by Sean Thomas
— ‘Many smiling figures of Classic Veracruz may be dancers, with their hands raised in a praying position. Musicians and dancers occur in the art of West Mexico, and the anecdotal groupings include …’ – Patrick pauses, reads on without talking, then he says – Jesus Bex look at this – He recites aloud again – ‘and the anecdotal groupings include scenes of a cheek perforation dance, in which a stick may pierce two different performers’ cheeks, binding dancers together in … pain and bloodletting’
Patrick has stopped. Rebecca stays quiet. She is thinking: God help us. God help us. Yat Balam, Yat Balam, Yad Vashem, Babi Yar. Rebecca shakes her head, looks across: Patch’s eye teeth are sharp, white, and too wet as he grins, as he looks at a turquoise Aztec mask with graphite ball eyes and human skull underneath, at a lampshade made from human skin. A lampshade made from human skin? Rebecca shakes her head. She watches as Patrick turns his head and looks with self-conscious interest at a mock-up of Tenochtitlan city, the Aztec capital. Patrick is examining the pyramids, the sacrificial centres, the manufactories of death, the Auschwitz and Treblinka of the pre-industrial world. The Auschwitz and Treblinka? What?
Rebecca frets, feels anxious, self-hating. She remembers what Patrick used to say about people obsessed with the Holocaust, people who were kinky for the Holocaust, who liked the kiddie porn of the Holocaust. She remembers how he dissed Sylvia Plath, and other artists, for using the Holocaust. Plagiarisers of Hitler, was that what he called them? Rebecca recalls this, and feels respect for his insight, and revulsion at her own obsessiveness. Because somehow in her head it now all connects, her obsession with Nazi-like Aztecs, the Aztecness of sexual killers, her obsessively hypersexual love for him. Here now it seems to make sense; and Rebecca doesn’t like the sense it makes. She has to ask herself: is it her at fault, then? Is it her that’s morbid, perverse, corrupt? Is it her that’s corrupted him? That’s ruined and poisoned their love? Is it her that’s taken them to the place, to the little darkened room at the top of the pyramid, where the unspeakable things happen?
— Rebecca?
Rebecca is pacing out into the easy air of the glass-covered central court. She is half running out, half running over, she is queuing for a coffee at the café and maniacally counting her change, trying not to think too much. As she enumerates her change she tries not to look at Patrick as he walks over with concern on his face, as he watches her sit at the long grey table and gulp her coffee though it’s too hot. After a while he sits down opposite her; the two of them sit together. Rebecca notices there is a Roman statue right behind her boyfriend. The statue is chaste and cream-coloured in the chaste cream-coloured great space at the heart of the great Museum.
Swigging the last of the coffee, Rebecca wishes to God, to Yat Balam, that she’d put some sugar in. Across the table Patrick watches her as she downs the coffee; he looks at the coffee; tries to say something funny about her drinking so much coffee. It fails. Consequently Rebecca feels sorry for him again. She hates feeling sorry for him; would rather hate him. Yes, hate him. With his stupid unshaven face and blind blue eyes, his big male hands and trendily retro leather jacket. The way he sits there trying to please her. Lord Shield Jaguar? Fuck off.
Rebecca feels like crying and Patrick seems to notice this. He goes behind her; she hears him speak very slow pidgin English to the Spanish cafeteria girl; he returns with another cup of coffee. Two cups of coffee. One for her and one for him. As one they sip their coffee and look at each other between sips, wordless. She remembers the pool party; how much she loved him then. She remembers how much she loved him and she resents him for the fact that she does not seem to love him that much any more. Christ, she hates this feeling, the chagrin d’amour …
One sugar, two sugars, three, fuck it. Sipping her over-sweetened second coffee Rebecca looks at Patrick as he talks about the Aztecs about how he really really appreciates
— Oh shut up, Patrick
—Sh …?
— Just please. Shut up
— But you …
But everything. But everything. But all and everything he does treads on her toes; interrupts her; turns her over at the wrong moment. She wishes she could wish the last year and a half away; wishes she’d never met him. And yet, and yet something. Through it all Rebecca feels inside that she will never be able to forget him and that somehow he is right for her and that it is her that has ruined it all. Which makes it all the worse and maze-like. Again the wavy lines, again the smoky mirror, again Rebecca stares into the polished obsidian, unseeing, uncomprehending. Then:
— So what the fuck do you want me to do, Rebecca
Good question. Very good question. Coffee finished, caffeine doing its thing, Rebecca looks at the chiselled white stone of the north portico. Crowds of people are walking cultural widdershins around the oval of the reading room. Very good question: what the fuck does she want or expect him to do? How can he know? When she has no idea? No idea what’s gone wrong, or why she hates him because she still loves him even though she hates him because she still wants him?
— I’m sorry … Patch … I really …
Empty words, empty words. He gazes back at her in an understandably empty way. Then he says, dry, more distant now:
— Do you remember that time in Greenwich Park?
— When I went barefoot?
— We made love on the Iron Age tumulus
He pauses, goes silent; she feels sad, feels happy; she feels her loins; she nods and laughs quietly and says:
— I called you Stig, didn’t I?
—You called me Stig …
Her boyfriend, her ex-boyfriend, he looks at her, with his assessing blue eyes, his scientific blue eyes. She stares back unscared and then for some reason he says
— No
Then he reaches in his pocket and pulls out a box. A little jewellery box. Rebecca’s stomach churns. Patrick flips the blue box and looks disdainfully at the flashing silver tore inside as he takes it out and says:
— It’s Mexican, solid silver … antique
Clasping her left hand Patrick slips the ring on her fourth finger and it fits; he looks down at the prettily be-ringed finger and he says:
— It’s pretty, isn’t it? I was going to … you know …
And then he stands up, looks at her. He looks tall again. After a pause he slowly leans and kisses her on her sweating forehead.
And then he just turns and nobly walks away, adorned by the quetzal feathers of his self control; attended by the Toltec princelings of his dignity; Lord Shield Jaguar once more.
25
— Death’s not so bad
Says Patrick; Joe nods and puffs as the two of them sprint across Gray’s Inn Road. Traffic avoided, they stop to catch breath by the cute grey dragon marking the City’s boundary. Patrick goes on:
— I mean, it’s only annihilation of the soul. And destruction of the body. And entry into a night of infinite bleakness
Joe:
— You’re right. I dunno why they go on about it
Patrick:
— They obviously haven’t read contemporary women’s fiction … that’s bad
The two friends watch the traffic, then watch more traffic. As they walk on, Joe says:
— You OK man?
— Sure, fine
— I mean … apart from your suicidal urges?
Patrick nods and says:
— Apart from those, yep
— Excellent
The pace quickens; Patrick ranks his last pair of stiff white shirt cuffs, suitable for the last day of his rape trial, as they stride on past the Ely Place roundabout, as they traverse the trafficky roads that lead to Holborn Viaduct. At length Patrick looks sidelong:
— Thanks for sticking with me, Joe. All through
— No problem – Joe looks down, turns a wrist, looks at his watch – You’ll never guess pal – He grins – We’re early
Patrick tilts his head, thinks about the fact that he is early. Then he wond
ers why he is early, why he is keen to get started, to get put in prison. For life.
To use up mental space, to distract himself from what gives, Patrick stops and leans two hands on the taffrail of Holborn Viaduct, watching the rush-hour traffic below, the dirty white butcher’s vans queuing to turn right into Smithfield. The white-and-green ambulances from Bart’s hospital.
— Er …
Says Joe. Patrick turns, says:
— What?
— Have to ask, Patch man
— What?
Joe clears his throat:
— Well like … I’ve been wondering all week
— Yyyess?
— Well
— Yes?
— Well, like … – Exhaling – Did you …?
— Did I what?
—Did you do it?
A plane comes over, goes across. Joe makes a face and raises placating palms:
— Joke! I’m joking!
Patrick looks at his friend. They are within a bus-hop of their destination. Patrick turns, eyes the bright sun, and says nothing. So Joe says, jauntily:
— You seen the paper?
He is evidently trying to change the subject, after his naff joke. Patrick half smiles, half shrugs. In response Joe reaches a young friendly arm in his Waitrose plastic bag and pulls out a copy of a middle-market tabloid and reads out from a middle-of-the-paper page:
— ‘A society beauty told the court this week how she was brutally assaulted and sexually abused by her club-owning ex-boyf’
The paper grabbed, Patrick reads, maniacally. Amongst a thousand other Daily Mail words Patrick reads the words: beautiful, West End, racist, passionate, harrowing, kinky, heiress, long blonde, and at least three or four Patrick Skivingtons. But no mention of her name. Instead there’s a picture of him walking towards the Old Bailey smiling. Smiling? Patrick notes that his suit looks a bit crumpled. His tie looks nice.
Closing the paper, Patrick shakes his head and laughs at the traffic. Then he stares sideways and hard at Joe; Joe seems to clock the expression. Joe stammers and gabbles:
— Hey. Dude. It doesn’t mean they think you’re going down
— No?
— No, it’s the opposite, think they’re running it now cause they think you’re going to get off …
— Naturally
— No really, Patch
— Joe. I’m fucked
— No no n’no NO
— Yes. And maybe they’re right, maybe I should go down – Walking on, Patrick says – My head hurts, Joe
— You’re not sodding guilty, Patch
— Well maybe I am
— No you’re NOT
— I feel sort of sinful
— Christ. Jesus. You have to get a handle man
— I just … – Patrick stares ahead of himself, at a turning bus, an advert for jeans thereupon – I just …
For a few moments they are both quiet, amidst the noise of the city morning. Then Joe looks at his watch again.
— When’s she due back?
Joe stops looking at his watch:
— Told you, any time this afternoon
— I hate waiting for drugs
— So have another beer
Patrick:
— I already did, I’m bored of beer
Joe, with the infinite patience of the true junkie, shakes his head and says:
— First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait
— Yeah, if you’re a total stoner
— Thanks
— Well – Patrick picks up the pint glass he has already drained, tilts it meaningfully at the approaching barman – You do do too many drugs. Same again please. Why do you do so many drugs?
— Why are you a twat?
— Your hair’s looking nice, Joe
— Cup hands here comes cuntbury’s
Patrick laughs, says:
— You know you look like a member of Metallica after seven years in a hut?
Joe also sniggers; then he turns to the barman, indicating he too would like another drink. Using the lull, Patrick stares around him, surveying the old Victorian pub on the most important corner of the main street in Kentish Town. Patrick reads Irish soccer posters, adverts for Broccoli Bake at £2.99, he sees the winking slot machine and the young Dublin lads sluicing Murphy’s by the pool table. Then Patrick stares out at the hot late-summer’s day that is today’s Kentish Town. Three red buses are stalled nose to tail. Taxis are simmering behind and between. Laundromat. Kleen Machine. Taste of Empire Curry House …
Despairing of the horribleness of Kentish Town, Patrick wonders how often he has found himself in Kentish Town lamenting the end of relationships.
— Why do all relationships end up in Kentish Town?
— That might be her van
— They start in Soho …
— Looks like her dog in the back!
— They peak in Richmond, when you have sex in the park
— S’not. Soddit …
— But they always seem to end up in KentishfuckingTown
— Nother voddie and Red Bull, what did you say?
Patch watches as Joe orders another drink. Patrick leans in and asks for another drink for himself, another vodka chaser to go with his beer. Patrick is getting very drunk. To ground himself he reads more stuff around the pub. Killer Pool Sunday. Odessa Vodka. Trio Minted Lamb Cutlets £3.99.
— Whoops. Hold on! She’s back!
— Calm down, Joe
— That her van?!
— Christ …
Turning and staring into the Rebeccalessness of his vodka glass Patch thinks about his ex-girlfriend, his dead father, his defunct club, and he wonders whether he would like to become a junkie too. Now he’s lost everything. Well why not. Why not become a junkie? How does one become a junkie?
— How does one become a junkie?
Says Patrick. Joe, disappointed to see a builder climb out of the van, half turns and shrugs and says:
— How should I know …
Joe is pouring some more Red Bull in his vodka; smart and deft Joe downs half of the lot; then wipes his lips, and says:
— Change of subject?
— Can’t
— Try
— OK – Patrick says, changing the subject – Tell you what … I … can’t help wondering, you know, whether we’re still … evolving. Us. Humans. Are we? – Seizing the theme – My big worry is what might happen if we stop evolving. You know? We might get overtaken by other species if that happens …
Joe chuckles, his tee shirt says COORS; he rubs his red baggy plastic trousers and says in reply:
— What, you mean like we might wake up and find …
— Don’t say tapirs
— We might find tapirs ruling the show?
Patrick lifts his glass as if in a toast:
— Or dik diks. Or … caterpillars. Think about it, the shame, being blind-sided by caterpillars
— I think her curtains just moved
Patrick:
— God, Joe, your dealer is OUT!
— No no she might be there she might have just woken up dude they’re not known for rising at nine I’ll try her mobile again
Setting down his glass, Patrick sighs and orders a fourth vodka chaser as he tries to stop seeing two versions of Joe, Rebecca, Joe, Rebecca, of Joe ringing his dealer on his mobile for the fortieth time this afternoon. O this stupid drunken afternoon. This stupid drunken afternoon when nothing will happen except that he will fail to score some drugs to take his mind off Rebecca.
Rebecca. Rebecca. Rebecca. Broccoli Bake £2.99.
Joe, loudly:
— Patch! Where you going?!
Patrick continues to the door of the pub; he says to Joe, without turning:
— To see my ex
— No more questions
Stefan sits down, Patrick breathes out and relaxes. Then Patrick looks over from the witness stand to the desk where his defence team is sitting
and he notices that Juson is doing him another surreptitious thumbs up. Presumably this is to indicate that he has done well under interrogation from Stefan. Patrick relaxes more and feels happier; then Gregory the Prosecutor leaps to his feet and smiles at the judge and says:
— Mister Skivington, I’d like to go straight to the day in question
Patrick grips the wooden rail of the witness box and nods:
— Yes
— You had been drinking all day, hadn’t you?
— No, not all day
— No?
— No
— How long then?
Patrick looks swiftly at the impassive face of Stefan. He looks back at the wig and gown of Gregory:
—Three hours, maybe four
Gregory:
— Oh, do forgive me, not all day. Only four hours?
Patrick feels like bopping Gregory with the judge’s gavel; for his laboured sarcasm, his pedestrian sardonics; instead Patrick remembers what Stefan said about staying monosyllabic and Patrick says:
—Yes
— You were pretty drunk, anyway, would you say?
— Not that drunk. Just a bit
— Well. Then. OK. To clear this up could you tell the court how much you’d drunk that afternoon?
Gregory is waving a hand at the court, at the policeman behind Patrick, at the swollen bunch of journalists to the side and the invisible public in the gallery above Patrick’s head. Patrick does a shrug; realising that a shrug is not enough he says:
— I suppose I’d had maybe four pints, maybe five … and a couple of vodkas
Gregory is smiling again:
— Thank you
Pushing back the folds of his robe as he stoops to a notebook, Gregory lifts up his face and says:
— And at about five o’clock you decided to go and see Miss Jessel, your ex-girlfriend?
— Yes
— Why?
Patrick:
— … Why what?
Gregory:
— Why did you decide to go and see Miss Jessel? Suddenly? Just like that?
Patrick thinks, puts his hand to the knot of his tie, wonders if this gesture looks guilt-ridden; he puts his hand back down, and says:
