`Did she? I'm sure she didn't mean anything. She's a bit crochety when she's painting, isn't she? Come and sit here on my lap, you can help me read the news.'
Nobody visited, nobody came. No family, no friends. At first she went to school, but then they kept her at home, educating her themselves. It was all the rage with a certain section of a certain class. Her father had been left money by a great aunt. Enough money for a comfortable life, enough to keep the wolf from the door. He pretended to be a scholar. But then his painstakingly researched essays started to be rejected and he saw himself for what he was. The arguments' grew worse. Grew physical.
`Just leave me alone will you? My art's what matters to me, not you.'
'Art? Fuck art!'
'How dare you!'
A dull, solid thump. A blow of some kind. From anywhere in the house she could hear them, anywhere but the attic. But she daren't go to the attic. That was where . . . Well, she just couldn't.
`I'm a boy,' she whispered to herself, hiding beneath her bed. `I'm a boy, I'm a boy, I'm a boy.'
`Sweetness, where are you?' His voice, all sugar and summery. Like a slide-projector show. Like an afternoon car ride.
They said, the Wolfman was homosexual. It wasn't true. They said they'd caught him. She almost whooped when she read it. Wrote them a letter and posted it. See what they'd make of that! Let them find her, she didn't care. He and she didn't care. But he cared that she was taking over his ? HYPERLINK “http://mind.as/”??mind as? well as his body.
Sweetness . . . Oranges and lemons say the bells of . . .
So unbecoming in a man. Long nosehairs, her mother had been talking about Daddy's nosehairs Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a man. Why did she remember that utterance above all others? ‘Long. Nose. Hairs. So. Unbecoming. In. A. Man. Johnny.’
Daddy's name: Johnny.
Her father, who had sworn at her mother. Fuck art. Fuck was the dirtiest word there was. At school it had been whispered, a magic word, a word to conjure up demons and secrets.
And she's on the streets now, although she knows that really she should do something about the Butcher's' Gallery. It needs cleaning badly. There are torn canvases everywhere. Torn and spattered. It doesn't matter: nobody visits. No family, no friends.
So she finds another one. This one's stupid. `As long as you're not the Wolfman,' she says with a laugh. The Wolfman laughs too. He? She? It doesn't matter now. He and she are one and the same. The wound has healed. He, feels whole, feels complete. It is not a good feeling. It is a bad feeling. But it can be forgotten for a moment.
Back in his house.
`Some gaff you've got here,' she says. He smiles, takes her coat and hangs it up. `Bit of a smell though. You haven't got a gas leak, have you?'
No, not a gas leak. But a leak, yes. He, slips his hand into his pocket, checks that the teeth are there. Of course they are, they're always there when he needs them. To bite with. The way he was bitten.
`Only a game, sweet.'
Only a game. Bitten in fun. On the stomach. Bitten. Not hard, more like blowing a raspberry. But that didn't stop it hurting. He touches his gut. It still hurts, even now.
`Where do you want me, love?'
`In here will do,' he says, taking out the key and beginning to unlock the door. The mirror was a bad idea. The last one had seen what was happening behind her, had almost screamed. The mirror has been taken down. The door is unlocked.
`Keep it locked, do you? What you got in there, the crown jewels?'
And the Wolfman, showing teeth, smiles.
Know This, Womin
He woke up in his hotel room, which was something in itself, bearing in mind that he had no idea how he'd got there. He was lying on his bed, fully clothed, his hands pressed between his legs. Beside him lay the carrier-bag full of books. It was seven o'clock and by the quality of the light streaming in through the uncurtained window, it was morning rather than evening. So far so good. The bad news was that his head seared with two kinds of pain, bad when he opened his eyes, unbearable when he closed them. With eyes closed, the world spun at an awkward tilt. With eyes opened, it merely floated on a different. plane.
He groaned, attempted to unglue his furred tongue from the roof of his mouth. Staggered to the sink and ran the cold tap for some moments, then, splashed his face and cupped his hand, lapping water from it the way a mongrel might. The water was sweet, chlorinated. He tried not to think of kidneys . . . seven sets of kidneys. Knelt by the toilet-pan and retched. The big white telephone receiver to God. What was the score? Seven brandies, six dark rums he'd lost count after that. He squeezed an inch-long strip of toothpaste onto his brush and scrubbed at his teeth and gums. Then, only then, did he have the courage to examine himself in the wall-mirror.
There were two kinds of pain. One from the hangover, the other from, the mugging. He'd lost twenty quid, maybe thirty. But the loss to his pride was above price. He held in his head a good description of a couple of the gang and especially the leader. This morning, he would give what he knew to the local station. His message would be clear: seek out and destroy. Who was he kidding? They'd rather protect their own villains than help an intruder from north of the border. Our man from north of the border. Jockland. Jock. But to let the gang get away with it was worse. What the hell.
He rubbed his jaw. It felt worse than it looked. There was a pale mustard bruise down one cheek and a graze on his chin. Good thing training shoes were all the rage. In the early 70s it would have been a steel-capped Airwear boot and he would not have been so chipper.
