Nirvana Bites (15 page)

That was Mayday, that was.

We came home via the Curry in a Hurry takeaway and walked up Kirkwood Road munching on vegetable samosas and onion bhajis. The only other things on my agenda for the day were a bath and bed. I hoped Stan would already have crashed. When we stopped outside Ali's house to say goodnight, I glanced up at my window to see if the lights were on. They weren't. But the news was not good. The window on the right-hand side was blind. Instead of streetlights reflecting off glass, a sheet of hardboard reflected only more rips in the fabric of my life.

‘Oh shit,' I breathed.

Ali followed my gaze. He put his arm round my shoulders and together we walked up my path.

As soon as my key turned in the lock, Mags was at the door, her bulk blocking out the light.

‘It's OK,' she said. ‘It's nothing to worry about.'

That worried me straight off. ‘Unless you're going to tell me it was smashed by a kamikaze pigeon with a baseball bat in front of several reliable witnesses, I don't honestly know how you can say that,' I replied, resorting to sarcasm to cover my trembling.

We leaned against the wall in the hallway as Mags explained what had happened. At about six o'clock she had popped to the corner shop for Rizlas and air. It was clear that spending a whole day with our stapled friend had proved a huge drain on her supplies of ganja, oxygen and patience. When she got back ten minutes later, the window was broken, the lights were off and Stan was in the bedroom cupboard.

‘It was just a brick, Jen. Probably just kids. It's happened before.'

I looked dubious.

‘It's a coincidence, Jen,' Mags insisted.

I looked at Ali, who gave a tiny shrug. I didn't believe it for one moment. Neither, it seemed, did Stan, who had only agreed to come out of the cupboard when he realised that an angry Mags was far more terrifying than any shadowy figures who might be lurking in the street. After a raid on his toilet bag, he'd crashed on her settee and was still there, snorting and dribbling. Mags had swept up the glass, tacked on the hardboard and tolerated the intrusion. I dreaded to think how long I'd be paying her back for this. And all so I could spend an entire day achieving fuck-all in the struggle against globalisation.

I slept in my own bed that night, but in my sleeping bag. I still couldn't face the prospect of Stan's scuzzy sheets. I wondered if I could claim new bedlinen as a legitimate expense. I didn't fancy the idea of staring at the front room window's blank eye all night. Or the way the light in the room would be subtly changed. I'd phone a glazier first thing next morning.

Amazing thing, money. Before, if a window had needed replacing in one of the flats, it would have taken weeks, or even months. There would have been meetings to discuss budgets, assess priorities, allocate tasks, draw up schedules… Then more meetings to reprove members who had not completed their allotted tasks, thereby preventing work progressing further and necessitating revised schedules. Now all I had to do was open the Yellow Pages and phone AA Glaziers. I didn't even need to ring round to compare quotes.

I had no idea if Stan was keeping count of how much dosh he was shelling out. I certainly wasn't. At first I thought it strange that a man like Stanley Highshore would be dealing with so much cash, but then I realised that a man like Stapled Stan had no choice. There'd be no point going to all that trouble to keep his identity secret and then buying a load of bondage gear and charging it to his platinum card. The bottom line was, I doubted if any one of us, with the exception of Mags, could have laid their hands on so much as a quid that hadn't previously nestled in Stan's designer pockets. The government may have been agonising over whether to join the Euro, but Nirvana had embraced the Stan-o with open arms, a welcoming heart and a bottomless pocket. And we hadn't held a single meeting to discuss it.

Now that I thought about it, that might be something that required further examination. Some other time.

16

I DID THE
glazier thing in the morning, with a small surge of joy and a slightly larger twinge of guilt. It felt strange paying someone to do something we'd always taken pride in doing ourselves. Strange, but not entirely without satisfaction. Such is the seductive power of money.

It was Ali's turn to Stan-sit. Mags told us before she headed off to work that he was still spark-out. And unless yesterday's anxiety attacks had diminished, he would be unlikely to dare set a foot outside the front door. Even so, I left Ali ensconced in my flat and locked the front door on my way out, just in case it occurred to Stan to do a runner and leave us with his shit. And without the compensation of his financial input.

I was off to see Della. There was still no reply from her phone, but she only lived in Stockwell, so I thought I'd chance a visit. I was going to get a minicab – east to west of the city being harder to negotiate than Berlin before the Wall came down – but I rejected the idea and took my bike instead. I felt chastened by the lungfuls of pollution I would be forced to inhale. Environmentally sound and physiologically shite.

Della's address turned out to be a ground-floor conversion flat in one of those enormous houses on Clapham Road. I remember her once boasting that Joanna Lumley was a neighbour. I chained my bike to the railings and rang her bell. (Della's, not Joanna's.)

A couple of minutes passed. I was about to try again when the front door opened and a small woman with Princess Leia hair bounced out. I put my hand out to stop the door closing and watched her trot down the concrete steps and off up the road without a backwards glance.

I stepped inside a parquet-floored lobby. Della's door was to my left. There was another directly opposite. Facing me, a carpeted staircase rose to the flats upstairs. I knocked on Della's door. No response. The air smelled of pine air freshener. I was just jotting down a note when the door opposite opened and a man carrying a bag of rubbish stepped into the lobby.

He was small, plump and balding. He jumped when he saw me and was about to leap back into his flat, but I put my palm flat against his door before he could shut it.

‘Excuse me,' I said, ‘I'm looking for Della? From Flat I?'

He swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple jiggling in the V of his white aertex shirt.

‘Um…are you a friend?' he asked, his eyes darting round the lobby, anywhere but at me.

‘Yes,' I replied. ‘A good friend.'

‘Oh.' He looked downcast. ‘W-when did you last see her?' He didn't really want to know. I could tell. But he didn't want to say anything else either. He was avoiding something.

‘It's been a while, I suppose. Why? Has something happened?'

He shuffled his feet. His eyes watched them do their thing.

‘I'm sorry,' he whispered. ‘I'm afraid Della's…she's in hospital.'

My heart did one of those horrible skip-a-beat things.

‘What happened?' I croaked.

The guy looked miserable. ‘I don't really know. The police came. A couple of weeks ago. They asked me questions. You know, like when had I last seen her and did I know any of her friends and stuff. I couldn't really help much. I – erm – keep myself to myself, you know?' He looked over his shoulder, as if he wanted to run back inside and bolt the door against all the unpleasant messiness of life. I knew how he felt, but I couldn't let him go just yet.

‘They told you she was in hospital? They must have given you some idea of what happened,' I persisted.

‘They said…' He stuttered and stopped. ‘They said…they said she'd been beaten up.'

The words came out in a rush, far louder than he'd intended. He seemed almost as freaked to hear them as I was.

My stomach did an aerobic duet with my heart, sending a little jet of bile shooting up my gullet. I swallowed hard and reached for the wall for support.

‘Are you OK?' He looked concerned. ‘I'm sorry. It must be a terrible shock.'

I pulled myself upright with an effort.

‘No. I mean, yeah. I'm fine. Do you know which hospital she's in?'

‘St Thomas's,' he said. ‘I – I wanted to send a card. But I didn't know what to say.' He looked like he was going to cry.

I turned to go.

‘It's dreadful, isn't it?' I wished he'd just shut up now. Having given utterance to those stomach-churning words, it was as though he'd let the cork out of the bottle. I didn't need to hear it. But there was no stopping him now. ‘You're simply not safe on the streets any more. I hardly go out these days. Mind you, I suppose someone like Della makes such an obvious target.'

Did I imagine those inverted commas round Della's name? I paused in the doorway.

‘What do you mean, “someone like Della”?' I breathed without turning round.

‘Well, you know. There are some sad and sick people in the world…'

I spun round, my fists balled at my sides. I must have looked as savage as I felt, because the guy took a step back, his hands held out in front of him, palms out.

‘No! No! No!' he blurted. ‘There are some sad and sick people in this world who can't
handle
someone like Della.'

I glared at him for a moment, then slowly relaxed. My fingers unpeeled, leaving deep pits in my palms. We both took a deep breath.

He looked me straight in the eyes for the first time. ‘I'm gay,' he said with a tiny shrug.

I suddenly felt tired. More tired than I could ever remember feeling.

‘I'm sorry,' I whispered. ‘It's just…it's OK. Thanks for your help.' I turned to go again.

‘Look,' he said. ‘You look really pale. Do you want to come in and have some camomile tea?'

I gave a wry smile and shook my head. This guy was sounding more and more like a Nirvana tenant every minute. Camomile tea and sympathy. I could get that at home.

My legs were too shaky to cycle. I pushed the bike for a mile or so before I got bored and cautiously wobbled my way home through the back streets of Brixton and Camberwell.

I wasn't going to tell anyone about Della. Least of all Stan. Mags might have tried to persuade me that this too was a coincidence, and I didn't think I could handle that. I reckon Ali might have suspected I had something major on my mind.

As I came up my stairs, I heard the bathwater running and prayed it was for Stan. That prayer at least was answered when I went into my front room and found Ali sprawled on my cushions, reading back issues of
Skin Two
. For a moment I lurched, thinking he'd been through my stuff. But then I realised they were more likely to be Stan's. Ali was shaking his head in disbelief. I looked down at the page he was reading and recognised the article. It was about a woman who was turned on by having an open switchblade inserted inside her. There was a large-print warning that some readers might find the content shocking. Such warnings are rare in a publication like
Skin Two
.

Ali looked at me, his dark eyes huge in his pretty-boy face. Ali might have an anarchist symbol tattooed on his forehead, but a little piece of him will always be the shy, well-behaved child of strictly Muslim parents. He was shocked. He should have heeded the warning.

The effect on me was altogether different. All the combined emotions of the past few days – the fear, the shock, the pain, the loss – gathered together into a knotted fist in my pelvis, then crashed downwards and exploded between my legs. I pushed Ali back on to the cushions, leapt on top of him and began ripping his clothes off.

I don't know if he enjoyed it. If I'm absolutely honest, at that point I didn't care. I know he came, but I have to confess it wouldn't have mattered to me one way or the other. It was my hunger that needed appeasing. My turmoil that needed expressing.

When it was over, I rolled off him. He lay back, breathing heavily through his mouth, staring at the ceiling. I felt a little guilty, but not too much. We heard the water gurgling out of the bath, followed by footsteps padding down the hall. Ali reached out a limp hand and pulled the nearest thing over his crotch. As it happened, it was the copy of
Skin Two
, but I don't suppose he noticed.

The door opened and Stan wafted in on a cloud of expensive aftershave. He was wrapped in an outrageously fluffy white towelling robe. He stopped dead when he saw us. I rose to my feet, stark naked, and smiled sweetly.

‘Hi, Stan,' I sang as I sashayed past him and down the hall into the steamy bathroom.

The great thing about an Ascot water heater is that you have limitless hot water. As much as you want, when you want and only when you want. How can time switches, boilers, immersion heaters and the like be an improvement on that? I ran a deep bath. Stan had left his aromatherapy oils on the tiny shelf. I chucked in a cocktail of lavender, geranium, clary sage, tea tree and patchouli. You're probably not supposed to mix them, but what the hell? If I was going to die in the next few days, it wasn't going to be from an overdose of aromatherapy.

As it goes, the effect was not calming. No sooner had I lain back in the scented soup than I shot upright again. Shit! We'd only forgotten to use a fucking condom. Though to be fair, I hadn't given Ali much of a chance to start rummaging in pockets. Shit! Shit! Shit! I flopped back in the water again and banged my head on the edge of the bath, adding a nasty headache to my list of woes. I did some quick mental arithmetic. Shit again! Day fourteen. The day most likely to… I douched myself out as best as I could. Then I stood up in the bath and jumped up and down. What the fuck was I doing? I might as well have gone the whole hog and drunk a bottle of gin and thrown myself down the stairs.

As luck would have it, Ali walked into the bathroom just as I was mid-jump. He looked at me a little strangely – as though he was trying to assimilate new information and make sense of it.

‘Um – all right if I go now?' he said.