by I K Watson
The colonel said, “Jew boys caused us a lot of trouble in Palestine. Fifty years later they’re still causing it.”
“They’re causing it in Westminster too.”
Albert looked saddened and his head began to shake, “An unfortunate appearance I have, a larger nose than most, but a Jew that does not make me.”
Roger said, “Maybe not, but I’ll guarantee what you haven’t got in your trousers does. Listen son, the English hate being lied to. That’s why we don’t like the Americans. We’ve seen your eyes when Sid brings in one of his rings. They light up like a couple of Roman candles. We can see them in the dark. Don’t come it with us. You might just as well try and hide a Scouse accent. You’re more Jewish than George Bush.”
Albert shook a flustered head. “George Bush isn’t Jewish.” “Isn’t he? Isn’t he? Well, the way he hates the Arabs he fucking well should be. But there’s something else about you, I’ve noticed, that marks you out as a child of Israel – apart from your bowing down to the golden calf, that is – you never smile. One day you’ll try it and your fucking face will fall off.”
Someone muttered – it might have been the man who looked like a double-glazing salesman but more likely it was Mr Lawrence, “It sounds like a load of old Cretan Bull to me,” but the others didn’t get it. They might have done had they been Greek.
Roger picked up a sign and began pinning it to the wall. It read: No bad language or drug taking will be tolerated. No children under 25. No trainers. No football shirts with the exception of Everton. White South Africans welcome.
The last bit excited the colonel and it showed in his eyes but surprisingly it didn’t bring any colour to his cheeks. He was tired and he knew it. It wasn’t just age that had crept up on him, but life itself. Or rather, it was this new age that had crept up, where values – oldfashioned values – had been worn away. He wondered whether winning the war had been worth it, particularly since Blair had come to power. The gradual intrusion of faceless bureaucrats into his and everyone’s life had been as imperceptible as it had been inexorable. It had been a ‘ death of a thousand cuts’. He was a slave in his own country. It would have been easier had the Nazi storm troopers kicked in his door for then he would have known the enemy. What Tony Blair and his cronies had done was nothing less than treason. How he wished to have those men in the sights of his old Lee-Enfield. The Somme, wasn’t it? He had been there, hadn’t he? It was all so damned hazy now, like Iwo Jima and My Lai. But how satisfying it would be to put a 303 into Blair’s grinning gob.
It was yet another dawn of disillusionment and dishonour, yet another cockcrow of contempt and another turning, in cold forgotten graves, for glorious forefathers.
He grimaced.
Christ! One of those storm troopers had shot him.
His mouth opened wide and left his false teeth hovering. Poligrip had not done the trick.
The stab of pain was deep.
He finished his drink, carefully placed his glass in the pool on the bar and sagged gently to his knees. His bony misshapen fingers felt for his medals and then clutched at his chest. He said, “Would someone be kind enough to send for an ambulance?” and then he keeled over on to his grey face.
Roger said, “If you're going to use the phone make sure you leave the money.”
Nervous Sid said, “999 is fucking free.”
“Is it? Is it? Make sure Gordon Brown doesn't hear about that!” Albert grunted, “The beer it must be.”
A bargirl dropped her filthy tea towel and burst into tears. Mr Lawrence doubted her sincerity for, as the late colonel had often said, women are good actors and can turn on emotion at the drop of a hat. Even so, it was a fair turn, and he watched her wailing and sniffing back her false tears. Eventually she gained enough composure to sob, “It wasn’t the beer. He was drinking gin and tonic. Maybe he didn’t exercise enough!”
And that had a few people, including the half-pint drinkers, raising their various eyebrows. A heart attack was one thing, but the thought of exercise was quite another.
Out of all that is bad comes an occasional good: lunch was extended. By the time the ambulance arrived, and the stretcher with its bearers, the colonel's medals had disappeared but Albert looked smugly satisfied, his chin beneath the fall of limp grey hair jutted higher and his eyes, black beads, concentrated on something on the ceiling. In each was the spark of a Roman candle.
It had been Albert who had leant over the colonel in what appeared to be an attempt at the kiss of life. He had pulled back at the last moment feeling faint at being so close to the ground, a sensation that tall men often experience.
He arrived back at the shop in a frivolous mood. He took off his hat and aimed at the hat stand and missed and his chortle could be heard on the pavement outside. He had all but skipped to the counter before he stopped abruptly and turned back to the window. There, with their backs to him, stood two splendid dummies, life-size and life-like: Father Christmas and a female assistant. Santa Claus carried a white sack overflowing with brightly wrapped presents and his assistant wore a red cape, some kind of red bodice, black suspender belt and nylon stockings.
For a moment Mr Lawrence was open-mouthed.
They stood either side of the ballerinas. Artificial snow frosted the window and covered the floor where they stood. The cold ivorycoloured skin of the mannequins glowed red as did the snow, caught in the soft glow of red window lights that blinked on and off. He wondered whether Santa's assistant went out in her underwear, and whether she'd feel the cold, or whether M amp;S or Robot City were searching for a missing mannequin complete with matching set.
Paul had crept back, like he had crept to the barber-shop, chancing that his suitor was elsewhere.
During the afternoon Mr Lawrence had an accident with the guillotine, although it wasn't entirely his fault. Had it been his left hand it would have been worse. He was left-handed, as most first-rate artists were. It took him an hour to stem the bleeding and, even then, a little blood seeped through the bandages.
The remainder of the shortened afternoon was spent in unpacking a crate of oriental oils. It wasn't easy one-handed. Curiously, in the chest of fifty there were half a dozen that caught his eye. By a different artist, signed Dyson, they were good. Landscapes in a darker, subtle key; wild clouds and gentle hills, wind blown and heathery, with just a post in the foreground, or a single spindly tree. But the composition was excellent and the detail finely observed.
He put the six aside, leaving the mystery for another time, for time had flown and it was opening time. But there was something more than that tonight and Mr Lawrence was quite excited. He'd invited Laura to the theatre. They were meeting in The British.
Laura said, “What on earth have you done?”
“A little accident in the shop. Nothing much.”
“Such a big bandage for nothing much.”
“Does it really show?”
“The red does, Mr Lawrence. If you keep your hand bent down, then it won't show so much.”
“Yes, I'll do that.”
“How awful about the colonel,” Laura said but she didn't seem too upset. She was dressed in a very short navy-blue pleated skirt that drew the eyes of the men in the room away from the bargirls, a white T-shirt with Michael Winner's face on the front and a denim jacket. Unusually for Laura there was plenty of navel on show, surprisingly flat navel at that, for Luscious Laura was a shapely girl. Her hair was tied back skullcap tight and a hint of make-up lightened her skin.
She pointed to Michael Winner's red face whose ears flapped Charles-like on her breasts. “It's the only thing I've got with a theatre connection,” she said. “What do you think?”
“I think he's a film director, or was. Now he writes about the restaurants he's visited and he stars in silly advertisements. I've not seen his films.”
Roger overheard, couldn't help himself, and cut in, “Best thing about him was the bird he used to live with. But she left him. Can't think of her name. Bu
t tasty. Although, having said that, one could argue that I’ll Never Forget What’s’Isname was his best film. In fact it was just short of a great film.”
The barber said, “I suppose you could, if you wanted to argue. Frankly, whether you like that or Death Wish, he is now a has-been. He hasn’t done a thing for years.”
Sid the Nerve showed up and put in, “At least he’s a has-been. We – we’re a bunch of hasn’t-beens.”
“Mr Lawrence isn’t a hasn’t-been,” Laura said. “He’s a painter.” Roger glanced at Mr Lawrence. “So is Bill Richards up the road who paints the double-yellow lines on the road outside. But we’re getting away from the point. Death Wish was a good film. I'm a great believer in old-fashioned retribution. There's nothing finer than revenge served on an empty stomach. It should be a basic human right. Leave forgiveness to the sacrament of Penance – for you heathens, that’s the confession. In that respect the Arabs have got it right.” Mr Lawrence looked a treat in his best clothes. Apart from the bandage. It tended to draw the eye.
Roger asked, “What happened to you?”
“A little accident with the guillotine. Nothing to worry about.” “I'm not worried, mate. Just curious.”
In the corner Rasher's minders looked glum with nothing to do, their half-empty pints looked flat, their cigarettes in the ashtray had burned away leaving lengths of wasted ash.
Mr Lawrence glanced at his watch and said to Laura, “It's time to go.”
And Luscious Laura put her arm through his and sashayed to the door letting all and sundry know that she was going up in the world. The art world. The theatre. She was on her way. So there. They joined a chattering crowd passing beneath the life-size cut-out greeting from Anthea Palmer into the theatre's optimistic foyer where the smell of fresh paint still lingered.
Mr Lawrence hadn't been to the theatre since the 1971 revival of Showboat, and it was an altogether new experience for Laura. Once they ’ d settled in the darkened auditorium and the curtain went up she sat transfixed, as though not believing her own eyes.
The people next to them glanced at the bandage and eased slightly away.
After the show-stopping hits ‘We Need More Female Gynaecologists’ and ‘This isn't what Nye Bevan had in Mind’, about an hour into the show, the routine which led to the intermission took place.
Anthea Palmer looked radiant in her underwear and high heels, just as she'd done in a thousand newspaper photographs, snapped on the beach in tiny bikini briefs, topless if possible and, if not, then a shot of her behind. Behinds were definitely the thing, nowadays. She had a passable voice too. She sang the song, the song from the show that seemed to be heading for the Christmas number-one slot. It was played non-stop on the radio.
Laura had been singing it as they made their way up the
Carrington's majestic steps.
Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think I love you
Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think you care…
Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think I love you
Oh, Mr Lawrence, we’re almost there…
The act finished and people moved to the various bars but Mr Lawrence remained rooted to his seat. Laura shook him.
“What?”
“It's half-time, Mr Lawrence. It's time for a burger and a beverage.” “My goodness, my dear. I was totally carried away.”
“They were singing about you, Mr Lawrence. Wasn't it good? It's the best thing I've ever seen. All that cross-dressing. Just as well Paul didn't come. It might have put ideas in his head.”
“Indeed,” Mr Lawrence said. “And he's got enough of those already.”
What they didn't know as they sat enjoying the show, was that Paul was in the audience too. Up in the gods, two rows from the back, he sat utterly mesmerized, not knowing what time or day it was. He found the idea of men in women's clothing more than just a little exciting. There was an easiness about the paid for evening. A candle flickered from an old bottle, the neck of which was gobbed with wax. Over her crisp fried-prawn jhuri she told him that she was saving her money to go to America and that her mother had found out about her 'sideline' and had gone 'ape', threatening her with all kinds of harm, including kicking her out of the house. None of it seemed to bother her for her soft looks seldom hardened. That is not to say that her looks were anything other than luscious but they maintained a gentle, yielding – even compassionate – quality which all men, everywhere, found utterly captivating. She was quite perfect, an Eve among Adams, at home and at ease in this Indian Eden.
“You should be like me. Then you wouldn't worry so much. You wouldn't have all those worry lines on your face.”
He laughed at her suggestion. “As the bard would have told you, my dear, in words that are not as good as these: youth, like a poor man’s plonk, has an end-date and to try for an extension is one of the most ludicrous things that men and women, can do. It makes for a pretty pathetic show. And as for me, I was born with these grooves.” “What about the white hair?”
“You're getting personal.”
“That is part of my job. And I do know Shakespeare. He was the guy who said a good wine needs no bush. Maybe that if you drink too much you can’t get it on. See? I’m not just a pretty face.” Behind her the pastel colours of the wall mural flickered in the candlelight. One of the less gymnastic positions of the ancient Sanskrit treatise caught his eye and gave him an idea for later. She began on her shahi beagun and wiped a fleck of sweet coconut from her painted lips. “Do you believe in God, Mr Lawrence?”
“My goodness. That's an odd question.”
“I know, but even so…”
“It’s a difficult one, my dear, and it’s a question that’s crossed my mind once or twice, particularly during those times when the socialists have been in power.”
She frowned.
He went on, “I believe in the theory of chaos, my dear, and then the theory of simplicity, that nature will always find the simple way.” She pulled a face.
“Do you really think an almighty presence could produce so many defects and dysfunctions – not to mention the cruelty and wasted effort
– dead planets, wasted matter, suns with nothing to heat, nowhere to go, fathers with no sons, bits and pieces that are quite irrelevant and useless, the appendix, the Royal Family? Think of the swarf of the universe and even the rejections, the bits that have gone wrong – the deformities, the waste, the utter waste. Could a creator have left so much swarf? I think not. Still, so long as the Creationists keep taking the medication we’ll be all right.”
“Well, I believe.”
“Good for you. Well done.”
“Everyone’s gotta have a dream.”
“That’s true.”
“I've seen you about for years, before my mum started cleaning your shop. I often saw you in The British. You looked lonely. You were with the others but you weren't. Does that make sense?” “You're very intuitive.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“But it wasn’t loneliness, my dear. It was sadness. When you get to my age you realize it’s too late to start again and then, looking at a girl like you, you feel a pang, perhaps of hunger but more likely of missed chances, of wasted time. I wasn’t to know then that you would come along and brighten the day and lighten the night.”
“But you've already made your mark, Mr Lawrence, your paintings for a start. In any case, you're not old, you’re not as old as you act.” “It's nice of you to say so but I’ve always thought of myself as a friendly old fellow. Shall we go or would you like a sweet?” “A sweet? Don’t be so tight, you old thing. Can’t I have a pudding?”
So, tucking into chilli ice cream and mango, she continued, “Oh, Mr Lawrence, friendly is not a word I’d give to you. In fact, I think you like people thinking you are unfriendly. Grumpy, that’s it. It’s your street cred. But you’re not really like that. I’ve sussed you out. You’re just a big softie, I know. Look at the way you’ve taken Paul in, and look at the way you help all the wannabe painters. See, I�
��m a psycho thingamabob. Let’s get back and you can lie on the sofa and I’ll show you a thing or two.”
“Well, if you insist, two might be nice, just so long as you don’t poke me in the eye – both eyes – like last time.”
“Sit there,” she told him. He still wore his hat. She dropped her jacket to the floor, poured some drinks and slopped one in his good hand. On his bad hand blood was seeping through the bandages again. She stepped out of her pants and moved to the stack. She put on the CD from the show that she had insisted he buy from a hastily arranged table in the foyer and sang along.
“Oh, Mr Lawrence I think I love you…”
Then, perhaps with the brass ballerinas in mind, she performed a delightful pirouette.
“Isn’t it marvellous, Mr Lawrence? I could be on the stage.” “I imagine you could. Yes, and from what I’ve seen of your dancing – in The British – you would make a perfect hoofer.” “Pardon?”
“Hoofer, my dear, with an F.”
“Oh, one of those.” Her voice was not convincing.
“If not a dancer then a player and I could help you. You could use me as a prop or, come to think of it, abuse me as a prop as well.” She punched his arm and he raised an eyebrow and, beneath it, his eye twinkled.
“You’re joking Mr Lawrence. You’re taking advantage of an innocent young girl.”
“Am I? Am I indeed? I’m not sure who is taking advantage around here and just who is so innocent. I suppose that’s always the problem, isn’t it? Who is guilty and who is innocent? And yet, the clues are all around.”
Straddling him, she tugged at his buttons. He flinched and smudged her with blood. She raised her hands to his shoulders and lowered herself.
Sinking upwards, he watched his twenty-five quid's worth find a slow rhythm and shook his head in wonder.
He said, “Don't stop.”
“I'm not going to, Mr Lawrence.”
“Singing, I mean.”
“Oh, is that all?” Her smile was infectious. “Oh, Mr Lawrence I think I love you…”