Personal Darkness (9 page)

Rachaela had known Camillo was burned to cinders.

She imagined him lying on a bed with the two girls like limpets, showering him with hair.

She felt far older than Camillo.

WARM SUNSHINE STILL HOVERED HIGH up over the street; it would be light for another hour. No one was about. In the five-foot front garden of the empty house adjoining Julie and Terry's, dusky opium poppies had sprung wild between the old concrete paving. The nettles around Julie's dustbin were gilt-edged. It was a peaceful scene spoiled only by sound effects: the music center was playing loud enough to be heard fifteen doors away.

Joseph Black and Jennifer Devonshire walked up the road. He was dressed very casually, but Jennifer wore a short pink flowery dress and twenty bracelets. She carried a carrier bag with a bottle of wine in it.

"Here we go," said Blackie, swinging through the gate in front of her. He rammed the knocker against the front door and shouted through the letter box: "It's a raid!"

It was Terry who came to the door in an orange shirt and very blue jeans.

"You're late."

"No car."

"Where's Lucy?"

"She's got a cold," said Jenny.

"She says," said Blackie. "It's a cold
sore"
He smiled at Terry and punched him lightly in the chest. "Worried?"

"Nah," said Terry, grinning. He looked worried.

They went in, and the great noise enveloped them. They seemed to like it, loosening and expanding like plants in refreshing rain.

"Someone to meet," said Terry.

Ruth was sitting on the settee in her black T-shirt and jeans. She had had a glass of wine but she had drunk it, now she only had the empty glass.

Blackie looked at her. "Who's she?"

"That's Ruth. This is Blackie."

"Everything they've told you about me is true," said Blackie.

"Hallo," said Ruth, but they did not hear her. Unlike the others she did not shout effortlessly above the music. She had taken some cottonwool from her bag and put it in her ears.

"Where's the frigging booze?" asked Blackie.

Julie appeared out of the kitchen with a wine bottle and a glass for Jenny, and one for Lucy who had not come.

"Where's Lucy?"

"She's got herpes," said Blackie.

"Don't tell lies," said Jenny.

Terry took cans of beer out of the fridge, and he and Blackie opened them, in a spray of fizz.

Julie filled Jenny's glass and her own. Then, reluctantly, Ruth's.

"Who's Ruth, then?" inquired Jenny. Ruth watched her, perhaps reading her lips.

"Better ask Terry."

"Oh."

There was a crash from the music center and then a silence louder and more painful than the noise. The tape had ended.

"Put on some reggae," said Blackie. He gyrated his hips and waved his arms in unsuccessful imitation. "Cool, mon."

Julie hurriedly selected a tape and put it on.

"Look, a bird that can drink," said Blackie. Ruth had drained her glass again. "Like a beer, darling?"

"All right," said Ruth, soundlessly under the music.

"Eh?" said Blackie.

Ruth held out her hand, and he playfully put his can of Carlsberg into it. Ruth handed him the can back.

"She doesn't want to drink yours," said Terry. "Very sensible. God knows what she might catch." He went into the narrow kitchen and got another beer from the fridge, replacing it with four others.

When he came back, Blackie was sitting beside Ruth on the settee.

Julie and Jenny were dancing to the music, ignoring Blackie and Ruth. Julie's high heels kept catching in the carpet, but it was too soon to take them off.

"Guess what line I'm in," Blackie was saying to Ruth. Ruth looked at him. God, what eyes she had, Terry thought, like bloody Greta Garbo. And black as tar.

Ruth did not guess.

Terry said, "He fixes cars."

"Yeah," said Blackie. "Nothing I can't see to. That's how I met our Julie. Fixed her up. 'Course, they ain't got a car now. Old Terry splattered it, didn't you?"

Terry drank down his beer. "It was a fucking drag. Always going wrong. You never fixed it. It got worse after you had your paws on it."

"Secret of my success," said Blackie.

"You've buggered yours up too. Now my Morris," said Terry. "Did the whole of Cornwall in that car."

"Yeah, place called Mousehole," said Blackie to Ruth.

"It's pronounced Mowsel," said Terry.

"Oooh," said Blackie. "Well, fark me.
Moosil
."

He looked up at Julie and Jenny disco dancing awk-wardly on the catchy carpet. "Come on, show a bit of whoopsie."

Julie glanced at Blackie archly, but said nothing.

Blackie shrugged. He got out a packet of cigarettes and a big gold lighter. He showed the lighter to Ruth. "See this? Present from a grateful customer. A bird." He put a cigarette in his mouth, flipped the lighter and raised the yellow petal of flame. When the cigarette was alight, he flipped the lighter over. "Look, it's inscribed to me.
B to B
."

"Don't you believe it," said Terry. "He fucking knocked it off. Or someone left it in a car."

Ash trembled from the cigarette to the carpet. Blackie rubbed it smartly in with his big black shoe. Julie gave a grunt and broke off from her dance. She went to the fire surround and picked up an ashtray, which she then set down by Blackie on the toffee-wood table, moving the tape player to do so. "Use that."

"Use that. Yis, Modum. Lovely."

"You brought the stuff?" Terry asked Blackie.

"I might."

"Where is it?"

"Easy, man," said Blackie. "I got it." He patted his hip.

Ruth stood up.

"You know where it is," said Terry.

Ruth moved out of the room. Terry watched her.

"Nice arse," said Blackie. "Don't say much. Fine by me."

Ruth went up the stairs, visible from the open door of the through-room. Terry went on watching her, out of sight.

Jenny broke away from the dance now. "I think I'll just go up, too."

Julie refilled her own wine glass. Blackie laughed.

Ruth was standing inside the tiny bathroom trying to shut the door when Jenny called, "Can I come in," and came in, so Ruth was forced back. Jenny squeezed past Ruth through the two and a half feet of space between the bath and the wall. "Don't worry about the door. You can't ever shut it. The guys won't come up while we're here. I'm dying for a pee. Mind if I go first?" And she raised her pink skirt, lowered her white pants, and sat down on the lavatory.

Ruth froze. Over the
thump, thump
of the music, there came the plash of running water.

Ruth turned and went out of the bathroom.

Through the open door of the bedroom the double bed lay dressed in red and gray triangles. The black and white cat crouched at its foot, ears laid back, eyes wide.

Ruth went into the room and knelt by the cat. She smoothed its fur and kissed it between the ears.

The cat got up and went to the wardrobe, and scratched at the panels. Ruth opened the wardrobe door. The cat darted inside. Ruth left the door ajar.

The lavatory flushed.

Jenny had come out of the bathroom and now stood in the bedroom doorway.

"Julie gets fed up with that cat in her wardrobe." She forgot the cat. "I'd like a really big house, wouldn't you? Three or four bedrooms. And a swimming pool. Have you known Terry long?"

"No," said Ruth.

"He's not bad," said Jenny. "Better than that Blackie."

Ruth stood against the hard forms of the bed, in her long, long hair and silence. There was something… childlike?

Jenny frowned. "How old are you?"

Ruth said, "It's none of your business."

"Oh, you're going to be great, you are," said Jenny angrily. She turned and went away down the stairs, her bracelets clashing.

Ruth looked at the bed. The duvet was folded back.

Downstairs they all laughed suddenly. Ruth intently stared at the floor, as if she could see through it at the top of their heads.

At about nine, when they had drunk quite a lot, Jenny and Julie were sent out to the Indian in the high street for a take-away. "Go on," said Blackie, "you're liberated. You don't need us to hold your hand."

"Bring back some more beer," said Terry.

Ruth did not offer to go out with the girls.

After some argument, Jenny and Julie went.

On some level now alone, the two men formed a sort of conspiracy, sitting on the floor and letting one of the beer cans spill over, and chuckling. Ruth sat above them on the settee, with the last of the wine.

"Let's have a smoke now," said Blackie. "Before they get back."

He drew out cigarette papers and some loose tobacco, and another substance, sweet and grassy smelling, in a cellophane packet. He began to make an untidy brown cigarette.

When this was lit, the men passed it back and forth, drawing on it deeply, with half-closed eyes. A foreign scent, like the musk of ancient temples, filled the room.

Terry offered the remaining half of the joint to Ruth. She shook her head.

"Go on. It's good stuff."

"No, thank you."

"It'll make you feel good."

"Perhaps she feels good enough," said Blackie. He tore open a beer can, showing her the raw edge. But his voice had slurred now, his eyelids were at half-mast, he looked sleepy.

Terry was brighter, energetic. He pushed the joint at Ruth. "Haven't you smoked before? I'll show you how."

"Stop pissing about and pass it here," said Blackie.

"I fucking paid for it," said Terry.

"And I fucking got hold of it."

Terry gave the joint to Blackie, who finished it off.

"The girls'll smell it when they get back," said Terry like a naughty little boy who had been reading in bed after lights-out.

But when the girls came back they too were high, for they had had a couple of gins at the restaurant while they waited. Jenny sang the praises of the Indian waiter she fancied. "Oh, his
eyes
. They're
beautiful
."

"Not so beautiful as Ruth's," said Terry. He lifted Ruth's hand and kissed it, but Ruth neither pulled away nor seemed pleased.

Julie picked up the torn can and took it out to the bin in the kitchen.

The aluminium dishes were opened up and another foreign fragrance filled the room. This time it was Julie who asked Ruth for the money for her chicken tikka.

They had not brought back any beer, only two more bottles of wine.

Julie and Jenny began their prawn curries, and Terry forked up a lamb passanda. Blackie, who had ordered a tandoori mixed grill, potato bhajee and vegetable curry, had spread his dishes out along the carpet, dipping in naan bread and splashing.

They all ate hungrily. The music, now habitual as air, blared on, ignored.

Jenny wiped her lips and fingers on a Kleenex. She looked across at Terry. "Would you like to see my new bra?"

"Black lace," said Terry.

"Wrong," said Jenny. She stood, a little unsteadily, and, unzipping her dress, pulled it up her body and off over her head. "What do you think?" She was not wearing a bra. Her two breasts stared at them like eyes with round beige pupils. Jenny shook herself, and her breasts wobbled.

"And what bra is our Julie wearing?" said Blackie.

He had taken out the paper and tobacco again, and among the empty smeary dishes, was constructing another joint.

"You'll have to guess," said Julie. "I'm not sure you're really interested."

Blackie nodded. "Maybe not. I bet Ruthie's got a good one on."

"Well," said Jenny, "I bet you won't get to see it."

Blackie lit the joint from his gold lighter
B to B
, and drew on it as if performing a yoga breathing exercise. He passed the joint directly across to Jenny.

"Ruthie'll show me." He looked up at Ruth and bared his teeth. "Won't she, eh?"

Ruth looked down into Blackie's face. Her eyes were the night of temples far, far to the east, a night deeper than the neon dark which had settled on the house. Terry stared at her long mascara lashes. He realized he had not felt anything like this for a girl for half a year.

"You stay here, Ruth," he said, stumbling on his words, on the taste of curry and hash and beer and wine, and on the chill-sweet bottomless aroma of desire. "You stay with me."

But Ruth got up, and Blackie had got up from the floor.

Julie said loudly, "Blackie, you cunt."

"Dead right," said Blackie.

"Don't use the fucking bedroom," shouted Julie.

"We'll use the camp bed," said Blackie, with kindly reassurance.

Terry tried to stand up. Jenny pulled on him. He sank down and Jenny put her hand possessively over his fly.

Thump, thump
, went the music, and the house went on thrumming like a space ship,
thump, thump, thump
.

Blackie walked in front of Ruth into Terry's lair and turned on the light. The curtains were drawn. Blackie sat down on the camp bed, bouncing once, to test it. Then he undid his trousers. His penis burst free.

"Take your clothes off," slurred Blackie. "And then come and try this. It'll taste of curry. Wait and see."