Strawberry Tattoo (25 page)

The restaurant was faster than the taxi driver. When he finally returned, with the air of someone who has discharged a heavy burden, we were settled happily in the back of the cab, busily engaged on a comparison between English and American takeaway Chinese.

“I love these containers,” I was saying enthusiastically through a spring roll as the driver settled back into his seat. We stowed the food quickly to avoid a series of Jackson Pollock splashes on our clothes as the cab pulled away.

“Everything OK, mate?” Lex said to him.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. You know how it is. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

“Right,” Lex said empathetically, and launched into an anecdote about being caught short in a pub with a long queue for the toilets. The driver gave little grunts of recognition every now and then. They were getting on so well that when the driver announced: “That’ll be fifteen bucks,” as
we pulled up outside my building, I was momentarily taken aback by his sheer cheek. What jolted me out of it was the knowledge that Lex would pay him if I didn’t say something, and then whinge about it afterwards. Men are pathetic about that kind of thing.

“No way,” I said firmly, recovering fast. “You made us wait for at least ten minutes and that’s much too much even if we hadn’t stopped. Three bucks.”

“Three bucks! No way! Twelve.”

“Four.”

“Ten.”

“Five, and that’s my final offer. Otherwise my friend here will empty our takeaway all over the back of your cab.”

The driver muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Fucking bitch,” and hit a switch. The meter printed a receipt and over its clicking came:

“Hi, this is Joan again, reminding you to take your belongings and to get a receipt from the driver. Could you let me know when we get to Grant’s tomb? I have a date with him!”

“That is so not funny,” I said, handing the driver the money. He pulled away while Lex was still getting out of the cab. The Chinese food nearly went flying. I caught it just in time. We had the last laugh, though. The cab was speeding away with its back door still open.

“Prat,” Lex said crossly, embarrassed at having done a two-step stumble over the pavement before he could catch his balance.

“I wonder if he’s going to stop to close that,” I said, looking after the cab as it U-turned and headed back downtown. Maybe the driver had been calculating that the speed of the manoeuvre would whip the door closed. If so he had turned the wrong way; it had had the opposite effect.

“Jesus,” Lex said.

“I know. One more cab-driving psycho to add to my list.”

But Lex wasn’t staring after the cab. He had just seen the doorman through the glass entrance doors, waiting, his hand on the brass handle, cap straight and jacket buttons shining, to let us into the building.

I smirked. “Welcome to my world,” I said, gesturing above us. “Look, I have an awning.” I headed for the entrance door. “You’re not in the East Village now, my boy.”

“Aaaaah! Aaaaah!
Shit!
” Lex slammed into the railings like a cartoon character about to flatten itself.

“God, Lex,” I said disapprovingly, “pull yourself together. It was just a little turn—ooops—
whoah
. …”

I grabbed at the railings to steady myself as a small dog yapped and snarled around my ankles. Fortunately they were protected by so much moulded plastic it would have snapped its teeth off if it tried to bite me. I truly hoped it would. But the pet rat yipped one last time, and trotted off, tinkling a miniature bell as it went. I glared after it. The Upper West Side was full of dogs like this, spoilt, petted fluffs of fur with raspberry sorbet tongues, clicketing along on tiny, sharp bird claws, being walked by women wearing coats which looked as if they were made out of all their previous Chihuahuas.

“Urn, hi?” Kim was saying. She floated up and swung in a generous circle in front of us, arms wide. “You guys just going to cling to that thing all day?”

“I was doing fine,” I said with hauteur, detaching myself from the railing and pushing off again. I stalled almost at once. “Ah, bugger. It’s the getting started that’s so tricky.”

“My boots’re pinching,” Lex whined.

“Come on, Lex,” Kim said with the pity a woman displays to a man who is making a feeble excuse, “you said they were too big in the shop. Here, catch onto me.”

Kim pivoted round and extended a hand to him, making everything look so easy that she encouraged me immeasurably by example; as if she had created a whole new way to move, effortless and fluid as the flow of water.

“You look wonderful,” I said to her enviously.

She skimmed forward, bringing Lex with her; he was hardly moving his feet, just letting her pull him along, beaming with enjoyment.

“You have to think of it differently,” she said seriously, swinging to a halt. “You OK?” she said to Lex. He nodded. “Look,” she went on, letting him go. “Most people, when they’re blading, make the mistake of closing themselves up too much. Because they’re nervous. But that’s the way you end up falling. Instead you should keep your hips open, and your shoulders back. Look.”

She swept away from us in a few long easy strokes, then turned, legs wide, like a bird riding on a current of wind.

“See where my arms are?” she called. They swung out from her body like wings, dipping and rising again. “Now look what happens when I hold them in.” She mimicked me and Lex, our elbows hunched to our sides. “You’re tying yourself up in knots. You gotta let go.” Again she pivoted around, her arms flying out with the speed of the turn, graceful as a figure skater. “They give you balance.”

I pushed myself off, getting more of a start this time, and bladed off towards her, letting my arms go out.

“That’s it! Keep ’em working!” Kim called.

I went right down to the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, halting neatly just before I hit the cobbled surround. I’d picked up braking pretty quickly; it was just a question of cocking one foot at the right angle to engage the lever on the back of the boot. Then I pushed off again, haltingly at first—I was going to have to practise that—and headed towards them again. Kim had both Lex’s hands in hers, and was blading around him, pulling him in looping ellipses. Their arms were outstretched, and they looked as if they were dancing, swinging each other in figures of eight. Country dancing on Rollerblades. There was probably somewhere in New York you could do that. It would be a snap for a town that had an S&M restaurant and one where all the waiters and waitresses were twins.

I flopped down onto a bench to catch my breath and watched them, Lex stumbling a little but gradually picking up confidence. Kim wore black leggings and a short black padded jacket which finished just above
her waist: stripped for action. She had the body of a professional athlete, lean and strong with a beautiful economy of movement. Lex, with his droopy jeans and layered T-shirts, looked like a bag person next to her. I marvelled once again at how she had changed. Gradually this new Kim was layering her image over the remembered one, like a palimpsest; traces of her as she had been ten years ago still slipped through, but they were fleeting now, and confined to tricks of expression, a particular way she had of turning her head, or her laugh.

We were on Riverside Drive at the end of 72nd Street, a tree-lined promenade which stretched away into the distance uptown. In front of me rolling banks of grass dipped gently down to the Hudson River. It was a lovely day, crisp and clear, sunlight glinting on the rich green grass and striking sparks from the grey stone paths. Further away, just visible over the brow of the little slope that dipped down to the shore, the river dazzled my eyes, every little wave and ripple reflecting the sun in an endless series of glass shards. Down by the statue a workman was setting up a couple of amplifiers and a microphone.

“Why don’t we try going down to the river?” Kim suggested. “You can handle that slope, can’t you, Sam?”

“I think so,” I said, looking at the long sweep of grey stone that curved down and away from us into a short underpass.

“Lex, I’ll take you down,” Kim said. “Just remember, if you bring your foot up enough there’s no way you’re not going to stop.”

Lex’s faith in Kim was strong. She had managed to relax him enough to make him nod now, swallowing hard, and follow her as she pulled him gently towards the start of the slope. Once I had worked out how much pressure to apply to the brakes, I skimmed down it.

“Wow!” I said, as I came through the underpass. On the other side was a further slope, stretching down to the river path, and I pushed on down, revelling in my ability to glide downhill. Kim said this was the most difficult thing to do. I turned at the last bend in the path and the river was in front of me, so wide that I could only dimly see New Jersey across the water. Tiny boats danced on the waves, glittering in the sun. It was idyllic.
The contrast could not have been stronger between this and the roaring filthy traffic behind us shooting up onto the myriad lanes of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Ahead some sailboats, moored in the boat basin, were bobbing lightly in the clear balmy October breeze. The sky was the faded blue-white of bleached denim, as suffused with light as a giant pearl.

An almighty crash roused me from my moment of serene contemplation. I swung round ungracefully to see Lex in a crumpled heap halfway down the last stretch of pathway, Kim sprawled over him.

“Jesus. Are you all right?” I skated over to them.

She was giggling. Lex looked slightly dazed, but was already sitting up, rubbing his head.

“Did you see it?” Kim said to me from her prone position. “Lex did this spin, he braked too hard—”

“I did a handbrake turn,” Lex informed me.

“—and he just went shooting around, I couldn’t stop him—”

“I’m sorry I took you with me,” Lex apologised, “I just couldn’t let go of your hand, it was like a lifebelt—”

“I probably slowed you down some,” Kim said fairly. “Stopped you shooting off into the river.”

“Anyway, you had a soft landing.” Lex prodded his stomach. “On my beer belly.”

“Nothing a few crunches at the gym wouldn’t fix,” Kim said. “I’ll take you along sometime.”

“Uh, hello?” I said. They were so absorbed they had forgotten my presence. I noticed that Kim seemed in no hurry to get up. Clearly, in the space of time it had taken us, this afternoon, to have a coffee and go to the blade shop, she had decided that Lex wasn’t the Strawberry Fields Strangler after all. Or perhaps it had been his boyish charm. Well, plenty of girls had made that mistake with Ted Bundy.

I was miffed. Kim was supposed to be my friend; I hadn’t seen her in ten years, and here she was practically ignoring me in favour of knocking down and falling on a young man who, merely last night, she had suspected of having evil designs on my windpipe. I admitted that Lex stood
up well to the harsh test of being seen in natural light. Still, there were limits.

“Hey, Kim,” I said in a louder voice, “do you need a hand up or are you going to stay down there for the rest of the day?”

To do her justice, she did look a touch embarrassed.

“Right, off we go,” she said, rising lightly to her feet.

“Lex,” I inquired, “can you feel all your limbs? If not, I’m sure Kim would be happy to do it for you.”

Kim shot me a filthy glance.

“In her role as instructor, of course,” I said smoothly. “Come on, up, up, up. I want to go and see the sailboats.”

Some kind of festival was taking place at the boat basin. Two lines of pumpkins were arranged along the moorings, their bright orange gleaming against the blond wood like little fires, and a small crowd of people was gathered on the far end of the j etty. We took our blades off and hung them over our shoulders so we could walk onto the jetty and see what was happening. A big sailboat was moored at the end, its deck piled high with pumpkins. White sails beat above them like wings in the wind. The fittings on the boat were painted dark blue, and the hairy coils of rope curled on the boards were sunbleached to the neutral shade of sand. The orange of the pumpkins burnt against their background, the only touch of bright colour, flaring up into the sunlight. One by one we went up the plank and stood on the boat, which rocked softly under our feet. Suddenly I found myself appreciating the attraction of messing about on the water.

“It’s owned by this local charity,” Kim said, reading the information off a leaflet someone had handed her. “For underprivileged kids. They take them out and teach them how to sail.”

“That’ll be useful in later life,” I commented.

Kim cuffed the back of my head. “And I thought
I
was cynical. Jesus.”

“You ladies want to buy a pumpkin?” said one of the boat’s crew. He was tall and tanned and superfit, with short fair hair and those fine silvery sailor’s lines running in crow’s-feet out from the corners of his blue, blue eyes. I blinked in appreciation.

“No thanks,” Kim said, her tone full of regret.

“Hallowe’en’s coming up!” he persisted charmingly. “You’ll need one then!”

“It’s all we can do to stay on these things as it is,” I explained, pointing to my blades. “A pumpkin would crucially unbalance us.”