Take the A-Train

by Mark Timlin

  I backed out awkwardly.

  ‘Bedroom one,’ she said. ‘I use this as a living room.’ Another door opened on to a darkened room, curtains closed again. It was furnished with a two-piece suite that looked expensive, and a TV and video on a trolley with wheels.

  ‘Bedroom two.’ Another dark, empty room. No furniture, especially no bed.

  ‘Bedroom three.’ I was getting tired as she showed me a huge room with a built-in wardrobe and dressing table, both dominated by a massive bed – and I mean massive, fully eight feet by six. Even though I estimated that the room was twenty feet square, with a high ceiling, it was dominated by the bed. It had a padded headboard and no baseboard and was covered by a colourful duvet. Fiona ignored it.

  ‘This is the biggest window,’ she said, and walked in and drew back the curtains.

  The wall seemed to be all glass. Outside was a balcony, maybe three or four feet deep, and after that nothing until the hard concrete twenty-seven storeys down. I couldn’t believe that anyone would step out on to that exposed ledge. Beyond the balcony was the view. I’ve never seen one like it. I looked out over the park to the Elephant and the river beyond, and counted seven or eight bridges. I could see right over the City of London to the hills beyond. The city appeared to fill the room. We seemed to be floating over the rooftops as if in a dream.

  The place was silent until Fiona slipped a catch and slid the window open. I could hear the city then, the noise of eight million people and their cars, and the wind whistling around the roof like a mad thing, even though down below in the street the day had seemed quite still.

  ‘Christ!’ I said. ‘That is a view.’

  ‘I closed all the curtains in the flat so I could surprise you,’ she said. ‘But just you wait for night time.’

  ‘Draughty up here,’ I said.

  ‘This is nothing. There’s a three-foot sway when it gets really blowy.’

  I turned away from the window. It was too much to take in at one go. ‘By the way, where am I sleeping?’

  ‘Don’t be coy, Sharman,’ she said. ‘You’re in here with me. I’m as horny as hell, and I’ve been waiting for this for weeks.’

  ‘But my leg,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, just leave it to me. I guarantee absolutely no pain.’ I gave her a look. ‘Well, maybe just a little.’

  4

  ‘D o you want a joint to get you in the mood?’ Fiona asked. This was 9 a.m. remember. ‘Or a drink? Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, do you want something to eat?’ She’d obviously remembered that our relationship was supposed to be nurse/ patient rather than dominatrix/sex slave, although I could handle that.

  ‘No food,’ I said. ‘I’ve just eaten a Saint Thomas’s egg and I think it’s digesting me. But I could use a beer.’

  ‘No problem. Get into bed,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Remember I’m ill,’ I said.

  ‘Sure, I mean to rest. Christ, I’m nervous all of a sudden.’

  ‘Don’t spill the beer.’

  ‘No, I won’t, now get into bed.’ She stood for a minute and I sort of leaned awkwardly against the wardrobe, waiting for her to go. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to get undressed.’

  ‘Been doing it for years, all by myself,’ I said with forced heartiness.

  She went out of the room and I wondered what I’d let myself in for, then shrugged and sat on the side of the bed. I piled my clothes at the end of the bed. I didn’t want to get into wardrobe-space wars for a bit.

  I got in between the sheets, dragging my leg behind me. The bed was big and comfortable and the sheets were soft and freshly laundered and smelt of woman, all in all as different from a hospital crib as could be. Like an idiot I got a hard on straight away. I snuggled down and looked straight out over London. Fiona had positioned the bed for maximum visual overload.

  She came back with two cans of Bud, freezing from the refrigerator. ‘What do you want?’ she asked as I chugged at one. I must have looked puzzled across the top of the can. ‘Music, TV, a film? I’ve got loads of tapes.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said, concentrating on the beer.

  She went off again and came back, pushing the TV and video on its trolley. She plugged everything in and pushed a button on the set. ‘Here’s the remote,’ she said, throwing me the little, black plastic box. ‘It works the TV and the video. Figure it out if you can. It took me months.’

  I pressed buttons and got two soaps, Ceefax and Rainbow. I turned the volume down on Zippy. Whatever happened to Button Moon? I used to watch it with my daughter. All of a sudden I felt like crying. I was homesick for the hospital.

  Fiona saw I was having some kind of withdrawal and rolled a joint of pungent Thai grass. We smoked it, listening to Killing Joke on the stereo.

  I lay there for nearly an hour as Fiona changed the records and Rainbow turned into The Gummi Bears and a few flakes of snow dislodged themselves from the November sky and drifted past the window. She had loaded the joint until it nearly capsized and I felt no pain.

  I must have fallen asleep and woke up with a start. Fiona was still sitting at the foot of the bed. The news was on TV and there was a guitar band that I didn’t recognise creeping softly through the stereo. ‘What’s the time?’ I asked.

  ‘Twelve. Are you hungry yet?’

  ‘No.’

  Silence.

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ she said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Sex.’

  ‘I had a blood test,’ I said. ‘Recently, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s about when we first met.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wanted to shock you.’

  ‘You did, a bit.’

  ‘God, I’m embarrassed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I showed you my tits.’

  She had, in public, at a party.

  I smiled. ‘So you did,’ I said. ‘And they were all right. More than all right, as it happens. But what’s the big deal? You do it every day.’

  ‘That’s different. That’s business. I liked you – I mean, I like you.’

  ‘I like you too.’

  ‘No, I mean I really liked you, straight away. That doesn’t often happen to me.’

  ‘I warned you about my fatal charm.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Sharman.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You see, I’ve only had two lovers before and one was a mistake.’

  ‘Fifty per cent, that’s good. I wish my average was as high.’

  ‘No,’ she said wistfully, ‘they were both mistakes really.’

  ‘That’s more realistic,’ I said. ‘Nil percent.

  That’s about right.’

  ‘I thought I loved him, the first one. I thought it was really love.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘Don’t be so cynical.’

  ‘You’re confusing cynicism with telling the truth. Anything else is fairytales, like The Gummi Bears.’

  ‘I hate to hear you talk like that, as if you really believe it.’

  ‘I do,’ I said.

  ‘We were going to get married.’

  ‘A lucky escape.’

  ‘Then I rebounded on to a real yuk.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now you.’

  ‘Maybe I’m another real yuk.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Shall I roll another joint?’ she asked.

  ‘In a minute. I need to go to the loo.’

  ‘I’m no good as a nurse, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’re great.’

  ‘I got you a bottle. You know, to piss in.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I stole one from the hospital. Was that terrible?’

  ‘No, I paid them enough. But with a little help, I think I can manage to get to the bathroom.’

  So I went to the toilet by myself. Big deal, the avera
ge three-year-old can do it too, but I was proud of myself nevertheless. When I got back to the bedroom Fiona had rolled another joint. We smoked it and drank more beer. I got hungry and she made steak sandwiches, heavy on the mustard. We watched a tape of The Big Heat. The afternoon went and the night arrived and the lights came on all over London. We didn’t turn the lights on in the bedroom. She found her one jazz album and we played Take The A-Train by Duke Ellington and watched the rush hour trains below. After the music finished Fiona undressed and came to bed with me. We cuddled and watched from our silent eyrie.

  Eventually she rolled over and faced me in the dim light that came from outside. ‘How long since you had a fuck, Sharman?’

  ‘Months.’ I didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘None of those pretty nurses help you out? I got some dirty looks when I started to come round.’

  I held her away from me and said, ‘They have a policy at the hospital – pure food and pure staff. No, Fiona, none of the pretty nurses helped me out. One called me a prick one night though.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I called her “Nursey, Nursey”. Apparently nurses don’t like that sort of thing. I was drunk.’

  ‘I’d’ve called you a prick too.’

  ‘Thanks, Fiona.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. You want to fuck now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That thing’s pretty hard down there.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘Your plaster cast, what did you think I meant?’

  I laughed. ‘You’re good, Fiona, you know that?’

  ‘Kiss me then.’

  So I did. She tasted like a flower of romance, sweet and buttery, and then I had two hard things down there and she went down on both of them. I followed her with my hands until she went too far, and then I just lay on my back looking up at the ceiling. She pushed the covers back and rubbed herself on my cast until she came with a loud exhalation of breath and then she mounted me. We both called out, but not to each other. I reached one hand out and touched her belly. It was hot like fire and I kept my hand there whilst I caressed her leg with the other.

  Her skin was as slick and smooth as warm soap. I ran my hand up her thigh, over her waist, up her side, and cupped her breast and rubbed her nipple with my thumb. She moaned and arched over me, then rolled over dragging me with her. I felt a stab under my plaster and came with the pain.

  ‘Oh, you fucker,’ she said. ‘I wanted another one.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She pulled away from me and grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the table by the bed to dry herself. ‘Christ, Sharman,’ she said, ‘but you’re a sloppy bastard.’

  She threw the tissues at me and they hit me wetly in the face.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said.

  That was one thing I was to learn about Fiona – there was no after-sex tenderness with her. ‘Christ, I’ve got to eat, eat, eat,’ she said.

  She grabbed her knickers from the floor, made a face and pulled them on, on the run. She vanished through the bedroom door and I heard clattering and slamming from the kitchen downstairs. She came back with a trayful of food. ‘My fridge is a tip,’ she said, dumping the tray on the bed. She’d brought enough for five. There was cold pizza, prawns, cheese, salad, biscuits, a bottle of wine, plates, cutlery, napkins, the works.

  She got back into bed and switched on the TV. We watched the news again as we ate, then lots of programmes I can’t remember. I do remember that we drank the wine, then another bottle, and got high again and made love a couple more times before we fell asleep.

  5

  For the next three weeks I lay there, in that bed in the sky, and Fiona looked after me, in more ways than one. I was screwed, blewed and tattooed, and loved every minute. I discovered that she had a dirty mind, very dirty, and she had lots of fantasies and liked to work them out and hear them described in graphic detail afterwards.

  And then I went back to the hospital and the plaster caster took a wicked-looking electric buzz saw and slid it through my plaster as smoothly as a hot knife through ice cream. I only felt a slight tickle once, although I must admit to a certain tightening of my rear end as he did the job. My left leg looked like a dead stick covered in layers of old newspaper. Dried skin peeled and fell from it like autumn leaves. I limped up to see my consultant and he declared me ready for physiotherapy. He presented me with an elastic sock and a walking stick and I never saw him again. At least I got to wear trousers with two legs again, and a pair of socks and a pair of shoes.

  The physios were sadists to a man, or woman to be more accurate. Pretty yes, neat yes, presentable yes, sexy yes, but sadists one and all. They ran me ragged for weeks but gradually my leg got better, bit by bit, although I couldn’t bear to look at the livid scars that the operations had left.

  When the plaster came off and the physio began, I moved back to my own flat, not on a permanent basis, you understand, but every other night or so.

  Ten days or so before Christmas, a Thursday it was, I finished my hour with a particularly delectable but particularly vicious physio who just loved to see me suffer and sweat on the parallel bars. I limped out of the ‘In’ door of Casualty, under the concrete awning and into a fine spray of thin, cold rain. I walked across the paved walking area, down the few steps to the main road. The rain was insinuating itself down my neck so I pulled up the collar of my overcoat as I went, rapping myself painfully on the knee with the end of my stick as I did so. I swore and looked right on the off chance that a cab might be heading towards Westminster Bridge with its amber light glowing. In that kind of weather I would have had more chance of seeing a flock of sheep or a group of Djerba dancers.

  As I reached the pavement a dark blue stretch Lincoln Town Car that had been parked opposite pulled through a hole in the traffic heading east and glided to a halt at the kerb beside me. I broke step. How did I know it was for me? I didn’t. How did I know that behind the mirrored glass there weren’t half a dozen guns pointed at me? I didn’t.

  The car sat for ten seconds, engine running, a faint grey exhaust cloud chugging from the rear pipe made visible by the freezing air outside. I felt panic-stricken for a heart beat, then relaxed. If the occupants of the car wanted me, they had me cold. The kerbside front window hummed down and I was looking into a pair of dark pupils set like buttons in a slightly yellow white of eye. The face behind the eyes had ebony skin topped with a bush of nappy black hair. The owner wore an expensive brown leather jacket, collar turned up all the way to his chin.

  ‘Mr Sharman, I presume,’ he said in one of those nice friendly West Indian accents that could charm the briefs off a mother superior. ‘So sorry to see you indisposed.’ I shrugged and tapped my cane against my shoe. ‘I wonder if you have some time to spare?’ the black man went on.

  I smiled a tight smile, but said nothing.

  ‘Mr Watkins would like to see you.’

  Emerald.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked, as I stood on the rain-swept pavement and got wetter.

  ‘Not far away.’

  ‘Once upon a time he’d have asked me himself. Friends do that.’

  ‘He sends his apologies. He hopes you will understand. Business duties he could not avoid.’

  ‘And you are?’ I asked.

  ‘My name is Lupus. I work for Mr Watkins.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Quite recently. He found that there was too much for one man to handle.’

  ‘So you’re the boy.’

  The black man gritted his teeth. I could almost hear them grinding together and I didn’t mind so much getting wet.

  ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘I am Mr Watkins’s personal assistant.’

  ‘How grand. When I first met him, he was doing all the cooking in his place.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  I looked along the length of the car as it gleamed in the dull mid-morning light under its coating of fine moisture. ‘So I see. Business mus
t be good.’

  ‘Adequate.’

  ‘And Em wants to see me?’

  Lupus frowned at the name I gave his employer. ‘Mr Watkins, yes.’

  ‘Tell him to give me a bell, he’s got the number,’ I said, and walked away from the car. There was another black guy leaning against the traffic light standard. He was just leaning, tall and broad in a light showerproof coat. Then he smiled at me and I heard the doors of the car open and looked round and saw two more Brothers getting out of the back of the Lincoln, one each side. The guy who had been leaning nonchalantly waiting for the lights to change was right up close to me now. He frisked me under my arms and around my waist and I stood for it.

  ‘He favours something on the ankle,’ one of the others said behind me.

  I shook my head. ‘I never go to advanced physiotherapy armed. It tends to upset the rhythm of the whole class.’

  The guy in the light mac gave me a big smile. ‘I trust you,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t disappoint me.’

  ‘I’ll try desperately hard not to.’

  ‘Get into the car,’ he ordered.

  ‘Make me,’ I said, stubborn to the end. You would have thought that limping around on a stick for weeks would have taught me some kind of a lesson.

  He blew through his teeth. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘I hate hurting cripples, it ruins my day.’

  ‘I’d regret being the cause of that.’

  The car reversed up to where we were standing. ‘Count on it,’ he said. ‘Now get in.’

  I did as I was told. I ducked down into the back of the limousine and on to the broad leather seat. I sat in the middle and the guy in the light mac sat next to me. One of the men who had got out of the back of the car sat in the jump seat opposite. The other walked round into the traffic and got in on that side and took the other window seat. The upholstery was so deep that my knees were about level with my eyes. Although there were three of us in the back seat the car was wide enough to allow room for a keg of beer between each of us. Light Mac turned round and put one ankle on his knee. He took my stick and gave it to Jump Seat who studied it carefully.

  ‘No sword,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid the NHS doesn’t run to them.’