by Mike Hodges
‘There were only two in it. I’ve had them both.’
‘Yeah, but they was once in there, swimming around, and that’s enough for me.’
Hare wipes his departing curry with the newly arrived nan.
‘So what’s this Mark fella been up to that you had to call upon my services once again?’
* * *
Mark is lunching with his mother. Or strictly speaking without his mother, since she isn’t eating anything. He tucks hungrily into her daily ration of meal-on-wheels which she pretended not to want.
Mrs Miles had had Mark when she was forty. Only one other person knows who the father is and that’s the rapist. She’d never seen him before or since, and he’s never been apprehended. Despite Mark’s traumatic conception, she dotes on her son.
‘Is that a bite on your nose?’
‘No. I caught it in a filing cabinet.’
‘Never did. That’s a bite.’
Mark gives up: ‘Yes, it’s a bite.’
‘Was it a woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sometimes I wish you was gay.’
‘But I am gay. That’s why she bit me.’
She cackles with delight. ‘You randy little bastard. You’re lucky it was only your nose.’ Their relationship is profoundly unhealthy. She then remembers something. ‘The hospital people came round last Thursday, looking for Mum’s commode. They’ve only just found out she’s dead.’
‘After five years?’
‘I palmed them off with her Zimmer instead. Just right for your office, wasn’t it, that commode? You still pleased with it?’
‘P for perfecto.’
* * *
When Mark returns to Providence House, Fred Snipe the landlord is lurking in the entrance hall. He looks unusually pale and bites his nails.
‘There was a man here looking for you.’
‘Did you get his name?’
‘I did ask.’ Snipe savours Mark’s transparent anxiety.
‘And?’
‘He said it was King Kong. Although obviously false, it certainly didn’t breach the Trade Description Act.’
‘Oh shit, he’s big?’
‘Very.’
‘How was his disposition?’
‘Ugly. Like his face.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He ran upstairs. I haven’t seen him since.’
Mark wants to leave there and then but fate plays yet another random card. His mother’s ‘meal-on-wheels’ begins careering around his intestines and is now threatening to go into reverse. He runs for the stairs and into the communal lavatory on the first floor. Too preoccupied with his own evacuation, he fails to notice the pervading odour of powerful curry and the awful noises coming from the next stall.
A peaceful silence suddenly descends.
The sound of a dripping cistern adds an almost Zen-like atmosphere to this unlikely location. The occupants of both stalls rest momentarily before drawing their trousers back into place, simultaneously flushing their respective toilets and simultaneously opening the doors.
Mark glimpses Hare reflected in the mirrors above the washbasins and tries to slam the door shut. Instead an arm not dissimilar to a hydraulically operated shovel picks him up and dumps him head first into the very bowl that has only recently carried his waste product. For a moment he thinks he’s going to follow it.
‘You got that five grand yet?’ Hare lifts his dripping head out by the hair.
Mark splutters: ‘You said I had three days.’
‘It is three days.’
‘It’s Monday today. The money’s due on Thursday.’
‘Thursday? Fuck that. We had our little chat on Saturday. That’s Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Your three days is up.’
‘But that’s not three working days. We had our chat on Saturday like you said, so the first day is Monday. That’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and the money is due on Thursday.’
‘I didn’t say three working days. I said three days.’
He slaps Mark on the face, punctuating each day with another blow: ‘Saturday… Sunday… Monday… that’s today. Where is it?’
Mark sits heavily on the toilet seat. ‘I haven’t got it.’ He looks pathetically up at Hare. ‘Under normal business practice, it would be three working days.’
‘Normal business practice? Any more lip and you’ll be round the S-bend into the sewer. Get me?’ He bangs him on the head like it was a tent peg: ‘Okay, I’ll give you until noon next Monday – that’s a week’s extension. But I want an advance right now to cover my expenses.’
‘How much?’
‘What you got?’
Mark frantically pulls out his wallet. He expects it to be empty as usual, but there are the notes Snazell gave him. He smiles as he shows them to Hare. ‘That’s a lot of cream teas.’
‘What was that you said? Cream teas?’ Hare grabs him by the throat. ‘You calling me a perve? A fucking fairy that hangs around public toilets? Well, think again, sunshine. I’m only in here because my lunch took a turn for the worst.’
Mark cringes. ‘I never thought you were a fairy. Honestly.’
Hare relaxes his grip, takes the money from Mark’s wallet and counts it. ‘Two hundred on account.’ He laughs: ‘No, let’s call it interest on the three-day extension I just gave you. Five thousand by noon on Monday, right?’
He strokes Mark’s cheek, then gives it a gentle pat.
‘A tip for you. Don’t ever eat in that Indian on the High Street.’
‘The Bengal?’
‘That’s it, the Bengal.’
He then abruptly throws Mark out of the stall and slams the door shut: ‘No more fucking curries for me.’ Awesome gurgles and eruptions rebound off the cubicle walls. The occupant groans to himself. ‘That restaurant should change its name from Bengal to Bhopal.’
Mark flees.
* * *
Monday is not traditionally known as a day of rest.
But this Monday is an exception. Mark locks the door of his office, lowers the blinds and rolls out the futon. Before turning in, he shampoos his hair, rubs arnica into his head to ease the bruising and sticks a plaster on his nose to hide the bite.
As he drifts off into a troubled sleep, he feels the maggot move. Today he’s only too happy to let it masticate the memory of his recent unsettling experiences. It seems to be hard at work. In his dreams he clings, like King Kong, with one paw to the Empire State Building. With the other paw he picks up a diminutive Hare and drops him into a sewage plant somewhere in Manhattan. That done, he momentarily resurfaces in a clammy sweat, fighting with the sleeping bag as if it were an octopus. Then, going under for the last time, he is abruptly wafted into more sensual realms. He floats towards a huge four-poster filled with silk pillows on which the naked Alice waits for him. Her peachy legs and arms are bound with silk thongs to the four corners of the bed. Despite her bondage, she gives him a welcoming smile. His landing is to be as soft as a dragonfly’s.
An ear-shattering, juddering alarm bell goes off as he touches down and he doesn’t need a flight recorder to recognise the problem. The phone is ringing. Six rings and the answering machine takes over. Mark sinks back into his dream. Soon submerged in the sublime, he is about to enter Alice’s dark cave when he hears Snazell’s voice.
‘Mr Miles, this is my final final offer – £2,500 in cash immediately, £500 of which is your enrolment fee for the PII course. With a further £3,000 on completion of said course. That means you will have £5,000 in your grubby hands by next Monday.’
The maggot stops munching and listens.
‘Five thousand pounds’ and ‘next Monday’ penetrate Mark’s consciousness. He leaps up and grabs the receiver.
seventeen
Tuesday morning.
Rain and wind batter the esplanade. Staff at the Grand Atlantic struggle to hoist a banner announcing the ‘Personal Improvement Institute’ above the entrance. With each gust, the canvas billows like a spinnaker,
then dips with a loud crack in an attempt to escape the hands grappling to hold it.
Mark, huddled under a raincoat and fedora, runs up the steps into the foyer. The plaster across his nose is the only sign of the horrors of yesterday. Refreshed, he knows that he now has the rather tricky business of placating Alice. He has rehearsed everything and runs through his plan while he is hanging his wet garments in the cloakroom.
One of the more unlikely night classes that Avril Springer attends is Floral Arrangement, and the result is there for all to see in the foyer. A huge display, fanned out like a peacock’s tail, sits on the sideboard alongside piles of leaflets for the numerous local theme parks. Mark waits for the right moment before removing a handful of blooms and rearranging others to fill the gap. So far so good. He intends to present his bouquet discreetly at Alice’s door, make abject apologies and suggest they have breakfast together.
But fate intends otherwise.
He turns to find Alice descending the stairs, slowly, her face like a glacier. All hopes of a discreet reconciliation are dashed. It is to be a public performance: a kind of ballet. He runs to her with the flowers held out before him.
‘Alice, please forgive me.’
She sweeps around the final bend of the staircase, ignoring him and his bouquet. One delicate hand with pillarbox-red fingernails glides along the brass banister. One silver high-heeled slipper follows the other across the worn carpet leading to the foyer. Mark, still proffering the flowers follows her, pleading.
‘Alice, I made a terrible mistake. It was far too dark to read your body language.’
The hotel porters, having abandoned their efforts to fly the banner, at this moment return to the foyer. Drenched, miserable and still clutching the dripping canvas, they are to become the chorus in the drama unravelling before them. Mark has to raise his voice as Alice reaches the foyer and moves swiftly towards the Dining Room.
‘I honestly thought you wanted me to….’ He hesitates, trying to find the right word. He finds it: ‘…to court you.’ Desperately seeking some silver lining among the dark clouds, he sobs: ‘Thank God for Herman’s Unique Instant Self-Defence System. Without it there’s no telling what might have happened. It will haunt me for the rest of my life, just thinking what might have happened.’
The chorus applauds as Alice sails into the Dining Room. Mark pursues her: ‘I don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of flasher…’ He lowers his voice when he sees the room is full ‘…going around jerking off in public places, coating the world in semen, abusing, molesting…’ The guests, intent on gobbling up their breakfasts, pay little attention to his entrance. Most are hard of hearing, so he needn’t have bothered: ‘I’m just not like that.’
Alice reaches Table 13 and sits down.
Mark hovers, then decides he has no choice but to join her. She acts as if he hasn’t, picks up the menu and disappears behind it. The wind howls and the rain lashes against the large picture windows. Mark can see his face reflected in the one behind her. Drops of water running down the glass superimpose themselves on his cheeks like tears. It’s an image that provides extra motivation for his performance.
‘I want to prove myself to you, Alice. I’m going to take your advice. I’m going to enrol with the PII.’
Alice lowers the menu and studies him closely. His eyes are certainly shining with a new intensity. Little does she know that it’s five thousand pounds’ worth. He takes out five hundred of them and bangs the wad dramatically on the table.
‘My life savings this. I withdrew everything I have from the bank on my way here.’
Alice is suspicious. ‘Yesterday you tried to rape me, Mark. Twice.’
‘Alice, I tried to make you, not rape you. There is a difference.’
‘Not in my book, there isn’t. You must think we Americans are very gullible.’
‘Never.’
‘All that crap about Old Nick.’
For a split second he’s tempted to remind her of the donkey’s participation in their sexual encounter, but chooses instead a more gentlemanly course.
‘It’s pagan, like you said. You seemed to relish that.’
Alice blushes. ‘I’m not sure that we at the PII can help you.’
‘Sure you can. On the flyer it says the course turns men into gods.’
‘Hang on there, boy. We’re not talking pagan stuff here. We’re talking strictly Christian.’
‘Give me a break, Alice.’ Mark takes one of her hands in his: ‘I’m a wild stallion that needs breaking in. I want Herman to iron me out, flatten my pagan tendencies – make me unnatural.’
Alice wavers.
Mark’s challenge is even more tempting when he adds: ‘“Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” Luke 15:6.’
That clinches it. A biblical quote is always a good ploy with the citizens of God’s own country, and Mark knew it. Alice snaps up his enrolment fee.
‘We start Friday evening. Dr Temple will be arriving at 17.00 hours. All students will form a welcoming committee on the steps of the hotel. I’ll leave a registration form for you in reception.’
Mark pours a glass of water and stands his bouquet in it. ‘You’re as fragrant as any flower, Alice.’
And he holds it up for her to smell.
* * *
Avril is waiting for him in the foyer. She’s been watching him and Alice through the waiters’ window in the kitchen door. Its tinted glass captures her mood exactly, with a bold wash of bilious green.
‘Trying to get your leg over that American filly?’
‘How dare you suggest such a thing. My relationship with Miss Honey is purely professional. I’m here to liaise with the Personal Improvement Institute, and make sure their stay here is a happy and successful one. Don’t forget I was personally responsible for bringing their business to your hotel.’
Mark dances on past her, making for the cloakroom. She follows. He grabs his hat and coat, but she blocks his exit.
‘You ponce! What’s this, then?’ She grabs his crotch. ‘A stick of rock?’
‘Avril, has anyone ever told you that you’ve got a one-track mind?’
‘Often. Will I see you later at school?’
‘Your insatiable lust for knowledge is admirable. What’s it tonight?’
‘Art History.’
‘And tomorrow?’
‘Oral French.’
‘That sounds more promising. Tomorrow it is.’
She moves closer, whispering in his ear: ‘What about now?
Mark is horrified: ‘Out of the question. I’ve got to be in court at ten.’
‘A paternity suit?’
‘That’s not funny. It’s Reg Turpin’s inquest.’
Behind her he sees Ace sway out of his office into the foyer, clutching his first brandy of the day.
‘Cool it. Your beloved husband has just appeared on the horizon, giving another brilliant impersonation of W.C. Fields.’ Mark then calls out ‘Morning, Ace’ and dances past both Avril and the bemused Ace.
‘Must fly.’
* * *
On the esplanade, wind and rain crash and howl against the weather shelter as if some demonic force is trying to get at Mark. He has Ursula on his mobile.
‘But it’s urgent, sugar.’
He listens, impatiently tapping the window.
‘You have to believe me, it’s a matter of life… let me finish… and death.’
She interrupts again.
‘Whose do you think? My death.’ He’s having difficulty bottling up his frustration. ‘I’ve never ever said that before. Please, Urse, you’re the only person I can trust.’
Ursula still resists.
‘I know… I know… only this time I really need help. Why not come to the court? I’ll buy you lunch.’
He smiles into the mobile.
‘Sure, baby. Bring the kids.’
eighteen
Twenty prim little girls in green school uniforms line up to cross the road.
Ten pairs of clasped hands are checked by Ursula before she leads them on to the zebra crossing. Cars wait impatiently until the last pair of pink legs reach the safety of the pavement opposite, before the vehicles roar on their way. Exhaust fumes belching over such young, unblemished flesh seems somehow more nauseating than usual: a harbinger of the decay and pollution awaiting them in later life.
Ursula puts a finger to her lips and the girlish chatter dies away as they file into the public gallery. Jack Dickenson, Ralph Wilder and some of the other hacks who witnessed Turpin’s disappearing act are already sitting there. Below, in the court itself, the inquest is already under way.
The coroner is a hefty woman in her late fifties. Dressed in a tweed suit and tie, and with severely cropped hair, she dominates the proceedings. Mark is surprised to see a wedding ring in place and during the duller moments of the court’s bureaucratic procedure, fantasises about her marital relationship. He can see her saddling her spouse, mounting him, crop in hand, and spurring him on to a painfully pleasurable ejaculation.
Right now things are far from dull, all the same.
Bela Lugosi, bound in a chain, stands in for the late escapologist, while Mark himself illuminates the coroner on the events of that fateful morning. The coroner watches intently as Mark snaps a padlock into place.
‘And you say the escapologist expands his torso as the chain is put on?’
‘That’s correct.’ Mark isn’t sure how to address her, adding: ‘Madam.’
‘He then relaxes it, when attempting to escape?’
‘Right. That way the chain is loosened and the artist can wriggle out of it.’
‘Hopefully.’ The coroner’s smile is thin.
‘Hopefully,’ groans Lugosi to himself.
‘Mr Miles, this is not necessarily relevant to the case in hand, but is there a special kind of chain that escapologists use?’
Mark meets the glint of excitement in her eyes with a look as discreet as a freemason’s handshake. They understand each other.
‘No, it’s one you can get it in any decent ironmongers. And you can choose any gauge you want, from heav-yduty links to small ones, depending on individual taste.’