Bone Machine

by Martyn Waites

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Peta took a while before speaking. ‘He promised me he’d given up his nocturnal adventures. He hasn’t. That rich pervert he knows pestered him into making his private gay porn films for him again.’

  ‘And he’s said yes.’

  Peta nodded.

  ‘Is he looking after himself?’

  Peta looked him in the eyes. ‘Does it look like it to you?’

  ‘So he’s back on the charlie?’

  ‘And other stuff too, probably.’ She sighed, ran her fingers through her long blonde hair. ‘You know him. He can’t just be behind the camera. He has to join in. With everything.’

  Donovan shook his head, looked away. Their table was like an island of silence amid the noisy wash of the lunchtime tide. Eventually Donovan spoke.

  ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to Michael Nell’s statement, ‘we’ve got to get this sorted out. Amar or no Amar.’

  Peta reluctantly agreed. ‘Strategy,’ she said. ‘We’ll divide it up. I’ll have a word around campus. Get a list of his friends, Ashley’s friends even. Talk to them, see if they know anything about his proclivities, anything that can point us in the right direction.’

  Donovan smiled. ‘Proclivities? That university education must be doing you the world of good.’

  ‘Piss off, patronizing college boy.’

  Donovan laughed. ‘Right. Well, you do that. In the meantime I’ll try to work out who and where the charming Mr Nell has been paying for sex.’

  ‘Perfect. Should be right up your street.’

  ‘Hardly. Never paid for sex in my life and not about to start now.’ Donovan sat back, hit by a sudden inspiration. ‘But I know somebody who might be able to help.’ He smiled to himself, shook his head in self-admiration. ‘What a brilliant idea. Proud of that.’

  Peta just looked at him, waiting to be let in on his inspiraton.

  Donovan just looked at his plate, showing only crumbs, then at Peta’s plate with its half-finished sandwich.

  ‘So brilliant, it’s made me hungry again.’ He pointed at her plate. ‘You want that?’

  Peta made her way back to college. She walked up Northumberland Street, dodged shoppers, charity muggers and invitations to take part in a survey, ignored the stares of the bored, ASBOed teenagers hanging around the Haymarket Metro station, scowled at the surreptitious, yet evidently appreciative, glances at her breasts by a couple of hurrying, besuited, middle-aged men and turned right on to St Mary’s Place.

  The snow had almost gone, the streets drying and salt-streaked, the air sharp. She breathed deep into her lungs, the smell of Donovan’s alcohol still in her nostrils. He had asked, as he always did, if she minded. She had said, as she always did, that she didn’t. He had taken her at face value and had drunk and, as usual, she had needed her walk afterwards.

  She knew where all the meetings were in the centre of Newcastle. But she didn’t need one. The feeling wasn’t on her that strongly, hadn’t gripped her so much she needed help and support.

  The walk was enough. It got it out of her system. Replaced it with fresh air. Or what passed for fresh air in the centre of Newcastle.

  Along St Mary’s Place, towards Sandyford Road.

  She was worried about Amar. His tolerance level to cocaine was decreasing as he got older and, she suspected, his intake was increasing again. She would have to talk to him, sort him out. One addict to another. If she could. If he’d listen.

  Along Sandyford Place. Past the University Gallery, stopping to look at Nico Widerberg’s pillar man sculpture. Six and half metres tall, cast from bronze and fronted by a curving path of highly polished granite, the pillar man was part of Newcastle’s Hidden Rivers project. It was a public art project placing a number of contemporary sculptures over the routes of hidden and forgotten rivers and burns that ran under ground through the city and out to the Tyne, linking the city’s present to its past. Peta knew all this. She had been at the unveiling.

  The project had, admittedly, fired up her imagination. What she knew of the city was what she could see, what she took for granted. Underneath her feet were cables, wires, train tunnels, sewers. Things she never thought about, never saw. And hidden rivers. Donovan had described it as the past being covered up and concreted over, made to take whatever direction the present wanted to impose on it.

  She had expected him to come out with something like that and had taken him to task about his use of purple prose and flowery imagery that any self-respecting ex-journalist would be ashamed to attach their name to. But she had to admit, he had a point. It made her wonder what else was under there, what else from the past that she couldn’t see, couldn’t imagine.

  Around the corner, down the side of the library and on to the main quadrangle. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed an increased security presence; extra uniformed officers walking, watching. But no sense of panic. Business just about as usual. She checked her watch. Early. She thought of popping in to the refectory, getting herself a coffee or a water, just to rinse away any imagined alcohol aftertaste, and headed towards it.

  Just inside the door, however, she stopped. There, sitting at a table together, were Jill and the Prof. Jill was smiling, laughing, playing with the ends of her hair, while the Prof was talking. Animatedly, for him, leaning forward into his storytelling, and smiling too.

  Something about their body language told her they wouldn’t welcome any interruption. She turned around and walked back out. Leave them to it, she thought. Let them enjoy themselves.

  She walked back on to the quadrangle, off to her classroom.

  Wondering whether Jill would be going to see Wilco next week.

  12

  With a grunt, a sigh and a blasphemous scream, Decca came.

  Panting, his breath subsiding, he began to loosen his grip, pull away. Beneath him, face down on the bed, Anita sighed.

  ‘That was good for you, Decca?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Decca, flopping on to his back, ‘that was good.’

  Anita turned over. She hadn’t climaxed. She never expected to with Decca. If she wanted to, she could take care of herself later. But she hardly ever felt like that any more. She hadn’t found pleasure in sex for a long time but Decca seemed to, so she did for him.

  His bedroom was dark, the curtains closed against the late-afternoon light. It was like the rest of his flat. Untidy, functional. Male. Above the bed was the only concession towards decoration in the room: a huge movie poster of Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery looking down on proceedings with his usual sardonic smile. There were a few others dotted around the place: Schwarzenegger hunting Predator in the bathroom, Michael Caine in Get Carter, his icepick eyes above the sofa in the living room, a blood-spattered scene from Reservoir Dogs in the kitchen. And above all the Clint Eastwood posters. Framed. Clint’s slit-eyed stare looking down from every room. Gave him a good, strong feeling inside to look at them. Decca loved his films, considered himself a real expert. Had impeccable taste in them. Classics, every one. Even bought Empire every month.

  He looked across at Anita. Her blonde hair untied and spread all over the pillow, her taut, tanned and perfect naked body filmed with a sheen of sweat. If he had been in the mood he would have licked it off, but he had just come. So he wasn’t.

  ‘Pass me a fag,’ he said.

  Anita leaned over to the side of the bed, shook a cigarette loose from the pack of Marlboro Lights that were there, put it between her lips, lit it, inhaled, coughed because she wasn’t a smoker, and passed it over. Decca took it with a grunt.

  ‘That was nice, yes?’ she said.

  Decca shrugged. He had already told her once that he had enjoyed it; why say it again?

  He picked up the remote for the TV and DVD player at the end of the bed, switched it on. Clint Eastwood was striding up a deserted Mexican street, poncho slung to one side, hands just above his guns. Spanish faces peered at him from behind locked doors and shutters. He watched.

/>   Anita turned on her side, propped her body on her elbow, faced him.

  ‘You said you had something to tell me, Decca.’ She smiled. Traced what chest hair he had with her index finger. ‘Are you going to tell me now?’

  He had said that to her in the morning. At the café after the rush hour. He had something to tell her. He had to see her later to do it.

  She had smiled when he had said that. She was a romantic, a fact she had almost forgotten on the long journey over from Lithuania. It had been beaten, raped, abused out of her until she was no longer a person, only a commodity. That was when she had gone back to cutting herself, just to have something to feel. Just like before.

  In Lithuania she had become tired of the lack of options. Of having to work in a bar or restaurant, pretending to like the Western men who talked to her. Get fucked by them. Accept presents from them that she then took home and gave to her family to sell. She had hated it and left, spending all her savings on the trip over, believing that in Britain she would have a new start, a happy life of love and belonging. But by the time she had arrived she had given up hope. And then she had met Decca.

  And she knew how lucky she was. Because Decca kept telling her.

  She knew he loved her, although he had never told her. But she knew that if she clung on to him, didn’t let him go, showed how much she loved him, then they would stay together for ever. She had thought all day about what he was going to say. He must be about to propose to her. Marry her. There would be a full white wedding, her family coming over from Lithuania, showing how proud they were of their daughter, Anita letting them know she had made something of herself, become a fast-rising businessman’s wife.

  She looked at him now, waited for him to say it.

  He took another pull on his cigarette, drawing the smoke down deep into his lungs. Letting it go in a concentrated grey stream, watching it dissipate over their naked bodies.

  Anita waited.

  Tumbleweeds blew across the street. A gunman appeared behind the Man with No Name, who turned and shot him. The man fell from the building, a badly overdubbed scream accompanying him. The shot rang out and away until all was silence again.

  ‘Decca?’

  He finished his cigarette, stubbed it out in a half-full ashtray at the bedside. Opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you this at work,’ he said in what he hoped was a sincere tone of voice, ‘but it’s something the boss said.’

  Anita frowned. ‘The boss?’ That creepy Mr Kovacs with his unblinking stare? What did he have to do with anything? ‘I don’t understand.’

  Decca sighed, couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘He’s … he does-n’t want you working in the café any more. He … wants you to leave.’

  Anita’s mouth fell open. This wasn’t what she had been expecting. ‘What?’ she said after a long while. ‘Wh … why? Am I not a good worker? Do I not get on well with people? I … I don’t understand.’

  ‘He … he just wants you out, that’s all. He’s told me and I’ve got to tell you.’

  ‘I hope you told him no.’

  Decca risked a quick glance at her, then just as quickly away again. ‘What can I do? He’s the boss.’

  Anita felt she was suddenly viewing life from the wrong end of the telescope. She could hear her heart beating, the blood pumping around her body.

  ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘I get another job. It’s OK … I stay here, still, with you?’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ he said. ‘The boss doesn’t just want you gone from the café, he wants you gone. For good.’

  Anita shook her head. ‘What? I don’t … don’t understand …’

  Decca turned to her, face red. ‘It’s fuckin’ simple, look, even you can understand it. He wants you gone. Out of the café, away from me. Out of here. Like you don’t exist. That’s that.’

  Decca resumed staring ahead. The bandit leader had decided to show himself. Clint stood before him. There was some business with a musical box and a fly. It was obviously just a prelude to him being killed.

  Decca was breathing heavily. He liked Anita, but it had to be done. And anger was the only way. He knew that. Anger and strength. He didn’t do closeness. Or tenderness. That was unbusinesslike. Counterproductive. That was for poofs.

  Anita heard more than her heart beating, the blood pounding around her body. She heard her future, her hopes and dreams, collapse.

  ‘But … but where will I go? Do you know anywhere?’

  Nowhere you’d want to go, he thought, then mentally admonished himself for being soft.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘But I have nowhere.’

  ‘That can’t be my problem, can it?’ Anger rose within him again. ‘I work for someone. I have to do what I’m told.’

  ‘This is not work; this is your life.’

  Decca got off the bed, stood over her. Anger. It had to be. ‘Don’t try an’ be fuckin’ smart. I work for Marco Kovacs. That’s my life.’

  Anita stood up also. ‘Please, Decca, don’t …’

  He was around to her side of the bed and had hit her with such a slap to the face that it knocked her over, the bed breaking her fall.

  Clint drew his revolver, shot the bandit leader. The bandit took a long time to die. Clint watched him, unblinking.

  Decca looked away from Anita.

  Anita wiped at her cheek. It was wet with tears. And blood. She swallowed back the pain. ‘So … tomorrow, tomorrow I … leave.’

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Now. You’d better leave now.’

  Decca reached over the side of the bed to his jeans which lay crumpled on the floor. He pulled out his wallet, took out ten twenties, tossed them at her.

  ‘Here. Till you get sorted.’

  Anita looked at the money. Saw red tears fall on to the paper.

  Clint had turned and was walking away down the street. He stopped to say something to the undertaker, tell him how many coffins he would be needing.

  ‘Now go.’

  ‘You always said I was one of the lucky ones.’

  ‘You are. I’m lettin’ you go. Know what would happen to you if it was up to Kovacs? Eh? Know what you’d have to do then?’

  Anita said nothing. She knew.

  ‘Go.’ Anita didn’t move. Decca looked at her, his eyes hard, glassy marbles. ‘Now. Before it gets any worse.’

  Slowly, her fingers moving as if numb, she gathered up the notes, got off the bed. Slowly dressed. It felt as if her movements belonged to someone else.

  The Morricone soundtrack had started up. Clint was saddled and away.

  Anita walked around the bedroom stuffing clothes and toiletries into a holdall.

  ‘I’ll go to a hotel …’

  Decca nodded.

  And she suddenly wanted to scream and shout at him, grab him, slap him, claw at him. Make him aware of what he had done, what he was doing to her. Beat him. Hurt him.

  But she didn’t.

  She just continued packing and, when she was ready, stood before him.

  Decca lit another cigarette.

  ‘Goodbye, Decca.’

  Decca looked at her. ‘Bye. Sorry.’

  She nodded. Walked out of the flat.

  Decca waited until the front door had closed, then let out a big sigh. Another drag on his cigarette, another huge exhalation. He picked up the remote, stopped the film, reset it, started to watch it again from the beginning. Clint was good. Clint showed him how things should be done.

  He took another drag, watched Clint ride into frame.

  Went better than he had expected, he thought.

  Painless, on the whole.

  Donovan had gone back to the cottage from lunching with Peta and Amar to talk to Katya, ask her to do him a favour. He had entered the cottage, seen her sitting on the sofa watching TV. She had jumped when the door had opened, been ready to leap up and run.

  ‘Just me.’ Donovan carefully closed the door behind him.

 
; She expelled air in a great sigh, her body visibly relaxing.

  ‘Sorry.’ He stepped into the room.

  Katya nodded.

  Donovan looked at her. She was wearing faded jeans and a red T-shirt, clothes supplied by Peta; slightly oversized, the differing folds and stress points clearly showing they had been worn in by someone else. She still looked thin and undernourished and the dark rings hadn’t disappeared completely from under her eyes. But that was easy to take care of. Just a few more days and nights of full sleep, healthy, regular meals and exercise. Hair and make-up done, bit of pampering and relaxation. The doctor Sharkey had called in had given her a couple of vitamin shots and said as much.

  But her eyes. They kept the nightmares in their fragile cages, locked but not securely; the key too close at hand, the bars too easy to snap. He had spoken to Sharkey, told him, not asked him, to get Katya some counselling, and Sharkey had promised he would, but so far nothing had happened.

  ‘Yeah,’ Donovan had said to him, ‘but you’re not the one who’s heard her the last two nights, waking up all gasps and screams. You’re not the one who has to listen to her sobbing when she thinks no one can hear her. Jamal’s nightmares are bad enough without hers.’

  Without his own, he could have added, but they were words he didn’t want Sharkey to hear.

  Sharkey would see what he could do.

  Donovan asked after Jamal.

  ‘In his room, giving himself tutorial on computer,’ Katya said.

  Donovan forced a smile. ‘Playing Doom 3 more like,’ he said.

  He looked around. The cottage was in a good state. He felt proud of what he had achieved. Stripped wooden flooring, rugs, furniture. A TV and DVD recorder combo sat in one corner. A hi-fi system at the far wall, the CDs segregated: Jamal’s hip-hop, RnB and garage piled on one side, Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Morrissey, the Clash and the rest of Donovan’s stuff at the other. And never the two should meet, he thought.

  At either side of the firepace were bookshelves, rapidly filling with books again. All Donovan’s old favourites: Graham Greene and Nelson Algren, Hubert Selby Jnr and Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Some graphic novels and comics. Alan Moore and Will Eisner. Just like old times. He had bought them in charity shops, second-hand bookstores, the old covers being the ones he was familiar with. He had read them again, trying to retrace his development, work out who he used to be before his world ended. Tried to get back there. It wasn’t easy. The stories were different from how he remembered them, some better, some worse. He came away with new perspectives on old assumptions, felt mostly better for that.