Hope and Other Stories Page 4

  ‘I almost thought you were going to kiss me, there,’ she says, half-joking, half-serious. Laughing the comment off as ridiculous, I embroil myself in the rolling of a joint.

  Shirley and Hope talk a lot about her husband and I insist she gets some photos out. He is a tall, elegant looking man, chiselled-bone structure, but despite his acute angular look there’s a gentle excitement in his eyes. Hope only shows me one wedding photo and shields her face in embarrassment until it’s put away. They were married in a registry office in the sixties, which I think is quite cool. Hope is wearing a trouser suit, like a man’s pinstripe, tailored and tapered at the waist for a woman. Her hair is short and her face is radiant and full of mischief. It’s almost as if someone has cut a photo out of last month’s Cosmo and pasted it on. Apparently, her family thought she was a lesbian prior to her wedding. The suit, Savile Row, was a stab at them.

  ‘You’ve no idea how threatened a lot of people were by the sight of a woman in a trouser suit. I still sometimes wear it for a lark.’

  I’m sitting staring at her, as I can blame my fixed gaze on the cannabis. I’d really like to paint her in that suit. When I suggest it to her she seems utterly flattered and insists that I allow her to commission me. Unbelievable, getting paid to do what I feel compelled to do anyway.

  Before long, Hope is lying on the settee with her feet on my lap again. As I massage her toes and soles, she writhes around beside me.

  ‘You two seem quite taken with each other,’ Shirley observes as we become increasingly touchy-feely.

  Hope leans forward and kisses my cheek.

  ‘Martin is giving me a new lease of life, not that I was ever as mothballed as you seemed to think. We plan to marry in the Fall.’

  ‘What a riot, having old Dionne here as an uncle. Cool.’

  ‘Watch your tongue lad or you’ll feel my slipper on your arse,’ I scold unamusingly, but we collapse into drug-induced hysterics nonetheless. I’m having my most relaxed time in ages but I’m also aware that it is getting on for midnight and Shirley is making no signs of leaving. I want to be alone with Hope in this state and see what happens. But then she makes hot toddies for us, and more joints are rolled until, at 1.30, Shirley’s eyes start to flicker and he crashes sideways in the armchair. I try shouting over to startle him before he becomes unconscious but he’s already started snoring. Hope swallows down the remainder of her toddie, then pulls herself wearily off me.

  ‘I’m going to follow his example. Give me a knock before you go to work, would you, I’m playing golf at ten,’ then she blows me a kiss and leaves me with the snoring bastard. The moment’s gone now anyway. Perhaps it’s for the best. I’ve probably just got a wee boarding school crush, you know, I shouldn’t necessarily act on it. The sound of Shirley’s snoring is reminding me of that little runt the other night. My eyes wince in recollection of the sting of Worcester Sauce as I retire.

  12

  Hope gets up before I leave in the morning and makes me a coffee as I shave. She looks gloriously wrecked. Sometimes I judge people’s beauty on how good they’d be to paint. Hope scores highly on this. Shirley has vanished, God knows when. I’m annoyed that he could plausibly have left shortly after we went to bed and I still could have made a move. Made a move, what am I on about? The new day has made me timid again. Perhaps it’s better just to keep it all in my head. You can control situations if you keep them cerebral.

  The doorbell goes as I’m about to leave. A woman in her thirties stands behind an eruption of white roses. The lump of envy in my throat disperses when she tells me they’re for Martin. The name on the envelope stuck to the wrapper confirms this but I still look at her as if she’s joking, grab the flowers and in panic shut the door in her face. My immediate instinct is to open it again and apologise, but I’m too agitated. Hope is in the bathroom, thank God. Smuggling the rustling package into my room, I tremblingly tear open the envelope.

  ‘Forgot to say. You sucked my cock beautifully. Rxxx.’

  I feel sick, in fact I bring up and swallow a mouthful of coffee. My shoulders become very sore all of a sudden. Fuck fuck fuck. Tearing the remainder of the envelope from the wrapper, I stuff it, with the card, under my mattress. Grabbing one of my Lucien Freud postcards off the wall, I scrawl, ‘Thanks. Last Present, honest!’ regretting it immediately but throw it and the flowers on the telephone table regardless and run out the house. White roses are just so gorgeous. If they’d been tacky red they’d have gone straight in the bin.

  Running round to Dublin Street, I hail the first taxi I see. I don’t want anyone following me to the shop. It’s my safe haven.

  13

  I’m in pieces at work. He’ll be standing outside the flat when I get back tonight, I know he will. I’ve never been violent towards another human being but I’ve done some serious damage to inanimate objects in my time. Who knows how I’d react under pressure? It feels as if I’m being violated. What right does the ugly creature feel he has to hassle me like this? I’m an attractive guy. As if I’d get involved with that. Would I be letting it get to me as much if Hope wasn’t in the equation? The fact is I would. When people try to invade my space and time it really pisses me off. I make my own decisions about if and when I see people and I hate anyone who tries to interfere with that. I’d get the police onto him but I realise I can’t really. It would just bring it out in the open even more; besides, they’d piss themselves laughing.

  I’m rude to the few customers we have because I’m so stressed out. At one point I put a ‘back in 10 minutes’ sign on the door and go to the back of the shop for a joint, but this just serves to make me even more tense. Sometimes I think I get no hit from cannabis any more, that I’m completely immune. Having a joint at work always dispels this theory though, as the surroundings really seem to intensify the hit. It also makes time drag something awful.

  I’m kinder to the customers after the smoke, and end up nervously raving to them about the books they’re buying. About 2.30 a guy comes in with a large cardboard box. He looks like Harold Shipman. Turns out he’s flogging these extremely rare, immaculate art books – Lucien Freud, Bacon, Kitaj and one on the Scottish Colourists with actual prints by Cadell in it. Books I had no idea even existed. In Italian, mind you, but the sort of people that buy books like these are all cunnilingual anyway. I can tell that parting with them really pains the guy, something about the CSA being on his back. Business is business though and I tell him that my business is slow and hum and haw in my usual way till he’s really desperate. After torturing him like this for a while, I offer thirty quid for the lot and he predictably jumps at it, looking thoroughly sick as he does. I can probably get that for each of them. Entering them in the ledger as indiscriminate ‘Art Books (several)’ I make sure to leave plenty of space between the pound sign and the thirty. When he leaves I stash an amazing book of Egon Schiele plates in my bag at the back of the shop, make a coffee and settle down to look through the rest of them, feeling infinitely happier. A few hundred pounds for two minutes’ ham acting. Now I know how Sean Connery feels.

  I’ve only just started to price them when a woman comes over with a hefty tome on Raeburn that’s been collecting dust since I started here. She spots the Colourists book and asks me how much. I’ve no idea what it’s worth. It’s a fucking antique – could be hundreds, could be thousands. As it’s not even been named in the ledger I hazard a guess at ninety pounds. The woman’s face lights up as she pulls twenty pound notes from her purse and I know I’ve made a huge boo boo. Too late to worry about it now though and it means I’ve made a cool two hundred today including ten pounds on my first sale this morning. As I put the books in a bag for her, she thanks me profusely. The difference between her joy and the anguish of the guy who sold me them is striking. She’s probably his ex-wife and followed him here.

  Buoyed by my burgeoning wealth I start thinking about holidays. Maybe Hope and I could go away somewhere together. I’ve only been out of Britain twice, to Paris, s
ince I got my passport and it runs out in a couple of years. She’d be good, intelligent company to travel abroad with. She could teach me so much. Perhaps I should suggest it anyway, she’d probably insist on financing the whole trip.

  About two o’clock a spotty bloke in a donkey jacket comes in with a holdall and tells me he has a few Williams first editions to sell. I can’t believe it, ‘Tennessee Williams?’ I confirm. He looks at me blankly. ‘Naw, Raymond.’ I suppose one coup a day is enough.

  After that, the shop is dead. Not that I mind, as I’ve had a good innings and I’m content to just put my feet up for the rest of the afternoon. Making a coffee I engross myself in my Egon Schiele book. The bell above the shop door tinkles and before I even look up, I get the strange sense that I’m not going to like what I see. First it’s the horrible fucking dog, then the creep, smiling, coming towards me.

  ‘Any nice surprises with the postman this morning?’

  I’m dumbstruck. I can’t believe he’s found his way into my other world.

  ‘I’m a hopeless romantic, I just can’t help myself. I hope white is your colour. I’m surrendering to you.’

  I stand up to establish some semblance of power.

  ‘Look pal, I don’t want your flowers and I don’t want you following me about.’

  He looks genuinely offended.

  ‘I’m not following you, doll. I just popped in to see you.’

  ‘How did you know where I worked? You must have followed me.’

  He laughs now, as I erupt internally.

  ‘Are you joking? This is where I first met you, remember? I used to bring in piles of uncorrected proofs when I worked in Thin’s.’

  ‘I get a lot of people coming through here. I can’t remember.’

  ‘So you took a complete stranger home the other night, you dirty Scottish boy,’ he drawls and tries to touch my hand. Pulling away, I fold my arms in front of me defensively.

  ‘Look, please understand. I don’t want to get involved with you. My life is complicated enough as it is. No offence mate but please, I’d like you to leave me alone.’

  ‘I’m not averse to affairs. I’m terribly discreet.’

  I don’t believe this. How can I get it through his thick skull.

  ‘I’m going away. My marriage isn’t working out. I’m moving down to London.’

  He keeps on.

  ‘A long-distance love affair. I’ve never been further down than Manchester. Shocking, eh?’

  I’m finding it very hard not to lose my cool as I imagine braining the bastard against the counter.

  ‘Will you fucking listen to me? I’m sorry if you think I led you on but Jesus, you pick up a complete stranger in the street and fuck them, what do you expect?’

  A blushing schoolboy appears from nowhere and purchases a book on Gallipoli. The creep stands smirking, intensifying the boy’s discomfort. What if he tells someone? What if he tells his mother the man in the book shop picks up young guys? The door tings shut again. Creep leans on the counter and in towards me. I back away.

  ‘So when are you leaving then? When can I visit you?’

  No more.

  ‘Look, will you fuck off? What do I have to fucking say to you? Get out my fucking face.’

  The bastard’s lip starts trembling, I don’t believe it. A tear runs down his idiot face as he turns and makes for the door, roaring ‘cunt’ at me as he departs. Never has that word sounded so good.

  14

  There’s no sign of him when I close up at five, so I walk home to reassert my freedom. A couple of times on the way back I imagine I see him in people who look nothing like him. When I turn into Northumberland Street and he’s not there, I sense that he could finally have got the message.

  As I enter the flat I hear Hope in the living room talking to someone. For a second I imagine the scene in Fatal Attraction when gorgeous Michael Douglas comes home and Glenn Close is there pretending she wants to buy the house. Then I hear another female speaking. I pop my head round the door and see Hope sitting with a woman in her thirties and a toddler. The roses are in a vase by the table. Hope gestures to them and smiles.

  ‘Martin dear, this is my niece, Jacqueline, Angus’s sister. Get that nice bottle of Chardonnay out the fridge and join us. This is Angus’s friend, he’s flat-hunting at the moment and being an extremely pleasant house guest in the meantime.’

  Telling them I’ll be through in a few minutes, I rifle my pockets for my gear as I walk up the hall to my room. I need a joint before I’m subjected to fucking babies.

  As it turns out, the child is not too bad. Jacqueline is a crushing bore though. Nobody else wants a drink so I pour myself one and sit in a glorious little stupor, watching the kid doing its kiddish things. It is into everything. Hope seems unconcerned as it staggers around pocketing keys and trying to chew everything in its wake. Is he hyperactive or are they all like this? Jacqueline seems very experienced in the art of sustaining a conversation whilst running about fretting over the wee monster. Jason (and the Argonauts? The Golden Fleece? Surely not Donovan) is playing to an audience and throws a tantrum every time our attention wavers.

  After about an hour, and three quarters of a bottle of Chardonnay he starts getting a bit tired and greety. He keeps lolling about the room then crashing into his mother for a cuddle. Hope looks pretty irritated by now. Jacqueline tries to calm him down by shyly singing ‘Mockingbird’ to him and rocking him gently in her arms. I love croaky, nervous voices like hers, they’re so human. ‘No sing Mummy, please no sing,’ the child pleads. Hope hoots with laughter and the rest of us are soon infected by it. Jason is annoyed that we seem to have got something over on him and starts crying again. Jacqueline notices the renewed look of subdued displeasure on Hope’s face and begins getting her things together and squeezing into her coat.

  Hope beckons to me as Jacqueline crawls around on the carpet looking for discarded toys. I follow her through to her bedroom. She goes to the other side of the bed, rummages around, puts a bit of wood against the wall and pulls out a wad of notes, counting through them, 20, 40 … 180, 190, £200. She slips it in the pocket of her blouse, then tears another twenty off and hands it to me.

  ‘You wouldn’t be a dear and pop out and get me a bottle of Ten-Year-Old Macallan’s would you? I need to have a word with Jacqueline on her own …’ she gestures to the money in her pocket, ‘… man trouble,’ and winks at me.

  She squeezes my hand as she sees me out the flat. Jesus, why was she so obvious about where she keeps money? Is she testing me or something? And £200 to a niece she never sees, just like that. I don’t need her money. I don’t want it. There’s no way I’d steal from her, she’s too kind. Stealing is a form of revenge.

  As I open the stair door my suppressed trepidation hits me again but the street is still clear. Once I’m sure that nonsense is behind me, I’ll be able to put my real feelings for Hope in perspective. It was funny, just the look she gave me tonight when she was telling Jacqueline about me flat-hunting. There are strange erotic sparks between us, I’m sure of it.

  When I get back, Jacqueline has gone and Hope is lying back on the settee with La Traviata blaring. Her arm rises like a charmed snake and she points at two tumblers on the table. Pulling the Macallan’s out the bag, I pour us a couple of measures.

  ‘Straight tonight, madam?’

  ‘Indeed, but twist up one of your little mary-janes as a chaser.’

  We lounge back on the settee together, tingle with the whisky and pass the joint to one another as Maria Callas bangs it out. In a matter of days, without trying, our friendship has deepened to such an extent that we feel completely at ease without having to say anything to each other. Nuzzling closer to Hope, she drapes her arm across my shoulders and I snuggle against her upper arm. Her skin smells of talcum and fresh air. The heat where my head touches her arms feels like it’s buzzing. I feel utterly replete.

  We lie huddled up like this for ages until the CD player clicks and the choru
s bursts into ‘Dell’invito trescora e’ jia’ l’ora’, for what must be the second time. Hope clammers up from the settee and switches it off.

  Pouring us both another whisky, she gestures to my blow and I obligingly begin rolling another joint.

  ‘Have you ever been to Italy?’ I ask as she sits down again.

  ‘La dentro non ci andrei, – pieno di l’Italiani,’ she says incomprehensibly in a thick Italian accent. ‘… my husband worked in Rome for a while before I met him but we never made it over together somehow. Maybe he had another wife there.’

  The mention of her husband, that tiny part of the vast life she had before I met her, gives me a little twinge of jealousy.

  ‘I’m very backward as far as foreign travel is concerned. Holland once, Greece once, France a few times. I’ve a couple of pals just outside Paris I see every now and again (eight years ago!). It just seems such a lot of money to spend before you buy your first pint.’

  Hope becomes animated.

  ‘Oh I love France – Paris, Fontainebleau, Marseilles … Provence used to be lovely too until they BBC’d it and attracted all the riff raff.’

  ‘I’d love to go there with you some time. I could save up.’

  Hope waves her hands in front of her like she’s doing the Charleston.

  ‘That’s a wonderful idea. I’d love a little break. When could you get time off work?’

  ‘I’m owed loads of annual leave but I’m always afraid to take it in case the place goes to pieces without me. Plus, he doesn’t pay me when I’m off.’