The Cutting Room (18 page)

`Try going home now and again,’ shouts Moira across the

table. There’s laughter from the women, then a lull in the conversation while they recover from their hilarity and the men re-summon their dignity.

Into the hush breaks Dodgy Steve’s voice, soft, seductive and slurred with booze. `You’re gorgeous. I’d like to fuck your brains out.’

The table explodes into mirth again. The woman stands and

pushes Steve from his bar stool onto the floor. It’s a short drop and he does it easy, hitting the deck in a low roll. We get a glimpse of twin holes, one on the sole of each shoe, the size and shape of thrupney bits. It should be poignant but it isn’t and I laugh with the rest of them.

`Good on you, doll.’

`Away over here and sit with us -he’s nothing but a wee sleaze.’

The women pull her to them.

`You here on your own?’

`Ach sit with us.’

`What’re you doing with him, anyway?’ Their concern is drink-fuelled and inquisitive.

Moira’s talking now, holding the table. They listen in silence, reaching for their drinks every now and then but pacing themselves, No one moves for the bar before she has

finished. She’s in her early fifties. A dealer in whites. Moira can turn a piss-stained sheet from Paddy’s into a thirty-pound object of aspirant desire. She shifts the stains of decades with potions and patter.

`My mother and father never had a shop. I don’t know

why, maybe they just started on that way of doing things and it worked fine, so why go to the extra expense? Oh, and they loved the stuff. My mother liked nice things around her, so

whenever my father bought something good he’d bring it

home and the house became their shop. It’s all the rage now, your house as a showcase, but I never heard of anyone doing it before them. Trouble was, as a child you never knew where

you were. You’d be having your tea and someone would come

in and buy the table from underneath you. It’d be “Just mind a wee minute, Moira, Mister so and so just wants a look at the table. Take your plate away through to the front room beside Gran the now.” And all the while the newspaper would be getting taken off the table and you’d be buckled out of the

kitchen.’ The company like this, they’re laughing along. `It did have its funny side. I remember my granny, my mother’s

mother - she lived with us for a long time - I mind her sitting on a chair in front of the fire, comfy as a queen, just beginning to doze off, when there was a ring at the door. My father went to answer it and next thing you know he’s shifting her.

“Come on then, Mum,” he’s saying, “you’ll be as comfortable

on this chair as that and there’s a chap willing to pay five shillings for your move.” Oh, she never let him forget that

one. Still, as a child it was unsettling. They’d bring in this cabinet or something, they’d be saying how it was the nicest thing, the best of its kind they’d ever seen, next thing you know this gem was gone.)

‘But that’s the name of the game, Moira,’ cuts in Arthur.

`You’ve got to buy to sell and you’ll buy what you like.’

`I know that now, but I was just a wee girl. The thing was,

they were always saying how lovely I was, how I was their

best girl and there was no one as pretty as me in the whole

world. The same time they were polishing and repairing the

stock, they were brushing my hair, feeding me up, putting me in nice frocks. I thought they might sell me. I mean, I wasn’t sure where I’d come from but they obviously thought a lot of

me and I reckoned I would get a good price. Every time the

door went I thought my time was up.’

The company laugh again.

`He maybe would have, Moira,’ shouts a voice, `just never

got a good enough offer.’

`Aye, maybe so,’ says Moira, `maybe so.’ And she sounds

sad.

The company moves on, rounds bought. I move closer and

ask, `So you realised, Moira, that they loved you and wouldn’t sell you like a tallboy or a coat stand??

‘Not for a long time. My mother had another bairn,

see, a wee boy; they called him Charles and you can

imagine the fuss they made - oh, they loved that baby.

There’d been five years between me and him and I can

only think they thought their family was complete. It was

Charles this and Charles that, but I never felt jealous, I

thought he might be more liable to sell. It made me feel

that bit safer.’

`Poor you.’

`No, there was worse. Thing was, Charles died. A cot

death, I suppose, but it fuelled all my suspicions. In those days no one spoke to children about that kind of thing. It

was their way of protecting you, but all that happened was

you made up your own reason, which was usually worse. I

thought they’d sold Charles and I was next. My mother

cried every day for a year and I hated my father for selling him. Hated him for years, until hating him became a habit. I don’t think he ever knew what he’d done wrong. He was a

good man, my father.’

She looks upset so I pat her arm and buy her another

whisky and ginger.

lain’s watching us. He thinks Moira is maudlin, bringing

down the mood. He holds out his wrist to Steve, pulling up

his shirt cuff.

`New watch, lain?

‘Aye, genuine imitation Rolex.’

The game has started. An illustration of the dealer’s ethos.

Everything is for sale. Walk into my house, appraise my

person. These are the men who embarrass their wives by

examining the underside of crockery in the neighbour’s house.

Who offer to buy the furniture in the B & B. Take them out

for dinner and their eyes rove the restaurant.

`You like?’ He undoes the buckle and passes it across the

table to Steve.

Steve turns it over in his hand. `Nice, really nice.’ Steve

knows nothing about watches. He’s a swag man, purely cash & carry and end-of-lines.

`Tell you what, I could let you have it for fifty.’

Steve pretends impressed. `Sounds like a good deal. I just

bought this the other week otherwise I’d’ve been interested.’

He raises a lean wrist, displaying his own watch.

`Let’s have a look.’ And Steve has no choice but to hand it

over. `Och aye, it’s nice enough, fine for every day, not as good as the one you have there, though. Tell you what, I’ll do you a special deal. I’ll give you thirty for this, then that’s just twenty you owe me.’

Anyone else would tell him to get stuffed, but Steve

reaches into his pocket and takes out his roll, surprisingly big, and hands over the twenty.

Arthur gets into the act. `That’s a bonny tie, lain.’

`Do you like it? My mother gave it to me just before she

died. “lain,” she said, “this tie was your daddy’s. Before that it was his daddy’s and his daddy’s before him. Where he got it from I’m not sure. Won it in a game of cards, likely. It’s our

only heirloom. Treasure it, son.” And then she passed away.

Do you really like it??

‘It’s a cracker. I’ve never seen such a smart item.’

`Yours for a fiver, then.’

The fiver is delivered, the tie uncoiled and handed over.

lain slings it round his own neck, then leans across the table.

`Arthur, that really is a smart shirt.’

The women start to object.

`No, lain, leave him his shirt.’

`Come on, son.’

But they’re laughing as well.

`Calm down, ladies, it’s only his shirt. It could be his

trousers I was admiring,’ Moira clutches her face in embarrassment at her own mirth, `or his underpants.’ They are

beyond themselves now, holding each other and wiping their

eyes. `But it’s only his shirt, and you must admit it’s a pretty fine example of the tailor’s art. Tell me, Arthur, would that fine shirt be for sale?

Arthur is boozed to the eyeballs but he’s still in tune with the game. `Of course it is, lain. Everything is for sale, even the shirt off my back.’ He pulls off his jacket, opens his arms and displays the shirt in question to the world. It’s lawn

cotton, slightly yellowed, with a faint textured stripe.

Arthur’s nipples, pink, trimmed with hair, show through

the thin weave. There is a stain the colour of weak tea

under each arm. `For you a special price, today only, five

pounds.’

`R bargain indeed.’

Arthur unbuttons his shirt, exposing his fish-white chest, a sparse scattering of dark hair, his drinker’s belly.

`Ach, put it away man, put it away.’

`A deal’s a deal.’ Arthur laughs, unembarrassed, taking the

folded blue note from lain’s outstretched hand, bundling the shirt up and throwing it across the table at him.

`Hey, Rilke man, that’s some jacket.’

They’re teasing me, testing me out. I shake my head, but

there’s no getting away from it. I’m part of the game.

`Christ it’s flattering. You look a hundred dollars in that.

What would a jacket like that go for?’

`Well, Arthur,’ I say, `it’s been good to me this jacket. In fact, I call it my lucky pulling jacket’ - they Oooh at me from across the table - `but I like you and I think perhaps it would help you out, so to you, ten pounds.’

`Does it work on lassies as we111’ asks Arthur.

`Now that, my son, is something you’ll have to find out for

yourself.’ I am as drunk as they are.

`You know it’s been so long I think I might tarn queer. A

ten spot it is.’

He gives me the note and I empty my pockets, laying my

wallet, keys, the netsuke still wrapped in my handerkchief on the table. Quick as a flash Arthur is onto the netsuke. Sober or drunk he has an eye.

`It’ll be in the next sale. I should have left it up at Bowery.’

`You just don’t see these any more. This is museum

quality. Christ, I’ve drunk more than I thought if I’m telling you that. Steenie, you sell enough dirty books, what do you

make of this wee grotesquerie?

Arthur threw the netsuke in the air and caught it, pretending to launch it across the table towards the solemn

brother, but retaining it in his grasp.

Steenie wasn’t smiling. He looked at the clock above the

bar, downed the dregs of his pint, then grimaced, as if it had tasted bitter. `That’s me away.’

His brother reached out as if to restrain him.

lain chipped in,

`It’s hours to last orders. Hang on and I’ll get you

another.’

`No. I’m fu’ enough.’ Steenie rose from his seat, he looked at me, hesitated, then shook his head as if he wanted to rid it of something. `Early start tomorrow. I’ll see yous all later.’

He made his way towards the door.

`Ach, Arthur,’ chided Moira, `you shouldn’t tease Steenie.

You know he’s religious.’

`Aye, one of the righteous. He gets on my tits.’ Arthur

remembered John’s presence and nodded towards him.

`Sorry, no offence, I ken he’s your brother.’

`None taken. Just be thankful you don’t have to live with

him.’

Laughter returned to the company, a Saturday-night fracas

avoided. Without thinking I picked up my belongings, making

sure of the netsuke, and started after Steenie.

`Hey, Rilke, hold on, you’ll catch your death.’ Arthur

shoved a jacket at me. I struggled to put it on as I went, drink making me awkward. In the hours we’d been there the bar

had grown busy, and now it was standing room only. I eased

my way through the press of bodies, trying to keep Steenie in sight, almost closing in on him as he reached the exit, slipping my left arm into its sleeve, reaching to catch the door before it slammed. My elbow knocked against a tray of drinks being

ferried across the room sending them into the air. `For

Christ’s sake!’ Tumblers, pint glasses and shorts hit the floor together in an almighty smash. A cheer went up from the

drinkers and Victor Gilmartin came towards me with his hand

out.

By the time I’d settled with Victor for the drinks Steenie

was nowhere to be seen. Half a mile from the pub I realised that instead of my sober black jacket I was wearing Arthur’s dogtooth check.

Dark and wrinkled like a violet carnation Humbly crouching amid the moss, it breathes, Still moist with love that descends the gentle slope

Of white buttocks to its embroidered edge.

Rimbaud and Verlaine,

`The Arsehole Sonnet’

IT WAS TOO EARLY to go home. I found myself heading

towards Usher’s. Once there I knew I had made a mistake:

there was nothing in the throng of well-dressed men that

drew me. They were too clean, too well disposed.

I took my drink and sat in a corner by the window. In the

street opposite, a young man leaned out of a third-floor

tenement, taking the air. He stretched his body, then, in a

single move, discarded his white T-shirt, pulling it over his head, tossing it behind him, somewhere into the dark recesses

The Worm on the Bud • 149

of the room. A shaft of light cut across the building,

illuminating his torso, silver-white in the black of the window.

He reached up and pulled the blind half down, leaving

his body on view, concealing his face.

I sipped my beer, looked at the bustle of men in the bar

around me, then returned my gaze to the boy, wondering if

he could see me watching him. He was sitting on a chair

now, his arm resting on the sill, swinging to and fro,

marking time to a beat I couldn’t hear. I watched the

shadows creep across the orange sandstone, reaching towards