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Vulgar Things. Lee Rourke
Читать онлайн.Название Vulgar Things
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007542529
Автор произведения Lee Rourke
Издательство HarperCollins
‘You can put your drink on there … sit down. What’s your name?’
‘Jon … What’s yours?’
‘Paris.’
She dances for me, taking off what little she is wearing. Having never experienced such a thing before, I enjoy it, at first. Then something terrible begins to happen: her skin starts to peel away, quickly, revealing her red, blood-sodden muscle and sinew – decaying, bubbling and oozing stuff. It feels like I’m watching speeded-up footage of a rotting corpse, the flesh putrefying, turning to liquid, finally foul gas. I try to rub my eyes to shift the terror from them, hoping it’s just the drink fooling me, but it’s no good, the more I try to shift these rotten images the more intense they become. Her flesh falls from her bones, like slow-cooked shanks, onto my lap, my shoes, smearing down my shins, collecting in a purplish, stinking gloop by my feet. I want to be sick. I want to run away, to run out of the bar, but I can’t move. I want to scream at anyone who’ll listen: ‘She’s dead! She’s dead!’ But I can’t make the words in my mouth. The whole room seems to collapse in on me, I whirl within it, spinning.
‘Hey … hey … what’s wrong? Are you okay?’
I look up at her. She’s standing over me, her performance over, trying to feign a smile, but clearly worried.
‘Are you drunk?’
‘No … no … I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here … I’m not supposed to be here … that’s all … I really shouldn’t be here …’
‘Fifteen pounds, then …’
‘No … no … I can’t pay. If I pay then it’s real … I’ll just go … I’ll just get out of here and go home.’
‘You’ve got to pay …’
‘No …’
She signals to someone near the curtain who I hadn’t noticed was there when we walked in. Other dancers have stopped now and people are looking over at me. She puts her thong and stockings back on, nearly tripping up as she steps back away from me, just as the hefty bouncer I was listening to moments before walks over to us.
‘He refuses to pay.’
‘Really.’
It happens quickly. I am on my back, chair legs interrupting my vision. He stands over me and demands my wallet. I give it to him. He passes the fifteen pounds to the girl and then throws the wallet back at me. Something hits me in the ribs and the air disappears from my lungs. I am gasping for breath. Suddenly I’m being dragged across the stinking carpet; I can feel it burn my knuckles. The door swings open. Cold air. I swallow it. I can see blackness and orange, headlamps and paving stones. The whiff of petrol fumes. I come to my senses on the pavement; I scramble to my feet, clutching my wallet. He’s standing by the door, looking down at me.
‘Now, fuck off!’
I walk away. My ribs hurt, but it’s manageable. The traffic beside me is waiting at a red light at the junction of Rosebery Avenue. I can sense passengers on buses looking at me. I continue to walk, in a strange myopia; just the pavement ahead to lead me away from what has just happened.
the phone call
I can’t remember my journey home. I figure I must have used the usual route. I just remember opening the door to my flat and the smell of something stale irritating my nostrils. I think I must have fallen asleep on the sofa, after making myself some food, as I have a vague recollection of being in my kitchen for a short time, standing over a hob, eating something from the pan before it was even cooked properly. Then blackness.
I’m interrupted by a persistent ringing, which becomes louder and louder in the blackness until I realise it’s my phone. Before I know it my eyes are open and I’m fumbling for it. I stare at it as it rings. I answer just in time. It’s my brother.
‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Something bad happened …’
‘I’ve been phoning all day …’
‘I’ve been asleep …’
‘All day?’
‘…’
‘Listen, I need to talk to you …’
‘I’m all ears …’
‘It’s Uncle Rey …’
‘What’s he done now?’
‘He’s dead … Suicide … Hanged himself.’
‘…’
‘It happened the other week, but no one knew. He’s been in that caravan all week … dead … I was …’
‘No one knew?’
‘No, no one … I was supposed to be travelling to the island today to clear things up. They asked me to come down, to clear his stuff, but I have to go to France to meet our new clients. I can’t get out of it …’
‘And …’
‘You need to go to the island … to clear Rey’s caravan, to go through his belongings and pack them all away … sort it all out before it’s removed.’
‘Jesus … Uncle Rey …’
‘It has to be done …’
‘Jesus, Cal … I don’t need this right now …’
‘Jon, please, it needs to be done … since Dad died there’re only us two, we have to take care of shit like this now.’
‘Fuck, Cal … Okay … I’ll go … I’ll go … I’ll do it.’
‘You need to go there first thing … You need to go to the Lobster Smack pub near the sea wall at the jetty and ask for the landlord, Mr Buchanan, he’s the owner of the caravan site, too … he has the keys …’
‘Right, right … Fuck, Cal, you owe me …’
‘I know … Like I say, I can’t get out of the France trip.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
I roll off the sofa and fall into a dirty heap on the floor. My ribcage is seized in a paroxysm of pain. The previous night comes flooding back. I groan and think about what I should eat for breakfast.
recollections
The train journey from Fenchurch Street Station to Benfleet passes without incident, apart from a couple of trips to the toilet in the next carriage to vomit – something that repels the other passengers unfortunate enough to be able to hear my retching. As I walk back to my carriage the second time I hear two women talking about me, and I purposely slow my steps so I can hear each word.
‘Probably on drugs …’
‘It’s disgusting …’
‘Really … on a train?’
‘It’s disgusting …’
‘Other people around, too …’
‘Horrid.’
‘Some people have no manners.’