Director's Cut (30 page)

The man wasn’t really noticing the colouring and was instead
concentrating on the bandage on Mr Lawrence's right hand. He said,
“Yes, I had noticed that, but thank you.”

He tugged at his nose. “Well, Hon?”

“It seems a little overpriced,” Hon said. So did her dress, whatever
she paid for it.

“Good paintings are an investment. If madam would like to see
some less expensive works in the other room…? The untrained eye
would not spot the difference…”

An eyebrow raised. “Quite,” the squat man muttered as he reached
for his cheque-book.

“Get the hang of it?” he said to Laura once they had gone, and then to
Paul a few moments later: “Where were we? Oh yes, you're safe until
Friday. Are we certain of that?”

Paul's nod was lopsided. The swelling on his neck was worse. He
confirmed, “Friday.”

“I'll give it some thought. Perhaps I can come up with an idea. Did
you get anywhere with your little errand?”

“Come again?”

“The woman from the subcontinent?”

“The Paki? Oh yes. Went across to the Ridgeway, to the address,
like you said. She don't live there, Mr Lawrence. You probably got the
number wrong. An old couple lives there. Saw me hanging around and
gave me what for. Probably thought I was a dodgy character. There's
lots of them about. Right?”

Mr Lawrence nodded thoughtfully. “When you're up and about,
maybe later, I want you to help me in the shop. Christmas is coming
and we're getting busy.”

“No sweat. You done me a favour. I'll do anything for you. No
questions asked.”

“How are you feeling now?”

“Better. Be up and about in no time.” He paused then said
sheepishly, “Look under the bed.”

Under the bed he'd lined up four pairs of trainers and a pile of
rackets.

“Squash?”

“Badminton,” Paul put him right. “Taking it up once the swelling
goes down. Might play with those girls from the art class, see, cos one
of them won't be playing for much longer, will she?”

“Really?”

“She's pregnant, Mr Lawrence. You can't run around if you're
carrying, can you?”

“I suppose not.”

“So I'll play with the other one.” Paul winked.

Laura called up. “Mr Lawrence – customer!”

“More ducks,” he muttered.

“Mr Lawrence…?”

Mr Lawrence paused at the door. “What is it, Paul?”

“What happened to your finger?”

Once the shop was closed he found Laura in the kitchen ironing a
black skirt. She rocked from one foot to the other as she listened to her
Walkman or pod thing or whatever they were called nowadays. It
probably came with pictures. The cassette or whatever rode her right
buttock, held by the white lace of her pants. Her free breasts swung in
time over the ironing-board. The scene reminded Mr Lawrence of the
nature programmes on the television, rows of chanting natives with
swinging breasts against a jungle backdrop. Inside, in those days, you
were allowed to watch the nature programmes between six and seven.
Now of course, it was porn on your own portable in your own cell.
Even so, he doubted that even then they’d get away with a bunch of
white breasts swinging along to
‘I Wanna Be Like You’
before the
watershed. Discrimination, without a doubt.

“You can stay here for a few days. God knows where you'll sleep.”
She said, “I'll put my bag in your room for now,” and offered him a
knowing little smile.

They left it like that.

“House rules!” he said when she carried her ironing through. He'd
intended to tell her to cover up but after consideration decided against
it. He didn't want her thinking he was old-fashioned.

She paused in her step and hugged the ironing against her chest.
“While you're here I must insist that you give up your

moonlighting.”

“Mr Lawrence, you're jealous.”

“I can't have the Gallery involved in…in… It's not on.”

“But what will I do for money?”

“You'll manage. Treat it like a holiday. A few days off.”

“OK.”

“Promise me, Laura.”

“I promise that while I'm here I'll give up the tricks.”

“Fine. You can help out in the shop, until Paul gets better.”
“That reminds me.”

“What's that?”

“I did two hours down there today. What's the hourly rate?”

At the rear of the studio a door opened on to a small yard of black sterile
earth where even the weeds would not take hold. To the right of the door stood
a rotting wooden shed. Its roof had fallen on to a rustswollen lawn-mower. A
cracked concrete path led across the yard to a blistered gate where two galvanized
bins stood. The heavy gate hung off its hinges and scraped the concrete path.
An arc of scraped-clean concrete indicated that it wouldn't fully open, but
the opening was sufficient for the bin men – the waste disposal executives –
to manoeuvre the bins through.

The gate opened as far as it would go on to a back road that ran behind the
shops. It was an empty road save for the parked cars and an occasional lorry
that would stop to make a delivery to the back of one of the row of shops or
restaurants. At such times the narrow road was blocked to any other vehicle
and for that reason most deliveries were made in the High Road. Across the road
a line of silent offices stood in various states of disrepair. Most of the dark
windows were cracked. At some stage, before Mr Lawrence's time, the road had
been a place of industry but now the offices were mostly unused. The few that
did flicker with light were dark again soon after for it meant that

smackheads had broken in and were cooking with candles. Next to the row of offices
stood a row of garages with corrugated roofs covered in moss. There was only
one shop front in the road, and that was farther along, opposite the rear of
the barber's shop, and it sold dolls. Dolls and dolly paraphernalia: doll's
houses and cots and clothes and dolls of all description. It was called the
Doll's House.

In that forgotten road the shop window stood out, dressed in white lace. An
old woman dressed in long dark clothes and woollen shawls owned the shop but
she was rarely seen. And customers were few. With Christmas coming, the only
concession in the unchanging window was a single gold star that hung from a
white suspended ceiling. A mangy black cat lived in the window and curled up
on the cots. Its tail flicked over the plastic and porcelain skins and the beady
lifeless eyes. Perhaps it looked content because it thought it had smothered
a baby.

Mr Lawrence didn't often use the road for it was a depressing place, a throwback
to an older time when grey was the colour and soot rained from belching chimneys.
He saw it when he closed the yard gate on the mornings the bins were emptied.
The executives always left it open. Only occasionally, when the gangs of youths
were particularly boisterous, would he use that way to The British.

He'd noticed the gangs earlier as they left trails of lager cans behind them.
It was interesting, Mr Lawrence considered, that these hard men of the time
could not stomach bitter. And perhaps that was the difference between men and
men who needed to be in gangs. The British was full of office workers on their
Christmas night out getting in the way of the regulars. They were loud and noisy,
making the most of their once-a-year excuse, expecting other people to join
their revelry.

How he hated Christmas with its merrymakers in their cheap office suits and
last year’s skirts that were now two sizes too small. How he hated the youngsters
with the futures they didn’t deserve.

Smoke drifted in thin layers. Cigarette butts were crushed on the carpet. Lager
dribbled from the bar.

An older man in a worn black suit and yellow tie was being served. He was obviously
a director or the owner of the office to which the merrymakers belonged for
he had bought a round of drinks and was now dithering about his own. “A real
ale, please. An IPA, or something like that. Double Diamond or Red Barrel”

His tie or the drinks he had bought left the bargirl in her tight black skirt
unimpressed. “Sorry, never heard of them. Have some of this schoolboy’s piss
like everyone else.”

On the bar was a collection box for Rasher and the colonel. People edged away
from it. It was the only place, a yard either side, where you could get served
without queuing two deep. The thing is, apart from Rasher and the colonel who
had sadly departed before being excused, the collection boxes were a reminder
of what Darwin might have pointed out, that it is charity that holds back the
future. That keeping the weak and the beggars alive to spread their what have
you with the strong, is messing with evolution. The doctor or the double-glazing
salesman was there.

He asked, “How are the voices?”

Albert and Sid the Nerve shuffled closer to listen. The barber's ears twitched.

“I'm afraid they're getting worse.”

“That's not good.”

“He's been watching the news, the famine in Africa.”

“It could be worse.”

“Could it?”

“It could be in a country we cared about.”

“I see what you mean.”

“But it's not good.”

“Why is that?"

“Famine in any country isn't good, is it?”

“Well, there’s China, I suppose, or India, or any one of the Arab countries.
But I see what you mean. But Paul, is Paul mad?” “Mad? Madness is a state of
mind. We all go through periods of madness, when we're angry or in love or chasing
money in a slot machine. Insanity is different. Only if we're mad all the time
are we insane. But if we're insane we can be mad some of the time.” Sid frowned.

So did Albert as he nodded thoughtfully.

So did the barber. He pulled at his right ear, searching for loose hair.

“But it's getting worse. What can I expect?”

The man bunched his shoulders, as though it helped his

concentration. “Does he dress up? Perhaps as a woman? Like, for instance, Norman
Bates?”

Roger the manager heard the name and edged over.

“I haven't seen him in woman's clothes.”

“Well, watch out for it.”

“It's not something I'd fail to notice.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“Anything else?”

“Reminiscence.”

“He's got a good memory. He knows lots of chess openings.” “Not memory, old
boy. It's a medical term used to describe inhibition dispersion.”

Sid the Nerve said, “Right. Nice One. I remember. It's the String Theory, right?
Yeah. Wormholes. Know where you’re coming from.” The salesman shook his head
and continued, “Most of our actions are inhibited by negative thoughts – boredom,
lack of motivation, understanding and so forth. In the normal person a short
break, a rest period, from a given task will give renewed vigour. With the psychotic
this isn't the case. Basically, he picks up from where he left off. The rest
period has made no difference. The reason is that the psychotic needs a much
longer rest period for his inhibitions to disappear. Slowness, therefore, is
a definite sign.”

Roger said, “So we're talking about politicians, Gordon Brown and Jack Straw
in particular?”

“Anything else?”

“Extroverts, watch out for the slow extrovert.”

“What can be done?”

“Pills. Lots of them. Phlebotomy for the politicians.”

The street door opened and a blast of air shot in, followed immediately by Mrs
Puzey. She waded in with her considerable bulk and people were flattened against
the bar. She waved a threatening umbrella.

“You led my little girl astray!”

The crowd at the far end of the bar turned to look.

Mr Lawrence swayed this way and that as a professional boxer might have done,
keeping well away from the point. He stuttered, “I beg your pardon?”

“You! You! You evil man! My little girl was innocent until she met you!”

He tried to pacify her by throwing up his hands in his best gesture of geniality.
Mr Lawrence knew all about body language, the language of management. Keep eye
contact, keep your knees pointing toward the opposing genitals, lick your lips
and leave your tongue hanging – that sort of thing. She saw the streaky bandage
and was momentarily distracted. Albert ducked out of the way.

“Calm down, Mrs Puzey, for goodness sake. No one is leading your daughter anywhere.”

“She lives in your house of sin. I know. Don't you try to tell me otherwise.
All them filthy pictures on your walls. I can hardly bring myself to clean them.
Oh, sweet Jesus, what am I to do? My little girl is at the mercy of this… this…”

Roger helped her out. “Pervert,” he suggested.

Mrs Puzey said, “Exactly. Pervert!”

Roger's smile spread out and spread to the others. Within moments the hilarity
reached the far corners.

Such bracing acerbities were too much for Mr Lawrence and in a weighty and determined
voice which was most unlike his and had the others that knew him quite nonplussed,
he said, “Listen to me, woman!”

The shock of his sudden stand had her backing off but she managed, “Don't you
make none of them clever excuses to me.” “Mrs Puzey, Laura is staying at the
shop for a while until she can sort herself out. I have laid down strict ground
rules. She has to be in at a certain time, an early time, and she can have no
one back at any time. She has given up all her other activities. What is more,
she is serving in the shop and I am teaching her about art. She stands on the
verge of a new career. For goodness sake, have her back. Come and get her things.
I thought I was doing you all a favour. I'm certainly not putting up with this
nonsense.”

She seemed flustered now, at once concerned that she had reached the wrong conclusion
and that it might jeopardize her cleaning contract.

“Did I say that, Mr Lawrence?” She turned to Albert. “Did I say I wanted her
back?”

Albert, crouching almost, shook his head. Dandruff took off. The air was still
unsettled by the waving umbrella. The layers of smoke spiralled this way and
that.