the cruelty and wasted effort
– dead planets, wasted matter, suns with nothing to heat, nowhere to go, fathers with no sons, bits and pieces that are quite irrelevant and useless, the appendix, the Royal Family? Think of the swarf of the universe and even the rejections, the bits that have gone wrong – the deformities, the waste, the utter waste. Could a creator have left so much swarf? I think not. Still, so long as the Creationists keep taking the medication we’ll be all right.”
“Well, I believe.”
“Good for you. Well done.”
“Everyone’s gotta have a dream.”
“That’s true.”
“I've seen you about for years, before my mum started cleaning your shop. I often saw you in The British. You looked lonely. You were with the others but you weren't. Does that make sense?” “You're very intuitive.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“But it wasn’t loneliness, my dear. It was sadness. When you get to my age you realize it’s too late to start again and then, looking at a girl like you, you feel a pang, perhaps of hunger but more likely of missed chances, of wasted time. I wasn’t to know then that you would come along and brighten the day and lighten the night.”
“But you've already made your mark, Mr Lawrence, your paintings for a start. In any case, you're not old, you’re not as old as you act.” “It's nice of you to say so but I’ve always thought of myself as a friendly old fellow. Shall we go or would you like a sweet?” “A sweet? Don’t be so tight, you old thing. Can’t I have a pudding?”
So, tucking into chilli ice cream and mango, she continued, “Oh, Mr Lawrence, friendly is not a word I’d give to you. In fact, I think you like people thinking you are unfriendly. Grumpy, that’s it. It’s your street cred. But you’re not really like that. I’ve sussed you out. You’re just a big softie, I know. Look at the way you’ve taken Paul in, and look at the way you help all the wannabe painters. See, I’m a psycho thingamabob. Let’s get back and you can lie on the sofa and I’ll show you a thing or two.”
“Well, if you insist, two might be nice, just so long as you don’t poke me in the eye – both eyes – like last time.”
“Sit there,” she told him. He still wore his hat. She dropped her jacket to the floor, poured some drinks and slopped one in his good hand. On his bad hand blood was seeping through the bandages again. She stepped out of her pants and moved to the stack. She put on the CD from the show that she had insisted he buy from a hastily arranged table in the foyer and sang along.
“Oh, Mr Lawrence I think I love you…”
Then, perhaps with the brass ballerinas in mind, she performed a delightful pirouette.
“Isn’t it marvellous, Mr Lawrence? I could be on the stage.” “I imagine you could. Yes, and from what I’ve seen of your dancing – in The British – you would make a perfect hoofer.” “Pardon?”
“Hoofer, my dear, with an F.”
“Oh, one of those.” Her voice was not convincing.
“If not a dancer then a player and I could help you. You could use me as a prop or, come to think of it, abuse me as a prop as well.” She punched his arm and he raised an eyebrow and, beneath it, his eye twinkled.
“You’re joking Mr Lawrence. You’re taking advantage of an innocent young girl.”
“Am I? Am I indeed? I’m not sure who is taking advantage around here and just who is so innocent. I suppose that’s always the problem, isn’t it? Who is guilty and who is innocent? And yet, the clues are all around.”
Straddling him, she tugged at his buttons. He flinched and smudged her with blood. She raised her hands to his shoulders and lowered herself.
Sinking upwards, he watched his twenty-five quid's worth find a slow rhythm and shook his head in wonder.
He said, “Don't stop.”
“I'm not going to, Mr Lawrence.”
“Singing, I mean.”
“Oh, is that all?” Her smile was infectious. “Oh, Mr Lawrence I think I love you…”
The shop and the flat above were filled with shadows and night noises. Headlights on the High Road slid past sending the shadow of the hook skidding across the walls. They brought the ballerinas to life and sent their shadows dancing across the wooden floors. They stretched the shadows of the mannequins and sent them chasing after the ballerinas. They caught an occasional passer-by and sent yet more shapes to join the ball. The wind sighed across the roof slates, the old water pipes clanked and the steel chain rattled and above it all, someone snored. In the stuffy bedroom Laura lay awake listening to the night music and considering her future. Her heart was beating faster than normal. She had been entertained and wined and dined and put into a bed with clean sheets and it hadn’t cost her a penny. Perhaps it was the grand theatre and the show and the mixing with theatre- goers who paid five pounds for their programmes that had led to her excitement but she felt a strange sense that things were on the move, something to change her life was on its way. She curled up closer to the soundly sleeping bubble-blowing Mr Lawrence and wondered whether he, the artist, the celebrity, would figure in her intoxicating dawn.
Chapter 18
Paul had time on his hands so he took care of Mr Lawrence's little errand. He caught a bus to the Ridgeway and found the house he wanted, more of a cottage, really, with a large square of nipped grass surrounded by a waist-high fence. It was neat and moss free. You just knew the owners spent a lot of time fussing around with Black amp; Decker. It was a street where the houses had drives and extensions, and boys and girls delivered broadsheets instead of tabloids and always on time. There were fewer satellite dishes. Paul noticed things like that. And here kids used playing fields with real goalposts instead of concrete and shop fronts. And dogs? They were smaller. And mostly white. Funny, that as the IQ went up the size of dogs and TV screens went down. Funny that, innit? And sad in a way, cos it meant that kids from the rich homes didn't have big TVs to watch. And that meant they'd probably end up with glasses, short-sighted or squinting, or something. Yeah.
He spent a couple of hours there, hanging around the street, watching the comings and goings. Eventually an old couple emerged from the cottage and the old man shouted over the fence.
“You there! Yes, you! We've got our eye on you. Clear off or we'll call the police. Understand?”
Tory voters!
Fuck that.
Paul cleared off.
It didn't take much savvy to reason that Mr Lawrence had given him the wrong address. The old man had got it wrong. They say age messes with the memory and they were right. There was certainly no girl living there. No beautiful Indian girl with dark eyes and black hair and legs that went all the way to… Yeah, right! And those two old Tory voters weren't her parents. No sir. NO SIR! No way. By the time he got back to the High Road dusk was falling and the street lights turned on Saturday night. Christmas illuminations gave the road a party feel, added a little excitement and cheer, like three lemons on a slot machine. Like a cold smile from a bargirl that meant no chance sunshine, no chance at all.
Shops stayed open late and a choir sang Christmas songs while a dozen Santas collected money in fat Toby jugs. He looked in the shop windows for the Christmas message, the birth of Christ, goodwill to all men, but couldn't find it between the spend, spend, spend and the banks of computers and widescreen TVs tied in Christmas ribbon. For a while, like, twenty minutes or so, he stood in front of a window and a TV, and watched in Cinerama – you’d need an extension on the house to get it in – a million people on the move. Africa was a vast graveyard, still uncivilized and uncaring, and while he watched the dark leather-skinned children cry while their mothers gazed out of helpless eyes and the shadows of vultures slid across the cooking battleground, a choir sang, ‘Oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…’
And suddenly, in front of that wide living screen, Paul knew that the whole business of religion was crap.
