He’d had enough. He shook away the memories and levered himself out of the chair. He looked at the door – the exit to reality and a cold house – then at Big Billy’s excellent daughter, Diane, who stood behind the bar. She smiled and headed his way and made a fuss of cleaning his ashtray. Heavy veins ran the length of her long skinny arms. Nicotine-stained fingers bridged by her old wedding rings worked furiously with a duster.
“Hello, Princess,” he said.
“You off, Ricky? Can’t you handle it no more?” The H in handle was left behind somewhere between the river and Hackney. Rick Cole sighed and sat down again. While she hovered, looking down at him with a question in her eyes, he settled himself and lit a JPS. One for the road sounded good.
Chapter 29
a sexy, intoxicating feeling of danger. It was amazing what a bit of dollop could do. It wasn’t a man’s world after all. Men only thought they were in charge. He wondered whether other women knew about the power they possessed. Maybe they did. That would certainly answer a lot of questions. That was a thought.
The thought stayed with him and grew until, as he walked up the High Road – not forgetting, of course, the swing of his hips and newly acquired handbag – he was walking on air.
In The British Mr Lawrence was thinking about the gender-benders, the phthalates with their endocrine-disrupting chemicals that could be absorbed through the skin and were present in soaps and perfumes and deodorants and shampoos and just about everything that was made of plastic; even tablets from the doctors were coated in them. He nodded. Maybe they were the cause…
In The British the priest from The Church of our Blessed Virgin stood at the bar. He was in civvies. It was the first time the others had ever seen him in civvies. His face was flushed and he was clearly angry. They overheard him talking to the manager.
“Would you believe it? Could you believe it? Even I don’t believe it. Give me a large scotch. Make it a treble.”
“Ice?”
“Forget the rocks.”
“Water?”
“I washed already.”
Roger nodded and said, “Straight it is. So what is it you can’t believe, Father? Surely not your belief in…?”
“No, no, no, not that at all, at all. What I’m having trouble coming to terms with is that anyone could rob their own priest. They broke into the church and stole my best frock. My frock! My working clothes, would you believe! A curse on them all.”
Roger shook a sad head. “There’s trouble all over,” he said. “The late colonel was probably right in that it has to do with the ending of conscription. As a matter of interest, perhaps you can help me on another point, a point that has been troubling me? When God speaks to you is it in His voice or your own and, does he continue to talk to you even after you’ve taken the pills?”
The priest narrowed his eyes, then shook his head and said, “Make that two doubles, or whatever it is that four is called.”
Paul stood in The British like a common slapper but no one recognized him. Except for Mr Lawrence.
Just goes to show. There isn’t much difference. Just clothes and a smudge of eye shadow and lipstick. And some tissues down your chest. If only they knew, these geezers giving him the eye, wanting to give him something else. Bastards, mostly. If only these old men could see themselves, if only they knew how pathetic they looked as they strained for eye contact, conscious of every move they made in their alcoholic haze, flexing their flabby muscles, hiding their blemishes, pulling in their heavy beer bellies.
We girls should sympathize, really, and feel sad for them. How awful it must be to be old while the heart cries out to be young. How awful it was to be old in today’s rushing world. A world where there’s no such thing as maturity, not in the mind, where men’s thoughts are never seasoned or mellowed like a ripe cheese. Old wrinkled bodies with childish minds. Life’s a joke, innit? Only thing is, the punchline, death, ain’t so funny.
A tart, innI? An A-listed long-legged slapper.
And half the bar fancied him. And the other half was jealous. But the clothes…the clothes he wore, wonderful! The rich blue figure-hugging dress he’d nicked from Acadamy, the poxy air whistling up his legs, the soft lace moving against his…his… Check it out. He’d borrowed all that from…from…the model… Anthea. Right? And now he was excited just being alive. Just standing there. Being clocked by all the geezers. You wouldn’t believe the feeling. You wouldn’t believe it. It was like…exciting, being looked at like you were a celebrity or something. Madonna. Yeah.
Dressed like that, keeping in the shadows, it’s like chess, see? A solid move. A Yaya defence. A defensive move. A modern defence. Take your time, build, wait for a weakness, strengthen your position, wait and see what the opponent’s got in mind and then, go for it. Counterpunch. Crunch!
Together they walked back to the shop, the artist and his neophyte. Paul was getting used to the heels and had even fashioned something of a sashay. Being a tart, a crumpet, a…a…goddess, that’s it, was a doddle, a piece of cake. You just had to learn to moan about everything and men in particular. There was nothing to it at all. He would have to work on the voice and the quick and easy put-downs but they would come in time.
“Timing, Paul,” Mr Lawrence had told him. “Timing is important.” “Know what you mean. Keep the opposition. Like chess, see? Like the old Reti. Follow a plan. Endings. More important than anything else. They’re even more important than the openings, Mr Lawrence.” “I’ll take your word for that, young Paul, even though, in my experience, openings are pretty important. Off you go then. The woman from India is due at any moment.”
“India? I thought she was a Paki.”
“No difference, not really, just a border with a few thousand guns and the odd nuclear bomb.”
“Will you finish the painting?”
“Yes. Just the final detail. It won’t take long.”
“The final moves, eh? The end game, like I said, Innit?” As Paul went out the woman came in. She didn’t recognize him, but then, why should she? Paul was Paula now, and dressed for the occasion.
Chapter 30
DS Sam Butler checked her handbag for a third time, making certain that the head of a tiny microphone was concealed beneath the flap. “Where did you get it,” she had asked.
“Don’t ask questions, girl,” he had answered.
He hid the quick cuffs and a small canister of CS spray beneath a flimsy headband she’d supplied. She had turned up half an hour earlier and he’d been freshly astonished at the sight of her in the loose flowing dress. Something in his chest fluttered. He tried to remain indifferent but he didn’t fool her, not for a moment.
“Sam…”
He started the car and turned toward the High Road, supermarket end.
“Sam, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not realizing you cared.” he toothache.”
“I never meant to be frivolous with you, Sam, or to give you the wrong idea.”
“You didn’t.”
They met the High Road. He drove past the supermarket. The car park was full. People struggled with bulging trolleys full of Christmas crackers and fancy tins of sweets and a bottle of last-minute sherry for the old neighbour who might drop in. And the guys selling Christmas wrapping paper were running out of time – their voices were louder: twenty sheets for a quid.
“It’s been a tough lesson, and I’ve learned it late. You might think you’re in control but you never are. All it takes is a special person, a little smile, and all your planning can go out the window. Everything you hold dear becomes secondary and you’d put it all on the line. For a dream. You’re a special person, Anian.”