Dreams of Leaving

by Rupert Thomson

  Definitely the right man for the job.

  *

  Moses woke to the sound of cheerful men delivering beer. He loved the clanking the metal barrels made as they rolled across the cobbled yard below. Sometimes the men whistled (tuneless whistling, nothing like Ridley’s), sometimes they cracked jokes. This morning he could hear them swearing at each other. Short pungent phrases rose into the air like the smell of fresh bread.

  From his bed he could see his new red telephone, installed by Elliot ‘for security reasons’, and the previous night he had received his first incoming call. From Gloria, appropriately enough. She had invited him to a drinks party at her parents’ place in Hampstead. Seven o’clock, she said. It was a long time since he had been to a drinks party (and he had never been to a drinks party in Hampstead), so he was looking forward to the evening.

  He eased out of bed and leaned on the windowsill. The north side of the building stood in cool shadow. In the distance the Houses of Parliament lay wrapped in a blue haze like presents that were no fun because you could guess what was inside. It was going to be a hot day. One of those days when the city smells of dusty vegetation, when the roads glitter with the chrome and glass of passing cars, when businessmen sling their jackets casually over their shoulders and secretaries lie on the grass in public parks. He moved towards the kitchen. He lit the gas and put the kettle on. Then he walked into the bathroom. A warm breeze drifted through the open window, tickled the hair under his arms, dropped a cellophane wrapper on the floor. He smeared his face with shaving-foam and reached for a razor.

  And it was then that the pigeon landed on the window-ledge.

  It immediately began to strut up and down as if it owned the place. Maybe it had once. Maybe it was one of the pigeons he had thrown out in April. Or maybe it was some kind of tourist pigeon who had got wind of that event and flown down from Trafalgar Square to do a bit of sightseeing. A snarl twisted his foam-bearded face. He put down the razor and picked up a bar of soap. He flung it at the pigeon. The soap grew wings and flew out of the window. The pigeon seemed to smile. Conspiracy of pigeon and soap.

  ‘Bird,’ he shouted. ‘Bird, I need you.’

  But Bird was probably far away. Sometimes he disappeared for weeks at a time. He was a free agent, no strings attached. He knew the city from rooftop to sewer, he knew its ins and outs, its ups and downs, he knew its fire-escapes, its skylights, its manholes. He stalked flocks of scavengers on the mud banks of the river, he raided the plush dustbins of Kensington and Chelsea, he slept in the warm air-vents of the West End. He would return with his ear torn and bleeding or a seagull’s wing wedged between his blunt jaws, and Moses loved him for his nonchalance, his self-sufficiency. Yes, Bird was probably far, far away. Moses would have to deal with this alone.

  He reached for the scrubbing-brush. Took careful aim. Let fly.

  An explosion, a splash. The pigeon nodded, chuckled, casually took wing. A triangle of glass lay on the floor, reflecting the window it had once belonged to. The scrubbing-brush floated serenely in the toilet-bowl.

  Moses examined the window. Only one pane broken. Well, he muttered to himself, at least it’s summer, and began to sweep up the glass. He wondered whether he could get Jackson to invent some kind of pigeon deterrent, something that would blast the fuck out of them once and for all. He smiled as he finished shaving, dreaming of pigeon carnage.

  The kettle boiled and he poured the water into his cracked brown pot. While he waited for the tea to brew, he went over to the phone. It was around ten. If he phoned Vince now, he might just catch him before he got out of his head. Vince didn’t waste much time. Especially at weekends. He dialled the number. Somebody groaned at the other end.

  ‘Vince,’ Moses cried. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’

  ‘You bastard.’

  Moses smiled. Even Vince’s language seemed benign this morning.

  ‘Vince, part those filthy bits of cloth you call curtains and feel the sun beating on your face.’

  ‘I’ll give you beating on your face, you cunt. You woke me up.’

  Oh, sacrilege.

  ‘But Vince, you have to smell the morning air.’

  ‘Fuck the morning air.’

  ‘Well, all right. I just thought we could go out for a drink, that’s all.’

  ‘Where?’

  Give Vince credit. He could sort the wood out from the trees.

  ‘That pub next to you,’ Moses said.

  ‘About twelve, OK?’

  ‘Yeah, but Vince, why don’t – ’

  ‘If you say another word about the weather, I’m going to bloody kill you.’

  Moses smiled again. Vince’s threats were always idle. Now if that had come from James ‘The Human Mangle’ Ridley –

  *

  Vince was already standing outside the pub when Moses turned up a few minutes after midday. Both Vince’s arms were bandaged from the base of his fingers to the crook of his elbow. He was struggling to light a cigarette. Eddie lounged against a nearby wall. He was wearing a three-piece suit and a pair of sunglasses. He was doing nothing to help. When he saw Moses he pointed to a bottle of Pils on the table.

  ‘I got you a drink.’

  ‘Cheers, Eddie.’ Moses’s throat was dry and he swallowed half the bottle before he put it down. He looked round for the inevitable girl. ‘Not alone, surely?’

  Eddie nodded, lit a Rothman’s. Moses raised an eyebrow. They both drank.

  ‘Nice suit,’ Moses said.

  ‘I’m working today,’ Eddie explained. ‘Got to be back by three.’

  ‘That’s rough.’ Moses jerked his head in Vince’s direction. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Usual story.’ Eddie flicked ash. ‘He got into a fight with a couple of windows.’

  Moses sighed.

  Vince moved closer, held his arms out for inspection. His fingers shook. They were stained bright yellow from the iodine. Blood had dried under his nails and embedded itself in the criss-cross creases on his knuckles.

  ‘Did it hurt?’ Moses asked.

  ‘No,’ Vince said. ‘Glass doesn’t hurt.’

  Moses hadn’t realised that.

  ‘Not until afterwards,’ Vince added, on reflection.

  They laughed at that. Acts of self-destruction seemed to mellow Vince out. Afterwards he became tolerable, almost human. For a few days, anyway.

  ‘I had to take him to the hospital,’ Eddie said. ‘It was two nights ago. I got back from Soho about half three. Cab dropped me off. When I walked up to the front door I saw it was open. Thought I’d been broken into. I went in and turned the light on. Everything looked normal. TV was still there. Nothing missing at all. Then I went into the bedroom. Vince was lying on my bed. Blood everywhere.’

  Vince grinned at the ground. He was nodding as if to say, Yeah, it’s all true.

  ‘He was a right fucking mess. Out of his head completely. Skin hanging off his arms in flaps. I had to phone a cab, take him to St Stephen’s. Didn’t want him bleeding to death in my flat.’

  ‘How did he get in?’ Moses asked.

  ‘I bust the door down,’ Vince said.

  ‘I’m going to get one of those metal doors,’ Eddie said. ‘You know, like they have in New York. Next time he’s going to have to find somewhere else to bleed.’

  ‘I’ll smash the window,’ Vince said.

  Eddie gave him a steady look. ‘I’ll move.’

  ‘I’ll find you.’

  ‘I’ll move so far away you’ll bleed to death before you get there.’ Eddie smiled and went inside to buy another round. The drinks were on expenses, he had already told them.

  Moses looked Vince over, sighed again.

  ‘All this is mine,’ Vince said. He pointed at the ground. The pavement around his feet was spattered with drops of blood, all the same shape but all different sizes, like money or rain. Some of them still looked fresh, a rich red; others had dried in the sun, turned black.

  ‘You must’ve been here
a while,’ Moses said, bending down. ‘Some of this blood’s dry already.’

  Vince grinned. ‘Sherlock fucking Moses. I was here last night.’

  Moses straightened up again. ‘How many stitches did they give you?’

  ‘That’s nineteenth-century stuff. They don’t use stitches any more. They use tape.’

  ‘Tape?’

  ‘They tape the flaps of skin together. It’s better than stitches. Doesn’t leave a scar.’

  Vince liked to be thought of as an authority. He took a pride in knowing things that most people weren’t fucked up enough to know. He was like a veteran returning from a war that nobody had ever heard of. He told stories of action he had seen, he showed off his wounds, but if you asked the wrong questions he retreated into sullen silence. With Vince there was always some kind of war going on. Whenever he got angry or depressed, bored even, he would hit himself with some lethal mix of drugs and alcohol, and then he would go out and try and beat shit out of a brick wall or a truck or a football crowd, anything so long as the odds were impossible. He always came off worst, he always suffered. His wars were all lost wars. But he never surrendered. That was where the pride came in.

  Eddie returned with the drinks. He had taken his sunglasses off, and Moses now saw the swelling around Eddie’s left eye. The skin had a singed look: yellow shading into brown.

  ‘Christ,’ Moses said. ‘Not you as well.’

  Eddie put his sunglasses back on. ‘Somebody hit me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He thought I was stealing his wife.’

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘I was just talking to her.’

  ‘Just talking to her,’ Moses scoffed. Eddie never just talked to women.

  ‘All right, she read my palm.’

  ‘The love-line,’ Vince leered from the shadows.

  ‘So you were holding hands,’ Moses said. ‘What else?’

  ‘She asked me to dance.’

  ‘How could you refuse?’ Vince said.

  ‘So we danced. I tried to, you know, maintain the proper distance, but– ’

  Moses snorted.

  ‘– but she held me close.’

  ‘And her husband didn’t like it,’ Moses said.

  Eddie sighed. ‘Her husband was a rugby player.’

  Smiles all round. The conversation drifted, becalmed in the heat, the stillness outside the pub. At quarter to three Eddie said he had to go. ‘What are you two going to do?’

  ‘Drink,’ Vince said. ‘You got any money, Moses?’

  Moses swapped a look with Eddie.

  ‘Just asking,’ Vince added quickly, but not quickly enough.

  He had just taken Moses and Eddie back to an afternoon about a year before. In Moses’s memory it felt like a Sunday. They had been at a party all night. They had slept late, got up wasted. Bleak windows, grey faces. A pall hanging over everything. Intermission, Moses called it. One thing’s over and the next thing hasn’t started yet. So you wait, smoke, don’t talk much. Greyness invading, the tap of rain.

  Shifting Vince’s coat, Moses noticed a name-tag sewn on to the collar. Vincent O. Brown, the red cotton handwriting said.

  ‘Vincent O. Brown.’ Moses’s voice broke a silence of several minutes. ‘Any guesses as to what the O might stand for?’

  No response.

  ‘What about Organ?’ he said.

  ‘Offal,’ Eddie suggested from his armchair.

  ‘You two can fuck right off,’ Vince said.

  ‘Oedipus.’ Alison joined in, drawing on her personal experience of Vince, it seemed.

  Vince slung a cushion at her. ‘That goes for you too.’

  She ducked and said, ‘Ovary.’

  The room suddenly came alive.

  ‘Orifice.’

  ‘Oswald.’

  ‘Olive.’

  ‘Orgasm.’

  ‘Oaf.’

  ‘Object.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Vince screamed.

  ‘Hey,’ Moses said. ‘What about Onassis?’

  Everybody started shaking with uncontrollable laughter. Vince was always complaining about how poor he was. In pubs he could never afford a drink, so people always had to pay for him. In restaurants he never ordered anything; he just waited until people had finished, then devoured their leftovers. He sponged compulsively, especially from Eddie. Skint was his favourite word. Broke came a close second. Onassis was the perfect name for him.

  ‘You bastards,’ Vince shrieked. He stood in the middle of the room, teeth clenched, knuckles white, then whirled round and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

  For a month or two he got real hell. Talk about taking the piss. The name really took off. Everybody began to call him Onassis, even people who hardly knew him. When he was hungry, they took him to Greek restaurants. When they dropped in to see him they did that ridiculous Zorba dance as they came through the door. They even dragged him off to see The Greek Tycoon (Anthony Quinn played Vince), lashing him to the seat so he couldn’t leave until it was over.

  One evening they went out for a meal together – Eddie, Moses, Vince and Alison – and Vince, drunk again, started smashing plates.

  ‘Vince, this is an Indian restaurant,’ Alison gently reminded him.

  Vince didn’t hesitate. ‘When you’re Onassis,’ he declared, ‘all restaurants are Greek.’ He carried on smashing plates until they were all thrown out.

  Then, just as Vince was becoming accustomed to his new role, even beginning to enjoy it, they dropped the name completely. Vince went from being Onassis to being anonymous again. All restaurants were no longer Greek. Alison stopped calling herself Jackie. Vince sulked for weeks, but ever since that time he had been very careful to avoid any allusions to money.

  A Capri took the curve outside the pub too fast, bumped the kerb, then swerved away, tyres spinning, in the direction of World’s End.

  ‘Arsehole,’ someone jeered.

  Moses turned back to Vince and Eddie.

  ‘Look,’ Vince was saying, holding out his bandaged arms, his fingers curling up, ‘I really haven’t got any money. I spent it all on drugs.’

  ‘Tightwad,’ Eddie said. ‘Skinflint.’ He signalled a passing cab and climbed in. He wound the window down and leaned out, grinning. ‘Bloody Greek.’

  Moses watched Vince glaring at the taxi as it pulled away; Vince’s fingers trembled with frustration now as well as pain. ‘Don’t worry about it, Vince,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a bit of money.’

  Vince spat on the pavement. ‘That cunt.’

  Strange how Eddie always seemed to get under Vince’s skin, Moses thought. And when Vince tried to retaliate, Eddie simply produced that smile of his, that infuriating smile which, like a joker, always won him the game. Moses could understand why Eddie got hit. What he couldn’t understand was why it didn’t happen more often.

  ‘All right,’ Vince said. ‘You get the wine, I’ll supply the drugs.’

  Moses bought a two-litre bottle of Italian red from the off-licence across the road. That just about cleaned him out. Then they walked back to Vince’s place.

  Home for Vince, as he was fond of telling people, was the old Chelsea police station, and for once this wasn’t bullshit. The building had been abandoned by the police three or four years before. Since then the paleyellow brick façade had darkened to grey and the front door had surrendered most of its white paint to the repeated attacks of drunks from over the road. Vince shared the squat with about ten others, but he could never keep track of their names. Turnover’s too high, he would say. Once Moses had walked into one of the rooms on the top floor and found a girl lying on a bed with her legs spread wide and a bloke slumped in the corner smoking a joint through a gas-mask. Nutters, Vince informed him. From Australia. That was all he knew. A few weeks later one of the nutters fell off the roof and died (people didn’t last long in the old Chelsea police station). Typical bloody Australians, was Vince’s only comment. He saw the death as an inconvenienc
e: there had been investigations by the police, and he had received an eviction order as a result. He had ignored it, of course. Still, it made life difficult. He had been living in the building longer than anyone. Perhaps he was a survivor after all, Moses sometimes thought.

  Vince selected a long spindly key from the bunch that he wore, like a jailer, on his belt. His fingers seemed to be shaking less, but it still took him a while to open the door. It was gloomy inside, twenty degrees cooler, and it smelt of ancient wood, greasy and dark from years of being touched and brushed against. It had the quietness of a place that wasn’t used to quietness. It felt the way schools feel during the holidays. Traffic-sounds didn’t penetrate. Only the clinking of Vince’s keys as he slouched down the corridor and a radio muttering somewhere above.

  The police had done a pretty thorough job of moving out. They had taken everything except an old grey filing-cabinet (no files inside), a few busted chairs and some posters, one of which (it described a wanted terrorist) Vince had taped to the wall over his bed. More recent tenants had left debris of a different kind: whisky-bottles coated with dust; fag-ends stamped flat; a buckled bicycle-wheel; articles of clothing with unknown histories – a pair of khaki shorts, an armless leather jacket, one blue high-heeled shoe. In the biggest room (once a lecture-hall) somebody had painted a series of pictures on the walls: a smiling cow in a lush green meadow, a funeral procession on a tropical beach, a man asleep in a wheelchair. Each picture had its own baroque gold frame, its own circumflex of picture-wire, its own nail to hang on. Not real, but painted. And all with their own individual and realistic shadows, also painted. Moses had never regretted turning down Vince’s offer of a room in the old Chelsea police station. If he had lived there he would probably have ended up painting pictures and frames and wire and nails and shadows too. Either that or he would have fallen off the roof. There were environments and there were environments.

  Vince unlocked the door of his room and shoved it open. ‘I’ll get the drugs,’ he said, ‘then we’ll go up on the roof.’

  Moses waited in the doorway. Vince had masked the frosted-glass windows with off-cuts of dark-blue cloth, so the light that strained into the room was dingy, subterranean. He had few possessions. A single mattress, a ghetto-blaster, one or two books (The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde sprawled on his pillow), and a 2,000-piece jigsaw of one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings. Pieces of the jigsaw lay scattered round the room, mingling with ashtrays, crumpled clothes, hard-drug paraphernalia and balls of dust. All the pieces looked identical: black and white with trickling yellow lines. It had been a present from Alison during happier times. Bet you’ll never finish that, Moses remembered her saying. Vince never had – but he had never given up either. He was stubborn like that. One day that jigsaw would probably drive him mad.