Dreams of Leaving (65 page)

‘Hello?' he said.

‘I was wondering when you were going to call.'

‘Mary?' He hardly recognised her voice. It sounded so emaciated. As if it had been sent to a concentration camp for voices. But that only delayed him a second. ‘Mary, something's happened. I've found out who – '

‘Wait a moment, Moses,' her voice cut in, gathering strength. ‘Listen to me. Just slow down and listen to me.'

The next five seconds were like watching a punch in slow motion: soft ripping as the fist split the air, then the sudden jolt as everything speeded up, happened too fast, as the punch connected.

‘Alan's dead. He died on Saturday – ' Her voice crumpled as it hit the sixth word.

Moses let his forehead fall against the cold glass of the phone-box. A different kind of shivering now. The pips went. You have to pay to go on thinking, he thought. He pressed another coin into the slot, then looked at the groove on his thumb that the coin had left behind. He was noticing things like that now. Things he usually skimmed over. The word
dead
did that. It turned you into a camera. Automatic pictures: those red ducks revolving in the window; that slush in the gutter; the words GOD and FUCK. God and fuck. That just about summed it up.

Saturday …

They had driven south to look for his parents. They had broken down on the way back. Mary had tried to phone Alan. She hadn't got through. And no wonder. Alan had been dead the whole time.

‘Mary – '

‘It's all right, Moses. I'm still not used to saying it.' A wry toughness in her voice. Almost cavalier, she sounded.

‘Shit, I don't – I don't know what – '

‘It's all right.'

Silence again. Their relationship hadn't been built to withstand anything like this. One moment they were sailing along, the next they were clinging to the wreckage. He pressed his forehead into the glass. Icepack-cold. Numbing. He wanted to see her, but he could only see the darkness behind his closed eyes. The colour of mourning. The colour of her clothes. Maybe he
was
seeing her.

Tap, tap.

Somebody was tapping on the glass. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of black shoes. Then a grey pinstripe suit and a furled umbrella. Finally a pinched indignant face. He turned round, faced the other way.

‘Can you hear me?' Mary said.

‘Yes.'

‘I want you to listen to me and try to understand what I'm going to say.'

He could hear the bravery in her voice. It made his voice catch when he answered her. ‘I'm listening.'

Tap, tap.

‘I don't want to see you, Moses. Can you understand that?'

‘I think so.'

Tap, tap, tap.

‘Don't call me and don't write. I need some time.'

‘OK.'

Tap, tap. TAP, TAP.

He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and pushed the door open.

‘I'm in a hurry,' the man with the umbrella said. ‘Could you please – '

‘Wait your fucking turn, all right?' Moses forced the words out, one syllable at a time, through clenched teeth. He pulled the door shut again.

‘Hello? – Moses? – '

‘It's all right. I'm still here.'

‘Do you understand what I've been saying?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you understand why?'

‘I think so. I'm trying to.'

‘That makes me feel a lot better.'

‘Good.'

Tap, tap.

‘I'm going to hang up now, Moses.'

‘OK.'

Tap, tap. TAP.

‘Goodbye then.'

‘Goodbye, Mary – and take care – '

But she had already hung up.

He listened to the dialling tone until it cut off. Then only void. A distant sputtering, like outer space.

Tap, tap, tap.

TAP, TAP, TAP.

He replaced the receiver and pushed the door open. He snatched the man's umbrella and, with a kind of weary strength, hurled it towards Cambridge Circus. It cartwheeled through the icy sky, spinning black on grey, and landed in the middle of Charing Cross Road. He thought he heard a discreet snap as it was crushed by the wheels of a passing cab.

‘Hey,' the man cried. ‘You can't just – '

‘I just did,' Moses said.

And walked away. No smile on his face. Not even a backward glance.

*

South from Soho.

It had always been a favourite walk of his. It used all the senses. The
sultry neon of strip-joints, arguments in Chinese, rack on rack of foreign magazines, the forest-fire crackle of pork frying, a million brands of cigarettes, cauliflowers bowling along the gutters, snatches of crisp disco-funk from curtained doorways, the steamy reek of Dim Sum whisked into the street by ventilator-fans. He usually dawdled. This time, though, he walked fast, automatically. A turbulent mixture of emotions drove him along like high-octane fuel. If he slowed he would explode. He didn't understand this impetus they gave him. He was no mechanic.

He suspected that he made an impression on the city that afternoon. His size, his haste – both excessive. As he burst into Piccadilly Circus he saw one tourist point and giggle. ‘Look at that English. Crazy, no?'

Yes, crazy. He had this exaggerated sense of his own power – as if, simply by walking across London, he could alter the course of history. On Haymarket he stepped out in front of a chauffeured limousine. The limo swerved, threw its passenger's bald head against the window. Afterwards Moses thought he had placed that bald head. It belonged to a senior cabinet minister. Would the minister now make an uncharacteristically shaky speech in the House of Commons?

Moses crossed Trafalgar Square on a diagonal, ignoring the traffic lights, the screech of brakes, the horns. He didn't even stop to swear at the pigeons (something he had got into the habit of doing recently). He stormed straight into Whitehall, oblivious, vacant, irresistible. The horseguards fought to control their mounts as he passed. No doubt several of the tourist snaps taken at the time would come out blurred. Shame. He wondered if he had rattled any of the windows in 10 Downing Street. He hoped so. Oh, for a million like me, he thought. Did the Ministry of Defence report any slight earth tremors? It didn't seem beyond the bounds of possibility. Not even Elliot, friend and benefactor, could put a stop to the projectile that Moses had become. He advanced to meet Moses, hands outstretched in greeting, only to be unceremoniously brushed aside and left spinning on his heels, like someone in a cartoon.

Moses didn't slacken his pace until he reached his bathroom. Never had he needed the soothing properties of his bath more urgently. He soaked for an hour and a half, waiting for calmness to descend, hardly daring to think. He lay in the bath until the water turned cold for the third time, until all he could see was a faint orange glimmer on the surface.

Alan dead.

Excluded from Mary's sorrow, confined to his own. That and the swirl of water as he stirred an arm or a leg. How close he was to that original memory of his.

Alone. The darkness. The sound of water. Dimly he began to understand
his fascination with baths.

Later he walked into the bedroom, lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

*

He woke two hours later, sticky and confused. Dreams he couldn't remember rustled in his head like tissue-paper. His mouth tasted sour. His anger had curdled, turned to defiance. He picked up the phone and weighed it in his hand. After a moment's hesitation, he called Jackson.

A fumbling on the other end, then a stammered, ‘Hello?'

‘Jackson?'

‘Moses!' Jackson cried. ‘I haven't seen you for ages. How are you?'

‘Not too good at the moment. What're you doing tonight?'

‘Tonight I'm busy. What about tomorrow?'

Moses hung his head, said nothing.

‘Why?' Jackson went on. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing. I just feel like seeing someone.' Moses allowed himself a wry smile. ‘It's a pity I can't see that ghost you're always going on about. That'd be better than nothing.'

Jackson produced a silence so incredulous that Moses wondered what he had said.

‘What ghost?' Jackson asked eventually.

‘The ghost you told me about. The ghost that was sitting next to me. You know, on the sofa,' and Moses pointed at the sofa, as if it proved something.

Another silence from Jackson, equally incredulous.

‘You do remember,' Moses said, ‘don't you?'

‘I hate to disappoint you, Moses, but there isn't any ghost.'

Moses gaped into the phone. ‘What?'

‘There isn't a ghost. There never was. I made it up.'

‘You what?'

‘I made it up. I thought you might be lonely living up there all by yourself, so I invented a ghost for you – '

‘But the coat-hook – ' Moses broke in. ‘The chair – '

‘They were just props, that's all. It was a story, you see.'

Moses sank on to the windowsill. He didn't know what to say.

‘Sorry if I messed you around, Moses.' It sounded as if Jackson meant it.

‘That's all right,' Moses said. ‘It's my fault. I mean, I was the one who believed it, wasn't I?'

‘Of course you believed it. You needed to.'

Needed
to? Moses was about to mock when he recognised a sort of
wisdom in what Jackson was saying. Moses had never thought of himself as lonely before, but didn't it make sense? Certainly he felt that way now. Typical of Jackson to pick up on something like that. Jackson had sensitivity, insight. He was a fund of delicate perceptions and responses. Back in August Moses had asked Louise whether there was anything going on between her and Jackson. Louise had smiled. ‘Well?' he had said. ‘Is there?' ‘Sort of,' she had replied. ‘What do you mean,
sort of?'
Louise had shrugged. ‘I slept with him once.' ‘And?' ‘And what?' ‘And what happened?' Louise's smile had deepened, become private. ‘He kissed my feet,' she said.

Moses could see Jackson now, almost as if they were in the same room. Those narrowed eyes, that enigmatic smile. A buddha, that's what Jackson was. Nervous and wiry and not gold at all, but a buddha just the same.

‘You still there, Moses?'

‘Yeah, I'm still here. Just thinking, that's all. You know, it's funny, but you're absolutely right. Even though I didn't think about her much, I kind of got used to the idea of her being there. I wasn't living alone. I was sharing with this woman who I never saw.'

‘Well, now she's moved out,' Jackson said. ‘Think of it like that.'

‘Yeah.' Moses laughed softly to himself. ‘You know something, Jackson? I didn't like people using her chair.'

‘Sometimes, Moses,' and Moses could hear Jackson smiling, ‘just sometimes, you really take the biscuit.'

‘Yes,' Moses nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.'

After he had hung up he leaned back against the window and sighed. With every phone-call, another loss. First Mary, now the ghost. Only the past for company.

He decided to risk one last call. He dialled Vince's number.

‘Yeah?'

Vince was home. Good.

‘Vince? It's Moses.'

‘So what.'

‘I need a favour.'

‘No.'

‘Just shut up and listen for a moment, will you. I want to get out of it.'

‘When?'

‘Tonight. Now.'

‘What the fuck's going on?'

‘None of your business. Can you organise it or not?'

Vince said nothing for a few seconds. Weighing up possibilities, no doubt. Sometimes Moses thought there must be scales in Vince's mind. A
gram of this, a spoon of that. Everything measured out in little envelopes.

‘Tell you what,' Moses said. ‘I'll meet you in that pub opposite you. About eight. You know the one I mean?'

‘'Course I fucking know. It's my territory.'

‘See you in a bit.'

‘Hang on. How long're you going to be there?'

‘Till I fall over.'

‘This sounds like fun,' Vince leered.

‘I doubt it,' Moses said, and hung up.

*

Moses arrived first, as he had expected to. Vince only did two kinds of waiting. He waited for his dealer, and he waited for girlfriends who had left him to come back. His dealer always showed, the girlfriends rarely did. Mere friends didn't rate as a priority.

Moses ordered a Pils and settled in a quiet corner. He was drinking to get drunk, drinking fast and with determination, so he would be able to sleep that night. He wanted time to pass, distance to happen. Like when you doze on a train. He sat there pretending the pub was a train.

Several stations later Vince turned up. He grinned at the debris of empty bottles on the table. That was what he liked to see.

‘Shit,' he said. ‘Must be my round.'

Unheard-of for Vince, this, but Moses didn't even crack a smile.

Vince obviously hadn't heard about Alan's death and Moses wasn't going to break the news to him so he felt weighed down at the beginning by stuff he couldn't offload, but as they moved from drink to drink and pub to pub, ever deeper into a world where objects and people Xeroxed themselves in front of his eyes, he floated free of all that. Time concertina'd, every action danced. He talked to Vince without saying anything, which was how most of his friends talked, which was how Vince, especially, talked, which was why he had called Vince in the first place. Vince didn't ask questions. Vince wasn't interested. They went to the Gents together to take Vince's sulphate and there was sufficient intimacy in that: two pairs of shoes showing under a single cubicle door.

At midnight they were leaving a basement wine-bar somewhere in Chelsea. Moses had been delayed over a discrepancy in the bill. When he climbed the stairs he found Vince wrestling with part of the décor. Some kind of framed print.

‘What the fuck're you doing, Vince?'