S.O.S. (19 page)

‘Yeh sure,' agreed Dwight. ‘One for the road. Where's the harm?'

Well, reflected David, as he tried to focus on finding Sammy, on
this
night of days, or whatever in hell it was now, precious little.

‘What I was going to say,' he went on, ‘ – in America, New York – you ever, Dwight, go to these, what are they? Lap-dancing type places? Nude sort of bars?'

Dwight's eyes and lips tightened and flattened down into slits, black with amusement, as he jerked back his head
shortly and once as if he had just delivered at speed into his mouth a neat cold shot of something harsh (which he hadn't, not yet, because David was still failing to make any sort of contact with – where was he? – Sammy. Ah. Was this Sammy now? Yes it was: same again, then, please – better make them double doubles this time round because after these, we're off).

‘
Shooooor
!' Dwight was now assuring David conspiratorially, and very much man to man. ‘Like when we do
conventions
, yeah? Outta town. Chicago, Atlanta, Denver –
Detroit
, oh man. The way those babies shake their booties. What – you ain't never been one of those places? You don't maybe got 'em in England?'

‘Once, I went …' put in David.

‘Tell you, boy – joints I been, ten bucks buys you a teasing taster. You flash your roll and
man
 – it's feasting time. They got these booths in back. Maybe, we get to New York I can show you a real good time. Sure there's Charlene we gotta get around. Your lady wife sweet on you hitting the town?'

‘Used to it,' grunted David.

Dwight turned to David, now – the light of animation stirring amid the dull and milky liquids of those just-open eyes. ‘Jeez, Dave – some of those babes are so
young
, you hear what I'm saying? Fresh and flawless, boy – like they were since before when. Since before I can't hardly recall. Me …' – and now Dwight brought his lips to within twitching distance of David's ear – ‘ … I like 'em, you know – real
young
?'

David nodded. He pulled at whisky, and Dwight did too.

‘Yes …' he said thoughtfully. ‘Young is good. Very good. Tell you – Jesus, Dwight, you maybe won't believe this. Yeh we
do
have them in England, few – some are just sort of topless, you know? Which is OK. Others go the full, you know …'

‘Manty?'

‘Well … yeah. But they're
women
, of course.'

Why did I say that? And look at Dwight: he's thinking exactly the same damn thing. Never mind: charge on.

‘Yeh – I was actually taking a client from the north of England. Kept on and on about it. Furniture manufacturer – rich as hell, but really
dull
, you know? Also had this export and import business – used to buy all this furniture from all over the world. Anyway – so he goes ‘Aw-
cur
, David', he goes – they talk like that, don't know if you know. Oop north.'

‘Beadles? Liverpool, right?'

‘Well this was Sheffield, actually.'

‘Sheffield I don't know.'

‘Well no, you wouldn't. Knives. Anyway – when are we
going
, David, he goes. So I got this listings magazine, right?'

‘You want I should refresh our drinks, Dave?'

‘Ooh – I don't think so, Dwight. Yeh, OK. So anyway, I find this place in Hammersmith, right? Well no, you wouldn't. Well – forget Soho, this is miles away. Anyway – we get there, OK, and the place is covered in all the neon lights and all the rest of it: ‘Totally Nude American Table Dancing' it says – and he's really keen. So we go in – usual thing, I expect – velvety, chromy – and I order champagne – bloody rip-off, but he was paying – and Jesus, bingo – over comes this most … Christ, the most beautiful girl you ever saw in your life – '

‘Young? Young babe, yeah?'

‘Oh
Christ
yes – young. Barely learned to walk. So she climbs up on to the table in front of us and Jesus, what a view! And she takes off just everything except the stockings and these amazing shoes and she's pouting down at us and her hips have gone mad and God, Dwight, I don't mind telling you – I was going a bit mad myself.'

‘And your guy – he into it?'

‘Well this is just
it
!' nearly shouted David – so back there and among the heat of it all did he suddenly feel. ‘I glance across at him – thought he might have exploded, or something –
and instead of gawping up at this jaw-dropping vision, he was staring down at her feet, click-clacking away, and he was frowning badly. Uh – Everything OK, I go – and he starts tut-tut-tutting away. I'm helping the girl down, now, because the record's ended – and there he is just passing a hand over the surface she'd just stepped away from. He looks at me and he goes: ‘They should be
shot
'.'

Dwight was all his. ‘He said that?'

David's wide eyes reassured Dwight that he had indeed heard him right. ‘So I'm going, er –
sorry
? I don't understand – I thought you
wanted
…? And he goes No no
no
 – not the girls, the girls are nice enough. The
management
 – misleading the public. ‘Totally Nude American Table Dancing', it said. (And now I'm really thinking he's crazy, right?)'

‘Sure sounds like he's nuts.'

‘But
look
, I said … she – she
was
totally nude: you just weren't, well – looking. And he says to me – you ready for this, Dwight? He says Aw Eye, Fur Enoof – but there's no way in hell that that was an
American
table!'

Dwight held David's huge-eyed incredulity, and their lips opened in unison to form an O of wonder, just before all the creamy laughter – soon turned to roaring – and then not much later, the wiping of eyes.

‘Dave,' wheezed out Dwight, ‘you know what? I maybe said it before: you just break me
up
.' And then – in one surprisingly agile movement – Dwight was off his stool and grinning and swaying. ‘Fella – I gotta go.'

David turned (
whoa
 – bit too quickly) and gazed with benevolence at the weaving bulk of Dwight, that red and sausagey inner tube stuck fatly between his collar and hairline seeming way over-inflated as well as flamingly seared. Dwight now raised an arm in the manner of a great dictator curtly acknowledging the awestruck devotion of at least a division of knife-sharp and jet-clad storm troopers – and
without turning nor losing his balance, he called back over his shoulder:

‘Catch ya later, Dave!'

David dumbly waved at the ever smaller and retreating form of his new and big friend Dwight and felt only affection and a freaky kind of bonding as he just about heard him calling out again (could have been Yes
sir
, yes
sir
 – you really break me
up
…) and then Dwight turned into an archway and bashed his nose and briefly apologized and staggered off again and was lost to sight.

And Dwight's big hand was still raised in salute (was thinking he should maybe, uh – how's about I put it away now, huh?) when who should be coming right at him from way down the other end of this vast and quiet upholstered corridor but his own little girl, his own sweet Suki.

‘
Hi
there, Suki my angel. You still up? How's your Mom doing?'

Suki stopped: her upper lip was sort of raised, and the stiff fingers of both her hands seemed indignant, splayed out at her hip bones. Her whole body looked
flared
.

‘Gee, Dad – you're kinda, like –
loaded
, right?'

Dwight was barely undulating as he continued to look down on her with all the beaming kindness of Saint Nick hisself.

‘My own sweet girl … Where's Earl?'

‘Yeh – like
ask
me. Hit the sack, Dad – OK? What's cooking down the bar? Sump'n? Nothin'? Jeez – this whole tub is, like, in a
coma
?'

Suki ambled on – leaving her father fluttering gently amid the thick and total stillness, still head-waggingly benevolent and marvelling at having – guess what, at this one moment in time? Run plumb bang into his one sweet and darling little daughter … who was (and he focused upon this truth with a frisson of confusion) now gone someplace else.

So, thought Suki: let's just check this out, here – what's,
like, falling down? Yeah – like I figured: zero with a capital zee. Three grinning Chinese guys hanging round a mike which don't seem to be working – and yeh sure, they gimme that look, that look I get from guys all over; only with Orientals it don't come out too good, you know? Just seems they're having trouble big time taking a dump. Kinda the same with Hispanics, yeah? They do the eye thing on me and all they look is like they're just gonna
cry
, or something. Black guys I ain't into; dig all the cool, sure, and the muscles they most of them got, but when they're into, like, checking me out, all I feel is kinda like –
scared
? All the laughter goes right outta their eyes.

So what else? Barkeep. Looks beat, poor guy. How long he been standing there, fixing hits for jerks? And some girl fooling with her glass – she maybe trying to hit on Dopey the Barkeep? Nah: looking every which way but right at him. And the other end we got a drunk. English guy, I betcha. Jeez – just get the way
he's
eyeing me, now: same age as my
Dad
, Chrissake. Cute, though, kinda – in a beat-up sorta drunk and English kinda way. I mean –
what
? I'm back home in New York and I'm checking out some totally empty
pub
? And it's one a.m. – two, maybe – and so the whole fuckin' rest of the city is, like, shut
down
?

Suki perched up on a stool and said
Hi
to the barman, just as he was well into his
Hi
to her and only a second before – couldn't have been more – David leaned across and waved at her his glass (and Christ, I've really got to watch that – nearly arse over tip, that time) and said Well
Hello
There – and Suki might well have responded (dumb, oh yeh sure he is – but like I say, kinda cute) but she blanked him off entirely when she glanced across again at the girl at the bar and suddenly recognized her as one of the two in the lousy disco and so yeh OK, I'll go with
Hi
 – real bright and right at her – and Stacy was already doing a
Hi
of realization and raising a finger as well as that eyebrow.

‘OK,' said Suki, now. ‘I guess I'll have a vodka rocks?
Stacy
, right? Getcha sump'n, Stace?'

‘Have a
drink
,' came David's thick and (was that really me?) distant, dull and booming voice.

‘Thanks, Suki,' smiled Stacy (she's nice, she was thinking – much better now she's on her own: often true). ‘I'll maybe just have an orange.'

David waved his arm, now – all-encompassing and large, the gesture was intended to be (had him swaying quite badly again, though).

‘Have a
drink
!' came the cry – buffeted by a crosswind as it was, and badly distorted by that dented megaphone he lately seemed to bawl through.

‘So,' said Suki to Stacy – edging two stools closer, is the way she saw it, as David was plunged into the cold and could only wonder with misery: Why is she moving
away
from me, hm? All I did was offer her a
drink
. ‘My goofy brother still with your friend, someplace?
Sister
, maybe?'

Stacy smiled, and sipped her orange.

‘Not my sister no, Suki. She's actually my – '

‘Have
drink
!' roared out David (God I did, didn't I? Really roared it out, that time round: didn't
mean
to – it's just how it worked).

‘This your first night, right Stace?'

Stacy nodded. ‘It's rather odd, isn't it?'

Suki laughed, quite briefly. ‘Rather
odd
 – yeah. Odd is good, odd I like. What it is, Stace, is like –
weird
? Like –
crazy
weird? I been here since, Jesus – seems like the whole of my life. I mean, don't get me wrong – we've had some real good times, you know? Like – Singapore? Totally arsem. But now all I feel is
great
 – I'm going, like –
home
, you know? Need to chill out with my
friends
? New York – you know it? Tell ya – it's real kicking.'

‘So I've heard,' said Stacy.

Why do I suddenly feel this? A hundred years old. We must be about the same sort of age, Suki and me – a year or
two between us, maybe – and yet I'm just sitting here feeling like bloody Mary
Poppins
, or something, while she's just romping around and being
young
. Christ: it's even the same with my bloody own
mother
. How can it be that all I feel is like my mother's
auntie
? (And in answer to your earlier question, Suki – I really couldn't tell you. Is my mother still sodding about with your
I
think pretty horrible brother? Haven't got a clue. Look – with Jennifer, you just don't know.)

‘Have a
drink
! Ooh Christ – !'

‘You OK?' laughed Suki – looking down at the English guy, sprawled among the upturned stools, seeming amazed and gurgling away I'm Fine I'm Fine I'm Fine I'm Fine.

‘Here – let me help you, sir,' said Sammy – darting from behind the bar, and already well on the way to getting David up and more or less on his feet. ‘There, sir – all right?' I wish, he was thinking, that all of you'd go now. I'm really bloody tired: Jilly just must be asleep by this time, yes?