by Unknown
I guessed her to be about fifty. The long straight hair was a last rope to the bollard of her youth. Failure had written in lines on Johnny’s face, but with Daisy it was all in the downward curve of her mouth. Lately I’ve noticed these mouths in some women of my age. A lifetime of putting out, as they saw it, and getting nothing back. The men were bastards, the social contract unjust and biology itself an affliction. The weight of all disappointment bent and locked these mouths into their downturn, a Cupid’s bow of loss. At a glance it looked like disapproval, but the mouths told a deeper tale of regret, though their owners never guessed what was being said about them.
I told Daisy my name. She kept her hand on Johnny’s arm, but she spoke to me. ‘We’re having a late breakfast. We’ve had to start again.’
Minutes later we were sitting round the long kitchen table, each with a bowl of porridge and a slab of cold toast. Right across from me was the floor mopper whose name was Xan. His huge forearms were hairless and meaty, and I felt he didn’t like the look of me.
When Steve sat down at the head of the table he pressed his palms together, raised his head and closed his eyes. At the same time he inhaled deeply through his nose. Far back in some nasal cave, chance had fashioned out of mucus two-note panpipes, and we were forced to listen. He held his breath for many uncomfortable seconds, then released it at length. This was controlled breathing, or a meditation, or a prayer of thanksgiving.
It was impossible not to look at his moustache. It couldn’t have been less like Johnny’s. It was dyed a fierce burnt-orange, and ramrod straight, waxed to prissy Prussian points. I brought a hand to my face to conceal a smile. I felt weightless and shivery. The shock of yesterday’s shooting, this plan of reckless acquisition, the background fear – all combined to make me feel that I wasn’t really here, and I worried that I might do or say something stupid. My stomach kept plunging, and I felt skittish and giggly, feelings intensified by my sense of being trapped at this table. It must have been the passive smoking I had done in the car. I could not stop the similes accumulating round Steve’s moustache. Two rusty nails hammered outwards from his gums. The pointy masts of a schooner I built as a kid. Something to hang tea towels on.
Don’t make fun of these people . . . They’re not too stable. As soon as I remembered Johnny’s warnings, as soon as it occurred to me that I must not laugh, I knew I was lost. The first minor explosion of breath through my nose I disguised as a reverse sniff. For cover I lifted my porridge spoon. But no one was eating yet. No one was talking. We were waiting for Steve. When his lungs were filled to burst, he lowered his shaved head and exhaled, and the moustache tips quivered with rodent eagerness. From where I sat, human meaning appeared to be deserting the sinking ship of his face. Dancing in and out of my spiral of anxiety and hilarity was a train of yet more unbidden images from childhood. I tried to turn them away, but the evocative power of the ludicrous moustache swept all before it: a Victorian weightlifter on a biscuit tin lid, the bolt in the neck of Frankenstein’s monster, a novelty alarm clock with a painted face telling a quarter to three, the dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, Ratty in a school production of Toad of Toad Hall.
This was the man who was selling me a gun.
There was nothing I could do. The spoon in my hand was shaking. I put it down carefully and clenched my jaw and felt the sweat pricking my upper lip. I was beginning to rock. I was right in the line of Xan’s suspicious scrutiny. The squeaking noise was my chair, the muffled clucking sound was me. So much air had vacated my lungs I knew the intake was going to be a noisy affair, but my choices had narrowed now to embarrassment or death. Time slowed as I yielded to the inevitable. I span in my chair, sank my face in my hands and made a screeching inhalation. As my lungs filled I knew there was still more laughter to come. I hid it behind a yodelling shouting sneeze. Now I was on my feet, and so was everyone else. Someone’s chair hit the floor with a snap.
‘It’s the bleach,’ I heard Johnny say.
He was a true friend. I had my story. But stumbling through the commotion, I had yet to defeat the image of Steve’s moustache. I snorted and coughed my way across the room, half blinded by tears, towards the french windows that seemed to billow open at my approach, and stumbled down some wooden steps out on to a lawn of baked earth and dandelions.
Watched by them all I turned my back to the house and spat and breathed deeply. When I was calm at last I straightened and saw right in front of me, tied to a rusting bedframe by a length of electric flex, a dog, presumably the one that had fouled the kitchen floor. It scrambled to its feet, and cocked its head at me and gave the most tentative, apologetic half-swipe with its tail. What other animal apart from ourselves and other primates is capable of experiencing in duration the emotion of abject shame? The dog looked at me, and I looked at the dog, and it seemed to want to engage me in some form of cross-species complicity. But I wasn’t going to be drawn. I turned and strode towards the house, calling out, ‘Sorry! Ammonia! Allergy!’ And the dog, bereft of a generative grammar and the resources of deceit available to me, sank back on to its bare patch of earth to await forgiveness.
Soon we were back round the kitchen table with windows and doors opened wide and the subject was allergies. Xan gave his judgements the ring of fundamental truth by adorning them with basically.
‘Basically,’ he said, looking at me, ‘your allergy is a form of imbalance.’
When I said this was unfalsifiable, he looked pleased. I began to think he might not detest me after all. He had the same hostile regard for his porridge as he had for me. What I had thought was an expression was actually his face at rest. I had been misled by the curl of his upper lip which some genetic hiatus had boiled into a snarl.
‘Basically,’ he went on, ‘there has to be a reason for an allergy, and research has shown that in over seventy per cent of cases the roots can be traced back basically to frustrated needs in early childhood.’
It was a while since I had heard this device, the percentages snatched from the air, the unprovenanced research, the measurements of the immeasurable. It had a peculiarly boyish ring.
I said, ‘I’m in the less than thirty per cent.’
Daisy was on her feet ladling out more porridge. She spoke in the quiet voice of one who knows the truth but can’t be fished to fight for it. ‘There’s an overriding planetary aspect with particular reference to earth signs and the tenth house.’
At this point Johnny perked up. He had been tense since we had sat down again, probably worried that I was about to misbehave. ‘It was the Industrial Revolution. Like, before eighteen hundred no one had allergies, no one had heard of hay fever. Then when we started throwing up all this chemical shit into the air, and then into the food and water, people’s immune systems started to jack it in. We weren’t built to take all this crap . . .’
Johnny was warming up when Steve spoke over him. ‘Excuse me Johnny. But that’s really a tissue of horseshit. The Industrial Revolution gave us a whole state of mind, and that’s where we get our illnesses.’ He turned to me abruptly. ‘What’s your opinion?’
My opinion was that someone should fetch the gun. I said, ‘My thing is definitely a state of mind. When I’m feeling good ammonia doesn’t bother me at all.’
‘You are unhappy,’ Daisy said. She pursed her own unhappy downturned mouth. ‘I can see a lot of dirty yellow in your aura.’ If the table had been narrower she might have reached for my hand.
‘It’s true,’ I said, and saw my opening. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ I looked at Steve and he looked away. There was a silence that tightened as I waited. Johnny was taking this in with that helpless air of his, and I wondered if he had made a mistake.
The silence was all about who was going to speak first. It was Xan. ‘We’re not basically the sort of people who would have a gun.’
He trailed away, and it was Daisy who helped him out. ‘In the twelve years we’ve had it, it’s never been fired.’
Steve spoke
quickly, telling her what she must already know. ‘It’s been oiled and cleaned regularly though.’
And she said to him, also for my benefit, ‘Yeah, but not because we expected to be firing it.’
There was a confused pause. No one knew where we were. Xan started again. ‘The thing is we don’t approve of this gun . . .’
‘Or any guns,’ Daisy said.
Steve clarified. ‘It’s a Stoller .32, made before the factory was sold by the Norwegians back to the Dutch and German conglomerate that developed it originally. It’s got a carbide twin-action release that . . .’
‘Steve,’ Xan said patiently. ‘Basically, this thing like came into our possession in a whole other time when everything was crazy and different and who knows we might have needed it.’
‘Self-defence,’ Steve said.
‘We’ve been talking about this a lot before you came,’ Daisy said. ‘We don’t really like the idea of it being just like taken away by someone and you know –’
She couldn’t finish this so I said, ‘Are you selling it or not?’
Xan folded his mighty forearms. ‘It’s not like that. And it’s not the money.’
‘Well wait a minute,’ said Steve. ‘That’s not true either.’
‘Jesus!’ Xan was a touch irritable. He couldn’t hitch his words round his thoughts, it was difficult, and people kept interrupting. His attitude was lining up behind his snarl. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘There was a time when it was all about money. Only the money. You could almost say it was simple. I’m not saying it was wrong, but look what happened. Nothing turned out the way people wanted. You can’t think about it on its own. You can’t think about anything on its own. Everything’s connected, we know that now, it’s been shown, it’s a society. It’s basically holistic.’
Steve leaned in towards Daisy and said theatrically behind his hand, ‘What’s he on about?’
Daisy spoke to me. Perhaps she was still thinking about my unhappiness. ‘It’s simple. We’re not against selling, but we’d like to know what you’d be wanting with a gun.’
I said, ‘You get the money, I take the gun.’
Johnny stirred again. The deal he had brokered might be slipping away. ‘Look, Joe has to be discreet. For our sake as well as his.’
I didn’t like the repetition of my name. It could hang in the air of this kitchen for weeks, along with everything else, and get used.
‘But listen . . .’ Johnny was touching my arm. ‘You could say something to put people’s minds at rest.’
They were all looking at me. Through the open french windows we heard the mongrel whine, a squeezed-out sound it seemed to be trying to suppress. All I could think about was leaving – gun or not. I made a show of looking at my watch, and said, ‘I’ll tell you in four words and nothing more. Someone wants to kill me.’
In the silence everyone, including me, totted up the words.
‘So it is self-defence,’ Xan said with hope in his voice.
I shrugged a kind of yes. There was dither in these faces. They wanted the money and they wanted absolution. These coke-dealers, these property crooks impoverished by negative equity and their dim beliefs were making a stab at being moral, and they wanted me to help them out. I was beginning to feel better. So I was the bad person. Suddenly I was set free. I took the wad and tossed it on the table. What was the point of bargaining?
I said, ‘Why don’t you count it.’
No one moved at first, then there was a flash, and Steve’s hand got there just ahead of Xan’s. Daisy stared hard. It looked serious. Perhaps they were living on toast and porridge.
Steve counted the notes in bank-clerk-style at high speed and when he was done he put them in his pocket and said to me, ‘Right. So now you can fuck off, Joe!’
To keep face I included myself in the nervous laughter.
Then I noticed that Xan wasn’t laughing. He sat waiting, his arms folded, his snarl giving nothing away. In his right forearm a muscle – it was one I didn’t have myself – twitched rhythmically to an unseen movement of his hand. When the laughter died he spoke up, but not in the voice that had made the case for holism. It was pitched higher and it was husky, and his tongue clicked dryly against the roof of his mouth. He was still, but I could see the turmoil beneath the skin, in the pulse at the base of his throat. That was when my own blood began to run a little harder. Xan said, ‘Steve, put the money back on the table and get the gun.’
Steve was getting to his feet, holding Xan’s stare all the while. ‘Fine,’ he said quietly, and began to cross the room.
Xan was out of his chair. ‘That money isn’t going in the tin box.’
Without turning Steve replied with equal certainty, ‘I’m owed,’ and he continued on his way.
The nearest object to Xan was his empty porridge bowl. He seized it between thumb and forefinger and skimmed it hard, frisbee-fashion, with left hand extended and splayed for balance. It missed Steve’s neck by an inch and shattered on the door frame.
‘No!’ Daisy shouted. There was something of the weary impatient mother in this call. Then she walked out of the room without a word. We saw her retreating back and her hair swinging about her waist. She was gone and we heard her footsteps on the stairs. Johnny looked at me. I knew what he was thinking. Now the responsibility for the fight was all ours. In fact, it was all mine, for Johnny had sat down to roll himself a cigarette and was shaking his head and sighing at his trembling fingers.
Steve had turned and was coming back to the kitchen table. Xan went towards him and took him by his shirt front and tried to push him against the wall. ‘Don’t start this,’ he said breathily. ‘Put it on the table.’ But Steve was not so easy to push. His body was tight and hard, and he looked cruel. The two men leaned into each other in the centre of the room. Their biggest effort, it seemed, was to breathe. They were so close there hovered between their faces a gestalt candlestick.
Steve said quickly, ‘The household owes me, you both owe me. Now get your fucking hand off.’ But he did not wait for compliance. His left hand flew at Xan’s throat and gripped. Xan swung back his free arm in a wide arc then whiplashed his open hand against Steve’s face. The crack of the blow sounded like a burst balloon, and the force of it thrust the men apart. For an instant they froze, then they charged and went into a clinch. The four-legged beast swayed and edged sideways across the kitchen floor back towards the table. Johnny and I heard only bottled grunts. Heads down, eyes closed, lips stretched across their teeth, they groped and clambered and wound over and under each other like lovers.
Something had to give. Xan got his hand under Steve’s chin and began to force back his head. No neck muscles could be a match for that hideous impacted arm, but still, it was a mighty trembling effort because Steve had hooked a thumb into Xan’s nostril and was groping for his eyes and Xan, forced to lean away, was at full stretch. Steve’s head was going back, and Xan’s next move was to slip a headlock on him, right arm round Steve’s neck, left hand pulling on his own wrist to tighten the squeeze. I started towards them. Steve was going slowly to his knees. He was moaning and his hands were flailing, then beating weakly against Xan’s legs.
I tapped Xan’s face with the back of my hand and crouched down to speak in his ear. ‘You’re going to kill him. Is that what you want?’
‘Keep out of this. It’s been coming a long time.’
I tried pulling on his ear to get him to turn and look at me. ‘If he dies you’ll be inside for the rest of your life.’
‘Small fucking price!’
‘Johnny,’ I shouted. ‘You’ve got to help!’
I saw Daisy come back in the room. She held a shoe box in two hands and her expression was of weariness. Her downturned mouth asked us to see what she had had to put up with – the men in her life struggling for the mechanical advantage, for the leverage that would permit one to break the other’s neck.
‘Take it,’ she was whispering. ‘Take it, take it!’
I got to
my feet and took the box from Daisy. It was heavy, and I needed two hands to support the flimsy cardboard. Steve moaned again and I looked at Johnny. He made a pleading look and jerked his head towards the door. ‘That’s right,’ Daisy said firmly. ‘Better go.’
The exhaustion in her manner made me wonder if this was not some kind of domestic ritual, or over-rehearsed prelude to a complicated sexual alliance. On the other hand, I thought we ought to be saving Steve’s life.
Johnny pulled on my sleeve. I went with him a couple of paces across the room. He muttered into my ear, ‘If something happens, I don’t want to be a witness.’
I saw what he meant, so we nodded at Daisy, and with one last glance at Steve’s head in the trembling vice of Xan’s forearm, we hurried along the dark hallway to the front door.
As soon as we were in the car Johnny pulled out a joint and lit it. It was the last drug I would have wanted just then. Far better to stop for a Scotch somewhere and calm down. I started the car and drove hard back up the drive.
‘It’s funny, you know,’ Johnny said through the smoke. ‘I’ve been there other times and we’ve had these really interesting discussions.’
I swung out on to the road and was about to reply when the phone rang. I had left it plugged into the cigarette lighter.
It was Parry. ‘Joe, is that you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m at your place, sitting here with Clarissa. I’m putting her on, OK? Are you there? Joe? Are you there?’
Twenty-two
I had the impression of having passed out for a second or two. The roar in my ears, I realised, was the car’s engine. We were doing almost sixty and I had forgotten to change gears. I shifted from second to fourth and dropped my speed.