When he pushed the familiar glass door and stepped across the carpet which he remembered, on occasion, feeling against his cheek, he saw a former business partner with mistletoe attached to his forehead by bands of Sellotape.
He pulled Brett to him and started kissing him. ‘It’s you — you, you bastard! The one who let me down! Now we’re both bankrupt!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Brett. ‘That’s right!’
‘Been swimming in the river, I hear! How are you doing now?’ It took his friend a while to find the words. He was so pleased he repeated them. ‘You doing … you doing swimmingly …’ he went, laughing to himself. ‘Won’t sit down! Busy with something!’
Brett bought Francine a drink and one for himself. How expensive it was! How much money he had spent on it over the years, not to mention energy!
In the bathroom, he threw the drink away and filled his glass with water. What a beautiful drink water was.
He took a seat at the bar and watched the man with the mistletoe weave about until he dropped on to a sofa. There, he went to some trouble to relocate the mistletoe in his open fly. Then he leaned back with his knees apart and began the business — giggling the while — of attracting the waitress’s attention.
Over the years, Brett must have sat on all the bar stools and armchairs in the place. He could see a group of his friends settling down to play cards. Johnny, Chris, Carol and Mike. They would be there for a long time; later, they’d go somewhere else. On any other night, he’d have joined them.
The aggression in Gaga seemed high. People wanted help and attention, but they were asking the wrong folks, others just like them. Some of them were wired, with their eyes popping. Others were exhausted, with failing heads. Odd it was, the taking of substances that made you feel worse, that made everything worse in the end. Dissipation was gruelling work, a full-time job. Yet things did get done; these men and women had professions. Brett had to be gratefuclass="underline" at least he had kept his flat and job. He’d only lost his wife.
If he didn’t sit with his friends — and he wouldn’t; he was cold, while they were hot with enthusiasm — where else was there? How did you get to others? After all, it wasn’t only him, or his circle, who was like this. It was his ex-wife’s father, his own sister and her boyfriend, who sat around with cans and bottles, fighting and weeping. Or they had been cured but had become addicted to the cure, as tedious off the stuff as they had been on it.
Francine had taken her drink and gone to join a group. He noticed she continued to watch him, knowing he might shrug her off and leave. He didn’t see why this would matter to her.
Brett was content to think of the North African, wondering whether something about the man had influenced him. Like the taxi driver, Brett seemed to be in a world where everyone resembled him but spoke in a foreign language. If the man stayed in England, he would always struggle to understand it, never quite connecting.
He had helped Brett; why shouldn’t Brett help him? Brett imagined himself turning up at the man’s house, offering to do anything. But what might he do? Wash up, or read to the children? Take them all to the cinema? Why shouldn’t he do it, now he felt better? The man might be too shy or suspicious for such things, yet surely he had to stop work for lunch or supper? Brett could listen to him. It would be a way of starting again, or returning to a state of teenage curiosity, when you might take any path that presented itself, seeing where it led.
Brett got down from the stool.
‘No you don’t.’ Francine came over and put her tongue in his mouth. ‘You take me home. You’ve been coming on to me all night.’
He didn’t mind taking her home. He had come to dislike his own street and thought he should move to another district. Apart from the fact a change would do him good, living near by was a woman he passed often, an ex-barmaid. If she recognised him, which he doubted, she never acknowledged him. She had four children by different fathers and the youngest was his, he knew it. He had stayed with her one night after a party, four years ago. When he made the calculation, it added up. A drinking acquaintance pointed it out. ‘Look at that kid. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the father.’
He had gone to the playground to watch the child. It was true; she had his own mother’s hair and eyes. He had seen the woman shout at the girl. He didn’t like passing his only daughter on the street.
In the car, Francine was drinking from a bottle of wine.
‘Haven’t you had enough yet?’ he said. ‘Can’t you just stop?’
‘Tonight I’m going the whole way.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s a fatuous question.’
‘But I would like to know, really.’
She started to cry, talking all the while. She didn’t think to spare him her misery; perhaps it didn’t occur to her that he would be concerned.
The North African man drove strangers night after night, despised or invisible amongst abhorrent fools who had so much of everything, they could afford to piss it away.
At Francine’s block of flats, he helped her upstairs. He put the lights on and led her to bed. She thrashed about, as if the mattress were a runaway horse she had to master.
He turned his back, but she couldn’t remove her clothes. He got her into her pyjamas and kissed her on the side of the head.
‘Good night, Francine.’
‘Don’t leave me! You’re staying, aren’t you? I —’
She was clawing at his chest. She was an awful colour. He ran for the washing-up bowl and held it by her face.
‘Is this it? Is this it?’ she kept saying. ‘Is it now, tonight?’
‘Is it what, Francine?’
‘Death! Is he here? Has William Burroughs come to call?’
‘Not tonight, sweetheart. Lie back.’
Her vomit splattered the walls; it went over his jacket, his shoes, trousers and shirt, and in his hair.
At the end, she did lie back, exhausted. He removed her soiled pyjamas and put her into a dressing gown.
He was sitting there. She extended her arms to him. ‘Come on, Brett.’
‘You’re pretty sick, Francine.’
‘I’ve finished. There’s nothing left. You can do what you want to me.’ She was shivering, but she opened her dressing gown. ‘That’s something no one ever says no to!’
‘What difference would it make?’
‘Who cares about that! Fetch yourself a drink and settle down. I’ve always liked you.’
‘Have you?’
‘Don’t you know that? Despite your problems, you’re bright and you can be sweet. Won’t you tell me what you are on tonight, Brett?’
He shook his head and put a glass of water to her lips. ‘Nothing. Nothing.’
‘There must be someone else you’re going to. That’s a rotten thing to do to a woman.’
He thought for a time.
‘There is no woman. It’s a taxi driver.’
‘Christ!’
‘Yes.’
‘The one who fished you out? You won’t know where he is.’
‘I’ll go to the cab office and wait. They know me there. Hell, understand what I want.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Good talk.’
She said, ‘You enjoyed sleeping with me last time.’
‘What last time? There wasn’t any last time.’
‘Don’t pretend to be a fool when you’re not. Get in.’
She was patting the bed.
He walked to the door and shut it behind him. She was still talking, to him, to anyone and no one.
‘There’s someone I’ve got to find,’ he said.