by Helen Zahavi
She let the motor crawl along. No hurry, now. Just take it slowly, nice and easy. Into first and inch along. Scan the road, and there it was, twenty yards down on the right-hand side, behind a brick wall and through a locked gate. The Fatman’s mansion. Squatting, like a half-wit, in the dark. She felt a brief and fleeting satisfaction, that sudden, heady feeling you get when you’ve been driving through a frozen night and you finally arrive. She nudged the car against the kerb and cut the lights.
A video camera peered down from the corner of the porch. There were bars and grilles on the windows, movement-sensors and panic-buttons. And that locked and bolted door, the slab of steel behind the oak facade, for the Fatman wasn’t stupid, he might have been vulgar, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d built a castle against the mob, in case the mob should get ideas. Let the riff-raff putrefy. Let them rot inside their stinking homes. Let them bash each other on the head and steal each other’s benefit, for Henry couldn’t give a toss. He’s tucked up safely in his bed, fast asleep and snoring hard, his limp and flaccid Henry cock glistening on his thigh.
She switched off the engine.
‘Here we are, then.’
He shifted his weight on the seat.
‘Yeah.’
She listened to the silence. A special kind of silence. It hung low above the rooftops and crept inside the car. Curled around her head and made her think of happy times.
‘I saw this policeman once,’ she said. ‘Down Kensington.’
She wrapped the scarf around her neck.
‘A nice young bloke, all navy blue and cleanliness.’
‘Could you marry one?’
‘A copper, you mean?’
‘Get a bloody good pension.’
‘I’d think about it. So anyway, he’s walking past some big, flash car — which is on a double yellow — and he sort of stops,’ she said, ‘and scrapes it.’
‘Like Billy, when he’s in a mood.’
‘Just scraped the paintwork, with his key.’
‘What about the driver?’
‘Wasn’t there,’ she said.
She pulled the quarter-light shut.
‘No one’s there. Just me and him.’
Winter rain began spattering on the roof.
‘And as we’re about to pass each other, he gives me this glance from under his helmet, and there’s this look on his face, this copper smile.’
‘I know that smile.’
‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand, he says, if there’s one thing I can’t bear, he says, it’s a cunt in a polished Bentley.’
The cooling engine ticking softly.
‘Thought I was dreaming.’
‘Maybe you were.’
She shook her head and quietly grinned, for just thinking about it gave her pleasure, just remembering the day was giving her glee. She can’t help it really, for she’s that kind of girl.
‘I ran my finger along the wing. Just to be sure, see. Just to be certain.’
‘And he’d scraped it off . . . ?’
‘Down to the metal.’
Joe whistled softly. Disturbing thoughts began flitting through his head, images of random spite and uniformed malevolence.
‘If they were all like that . . . ’
‘Be chaos, wouldn’t it.’
‘Bedlam,’ he muttered.
He zipped up his jacket.
‘I reckon that bloke was out of order.’
‘You reckon, do you?’
‘Yeah, I reckon.’
He stared through the gates and turned up his collar. Acting the part, always in character.
‘We going in, then?’
He was gazing at the Fatman’s motor. It was hugging the drive, half in shadow.
‘Cause if we’re going, we ought to go.’
When she stepped out of the car, the cold was so bad it seemed to burn her skin. She shoved her hands deep down in the pockets, her fingers stiffening inside the gloves. She watched him open the boot and root inside, then bring out something bulky. A muffled Joey gasp as the thing was lifted out. She cocked her head and stared at it: a foot-long wooden handle, with a cast-iron, oblong knob at the end, like something you’d use to tenderize meat.
‘That for me, is it?’
He passed it across.
‘It’s heavy,’ he muttered.
He bent and hauled out a rectangular box, laying it carefully on the ground, then pressed the boot down and clicked it shut.
‘Battery first?’ she asked.
‘Battery’s always last,’ he said. ‘You’re the meat and two veg, I’m the after-dinner mint.’
She thought about this.
‘I want to be the mint, Joe.’
‘We’ll see, okay?’
He took out his key and unlocked the gate. He pushed it open and they walked inside. It was one of those London nights you dream of, sharp and moonless, perfect for low-life. An ideal night for hungry types, for tooling-up and dropping by, for visiting your friends before they come and visit you. A night-light glowed dimly on the wall as they approached the dew-topped limousine.
She could almost smell the walnut dash, the thick-pile carpet, the handstitched hide on which the Fatman placed his Fatman rump. She sniffed a little deeper. It was a concentrated money-smell, redolent of everything she’d never had and would never get, and she felt a tiny stab of pain, a fleeting sense of deprivation, an orange flame of rage, a consciousness of being outside looking in. Donna, with her face pressed up against the window, with her damp and anxious longings, with the iron mallet in her hand. The Donna bitch. The sweet, uncaring, soft and yielding, pain-avenging Donna bitch.
For this was him, their lord and fucking master: a piece of filth in a velvet jacket, a gibbering ape in a chauffeured car. She touched the coachwork with her calfskin finger. It felt smooth and thick, densely perfect.
Something gleamed in Joey’s hand.
‘You ready, Joe?’
He closed his eyes for a moment and passed his hand across his face, as if to rub away the tiredness.
‘Yeah.’
He cleared his throat, spat quietly on the ground.
‘Nice motor, though.’
He squatted down.
‘Shame we’ve got to . . . you know.’
He stuck the knife into an offside tyre. Grunting slightly, for they were quality tyres with inch-thick treads, and he had to shove the blade quite deep to puncture the inner tube. Stab and rip, stab and rip, all the way round. Quite physical, she thought. A very blokey thing to do. Felt slightly sick, though, when she saw it. Slashing tyres, and things like that. It was vandal stuff, toerag stuff, teenage-yobs-in-Fulham stuff. They were being weak, too liberal-minded, letting decency prevail. Should have gone and slashed the Fatman. Should have stuck him with a stanley-knife, gouged out a thick and gristly bit and fried it with their brekker.
Joe straightened up and folded the blade.
‘You doing the mallet, right?’
‘Bit heavy, Joe.’ She laid it on the bonnet. ‘Thought I’d do the keys first.’
He dropped them into her outstretched hand.
‘You got to press down hard, like your copper friend.’
‘You think I can’t do it?’
‘I think you’re delicate.’
He moved up close. She’d snagged her jeans, and there was a plum-sized hole on the back of her thigh. He pushed his finger through the gap and touched her skin. The barest touch, which barely made her quiver. He drew her nearer, bent and kissed her in the dark.
But pleasure later, business first. She gently pulled away.
‘Have to work now, Joe. Trash the Fatman’s baby.’
She stepped towards the Bentley.
‘Got to press down hard?’
‘You got to do it, babe.’
‘Press really hard, or just press hard?’
‘Press really hard.’
They’d scrape that car, she told herself, denude it of its colour. Run a key along the wing and
listen to the melody. Strip off all the paint and see what’s underneath. Peel back metallic silver and find the primer underneath. They’d leave their mark, she told herself. They’d leave their fucking mark.
She put the tip of the key against the metal and pressed down hard, pressed really hard, moving slowly along the wing. The key jumped, then caught, and began ploughing through the paintwork. The noise it made. Took her back a few years. Her foul, disgusting schooldays, when the chalk suddenly snapped, and the teacher scraped a fingernail on the blackboard, and all the kiddies winced and cringed. It was like that noise, but multiplied. Like that noise, but a hundredfold. In her skull, inside her brain, the noise she made on Henry’s car.
‘Can’t do it, Joe.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m delicate.’
He got her something from the boot. Because he loved her, as he put it. Because he really cared. It was long and heavy, made of metal. Told her it was used for prising off the hubcaps. Like a crowbar, he explained. He stood her by the offside wing, her back to the car and a smile on her face.
‘Just lift it up, then let it drop. Just swing it down. Just let it flow.’
She shut her eyes and held her breath. Easy, this, she told herself.
‘Watch me, Joey . . . ’
She raised the bar above her head.
‘You watching, Joe?’
‘I’m watching, babe.’
She swung it down, she let it flow. The windscreen splintered, then caved right in. It shattered into tiny shards. Like music to her dainty ears, for like many of the lower class she likes the sound of breaking glass. Could have been a yob, she realized. Could have been a ranting yob, gone running down the road with all her yobby mates.
Voices floated up the street, and a light came on next door. Joey grinning his Joey grin and pleasure coursing through her veins as a single drop of molten heat came slowly trickling out. Oh bliss, she thought. Oh ecstasy.
He squatted down beside the box and unscrewed the yellow caps. Have to shift, now. Have to hurry. A sudden whiff of chemical, which made her eyes sting and her stomach lurch. He got to his feet, began waving her back. For a moment she hesitated, but only for a moment, for she doesn’t want to hurt herself, she doesn’t want to splash herself, she doesn’t want the liquid on her young and tender flesh.
He pointed at a spot ten feet away and she moved obediently back, then he bent down and with a soft, unconscious grunt hefted up the battery. A quick, complicit glance at waiting girly.
‘You watching, babe?’
‘I’m watching, Joe.’
And he poured the liquid on to the metal, sent it sheeting out in a smooth, wide arc. Let it swing, she thought, just let it flow. Acid splashed down on the bodywork, the waxed and perfect bodywork, and the colour hissed and burned and peeled away.
‘We going, Joe?’
‘We’re going, babe.’
He pitched the battery through the tinted rear window. I could have done that, she told herself. Would have made my night, if I’d done that. She took out her keys, hoped the Fatman was watching. Just fuck the bastard, fuck him up his greasy arse, because he shouldn’t have sent them round tonight, with the baseball bats and the smart remarks. She took out her lipstick and smeared her message on the bonnet: Eat the Rich — Donna Bitch.
She wrapped the scarf around her face and walked towards the Ford Capri. Henry’s fault, she told herself. He’d made her, frankly. He shouldn’t have smacked her in the mouth, shouldn’t have been such a total cunt.
For if there’s one thing she can’t stand, she thought, if there’s one thing she can’t bear, she thought, it’s a cunt in a polished Bentley.
* * *
CHAPTER 12
A telephone box off Camden High Street, and the door swung slowly shut. Pause to light a menthol ciggy. Long, thin fingers, scarlet nails. No sleep, no food, but she's plugged in, switched on, speeding on pure adrenalin.
She punched out the number and waited. Cold in the booth, her breath condensing before her eyes. She drummed her fingers on the cradle, tilted her head and read all the cards. A Japanese motorbike thundered past. Carbon monoxide, her scent of choice. She glanced out the window. Wednesday morning, and the streets were heaving.
Come on, come on . . .
Must have gone out, must have taken his motor to the breaker's yard. So wait a few seconds, give him a chance. Play the lung game to pass the time. Inhale the smoke till she almost fainted, till she nearly blacked out, till the lungs almost burst. And Joey's voice inside her brain: You'll go too far. One day you'll die. Joey-boy, who really cared, and she wants to tell him not to worry, she wants to tell him not to fret, for there's one thing that she knows: whatever put her in her grave, it wouldn't be tobacco.
She blew a circle in the air and listened to the ringing. He's gone, she thought, he's buggered off. Give it ten more seconds, and—
He picked up the phone. The briefest pause, then:
‘Yes?’
Tension seeping through the voice.
‘Yes?’
She pressed her mouth against the receiver. The hot, damp breath of the Donna bitch.
‘Hello, sweetie.’
A dense and empty silence, and then a sigh of almost pleasure came floating down the wire.
‘Well,’ he murmured, ‘so how's my little luscious?’
She sucked on the weed. Watched the tip glow red.
‘Keeping busy.’
‘Visiting friends, eh?’
‘Roaming round.’ She took a drag. ‘Having fun.’
‘Thought you might be.’
‘You've been thinking, then.’
‘Apparently.’
‘And what have you concluded?’
‘You've been naughty, sweetheart, and I think you're owed a spanking.’
You could hear it down the line, the ooze of Fatman happiness.
‘I'll have to teach my little girl a lesson.’
She leaned against the window pane. Winter sun came shafting through the glass. It touched her skin, caressed her face.
‘You reckon you can do that, do you?’
‘I know I can.’
‘That's very knowing of you.’
‘Cause I've worked out what your problem is . . . ’
‘I'm not the type of girl has problems.’
‘ . . . cause for all your posturing, all your attitude, what you want, all you basically want, is a good, hard screw by a man like me.’
She smiled into the phone.
‘You've got a big mouth, Henry.’
The sweet, seductive memory of honey in the bathroom.
‘A small dick,’ she added, ‘but a big mouth.’
She flicked the stub to the floor and ground it out. Mashed it into paste with her three-inch heel.
Another silence. Deeper, darker, even denser. She stared at the ceiling.
‘Still there, darling?’
‘I'm still here, sweetheart.’
‘Because I think we ought to meet,’ she said. ‘That's why I'm calling, see? Thought we'd have a chat, try and thrash things out. Arrange a sort of rendezvous, why don't we.’
She pulled a slip of paper from an inside pocket.
‘Around lunchtime, perhaps. Keep it civilized.’
‘You want to apologize . . . ’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well come round whenever. Cause my door is always open, my bed is always made.’
‘You saying I should come round yours again?’
‘I mean fuck it, darling, you know where I am.’
‘I think I could find it.’
‘So I'll see you later.’
He tried, she thought. She'd give him that.
‘I was thinking of someone more neutral, actually.’
‘Oh yeah? Like where?’
She unfolded the paper, smoothed it carefully out. Long, thin fingers and scarlet nails. No sleep, no food, but she's plugged in, switched on, speeding on pure adrenalin. A lady-like cough as she checked t
he address, then she pressed her lips against the phone and said:
‘Got a pen there, have you?’
* * *
CHAPTER 13
‘Shall I tell you something? Shall I, darling? Divest myself of my inner thoughts? Because I think you ought to know, you see. I think you ought to be informed.’
He was sitting beside her on the plastic bench, perspiring in his overcoat, his fleshy thigh against her knee, his sweetly rotting oldman’s breath blowing lightly in her face. Half-past twelve in a West London nick, and it was giving him grief just being there. The Fatman stress was thickening the air. It was billowing smoothly around their heads, lapping against the pea-green walls, dripping down the paintwork. His scalp was beginning to sweat, and his guts were beginning to ache, and the Donna bitch was feeling good, for she’d made the Fatman suffer.
‘When I saw my car,’ he said, ‘when I stepped outside the door and saw my favourite car,’ he said, ‘the ground was shifting beneath my feet. You know what I’m saying? I’m saying my sense of order, of how the world goes round, my sense of right and wrong, my sense of manhood,’ — liquid bubbled between his lips — ‘it all was outraged. Rent asunder. Torn apart by a single visit from a single slag.’
He dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief.
‘She wants to die, I told myself. She’s aching for it. Just counting the days till we put her to sleep. Do you get my drift?’
She frowned.
‘Not quite.’
He tilted his head. Hissed in her ear.
‘My drift, my love, is that enough’s enough.’
She half-closed her eyes to block out the glare. It made her feel ill, fluorescent light. Made her brain go soft and her face collapse, her skull begin to shrink.
‘You sent the boys round, Henry. Wasn’t a friendly thing to do, and I like it when you’re friendly.’
Which statement cheered him up, though very slightly.
‘Did it bother you, then?’
‘I would have thought so, frankly. I mean Merv and Billy, all tooled up. I would have thought it bothered me. Gave me what you might call palpitations. Bit of pitter-patter in the chest. Breathlessness, that sort of thing.’
He shook his head. An indulgent smile.
‘They’re rascals, those two.’
