The albino’s leeched brow moved to one side, exposing the signboard. A poster was tacked on it, advertising some forthcoming exhibition of Amazonian artefacts. A double-decker bus laboured up the hill from Forest Hill Station. I looked at my watch, it was 1.50. The dreamlike state I’d been in since I met Jim and Carlos in Soho fell away as suddenly as stepping out of a bath. I started running for the bus.
‘Don’t you see!’ Jim was shouting after me, ‘he doesn’t have to wait! Don’t you understand, he’s beyond waiting; however far he travels he’s already arrived! Oh, you bloody fool …’
The last words were a scream. I paid no attention and swung myself up on to the platform of the bus as it pulled away from the stop and started the long descent to East Dulwich.
A week passed and then a month. There was no news from Jim and I made no attempt to contact him. Then a Post-it note appeared stuck to the keyboard of my computer. It asked me to ring a Mr Clifton at a Camden-based legal practice. Before I could respond, Clifton called me. He had an appalling phone manner, breathy and inaudible and his legalese sounded put on.
‘It’s concerning our client Mr Stonehouse.’
‘Oh, yes. Jim. What’s he done?’
‘He has been convicted of failure to stop; one count and two counts of aggravated assault.’
‘Did he do it?’
‘He made a statement to that effect to the police, he appeared before the magistrates’ court at Highgate who have passed the matter of sentencing over to Snaresbrook.’
‘I see, I see. That’s a bit rough. Still, I can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘Surprised?’
‘Well, he had been behaving rather erratically lately.’
‘That’s just it. It would appear that the best course of action for Mr Stonehouse would be for us to apply for further psychiatric evaluation.’
‘What if you don’t?’
‘It could be three to six years.’
‘I see, I see … What I don’t see is where I come into this …’
‘Well, as you said yourself, Mr Stonehouse has been behaving erratically recently and you’ve been a witness to this. A statement in court from someone like you, with your position, could be the deciding factor.’
‘That’s it then — you want me to turn up in court?’
‘And supply us, if possible, with a written statement.’
‘Presumably you want that on a letterhead.’
‘It may well be a decisive factor.’
‘Can you tell me exactly what happened?’
‘I’m afraid not, it would be up to Mr Stonehouse to tell you the details. Were we to say anything, it would be in direct breach of client confidentiality.’
Jim called later that morning. He was wholly unrepentant.
‘Just a little bust-up coming off the Marylebone Flyover. It’s absurd really that the thing’s got as far as Crown Court.’
‘Your brief says that he wants you remanded for psychiatric observation.’
‘Yes, well, err … it does seem the best course of action. Personally, I don’t mind — I mean I could use a few weeks’ rest. You know, making ashtrays and rapping with some jejeune shrinks.’
‘What happened, Jim?’
‘Well, I was coming in to work. I’d stayed the night with Carlos in Acton and it was only about half-seven. I was on the Westway and everything told me that I’d be clear to go the full length and come off at Marylebone rather than taking the Paddington exit. But when I got to the top of the Marylebone Flyover the traffic was backed up solid, at half-seven in the morning! I don’t know, I guess I just felt humiliated. I sat in the stack waiting to get off for about five minutes. It was infuriating, the sense of being contained to no purpose, and it was all the fault of an intellectual decision. If I’d tranced the way Carlos taught me, I’d have been all right.’
‘What happened, Jim?’
‘Well, I was coming off the end of the flyover at last, when this character tried to muscle in from the left, from the slip road that leads to the Edgware Road. He was a short, fat creep driving one of those midget Datsun vans. I remember it distinctly, it had a dirty cream paint job and a badly stencilled sign saying, “Exodus Fruiterers, Crouch End & Stanmore”, then a phone number. This character was all pushy and hunched over the little wheel. A bundle of senseless dingle-dangles swinging from his rear-view mirror, rinky-dink bazouki music blaring out of the window, eugh!
‘I’d been in that jam for five full minutes! So I just sort of herded this little van man with my front bumper, just sort of herded him … across on to the side of the road. I didn’t damage his stupid van at all, just a scrape of paint, really, but he went absolutely mad, came out of it like a sweaty little grub. “Why you do that! Why you do that!” Over and over and poking me as well. I told him, “Because I felt like it.” And this enraged him more. He was a nothing, he was a Waiter, he meant nothing. So eventually I hit him, just to shut him up.’
‘Just to shut him up …?’
‘Like I say, he was a Waiter, he was a nothing.’
‘So explain why you’re pleading insanity?’
‘Well, when the police took my statement I told them the truth and they started grinning at each other and making silly faces — so it sort of suggested itself, logically, as it were. Let me tell you, this could be a lot more than a stupid assault case. This could be the end of waiting for a lot of people.’
There was a lot more of the same before I managed to get shot of him. I wasn’t convinced. I was becoming more and more inclined to think that he was bad rather than mad. The bizarre trip I’d been on with Jim and the fluting failed albino stayed in my mind as something sinister. I didn’t like Carlos and I didn’t like his influence on Jim. Jim was becoming twisted and distorted; he was a personality viewed in a ‘fun house’ mirror. His mechanical arms were getting longer, his epicene hips wider and fuller.
I resolved to write Jim his reference, but not to turn up at Snaresbrook, unless he showed a willingness to break with Carlos and the whole perverse philosophy of waiting that he had built up. I wanted Jim to admit that he needed help — and use it.
Over the next couple of weeks I called Jim a number of times, both at home and at his office. He was always out. Carol was very distant, but not unsympathetic. I think she felt as I did, but with the added twist of having shared a bed with the man for five years. I modified my position and told her that I would write the statement, but I still wouldn’t turn up in court unless Jim showed some willingness. I told her to give Jim the message. He never called back. I left messages for him at his work; he must have ignored them. Eventually, I washed my hands of the whole thing.
Mr Clifton wrote and thanked me for my statement — which stated quite clearly the way I felt about Jim Stonehouse — and told me the date he was due to appear and the court number. I did my best to forget this information. But on the morning itself I sat in my office completely distracted. I wandered around the room picking up the Post-it notes that were stuck to every available surface and mashing them up into thick wadges of yellow paper and tackiness. I knew I was right not to go to court, I knew it was the strong — and ultimately caring — thing to do. At 9.30 Jim called up.
‘Just called to say goodbye, I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you for a while.’
I was choked with salty guilt. ‘Jim, I’m sorry about this…’ I was about to relent.
‘No, don’t be sorry. Clifton’s got his own little ideas, but, really, I’d positively like to go down. Carlos was inside for a couple of years and he says it was the formative experience that really made him fully understand the nature of the millennium. It’s waiting in a class of its own!’ There was an exultant, manic edge to his voice. He was laughing when we said our goodbyes and hung up.