She shook her head. ‘No.’ Her lines were quite harsh and she seemed much older than her years, as if she’d given more and suffered more than most.
‘Fuck, I think about you, Debbie Canova.’
She liked that for about five seconds. Her eyes opened as I handed her the joint. She said, ‘Debbie Canova? That takes me back.’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t heard that name for a long time.’ She kind of laughed and I had no idea what she meant. ‘Debbie’s a little girl’s name. And Canova was my first husband’s name. Remember Phil? These days people call me Mrs Deborah Debasque, or when we go back to Etienne’s home in France it’s Madame Debasque. C’est chic, non?’
I hated the lightness in her tone. Despised it. And Madame Debasque – it sounded like some harlot’s idiot mother in a costume farce. I wanted to shake her, but said instead, ‘So, what have you been doing, I mean, other than the kids?’
‘Well, art college started me on the right road. I was able to combine art with my music when I went into therapy. That was Etienne’s influence. I needed help very badly. I was approaching the point of not being able to function with other people, not trust anyone at all any more. You might remember a bit about why. But I was lucky. Things came together and I’ve been studying and working in music therapy. Mostly with abused children. It’s been about twenty years now.’
‘Twenty. Is that all?’
She didn’t like the sarcasm in my tone, but it was a lot to swallow. In fact, it was a quarter century since she left me. I gasp, God sighs, and there you go, twenty-five years pass since the last time I held her. It didn’t really change anything. I still wanted to kiss her. I still wanted to caress her body. I wanted to arch Debbie Canova’s stiff, old back over these seats and be the young man I used to be all over again.
And what did she want?
Debbie frowned, lips parted. She leaned toward me.
‘I can’t say. Max—’
My hand went around the back of her neck. I pulled her to me and bruised her lips with mine. I heard her sigh. I remembered that sigh. It still had the power to reach deep down into me; my cock was as hard as it used to be all those years ago. She was the one. The one. My body knew it, but I could barely believe it. Distance is nothing, time is immaterial, a sigh travels across decades and hits you in the same places.
Her hands were in my hair, pulling me to her mouth. She lay back and drew me over her. It was overwhelming, like being sucked down into the deepest, happiest dream you ever had. She felt the same, she kissed the same, her wandering hands grasped my erection through my trousers just the way I remembered. Not a minute had passed since the last time she’d done that. Her breath, that panting in my ear, so familiar, so well-known. I was kissing her and tugging at her clothes.
Then her little gypsy shirt was open and I unsnapped the front clasp of her pink brassiere. How so like Debbie Canova – pink. I buried my face and lips into her breasts, but there’s where the dream unravelled, because her breasts were relics of what I remembered. Debbie tried to push them up for me, but they were worn folds of skin, and when I ran my hands along her waistline there was no real sense of a waist at all, just a continuous line of thickened flesh. She pushed me onto my back and her fingers undid the buttons of my trousers. This was a teenagers’ game, making out in a car. Or the cab of a truck; pretty much the same thing. Once upon a time we would have revelled in it.
Her mouth sought out my prick and though it was hard it wasn’t as hard as it was one minute ago. I had time to say to myself, My dream’s come true but I’ve got a huge belly and a new set of teeth, a balloon in my heart and a prick that thinks too much. Not only that, but in this cramped space my side hurts the way it hasn’t hurt in a long time, and my arm, my elbow – God, in a second I might just have to cry out in agony.
Debbie’s caressing hand gave up as my cock died in her mouth. She straightened herself and by that flickering yellow streetlamp I saw her eyes were wide, shocked and almost afraid. She said, ‘Oh God, Max, I’m sorry.’
‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘Me too.’
‘What was I thinking? What was I thinking?’ she breathed. Slowly she did up her bra and her blouse. ‘For a lot of years I – I don’t know how to say this.’
‘Just say anything you want. It doesn’t matter.’
‘For a lot of years I wanted to throw everything away and have a life of mindless fucking with you, try to find happiness that way.’
It felt as if my guts were emptying, my stupid heart too. Maybe this was the sort of thing that should have made me feel good, but it didn’t. Mindless fucking. Try to find happiness. She wouldn’t come because she needed or loved me, not even because she liked me. Dreaming of my cock while I dreamed of her heart. Well, yes, and her tits, and her mouth, ass, and pussy, everything – but it was everything. Everything I thought that was in her. It was enough for me, all I wanted.
I was ill. The joint and Debbie Canova, too overwhelming in one dose. Things would never change: I’d always wish she loved me and she never had and never would. My old aunt Emma and Conny, so different and so apparently incompatible, but they’d been able to stand shoulder to shoulder, need against need. Debbie and I had never had that; maybe we could have but we’d given in too easily. Plenty of passion but passion burns and leaves ashes. I stopped myself from crying; I wasn’t even sure she would comfort me.
‘I have to go—’
‘Debbie. Wait, please.’
‘Deborah.’
‘Okay. Deborah. Tell me. Aren’t you happy?’
‘I’m happy enough.’
‘Kids, husband—?’
‘Max, I love them with all my heart.’
‘But you came here to me. To be with me. You could have just stayed hiding somewhere in there, couldn’t you?’
‘I was hiding,’ she nodded, not looking in my direction. ‘In the office with the accounts books.’
‘Want me to drive you home?’
‘My car’s out the front. If I walk down that side-path Etienne won’t even know I didn’t go when I said.’
‘Debbie—’
‘Deborah Debasque. I’m a married woman with kids,’ she said, pulling it out of herself, ‘with kids I adore. I don’t know what I was thinking. Seeing you again. I didn’t plan to try and – I just thought a joint and a chat with Max. My old drummer. But it’s like time has stood still. Butterflies, straight in my belly.’
‘Butterflies.’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though I’m not much of the man I used to be?’
‘I bet you have your moments, Max.’
Did I? Did I have my moments? And was that enough – just a few moments to fill up the rest of a life? I felt a wave rising, ready to break over me. ‘I should never have hurt Iron John. You were right. You were, Debbie. A monster. Me. What did I do?’
‘Stop it. Stop it, Max. Listen.’ She caught her breath. ‘I can’t say this more than once. The truth. That day, when he did what he wanted, Iron John said I teased him, little playful looks, little flirts. Stringing him along so that I could get what I wanted. He was right. I did. That’s exactly it. Since I was little I never trusted anyone would like my talent, see it as good enough, give me a chance, and as soon as I grew up I knew how to hook men, get their attention. Get them to like me and want me. I did that with Iron John. You can’t touch but I’ll let you follow me like a puppy, and here, I’ll swish my little dress and let you see my panties, and you just follow, and then you give me what I want, but don’t ever try to touch.’
‘You can’t say—’
‘I don’t. I don’t say I deserved it but I knew what I was doing. Then—,’ Debbie’s breath caught again. ‘Then I liked what you did to him. God I liked it. Yes, smash him. Yes, make him bleed. It appealed to the worst part of me. Maim him. Hurt him. I pictured it every waking minute and in my dreams too. Destroy a man the way you would squash a cockroach under your shoe and wipe the disgusting remains off on a brick
. You did what I wanted to do and I couldn’t look at that every day. Couldn’t fuck with that every night. You did the blackest thing inside my soul, Max, as if I sent you to do it. You were the perfect other side of me. I was too scared to even look at that, but you weren’t a monster, you were my mirror.’
She was crying and I tried to take hold of her; she pushed me away.
‘I ran. I ran and ran and ran.’
All those deep lines, all that pain etched into her face. All those years of biting down on anger and resentment. Squashing down on something that wouldn’t be squashed. When had it started, as soon as she was developing and men wanted her? Or later, when her dreams stayed always a step out of reach? I grabbed her hands and pulled them to my chest. She struggled but I wouldn’t let go. I kissed her hands, her fingers, fighting her all the way. She had perfect fingernails on both hands, the left and the right. No more violin. No more music.
‘One more thing. Then I have to go, okay?’ I let go of her hands and she wiped her eyes. Everything went quiet and still. Soon, in the dark, a twenty-two-year-old Debbie Canova was looking at me, her brow creased with concern and just a little love. She took a breath, and another and another. ‘You said it right. Fuck, I think of you, Max.’
Debbie opened the passenger door and climbed down. I watched her shadow lengthen as she hurried across the empty car park. I couldn’t believe she was going. She disappeared into the black beside her husband’s theatre. A dream.
I thought, this can’t be. Is this what I get? Is this it?
XIX
So came the second time I paid for a woman’s body.
I didn’t turn the key in the ignition; couldn’t. Left the truck and went back into the theatre. My boys were drunk and high as kites. The goodies supplied by Etienne and all those record executive types had their effect. Closer inspection seemed to show that these impresarios didn’t seem all that impressive after all. There was the standard sort of talk about constant touring and cracking the United States. A fifteen year old would have said the same thing. The boys were probably already tasting wealth, fame and easy female companionship. Sex and tons of it. Still, it was a masculine affair in here. So much drinking and celebrating and not a woman in sight.
They were surprised to see me back, but were pleased too. Even cheered. Why did I decide not to go back to the hotel? I mumbled some reply. The truth is, I wanted a closer look at this guy, Etienne Debasque. I sat in a deep armchair and accepted a drink, heavy eyes on him. What’s so special about you? What made you the right one? He was neither tall nor short; in a certain light you could see the scars left over from what must have been terrible adolescent acne. He was friendly, even courtly, but not particularly interesting. Only the faintest touch of a sexy accent too, nothing to write home about. In total, what? A solid father and husband? If so, why had Debbie Canova so easily bent to me in the truck – why, even, did she wait to see me?
Fuck, I think of you, Max.
Etienne was putting on a sophisticate’s turn, now mixing martinis. A move wasted on Dirtybeat. And on me. Vodka and accoutrements flowed from his expert hands. He handed me a martini and when I gulped it down he didn’t flinch, but made me another. I noticed he didn’t drink. He didn’t touch the lines of coke being snorted like fairy dust. No joints for him; he wasn’t even smoking a cigarette. The martinis and marijuana made my brain sizzle. Fuck you, I was telling him – and he politely delivered snacks and speed on a tray. That’s rock-and-roll for you.
One of the jerks passing for a music executive these days suddenly stated the obvious. We needed women. Etienne reeled off a shopping list of possibilities – Ocean Nights, Pussy Galore’s, The Grotto, The Kasbah, Poison Ivy’s, Casablanca – how nice he knew them all by heart. There was enthusiastic agreement and he used an expensive-looking mobile phone to call two taxis. His face was charming yet thoroughly inscrutable. I had no idea what he might be thinking.
By the time the taxis arrived every one of us was crazy with vodka slammers. We climbed six apiece into each cab. I grabbed the stone-cold-sober Etienne hard by the bicep and told him he just had to come with us. Without smiling he pulled his arm out of my grip and said nothing. Did he know my history with Debbie Canova or was he wordlessly telling me, Fuck you too you degenerate rock-and-roller, I’ve got a wife and kids to get home to?
He slammed the taxi doors and waved us goodbye, definitely not coming. Whatever this night was supposed to be, it wasn’t for him. As my particular taxi pulled away I turned around and through the window glass looked him full in the face. He made his hands into fervent fists and his expression into one of supplication to heaven. Then he held those fists hard to his heart. The meaning was clear: Good luck, Godspeed with your boys, let’s pray for a brilliant contract. Let’s get them on their way.
A fan. How thoroughly deflating.
As I sat back into the uncomfortable press of those drunk and excited masculine bodies I knew how wrong I was to feel this way. Debbie Canova loved a nice man. A good guy. Maybe the mirror to the good part of her. But me. Yeah, but me. I was the unlovable anti-DC, huh?
My side didn’t hurt and neither did my arm or my elbow, the spots where the pain usually concentrated. My body was numb, but my mind sizzled. I slumped in the seat anyway. So I’d finally laid eyes on her again. I’d seen her, kissed her; my prick had even been in that once-lovely mouth – and nothing. Instead I let myself be affected by the shock of facing what she was, a middle-aged woman with three children and a second husband. She didn’t make music any more – and every word of a confession she must have bitten down on over twenty-five years was a blade that cut more and more deeply inside of her.
And now inside of me.
The first place, Casablanca, didn’t need two taxi-loads of drunks. Similarly, Pussy Galore’s seemed to prefer to wait for the more James Bond-types of the world. The seedier Poison Ivy’s received our number gratefully. As everyone trooped inside I hung back. The entrance door shut and I slipped away, drunker and much more stoned than I’d realised, staggering down the quiet street humming some popular glam-song from the Seventies. I knew what it was: Alice Cooper singing, God/I feel so strong/I feel so strong/I’m so strong/I feel so strong.
I’d been down this particular little avenue in 1973, during a short trip to Sydney for a reason I’d forgotten. I wished it really was 1973 and me a young man again, no belly to carry around and no stupid stent in my artery.
A blue light was blinking; my vision was blurry. This place was called either Ali Baba or Ali-Ali, or something else entirely. I went in and leaned against a counter, took a deep breath and looked up into the sallow cheeks of a fiftyish woman who conducted herself with as much circumspection as a fishmonger. She was laughing, braying really, at something on a portable television. It took her a second to finish.
‘What?’
‘I want to choose,’ I breathed.
She must have thought I was about to expire right there. She flicked off the TV and came around the counter, helping me into the next room. She put me onto a couch. As requested, there was a short parade of the carte du jour.
‘There, her.’
‘Jezebel?’
I couldn’t help laughing a little. ‘Yes, Jezebel,’ but she was already Debbie Canova. Roughly the same height, roughly the correct eye colour, and just about as firm and fresh as the day I met her in Thornberry. In my coat was an envelope stuffed with cash. Etienne had paid the band for the night’s performance, so I paid cash for my Jezebel and followed her into a clean, air-conditioned room that had one purpose. Jezebel sat on the bed after stripping off her blouse and miniskirt. She was in black lingerie. I wished it was white so she would seem as unsoiled as the room – or pink, Debbie’s colour. I remembered what Debbie, or Madame Debasque, had said about flicking her skirt, letting men see her panties so that she could tease them into giving her what she wanted. I remembered the first day in Thornberry, her helping that ancient grandpa-in-law of hers, the way we salivating dogs ha
d taken in her long, smooth legs, her miniskirt, her flash of pink underpants. She was playing with us, even then?
I thought I was going to fall down. Jezebel waited with her legs crossed while I showered in the ensuite.
Go home, crossed my mind. I did not at all feel strong. Get out of here; but the piss and vinegar in old stupid men is sometimes too powerful to conquer. As I emerged, towel wrapped around my fat waist, she gave a beautiful smile and flipped a condom in its silvery sealed packet to me. I shook my head.
‘Not this time, not tonight.’
‘Sweetie,’ she said, ‘it’s illegal to ask for unprotected sex and illegal to offer it.’ She kept looking at me and it was a very friendly gaze, but the beautiful smile was gone. I went to my coat and pulled out the fat envelope. A fifty had no effect. Neither did two or three, but a fourth was just fine. She took off her bra and her breasts were bigger than Debbie’s had ever been; certainly a lot bigger than they were now.
She pulled away the towel and went onto her knees. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll suck you off skinless, but you can’t fuck me skinless,’ and she went to work while I looked down at her bobbing blonde head, that glimpse of her swaying breasts, and I thought Debbie, Debbie, Debbie, and for better or worse that’s when it hit me, the truth, and it wasn’t some sweet candy-coloured truth about neverending love and eternal longing, but was instead the horror of having Debbie Canova in my arms and wishing I didn’t, wishing I didn’t see that middle-aged woman’s dried-up mouth and dried-up tits, wishing I’d never heard the words of such corrosive honesty that she’d finally spoken. And in turn, I wished she never touched my great hairy belly, or witnessed the ache in my right side and arm. I wished I hadn’t let my one love see the sad semierection of a fat, banged-up forty-nine-year-old man, or felt it deflate like a child’s balloon in her mouth.
This grizzled lion was no longer roaring. Not even a whimper. Silent, I spurted, one hard little shot that hit Jezebel in the shoulder. The silvery bead stayed there. She smiled up at me. Really, such a beautiful smile. Her work was done, she had her money. I wished I knew this kid. I wished I could take her by the hand and lead her to some nice restaurant, where we’d sit at a corner table and I could say, ‘Now, Jezebel, tell me a bit about yourself,’ then speak to her about my mother, and advise her not to stay in this shit too much longer, not to let herself become a skinny, scrawny, rag-doll toy for worthless men like me.
Dirty Beat Page 21
