A Bright Moon for Fools (17 page)

“He’s not going to hurt you any more.”

“He’s dead, William.”

“I meant Harry Christmas.”

“Harry Christmas isn’t going to hurt anyone. Not like that. Harry Christmas is just a – he’s just a scumbag. Stop whatever you’re doing, do you understand? Just
stay out of my life!”

Slade listened to the noise of her voice for a few seconds longer then put the phone down. He put his T-shirt back on and opened the door. He checked the corridor left and right whilst replaying
Diana’s words of gratitude.

He took the elevator down and went out into Caracas, walking through the Chacaito district, along Avenida del Libertador. He looked up at the skyscrapers. One had a Pepsi ball on top of it,
another a giant red Nescafé cup. He stood beneath government billboards, ‘
UH! AH! CHÁVEZ NO SE VA!’, ‘LA NUEVA GEOMETRÍA DEL PODER’, ‘PATRIA,
SOCIALISMO O MUERTE
’. He registered every face that walked by, monitored every movement. He saw a cat sniffing at an empty burger box and tried to kick it.

Across the other side of the
autopista
, bodies skulked alongside the barriers and climbed down towards the river and the makeshift tents and shelters that clawed onto the embankment.
Beyond the streetlights he could see the dark trees of the Jardín Botánico and Parque Los Caobos. He walked up Avenida Quito and Las Palmas, past rowdy kids playing baseball with a
rock and a stick. Strong winds surprised the rubbish, pulled at skirts and hair. The rain began. Citizens began to run.

Slade followed some men into a corner Chinese restaurant. Inside, drinkers sat in high-backed chairs across tables covered in paper cloths and beer bottles. The Chinese waiters looked pale and
bedraggled. Everyone was smoking. There was a television showing baseball, one man sitting below the screen, his fingers and wrists covered in gold. He talked into his phone as he ate, spraying
food. Slade took a seat. He ordered whisky. He had no appetite.

A mix of Venezuelans and foreigners sat at the table next to him. He kept his eyes on the baseball and homed in on their conversation, picking out an Australian accent.

“... fucken gorgeous she was, mate, fucken gorgeous, great fucken tits – and she’s going at it, then she stops and says why don’t I bring a mate, two’s a company,
three’s a fucken party type thing, so first I’m thinking ‘whatever’ and giving her head the old cafetiere, y’know, get back down there and fucken get on with it, but
I’m thinking to myself, why not give it a go, right? So she calls up her mate, the doorbell goes and it’s some fucken bitch with a huge fucken knife! Just fucken comes in with her
fucken knife fucken ties me up and fucken robs me! The fucken two of them! Fucken ransack the place! So I am so fucken distraught I spend all the next day with the door fucken double-locked,
curtains drawn, smoking fucken Mary Jane to fucken calm me down, right? And fucken someone, right, some fucken neighbour or something, fucken smells it in the corridor, calls the police, me fucken
doorbell goes – two fucken cops! And guess what they fucken do! Fucken tie me up and rob the place!”

Slade was studying each of them. He saw himself smash bottles over their skulls, driving the broken ends into the faces of other diners who tried to stop him. He imagined fighting every single
person in the restaurant – kicks, punches, reverse elbows – until it was strewn with groaning bodies. Slade finished his drink and went back to the Hotel Lux. The storm was over. The
streets were wet. At every turning he expected to bump into Harry Christmas or the three men that had robbed him.

Once in front of the Lux he rang the bell. There was a different receptionist, a badly-shaven man with white hair. He released the security door and greeted Slade with a smile. “
Buenas
noches, Señor. Todo bien
?” Slade assessed him. He walked into the lift. The man skipped out from behind his desk and held the door. “American?”

“Where’s the other one? The woman?”

“Are you an American?”

“Who are you working for?” said Slade after examining him for a moment.

“
Que
?”

“Are you working for Christmas?”

“You are not an American?” Slade didn’t reply. “
Chicas
?” the man whispered. “Girls? Nice one. Young one. You want?” Slade stared at him.
“OK, you want, you ring to reception,
vale
?” The man pointed at his phone. “OK,
Señor
?” he winked. “No problem!” he slapped Slade on the arm
and slid back to his seat. The doors of the lift closed. Slade travelled upwards through the floors, thinking back to the last time he’d had sex.

Kimberly Canning was coming out of a pub in the centre of East Grinstead late on Friday night when she bumped into Slade. She had just decided that she hated her husband and
was out drinking to celebrate. She had one arm round a friend. They were in heels and short skirts and were laughing at almost everyone that passed them.

“Ooooh, look at you,” she said, pulling up in front of him. She knew her husband was wary of Slade and that made her want to fuck him.

“Kim,” he nodded.

“And this is Fran,” she said. “You off somewhere nice?”

“Not really. You?”

“We’re off up Dreamers,” she said, “Want to come?”

He took the two women to Dreamers nightclub. After an hour, the friend went home and Kimberly, a small woman with big breasts, had her hand on Slade’s leg. She was drunk. “I’m
a passionate woman,” she slurred into his ear against the bass, “and he doesn’t even make love to me any more! I mean, can you believe that? I’m pretty, don’t you
reckon? Don’t you reckon I’m still pretty?” Slade was watching a group of men he had taken a dislike to.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re still pretty.”

Slade took her to his flat. They started kissing in the hallway. They went into his bedroom. Once most of their clothes were off and his penis was hard, he positioned her on the small sofa so
she was kneeling against it with her face to the wall. She was drunk. She wouldn’t stay still. He moved in behind and started fucking her. She was giggling.

He banged her head against the wall. She cried out. Clapping his hand over her mouth, Slade took his penis out of her vagina and forced it into her anus. She couldn’t move. He held her
head, front and back, muffling and controlling her. Then he fucked her as quickly and as powerfully as he was able. He came.

He let go and stepped back from her. She was weeping and shaking and holding her face. She grabbed her clothes and fled.

Slade lay on his hotel bed. He turned on the television. There was no movie in English. He turned off the television. He picked up the phone and called down to reception.

When the doorbell rang, Slade was wearing a towel. “
Hola, Papi
,” she said, “
Wow. Eres un macho, Papi, eres un macho de verdad
.” She was tall, with a thick
mane of straight black hair and heavy black make-up around her eyes. She was wearing white boots that went up to her thighs and a tight black dress. Slade let her in, checking the corridor
outside.

She prowled around the bed, saying things he didn’t understand. She rubbed her fingers together and shook her Hello Kitty purse. He gave her the sixty dollars he had ready on the bedside
table. Once she had it in her hands she gave him a big smile and turned on the television. She found a channel playing music videos and turned up the volume, bending down to see herself in the
mirror above the bed, mouthing the words of the song, dancing, flirting with herself. She beckoned Slade over and laid him down on the bed. She ran her hands across his chest and then flopped her
hair in his face, straddling him, swaying and singing. Once she had peeled off her dress over her head, Slade put his hands on her breasts. They were fake. She smiled and carried on looking at
herself in the mirror as he ran his hands over her and she ground against him, lap-dancing to herself.

The song ended. She sat back on his ankles and pulled open his towel. Slade had an erection. His penis was long and thin. She slipped from the bed and started giving him a blowjob. Slade rolled
his head back to see if he could see his reflection. He could not. He looked forward. The prostitute was flicking her hair from one side to another, making noises and staring at herself in the
mirror while she sucked his cock.

Slade put his hands on her shoulders, motioning that they change position. He got out from beneath her and kneeled on the mattress, putting on a condom she gave him from her purse. She slipped
off her knickers and, with her boots still on, got on all fours, reversing her backside towards him. She curved her back and offered up her rump. Slade clenched it, round and firm and brown, the
spots of a shaving rash visible either side of her vagina, then he watched himself in the mirror, his penis moving in and out. He glimpsed a cat in the corner of the room. He turned. The cat was
gone. He looked down at her backside.

She shuffled backwards, edging him out of the mirror so she could see herself, “
Si, Papi
,” she squeaked at her reflection, “
me gusta como me coges Papi, qué
rico, Papi, qué rico
...” She was occupying the whole mirror. He couldn’t see a thing. He looked down at his penis sliding in and out and didn’t recognise it. He
stopped thrusting. He took his penis out but she kept rocking and groaning as if he was still fucking her. “
Si, Papi asi
,” she continued, “
Sí, Papi
así
,” she continued, “
exactamente así, Papi, oh Papi baby, sí, qué rico
.” She frowned. She stopped. She looked round.
“
Papi
?” she said, “
Hay algún problema
?”

T
he days passed. His bruises were turning yellow. He could brush red dust off the scab on his head. With Bridget in the next door room, Christmas
assumed that Judith would cut out her nocturnal arias. He was wrong. A couple of times, sex had bought on the chest pains. Once he got cramp, bellowing out, but even though she had been indulging
the roof beam with her own music she shushed him with a finger and pointed at the wall. This did nothing for the cramp. He chopped out some yelps. She took it for passion and put a pillow over his
face. Suffocating as well as cramping, Christmas grabbed at the pillow and then bucked her right off, flipping both of them onto the floor. Christmas looked up. Judith was holding her head. She was
crying. “Are you—?” She wasn’t crying. She was laughing.

The cramp re-asserted itself, yanking his thigh. Christmas struggled onto his feet and hopped round the room. Judith was in hysterics. Bridget, roused by the noise, rushed into the room. She saw
Harry Christmas naked and rushed out again, mock-retching in the corridor. “Whatever you two are doing–” she shouted, “–I mean, for fuck’s sake!” Christmas
rubbed his thigh back and forth.

“Oh, darling,” Judith sighed, “we do have fun, don’t we?”

He kept asking Judith if he could borrow the car, but she would say things like, “Oh, you are funny,” and carry on with the pruning. The town was too far to walk,
the weather too hot or too rainy. Whenever they did need something, she always seemed to drive off while he was napping.

“I’d just like to go for a drive,” he said as firmly as he could, “just drive around.” He’d studied a map of the peninsula. Guiria was on the other side. If
he could borrow the car he could just disappear for a day or two and find Emily’s beach.

“You can’t do that,” she replied, “you’re drunk.” Judith was right. Christmas was always drunk – in fact he was caught in an endless cycle of meals and
drinks. He was either stuffed or drunk or asleep or all three. Then there were his duties as a model. He had put his foot down when it came to nakedness but he was still forced to sit there for
hours while she carved his bust or his head. Sometimes in bed he caught her examining his penis with her glasses on. Her most recent
Eroi
looked alarmingly familiar.

He tried to enlist Bridget with ideas for excursions, but she only shrugged her golden shoulders and said, “Ask mummy. It’s her car.” So while Judith sculpted or did the
gardening, Christmas and Bridget were left to joust with each other.

“Yes, yes, Bridget but this is ‘real life’ as well, you know.” Christmas was nestled in the hammock. He pushed himself off with a foot and slurped his cocktail.
“You don’t have to be in a refugee camp for things to count. I agree that generally speaking life is not a bed of roses but—”

“Life undoubtedly
is
a bed of roses,” she retorted. “You stay exactly where you’re put and then every so often someone comes along and dumps a load of shit on you.
Now shut up. I’m reading.” Christmas watched her go back to her magazine. Would his own daughter have turned out like Bridget? So brazen? So beautiful? With a smile he thought back to
when Emily was pregnant, how he had started to delight in housework, in performing small errands for her. He remembered how protective he was when they were in public places, how he’d been
overwhelmed with kindly feeling, making sure that she was always comfortable, that all her needs were met. He remembered being beside Emily on the gurney while they had a third scan and learnt
their baby was a girl: the outline of his daughter’s face, the way the image stretched and flickered while he held Emily’s hand.

“She’s got your nose, Em,” he said, “Thank God.”

“All babies have got my nose. Basically I look like a foetus.” Christmas kissed her. “
We’re having a little girl
,” Emily whispered, turning back to the
monitor as they watched their child dreaming up a life.

“I hope she’s brave,” said Emily, once the nurse had left, “like you are.”

“I hope she’s not like me at all.”

“Don’t say that, Pops. Stop putting yourself down all the time. You’ve really started doing that a lot lately.”

“I’m just worried I won’t be good enough for her.”

“You are a stupid old fool sometimes, you know that? Nobody expects you to be perfect.”

“There’s hardly any threat of perfection.”

“Stop it now. Seriously. I’m going to get cross in a minute.”