by Will Self
‘C’mon love, whassermatter?’ I crawl from the car and stagger against her, still choking. I can’t speak, but gesture vaguely towards George, who’s kicking the front wheel of the car, with a steady ‘chok-chok-chok’. ‘What’d ‘e do then? Eh? Did he frighten you or something ? You’re a bloody fool, George!’ She slaps him, a roundhouse slap – her arm, travelling ninety degrees level with her shoulder. George still stands, even glummer now, rubbing his cheek.
In terrorist-siege-survivor-mode (me clutching her round the waist with wasted arms) we turn and head across the parking area to the exterior staircase of a block of flats exactly the same as the one I recently left. Behind us comes a Dunhill International, and behind that comes George. On the third floor we pass a woman fumbling for her key in her handbag – she’s small enough to eyeball the lock. My saviour pushes open the door of the next flat along and pulls me in. Still holding me by the shoulder she escorts me along the corridor and into an overheated room.
‘Park yerself there, love.’ She turns, exposing the high, prominent hips of a steer and disappears into another room, from where I hear the clang of aluminium kettle on iron prong. I’m left behind on a great scoop of upholstery – an armchair wide enough for three of me – facing a similarly outsize television screen. The armchair still has on the thick plastic dress of its first commercial communion.
George comes in, dangling his keys, and without looking at me crosses the room purposively. He picks up a doll in Dutch national costume and begins to fiddle under its skirt. ‘Git out of there!’ This from the kitchen. He puts the doll down and exits without looking at me.
‘C’mon, love, stick that in your laugh hole.’ She sets the tea cup and saucer down on a side table. She sits alongside me in a similar elephantine armchair. We might be a couple testing out a new suite in some furniture warehouse. She settles herself, yanking hard at the exposed pink webbing of her bra, where it cuts into her. ‘It’s not the first time this has happened, you know,’ she slurps.’ Not that George would do anything, mind, leastways not in his cab. But he does have this way of . . . well, frightening people, I s’pose. He sits there twirling his bloody wheel, not saying anything and somehow girls like you get terrified. Are you feeling better now?’
‘Yes, thanks, really it wasn’t his fault. I’ve been rather upset all day. I had a row with my boyfriend this morning and I had been going to stay at a friend’s, but suddenly I wanted to get home. And I was in the car when it all sort of came down on top of me . . .’
‘Where do you live, love?’
‘I’ve got a room in a flat in Kensal Rise, but my boyfriend lives in Barnsbury.’
‘That’s just around the corner from here. When you’ve ‘ad your tea I’ll walk you back.’
‘But what about George – I haven’t even paid him.’
‘Don’t worry about that. He’s gone off now, anyway he could see that you aren’t exactly loaded . . . He thinks a lot about money, does George. Wants us to have our own place an’ that. It’s an obsession with him. And he has to get back on call as quickly as he can or he’ll miss a job, and if he misses a job he’s in for a bad night. And if he has a bad night, then it’s me that’s on the receiving end the next day. Not that I hardly ever see him, mind. He works two shifts at the moment. Gets in at three-thirty in the afternoon, has a kip, and goes back out again at eight. On his day off he sleeps. He never sees the kids, doesn’t seem to care about ‘em . . . ’
She trails off. In the next room I hear the high aspiration of a child turning in its sleep.
‘D’jew think ‘e’s got some bint somewhere? D’jew think that’s what these double shifts are really about?’
‘Really, I don’t know – ‘
“E’s a dark one. Now, I am a bit too fat to frolic, but I make sure he gets milked every so often. YerknowhatImean? Men are like bulls really, aren’t they? They need to have some of that spunk taken out of them. But I dunno . . . Perhaps it’s not enough. He’s out and about, seeing all these skinny little bints, picking them up . . . I dunno, what’s the use?’ She lights a cigarette and deposits the match in a free-standing ashtray. Then she starts yanking at the webbing again, where it encases her beneath her pullover. ‘I’d swear there are bloody fleas in this flat. I keep powdering the mutt, but it doesn’t make no difference, does it, yer great ball of dough.’
She pushes a slippered foot against the heaving stomach of a mouldering Alsatian. I haven’t even noticed the dog before now – its fur merges so seamlessly with the shaggy carpet. ‘They say dog fleas can’t live on a human, yer know, but these ones are making a real effort. P’raps they aren’t fleas at all . . . P’raps that bastard has given me a dose of the crabs. Got them off some fucking brass, I expect, whad’jew think?’
‘I’ve no idea really – ‘
‘I know it’s the crabs. I’ve even seen one of the fuckers crawling up me pubes. Oh gawd, dunnit make you sick. I’m going to leave the bastard – I am. I’ll go to Berkhamsted to my Mum’s. I’ll go tonight. I’ll wake the kids and go tonight . . . ‘
I need to reach out to her, I suppose, I need to make some sort of contact. After all she has helped me – so really I ought to reciprocate. But I’m all inhibited. There’s no point in offering help to anyone if you don’t follow through. There’s no point in implying to anyone the possibility of some fount of unconditional love if you aren’t prepared to follow through . . . To do so would be worse than to do nothing. And anyway . . . I’m on my way back to sort out my relationship. That has to take priority.
These justifications are running through my mind, each one accompanied by a counter argument, like a sub-title at the opera, or a stock market quotation running along the base of a television screen. Again there’s the soft aspiration from the next room, this time matched, shudderingly, by the vast shelf of tit alongside me. She subsides. Twisted face, foundation cracking, folded into cracking hands. For some reason I think of Atrixo.
She didn’t hear me set down my cup and saucer. She didn’t hear my footfalls. She didn’t hear the door. She just sobbed. And now I’m clear, I’m in the street and I’m walking with confident strides towards his flat. Nothing can touch me now. I’ve survived the cab ride with George – that’s good karma, good magic. It means that I’ll make it back to him and his heartfelt, contrite embrace.
Sometimes – I remember as a child remembers Christmas – we used to drink a bottle of champagne together. Drink half the bottle and then make love, then drink the other half and make love again. It was one of the rituals I remember from the beginning of our relationship, from the springtime of our love. And as I pace on up the hill, more recollections hustle alongside. Funny how when a relationship is starting up you always praise the qualities of your lover to any third party there is to hand, saying, ‘Oh yes, he’s absolutely brilliant at X, Y and Z . . . ‘ and sad how that tendency dies so quickly. Dies at about the same time that disrobing in front of one another ceases to be embarrassing . . . and perhaps for that reason ceases to be quite so sexy.
Surely it doesn’t have to be this way? Stretching up the hill ahead of me, I begin to see all of my future relationships, bearing me on and up like some escalator of the fleshly. Each step is a man, a man who will penetrate me with his penis and his language, a man who will make a little private place with me, secure from the world, for a month, or a week, or a couple of years.
How much more lonely and driven is the serial monogamist than the serial killer? I won’t be the same person when I come to lie with that man there, the one with the ginger fuzz on his white stomach; or that one further up there – almost level with the junction of Barnsbury Road – the one with the round head and skull cap of thick, black hair. I’ll be his ‘little rabbit’, or his ‘baby-doll’, or his ‘sex goddess’, but I won’t be me. I can only be me . . . with him.
Maybe it isn’t too late? Maybe we can recapture some of what we once had.
I’m passing an off-licence. It’s on the point of clos
ing – I can see a man in a cardigan doing something with some crates towards the back of the shop. I’ll get some champagne. I’ll turn up at his flat with the bottle of champagne, and we’ll do it like we did it before.
I push open the door and venture inside. The atmosphere of the place is acridly reminiscent of George’s minicab office. I cast an eye along the shelves – they are pitifully stocked, just a few cans of lager and some bottles of cheap wine. There’s a cooler in the corner, but all I can see behind the misted glass are a couple of isolated bottles of Asti spumante. It doesn’t look like they’ll have any champagne in this place. It doesn’t look like my magic is going to hold up. I feel the tears welling up in me again, welling up as the offie proprietor treads wearily back along the lino.
‘Yes, can I help you?’
‘I . . . oh, well, I . . . oh, really . . . it doesn’t matter . . . ’
‘Ay-up, love, are you all right?’
‘Yes . . . I’m sorry . . . it's Just . . . ‘
He’s a kindly, round ball of a little man, with an implausibly straight toothbrush moustache. Impossible to imagine him as a threat. I’m crying as much with relief – that the offie proprietor is not some cro-magnon – as I am from knowing that I can’t get the champagne now, and that things will be over between me and him.
The offie proprietor has pulled a handkerchief out of his cardigan pocket, but it’s obviously not suitable, so he shoves it back in and picking up a handi-pack of tissues from the rack on the counter, he tears it open and hands one to me, saying, ‘Now there you go, love, give your nose a good blow like, and you’ll feel better.’
‘Thanks.’ I mop myself up for what seems like the nth time today. Who would have thought the old girl had so much salt in her?
‘Now, how can I help you?’
‘Oh, well . . . I don’t suppose you have a bottle of champagne?’ It sounds stupid, saying that rich word in this zone of poor business opportunity.
‘Champagne? I don’t get much of a call for that round here.’ His voice is still kindly, he isn’t offended. ‘My customers tend to prefer their wine fortified – if you know what I mean. Still, I remember I did have a bottle out in the store room a while back. I’ll go and see if it’s still there.’
He turns and heads off down the lino again. I stand and look out at the dark street and the swishing cars and the shuddering lorries. He’s gone for quite a while. He must trust me – I think to myself. He’s left me here in the shop with the till and all the booze on the shelves. How ironic that I should find trust here, in this slightest of contexts, and find so little of it in my intimate relationships.
Then I hear footsteps coming from up above, and I am conscious of earnest voices:
‘Haven’t you shut up the shop yet?’
‘I’m just doing it, my love. There’s a young woman down there wanting a bottle of champagne, I just came up to get it.’
‘Champagne! Pshaw! What the bloody hell does she want it for at this time of night?’
‘I dunno. Probably to drink with her boyfriend.’
‘Well, you take her bottle of champagne down to her and then get yourself back up here. I’m not finished talking to you yet.’
‘Yes, my love.’
When he comes back in I do my best to look as if I haven’t overheard anything. He puts the bi-focals that hang from the cord round his neck on to his nose and scrutinises the label on the bottle: ‘Chambertin demi-sec. Looks all right to me – good stuff as I recall.’
‘It looks fine to me.’
‘Good,’ he smiles – a nice smile. ‘I’ll wrap it up for you . . . Oh, hang on a minute, there’s no price on it, I’ll have to go and check the stock list.’
‘Brian!’ This comes from upstairs, a great bellow full of imperiousness.
‘Just a minute, my love.’ He tilts his head back and calls up to the ceiling, as if addressing some vengeful goddess, hidden behind the tire-resistant tiles.
‘Now, Brian!’ He gives me a pained smile, takes off his bi-focals and rubs his eyes redder.
‘It’s my wife,’ he says in a stage whisper, ‘she’s a bit poorly. I’ll check on her quickly and get that price for you. I shan’t be a moment.’
He’s gone again. More footsteps, and then Brian’s wife says, ‘I’m not going to wait all night to tell you this, Brian, I’m going to bloody well tell you now – ‘
‘But I’ve a customer – ‘
‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s. I couldn’t care less about your bloody customer. I’ve had it with you, Brian – you make me sick with your stupid little cardigan and your glasses. You’re like some fucking relic – ‘
‘Can’t this wait a minute – ‘
‘No, it bloody can’t. I want you out of here, Brian. It’s my lease and my fucking business. You can sleep in the spare room tonight, but I want you out of here in the morning.’
‘We’ve discussed this before – ‘
‘I know we have. But now I’ve made my decision.’
I take the crumpled bills from my purse. Twenty quid has to be enough for the bottle of Chambertin. I wrap it in a piece of paper and write on it ‘Thanks for the champagne’. Then I pick up the bottle and leave the shop as quietly as I can. They’re still at it upstairs: her voice big and angry; his, small and placatory.
I can see the light in the bedroom when I’m still two hundred yards away from the house. It’s the Anglepoise on the windowsill. He’s put it on so that it will appear like a beacon, drawing me back into his arms.
I let myself in with my key, and go on up the stairs. He’s standing at the top, wearing a black sweater that I gave him and blue jeans. There’s a cigarette trailing from one hand, and a smear of cigarette ash by his nose, which I want to kiss away the minute I see it. He says, ‘What are you doing here, I thought you were going to stay at your place tonight?’
I don’t say anything, but pull the bottle of champagne out from under my jacket, because I know that’ll explain everything and make it all all right.
He advances towards me, down a couple of stairs, and I half-close my eyes, waiting for him to take me in his arms, but instead he holds me by my elbows and looking me in the face says, ‘I think it really would be best if you stayed at your place tonight, I need some time to think things over – ‘
‘But I want to stay with you. I want to be with you. Look, I brought this for us to drink . . . for us to drink while we make love.’
‘That’s really sweet of you, but I think after this morning it would be best if we didn’t see one another for a while.’
‘You don’t want me any more – do you? This is the end of our relationship, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’re saying?’
‘No, I’m not saying that, I just think it would be a good idea if we cooled things down for a while.’
I can’t stand the tone of his voice. He’s talking to me as if I were a child or a crazy person. And he’s looking at me like that as well – as if I might do something mad, like bash his fucking brains out with my bottle of Chambertin derni-sec. ‘I don’t want to cool things down, I want to be with you. I need to be with you. We’re meant to be together – you said that. You said it yourself!’
‘Look, I really feel it would be better if you went now. I’ll call you a cab – ‘
‘I don’t want a cab!’
‘I’ll call you a cab and we can talk about it in the morning – ‘
‘I don’t want to talk about it in the morning, I want to talk about it now. Why won’t you let me stay, why are you trying to get rid of me?’
And then he sort of cracks. He cracks and out of the gaps in his face come these horrible words, these sick, slanderous, revolting words, he isn’t him anymore, because he could never have said such things. He must be possessed.
‘I don’t want you here!’ He begins to shout and pound the wall. ‘Because you’re like some fucking emotional Typhoid Mary. That’s why I don’t want you here. Don’t you under-stand, it’s not just me
and you, it’s everywhere you go, everyone you come into contact with. You’ve got some kind of bacillus inside you, a contagion – everything you touch you turn to neurotic ashes with your pick-pick-picking away at the fabric of people’s relationships. That’s why I don’t want you here. Tonight – or any other night!’
Out in the street again – I don’t know how. I don’t know if he said more of these things, or if we fought, or if we fucked. I must have blacked out, blacked out with sheer anguish of it. You think you know someone, you imagine that you are close to them, and then they reveal this slimy pit at their core . . . this pit they’ve kept concreted over. Sex is a profound language, all right, and so easy to lie in.
I don’t need him – that’s what I have to tell myself: I don’t need him. But I’m bucking with the sobs and the needing of him is all I can think of. I’m standing in the dark street, rain starting to fall, and every little thing: every gleam of chromium, serration of brick edge, mush of waste paper, thrusts its material integrity in the face of my lost soul.
I’ll go to my therapist. It occurs to me – and tagged behind it is the admonition: why didn’t you think of this earlier, much earlier, it could have saved you a whole day of distress?
Yes, I’ll go to Jill’s house. She always says I should come to her place if I’m in real trouble. She knows how sensitive I am. She knows how much love I need. She’s not like a conventional therapist – all dispassionate and uncaring. She believes in getting involved in her clients’ lives. I’ll go to her now. I need her now more than I ever have.
When I go to see her she doesn’t put me in some garage of a consulting room, some annex of feeling. She lets me into her warm house, the domicile lined with caring. It isn’t so much therapy that Jill gives me, as acceptance. I need to be there now, with all the evidence of her three small children spread about me: the red plastic crates full of soft toys, the finger paintings sellotaped to the fridge, the diminutive coats and jackets hanging from hip-height hooks.
