Louella’s head bent down, still shaking all over. Her ankles are a little heavy but Jesus she has a nice curve to her calf. Come on. Honey. Tell the fucker. Do it. Before his heart trouble needs an ambulance to the hospital.
“I want to stay with you Al.”
Al wheeling around. Crouched moving towards Schultz. Who backing away, knees buckling, sat down onto a stainless steel four pronged fork on the bed. Schultz jumping up. One hand clutching his arse. Al holding forward the knife. Schultz sticking his arms up over his head. Louella screaming.
“Don’t Al. Please. Let him go.”
“I’m letting him go alright. Unless he makes another false move. Come on you. You just gather up what you can get of your clothes in two seconds flat. And you get the fuck out of here. And don’t ever let me see sight of you again as long as you live.”
Schultz grabbing in all directions. Hands sticky with honey, fingers encrusted in jam. Clutching undervest, undershorts, Tripping over his shirt tails. O motherfucker my shoes I took off in the next room. And my pants I flung over the bronze bust of Al’s head. But thank god so far I haven’t provoked the fucker with a hard on.
“Al please let me put on something. My pants.”
“You get out that front door or this knife will be sticking out your ass.”
“Al I got only half my clothes. I’m naked. At least let me call a limousine.”
“I’m counting to three. One. Two.”
“I’m going, please, can’t you let me find my pants, my shoes.”
“I’ll find them. And throw them out the window. You catch them down in the street. You creep. You’ll get the bill for the damage too. Now get out that fucking door. And never set foot through it again.”
Schultz taking the service elevator down to the basement. After a scream from a lady occupant of Al’s floor collecting in her stack of Sunday newspapers. O god. You’d think that fucker Al’s heart couldn’t stand it. But it’s like his hatred of me has given him a new lease in life. Imagine that fossilized geriatric gloating while I’m now walking barefoot around the world in shirt tails.
Schultz crouching along the wall of the garage driveway and looking up. Shoes. Plummeting down. Schultz ducking away as they bounced. The fuckers throwing them straight at me trying to hit me. Holy cow my trousers floating past all the windows in slow motion. Like it’s taking years. Three people’s heads already stick out to look. Thank god, the English don’t believe in god. And are not all over the streets going to church.
Schultz, his sticky hands pulling on his trousers inside the tower’s boiler room. Tins, cans and bottles thundering down a chute and crashing in a big iron cradle. And Jesus the cunt. He’s sliced open my shoe laces. Stabbed the zipper out of my fly. I’m down here among the dust bins. With London grime on the windows, sashes and sills. Corroded facings. Bubbling paint. Like I’ve been thrown out with the garbage.
Schultz heading across the grass and through the trees. Towards the stone mansion civilisation of Park Lane. Shuffling in shoes. Past Speakers Corner. While I walk. I hobble. With O my god, my fucking wallet gone. Son of a bitch blacks up there on crates bellyaching they got troubles. I could tell you troubles. Which would turn your skin white. I should have known a detective was following me. When Pricilla phoned Lulu Lullabyebaby to give her some of that I’m a poor abandoned wife shit. And Lulu who is no slouch when it comes to losing her temper, lashed into her with a vocal ferocity so intense that Pricilla dropped the phone and dared not pick it up again. Here I am. Glad even for the heat of a bus engine enveloping me as it pulls up to a bus stop. Cork tipped cigarette butts in the gutter. Greasy dust. Greasy pavements. This London. This life. This is what I don’t understand. I’m sentenced to ignominy. For doing what god and nature ordained. Fucking hell. I’d shout out right here blue bloody murder. Only that his Lordship says that in England it’s mildly bad manners to say things that people will listen to.
Or make
Them shudder
When I
Holler
Out of
Lonely pain
31
This noonday Thursday pouring rain. Schultz and his Lordship in a last minute hop skip and jump around the office. Bags packed stacked downstairs waiting ready for Hubert to purr them to the airport. To the plane. Across Europe. Out of this unpredictable London. To Prague.
Schultz slamming down one phone and picking up another. Finally throwing a file across the chairman’s desk. Give Binky something to think about for a week. While I take my sex drive somewhere, where my fucking ancestors lying in their graves maybe can teach me something. Tell me what the fuck has gone wrong. And where the fuck I can go right. Dreamt I made a pass at my own mother last night. Then this morning as I’m rushing out, ran smack bang right into His Excellency the Ambassador in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel. We embraced each other in tears. If nothing else it was a fucking welcome change from hugging women.
Binky in a suede safari jacket, holding up an envelope in triumph, fluttering his eyelashes and pursing his lips.
“I do declare Schultz, my dear. As well as breaking the house record at the theatre, you have not got, have you, another invitation to the palace.”
“That’s right.”
Binky pointing to Schultz’s paper bag. Rebecca standing close behind his shoulder. Saw her hand touch him on the neck. Maybe she was too pleasant for me ever to fuck. A guy’s lucky who can boast there’s a girl in the world who loves him. While Binky the bastard is already toying in my brand new hopes and troubles.
“My god Schultz what’s that full of.”
“Bran flakes, dried figs and raisins.”
“Whatever for.”
“I got to keep my bowels moving on the Continent.”
“How wise my dear Schultz how wise. And I couldn’t help seeing these. In your file. Other bowel moving matters. Gayboy’s writ. It is simply full of the most amazing legal flourishes and embellishments. And dear me, from your landlords, a veritable dictionary of torts. Astonishingly they could be distant parvenu cousins of mine. Suitably removed of course, from any cloying close connection. And dear me, their statement of claim. A bust of Justinian, smashed. A pair of early bronze figures of centaurs, thirteen inches high, now ten inches high with necks broken. Electrical wiring out of action. Ceilings down. Paintings.”