“Doreen. My name.”
“Christ, yes. So sorry. And your husband, ah, George — how’s he?”
“It’s Brian, actually. He would be here but Tom, our dachshund, ran away and Brian’s been out all night looking for him. Doesn’t want him to catch rabies.”
“ ‘À la recherche du Tom perdu,’ eh?” Morgan laughed at his joke.
“Pardon?” said Doreen Brinkit, smiling blankly and swaying gently up against him.
Morgan drank a lot more and danced with Doreen. They became very friendly, more by force of circumstance — they were both alone, unattractive and needing to forget it — than by desire. At midnight they kissed and she stuck her tongue in his ear. There was no sign of Brian. Morgan remembered them now from the cocktail party at the Commission. Brinkit small, bald and shy. Doreen six inches taller than he. Brinkit telling him of his desire to leave Africa and become a vet in Devon. Wanted kids, nothing quite like family life. No place for children, Africa — very risky, health-wise. No place for you either, Morgan had thought, as he looked at the man’s little eyes and his frail, earnest features.
Some time later in a dark corner of the ballroom Doreen squirmed and hissed, “No! Morgan! Stop it … honestly, not here.” Then more suggestively: “Look, why don’t I give you a run home. I’ve got the van outside.”
Breathless with excitement and lust, Morgan excused himself for a moment. On his way to the lavatory he reflected that possibly it hadn’t been such a bad day after all. God. A real white woman.
But then a five-minute session of searing agony in the gent’s toilet brought home to him — with an awful clarity — the nightmarish significance of the lyrics in Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire.” He reeled out of the toilet, eyes streaming, teeth clenched, and collided with a small, firm object. Through the mists of tears, the prim features of his doctor shimmered and formed, mouth like a recently sutured wound.
“Oh! Morgan, it’s you. Well, I won’t waste any words. Save you a trip tomorrow. Bad news, I’m afraid. You’ve got gonorrhoea.” As if he didn’t know.
The VW bus was parked up a track off the main road some miles out of town. The jungle reared up on all sides. Heavy rain beat down remorselessly. Inside, lit by the inadequate glow of a map light, Morgan and Doreen Brinkit lay in the back, spacious with the seats folded down. Doreen moaned unconvincingly as Morgan nuzzled her neck. His heart wasn’t in it. His mind was obsessed with a single image, rooted there since he’d heard the appalling news, of a rancid gherkin astride two suppurating black olives. With a shudder he broke off and took great pulls at the gin bottle he’d purchased before leaving the club. His brain seemed to cartwheel crazily in his skull. Bloody country! he screamed inwardly. Bloody filthy Patience! Three rotting years just to end up with the clap. He drank deep, awash with self-pity. A tense, frustrated rage mounted within him. Distractedly he looked round. Doreen was tugging at the bodice of her dress, all tulle and taffeta, reinforced with bakelite and whalebone. She pulled it down, revealing an absurd cut-away bra that offered her nipples like canapés on a cocktail tray. Morgan’s rage was replaced by a spasm of equally intense lust. What the hell, he was on the next boat from Douala, clearing out. She was desperate for it. He reached up and switched out the map light.
But then somewhere in the prolonged pre-coital tussle, with Doreen’s dress concertina-ed at her waist, Morgan’s trousers at his knees, the rain drumming on the tin roof, the air soupy with sweat and deep breathing, Morgan took stock. Perhaps it was when she breathed, “Come on, Morgan, it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s the safe time of the month,” and Morgan, spliced between Doreen’s pale shanks, looked up at the windscreen awash with water, and images began to zigzag through his mind like bats in a room seeking an open window. He thought of his testicles effervescing with bacilli; he thought of pathetic Brian Brinkit searching for his fucking dachshund in a downpour; then he thought of impregnating Doreen, his putrid seed in her womb, Brian’s innocent alarm at the diseased monster he’d inadvertently produced. He thought of Brian diseased, too, a loathsome spiral of infection, a little septic carbuncle festering in Africa behind him. And he realised as Doreen’s grunts began to reach a crescendo beneath him that, no, in spite of everything — Patience, Keats, Pious, Mbele, the stinking heat and the clap — it just wasn’t on.
He withdrew and sat up, breathing heavily.
“What is it, Morgan?” Surprised, a tint of anger colouring her voice.
What the hell could he say? “I’m sorry, Doreen,” he began pathetically, desperately running through plausible reasons. “But … it’s just, um … well, I don’t think this is fair to Brian. I mean … he is out looking for Tom, in this rain.” Then, despite himself, he laughed, a half-suppressed derisive snort, and Doreen abruptly burst into tears, sobbing as she tried to cover herself up. Morgan sat and finished the gin.
“Get out!” Morgan looked round in alarm. Doreen, hair all over the place, face tracked with mascara, shrieking at him. “Fucking get out! How dare you treat me like this! You filth, you fat sodding bastard!” She started to pummel him with her fists, pushing him towards the back of the van with surprising strength. Somehow the door sprang open.
“Hang on, Doreen! It’s pouring. Let’s talk about it.” She was hitting him about the head and shoulders with the empty gin bottle, screaming obscenities all the while. Morgan fell out of the back of the van. He scampered out of the way seconds later as she reversed violently down the road. Morgan sat on the verge, the jungle at his back, rain soaking him completely. “Jesus,” he said. He wiped his wet hair from his forehead. For some curious reason he felt light-headed, suddenly hugely relieved. He got to his feet noticing unconcernedly that his trousers were covered in mud. Then, for a brief tranquil moment, the rain beating down on his head, he felt intensely, exhilaratingly happy. Why? He couldn’t really be sure. Still … He set off down the track, a bulky, dripping figure, humming quietly to himself at first and then, spontaneously, filling his lungs and breaking into a booming cockney basso profundo that spilled out into the dark and over the trees.
“Hyme a si-i-inging in a ryne, hyme a singin’ in a ryne.”
Cicadas trilled in his path.
Not Yet, Jayette
This happened to me in L.A. once. Honestly. I was standing at a hamburger kiosk on Echo Park eating a chili dog. This guy in a dark green Lincoln pulls up at the curb in front of me and leans out the window. “Hey,” he asks me, “do you know the way to San José?” Well, that threw me, I had to admit it. In fact I almost told him. Then I got wise. “Don’t tell me,” I says. “Let me guess. You’re going back to find some peace of mind.” I only tell you this to give you some idea of what the city is like. It’s full of jokers. And that guy, even though I’d figured him, still bad-mouthed me before he drove away. That’s the kind of place it is. I’m just telling you so’s you know my day is for real.
Most mornings, early, I go down to the beach at Santa Monica to try and meet Christopher Isherwood. A guy I know told me he likes to walk his dog down there before the beach freaks and the surfers show up. I haven’t seen him yet but I’ve grown to like my mornings on the beach. The sea has that oily sheen to it, like an empty swimming pool. The funny thing is, though, the Pacific Ocean nearly always looks cold. One morning someone was swinging on the bars, up and down, flinging himself about as if he was made of rubber. It was beautiful, and boy, was he built. It’s wonderful to me what the human body can achieve if you treat it right. I like to keep in shape. I work out. So most days I hang around waiting to see if Christopher’s going to show. Then I go jogging. Thead south, down from the pier to Pacific Ocean Park. I’ve got to know some of the bums that live around the beach, the junkies and derelicts. “Hi, Charlie,” they shout when they see me jogging by.