There was a flagstone floor around the bar in The British where, if you were lucky, you would stub a toe. The stone gave way to red Kidderminster carpet, or that cheap alternative popular in two-star hotels and, with nothing better to do, time could be spent in joining the dots left by careless cigarettes.
There was a brass-coloured handrail around the bar. It was held firm by brass-coloured lion heads. A good idea, while waiting there, was to try and spot the subtle differences in the brass-coloured casts. There was also a brass-coloured footrest where the serious drinkers could rest a foot while checking out the various collection boxes for Age Concern, the Home of Rest for Old Horses and the Spastic Association. This was an old boozer. When its first fine ales were poured the country was a finer place. The British lion still roared. And if the charity boxes were of no interest there were always the fliers drawing-pinned to any available space: Karaoke, Quiz Night and Live Entertainment – a band called Jodie Foster’s Boyfriends. n the Eighth Army on DDT.”
“The orange squash cut out,” Albert confirmed. “The additives, youngsters can't take. E-numbers, they are. E for extinction and exit. The very least you can expect from E-numbers is hyper something. And good that’s not. The Eskimos think of. They are hyper something but with a capital H. They get their E-numbers from the fish. And the fish get them from the North Sea oil platforms. It’s from the bottles of orange squash that the oil workers throw over the side. Tonic water feed them instead.”
“And that,” the colonel cut in excitedly. “Will keep the malaria away. It's difficult bringing up kids. In today’s world even more. We didn't have drugs in our day. Apart from Woodbines. In our day the nation produced first class soldiers. They didn't go around moaning about cocktails of drugs. They got on with it. Dug in. Took what the krauts threw at them. No Common Market in those days. Nothing at all common about the krauts. They were good soldiers, let down only by a predilection for fornicating with their own mothers and eating children. We brewed up. Lived on bully beef. How old did you say Paul was?” Mr Lawrence replied, “I didn't. He's about twenty-five but acts a lot younger, as a lot of people do.”
“Difficult age," Albert said reflectively. "When I was that age it was difficult. Wanking took up most of my time.”
The colonel agreed. “In the army we used to stop the wanking with jungle juice and a standing order. And there was a chemical that they added to your tea, but I forget the name.” He nodded in agreement with himself.
“A sex destroyer,” Roger suggested.
“Exactly,” the colonel said.
“They should have tried married life, mate. Better than any chemical known to man.”
The colonel’s nod was despondent. “The thing is,” he said. “Age is the enemy. It’s not like the krauts. You can’t beat it. You can’t run at it with a bayonet and shout ‘Have that you child-molesting jerry bastard!’ It creeps up on you, more like a Nip or the taxes in a Brown budget, and you don’t see it coming.”
A stranger standing between the colonel and Rasher cut in: “With regard to Paul, it sounds a bit like schizophrenia or something similar.” Albert asked, “What about the something similar?”
“Yes, you're right. I didn't mean similar. I mean he sounds like a raving schizo.”
They were all ears. Even Rasher managed a series of blinks. The stranger, well turned out in a suit and dark coat, had a bedside manner about him and an acceptable accent from the home counties. He was probably a doctor or a double-glazing salesman.
The colonel cut in, “Don’t know about your schizophrenia but it seems to me that half the country is off with stress, the twenty-first century cop out. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned backache or even ME?”
“Ah, indeed,” the stranger said. “Myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome. Caused quite a stir a few years back with half the establishment denying its existence, much like schizophrenia some years before. Mind you, even now, much of the establishment along with many old soldiers still believe it’s a malingerer’s charter.”
They looked at the colonel who nodded his agreement. “Just like stress, then,” he said. “Just like the vaccines and the Gulf War syndrome. We never complained about DDT in the porridge. So long as they kept it away from the old undercarriage we were happy.” “Mosquitoes?” Albert asked.
“In the desert? No. It kept away the flies. The real soldiers, the professionals, didn’t mind the flies. You could always find an Arab by following the flies. And if you could find the Arab you could find the kraut. The krauts liked to fuck the Arabs. Little bits of information like that won us the war.”
The stranger shook a bewildered head and went on, “The popular press and Hollywood, Hitchcock in particular, created the misnomer of the multiple personality but that has more to do with dissociative identity disorder than schizophrenia. The split personality is very unlikely, largely unfounded. Schizophrenia was originally called dementia praecox – mental deterioration in the early life – praecox. Usually a sensitive, retiring child who starts to develop peculiar behaviour in his early twenties, hallucinations, delusions, general withdrawal from society. When it occurs in later life it generally takes the form of a persecution complex – paranoia.” The stranger swept back his greying hair. It was the narrow sideburns that worried the regulars. Beware of men with narrow sideburns and those who wore brown shoes. The regulars were, however, all ears.
“A steady mental deterioration,” Albert said gravely. “Cured can it be…cured?”
“Doubtful. In some cases drugs can help. Then there's electric shocks and cold water treatment. Then there's leucotomy. Crucifixion, as a last resort, cures it once and for all. But that has nasty side effects
– religious wars and stuff like that.”
“But the voice…?”
“Yes, there is generally a voice.”
“And violence?”
“Sudden violent outbursts, certainly. Can't have a half-decent mental disorder without violence.”
Roger, the manager, something of a movie buff, said, “When Alfred Hitchcock released his Psycho back in fifty-nine, the critics thought it was a joke on them. That at the end of the first reel he killed off his leading lady. That wasn't the done thing. Their cosy world was shattered.”
“Shattered I was too, when that scene I saw,” Albert said. “It's a good thing to shatter the critics,” the colonel said. “They’re as useless as an Eyetie soldier. Having said that, Hitchcock was one of my favourite directors. I also liked David Lean and Robert Young.” “Robert Young?”
“He did that telly thing, GBH.”
“Television doesn't count,” Roger said. “It never did. Not when you’re talking movies. Not even if their movies are better. My favourite film is Paths of Glory, a Kubrick movie. Every time I see that last scene where the German bird sings, I cry.”
“You cry?”
“At the movies, I do. In real life, that’s different, I don’t.” While he had listened to Roger the colonel nodded and his eyes dulled as he recalled another day. He said, “When my wife was alive I had about two thousand films to watch – videos in those days. But by the time she had watched her soaps and all the other crap that was on I was too tired to start a film. I thought about installing a television in the other room but then I’d never have seen her. An odd consideration, but once she died, I couldn’t be bothered watching the films. Came here instead.”
Roger said impatiently, “Get back to the point. What’s your favourite film?”
“OK then”, the colonel said. “I liked Ice Cold In Alex with John Mills.”
Albert was sheepish. Finally he admitted, “All right, all right. Fun in Acapulco.”
Everyone took a step back from Albert and waited for clarification. Albert sucked on his thin lips and, although there was nothing remotely Gallic about him, shrugged a Gallic shrug, playing for time and all the time wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake. “Well,” he said nervously, “He was a nice lad.”
Unfortunately this explanation, when all was said and done, made things much worse. Roger wandered away to the other end of his long bar, the colonel bristled with indignation and Mr Lawrence wondered who the nice lad was but one thing was certain, Albert was left quite alone.
He was out when Mr Lawrence got in. The following morning he was running in the electric cable. The electricity distribution box in the stair recess was open and a coil of black cable snaked out towards the shop. It was a worrying sight and Mr Lawrence was rightly worried. He reached the door when an almighty crash had him ducking for cover and for a moment he wondered if one of the colonel’s krauts had followed him home and lobbed a hand-grenade. The shop lights went out without a flicker and Paul yelped and a bronze ballerina in the shop window pirouetted off her stand.
“It's arced!” Paul screamed. “It's arced!” He vaulted from the recess and crashed into the wall opposite and, as he slid slowly southward, smiled sweetly at Mr Lawrence.
Mr Lawrence thought back to the conversation in The British and wondered whether the double-glazing salesman’s electric shock treatment might help.
Nervous Sid was in The British, Sid the Nerve, playing the devil's drum on the bottom rung of his bar stool. He worried that the DSS or whatever they were called nowadays had cancelled his weekly benefit. How would they like to be black with a little receiving form? It was all right for them with their index-related pay, but what about him? They treated illegal immigrants better than they treated him.
Nervous Sid turned to children; they were on his mind. The ASBOs were a complete waste of time and money; they had become a badge of honour. The kids actually felt out of it if they didn’t own one. Nervous Sid agreed with the colonel. The answer to their worrying ways was a sharp stab in the arse with a bayonet and then three years in a detention centre fed on nothing but green veg, sprouts if possible. No orange squash or trips out to holiday centres.
Children – they seemed wiser, more mature, less child-like. The boys were ill-natured, rude little gits and the girls had contemptuous, knowing eyes. Even twelve-year-olds knew what made the world go around. They looked as though they were waiting to get a little bigger so they could pay you back. A frightening thought, the thought of growing old and defenceless, and the only thing to do, he supposed, was to get them first, before they grew up. Devastating, really. It was all these fucking chemicals in the crops. All these E-numbers the colonel and Albert kept going on about. They were modifying the kids and not in a good way. Sod these GM crops. Sid the Nerve would take more notice in future. He made a mental note that if ever his luck changed and his number came in, he wouldn’t buy a motor car from those bastards.
He went on to explain that when he threw stones at a group of them who were climbing on his garage roof they threw them back again. And they were better shots. He lifted the plaster on his cheek to show Mr Lawrence the damage. They were aiming at his eye, he said, because he was black. They were still on his garage roof. He'd made a speedy retreat. The long way round. Sod that for a living. Then he said, “Is that Paul still with you?”
“Yes, I suppose that Paul is. Although, technically, he's in hospital at the moment.”
“Kids?”
“No. Electricity.”
“Oh.” He sipped his shaking pint, spilling a little down his chin. His foot-tapping quickened in tempo.
Mr Lawrence prompted, “Why do you ask?”
Nervous Sid's attention returned from parts of the barmaid. “Someone was asking about him. A very dodgy looking character. Fact is, dodgy isn't the word. Not really. Not at all. Dangerous is probably closer. Fucking dangerous closer still. A big bad bastard.” “My goodness. What did he want?”
“He said he wanted Paul.”
“Did he say what for?”
“No, he didn't say and I didn't ask. You don't prolong the conversation with people like that. I wanted out. Like…out. As soon as poss. Registered mail. Know what I mean?”
“Did you tell him he was staying with me?”
“Of course not. What do you take me for?” Sid the Nerve shook out the words, saddened by the suggestion.
On his way to the door Mr Lawrence passed Albert and the colonel and Rasher who stood studying the tearaway nuts between the bottles. “Mr Lawrence, a moment of your time,” Albert muttered. “For young Paul someone's been looking. An unsuitable type. With more care you should choose his friends.”
“Did you tell this character that Paul was staying with me?” Albert's eyes glinted and his half-hidden lips widened. “Of course.” “That's kind of you, Albert.”
Mr Lawrence left The British early to visit Paul at the hospital. He didn't mind making the odd sacrifice. He picked up a brown paper bag of grapes from a Pakistani shop that opened all night, every night, even Christmas night. He had Christmas lights in his window next to a photograph of Mecca.
Green seedless grapes, brown-bagged, cheaper than Tesco and guaranteed by the foreign gentleman not to contain the fungicide Vinclozolin.
The Salvation Army were playing near the hospital entrance, belting out Jerusalem, and a few patients who could walk or manoeuvre their wheelchairs had gathered to listen. Sensing danger, Mr Lawrence hurried past the uniformed women who were brandishing their collection boxes and War Cries.
Paul sat up straight in his bed, a lonely figure, his gaze haunted, focussed on the hills that his feet and knotted knees made on the blanket. Under the wash of the bright strip he looked pale. Patients in the other beds were involved with their visitors. Paul was in another place. Not in this world.
“How are you?”
His eyes came back slowly. They slid towards Mr Lawrence. Nothing else on his body moved. It took a few moments for recognition and then he smiled and turned and caught up with his eyes. “Mr Lawrence.”
“How are you?”
“Mr Lawrence?”
“You're looking better.”
“Mr Lawrence, what are you doing here?”
“I brought you some grapes. I should have posted them.” “You shouldn't have.”
“You're right. The postman might have squashed them.” “You shouldn't have bothered coming.”
“You're right again. How are you?”
“I'm fine. Just fine. They're keeping me in overnight. I'll be out tomorrow. It's the heart, irregular or something. The shock, I expect.” “I expect it was.”
“Funny that. They use electric shocks to start a stopped heart and they use a pacemaker to keep a heart ticking over yet electricity sent mine the other way. Funny.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. But changing the subject for just a moment, someone's been asking about you.”
He frowned.
“A big chap. A big…chap.”
Paul sighed and shook his head. “You didn't tell him I was staying with you?”
“No. No I didn't and nor did Sid.”
He relaxed.
“Albert did.”
He grimaced. “Everything's going wrong,” he said. “Stuck in here innI? Haven't got time to find a place. Christmas's coming, you want me out by the weekend and now that bastard's looking for me.” “Who is that bastard exactly?”
“Someone I lived with.”
“My goodness, come again, exactly what does that mean?” “Inside, Mr Lawrence. Prison overcrowding, innit? You don't get a cell to yourself. Not unless you write books or something. I knew him inside, see. Shared a cell.”
“And now he's outside. Is he dangerous?”
Paul shrugged white bony shoulders.
“Why is he looking for you?”
Paul looked up appealingly and said meekly, “He's in love with me.”
“Love!”
“He thinks he is. He probably is.”
“Love! Goodness me, now that's a complication I hadn't considered. Do you love him?”
Paul pulled a face. “Leave it out, Mr Lawrence. Do I look like a rear admiral?”
“I can't answer that, dear boy. I wouldn't know what to look for. I have often wondered how you tell.”
“I think it’s an earring in the left ear, or it might be the right.” “I shall look out for that.”
“Or it might even be both ears.”
“Forget the ears, Paul.”
“He forced himself on me. Inside, you don't have a choice. You stick your arse in the air or you get beaten senseless and your arse goes in the air anyway.”
“That’s terrible but that's all right then. Now I know that, you can stay until Christmas, Boxing Day I mean. No longer and, only if you make yourself useful in the shop.”
His face softened in gratitude. “I won't be no trouble. Honest. I'll teach you to play chess. I'll do the cooking. I'll look after the shop. I'll get us a Christmas tree with lights.”
Mr Lawrence shook his head in wonder. Today’s youth! Who’d have them with their erratic enthusiasm and marvellous ambitions? “Chess. I'll settle for chess.”
“I'm a master at that, innI? The old Reti, the old King's Indian. Sound as a bell, that, that is. You saved me a lot of worry.” “Worry?”
“I was thinking about the turkey in the squat. They keep turning the electric off, see?”
“Well, I hope my electric is back on by then.”
“No sweat, Mr Lawrence. I've got this mate…”
“No, Paul. NO. I'll use the Yellow Pages.”
“Right.”
“But what about this rampaging lover?”
“Come again?”
“The bastard?”
“Yeah. He could be a problem.”
“You'll have to break it gently.”
“Yeah.”
“That his affections are not returned. It’s a sad business when love is not returned.”
“Sad, yeah, that’s it.”
A nurse walked through, stern and alarming. She paused at the end of Paul’s bed and glared at the two of them. Mr Lawrence busied himself with the grapes, slipped one in his mouth and stuck it in his cheek. The nurse shook her head and went on her way. Mr Lawrence watched her go. There was something about women and uniforms. There always had been, he supposed, ever since Boudicca had been riveted into her breastplates.
By the time Mr Lawrence left the hospital the Sally Annes had changed their tune. They had moved on to While Shepherds Watched but the women, striding about flat-footed, were thrusting their War Cries and collection boxes with even more aggression. To get back to the bus stop and to avoid the women Mr Lawrence was forced into a detour around the block.
Lunchtime the following day there was bad news to come in The British. Rasher had given the road outside a crimson glow. The tarmac had been washed in claret.
Bad news like that was enough to turn a man to drink but the woman was coming later so that would have to wait.
Rasher was a casualty of the night.
It happened last night, shortly after Mr Lawrence had left. Behind the bar, between the ranks of down-turned bottles riding on their 25ml measures – seventy proof rotors – the packets of tearaway peanuts waited to be plucked from their card. Beneath the nuts was a photograph of a naked lady and every time a packet was pulled a little more of her was exposed. So far on view there was one perfectly formed breast with a sixpenny nipple and three-quarters of a thigh. Next to the nuts was a calendar used to note the up-and-coming darts tournaments and December’s photograph was of a bullfight in Spain. The nuts and the calendar hung directly opposite Rasher's usual position at the bar. And when Mr Lawrence left him the night before, there he was studying the girl, perhaps remembering his wife, then blinking at the bullfight, and then he gave his minders the slip and went bullfighting on the main road. And the bull got him.
His minders were now in mourning.
The bull, a silver 306 turbo-charged diesel Peugeot, driven by a social worker, had hit him and dragged him fifty yards along the steel railings.
Albert was a late arrival that lunchtime. He arrived only moments before Mr Lawrence. His stoop was more apparent, his shoulders rounder. He'd spent a large part of the night searching the road for the gold that had flown from Rasher's broken body. Albert was a prospector. He'd found a finger, he told them, but it was the little finger, the only one of Rasher's fingers that didn’t sparkle. Sod's law, really.
“We'll have to tighten security,” the colonel said seriously. “They got to him. She got to him. Lured him on to the rocks, or rather, into the road. Beware of the women's sweet song.”
Mr Lawrence interrupted. “She left him.”
“Exactly!” The colonel refused to see the point. “She left him knowing that he would be destroyed. My God, how I hate women. They never fight a single battle face-to-face, bayonet-to-bayonet. They come at you in the night, in the dark, in the back. Listen to an old soldier. Stay away from them. Just like the wops, really. Women and wops have a lot in common.” To a young woman in a hugging black dress behind the bar he shouted, “You there, you with the Polish accent, another drink if you please." And while she poured it he kept his eyes open for the possibility of poison. He turned as Mr Lawrence put on his hat. “Are you off, then? Is it that time already?”
“Yes, it is. I have an early sitting.”
“The woman?”
Paul must have told him.
“Yes.”
“Good grief! You be careful. Take care. Can't stand any more casualties at the moment. Not until we get some reinforcements. Watch your back.”
“I'll try to.”
He left them to their mourning.
Two customers were waiting for his return. Three if you counted the woman. She stood aside while a young couple chose a painting: ducks flying from a pond surrounded by trees in grand seasonal decay. Even as he wrapped it and wrote their card number on the back of their cheque he cringed at the thought of it hanging anywhere outside a garden shed.
“Ducks!” he said to her once the brass bell had announced their exit. “My best seller. Ducks, and then tigers and horses and dogs and, of course, Oriental women with breasts bared. I ask myself what it is about ducks that make the masses want them flying up their livingroom walls? They ruin hundreds of quite reasonable landscapes. But there you are. Ducks sell.”
He led her into the studio.
“What is it about you today?”
She settled into her pose.
He wagged a finger. “There's something different. Let me guess. You're standing straight. There's a spring to your step. There's a glow to your skin. What's happened? You're messing about with my values.” “What is your favourite colour?”
He shook an irritable head and said sharply, “That’s got nothing to do with it,” and then, after a pause, he relented and all but whispered, “Yellow.” He nodded. “Yes, yellow is good. That’s the colour of the future.”
“I'm sorry. Gosh, you're always so grumpy. Perhaps it's not me at all. Perhaps your temper has changed, your eyes clouded with red. They do look red.”
“Perhaps. Maybe. But if that were the case then things would be darker, not lighter.”
“You've had a bad day?”
“All days are bad. This one is worse.”
“So it's true that the artist suffers.”
“A sense of humour too, along with the spring. That's something else I hadn't bargained for.”
“I want to change my pose. Is that all right by you?”
She slipped that in and took him by surprise. Knife and palette suspended, he stood rooted while his colour darkened.
“Will it mean starting over?” Her eyebrows raised over laughing eyes.
She teasing him, by golly!
Her shrug was a little caress. “If we can change our arrangements so that you're paid by the session, or something like that, it shouldn't much matter. And I do so want you to catch me…just right.” Eventually, a small tremble spread up from his knees and he seemed to come alive again. He said, “Christmas is coming. There won't be much to wrap.”
“There is always Easter,” she said and gave him a broad smile. She sat on the sofa and leant back, lifting her legs up so that her dress fell away to reveal an expanse of thigh. “Something like this,” she said. Her thighs were slim and tanned, brushed with the colour of her copper-brown dress that fell away to expose them. She lay on the sofa, one arm resting on the arm, her legs drawn up, her knees bent, her dress falling away just right. It was, for her, a daring pose. It was impossible not to wonder. Her skin radiated the heat from two glasses of Cadet. He was down to his last bottle of Merlot-Malbec and kept it back for later, for when he was alone again and could brood over the session.
She said, “I wonder what happened to Helen?”
“Mrs Harrison?”
“Yes, Mrs Helen Harrison.”
Twice the sitting was interrupted by customers in the shop. Paul's absence was a nuisance – most inconsiderate of him – and slightly puzzling. He should have been home by now. Mrs Puzey arrived with her family and cleaning equipment and during the next hour while flying dust was cornered and lemon polish stung the air, he hid in the studio and continued with the painting. The woman had gone and left a curious hole.
The painting was coming along. The blocking was complete, the key, the composition, and the shape was pleasing; the sweep of the hip, the depth of one smooth thigh as it curved in against the other, drew the eye to the shadow caused by her dress.
The noise had ceased. The old bell had rung out a beautiful silence broken only by the sounds of tapping on the studio door. The door eased open and Laura glided in. Laura, she glided everywhere. A black streak of cover-girl potential hugged by a tight black skirt. A wide shiny belt bridged her skirt and a loose crimson top. No naked midriff for Laura. Not a hint of that firm, flat landscape with its glittering omphalos. Not that he had any reason to believe that she wore a bellybutton ring but he could fantasize as well as anyone. More to the point, Laura was fashion conscious and mutilation was the fashion. There were none of the flatlands of the Chinese delta about Laura, no paddy fields by gosh, more the lush hills of West Africa, he would say, or some bursting volcano in the Philippines. Somewhere jolly warm, anyway.
Her glossy lips widened into a tropical smile. There was a breathless honesty in Luscious Laura, the black vixen of The British, unusual in women, for there was no threat. No threat at all.
“Mr Lawrence,” she said.
“What is it, Laura?”
“The phone went. You didn't hear it.”
“My hearing isn't what it was. Who was it?”
“Paul, it was. He's gone now.”
“Ah, Paul.”
“He phoned from the hospital. They're keeping him in an extra night for observation and there’s nothing to worry about. He didn't want you to worry.”
“Thank you, Laura. I'll try not to.”
With a flourish she closed the door behind her. The air, still stirred by her breathless words, was touched with Wrigley's Spearmint. Having got used to the idea of Paul's return a slight disappointment drew in with the evening. Even the short walk to The British seemed stale. There was little sense of anticipation. He knew that the feeling would change. A few drinks would change it. In the pet shop window a hamster was going nowhere as it raced a plastic wheel.
In The British Rasher's absence hung heavily. In the early evening the barmaids were even more indifferent as they contemplated their evening shift and the majority of the punters were on their way home, a swift half of courage to get them there. These were not serious drinkers. These people had families and were simply keen on a slight delay, a little pause in the perfunctory day before their perfunctory evening, train-spotters who were merely passing through. He was early. The familiar faces had yet to arrive.
The malevolent day was drawing to its close and alcohol, would speed it on its way.
“Good riddance!” he said and the barmaid in a tight black dress blinked and looked over the bar at him as though he was mad. She was quite right, of course.
Beneath red-flocked wallpaper with its nicotine-stained edges they'd begun with 6 and 7, moved to 23 and 26 and finished with lychee and fresh mango. Two bottles of Wan-King, the house white, proved slightly more satisfying than its promise.
Laura came back from the loo. He noticed the dilation of her pupils and her sudden elation.
Laura giggled, wasted. The Wan-King was lethal; drink enough and you'd go blind, so they said, that's why the Chinese squinted, but that was probably an old Chinese wives’ tale. She let him into a secret. “Paul asked me to look after you. He thought you would be lonely. That's why I made an exception. I normally keep to my regulars. I owe him one for the telly and video he got me. The DVD is coming, on a promise. He's so grateful that you put him up and for the grapes that he wanted to give you something in return. So I agreed to perform a little trick for you, later. I have a whole box of them, Mr Lawrence. A whole box of tricks.”
He lifted an overblown eyebrow. Leaving the tricks aside he knew a thing or two about boxes. Get to his age and, if the memory was up to it and that had a lot to do with diet – plenty of mackerel and walnuts and Heinz Tomato Ketchup – most men could remember the odd performance when they might have excelled. Even so, he was rather crestfallen and stuck out his lower lip. Eventually he said, “So it wasn't a coincidence then, our meeting in The British?”
“Mr Lawrence,” she giggled like a teenager contemplating her first blow job. “Grown-ups don't believe in coincidence, do they? Come on. Swallow these and lighten up. You're much too dark.”
Still downhearted Mr Lawrence said, “And what are these?” “A bit of Adam, to use an old-fashioned term, that's all. Down them with your wine.”
“All of them?”
“Go on, be an old devil.”
“Well, perhaps this once, and only because it's been such a dreadful day. I'm not a druggie, you know? I’m not one of your long-haired surfers from Newquay.”
“Come on, Mr Lawrence, take me home. Let me tuck you in and blow out your candle.”
“I have electricity. It’s back on, no thanks to my lodger.”
“Yes, he told me about that.”
“How about a cup of coffee and a brandy and we'll leave it like that?”
“As you like. It's all paid for anyway.”
“Where does Paul get his money?”
“Who knows? Why do some birds hop and some birds walk? Why do some birds come and some birds can't? Who knows? But I have enjoyed talking to you. Maybe, one day, you could teach me to paint. I would love that. There is something about watching an artist work, you know, painting, that's really like, a turn on. I don't know. Understand?” Perplexity pulled down his hairline. He said, “No. Not a word of it. It sounds like balderdash. But it doesn't matter. One day, Laura, I will teach you to paint. But you have too much living to do first.” As though she hadn't heard him she continued, “It's like, creating. That’s it. Going after perfection. You should paint me, Mr Lawrence for I'm as close to perfection as you can get.”
“I know that, Laura. My goodness, I can see that. But you're the wrong colour. Only the members of the Caucasian race can be perfect
– pale white-skinned people. People like me. God made us in his own image and he was white, wasn't he? Sunday school teachers don’t tell lies. Whiter than white with flowing blond curls and a perfectly trimmed beard. And his only forgotten – begotten – son, was even whiter, even after forty days in the wilderness. And no matter how I look at you, and in what light, you’re not white and you certainly don't have a beard.”
“Oh, Mr Lawrence, you've been looking in the wrong place.” He chuckled. “I've no answer to that.”
“You might have later, if you play your cards right.”
“That's the problem. I've never been a card player.”
“Well, there you are then. They say unlucky at cards lucky in love.” He was pleasantly drunk and so was Luscious Laura. Her eyes were black and intense.
“I have another confession to make,” she said coyly. The pretence made her even more delicious.
“What was your first? Remind me?”
“Paul, for goodness sake. That we didn't meet by accident.” “Oh yes, all these confessions. I feel like a priest.”
“Those pills, they wasn't all disco biscuits. It was Paul's idea. He said you'd need them.”
“What have I been fed, exactly?”
She blew out her cheeks and eventually admitted, “Two were adams, and they'll get you all loved-up, but the other two were Viagra, Mr Lawrence, and they'll keep you up all night.”
“I'll probably have a heart attack. I can feel something throbbing even as we talk. You’ve deceived me, Laura, and I should be angry but I’m not.”
Everything was outrageously funny: the total on the bill presented by a puzzled waiter, the look on a flattened duck's face in the window and the sign hanging on the huge brick Pentecostal walls opposite, the one frequented by Mrs Puzey and her brood, which read CHRISTIANS, SING