The Lesser Bohemians (13 page)

Cold drizzle it spits as he strips me then, detouring his eyes to the crust-scaled screen. Get in. Slip. Oh! It's freezing! Take this, he says – beige bar of soap I rotate, rotate, drop. Fuck it, he fishes for it, finds. I drop it again. Come on, stop fucking around. I'm trying. But in the froze water and distress turn myself to wall, to the thousands of cells of the thousands of bodies who have cleaned themselves off by these cracks. And I'd be one. Any of which, any, to slip this being this. Back scratched by some two. Flatmate neck bit. And him there, seeing all of it. Knees give in. Give. Slide to the shower floor with the greasy ingrains of one thousand soles and cry like I am ripped. I'm afraid I'm afraid of everything    please don't be angry with me    I don't know what to do. Sssh water down. Sssh. Step and he steps in. Pulls me up
by the arm. Wangles me round to him. I know, he says I know, I'm sorry for     I'll switch on the hot water now.

He scrubs me then. Forehead to feet. In between my fingers. Everything. When he's done reaches No towel. Shit! Rolls me in his bathrobe instead and, shorts sodden to see-through, limps me back to his room. Dries my skin to the smell of frayed towel mildew. No hairdryer, sorry. I'll just wrap it up. Here, drink this tea while it's hot then have a lie down. Such witchment for me in that unwashed sheet. He'd laugh if I said but, still, there is. Get some sleep now but I grip until he must slip fingers free Close your eyes, I've got lines to go through.

Down down I down to the last flakes in. Dreaming for hours I think in my dream. Over over. Day white tongue teeth. Quickness and slowness. Stilts pander to streets and their up down their. I don't know what I've yet. Wander where no notion wanders in amongst the dust of. Devil may Slip. Then wake up.

Where? Here. Light on my leg. Four fingers. Lift. Another place. Five tips pressing. Flutter open my eyes. Him, smoking and carefully matching his fingers to the prints they left behind. Calculating their progress. Mapping their night. What time is it? Five-ish how are you feeling now? Ashamed. That'll pass     it always does. Always? Mostly, it's cumulative though so as long as that's a once-off in a few days you'll be normal. And now he, smallest fragment, smiles Come on lie down here. So lay my head on his legs. He picks the hair from my eyes and lets me curl in there, be fragile with him. Lets me cry and be a little girl again although that wipes nothing out.

Later. Hungry? Famished. What do you fancy? Chinese. Alright, up you get, I'll find you a T-shirt and we'll see what we can see.

It is the evening and the last of bright. Streets still Saturday
tawdry but up for the night. And lurch along we, like after the twelfth. Step syncing though. Side by side.

I watch him in the glass as he watches the street, lolled on his shoulder. His hand on my knee and the quiet inside moves between as he picks at the last of my plate. How much of your term's left? About four weeks. Off to Ireland for Easter? Yeah, for the month. So when are you back? Beginning of May. It'll be summer by then, he says I think you'll love that. What? London in the summer, especially at night. The smell of the trees and the heat of the streets – it's always hot because the concrete holds it in. When I came down here first it was summertime. When was that? Seventy-two     I'd just gone sixteen god      to think I was so young then. I can't imagine you as younger than me, I say. And yet      once upon a time. Was it amazing? It was      and a mess      and violent but incredible as well    the clothes women wore down here drove me mad. And the music. I didn't know what was going on but that was also it, like not being alright was alright      was fine      was how it should be. And I was so shy then, hanging around, smoking fags in the street. Wanting to be part of things but not knowing what. Not knowing anyone or anything. But even when I was lonely or when it was going bad and I was scared, I was still always so glad to be here. Safe in London. Even if I was all fucked up in myself. How were you fucked up? Let me count the ways! Will I ever get a bigger answer? Not tonight but    maybe one day. I bet you were lovely, I say. I bet I wasn't, he laughs In those days a girl like you wouldn't have given me a second glance. But the streetlights glitter on then so he hauls himself up Come on, I'll get the bill, you get on your coat.

We spend the evening lying on his bed, watching his old Kayvision black and white. News, sport, some crappy film.
Later he packs an old duffel bag. Can I stay over? Yeah alright, but I have an early start. Is that the truth? It's a half-seven train. How long are you away this time? Two weeks. Same film? Luckily, not. Was it really that bad? It really was. And this? Week in Prague, a week up North. Will you go see your family? No. No time? No, I don't, anyway, how are you? A lot better now, thanks. Good, shove up, I'll turn out the light and let's get some kip. So we do, as if everything's simple for us and, in the dark, it is.

And where the eye goes, an ocean. No. Overcast sea. In with the hiss of it. In with eyes wetting breeze like sea does, hair goes, strands across tongue. Far off, in pewterish clouds and rain. The rolling unseen where whales might be and underneath does not even bear thinking of. Does not bear there but bears me up. On a skillet pallet small boat. Where I am stood strid and balanced, but for the swell. Over small roilers. Over the place like unreasonable same. Hidden from a shore. Tir na. From nowhere then comes iron and stain. Up close a harbour wall. And a man, just as the rain. Just as it comes he. Knowing who I am and waiting for me to know him, know that he is an again. His eye makes my eye and I kno ww ho you are. How many ways to, and know you, and can know you still. Do you know how much I suffered when you went away? Or how now my heart grows large with pain? That longing for you running over everything else. Was all I ever knew a trick and you were always coming back? I touch the stone. I find the step. I climb to the highest. Why are you further off? Turn around. Let me see you. Turn around. Wait. If you leave again now my heart will break. And he does. And it does and Wake up! Wake up! Wake up love, it's only a dream.

Back in the. Back in It's alright, he says Don't cry, I have you.
My father was like I've never seen    like he's always been somewhere. That's a rough kind of dream, he says, smoothing my hair You must miss him. But that miss is already making chain with the weight of my heart, then the body it hates. Blind in revulsion at what it did. On a floor. In a half thought. It should spit itself out not to mingle with memory or become what I might. I hate it, I fucking hate it. What? All of myself. Take it easy, he says. All my fucking skin. I'd rip it off if I could. I'd start again. I wouldn't be this. Stop! him wrestling my hands. Stop it, you'll hurt yourself. I want to. Lie down! Lie down, and him pinning me best as feral permits. But what worthless limbs can't, my mouth invites Hit me, I want you to hit me or fuck me til I bleed. You can do anything you want to me, until he's shaking me Stop saying those things, like I'm only half wild when I really, all am. Would he hate me? Would he hate me? Would I make him sick? Your father? My father. No, he'd never feel that. How do you know? Because because      You don't know. I do. How? Because I have loved a child and    I'd never feel like that about her. Then I try to kiss him but he won't. Do I make you sick now? No, you couldn't, what do I care about those things? Then he does kiss me and sear go the weeks. Keep kissing me, I say I missed you too much. So he does and we kiss to      No, he says Not tonight. Why not? Don't you want to? I do but not like this. I sit up Well fuck you. No, don't be offended, and he kisses my back I really want to but    not when you're this upset. Humiliated I look at the litter of his room. Buckle of boxes. Piles of books. Scripts on his desk. Tore. Overfilled bin. All still here and now I am, again. Lie down with me, he says. Instead I turn to look. Study each other but his mouth gives first. So I lie down and we kiss like innocents with disco nerves. Enough and not too much and let fingers fold. Just to be with him. This
isn't the last time though, is it? Don't know, he says What do you think? I don't want it to be, I say What do you want? Well I don't have much right to want anything but      you've been pretty hard to do without.

Morning lovely daylight early I get out of bed. Tie up all my hair. Put his dressing gown on. Kettle too. He sleeps deep on his front. I light a cigarette then watch the sunlight inch up to his face. Young-looking despite the lines that show deeper when he laughs around his eyes. In a little they open. He rolls onto his side What time is it? Half six. Come here. I sit by and he takes my hand Some woman's yellow hair has maddened every mother's son, he smiles. Impressive, I say, softly itching his chin. Then you better go put your clothes on before I make both of us late.

Partly patched so I go back to the world. Blue of the day and Monday round making my way along the Prince of Wales Road eating a Belgian bun.

Where the fuck have you been? Flatmate shouts from the steps I thought you'd been murdered, I nearly called the cops. Out, I say. Doing what? I haven't seen you since Saturday night! Just stuff. What fucking stuff? he says Oh wait, I can see.

In the changing room I catch sight of myself. Mischief bruised. Slightly proud. It's a long enough way to here from Ireland. But there is one more bad thing.

Ho ho harlot! What have you been at? Couldn't take my eyes off it all Character Analysis class. Did someone try to suck your blood? It was a mad weekend. Well bring your tea out onto the step and tell me EVERYTHING! Who? Where? All the pork. Mmmm I Mmmm I. Mmmm.

It was terrible. I feel terrible. She was so upset. So what did you tell her for, you fucking idiot? I had to, besides, she guessed. I'm a terrible liar and now she's going to hate me forever. Yeah well, join the club.

Dubious this, and awkward – from here now unto then on. Such sufferous vistas of eye-rolled ignoring I had not thought possible. Allegiance-mad others crowd in too with You know the rules – though I perhaps didn't. Take it all, as my due. But it's a mercy to get cast in the Third Year play. Maid. And why not? The Director says The Irish sort. Raw-boned you know, I want you to play that. Raw-boned. Okay. Still, to be sitting in with them from six o'clock to nine every evening helps cut to the last of the term. Finding a little more out all the time. Making something of nothing's easier said than done but – oh – once it gets done is when the fun begins. Solving the search for that idle moment when the own eye loses touch. When slipping the focus allows it to reach elbow-deep into other, and else. Additional. Extra. Hinted at. Imagined. Imbibed. Made possible because of. Bent to the will by. Smothered at the breast. Left for the wolves. No. Thrown to is best. For it's finding to there that finds to where pure is indivisible from its reverse.

Hold on and suck in! the Wardrobe Mistress instructs, rib cracking corset as I suffer gulp. Now hike them up and, as if by magic, Jacobean boobs. So starts Tech Week. First I've had. Costume fittings. Running lines. Keyed-up Third Years. Lighting and sound designers keeping us on set til late. Home from rehearsal and the Missus's pizza box No help yourself, they give me so much. Flatmate Here, have a look at my contact sheets. This one's for Spotlight but maybe that with CVs? What do
you think? I don't know, they all look nice to me. Yeah but which says Just some nice guy. Not too good-looking or serial killer mad. Ordinary bloke. Some guy you would. Jesus   maybe this? And as for the phone. Drilled to the drill. If an agent calls TAKE ALL HIS DETAILS and you, don't be a twat – to the Missus's boyfriend whose skittering English often makes him hang up.

And one Sunday morning phone Morning. Are you back? Just. How was it? It was alright, very early to very late. No buxom extras to cheer you up? No, they were all a bit grumpy for that, anyway, you around tonight? Later on. Later when? We're supposed to be teching at least until ten. After then, want to come back to mine? Or you could come here? Aaaaaaalright, what's your new address?

Only onto the couch when knocks a knock. Flatmate goes out. I should have but, devil loves bait and can't resist the straitened Oh     alright mate? Alright      she in? Yeah      follow me. Eyes from the flatmate like Fucking Jesus! Placated though by the bag of beers and For the fridge, help yourself. Flatmate takes to the kitchen as I swing round his neck. Kiss, then a quiet Didn't expect to see your mate. Why not? Just thought it would be us, why don't we head to your room? No I haven't eaten yet, sit down, slice of pizza? Okay, thanks, stretching long legs out. Can? Flatmate calls through. Please, but accepts it cautious-like and eyes him sitting down by my left side. So     how goes the tech? Fine. You in this too? I'm playing Vindice. Great. How was Prague? So and tides until our small chat sticks and Flatmate mines his stack of tapes. How about The Italian Job? Why not. On. Mystified me but both of them, right off, doing their Michael Caines like easiest
segue for English males. Reminding each other of The Swarm or Ever seen his Acting on Film? Making this weirdest couch weirdly alright before Flatmate reaches for his. Do not, I kick. What? Just making a spliff. No, put it away. What the fuck? She's looking out for me I think, he says But it's okay, there's no need. Come again? I think she's concerned, he says Because I have a history of problems with various substances, am I right? I nod and my hand gets squeezed. Like how? Flatmate asks. Like a junkie, he says. Like shooting up and shit? Yeah, at the end      mostly other stuff but, really, weed was never a problem so feel free to roll away. And so Flatmate does
brazen
asking How long are you clean? Sixteen years. Fair play mate. Thanks, he thanks him, though wrestling a smile off his face. What did it? He yawns up at the artex Let's just say life's rich buffet signalled it was time for a change. Anyway, look at this, she's wrecked, come on you, let's go to bed.