Southern Seas

‘Let’s go.’

‘I ain’t got the strength to move.’

‘I can think of something that’ll move you.’

Loli gathered her fat cheeks into a smile and gave a little snort, tossing her fringe à la Olivia Newton-John.

‘You’re feeling horny.’

‘Today’s the day, baby.’

Darkie stood up on his bandy legs. The galactic dome of the building formed a fluorescent arch above his head. He hitched up his trousers and his crazy legs carried him towards the bar. The bar staff seemed miraculously capable of working in near total darkness. Piles of flesh heaped at the bar resolved into a tangle of arms and tongues belonging to a myriad of courting couples. Darkie prodded one of the shapes with his fist.

‘Move yourself, Roebuck. Me and your sister are off.’

‘Go away! You’re always interrupting.’

Freckles had withdrawn her roughened tongue, and was now using it to protest at Darkie’s interference.

‘OK. If you two don’t fancy a ride, that’s too bad for you.’

‘A ride? Count me out this time, Darkie. I want a quiet night.’

‘I had my eyes on a tasty blue Jag …’

‘A Jaguar! Well, that’s different. I’ve never been in a Jag.’

‘A Jaguar!’ exclaimed Freckles, her eyes fixed on some vague horizon.

‘I think it’s even got a phone. It looks more like a travelling lounge than a car, man! All four of us can screw in it, and the wheels will still hold up.’

‘I like it, I like it,’ Roebuck laughed. ‘I’ll call my old lady: “Hi, baby. I’m fucking in a Jag”.’

‘Go out with Loli and wait on the corner by the paper factory.’

Darkie crossed the dance floor in the glow of the flashing lights, and the white surface seemed to send bursts of electricity rippling through his legs and up to his black, twisting hair.

‘You still here, old ’un?’ he said, as he passed the doorman. ‘You look like part of the furniture.’

‘You take my place, and I’ll be jiving around in there with the best of them. OK? So piss off!’

‘All right, all right, no need to get all worked up.’

Darkie felt protected by the darkness as he moved away from the rotating flicker in the hall. He put his hand in his right trouser pocket and fondled the picklock resting against his prick. He stroked his balls thoughtfully. Then he extracted the picklock and tried flexing it, as if to test its solidity. Casually, he walked up to the Jaguar and inserted the pick. The door sprang open with a little click, solid, like the steel door of a safe. It smells like a rich woman’s cunt, thought Darkie. Jesus … cigars! And a whisky flask! He opened the car bonnet and, with a caressing movement, brought the wires into contact. This done, he settled into the driving seat with the imagined assurance and grace of its owner. He reached for the whisky bottle. He lit up a cigar. Then he moved smoothly into gear and gave a wrench on the wheel so that the tyres squealed as he pulled away. Picking his way through piles of old bricks and parked cars, he came to the corner, where Loli, Roebuck and Freckles were waiting. Loli sank into the seat behind him, and the three passenger doors shut with a polite thud.

‘I want advance warning next time. Taking this kind of car isn’t our scene. Too much aggravation.’

‘Maybe not your scene. It’s mine, though. I feel like a lord.’

‘You sure are, Darkie,’ Freckles laughed from the back seat.

‘But I’m the one who’ll have to go street-walking while he’s behind bars.’

‘The only reason you go on the game is because you like it.’

‘Like hell! What a motor! We’ll fuck in Vallvidrera tonight.’

‘I’d rather fuck in bed.’

‘It’s brilliant with the smell of pines around you,’ said Darkie. He took one hand off the wheel, reached down Loli’s low-cut dress and kneaded a hard, ample breast.

‘Don’t go through the centre of San Andrès. It’s crawling with cops.’

‘Take it easy. You guys are too nervous. With cars like this, you’ve got to act like you’re born to it.’

‘What’s that you’re smoking, Darkie? You’re gonna wet the bed tonight. You’re not old enough for cigars like that.’

Darkie took Loli’s hand and placed it on his bulging prick.

‘What d’you think of this cigar, then?’

‘Dirty pig!’

Loli smiled, but she took her hand away as if she’d had an electric shock. Roebuck leaned forward and worked out the route that Darkie was taking.

‘Don’t go to the centre, I said! It’s crawling with police.’

‘Cool, man, keep cool.’

‘Cool’s got nothing to do with it. This is just bloody daft.’

‘Roey’s right,’ Freckles cut in. But Darkie was already heading for the Rambla de San Andrès, and came out onto the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.

‘You stupid FUCKER …’

Roebuck’s impotent cry made Darkie smile.

‘Nothing’s going to happen, man. Cool, man, keep cool.’

‘Watch out! Over there!’

Loli had seen a patrol car parked on one corner of the Ayuntamiento.

‘Relax …’

Darkie arched one eyebrow, to look unconcerned, and drew level with the patrol car. A peaked cap made a movement. A face looked up, profiled against a yellow street light whose beam was interrupted by an election banner drawn high across the street: ‘City Hall Could Be Ours!’ The arched eyebrows registered sharply on the yellow face. The dark eyes seemed to grow smaller.

‘He’s looking at you.’

‘They always look like that, like they’re forgiving you for being alive. Give them a badge and they think the world belongs to them.’

‘They’re coming after us!’ shouted Freckles, her eyes on the rear window.

Darkie’s left eye flicked to the wing mirror. He saw the yellow headlamps and rotating rooflight of the patrol car.

‘I warned you, shithead. What an arsehole you are!’

‘Shut up, Roebuck, or I’ll smash your face. See if they can catch me now!’

Loli screamed and gripped Darkie’s arm. He elbowed her aside, and she burst into tears against the side window.

‘That’s great! Now the stupid fucker’s going to race them. I suppose you think they’ll just give up? Stop the car, cunt, and we’ll make a run for it!’

The flashing lights were joined by the wail of a siren. Waves of sound and light from the patrol car signalled to the Jaguar to stop.

‘I’m going to shake them off.’

Darkie put his foot down, and the world shot up dangerously close, as if the nose of the car was swelling and going out to meet it. He turned a corner and ran out of space, caught between parked cars on his right and a mini with its back end jutting out into the street. The Jaguar crashed, and Loli’s head hit the windscreen. Darkie reversed. The rear of the car hit something with a crunching metallic groan. Darkie barely heard it over the noise of the approaching siren. He managed to get the car up the
sidestreet, but his arms were shaking so violently that he couldn’t steer, and the Jag began bouncing off cars left and right. Finally, the steering wheel jammed and his limp hands could get no more action out of it. The rear doors opened. Roebuck and Freckles dived out.

‘Don’t move. One step and you’re dead!’

Darkie heard feet running up. Loli was still in the front seat, crying hysterically, her nose and mouth pouring blood. Darkie got out with his hands raised, and barely had time to straighten up before uniformed hands shoved him against the car.

‘You won’t forget this little jaunt in a hurry. Get your hands on the roof.’

As they gave him a thorough body-search, Darkie recovered enough to register that Roebuck was getting the same treatment a few yards away, and that another cop was searching Freckles’s handbag.

‘She’s badly hurt,’ said Darkie, pointing to Loli. She had got out, and was still crying tears and blood as she leaned back against the patrol car. The policeman looked aside for a moment, and Darkie gave him a solid right-hander. A path opened for him in the night, and he ran into it as fast as his legs would carry him. His arms worked like pistons. Police whistles screeched. More whistles. Curses, muffled in the distance. He cut round several corners, but still heard the sound of running feet behind him. He breathed in damp, coarse air which came in great gulps and scorched his lungs. Sidestreet followed sidestreet without yielding a suitable bolt-hole. High walls built of lifeless brick or wrapped in sandy, dusky cement. Suddenly he came out onto the Rambla de San Andrès, and all the lights in the world revealed him poised on one leg and braking with the other. A few yards away, the sentry in his hut outside the barracks looked on in amazement. Darkie sprinted across the brightly lit avenue in search of the open ground he could make out, up by Holy Trinity. He needed to stop. He was suffocating. He had a stitch in his side. He was
on the verge of vomiting from the burning in his lungs. An old, much-painted, weathered wooden door promised access to an area of waste ground. Using the unevenness of the eroded wood to get a grip, Darkie got a toehold and began pulling himself up by a sheer effort of will. But his arms lacked the strength for the weight of his body, and he fell back onto his haunches. He took a few paces back, gathered fresh momentum and hurled himself at the door again, struggling to raise himself against the wobbling resistance of the wood. He felt the top of the door in his groin as he gave a final thrust and then found himself falling down a clay slope and slithering over rubble. He sank to his knees. He was in the concrete foundations of a house under construction. The door over which he had jumped was like a crown at the top of the slope. It stared down at the intruder.