Half Plus Seven (13 page)

‘Quite, quite incredible,' said Pete. ‘I'll have to make sure I've got my wits about me the next time I'm in the tub, just in case.'

‘Put your rubber duckie on red alert,' she said. Her warmth belied the severity of her hair do. They were hitting it off. She continued the history lesson. ‘They say that when they saw the first sign of smoke, they were more curious than anything. '

‘What is it they say?' Pete replied.

Bob-cut started, ‘There's no smoke…'

‘Without fire,' Pete finished. They guffawed in unison.

‘Speaking of which, I'm going to go outside for a cigarette,' the scary one said. The booze had calmed her, but frantic laughter had turned to boredom.

‘That,' I said, ‘sounds like a very good idea.'

‘Do you feel like we've gatecrashed the nerdiest first date in history?' She cackled smoke out of her mouth and nose like Pompeii plumes.

‘She may seem boring, but she will fuck literally everything that moves. A variation on this happens every time we come to these things.'

‘He's quite the opposite,' I said, ‘but a good ride would do him the world of good.' An image entered my mind: Pete, slick-haired, wearing a smoking jacket, sat around the boardroom table drinking scotch, slapping his thigh, laughing heartily.

‘Well, let's just say, he'll have his own eruption later.'

Christ.

‘And what about you?' she said.

‘What about me?'

‘Do you fuck everything that moves?'

‘That's a very personal question.'

‘Yes it is.'

‘Well, I'm not sure I should answer that.'

‘Do you want to fuck me?' she said.

Christ.

Before I'd finished my smoke, she'd flagged down a cab and her chipped fingernails were tearing at my pubic hair.

Pete would have to make his own way home.

I awoke with the familiar of unfamiliar surroundings. It was some clattering outside the door that did it. It sounded like the usual morning sounds: wardrobe doors opening and slamming, showers gushing, the low hum of a radio host. I was alone in an unmade bed. The room was blank and bare. So was I. I was wearing one sock. It said ‘Wednesday'. It was Thursday. This great escape couldn't involve months of planning and dirt-dispelling through holey pockets. I had to get the fuck out of dodge, and now. I looked down to my left to find last night's clothes in a pile. My boxer shorts were draped on the radiator. This was not a good sign. I dressed like a fumbling first-time necessity stripper in reverse. No sock in sight. This could help the next operation, which was all about stealth. I was hardly feeling my most cat-like. I turned the handle before pulling the door towards me to silence the opening. What would Pandora's door reveal? The radio got louder. The shower stopped. A corridor ran ahead of me with stairs leading off it. There was light at the end of the tunnel. I moved quietly, touching the near wall, quietly hovering over the carpet and down the stairs towards the chink.

Flashback: neat house, neater spirits. Her: aggressive, domineering, wanting to slap and be slapped. Call me… what was her name? At least once you'd think I'd be able to remember her fucking name.

There was a bureau by the front door: take-away menus, charity collection bags, free newspapers, mail. I picked up a circular. Diana Davies, that was her name. Diana Davies. I slipped out of the door to safety.

An overwhelming thought smacked me in the jaw. The name on the letter wasn't Christy.

Chapter 13

Young Boy Scouts in more enlightened parts of the world have the pleasure of rubbing sticks together and holding maps upside down while looking lost, not just with other spotty spec-wearing runny nosed boys, but with girls. Wandering in the woods together. Losing innocence under the star-smudged sky. No such luck for me. I was stuck with Geoff, an ageing outdoors type who liked to ramble and hit young boys with sticks, often from distance. His wife chose to go by the name of ‘Badger', perhaps in allusion to her greying perm. Which I can't help thinking now seems a little cruel. Bereft of the distraction of bare-legged girls in green, I started to carve out a burgeoning career for myself in the city's 81st troupe. I won orienteering competitions in record time. I erected tents efficiently and securely. My divining rod often found a source of water. At the tender age of twelve, I reached the lofty heights of Seconder. The Sixer was getting on a bit. His balls had dropped and it wouldn't be long until his Wednesday nights wouldn't be spent in the scout hut but in the park with a bottle of White Lightning and ten Regal Superkings. This was a young man's game. My eye was on the prize.

So, it seemed, were Russell Stevens'. One evening after winning a game of table tennis and reciting a passage from
The Jungle Book
I'd committed to memory, Geoff called me over to one side. He told me this was to be my last night as a scout. Allegations had been made regarding the spiking of Badger's drink. A cup of lemon squash laced with shampoo. I was out on my ear. No ifs. No buts. No chance of appeal. I knew what had happened. The little cunt had grassed me up for a crime I didn't commit. And now I was on the scoutheap.

Stevens had a clear run to the top. In the lunch queue, I'd overhear tales of him picking up crab football trophies. Of him winning capital cities of the world quizzes. Of him making Badger laugh. I sat patiently. I bided my time. I twiddled my thumbs with vengeful intent.

But there was no need to put my masterplan into action. Six weeks later the stupid fuck set fire to the scout hut. The victim of a roaring campfire and a strong wind. With just one gale, exuberant ‘Kum-Ba-Yah-ing' and marshmallow-toasting turned to cries of woe and scorched canvas. Now we were both on the outside looking in.

I hadn't seen him for fifteen years until today. He was sat opposite me in the waiting room of the genito-urinary health clinic; in laymen's terms, the knob doctors. When faced with a ghost of Christmas past on the streets, I had my technique down pat:

Step 1:
Spot ex-classmate/housemate/girlfriend's friend from distance. My excellent eyesight, even under the duress of alcohol, made this a thirty-pace affair.

Step 2:
Drop gaze to the floor. Adopt confident stride.

Step 3:
Reach in inside pocket for Flakberry. Hold to ear.

Step 4:
Appear animated, pepper one-way conversation with phrases like ‘two-way dialogue', ‘synergy' and ‘multi-platform approach'.

Step 5:
Return gaze to 90 degrees ahead, approximately ten paces before impact.

Step 6:
Make a ‘Oh my God, it's YOU! How the hell are you? Would love to stop and chat but can't' face. Point to phone. Make the universal hand gesture for telephone with hand not currently holding a telephone.

It was difficult, nigh on impossible, to adopt the same strategy when sat immediately opposite your subject in a clinical room with the stench of venereal disease hanging in the air. I clocked Stevens and he had clocked me. After the usual cursory glance common in public situations, I'd caught him looking my way again, just to make sure. I shot him a confirmatory look with some self-satisfaction. I was wearing a high-quality three-piece hand-made Italian suit. He was wearing tracksuit bottoms underneath a gut that hung so low it was a wonder he could see his dick to stick it in anything in the first place. My smugness lasted for just a second: we were in the STI clinic. Cock rot was a great leveller.

On the bus across town, Dr Carter's referral note had hidden like a filthy secret in my inside pocket, brushing up against commuters on their way to their day jobs and their desks. I was off to show my dick to a white coat. Again. At least now I was in the right place. Yes, the problem would be sorted, the weight would be lifted. Less need to bag the boy up when on manoeuvres then. More skin on skin, less skin on bin bag.

My eyes, doing all they could to avoid Stevens, scanned the space around me. It had the look, if not the feel, of a low budget airline departure lounge. The frequent flyers dotted liberally on the rows of frayed seats wore the air of an unforced error: leaving the bar and coming in here too soon. Or leaving the bar and coming into something quite different too soon. The administration in our municipality clubbed men and women together in the same waiting area, leaving most of the blokes with faces as red as their privates.

Stage-left a brunette entered our Heartbreak Hotel of sexual liaisons gone gammy. Ripped denim clung to her long legs. She wore a cropped t-shirt splashed with the name of a band I've never heard of: The Nobodies. Cute. Her walk was pure unadulterated dirty sex. She picked up a magazine from the table and sauntered to a seat. She was close enough for me to catch her eye. ‘EXCLUSIVE: Coma Baby Saved,' read a headline splashed on the front page. Like all of the best – and all of the worst – women, she looked like she didn't have a care in the world. Not one. I couldn't catch her eye but I could undress her with mine. Peeling off the rock tee, ripping off the ripped jeans, down to the good stuff, the tight pink triangle of panty which hid… a FUCKING STI. Jesus, man, did I have no shame? If bad breath was a turn-off, what the fuck was crabs?

I needed to get the fuck in to see that doctor and the fuck out of here.

My earphones played loud on the way back to the office. Anything to take my mind off the doctor's hand, the cue tip and delicate end of my… anyway, enough of that. ‘Oh, Mama, can this really be the end?' I hope not, I still had six smokes left in my back pocket. I decided to make it five en route to Morgan & Schwarz from the bus stop. The nicotine would be needed for an afternoon of conference calls and social strategies. I stopped my steps short of the front entrance and hung to the side of the building to draw a drag and mentally prepare myself for the working world.

One of my boozing buddies was slumped next to a bin in the alleyway I used as my drinking dressing room. Less gold star on the door, more stench of star anise from the adjoining Chinese joints. It was difficult to make out exactly which of them; a dozing down-and-out looked like a dozing down-and-out. Probably dreaming of the finer things in life: freedom, camaraderie, a cold drink.
La dolce vita
.

The horn of a passing car honked him awake. The resigned realisation that he had once again used a trash can for a pillow was visible even from where I stood. Like a short-sighted granddad grabbing for his glasses at first light, he rubbed his eyes and reached for a flagon of what I could only assume was booze. He didn't look like a Mountain Dew kind of guy. He shook the broken bones and plastic sheeting off and disappeared around the side of the industrial bin. Ten seconds or so later a trickle of piss swam across the debris like a concrete jungle waterfall. In its own little way, it was beautiful.

What happened next wasn't. He re-emerged, rubbed his hands on his street-soiled trousers, and pushed open the bin. Feeding time at the zoo. I needed a drink as much as any of these poor fuckers. But I did it with a tailor-made suit in my Berghaus rucksack, from a bottle hidden in the bottom drawer of my well-paid desk job. Even the mouthwash I swallowed was the leading brand. I was a lipstick lush. I hung my head in shame. My eyes caught my 200 note brogues, not helping the scene.

Sated for now, he clocked me from across the road. A piece of Char Sui pork clung to his face. A sad, ravaged face. It was that one. Him. His crucified eyes clung to me. In my current get-up I felt like a Jew at Calgary. His downfall was my doing and the doing of those like me. But surely he didn't recognise me? I was Clark Kent. Back up to
The Daily Planet
for a quick change before saving the day.

My foe today wasn't the Green Goblin or Lex Luther. It was Christy. Our buddy session had started off on the wrong foot.

‘Where the fuck do you get off asking me questions like that?'

‘I'm sorry, I…' One of the strip lights above us flickered. It gave the scene the ambience of watching the shine of late night TV when drunk, which, I'll level with you, was where I'd much rather be right now.

‘What business of yours is it who I'm sleeping with or not sleeping with?!'

As you're just about figuring out, I'd made a grave error of judgment. The error wasn't in the thinking but the saying. The blurting out. Once, after a particularly trying three hour car journey with Miles when all I'd wanted to do was snort drugs and cane smokes, I'd asked a South African client I'd just been introduced to if she'd been over here long enough ‘not to be racist anymore'. Only a major smarm offensive from Mr Big Dick had saved the account, and with it, probably my job. In fairness to me, this morning I had endured a cotton bud down my Jap's eye and a stare-down from a suspicious tramp. It had just slipped out.

‘I really meant nothing by it, Chris…'

‘Don't call me “Chris”.'

‘Christy… I meant nothing by it. It's just, I know what he's like and I know he was trying to make inroads…'

‘Inroads? I'm not a fucking service station.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You're a dick, Bill.'