The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (9 page)

   ‘No,’ said Gringo, ‘not that I know of,’ and he ordered Paul a pint.

   ‘I think that dusky maiden might fancy me,’ said the ever optimistic Paul, and he turned round and gazed across the bar like a lighthouse keeper peering through fog.

   ‘I don’t think so,’ said Gringo, and his judgement appeared vindicated, as the girls picked up their drinks and coats and disappeared into the front bar.

   Gringo looked up at his pal. He was wearing his Gooner’s shirt, the latest expensive model, though Gringo wouldn’t have known that because he hated football. He had far more important things to do with his time, his Saturdays, his energy, and his cash.

   ‘So how’s it going?’ said Paul. ‘You still seeing that fat wench?’

   ‘You mean Brenda?’

   ‘That’s the one. The voluptuous Brenda.’

   ‘Now and again.’

   ‘You dirty bugger. I’m on the lookout for someone new.’

   That was not new news. In all the time that Gringo had known Paul he had only had one girlfriend. Maureen, that was her name, and they went out for all of three weeks. She was a foot and half shorter than him, slim build, good clothes, two lovely eyes, it was just a pity, Gringo thought; that they didn’t quite match. He imagined that Paul, forever peering through those glasses that always seemed to need cleaning, simply didn’t notice. Gringo would always swear that one night in that very bar, with Maureen standing between the pair of them, she was looking at both of them at the same time, eyes like a reptile, swivelling this way and that. Ah well, no one is perfect. He never discovered why the unusual couple fell out and Paul never told him. Paul glanced around again.

   ‘Have the tarts gone?’

   ‘Yes Paul, some time ago.’

   ‘Damn! We were in there.’

   Paul, the man of many nicknames, but he had his uses. He was a sales person at the local Ford dealer, and he could always get you a good deal on a new car, not that Gringo Greene was too keen on buying Fords. Besides that, Paul was good hearted and good company, and just what Gringo needed when he grew tired of the company of women, something that happened rarely, but occasionally, for if nothing else, it reminded him of how beautiful the company of a pretty girl really was.

   Afterwards they went for a bite to eat in Shaman’s Wine Bar and after that Gringo drove him home, way out into the suburbs, a 1920’s semi detached house, where Paul Shepperton lived with his mother and father and their three cats.

The following night Gringo ambled into the bar at 7.40. The pub was empty. Wednesday night, always quiet, especially early on. He wondered if she’d show. He wondered if she was playing games. A different barman asked him what he’d like. Gringo said he was waiting for someone and the barman was miffed at still not making a sale. She came in ten minutes later, and it was just as well she did, because he’d decided to leave in another minute.

   ‘Hi Gringo,’ she said. ‘Sorry if I’m a little late.’

   ‘No worries.’

   She was wearing a tight fitting beige jumper and white slacks. Ordinarily he did not like women in trousers, though he had to admit she looked pretty cute. She’d obviously changed from work, and he found himself wondering if she had been home, wherever that was, or had she rung the changes in the ladies loo at Frobisher Buildings? She stood at the bar, taking the occasional chance to glance up at his rugged face, and that turned down muzzy of his that she still wasn’t sure about.

   ‘What are we having?’ she said.

   ‘You’re buying,’ he said, ‘Remember? I’ll have a glass of lager.’

   ‘I forgot about that,’ she giggled, and she dived into her maroon leather bag for her purse.

   It was an expensive bag, he noticed that much.

   She bought the drinks and then she said: ‘Shall we sit down?’

   ‘Sure,’ and they went and sat on the same bench seat where Maria and Vicky had briefly sat the night before.

   ‘I didn’t care for your mate much. He kept staring at us.’

   ‘Paul’s all right, he’s just a bit short-sighted.’

   ‘A bit! Vicky said he looked like a long streak of misery.’

   Yes, that was one of the nicknames that Gringo had heard several times before. That and
Lurch
and
Piece of Piss
and
Wild Man of Borneo
and
The Liquorice Shoelace
and others far ruder than that.

   ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ he said.

   ‘Like what?’

   ‘Like you for example.’

   In all his years on the prowl he had never come across a woman who didn’t revel in the chance to talk about herself, no matter how much they might protest otherwise. He was on safe ground and he knew it.

   ‘What do you want to know?’

   ‘Everything.’

   ‘I can’t tell all my secrets to a man I’ve just met.’

   ‘No, maybe not, but you can make a damned good start. Married? Single? Lovers? Children? Lesbian tendencies? Age? Family? Ambitions? Star sign? Come on, let’s hear it. Start talking. Chop chop chop.’

   Maria’s mouth fell open. ‘You are terrible.’

   ‘That’s as may be, but we have to begin somewhere.’

   ‘I’m not married, if you must know, no ring look,’ and she dangled her hand before his dark eyes. ‘So therefore it follows I am single, and thanks for enquiring. I don’t have any children, nor want any for a long time yet. I live in my own apartment near the station. I have no family, other than my mother and father who live in Solihull. My star sign is Libra, I am very ambitious, if you really must know, whether I have any lovers is for me to know and you to find out, gentlemen are not supposed to ask a lady’s age, but as you’re clearly not a gentleman, I shall tell you anyway, I am twenty-six, and as for the other malarkey you mentioned, something about tendencies, I refuse to answer that on the grounds it might incriminate me. How’s that for a start?’

   Malarkey, that was a good word. Gringo liked her. She had a sense of humour and a feistiness he always found endearing. She was pretty too, and that always helped. He’d never been out with a British Asian before, a black girl yes; and a Chinese one too, but not someone from the sub continent with roots in Goa. Goan? Goanna? Goer? He must ask. It would be fun finding out.

   ‘What about you?’ she said, sipping her wine.

   ‘I’m thirty-four. Tell me about your work?’

   It worked every time. Answer one question and turn the conversation back on the girl. They simply couldn’t wait to start talking about themselves again.

   ‘Take my finals next year. Bit nervous about it, if truth be told. In the meantime we get treated like the lowest of the low. All the bog standard auditing work from the crummy, crap companies that no one else is interested in. Harris’s Garden Sheds for example, who I’m working on right now, I mean… give me a break.’

   ‘I suppose someone has to check up on the financial health of Harris’s Garden Sheds.’

   ‘Yep, true, but not me thanks.’

   ‘Does it pay well?’

   ‘Not yet. Are you paid well, Gringo?’

   ‘Not as much as I’d like.’

   ‘Everyone says that.’

   Gringo emptied his drink.

   ‘Do you fancy going for a meal?’

   ‘Sure,’ she said, draining her glass.

   ‘English, Italian, Indian, what?’

   ‘I thought we’d go Indian next time.’

   They shared a coy smile. It wasn’t lost on Gringo the intimation that there would be a
next time
. The girl had made plans, and there was nothing wrong with that. Gringo liked women who thought ahead, especially when it involved him. It boded well. It might yet fit in with his strict three strikes or you’re out rule.

   Strike one. Date one. English, Shaman’s Wine Bar, again, but who cared?

   ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘get your coat.’

Gringo always went out on a Saturday night. What was the alternative? Sit in and watch crap talent shows on the television, a pizza on your lap, and bloody football, and then news of the latest disaster unfolding somewhere on the globe. Television companies weren’t happy unless they were unearthing some catastrophe somewhere or other, and the world was a big place. If you looked hard enough and far enough afield, you could always find pictures of human misery, and that wasn’t Gringo’s idea of entertainment, or of what life was all about.

   Saturday night was dress up and smile night. Kiss and cuddle night, and maybe, just maybe, a heck of a lot more.

   He was taking her to the Bombay Kings Indian Restaurant, reputedly the best Indian eating place in the city, and he was looking forward to it. He enjoyed it, the big build up, everything about it, the preparation of the car, the collecting of sufficient cash from the gob in the wall that spat out his money, the wallowing in the bath, the careful dressing, ensuring that everything was just so, the arriving ten minutes late, the casual check on his date to ensure that she had made at least some effort to please him, the long drawn out meal in an expensive place, the conversation and banter, the teasing and an occasional double entendre, though nothing and never too crude, the paying of the bill with a flourish, the arm-in-arm amble back to the car, the kiss and cuddle on the front seat, the starting of the engine, and the big decisions to be made: Your place or mine? Would you like to come back for coffee?

   Damned right! Never say no to coffee, even if you detest the stuff.

   Yes, Gringo adored the courting ritual, and through constant practice he had become good at it, and he knew it too, and most times the intelligent women he dated, the ones he infinitely preferred, realised it too.

   Strike two. Date two. Indian Meal night.

   As he drove toward her apartment he thought back to Wednesday night. Everything had gone pretty much according to plan. They had ended up back at her new apartment just along the tracks from the railway station. She’d invited him in and he’d said yes.

   She insisted that she never heard the trains, that she soon became used to them, but when he eased back the floor to ceiling lace curtains and looked out from the third floor window, gazing through the darkness at the arc lights that lit the station approach, he saw there were four parallel sets of tracks, and constant movement of passenger and goods trains alike, all too often making that hideous
Bee Po
noise as they departed the station.

   No, he would never get used to that, never.

   Maria Almeida had rules too, strict ones that she never deviated from, though he had no idea about that, and frankly wouldn’t have cared less. All rules are made to be broken, at least once, that was Gringo’s mantra.

   He’d eked a kiss from her, strictly no tongues, no parting of the teeth, jammed together like a medieval chastity belt, and even that had been hard work. She had made it plain there would be nothing more on offer. There never was on date one in Maria’s rulebook. That wasn’t a problem. He liked something of a challenge. Sure, he would have jumped into bed with her without a second’s thought if the opportunity had arisen, but it hadn’t, and that just made him all the more determined.

   She had dry lips. He noticed that.

   Not cracked and damaged lips, but dry, ultra responsive lips. Strange, full lips. Warm and arid, like fresh and fragrant towels from the linen cupboard, brushing against his. He liked them. Her dry lips. There was latent electricity hidden there. She was different to anything he’d embraced before, and since last Wednesday he had thought often of those lips. Tonight he was determined to explore the territory further.

   As he drove into the flats’ car park she must have been watching from the unlit window above, for before he could get out of the vehicle, she appeared through the double doors of Telford Buildings, and came skipping towards the car. He saw her coming, smiling as she came, her white teeth like night-lights in the gloaming. He reached over and opened the door, and in the next second she was sitting beside him, clearly happy to be there, and that was always a good sign.

   ‘Hiya,’ she said. ‘All right, Gringo?’

   ‘I’m great. You?’

   ‘I am now.’

   She fastened the seat belt as a huge express was pulling out of the station not twenty yards away. She didn’t notice, or pretended not to. He started the engine and pointed the car toward the city and gunned the beast.

   ‘What sort of day have you had?’ she asked.

   Typical small talk that dates always seem to begin with.

   ‘Busy, you know, always busy.’

   ‘Yeah, me too.’

   She was wearing a one-piece white cotton jumpsuit that zipped from the belly button to the neck, finished off with a casually knotted red neckerchief. She’d left the suit slightly unzipped to reveal a dash of cleavage that she figured would keep him interested. It seemed a skimpy thing for the time of year, and he wondered if she might catch cold. Either way, he thought it hideous, about as stylish as a camel with diarrhoea at the Cannes Film Festival, all the more reason to remove it, and the sooner the better. If he had his way he’d burn the bloody thing. This girl needed some serious lessons in dressing and style. He would have to take her shopping. He would have to take her in hand, and she would have to buck up her ideas in that direction too, or she wouldn’t see out the month. Gringo could not tolerate dreadful clothes.