Until then it hadn't occurred to me that people lived in the centre of Manhattan. On Saturday morning I arrived at the front door of Miss Amity's building carrying a bag of clothes, a bulky set of keys and a page of scribbled instructions. Dean was supposed to have taken me around the place on Friday evening, but didn't seem very reliable. I had called his home number, but his message service was switched on. I don't know what I was expecting to find inside that tall terraced house with brown window frames and black railings. I had not yet been invited inside an American home – my colleagues worked hard and kept to themselves, valuing their privacy and guarding it accordingly. I suspected they considered me unfriendly, and back then perhaps I was.
A deep brown hallway – that colour again – smelled of freshly polished boots, and led to four gloomy flights of stairs. At the top of these, a firetruck-red front door sported three hard-to-open locks. The keys weren't marked, and the elimination process took me twenty minutes. I resolved to label them before I attempted to regain entry. I was a tidy man, and liked labelling things.
Inside, a narrow hall led to a disproportionately enormous lounge that smelled strongly of cigarettes. There were dozens of scruffy plants dotted in between comfortable pieces of furniture, and as many stacks of books. In the corner was an easel with an odd half-finished painting of what appeared to be a three-legged cow, or an overweight hairless cat, on it. There were a number of seventies' new age items scattered about, including a blue glass bong and several sets of redundant wind chimes. Miss Amity had been admitted to hospital two days earlier, so I had the place to myself, or so I thought. No sooner had I set my bag down when a man in white overalls wandered out of the kitchen with a mug of tea in his hands, real PG-Tips-tea, not those perfumed things on strings you get in New York cafes.
'Hi,' he said amiably, 'do you know if there's a toy store around here?'
Thrown, I shrugged. 'I'm new in town. I don't know where everything is yet.'
'See, I gotta get my kid this troop-carrier spaceship for his birthday and I ain't got time to get to FAO Schwartz. Sixty bucks for something that'll be broke in a week. Crazy, huh? Makes me wish a bunch of real mean aliens would turn up and blast the shit outta the place just so kids would stop wanting models of 'em.'
I wasn't in the mood to conduct a conversation about spaceships with a total stranger when I had been expecting to be left in peace on my own. Just then, an extraordinary clanging noise started up in the next room.
'I'm Charles,' I shouted, holding out my hand and hoping for some reciprocal information.
'And I'm Carlos. Hey, Chuck.' He slapped my fingers.
'Charles, actually.'
'You the guy looking after the joint while the lady of the house is away?'
'Yes, but I don't know – I mean – I wasn't expecting anyone else to be here.'
He looked amazed. 'You mean Dean didn't say anything about me and Raoul?' He aimed a paint-spattered thumb back at the kitchen. 'Raoul's in there trying to get the wastepipe loose.'
'Not a word.'
'You want some tea?' He filled a mug from a large brown pot and returned with it. 'Miss Amity's kind of like the mother Dean never had. When he found out she'd have to go into hospital and miss her birthday, he arranged for us to come in and rebuild her bathroom, kind of a surprise for her when she comes out, so if she calls, don't say nothing about it. She's got this old bath that ain't plumbed in right and the tiles are all cracked, so we're putting in a load of new stuff.'
'Then why does she need someone to look after the place if you're here?'
'Because we're only gonna be here a couple days, and Bolivar gets lonely.' Skittering in across the polished floorboards came a bulky brindle bull terrier with a grinning mouth that looked wider than his body. He was wearing a broad leather collar studded with spikes, the kind of dog that looks like he's owned by the manager of a bar. I stepped back, alarmed. As a child, I'd had a bad experience with such an animal.
'Nobody said anything about a dog.'
'Hey, he's no trouble. Eats anything, waits till he gets outside to piss, spends most of the day snoring and farting. Not like a dog at all. More like an intelligent pygmy with a big appetite.'
The bedroom was filled with dusty velvet swagging and framed photographs crammed on to unstable tables. Miss Amity appeared to be a sparky, photogenic woman in her early fifties, well-preserved, compact, her hair a range of different colours from copper to blonde. She was strangely beautiful, in the way that very kind people eventually become. She seemed to attend a lot of charity events, and across the years had been photographed with an unlikely range of guests, including a couple of mayors, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joe DiMaggio, Sylvia Miles, Joey Buttofuoco and someone who looked like – but surely couldn't be – Malcolm X. There was also a picture of a man dressed as a giant carrot.
She wore a lot of junk jewellery – the room looked like a dumping ground for Mardi Gras beads. It wasn't tidy, or very clean. Nor was the rest of the apartment. The refrigerator contained mostly items past their sell-by dates. There was something growing in a Tupperware tub, and a half-chewed plate of lasagna had a kind of pubic mould springing from it. While I was unpacking, Raoul wandered in chewing a chicken leg. He transferred the grease from his hand to his thigh and slapped his fingers against mine. 'Yo – Chaz, how ya doin'?'
'Er, Charles, actually.'
'Listen, you got no hot water tonight.'
'Great.'
'We're not plumbers.'
'I'm sorry?'
'You don't have to be all hoity-toity with us. We're not plumbers, we're just helpin' out, okay?'
I didn't wish to appear stuffy but they both seemed overfamiliar, with me, and with the apartment. Carlos was sitting with his legs hanging over an armchair watching NBA highlights on cable. Raoul was chugging a beer in the bathroom, hammering on the pipes again. Wandering uncomfortably from room to room, I announced that I was going to take the dog for a walk.
'A word of advice,' called Raoul. 'Let him lead you. He'll go the route Mary always takes him. Bolivar knows the way, okay?' Bolivar stared at me knowingly, then rolled back on his haunches and began licking his absurdly protruberant testicles. I slipped the heavy chain around his muscular neck and seconds later was dragged out to the stairs.
Ron's Lucky Silver Dollar Bar & Grill did not possess a grill, although there was a giant silver dollar in the window above a hand-painted sign that read SUBS & GYROS. Where I came from, a gyro was a cheque. I asked the barman if he was Ron.
'Nope. Ron's dead. He ate a bad scallop. Not here, somewhere else. I'm Bill.'
'Charles.'
'What can I get you, Chuck?'
'I don't really – the dog pulled me in here.' I pointed at my feet. Bill leaned over the bar. 'It just – wouldn't stop pulling.'
'Hey, that's Bolivar! Hey boy!' The dog hoisted itself clumsily on to its hind legs and began scuttling back and forth with its tongue lolling out. Bill poured two shots from bottle with a lot of signatures on it. He raised his glass. Not wishing to seem rude, I drank with him. The shot tasted like chillis mixed with liquid soap. I noticed that Ron had arms like a weightlifter, or someone who'd been in prison. His biceps were as big as his head. He had a tattoo of a scorpion stinging itself.
'So where's Mary?'
'She's in the hospital. I'm apartment-sitting for her.'
'She comes in most nights. Her son, Randy, used to work here.'
'He was a barman?'
'Well now, that's not for me to say. Randy operated for himself, kind of a one-man business.' Ron suddenly found something to do behind his bar. A crease of concentration ran across his forehead. Then he brightened. 'But you're welcome here any time. No friend of Mary's will ever be a stranger in the Lucky Dollar.' He grasped my hand warmly, grinding several bones to powder.
When I returned to the apartment, Raoul and Carlos had gone, locking up behind them. It took me ages to open the door again. They had left behind the remains of their dinner. I was washing their plates in
cold water when the phone rang.
'Hey, Mary,' yelled a woman's voice. 'I have the armadillo. Do you realise Dan had to bring it in the back of his car from Tucson?'
'This is Charles,' I replied patiently.
'Oh. I must have the wrong – '
'This is Miss Amity's apartment.'
'Then who the hell are you?'
I explained. It was something I was obviously going to be doing a lot.
'Shit. Look, I'm gonna have to bring this damned thing around because it's making a hole in its box. You're Jewish, right?'
'How can you tell? Did you say an armadillo?'
'I can spot a nice Jewish boy like an eagle can see lambs in a canyon. Are you married? Don't answer. I'll be there in twenty minutes. No, don't thank me, just pour me a drink. Whisky, rocks, Jim Beam if there's any left.'
I replaced the receiver, puzzled.
'Mary paints,' said Melissa, setting her glass on to a paper coaster I'd found. She stifled a giggle.
'What's funny?' I asked.
'She'd get a kick seeing you put down coasters. She's not that kind of person.'
'What do you mean? What kind of person?'
'You know, like Tony Randall in The Odd Couple. She lets her drinks leave little rings on the table.' Melissa crossed long, jean-clad legs. 'She likes to paint animals, but it's tough painting at the zoo with so many people around, so I told my brother to get her something. Well, he drove up from Tucson to see me, and he brought this.' She pointed to the armadillo. It was scratching around in a corner of its strawfilled box. The creature was about a foot long, and had funny bristling ears. It looked mechanical, hardly a living creature at all. 'I can't keep it in my apartment because I have cats.'
'What about Bolivar?' I asked. The dog was whining in the kitchen, scrabbling at the door.
'Oh, he'll be fine. You take good care of him, he's Mary's pride and joy. The armadillo can look after itself, trust me. It's nocturnal, and that's when it'll try to dig its way out. I've left it a box of insects and vegetables. You just top it up with broccoli and cockroaches. But tell me about you, you adorable thing. You're English, single obviously.' She sat back and waited for me to talk.
Melissa originally came from Kansas, 'The Dorothy State', as she drily referred to it. She was as thin and brown as well-worn leather, her bony wrists covered in fat gold rope; someone who'd had a hard life and then found money. I like her from the first, which was just as well because she outstayed her welcome and got completely drunk. When I tried to get her to the door, she made a grab for my balls. 'Mary would like you,' she announced, 'but you need to get out more. Put that adorable face in the sun.'
I had to give the cab driver an extra ten dollars to take her. But that night I had my first decent eight-hour sleep in weeks.
The next morning was Sunday. I had a hangover, and was looking forward to a lie-in. There was a smell in the apartment beneath the ground-in cigarette smoke that I associated with my own childhood. It took me a while to realise that it was dampness, something I didn't associate with American homes, yet it made me feel comfortable and secure. Burrowing back into the blankets, my rest was rudely awakened by the front door slamming. I figured Carlos and Raoul were back, but then I heard different voices.
'Xanadu's fabulous. Olivia Newton-John as a Greek muse, all lip gloss and roller skates? It's been waiting fifteen years to be recognised as a classic, but the world is still not ready. You can learn so much about hair maintenance watching her.'
I pulled myself out of bed and opened the curtains. The day was warm and wet, the sidewalk empty and every bit as Sundayish as a residential English backstreet. The sky had adead, exhausted look. I listened to the lounge.
'Donald loses all his dates because of his terrible taste in movies,' said another voice. 'Just as they're starting to get along fine, he drags them off to see a double bill of something like Grease 2 and Yentl.'
Making sure my pyjamas were not exposing anything, I ventured out of the bedroom. There were three strangers in the kitchen making coffee. A muscular young man in a blacknylon T-shirt, a slender Asian boy wearing rather a lot of make-up for this time of the morning and an attractive, overweight girl with dyed black hair. They seemed as surprised to see me as I was them.
'Oh my God, we woke the maid,' cried the Max-Factored one. 'Who are you, honey? Did you know you got no hot water?'
'I'm Charles,' I explained. 'Yes, I did know. I'm looking after Miss Amity's apartment for her.'
'Well, Charlene, I'm sorry we woke you but Mary never mentioned anyone was staying here.'
'That's okay. I should be getting up anyway. Who are you?'
'Donald.' Mr Black T-shirt thumbed his chest. 'That's Jaffe, and Val's the female, gynaecologically speaking. Jaffe's still undergoing some kind of sexual identity crisis but the men are rooting for him, so he may get through it with just a few mascara burns. Your armadillo has escaped.'
Jaffe was wearing an extraordinary badge on his jacket, little pieces of broken mirror, an old Andrew Logan design from the eighties, and it kept catching the light, shimmying specks on to the nicotined ceiling like a disco ball. I saw that the armadillo was trying to dig its way out through the kitchen cabinets, away from the light. Fascinated, Bolivar was taking gentle snaps at the creature, as if trying to cradle it in his enormous jaws. I wanted to separate them, but I'd never touched an armadillo before.
'You can join us for brunch if you like,' Donald offered. 'We'll be discussing the movie career of Brad Pitt in depth, and you may wish to contribute something to that. Are you from Harvard or something? You have a funny accent.'
'I'm English,' I said apologetically, as you do. I wanted to ask why he had access to Mary's apartment, but could find no way of phrasing the question politely. At my feet the dog was whimpering in frustration and the armadillo was noisily butting its head against the units.
'So, Charlita, you going to join us for a glass of second-rate champagne and a Spanish meal presented between slices of cantaloupe?' asked Jaffe.
'Thank you for the offer,' I replied, offended, 'but I have things to do.'
'He's so polite. I love it.'
'We're old friends of Mary's,' Val took the trouble to explain. 'We always come by on a Sunday. She reads our tarot, then arranges my astrological week. I can't go out of the house without it.'
'Well, she won't be able to do it for you today.'
'She already did.' Val held up a scroll of paper. 'She left it out for me. What star-sign are you?'
'I don't believe in the stars,' I said testily. 'You have your own door keys for the apartment?'
Jaffe was defensive. 'Mary gives her keys to everyone. Don't think you're special.'
'What's she like?' I asked Val.
'Mary? A sweetie. Prickly as a cactus, soft as a pear. Bad at keeping secrets. Her parents were imprisoned by the Nazis. She's had a wild life. Come with us, we'll tell you all about her.'
'No, really, thank you, I can't.'
'Your choice. You're gonna miss the dish.'
Laughing, they left. I don't know why I refused their offer. Their over-friendliness unnerved me. In such situations I invariably retreated. After they had gone I wandered about the apartment wondering if I should clean it. I decided to wait until the bathroom was finished. The shower stall was filled with weird oils, dried flowers and glycerine soaps, none of which smelled very pleasant. Even in here there were buckled photographs taped on the walls. She seemed to have so many friends. I had virtually none. Bolivar was whining for a walk, and I was just about to take him when the telephone rang.
'Is that you, Charles?'
'Yes, it is,' I replied, instinctively knowing that this was Mary Amity.
'How are you settling in, dear?'
'Very well, thanks. I just wondered – forgive me for asking – how many people have you given your front door keys to?'
'I've never really counted. I could probably work it out. Do you need to know?'
'No, I was
just thinking about security.'
'Darling, I have nothing worth stealing. My most precious possessions are all inside my head. Although if a woman called Sheryl-Ann tries to let herself in, you must stop her.'
'How do I do that?'
'Just put your foot against the door until you can get the chain on, that's what I always do. Then call the super. You'll recognise her easily, she looks like a hooker but I swear I had no idea she was when I gave her the keys. How is my Bolivar?'
'He's fine. He's – fine.' I looked down at Bolivar, who was trying to choke himself to death on the lead, torn between conflicting desires to torment the armadillo and get out on the street. 'How are you?'
'Thank you for asking. So polite. I've had the operation, I just have to lie here and heal. Take good care of him, won't you? Don't let him overeat. He'll eat absolutely anything. He ate a shovel once. Give me your work number, just in case.' She didn't explain in case of what, but I gave it to her. I was a guest in her apartment, after all.
'I wasn't able to get hold of Dean,' I explained. 'He was going to show me where everything was.'
'You're a big boy, you can find things out for yourself, can't you? You won't be hearing from Dean for a while. He's gone away.'
'Oh? He didn't tell me he was going -'
'Well, the truth is he's starting a jail sentence. It's not his fault. He's a good boy who's had some bad luck. Take my dog for a walk, will you? He likes walks.'
***
'Hey, Bolivar, c'mere you big hunk of muscle!' screamed the waitress, pulling Bolivar's front paws up on her apron. It seemed unhygienic. This time, the dog had stopped sharply on a corner three streets from the apartment, then dragged me into a coffee shop called Manny's Freshly Brewed Sip 'N' Go. The waitress, a slender, pretty Puerto Rican girl with smoky eyes, butted heads with the dog, then dropped him back down.
'I'm Maria. Listen, the manager'll piss blood if he sees the dog in here.' She laughed carelessly. 'The health board already hate him. They closed us down in '95 for having mice in the pan racks.'
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