Call Me (14 page)

Yours,

D

PS You're probably wondering how I got your address. I've got a friend who works for British Telecom and he gave it me. Hope you don't mind.

I remembered the shiny black of his eyes. Dogs get that look when they want to screw or when they see something they're desperate to consume. An extremely rapid succession of unwanted communications had begun.

*   *   *

Hamish tip-toed up to the top of my head and, once in a while, banged his beak against a headphone ear-piece, curious about the sound leaking out.

I didn't like the
AUTO HARMONY
, a feature which automatically added cloying harmony notes to a melody played. I never selected any of the five different types of harmony.

*   *   *

The Creative American Female replied on darkest purple paper in silver ink. Maybe that's the way they do things in Pittsburgh.

PO BOX —–

Pittsburgh

USA

Dear Uri,

Thanks for your letter!

London is my destination, although a few months away, 4-6 in fact. Unfortunately I've had to delay a trip there until my financial future warrants moving to a foreign country.

Being that you photograph and write about your culture, I'm sure you can be of assistance to me. I want to video your city in my free time. I'd like to know where the best shots may be taken from an artistic point of view. Could you assist me there do you think?

I've decided to go to London because I feel it offers a culture where social concern is still abundant unlike Pittsburgh where everyone appears apathetic.

If you'd care to comment on your social culture be it zestful or dull—please do. I'll give you my view of the city where I live as a waitress at the moment. Write soon if possible as my curiosity is unruly.

Take care!

Kathy

Verdict: I considered an aerogram on UK decay but didn't write back, then lived in fear of a knock at the door from a waitress wielding a video camera, suffering a financial crisis and seeking assistance.

Now, Janis was a girl. She gave me all the inside stories of life in the record department of a South London branch of Woolworths. One particular perk is discount on the discounts. She adores clearance sales. She replied with speed, blunt pencil on pink.

–, ––– Close,

Abbey Wood

Dear Patrick,

Thanks for the line + the offer to phone you after I advertised in Time Out. Can't phone you yet, my phone won't be on until next month. Will this letter do? Hope so.

Well, this should reach you by Wednesday with luck so how about calling round my flat Friday eve? About 7, after I've finished my hard days work. I'll play you some of my favourite records.

See you Friday then.

Don't let this sensitive woman down!!

Janis.

Verdict: Crazy. But the tv pages didn't fill me with excitement, so I decided to turn up on her doorstep as suggested.

*   *   *

I wore the same silver-grey suit I'd worn for the baldy not so far back, same shirt. I still cycled. Having worn cycle shorts and teeshirts for weeks, a suit felt awkward and heavy.

There wasn't a spyhole in the front door, a council flat irregularity. No darkening of the small dot of glass to give a once-over. Instead, the letter-box opened like a cat-flap.

“Hello,” the voice whispered. “Who is it?”

Any melody in her voice had been scraped away with nicotine. She sounded like a cartoon mad woman. The fake name had slipped from my mind, I nearly said Bike Boy.

“It's me,” I whispered.

I bent to eye level, gave her a winning three-stage smile.

“Didn't think you'd come,” she said more to herself as she eyed me carefully.

“Hello.”

Once vetted, okayed, I was in.

She was older than the advertised age of twenty nine. She'd lopped off a lot of unhappy years. She had the look of an obstinate middle-aged man got up in bad drag. A dim, fly-specked lightbulb treated my senses to brown Paisley wallpaper and canary yellow glossed doors.

“Didn't think you'd come. Place is a mess. I'd've tidied up a bit.” She gave up-from-the-cauldron laughter, as if she realised that a bit would not have been enough.

I sat on a filthy three-seater sofa. Plastic. To my left a pile of Casualty Department women's magazines. To my right a pile of intimately stained knickers and beige bras. Three record players dominated the room: a polished new one with a CD; a tired-out Sony of mediocre-to-poor quality and an old Dansette, a possible collector's item ruined with the same canary yellow gloss. She made a cup of tea in a corner while I endured Iron Maiden at considerable volume from the mediocre player.

Her long bleached hair, worn in an untidy bun, would have suited her better down. Despite the squalor she seemed quite a happy sad soul. She spent a lot of loose change on discount jewellery.

“I love photography. It's my number one hobby. Look at these.”

She'd started. I witnessed the last three years' unhappy collaboration between her, an old Zenith and Woolies' photographic department. Prints galore of East End scenes, architectural decay being her big delight. She's in the right country for that. Many of the photos had sticky smudges on them like they'd been passed round at a kiddies' party.

“You
are
gay, I hope. You don't look very gay. Not, you know…”

“Queeny.”

“Yes.”

“I do my best.”

“You've got a nice face, Patrick. I'll take your picture.”

Pulling all three sets of roller blinds down, she eyed me with cruel speculation:
Can I get him to put some make-up on?
Rhythms the universe is not used to hearing began to pound in that room which had the not unfamiliar stink of my mother's handbag in the early seventies. She wanted a picture to show her mates at work.

This photograph was taken half an hour later after I'd talked ASA speeds and how to adjust the camera for different film types and conditions. Tips on focusing in low light, the use of
f
stops. She nodded and said, “I see…” when she didn't really, then asked me to smile. I gave the desired pose and expression: cute, with a heavy hint of faggot. The camera waited at the foot of her chair,
ON
flashing.

We looked at the response to her ad. A chap named Chris, aka Christine, had written seeking tips on hair and make-up. Poor Christine, in need of a good hot meal, fresh air and at least eight hours a night, alone, in clean white sheets for a month. State.

“This one's in Venice. Look! Very butch. Don't like the look of him. And this one, well, just plain boring.”

Someone, had to be male, started having a very audible piss. I was just that little bit alarmed, the way you get when a restaurant bill is so much more than you'd estimated. My hostess turned to me:

“My brother. It's okay. He keeps himself to himself. He only comes in here to listen to music. That's his machine there, the new one. He keeps his headphones in his room, in a box, the box they come in. Hardly ever goes out 'cept to sign on. If he wants something he gets it out of the Argos. Spends his time drawing cartoons on his computer, mostly. Twenty eight. But he's good company and makes a wicked omelette when he's in the mood. Can we do another picture? Your fringe has flopped down a bit and looks pretty.”

Flash. Shot against the wall.

“Shall I take one of you, Janis?”

“But I've got no make-up on!” She rolled her eyes like a ventriloquist's dummy at the very idea. I was intrigued with the bloodshot whites of her eyes, yellowed like a sheep's.

She put on her little bit of fake, lots of it. Street-market bargains at prices difficult to resist. Colours improbable on a woman outside of Turkey. Lipstick the colour Jessie next door paints her front step. How she ever expected the baked-bean foundation to lay happily on so much Nivea I do not know. On went a brazen shawl, fairground prize earrings and a pair of tarty slingbacks. While she had her back turned I pocketed a Gary Glitter CD and a pair of dirty pink knickers, then breathed heavily on the camera lens.

Focusing on her exceptionally thin lips I saw her look change from shifty to ever so slightly sensuous, then quickly back again.

“I feel safe with my brother here. He won't let me open the door unless he's here.”

I had the feeling the brother was listening behind the frosted glass door. The lights had gone off in the hall so I couldn't judge the shadows, but she probably knew his ways. To the total stranger, the man with CD and stinky pink knickers in his pocket, knife inside his pannier, she said:

“You can't be too careful nowadays, you know.”

I sipped the fortifying Diet Coke only after she'd had half a glass first. She also served cracked biscuits and stale jam tarts. All around the room there was food, junk food. A sachet of blancmange powder lay beside the knickers. Dolly mixtures dribbled out of a bag on to the window-sill. Pink wafers on the tv looked dry and dusty.

“Be a love and put a record on.”

Three shelves spilled blasts from the past: Culture Club, Cockney Rebel, Patsy Cline, Status Quo, Abba, Christmas novelties and a signed Cilia Black. The majority were marked
SALE, REDUCED
or
CLEARANCE.

“The council came seven years ago to mend the kitchen sink and my copy of
Paper Roses
by Marie Osmond went missing. I'd played it that very morning. I only noticed a month later. Had to be them. No one else had been in. I felt very sad. I bought that record my first week at Woolworths. I didn't tell my brother, he would've killed 'em.”

I may have been blushing or blanching fast so I looked above the dirty fireplace which sported examples of coiled pottery, brassy doo-dahs, plain brown envelopes behind a clock and a row of half eaten chocolate bars. In large print were two messages:

New wallpaper needed

Nothing will make me forget you.

“Forget who?” I asked. It was a simple question which instantly unlocked stored-away tales.

“I worked in a dry cleaners. We were always getting part-timers from the agency down when there was a rush on. This Romford boy, Si, was so sweet. We got on really well. Gay. Got on brilliant. The rest ribbed him. It really left a gap in my life when the holidays were up and he went back to university to study French. I feel an affinity with gays.”

She paused, looking around my eyes, not deep into them. This made a change.

“Do…”

“Yes?”

“Do you wear make-up? You've got a pretty face. Do you?”

“No.”

“You should. You'd look lovely with a bit on. Do you dress up?”

“Only in black skin-tight cycle shorts.”

“What?”

“Just kidding.”

“Oh.”

“I did a few times when I was nine or ten.”

“I was just wondering.” (Persuasively.) “It'd suit you.”

I think she was coaxing me to try on her little bits of glam. I sat with my legs a little wider apart, and breathed in with a loud sniff.

“One of the guys who replied wrote that he had fresh breath. Now, what kind of thing is that for a gay guy to come out with to a
sensitive woman?
Could you … would you do me a favour?” She leaned forward, whispered for emphasis: “Would you take me to a gay club, please? Heaven. I want to go to Heaven. I hear it's the largest gay disco in Europe. Oh, please. I've got a few days off next week. We could meet outside. I know where it is. I went there once but chickened out in the queue. I'd have to leave by one or I'd be dead for a week. What do you say?”

“Blimey. Okay. Saturday's best. Busiest. Meet you outside at eleven, this Saturday?”

“Lovely. You're a pal. Eleven, this Saturday.”

The arrangement was duly entered into her little Snoopy diary, the first entry for weeks.

“I get lazy about things. When I get my phone I can call the guys who answer my ads. No privacy out there, though. I prefer to write and get 'em round. I need a spyhole. Brother doesn't want to know. He's got a drill, but he just keeps it in his room, in the box it come in. Put another record on.”

Deciding to play something truly hideous, I was faced with over-choice. I settled on a Bon Jovi single. When I turned she was taking a bite out of a Snickers from the fireplace. She had a strange stomach, making her look four months pregnant. Some sort of bowel inflammation, perhaps. As the record started, she got this far off look in her eyes and pounded the arm-rest of her chair: “Ooh! I love this. Saw 'em at Hammersmith Odeon with a gay rocker I know. Great!”

It was time to go.

“I'm glad you're leaving early, actually. I like to be in bed by ten.”

I kissed her lightly on the cheek and coughed very loudly before opening the door, giving the brother ample warning.

“Bye ducks,” she said, waving ta-ta.

Mad cow. Around the corner I took off the suit, folding it neatly into a carrier bag before packing it into the pannier. It would have to be cleaned. The shirt came off, too—destined for a boil-wash. Sitting on the kerb, swapping brogues for the Sidi Dominators, I saw a face up at a window. It didn't take much to work out that it was her brother. If a policeman asked me to describe the face I'd have to say I couldn't. It was too dark, officer.

My nipples hardened in the breeze. Towards Plumstead Common my legs decided to ease up on catching sight of a jogger. The occasional intensity of headlights made the easy, regular motions of the limbs more filmic. I was instantly hard. He couldn't hear the gentle click of chain, pedals or gears. I cycled alongside awhile, letting him give my recently shaved body the once over before making eye contact.

“Nice night for it,” he said.

I smiled at this, the oldest of lines. Speeding ahead I didn't look back. When I came to an area where the bushes thickened, just beyond his line of vision, I turned off my lights. Resting the bike down into long grass, my breathing began to quicken. Stroking my penis lightly through the pink knickers, waiting for him, I felt terribly excited.