Tales of Sin & Fury, Part 1 (19 page)

‘You're a sadist,' said Dora, ‘Did you enjoy that?'

‘Not half. He was an obliging soul, anyway. Just self-obsessed and incompetent outside the sheets, like most men. He didn't complain. He had a night to remember too. He didn't even seem bothered about his girlfriend, Ute.'

‘Strange name.'

‘She was German. She lived in the same house. At some point we heard her and the others coming in the front door. We hid under the covers and I got the giggles.'

Dora put her knife and fork down on her unfinished meal. ‘“You are aawful,”'she said. There was a mixture of mock and genuine disapproval.

‘I could almost forgive him for never doing the washing up,' said Alex. ‘But not quite. I think he believed the plates washed themselves. He's the only man I know who managed to injure himself on a tin opener falling off a mattress. As my Dad always says, some people don't have the sense they were born with.'

Dora sipped her tea. ‘When my Mum put the Christmas decorations in the cake… I did eat one of the bits of plastic holly, by mistake.'

‘Like any marathon,' said Alex, ‘it became an end in itself. But it did the trick and got Evan back. There's nothing like another man's attention to get your man to appreciate you.'

‘Mum did manage to call an ambulance for me before they came to take her off. They said with that and the other stuff she'd done she was a danger to herself and others,' said Dora. ‘What about the bloke's girlfriend?'

‘Ute? She was German, very polite about it. She was peeved, but after a while she took him back. She never said anything to me, but she didn't thank me for it. Nobody likes a woman who takes what she wants.'

Dora shook her head. ‘I couldn't do anything like that.'

‘More fool you.' Alex climbed off her stool, and picked up Dora's things from the floor. ‘Shall we get back to work? I'm telling you: if you want what you want, you have to fight for it. In the 70s they used to say: “Make love, not war.” My version was: “Make love,
join
the war.” Sex is a battle zone.'

In the doorway of the café, Alex pulled her hood over her head. ‘Your mum never did get back to making ordinary cakes with normal ingredients, did she?'

‘No,' said Dora.

‘Must have been tough,' Alex said, and gave Dora the umbrella. ‘You're going to get wet. Put it up then.'

‘Shan't,' said Dora, grabbing the brolly and setting off down the slushy pavement. She looked up at the sky, which was lighter. ‘Anyway, it's clearing up. I'd say the sun might come out.'

‘Yes, and I'm Chairman Mao,' said Alex, following her. ‘I'd say you're imagining things. Not for the first time.'

Dora stopped on the corner by the Hat and Feathers pub, framed against the fluted decorations etched into the glass of the doors. She put her hand out. ‘It's not coming down any more,' she persisted.

She swung the brolly from her wrist and did a Charlie Chaplin walk along the pavement. As they approached a newsagents, a tall Asian man coming out with a bottle of milk stopped to stare. Dora didn't notice him. She twirled the umbrella some more and pretended to wobble on the kerb. Just then a white office cleaners' van pulled away from the traffic lights at speed, driving straight through a puddle at the side of the road and dousing Dora's leopardskin trousers with dirty water.

Dora stopped in her tracks. Alex cackled with laughter and collapsed against the newsagents' window. Dora raised her umbrella to the sky in a gesture that said ‘What did I do?'

At that moment, clouds shifted and a small gap showed in the thick grey cotton wool covering the sky, as if a giant had put a finger through. Briefly, a pale sun appeared.

‘Look!' Dora cried to Alex, ‘I told you so!'

She looked down at her soaked trousers and smirked. She pulled them away from her skin with mock disgust and waddled with bandy legs as if she had peed herself. Alex pointed and pulled a face. Dora guffawed, and clutched her stomach as she too fell against the newsagents' window.

The tall Asian man shook his head and walked away.

Tuesday 18th December 3 pm

Raymond Goforth noticed the moment of sunshine from his office on the fourth floor of the Shellmex building, and picked up the phone:

‘I don't think it's settling, dear, I'll be all right………. Yes, very ………. And I've ordered the curtain material………. ‘Threads' at South End Green………… Probably after Christmas………. I hope so. We can watch cavemen hunting for their supper while we eat ours, it will whet the appetite………. He liked the report, so that's a relief………. The usual time, unless I ring again………. Bye, my love.'

He licked the envelope of his completed letter to the Worthing Borough Treasurer and sealed it, then copied the address onto the front. He put it on the corner of his desk ready for Iris to post.

Tuesday 18th December 3 pm

On the scaffolding on Theobald's Road, the painter in the fingerless gloves noticed more light seeping between the gaps in the tarpaulin onto the woodwork of the window he was rubbing down. He straightened up and scratched his head, shifting soft bulges of hidden dreadlocks under his brown woolly hat. With long carefully-shaped fingernails he pulled his glove away from the wrist to look at his watch and calculated he had only one more hour to work. He ran a pale pink tongue along his lips and started whistling ‘My Night Nurse'.

Tuesday 18th December 3 pm

In a shop in South End Green, a woman was speaking on the phone with a slight German accent.

‘Here is Ute at ‘Threads'. Hi. Is it too late now to make a delivery before Christmas?……… Number 19740A, the cavemen design……… OK, fine, it is not a problem. I'll send the order over. Thank you.' She put the phone down and noticed the moment of sunshine on the pavement outside.

When she came out of her shop, a 24 bus was slowing down as it reached the bus stop. Freddie jumped off it with open arms and crash-landed into her.

‘Woah! Sorry, sorry! I overstepped the mark!' Freddie backed away lowering his arms. Then he held out one hand: ‘But since I'm here, would you care to dance?'

The woman's lined face rearranged itself into an expression of mock formality and she raised one eyebrow as she declined with her head. ‘I thank you for the offer.'

‘I am to be guillotined this afternoon at Tyburn,' said Freddie. ‘Tell everyone concerned that I forgive them for everything and I hope they feel guilty for the way they have treated me.'

She gave a broad smile. ‘Ach! A general absolution! This is what we need most of all.'

‘What else on a day like today?' said Freddie. ‘Only polar bears seem to find the weather too hot.' He tossed his long locks back from his face. ‘Since my invitation is rejected, as usual, I hope you will excuse me. I have a date with a snowman.'

Her eyes followed him as he ran off towards Hampstead Heath, sliding on any smooth patches of snow on his route.

Tuesday 18th December 3 pm

In the library, Morton was sitting at a desk by the window making notes on a book about E M Forster. In his neat italics he wrote: ‘H H Waggoner (1966) comments that the rooms of Henry James do not usually have a view… the eye of the reader is not carried beyond social/human concerns. E M Forster's novels have more sense of the unknown…'

He broke from writing to scratch his lower leg, then carried on: ‘He suggests E M Forster uses coincidence to enlarge our vision, to show the connections between humans and to help us sense the interdependence of “matter” and “spirit”.… The coincidences are not without cause, but we can't explain the cause.'

Morton put down his Parker ballpoint pen, pulled up his right trouser leg and examined three small red flea bites just above the ankle. ‘Bloody dog,' he murmured, and went back to writing: ‘Death in Forster's novels opens fissures in our illusion of security, through which we glimpse the dark vistas surrounding us…'

His page lightened. He looked up and noticed the crack opening in the sky outside the window. The brief moment of sunshine reached his desk in a pale shaft.

He leant back, sighed and started doodling on the bottom half of his sheet of paper. He drew a cartoon dog with fleas jumping off it. The dog was hairy and was curled round trying to use its back leg to dislodge the fleas. Morton started adding speech bubbles to the fleas. ‘This dog stinks!' said one. ‘I'm getting out of hair,' said another. He drew more speech bubbles and added: ‘You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours,' ‘Just hopping out, back soon,' and ‘This dog is irritating.'

Tuesday 18th December 3 pm

On the kitchen floor Dusty was scratching herself with a brisk regular movement of her rear leg. Anthea had the back door open and was sitting on the step. The small garden was trimmed with white: a thin layer of mottled snow on what was once the lawn, with odd spikes of wintry grass peeking through; a thicker crust on the low brick walls on either side.

The diagonally-edged bone was cupped in the palm of Anthea's left hand as she held it out towards the short moment of sunlight.

Dusty stopped scratching and came over to sniff.

‘No,' said Anthea. ‘This is not one of yours.' She closed her fingers around the bone and fondled the dog's ear with the other hand. A wet nose burrowed into Anthea's palm. ‘It's thousands of years old. And I think it's trying to tell me something. About danger. You probably understand. Most people don't.'

Dusty rolled onto the ground of the patio where the snow had been cleared and offered her tummy, her long forepaws folded neatly in a begging position. Anthea rubbed the tummy.

‘Yes! Clever dog. You animals sense things. It was goats discovered the oracle of Delphi. It was.' The dog whined with delight. ‘Goats acted strangely when they went near its chasm, they realized it was a special place. They did! That's what Diodorus Siculus says anyway. Perhaps he had a goat.' She stopped rubbing the tummy and the dog leapt to her feet. ‘Good girl. And the Greeks used to tell the future from the flight of birds. And from bones. You can probably sense things too. Yes! Good dog!' Dusty went back to scratching herself.

Anthea opened the fingers of her left hand again and looked at the bone. ‘Whereas me, I'm too stupid. I can't hear what it's saying. I hold it and all I get a picture of is hills and stones and stones and hills. What does that tell me? Greece is full of hills and stones.'

Above her the clouds rolled in and closed the window of sunshine.

6

To Hell and Back

Tuesday 18
^th
December 1990 3.10 pm

‘Never thought I'd be glad to get a pair of socks for Christmas,' Mandy says as we walk back into the cell with Beverley. The key turns in the lock behind us. The cell looks bleak and the windows are already getting dark.

‘They're men's ones,' says Debs, scrutinizing Mandy's feet from her bed.

‘Beggars can't be choosers. My feet were fucking freezing.'

‘So how d'you get them?'

‘She was handing them out, weren't she, Corinne? The massage teacher.' Mandy sits down on her bed and pulls her feet up after her. ‘The teacher goes “They're not new, but they're clean, help yourselves if you need a pair.”' Mandy strokes her toes through the thick navy cotton.

‘So what d'ya do?' asks Debs.

‘Massage and that. It was OK, we had a laugh. It cheered us up, eh Bev?'

‘I doan know 'bout you, but I would not say it made me cheerful.' Beverley lies down on her bed and pulls the covers over her. ‘It set me to thinking.'

‘Come on,' says Debs, ‘I've been stuck here for ages on my tod. Tell us all about it. Every little fucking thing. Who's in, who's down, what lucky sods got a massage…'

‘We all did,' says Mandy. ‘I only put my name down to get out of the cell, but it was better than what I thought. They put us in the dining room. All the tables stacked up one end and the chairs round the edge. She had a big pile of mats to lie on. “Hi,” she goes “I'm Ren” – or some weird name like that – “Massage may be able to help your aches and pains, and relaxation can help you get through life in this shithouse,” except she didn't use them words. How'd she put it, Corinne?'

I'm sitting on my bed enjoying a new sensation in my body. Something different pumping round it that isn't alcohol. Something like sunshine. I don't feel like talking. I shrug, ‘You tell it.'

Mandy carries on, ‘Next in comes that Kanga with the dark hair.'

‘The good looking one?' asks Debs.

‘He's an arsehole, don't even think about it. Lisa said she was curled up on her bed the other night clucking bad, the bit where you want to die, and he looks through the hatch and laughs at her. Bloody sadist. That's why they apply for these jobs.'

‘Why do they have men working in here?' I ask.

‘Fuck knows. Don't care about our modesty, do they?' Mandy laughs.

‘So what he come in for?' Debs asks.

‘Said the tables were blocking the panic button. For her to press in case we all went wild.'

‘They think we're animals.'

‘So there we are in the dining room, all the mess from that fight cleared up, stank a bit though, didn't it, Corinne? Disinfectant. Miss brought some plastic cups and water. “It's from outside,” she goes, “Help yourself if you need some,” She had a headscarf, looked like she didn't have no hair. Weird.

‘Then she goes, “You need to warm up. It might be easier if you take your shoes off.” That weird Janice with the long white lacy dress on, you seen her boots? White, up to the knee, with high heels? She couldn't get them off and the teacher was helping her, tugging and tugging. When she finally gets them off, Janice can't stand up and Miss has to heave her up off the floor.