The Back of His Head (19 page)

About then is when Either-Or spots me, just when I was sucking a shrimp off a toothpick.
What are
you
doing here?
he says to me. He's looking round and trying to keep his voice down. Mr Lawrence invited me in, I tell him.
I told you to wait in the car
, he says back to me. No you didn't, I tell him, you said, drive back to the Residence and wait there.
I'm your employer
, he says,
remember that
. He looks me up and down.
You're improperly attired as well
, he says. Well, he had a point after all, I was the only one there in T-shirt and shorts and flipflops, but then I hadn't expected to be invited in, so what did he expect? I'm not a mind-reader, I told him, I didn't expect to be here. The Bunny girl with the tray was quite near and she had an arse on her like an upside-down heart, know what I mean?—couldn't take my eyes off it.
He's just making trouble
, Mr Orr's saying.
That's his life's work
. I can see he's as angry as hell but he's not really saying it to me. As soon as he's gone someone starts stuffing something into my back pocket—Mr Lawrence.
Keep an eye on that for me
, he tells me.
Whatever you do don't eat it, it's my supper, I'm off for some more
, he says. I had a feel-round—couple of sausage rolls in a paper napkin, and a minute later he comes up again and this time it's cupcakes, not proper cupcakes but little fancy cakes with cream and that, know what I mean?—anyway, in they go, into the other pocket. Then it's four little sandwiches, all wrapped up like the other stuff.
You'd think they'd supply doggy bags
, he tells me.
Bloody sausage rolls at a civic reception, they'll be serving fucking pizza and doughnuts next
—

Is Mr Lawrence putting food in your pockets?
—Either-Or again. I've only got two pockets, I told him, and I've got my snot-rag in one and my inhaler in the other. Which was more or less true except for the inhaler.
He's not meant to eat this sort of food
, Either-Or says.
He's on a carefully controlled diet on account of his condition. This is not part of your job description
, he tells me.
He knows it's not appropriate, Mr Lawrence, asking you to come in, you know that, don't you? I'm considering bringing this up with Bailey's Care
. But just then some prick goes
ting-ting-ting
on a wineglass—you know, oh-shit-no
ting-ting-ting, could I have your attention please ladies and gentlemen?
—and the speeches start. The bloody speeches. All those words and I can't remember one of them?—I couldn't remember the front end of the sentences even when the back end was still coming out! But then after a while it was the old man's turn, and I tell you what, Patrick, I won't forget what
he
had to say, I won't forget it for a long, long time, I was laughing that much I thought I was going to have to go outside.
I'm feeling my age
, he starts off, and then he says something about Groucho Marx that not everyone liked—I was a bit surprised myself but I didn't really get it, not all of it, but some people did and you could see they weren't happy with it. Mr Orr was standing across the room from me and I could see his face just clamp up like a Venus flytrap, you know those plants? You'd have thought he had a blowfly in his mouth.
You're only as old as the woman you feel
, that's what Mr Lawrence said, it's just come back. Mainly it was the men that laughed. I laughed, like I said, but there was a real murmur went across the room when he said it.

Old Mr Lawrence, he wasn't put off, though, he went on, and there's a few more laughs and one or two people begin to walk out, which I thought was stupid. I can't remember everything he said, just the good bits, especially how he finished up. I didn't quite follow this last part, either, but it was some weird yarn about a turd and a piece of orange peel floating down the Mississippi together, and after a while the turd turns to the orange peel and it says,
what time do we get to Baton Rouge
? And the orange peel turns to the turd and it says,
what d'you mean, we
? I remembered it because I couldn't quite get it, you see, and I wanted to keep it in my mind so I could work it out later on—can
you
work it out, Patrick? You can tell me what it means next time you pick up the tapes. Funniest thing I'd ever heard when he says it, though.
What d'you mean, we?
—all these toffs in evening dress and he just comes out with it and says
turd
. Big up-you sign, might as well just give 'em the fingers and leave! You could hear the gasps, a lot of people laughed and a lot of people didn't. I clapped as hard as I could. The old bugger just didn't seem to care what any of them thought, he seemed pretty pleased with himself. Out in the foyer afterwards, though, there's this blazing row, him and Either-Or, like an old married couple. The mayor's just given you the freedom of the city, Either-Or's telling him, and
that's
how you say thank you? And Mr Lawrence, he didn't take any notice, he just says to me,
Home, James, and don't spare the whores
. All the way back to the underground carpark he's fumbling in my back pocket.
Where're those fucking cupcakes?
he says.
You didn't sit on them, did you? If you've squashed them you're fired. Like my speech?

And I told him it was the best speech I'd ever heard, which it was. The thing I had trouble working out, though, he didn't seem to care about people who read his books—all the people who'd turn up when he did a reading? I drove him to some of those over the next couple of years before he got too sick, and they were a lot more boring than those people at that Town Hall function before he came on. Mainly women, as far as I could see, I mean the ones that came to his readings, that's one thing I noticed, women on either side of sixty with whitey-silvery hair cut like a German tin helmet, almost—know what I mean? Hundreds of them.
Brenda
, he says to me,
they're all called Brenda and they'll blow anyone who's written a book, man or woman, doesn't make a difference what the book's about, whitebait or sandflies, doesn't matter, as long as it's a book down they go and start sucking, no questions asked, you can hear the joints crack from out on a Korean fishing boat
. Really? I'm saying to him, is that true, do they really do that? And he laughs at me when I ask that. Then he says,
to hell with these
and he hauls his top teeth out and he puts them in the ashtray, it's a little semi-circle thing sticking out of the dash? He lays his top plate there and he folds his arms.
There you go
, he says.
Look at that. Perfectly fitting dentures
.

It might've been that time but it was definitely sometime around then he got me to drive him back up to the hilltop after one of these functions, back to where we'd been when we'd watched the city lights go on and Rommel'd come bouncing up to the car. We drove up past the tearooms and I dropped a cog and hung a left and after a couple of minutes we pulled in at the same viewing bay off the top road we were in last time, when it was really cold—remember? It must've been spring or early summer this time, though, because I remember there was a breeze, but it wasn't as cold as the first time. You could see the shape of the hills in the dark, these big blank shapes with no lights on them, they were really
there
, like you could feel them, like people, almost? Looking back at you? Well, we sit there in the car together and he tells me about the city lights again.
Look
, he tells me.
Everything's regular from the centre out, the centre of town, see the lights? Like a waffle iron? And then
, he says,
after that, the further you go out, the more disorganised the city is—see?

Well, I looked hard at the rows of streetlights and I could get what he meant, sort of, but it seemed to me he was making more of it than what was really there.
That point
, he says,
where it stops being organised
, he says—
see? Where the street plan starts going all over the place? That's 1948
, he says. Right, I tell him, but I'd no idea what he was talking about.
Everything inside that square is before that date
, he says.
And everything outside it is after. And that's the date you've got to remember. 1948
. Right, I said. I see. But I didn't, I thought he was raving—I mean, does it make any sense to you, Patrick? And anyway, he could tell I couldn't understand.
That's the date they started to build houses again, you silly prick
, he says.
After the war. It's all about the war
, he says.
Don't you get that? That's what we're looking at
. Right, I told him. He'd really lost me by that stage, though, I was just pretending, and I wasn't feeling all that comfortable with it, either, to tell you the truth.

About then, though, this Commodore station wagon comes up next to us in the viewing bay with this young couple in it. The bloke looks across at us for a second.
Let's move it
, the old boy says.
Don't want to cramp their style, do we?
So I reverse the Dodge and we go back down to where the tearooms are.
Park over there
, he says.
I want a piddle
. So I park in the viewing bay and watch him creak out into the wind and walk across and up to the tearooms. They're closed! I'm calling out to him, but of course he can't hear. Takes me a minute to catch up with what he's doing, standing there looking in the front door of the place. He's peeing on the door. I
laughed
—I mean, you can't help it, like, of
course
he's peeing on the tearoom door, what else would he be doing? Doesn't he ever stop?—that's what I'm thinking. Then here he is, back again.
Come on
, he says.
Should've given them enough time by now
. Who? I'm asking him.

But he's off, and I have to follow him because he doesn't look like he's coming back. Off like a rabbit and onto this track that runs under the top road—I didn't even know it was there. I could see the tip of his walking stick flashing back and forward up ahead of me and his back bent over and bobbing along. Probably five minutes—then he stops.
Shh
, he says, though I'm not saying anything, breathing a bit but I wasn't saying anything. We're standing there and he's got us back under the viewing bay where we left the Commodore!—I can see the grille and the number plate through the wooden railings up above us. Worked out what he was doing, Patrick? That's right, he was up by the car, he crawled up, he's crouched down near the back doors, and he starts flapping his hand at me,
come up, come up
. And I'm shaking my head at him,
no way I'm going up there, no way
. I'm quite clear about that. Because by this stage I know what it is he's doing and I'm not having any part of it.

Except—I
did
go up there with him, that's the bit I can't understand even now. There I am, on my knees next to him at the back of the Commodore and this young couple hard at it inside. How does he
do
that to you, Patrick? How does he make you do exactly the opposite of what you'd do if he wasn't there, how does he make you do what you'd never do in a hundred years if it was just you left to you, and there you are, doing it like you've suddenly become a different person, or just nobody, you don't really exist at all? That was the first time he took me over like that and it scared the shit out of me, I didn't like it, I didn't like the way it made me feel afterwards. I mean, nothing
happened
—well, you know what happened and there we are listening to it, right through to the end, you know,
ooh-aah-ooh
—and I kept thinking, what if a car goes past, what if the cops go past? But mainly I was feeling like a piece of dirt, all the time we were listening and all the time we were crawling down to the track afterwards and back to the Dodge. My heart was going like, y'know,
boom-boom-boom
. The wind blowing round the car and neither of us saying anything.

Sick
—it'd turned me on, see, that was one thing, and then it was having him there next to me listening made it feel worse, it felt really mental. I couldn't look at him.
Home, James
, he whispers to me. We drive down to the Residence a bit and he says, all of a sudden,
my mind's not right
. I think for a bit and I think, well, you can say that again. He was sort of telling it to himself, he wasn't really saying it to me I didn't think. But I reckon he was onto something. And all the time, this is the other thing,
no Rommel
. We didn't go looking for the dog that time, and he didn't come looking for us. Good thing, really, I mean, imagine if he'd turned up while the pair of us were crouched down at the back end of the Commodore with these two hard at it inside. But it was a bit disturbing, when I thought about it. Where
was
he, I wanted to know that. That's all I said to the old man when we got back to the Residence. No Rommel, I said to him when we were getting out.
That's right
, he says back to me, quite calm like he wasn't worried about it.
No Rommel
. And I took him inside.