With her mouth full, and spitting lumps over her dress, Petula gasped, ‘It must be food otherwise I’d be sick by now…’
Tinwood was sat opposite, slapping his thigh, doubled up in laughter. ‘Oh Petula, you’re too much, too much…’
‘Easy Petula,’ said Astley offering her napkin, ‘I think you might be seeing things there. There’s no shame in admitting it. You’ve been drugged for God’s sake. The Army used to use that stuff for experiments. Here, let me take that.’
Petula handed the plate over to Astley and wiped her face and hands, the relief that she had not eaten a mouthful of thespian poo offset by the horror that she had been prepared to.
‘Credit to you for taking the big bite! No one gets out of here alive!’ guffawed Tinwood, quite carried away by her display. ‘It reminds me of a time I tried to eat an ashtray thinking it was birthday cake at Freddie Mercury’s! Too much!’
Petula was speechless. Tinwood was right, this was too much, she did not deserve her life. She didn’t deserve life full stop. There really was no excuse for her at all.
‘Oh don’t be such a dirty ape Tim,’ objected Esther, ‘anyone can see that Petula isn’t feeling herself.’
‘I…’ Petula was about to protest that she felt fine, but what was the use? She had been struck by the lowest blow of them all; it was official, they had started to make allowances for her. The sympathy that was to be swiftly followed by pity, a redrawal of respect and, finally, blistering irrelevance, had begun. Unfortunately Petula had no choice but to take it: it was the best deal on offer and her only way out. Time to admit she could no longer take any responsibility for herself, having long-lost any claim to be in control of the evening.
‘Yes,’ she muttered, ‘it is all rather a shame, still if it hadn’t been for that bore Tackleberry…’
Even this, Petula knew, was at best another ineffectual face-saver. She had recently taken to describing people that made her feel uncomfortable as bores, at the same time as finding relief in people she had previously regarded as boring. Tonight she had found and been found out; the set she wanted to play with was not the deck she belonged to.
Picking up the glass that she noticed in front of her, half in the hope it was laced with hemlock, Petula took a despondent sip and watched Tinwood hatefully.
‘What are you laughing at?’ she hissed, suddenly very angry. ‘Don’t you know you’ve ruined my life?’
‘Trust me Petula, I’m not laughing at you, these sniggers are driven by nerves alone.’
‘Because you know you’ve ruined my life.’
‘No Petula, you’re wrong about that,’ said Astley, ‘no one’s ruined your life, you’ve had a rough time, that’s all.’
‘Not bad,’ murmured Margy, helping herself to another portion of meatloaf, ‘it’s actually not bad.’
‘What do you bloody care, you’ll be back to London tomorrow and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. And that’ll be good old Petula used up and tossed out…’
‘I only said the meatloaf…’ countered Margy.
‘Not you, him,’ said Petula, pointing to Tinwood, who was trying to keep a straight face.
‘Look, cool it okay, I wasn’t meaning to laugh at you personally… more the situation, okay? I mean, am I the only person here who can take a joke?’
A figure not dressed for the party was coming up behind Tinwood, part Guy Fawkes, part, as far as Petula could ascertain, avenging angel of doom. She blinked, convinced she must be hallucinating again, the figure seemed to differ in colour and composition from everyone else in the room, marching forth in a reality of its own.
‘The important thing is that no one’s been killed, so some proportion here please,’ ventured Tinwood. ‘Granted things have got a little out of hand, but there’s no need to exaggerate our difficulties, we’re all friends, let’s not get so uptight.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Petula, Astley’s hand leant reassuringly on her trembling fist, ‘just that you don’t know how much work, no, not only work, how much hope goes into something like this… It’s, it’s… sometimes I think it’s all that I have.’ Petula felt like crying again, not a solitary emission, like the one she released earlier, but a full-blown thunderstorm of tears; it was a wonder she hadn’t thought of doing so earlier. Glancing over Tinwood’s shoulder she saw the figure she had noticed come closer, checking her tears and shaming her admission, its frankly sinister comportment sobering her enough to ask, ‘Who’s that?’
‘There, there Petula, don’t go upsetting yourself anymore,’ consoled Eager, ‘we’ll look after you now. Friendship’s good like that, you can’t remain the gift that keeps on giving all your days, you should allow us to help you more. Do you not know the meaning of remorse?’ he tutted, glaring at Tinwood.
‘Can everyone lay off demonising me for a sec and stop taking themselves so seriously? You’re all way too po-faced, what’s wrong with our having a little bit of fun, eh?’
‘Hang about,’ said Astley, ‘looks like um, some wurzel wants a word with you, Tim.’
The figure that Petula had noticed appear from nowhere, had actually been in a corner of the room for a considerable part of the evening, nursing its pain and biding its time, wondering how best to express the rage of decades past. Dressed in his flatbrimmed cowboy hat and poncho, Jazzy did indeed resemble the man with no name, the uniform he was to have worn buried beneath his protective outwear, any thought of fulfilling his official functions as head waiter abandoned the moment he had laid eyes on Tinwood, recognising at once the man who had, as he had so often said, ruined his and his sister’s lives.
‘I say, Tim, do you know that fellow, he seems to know you?’ said Eager. ‘He seems most certain of it.’
‘Who?’
‘Behind you.’
‘That’s your son, isn’t it Petula?’ asked Esther, amused at the handsome lunk dressed like a tramp glaring over Tinwood’s shoulder. ‘My, he’s grown if it is…’
Petula decided that she might cry those tears after all. If things could get worse they surely would. Of course it was Jazzy, why, on an evening such as this, would it not be? His motivation was as clear as diamonds; Petula could curse herself for her oversight later, for now she would have to take another punch where it landed, or more aptly, Tinwood might have to.
‘Hello there,’ said Esther. ‘Have you come to join us? You’re a bit overdressed if you have, it’s boiling in here.’
Tinwood, sensing a weak wind up, stayed as he was and bent forward to help himself to the meatloaf. ‘Tell whoever it is that I want some chilli sauce with mine! I’m not tackling any of this stodge without it.’
Jazzy, dispensing with introductions, grabbed Tinwood by the curly sides of his hair and, with cultivated and well-rehearsed malice, thrashed the agent’s head down against the corner of the table twice, before anyone thought of restraining him – his mission brought to an inchoate end by Esther, who took to her feet and got between his hands and Tinwood’s limp head. ‘Are you mad?’ she shrieked above the noise.
Drawing away, Jazzy kicked Tinwood’s chair from under him, and watched him go to ground in shock. Tinwood’s fear was greater than the physical damage, which consisted of a small cut above the eye, as he feared a vocal denouement would now follow the assault, listing his former crimes to all those present.
Bringing his boot in, Jazzy kicked Tinwood in the thigh, hard, forcing him to retreat under the table, then, without letting his eyes leave Petula who had been his target all along, shouted, ‘There! You made me do it, you never believed me. You believe me now?’
‘Oh grow up!’ was all Petula could think of to say.
‘What’s all this about?’ asked Esther.
‘Ask her!’ yelled Jazzy pointing an accusing finger at Petula. ‘She knows!’
And at that moment Petula did know, and in fact, could not see how she ever had not. Tonight she had perceived Tinwood for what he was, had in all probability always been, his essence s
eeded to the core, only her desire to mix with the famous and credible blinding her to his very obvious limitations as a friend and person. Which, and in this lay an even greater source of discomfort, meant that Jazzy, absurd as he was, had been telling the truth, or expressing a part of it, all along.
‘Ask her!’ Jazzy repeated, foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth like an overflowing mountain brook. ‘You’re the only ones she’s ever cared for, fallen over doing everything for, no one’s ever done anything for me! No one’s ever helped me. I can go to hell and die for all she cared!’
‘Really, this boy is most manic,’ said Eager. ‘Petula, I must apologise, I think I ought to take my leave now, this is all getting to be a little too much for me. I admit I like talking about violence but I draw the line at having to see it – however blameworthy the victim might be in this case.’
‘No, stay!’ commanded Petula, scowling at Jazzy who was reciting his litany of injustices past. ‘He’s harmless, all he’s good for is talking through his jockstrap.’
‘You all think she’s a saint, she’s taken you in, like you wouldn’t believe. We get the crud, you get the good stuff, she’s false, a fake! Can’t you see that? Open your eyes! You knobs! She’s made mugs of you, right? Taken you all in. Every one of you is a puppet in her scheme, right? But not me, not me anymore!’
Petula mentally crossed herself. Of course Jazzy had not been right; he was too much of a fool to ever be correct about anything, least of all the contents of his personal experience. So what if Tinwood was a louse? That proved nothing and took nothing away from Jazzy’s mania. God how easy it was to hate the boy, the worst night of her life and he had gone and found a way of making it worse. The chippy, verbose, gangling, little, but not anymore, bastard…
‘I don’t see what that has to do with you coming in here and bashing Tim,’ said Esther, a remonstrative hand on his shoulder.
‘He stole my innocence!’
Petula sneered scornfully, ‘Well, couldn’t you have come in and made that point instead of half-beating him to death like a one of those football supporters.’
‘I believe in direct action!’ shouted Jazzy defensively.
‘So do I!’ intervened Esther.
‘Don’t encourage the oaf,’ hissed Eager, and with an air of impatient irony, ‘can’t you see he’s dangerous and completely deranged, probably on the same drugs as Fogle’s crew.’
‘I’m not on drugs! This is direct action!’
‘I beg your pardon; what I meant to say is that you’re a very serious young man.’
‘Direct action? Don’t make me laugh!’ taunted Petula. ‘This is what I get for feeding delusion. What great examples of your direct action I’ve witnessed down the years, very direct all right, just not very much action. Big talk and no movement.’
‘I act, I act all the time.’
‘Exactly, it’s all an act, all for show. You haven’t the patience, the tenacity, the application, to go beyond that. You’re too emotional to ever make a sensible plan and stick to it, so where are you? Standing here buggering up everyone’s night with the sort of whinging piffle I have to endure every time you open your flap!’
Jazzy reddened and waved his arms in an angry, though not entirely synchronised, gesture of rebuttal. His characteristically passionate outburst had, he noticed, taken some of the sheen and most of the terror out of his impressive assault; even Tinwood had recovered sufficiently to smirk at Petula’s putdown, and find his way back to his place at the table.
‘I don’t have to prove myself to you, you or anyone, right, especially not you.’
‘Oh but you do! Go on, show us some more of your direct action!’
Jazzy’s eyes reddened: it was not at all clear whether he would pick up a fork to stab Petula or use it on himself. ‘You don’t believe me?’ he practically choked, ‘Watch me!’ Making an about-turn worthy of the parade ground, Jazzy quick-stepped past the bemused tables of guests straight through the hall and out into Petula’s study, a byway whose glass doors led into the conservatory.
Petula greeted the sound of smashing glass with a shrug, and the second messier break that followed a few seconds later, with stoic forbearance. ‘Bound to be worse, he has to smash a whole plate to get out of the conservatory, any fool could walk right through the study doors. They’re flimsy wicker things with a thin sheet of glass in the middle. It’d be bloody draughty if the worst of winter wasn’t behind us.’
Behind him Esther followed in keen pursuit, sympathy for the underdog in conflict with her courtly appearance. Under her cropped blonde hair majestically coiffured and ankle-length dress weighted down by a heavy belt of red pearls, Esther was a minor Scandinavian royal engaged in a game of hide and seek, only a small badge of the Chairman betraying her firebrand inclinations. The man-boy she wished to parley with had left a number of calling cards on his way out of the building, his trail hopelessly easy to follow. The study doors had been kicked clean off their hinges, the conservatory window, as Petula guessed, smashed completely; shattered glass filled an assortment of pot-plants and cacti, and beyond the detritus, Jazzy plodded into the night like Frankenstein’s monster, heedless to her calls to stop. Tripping over the end of her dress, removing her shoes, and catching up with him only with the greatest difficulty, Esther threw her body before Jazzy’s, blocking his way with her skinny fists.
‘Stop,’ she gasped, beating at his chest, ‘you mustn’t think everyone is against you. I want to help, if I can. If you’ll let me.’
Jazzy brushed her aside and through gritted teeth, his head shaking from side to side like a dinghy in distress, muttered, ‘Out of the fucking way, what do you know about it? Leave it be.’
‘Nothing,’ Esther fired back, ‘I know nothing about it, I admit that, but I’m willing to learn if you’d give me the chance. It’s a start isn’t it? I want to help you.’
‘I’m warning you, don’t mess with me.’
‘Please…’
‘You’re playing with fire!’
‘Do your worst! I’m here for you!’
‘Why, what am I,’ Jazzy spat, ‘to you? You come here, feel sorry for me, and then leave, right? A holiday in someone else’s misery, right? I know how it is with you people, your kind.’
‘Please, don’t do that. Don’t lump me in with the others. I’ll tell you what I think…’
‘Save it, I’ve heard it all before.’
‘I think you’re a man in pain, a man in a lot of pain, most of it coming from a place he doesn’t even understand. And I care about that, whatever you might think of me. Help me learn from below!’
‘Stop, stop it.’
‘It’s the truth. You’re in so much pain that I don’t even know how you’ve been able to go on for this long. How have you?’
This was too much for Jazzy who, to Esther’s relief if not satisfaction, threw himself onto the grass, flinging off his hat and plunging his head between his knees, the tears that followed an artless mix of grunts and breathless snorts, moving her to exclaim, ‘Good grief, it’s been that bad, hasn’t it? You poor boy, what have they done to you?’
When he had collected himself she was at his side, an arm wrapped round his neck, her tender hand stroking back his hair softly. ‘There, there, you need to get it out of you system, that’s all, I bet a big man like you doesn’t get to cry very often. Or let his feelings go. It’s good to from time to time, even for a big man like you. See, doesn’t it feel better now? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, getting it all out of your system, to show emotion for once…’
Not wishing to disabuse his comforter of her assumption, there hardly being a day when Jazzy did not grant his feelings an outing most men would envy over a lifetime, he lifted his head to hers in assent and blinked. The muggy block of cloud had lifted, leaving grey cirrus filaments trailing across the night sky; the faintest breeze leaning into them both.
‘How does a person come to have as much pain as you I wonder,’ Esther asked, b
rushing the corner of his eye lightly, ‘to be so exhausted, so tired, so misunderstood?’
‘It’s because I’m working-class,’ Jazzy replied, inspired either by a far-off Soviet satellite that had mastered psychic control over Yorkshire, with a view to fermenting class war, or by a half-buried hypothesis he had overheard in another context, ‘and so was my old man, a farmer, dirt-poor, all his life. Chewed up and spat out. She never forgave either of us for it. It’s the bottom line for her, always was, always will be. She hates me because of my roots, right? Because I never betrayed them. No matter what bribe she dangled in front of me. Never. I am who I am. Jazzy.’
Nothing could have delighted Esther more than this classbased analysis, and as she ran her tongue firmly over Jazzy’s stubbly upper lip, teasing the corners of his mouth, it occurred to him that he really had stumbled upon something here. Petula’s hatred of him was that of the imperial colonist for the native; his response redolent of the slave who struck back and cast off his master’s yoke. In this account Tinwood’s guilt was greatly obscured, and as Esther’s tongue worked its restorative magic, Petula, past injustices, and his new-found guerrilla identity, were all forgotten too. At the unbuckling of a belt, the back lawn of The Heights resumed its traditional function as a mating ground, Jazzy swiftly climaxing not inches from where his father entered his mother, all those moons before on the night Anycock ran with the storm.
‘You beautiful boy, you just needed someone to listen to you, you don’t have anyone who does that for you, do you? To simply listen, it’s the hardest thing… but not for us women. You need a good woman in your life.’
‘I have one,’ he blurted in reflex and watched Esther instinctively recoil, ‘well, a girl, anyway. But she doesn’t understand, she’s no woman,’ he added hastily.
‘Oh. How remiss of her…’
There was a palpable change of mood, though not so great as to entirely diminish what had gone before, not for Jazzy at any rate. His hurried copulation with an actress he could not really claim to have found very attractive, nor had any thought of at all until the urge was upon him, was not what he was expecting from the party, and despite later deciding he had been used, Jazzy knew that he felt a lot less angry once the deed was done. Esther kissed him awkwardly on the nose, and quickly returned to the party, leaving Jazzy lying on the lawn, gazing at Altair, Deneb and Vega, the triangle of stars that lay above Delphinus, or ‘Job’s Coffin’, the cluster he hoped would bring him luck ever since he first spotted it as a small boy.
Nature and Necessity Page 30
