Demo Page 15

  Oh, yeah! You are the only person I know, darling, who had an honest-to-God, bona fide, old-fashioned nanny. As opposed to a Danish au pair. Or a woman from the village, who did for one.

  Nanny Rosenthal was my father’s. She’d been with the family for years. She wasn’t really mine.

  Lordy, lordy, one just can’t get the staff these days, he’d said, and caught her by the wrist when she swung at him, hoisted her onto his desk and shagged her again.

  She shook off the memory and looked about the room. A thin, grubby light was straggling through a bashed venetian blind beside the desk. She leant over and prised two dusty slats apart. Through the gap, she could see some kind of back area with washing lines and a bin shelter, a child’s scooter on its side in a puddle. Beyond that, bare trees. The River Kelvin, perhaps. Julian said it was near.

  You’re awake. He had a roll-up in one hand, a small card- board coffee cup with a plastic lid in the other, and stood at the end of the bed.

  Madame’s espresso, he said, bowed, straightened, drew on his cigarette and scattered a few flakes of ash on the white cover.

  Oh. She sat up, brushed off the ash and reached for the coffee. You’ve been out already?

  Yeah. Great little café on the corner. There are croissants too. In the kitchen. If you…

  What? He was looking at her with a strange smile on his lips.

  Nothing. You just look… You look just… right there. As if it’s exactly where you ought to be.

  She smiled back at him, pulled the edge of the duvet over her breasts.

  He straightened, waved his arms. And it is. It’s exactly where you ought to be. Here in the Palace of Grunge with Captain Fuckwit. He bowed. At your service.

  Charming. Who were you talking to out there?

  Jed. He’s off out. Doing a leaflet drop with some of the guys. He offered her a draw on his cigarette, but she shook her head. Might do some flyposting too. Sunday morning’s a good time for it. Streets are quiet. Fuzz are all shagged out trying to keep the lid on a Glasgow Saturday night.

  And Danny?

  He went out earlier. Kipped on the floor in Jed’s room. Couldn’t stand the mess in the guest room.

  Not surprised. She was glad he wasn’t there. Another brief reprieve. Good coffee, she said, and raised her cup to Julian.

  My pleasure, ma’am. Shall I roll you a cigarette too? He was smoothing a cigarette paper, the smoke from the roll-up between his lips making him screw up his eyes.

  You’re not the greatest of adverts for it! She laughed at his cowboy-contorted features. No, thank you. I haven’t felt much like smoking since I got back from Florence. Thought I might as well seize the opportunity and stop altogether.

  What? What the fuck d’you mean you haven’t felt like smoking? How can you just go off it? Normal people take years. Forty sessions of hypnosis, a library of self-help books, multiple relapses, before they finally quit. What kind of a smoker are you, anyway?

  Clearly not a normal one.

  You can say that again. A dilettante, I’d call you, my dear. An amateur. No commitment.

  He rolled the cigarette paper into a tiny ball between his fingers and pinged it at her. Take that, traitor!

  It bounced off her cheek, disappeared under the edge of the duvet. She felt it trickle down her warm belly.

  You realize from now on you’re going to have to ask the question abhorred by all hopeless addicts, she said. With her free hand, she explored under the quilt, till she found the little ball. Mind if I smoke? She threw the paper towards him, but it fell short and disappeared in the folds of the cover. And I shall say, Yes I do mind. It is a filthy habit, injurious to one’s health, so kindly do not light up in my presence. It shall be my mission to bully you into joining me on the path of righteous abstemiousness.

  No! No! He turned and launched himself backwards onto the bed, his boots leaving great smears of mud at the bottom of the cover.

  Julian! You are such a Pig Pen.

  But you adore me. He reached over and grappled her into a bear hug, scudded the cardboard cup from her hand. Droplets of coffee scattered onto the white cotton.

  Oops! Well and truly christened, he said, and slipped his hand under the cover onto her breast.

  She watched the neat arc of spots glisten for a moment, before turning matt black. Later they would dry to dark brown.

  You have the soul of a chimney sweep, she said, leaving black footprints on a white carpet.

  I’ll climb up your chimney any day, honey, he said, and caught her nipple between dry lips.

  Danny came back about midday. She heard him in the hall.

  Man, that is some day. It’s chuckin it down. Cats and dogs, as the wee wumman says.

  There was a rustle of supermarket bags, the sound of a coat being shaken. She slipped Aunt Laetitia’s diary under the pillow. Who was he talking to? Julian had dozed off again on top of the quilt and she hadn’t heard Jed come in. Must be Danny’s way of announcing his arrival. Letting them know he was back in case… In case what? In case he caught them in flagrante; in case she was wandering about with no clothes on? It was quite sweet really. Danny without the tough-guy veneer, the Glasgow machismo. Time to say hello and get it over with. She stood up from the bed and smoothed down her jeans, tugged her brown sweater over her navel.

  Julian, Danny’s back. Come with me and help break the ice. His chest rose and fell; a faint snore purred from his open mouth.

  Julian. The memory flashed into her mind of Danny’s face when they’d approached the bus in Florence. The hurt look, quickly extinguished, disguised in a bit of stage business with his rucksack.

  Julian. She pinched his bare big toe between her finger and thumb and squeezed. His foot jerked back on the cover, he folded his arms, turned slightly and went on sleeping. The smear of mud was dry now. And the coffee stains. She’d have to find out the arrangements for laundry.

  For a moment before opening it, she listened at the door. Some sort of activity was going on; banging, shuffling, knocking. And, skewering the other sounds, a whistled tune. Not one she recognized. She breathed in, stilled her hand on the doorknob, turned it and went into the hall.

  The only light came from a fanlight at the top of the outer door and from the wide open door of the living room, where the noises were coming from. She crossed to it quickly before she changed her mind.

  Danny didn’t see her at first. She watched his dark head bob up and down in front of the big bay window, his face in shadow, as he scooped up armfuls of rubbish and dumped them into one of five black bin bags, arranged in a semi-circle, following the curve of the window. The banner was gone, she noticed. Each time he bent, the tune he whistled was distorted for a moment, before rising sweet and piercing again, as he straightened. The muscles on his arms flexed and unflexed smoothly while he worked, and his white T-shirt was already grimy. Ah don’t want you to be no slave… The words sang themselves in her head, an ironic counterpoint to his mournful Irish air. All she needed was a can of beer to pass him.

  Can I help?

  He stopped mid scoop, with his arms full of rubbish, his mouth still puckered, and exhaled a low note that could have been part of the tune. Or could have been an expression of appreciation. She felt her ears burn.

  He glanced away. Oh, hi, Laetitia. Then in one smooth move, he tipped the load he held into the nearest bag. Aye, sure you can. All assistance gratefully received. What d’you make a they mingin bastards but?

  It was going to be OK, she thought.

  That Jed one. His granny will be birlin in her grave. He wasny reared to live in a pigsty like this.

  She had to hand it to him. Apart from that one faltered note, one would never know there had been anything between them. She waded into the room.

  Where shall I start?

  That’s the game. Get the sleeves rolled up, and then you can choose. This here is the Wastepaper Disposal Section. He turned a pointed finger and a cocked thumb on three of the bags.


  Or perchance your aptitudes might lie here in the Crockery Retrieval Department. She followed his gesture; in a small clear space on the floor was a pile of miscellaneous dirty dishes.

  On the other hand, mair job satisfaction might be derived from the merry clink of bottles tossed into this particular black plastic receptacle here.

  My goodness, spoilt for choice, she said, and he grinned at her.

  And, at the risk of causing you to salivate in eager anticipation, further down the line there will be Sweeping and Dusting and Washing of floors.

  There’s a floor !

  I can assure you, comrade, there is. And it is our job to excavate it from under myriad strata of archaeological deposits.

  Right, let’s go to it! With a steady hand and a ready heart. She did a little marching step on the top layer of rubbish, over to where the bags were lined up.

  Danny laughed. I think the term you’re looking for is Haud me back !

  And whistle while we work. I do think we ought to whistle. She liked it when he laughed. It transformed his Celtic scowl into something much more open and appealing.

  What was the tune you were whistling before? It was terribly evocative.

  Now, that is a little oul Irish air me mother sang to me. Tis called ‘She moved through the fair’…

  How lovely.

  That it is.

  And she made her way homeward with one star awake,

  As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

  He held open his arms as he sang, and warbled the grace notes with an exaggerated tremolo. It still gave her a moment of shivery pleasure.

  Wow, Danny! Are all you Kilkennys such marvellous singers?

  She could swear that he blushed. The Glasgow hard man! He bent at once to pick up more papers. Aye, tis a darlin song to be sure, to be sure. But I canny stand around here chattin all day. There’s work to be done. He gave her a shy smile before stuffing more rubbish into a bag.

  Right you are, sir. She saluted him and started to scrape assorted papers into a bundle. On one sheet she caught sight of Julian’s small, neat handwriting, the source of endless ribbing from all his friends, such a contrast with every other aspect of him. Notes for his PhD, it must be.

  She sat on the bidet soaping herself and talked to me pleasantly about this and that… As she stood up to dry herself… suddenly she dropped the towel and, advancing toward me leisurely, she commenced rubbing her pussy affectionately, stroking it with her two hands, caressing it, patting it, patting it. There was something about her eloquence at that moment and the way she thrust that rose-bush under my nose which remains unforgettable…

  Miller, Tropic of Cancer, pp. 49–50

  Christ, Julian, she thought.

  … And while it’s all very nice to know that a woman has a mind, literature coming from the cold corpse of a whore is the last thing to be served in bed. Germaine had the right idea: she was ignorant and lusty, she put her heart and soul into her work. She was a whore all the way through – and that was her virtue!

  T. of Canc. p. 54

  What crap! What self-serving tosh! She glanced over at Danny, but he had resumed his earlier rhythm; bending, scooping, rising, dumping. His face was closed in a frown of concentration.

  … And it seemed she was like the sea, nothing but dark waves rising and heaving, heaving with a great swell, so that slowly her whole darkness was in motion, and she was ocean rolling its dark, dumb mass. Oh, and far down inside her the deeps parted and rolled asunder, in long, fartravelling billows, and ever, at the quick of her, the depths parted and rolled asunder, from the centre of soft plunging, as the plunger went deeper and deeper, touching lower…

  She felt the spasm of a giggle, took a sideways peek at Danny, bent in rapt attention over his task, and gulped back the bubble of mirth.

  … till suddenly, in a soft shuddering convulsion, the quick of all her plasm was touched, she knew herself touched, the consummation was upon her, and she was gone. She was gone, she was not, and she was born: a woman.

  Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, p. 181

  Plasm! She must remember that. There was one last quote.

  ‘…She sort of kept her will ready against me, always, always: her ghastly female will: her freedom! A woman’s ghastly freedom that ends in the most beastly bullying! Oh, she always kept her freedom against me, like vitriol in my face.’

  L.C.L. p. 292

  Vitriol! Wait till he got hers. She cast about the room for somewhere to lay the sheet, begin a pile of items to be kept. There was nowhere except in the window, where Danny had cleared a space. To one side she spotted a high-backed kitchen chair, picked her way over to it, swept the clothes and papers off and set Julian’s notes on the seat. When she looked up, she realized Danny was watching this operation with undisguised amusement. His dark eyebrows were raised and his green eyes seemed like the one true colour in the room.

  Well, Ms Laetitia, I reckon that puts you in charge of the Search and Rescue Department. I hope you won’t mind if us cruder souls in Bundle and Crush just stick to our remit.

  Hah! You know what, Danny, you’re right. A quick heat flushed up her neck. She picked up the page of notes, crushed it into a tight ball and threw it into one of the open bags.

  That’s the stuff. Otherwise we’ll be here tay the Christmas efter next.

  Once she got into a rhythm, she quite enjoyed working alongside him. They hardly spoke. Outside, the sky was grey, though it had stopped raining; and the big bay window, uncurtained, let in a watery light through its grimy panes. She could see that it was a room of elegant proportions, the ceiling higher than those in her mother’s house, the decorative plasterwork more ornate. In one corner a watermark reached halfway down the wall. Above it, the frieze of fruit bowls and looping garlands of flowers was missing and had been crudely replastered flat. It must have been done some time ago, though, because this new plaster was almost as grey with dirt as the original cornice.

  Danny had started whistling again. Softly this time, to himself almost, like whispering. It was hard to make out the tune above the noises of the rubbish being gathered and dumped. She bent again to concentrate on her own patch. It worked best when she shut her mind off from the specific nature of the objects to be disposed of. The takeaway cartons were the worst by far, with congealed curry from an unimaginable number of days or weeks ago. Perhaps even months. Yuck! A mug with a bloom of green penicillin on the scummy coffee to join the pile of crockery. Bottles and bottles. Newspapers, heaps of leaflets for an anti-war vigil from a few weeks back, paper, paper, paper.

  All five bags were filled pretty quickly and Danny tied them up, carted them into the hall, peeled another batch off the fat black roll, and propped them open with carefully placed heavier items: bottles, a chipped mug, a smashed alarm clock. It was good to watch him; he was so organized, precise, efficient, his movements graceful. Yes, she thought, he is graceful.

  Through the window she could see the buildings opposite: dull, miserable tenements, not improved by the weather. There was more traffic now, a constant roar, punctuated regularly by the frenetic peeping of a pedestrian crossing she hadn’t noticed before. Though the rain had stopped, she could hear the sizzling noise car tyres made in surface water on the road below.

  What would you say to a tea-break, comrade? Danny was tying up another bag.

  Huh? It took her a moment to come back to herself, to register his words. When she looked up at him, she was struck again by how long and dark his lashes were. How green his eyes. Conjured up a forest pool; reeds and bulrushes, the reflections of trees. Oh, yes, a cup of tea would be lovely. She peered over one of the bags at the now impressive pile of plates and cups. Shall we be required to render the Dish Washing Unit operational first?

  Danny grinned and cast a glance over his shoulder as if talking to someone behind him. Hey, she catches on fast, this yin. You’ll rise through the ranks in jig time, so you will. Assistant manageress before you know it.

>   Only Assistant?

  Hey, any complaints, comrade, approach your shop steward.

  Right, I shall. She wasn’t entirely sure she knew what a shop steward was, but she wasn’t going to let on to Danny. It sounded like some suitably workerist term. She picked up a last bundle of papers, straightened quickly to throw them in the bag and stumbled forward.

  Oh! A wave of nausea came over her and her vision blurred. She reached out for something – anything – solid to steady her.

  Hey, you alright? Danny said.

  Yes, I’m fine… But she felt herself topple sideways and she grabbed his outstretched arm.

  Woah, there, Laetitia! I wouldny take a dive onto that floor the now. No yet. His voice was coming from a distance. She felt his arm go round her waist, as he helped her over to the chair by the window.

  There. That better?

  The seat was solid beneath her. She watched a flock of pigeons land blurred on the roof of the building across. When she narrowed her eyes, they came clear. One alighted on a chimney pot and stood as if addressing the other birds assembled on the tiles below. She turned her head to Danny. His face was close to hers, regarding her with a mixture of concern and amusement, his eyebrows shooting up and down between a frown and a question.

  You have beetling brows, she said. Yeah, I’m fine now. Thanks.

  What was that all about?

  Don’t know. Probably lack of food. Haven’t eaten anything since…

  That cheapskate bastard no take you out for a slap-up meal last night? A nice big biryani?

  I think a sandwich on the train was the last thing I ate. No, we came straight here from the station. She laid her head down on her knees. I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute. Her words came out constrained and lost themselves at her feet among the remaining bits of detritus.

  Well, we’ll need to see if the management will consider givin you a position in the office, comrade. His hand felt heavy on her shoulder. Your constitution’s obviously a wee bit delicate for the mair physical aspects of the job.