The Companion

by Lorcan Roche

  I hope it’s worth it in the end I hope he will be happy.

  One of them looks like an extra from West Side Story, a very tall ‘Jet’, she shrieks, ‘Ooh my god’ when she takes hold of my hands. She is this terrible actor who you know right away is a he.

  She has a kind heart, however.

  She takes one of my cigarettes and makes me light it for her, then she says she’ll put her ‘thinking cap’ on and we both laugh because of the stupid-looking hat she’s wearing; to be honest it looks like something Carmen Miranda would have declined.

  She can’t think of anyone, no, not a single fuckin’ one. ‘Sorry, baby.’ She suggests I try the magazines and agencies, ‘because really and truly Hands, the street caters for a different type of client-tell’.

  Then as I walk away she yells out after me, ‘Hey, Hands! That dive bar there, yeah. Go on in, she has red hair, her name is Sophie, she jus’ might do it.’

  Red hair, silver-green Celtics jacket. Sitting alone, which is good.

  I watch her as she finishes her drink I ask would she like another but she says, ‘Thanks, it’s been a very long day, I’m off duty.’ Then she puts her hand above her head to click off an invisible sign, like on a yellow cab heading home.

  I laugh, so does she, and while she’s laughing I scoot up two stools.

  Sophie is English. She has soft eyes and quite a lot of style because she lets me finish my entire sales pitch before she interrupts; plus she takes care to turn her head away to blow her smoke out comes this little gold notebook. She writes down the address with this little gold pencil, then the proposed date – Saturday, Oct 22 – Ed’s name and the word virgin, underlined three times.

  She closes her book, she says I am a very thoughtful fellow but seeing as how it isn’t exactly your common or garden request she wants 200 bucks, fifty upfront, ‘if you didn’t mind too much, thank you’.

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  She puts the money in her bra, like they do in movies. Then she says that I needn’t worry, Ed will sleep like a ‘babe in the woods’ and perhaps after if I’m not too pre-occupied I might buy her a cocktail, that’s a very nice part of town unfortunately she doesn’t get up there that often.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  The way she looks right into me says she can think of about three million reasons why not.

  12

  Sat 22nd

  Only after I have washed his hair, and lifted him from the bath with disposable gloves on do I tell him she is coming. He immediately develops this instamatic fear in his eyes, he says, ‘Fuck man I’ve just whacked off’ – as if I hadn’t noticed – ‘Why didn’t you. Fucking. Tell me?’

  I say when he sees this girl it won’t matter if he has whacked off a million times.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?

  ‘Is. She. Hot?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Is she. A. Red-head?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fuck. What. Colour. Eyes?’

  ‘Nearly black.’

  ‘Jesus. Is she. My. Age?’

  ‘There or thereabouts.’

  ‘Is she. Irish?’

  ‘No. English.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘That would sum her up, yeah.’

  I wrap him in the towel he is shaking with excitement, his whole body quivering like an arrow that’s just acquired the target. I hope to Christ he doesn’t go into spasm, I hope this goes according to the plan.

  Ed looks good in as much as it is possible for a guy who weighs less than six stone and has God only knows how long to live. I’ve blow-dried his hair to give it more life, I’ve shaved the annoying bits of bum-fluff on his pointy little chin, I even squeezed some blackheads. I’ve given his teeth a good going over, I made him rinse out with Listerine five times until all the blood from his pyhorrea gums was washed away. And as I scoured the sink I was thinking, Weird how Buddhists believe people like Ed are paying for the sins of a previous life, Jesus he must have been a fuckin’ war criminal, except I don’t believe he was; I believe the soul that’s trapped inside poor Ed cried out to be born so badly that when the Gods heard him and looked down at the clouded idea of him forming they said, See, it wants it so badly, it is spinning like a top, almost willing itself into existence. And then, like old Palestinian or Jewish women who have seen too much and understood too little, they shrugged their shoulders and said, What do we know of it, anyhow? Let him live!

  Then the Judge came inside the whale, like Jonah.

  Like a good and faithful manservant I have placed a single, long-stemmed flower in a porcelain vase by the closed window. A white orchid, it looks incredibly beautiful. When I brought it in Ed went to say something about his allergies, then he just stared at it for a while, and finally when he looked at me it was one of those occasions when you’re absolutely certain what the other person is saying with their eyes: Go ahead, I trust you. Completely. You are my friend, you are my Saviour also.

  It’s like this Marx Brothers movie, you know the Big Opening Night with the tuxedoed orchestra warming up in the pit of your stomach. And expectations are running ludicrously high, I mean, it’s not like she’s going to provide a miracle cure, now is it?

  And Barney, who I had to let in on the act, keeps ringing up saying, ‘She’s late Trevor, she’s taken your money, you’ll never clap eyes on the whore again, never. And Trevor, while I’m at it would you ever stop leaning out that feckin’ window shouting in the evening? You’re driving the residents at the front of the building insane.’

  Sophie has a fun-fur on when she arrives I’m a bit nervous and my sweaty palm sticks to her elbow as I guide her past the kitchen into Ed’s newly hoovered room.

  I can hear my heart, like Billy in Midnight Express where he’s just about to board the plane. Man, it’s really booming.

  He’s heard us in the corridor; as we walk in he pretends to be busy, you know like, Oops, here I am just putting away my stupid old clipboard.

  The blood in his cheeks is rising like mercury, it’s as if he were a character in a children’s pop-out book, at last someone is colouring him into life. His tiny pigeon chest is rising. And falling. Too fast.

  Nothing happens for a while – it’s quite an awesome silence, there are all kinds of cables and wires running through the air. When he finally speaks his voice is thick and slurred as if he’s been asleep for a long time and is unfamiliar now with the mechanism of speech.

  ‘Henno. I’m Ed.’

  ‘Sophie. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Edward.’

  He smiles. She can hear his gums stick, she can hear his throat click as he swallows she can feel tremendous fear in his white mouse-heart.

  She’s a whore, which means she’s an accomplished actress, but if you didn’t know better you’d say Sophie was one of those truly talented people who genuinely don’t see the chair. She goes behind him, she strokes his hair gently, she whispers something in his ear that makes his eyes close, as if he were in pain. Then she takes off the coat and throws it out on the carpet, like a lion tamer.

  She has a school uniform on. The skirt is very short, the blouse very tight.

  Sophie’s legs are unusually long and white, they are parted really wide. She spins his chair round; she’s stronger than she looks. Ed’s eyes are huge like Mr Magoo he cannot focus and when he finally sees what she’s not wearing, his head goes halfway ‘round in one direction, then all the way back the other. He swallows hard. His head jerks back as if she had slapped him, or as if his thoughts are too much to cope with.

  His head shoots forward again, staring at her crotch. He’s a carved bird in an ornate, old-fashioned German clock. Cuckoo.

  She prances around on her incredible legs and white high heels like some exotic, near-extinct creature the Victorians captured on 42nd Street. Her eyes are wild with power and the ability to control, and I know if I sit with her later in The Subway Inn her life will be a tale of callous creatures taking thin
gs from her carefully, like apples from a tree.

  Love. Innocence. Faith in other people.

  ‘I don’t think we require an audience, Edward. Do you?

  ‘Nnnno.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell him to leave, darling?’

  ‘Leaf. Please.’

  I take the flower and, as I close the door softly one loose petal falls, it floats gently towards the floor.

  Six minutes later I hear Edward scream this really high-pitched girly sound, Aaahoooh. Now he’s the one who’s had something ripped from inside.

  I pop a beer. I light a tiny joint. Through the smoke I can see Ellie shake her head, ‘That young whore after sticking something up his boa-constricted ass, probably torturin’ him with some giant black dildo.’

  ‘No, Ellie, Ed has the electric eels again, only they’re the nice ones this time, they move through you coiling and uncoiling you darkly. There’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all.’

  13

  The kitchen is hushed, just the sound of me sipping and smoking. I’m thinking, That scream meant Ed was truly alive, but it also means he’s closer now to Death: an oyster recoiling in a restaurant as someone squeezes three piercing drops of lemon over him.

  When Sophie appears in the kitchen door smoking a cigarette she looks like an angel and a devil at the same time.

  ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘He’s out for the count, but you should go in and check. His neck might get sore, the way he was leaning back over the edge of his chair it reminded me of this old person with her mouth open on a plane, when we landed they couldn’t wake her up. Shit. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll go in now. There’s beer, if you like.’ I stand up to fetch one, she doesn’t move out of the door, however.

  ‘May I have the rest of my money. Please?’

  ‘Of course. Sorry.’ I hand her the cash, it’s nice the way she doesn’t count it.

  ‘So, are we still on? For cocktails?’

  The word sounds weird, which you have to admit is perfectly understandable considering what’s she’s just been doing. And when she takes a sip from my beer she seems to be washing out her mouth, which doesn’t help sell the idea.

  ‘I better sit with him, you don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘You work away, darling.’

  She mutters to herself as she turns – ‘Didn’t think so, not for one minute’ – then she struts away on her high heels and she doesn’t look back as she steps into the elevator I call after her, ‘It’s just that tonight he needs me more than ever.’

  When I lift him onto the bed he still doesn’t wake, not even when I slide off his new, anti-fit Levis, still unbuttoned at the fly.

  His dick is all curled up like a little slug it’s still moist and there’s a lipstick stain on the wizened nub and pink particles in his thinning pubic hair. Christ, she hasn’t used a condom, she’s sucked him dry, which you have to admit is both charitable and despicable.

  As I’m tucking him in he opens one eye as if it was glued shut, then the other. He starts to laugh, he can’t stop, neither can I.

  He holds his wire hanger arms aloft, so I lean in, and when he hugs me there’s a bit of strength and a lot of love in the embrace. As he kisses the side of my face, he smells of Sophie’s perfume.

  ‘I thought. The. Top of. My. Head. Was going to. Pop. Off. When I came. I saw. Stars. Collide. There were black. Holes. Opening.’

  ‘Did she come?’

  ‘Eh. Jesus.’

  ‘I’m kidding Ed, OK?’

  ‘OK. Yeah. Jesus.’

  He laughs again – it’s a really beautiful sound – then he asks me, ‘Is it like. That. Every time? With things ex-ploding?’ and I say, ‘No, not every time unfortunately.’

  He says he’s going to have to do it again, then he sighs, he closes his eyes and whispers, almost to himself, ‘You’re. The best. Thing. That ever hap-pened to. Me, Trevor. No. You’re the. Best. Thing. That ever. Hap-pened to. This city. I’m reck. Commending. You for another. Raise in the morn-ing. OK?’

  ‘OK, Ed. Thanks.’

  ‘Hey, Trevor?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Truly. You are. A. Giant. Among men.’

  14

  Truly that is how I feel when I take the pillow I can feel my heart explode, like a stained-glass window a heavy leather ball’s been kicked through, boom-tinkle.

  His eyes are closed. He is smiling. His hands lie perfectly flat on the mattress. They make no effort to circle around like wings, they just do the accordeon-player’s dance for a while, feebly.

  Then the whole house is ticking quiet, just the sound of the breathing-machine gurgling away in the corner.

  Could’ve sworn I plugged it out, but I don’t remember my hands on the socket or the switch, I just remember them on his crooked pillow after, like large birds finished fishing.

  And I think I remember the steady beat of white-tipped wings making their way out over water, a faint, hot wind rising. But to be honest, it wasn’t much of a wind, it wasn’t much of a wind at all.

  Walking towards my servant-room at the corner of the uncoiling corridor I run my fingers along the flecked wallpaper, the tips begin to singe and burn.

  The handle then is beautiful, cold.

  I open the door, slowly.

  I am not surprised: it is no longer my room, it belongs to someone else, someone whose old-fashioned suitcase lies overflowing in the middle of an unmade bed.

  In his battered recliner I sit.

  To the shape of him, I adjust.

  I breathe in.

  Close my eyes. It’s true:

  I turned the moment round.

  I watched Ed’s spirit soar.

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher.

  First published 2007 by

  The Lilliput Press

  62–63 Sitric Road,

  Arbour Hill

  Dublin 7, Ireland

  www.lilliputpress.ie

  This digital edition published 2012 by

  The Lilliput Press

  Copyright © Lorcan Roche 2012

  ISBN print paperback 978 18 435 10888

  ISBN eBook 978 18 435 13414

  A CIP record for this title is available from The British Library.

  The Lilliput Press receives financial assistance from

  An Chomhairle Ealaion / The Arts Council of Ireland