by Rob Palk
‘Sorry to hear that man,’ said Raoul.
‘Not your fault,’ I said. ‘It’s mostly over badgers. And anyway, I’m going to get her back.’
‘You need to stop thinking like that,’ said Alistair.
I started asking Raoul about his Catholicism. He had not been raised in the church.
‘I was an atheist since I was twelve. My mom’s one of those, I don’t know if you have them here, she’s a womanist. And that can be kind of hard headed but also involve a lot of goddesses and healing. So I turned pretty strong against that and then, I dunno, I hit thirty and I started to want something real.’ There was a lot of it about, this thirst for reality, for truth. I wondered why I didn’t want it. It explained the beauty in his voice though. We had none of us yet lost hope.
‘I’m a total atheist, aren’t I, Stu?’ said Alistair. ‘No, that’s wrong. I’m not, you know, full on. I’m more of a pagan. I hate organised religion.’ He licked his lips, a delighted self-listener. Disorganised religion, cack-handed religion, was evidently okay. ‘I always say, if you hear me praying, it’s to the sun. Or, I don’t know, Odin. He’s a good one.’
The two of them started arguing about theology, a conversation hampered by Alistair’s not listening to anything Raoul said. I wondered if they were nerds. I wondered if I was a nerd. Only a few months ago I’d been going to the theatre and galleries with my beautiful wife, like I was Bernard Henri-Levy or someone. Now I was here instead. Although there’d been so many times that Marie and I had wandered down here for a closing time pint on a summer night, so that the place was . . . although thinking about it we hadn’t done that very much. A couple of times at the most.
I wished we had done it more. There’d always been time spread before us.
‘All I’m saying,’ said Alistair, ‘is I don’t see why I should compromise my beliefs. Or lack of them.’
‘She’s your mother. And she’s asking you to go to midnight mass like once a year. Just go, sing a few carols, keep her happy. You’re in your thirties, man.’
‘I’m not a prostitute,’ said Alistair.
We sloped from streetlight to streetlight in the cold, hands in pockets, attempting a good time. A party! There would be women dressed as rabbits or witches. There would be the chance for awkward small-talk. Alistair had put on an even bigger hat with an enormous rim, making him look like a tall and voluble table. Raoul and I slouched.
Perhaps this was all a chance to live out my twenties again, only with hindsight and wisdom and fatigue and much less eyesight. No. I was going to win Marie back. This life, this exile in immaturity, it was unthinkable.
‘Stuart, you’re slouching,’ said Alistair. ‘You have to walk proud again. Remember when I met you? What happened to that guy? You need to learn to walk again. Walk like you have a bottom. Say I have a nice bottom.’
‘No.’
‘Say it.’
‘I have a nice bottom.’
‘You’re still slouching.’ He had the look of a man charged with turning a tone-deaf wallflower into the toast of Broadway. Frustrated with the difficulty but excited with the challenge. I tried to straighten my back.
The party was at Keris and Leila’s house in Clapton. I didn’t know Alistair was still friends with the two of them but he told me he had been in the same book club as Keris, before leaving in high dudgeon after the organiser disputed his more controversial views. I felt he wanted me to ask him what these views were but I maintained a judicious silence. I had known Keris since third year university when she had been the first out lesbian I ever met. She seemed very sophisticated then, in her Oxfam Weimar get-up, reading books of theory and seducing straight girls. Leila was one such, an Egyptian actress who took the lead in all of Keris’s plays. I had seen one of these a few years back. There had been an awful lot of shouting and rolling on the stage.
‘You don’t look very scary,’ Keris said at the door. ‘What have you come as, Alistair? Colonel Saunders? Mark Twain?’
‘I’m not wearing a costume,’ said Alistair, with dignity. Raoul put his Scooby Doo head on. You could still see his face through the mouth. I explained to Keris that I was Dracula, but also that Marie had left me and this was almost a costume in itself. She nodded and yanked me into a hug which I realised was the first I’d had since Marie had left. Human contact again. Maybe I could offer free hugs on street corners and kid people I was doing them a favour.
‘I’m sure someone here will look after you. There are white witches doing laughing gas in one of the upstairs bedrooms. But are you okay? You must tell me what happened.’
‘Well.’ It would be good to tell her. She batted me on the wrist.
‘Not now. I’m off my tits. But definitely sometime soon.’ She drifted into the house as though being led by her cigarette holder.
Alistair looked as though he were planning to start talking about ‘finest foaming ale’. Divorce either made one bitter or made one hearty, I supposed. He seemed to take immense pleasure from the world and from himself. Before I knew where I was he had dashed to a crowd of strangers and was telling them he had been offered a safe seat by both of the major political parties but was considering letting them stew. This was the first I’d heard of that. He seemed to have got more confident with the years, they had hardly chipped his surface. I thought about going over and apologising to the crowd but they seemed to be attentive, rapt. This was how conversation was made: you had to be masterful, yank their interest towards you. One of them said something mocking but Alistair threw his head back and roared with laughter. He was able to access a joy I couldn’t imagine.
Raoul and I went into the backyard. ‘It gets better,’ he said. ‘Look at Alistair.’
‘What gets better?’
‘You know. Life. After a divorce.’
‘Have you had a divorce?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘So how can you say it gets better? I mean, people kill themselves, don’t they? After divorce.’
‘I dunno then. Maybe it doesn’t get better. It just seemed the right thing to say.’
‘At least the rain has stopped,’ I said. Raoul nodded with the appearance of relief. ‘Look at all these people, milling. Congregating. Alistair would just wander up to them and talk, wouldn’t he? And they’d listen and like it too, wouldn’t they?’
‘They would listen. That much is sure.’
‘Should we do the same?’
‘Maybe in a bit.’ We stood in silence and drank our beer.
There was a group taking up most of the patio: a zombie, a bride in a tattered dress, who I tried hard not to stare at, a brace of witches, someone who might have been a warlock, a female serial killer and some kind of bondage rabbit. They looked like a fun-run as arranged by Goya. I both yearned for and feared them, as was right for the season. Quite a lot of my confidence had come from having Marie by my side. Raoul didn’t really cut it. I couldn’t see him starting a conversation. I would have to do it myself.
There was an uncomfortable-looking space on the wall at the edge of the group and we set off there, making apologetic greeting sounds. We sat ourselves down on the brick. One of the witches glanced at me and I made a friendly sort of yelp. Two sets of false eyelashes rose and fell in disdain and she turned back to her friends. They were talking about a film director. The warlock kept calling him by his first name as though they were brothers or friends. I felt I had not much to offer. The men all seemed very certain of where they stood, on the man and on his work. The women seemed to be doing a good job of looking interested. The warlock was talking about cinematography, I think. Jump cuts, he was saying. The texture of the film. The emotional weight of celluloid. Reminiscent of Malick.
I kept quiet. What was there to say? I quite liked the one film by this director that I’d seen. Did quite liking something count as an opinion nowadays? I was older than them all, a failed age. My opinions were uncertain, shy of being slated. I began to drink faster but that wasn’t any help.
Raoul had somehow managed to get into a conversation about science fiction with a man in a cracked leather jacket, a man who was both balding and long haired. This social success was beyond me.
‘You all right?’ said a witch by my side. I was unsure whether to claim the status of all right or admit my not all right-ness. Would she sympathise, this witch? Would she tell me things would get better, as though this were guaranteed? I would believe it, coming from her.
She had black lipstick and silvery eyelids, glittering like fish scales. I told her my wife had left me. I told her because of badgers. I told her I had almost died. I told her I had glimpsed something inexpressible during the months of my recovery and now it was lost forever.
‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘It’s like talking to Syria. That’s some bad luck you’ve had.’
‘I feel a bit like Job,’ I said. She stared at me. ‘Never mind,’ I said. Raoul would have known who Job was. He was talking about The Silmarillion now, as though this were acceptable.
‘Pete,’ she said, ‘Pete. Listen to what happened to this guy.’
I told the warlock some of my story. He stopped talking for the duration.
‘A van ran over my foot last year,’ he said.
‘Oh god,’ said the witch.
‘I once got hit in the face by a frisbee,’ said the serial killer, ‘and it knocked me out altogether.’
‘It’s funny,’ said the witch, ‘but nothing bad has ever happened to me. Like, never. I’ve never been dumped, I’ve never been ill. I’ve never even lost a job. Someone was talking about headaches and I was like, mate, what’s that?’
‘My sister once got bitten by a lamprey,’ said one of the witches.
‘I just got back from Berlin,’ said a corpse bride. ‘There was this guy I met online and I got him to tie me up for a week and spank me with a brick.’
‘My marriage might be ending,’ I said.
‘There’s more to love than marriage,’ said the corpse bride.
I decided to remain silent. There was nothing useful to say. My role would be to collar people at parties and recite my woes to them, while they made sideways glances. I would hang around weddings, hassling the guests and unnerving them with my beard and glittering eyes. I stood up. My drink was done and the night was cold and there was nobody here to talk to.
In the front room someone who looked like, and may have been, a cabinet minister was playing ten-year-old R&B records. Alistair was doing a dance that looked like a man in skis climbing upstairs. Keris and Leila were slow dancing to fast music. Discarded silver silos jewelled the carpet. I was not about to dance so I went into the kitchen. A man in Devil horns was explaining his job to a murder victim. I explored the fridge until I found a can of lager shoved behind some pickles and a jar of pesto.
‘Got any vod?’ said a voice behind me. It might have been my conscience. I looked around to see another witch, green-skinned, in a bustier and a conical hat. She didn’t look like my conscience. She looked like quite the opposite. ‘I’m trying to find some vod,’ she said.
This quest had my sympathy. I told her there was none in the fridge but that we should hunt for some elsewhere. She gave this idea an exuberant response and slipped a sweaty hand into mine. Was this what an adventure felt like? She led me across the kitchen and started opening cupboards with more force than was needed. She was soon successful, discovering a three-quarter-full bottle of Lidl own-brand vodka and, from the next cupboard, two water-scratched plastic cups. A grin of victory upon her leaf-green lips. Next, she ransacked the fridge, gleefully extricating a bottle of near-flat Coke. She was now a happy witch. She flicked a cavolo nero-coloured curl from her emerald forehead and led me to one of the bedrooms. We climbed onto the bed, propped pillows up on the headboard and sat next to each other, swigging the vod.
‘I split from my boyfriend,’ she said. ‘This afternoon. Over costumes. He said he wasn’t going to bother.’ I hoped my own near be-civvied state didn’t bring back painful memories. ‘I said, I’ve spent hours on this. Least you can do is dab on a little blood. He said what was the point? Then he looks up from his Mac and he says I look like a cabbage. All day painting myself green and he says I look like a cabbage.’ I shook my head in sorrow. She did look a bit like a cabbage. ‘I spent ages. Did the under-soles of my feet. Dyed my hair. All of it. Spent tons on non-toxic paint. I’m fed up.’ A tear crossed the verdant arc of her cheek.
I tried not to imagine hunting her naked body for any remaining patches of pink. ‘My wife left me a few days ago. I’m going to win her back.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said the green witch, sagely. I agreed that it was, wondering which bit she meant. ‘Good luck with your persuading,’ the witch offered. I thanked her. ‘I think you’re really nice,’ she added. She was definitely a witch of unusual wisdom and judgement.
We were lying on the single bed, limbs scissored, her head on my shoulder. Our talk became muted, as though we were scared of distracting ourselves. We had entered a space in which kissing was possible. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to be in it. Retreat could still be managed.
‘It’s odd walking around married,’ I said. ‘And even odder when it stops.’ She nodded, as though she understood me well.
‘A cabbage,’ she said.
‘Nothing at all like a cabbage. Sort of undulant. Full to bursting.’ Shut up, I thought, shut up.
‘Have some vod,’ she said. I slurped it down. I could hear the garden revellers outside, still loud in praise or dismissal of artists, filmmakers, politicians and bands. I couldn’t hear Raoul. All these people – all these men – with such certainty in their opinions. Copernican selves, the world turning around them. And here I was, off-kilter. And oh dear, had we to kiss now? Her lips were a darker green. When they pressed against mine I could taste the lipstick, then a plump tongue swabbing my own. She tasted of not-Marie, of difference.
‘That was nice,’ said the witch. We kissed some more. One of her breasts had spilled from her witchy bustier and the nipple was dyed a blackish green, a miniature cabbage. Our kisses became frantic, directional. Both of us wanting to get things over with.
The door opened and a young man with a blond buzz-cut and lips that looked like they’d been slammed in a door, came in and began fishing through the wardrobe. I jerked up, galvanised, and started telling the intruder off, my speech slowing to a trickle as I guessed I was in his bed.
‘I honestly don’t mind,’ he said. He opened a desk drawer, gave a happy whoop of discovery and pulled out an airport box of cigarettes, slotting one between his lips. ‘You two carry on.’
‘Thanks. Only it’s difficult when you’re here.’ Thinking, thank you, stranger, for saving me in time. Thank you for keeping me faithful.
‘Justin,’ said the witch. ‘This is Stuart. His wife left him and he’s exploring the underbelly.’
‘Tits,’ said Justin in a stage whisper, clutching his own imaginary pair. The witch covered herself. ‘Look you two, I’m not being nosey? Only I had to get out, cos all these Nazis showed up, pissing everyone off.’
‘Nazis?’
‘We thought it was a costume? Cos, you know, Halloween, so we were all live and let live, come in Nazis, have some booze and a dance. Share our lager, cavort with our women. But then it turns out they were really into being Nazis. They started separating people into groups and punching them and shouting.’
‘Bit much,’ said the witch.
‘It’s fucking harsh. I mean it takes all sorts but then if one of those sorts doesn’t like all the others?’ He stopped before he could continue his detour into political philosophy.
‘We should go out and fight,’ said the witch. ‘There’s more of us than there are of them.’
‘I went on a badger thing a while back,’ I said. ‘I’m kind of an activist now.’
‘I was thinking just wait here until they leave. Like Anne Frank or whoever.’
‘It didn’t work for her, did it? We should go ou
t and fight.’
‘There’s no back way out of here, is there?’ I listened for sounds of shouts or screams, but the party sounded amiable as ever. What would happen to Alistair and Raoul? Although I could imagine Alistair thriving.
The witch had bundled herself out of the bed and was swigging down the vodka in a combative fashion. ‘We need weapons,’ she said.
‘I’m worried this is taking it too far,’ I said. She gave me a familiar look of disappointment. This look scared me so much that I was about to feign courage, face a thumping, do anything to take the look away, when the noise of the sirens came.
Four
Alistair was in charge. He had a knack for it, boarding school born. Pacing around the quiet street, leading the constabulary through their jobs. ‘There’s really no need for you to be here, officer.’ He put his arm around the policewoman’s shoulder and looked surprised, even a little hurt, when she shook it off.
On the pavement across from Keris’s house was a line-up of skew-whiff zombies, half-dressed beldames, unclad ghouls, shivering vampires. My witch and the blond boy had wandered off somewhere. I was alarmed to see that one of the Nazis in full beetle-black SS gear was marching with the police.
‘Don’t listen to him officer,’ said one of the ghouls. ‘He’s a Nazi.’
‘Thing is,’ said the Nazi. ‘I’m not a Nazi. I’m Irish, I don’t think we can even be Nazis. It’s cos of Halloween.’
The ghoul sighed, as if the Nazi had disappointed her. Alistair started critiquing Irish neutrality during the war.
‘It wasn’t me doing all the hitting and shouting,’ the Nazi continued. ‘It could have been Derren, my mate. I don’t know where he’s got to. He’s not a Nazi either. I mean, he can a bit right wing. He would, at a push, vote Tory. But he’s not a fucking Nazi.’
‘We had a report saying someone got punched.’
One of the zombies started a chorus of ‘why are we waiting?’ Keris floated from the house, doing a good impression of someone disturbed from years of slumber. ‘Is everything all right?’ she said. ‘There seems a lot of fuss.’