Last Train to Gloryhole (51 page)

‘Not really,’ admitted Jake.

‘Slinky number?’ said Steffan, staring into his friend’s eyes. ‘Slinky, yeah? Going downstairs? Oh, forget it, Jake. You know, sometimes I reckon he’s only interested in the universe, Volve.’

‘Then that must mean I’m interested in absolutely everything there is, wouldn’t you say?’ said Jake, grinning.

Running his wet, beery fingers through his straight, dark hair, Volver eyed Jake warily. This guy was a liability if ever there was one, the Afrikaner was thinking. He would probably need to put him in the front-line sooner rather than later, he told himself. He had misgivings about it for Steffan’s sake, but it was clear that, at the end of the day, Jake would prove to be a sacrifice worth making. Yes, the South African felt quite sure of this fact, and, if truth be told, he could even foresee in his mind’s eye the scenario in which Jake’s demise was most likely to occur. He just hoped it wouldn’t need to be as messy, or as time-consuming, as the last time, that’s all.

Volver turned to watch Leone’s nervous movements, which, for some reason, seemed more frenetic than ever tonight. Witnessing at first-hand the racing metabolism that had kept her figure movie-actress thin, and barely weathering the tear-gas attack of her latest perfume, he listened with a certain admiration, as she loudly berated the behaviour of a scrawny, gangly youth who was standing sheepishly behind her at the pool-table, and who had most likely run his four-foot cue up her mini-skirt. Volver turned away and sipped his drink, feeling that he couldn’t really blame the guy, since the Welsh girl, standing hand-on-hip before him, was clearly dressed to kill tonight, and, from her reactions at the pool-table, most likely wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

It could easily be on account of the quantity and the variety of drink he had consumed this evening, Volver mused, but large, white, cartoon puffs of steam appeared to be shooting out of the petite girl’s ears as she spun round and bawled for, what seemed, the final time at her callow-faced, local adversary. The South African watched keenly as Leone suddenly turned and reached for the pool-cue herself, and, grabbing it firmly in both hands, and, waving it just the once, struck the hapless youth a smack on the side of the head that made his knees buckle. Simply smiling over at the abrupt onslaught, Volver felt that the poor man’s subsequent crash to the floor might easily have been mistaken for the last bar of a Bartok concerto, or the final, atonal chord of a symphony by Stockhausen. Yes, Leone was some tough cookie, and no mistake, the Afrkaner concluded, and so the pretty Welsh girl was just as much a liability to his future plans as was poor Jake, and, as a result, he would almost certainly have to let her go too.

But informing Steffan of Jake’s expendability could well backfire on him in the long run, he told himself, whereas hinting as much to the boy about Leone was unlikely to create such a problem. Either way, he thought, to avoid complicating his plans disastrously, he would be best advised to keep his feelings about the pair of them strictly to himself for the forseeable future. And anyway, he didn’t want anything to have the effect of unsaddling his present hurtling gallop towards hedonistic oblivion. There would come a time when he could unburden himself to Steffan, Volver told himself, but until that time arrived, his intention was only to consume as much of Leone as his precious time, and his folded tab of viagra, would that evening allow.

No, Volver thought, it was clearly best for the time being that Leone continue to presume she still held before her the prospect of a future with him, even though he had already judged her to be past her best physically at just nineteen years young, and so her chances were already hopelessly shot. Ah, well, he pondered, Man had always been the un-fairer sex, had he not? And, in truth, it had always been thus, and so he understandably felt he had a long and proud tradition to uphold in this regard. And so, winking across at Jake, and with this final thought in mind, Volver spun round and finished off what remained of his
Sidecar
, and swiftly forgave himself, well ahead of time, for the utter carnage he most assuredly knew lay ahead of them.

Considering the strange, unexpected response Chris had just given her, the middle-aged spinster in the squeaky court-shoes, chequered skirt-suit, and polo-neck sweater, from whose scrawny neck hung a chain-tag whose card read ‘
Stella Probert
,’ carefully placed her round, silver-framed, spectacles on the small table that sat between them, and regarded the uniformed student thoughfully.

‘Nothing can deform the human race like to The Armour’s tight embrace,’
she told him slowly, simulating a stern countenance throughout, while beating out an iambic metre on the table-top with two of her long, but unpolished, finger-nails on a left-hand that bore no ring.

‘Rhod Gilbert, yes?’ asked Chris, arching his brows.

‘Really? I thought it was William Blake,’ Stella told him, squinting suddenly and sitting back, so betraying more than just a faint sign of disappointment at his quirky response. ‘I’m sorry but isn’t Rhod Gilbert a comedian?’ she asked.

Chris nodded in reply. God, man! All he had done was to express to the woman an interest in joining
The Army
when he left school, Chris told himself. Of course, he wasn’t being serious, but he figured that this thin, rather emaciated, lady from the county’s
Careers Service,
(who looked for all the world like some pale-faced minion from
The Treasury
, and who, like him, probably hadn’t done a proper day’s work in her entire life,) would either be impressed by his reply and compliment him accordingly, or have a slight fit and respond in much the same way as she had in fact just done, except with far less cultivation and artistic awareness than she had actually managed. Well, there you go, thought Chris, it did seem that there were some women from the Rhymney Valley who were quite erudite after all.

‘Blake - of course,’ he said, grinning, having no idea whether it was or not. ‘I was only jesting. And if I’m not mistaken, I do believe he wrote that particular ditty not very long before he set off for the New Jerusalem. I’m right, aren’t I?’ This statement of his was, of course, complete garbage, but Chris was very interested to see how the geeky-looking woman responded

‘Yes, I dare say you’re right,’ the careers-officer replied, leaning her round, bunned-head on one side and beaming across at him.

Watching the woman fiddle nervously with her pen, as her eyes moved up, then down, his youthful body, Chris asked himself why it was that spinster-virgins were so easy to spot these days, and then wondered how many liquid
Stellas
he’d need to consume in a row before finally consenting to do this one. He chuckled inwardly. Well, she could certainly benefit from a piercing or two, he mused, smiling thinly, as well as perhaps a lot more besides.

‘Chris - what are you thinking right now?’ the woman suddenly asked him.

‘Oh, I was just wondering what - what exactly you had against the military?’ he replied. In truth Chris was actually ruminating over whether or not she had ever given head. ‘The pointy weapons, perhaps?’ he asked, pursing his lips. ‘The night-manoeuvres? All that banging?’

‘No, it’s not that at all,’ Stella told him, repeatedly licking her lips on the occasions when he wasn’t watching. ‘It’s just that, however hard I try, I just can’t seem to visualize you in fatigues, Christopher. You don’t really seem to fit the type somehow.’ The girl nevertheless attempted it.

Chris didn’t at all like being judged in this way, especially as he thought he looked rather hot on days when he donned his green combats, and so he planned a little further revenge. ‘I guess - like a lot of other people - I think I just want to join the Army to forget,’ he informed her.

‘To forget? To forget what?’ she asked, tilting her head to the side.

Yes, she had fallen for it all right. ‘Mm,’ Chris retorted. ‘I can’t seem to remember now.’

‘Very funny, Chris. Ha, ha,’ said Stella. ‘You’ll be telling me next, that you want to join the Foreign Legion, or some such thing,’ she said, putting her glasses back on, then leaning forward and scribbling something down on the one-page form that sat before her, and which Chris could see bore his full name, written in particularly large capitals, across the top.

Chris wasn’t at all happy with this either, and tried hard to read what the woman was jotting down, twisting his head round almost in a full circle to do so. But so illegible did he find Stella’s writing to be that he wasn’t able to make out a single scrawled word of it. Chris leaned back in his chair again and inhaled deeply. He hadn’t quite finished with this infernal, dowdy throw-back yet, he told himself. ‘But that’s French, isn’t it? The Foreign Legion, I mean,’ Chris told her, affecting a glum expression. ‘You know, I think I’d much prefer working in the British Legion.’

‘What on earth do you mean, you silly boy? There’s no such thing,’ Stella replied, giggling.

‘There is. There’s one at the bottom of town,’ he countered. ‘Just imagine the fun it would be to work there. I bet I could pull pints, serve spirits, and even get to sell those little red poppies all at the same time.’ He bit into his lip again to stop himself from creasing up.

Stella Probert finally realised what was happening, and she decided that didn’t like it one bit. ‘Stop it, Chris!’ she told him. ‘Come on, now, think. There must be something you could actually see yourself doing?’

‘Do you mean like installing mirrors?’ he replied, screwing up his mouth so as to stifle the short guffaw that very soon came out anyway.

‘Well, do you think you’d like that?’ she asked, completely oblivious to his latest jest.

‘Not really, no,’ Chris responded. ‘Look - I really can’t see how you’re going to be able to find a career for me, Miss Probert. I remember my sister was in the same boat when she left this place. Bethan. Do you remember? You interviewed her too, you know, when you first got your job here. She told me you reminded her of Thatcher.’ He saw how Stella was shocked by this. ‘But please don’t feel offended. You see - we both have the same problem with authority figures.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’ asked Stella, leaning forward and scribbling on the form again.

‘To be honest, yes,’ he told her. ‘Though I must admit Bethan’s a lot worse than me. She quit her job at the helium-gas factory on the very first day.’

‘Oh? And why was that?’ asked Stella.

‘She told the manager she refused to be spoken to in that tone.’ Chris leaned right forward, bending his torso up double in gloating euphoria.

‘O.K., that’s quite enough,’ remarked Stella. ‘You’re just making fun of me now, right?’

‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’ Chris retorted cryptically.

Stella stared at him, non-plussed by his response. ‘I wouldn’t know, does he?’ she asked, getting to her feet and walking over to a filing-cabinet near the large, single-pane window, through which Chris could see a school’s cricket-match taking place in the sunny distance, and which summer-term fixture, right now, he should have been taking part in. ‘But, whatever effect I had on your sister, I can tell you now I refuse to be treated in this way.’ She spun round and stared in his direction, looked at the clock on the wall, and, professional to the end, decided to press on regardless of the palpable anger that she was now desperately trying to quell within her. ‘Tell me Chris - have you seriously not got an ambition that you would like to fulfill in life?’

‘Yes I have, as a matter of fact,’ he told her.

‘And what is it?’ she asked, standing above him, hands-on-hips.

‘I want to be a rock-star, and be incredibly rich,’ said Chris. ‘You know, like Carla Steel.’

‘Like Carla Steel!’ the woman repeated, pouting manically.

‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘Though God only knows what advice you gave
her
.’

As Stella scribbled his response down, she pondered this, and surmised that her predecessor Bryn had probably met with her. ‘O.K. Well, all right then,’ she told him. ‘Now that wasn’t hard, was it?’ Stella picked up the form, pocketed it, placed her brief-case under her arm, and opened the door to leave. ‘I shall send you some leaflets re your choice within the next seven working days, Christopher. Although, I must say, rock-star isn’t one that I find I encounter most days.’

‘Mm, I can understand that,’ Chris told her, getting to his feet and loosening the tie that he now didn’t require out on the field. He watched the woman’s eyes drift down as he unfastened three buttons on his tight, white shirt and went for the fourth. ‘But that could be because the boys see you as a bit of a prude, Miss Probert, you know, and they don’t want to say anything that might - might shock your pants off.’ He beamed a sharp smile and unbuttoned on.

Studying him from behind, Stella was suddenly feeling flushed, and so took the top off her water-bottle and swallowed a mouthful. Screwing the top on, she turned away but stared surrepticiously as Chris pulled his white, short-sleeved cricket-shirt down over his slim, tanned torso. ‘By the way, Christopher,’ said Stella, ‘the reason I wasn’t able to help your sister Bethan, I remember, was that she told me, plain and simple, that she wanted to find the right man, have lots and lots of kids, and live the rest of her life on benefits. And, I’m sure that even you can appreciate that we simply don’t issue any leaflets on that.’

‘I see. Well, you might like to know that she managed to achieve it anyway,’ Chris told her, smiling a thin, pinched smile. ‘Three at the latest count.’

‘Children?’ enquired Stella.

‘No, no - partners,’ Chris replied. ‘But I have five lovely nephews and nieces now, and I look forward to having more as the years go by.’

Stella glared at him, trying to imagine the poverty and the shame this all entailed, and which she had successfully managed to avoid during her life, though quite naturally at a cost in terms of love and sex and motherhood - a bargain which she felt - no, she knew - she would always feel was well worth the making.

Stella Probert continued to study him closely - by now Chris had slipped off his shoes and socks - and licked her thin, parched lips for the final time. ‘Well, goodbye now, Chris,’ she told him, with a brief, manufactured smile that she felt suited all sorts of occasions, and clients of both genders. She then walked her squeaky little court-shoe-d feet out into the noisy, school-corridor, and, with a final, sly peek, pulled the heavy, window-less door tightly closed behind her.