Headhunters

by John King

  ‘Hello.’

  He turned round. The surprise must’ve shown. He’d never realised eyes were so important to a person’s face. The photo in the magazine showed her in stockings and suspenders, with the main part of her face covered in one of those digital masks they used on the telly when they were showing police video footage of a crime. Hiding the identity of the man in custody so as not to prejudice the case. All fair and square.

  ‘The train took ages. Sorry I’m late.’

  Suzie had big blue eyes. They were massive. She was a cracker. What the fuck was she doing in magazines with the losers? He was a bit stuck for words. He hadn’t expected much, just a good shag with a clapped-out nutter who had enough passion to make up for a wrecked body. Bit like him really. But Suzie could’ve been a model.

  ‘It’s alright. My brother was round so I had someone to talk to. He’s gone now. Bet you wondered who it was answering the phone. Thought I had someone else there. Lining them up on a conveyor belt. I’m not that bad you know.’

  Suzie started to talk as she took Balti by the arm and led him back through the station towards a pub she knew. She was going to be upfront with him and said that she used the contacts columns to avoid complications. She was an actress, a proper actress, and she didn’t want men becoming attached. But she needed sex as much as the next person. Could Balti understand that? He nodded and opened his mouth to say something. That it was fine by him. But she asked him did he really understand, because men were pretty thick when it came to working women out. They had to understand that women had the same needs as men. They had a sexuality that could be just as material and unemotional as that of a man. What really pissed her off was all that hippy earth mother propaganda that said a woman was full of intuition and creativity. Now she was an actress, and that was something creative in itself, but she was no earth mother. She liked sex. Pure and simple. Nothing wrong with that was there? And Balti said no, of course not. She was only being honest and how was the new job going that he’d been talking about, she’d been out of work a lot and one thing she would never do was appear in porno mags. That wasn’t acting. It was demeaning to the women who were forced into those roles. Women posing for men to dribble over. It made her very angry. Dirty old men in their old age masturbating over pinups. It was exploitative. That was the difference. She could do whatever she wanted with her body and didn’t have to do what men told her. She was taking what she wanted. Suzie was no prostitute. She hoped he understood and she wouldn’t go on about it any more. It was better to get things out in the open. She wasn’t mad. She didn’t think Balti was a failure with women because he had to hunt them down in magazines.

  They walked up the hill and Balti was knackered already. His head was spinning. He wanted an easy life. An easy shag.

  ‘That’s a beautiful pint,’ he said, feeling a bit better as they sat in the Whittington with Dick’s cat on the wall behind glass.

  It looked like something squashed they’d just scraped off the road. He concentrated on the Guinness.

  ‘It’s a nice little pub,’ Suzie said. ‘They have diddly-daddly on Thursday nights. Session musicians with fiddles and bodhrans and pipes and banjos who just turn up and sit around playing. There’s no stage and no sense of being an audience. I like it in here. It’s very natural. I often thought that plays should be performed in that way with no sense of Us and Them, but it’s a visual medium so it wouldn’t be much good if you can’t see what’s happening.’

  Balti looked around the pub. It was a small Irish boozer with a central bar and the atmosphere of a pub where the quality of the drink came first. It had the mark of class most London pubs used to boast before the craze to gut them and turn the inside into imitation spit-and-sawdust barns. Thing was, it was all decoration and the drink was usually overpriced and the lager flat.

  The Whittington wasn’t busy. Not what he’d expected at all. He was looking to get his leg over. Nothing more. But the Guinness was worth the trip and Suzie was something else. Long blonde hair and a fit body. She wore dangling earrings and tapped her short nails on the table. She’d stopped rabbiting now so he could get a word in. It was nice having a second’s pause between sentences. She spoke sense he supposed, though she went on a bit. She was another strong woman. Karen was strong. His old girl was strong. They were all different though. Most of the women he knew were strong. But it was strange because he’d had the thing fixed in his head. A wham-bam-thank-you-darling session then out the door. He hadn’t planned on a pint and idle conversation. He couldn’t get his head round it. There had to be something else going on. There had to be a problem. Simple as that. She didn’t seem like a nutter. Went on a bit, but that could be nerves, because fuck knows he was nervous enough now.

  He liked Suzie straight off. The eyes and face and rest of her body. Big warm pools of colour. He lifted the glass and took a long drink. Just the one, then he’d get things moving.

  Balti knew his place in the scheme of things. He wasn’t in good shape and had been out of work. He didn’t expect anything other than a shag and was prepared to scrape the barrel. Suzie wasn’t the barrel. It had to be inside her head. He tried to picture the basque and high heels waiting at home. Started thinking of the videos under his bed. The Germans and Dutch taking it down the throat and up the arse. False groans as some wanker with a half-erect knob rubbed KY up a Filipino’s arse and drove it home. Three-onto-one wasn’t nice. The girl on all fours getting it rammed down her throat. A bloke underneath who she was riding and then the third bloke arrives and climbs aboard. Camera zooming in as the bloke giving it the A treatment rubs balls with the man below. Switching angles, changing cameras to show the expression on the girl’s face. He could tell she was feeling the pressure even though she tried smiling for the camcorder, but with some junky’s knob halfway down your throat it was difficult.

  Suzie was off again telling him all about the Archway and how she’d moved there from the south coast. She’d grown up in Brighton and would return there one day, but she was waitressing in London now and things were going well for her. He smiled and nodded and wondered what made people appear in porn videos. Maybe they didn’t care, but more likely needed the money. The bird doing the threesome couldn’t get much out of it, so it had to be the cash. They all looked scabby. The blokes well dodgy and the girls all worn out. Maybe some of them got off on it. Difficult to say really. Not the kind of people you met down the pub. He remembered that story about Barry Walters a couple of years back. He sits down to watch a dirty video and there’s his girlfriend on the screen. Two weeks before the wedding as well. Packs her in. It made the lads laugh because the hypocrisy was so obvious. What was he doing watching in the first place? You had to apply the rules to yourself as well. You couldn’t judge. But you did. Strip off the personality with the clothes. Blow up dolls. You couldn’t escape it and Suzie went for the public health warning straight off and it didn’t do a lot of good. He couldn’t work out if she was a headcase or what.

  ‘Do you want another?’ she asked.

  Balti looked at his pint. It was empty. He watched her walk to the bar. She was wearing dungarees and a T-shirt. He watched her joking with the barmaid as the Guinness settled. She drank pints as well.

  ‘I could drink this stuff all day,’ she said, raising her glass to her mouth. ‘Drink too much though and it sets your heart racing. It’s the iron content.’

  Balti noticed she wasn’t wearing make-up. He couldn’t smell perfume either. Suzie was obviously a natural girl.

  ‘That letter you wrote was great,’ Suzie said. ‘The way the letters mash up together and all the spikes. It had character. I’m into shapes you see. Odd shapes. Outlines and angles. I love fractals, the way they expand and trail off into the distance. Do you know what I mean?’

  Balti nodded his head. He didn’t have a clue. He’d never thought about his writing before, but he liked fractals.

  ‘You made a few mistakes in your spelling as well.’

 
‘I was never very good with spelling.’

  ‘I got left behind at school because the teachers didn’t know I was dyslexic. Funny, really, but they get the chance to set you up for life and if you struggle then they get on your back. Not all of them, but too many. It’s like life when you grow up. If you’re no good at your job then people take it personally, as though you’re lacking something in your personality. It’s like you’re doing it on purpose.’

  ‘I’m not dyslexic. Never had much interest really. We were always mucking about. They don’t get hold of you and make you want to learn. Just tell you you’re a problem. I couldn’t wait to leave and get a job.’

  ‘It was acting that made it alright for me,’ Suzie said. ‘Nothing classical. I didn’t have any formal training. The local youth club did something and then I joined an amateur group. I don’t make very much, but it’s fun, and you can always pick up bar or restaurant work. I’ve had a couple of bit parts on the TV as well. That helps. Acting you get to be anything you want. You can get lost in a role and then say it’s someone else. Nobody knows how much is inside you. Depends on the part of course. They only ever see the outline. It’s all shapes isn’t it? I mean, you look at a woman and you see her figure. Whether she’s got nice breasts and legs. How much she weighs. The height and proportions. That’s fair enough. The shapes and sizes. Weights and measures. What’s inside though?’

  Balti smiled. He didn’t know. The Guinness was slipping down a treat. He pointed at the dead cat on the wall.

  ‘Dick Whittington’s cat’s been knocked out of shape a bit. Looks like he was run over by a lorry.’

  Suzie laughed and looked at the cat.

  ‘There’s a bridge up the hill where the suicides go. They jump off on to the road. It’s a bit unlucky if you’re driving along and a face bursts through the windscreen. I can’t understand how someone could be so depressed they could go and kill themselves. Life shouldn’t be taken so seriously. We live forever so why worry about anything. We should go out and get what we want. That’s why I use the magazines. What’s the point in hanging around expensive clubs trying to pick someone up when all you want is sex?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Balti said, looking towards the barmaid who was talking to an old boy on the opposite side of the bar.

  Suzie moved closer and lowered her voice for his benefit.

  ‘I got fed up with all that. Standing around waiting for some idiot to get enough drink down his throat so he has the courage to come over and chat me up. All that mating ritual and you don’t have a clue what you’re going to get. You could pick up a psycho who’s going to come home and kill you. The amount of boring bastards I’ve had in the past. All the shitty one-liners. It really gets on your nerves and then they last a couple of minutes and fell asleep. Next morning they don’t have anything worth saying and you want to get them out the door as fast as possible. The pretty boys are worst. All shape and no substance. So I’ve given all that up now. I use the adverts. There’s no hassle that way. I want sex. You want sex. Straightforward and honest and I get to talk to my partners beforehand. I get a lot of wankers mind. We’re all the same you know. Everyone on the planet. There’s no individuals. There’s no point being pinned down with one person because then it becomes boring and miserable and you end up tearing each other’s hair out. We’re going to live forever even when we die, so who cares. It’s a great feeling, don’t you think? Now that’s real freedom.’

  Balti nodded. As long as Suzie was happy. He existed. He was an individual. And while it was true enough that he would be in another situation and probably quite different if the Queen was his mum, he reckoned there would still be something that was his own. There again, he didn’t know what he thought about life after death. If it wasn’t for his granddad telling him about that out-of-body experience then he’d say death was just an appointment with the furnace. Nothing to look forward to after the flames had burnt you to a cinder. He knew the old boy wouldn’t have lied, but he didn’t have the faith. He wouldn’t mind believing, because like Suzie said, it would make everything a lot easier, but you couldn’t make yourself believe something if you didn’t really feel it. But bollocks, he’d come up to Archway for a bit of creation, not all this talk about death.

  ‘So what are you doing now?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a play about the Wigan Casino,’ Suzie said. ‘It’s about these four people who have been going to the Casino for years listening to northern soul and now the Casino’s closing down. There’s three songs the DJs always played. Long After Tonight Is All Over by Jimmy Radcliffe, Time Will Pass You By by Tobi Legend and I’m On My Way by Dean Parrish. The play centres around the songs and what the characters are going to do with the rest of their lives. Whether they’ll give up on northern soul because the Casino is the best there’ll ever be, or whether they’ll move on to another kind of music. Where will they go next? We’re still rehearsing. It’s going to be good. I’m enjoying my role.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m going to settle down and get married because nothing will ever be that good again. The Wigan Casino is the ultimate and I’m going to stop dead and start leading a very mundane, everyday life and find love and happiness. It’s a good part.’

  ‘It’s a bit unfair on the bloke you end up marrying. If he’s just a shape to fill the gap. He’s going to have feelings as well.’

  ‘That’s the kind of character she’s going to be. Decisive and working to a plan.’

  Balti felt sorry for the man involved, but it was only a poxy play so it didn’t matter. The time passed and he forgot what he’d come up to North London for after four pints. They were having a good old chat and before he knew what was happening it was ten o’clock and Suzie was drinking up and telling him it was time to go. He carried the glasses to the bar and followed her outside. Down the hill and through a multi-coloured, piss-soaked subway. He watched the mugging mirrors and saw their bent reflections approaching. The curl of hip-hop graffiti formed a giant snake through the passage. A bottle rolled in the breeze. Reds and greens and yellows rushed past.

  He walked up the ramp and felt Suzie next to him, talking a mile-a-minute. He’d had eight pints of Guinness and was feeling heavy. He was hungry as well. They cut through the flats. He needed a piss and went behind a wall. Suzie waited under a light. Having a slash in a dark corner turning his head to find she’d come over and was standing next to him watching. He felt awkward as he shook himself dry. He felt her hand drift down and work him erect. Moving back and forward slowly, then faster.

  Suzie pushed Balti back into the shadows, faint light from the Archway roundabout filtering through the trees. Balti was hot and the sound of traffic died down with a red light. He could hear Irish music from the Archway Tavern, the doors wide open for fresh air. Suzie pulling his jeans wide open and reaching inside his pants for his balls, grabbing and yanking them forward. He tried to pull her into him but she shrugged him off, moving her hand back to his cock. He had a stonker right enough and tried to kiss her but she turned her head.

  ‘When we get back.’

  Suzie was reaching into her dungaree pocket and taking out some kind of gel, undoing the top with her teeth and then lining the lubricant along his knob. She replaced it and started working harder, in total silence, bringing Balti off in a machine-gun succession of spurts that disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get back.’

  Balti did up his jeans and tried to catch up, following her through a small estate and up a street lined with rundown but still impressive houses. His knob was sticky. He’d been looking forward to a good bit of sex, not a quick hand job in a dark corner. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. But he’d have time to recover, though Suzie had gone all quiet on him now. Just his luck. He would need a piss again soon. The Guinness felt bad in his gut. It was the wrong drink in this kind of weather. He was sweating like a pig and the gel was uncomfortable in the front of his jeans.

&nbs
p; A door opened and Balti followed Suzie up a flight of stairs. Another door and she was having trouble with the lock, finally inside turning on the light, walls lined with posters of famous actresses. All the big names from the past were there. Marilyn Monroe, Doris Day, Bette Davis. The pictures were big and framed and leading into the living room, where smaller glossy photos took over.

  Suzie led Balti to the couch, sat him down and put on a CD. A song he didn’t recognise.

  ‘Jimmy Radcliffe,’ she said. ‘What do you want to drink?’

  ‘A bit of that whisky would be alright. No water thanks.’

  She handed Balti the drink and leant over. She kissed him on the lips. Her mouth was warm and friendly. She walked to the door and disappeared, leaving Balti to look around the room. It was nicely decorated, full of plants and the photographs. She must be doing okay, though it wasn’t an expensive set-up. A bit of imagination had obviously been applied. This was better.

  He turned his head as Suzie returned. She was wearing a long see-through number. She looked great. Her body was perfect. The light was dimmed and she walked over towards him. There had to be something wrong. It was a dream. She was a film star in the making. Wrapping those arms around his neck and pulling him in close, whispering romance in his ear. His bladder was full. He needed a piss but didn’t want to break the spell.

  ‘You’ll last longer after what I did outside,’ Suzie whispered. ‘You won’t let me down will you?’

  Balti hoped not. She led him towards the bedroom and he managed to get into the bathroom for a piss. He leant over the bog and hung his head. It was a dream come true. Like the films. He flushed the toilet and washed his face in the sink, a quick wipe under his arms. So what, she’d been drinking as well. He was more Sid James than Humphrey Bogart. You had to have a laugh. He pulled the string and hurried towards the bedroom.