by Jeremy Welch
“How is she?”
For the first time since he had entered the room she looked at him. The pupils of her eyes constricted to an opiated pinprick.
“You do care, don’t you? You care what happens to her. But don’t, Sebastian. I have someone that cares for me, you know. He wants to take me away, take me with him when he goes. He is leaving soon and he promises to take me too. But he can’t, you see, it’s impossible.”
He knew better than to rehash his naïve narrative of escape, the possibility of re-entering the world of smiling parents on a green hilltop in the summer. He didn’t know what to say to her so he just nodded and stood up to leave.
Her hand reached out to his arm and she pulled him back down onto the bed.
“You can’t leave now.” Her hand gripped his arm tightly. “You haven’t been here long enough.” She looked at her watch. “Another five minutes.”
He looked confused and felt the suffocating heat of the small room; he wanted to go.
“If you leave too quickly they will see you. They will think I haven’t done my job properly and you’ve left without paying. Stay, just for five more minutes.”
He nodded. She lit another cigarette. Her work life was timed by a five-minute cigarette and a ten-minute service of a stranger.
“Do you have fifty euros?”
Sebastian patted his pockets, pulled out a crumpled twenty-euro note and handed it to her.
“That’s all I’ve got.”
She walked over to the locker, the high heels of her shoes tapping on the floor. She opened one side of the locker and pulled out a Cath Kidston rose-patterned wallet from her hanging denim jacket extracting a ten- and a twenty-euro note. Together with Sebastian’s crumpled twenty she posted them into the slit letter box.
“They count the money at the end of the night. It should tally with the number of clients, fifty a go.”
Taking off her lilac cardigan she opened the other half of the locker to hang it up. Sebastian cast his eyes downward. Whilst she hung it up he noticed in the corner of the locker an Albert Heijn shopping bag. The bag was forced square by neatly stacked and ironed clothes. Judging by the colours they were Sacha’s.
He didn’t want to see her in just her underwear so kept his eyes down. She was quiet and waited. He looked up; she was smiling gently.
“You’re quite a hit with the girls. We all talk, you know, we all notice you looking out for Irena. If there is anything we can ever do for you, well just let us know.”
“Oh my God, you don’t think…” His face registering misunderstanding alarm.
She walked towards him; he felt powerless to move. She placed both of his hands in hers and pulled him off the bed towards her. She let go of his hands and reached for his neck; her hands encircling his neck, she pulled him towards her.
“No, we know you don’t want that, we like you too much to offer you that.” Her hands slipped from around his neck to cradle his face; her hands were warm and smelt of perfumed youth.
“You’re a good man, Sebastian. I don’t know if you can do this but the best thing for you to do is to forget us, but later when you’re away from here remember us. We would like that very much,” she whispered into his ear.
She tick tacked on her heels to the doorway and raised her arms to open the curtain. Under her left armpit he saw the horse’s head tattoo.
“Smile as you leave as he will be watching.”
More of the employer’s concern. A customer satisfaction survey.
She opened the door to let him out.
“Goodbye Sebastian.”
He left like the previous man, slipping sideways through the partially opened door, but he was not fiddling with his flies. The white-shoed pimp caught his eye, leered at him and smiled a crooked conspiratorial, matey smile through a fog of smoke.
Sebastian was grateful for the crowd of voyeurs and those on their way to conduct business; they swallowed him into anonymity. He moved with the crowd until the small bridge over the canal. He stopped halfway over the canal and looked back towards Sacha. As he saw her dancing silhouette in the window he remembered she was ten years younger than him, in her mid-twenties, but had spoken to him as if their age difference was reversed. He wanted to see her face again, just for a moment. He half-shut his eyes to block out the flashing neon and thought she was looking at him. For a moment, a brief moment, Sebastian saw her without her work makeup, her face rouged with health, her white teeth shining as she laughed, her hair ruffled after a walk in the wind and her eyes glistening with hope. He did, he could see her.
“Wanna watch a live porn show, mister?” a voice cracked by drugs tried to entice. Sebastian looked at the stooped man, flecks of white spittle collecting at the corner of his mouth.
“Go away,” was all he could think of saying.
He couldn’t see her now; a look over his shoulder told him she was busy, the curtain closed.
Chapter 16
The croissants tucked to his side by his elbow smelled fresh and the warmth eased the pain of his elbow. Along with the physical pain he felt a mental anguish, a desire to eradicate the previous night; he wanted that night not to have taken place.
He had avoided his normal café as he didn’t want to see Anneke after the previous night’s incident; she would also have known, again he never knew how, the ending of the night. Arriving at the Tulp he looked around him at the early morning. There was a slight mist over the canal water, almost a haar, clearing as the sun rose. It was going to be a warm day, but these mornings also gave a hint of autumn to come; leaves on the trees had an edging of brown as if outlined by a crayon. The sap was retreating.
The saloon of the Tulp was in disarray. He lifted the still half-full cans of beer and shook them until the butt ends of the cigarettes fell down the teardrop aperture. The ashtrays were full of crumpled Rizla papers and the packaging had a small rip from which a roach had been engineered. The sofa had two pairs of jeans draped over it; two pairs of Converse gym shoes, both blue with rainbow laces, lay in a tangle outside his bathroom. He turned towards his bedroom and looked at his half-packed bag; the night had been as bad as he remembered.
“Come back to bed,” she said through the half-opened bedroom door.
Pushing open the door he saw them both.
“Hope they are chocolate croissants, I always get the munchies after taking some dope.” Salt reached for the bag.
“Come.” Pepper patted the bed. “Let’s have a look at your arm.”
Sebastian couldn’t decide which was worse: the bruising on his arm or the squad of invisible gnomes with pneumatic drills excavating his brain. It was the last gulp from a beer can half-filled with cigarette ends that had given him his hangover.
“Ouch, it still hurts.” Salt rubbed the bruise tenderly; the heat helped the pain.
The bruise was a result of an encounter with Dasha. Having lost sight of Sacha the previous night he had started to walk home when he felt his elbow joint being squeezed hard, very hard. He couldn’t see who was applying the pressure. The voice identified the assailant as Dasha, thick and Slavic.
“Keep walking and don’t look around,” he had instructed. “If you do it might just be the last thing you do.” The grip got tighter as he propelled him forward. He marched him through the crowd to a dim-lit doorway in one of the side streets. Dasha spun him round without releasing his elbow, his face inches from Sebastian’s; Sebastian felt something small and circular digging into his back.
“If I hear, see or even suspect you are seeing Sacha again I will kill you.” It was said simply, not hurried but controlled. The words and not the tone contained the threat. That and his breath escaping from nicotine-stained teeth with an added tang of spirits. “Don’t get involved with things you don’t understand, the price is high, too high for you to pay, understand?” Sebastian nodded. “Stay away.” Da
sha released his elbow and walked away without looking back. Sebastian stood exactly where he was, watching Dasha meld into the cross-current of people at the mouth of the side street.
“What happens now?” His voice was afraid as he spoke to the invisible man holding the gun to his back. He couldn’t feel any breathing on his neck. The response was silence. He was scared and with the silence his fear grew. He expected a pistol whip to the back of his head to reinforce Dasha’s message, but none was forthcoming.
“I’ll do as he says, just let me go.” His voice shaky.
There was no response from behind him, but he did hear a cough from the entrance to the side street. An old woman pulling a wheeled shopping bag behind her walked towards him. It was going to get complicated, even dangerous for the old woman. Sebastian reacted with the instinct of his military training. He shot his elbow backward at the same time as dragging his instep along the shins of the man with the gun standing behind him. The old woman stopped and watched. She approached him and said something in Dutch. Sebastian spun round to confront the man behind. He faced a blue door; the door knocker was a fat abbot with a swollen belly, staring back at him. The shins of the assailant were a decorative miniature bay tree in a terracotta pot.
The old woman drew a key from her pocket and approached the door tut-tutting angrily.
“It’s alright.” Sebastian’s voice was falsetto from relief.
“Dance somewhere else, you young fool,” the old lady told him as she closed the door.
He watched the lights go on in the house making sure she was safe. He wasn’t too sure why he needed to make sure, but he did know that he had been watched. Watched when he went to see Sacha, watched as he walked home. He didn’t want the old lady being part of it, the watching. The only other thing he did know was he needed a drink, perhaps a few.
The first few steadied his hands, the rest resulted in an imagined victorious fight with Dasha and the pimps, a rescue operation of Irena and Sacha and a triumphant reconciliation with Zoe, happy ever after. Leaving the bar the fresh air hit him; he held onto the side of the entrance; he was drunk. Like all drunks he wanted the last word, the decisive comment that told all he was right.
He tripped into the Vlinder and stared around trying to find someone he knew, particularly Dasha. The possums looked startled at the drunk and lost themselves in mutterings and reflections. Sebastian stumbled forward using a table for support; once steady he regained his posture and launched himself to the next table, arms outstretched muttering to the occupants.
“Sebastian, over here.”
His head rotated like a radar trying to find the source of the voice. It was too busy, he couldn’t focus and the noise was confusing. Two hands rested on his shoulders and guided him towards a table. He needed no assistance in sitting down. He collapsed into the chair. People were talking but he was too drunk to understand. He tried to follow the conversation but by the time he sourced the speaker the conversation had moved on and he was confronted by a closed mouth. Someone held his head steady.
“I think you need to go home.” He recognised the voice, the deep guttural of Anneke.
“I do not!” he shouted banging the table top. “I need a fucking drink.”
Umuntu stood up and addressed the approaching barman.
“I’ll deal with him.”
Softly Anneke whispered into his ear, “It’s time to go home.”
“What do you know about anything?! I bet you didn’t know that your…” He couldn’t think of the word. “That bendy bastard is a fucking pimp. He nearly tried to kill me, I thought his friend had a gun at my back. I hate it here, you’re all bastards. He’s the biggest bastard. I just went to see if she was alright, OK, I mean, I gave her back her phone, she needed it. Then that fucker threatened to kill me.”
Umuntu was standing behind Sebastian ready to lift him up. Anneke shook her head telling him to hold off.
“Who, Sebastian? Who are you talking about?” She said it quietly and in a soothing voice.
“Irena. Well she got the phone. I just went to see Sacha to see if she was alright, Irena I mean. He followed me. Dasha followed me and threatened to kill me if I went near Sacha again. Bastard!”
Anneke waited until he had finished. She knew how to disarm a drunk male: keep it simple, logical and deliver it with calmness.
“You’re wrong, Sebastian. Dasha is not a pimp. Sacha is a Kazakh like Dasha, they know each other. He tries to look out for her, help her where he can. Perhaps he thought you were… well, using her for business.”
Sebastian groaned.
“Look, let Umuntu take you back to the Tulp. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” She nodded to Umuntu who helped Sebastian up from his seat.
Walking towards the door Sebastian slurred, “Sorry, sorry”, to anyone who made eye contact with him. Most avoided his fish eyes; the possums looked relieved that imminent danger was being removed.
Alone and drunk in the Tulp he muttered to himself justifying his actions. Just to clarify to himself that everything he had done was as it should have been done he sought a confirming drink. The rationale of the drunk. With each smoked cigarette the butt was dropped into the can, the ashtray just a stretch too far for him to reach. The cycle continued until he had opened all six cans, finished none but turned all of them into ashtrays. With nothing left to drink he had convinced himself he had done all he could to help Irena and to hell with Dasha, Anneke and the whole of Amsterdam; Zoe too. If she didn’t want him book unfinished, well to hell with her. He stumbled into his bedroom and started throwing things into his bag.
“Sod them all,” he muttered into the chaos of the open drawers and strewn clothes. “I’m going back to London.” Although a plan, scant on detail, but a plan anyway he felt calmer. He could go to bed now that the future was mapped out. Just one more cigarette and a drink. He reached for the nearest can and poured the contents into his mouth and swallowed. His throat contracted, he couldn’t breathe. That’s when Salt and Pepper arrived.
It hadn’t taken them long to clean him up: a shower, the basin cleaned of vomit peppered with recycled cigarette butts, a glass of water and put to bed. Throughout Sebastian had intermittently been retelling the events of the evening, his book, Zoe and his desire to go back to what he knew. They in turn followed the diatribe as best they could trying to put together the disjointed pieces of information he threw about, at the same time putting him to bed in a matronly fashion.
“I’m sorry about last night.” He meant it. He was sorry for what they had had to do to get him to bed, sorry that Sacha had asked him to forget her, sorry that Irena was now getting ready for work this morning. The one thing that was common to all four was their youth. Was he destined to be guided by women younger than himself? Yes, he was sorry for them. For himself he felt contempt at his inability to help Irena and Sacha and a hungover guilt at his inability to look after himself the previous night.
“Don’t be, honey,” they replied in unison. Salt’s finger touched his lips before he could continue with his apology.
“We know you are, so that’s all there is to be said.”
He felt comforted sitting between them on the bed. Still a bit hazy about the minutiae of last night, he with some trepidation asked, “The roaches?”
“Not yours, honey, ours.”
“The basin?”
“We did that.”
“Was I?” His arms waved down his body.
“No we left you in your boxers.”
“How did you two…?”
“Well we weren’t going to leave you alone in that state and we certainly weren’t going to sleep on the floor.”
“Did I?”
“No, you didn’t, you slept like a baby.”
“Thank God for that!” He felt better for resolving the questions that had arisen on his walk back from the café.
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nbsp; He looked around at the mess of his room, his clothes spewing out of the drawers; he didn’t have the energy to tidy up. His eyes scanned his bedside table. He felt his stomach muscles contract; they hurt from last night’s vomiting; a hot wave ran through his body. Staring at him was the photograph of Zoe, watching and smiling. She had witnessed the whole episode last night and was watching the three of them in bed.
“How did that get there?” he asked guiltily.
“You were going to leave her behind. When you packed your bag you didn’t pack her.” Salt spoke it as a reprimand.
It wasn’t clear to him what else he had or hadn’t packed. He went to his bag and searched for something. It wasn’t on the bedside table and it wasn’t in the suitcase. He tried to think, think through the fug of last night. He vaguely remembered wanting to go back, to where he was unsure, somewhere simpler without complications. He heard a police siren close by and getting closer. It had that almost comical high pitch of European police sirens that seem to suggest the crime is a lesser event than suggested by the guttural sirens of British police cars. He looked around him in increasing panic. The computer was still there, his notes still there, but he couldn’t see his book. The police siren now very loud and close distracting his memory recall.
“I can’t find it, I can’t find my book.” His voice was high and his speech quick. The physical weakness of a hangover only intensifying his panic. “Where is it?” he pleaded to himself with a hand tugging his hair as if to extract the answer from his brain. The siren was almost directly outside and he missed what Pepper said through the bedroom door. “I need it, I can’t find it,” he shouted over the siren. Thankfully the siren stopped.
“It’s here, Sebastian. It’s fine, I have it.”
Sheepishly Sebastian went back into the bedroom. The book lay on the floor like a wounded butterfly next to Pepper, opened but face down with the spine upward. She picked it up and flicked through the handwritten pages.
“Salt read it to me last night. It’s good, Sebastian.” Pepper nodded in agreement; Sebastian wasn’t sure if the agreement was she had read it to Pepper or it was good.