Collected Stories (21 page)

‘I’ll come by for a massage but I’ll never let you tinker with my brain. Words, words. How can talking be the answer to everything? There’s nothing wrong with me. If I’m sick, God help everyone else.’ After a while he added, ‘Rocco’s dangerous because he uses other people and gives them nothing in return.’

‘Some people like being used.’

‘I’m giving you notice, Feather, I’m going to kill that bastard.’

‘As long as there’s good reason for it,’ she said, walking away.

Too weak to move, ravers from the previous night sat on the beach in shorts. Some slept, others swigged wine, one had set up a stall selling melons. A woman, a regular who came every morning with her cat in a box, walked it on a lead while the kids barked at her.

Lisa snoozed on the sand until she thought she’d boil, and then raced into the sea.

She loved her black dress. It was almost the only thing that fitted her. She put on her large straw hat with its broad brim pressed down so tightly over her ears that her face seemed to be looking out of a box. As she passed them the boys called after her. She was tall, with a long neck and a straight back. She walked elegantly, with her head up. In another age a man would be holding a parasol for her.

Nearby sat a middle-aged woman, a TV executive, who kept a cottage nearby, commuted to Los Angeles, and read scripts on the beach. She had most of what anyone could want, but was always alone. She dressed expensively but she was plump and her looks had faded. The boys, barking at the cat, also barked at her. Lisa shuddered. Men wanted young women – what a liberated age it was!

Maybe Lisa would ask her for a job. But working like that would bore her after a few weeks. How would she have time to learn the drums? At least … at least she had Rocco.

What conversations they had had, hour after hour, as they walked, loved, ate, sat. If she imagined the perfect partner, who would see her life as it was meant to be seen, absorbing the most secret confessions and most trivial incidents in a wise captivated mind, then he had been the one. What serenity and unstrained ease, without shame or fear, there had been, for a time.

Lately he had been hateful. She would have threatened to leave him, except his mood was her fault; she had to cure him. It was she who’d insisted they leave London, imagining a place near the sea, with the countryside nearby. They would grow their own food and read and write; there would be languorous stoned evenings.

There had been. Now they were going down. She’d spent too much on jewellery, bags, and clothes in Vance’s. The manager, Moon, had ‘loaned’ her Ecstasy too, which she and Rocco had taken or given away. She owed Moon too much. Beside, she was wasting her life here, where very little happened. But what were lives for? Who could say? She didn’t want to start thinking about that.

She and Rocco rarely fucked now. If they did, he would smack her face before he came. She was always left in a rage. But he was curious about her body. He watched her as she did up her shoes; he would lift her skirt as she stood at the sink; he would look her over as she lay naked on the bed, and would touch her underwear when she was out. But she ached for sex. Her nipples wanted attention; she would pinch them between her fingers as she drank her tea. She felt desire but didn’t know how to deliver herself of it.

She walked through the town. Vance’s shop was beside two shops selling religious paraphernalia; there was nothing of use to buy in the high street. The pubs were priest-ridden; the most common cause of argument was Cardinal Newman.

Several of the local boys who worshipped Rocco, including the most fervent, a lad called Teapot, liked to hang around the shop. They copied Rocco’s mannerisms and peculiar dress sense, wearing, for instance, a jean jacket over a long raincoat or fingerless gloves; they carried poetry, and told girls that the meaning of life had coalesced over their breasts.

Fortunately Teapot’s group were still on the beach and only Moon was sitting in Vance’s tenebrous shop, fiddling with his decks. He spent more time deciding which music to play than organising the stock. Sometimes Vance let him DJ at the Advance.

The blinds were down. A fan stirred and rippled the light fabrics. Moon had a mod haircut and wore little blue round shades. Lisa wanted to wave, so uncertain was she that he could see her, or anything.

She moved around the shop, keeping away from him as she asked if he had any E. She was going somewhere that she couldn’t face straight and needed the stuff today.

‘How will you pay me?’ he asked outright, as she dreaded he would.

‘Moon –’

‘Leave aside the money you owe me, what about the money you owe the shop? The leather jacket.’

‘It was lifted from the pub.’

‘That’s not my fault. Vance is going to find out.’

‘Rocco’s sold an article to the
New Statesman
. He’ll come by to pay you.’

Moon snorted. ‘Look.’ He scattered some capsules on the counter, along with a bag of his own brand of grass, with a bright ‘Moon’ logo printed on it. ‘Is it right to play games with someone’s head?’

If she found a man attractive she liked to kiss him. This ‘entertained’ her. She would explain that there was no more to it than that, but the men didn’t realise she meant it. She had had to stop it.

‘You made me like you. You opened your legs.’

He came towards her and put his hand inside the front of her dress. She let him do it. He started kissing her breasts.

He was keen to hang his ‘back in five minutes’ sign on the door for an hour. But, unusually, some kids came in. She snatched up the caps from the counter and got out.

From the door he yelled, ‘See you later!’

‘Maybe.’

‘At the Rim.’

She stopped. ‘You coming, then?’

‘Why not? By the way, don’t mess with me. You don’t want me spreading stuff about you, do you?’

They would drive five miles out of town along the southbound road, stop at a pub at the main junction, and then head up to the Rim.

Rocco, Bodger and Moon led the way in Bodger’s Panda, followed by Karen, Vance, Feather – holding her cat – and Lisa in Vance’s air-conditioned Saab. The boot was full of food and drink.

‘Two years from now,’ Vance was telling Feather, ‘when I’ve raised the money, I’ll – I mean we –’ he added, nodding at his wife Karen. ‘We’ll be off to Birmingham. Open a place there.’

‘If we can ever afford it,’ said Karen. ‘I can’t see the bank allowing it.’

‘Shut your face,’ said Vance. ‘I’ve explained. I’m not making the mistake of going straight to London. I need experience. Coming with us?’

Feather stroked her cat. ‘Whatever for?’

‘Because however comfortable you are now, rubbing your pussy and listening to people moaning about mum and dad, in five years you’ll be bored. And older. There’s a lot of people there need serious head help.’

Karen cried out, ‘Look!’

They were speeding along a road carved out of a sheer cliff. Everyone felt they were racing along a shelf attached to a high wall and that at any moment they would go hurtling over into the abyss. On the right stretched the sea, while on the left was a rugged brown wall covered in creeping roots.

They had several drinks in the pub garden, before moving on.

‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ said Rocco. ‘I should be on the train to London.’

‘What about the view?’ said Bodger.

Rocco shrugged. ‘I have a busy internal life.’

As they walked back to the car, Vance said, ‘Why does Rocco have to come with us? He spoils everything with his moaning.’

‘You’ve got to come to terms with Rocco,’ said Feather. ‘He’s obviously doing something to you. What is it?’

‘It’s making me mad.’

They drove through quiet villages and past farms. Tractors blocked their way. Dogs barked at them. They left the road for a dirt track. Then they had to unpack the cars and walk up the chalky hill to the Rim. Moon carried his music box and bag of tapes, Bodger a pile of blankets and his ice box, and the others brought the provisions. Soon, to one side, the town and the sea were below them, and on the other the hills looked brown, pink, lilac, suffused with light.

Karen threw up her arms and danced. ‘What a brilliant idea! It’s so quiet.’

‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ said Rocco. Sometimes he talked to Karen in the restaurant. He felt sorry for her, married to Vance. ‘But I like it when you dance.’

‘Always the flattterer,’ said Vance.

Rocco knew Vance didn’t like him, and he was afraid of him too. When Vance was around he felt awkward. Ignoring this last remark he walked away and regretted having come.

Bodger called after him, ‘Everyone – get some wood for the fire!’

They wandered off at random, leaving Karen and Moon behind. Moon, with a sleepy look, like he’d been woken against his will, spread out the blankets and set out the spliff, wine and beer. When Vance had gone Karen smoked grass as if she were holding a long cigarette at a cocktail party, and then lay down with her head nearly inside the music.

Lisa wanted to skip, laugh, shout, flirt and tease. In her cotton dress with blue dots and the straw hat, she felt light and ethereal. She had stopped bleeding at last. A few days ago Bodger had told her she was having a miscarriage. She hadn’t understood how it had happened. It had been Moon. Her body had bled for him, her heart for Rocco.

She climbed a hill through prickly bushes, and sat down. They’d been late getting away. Dusk was approaching. Down below a bonfire was already burning. Feather’s shadow moved in a radius around the fire as she piled on wood and stirred the pot with a spoon tied to a long stick.

Bodger fussed around the fire as though at home in his own kitchen.

‘Where’s the salt?’ he called. ‘Don’t say we’ve forgotten it! Don’t laze about, everyone. Have I got to do everything?’

Vance and Karen were having a casually bitter argument, looking away from one another, as if just chatting.

Feather began unpacking the basket, but stopped and walked off, looking at the sea. After a while some strangers came into view. It was impossible to make them all out in the flickering light and bonfire smoke, but she saw a woollen cap and grey beard, then a dark blue shirt, and a swarthy young face. About five of these people were squatting in a circle: travellers. Shortly after the people struck up a slow-moving song, like those sung in church during Lent.

Moon clambered up the path. Lisa was aware of him behind her. Had there actually been a time when this boy had attracted her?

‘It was a mistake,’ she said immediately. How could she explain that she wanted him for some things and not others?

‘I’ll wait until you want me,’ he said.

‘Do that.’

It became an amusing game again. She still owed him, of course. They had made a baby. For a short while, in the weeks of her pregnancy, she had been a woman and had imagined that people were beginning to take her seriously. She had stood in front of the mirror, sticking out her stomach and stroking it, imagining herself big.

‘I must go now.’

She walked quickly, so that Moon knew not to follow her; when she turned she saw him taking another route. But after a few minutes walking she heard a sound and was frightened. She took a few more steps.

‘How are you feeling?’ said Bodger.

She was startled. He seemed to have concealed himself behind a tree and jumped out on her, surely an unusual practice for a doctor.

‘Not physically bad,’ she said, grateful for the enquiry. ‘Strong again, in that way. But I’m lost.’ He was looking at her strangely. ‘I liked the last medicine you gave me, but what prescription can anyone give for lostness?’

‘A kiss.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Let me kiss you.’

He closed his eyes, awaiting her reply, as if it were the most important question he’d ever asked.

She left him standing in that position. Down below the soup was ready. They poured it into the bowls and drank it with that air of ritual solemnity exclusive to picnics, and declared they never tasted anything so appetising at home.

They lay in a jumble of napkins, water bottles and paper plates. It got dark; the bonfire was dying. Everyone felt too sluggish to get up and put on more wood. Lisa drank beer after beer and let Moon watch her.

Rocco felt awkward sitting there. His back was hot from the fire, while Vance’s loathing was directed at his chest and face. The hatred made him feel weak and humiliated.

‘A great picnic and enchanting evening,’ said Rocco.

‘Glad you liked it.’

In a cringing voice he said, ‘You know, Vance, occasionally I envy your certainty about everything.’

Lisa interrupted. ‘I don’t. I’ll never know how anyone can have so much when so many people have almost nothing.’

Vance shook his head at both of them and Lisa got up and ran away. Rocco stared into the distance.

It was past one when they got into the cars. Everyone was ready for bed, apart from Moon and Lisa, who were chasing one another in the woods.

‘Hurry up!’ shouted Bodger, who had become irritable.

‘Too stoned,’ said Vance, jangling his keys. ‘I’m off.’

Exhausted by the picnic, by Vance’s hatred of him, and by his own thoughts, Rocco went to find Lisa. She was in high spirits; when she seized him by both hands and laid her head on his chest, breathlessly laughing out loud, he said, ‘Don’t be vulgar.’

She lost heart. She climbed into the car feeling stupid.

‘Typical of the sentimental unemployed,’ Vance said, closing his eyes, the better to concentrate on his opinions. Karen was driving. ‘They think people are suffering because I’ve taken their money. They think I don’t care. That I see an unemployed man and woman who can’t feed their kids or pay the mortgage, and I fall about laughing. Meanwhile he swaggers around at exhibitions, museums and theatres, passing judgement, puffing himself up.’

‘Music and books,’ said Bodger. ‘The best things in life. Reason for living. What men and women make. The best. And what will remain of us, if anything.’

Vance went on, ‘You’ll never find one of these people – whose dole I provide – sticking out their hand and saying, thank you for wanting to be rich, thank you for making this country run and for taking risks! There’s more and more of them about. People don’t contribute. What we’ll do with them is the problem of our time.’