The Road Home (31 page)

Wearily, Lev looked up. The bed appeared once more. Bed and wardrobe and the purple light. As though the play were beginning all over again . . .

Dicer came in alone. He sat down on the bed, exactly as he’d done in Scene One. He took off his clothes and left them in a pile and put on the veal-colored silken robe.

The play
was
beginning again. Only without Deluda.

Lev closed his eyes. He tried to remember the words of Marina’s favorite song by the Resurrectionists. Something about drinking vodka in the morning, sleeping in the sun, feeling lonesome for the moon: “
Oh, I’m so lonesome for the moon
. . .”

Lev opened his eyes. Dicer was walking toward the wardrobe now, the wardrobe marked
Hers
. He opened it, and there were coat hangers and there were dresses and skirts. Dicer moved these along the clothes rail, then from underneath them he dragged out an inflatable doll-child, with the face of his daughter, Bunny. He held the inflatable Bunny in his arms. He arranged her legs wide apart, curving round his legs. He pulled her to him and stuck his tongue into her open mouth. Then, baring his arse in the face of the audience, he began to mime fucking.

The curtain fell. The lights in the auditorium came up.

Lev sat very still. The clapping all around him was loud and enthusiastic. It felt as though the play might be over. But, of course, it wasn’t over. This was just the interval. Lev considered the word “interval” and thought, Did someone once understand that, in some circumstances, the “interval” had to become permanent, that what it temporarily ended couldn’t be returned to?

Beside him, Sophie stood up. She touched Lev’s arm. “Bar,” she said. “Howie ordered champagne. Come on.”

Obediently, Lev got to his feet. His body ached. He put on his jacket, whose newness was so pungent to him it was as though the suede were still part of the heifer, still grazing on pristine grass. Sophie pushed him on and they inched back toward the bar, where Lev could hear the sound of champagne corks popping.

Now, suddenly, he heard a burst of laughter behind him. “Lev!” said Sophie. “You’ve still got the price tag on your jacket!”

He felt her reach up and wrench away the label. That the people in the row behind him might have been staring at it all the way through the first bit of the play should have embarrassed him, he knew, but all he felt was the sweet absurdity of it and he began to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” said Sophie. “This is a press night. It just makes you—and me—look like panty hose.”

“I think it’s funny,” said Lev loudly. “I think it’s more funny than a purple bed.”

“Ssh, Lev. Just keep moving. Keep moving forward.”

“I think it’s more funny than a man wanting to fuck his daughter.”

“Okay,” said Sophie, pushing past Lev. “There’s Howie. Follow me if you want some champagne.”

“No,” said Lev. “I don’t want champagne. Why drink champagne? To celebrate why? To make a toast to this horrible play?”

“Shut up, Lev. Please . . .”

“You know, even the names are ridiculous. I know English enough to know this. ‘Dicer.’ ‘Deluda.’ Why couldn’t Portman think of better names?”

The people round Lev were turning to stare at him. Sophie gripped his arm and tugged him toward the tall figure of Howie Preece, who was waving a champagne bottle above his head.

Preece, whose single diamond earring glittered in the pencil spotlights, said, “Good girl. What a bun-fight. Have a dose of Bolly.”

Sophie took the glass of champagne, and Howie Preece turned to pour another one. “This is Lev,” said Sophie quietly.

Howie Preece kept pouring and didn’t look up. When the second glass was full, he offered it to Lev.

“No, thank you,” said Lev.

“Right. All the more for us. I’m Howie Preece.”

Lev nodded. He saw Howie Preece waiting for the
thing
to appear in his eyes—the
awe
or whatever he might have called it—the thing that people couldn’t help but reveal in his presence. And when he didn’t discover this awe in Lev’s face, Preece, for a moment, appeared disconcerted. He shifted his expectant gaze to Sophie. “That creature,” he said, “on your arm. What’s it meant to be?”

“Oh,” said Sophie, “that’s Lenny the lizard. He kisses me good night.”

“Yeah? How does he kiss you?”

Sophie brought her arm to her face and let the sequined Lenny brush against her lips.

Howie’s slug-white jowls dug themselves into a leer. “Sexy girl, Sophie, in’t she?” he said, as if to Lev, but still gazing at Sophie with large, sleepy eyes.

Lev saw her blush. He wanted to . . . oh, he couldn’t say what he wanted to do, but the sight of her showing Lenny to Preece was bitter.

“So,” said Sophie brightly, to Preece, “what d’you think of the first half?”

“Well,” said Howie Preece, “it’s Portman. Portman’s a genius. He’s always right on the fuckin’ button. Bet half the fuckers in Chelsea are screwing their kids senseless.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” said Sophie.

Preece was about to speak again, but Lev snapped, “Why?”

“What d’you mean, ‘Why’?”

“Why you say this is brilliant, Sophie?”

“Because I think it is.”

“Why?”

“Because it
is.
Because it’s radical and brave and —”

“It’s shit,” said Lev.

“Well, there’s a downer for Andy!” said Howie. “The man from a distant country thinks
Peccadilloes
is a piece of —”

“I could kill this man!” said Lev.

“Excuse me?” said Preece.

“To see this: a father, a doll, his daughter . . . How can he show this?” Anger and misery swept through Lev like a rising tide of sickness. He jabbed a finger at Sophie—an authoritarian gesture he detested in other people—saw her try to recoil but be prevented by the crush in the bar. He knew he was becoming out of control, knew he should have tried to master his feelings, but why master feelings that, in this unreal world he’d just entered, felt real and true?

He jabbed at Sophie again. “You!” he said. “I understand you now. You don’t see
anything!
You see what is ‘fashion,’ what is ‘smart.’ That’s all that matters to you. Because you don’t know the world. Only this small England. You know nothing,
nothing
.”

“Hey,” said Preece. “That’s a bit out of order, isn’t it? What’s the matter with you?”

Lev was trembling. His arms felt like wires, sparking with electric current. He felt their lethal power. “The matter is, I’m mad,” he said. “Crazy, maybe. But I’m not sick like this play. At home I have a daughter, Maya. I love this daughter —”

“Who cares?” said Preece. “That’s
so
not relevant. Who cares if you’ve got a daughter? This is
art
. This is cutting edge —”

“Okay. Then I cut!” yelled Lev, passing a finger across his throat. “I cut!”

“Listen, why don’t you shut up?” said Preece. “You’re just being an arsehole.”

“Oh yeh?” shouted Lev. “ ‘Arsehole,’ ” like in the play. So funny, uhn? Well, this arsehole can cut! I cut the neck of Portman! I cut everybody! You want to see?”

Lev grabbed Sophie and locked her body to his with his arm round her neck. Her glass fell and broke. She began to choke and gasp. Preece reached down from his superior height and took hold of Lev by the chin. His huge hand squeezed and squeezed until Lev felt as though his jaw would be crushed to shards. “Let her go,” said Preece. “Let her fuckin’ go or I’ll break your fuckin’ face!”

Lev stared at Preece, his white, glistening cheeks, his high forehead, his stubbled chin, his fleshy lips, the whole terrifying amalgam of him, and thought, He’s my enemy now. He hated him almost as much as he’d once hated Procurator Rivas. He was aware of people round him, gaping, gasping, almost comic in their terror, but he cared nothing for them. In that moment, he knew that his love affair with Sophie was doomed.

“Let her go!” shouted Preece again. But already Lev’s arm had freed her. He waited for Preece’s grip on his jaw to slacken, and when it did, he hurled himself away from him and began to walk toward the steps and the foyer and the cold April night.

Not to think about it, not to
feel
inside him the finality of what had just happened, that was all he craved now. Nothing else. Nothing beyond or after or yet to come. None of that. Only the feeling of
not feeling.

He was a stranger to this smart bit of London. But he didn’t feel capable of walking far. He turned right out of the theater and went into the adjacent pub-restaurant.

It was choked with people waiting to be seated at tables, but Lev pushed past them. When he reached the bar, he lit a cigarette and ordered Guinness, then vodka . . . ah . . . his darling
vodichka
. . . then more Guinness (he had the taste for it now, just like Christy Slane) and more
vodichka.
Then he went to the men’s room and pissed it all away and returned and began again with the Guinness. He sat in a shiny wooden chair and listened to his bones polishing its surface. He watched the moon faces of his fellow drinkers circling him in a slow, ponderous way, heard the diners chattering and braying behind him. He was a stopped river. He was mute, a puppet or doll. He was a forgotten song:
Oh, I’m so lonesome for the moon
. . .

If people spoke to him, he didn’t recognize the words. If there was music playing, who knew the melody? Not him. He knew nothing. His brain was as small as a pellet of bran. And as black, as dark as darkness could be anywhere.

He knew he was losing touch with where he was. This wasn’t his fault. It was the fault of the world. Because nothing in the world stabilized for long. Nothing was the right way up for long. There was always something, some silently approaching event, such as the opening of a play, which, you knew . . . you
knew
was going to turn everything on its head. Nothing could, or would, ever be the right way up. Or if it was, it wouldn’t last. One moment you could be flying like a swallow. You could have the world spread out below you. Then it was gone. It was way above you, crushing you again, with all its effluent running into your . . . yes, into your heart, until your heart was black and choked like a sluice.

Oh, I’m so lonesome for the moon . . .

He wanted more Guinness, more
vodichka
. He tried to tell the man behind the bar to keep the drinks coming, but now there was a problem: he was being asked for money. He searched his new jacket for his wallet. This pocket. That pocket. The bartender looked at him, square and ugly. This pocket. Another pocket. No wallet. Nothing there in the beautiful suede: only a cotton handkerchief, a comb for his thick hair, his mobile phone. There were two barmen staring at him now. He could hear their breathing. He thought, Everything multiplies. Sorrows. Accusers. Woe. And he held up his arms to the barmen, the gesture of an innocent man, a gesture that said, “I have nothing. Everything’s been taken from me. Do what you have to do.”

They were leaning right into his face and shouting at him. He could smell their brandied breath. And he wanted to be away from this now, go out into the night air, breathe in the darkness. So he renewed his search for his wallet. Trouser pockets. Shirt pocket. Hip pocket.

There it was.

Its leather worn and curved and stained. Inside, his picture of Maya. His beloved daughter. Innocent,
innocent
child. He tugged out the photograph, tugged with trembling hands, and set it down on the bar top. And he looked at it and saw that it had faded. All the once-bright colors were vanishing, leaving only a trace of themselves, tinged with green, with the bluish green of the sky . . . when evening was coming . . . the sky behind Auror . . .

Now the cold wind was blowing him along the pavements. Blowing everything north. Dust. Leaves. Garbage. Which? Who cared? Everything blew north in time. Everything came to its icy destination.

He knew he was lost.

His bladder ached. He clung to a tree and pissed onto the ground, and his hand, holding his cock, was frozen. And he told himself, when parts of his body began to freeze like this, it was time to creep away somewhere, find shelter, somewhere unseen, and lie there till the earth turned and brought whatever it brought in the form of light . . . whatever it was that would have to pass for morning.

Down. It was better to creep downward, inward, toward the center of things, like a fox. So silent, so like an animal, that nobody would see or hear. Down and down. And here, in this city, this London, there was always, sooner or later, such a place, and then . . . well . . . there you could lie, with the traffic above, with the road bearing the weight of all that it had to bear, with steps ascending and descending . . . And this was all that was asked of you . . . that you lie there and be still.

Here they were, the steps, not the same ones as before, yet similar, found once again, ascending, descending, with iron railings above, as though the old spirits might have need of a handhold, to pass from one world into another . . . the spirits no one cared about anymore, the ones who used to flit round in the brains of the aging men who sat on hard chairs in the lumber yard, blithering about this, yammering about that, full of hurt, used up by work . . . the spirits of Stefan.

But these steps were not properly aligned to Lev’s sight. He knew he was about to fall, but he couldn’t let himself fall there, into that slippery void.

He lay down where he was, on the street.

15

Nine, Nighttime

SOMEBODY SHOUTING AT him. A smell so foul it might have been the stench of a cancer ward. But no memory of any ward, no memory of where he was or why these things were as they were . . .

Lev opened his eyes. Far above was a man’s face. Lev’s gaze flickered downward and he understood that the face was attached to a heavy, uniformed torso, and this torso to a black leather boot. Then the boot seemed to shuffle away and the face came nearer and was staring at him.

Next, a memory. Rudi’s stricken look, once, remembering a violent arrest in the night: “If you wake up with a man’s face in yours, Lev, it’s not a faggot dream, it’s the fucking militia.”