18
A hacienda in the colonial style, Judith’s house sat high on a plateau burly with jungle. The house itself was rectangular, built around an inner courtyard, the first floor balustrade pausing at one end to deliver a staircase down onto mosaic floor tiles, frayed wicker chairs and piles of old magazines. Outside, her carefully tended flower beds followed a colonnade around the house to the portico and main door. Here two hammocks swung between the columns and steps led down to the lawn. Sprinklers fought the heat. Trees and bushes, flowers and fruit dotted towards the sea, the tropical forest sloping sharply away on either side into the sound of crickets.
Judith pulled up to the side of the house. They got out of the car and a mosquito bit Christmas on the neck. It was a rich, pink evening. Two cats trotted out of the bushes and Judith crouched down to meet them.
“Hello, darlings, we’ve got a guest! This is Harry. Harry this is Alexei and Gregory.”
“The Orlov brothers?”
“Oh, how clever of you!”
“Catherine the Great’s henchmen who helped her get rid of her husband.”
“Digby was allergic to cats, which was a great problem for him. He was also allergic to bonking, which was a great problem for me. Now then, let me show you around the house.”
“It’s been rather a long drive, Judith, I’m sure you’d just rather go to be—”
“Nonsense! It’s your birthday! Let me fetch a couple of gins and a sandwich or something and we’ll do a quick tour. It’s the perfect time. The evenings here are so ...” she gave a little shudder, “vital.”
“And this is the dining room,” she announced, pushing open some double doors at one end of the courtyard. Christmas was nearing the end of a gin so stiff it could join the army. He felt much better. The woman might be a loony, but what a house! The drinks cabinet was well stocked and there were plenty of comfortable spots where a man could snooze away the afternoons and think about important stuff.
“Do you recognise the colour?”
“Green?” Christmas surveyed the room. It was covered in British hunting scenes. Every piece of furniture was a grumpy antique.
“Harrods green. Took me bloody ages to get it right. Digby insisted, the toffee-nosed prat.”
“That’s an impressive hunting horn you’ve got on the wall there.”
“I got it from my father.”
“Your father gave you the horn?” Christmas swilled down the last of his gin and made a trumpet noise into his glass. “And how long have you had the horn for?”
“I can see I’m going to have to watch you,” she said, giving him a poke in the ribs. “You’re one of those naughty men, aren’t you? How about a refill?”
“Those orange flowers, that’s a trompeta, a little blue plumbago over there, and that rather shocking red thing is a passiflora coccinea. Unbelievable colour, isn’t it?” They were wandering through her garden towards the sea.
“Don’t you ever get lonely up here on your own?”
“Oh, look – here we are,” she said. They had come to the edge of the lawn. A molten sun was half in the waves. There was a wheel, a stool and piles of materials under the cover of a Bedouin tent. Her creations were laid out on the grass. Looks like a sale at a garden centre, thought Christmas.
“What do you think?” she said, holding up a ceramic phallus with what looked like an angel shimmying up the side.
“A charming prospect.”
“Not the view, silly, my Eroi.”
“Eroi?”
“Well, I don’t really know what to call them.” Christmas realised that amongst the figurines and other indeterminate shapes, there were lots of these clay penises popping out all over the place.
“‘Phallus’ is so vulgar, don’t you think? So I plumped for Eros. Eroi. This is one of my latest Eroi.” She passed Christmas the object and started dusting the rest with a rag. Christmas looked at Judith. He looked at the sea. The indigenous population, he mused, could have well done with Judith being on hand when Columbus arrived. Might have saved them a few hundred years of plunder and genocide.
“Fourth of August,” Christmas muttered to himself, “Year of Our Lord fourteen hundred and ninety eight. We arrived off the coast of the unknown continent and hoped to claim it for the glory of God and King. Unfortunately the whole atmos of the place has been ruined by a randy old bint with a taste for shit pottery, so we’ve decided to call the whole thing off.”
“Sorry, darling, did you say something?”
“Might pop back to the house for another drink,” he replied, handing back the Eroi. “What about you?”
19
“So, when the BP job came to an end, Digby went back and I stayed. He’s a sweet man really, a sweet, harmless man ... but dear me, what a bore. Used to sit in that chair and read the Times back to front and out loud, even if there was no one else there. What about you, Harry, will you miss your wife?” They were in the courtyard on a couple of wicker chairs beneath the night sky. Christmas scratched the insect bites on his ankles.
“Yes.” They had drunk almost a whole bottle of gin.
“Was it rotten for a while?”
“Rotten?”
“Your marriage. Before the divorce.”
“I was rotten to her. And she was rotten to me. I mean that’s what happens, isn’t it, when two old fruit sit together for too long. Best keep yourself in the fridge.”
“But the children, darling – you can’t be in cold storage for the children. Even when it was non-speaks with Digby and I, we always pulled our fingers out for the children. Oh, my daughter Bridget is such a wonderful, wonderful, young lady. So ...”
“Vital?”
“Exactly! That’s it exactly. You know, even if I hadn’t read a single line of yours, I could tell, I would know, that you, darling, are a writer.” Christmas bared his teeth with a smile. “But Benjamin, my eldest – I don’t know where we went wrong with him.”
“The name, perhaps?”
“Benjamin?”
“Sounds like a type of pyjama.”
“Well, whatever it was, he’s been an utter terror ever since he was young. Do you know he once did a poo in the ice cream tub?” Christmas had to put the emergency brakes on some gin, which then reversed through his nose.
“It’s not funny,” said Judith. “He took it out, did a poo in it and put it back in the freezer.” Christmas gave out a belly laugh to the stars.
“And – ho, dear me – what does he do now?”
“Stop it. It’s not funny!”
“Sorry, sorry, Judith I – the ice cream tub? Oh, that is good, ha, yes, oh dear me ...”
“He doesn’t do anything now. Nothing in the noggin, that’s his trouble. Complete wastrel. Sixty hour labour more or less – always was a lazy bugger. I remember I was in the middle of cooking spag bol when my waters broke, all over the bloody floor, and I shouted to Digby. ‘Digby,’ I said, ‘the baby’s coming.’ ‘Oh good,’ he said, ‘make sure it’s a large one.’ ‘Baby’s, you idiot, not Baileys.’ But that was old Digby through and through. Didn’t have a bloody clue. How I got pregnant in the first place I’ll never know. I mean Benji isn’t a bad boy deep down. I just wish he was a bit ... nicer. What do you think makes people nicer?”
“In my experience?”
“In your experience.”
“The medical establishment giving them news of a terminal illness.”
“Oh Harry, you are terrible.”
“It’s true.”
“And what about your brood? You’ve got two, right? Boys or girls.”
“Boys.”
“What are they called?”
“They’re called ...”
“Can’t you remember?”
“Harry Junior ...”
“And the other one?”
“Xerxes.”
“Xerxes!”
“The wife is very keen on the Persians.”
“Still it’s a bit – anyway, none of my business.
Are your parents still alive?”
“Not last time I checked.”
“Oh, be serious, Harry,” she growled, “I’m trying to find out about you. What was your father like?”
“Mine?”
“Yes, yours! Were you close?”
“No. My room was downstairs.”
“I mean emotionally.”
“I have no idea. We only spoke at Christmastime.”
“Oh, you poor thing.”
“Well, festive port can do that to a man.”
“And your mother?” Judith shifted her chair closer.
“My mother?”
“I know, I know,” agreed Judith, swinging her head.
“You know what?”
“Oh, you poor thing ...” Judith had her hand on his thigh. “No one in the world ... on your birthday ...”
“I’m sorry, what—”
“You poor, poor, poor thing ...”
“Err ...”
“You poor, poor, poor, thing, thingy, thing—”
Moments later they were in Judith’s bedroom and Christmas felt as if he was being undressed by a crazy nurse. She seemed to have forgotten he was injured. She threw off his hat and thrust him onto the mattress. She stripped him like a banana, pausing only to gasp when his shirt came off and she saw the full extent of his bruising. Christmas looked across at himself. There was a storm under his skin.
“Oh you poor man,” she said, “but Judith’s going to take care of you.” He tried to speak. She closed his mouth with her own, yanking and rubbing his hair. She rubbed the lump. He cried out. “Whoops,” she said, sitting up. She tore off her dress in one motion. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. Christmas put his arms out to hold her but she pinned him to the bed and went to work. Some minutes later Christmas found himself having sex while biting back the pain with his teeth. Judith was still on top, her hands roughly massaging his chest while her hips ground against him. Her eyes were closed. Her head swayed from side to side. She started to hum.
It was a low, wandering tone at first, but it soon began to ascend. He couldn’t quite make out the tune. Her nostrils flared. Her eyebrows furrowed and unfurrowed. Her hips moved faster. Then she began to sing. It was a tremulous, wordless, warbling song and despite the torture of his bruises, and his wound rubbing roughly against the sheets, Christmas got the giggles.
He closed his eyes. He opened his eyes. She seemed to be conducting. He laughed so violently through his teeth he had to disguise it as a gasp of passion. She was hitting operatic form now, higher and louder, hips moving faster, Christmas’ head bouncing off the pillow. He was so red in the face with the giggles he thought he was going to have a heart attack. Her nails were digging into his chest, the note surging up the scales until ... finally ... she hit a high note and came.
“Bravo!” Christmas exploded. Judith slumped onto his face.
“Amore ...” she whispered.
“Bravo!” he exclaimed, cheering away the laughter, “Bravissimo!”
By the end of the second session, Christmas wasn’t finding it so funny. Covered in sweat and scratches, he lay star-shaped on the bed, pulverized, his chest hair standing on end. His back, legs and arms formed a single cartel of punishment.
“Do you mind if I have the light on, amore? I want to read.”
“Of course not,” he creaked. Christmas rolled the other way, pulling the sheet over him, flinching as he tried to find a position that didn’t hurt. Sleep. All he wanted was sleep. He closed his eyes and was drifting off when a great ripping noise gave him a start.
“Sorry, darling, but with these big heavy books I always rip a page out once I’ve read it. Otherwise old Ken Follet here would break my bloody arms off!” She gave a quick burst of her jack-hammer laugh and then kissed him on the forehead. Christmas turned back to the wall. His shoulder screamed. He closed his eyes. He shifted. He drifted ... riiiiiiip! It was going to be a long night.
20
Christmas woke to the sound of a dog barking. He went to the window. It was dawn. A raging tide of acidity washed up and down his throat. He found some tablets in Judith’s bathroom and sat down to piss. Tiny ants were conducting a biblical exodus across the tiling. The sight of them made his bites itch.
He inspected his stitches in the mirror, testing the lump. He examined his bruises. He examined his face. He swallowed some painkillers and got back into bed. The world was slowly diluting itself into morning. He turned to look at Judith. Her mouth was open, her tongue hanging out over her teeth. It was a ghastly sight. Christmas rolled towards the ceiling.
He fell asleep. When he woke again the bed was empty. He dressed. He found his hat and jacket and went downstairs. He made himself some toast. There was hot coffee on the cooker. It had a post-it note stuck on the side that said: ‘For you, amore’. He poured himself several cups. From the window he could see Judith at the potter’s wheel. He decided to explore.
Christmas went outside. It was too hot for a jacket. He took it off and folded it over one arm, taking care that Emily’s book was secure. Following a path down to a beach bordered by coconut trees and dotted with pelicans, he went to the water’s edge and sat against a tree trunk in the sand. His jacket folded beside him, listening to the sea turn itself over and over, Christmas inhaled the salt and the sludge, grey mountainous shapes in the distance, trees decapitated by the wind. There was no one. Cotera birds circled high above, pterodactyl-like in outline. He took out Montejo and read a few lines. He laid the book on his jacket and dug into the sand beside him, searching for Emily’s hand.
Christmas looked up the shoreline. “It’s not quite right, is it, Em,” he whispered. “Not the right beach.” He looked up at the sun and pictured his wife, eleven years younger than him, a small, square woman with dark hair and freckles.
When they first met at a house and garden tradeshow in Paris he was the subject of four separate legal proceedings and was receiving treatment for gout. She had quickly defined his bad behaviour as in two categories: what was fun and what was stupid. The fun part she delighted in. The stupidity she outlawed. She had a Stoke accent and always called him ‘Pops’, unless she was in a bad mood and then it was ‘Harry’ or ‘the Prat’, as in ‘does the Prat need me to repeat myself?’ What he would give to be scolded like that again, but the world had eaten her, this rotten world she was always so keen on defending.
He looked down at the red book. Emily’s grandmother married her grandfather while he was working as an English teacher in Caracas. They returned to Stoke in 1932 so he could take his place in the family firm, and Emily was raised on stories of life in her grandmother’s Caribbean village. It had already disappeared by the time of her grandmother’s death, consumed by the growing port of Guiria, but still Emily wanted to go and see the area for herself. They had an old map of Latin America on their kitchen wall. She used to tap Venezuela with a wooden spoon while she was cooking. One day we’ll be there on a beach, Pops, she used to say, and we’ll have a drink in our hands and there’ll be this amazing sunset and it will be perfection. It’ll be magic.
Christmas was going to find Guiria. He was going to find the right beach with the right sunset and read to her one final time. Why hadn’t he done this sooner? He had planned this trip since her funeral, but time had been performing strange acts. It didn’t feel like seven years since she died. It didn’t feel like one year. She died this morning, a lifetime ago. What had he been doing since? Acting the cunt, he thought. Doing one bloody fool thing after another.
Once they were married he took a job working for her father’s ceramics company and they settled in Staffordshire. He stopped drinking so much, stopped getting into trouble. For the first time in his life he threw himself into work. He couldn’t bear to let her down.
Christmas pulled his hand out from the sand. There was one black cloud in the distance. That is death, he thought. A black cloud, coming ever closer, until you are lost in it, calling out, then you turn round and you’re gone. It wa
s just there, an ever-present sensation, mimicking his movements with glee. No, this wasn’t the right place for Emily’s last poem. He got to his feet and walked back up the path to the hacienda, nodding to a couple of gardeners along the way.
Judith was still at her wheel. “Amore!” she trilled as she saw him approach. “Oh, amore! What a wonderful day!” She stood up and gave him a kiss. He felt her hand clasp his crotch. “And how’s Mr Willykins this morning?” Christmas looked out to the ocean. He needed a cocktail.
21
The days passed and life at Judith’s settled into a steady routine: Christmas drank. He read the available books. He avoided the sun. He kept his passport hidden behind the wardrobe and the book of Montejo’s poetry always in his inside jacket pocket, hung up beside Digby’s old clothes that he was encouraged to borrow – short-sleeved shirts, espadrilles, baggy Moroccan trousers.
With Judith in full song and his head being rattled off its shoulders neither he nor Mr Willykins were sure how much more they could take, but during the days she was either busy in the garden or at the wheel. She refused to let him borrow the car, citing the drink in his hand, but despite being confined to the premises he could, for the first time in years, relax. No one knew where he was, no bailiffs, no debtors, no Slade. He was safe here. His bruises were turning green.
Yet he had to get to Guiria, and for that he needed money. He tried to concentrate, to come up with a plan, but he just couldn’t get his mind straight. He felt tired in some deep, distant way. His thoughts drifted from Emily to Lola Rosa, then Judith would appear smiling, asking if he was all right and he couldn’t help agreeing that he was. As long as the gin was going down he could convince himself that she wasn’t another Diana, that he wasn’t preying on her affections, that pretending to be someone else was just a game, just a pause on reality while he gathered his strength.
A Bright Moon for Fools Page 10
