‘How long has she been there?’
‘Since she got pissed and passed out by the bar.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘What do you reckon, Einstein?’
The girl unlocked the kiosk and beckoned me inside. ‘Take her away with you before she chucks up in here.’
‘Nancy?’ I crouched down next to her and touched her shoulder. ‘Nancy? Wake up. ‘
Very slowly, Nancy opened her right eye and stared at me.
‘Nancy, it’s me. Phil.’
Not a glimmer of recognition. The coat-check girl came and stood beside me. I said, ‘I don’t think she even knows who I am.’
The girl stared intently into Nancy’s face. ‘Nah, she’ll be OK, it’s her bad eye, that’s all. The right one. She just can’t see you from that side.’ She nudged Nancy’s shoulder, ‘Come on, you. It’s home time.’
Nancy had been blind in one eye since before Christmas and this was the first time I’d actually noticed, and yet Pineapple Head had observed and digested it seemingly in a matter of moments. I stared up at her with new regard. ‘How did you know? About her eye, I mean.’
The girl adjusted her ponytail and said, ‘I noticed when she checked in her coat. I put the ticket down on the counter, just to the right of her and she didn’t seem to see it.’
I stared deep into Nancy’s right eye and saw that it was pure and glassy. And I suddenly felt almost tearful. That dead right eye gave me the strangest sensation - like my feelings, my feelings and fact, fact, were two totally separate things. My feelings and fact. I was deluded.
My mind turned to Doug and what he’d said in the greenhouse that morning. If you can’t trust your instincts, what can you trust? I stared down at Nancy. What is there to a person, after all, beyond how they feel? What are human beings apart from little bundles of feelings and apprehensions and misapprehensions?
Nancy started wheezing more violently.
‘Out!’ the coat-check girl yelled, ‘before she hurls. Quick!’
‘Nancy.’ I shook her shoulder, harder this time, ‘Hey, Nancy, wake up.’
Very slowly, very gradually, Nancy opened her other eye. Wide and then wider.
‘Phil!’ she mumbled, speaking like her tongue had trebled in size and was working on inhabiting the whole of her head. Her right eye stared through me, the left eye skittered and slid around.
‘Hello Nancy. Where’s Doug?’
She turned her head, ‘Doug? Where?’
‘Yes. ‘
She eyed me expectantly. I stared back, for a moment, before it dawned on me that she wasn’t intent on telling but on waiting for an answer. I said, isn’t he still in your truck?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Nancy muttered, woozily, ‘all the veg-e-ta-bles.’ After a short pause she added, ‘Boom! Just like Gregory Peck. Boom!’ She cackled and made pathetic little mushroom-shaped cloud pictures in the air with her hands.
I peered up at the coat-check girl again. ‘Do you remember by any chance whether she arrived here alone or with someone else? A man.’ The coat-check girl was no longer feeling quite as cooperative as before. ‘She could’ve come in with seventeen eunuchs and a Jack Russell for all I care. I want her out of here.’
Nancy’s eyes were closing again. ‘Come on,’ I said, and grabbed hold of her arm. I tried to tug her up but wasn’t strong enough.
‘Out of my way, you twat,’ the coat-check girl clucked, pushing me aside, bending from the knee, lifting Nancy up with apparent ease and draping her across her shoulder. ‘I’ll take her down the corridor to the public phone and then it’s up to you,’ she declared tartly, and led the way.
The cab driver stared at Nancy and said, ‘If she spews in my car I’ll make you lick up every last drop of it.’
I gave him Ray’s address and then spent the entire journey staring at Nancy’s mouth and her throat, waiting for her to retch, waiting to catch any liquid in my cupped hands or in the flaps of my shirt-front.
Nancy didn’t seem to know what she was doing or where she was going. She lay across my lap and panted like an old dog pants when the sun has risen to its midday height and the shade he was lying in has crept a short distance away, but he’s too old and too tired to drag his stiff bones back into it. She panted in just that way, but thank God she did not retch. I still tried talking, though. ‘Doug,’ I kept asking, ‘where did you put him? Is he still in your truck? Was he bleeding?’ ‘Mine’s a Bacardi,’ she rasped, ‘with coke and ice.’
Once we’d arrived, the driver didn’t want to help me with Nancy but he didn’t have much choice. She had to be moved and I wasn’t man enough to move her. He dumped her on Ray’s doormat. She grinned up at him, gratefully, while he overcharged me.
Ray answered the door wearing an old striped night-shirt that reached just below his knees. He looked like a waxen and buttery Wee-Willie-Winkie.
‘So you found Nancy, then,’ he said, sounding not the slightest bit surprised, picking her up and tossing her like a bag of compost over his shoulder. I followed him upstairs, into his flat. He threw her face down on to his sofa. She pushed her nose into a pillow and wheezed.
‘How about Doug?’ Ray asked, ‘Did you find him too?’
‘Nope.’
He looked down at Nancy. ‘Did she tell you anything?’
To o drunk. I found her truck. I banged on the back of it but I got the feeling Doug wasn’t in there. It has a certain kind of echo when it’s empty.’
‘So, ‘ Ray inspected the palms of his hands, ‘either she dumped him somewhere or she took him to hospital . . .’
‘Or else . . .’
‘What?’
‘Or else she never took him in the first place.’
Ray didn’t seem impressed by this line of reasoning. He said, ‘Then why would she have taken her truck and gone and got herself so drunk that she could hardly string a sentence together?’
I shook my head, ‘I don’t know. Maybe she was ashamed. She wrecked the greenhouse. I’m positive of that.’
‘And maybe,’ Ray added, catching on to the whys and wherefores of speculation, ‘maybe Saleem did tell Doug after all, after she’d promised not to, about Nancy being blind in her eye.’
It was feasible, but I couldn’t help wondering what Saleem would have to gain from that particular line of action. I told Ray as much. Ray stared at me, wide-eyed.
‘You, of course,’ he said.
‘Me?’
‘She likes you.’
‘Nancy likes me?’
Ray cackled at this. When he laughed he tensed his belly and his night-shirt lifted to reveal the top of his dimpled knees. ‘Not Nancy, Saleem!’
‘Saleem?’
‘Yep. ‘
My chin dropped. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘I know it.’
‘She hates me.’
‘She hates everybody, but she hates you with a special kind of, uh, intensity.’ Ray was proud of these four fancy syllables. He would have worn them on his lapel as a badge if it had been possible.
I said, ‘I think that just means that she hates me more than other people, not that she . . .’ I couldn’t say it, Noway. ‘Not that she . . . hates me any less.’
Ray shrugged, i didn’t mean to step over the mark,’ he said, i just thought it might have had something to do with this particular situation.’
He nodded over towards Nancy. ‘She thinks you don’t like her,’ he added, off the top of his head.
‘Nancy?’
‘No! Saleem!’ He laughed.
‘She thinks I don’t like her? Why would she think that?’
‘I don’t know. She just does.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Just little things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well . . .’ Ray thought about it for a while, ‘she thinks she makes you angry. You never pay her any attention when she talks to you. You just get, kind of, huffy.’
‘Huffy?’
&nb
sp; ‘Yeah.’
I scratched my head. Why was I having this conversation? It was so embarrassing and I was embracing that embarrassment, but Ray plainly didn’t know what he was talking about.
‘Maybe we should phone Mercy,’ Ray said, changing tack suddenly, ‘and see if Doug’s there. Or maybe I should ring around some of the hospitals in the area and see if he’s been checked in.’
‘We wouldn’t want to ring Mercy and make her worry unnecessarily,’ I said, and then realized that Saleem had said the very same thing earlier that afternoon. ‘I’m sure Doug’s capable of looking after himself. I don’t think Nancy could have done anything too terrible to him. We’ll just have to wait until she sobers up a bit and see what she says then.’
‘And what about the meeting?’
‘Hopefully Doug will have turned up by the morning.’
‘And what if he’s crackers?’
‘We’ll work something out.’
Nancy started snoring. Her mouth vibrated into the pillow.
‘She’s got her own built-in muffler, there,’ Ray said, smiling, and added, ‘By the way , I don’t think she’s a bad person at heart. I don’t think she’d’ve wrecked the greenhouse without someone else putting her up to it.’
‘Well, I didn’t,’ I said, somewhat stupidly.
‘Neither did I,’ Ray said quickly. ‘And Doug wouldn’t have. And the Chinaman . . .’
‘Forget about him.’
‘Yeah.’
We stared at each other in silence for a moment, then Ray showed me out.
RAY LIVES ON a strange street. Actually it’s a road, Avondale Road, and his flat is next door to the house where Stevie Smith, the poet, used to live. I checked my watch. Eleven twenty-two. Now what?
Stevie Smith, as far as I know, was Palmers Green’s most famous inhabitant, ever. The house she had lived in - a plain and undistinguished place - was rendered exceptional only by the cobalt-blue plaque on its wall. I stared at the plaque but it was too dark to read it properly.
And I didn’t know much about Stevie except that she lived with her aunt and dressed like a little girl when she was old and that she drank a bit too much because she was lonely, sometimes. And one other thing: she was loyal. She had lived in Palmers Green her whole life. On this street. Sometimes she went riding in the parks, or walking in them. And she had loved this place; strange, lonely old Stevie, she had loved this place, just like I do. Just like Doug does. Just like Ray and Nancy. Just like Saleem.
‘Where’s Doug?’
Saleem had Cog under her arm. She didn’t look like she was expecting me. She was wearing a dirty vest and some cut-off jeans. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘I saw the light was on.’
‘So?’ She held Cog under her arm like he was a hot water bottle.
‘Doug. Where is he? Do you know where he is? Is he inside? Is he upstairs?’
‘What kind of a stupid question is that? Nancy’s got him. I already told you.’
‘I’ve seen Nancy. He wasn’t with her.’
‘What did she tell you?’
‘Nothing. She was drunk.’
Saleem licked her lips. ‘She’s such a slut. She deserved to be fired.’
‘That’s not what you were saying earlier.’
‘Maybe I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative.’
‘Did you tell Doug?’
‘What?’
‘About Nancy’s eye.’
‘Of course not. But I’ll certainly consider telling him if you don’t go to that meeting tomorrow.’
‘No, ‘ I said, ‘you won’t tell Doug.’
Saleem tightened her grip on Cog, who had started to writhe and to wriggle. Her arm was a vice around his midriff. When she tightened her grip, a little squeak of protest shot out of him.
‘Why not?’ Saleem asked, slitting her eyes. ‘Nancy’s expendable.’
‘I’ll tell you why not. If you tell Doug about Nancy’s eye, I’ll tell Doug about the fact that you burned the museum down. I’ll tell Doug and anyone else who’ll listen that it was arson, not an accident after all.’
‘I don’t think you’d do that.’
‘Try me.’
Saleem was silent for a minute and then she said, ‘Actually, why don’t you come in for a while? We should talk this over. I’ve only just brewed some tea.’
She pulled the door wide. I hesitated. ‘Look,’ she said, suddenly, ‘of course I wouldn’t tell Doug about Nancy. I’m just trying to make sure that you’ll go tomorrow, that’s all. I have no real problem with Nancy. See?’
Maybe she knew I wasn’t keen to come in. She turned and let go of the front door so that I had to catch it to stop it from closing in my face and by the time I’d pushed it wide again she had already disappeared into the kitchen. I closed the door behind me and followed her in. She was holding two cups full of steaming tea. She offered me one. ‘Herbal,’ she said, ‘peppermint. Sit down.’
I sat down. Saleem took a sip of her tea. ‘I suppose you saw the maze,’ she said, ‘in among the receipts and things.’
‘Yes. ‘
‘He ordered all that privet and he hasn’t even got planning permission. He knows full well that they’d refuse. I don’t think we could accuse Enfield Borough of being all that imaginative.’
‘I suppose not.’ I sipped my tea. It was horrible. Too strong and not peppermint. Fennel, more like.
‘I must say,’ she added, pulling out a chair for herself, ‘I’m very impressed by your loyalty to Nancy. Very impressed.’ She fixed me in her steely gaze and smiled. I drank some more tea. I looked down into my cup and then drank more still.
Breathe one, I thought. Breathe two. Breath three.
‘I wonder,’ Saleem said, then didn’t add anything. I wondered what Saleem was wondering but I didn’t ask because I was certain that it would be something bad or something cruel. My tea was hot but I drained my cup and put it down decisively.
‘Right,’ I said, but didn’t stand up like I’d intended to.
‘I wonder,’ Saleem said again, reaching down to stroke Cog, ‘I wonder whether you actually would tell Doug about the museum. I mean, it’s not as though they could prove anything, really. It was so long ago.’ She smiled. ‘And I was so very, very careful.’
She was still stroking the cat, so I chanced it. ‘You lost your leg,’ I said, ‘you couldn’t have been that careful.’
She ignored me. ‘I’m not at all intimidated,’ she said, ‘by your little threat to tell on me. Not at all. I’m only interested in whether you would tell.’ She straightened up and stared at me, then added, eventually, ‘And I actually think you would, too.’
My mouth went dry. I said, ‘Nancy’s tough, but she can’t defend herself against someone like you.’
Saleem shrugged. ‘There’s no need for her to defend herself. I have nothing against Nancy. This is between you and me.’
I yawned. It seemed such an inappropriate response to what she was saying, but I simply couldn’t help myself.
‘Hope I’m not boring you.’
I yawned again. My mouth felt drier still.
‘I don’t know why, ‘ Saleem said, very quietly it seemed, ‘but I always think that when you confide in a person, when you give them a present of something private that’s hidden away in your heart, well, then that’s like a kind of bond between you, a link. And if someone threatens to break that bond . . .’ She whistled under her breath. ‘What could be worse than that, Phil? What crime could be worse than that?’
I would have answered, I had plenty to say on this matter and on other related matters, too, but when I tried to move my mouth it wouldn’t move. I stared at Saleem for a little while. She stared back at me. Then my head fell slowly forward on to the table. I stared at the grain in the tablecloth for a long, long time. It was the oddest sensation, seeing the rest of Thursday trickle away and sensing Saleem moving around in the kitchen like a dark, hard, sharp arachnid.
Friday
FIRST THING I remember: a musky, dusky, single-limbed bundle of badness was sitting on my lap with a razor. I couldn’t do anything. Had I been asleep? I guessed I must’ve been. I felt very heavy. Could’ve been her weight on me.
‘Hello Phil,’ she said, when I opened my eyes, and then carried on touching my skin with the blade.
‘Usually,’ she said, ‘I use this razor under my arms. See?’ She lifted her arm. I saw the pores under her armpit, close up like little craters. ‘Nearly finished,’ she sighed, lowering her arm and wiping off a spot of foam from the blade and on to the vest she was wearing. ‘Hot,’ she said, ‘isn’t it?’
I wondered how long we’ d been having this conversation. Might’ve been hours.
‘There!’ Saleem threw the razor on to the table and dried her hands on her vest, then lifted up the front of the vest and rubbed my face with it. I sensed her breasts against my shoulder. I couldn’t feel them, but I sensed them, soft. Soft.
When she’d finished wiping me she pulled back for a moment and stared. ‘You know, you’re quite a dandy, really.’
I stared back, blankly.
She shifted on my lap, sat sideways, one leg dangling down, the other, truncated, stiff and horizontal like the erect, docked tail of a pointer.
‘It’s nice,’ she said, casually, ‘to have a bit of company.’
‘Feel this?’ she asked, a moment later. I felt nothing. I tried to shake my head. I blinked.
‘What’s that mean? Yes? No? Feel this?’ she asked again. I stared straight ahead. I felt nothing.
‘Only,’ she said, slightly preoccupied, ‘you’ve got an erection. Either that or . . .’ She shifted on my lap. ‘Either that or you’v e got the keys to the main gates in your pocket. Do you happen to know off-hand if you have those on you?’
I tried to nod, couldn’t.
‘The ones with the big, wooden . . .’ she guffawed, ‘the big, wooden key-ring? Hang on.’
She dug her hands into my pockets. She removed some small change, an old tartan handkerchief, a couple of till receipts.
‘No keys,’ she said, smiling. From the other pocket she removed my wallet. She opened it, looked inside and, finding nothing of interest, tossed it down on to the table. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘do you want me to kiss you?’
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