The traffic thinned, and Keith gratefully dropped into second gear. He had travelled perhaps five hundred yards. 'Freedom.' Besides, he needed his spare cash. For Debbee Kensit. Her mum had only upped the rates again. What with the petrol going all the way out there and a couple of quid for the gift he religiously took along, Debbee being special, you were talking almost a ton a visit. Keith maintained a considered silence about it but with Debs turning sixteen this month for sheer nerve it took your breath away. Hello. Give her a little beep. Now what have we —
A Krakatoa of truck horn atomized Keith's thoughts. For a sudden instant his windscreen was all chrome ribcage and scorching lights. Then the massed frequencies all fled past him in a deep scoop of air. Keith had straightened rigid in his seat: now he sank back, and decelerated, and pulled over - or at any rate he quenched the car of motion. For several minutes he sat there, doubleparked, rubbing his face with his hands. He lit a cigarette and exhaled vehemently. See what I mean ? he thought, and felt brief love for the truckdriver and his skills. Another couple of feet. Another couple of feet and they'd be hosing me off the bonnet. See what I mean ? It can't be healthy. And a calculated risk, that one: saw the truck coming and knew it was going to be tight. But I had to look, didn't I. Rarity value. Couldn't let that one walk on by, no way. Because you don't often see that. You don't. Had to look. An old woman not fat with really big tits.
Keith pulled out again, and proceeded to Ladbroke Grove and Trish Shirt's.
'I don't know how he does be doing it,' said Norvis, with honest bafflement as well as envious admiration. 'He here, he there. He everywhere.'
'Yes,' said Guy.
'No one approach he for energy. No one have he staying power. Soon as he finish, he off, looking for more.'
'So they say.'
'It have no one like Keith when it come to the chicks.'
Guy looked furtively along the bar. Keith was down at the darker and more fashionable end of it, with Dean and Curtly, near the microwave, the poppadam-warmer, the pie-nuker. Now Keith was delighting his friends with an anecdote, vigorously delivered: he was making a horn-squeezing gesture with his right hand, which then dropped only to rise again suddenly, darting finger first. The froth on Dean's beer exploded in mirth . . . Guy looked about himself, through the spore-filled air. Just when it seemed that Keith's pub prestige could rise no higher, it had yet jumped a palpable notch. But Guy himself, no less clearly, had been intolerably demoted. Here he stood, gratefully conversing with Norvis — comfortably the least celebrated of the Black Cross brothers (being unathletic, ill-favoured and hard-working) — fine-sprayed with spittle and obscenities and pork-pie crumblets, and transfixed by the hairless coccyx of an albino builder. Guy scratched himself with all ten fingernails. There appeared to have been a complementary revision of his status at Lansdowne Crescent. Guy's laundry, once discarded, no longer tangily rematerialized in his walnut chest of drawers. This morning he had wedged his shirt into the laundry basket and then, a minute or so later, tugged it out again.
'As I say, it beat me how he does be doing it.'
'Excuse me for a moment, Norvis, would you?’
With his head up, impelled by nothing more than inevitability, Guy squeezed and sidled his way forward, deeper into the pub's horn and hide and boiling fangs. Finally he gained the little clearing wh'ch always formed near where Keith relaxed with his favourites of the hour. Keith now stood in conference with Dean and Curtly: the tabloid was stretched open in his grip as he proudly showed the lads what Hurricane Keith had just done to Philadelphia. Sea surge and devil wind: one of the worst in history — even in recent history. That morning Guy had himself read up on Hurricane Keith's depredations. Seven feet of water dumped from the sky in twenty-four hours: a day when all the weather gods rush for the bathroom . . . Dean and Curtly straightened slightly on Guy's approach. Keith offered them both a last glance of silent facetiousness and then assembled his most solemn stare, like a sergeant turning from his corporals to face the gawky lieutenant.
'Morning, Keith. How have you been?'
Keith stared on. He made no answer. Dean and Curtly looked elsewhere — outwards, downwards.
'All set then', said Guy, with an archness that he had already begun to regret and revile, 'for the big push?'
Keith's expression slowly changed, or filmed over, the lids hooding Guy off. What was it? The eyes were in their pre-fight glaze, their search for animal severity. No. They looked like they looked after some stunning feat at the oché. Airless concentration, self-love, a darts trance. Keith's trance of darts!
'Bidding fair for the semi-finals,' said Guy, half-raising a pale thumb and turning jerkily to the bar. Here he faced Pongo. Guy indicated his empty tankard, which Pongo registered without interest, finding other instructions to attend to while Guy continued with his musical excuse mes.
'Ride comfort,' said Keith in a low voice. 'Anti-knock rating.'
Guy couldn't tell where the words were going, so quickly did he abort his turn of head and stricken smile. Maybe Keith was talking to the pub itself, its smoke, its dust.
'Aeroback. Her sobs of pleasure. Higher take-up. A veritable wildcat. Anti-perforation warranty. Lovejuice . . .'
There was some delay getting out, caused by an altercation near the front door. Things seemed to settle down; but then a blood-striped figure lurched up again off the floor, and it all began again. At this point Guy re-encountered Norvis, who shouted, 'He got another one now!'
'Sorry?'
'He got another one now!'
'Really?'
'Yeh. Oh yeh. She rich. Just round the corner. He go round there every morning and does be doing she arse off. And she make she videos. For he. Dark bitch. They the worse.'
Zbig Two, who was standing near by, abandoned or otherwise brought to an end a joke he was telling Manjeet (one that featured, as did all Zbig Two's jokes, a prostitute, a policeman and a purulent mackerel), and turned round and enthused, 'The first time he gone round there she came on like Lady Muck. But Keith's smart.'
'He patient.'
'Next time - bingo.'
'Yeh. Oh yeh. Frankly it get me how he does be doing it.'
'And this one pays him for it.'
'He she toy boy.'
'Pays him for it.'
They sounded ready to go on like this indefinitely, the information being so fresh in their minds. It seemed that Keith had just held a press conference on the subject, here in the Black Cross. Guy could imagine him: the tabloid rolled and raised . . . Another question from the back there .. . I'm glad you asked that. Yes. She .. . Grinning at the floor Guy listened on: her own penthouse, tall, well turned out, legs on the skinny side but good bum, tits so close together you could —
'What's her name?' said Guy hilariously.
Norvis and Zbig Two looked at each other, two experts, teetering quiz-contestants, stumped by the obvious. It's. Hang on. She call. Wait a bit. It have so many. Nita. Nelly, Nancy. With his mouth open Guy blinked and waited. The depth of their frowns, the temple-banging, the ecstasy of thwarted recall. He wondered if he could decently ask them to exert themselves so.
'Nicky! That's it.'
'Nicky. Yeh. Oh yeh.'
'Nicky. That's it: Nicky.'
'Nicky. That's it. Nicky. Nicky.'
The compact opened and Nicola's enlarged face filled the round mirror. It stared back at its mistress. It bared its teeth and licked its lips. With a sweep of wall and dimity and velvet the mirror closed again.
She looked up. 'There you are,' she said softly, and got to her feet. 'Are you all right? You sounded rather miffed on the telephone. Let's take off your mack.'
'No, I'd rather not, actually.'
Nicola backed into the sitting-room. As Guy followed her she looked up at him with humility and concern. 'Darling, what is it?' she whispered. 'Sit down. Can I get you anything?'
Guy shook his head; but he did avail himself of the low armchair. He raised his hand in a gesture of placatio
n, a request for silence, for time. Then gently he rested the palm against his right ear, and closed his eyes . . . That morning, as he lay in bed, and as Marmaduke pried at his clenched lids, Guy felt an odd sensation, inappropriate, balmy, sensual: in fact, a trail of Marmaduke's hot drool was gathering in his ear. It hadn't bothered him at first, but now half his head was blocked and pulsing. Some glutinous - or possibly sulphurous -property of the child's spittle had done its maleficent work, deep in the coiled drum. The room tilted, then swayed. Maybe everything is so mad now, he thought.
'There's something I must ask you.'
She looked at him with unbounded willingness.
'I'm probably a complete idiot,' he went on, for her house, her windows, her curtains, had seemed so blameless from the outside. 'But there's something you ought to know too. Now you must promise in advance to forgive me if I — '
Guy hesitated. Quite clearly he could hear the sound of a toilet flushing nearby. Too near to be anywhere else. Then Keith came out of the bathroom. He had a silver leather jacket held over his shoulder and was saying, 'That was my favourite, that was. I like them when you —'
'Ah, Keith,' said Nicola lightly. 'I'd almost forgotten you were still here.'
Freeze-framed, italicized, caught absolutely redhanded, Keith's figure began to inch back into life, to move and breathe again — and to shrink, to shrink to nothing, as Guy rose reflexively to his feet.
'Hello, mate -'
The leather jacket, held a moment ago insouciantly shoulder-high, Keith now gathered into his hands where he could crease and crumple it. A strong interaction was taking place between the men: the power of class, at its strongest over short distances. Guy looked at Keith with contempt. And this was the Knight of the Black Cross.
'I expect you'll want to be on your way,' said Nicola, 'here's your— case. I put something in it for you.'
A coughing fit seemed about to free Keith indefinitely from the obligation of speech; but then he gulped suddenly with a thickening of the neck and said, 'Appreciate it.'
'Oh and Keith? You couldn't bear to have another go with the grinder, could you? It's there. It packed up again, I'm afraid.'
'Willco,' said Keith, gathering his things.
'Same time tomorrow?'
Keith looked at Nicola, at Guy, at Nicola. 'Er, yeah!' He nodded, and tubed his lips, and shuffled sideways towards the door.
'Goodbye, Keith,' she called, and turned to Guy. 'I'm sorry. What were you saying?'
He waited. Keith's strained whistle started up and retreated down the stairs. 'Is he,' asked Guy, sitting, and looking around, 'is he here all the time?
'I'm sorry?'
Guy said reedily, 'I mean, if he's not actually in here it's quite a rarity if I don't see him on the stairs.'
'Keith?'
'I mean, what does he do here day in and day out?'
'Does he say anything to you?'
'What? On the stairs? No, he just says "Cheers" or "Innit" or something,' said Guy, as his hand sought his brow.
'I mean generally. He hasn't told you our little secret?'
'Whose little secret?'
'Keith's and my little secret,' Nicola smiled at Guy with rueful mischief. 'Oh well. I suppose it's got to come out. I'm afraid I've deceived you rather.'
'I see,' said Guy, and raised his chin.
'He'd be horrified if you knew,' she said, and looked closely into Guy's crippled face. Its weakness she identified for the hundredth time as something predetermined, already etched, something made for a specific purpose, but too long ago. 'And of course he's very worried that his wife will find out about it.'
'I think,' said Guy, 'I think you'd really better tell me.'
Well, in a minute, she thought. A few more choice ambiguities, perhaps. No - all right. Okay: one more. 'I mean, what does it matter if he's only a common working lad?' she asked. Then she widened her mouth and tented the lines on her brow and said with martyred calm: 'I teach him.'
'Keith? I don't understand.'
'Of course he's only just literate and a complete dunce in all sorts of ways but the desire is there, as it so often is. You'd be surprised. I learned that with my work in remedial reading.'
'When did all this start?'
'Oh, ages ago.' She frowned, seeming to remember. 'I gave him a copy of Wuthering Heights. I didn't know how serious he was but he persisted. And now we're doing it properly. We've just started on the Romantics. Look.' And she held up her Longman's Keats. 'I'm wondering if it's wise to start him off on the Odes. Today we had a quick look at "Lamia". The story helps. I was thinking perhaps "La Belle Dame Sans Merci". Or "Bright Star". It's a favourite of mine. Do you know it? "Bright Star! Would I were steadfast as thou art" ?'
'Nicola. Has he done anything to you?'
Even she had her doubts about the look of radiant puzzlement she now gave him — doubts about its supportability, in any scheme of things. 'I'm sorry?'
'Has he ever tried to make love to you?'
Slowly it formed, the pure incredulity. After a moment she put a hand over her mouth to catch a silent hiccup; then the hand moved upwards to her eyes.
Guy got to his feet and came forward. In no uncertain terms, and with his mind half-remembering some analogous recital, some previous exercise in illusion-shattering (when? how long ago? what about?), he told her what Keith and his kind were really like, how they thought of women as chunks of meat, their dreams of violence and defilement. Why, only today in a rough tavern Keith had been blustering about the uses he had put her to — yes, her name shared and smeared in gross fantasies of enslavement, humiliation, appetite, murder.
Nicola looked up. He was standing over her with his feet apart.
She said, 'Oh — does it mean that much? They believe in each other's lies just like they believe in television . . . What's that?'
'. . . What?'
She drained her face of all experience and raised it towards him. Then her head levelled again and she pointed with a finger. 'That.'
'Oh, that.’
'Yes. What is it?'
'What is it?'
'Yes.'
'You must know, you must have read . . .'
'Yes, but why is it so - so protuberant?'
'I don't know. Desire .. .'
'May I? It's like rock. No. Like that stuff that some dead stars are made of. Where every thimbleful weighs a trillion tons.'
'Neutronium.'
'That's right. Neutronium. Would I bleed?'
'I don't know. You've gone on horses and things.'
'And this bit under here is important too, is it? Oops! Sorry. This is fascinating. And in some circumstances a woman will take this in her mouth?'
'Yes.'
'And suck?'
'Yes.'
'I suppose the idea would be to suck absolutely as hard as one could. What a strange thing to want to do.'
'Yes.'
'So regressive,' she said, and briskly stroked and patted him, as one might dismiss a friendly but unfamiliar animal. 'Though I can see it might be fun for you.' She was smiling up at him, her mouth like a split fruit. 'What's the line in "Lamia"? "As though in Cupid's college she had spent sweet days"? That really is the worst thing in all Keats. So vulgar. But Cupid's college is where you'd better send me for a while, until I know all the tricks.'
He left about an hour and a half later.
His ear was worse. At least three-quarters of his face was unrecallably numb, and heavy, too, to the muscles of the cheek. That was Marmaduke's work. But his good ear had also received a lot of attention, from Nicola's lips and tongue; as he came down the stairs, stepping from carpet to bare board, Guy realized that he was in fact clinically deaf. Outside made his lips feel raw and chapped from kissing — and these kisses so wolvish all of a sudden, especially when he felt her breasts which he was now permitted to do (from without only), and the breasts themselves so responsive and distended and seeming to link up with all the complications of his own low wound.
/>
Across the street he rode, on his rogue boner. Pale rider. Under the fantastic clarity of the evening sky. He looked up. The moon certainly did look closer than usual, but beautifully close, and not yet shining, like the crown of a skull or a Goth helmet; and not just a mask or a shell but a body, with mass and depth, a heavenly body. And the only one we ever really see, the planets too small, the stars too distant, and the sun too vast and near for human eyes.
Dead cloud. Just then — awful sight. Just then he saw that a dead cloud was lurking above the near rooftops. Awful sight. What did it think it was doing there, so out of kilter? They were always lost, dead clouds, lost in the lower sky, trembling drunkenly down through the thermals, always looking in the wrong place for their brothers and their sisters.
Guy pogoed on. The world had never looked so good . . . Bright star! And with so much doubt gone he could reproach himself in full measure.
Well might Guy curse himself for a brute and a swine. His thoughts were all crosspurposed, while hers were all of truth and beauty, beauty, truth.
I saw a dead cloud not long ago. I mean right up close. This was New York, mid-town, mid-August, the Pan Am building (you could feel its monstrous efforts to stay cool), the best piece of real estate in the known universe. How could some dump of a white dwarf or innocently hurtling quasar stand up to this golden edifice on heliographic Park Avenue? I was in Dr Slizard's office, just below the restaurant, the revolving carvery or whatever they have up there now. The dead cloud came and oozed and slurped itself against the window. God's foul window rag. Its heart looked multicellular. I thought of fishing-nets under incomprehensible volumes of water, or the motes of a dead TV.