The woman saw. The woman from the reception saw. She came around. She saw him with his hand on her leg.
Stop that messing! She said. Before I have to call the dentist out to deal with you two. Did she think them siblings?
She blurted. He hurt me, he hurt me, he hurt me. Hiccupy pleading. Stop now, she said again.
The woman behind the reception — a nice woman who chatted to her mother and every mother and could even be seen at the shops, at church, at a school sports day — brought her behind the desk and gave her sweets from her bag and told that young fella, him, to sit in the chair and if he moved again his mother would hear about it. The nice woman who chatted to mothers did not ask what he had done because the phone rang. She did brush the hair out of the girl’s eyes. She did call out an instruction to the dentist on an unrelated matter.
He had had to thump her through her skirt. He did not manage to get a direct hit. Even though he’d tried. He fought that fabric and she kicked him with whatever small leg she had available.
This was the small thing she held onto, that her flesh was still hers, because he had only managed to assault her through fabric. Years later, this would be consolation.
But how it stung. The pain hovered underneath/beneath her. Each time she sat on her bicycle it came back. There was no dispute among the bruises that lined her pubic bone about who remembered what. Nor who saw what. It was stamped onto them.
It was a time when people didn’t see stuff. That was the time it was.
When his mother came, the nice woman who could be seen at football, at the shop, at church and always at the dentist, asked how was she getting on. They talked about the weather. The nice woman said he, her son, had grown. He’s a grand tall lad, she said. She said nothing about what had happened.
Mam said if this was only being sprung on her now, so many years later, it was very suspicious Martin John and where something is suspicious, suspicion can be calmed for there’s never been a man convicted on suspicion unless he was planting bombs and Martin John had planted no bombs. She could be sure of that, she said lightly.
Nobody said anything to me when I entered that room. If there were things to be said, they would have been said, but the guards coming round now or rumours of questions going to be asked were not good. They are not good Martin John. They are not good for any of us now, you know that?
And for the forty-fifth time she would ask, as she always did ask, tell me again what you remember. It certainly wasn’t for the lack of asking.
Mam said I can’t save you.
She never said the truth. The truth is THEY ARE COMING FOR HIM. How long has she known about Baldy Conscience?
Did she maybe send him? Have they met?
Did they meet at Euston?
Was it mam who told him to go do the circuits at Euston?
No. No. That’s not it. She said keep the head down. She said she didn’t want him on the Tube. She said Keep the head down, Into bed at night, Don’t mind anybody and they won’t be minding you either. She said other things. He cannot remember the other things. Did she warn him about Baldy Conscience? How did she know about Beirut?
He is confused. Painfully confused. He must walk. He must settle this question of what mam knows.
It is in walking that opportunity presents.
He sees her. A her. He sees a tree. It’s tempting. He can put his back to the tree. He can swing round at her when she passes. He lets this one go though. She has too sad a walk. Her hair is too long. She might hide her face and that would be a waste. Also he does not know who might be lurking on the Elephant & Castle Road waiting to batter him between his eyes.
He takes it instead to King’s Cross station.
A nice metal seat. In the Underground he sits on it, solid beneath his trap. Hands in pockets can climb down below and release the sneaky out to be peeked at. It’s a gurgle, a gurgling thrill, a r-rr-rrr, as they step off the Tube and he sits there on cold metal, his lower back supported. Moves hands to his two thighs and lets it sit out there, open-air trousers, orbiting just above the seat. It is out. Out and it’s all for them. The more people who descend, the more of it he reveals. Leans further back. Lounges. Arms wide behind his head. Them all penetrating him with their eyes. In-between another train, he hoists his balls up and out of his underpants. Leans back, all of it displayed. His tubey swollen. Ha!
He does not close his legs as the transport police approach him. Sits there and stares out at them, like they have imagined the flesh and protrusion he’s displaying. Like everyone else, they want him too.
He does not say much when they bring him in for questioning. Even when they ask him to fasten his trousers he is very slow to respond. He says he can’t close his trousers and he needs her, the policewoman, to close them for him. Martin John feels out of it and tells them he has no idea where he is or what his name is. They tell him they are aware of what his name is. They warn him. They caution him. Next time he’s going to be charged.
He phones mam and tells her that the police have arrested him and he is being cautioned and released and will maybe go to a prison or a clinic.
She tells him to stop talking rubbish and above all to get out to Noanie on Wednesday.
— You aren’t capable of getting arrested. They are not interested in you. So get over yourself and stop dreaming, would you.
It is true that he has phoned her a number of times to tell her he is in prison and she is fed up of discovering that he is not in prison.
Once he phoned her from Beirut. That did not go so well because he was at Waterloo Station and she could hear a man at the phone box roaring Fucking hurry up or I’ll burst you.
She does not believe him anymore. He would be in a coffin before she’d believe he could be dead.
He likes trees.
Trees could entice.
Trees were good for lolling against.
Where there was lolling it urged his up. Even the sight of tree bark made him nervous, because he could put his back against it and if his back is against something, there’s more likelihood he’ll take it out and swing it around on them. Once he lolls it is like sitting into a car seat. Clunk click, on goes the belt. Or, in this case, off comes the belt and down goes the zip. The early fumble, tip, mutter, gave urge to surge, a shout from below at the sight of her, any her, but especially the one he’d selected, with her eyes on him, on it specifically. Now. Because the women love it and in those moments lapped up that he’d chosen them and that he’d share it with them. They were mad for it until they realized they were not mad for it and that was when the trouble started. But nothing could take from the early part. The first nub. The introduction if you like. Nub to stub to engorge. Persist tenaciously ’til she looks. She must look. She shall look. She is looking. Big wide smile beside his eyes, up by his head bone. The delight could have expanded his skull.