Too Weird for Ziggy (24 page)

Jim correctly interpreted her look and said, “Come on, Dad, we'd best get seated.” As he passed Minerva he whispered, “Sit wherever you feel comfortable. See you afterward back at the house?” When Spike turned around to follow them in she found herself flushing scarlet. But he didn't notice her. He walked straight past her and into the church.

She couldn't help staring at him from her seat at the back as he stood at the lectern, reading a passage from the Bible. He looked even brighter in the gray stone building than he had in her home movies. His suntan looked almost tangerine. There were too-bright highlights in his hair. His suit, perfect for Los Angeles, looked too flash for a weekday
afternoon in Finsbury Park. He was still a good-looking man—though nowhere near as attractive as he'd been in her fantasy last night. Still, Minerva felt herself moisten.

Suddenly she was aware that Spike had stopped reading. He had started to sing, a cappella—a song he said he had just written for his mother. When it was over he announced the title, “Love Eternal Guaranteed,” as if it were a performance, and received a small, inappropriate round of applause. His father's head had dropped onto his ribs. Spike's brother had his hand around his shoulder, comforting him, awkwardly, as if even this small physical display of affection might be too much. Afterward, when the three men walked together back along the aisle, there were cameras flashing outside. She saw that a second limo had arrived. Spike gave his father a fleeting kiss on the cheek, gripped his brother's shoulder for a micromoment, then turned and got into the limo and went back to his hotel. He didn't show up later at the house.

There was something Mike always used to say to Minerva: If you want something badly enough you will get it; all you have to do is focus and it will come to you. He was absolutely right. Minerva had no real plan for what she wanted but she certainly wanted it badly enough and, once she focused on it, it was astoundingly easy how quickly it presented itself.

The morning after the funeral, at 5.45
A.M.
, just as Minerva was coming on duty, a young hooker showed up at the outpatient department. Drug-thin but extremely pretty and with incongruously large breasts, she gave her age as eighteen but looked years younger. Her discharge was easily dealt with. Harder to fix was a methadone habit that neither
her prescription nor the duty doctor were willing to satisfy. When she left Minerva followed her and took her to one side. Surreptitiously she slipped some flunitrazepam into the astonished girl's hands.

“There's more where these came from, and better,” Minerva whispered.

“What do I have to do?” said the girl, switching quickly into professional mode.

“Your name's Laura, right? I'm Minerva.” She led the girl outside. The plan that Minerva now outlined to the girl came to her immediately. They agreed to meet later that day at a café in the center of town. Minerva knew that the other nurses would understand and fill in for her if she said she needed to go home early, that she was still feeling raw.

Nursing a cold cup of coffee, Minerva was getting frightened that Laura wouldn't show when the young woman strutted through the door on kitten heels, twenty minutes late. All heads in the café turned. As she had promised, she had made a real effort with her appearance. She was wearing a short, flowery skirt, and a low-cut gypsy top and was swinging a small straw bag. Minerva thought she looked about twelve. Spike would not be able to resist. Minerva had been given Spike's hotel and room number by Jim. There was a password, he said, to get past security, and she'd written it all down. She wrote it down again in the café for Laura on the back of a sealed envelope.

“I'll give you the rest when we're done,” Minerva said. The girl seemed trustworthy, but it wouldn't help to tempt her to take what she had and run. Minerva had told her—convincingly, because it had been the truth—that Spike
was an old boyfriend who had ditched her when he became famous and that she figured he owed her one last favor. The young girl would get into Spike's bed and get him warmed up, then slip him some Rohypnol—the date rape drug—and Minerva would come in and take over. Laura thought it a brilliant idea. The only thing she couldn't understand was why Minerva wasn't wearing something sexier. She looked like a hotel maid.

In the couple of hours since she had left the hospital, Minerva had done a few necessary errands, then changed into the sensible black skirt and white blouse she had originally planned to wear for the funeral. She had also hired a rental car, which was on a parking meter outside. They got in and she drove to Mayfair. As they approached the hotel she dialed the number on her mobile phone, gave the password. When Spike answered the phone she hung up. Minerva stopped outside the hotel on a double yellow line and got Laura to repeat her instructions one last time. Then she kissed her on the cheek, wished her luck, and watched her walk through the hotel door. A police car pulled up behind her. At the same moment a car pulled out from a parking place directly opposite. She smiled in the rearview mirror and swung straight into the space, turned off the engine, and waited. The girl didn't come out. Everything was working fine.

At the allotted time, Minerva went into the hotel. No one said a word to her; she looked like one of the maids. As arranged, Laura had left Spike's door unlocked. Minerva pushed it open gently, just an inch, and could see Spike's arse pumping up and down. Laura spotted her and brandished
the small hypodermic the nurse had given her, giving her the thumbs-up. Minerva nodded and Laura rammed the needle in Spike's butt.

Minerva slipped into the room as Spike sank onto the bed. She closed the door, deftly propped him up against the headboard, and started to dress him.

“What are you doing that for if you plan to fuck him?” asked Laura.

“I'm taking him back to my place,” said Minerva.

“You're joking! How do you plan on getting him out in this state?” But, like Spike said, it was all a matter of focus. Minerva poured a glass of water and dropped a pill into it. She plumped up his pillows and held the glass, professionally, to his lips. His eyes opened. He looked at her strangely, as if he might know who she was but his brain had no idea what to do with the knowledge. If she had expected a flash of wordless understanding, it never came.

He let himself be pulled off the bed, his arm draped over Laura's skinny shoulders. Together the pair tumbled past the front desk like drunks; again no one said a word. Minerva, who was focusing harder than ever, followed a few steps behind.

They managed to prop him upright in the backseat of the rental car, Laura sitting next to him and making sure he didn't fall, until Minerva dropped her off at Waterloo with money and pills. Driving carefully, avoiding speed bumps, Minerva headed south to her flat. She focused hard on avoiding red lights, on keeping her nosy upstairs neighbor from looking through the curtains when they arrived, on maneuvering Spike safely down the basement steps, through the
door, and into the kitchen. When she propped him on the kitchen table, he played his part perfectly and passed straight out. Her cat came in through the flap and jumped onto Spike's stomach, lifted a back leg, and had a wash.

Minerva shooed the cat outside. She shut the door and peeled off Spike's shirt and trousers. With the stockings she wore to the funeral, she tied his wrists to the table legs. Two pairs of tights secured his legs, while a third pair, pulled apart at the crotch, were wrapped tightly around his waist and under the table. She went to the sink and washed her hands. Spike was moaning quietly to himself. She bent over and felt his forehead, then dabbed antiseptic on the inside of his elbow and squeezed in the contents of a syringe.

By the time she had fetched a bowl of water and towels, he was unconscious. Meticulously she washed his stomach, where the cat had been, and then his genitalia, gently stretching back his foreskin, lifting the scrotum carefully to clean in all the creases. She patted him dry with a clean cloth. Then she prepared another hypodermic. Prostaglandin E1, fascinating drug, was a favorite with the junior doctors. It was made to treat babies with respiratory problems, but someone had discovered that injected into the penis, it gave an enormous erection that lasted for over an hour. Almost instantly, Spike's flaccid cock unfurled and puffed itself out like a party blower.

Smiling and singing to herself, Minerva opened the small black case on the chair. It was amazing what you could get in South London with ready cash. She plugged it in—it had a nice long lead, so she didn't need an extension cord—
and placed it carefully by Spike's waist. She leant over him and lifted his penis. The tattoo gun roared into action.

It was an awkward position to work in, and the vibrating gun was harder to control than she had anticipated. She skidded as she started to make the first straight line. Shaking a little, she stopped, wrung out a clean tea towel in the bowl of water, and dabbed at the blood. His groin had an angry, swollen blush. It might be a better idea, Minerva thought, to write the letters on first with a pen. With a firm grip on his cock, she started outlining on the underside MINERVA. But it didn't look right. She rubbed the letters out with cotton wool and antiseptic and started again. This time, using capitals, she spelled out the name he had always used for her, MINI.

Blood and ink mingled as the needle pierced his skin at thirty jabs a second. Every now and then she would stop and dab on some antiseptic. When it was finished, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. Good, she thought, but somehow unfinished. There was nothing on the top side. She pulled it toward her, elongating the skin like chewing gum, to write on her last name, SMALLWOOD.

Spike drifted in and out until the pain slapped him back to consciousness. He could hear a hysterical, high-pitched buzzing that seemed to be coming from way off. There was a weird taste, like burnt peppermint, in his mouth. His cock was burning. He tried to get up, but he couldn't move. By jamming his chin into his chest he could make out an enormous, blurred stiffie. And someone holding what looked like a power drill. The look on his face was more surprised than hurt.

“Fuck me,” he said, and passed out.

Prostrate on a poolside lounger at the Eden West hotel, Pussy was bored. Only boredom implies an awareness of something lacking and Pussy wasn't conscious of anything. Braindead, only no one had bothered to switch the life-support machine off. She stared at the pool, because that was where her head was pointed, at the halfhearted whorl around the inlet pipe. Almost noon. Four hours until the meeting. Drinking was an option, but whether it was worth numbing numbness was far too complex a question. A waiter deposited a large vodka and cranberry juice on her side table. The decision appeared to have made itself.

Lyrics
. Pussy took a sip. The middle-aged actor on the other side of the pool nodded at her glass, raised his own, and smiled. He appeared to have a baby's head stuffed down the front of his beige swimming trunks. This surprising sight momentarily unblocked her brain. Sitting bolt upright, picking up her notepad, she wrote down the first words that came into her head: “It's a scary world but we have to live in it. The wind is blowing in hot from the desert and all the scorpions have wings. There are dangers all around, animals that eat you, things that sting.” She scribbled it out. She couldn't shake the dream she'd had the night of the party.

She was a little girl at the seaside, digging in the sand with a plastic spade. It was nighttime but the moon was bright. The little girl dug deeper and deeper. She peered down into the hole, and at the bottom was an enormous crab, transparent,
like a giant jellyfish with claws. There was something trapped inside its body; it looked like a human head. As the moon moved over the hole like a searchlight she recognized it as her own face, as it looked on the last Pussy album sleeve. The crab crawled up onto the sand and a crowd of people came rushing over. The crab tried to dart back into the hole, but they fell on it, ripping it to pieces, stuffing it into their maws. Pussy woke up with Churchill's penis in her mouth. “Good morning,” he said. “I've written you a poem.”

They were on a king-size bed in Irving's guest house. A wall of windows looked out onto the ocean. Everything in the room was gleaming white. It looked like it had been repainted every night, like Disneyland, when the crowds have gone home. She remembered the poet–TV presenter interviewing her on camera at the party, but she had no recollection of picking him up. Quite pleased with herself that she had, though. She checked him over. Young, good body, big fleshy mouth. If you fell off a tall building and landed on those lips you would walk away unbruised. A mouth, Pussy decided, made to give, not to receive. Gratifyingly, he was a fast learner.

“FOCUS!!!” she wrote on the notepad, outlining each letter and adding three thick exclamation points. Studio time was expensive, as Jack, her manager, kept reminding her, and if she didn't like the lyrics
he'd
written then she'd better pull her fucking finger out and write her own. Jack was pissed off with her. Pissed off that she wouldn't record his songs. Pissed off that she didn't take him to Irving's party. Even more pissed off that she hadn't come back to the hotel that night and had missed the record company meeting the next morning. She rolled over and grabbed her bag, dug out her cell phone. She was about to call Churchill at the TV station when some odd
sense of decorum made her stop. She rummaged in her bag for her cigarettes and then, remembering she was in California, frowned and put them back. She saw that slotted into the cellophane wrapper was the limo driver's business card. She had asked him for it after he dropped her off from the party. His private number was handwritten on the back.

Stepford Limo Man. That was her first impression of him. Immaculately dressed and primed, like an actor about to hit the boards. He had picked her up, driven her to the beach, and waited in the car for her all night—she'd had so much to drink she'd forgotten to tell him to go home. When at around noon she had stepped out into the sun, bleary, hair wet from the shower, and found him still waiting in the driveway, he'd just smiled discreetly, not a word of reproach, opened her door, got back behind the wheel, confirmed her destination, and asked if there was anything she needed before pulling smoothly out of the drive.