Corpsing (17 page)

At six o’clock James’s taxi drew up in Belsize Park.

We had passed through street after street of tall pale buildings divided up into six or eight flats. But Alun and Dorothy’s, when we came to it, was in a more modern 1930s block.

The doorbell had both Grey and Pale written on it. I held it down for a couple of seconds – Laurence was bound to have something on too loud. He was fifteen, his parents were out.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘I’m a friend of Lily’s.’

‘Yes? And?’

‘Her boyfriend. The one who was shot.’

‘What do you want?’

He wasn’t being as hospitable as I’d hoped. But I was prepared.

‘I’d like to talk to you about her… and incidentally I’ve got some really good dope on me.’

After a comedy-pause that Tony would’ve been proud of, the buzzer went.

Alun and Dorothy’s apartment was the sort of place that featured regularly in interior-decoration magazines. They had attempted to mix the very modern with the antique by making the antique showy and the very modern minimalist. (A very modern thing to try and do.) Thus Bridget Riley would hang happily (or so the theory went) above Louis Quatorze. The apartment, on the top floor, had more than its fair share of light and space – both of which seemed Scandinavian rather than
English. Stripped-pine floors and whitewashed walls – very Lily. A large Whistler-grey entrance hall, decked with yellow roses, led out into the main living area – off which bedrooms, bathrooms and storage space occurred. Square petals round an oblong flower. At one end was an open-plan kitchen – Dorothy ‘loved to entertain’. (It had been afforded by Alun’s first, belated trip to Hollywood (1974), to play the villain in a schlock-horror movie. His facial hair – handlebar moustache and muttonchop sideburns – was the most terrifying thing in the entire film.) All of which décor was ruined by some overelaborate curtains – draped, tied, ruffled, pummelled – which simply screamed ‘menopause’. Someone in the apartment, you could tell, was straining away from received upper-middle taste and yearning towards a kind of mollifying Middle English Country comfort. Dorothy was showing signs of wanting to become a grand Tory lady, with huge amber rings and the hairstyle of a 1950s Bayreuth Brünnhilde. She was turning her environment into one vast sea-anemone-type labia-fest – frills and pink prettiness. How far was Dorothy from the Pekingese on one cushion and the soft-centred chocolates on another, I wondered.

Laurence’s room, when I entered it, was painted black – an obvious rebellion against the rest of the apartment’s levity. There was a large ultraviolet lamp, stack speakers in all four corners, and Day-Glo stars and UFOs stuck to the black ceiling. On the wall was a single black-framed poster, a black and white photograph:

The carpet was black, the bedsheets, the furniture – everything
in the room, it seemed, apart from Laurence’s pasty adolescent face.

Laurence was skinny, slouching, sullen and very sexy. He looked as if he’d stumbled out of a heroin-chic fashion shoot. His skin was bad, but he had that fuck-you-I’m-gorgeous attitude. His fingernails were painted sludge-green – perhaps he’d got bored with black. There were the inevitable body-modifications – but more restrained than one might have expected: a black-etched tattoo on his shoulder and a single spike coming through the middle of his lower lip. This made me feel like I was talking to a rhinoceros or a spiky tropical fish – it did enough to confirm what it was meant to confirm: that I was talking to a member of another, younger, wilder generation.

In Laurence’s room, I was an old person – even though I knew every one of the aesthetic moves it was trying to pull on me.

In the corner facing the black-covered futon was the multimedia centre: TV, stereo, PC, CD-rom, Sega and Nintendo. It looked as though Laurence was a serious nerd.

I decided it was worth wasting some time proving that even though I was a member of an older generation, I could still waste time with the kids.

‘Tekken II,’
I said. ‘One joint a game.’

Laurence nodded and loaded it up. He was pretty cocky – little did he know.

I thrashed him – I dragon-kicked him, I leg-swept him, I headbutted him, I kakaekomihijiuchied him. I did everything the pre-programmed moves allowed me – that is, everything short of disembowelling him and making him eat his own kidneys.

We lay back on the futon. Almost an hour had passed.

He looked at me, nodding, acknowledging that some respect – at least – was due.

‘Tell me about your coma,’ he said.

Like all adolescents, he had a fascination with any state of total obliteration.

I told him all about my coma. It seemed a strong point of communication between us – but not as strong as the dope that we fried, crumbled, rolled into Rizlas and passed back and forth.

Anne-Marie’s was some pretty devastating shit – I doubted he’d ever been quite so blown away by the rabbit droppings he and his friends were likely to have scored off reassuring Rastas.

More respect was due.

He lay back on the black, bringing up the subject as if he, not me, was the one who wanted to talk about it.

‘I liked Lily a lot. She used to call me, when she knew my parents were out. We used to talk.’

Well, there was my main question gone.

‘What about?’

‘Oh, everything, you know – shit and stuff. What was happening with me and with her. Life-stuff.’

‘You’re at college, right?’

‘Now, yeah. But back then I was still at school.’

On the floor I noticed a number of copies of the
Stage;
they were open on the Artists Wanted columns. Some of the ads were ringed in black marker.

‘Interested in what?’ I asked. ‘Acting?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m going to college next year. I have an agent already. And I’m in Spotlight. I’ve done a couple of things, nothing great. It’s a laugh. I like films most of all. Action movies. But there’s never any decent parts for anyone my age. I’d like to play a villain: a real psycho. That’d be cool.’

‘Did you talk about me when you were with Lily?’

I was doing my best not to inhale without looking like I wasn’t inhaling.

‘Oh’ – he had the stoner smile on by now – ‘I know
all
about you.’ He giggled. ‘She used to tell me everything. Ev-ry-thing.’

‘For example.’

‘Sex,’ he said, with more giggling.

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘Or not sex,’ he said. ‘Sometimes.’

I smiled. I managed a smile.

‘How did you meet her?’ I asked.

‘It was the summer holidays. I went on tour with Strindberg for a few weeks.’ He made Strindberg sound like a deathmetal band. ‘Everyone else was just so
old
and serious. Not Lily – she was up for anything. Sometimes she went onstage just ripped to the fucking tits. It was really funny to see, up in Scarborough or Somewhere-on-the-Sea. You-know-what-I-mean. But Strindberg was off his head most of the time as well, wasn’t he? We used to hang out during the days – trying to find something to do in these fucking awful one-dog towns. If you looked hard enough, there was usually something. You-know-what-I-mean. We’d go fuck up tea dances and bingo sessions. I love bingo. But scoring was a fucking nightmare, whatever you say.’ For a moment I thought he meant scoring bingo games. Then I realized he meant drugs. ‘They’d have the stuff, they just wouldn’t sell it to you. ‘Cos you sounded like you came from down South and were middle class.’ He rhymed the word with gas. ‘They’d sell to Lily, though. You-know-what-I-mean. Everyone would sell fucking anything to Lily. It was mega.’

I-knew-what-he-meant.

‘She did a lot of drugs on that tour?’

‘All the fucking time.’

‘Who do you think shot her?’

Laurence sat up, unsteadily – he was deep in the slow-space of dope, right where I wanted him.

‘I dunno.’

‘Did your mum and dad tell you she was pregnant when she died?’

He hunched over on the side of the bed.

‘Yeah – well, I heard them arguing about it a few days ago. They came back from the show and just the next two hours… I wasn’t supposed to hear.’

‘So you know who might be the father?’

‘You.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Dad… That’s what they were arguing about, you know. Saying, “You fucked her, didn’t you? It’s yours!” My mum’s a bitch when she gets mad.’

‘I told them about it. I went to see them at the theatre.’

‘Everyone here’s been so fucking arsey ever since.’

‘Lily started seeing your dad on that tour, didn’t she?’

‘I dunno. Maybe.’

‘Your dad went to the police after I’d told him. He wanted to find out if they’d done any testing – if they knew for definite he was the father.’

‘They didn’t tell him anything.’

‘Have they taken blood samples off him before?’

‘Yes. Months ago. They didn’t say why. They’re not telling anyone anything.’

I checked my watch. It was time to set off.

‘I’m going to see Tony Smart this evening, you know.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Laurence. ‘He’s cool.’

‘Here,’ I said, chucking Laurence the small clingfilmed chunk of dope.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘We should meet up sometime,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said, and lazily we shook.

‘I can find my way out,’ I said. ‘Can I use the phone to call a taxi?’

‘Sure. It’s in the kitchen. The number’s on the board.’

This was good: I wanted as much of a look-round the apartment as I could manage without exciting Laurence’s suspicion. But from the wacked-out expression on his face, it was going to be several hours at least before he became excited about anything. I left him in his black bedroom, lying back and sniffing the dope.

Out of habit I looked at the titles of their books – a slightly more literate selection than I’d expected from actors. Then I checked their videos, where there were a couple of work-out routines called things like Fat-Burner and Butt-Buster.

This was a public space, though. I needed to see where things were hidden.

Quietly, I looked into a couple of rooms. If Laurence caught me I’d tell him I was searching for the toilet. I found the master bedroom third door I tried. Just as I was sliding my way in, Laurence’s music slammed on.

The track was ‘Rape Me’ by Nirvana, from their album
In Utero.

Over the top I heard Laurence giggling – then he started to play along not badly on his Telecaster.

More time for me in Alun and Dorothy’s bedroom.

It was a large but cosified space – not a pine futon on the floor but a black steel four-poster, not clothes rails but two vast walk-in closets. The tasteless tide of Dorothy’s menopause had reached the flowery sheets and the frilly valence. On the wall above the 1930s-style tiled fireplace was Man Ray’s photograph of a woman’s back with cello-holes cut into her.

The guitar continued, slightly quieter. This was exciting. I wasn’t meant to be here.

There were two bedside tables – it wasn’t hard to work out whose was whose: Dorothy’s was untidily piled with self-help books going back a couple of years, each generation of further knowledge piled on top of the half-read last – a sedimentary accumulation of shysterism:
Mars and Venus in the Bedroom
overtopped
Further along the Road Less Travelled
which rested upon
Toxic Parents
which surmounted
People of the Lie.
At the very bottom of the pile, side by side, twin foundations, bearing all the others were
I’m OK
–
You’re OK
and
My Mother My Self.
Resting beside these was a bowl full of pill-popper packets – I glanced through: HRT, Nurofen, Ibuprofen, seriously bug-eyed sleeping tablets, Morning Primrose Oil, Starflower Oil, Anti-oxidant Complex, Aloe Vera, Vitamin Supplements, Calcium Tablets, Minerals, Magnesium-OK, Confiance, Ginseng. It was surprising that green chemical froth didn’t come out of Dorothy’s mouth every time she opened it. Alun’s bedside table was much more –

Suddenly, the music stopped, and I could hear the phone ringing in the kitchen. Laurence would assume I had made my call and left.

I went to stand behind the bedroom door, trying to peek through the jamb and listen in on his conversation. Luckily for me the phone was a cordless – and the moment Laurence knew who was on the other end, he walked over to the living-room sofa, picked up the remote and started flicking through all the TV channels but with the sound off.

The first words I caught were: ‘I
know
you told me. Look, Mummy, I
know
you told me, okay? I
know.
Do you hear? I know.’

He listened to Dorothy. She must be phoning out during one of her times off-stage. It was about seven-fifteen. About now she’d be preparing for… I couldn’t tell. It was still fairly early on. Perhaps she hadn’t even been on stage yet.

‘Look, I handled it, you know. Yes, he’s gone, now. And it
would have been much more suspicious if I hadn’t let him in. And I didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know already.’

More Dorothy, who from where I was standing was almost audible in a tinny cartoon kind of way.

‘No, he
didn’t
ask that. I don’t think he has any idea… Well, I lied. I told him Lily and me were just good friends. Look, I handled it. Stop treating me like a fucking spazz.’

Dorothy.

‘What
is
your problem with that?’

Dorothy.

‘No, I have a great vocabulary, a stupendous vocabulary, a fantastic, outlandish, enormous, explicit vocabulary…’ Here he started to giggle. ‘Of course I haven’t been at your stash… He left about half an hour ago. No, he wasn’t in a wheelchair! I don’t know. He said he was going to see Tony Smart… Well, don’t go all mental. What’s wrong with that? He’s a funny guy… I think he was just going to catch the act… Mum, why are you losing it so badly? He won’t come back… Look, I handled it… Jesus… Okay… Okay, I won’t… Have a good one… Okay, bye.’

Laurence threw the handset down on the sofa and slouched off back to the bedroom, muttering rather accurate impressions of his mother: ‘You let him in, idiot! How could you! How could you let him in! Why did you let him in! Didn’t we tell you
not
to let anyone in! He knows about you and Lily! He knows about Tony Smart!’

His door slammed. His stereo started up again. His guitar.

Alun’s bedside table was much more organized. There were three books – a mushy old
Concise English Dictionary,
a brand new
Color Atlas of Embryology
and a large textbook called
Genetics,
3rd edition. Each had pages marked with little slips of paper.

Alun had obviously been telling the truth about not knowing if he was the father – and the books looked new enough to have been bought shortly after I broke the news to him.

It was clear I would have to forget about calling a taxi.

As Laurence’s music continued, I tiptoed my way across to the hall. When he’d slouched back into his room, Laurence had left the TV on. It was the Channel 4 news. Jon Snow was sitting there in a lovely silk tie in front of the photo of Lily that they’d always used – the one she really hated, of her as a dementedly grinning Brandy. Jon’s head moved from side to side, quite jauntily: he was concentrating on an issue, not a tragedy (for that he tended to remain still) – but then the picture cut to a view outside the hospital.

A man in a lab coat was talking into several microphones. The caption came up: ‘Ernest Calcutt, Head Pathologist, UCH’. He finished speaking, surrounded by hospital security men, and then Asif stepped forward, wearing a suit. He read from a folded-up piece of paper – a very short statement. The microphones flicked away from him, picking up the interviewers’ shouted questions. Asif was overwhelmed. He said something easy to lip-read: ‘I’m sorry.’ His eyes had gone misty in the flashbulbs and arc lights. The microphones flicked again, more randomly this time. Asif was about to say something when Calcutt put his arm round him and turned him away. The footage cut off as they walked back to the hospital foyer, pursued by a couple of photographers.

Back to Jon Snow in the studio, some of the jauntiness gone. He turned to the screen on his left, on which was displayed a woman I recognized. When the picture went full-screen with a caption I saw that it was the Health Minister.

I’d been standing there for at least two minutes, completely open to discovery. Slowly, I turned round – only to see Laurence in his bedroom doorway, looking at the TV. In his hand was the end of a long black telephone-connection lead. He was obviously heading to the kitchen to plug it in – I guessed for his modem.

‘You didn’t see me,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t here.’

‘Why didn’t you turn the sound up?’ he said.

‘See you later,’ I said.

For a moment he thought about trying to attack me. But then I think he thought
What’s the fucking point?
He wasn’t going to kill me. At most, he might be able to take me hostage – tie me up and wait till his parents got home, ask them what to do. (Not likely.) His mistake (not seeing me out the door) was already long past. He made a dipping movement with one shoulder, as if about to pick something up off the floor. The lead was still in his hand.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hear anything I didn’t know already.’

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘You
heard.’

‘I wasn’t spying,’ I said. ‘I was… snooping.’

‘Find anything?’ he asked.

‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘Why? What should I have been looking for?’

‘That’s the door,’ he said, and pointed. ‘This time don’t miss it, okay?’

I stood there for a moment. He went over to the phone socket and plugged in the connection.

‘Why aren’t you gone?’ he said.

He watched me as I slowly backed out through the hall. Stepping out on to the landing, I pulled the front door shut behind me. The locks clicked.

For a moment I crouched down and listened. I heard his bare feet pad over. The locks rattled as he checked them. Then he padded off again.