The Lesser Bohemians (16 page)

And listen to him cursing us right down the hall. Then he lets go my hand, starts putting his pants on. What are you
doing? Heading home. Don’t, I say kissing him. Pulling him onto, down on the bed. Stay with me, stay with me. I’m sick of this, he says Do you know how I was before we met? How were you? I was fucking fine. Then go home without me and be fine again. But we kiss instead and he puts himself in and the world closes round us. And I look at him. Let him. Hide in him when it comes, like he’ll help me through it. And he does. And I mind him. I hold him while he lets himself, tracing rivers in the sweat on his back. And, when he lies down on me after, say in his ear Stay    every night    if you want with me. I don’t want to fuck this about any more, he says But there are things I should probably tell      KNOCK What? Flatmate opens the door a crack I think I’m having some kind of attack. He sits up and I expect Fuck off, but Yeah, he says You don’t look so great. Thanks to you, Flatmate complains, fragile, freaked and, before I prevent it, sits down next to me. I think something I took went bad. He reaches for his wrist. Get off! Hey, relax, I’m just taking your pulse, your virtue’s safe with me. Any pain in your chest? No. Arm? No. Stomach? Bit. What have you taken? Litany. Well, go drink something sweet then get into your bed. No don’t make me, Flatmate begs There’s something weird in my room. And even he laughs. Alright, lie down there. Only a while, I add, filled with what might he say? Thanks thanks, Flatmate stretching the very edge while he turns to the wall, reprieved of himself and I lie in, against his back, knowing that’s it for the lee of the night. Still, I stay awake nearly half of it in this weird bed of unsettled men.

Banging banging. Wake up! What? Men at the door! Missus at mine Wake up! Wake up! Coming to, he sits up. You all? she says. Long story, he yawns And only slightly what you think.
Another batter scaring Flatmate around What the fuck? Will I answer? she worries. What’s going on? I ask into his hip. He nods to my window. Light. Men gawking in. Oh! I cover. But, already there, he passes my knickers asking Missus who they are? Don’t know, she But so so loud. Well, Flatmate says Let’s find out, unkinking into the corridor. No don’t! he calls after Wait! Too late. Opens the door then rotate some exchanges the rest of us can’t quite hear. Voices raise. When Fucking cunt! rings out, he hops from the bed and pulls his jeans on. Buttoning, steps out into the fray. More talking and. What’s going on? Served, he says You’re being evicted I think. Flatmate arguing We paid our rent! It’s not that, it’s the mortgage, didn’t you get the letters? Our landlord doesn’t live here. Then you’ve been had mate. Hall wall punched and Turkish cunt! Calm down, the voice soothes. Fuck you! Flatmate shouts. No need for that mate, we’re just doing our job. Well we’re not leaving, so take your job and fuck off. Sorry mate but that’s going to be you if I have to drag you out myself. Fucking bring it. Hey, take it easy, he says Why don’t you go tell the girls to get dressed? Flatmate effing blinding, bundled back to my room. Don’t fucking need it, the voice grumbles If we get any shit. You won’t, you won’t, you just gave him a fright. What? Worse than waking up next to a naked bloke? causing hilarity in the crowd beyond my window and a forest of Phwoars and thumbs up. He takes it – easy-goingly – I’m sure that didn’t help but seriously, you can see we’re not at fault, can you give us a couple of days? No can do, sorry mate, my hands are tied. A few hours then? No mate I would but I can’t – sounding apologetic enough though for him to try We’ve got a couple of girls in here – you know what they’re like – give me an hour to get them organised and I’ll make sure everyone leaves without a fight. Somehow won,
the voice says Alright but after that    We’ll be gone, I appreciate it, mate. As they troop down the walkway someone shouts in Nice tits! He looks round my door Sorry, can’t do much once they’re already here, so get your stuff together. You can always come back later, change the locks and you’ve probably got a few weeks before the electricity goes off. Squat, Flatmate nods Nice one mate, and wanders off to his room, tailed by the Missus asking What squat is? Never a dull fucking moment with you, he laughs Come on, you can stay at mine.

On the hour, walk out into the early sun. Kiss the Missus goodbye See you soon, and her boyfriend. Flatmate bag hefting with him and me. After he’s turned Prince of Wales Road we continue silently into the morning tide. Taking breaks to rest our hands. Snatch looks at each other. Smile. Look down. Last night working cringes of so many kinds and yet, still, we are here.

Dark his room, after the light. Bed rumpled and desk spread, all ready for work. I sip a glass of water with dust. Thanks for letting me stay. It’s alright, he says Nice having you here     so listen     I was thinking     it’s my birthday tomorrow and     Is it? You never said. Well     remember my set-designer friend? He’d like us to come over     and     what do you think? Okay, I say despite the fright. Alright, I’ll tell him and    tonight    let’s well     sorry I’m making you late. Yeah, I better head and. Yeah, see you later on.

Shame succeeds, on the school steps, in shredding through my skin. Alert and naked conscience blinking red in its machine. But back on course too, somehow, as if I’d had a plan. Stitches seeming my terrain – the making and dropping them. Lucky last night he caught those few. How or why, I can’t tell. Meaning though he must want to. I go alive with thoughts of it. And
long for this day to be over, to get running back across streets. Yet when I do – in the crook of night – linger by the bin staring up at his light, shying from the meanings of Should probably tell, until the waiting makes the wanting more. Then ring the bell, catch the keys dropped and go on up his stairs.

Ah ha! Over the threshold. Into his room. Look, I’ve tidied, even cooked! Jesus, I say Even hoovered! What’s the occasion? Early birthday, he says setting me aside to pootle with pans, cigarette kept and skilfully managed in the corner of his mouth. Then chicken flipped. Hiss and spit. Are you annoyed about last night? No, you made your point     a little dramatically perhaps but     well. I kiss relief to his shirt and slide a hand up his leg. Brief he lets, then No! Dinner first, we’re being normal tonight. A quick one? Go on, he shoos My culinary skills are virtually nil. So catting a little, I wander across to push back the curtain and look into his road. Crown-flowered chestnut. Weed-cracked path. A livelier wreck than last winter implied. Nobly crumbling. Time has passed and it’s long since I first came here. I like your street. Changed a lot, he says All of those houses were bedsits once. It won’t be long before this one goes for luxury flats too. Not yet though, I say shutting out the streetlight. Well, he agrees Not tonight. Then the room becomes Here, and Mind it’s hot. At his desk – set as table – we use new plates, knives and forks, drink wine from new glasses. Make out civilised. Pretending nothing separates this night from its lineage of before.

Soon lax, dinner-sated, dissolving desiccated peas we nift through the tidy of scrape rinsing clean. Wet hands wiping. Pass to dry. Stack. Flop on his bed, top to tail, sipping wine. And I toe smooth wrinkles from his duvet, from his jeans, right to his No! No! socks yanked off Have Mercy! Mercy only if you
sit up here on me. So I take the chance. Make playful. Lacing fingers. Kissing palms and I am light bright to the glint in his eye. I’ve been thinking about you all day, he says Sitting here writing by myself. What were you thinking? About how you smell just like the right thing. I stroke his hair. Its neat parting. Odd ribs of grey. Watch him arranging mine, so precisely as to invite a Why’re you doing that? Reminds me of     What? Some girl from your wicked past? Rush to his face Yes     no     the first. Oh my God, you’re shy! Yeah well, he says Even I was a virgin once. Trace his chest. Kiss his collarbone. Were you mad about her? I really was, she was beautiful and     good to me when I was a mess. And although the eyes close, making hard to read, I already know the word Mess is why we’re here so clumsy on into where it leads. Was it your mother who did that, made you a mess? Why do you say that? You once said you weren’t sorry she was dead. But then a thing I don’t expect, a click, like a tic, at the side of his mouth. Fuck, he says You going in for the kill tonight? then – trying to hide it – What the fuck must I look like. You look fine, I touch it You look perfect to me. Well, he says If I’m going to tell you those things I’m going to need some help. Anything, what? Take off your top. Done. I don’t think that’ll be enough. Take off your bra as well, and helps undo the clasp You have really beautiful breasts, and bringing to his mouth the tic dies away. Catch his eyes, and we begin again. Gets his jeans off. Opens me with his tongue. Every muscle in him relaxing and tensing. Getting to and going in. As though kissing can barely hold the line. You’re my beautiful you’re my     A helpless smile like he knows I know what’s happening to him inside. And I do. Me too and I. Keep with him. Like as we have always been struggling to find the find the Come with me, he says and I, holding on as it rises,
the high tide. Him and. live words I can’t make out. Cracking with the. Slam. other. Let each other. Out. Just being together. Being so fucking close. And I feel so much love for him in this moment I can’t imagine ever feeling anything else.

But.

Soon.

It’s the past again.

Pity the finished. We do and lie quiet remembering which body’s his, which is mine. Well, I’ve never experienced anything quite like that, he says and laugh as our legs twitch in time. Only part of each other for such a short while and move no more than have to. Until he slips out. Settles beside. Damp and this is how we try, listening to each other now and someone coughing in the road. Toilet flushing. Cars cars. Music above. Blood going round us. His vein like my own. But sooner than I’d like he gets from bed and lighting up smiles That did help, so     what was the question again?

Do you have brothers and sisters? Why do you ask? Nosiness, do you? He refills my glass Halves on both sides but I don’t know most of them or even how many there are. Really? Really. Make a guess. Two boys on my mother’s, that’s easy enough. My father though, eleven? Twelve? Could be twenty. Might be more! Do you see him much? He occasionally comes scrounging when I’m up North on tour but not if I can help it, no. And your mother’s dead. He nods but rubs at his lip. And she was? Irish. What was she like? Difficult. Strange. Fucking nightmare actually – the tic again and he so conscious of it – Sure you want to know all of this? Yes, everything. Alright – he lights up and sits back opposite – So tomorrow, but in nineteen fifty-six, they had me.

And the long night begins.

Well, you know where she was from. The family came over after the war. Her mother died soon afterwards and the father was a doctor. Well off, I think, but I don’t know much. They were traditional Catholics. Pretty strict. There was a younger sister I never knew because she didn’t keep in touch. Or with her father who she always said was very tough. Then in her late teens she met mine, which was really terrible luck. He was older, twenty-two, twenty-three. From there, Sheffield, originally. I’m not sure what he did back then – being a man of mystery – but I think some kind of salesman. Apparently it was love at first sight, followed by a great deal of sneaking about because her father regarded the English as immoral, especially the men. An opinion somewhat justified by my father taking off with someone else the minute my mother got pregnant.

So they weren’t married then? Hmmm, he says

She was    hazy about that, sometimes said they were but mostly avoided it. I did ask him directly once but he was uncharacteristically tight-lipped and rambled on instead about her sainted memory or some shit. By the time I was two though, they’d both ‘remarried’ so I’d say probably not. Whatever the truth, she never forgave him. I think she married my stepfather for spite – that said, back then, in the late fifties, she can’t have had much choice. He was a lot older – fifteen, sixteen years. Factory floor who’d worked himself up, a bit. And he was an alright bloke I suppose. I mean he took me on as part of the deal but the marriage went shitwardly fairly quick. Not rowing or violent. Nothing like that, just people living together, disliking in quiet. Certainly there was never any sign of love and the children she had with him she didn’t like much. Both boys,
three and four years younger than me. We all shared a room and got on fairly well but    we had to stick together back then.

When I ask What was she like? he gives a weird smile.

Intelligent     and     very angry. Those were the poles she ran between. The intelligence covered what the anger did but the anger did so many things the intelligence had to work very hard and ever harder as the years went by. The trouble for us was never knowing which way she’d go. Perfectly rational one moment then screaming, breaking things. It made getting through the fucking day a process of inching. Don’t say that. Go there. Mention, you know. I suppose the problem was this life she never wanted but couldn’t escape, the man she’d married and didn’t love, place she hated living and couldn’t leave, two children she’d no interest in yet was expected to rear. Then somewhere in the middle of all that was me who she did want and did love but couldn’t stop punishing for whatever my father had done. And all of that led to some very interesting behaviour as time went on.

I was quite small when I realised things weren’t as they should be. After her third was born there was some kind of breakdown, I think. The word was never used but that’s what it was like. She was definitely very unwell. Maybe it was having three little boys running amok, I don’t know but I remember that time having a very particular ritual. She’d get us up early, dressed and fed, then her sister-in-law would take the younger boys for the day. After that she’d have her pills then sit at the table a while. Everything would slow down, then she’d take me to her room. Shut the curtains. Take her dressing gown off and lie on the bed. I’d have to lie beside and she’d get me to whisper
prayers or recite the alphabet or go through numbers. We’d lie that way all morning. Sometimes she’d cry. At lunch she’d make me a sandwich and I was allowed out for a while. After that more pills again and bed. I must only have been four so the staying still was dreadful but I’d get a slapped face if I didn’t or put outside the door. I hated that. I’d panic almost. I couldn’t be without her and she’d always wait until I was all worked up before calling me back in. Then she’d spend ages setting me right, wiping my face, wiping my eyes. I don’t really know what it was about. That whole period was pretty odd. Just me and her for long hours in the dark, like we were on another planet or the only people left in the world.