yes. But it’s been a long while now since anyone thought to ask me for proof I still had it, or proof it even still existed. Naive, if you ask me.”
“So, you don’t have the film?”
“Hard of hearing as well, are you, son? I already fucking told you that, didn’t I? Made it perfectly fucking clear to you.”
A large part of me wanted to just turn around and walk out, but I had to be clear. “I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could, “but you have just demanded more money for it?”
Again there was a blur of confusion on his face. “I don’t know about that, son, but then Jimmy handles most of that stuff these days. It’s a little beyond my capabilities now, you might say. But you listen to me: if it was up to me right now, I’d sell you her stupid film outright. Call it a grand, I could do with a grand right now. That’d be a sweet deal. But I don’t have the film, and there’s no way around that fucking fact. I ain’t going to bother to bluff you. I’m too tired for that. Too tired and too fucking cold! Tell her it’s gone. Tell her I have no fucking idea what happened to that canister or whether it even fucking exists any more. Tell her I release her from any claims I may have once held over her. Tell her I’ll call it quits if she will.”
I stood in front of him dumbly, unsure what to do next, my mind completely flailing.
“How do I know you’re not just saying this to get rid of me?” I asked finally.
Again his laugh rose up with a thousand sharp edges. “Do you want to go back to your toy trains, boy? Do you just want to leave the grown-up work to the grown-ups?” He spat, thick and brown, most of it ending up on his vest, mingling with a collection of unpleasant stains. “It wouldn’t be particularly smart for a blackmailer to pretend that he didn’t have the compromising article any more, would it? It’s called fucking leverage, son.”
“Fine.” I took another step back. “I’ll let Diana know. I’m sure it will come as a relief to her.”<
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“Yeah, good. I waste my long winter evenings worrying about whether Diana fucking Christmas is happy or not.”
My eyes didn’t leave him, but I backed the three paces slowly out of the room. It was the best news I could have hoped for – the best we could have hoped for – and I just wanted to be elsewhere to celebrate it.
“Just one thing,” he snarled.
My “Yes?” came out a startled yelp.
“You got a fag I can ponce?”
I shook my head.
“Then you can well and truly fuck off then, can’t you?”
Chapter Six
Such was my excitement, my glee at this unexpected news, that I paid for a minicab all the way from London Bridge station to Diana’s place in Kingston upon Thames.
I knew it was decadent, I knew it was going to cost me the best part of a week’s wages even before I hailed down the Pakistani driver, but I also knew that nothing I could spend my pennies on was worth more. In my eagerness I could almost taste the gratitude of Diana’s lips, of her hips. My mind was feverish with thoughts of her thanking me on the doorstep, thanking me in the bedroom, thanking me in every room of the house. I could just picture how her eyes would sparkle with joy, how she’d squeal with delight.
And she did answer the door with a surprised, pleased-to-see-me smile. (It was only later I realised that her eyes had glanced quickly to each of my hands in turn.) That evening she was wearing an embroidered floral apron over brown trousers and a cream blouse. There was a faint smudge of flour on her nose. Nearly every other woman in the world would have looked a little motherly right then, but Diana’s intrinsic glamour couldn’t be obscured by a pinny and some baking ingredients. Her younger self posed in posters and movie stills behind her, and it was impossible to ignore that she’d kept all her intrinsic glamour.
Diana Christmas Page 3