The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (51 page)

   ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Far worse than that.’

   ‘How worse?’

   ‘She let the dogs into the room.’

   ‘What! What dogs?’

   ‘She’s got two little poodles, didn’t I tell you? A black one and a white one. Can’t say as I like the little sods much.’

   ‘Did they leap on the bed?’

   ‘Yep.’

   ‘And? Don’t tell me. They didn’t sniff your bollocks?’

   Paul pulled a crazy face. ‘Dogs do what dogs do.’

   ‘They sniffed you?’

   ‘Yes… and worse.’

   ‘You’re kidding me.’

   Paul bobbed his head. ‘Being licked by a dog’s tongue is not to be recommended.’

   ‘Oh Jesus! Why didn’t you shout at them? Tell them to piss off!’

   ‘I thought of that, mate, but I didn’t want to upset them. I thought if they got excited one of them might have bitten me. Worrying it was, very worrying.’

   Gringo grimaced. He could see the problem. Dogs can be unpredictable creatures, especially other people’s dogs.

   ‘Paul Shepperton, the only man I know who’s had a blow job from a poodle!’ said Gringo, roaring with laughter.

   ‘Pair of poodles to be precise,’ said Paul, joining in the reverie.

   ‘A threesome!’ yelled Gringo, attracting some attention from the other drinkers. ‘But didn’t you always dream of such a thing!’

   ‘Yeah maybe, but in my dreams it’s usually Kay and the Asian chick, not Sally and Shrimp, or whatever the hell they’re called. How is she by the way, Maria?’

   ‘Dunno. Don’t see her any more. So what did Kay say when she came back?’

   ‘Oh mate, she just stood over me, and when I say she stood over me, man is she bloody tall,’ (Gringo had to laugh at that too.) She started giggling. ‘That’ll teach you,’ she said. ‘You mess with Kay Crompton and you pay the price!’

   ‘So the wedding’s off?’

   ‘Oh no, not at all. Seems she quite likes all that hoo-hah business, once she got into it. That’s what I wanted to tell you, you might have saved my marriage, even before we were hitched, so thanks mate. I owe you one. Another?’ and he held up his empty glass.

   ‘Sure,’ grinned Gringo, still seeing Paul in his mind strapped to the bed being serviced by two licking bitches.

   When Paul came back from the bar Gringo said: ‘So the date with the Press-bee-teerians is still in the diary?’

   ‘Oh yeah,’ said Paul, gulping his lager. ‘Sure is, Press-bee-teerians here we come.

Later that night as Gringo was undressing he noticed the blue ink number scribbled on his arm. For one brief moment he thought of ringing her and inviting her over but guessed that by then she would be well oiled, and probably slobbering over some confused idiot in some dingy and stinky nightclub.

   He opened the bedside table and took out his notebook, flipped the pages to W, and wrote down her name and number. You just never know when intelligence like this might come in useful. The odd thing was; how did she know he possessed a little black book of secrets and numbers?

The following evening sitting alone at home, turning the Lenny Cohen CD cases over and over in his hand, his eyes alighted on the telephone. He picked it up and dialled his dad. The old guy sounded real pleased his son had called. Gringo thought he was bearing up okay in the circumstances, and promised again that he would re-visit soon.

   ‘Bring
her
with you,’ insisted his father.

   ‘I aim to.’

   ‘Good luck, son.’

   Gringo set the phone down and picked it up again and rang the nurse. She hadn’t long woken and mumbled something about switched shifts, but then readily agreed to another date in a few day’s time. Conversation over, nothing much to say both ways, so it seemed, phone down, silence reigned once again in the Gringo household.

   He glanced at the phone again, his eyes seemingly drawn that way. He thought of ringing
her
but dismissed the idea. Why should he? She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d gone to Amsterdam, no card, no call, nothing. She didn’t deserve a call. Bitch! She didn’t deserve his care. She didn’t deserve a damn thing.

   He closed his eyes and lost himself in his darkest thoughts. A few moments dragged by. When he opened them he witnessed his right hand snaking out across the table, heading for the telephone like a hungry python.

   ‘No!’ yelled Gringo; and the hand obeyed and retreated, for a few moments. Yet it was not to be denied. A moment later it set out again.

   ‘No!’ screamed Gringo, but this time the arm did not obey. The hand slithered toward the phone. He stared at it in disbelief. What the hell? He reached out with his left hand and caught the right forearm and tugged it back, still bemused at its nerve and independence. Twenty seconds seemed like an eternity. The hand twitched, and began again.

   ‘No, I said!’ he yelled, grabbing the right wrist with the left hand,

but the right arm tensed and held firm, refusing to retreat, refusing to listen; refusing to obey. He ordered his left arm to drag it back. The left still obeyed his commands, his brain, but still the right refused to comply. In the next moment an arm wrestling competition broke out in earnest on the table, the right hand determined to use the telephone, the left under strict instructions to resist.

   Gringo was right handed.

   Any right-handed man boasts a stronger right hand. It’s a fact of nature. The predominant hand is used the most, is exercised the most, it grows stronger. It becomes dominant. The hand and arm were not to be denied. It reached the phone and knocked the receiver from the base. Still the left fought valiantly, clawing and dragging, grabbing and wresting. Colour rushed to Gringo’s face. Droplets of sweat appeared on his furrowed brow.

   ‘Go on!!’ shrieked the demon on his shoulder, yelling encouragement to the renegade limb. ‘Go on! Go on!’

   ‘Shut the fuck up!’ screamed Gringo, the angry tone and resonance in his voice vibrating through the new set of stainless steel pans dangling above his head. He stared out in bemusement. He had never experienced anything like it.

   The index finger of the right hand began punching in numbers; the left scoring minor victories as occasional digits were missed.

   In the next moment he heard her sweet voice.

   ‘Fifty-two, seventy.’

   He tried to pick up the phone but the left hand was still resisting, still possessing strength, jerking the right away as if Gringo’s very soul might depend on it.

   ‘Get the fuck off!’ yelled Gringo.

   ‘Go on!’ shrieked the demon.

   ‘Gringo, is that you?’ she said, the puzzled tone in her voice crystal clear.

   ‘Yeah! Yeah! Won’t be a tick!’

   ‘You sound miles away. Where are you?’

   He finally admitted defeat, relaxed his left hand, and the victorious right snatched up the phone.

   ‘Hi Glen, sorry about that,’ he said, breathlessly.

   ‘Ah, there you are, what was going on there?’

   ‘Oh nothing, just a little local difficulty.’

   ‘Are you by yourself?’

   ‘Yeah, course,’ which he was, other than for crazy demons and limbs that suddenly possessed minds of their own.

   ‘You’re mad, you know that.’

   ‘Thanks.’

   ‘You’re welcome.’

   ‘I just thought I’d ring you up, young lady, and ask how you’re keeping.’

   ‘I’m not such a young lady any more.’

   ‘Course you are! Twenty-four! Don’t be ridiculous, and anyway, you will always be a young lady to me.’

   She let out a tiny laugh, an appreciative laugh he thought, at his words. He liked that laugh, but then he always had.

   ‘How did the funeral go?’

   ‘As these things do. It’s not such an enjoyable day. Dad really missed you.’

   ‘Did
you
miss me, Gringo?’

   ‘You know I did.’

   ‘I thought about you, and about him.’

   Not enough to send a sympathy card, he almost said.

   ‘Did you really?’

   ‘Of course I did. I’m not the complete ice maiden you seem to imagine.’

   ‘Yeah,’ said Gringo softly, when in his mind he couldn’t keep his real thoughts totally at bay.

  
That’s how you all too often come across.    

   ‘How was Amsterdam?’

   ‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe it, Gringo, whores hanging out of windows, all sorts; it was like something out of the Middle Ages. We had a whale of a time. Brilliant!’

   He didn’t really want to hear about the
We.

 
‘Glen, I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me, say Saturday?’

   ‘Of course I’ll have dinner with you, Gringo,’ she replied without a second’s delay, and her willingness both surprised and delighted him.

   ‘Yeah?’

   ‘Sure. What time?’

   ‘If I pick you up at eight?’

   ‘Okay.’

   ‘Do you want me to come to the house?’

   ‘No, better not. Dad’s in a real funny mood these days. End of the close would be better.’

   ‘Okay, I’ll see you there.’

   ‘See ya, Gringo, must dash,’ and a moment later she was gone, and his hands and arms were once more at peace, his mind in a whirl, as he reset the telephone.

He planned the event with the care usually devoted to a royal wedding. Nothing would be left to chance. He treated himself to a complete new wardrobe from socks to tie, Calvin Klein underpants, and fancy gold cufflinks that fastened the ridiculously expensive shirt.

   If he were to fail it would not be because of his clothes, or for the lack of money he would lavish upon her. He knew well enough that Glenda Martin could never be bought with trinkets and high hospitality, but what was the alternative. Take her to a burger bar? That would be absurd. He booked a table at the Henderson Country Club for he was desperate to demonstrate to her where she ranked in his thinking.

  
Treat them mean, keep them keen. 

   On occasion
that philosophy undeniably had its place, but not there, not then.

He arrived at the end of her close at five past eight. There was no sign of the girl. He glanced at himself in the mirror. His thick hair was newly cut and perfectly parted, old fashioned maybe, but just as he liked it, though he was still a little miffed with Sally at the unisex cutters. She had taken a fraction too much from the sides, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

   He checked there was no dandruff on his shoulders and lapels, and no hint of lunch still secreted between his teeth. He reached forward for the breath spray and zapped his mouth and tongue one last time. How hideous it would be to greet her with stinking breath. He checked his clothes. Black suit, white shirt, red tie, immaculately presented in a Windsor knot, a junction he unnecessarily squeezed thrice more in an effort to portray it just so.

   She came round the corner at quarter past eight and smiled at him through the windscreen. Her teeth gleamed in the gloaming as she mouthed a
Hi.
He reached across and flipped open the door.

   ‘Hi Gringo,’ she said again, getting in and settling in beside him.

   ‘You look great,’ he said, an automatic greeting for a well turned out woman maybe, but fact was, she looked stunning. ‘I like your suit.’

   She smiled to herself and felt the sleeve of her dark navy jacket. She’d bought the suit to get married in, though Gringo didn’t need to know that. There was no blouse on display, just the jacket folding over her neat breasts, skirt, bra and pants, guessed Gringo, black stockings and suspenders, he suspected, and maybe hoped, as she put on her seatbelt and crossed her legs with that oh so sexy rustling sound.

   ‘I’ve had this for ages,’ she said, as women sometimes do. ‘So where are we going?’

   ‘Thought we’d try the Henderson Country Club,’ he said casually, as if the idea had just come to him, as if he hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.

   Glen had been there once before, several years earlier, before she’d joined Dryden’s.

   ‘Great,’ she said, ‘I like it there.’

   He couldn’t resist another glance at her, at the classic Mary Quant hairstyle, newly and neatly trimmed. Her black hair glistened as if it had been suffused with thousands of tiny diamonds. The girl was a jewel, but he had always known that, right back from the time he’d first set eyes on her at that smiling and nervous first interview. He had been more nervous than she, but then he often was.