Mountains of the Moon, page 13
Everyone stops chewing to watch her, mugs is halfway to lips.
Today her hair is loose, like an orange cape shining red in the kinks from yesterday’s plait. Surprises me how someone so little can look down her nose at people, it’s like she’s still up on her horse. I look outside, see if she came on it, but there’s only a dark gray Audi Quattro and the plumbers’ vans parked. Nice car, Audi Quattro. She goes straight to use the payphone on the wall. Gets in a mess with the dog and the leash and her purse and the pen and the address book with the phone number in. Coins keep dropping through.
“For God’s sake!” She puts the dog down, tries gain to make the call.
Dog looks around bored, sees a bit of fried egg under a table, goes off on a weaving adventure, around table legs and chairs. When it sees me it goes mad, brings everything dragging and slopping with it. Leaves a trail of piss, knocks my crutches over. Wuthering Heights drops her purse and all the coins spill out.
“I need to speak to—hello—oh for pity’s sake; can you ring me back. Hello?”
I hobble over on the plaster cast and take the idiot lead from her hand; it’s gone around her legs three times. She’s got through to someone.
“I’m tired of this now,” she says. “Tell him it’s urgent—it’s Gwen Llewelyn.”
I pick the puppy up and start untangling mess of legs and tangled furniture. When she finishes on the phone I’ve got everything straight and cleaned up and the puppy has gone up my jumper.
“It’s ridiculous,” she says.
“You should sit down have a cup of sweet tea. Cigarette,” I say, “calm your nerves.”
“I had no idea that people actually spoke like you in real life.”
I could say the same about her, sides no one speaks like me in real life. If I didn’t speak the way I does I wouldn’t even exist.
“Don’t you think it suits me?”
“I mean where in London would I have to go to end up talking with an accent like that?”
“I int ever lived in London,” I says. “Lived everywhere else. You want a cup of tea? I’m having another one, since your dog knocked the first one over.”
“I suppose I ought to thank you and buy it.”
“Yeah,” I says. “I spose you ought.”
It’s unusual, red hair and olive skin. She’s grubby around her neck, in the creases on her wrist. Uh-huh. That’s what I sides, she’s a dirty person in clean clothes.
“Did you get through in the end?” I offer her a cigarette.
“Finally,” she says and takes one. “The tragedy of working for a living.”
“What does you do?” I says.
“I’m a private investigator,” she says.
“No shit,” I says. Likes it, wishes I could say it gain.
I light our cigarettes and hold the match while she blows it out. Tyrone calls that our tea is ready; he’s too scared of her to bring them over. She goes to the counter, seems like the whole caff goes with her. The puppy is hypnotized by my thumb stroking tween its eyes. I remember that yesterday she was looking for a place. She brings the tea and sits down.
“Any luck in the paper?”
“Eh?” she says.
“House Hunting, Horse and Hound.”
“It looks as though I’m not staying after all; my case is moving to Rotherham of all godforsaken destinations. Did you find anywhere?”
“I’m going this afternoon,” I says. “I’ve got a room in Sheffield and a free ride up there.”
“How odd.”
Don’t know what she means.
“We’ll be practically neighbors,” she says. “Do you know the address?”
I get the piece of paper out of my pocket. Chippenhouse Road, Nether Edge, Sheffield. She reads it.
“When I get up to Yorkshire,” she says, “I could give you a knock. We could go out on the town.”
It int something I can picture. I spects she will forget the address.
“If you like,” I say, feel a bit faint. The painkillers make me woozy. Feel really faint.
“Has to put my head down.” I lift the puppy.
She reaches over to take it from me.
“Is it pain from your foot?”
“I int been feeling very well,” I says.
“How long have you been like this?”
“Twenty years,” I says, ducking.
“Soppy,” she says.
“Five more minutes, Mr. Nesbitt.”
“Nurse!” he calls.
She rolls back like a person on tracks, her smile and elbows and wrists is clockwork.
“Mr. Nesbitt?” Her head tips sideways.
Mr. Nesbitt looks up at her.
“It won’t be tonight, will it?” he says. “They won’t decide tonight?”
“No, Mr. Nesbitt, nothing can happen until Mr. Abraham has seen Catherine.”
He holds his arms out, like carrying something heavy and dead.
“Where will they take her? I’d like to know.”
I wonders what he done to his hand.
“Mr. Nesbitt,” she says, “it really is a matter for the police, for close friends and for…”
Lions eat the rest of her words, ripping up under her ribs. Her leg int coming off easy, but she still is smiling as they drag her all cross the floor.
“Don’t worry, Catherine.” Mr. Nesbitt breathes on my fingers one at a time and rubs them, case he can warm them up. “Don’t worry,” he says.
I tries to tell him, I int Catherine, but the first word ties a knot. Stead, I smell the freesias and eat a grape to cheer him up.
“You really must go now, Mr. Nesbitt,” says the clockwork nurse.
“Could you not hear me, Catherine? I’ve been calling you,” the nurse says. “This man has come to take some photographs of you. He’s come especially.”
He looks like sorry for being Scottish. He’s got a kilt on with a long safety pin and socks with tassels. The nurse pulls the curtains around and my policeman stays the other side.
“Hello,” the man says. “Ken Dooley at your service. I understand that you’ve got some verry special patterns?”
“Would it be all right, Catherine, for me to undo your gown so the man can photograph your front?” the nurse arsts.
I make them all nervous. Case I bite them. I nod my head. The nurse undoes my gown and pats for me to lay down flat. I got blue pants with daisies on, don’t know how come. Nurse folds the sheet so that the man can see.
“Yes indeed,” he says. “Verry, verry interesting.”
They pull one curtain back on the winder side and roll me about ever so nice trying to get the light right. The camera’s nose comes out, elephant wants a currant bun, don’t know how he does it, can’t see no strings or nothing. He don’t even want my face. I int allowed to stand up.
“Aerial view,” he says.
He stands on the plastic chair and the nurse holds it steady cos the floor int level but she int allowed to look up his skirt.
“I was wondering,” he says, getting down. “Would it be all right to take some close-ups?”
They both stand looking at me.
“What do you think, Catherine? Would it be OK for this man to take some close-ups of your front?”
I nod my head.
“Good girl,” she says.
He has to come down almost level, to get the sun and shadow proper. The film runs out so fast he has to put a new one in. He turns the camera one way, then the other, runs around the bed, side to side.
“Beautiful,” he says. “Beautiful.”
And it’s true, my patterns is beautiful. I wonders if to tell him I done them with a ruler. The sun goes behind a cloud.
“We’ll have to use the flash,” he says.
“Weston-super-Mare?” I say to the ticket lady.
She gives me an irregular look like I stole the coat or something.
“Return?”
“No.”
The coach is filling up, last winder seat is mine. I think about Gwen. Surprised me, one Saturday night I found her on my Sheffield doorstep. She dragged me out to the Ritzy, we went a few times. She danced around her handbag and all the men in the room. I always slipped out on the fire escape and sat up on the roof, until it was time for Gwen and me and some bloke to leave. She was living in Rotherham, renting a caravan in Maurice’s yard. He’s got a shed and a polytunnel and a flower barrow in a lay-by, I did some pricking-out for him and minded his shop while he had a day off. Gwen’s case was living just up the road but three months later they moved again, to Weston-super-Mare, so Gwen and her horse and her dog moved too. She tried hard to tempt me at the time, but I’d already promised Maurice I’d help him with the run-up to Christmas. My hands is still shredded from making the holly wreaths. I went over there this morning to say I was moving south, catching up with Gwen. He was in a good mood, “Go on, ask me,” he said. Went out last night with an air hostess that Dateline sent him, “Cunt like an allotment,” he said.
Sometimes think me and Gwen are friends only because she insists. I don’t know how people get good friends; I only seem to get other fuck-ups and freaks. That int fair, it don’t sound kind. We did have a few nice times and even when she left she rang me every week for a chat. I feel a bit sick actually, with impending doom. Christmas and New Year was desolate in the student house, just me and the ferret in the kitchen. Last night Gwen caught me off guard.
“Come on!” she said. “What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Listen.” I put the receiver down on the floor so Gwen could hear the Pennine wind chewing under the front door. Students kept climbing over my threadbare shoulder on the threadbare stairs.
“So what are you waiting for?” Gwen said. “Why stay in Sheffield?”
Students is such filthy bastards.
“I’ve got to get a job, Gwen.”
“You can look as easily down here,” she said. “Come on! It will be a crack!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Member the policeman’s boots?”
Have you nowt better to do than tiptoe through bloody tulips?
“It’s much warmer down here,” she said, “positively temperate.”
Sold to the lady with the mouth full of marbles.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll get the coach tomorrow.”
I heard the long-distance words, traveling down the line, and instantly wished I could get them back.
Now the coach is making sounds like leaving. Sheffield has been kind to me, everybody gave me cake, but winter came the first week of September and all I did was thrash about with tears freezing on my face. Cept now I’ve got Soyoko’s coat. Reckon it has saved my life. And security guards don’t follow me around. It’s a new year. Now I’m going to Weston-super-Mare. Seaside. Gwen says her aunt bought this place as a property investment but she’s gone to Leningrad for a nose job. Holiday cottage. I magines spring, creeping over me windersill.
Warm face.
Warm hands.
Warm feets.
“Lovely.” A bloke sits down sides me. “Last seat. Roasting in here.”
We pass the hospital. Physiotherapy has finished now. It’s so hot on the coach we has to take our coats off, whether we want to or not. The Lovely bloke stands up to put them in the overhead rack; holds my coat over his arms like a beautiful fainted lady. Change is as good as a rest. I think about Piggy, Gwen’s horse, great chestnut clod with his white socks around his ankles, his great white face, his great big heart. I get really excited then, like going to see an old friend.
Warm, salty wind slaps hair all over my face, int sure which way I’m facing.
“It walks,” Gwen says. She’s never seen me without the crutches.
“It limps long.”
Panda jumps right up into my arms. She’s grown a lot in the six months since I last seen her. She finds the mole gain, under my chin. The coach driver gets my bag out from the stowage.
“Here you are, Miss,” he says.
Surprises me how a coat can change your bloody what’s name.
“Is that it?” Gwen says. “Your worldly chattels?”
“My worldly dictionary.”
“What about your clothes?”
“I’m wearing them all. Minus nine in Sheffield. It’s definitely warmer down here.” I look around. “No car?”
“Poor Betsy’s sick—I’ve offered sweet words and kicked seven sorts of shit out of her but she won’t start. It’s only a stroll along the prom. I use the word ‘stroll’ loosely,” she says.
“Glad to get rid of the crutches. It int just your foot you lose, it’s both your bloody hands as well. Where’s the sea?” I arsts.
“Good question.”
We go to the promenade wall and lean on it, looking out. See the seagulls, they is so citing playing on a wind. Wonders which one is Jonathan Livingstone.
“Never knew mud could be so beautiful,” I says. “Is the pier open? I love them sliding shelf machines where you drop the penny in, there’s something mesma about all that moving metal and shine. Have they got the Six Horse Race machine? Is it open now?”
“No, Soppy,” she says. “It closes at three in the winter.” She always seems to jig around me like I was up on a plinth or something.
In an avenue of stately old people’s homes, we turn down a leylandii conifer track wide enough for a car to scrape through. Wedged between garden fences, on a tiny plot behind, is her aunt’s holiday cottage. Gwen’s used the word “cottage” loosely, looks like it’s made of wet hardboard. The gray Quattro is parked in front, next to a muck heap.
“I think it was cheap,” Gwen says, “and it’s not costing us anything, so that’s good, isn’t it?” She does a jig of good fortune on the breeze-block step. The front door is warped with wetness; she has to kick the bottom of it. I’d like to say she’s done us proud but it looks to me like a damp, poky old hole with concrete floors and woodchip paper on hardboard walls. Polystyrene ceiling tiles. Stick-on floral dado rail. The caravan Gwen had in Rotherham had more substance about it. The hall has plastic pine folding doors, sticky with fingers and flyblow. One clatters back.
“Ta-da.”
Freezing ugly hole of a bathroom. Pitchfork in the shower cubicle, out of the way. We step over a shit in the hall.
“Panda,” she says, case I never knew who done it.
“Ta-da.”
Kitchen.
“Compact and bijou.”
“Loverly close-up of a fence,” I says.
“Food hatch.” She flaps it down on a broken hinge and it won’t close back up. Falls down. “For God’s sake,” she says. “A little maintenance wouldn’t go amiss.”
We shuffle around peeling our shoes off the lino and come back out.
“Ta-da.”
Gwen’s bedroom, same as usual, bridle hanging on the bedhead, straw all over the carpet. Bales piled up around the winder. Another nice close-up of a fence.
“What’s that noise?”
“Ta-da.”
“Fucking. Hell.”
Piggy neighs, always does when he sees me.
“That’s Piggy’s end of the lounge and this is ours.” Gwen is jigging on a carpet so wet with horse piss it actually splashes. He looks pitiful, with his big head hanging down. I move his saddle off the sofa and sit down. Can’t look. He clonks a stride forward, puts his head over my shoulder.
“Hello, big fella,” I says.
He breathes hard into my hand.
“He int got any headroom, Gwen.”
“Well, I know that,” she says. “It’s not bloody well my fault that I got him in here and now he won’t come out. I have to put him somewhere. What am I supposed to do?”
Silence rings with a petulant pitch. The dog gets in her basket, tramples around in circles trying to dig a deeper hole in the denim jacket. My voice is lit and sparks in the air.
“Tomorrow we’re going to get him a field,” I says.
“How can I be expected to pay for everything?” She wuthers on the edge of tears and some dark moors above the dado rail, pulling and clawing at her plait, always lets her hair down for it. Now she’s going down the hall, me and the dog get up to see. She slams the front door behind her, but it’s damp and bounces back open. When she kicks in the nearside wing of her car, the dog yelps. She storms off down the track.
I feels sick, guts has gone, int got the stomach for my heart bashing. I feels faint, finds my way back to sit on the sofa. Don’t want to touch it, try to breathe. Horse hooks over my shoulder, pulls me in, and closer. I clutches his whole head in my arms. Softness and warmth of his throat almost hurts and he stands so solid still. Don’t know how long we close our eyes, waits for calm, til we got one breath and one heartbeat. We listen to Panda hounded, in her basket, in her sleep and rain drumming on the chalet roof.
Gone dark, I don’t want to disturb this horse, to get up and turn the light on, but he lifts his head to let me. I grope about for switches. A fluorescent tube flickers on, then its twin the other end. I see a horse in the strobe, top lip turned up, sad mock-up of a huge joke. I know. What kind of cunt puts fluorescent tubes in a lounge diner? I look at the big stupid horse, the ceiling making him low down and humble. Toe down and dip-hipped. It int proper.
“You want to lie down?” I arsts.
When everything is done I turn off the lights. Listens. Our hearts all boom in the dark. Water falls from guttering. The front door sticks and kicks. Gwen back, with butter. She talks to me from the dark hallway.
“Ingredients for toast,” she sniffs. “You’ve got the Calor gas fire going; it won’t ever light for me. Why are you sitting over there in the dark, why don’t you sit by the fire?”
The horse is giving off more heat. She comes then, stands in the doorway and flicks on the lights.
“Oh?” she says. “You’ve moved my belongings about?”
I’ve moved the dented rusted ugly fuck of a Calor gas fire, and the total bore of a Paris painting that she always hangs above it. I’ve moved the nylon-covered soggy chipboard sewing box.
“I’ve moved the sofa forward so the horse can lie down behind it if he wants to. I hope you don’t mind but I gave him some straw to lie on and a wedge of hay and filled up his water bucket.”
