by Alan Clark
‘Aye well, I had dreams of the Royal Scottish Academy, but most of us get our wings clipped a bit in this life, do we not Rory Blaine?’ she said. ‘One way or another.’
‘Well you don’t play like somebody with clipped wings,’ I said.
‘Och, Big Frankie’s been giving me something for the arthritis in my fingers’ she said ‘Some sort of herbal cigarette. I’ve never smoked in my life, but it works wonders. A nice perfume too.’
Morag Proudie’s husband and his men had brought sleeping bags and would be dossing down in the Coach House so they could complete the job tomorrow. Big Frankie was laying on an informal supper in the kitchen, but I begged Vic to host instead, using my aching shoulder as an excuse.
‘You noticed any symptoms of delayed shock?’ I asked him.
‘I just watched a repeat of Midsomer Murders and found it quite exciting. Could that be it?’
‘I seem to have to have a semi-permanent stiffy for some reason.’
‘A spontaneous erection? Wow, I remember those,’ he said. ‘Any news from Slough?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Jeez, I think he might have called, if only to ask after your shoulder.’
I shrugged it and it hurt.
I went back to the flat, sent Faisal another text, fed Alma and scavenged in the fridge for myself. By then, I felt so randy I could’ve snogged that scrawny Archdeacon with the bad breath. Faisal and I hadn’t had proper sex for about three weeks. I logged onto the web; never was a facility more accurately named.
I’d not been on Dinkydudes since the night Faisal had thrown a wobbly about my profile still being there. I’d deleted ‘Scotstud’ at once and was now ‘Highland Fling’, no face pic, just a fetching series of images of me in a kilt, in various stages of exposure. Instantly, I felt that old Christmas Morning thrill. About forty messages had piled up, not a bad haul. I trawled through them and zeroed in on a Japanese guy. His profile name was ‘Tenko’. Shaven-headed, eyes like teeny scissor-cuts on pale yellow silk and a hot smooth little body. If he had a single hair on him, it must have been up his nose. He was ‘currently online’ and ‘lookin’ to meet for no-strings play’. He described himself as a ‘power-bottom’ with a fetish for tight foreskins. We started to message.
His name was Ng. It wasn’t clear if that was his first or last name, but at least it was easy to remember. Ng wanted to know if I had any military gear. When I said not, he suggested I wore a black T-shirt above my kilt, so he could pretend I was a member of some Highland Regiment. Ng’s thing was to be dominated by British soldiery as penance for Japanese brutality in World War II. Hence the profile name. He ran a florist’s in Kentish Town Road and lived above the shop. Would I like to come over? Did I have a pen to take down his address?
I opened the drawers of the little desk Faisal and I both used. No luck in my drawer, so I looked in his. I was scrambling around under some official-looking papers, then I saw what the papers were. I messaged Ng to hold on as I’d left the bath running.
‘Kewl,’ he messaged back.
Lying on the bottle-green leather top of the desk were some forms sent to Dr Faisal Khan by Camden Council. They were forms to register an intention to enter into a Civil Partnership. I flopped down at the desk and stared at the papers. Well well. He was certainly throwing his eggs into my basket. He’d always made it clear he wanted commitment, in that earnest, slightly scary way he had. But now he was going as far as it was possible to go. Telling his parents, his dad at least, to fuck right off. What more could I ask of anyone?
So how come I didn’t feel flooded with joy, pole-axed with emotion? Why didn’t I message Ng that the bath had overflowed, the ceiling collapsed and we’d have to postpone? Why did I look at those pieces of sterile paper and feel my stomach tie itself into a reef knot? Why Ms Prada, why? Tell me for God’sake, there’s a bonus in it for you.
I remembered the Three Witches in Mamma Rosa’s. A real looker they’d said. Got a good job. Somebody to take care of you.
‘Do you love me?’ we’d asked each other that evening, agreeing that we’d like to. Was that all it was then? Liking the idea of it? So did I love him? Do I love him? I was going to have to decide pretty quick.
It hadn’t just been our post-ultimatum celibacy that bothered me. Even before that, the sex had begun to wither a bit. The fatal worm of duty had wriggled under the bedroom door and into our bed. Of course, the ‘south front’ remained stupendous. Once, in an empty first-class compartment, the thought of it had made me jerk off into a Virgin Trains serviette. But I guess my perspective on it had changed; I was just used to it now.
But hey, when the sex fades there’s the companionship, right? So how many marks would we get for that? Cinq points? Maybe only quattre? Despite the homoerotic runs round the Heath, we’d not excavated much more in common. There were pinpricks of irritation and resentment too. Faisal always dismissed my career as a waste of a life while I was expected to venerate his, as indeed I had. Mind you, I’d never been exactly mesmerized by Faisal’s folksy anecdotes of growing up in a hardware store in Slough; they fell a bit short of the fascinating social document he imagined they were.
I’d sometimes thought back to Vic’s birthday dinner in the flat, when I’d sensed he found Faisal dull. Back then, it had put my nose out of joint but I’d gradually begun to understand the judgment. I teased him about having no sense of humour but it really wasn’t funny at all. And the age difference? Did it matter? I’d not forgotten the London Eye; the antipathy of Ruby, the smirks of the Siamese Children. Were our mutual denials that it wasn’t an issue just pretentious crap? Were we trying to battle on, heads bowed against an irresistible fact of nature? Odd thing here though. With Vic and me, the age-divide works differently. When there’s a new band I’ve never heard of, Faisal patronizes me, shuts me out; when I tease Vic about his cheesy old songs, he doesn’t do that. He pulls me into his times, shares them, makes them accessible, interesting. Faisal often seems like a foreign country with the frontiers sealed. And now, this morning, his deranged old Dad had tried to commit hara kiri all over the duvet. I was happy to let cultural diversity enrich my life, but that was a bridge too far.
And I did care for Faisal. There was no doubt of that. I wanted him to be happy, I wanted him to be happy with me. And let’s be honest, that’s a major step forward for Rory Blaine. Count your lucky stars. That’s what Ms Prada, Elspeth Wishart and the Three Witches had all said with varying degrees of subtlety. But was it a good enough reason to fill in the forms? And if there wasn’t a Faisal, what then? Who then? Anyone? The papers from Camden Council stared back at me.
The Dinkydudes message bar was flashing. Ng had left me three breathless entreaties. He was oiled and lubed. He was ready and waiting to atone. Was I coming or not? Well was I? While my significant other was dealing with a major crisis, was I going to go and shag a meaningless stranger as I’d done so many times before?
To hell with the texts. I called Faisal’s mobile this time, but the voicemail cut in and asked me to leave a message in that sleepy, disinterested tone he sometimes used. My hackles rose. Why hadn’t he been in touch? He must have known how worried I’d be. Whatever was going on, he could have found thirty seconds to text. How fucking thoughtless. And anyway, I was only flesh and blood. I’d always had a high sex drive. Why should I be blamed for that?
I messaged Ng to say I was on my way. I put on my kilt and the dark T-shirt. I prayed that everyone would still be in the kitchens and that I’d make it to the Merc before somebody glanced out and wondered why a member of The Black Watch was creeping across the East Court.
*
The storm, when it finally broke, mistimed its entrance. Had it possessed any sense of drama, it would’ve been crackling over the florist’s as I’d punished Ng for the sins of his fathers. It certainly had a tropical intensity that might have recalled those POW camps in the jungle. But when I got to Kentish Town Road, the evening was still calm and sickeningly heavy, the sm
ells from the take-aways coating the paralysed air.
I knew at once I’d made a mistake. Ng opened his shop door in a loin cloth, but the body I’d fancied online was covered in weals and scratches and not the sort you get from wrapping a dozen Golden Showers. He said my long hair would have to be tied back as it wasn’t military enough but the kilt was well-received and, when I took off the T-shirt, he just loved the wound on my shoulder. He handed me a long willow cane and bent over his Ikea sofa. He asked what my rank was. I said corporal but he didn’t laugh. I had to be at least a major. I gave him a few light whacks. He started apologizing over and over and I tried calling Hirohito a slitty-eyed bastard, but my heart wasn’t in it. I’d got used to Faisal’s wee fetish but this was something else. I’d come here for simplicity after all, for that glorious, no-strings fusion I’d once found so sustaining. But this was complicated and not my scene at all. Ng didn’t seem to be enjoying it much either; his miniscule cock as soft as a jelly-baby. He begged to be hit much harder, to shed blood for the crimes of his people, but I threw down the cane and apologized for wasting his time. As I went out through the shop, I bought a couple of bonsai trees. It seemed the least I could do.
I hurried along Kentish Town Road to the car. A young black couple with two little kids were coming towards me. The boy pointed and laughed, asking loudly why the old man was wearing a dress. The father was embarrassed. I stopped and explained why it wasn’t really a dress. It was his birthday, the boy said; they were all going to Burger King and did I want to come? I said I had to be getting home, but would he and his sister like the bonsai trees as a present? They were thrilled; they’d never seen bonsais before. The parents thanked me awkwardly, eager to move on. They had me down as a weirdo and maybe that’s exactly what I was tonight. It was certainly what I felt like. I’d started the day with one nutter trying to top himself and ended it thrashing another one above a florist’s. Not exactly what you’d have called a normal life and, whatever that was, I suddenly yearned for it again as I’d done so many times before. I waved the kids off into Burger King, conquering the urge to accept their invitation after all. But that would never have done.
On the drive back up to Mount Royal, the heavens finally split. It wasn’t the sort of storm that played fair, issuing a civilized warning from afar, giving you time to run and hide. This was a mean bastard, furious, apocalyptic. It exploded with a nuclear flash followed by bang that rattled even the Merc, a car from a Wagnerian country after all. Wind began to tear through the trees and then the rain came, heavier than I’d ever seen it in London. The wipers were next to useless and I crawled all the way up the hill. When I turned into Spaniards Road, a woman was running along the pavement. It was Dolores Potts, drenched to the skin. I shouted her into the car. She shook her hair like a drowned rat, spraying my upholstery. Her make-up had run and from the neck up she looked about sixteen. From the neck down though, with her wet shirt plastered to her tits, she looked like the calendars they hang in an MOT garage. She asked me why I was wearing a dress.
The oak trees outside the walls were lurching to and fro like a panicking crowd; the rooks must have been clinging on for dear life. When we reached the East Court, we dashed towards our respective front doors. But I’d dropped my keys somewhere by the car and couldn’t find them in the dark. As I fumbled in the gravel, I realized how good the driving rain felt on my face. I stood up and let it soak me, hose me down, wash me clean. My hair hung down my neck, limp as spinach and the water turned the kilt into a lead weight. I stood there for minutes, watching the storm batter the old house on the Heath, as if it were King Lear in stone, slate and glass. The bell in the Clock Tower, tumbling in the gale, had lost its senses and tolled without rhyme or reason.
Suddenly Dolores, wearing only a towel, sprinted out and dragged me into her flat. She asked if I’d gone mad. I was pushed into her loo with orders to strip, shower and put on her bathrobe. I took the longest shower I’d ever had. When I came out, she was sitting on the sofa, still only in the towel. She’d opened a bottle of wine. She handed me a glass.
‘So where were you on this hot sticky night?’ she asked. ‘And dressed up in that gear? A gathering of the clans?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘Out on the prowl, I reckon,’ she said.
‘Just like you no doubt.’
‘We’re a couple of cats then, aren’t we?’ she said, lighting a fag.
‘Why the fuck do you do that?’ I said, parking myself beside her on the sofa. I’d never let myself ask before in case I seemed uncool.
‘Because it’s dangerous,’ she smiled. ‘Gardening tends to be a bit low-risk. The worst you can do is tread on a rake and knock your front teeth out.’
‘You like a bit of danger then?’
‘I sure do,’ she said. ‘It must be my Spanish blood. Running the bulls and all that bollocks.’
‘What else do you like that’s dangerous?’ I asked, aware of sounding like Leslie Phillips with his pencil moustache and the dark blue blazer with shiny buttons.
‘I’m not telling you that,’ she grinned, tightening the towel around her.
We smiled at each other over the rims of our wine glasses and I knew I was going to kiss Dolores Potts. Well she’d been making it clear for weeks that it would be a welcome advance. Okay, she was an employee and it was shitting on my own doorstep, but what the hell. Okay, she was a woman and I was supposed to be gay, but so what? I’d worry about that tomorrow. Or maybe I wouldn’t worry. Suddenly, to kiss her seemed the most natural thing in the world. I leaned across the space between us and tilted my head.
Dolores Potts leapt up, spilling her wine and almost losing her towel.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Christ I’m sorry,’ I spluttered. ‘I didn’t mean … I thought you liked me …’
‘I do like you. But not like that. Jesus.’
Dolores had fled to a chair in the opposite corner. She grabbed her fags and lit another. The match quivered in her hand. I’d never seen her flustered before.
‘Look, I just misread the signals. Really stupid. I know I’m old enough to be your father.’
‘No, it’s not that’ she said.
‘What is it then?’
Dolores took a long slow drag from her cigarette. She stared down at the carpet, then up at me, then back at the carpet. The bell in the Clock Tower tolled once more.
‘You are my father,’ she said.
She gave me that odd, searching look she’d used ever since the day she’d first slithered off Big Frankie’s bike. With the make-up gone, the map of her features was easier to read. Now I realized where I knew that face. The nagging ache of vague recognition was stilled. Why on earth hadn’t it clicked before? It was the same face that gazed down from the portrait in the Gilded Hall.
‘Hello Daddy,’ she said.
As suddenly as the storm had come, it was gone. Through the half-opened window, I could smell the steaming earth, the sodden walls and the scent of battered jasmine. The wind had bustled off on its way to the sea, the oak trees composed themselves again and the bell in the Clock Tower stopped its drunk and disorderly clanging.
FOURTEEN
I have a child. If it weren’t so vulgar, I’d type those words in huge capitals of red and gold, encrust them with diamonds and sweep them with floodlights. I have a child. I am the father of a young woman called Dolores Potts. She smokes, she has a regional accent, I suspect she is as sexually promiscuous as I ever was and I love her beyond my wildest imaginings.
Sleep of course had been a non-starter. I’d lain for hours, listening to the bell in the Clock Tower strike, its equilibrium regained as surely as mine had just been lost. I’d not woken till gone eleven, with Alma standing on my chest, squeaking gently, which meant that her saucer was empty. But I’d remained a while longer staring at the blank canvas of the ceiling. The room looked exactly as it had yesterday; the framed copies of my best ad campaigns, my regiment of sui
ts hanging alphabetically from Armani to Zegna, Faisal’s running-shoes abandoned on the floor. But everything had now seemed vaguely foreign, props from another time. Nothing would ever be the same again. I’d felt more excited than I’d ever done in my life. Even before I got out of the bed, I’d felt my heart pounding. Should I call Roger, the mechanic responsible for my mitral valve murmur? As a dangerous stress factor, the sudden appearance of an unknown child must rank right up there with bereavement, moving house and tantric sex. Or should I call Ms Prada? But Ms Prada was there to talk about my problems so why on earth would I need her now?
Last night in Dolores’ tiny flat, the storm gone, the revelation made, a silence had sat waiting to be filled. But I’d not known what to do or say. Who the fuck would? I’d just sat there, running my hands through my damp hair and spluttering half-formed questions. I’d got up and paced around, sat down again then paced some more. Dolores had looked a bit worried and offered me one of her ciggies. Should I try to embrace her or would she leap away again? She’d certainly made no attempt to do anything so sentimental. But not for a second had I doubted what she’d claimed. I only had to look at her.
After her nervous declaration, Dolores had quickly returned to her usual self and taken charge. She’d ordered me to sit still, poured more wine, then summarized the major facts of the matter in a brisk News At Ten sort of way.
Dolores Potts was the illegitimate daughter of Cristina Gomez, a baker’s daughter from Seville. In her youth, Cristina had spent a year in Sydney where she’d had a brief fling with a Scottish boy. Later she’d discovered she was pregnant. She’d not told the Scottish boy because she knew he didn’t love her. Soon after the birth, she’d met an English tourist who’d asked her to marry him and offered to take on the child. He’d taken them both back to Oxfordshire where he ran a farm. Cristina Potts had died a year ago, after finally telling her daughter the name of her real father. Her mother had had no idea where I was or even if I were still alive but Dolores had googled me. It was that simple.
