The White Stuff

by Simon Armitage

  ‘My true mates,’ sobs Stevo.

  Bez tells Stevo to stop making the corny speeches and get his arse in gear or they’ll be late.

  ‘Late for what?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  In a private room at the back of the club, a spotlight illuminates a large circle of glitter curtain, like the shimmering moon, through which strides Cat Woman, their feline entertainment for the evening. Stevo gawps as she peels off the layers - her satin cape; her elbow-length gloves with long, sharp claws; her boots with the pointy toes and stiletto heels; her fishnet tights; her leopard-skin bra; her leopard-skin pants; until she stands above them in nothing but a cat mask, a pair of small, velvety ears and a furry tail. Suddenly the music stops. ‘So does anybody here like pussy?’

  From the cheer that goes up, it appears that everyone does.

  ‘Well, let’s see how much,’ she puns, handing a metal tray down to the crowd of whooping and whistling men before slinking off into the wings.

  ‘Get yer hands in yer pockets, lads. Silver tray,’ yells Bez.

  Upon hearing the magic words, the men delve deep into their pockets, pulling out all the loose change they can find and tossing it on to the tray as it passes in front of them. Upon hearing the magic words, men from other rooms in the club stream in through several doors, heaping their coins on to the growing pile, until the tray is spilling over with money and buckling under the weight. A man on the stage in a dinner jacket receives the offering and pours the money into a cloth bag. From the wings, he produces a theatrical set of weighing scales and hangs the cloth bag by its straps on the hook. The needle on the scales swings sharply to the right, stopping just short of the red area on the dial. There is a loud, comic groan from the men in the room and more coins are showered on to the stage. The man in the dinner jacket sweeps the coins into a dustpan and tips them into the bag, and this time the needle passes the critical mark. A huge roar goes up, including barking noises and, from a man stood on a table, the braying of a donkey. The music starts again, the lights go down and Cat Woman re-enters through the glitter curtain, her tail swinging and her cape swishing from side to side, giving flashes of her bare body. Stevo is pushed forward but resists, clinging to a table. Two or three men grab him, pull him loose and again force him in the direction of the stage, but he wrestles free and barges his way past the crowd, the fear in his face only subsiding when he reaches the back of the room and clamps hold of the radiator. Names are called out. Scuffles take place as men are hauled forward, bundled towards the light, but break loose and scuttle back into the darkness. Just as Cat Woman is losing her patience and seems ready to bring the show to an end, a volunteer is produced. He is carried by his arms and legs, then rolled across the heads and shoulders of the men at the front of the crowd and dumped on the stage. It is Keith. Keith the dwarf. Keith who is literally mouse-like in front of the high-heeled, long-tailed Cat Woman. The laughter in the room is riotous. It is overtaken by shouts of, ‘Go on,’ and finally by a chant of ‘Keith, Keith, Keith’. Cat Woman’s mask still wears its cunning smile, although her tail has stopped swinging now and her cape hangs lifelessly in front of her. But the money has been weighed, the target met and the man in the dinner jacket looks on from the wings with a face like a hammer. Stevo is at the back of the room, on tiptoes. Somewhere in the middle of the crowd are Big Ted and Little Ted, Jackpot, Muppetman, Caddy, Rabbo, Rollo, Tupps, Bloodbath, Jenks, China, Rabbit, Sox, even Sickbreath. The hard core. And at the front is Bez, close enough to lean forward and yank Keith’s trousers to the floor, then his underpants, bringing Keith to his knees and the crowd to their feet. Taking three strides forward in her pointy boots, Cat Woman envelops Keith in her cape, rocks him on to his back and, with her hands inside her cloak, lowers herself on to him. From behind her cat smile, she turns to the audience and lets out a long, howling, ‘Meow.’ The man in the wings yawns and glances at his watch. Keith turns away, facing the back of the stage, and the redness around his ears and behind his neck is the burst of red paint from earlier in the day, when he was shot dead.

  SAGITTARIUS (22 November-21 December)

  16

  The decision to remove Ruby Moffat from the family home and place her in the care of the local authority was taken at a case conference. The vote was not unanimous, but was carried by a majority verdict, and from where Felix was sitting it seemed that those people whose opinion really mattered were all of the same mind. A crisis point had been reached during _the past couple of days. After a month or so of relatively calm behaviour, there had been problems at home and three or four altercations at school, including a very ugly scene in which Captain Roderick had tried to remove Ruby from one of the cubicles in the girls’ lavatory. She had locked herself in not long after assembly and was still there at the end of the lunch period. When the head teacher peered in over the top of the door Ruby had jabbed at him with a twelve-inch ruler, causing a cut to his chin and a thick lip. For a high-ranking military man with a tactical mind, the Captain’s response had been surprisingly crude, his immediate reaction being to remove the door with a crowbar borrowed from the metalwork department, then attempt to prise Ruby’s arms apart with his bare hands as she dung to the base of the toilet. When Ruby lashed out with her feet he sustained further bruises to his chest and shoulders, but, according to one of the dinner ladies interviewed by PC Lily, the Captain ‘really went apeshit’ when one of Ruby’s kicks caused blood to spill from his nose, blood which stained not only his shirt but his regimental tie. Captain Roderick was eventually restrained by two male teachers. After a long, quiet chat with Mrs Dobson from RE, Ruby was finally persuaded to let go. She was taken to the matron’s room, wrapped in a blanket and given a mug of warm orange juice. Eventually she had fallen asleep.

  Captain Roderick’s action would have been more than enough to warrant disciplinary proceedings or even a sacking under normal circumstances, but when Ruby’s parents were visited by a member of the education department, Mrs Moffat admitted that similar incidents had taken place at home over the previous week. Only last Sunday Ruby had barricaded herself in her bedroom for several hours; when one of the boys broke in through the bedroom window he received a broken tooth for his trouble as Ruby greeted his arrival with a wooden tennis racquet. Mrs Moffat said they couldn’t expect Captain Roderick to be punished for something they had done themselves. Mr Moffat had remained silent during the interview, which rightly or wrongly had raised PC Lily’s suspicions. Two days later, Ruby had gone missing from her bedroom during the night, via the ladder that had been left there by her brother. She was not found until six o’clock the following evening, hiding in a skip on the far side of the estate with a large sheet of polythene pulled over her to keep the spiders away. Her thing about spiders had now developed into full-blown arachnophobia, and not only that, she didn’t want to go home. The case conference was called the very next afternoon, and although Felix had some doubts about placing her in an alien environment full of strangers with problems of their own, he agreed that for now she would be better off in more neutral surroundings. So when it came to the vote, he raised his hand. The interests of the child always came first, and until somebody figured out what the danger was, exactly, and where it was coming from, she was best on her own, away from everyone.

  Mrs Moffat came with them in the car as Felix drove Ruby to the children’s home. Carlos was on duty and came outside to meet them, opening the car door for Ruby and introducing himself. Ruby was carrying a black holdall over her shoulder and a smaller, tartan-coloured case. Mrs Moffat carried another two plastic shopping bags full of shoes and cassette tapes. Inside the home, Carlos showed them to the room, and Ruby waited outside until Felix and Mrs Moffat had checked that the wardrobe and the set of drawers were free of spiders. Then Ruby entered, crossed to the far side of the room to check the lock on the window and sat down on the bed. Mrs Moffat unpacked the bag, loading the shoes into a hollow section in the base of the wardrobe, folding the sweatshir
ts and trousers into one drawer and the underwear into another, then hanging the skirt, blouse and jacket of Ruby’s school uniform on the rail. The collection of a dozen or so Beanie Babies was lined up on the bookshelf. She stacked the cassettes along the windowsill, found a place above the vanity unit for the tape recorder and trailed the flex to a socket a couple of inches above the skirting board.

  ‘Want to listen to some music, Rubes?’

  Ruby shook her head.

  ‘If you’d only tell us what the matter was we wouldn’t be here. Why don’t you tell Mr Felix what it’s all about, eh?’

  Ruby rolled backwards on to the bed and pulled the pillow up over her ears.

  Felix said, ‘Why don’t you have some time together? I’ll be in the office.’

  Felix handed Carlos copies of various documents and important papers. He’d been through the details of the case with him on the phone and went over the main points again as they waited for Mrs Moffat to return. After about ten minutes she came along the corridor from Ruby’s room. Her eyes were red and she was holding a paper tissue to her face.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Moffat, we’ll take good care of her, and I’m sure she’ll be home soon,’ Carlos told her.

  Mrs Moffat nodded through her tears.

  ‘Shall I show you around the kitchens and the laundry? We’ve got a games room where we organize a lot of activities.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s all very nice,’ she said flatly.

  Outside, Mrs Moffat walked across the row of paving slabs that ran alongside the building and peered into each window until she found Ruby’s room. She tapped on the glass, then rapped a little harder with her knuckle. Then she walked back towards Felix, shaking her head and reaching into her coat pocket for another tissue. In the car, she sat upright and formally in the seat, with her hands on her lap, and looked straight ahead. After a few minutes she reached down for her handbag, took out a compact and inspected her face in the mirror. With her fingertips she pushed her hair out of her face and hooked the longer, wispier locks back behind her ear. Then, snapping the mirror dosed, she said, ‘That’s no place for my wee girl.’

  Felix nodded. ‘It’s only till we find out what’s going on.’

  ‘It’s not what, it’s who,’ she said, still looking straight out in front through the windscreen.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I’m her mother, aren’t I?’

  ‘You would say if you knew anything, wouldn’t you? You would tell me?’

  Felix felt her stare.

  ‘Do you honestly think I’d let my wee girl stay in a place like that for one minute, even for one second, if… Do you?’

  ‘No. Of course you wouldn’t.’

  When they pulled up outside the house on Coleridge Avenue, half a dozen of the Moffat lads were hanging around by the door, including Teddy, the eldest. Mr Moffat was standing in the living room, looking out of the window. Mrs Moffat checked her face in the mirror again and asked Felix how she looked.

  ‘You look fine,’ he told her.

  ‘Won’t be having this lot thinking I can’t deal with it.’

  Then she walked up the path, picking up a soggy egg box on the way and dropping it into the wheelie bin before going inside. The boys never moved. Just stood there in their shabby donkey jackets and filthy overalls, each with a cigarette in his mouth or hand. As Felix nodded his acquaintance in their general direction, Teddy fixed him with a hard, open-eyed stare that lasted for several long seconds. And then he winked.

  ∗

  Felix had three more visits to make, the final one being at the Sunnyview Nursing Home in the town’s only leafy suburb, though nearly all of the leaves were on the ground by now, raked into piles at the bottom of some of the better-kept gardens, dappling the lawns of others and lining the gutter on both sides of the road. It was at least three months since his last visit, not good enough, but he had been busy. He carried his briefcase with him to the door. Through the glass the receptionist recognized him and buzzed to let him in. In the hallway, a woman on a metallic blue Zimmer with her stockings rolled down to her ankles stood motionless and bewildered. In the dining room, a handful of residents were either asleep behind the remains of their meals or slowly spooning what looked like chocolate custard towards their mouths.

  ‘She’s down here,’ said one of the nurses, showing him along a carpeted corridor and through an open door at the far end. In one corner, a large television shone brightly, lighting up what was an otherwise dark and rather gloomy room. About twenty residents were seated around the outside, most of them women. From previous experience, Felix had taught himself not to look, but the sounds alone reminded him of what he didn’t want to see, and he couldn’t shut out the sounds. The mumbling and the chunnering. The sighs. The panicky struggle for breath and the mechanized hiss of an oxygen bottle. The sobbing. The woman saying her prayers. The woman shouting, ‘Bill, Bill, stay at home with me. Don’t be going with her. What’s she got that I haven’t, Bill? Bill?’ The man still fighting the Second World War in his dreams. The moans. And the noises of boredom and uselessness and fear. Felix kept his eyes to the floor, but in his mind’s eye he could see. The hunched spines. The knotted fingers. The inflated ankles and bandaged legs. The faces. The eyes, weepy and afraid, or dosed against the pressure of light, or magnified by thick glasses, or bloodshot, or marbled, or glazed. And the eyes of the man in the corner chair by the window, wide open and blind.

  ‘Elsie, you’ve got a visitor. Come on, love, wake up.’

  The old lady roused and looked towards the nurse.

  ‘Someone to see you. Come on, love, wakey-wakey.’

  Putting her hand under Elsie’s chin, the nurse gently turned her face through ninety degrees until she was looking at Felix. Felix bent down towards her.

  ‘It’s Felix,’ he said.

  The old woman smiled vaguely, then looked back at the nurse and shook her head. She was drooling slightly. The nurse pulled out Elsie’s handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and wiped her mouth.

  ‘It’s Felix,’ said Felix again. ‘I’ve come to see you.’

  This time the old woman seemed to understand. She looked again for his face, then reached out towards him with her hand, which had curled and shrunk into a tight, crooked fist, almost a claw. Felix pushed his index finger into the hole between her palm and her thumb and sat down beside her.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Is it Felix?’ she said. Her voice was dry, coarse-sounding but strong all the same, and her words were clear.

  ‘Yes. Do you want a glass of water?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Billy, don’t be going with her. You married me, Billy,’ shouted the woman across the other side of the room.

  ‘Is it Felix?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He felt her hand tighten ever so slightly around his finger.

  ‘Are they looking after you, then?’ he asked cheerily.

  There was a pause. ‘I don’t eat rabbit, do I?’

  ‘No. You don’t.’ Then, adding some laughter into his voice, he said, ‘Have they been feeding you rabbit?’

  With her other hand she lifted the handkerchief towards her face and dabbed at the corner of her mouth. Her cane walking stick with the horn handle was resting against the arm of the chair, the one that had belonged to her father. He was a gentleman, who wore a tie on Sundays and never went out without a hat. He was a stickler for timekeeping and cleanliness. He kept a fob watch in his breast pocket. He was proud, because when you were poor you had nothing but your pride and a few possessions to last a lifetime. Like a tie and a hat, and a stick, and a fob watch if you were lucky. Elsie had told all this to Felix over the years, but she was quiet now and, whatever thoughts she had, few of them came out as words.

  ‘Is it Felix?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t eat rabbit, do I?’

  ‘No, you don’t eat rabbit.’

  Then from behind,
‘Oh, Billy. Shame on you. You married me, not her. Shame on you, Billy.’

  Between the muttering and the breathing, the silences were heavy and slow, as if quietness were congealing in the air or gathering in the dark corners of the room. As if the spores of time were hanging in the atmosphere, feeding on silence. Someone would cough or shout, or the woman by the door would whisper her prayers, and for a moment time would disperse. Then the silence would creep back, filling the gaps, multiplying until its presence could be touched pr smelt. It wasn’t dear to Felix which was worse, the noiselessness or the noise. Two nurses came in and wheeled out the man from the war without waking him up. The television was still on but the sound was inaudible and no one was watching. With his finger still tight in her hand, Felix imagined she had nodded off or was lost in some daydream. Then her head rotated towards his wrist. Suddenly she slid her free arm across her body towards him and with her thumbnail tapped on the face of his watch.