A Bright Moon for Fools

by Jasper Gibson

  He squeezed out a flourish of tomato sauce on top of the marmalade. “A few adventures later, Mary, still a man as far as the rest of the crew are concerned, falls in love with a sailor from a captured vessel. This sailor falls foul of one of the other pirates who challenges him to a duel. Now, Mary knows her sweetheart hasn’t a chance against the seadog, so she challenges the rogue herself.”

  “Are you really going to eat that?”

  Christmas added salt and pepper. “In accordance with pirate law,” he continued, “the two get rowed ashore for the fight. She is about to get overpowered by the big brute when she rips open her shirt and shows him her breasts. The ruffian is so shocked to find out that his crewmember is a woman that he stands gawping for a fateful second – enough time for Mary to swing at his head—” Christmas picked up the toast, “—and kill him dead.” He bit into it. Bridget wrinkled her face. “No one messed with Mary after that,” he said through his mouthful.

  “That is disgusting.”

  “Why? She had no choice. Anyway, the whole crew were caught and sentenced to be hanged, but as she was pregnant with the sailor’s child, she got a stay of execution, which didn’t matter much in the end as she died in prison from the fever. She is famed for saying that hanging wasn’t such a bad thing, because without it ‘every cowardly fellow would turn pirate, and so unfit the sea that men of courage must starve.’”

  “Well, you learn something every day.”

  “And forget,” chewed Christmas, “a little bit more. Perhaps I should go down to Puerto la Cruz and get my own band of pirates together.”

  “And do what?”

  “Mount a raid.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  “I’m sure you’ve outraged my mother quite enough.”

  “But her legendary bounty, the famed and priceless Eroi ...”

  “Oh god – don’t start with those things.”

  “I shall sell them to Dutch traders in return for gold and furs.”

  “You’ll be lucky if you get the sideburns off a rabbit. She started doing them when Daddy was still here. I think it started off as some kind of horrible hint.”

  “Oh look,” said Judith, coming in from the garden with a basket full of tools, “everyone’s getting along! How fabulous.”

  “Mummy, Harry’s going to be a pirate.”

  “Isn’t that nice. Now who’s going to help me with the lunch?” Bridget slipped off her chair and gave him a wink. OK, yes, Christmas reflected, he was in a cage of sorts, but a gilded one, and if these were his two feisty guards then why shouldn’t he enjoy himself? If he couldn’t find his way out, at least Slade would never find his way in.

  26

  “Oh, si, Señor,” said the concierge, “I know this man.”

  “Is he here?” Slade threw a look around the lobby.

  “Here, Señor?”

  “You said you knew this man.”

  “Yes. I see all his films. I like the best the one – the actress with the red hair? They in Japan—” Slade snatched back the photo and quit the hotel. He opened his guidebook and crossed out another name. It was growing dark. Slade took a metro train back to Chacaito and his room at the Hotel Lux.

  A mirror overlooked his bed. He inspected himself. He had lost weight and grown a beard. He was hardly eating. There were dark prints underneath his eyes. Slade took off his T-shirt and flexed his muscles. He started doing sit-ups but suddenly he just lay down on the floor and covered his face with his hands. “No!” he cried. He carried on with the sit-ups, faster this time, until he gave up and rolled onto his side, breathing heavily. Scrambling to his feet, he sat down by the bedside table and took the phone. He made a call. The ring seemed long and distant and endless until it cracked open and there was Diana’s voice.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “William? Oh God, William, what’s this number? Where are you? I’ve been going out of my fucking mind!”

  “He’s here.”

  “Where? Where are you?”

  “I’ve followed him. I’ve tracked him down. I’ve—”

  “I told you I didn’t want you to do anything. I don’t want you to hurt anybody, do you understand? I was very upset then. I was drunk – where are you?’”

  “Venezuela.”

  “Oh God...”

  “He’s here. He’s here in Caracas. I found out—”

  “Just fucking leave it, William, OK? I don’t want you to do anything! Just leave it and come home!”

  “Home?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “But now – can’t we—”

  “Not all that again, William. We shouldn’t even be talking. You know what the situation is between us – Oh God, what a mess ...”

  “He’s not going to hurt you any more.”

  “He’s dead, William.”

  “I meant Harry Christmas.”

  “Harry Christmas isn’t going to hurt anyone. Not like that. Harry Christmas is just a – he’s just a scumbag. Stop whatever you’re doing, do you understand? Just stay out of my life!”

  Slade listened to the noise of her voice for a few seconds longer then put the phone down. He put his T-shirt back on and opened the door. He checked the corridor left and right whilst replaying Diana’s words of gratitude.

  He took the elevator down and went out into Caracas, walking through the Chacaito district, along Avenida del Libertador. He looked up at the skyscrapers. One had a Pepsi ball on top of it, another a giant red Nescafé cup. He stood beneath government billboards, ‘UH! AH! CHÁVEZ NO SE VA!’, ‘LA NUEVA GEOMETRÍA DEL PODER’, ‘PATRIA, SOCIALISMO O MUERTE’. He registered every face that walked by, monitored every movement. He saw a cat sniffing at an empty burger box and tried to kick it.

  Across the other side of the autopista, bodies skulked alongside the barriers and climbed down towards the river and the makeshift tents and shelters that clawed onto the embankment. Beyond the streetlights he could see the dark trees of the Jardín Botánico and Parque Los Caobos. He walked up Avenida Quito and Las Palmas, past rowdy kids playing baseball with a rock and a stick. Strong winds surprised the rubbish, pulled at skirts and hair. The rain began. Citizens began to run.

  Slade followed some men into a corner Chinese restaurant. Inside, drinkers sat in high-backed chairs across tables covered in paper cloths and beer bottles. The Chinese waiters looked pale and bedraggled. Everyone was smoking. There was a television showing baseball, one man sitting below the screen, his fingers and wrists covered in gold. He talked into his phone as he ate, spraying food. Slade took a seat. He ordered whisky. He had no appetite.

  A mix of Venezuelans and foreigners sat at the table next to him. He kept his eyes on the baseball and homed in on their conversation, picking out an Australian accent.

  “... fucken gorgeous she was, mate, fucken gorgeous, great fucken tits – and she’s going at it, then she stops and says why don’t I bring a mate, two’s a company, three’s a fucken party type thing, so first I’m thinking ‘whatever’ and giving her head the old cafetiere, y’know, get back down there and fucken get on with it, but I’m thinking to myself, why not give it a go, right? So she calls up her mate, the doorbell goes and it’s some fucken bitch with a huge fucken knife! Just fucken comes in with her fucken knife fucken ties me up and fucken robs me! The fucken two of them! Fucken ransack the place! So I am so fucken distraught I spend all the next day with the door fucken double-locked, curtains drawn, smoking fucken Mary Jane to fucken calm me down, right? And fucken someone, right, some fucken neighbour or something, fucken smells it in the corridor, calls the police, me fucken doorbell goes – two fucken cops! And guess what they fucken do! Fucken tie me up and rob the place!”

  Slade was studying each of them. He saw himself smash bottles over their skulls, driving the broken ends into the faces of other diners who tried to stop him. He imagined fighting every single person in the restaurant – kicks, punches, reverse elbo
ws – until it was strewn with groaning bodies. Slade finished his drink and went back to the Hotel Lux. The storm was over. The streets were wet. At every turning he expected to bump into Harry Christmas or the three men that had robbed him.

  Once in front of the Lux he rang the bell. There was a different receptionist, a badly-shaven man with white hair. He released the security door and greeted Slade with a smile. “Buenas noches, Señor. Todo bien?” Slade assessed him. He walked into the lift. The man skipped out from behind his desk and held the door. “American?”

  “Where’s the other one? The woman?”

  “Are you an American?”

  “Who are you working for?” said Slade after examining him for a moment.

  “Que?”

  “Are you working for Christmas?”

  “You are not an American?” Slade didn’t reply. “Chicas?” the man whispered. “Girls? Nice one. Young one. You want?” Slade stared at him. “OK, you want, you ring to reception, vale?” The man pointed at his phone. “OK, Señor?” he winked. “No problem!” he slapped Slade on the arm and slid back to his seat. The doors of the lift closed. Slade travelled upwards through the floors, thinking back to the last time he’d had sex.

  Kimberly Canning was coming out of a pub in the centre of East Grinstead late on Friday night when she bumped into Slade. She had just decided that she hated her husband and was out drinking to celebrate. She had one arm round a friend. They were in heels and short skirts and were laughing at almost everyone that passed them.

  “Ooooh, look at you,” she said, pulling up in front of him. She knew her husband was wary of Slade and that made her want to fuck him.

  “Kim,” he nodded.

  “And this is Fran,” she said. “You off somewhere nice?”

  “Not really. You?”

  “We’re off up Dreamers,” she said, “Want to come?”

  He took the two women to Dreamers nightclub. After an hour, the friend went home and Kimberly, a small woman with big breasts, had her hand on Slade’s leg. She was drunk. “I’m a passionate woman,” she slurred into his ear against the bass, “and he doesn’t even make love to me any more! I mean, can you believe that? I’m pretty, don’t you reckon? Don’t you reckon I’m still pretty?” Slade was watching a group of men he had taken a dislike to.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re still pretty.”

  Slade took her to his flat. They started kissing in the hallway. They went into his bedroom. Once most of their clothes were off and his penis was hard, he positioned her on the small sofa so she was kneeling against it with her face to the wall. She was drunk. She wouldn’t stay still. He moved in behind and started fucking her. She was giggling.

  He banged her head against the wall. She cried out. Clapping his hand over her mouth, Slade took his penis out of her vagina and forced it into her anus. She couldn’t move. He held her head, front and back, muffling and controlling her. Then he fucked her as quickly and as powerfully as he was able. He came.

  He let go and stepped back from her. She was weeping and shaking and holding her face. She grabbed her clothes and fled.

  Slade lay on his hotel bed. He turned on the television. There was no movie in English. He turned off the television. He picked up the phone and called down to reception.

  When the doorbell rang, Slade was wearing a towel. “Hola, Papi,” she said, “Wow. Eres un macho, Papi, eres un macho de verdad.” She was tall, with a thick mane of straight black hair and heavy black make-up around her eyes. She was wearing white boots that went up to her thighs and a tight black dress. Slade let her in, checking the corridor outside.

  She prowled around the bed, saying things he didn’t understand. She rubbed her fingers together and shook her Hello Kitty purse. He gave her the sixty dollars he had ready on the bedside table. Once she had it in her hands she gave him a big smile and turned on the television. She found a channel playing music videos and turned up the volume, bending down to see herself in the mirror above the bed, mouthing the words of the song, dancing, flirting with herself. She beckoned Slade over and laid him down on the bed. She ran her hands across his chest and then flopped her hair in his face, straddling him, swaying and singing. Once she had peeled off her dress over her head, Slade put his hands on her breasts. They were fake. She smiled and carried on looking at herself in the mirror as he ran his hands over her and she ground against him, lap-dancing to herself.

  The song ended. She sat back on his ankles and pulled open his towel. Slade had an erection. His penis was long and thin. She slipped from the bed and started giving him a blowjob. Slade rolled his head back to see if he could see his reflection. He could not. He looked forward. The prostitute was flicking her hair from one side to another, making noises and staring at herself in the mirror while she sucked his cock.

  Slade put his hands on her shoulders, motioning that they change position. He got out from beneath her and kneeled on the mattress, putting on a condom she gave him from her purse. She slipped off her knickers and, with her boots still on, got on all fours, reversing her backside towards him. She curved her back and offered up her rump. Slade clenched it, round and firm and brown, the spots of a shaving rash visible either side of her vagina, then he watched himself in the mirror, his penis moving in and out. He glimpsed a cat in the corner of the room. He turned. The cat was gone. He looked down at her backside.

  She shuffled backwards, edging him out of the mirror so she could see herself, “Si, Papi,” she squeaked at her reflection, “me gusta como me coges Papi, qué rico, Papi, qué rico ...” She was occupying the whole mirror. He couldn’t see a thing. He looked down at his penis sliding in and out and didn’t recognise it. He stopped thrusting. He took his penis out but she kept rocking and groaning as if he was still fucking her. “Si, Papi asi,” she continued, “Sí, Papi así,” she continued, “exactamente así, Papi, oh Papi baby, sí, qué rico.” She frowned. She stopped. She looked round. “Papi?” she said, “Hay algún problema?”

  27

  The days passed. His bruises were turning yellow. He could brush red dust off the scab on his head. With Bridget in the next door room, Christmas assumed that Judith would cut out her nocturnal arias. He was wrong. A couple of times, sex had bought on the chest pains. Once he got cramp, bellowing out, but even though she had been indulging the roof beam with her own music she shushed him with a finger and pointed at the wall. This did nothing for the cramp. He chopped out some yelps. She took it for passion and put a pillow over his face. Suffocating as well as cramping, Christmas grabbed at the pillow and then bucked her right off, flipping both of them onto the floor. Christmas looked up. Judith was holding her head. She was crying. “Are you—?” She wasn’t crying. She was laughing.

  The cramp re-asserted itself, yanking his thigh. Christmas struggled onto his feet and hopped round the room. Judith was in hysterics. Bridget, roused by the noise, rushed into the room. She saw Harry Christmas naked and rushed out again, mock-retching in the corridor. “Whatever you two are doing–” she shouted, “–I mean, for fuck’s sake!” Christmas rubbed his thigh back and forth.

  “Oh, darling,” Judith sighed, “we do have fun, don’t we?”

  He kept asking Judith if he could borrow the car, but she would say things like, “Oh, you are funny,” and carry on with the pruning. The town was too far to walk, the weather too hot or too rainy. Whenever they did need something, she always seemed to drive off while he was napping.

  “I’d just like to go for a drive,” he said as firmly as he could, “just drive around.” He’d studied a map of the peninsula. Guiria was on the other side. If he could borrow the car he could just disappear for a day or two and find Emily’s beach.

  “You can’t do that,” she replied, “you’re drunk.” Judith was right. Christmas was always drunk – in fact he was caught in an endless cycle of meals and drinks. He was either stuffed or drunk or asleep or all three. Then there were his duties as a model. He had put his foot down when it came to naked
ness but he was still forced to sit there for hours while she carved his bust or his head. Sometimes in bed he caught her examining his penis with her glasses on. Her most recent Eroi looked alarmingly familiar.

  He tried to enlist Bridget with ideas for excursions, but she only shrugged her golden shoulders and said, “Ask mummy. It’s her car.” So while Judith sculpted or did the gardening, Christmas and Bridget were left to joust with each other.

  “Yes, yes, Bridget but this is ‘real life’ as well, you know.” Christmas was nestled in the hammock. He pushed himself off with a foot and slurped his cocktail. “You don’t have to be in a refugee camp for things to count. I agree that generally speaking life is not a bed of roses but—”

  “Life undoubtedly is a bed of roses,” she retorted. “You stay exactly where you’re put and then every so often someone comes along and dumps a load of shit on you. Now shut up. I’m reading.” Christmas watched her go back to her magazine. Would his own daughter have turned out like Bridget? So brazen? So beautiful? With a smile he thought back to when Emily was pregnant, how he had started to delight in housework, in performing small errands for her. He remembered how protective he was when they were in public places, how he’d been overwhelmed with kindly feeling, making sure that she was always comfortable, that all her needs were met. He remembered being beside Emily on the gurney while they had a third scan and learnt their baby was a girl: the outline of his daughter’s face, the way the image stretched and flickered while he held Emily’s hand.

  “She’s got your nose, Em,” he said, “Thank God.”

  “All babies have got my nose. Basically I look like a foetus.” Christmas kissed her. “We’re having a little girl,” Emily whispered, turning back to the monitor as they watched their child dreaming up a life.