With Love and Squalor (3 page)

Chez Prune has one of those quaint bathrooms where men and women share the sinks and the mirrors, the kind of thing that reminds you how chilled the French are about such matters.

I put on lipstick, brushed my hair, checked my teeth for stray bits of salad and blew myself a kiss.

When I got back to my table and the fresh air, there was someone new to check out kneeling on the opposite side of the road.

This time it was as if he’d been plucked from my own imagination, as if he’d been painted into the scene while I’d been away.

The beard he wore was practically a work of art, neatly sculpted to pencil thin it lined the edge of his angular chin. A pendant dangled from a chain that fell from his unbuttoned shirt and his ponytail was kept neatly in place by a perfectly tied black, velvet bow.

It didn’t even matter to me that he was wearing rectangular shades in the half-light of dusk.

I’m not sure even to this day whether it was because I’m fickle or because I was getting cold feet, but I didn’t sit back down at my table.

Instead I picked up my glass and carried it over to where the young man worked, sketching busily on the floor.

“Funny time to start.” I was becoming a lot more confident about speaking French. Hardly had to think about what I wanted to say any more.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“There aren’t many people passing this time of night,” I tried to explain as I took a look over his shoulder.

The outline he’d drawn was of a man lying sprawled face down between the canal and the road.

The hands of the artist worked quickly, selecting pastels from his box and rubbing and shading with paper-towels.

It wasn’t long before he’d finished the trousers, creases and folds immaculately placed at the bend of the knee.

 “So do you come here often?” I was hoping he’d see the funny side of the question.

Didn’t bat an eye-lid.

“Forgive me,” he finally said. “Time is short.”

He stood to check his work and knelt again. “I must finish by 10:47. Then I can talk.”

Typical of me to start a conversation with a nut job I thought, only I wanted to see how the picture turned out almost as much as I wanted him to get inside me. I wandered over to the canal bridge and sat on the steps. Came close to telling him I needed to get laid by 10:56 to see if he could fit me in.

Didn’t.

He set to work on the feet, shading the pink of a sock between turn-up and a brown leather shoe to the left, on the right making it all sock, even drawing a hole over the big toe.

“Tell me,” I urged. “You’ll finish on time.”

He looked at his watch and began to talk.

“I’m from a long line of crocheteurs,” he said as he sketched a shoe in the middle of the road, stepping back every so often to let a scooter or a car go by. “Pickers, I mean. Rag and bone men.”

“Rag and bone men?”

“Two centuries ago, my ancestors raked through the Paris garbage every night. What they found they sold at the city walls.”

He drew a few coins here and there cool as you’d like, then got back to the main body of work.

“But you’re not looking through garbage.” I looked up at the waiter across the road. Gave him a little wave. He opened his hand, gestured at the lights and went over to take an order from the boys.

“True, but things change. We evolve. The jobs your children will do are yet to be invented.”

“I don’t have children.”

“You will.” If it was a chat-up line, it wasn’t the best I’d heard. “The other name for what they did was ‘pecheurs de la lune’.”

“Fishermen of the moon,” I said in English just to hear the beauty in the phrase. “So that’s who you are.”

“Correct.” He wiped his hands quickly and started work on the shirt.

The picture reminded me of someone. I tried to shake the thought from my head on account of the way the limbs were twisting.

“The time please?” he asked, too busy to check for himself.

I checked my watch. “Three more minutes.”

He stopped talking and I stopped asking him things.

The shirt he drew was white. Clean and crisp like it was fresh on. From the cuffs, hands jutted as if they were clawing the ground.

The artist lit a cigarette, filled the air with exotic curls of Gauloises.

He passed it over for me to hold.

The silence was unsettling. I decided to break it.

“What’s the going rate for the moon’s fisherman these days?”

He looked up at me, eyes hidden behind his shades. Instead of answering he put his fingers to his mouth and blew me a kiss.

 I felt bad for the waiter. Looked over in case he’d seen.

I don’t think he’d noticed anything. Instead, he was waving my bag over his head and running in my direction.

“Mademoiselle,” he called. “Your bag, Mademoiselle.”

If I’d seen the car, I would have warned him, but the brakes didn’t screech until after the collision.

Something shot from his mouth. Could have been teeth or gum.

The way he flew through the air reminded me of Dee when she was thrown from her pony.

He landed beneath me, his body taking the shape of the drawing.

One of his shoes rolled along the gutter and came to rest in the middle of the road.

The tinkling of coins stopped only when the body came to rest, the waiter staring at the floor like a fish at a market stall.

And the crocheteur?

Gone, just like the drawing and his equipment.

I took a drag on the cigarette he’d given me to hold. Coughed my lungs up as the tobacco hit. Emptied my stomach into the canal and looked at the moon’s reflection in the ripples of the water.

A Whole Lotta Rosie

Fifty years to the day Rose has been walking on the planet. Not that she’s walked on much of it. Sheep farms in the summer. Back home the rest of the time.

Hasn’t been far.

Not that she’s needed to.

A huge fish in a small pond, you might say. Six foot four and eighteen inches round the biceps. The blokes on the station all kid on she’d crush any man who lay between her thighs, but they’ve all taken their turn at one time or another and all gone back for more.

She goes over to the pen. Tucks her golden locks into her polka-dot bandanna. Hikes up her jeans and takes out the only sheep on the entire ranch that still has wool on its back. Turns it over like she’s tossing pancakes, grabs onto the fore-legs and drags it backwards through the swing-door.

The rest of the crew stand round in their wide-brimmed hats and their sleeveless shirts. They’re smoking to a man and look keen to get down to the pub.

Trapping one of the sheep’s legs between those enormous thighs of hers she gets to work, flat out like a lizard. She’s so busy trimming the fleece that she doesn’t see the crew tip-toeing around and getting into position.

As she makes the last stroke and turns off the switch, she gets up awaiting her round of applause.

Tom Brody, owner of the land, walks up to her with his hand outstretched ready for a shake. He doesn’t know that Rose is intending to crush his bones into dust. She doesn’t know that he’s not going to give her the chance.

He leans forward.

Instead of shaking, he pushes her hard in the chest.

She falls backwards over Shifty, who’s curled in a ball behind her.

The sheep gets up and runs for the door.

The other four guys pounce onto Rose and pin her down.

It’s not easy keeping the nation’s arm-wrestling champ floored, but they’re big men and are skilled in stopping wriggling creatures getting away.

‘Happy birthday to you,” they sing like a choir of horny dingoes.

“Get the fuck off, you mongrels,” she shouts, but it’s all part of the fun.

She hears the sound of the clippers starting behind her. “Not the hair boys,” she shouts, “Not the bleeding hair.”

*

Two days later and Rose is back in the city. She loves the big nights. The rush of adrenalin and the buzz of the attention.

She watches from the curtain that separates her from the audience. Watches her opponent milk the crowd as she struts down to the stage.

A woman gets under the rope and steps in front of Mo. Next to anyone else, she’d look huge, but alongside Mo she looks small. Her huge cleavage is easier for Rose to look at than the landscape of scarring on her face. She gives Mo a pen then squeezes her breasts together till they look like two bald men kissing. Mo signs them like she’s a celebrity and the woman lifts her shirt so all her friends can see. They whoop and cheer like they’ve never had it so good, a flock of mutton in sheep’s clothing.

Word on Mo has travelled far, even up to the sheep station. Goes by the name of ‘The Maori Mountain’ and Rose sees for herself that it’s not all about the alliteration.

The way she plays the audience it’s more like a Miss Universe contest than Victoria’s arm-wrestling final, heavyweight division.

The Mountain steps up and flexes. Lets those at the front rub on oil, those muscles of hers straining against her tattooed skin as if they’re trying to burst out.

“Blooming poser,” Rose says and then she sniffs hard at her bottle of salts. Like snorting urinals, she thinks.

The announcer looks over and she gives him the nod, making sure she’s hidden when the spotlight turns in her direction.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” (though it’s mostly ladies), “Undefeated in the professional arena,” (that since the age of eighteen), “The Queen of Victoria, the Maid of Melbourne, The Sheila of the Shears…”

“Christ, get on with it,” Rose says to the back of the curtain. She looks at the wallpaper. The cheap bastards haven’t changed a thing since she first appeared there.

She counts the fading flowers of the pattern while she waits to hear her name.

“A whole lot of Wrestling Rose Robbins.”

 The floor shakes as the guitar booms in.

Ba da ba da ba da ba.

The shrieking and the booing begin, the shrieks winning on a split decision.

This is the part she hates. All the frills and nonsense. The only things that matter take place at the table. Even so, she does the sponsors proud, hitting the high-fives, punching the air, singing along to her theme-tune.

“She aint exactly pretty,” (her fans scream), “She aint exactly small,” (like the song was written for her), “42, 39, 56,” (in her dreams), “You could say she’s got it all.”

The sweat’s pouring down her face by the time she reaches the stage. Has something to do with the synthetic fibres of the wig, cheaper than the natural stuff, but not as forgiving.

“Nice look,” George shouts into her ear as he goes over and kisses her cheeks. “Might even buy you a drink after this is done.” It’s true. She looks good in the pink bob, like Louise Brooks after a few good meals.

“Might even accept,” she tells him, pulling off her silk cloak and handing it over.

She points to the words written on her t-shirt, ‘OFTEN LICKED, NEVER BEATEN’ and draws another cheer and a couple of boos for her effort.

Mo gets in her face.

Other than big, she’s everything Rose is not. She works out, does her nails, moisturises, conditions her pit-black hair and holds it in place with sprays.

Her dark eyes stare at Rose like she can see inside her skull.