Fifty-Minute Hour (24 page)

London shrugs off winter. Red buses pant and sweat, and traffic noise masks the sound of death-knells. There are no leaves, here to fall, just shrill-green plastic Christmas trees sprouting in small sweet-shops, wreaths of ersatz holly. ‘Only twenty-four shopping days till Christmas. Order your turkey NOW!' Only a million billion shopping days till I pluck and truss John-Paul. I stop a moment, fight to get my breath. It's not good for me to think of him, especially not outside. I might faint, or fall, or get those crimson pains again, the ones I had all yesterday.

The butcher's isn't crowded, but I still dither for ten minutes before I dare to enter. I haven't eaten for two days, so my stomach starts objecting to those palely naked chickens with their puckered goose-fleshed skin, those pink and hairless rabbits lanced on metal hooks, those blood-smeared surgeons' overalls. The back room's always worse, of course – furred but eyeless calves' heads watching while I kneel, mounds of shining ox livers seeping blood into the sawdust along with Wilhelm's sperm.

‘Don't cry,' he says. ‘
Mein Herzensschatz
I make you happy, no?'

‘No,' I say, then, ‘yes'. It's vital that I please him. I let him dry my eyes on a dirty off-white handkerchief which smells of sausagemeat – the gamey sort, with herbs. Did he dry the eyes of all those Auschwitz victims, before he gouged them out, flung their Jewish giblets in a pail?

‘I'm all right now,' I tell him, still waiting for my payment. I don't get cash at all, but a huge great flank of beef, ice-cold from the freezer. He bestows it with such triumph, such a sense of liberality, it numbs all my objections, though my landlady's away, and her own freezer isn't large enough to hold it anyway. It's almost too big to carry, and I keep stopping, shivering, as it drips melted ice (and blood) down both my legs. I'm wet through as it is. It's raining, always raining, though this is different rain spiteful callous winter rain slashing in my face. In fact, it's hard to see the wolfhounds when they first start following me, though I turn round once or twice to check their stealthy padding. I dismiss them as vague shadows, or just the moaning of the wind, until they actually brush against me with their rough and hairy coats, noses jabbing me at waist-level, tails whipping me both sides. They're the biggest dogs I've ever seen, with deep and powerful chests, long muscly legs, and substantial brawny hindquarters which suggest Olympic power. They're both slavering at the meat, intense dark eyes focused on the carcass, tongues lolling from their mouths.

It's obvious why they've come: John-Paul must have sent them to relieve me of my burden – which shows he cares, remembers who I am, isn't trying to oust me, as I feared. I turn into an alleyway, ease the side of beef onto the ground. They fling themselves upon it, tear it with their fangs, eating with a voraciousness I recognise. If John-Paul were a joint of beef and I a simple dog, I'd fall on him with just that same abandonment, devouring him, consuming him, gulping down every smallest morsel. I've never taken Communion (or even attended a Communion service), but I assume that's how believers must eat God – desperate to ingest Him, get Him down inside them, not let a cell or corpuscle go to waste.

Once the dogs have finished, licked their lips, licked and sniffed the gutter, hoovered all around for any last remaining blood-trails, they start fawning on me, mobbing me, tails thwacking at my coat, dark moist noses sniffing at my cunt. I'm feeling a lot better just to be appreciated. They're so warm and so alive, and I'm bonded to John-Paul again by annexing his pets; his cruel letters cancelled now, his wounding words erased. I pick their trailing leads up, turn right instead of left as I leave the narrow alley, take a puddly detour to the recreation ground. I let them bound and gallop past the dark and dripping slides, watch them barking at the shadows, loping through the mud. I climb on to a child's swing, which feels wet beneath my skirt, swing to and fro, to and fro, thinking of John-Paul. I'm no longer even cross with him. Anger needs great energy and mine's all leaked away. Or perhaps I really love him and what I classed as fury was something else entirely.

I wish I were his dog, so I could lick his face and eat his scraps and smell his human smell; brush against his trousers, fetch endless sticks for him. Perhaps I'd be his lap-dog, his pouting poncy Pekinese, so I could lay my fancy head against his waistcoat buttons and have him feed me humbugs. Or his fierce and ravening guard-dog, who'd maul and claw all those rival patients, savage them to bone. Or his loyal and trusty guide-dog, so when he's groping-old, he'd never dare let go of me, and, joined at last, I could lead him up to God. Or, best of all, his sick dog, so he'd stroke my head, suggest I sleep on
his
bed rather than my basket, coax my tablets down me with scraps of chicken breast. My pills are all at home. I'd better go and get them, put myself to bed. I'm feeling very strange.

I call the dogs to heel, wish they wouldn't pull so hard as I limp and struggle back. Both my hands are reddened as I finally unleash them in my room.

‘
Down
!' I shout, as the larger darker-coated male bolts towards the door, knocks a picture flat. The slightly smaller female is prowling up and down, restless and suspicious, only stopping for a moment to claw the chair, rip a piece of fabric from its seat. If my room was cramped before, it's now completely overwhelmed – the pungent smell of crude damp dog choking the scant air; a wild tangle of wet paw-prints patterning the carpet. They keep shaking themselves, so that showers of dirty droplets spray against the pictures, stain my pale cream shirt. The paintings shift and tremble. They're frightened of the dark, have never liked my bedsit with its mean and grudging light. I need to let them out – not just the dogs – the canvases.

The male dog springs towards me, starts pawing at my shoulders, almost knocks me over. I fight it off, escape into a corner, try out commands like ‘Sit!' and ‘Stay!', but they're totally ignored. Both of them are barking now, a hoarse and hacking sound, as if their throats are cracked, inflamed. I'm worried other tenants will complain. Pets are not allowed, not even quiet and harmless ones like cats.

I reach up to the cupboard where I keep my tranquillisers, make a bread and Valium sandwich, feed half to each dog. They devour it with such passion I can hardly believe they guzzled that huge flank of beef just an hour ago. I'm beginning to feel frightened. How will I keep up with them – their energy, their appetites? They're killer-dogs, this breed; were used to hunt fierce wolves before the invention of the gun; can still annihilate a deer, or rip a sheep to pieces, even turn on smaller dogs and tear them limb from limb.

I swallow my own pills, try – and fail – to eat an old half-pizza which has been around a week or so, light a fag instead. I wish all food could be inhaled, not masticated, and came ready-flavoured with tar and nicotine. Four eyes are watching me, dark distrustful wary eyes, tracking every smallest movement of my hand or foot or head. I approach the smaller dog, inching very cautiously towards her, arid holding out my hand for her to sniff. She's brindled brown and grey, with lighter paws and muzzle, and protruding whiskery eyebrows. ‘Good girl,' I murmur softly, as I stroke her wiry coat. (Strange how we tell animals they're ‘good'. No one tells us humans.) She still seems very fidgety, her long tail tense, her body rigid, braced, but I keep stroking very rhythmically, and soon the rhythm and the Valium begin to do their work, and in less than fifteen minutes both dogs are slumped and quiet. I sprawl beside them on the carpet, too tired to clear the chairs or move the pictures from the bed – close my eyes, sink back.

It's wonderful to sleep alone – or at least with dogs, not clients. These last three weeks I've been sharing bed and bath. I let some jokers stay the night, because despite the squash and horror of it, I was charging them an hourly rate, so it made financial sense. Actually, it all seems rather pointless now. Okay, I bought the pictures, but I couldn't buy John-Paul.

I say his name aloud and very slowly, repeat it like a lullaby or mantra, but it doesn't resurrect him, nor help me get to sleep. He feels very faint and far away, even with his dogs here. I wonder what their names are, try out several likely ones, then realise they're the names of my new clients – Barry, Richard, Warren, Spencer, Mike.

They weren't much cock, those blokes, and I mean that literally. If I confiscated all limp pricks, my cupboards would be full. I'm not that keen on penises. They aren't exactly beautiful, never smell or taste that good; are always strictly limited in the sense of skills and repertoire, yet still persist in seeing themselves as VIPs, big guns. Perhaps I'm simply jealous, a basic case of John-Paul's penis-envy, but I honestly don't think so. I suspect Freud dreamed the phrase up to distract attention from men's own obvious envy of the womb. It's women who give birth and life and suck – normal women, anyway. To produce an eight-pound baby with intellect and brains, maybe even genius, from one tiny pinhead egg-cell seems to me miraculous. I envy that myself, far more than penises. If there is a God, then He made men very badly. If they ejaculated Grand Marnier in decent double measures instead of dribs of sperm, far more women would be rushing to fellate them.

The only prick I envy is John-Paul's, but then I envy
all
his organs – his liver, spleen and kidneys, his lungs and heart and brain – just because they're close to him. I can see his liver clearly, its shape, its size, its texture; imagine his appendix, his tonsils or his pancreas, but somehow not his prick. It must be some taboo thing. (Though I did once have a fantasy where he died and was cremated, and I stuffed his still-warm ashes in a dildo and thrust it up my cunt. I suppose it was the only way of having him inside me.)

I try to shift my mind from sex; think of God instead, but I can only see His genitals, His womb. I allow Him to make love to me, slowly, very slowly, with all my favourite (non-existent) words: tenderness, devotion, mercy, loving kindness. It doesn't last that long. Seton barges in instead, rams me from behind. Or perhaps it's just his brutish boat and he's too busy to be bothered. Its prow feels very hard and stiff, splitting me apart. I lie in muddy water while it judders back and forth; climaxes, at last, in a spume of dirty jetsam.

Then the clients trickle back again – Warren, Mike and Spencer (whose name is really Joe); Richard in his shirt-tails, Barry with his doll. Amazing how I'm wanted, how everyone desires me; grown men queuing, jostling, fighting for an opening, even hirsute Wilhelm challenging a rival. ‘Wait your turn,' I tell them, but nobody can hear. There's too much noise – the crash of waves, of tempers, a shrill and strident barking. Yes, the dogs are joining in now, the male erect and mounting me, as I crouch down on all fours, like his trembling bitch on heat. I
am
on heat – feverish and sweating, all the pulses in my body throbbing far too fast. The dog's coarse pelt is prickling my bare back, his wild claws clutching, tearing. ‘Stop!' I shout. ‘Lie
down
.' I wish I knew his name. It would make it less impersonal. I can only think of saints' names, the four Evangelists.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless this bed I lie upon.

Someone used to croon that, long ago, long ago, when I was in my cot. Or perhaps they didn't croon it, but I just hoped or wished they had; invented it myself, called it Truth, like Uncle Jack. I try to coax them back, those four Evangelists – Uncle Matthew, Uncle Mark, Uncles Luke and John – to bless my dirty-carpet-bed, send the mortal men away, leave me pure and solitary.

Four white angels round my bed,
Two at the foot and two at the head,
One to watch and one to pray
And two to bear my soul away.

Oh, yes, I beg – yes, that.

Bryan lounged back on the scarlet vinyl banquette, a pint of Carling Black Label in one triumphant hand. He was not just in the King's Arms, but in Mary's arms – or nearly. He felt a king himself. The pub was spacious, tasteful, with pillars, mirrors, framed paintings of the British monarchs from Ethelred the Unready to Edward VII – who looked more than ready and was brandishing a sceptre-cigar which John-Paul would call a phallus. The carpet was imperial-purple, patterned with impressive gold medallions (and several spills of beer). The tables looked antique, with lion-claw legs and crinkled pie-crust rims. He'd bagged the most secluded one, in an alcove on its own, though with a stately potted palm rearing up behind them like a chaperone. He wished the fire was real, or even warm, but then you couldn't have everything, and those pretend coal fires looked really quite convincing from a distance.

He glanced across at Mary, still couldn't quite believe it: she was not only alive (and back in both science and society), but she had actually suggested a drink after the class – not coffee in a paper cup in that shabby old canteen, but a private drink in a royal tavern where he had her to himself. He hardly knew how he'd stuttered out his ‘Yes', tried to make it casual, as if drinks in bars with blonde attractive women were simply part of his routine – perhaps followed by a nightclub, and then a midnight saunter along the romantic River Thames, even a lingering embrace beside the throbbing star-kissed water.

‘Same again?' he murmured, pointing to her empty glass, its damply swollen cherry looking so inviting, its lemon slice smiling with wide lips.

‘D'you really think we should, Bryan?'

‘Oh, yes,' he said. ‘I
do
.' He needed courage, Dutch or otherwise, to quash the image of his Mother limping up and down in hairnet and beige dressing gown, ticking like a clock herself as she watched the minute-hand's slow circling and realised her cruelly selfish son had missed the twenty-four and was probably going to miss the fifty-two. Her leg would be much worse of course – always was the evening he was out. He cursed that damaged leg, which crippled him as well, made him swell and fester with a curdled mix of pity, guilt, resentment.