Watching the Wheels Come Off (9 page)

It’s not
grass
it’s grazing.

He hears Alice whisper in its ear. ‘Oh… ooh… oooh,
Old Nick
, yes…. yes… the earth sure did move, baby.’

Mark leaps to his feet, stamping his grinder boots on the rocky surface like an angry bull, unsure what further course to take. His rage is a weird and incomprehensible mixture of blind fury and perverse sexual jealousy. He tries to focus his thoughts.

Being cuckolded by a fucking donkey is bad enough, but the idea of the stupid bitch thinking it was Old Nick going down on her is a near mortal blow. It is he, Mark Miles, who is meant to be standing in for Old Nick. The fucking giant is his invention, and now she’s nicked it for her own gratification.

Worse is soon to follow when she strokes its temple and murmurs, ‘What beautiful eyebrows you have.’

Not surprisingly, the donkey, too, is now wantonly aroused. It lifts its great beastly head, emitting a mournful bray that is, indeed, a fair impersonation of a foghorn, before dropping on to its haunches and clearly revealing
an erection comparable to a road worker’s pneumatic drill. Mark’s eyes bulge to the size of gobstoppers when Alice takes it into her hands and attempts a feat that can only be described as spatially impossible.

By now it’s not only the donkey that has a pressing need for sexual satisfaction. As might be expected, Mark is also in a state of extreme carnal excitement, and when it comes to sex he’s certainly not a proud man. Taking off like a ballistic missile, he propels himself in the direction of the standing stone, at the base of which all the action is taking place. His grinder boots carry reflections of the moon in their steel caps as they pound across the rocky terrain.

When it hears Mark’s approaching grunts, and sees the flinty sparks coming from the impact of boots on stones, the donkey tries to raise itself. Unfortunately for him, Alice won’t let go of his penis. This allows Mark enough time to take a flying leap, landing both boots on the poor creature’s testicles.

A howling, hee-hawing bray of agony rends the heavens, as the donkey tears itself away from Alice’s grasp. As her outstretched hands unwittingly travel down the great penis, the hapless animal has no alternative but to ejaculate. Spasms of semen spurt over her bare torso as the creature whinnies with pleasure. The donkey literally doesn’t know if it’s coming or going. It is, without realising it, doing
both
. It’s cloven hooves then kick up a cloud of dust as it races away.

If the donkey was confused, now it’s Alice’s turn. A
shadow slides ominously across her now glistening body. She looks up to find, standing above her, a great black blob of beastliness etched by an iridescent white light as it is silhouetted against the moon. She whimpers with bewilderment. If her previous debaucher was Old Nick who the hell is this? Or was the first beast an impostor and the new arrival the
real
Old Nick? The noise of a
heav-yduty
zip fastener focuses her mind.

The blob momentarily hovers there like a magic carpet, before dropping clumsily upon her. Any planned strategy of his for conducting a smooth and confident approach is abandoned for a crash landing. Mark pins her arms to the ground and tries to clamp his mouth about her cupid lips. She wrenches her mouth away from his and plunges her gleaming-white and perfectly ordered teeth into his nose. At the same time she drives her delightfully dimpled kneecap hard into his scrotum. Mark yelps in a strangled falsetto, arms flailing aimlessly, not knowing which to attend to first, his cock or his conk. He staggers to his feet, whereupon Alice resolves his indecision. She punches him on the nose, turning on a gusher of blood. For Mark the moon is switched off and the stars come out, dancing in his eyes. All he remembers is Alice now screaming at him.

‘You spoilt everything, you shit.’

She spots the wilting erection protruding from his leather suit.

‘Look at it that pathetic thing, that little worm. If you think you can
ever
take the place of Old Nick, forget it.’

Mark falls to his haunches, groans and rolls over. The bloody knife embossed on his jacket shimmers in the milky light, taking on a reality of its very own. In fact, the knife appears to have just been plunged straight into his back.

But Alice is too crazed to notice this. She, too, has taken on another reality. With donkey semen sliding down her bare torso, she appears to be melting. Just then a dark cloud, darker than all the others, draws a final curtain on this Last Act. As Alice faints, she lands softly on Mark’s motionless body, forming a tableau worthy of
Romeo and Juliet
.

H
is nose is still bleeding when he lets himself into his office. A short, rotund shape is silhouetted against the street lights outside. It’s lying on top of his desk like a body waiting for a post-mortem. Mark moves cautiously across the room to get a closer look.

It’s Snazell.

He’s sound asleep, his every contented breath accompanied by a light whistle. Mark barks into his ear, hoping to make him jump. ‘How’d you get in here, you bastard?’

Snazell moves not a muscle; his breathing misses not a beat. He slowly opens one bleary eye. ‘I’m a private eye, remember?’ The eye focuses on Mark’s bloody nose. ‘And, from the state of your hooter, I can deduce that you didn’t stick to cream teas.’ He winces in fake sympathy: ‘Teeth marks, oh dear. Looks like you bit off more than you could chew.’ He sits up and swings his short legs off the desk. ‘After dark it’s a jungle out there.’

‘That bitch is a cock teaser!’ Mark whimpers. ‘She gave me the come-on – so I came on and she got upset.’

When it comes to reading other people, Mr Miles, you are obviously dyslexic.’

It is as if Snazell has lit his touchpaper. Mark suddenly explodes. He stomps to the door and nearly yanks it off its hinges.

‘Fuck off, Snazell. Get the fuck out of my office and out of my life. You’ve brought me nothing but trouble.’

‘Don’t be like that, Mark,’ says Snazell soothingly. ‘I bring you good news.’ He produces a fat envelope from his raincoat pocket.

‘You’ve won second prize in a tango contest.’ The package flies across the room and Mark catches it. ‘Collect £2000 and advance to Herman Temple’s Personal Improvement Institute.’

Money in the hand invariably acts as a calming agent. Mark opens the envelope, removing a stack of notes.

‘It takes two to tango, Snazell.’

‘You lead, I’ll follow. I need to know exactly what happens on that course. Every detail.’

Mark counts the notes as Snazell makes to leave.

‘That’s five hundred for the enrolment fee, the rest is yours. And there’ll be another two grand when you’re done. That’s four big ones.’

He pauses at the door.

‘Plus
a free course in Leadership Dynamics. Come top of the class and you, too, could soon be the proud owner of an onyx and marble mantel clock with a
batter-yoperated
pendulum. Not a bad deal, eh?’

And he’s gone.

Mark hesitates. His fingers dance a jig on the lucre.

But the temptation to keep it evaporates abruptly when the wounded membrane in his nose haemorrhages yet again. Great globules of blood land directly on the wad of money. This bad omen freaks him out. He rushes to the window, struggling to open it. By the time he has prised it up, Snazell is emerging on to the street below.

‘You forgot this, Snazell.’

The envelope floats down along with a galaxy of blood droplets. It lands at Snazell’s feet. He looks up, as the blood peppers his face like measles spots.

Mark yells: ‘I don’t want your blood money.’

He notices a plastic red rose stuck in a dusty jar on the windowsill. It was a promotional gimmick for some
long-forgotten
amateur production of
Carmen
. He grabs it up, reappearing through window with it clamped in his teeth. Snazell watches in stunned astonishment. Wiping his blood-spattered face with a crumpled handkerchief, he backs away nervously.

‘Go find yourself another tango partner, Snazell.’

The rose flies out into the night as Mark slams the window shut. Snazell and the money are already gone by the time it lands.

N
ext morning Mark sits for two hours in his doctor’s reception area, waiting for his name to be called. The remaining patients, snivelling and shivering from a flu epidemic that has gripped the town for over a month, are grateful to see him eventually depart, along with those blood-saturated bits of Kleenex protruding from both nostrils.

The doctor looks up impatiently when he enters his surgery, wasting not a moment on social niceties.

‘You seem to have been bitten.’

‘It was a dog.’

‘A dog? In that case we’d better give you a rabies jab.’

Mark didn’t like the sound of that. ‘It was a toy dog.’

‘A toy dog, poodle or otherwise, is still a
dog
.’

‘No, I was playing with my nephew’s toy. A dog. A toy dog. It barks as well.’

The doctor examines the wound and looks puzzled. ‘A toy gave you these teeth marks?’

‘Toys are very realistic nowadays. The brand name for this one is Bad Dog.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘It was made in China.’

‘So? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Nothing. It was just an observation. A lot of Chinese toys had to be recalled from the shops. Can we get back to my nose? If I blow it or just touch it, it bleeds. And then I can’t stop it.’

‘Do you pick it?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘I could cauterise it, but that’s a bit extreme.’

‘Yes, well, we don’t want to do anything extreme. After all it’s only a nosebleed.’

Mark is beginning to regret coming here.

‘I think we should wait. Meanwhile, don’t pick it. Let it heal. If you get any more bleedings, I suggest you lie down with a ice pack. Hold it against the upper bridge.’

Mark tentatively touches the tip of his nose.

‘Not there. The upper bridge.
Here
.’

The doctor jabs the spot. Blood immediately drips on to Mark’s iridescent white shirt, recently hand-washed by his mother.

‘Oh, shit!’ says the doctor.

The Bengal Curry Palace is one of those Indian restaurants that seems always empty. Regular passers-by can’t help but wonder how it survives, especially with the four motionless waiters permanently staring out the
window. They conclude, rightly or wrongly, that it has a late-night clientele who are always so drunk they no longer know nor care what they are eating.

This lunchtime, passing locals note with surprise and some sympathy that it has two customers: Snazell and Hare. Both have food-stained white napkins tied around their necks. Their table is covered with numerous different dishes that mysteriously all look the same, each brought by one of the four waiters in strict rotation. Hare shovels onion bhajis into his mouth like they were peas, before starting on a murderous-looking, extra-hot Madras curry.

‘You paying for this?’

‘Certainly not,’ says Snazell. ‘We’ll go dutch.’

‘You said “fee and fodder” on the phone.’

‘I was referring to breakfast.’

‘You didn’t phone until
after
breakfast.’

‘Didn’t I? I must have meant breakfast if you had to stay overnight. Although I hope that won’t be necessary.’

Hare shakes his head, puzzled.

‘I’ve never known “fear of God” needing a top-up so soon.’

‘Well, it does. Mr Miles gave me a lot of lip last night. Very uppity he was. You obviously didn’t do the job properly last time.’ He then adds, as an aside: ‘That’s another reason for us going dutch.’

Hare glares at Snazell, eyes and breath both blazing. It’s rare for him to ever pause while eating, so it must be a serious response.

‘Was that a complaint I heard?’

‘Certainly not.’

Snazell finds it hard not to turn away in the face of such hellish fumes. ‘God himself couldn’t be more fearful than you.’

‘It sounded like a complaint to me.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be.’

‘So what was it, then?’

‘An observation, that’s all.’

‘But an observation that was a complaint?’

‘Look, to show you it wasn’t a complaint, I’ll pay for this. Okay?’

Hare carries on eating for a moment before Snazell’s offer sinks in. When it does, he summons one of the waiters.

‘Hey, Gandhi, I’ll have another Madras. And a nan. Oh, and a couple of stuffed chapattis.’

‘Would you like some of mine?’ Snazell tries to stem the tide of dishes. ‘I’ve had enough.’

‘What is it?’

‘Prawn biriani.’

‘Don’t like prawns, poor little blighters.’

‘There were only two in it. I’ve had them both.’

‘Yeah, but they was once in there, swimming around, and that’s enough for me.’

Hare wipes his departing curry with the newly arrived nan.

‘So what’s this Mark fella been up to that you had to call upon my services once again?’

Mark is lunching with his mother. Or strictly speaking
without
his mother, since she isn’t eating anything. He tucks hungrily into her daily ration of meal-on-wheels which she pretended not to want.

Mrs Miles had had Mark when she was forty. Only one other person knows who the father is and that’s the rapist. She’d never seen him before or since, and he’s never been apprehended. Despite Mark’s traumatic conception, she dotes on her son.

‘Is that a bite on your nose?’

‘No. I caught it in a filing cabinet.’

‘Never did. That’s a bite.’

Mark gives up: ‘Yes, it’s a bite.’

‘Was it a woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sometimes I wish you was gay.’

‘But I am gay. That’s why she bit me.’

She cackles with delight. ‘You randy little bastard. You’re lucky it was only your nose.’ Their relationship is profoundly unhealthy. She then remembers something. ‘The hospital people came round last Thursday, looking for Mum’s commode. They’ve only just found out she’s dead.’

‘After five years?’

‘I palmed them off with her Zimmer instead. Just right for your office, wasn’t it, that commode? You still pleased with it?’

‘P for
perfecto
.’

When Mark returns to Providence House, Fred Snipe the landlord is lurking in the entrance hall. He looks unusually pale and bites his nails.

‘There was a man here looking for you.’

‘Did you get his name?’

‘I did ask.’ Snipe savours Mark’s transparent anxiety.

‘And?’

‘He said it was King Kong. Although obviously false, it certainly didn’t breach the Trade Description Act.’

‘Oh shit, he’s big?’

‘Very.’

‘How was his disposition?’

‘Ugly. Like his face.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He ran upstairs. I haven’t seen him since.’

Mark wants to leave there and then but fate plays yet another random card. His mother’s ‘meal-on-wheels’ begins careering around his intestines and is now threatening to go into reverse. He runs for the stairs and into the communal lavatory on the first floor. Too preoccupied with his own evacuation, he fails to notice the pervading odour of powerful curry and the awful noises coming from the next stall.

A peaceful silence suddenly descends.

The sound of a dripping cistern adds an almost
Zen-like
atmosphere to this unlikely location. The occupants of both stalls rest momentarily before drawing their trousers back into place, simultaneously flushing their respective toilets and simultaneously opening the doors.

Mark glimpses Hare reflected in the mirrors above the washbasins and tries to slam the door shut. Instead an arm not dissimilar to a hydraulically operated shovel picks him up and dumps him head first into the very bowl that has only recently carried his waste product. For a moment he thinks he’s going to follow it.

‘You got that five grand yet?’ Hare lifts his dripping head out by the hair.

Mark splutters: ‘You said I had three days.’

‘It
is
three days.’

‘It’s Monday today. The money’s due on Thursday.’

‘Thursday? Fuck that. We had our little chat on Saturday. That’s Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Your three days is up.’

‘But that’s not three
working
days. We had our chat on Saturday like you said, so the first day is Monday. That’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and the money is due on Thursday.’

‘I didn’t say three
working
days. I said three days.’

He slaps Mark on the face, punctuating each day with another blow: ‘Saturday… Sunday… Monday… that’s today. Where is it?’

Mark sits heavily on the toilet seat. ‘I haven’t got it.’ He looks pathetically up at Hare. ‘Under normal business practice, it would be three working days.’

‘Normal business practice? Any more lip and you’ll be round the S-bend into the sewer. Get me?’ He bangs him on the head like it was a tent peg: ‘Okay, I’ll give you until noon next Monday – that’s a week’s extension. But I want an advance right now to cover my expenses.’

‘How much?’

‘What you got?’

Mark frantically pulls out his wallet. He expects it to be empty as usual, but there are the notes Snazell gave him. He smiles as he shows them to Hare. ‘That’s a lot of cream teas.’

‘What was that you said? Cream teas?’ Hare grabs him by the throat. ‘You calling me a perve? A fucking fairy that hangs around public toilets? Well, think again, sunshine. I’m only in here because my lunch took a turn for the worst.’

Mark cringes. ‘I never thought you were a fairy. Honestly.’

Hare relaxes his grip, takes the money from Mark’s wallet and counts it. ‘Two hundred on account.’ He laughs: ‘No, let’s call it interest on the three-day extension I just gave you. Five thousand by noon on Monday, right?’

He strokes Mark’s cheek, then gives it a gentle pat.

‘A tip for you. Don’t ever eat in that Indian on the High Street.’

‘The Bengal?’

‘That’s it, the Bengal.’

He then abruptly throws Mark out of the stall and slams the door shut: ‘No more fucking curries for me.’ Awesome gurgles and eruptions rebound off the cubicle walls. The occupant groans to himself. ‘That restaurant should change its name from Bengal to Bhopal.’

Mark flees.

Monday is not traditionally known as a day of rest.

But this Monday is an exception. Mark locks the door of his office, lowers the blinds and rolls out the futon. Before turning in, he shampoos his hair, rubs arnica into his head to ease the bruising and sticks a plaster on his nose to hide the bite.

As he drifts off into a troubled sleep, he feels the maggot move. Today he’s only too happy to let it masticate the memory of his recent unsettling experiences. It seems to be hard at work. In his dreams he clings, like King Kong, with one paw to the Empire State Building. With the other paw he picks up a diminutive Hare and drops him into a sewage plant somewhere in Manhattan. That done, he momentarily resurfaces in a clammy sweat, fighting with the sleeping bag as if it were an octopus. Then, going under for the last time, he is abruptly wafted into more sensual realms. He floats towards a huge
four-poster
filled with silk pillows on which the naked Alice waits for him. Her peachy legs and arms are bound with silk thongs to the four corners of the bed. Despite her bondage, she gives him a welcoming smile. His landing is to be as soft as a dragonfly’s.

An ear-shattering, juddering alarm bell goes off as he touches down and he doesn’t need a flight recorder to recognise the problem. The phone is ringing. Six rings and the answering machine takes over. Mark sinks back into his dream. Soon submerged in the sublime, he is about to enter Alice’s dark cave when he hears Snazell’s voice.

‘Mr Miles, this is my
final
final offer –
£
2,500 in cash immediately,
£
500 of which is your enrolment fee for the PII course. With a further
£
3,000 on completion of said course. That means you will have
£
5,000 in your grubby hands by next Monday.’

The maggot stops munching and listens.

‘Five thousand pounds’ and ‘next Monday’ penetrate Mark’s consciousness. He leaps up and grabs the receiver.