He realized the absurdity of lying there listening to these other problems when he had plenty of his own. His rejection of Judy which might have felt like an act of faithfulness, or at least of well-intentioned self-denial, in reality felt like an act of neurosis, aggression and self-destruction. He kept listening to the radio, hoping it would stop him thinking about what a fool he’d been.
The last caller of the night was identified as Judy. The voice was now unmistakable. She said she’d called last week about al fresco sex but now there was something else she wanted to talk about. She was told to state her problem as briefly as possible because the show was nearly over.
She said, “There’s someone I want to sleep with but he’s not interested in me. And I think it’s because of where I’m from.”
The hostess seized on the topic excitedly.
“That’s terrible, Judy,” she said. “Sexism, racism, homophobia, they’re all part of the same mentality, aren’t they? And they’re all terrible, and in some small way we on this programme are doing our best to fight them. And where do you come from, Judy?”
“I come from Bethnal Green.”
“Yes, but where do you come from originally?”
“Streatham.”
“Yes, but your ethnic background?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with my ethnic background. I think he won’t sleep with me because I’m from London.”
Suddenly the closing music was playing and the hostess was saying, “And I’m sorry we don’t have more time to discuss that one. Maybe next week. For now it’s good night, London, sleep wisely and not too well. Ciao.”
Mick was not sure what he’d heard and he wished he didn’t care, but later that night his dreams proved otherwise. They were full of images of jigsaw pieces, naked Japanese men, Judy running all over London following the dictates of some sexual game she had devised for herself, and there at the centre of it all, for no reason other than dream logic, was Jonathan Sands, a man on whom Mick urgently intended to take revenge.
MARINA
Mick Wilton sat at the bar in one of the expensive, laughable hotels at Chelsea Harbour. He was reading a leaflet he’d picked up. It extolled the virtues of the Thames Barrier, both as an engineering feat and as a tourist attraction. It went so far as to claim that the Thames Barrier was the ‘Eighth wonder of the world’.
Mick, naturally enough, had never been to the Thames Barrier, though he did remember seeing something about it on TV, and he thought this leaflet might be overstating the case. He read how the barrier was the world’s largest movable flood barrier, though it didn’t name any of the world’s other flood barriers, movable or not. The barrier was said to be a great triumph for British designers and constructors although apparently some ‘Dutch specialists’ had also been involved. And then the leaflet said that a visit to the barrier was a ‘memorable experience’. He thought this was pretty weak. A visit to Madame Tussaud’s might be a memorable experience. A visit to the eighth wonder of the world ought to be something a lot more dramatic.
Mick was bored, by the leaflet, by his surroundings, by the waiting. It would soon be time to deal with Jonathan Sands, but it was only fair to wait, to give him a chance to finish the business he was currently engaged in. Mick looked at his watch. Another ten minutes then he’d have him.
With its new hotels and restaurants and blocks of flats, Chelsea Harbour looked like a resort out of season, deserted, ominously clean and ordered, something futuristic and authoritarian. There were lumps of modern sculpture dotted about, all new, all looking as though they had been bought off the peg to give the area a bit of class.
Mick felt out of place, but who wouldn’t? There were only two other people in the bar, otherwise everyone he saw was an employee of the harbour, carrying tools, buckets, bundles of electric cable.
He looked towards the angular, irregularly shaped marina. It was small, no wider across than an easy stone’s throw, and that was where the boats were moored, not many of them either, not more than fifty. The jetties were new and recently swept and well endowed with ‘Keep Out’ signs. The marina connected to the river via a long, narrow lock and Mick was amused to see a traffic light on the marina side. To Mick it looked like no more than a car-park with water, but the boats themselves were a lot more impressive than the kind of thing you’d find in most car-parks. Some were sleek white wedges of state-of-the-art machinery, with great tangles of navigational gear atop them. Others belonged to the classic school, older, more soulful craft with varnished wooden cabins, teak decks, curls of gleaming brass.
Mick had always detected something nautical about the way Jonathan Sands dressed out of work hours. He’d seen him wearing bright red and blue waterproof jackets with too many zips and pockets, with elasticated cuffs and storm flaps. Sands’ boat was a motor cruiser, about forty feet long, sleek, all white and silver and angled glass. Inside it was spacious, with a central wheelhouse saloon, and two separate cabins, one fore, one aft, each of these spaces being considerably larger than Mick’s room at the Dickens.
Mick had followed Sands to the harbour a couple of times previously. Sands seemed to go there for some sort of solace, for peace and quiet, away from his wife and child. Once there he usually simply sat inside the boat, lounging on one of the padded benches in the wheelhouse saloon, doing nothing except sit and stare. It would have been easy enough for Mick to pick him off on these occasions but the perfect moment hadn’t yet presented itself.
Tonight the pattern had changed. Sands had returned late from work, stayed in the house just long enough to change his clothes, then gone out again. But instead of heading for the harbour he’d gone to an expensive bar off the King’s Road that was done out like a Mexican cantina.
Sands was a good-looking man. In certain ways he was more classically handsome than Justin Carr. His face was more conventionally that of a film star, and he carried himself in a manner that advertised his wealth, his style, his self-confidence. He would never have trouble picking up women. Nevertheless, Mick was surprised when Sands left the bar after only an hour or so with two girls in tow. They were very young, very drunk, very King’s Road, and Sands had one on each arm. He hailed a taxi and Mick watched as they drove away. There was a great temptation to get into another cab and pursue them but Mick resisted. He knew Sands would be taking them to his boat, and Mick certainly intended to follow them, but the time it would take him to walk there would be just enough for the party to get into full swing.
Sure enough, as Mick entered the marina he could see that the lights were on in the aft cabin of Sands’ boat, and that the curtains had been hastily drawn, so hastily that they didn’t quite meet, and once he’d positioned himself direcdy outside the window, he was able to see in through the thin gap.
He peered in. The cabin was done out as a bedroom, with wood panels and brass light-fittings, and most of the floor space was taken up by the bed, the foot of which was curved to fit into the specific contours of the boat. Sands was at the centre of the bed, naked and happy, looking regal, lordly, captain-like, and he still had a girl on either side of him, but now they were also naked, lying flat on their stomachs, their firm little buttocks raised and taut as they wriggled around and took turns sucking Sands’ cock.
Mick thought of Sands’ wife alone in that big Chelsea house, looking after the child. He thought what a shit Sands was. It was easy enough to feel disapproval, distaste, but at the same time Mick found it impossible not to be a little envious. He’d never been to bed with two girls at once, never had two girls take turns sucking his cock. He tried to stop himself thinking about it. He couldn’t allow himself to be envious. He had to be a better man than Sands, so that he retained the authority to hand out punishment.