Director's Cut (23 page)

“You should be like me. Then you wouldn't worry so much. You
wouldn't have all those worry lines on your face.”

He laughed at her suggestion. “As the bard would have told you,
my dear, in words that are not as good as these: youth, like a poor
man’s plonk, has an end-date and to try for an extension is one of the
most ludicrous things that men and women, can do. It makes for a
pretty pathetic show. And as for me, I was born with these grooves.”
“What about the white hair?”

“You're getting personal.”

“That is part of my job. And I do know Shakespeare. He was the
guy who said a good wine needs no bush. Maybe that if you drink too
much you can’t get it on. See? I’m not just a pretty face.”
Behind her the pastel colours of the wall mural flickered in the
candlelight. One of the less gymnastic positions of the ancient Sanskrit
treatise caught his eye and gave him an idea for later. She began on her
shahi beagun and wiped a fleck of sweet coconut from her painted lips.
“Do you believe in God, Mr Lawrence?”

“My goodness. That's an odd question.”

“I know, but even so...”

“It’s a difficult one, my dear, and it’s a question that’s crossed my
mind once or twice, particularly during those times when the socialists
have been in power.”

She frowned.

He went on, “I believe in the theory of chaos, my dear, and then the
theory of simplicity, that nature will always find the simple way.”
She pulled a face.

“Do you really think an almighty presence could produce so many
defects and dysfunctions – not to mention the cruelty and wasted effort

– dead planets, wasted matter, suns with nothing to heat, nowhere to
go, fathers with no sons, bits and pieces that are quite irrelevant and
useless, the appendix, the Royal Family? Think of the swarf of the
universe and even the rejections, the bits that have gone wrong – the
deformities, the waste, the utter waste. Could a creator have left so
much swarf? I think not. Still, so long as the Creationists keep taking
the medication we’ll be all right.”

“Well, I believe.”

“Good for you. Well done.”

“Everyone’s gotta have a dream.”

“That’s true.”

“I've seen you about for years, before my mum started cleaning
your shop. I often saw you in The British. You looked lonely. You
were with the others but you weren't. Does that make sense?”
“You're very intuitive.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“But it wasn’t loneliness, my dear. It was sadness. When you get to
my age you realize it’s too late to start again and then, looking at a girl
like you, you feel a pang, perhaps of hunger but more likely of missed
chances, of wasted time. I wasn’t to know then that you would come
along and brighten the day and lighten the night.”

“But you've already made your mark, Mr Lawrence, your paintings
for a start. In any case, you're not old, you’re not as old as you act.”
“It's nice of you to say so but I’ve always thought of myself as a
friendly old fellow. Shall we go or would you like a sweet?”
“A sweet? Don’t be so tight, you old thing. Can’t I have a
pudding?”

So, tucking into chilli ice cream and mango, she continued, “Oh,
Mr Lawrence, friendly is not a word I’d give to you. In fact, I think
you like people thinking you are unfriendly. Grumpy, that’s it. It’s
your street cred. But you’re not really like that. I’ve sussed you out.
You’re just a big softie, I know. Look at the way you’ve taken Paul in,
and look at the way you help all the wannabe painters. See, I’m a
psycho thingamabob. Let’s get back and you can lie on the sofa and
I’ll show you a thing or two.”

“Well, if you insist, two might be nice, just so long as you don’t
poke me in the eye – both eyes – like last time.”

“Sit there,” she told him. He still wore his hat. She dropped her jacket
to the floor, poured some drinks and slopped one in his good hand. On
his bad hand blood was seeping through the bandages again. She
stepped out of her pants and moved to the stack. She put on the CD
from the show that she had insisted he buy from a hastily arranged
table in the foyer and sang along.

“Oh, Mr Lawrence I think I love you…”

Then, perhaps with the brass ballerinas in mind, she performed a
delightful pirouette.

“Isn’t it marvellous, Mr Lawrence? I could be on the stage.”
“I imagine you could. Yes, and from what I’ve seen of your
dancing – in The British – you would make a perfect hoofer.”
“Pardon?”

“Hoofer, my dear, with an F.”

“Oh, one of those.” Her voice was not convincing.

“If not a dancer then a player and I could help you. You could use
me as a prop or, come to think of it, abuse me as a prop as well.”
She punched his arm and he raised an eyebrow and, beneath it, his
eye twinkled.

“You’re joking Mr Lawrence. You’re taking advantage of an
innocent young girl.”

“Am I? Am I indeed? I’m not sure who is taking advantage around
here and just who is so innocent. I suppose that’s always the problem,
isn’t it? Who is guilty and who is innocent? And yet, the clues are all
around.”

Straddling him, she tugged at his buttons. He flinched and smudged
her with blood. She raised her hands to his shoulders and lowered
herself.

Sinking upwards, he watched his twenty-five quid's worth find a
slow rhythm and shook his head in wonder.

He said, “Don't stop.”

“I'm not going to, Mr Lawrence.”

“Singing, I mean.”

“Oh, is that all?” Her smile was infectious. “Oh, Mr Lawrence I
think I love you...”

The shop and the flat above were filled with shadows and night noises.
Headlights on the High Road slid past sending the shadow of the hook
skidding across the walls. They brought the ballerinas to life and sent
their shadows dancing across the wooden floors. They stretched the
shadows of the mannequins and sent them chasing after the ballerinas.
They caught an occasional passer-by and sent yet more shapes to join
the ball. The wind sighed across the roof slates, the old water pipes
clanked and the steel chain rattled and above it all, someone snored.
In the stuffy bedroom Laura lay awake listening to the night music
and considering her future. Her heart was beating faster than normal.
She had been entertained and wined and dined and put into a bed with
clean sheets and it hadn’t cost her a penny. Perhaps it was the grand
theatre and the show and the mixing with theatre-goers who paid five
pounds for their programmes that had led to her excitement but she felt
a strange sense that things were on the move, something to change her
life was on its way. She curled up closer to the soundly sleeping
bubble-blowing Mr Lawrence and wondered whether he, the artist, the
celebrity, would figure in her intoxicating dawn.

Paul had time on his hands so he took care of Mr Lawrence's little
errand. He caught a bus to the Ridgeway and found the house he
wanted, more of a cottage, really, with a large square of nipped grass
surrounded by a waist-high fence. It was neat and moss free. You just
knew the owners spent a lot of time fussing around with Black &
Decker. It was a street where the houses had drives and extensions, and
boys and girls delivered broadsheets instead of tabloids and always on
time. There were fewer satellite dishes. Paul noticed things like that.
And here kids used playing fields with real goalposts instead of
concrete and shop fronts. And dogs? They were smaller. And mostly
white. Funny, that as the IQ went up the size of dogs and TV screens
went down. Funny that, innit? And sad in a way, cos it meant that kids
from the rich homes didn't have big TVs to watch. And that meant
they'd probably end up with glasses, short-sighted or squinting, or
something. Yeah.

He spent a couple of hours there, hanging around the street,
watching the comings and goings. Eventually an old couple emerged
from the cottage and the old man shouted over the fence.

“You there! Yes, you! We've got our eye on you. Clear off or we'll
call the police. Understand?”

Tory voters!

Fuck that.

Paul cleared off.

It didn't take much savvy to reason that Mr Lawrence had given
him the wrong address. The old man had got it wrong. They say age
messes with the memory and they were right. There was certainly no
girl living there. No beautiful Indian girl with dark eyes and black hair
and legs that went all the way to… Yeah, right! And those two old
Tory voters weren't her parents. No sir. NO SIR! No way.
By the time he got back to the High Road dusk was falling and the
street lights turned on Saturday night. Christmas illuminations gave the
road a party feel, added a little excitement and cheer, like three lemons
on a slot machine. Like a cold smile from a bargirl that meant no
chance sunshine, no chance at all.

Shops stayed open late and a choir sang Christmas songs while a
dozen Santas collected money in fat Toby jugs. He looked in the shop
windows for the Christmas message, the birth of Christ, goodwill to all
men, but couldn't find it between the spend, spend, spend and the
banks of computers and widescreen TVs tied in Christmas ribbon. For
a while, like, twenty minutes or so, he stood in front of a window and a
TV, and watched in Cinerama – you’d need an extension on the house
to get it in – a million people on the move. Africa was a vast

graveyard, still uncivilized and uncaring, and while he watched
the dark leather-skinned children cry while their mothers gazed out of helpless
eyes and the shadows of vultures slid across the cooking battleground, a choir
sang,
‘Oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant...’

And suddenly, in front of that wide living screen, Paul knew that
the whole business of religion was crap.

He heard, ‘
All things bright and beautiful’
.

He ran down the High Road, trying to outrun the voice. But
it caught him up and mixed up the harvest festival with Christmas.

He gave us eyes to see them

He gave us leprosy

He made the highest mountains

To fall on you and me...

See? See? See what I mean? Stop! Stop right now!

And Paul stopped. And passers-by looked at the strange young man
who was sweating and steaming while a heavy frost fell around him
and turned the litterbins white.

Christmas, goose fat, a penny for the old man’s hat. Kick his head in
more like. Steal his pension. Take that!

It was right, wasn’t it, that in a lawless society those with would soon
be without? It was right that at Christmas the bosses and toffs should
get their comeuppance, that they should be forced to sleep in a
stable...in Africa. Yeah.

And then it was Saturday night for real.

The scene was set, the third act, and Paul was in heaven. It was his first
time in the theatre, and it moved him to tears. He cried out loud and the
people beside him were, for a while, amused. The barber had given
him the ticket in exchange for a TV set. It was a complimentary given
to the barber when he agreed to hang a poster in his window. The
barber wasn't an Anthea Palmer fan. He liked Sophia Loren. He'd been
keen on her ever since he'd seen
Boy on a Dolphin
in 1957. He
remembered the year well, he told Paul. The EEC was formed.
Macmillan was Prime Minister. Sputnik took off. But the highlight was
Sophia's tits poking out of a see-through vest. Nipples the size of halfcrown
pieces, the colour of a good claret. Technicolor. Remember

Technicolor? It was going to change your life. Right? Paul wondered
what a half-crown piece was.

The stage was a hospital ward and Anthea Palmer had arrived with her
best friend.

Anthea sang:

I'm looking for the gynaecology department.

And as she looked around for assistance, her best friend sang:

She's looking for the gynaecology department

She needs a professional point of view

A little sperm has found its way

And decided it wants to stay

And now she needs advice on what to do.

A male consultant passed by:

What have we here? Internal examination?

Cervical smear, dear? Contraceptive fitting?

Sit you on the end of a rubber glove, shall we?

Routine check-up, is it? High chair, stirrups

and a...speculum!

Paul experienced an urge to kill the consultant. His eyes narrowed to
slits and a muscle in his temple began to pop.

Anthea Palmer, lonely and beautiful and drawing yet more tears from Paul,
moved to one side of the stage and sang:

We want more female gynaecologists

Who understand our feelings and our fears

Why should we have this humiliation

Each time we need an examination?

Anthea sounded innocent and fragile; he just knew that in real
life she wore white underwear. He saw the girl on TV, in front of the map of
the British Isles, pointing at clouds spitting three huge teardrops. And so
Paul, Paul Knight, weeping, fell in love with Anthea Palmer, ex-weather girl,
the blond-bobbed goddess of countless travel shows and tabloid front pages,
and he couldn't get over her. His eyes were still red when he arrived at Avenue
Road, the dangerous place of run-down terraced houses. But Paul had no option.
Mr Lawrence had been right. He had to disappear for a little while and keep
well out of the way of his ex-cell mate. He couldn't think of a better place
to disappear than Avenue Road. People had been disappearing there for years.

The area was in the process of being demolished to make way for a
new development. Huge diggers and concrete crushers stood idle; giant
stick insects reaching out of the red-tinted darkness. In the morning
they'd come to life, belching plumes of black

smoke, flattening the earth. And then, in time, there'd be another Robot
City, where robots shopped.