by Neil Cross
Jon spread his arms in a silent plea. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I can’t dance. He just told you that.’
‘You’re like an old man,’ said Cathy. ‘It’s a party!’
He scratched his head. ‘Can we just forget the whole subject and get back to the party?’
They assented, leaving the silent guest newly comatose, his cheek pressed against the table and a pool of spit gathering at the corner of his lips.
A few guests had begun to drift home. The little gaggle of dancers occasionally whooped and threw their arms in the air, and every now and then it was possible to see a glimpse of whatever man had been sufficiently courageous to surrender himself to them: a flash of elbow, a trainer, a shoe. Cathy and Andy kissed briefly, with evident drunken carnality, before she turned away, not to dance but to refresh her tumbler of Southern Comfort and join a mixed group in conversation in the corner. She sat on a chair and crossed her legs and pushed her sleeve up to her elbow. When she took a sip from her glass, the loose bangles she wore clattered down her arm, and clattered back when she was done. Andy and Jon watched her for a while, as they stood in the middle of the room. Andy had his arm round Jon’s shoulder. ‘Am I the luckiest fucker in the world or what?’
Jon agreed that he was. They sat on the carpet. Andy scratched deep in the canal of his ear. ‘Do you know what your trouble is?’ he pronounced after a meditative pause. Jon didn’t. ‘Your trouble is that you’re so fucking self-absorbed you think that everyone’s idea of what you are depends on what you do. Everyone knows that what you do isn’t what you are.’
These words, these familiar words, shook Jon so that he dropped his can and, as he hastily righted it and rubbed spilled lager into the pile, shivers passed down his arms. He urgently needed to defecate. His mouth was dry.
‘Growing up,’ said Andy, ‘is all about learning to know what you are.’
Jon couldn’t help it. It was a question he was compelled to ask. ‘What do you think I am?’ he asked.
Andy spread his arms. ‘The most loyal fucking friend a bloke could ask for,’ he said, with booming theatricality. Then, more quietly, ‘Amongst other things.’
Jon leaped to his feet and walked quickly and stiffly from the room, up the stairs and into the bathroom. He bolted the door and sat on the toilet with his head in his hands, one knee against the wall, the other against the edge of the bath. In his, drunkenness, the memory of the Tattooed Man voicing those words, or words so very similar, seemed pre-emptively to be mocking his friend. His two worlds, two lives that should not be true of the same man, seemed to be converging. He thought of the moon moving slowly across the sun, bringing a temporary night, and sometimes blindness to those foolish enough to raise their eyes. He knew that it was his fault. It seemed to him then, in that bathroom with a small basket of dried, odourless pot-pourri atop the cistern, that he had done a terrible thing, perhaps the most terrible thing he had ever done. He could feel the music downstairs through the soles of his boots. Somebody banged hard on the door. He stood and pulled the flush, leaving the bathroom to somebody whose need of it was unquestionably more appropriate, and walked downstairs into the flashing darkness, the smell of cigarettes and alcohol and all those people gathered in the shadows and flashing lights.
He sat on the floor beside Andy, who tapped his knee. ‘Taken short were we?’ he cackled.
Jon said, ‘Can I ask you something?’
Andy nodded heavily. ‘’Course, mate,’ he said. ‘’Course.’
‘And it goes no further?’
‘Goes without saying.’
‘It might sound a bit weird.’
Andy shrugged. ‘Whatever. Go on.’
‘Listen,’ said Jon, and exhaled. ‘I want you to do me a favour.’
‘What sort of favour?’
‘A weird favour.’
Andy was silent.
‘It’s like this,’ said Jon. Head to foot, he was cold. ‘My life isn’t what I wanted it to be. Sometimes I forget how weird it’s become. Things seem normal that should never seem normal, and have for so long that I forget that things were ever any different. You’ve reminded me what things can be like. What I want you to do,’ he said, and swallowed, ‘is promise not to change. Don’t let anything about you change, and tell me that whenever I want to I can come round here and sit on the sofa and watch TV or something, even if you haven’t seen me for weeks. Take the piss out of me and remind me of all the stupid things I did and all the times I thought I was being clever and you told me that I was being a wanker. Make me feel stupid and embarrassed.’
‘Of course I’ll do that,’ Andy said. Something in his voice suggested that, although he had only a vague understanding of the nature of the pact he had entered into, he was proud and scared.
‘Right,’ said Jon. ‘Change of subject.’
Much later, somebody put ‘Staying Alive’ on the stereo. Everyone whooped and laughed and even those who knew they couldn’t dance did so, distanced from their embarrassment by the irony of their intent. Everyone stood and gyrated extravagantly and began to clap and stamp their feet and chant Andy’s name. This was obviously a long-running joke. Photographs had circulated, tales had been exchanged and exaggerated. Andy’s every embarrassment was public property. After meeting Jon’s eyes, he climbed stiffly to his feet, apparently begrudgingly but evidently fighting a smile. As everyone began to form a circle about him, Jon was forced to stand and crane his neck. Andy stood motionless, arms crossed, legs spread, as if dancing was the last thing he intended to do. Then, as the song reached its first chorus, he suddenly struck an exaggerated Travolta pose, one finger pointing at the ceiling, the other at the floor, and proceeded, move for move, to reproduce exactly the strutting, hip-thrusting stomp of yore, down to the expression of intense concentration. When the song had finished, Cathy joined him, and, red-faced and sweating, he embarrassed and pleased her by strutting around her like an arrogant, libidinous cockerel, at one point even flapping imaginary wings.
Liz’s hand closed about Jon’s wrist: he looked into her eyes, glinting, mischievously insistent, then back to Andy, who was stomping on the spot and miming an invitation for Jon to join him. He looked again at Liz, and mouthed the words, ‘You’re going to regret this,’ before allowing her to lead him on to the floor. He was given a round of applause. He faced her and she straightened his shirt collar and giggled and he said, ‘I hope you’re ready.’
His dancing had not improved. People laughed, moved out of his path, patted his back, clapped this particularly poorly judged hip-swivel or that particularly extraordinary elbow movement. People were laughing at him. He looked an idiot. When he had finished, the applause was tumultuous. Liz kissed him on the cheek. He had never been so happy.
5
Mr Michaelmas
Behind the wheel of the bottle-green Aston Martin, Phil wore a sombre suit, leather driving gloves and no expression. He took the car smoothly over country roads, chasing the beam of headlights into darkness. Beside him sat Jon, similarly clad, similarly expressionless, hands crossed in his lap. Occasionally he sniffed, dislodging tiny lumps of cocaine from his oesophagus.
Behind them the Tattooed Man sat in a silence upon which neither cared to intrude. There was a sense of purpose in the car, an air of expectancy.
The engine purred softly. They passed no other vehicle, saw no signs of life, with the exception of a fox smeared across the asphalt. Its needle teeth were bared in rigor mortis and two paws clawed rigid at the air.
Phil turned the car on to an unmarked track, past an old five-barred gate which hung like a fractured limb. The car bumped over potholes and other irregularities before turning finally on to a gravel drive upon which two other cars—a black Range Rover and a Bentley—were parked at casual angles outside a whitewashed cottage. Leafless ivy climbed its whitewashed stone walls like a network of dried veins.
Phil opened the rear door of the Aston. The Tattooed Man unfolded from inside like something primordial emergin
g from a pupa. One on either side, feet crunching in the gravel, Jon and Phil accompanied him first to the threshold, then, after a small pause, through the door into the cottage’s musty warmth.
Inside it was homely and rural. Horse brasses and dried flowers and floral prints. They walked through to the front room, in which waited three men. The first sat in an overstuffed armchair, a tumbler of whisky in his sallow fist. He had the air of one who had slept in his clothes, was jaundiced and pinched at the temples. His hair, thinning to a peak, was combed back, black with oil. As they entered he placed the glass next to an overstuffed ashtray and stood. He wiped his hands on his trousers, offered one to the Tattooed Man, who took and shook it wordlessly. The man turned and poured the Tattooed Man a drink. Only when the Tattooed Man had accepted it and sat did the man acknowledge Jon and Phil. He spoke with a Yorkshire accent, insinuating as well as dour. He acknowledged them thus: ‘Lads.’
Jon and Phil nodded. He turned his back on them and sat.
The second man stood and greeted the Tattooed Man with a vigorous handshake and a beautiful, craggy smile. Between fifty and sixty, he dressed like forty: cuffs just so. Windsor knot. Hair a touch too long and luxuriant. Perhaps a wig. He clasped a firm hand on the Tattooed Man’s shoulder. The Tattooed Man, uniquely in Jon’s experience, reciprocated. They grinned at one another. The Tattooed Man took a step back. ‘You old bastard,’ he said, surveying the handsome man’s suit. ‘You might at least have made an effort.’
The man brushed non-existent dust from his lapel and straightened the knot of his tie. ‘You know how it is,’ he replied, ‘the first thing that comes out of the wardrobe.’ He laughed and again clapped the Tattooed Man’s shoulder.
Jon’s sense of decorum was offended. He experienced a twinge of resentment.
The handsome man disengaged from the Tattooed Man and took a step to Jon and Phil. In turn, he shook their hands, meeting their eyes with a twinkle of pleasure in his own. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you both at last,’ he said, with too much warmth. He inclined his head in the direction of the Tattooed Man. ‘He’s got nothing but good things to say about you, you know.’
Before either could reply, he withdrew from them and stood in the glow of the standard lamp. The Yorkshireman stirred whisky with an index finger, which he sucked clean, concave cheeks and thin, bitter lips.
The third man stepped forward from the corner. The sight of him was enough to force Jon to suppress a tiny gasp. His bulk was such that he seemed to fill the room, shoulders stretching wall to wall, head slightly stooped beneath the low ceiling, yet he moved with an elegance too profound to be anything but intrinsic. But it was not this that captivated Jon and held his fascinated gaze. The man was an albino, his skin so smooth and white and flawless it seemed to glow faintly, such that he seemed almost spotlit, highlighted like the central figure in a Renaissance canvas. His face was wolfish, his hair a luxuriant, colourless mane that swept from his temples and fell between the blades of his shoulders. Thin, bloodless lips connoted a permanent, fabulously dangerous irony. His eyes were the lifeless red of wax strawberries. He wore a sporty, navy-blue blazer, from which protruded bone-white wrists and huge, bloodless hands which ended in exquisitely manicured talons. Jon had never encountered such a flawless merge of primal ferocity and intellect.
The albino and the Tattooed Man greeted each other warmly, clasping hands and grinning fiercely like old friends. He stood at the Tattooed Man’s side, dwarfing even his physical presence. ‘So these are the boys?’ His voice was baritone, almost archetypally English: resonant with self-referential irony even when he was not the apparent object of discussion. It was an acknowledgement that his presence was such that he was an unavoidable subtext.
‘These are the boys,’ confirmed the Tattooed Man.
The albino approached them. The dim light bulb flickered. ‘You must be Phil.’
Phil took an unconscious step back, then took the proffered hand, which swallowed his own like a child’s. The albino stooped to address him. ‘You’ll go far, Phil,’ he said, ‘if only half the things he’s said about you are true.’
The Tattooed Man laughed. The albino grinned. Visible goose bumps erupted on Phil’s neck.
‘Really,’ the albino said. ‘You have no idea how far you’ll go.’
Phil swallowed and thanked him. The albino moved on to Jon. He took but did not shake Jon’s hand. He held it between both of his own, and stared at Jon with something like genuine pleasure. ‘And what can we say about Jon?’ He turned again to Phil, still clasping Jon’s hands between his own. ‘What is there to say about Jon, eh Phil?’ He took Jon’s shoulders. Jon had never felt so small or so weak. He felt that the albino could rip him in two like a paper man. ‘What is there to say about a man who surpasses all superlatives? If there were more like you, all our lives would be considerably easier.’ He stepped back, and his face split into a lupine grin. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Jon. You can call me Mr Michaelmas.’
‘It’s a pleasure,’ said Jon.
The four men—the Tattooed Man, Mr Michaelmas, the Yorkshireman and the handsome man—exploded into laughter, like adults amused by a child’s unconscious irony. Jon and Phil exchanged a sidelong glance, then Jon and the Tattooed Man caught each other’s eye for a moment. Although each face remained set and impassive, something twinkled in the Tattooed Man’s eye, like a glint of sunlight on the oiled barrel of an assassin’s weapon. Then the four men pulled their chairs closer, excluding Phil and Jon. They huddled and talked quietly and seriously. Jon and Phil, for any number of reasons, several of which neither would choose to discuss, contrived to hear nothing but a constant, wordless hum. They stood at either side of the door like nightclub security, hands clasped before their genitals, staring silently into space.
Presently, with a hiss of gravel, a car drew up outside. The conversation came to an immediate halt. The four men looked up and towards the window. The Tattooed Man stood and opened the floral curtains a notch with his forefinger. He gazed out, sipping whisky. They heard the night-time sound of a car door slamming, twice in succession, then two pairs of feet, resolutely crunching gravel. A silence fell, which Jon read as the newcomers pausing at the threshold, composing themselves. He imagined how he would feel were he the reason for a gathering such as this, how his heart would be lurching arrythmically as his hand reached forward to take the handle of the door, how his legs would tremble as he took a step over the threshold. He heard the creak of the oak door opening slowly and fatalistically. Another pause. Lips being wiped. The handle of the living-room door turned. Jon and Phil stepped aside to admit two men. The first was a solid, fat man in a navy-blue suit and open-neck shirt. He wore a thick, wiry goatee and rimless spectacles behind which his eyes were quiet and calm, like a player of cards. His head sat massive upon hairy rolls of neck which spilled over his collar. He was balding, greying, cropped to stubble. Chunky gold watch and assorted jewellery, the back of his hands and fingers as hirsute as his chest. He breathed as if something had broken in the gristle of his throat. He paused in the doorway. His eyes settled for a moment on Jon.
None of the gathered men stood. The albino chose not to twist in his seat, but presented the fat man with the vast prairie of his back, the snow-capped peak of his skull.
With one rigid finger, the Tattooed Man pointed beyond him, to the semi-darkness of the hallway, then turned his hand palm upwards and crooked his finger. ‘Come in, son,’ he said.
A lean, Nordically blond man dressed in jeans and leather jacket entered the room. Eyelashes transparent as fishing line, eyes watery pale behind rimless spectacles. The Tattooed Man smiled at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, then turned his attention back to the fat man, who avoided his gaze by reaching into an inside pocket for a pack of cigarettes as he explained, ‘I didn’t think you’d mind,’ in broad cockney.
The Yorkshireman and the dandy turned the intensity of their gaze upon the fat man. He seemed rooted to the spot by the weight of
the astonishing malevolence he saw there. He shifted his bulk from foot to foot. ‘If I were in your position,’ said the Tattooed Man, standing, ‘the last thing I’d want to do is try my patience any further.’ He regarded the young Nordic man, who gazed stoically and neutrally ahead, not quite meeting his eyes. ‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Martin.’
‘Right, Martin,’ said the Tattooed Man, ‘I’m going to ask you to quietly leave the room. Do you think you can do that for me?’
Martin opened his mouth to answer, was cut short by the Tattooed Man, who immediately motioned at Phil, a lazy flick of the wrist. ‘Don’t say you weren’t asked, Martin,’ he said.
Phil grabbed Martin by the hair, twisting it in his fist and tugging it hard so that Martin was bent double at the waist, hands locked about Phil’s wrist. With his free hand, Phil cuffed Martin about the ears, then threw him into the wall. Briskly, Phil patted him down, taking a pistol from him before taking him by the collar and dragging him from the room.
In the hallway, when the door was closed, he whispered, ‘Nothing personal, mate.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Martin. He was flushed and dishevelled.
‘Fair enough,’ said Phil, and threw him through the front door. Martin half-ran a few steps, waving his arms to catch his balance. ‘Go and sit in the car,’ said Phil, ‘you miserable fucker.’ He watched as Martin did as ordered. The car was an old Jaguar. Phil had a fondness for old cars. When Jon had enquired as to the nature of this fascination, Phil had been able to articulate it only by suggesting that it had something to do with steering wheels and the solid way the doors closed.
Inside the cottage, the fat man sat perched on the edge of the sofa, hands clasped in his lap. He was the focal point of a heavy silence. He looked to floor, to ceiling. Into his glass. At the glowing end of a cigarette.
‘All right, Jon,’ said the Tattooed Man.
Jon followed Phil outside, closing the door of the cottage softly behind him. They stood in the meagre patch of yellow thrown across the gravel by the weak light which escaped the house.
