In
the late evenings the surrounding district turned into a light show
of the lonely. In the illuminated windows of the apartment buildings
people and shadows mooched about, eating, drinking and dying alone.
There was a bizarre mix of young careerists and entrepreneurs
alongside actors and writers and artists. People would dress up in
the costume of their own show – some cigar smoking city gents,
others as 1960's screen goddesses – projecting their fantasy lives
and real depressions out into the world. Now and again an
exhibitionist would wander naked past a window, or could be spied
somewhere in the background getting undressed or making out as if
they've just come from the shower. Though varied, all the lives had
one thing in common: the obscene bareness which lingered in the rooms
around them. It was a bareness not much different from that which
existed in the black windows of the unoccupied flats around.
Of
all the private night shows in the area, the most haunting spectacle
was projected each night from a flat in the building directly
opposite ours. The building was eerie enough in itself. It fell
between two street lights, taking no light from either, and so sat
back in a dark recess all of its own. Up on the top floor, in one of
the converted attic rooms, was a square window blocked out by a red
curtain. The curtain was never opened, and at night, when the room
was lit up from inside, the window glowed bright red and on it was
cast the silhouette of a man, alone, standing there face on and
holding a large kitchen knife. From our flat on the ground floor it
seemed like he was staring straight down at us, and if you looked up
at him for long enough the street would disappear from your
peripheral vision until all that existed was You, the square of red
,and the black knife wielding silhouette upon it.
During
the first months of our stay in Maida Vale I became obsessed with
that window and the thought of who was behind it. I spent my nights
staring over, imagining any number of grisly, bloody scenarios of
what was going on inside the apartment. Even Mum took an interest.
Looking up at the knife wielding silhouette she'd say stuff like:
Someone should phone the police to that cunt! What kind of a
monster would stand up there like that! Sometimes she'd wander in
the room and just stand there eyeing the shape up in the attic flat
with hatred, as if the man reminded her of something else which had
happened in the life.
I
couldn't be certain it was him, but in the daytime a man would leave
the building and march off with his head to ground like the day was
his enemy. He was a shabby, ill looking thing, maybe thirty, with
greasy black hair and always a good few days of stubble about him. He
dressed in dark, faded clothes and, regardless of the weather, a
plain burgundy scarf with the tails thrown back over his left
shoulder. He always had a cigarette in his mouth and walked so fast,
slightly stooped, that he was forever striding through a cloud of his
own smoke. Like that he'd head off down the road, returning a little
while later carrying a white plastic NICOLAS wine bag.
It
was a wet, late spring morning. Mum and I were returning from her
weekly cigarette and booze shop. As we turned the corner Mum
clattered into someone, the vodka bottles clashing together in her
bag. The man, momentarily knocked out his stride, swerved around Mum
and rejoined his line, marching on without so much as raising his
head. Mum kissed her lips and was about to shout something when I
said: That's him! Mum, that's the man up at the window!
Through
his drifting cigarette smoke Mum shouted:
Oi,
is that you standing up there every evening with that fucking knife?
I
may have imagined it but the man's stride seemed to shorten for a
step as Mum's words reached him. But that was all. Otherwise he
continued on his way, without replying, a musty, oaky scent left
trailing n his wake.
After
Mum clattering into his existence it seemed to wake him up a little.
Now, during the daytime, he'd occasionally open up his window and
lean out smoking. He also bought a couple of dark green exotic plants
and put them out on the ledge. Whenever Mum saw him out the window
she'd wave up or shout HELLO! He still continued casting shadows most
nights but it was no longer as obsessive as it had been and barely
lasted half an hour. His isolation had been interfered with, touched,
and I guess he felt a little stupid and self-conscious lingering up
there with a knife and knowing Mum and I were watching him and knew
who he was. For us, having had seen him, seen he could be knocked off
his stride like anyone else, he was no longer the terrifying presence
he once was. On the contrary, he then seemed to take Mum's interest
in a totally different way. She stared up at the window now with
something secretive and excited in her regard, her breasts pushed
out, as though she thought he could see her too.
It
was not so long after that, that I first heard the name Nigel. Mum
said it in a deliberately affected manner, gloating, letting the word
linger, like someone does who's newly on first name terms with the
boss.
Nigel... ... ... ... Him over the road! She'd
say.
Mum
and Nigel began a strange correspondence, Mum shouting things up to
him and Nigel responding by a series of hand signals, or dropping a
cigarette or ten pound note down. If it was ever necessary for him to
physically speak he'd pull himself in, close the window, descend the
stairs and cross the road – sometimes just to say he didn't have
any cigarettes.
So
it began there. Like that. An odd cigarette, first thrown down, then
brought across, then Nigel smoking one himself and making an attempt
at talking from his uncomfortable stooped demeanour. From cigarettes
it turned to wine, Nigel inviting Mum over to share a bottle. But
that kind of social drinking wasn't for Mum. She was of the old order
of drunks, drinking to forget people and the world – not to
celebrate it. So Mum refused the wine invitations, secretly confiding
in me that she was still wary of going over to Nigel's, of being
alone with him, in his domain, where his stoop may straighten and his
upper body widen out. And it wasn't an irrational fear. Even while
making efforts to be sociable Nigel remained quite a peculiar man: a
little troubled and a lot lonely, in a kind of dark, embittered way.
By
the beginning of summer Nigel was a regular visitor to my mothers
bedroom. He mooched in, did his business, smoked a cigarette, then
mooched back out, keeping his head down and rarely uttering a word.
Mum said he was like that even when they were alone, often sitting on
her bed and staring at the floor until given an overwhelming hint
that he could touch her. Behind his back Mum mocked his sexual
performances, saying that he would have these weird trembling orgasms
and his eyes would momentarily roll round to the top of his head. She
told me that once she even had to hold him down to the mattress and
grab a firm hold of his cock as it was involuntarily spasming away
and spitting sperm all around the room. It was apparently due to
these intense orgasms that Nigel would flee so quickly after sex, his
head back down as if re-joining a secret world of shame. It also came
out that Nigel was on some kind of long-term medication. He said that
alcohol mixed with his tablets were the cause of his strange climaxes
Mum never pushed to know what exact medication he was on , but we
generally supposed it to be either tranquillizers or
anti-depressants.
Unfortunately
for Nigel his brief sojourn between my mother's legs coincided with
her latest bout of chronic alcoholism. From the woman he'd first
bumped into in late spring, by early summer she was nothing more than
a squidgy lump of fuck on a bed. Something a little better than a wet
hole in the mattress, but not much. Though perhaps that suited Nigel.
Perhaps it was the only sexual relationship he could be at ease in,
doing it to someone who couldn't judge or mock him, revelling in that
kind of passive sexual violence that is afforded someone from having
an unresponsive body at their disposal. Sometimes, listening in
outside the door, Nigel would ram it into mum with such force that it
sounded more like a knife attack. As he was leaving he'd look t me
before looking down, and for the first time I noticed he had a
somewhat swollen face and a slight, yet unmistakable, bulge to his
eyes.
It
was a week or so later when it all blew up. Nigel had been visiting
every day, bringing Mum drink and cigarettes for her services. As the
week wore on Nigel took on an increasingly ill demeanour and at times
seemed unsure of where he was. On the afternoon of his very last
visit I found him wandering around in the hallway with his trousers
undone and wearing only one sock. He seemed drunk and was talking
jibberish. I tried to usher him back to Mum's room but he fought of
any touch, swinging his arms wildly, his face shot through with
terror. He finally disappeared down into the kitchen and sat on a
chair with his hands out flat on his thighs. After a few minutes he
rose and returned back to the bedroom, once again stooping and
avoiding any eye contact. He closed the door gently behind him.
It
was Mum's drunken voice I heard first, an instinctive,
semi-conscious, growled insult as she must have come around. Then I
heard her shouting for Nigel to STOP IT! Finally she was screaming
hysterically, shrieking my name amongst other things with no let up.
I flew in to Mum's room and saw her terrified face beneath Nigel.
Though screaming she was frozen to the bed in terror. Nigel was on
top of her, in the missionary position, naked, his entire body
thrashing away. My first thought was that he was in some kind of
deranged, murderous rage, attacking her, but it became quickly
apparent that he wasn't attacking Mum at all, but having a full blown
fitting seizure. Mum was bawling through the ordeal, her distressed
drunken face looking more hideous than ever it had done. I neared the
bed to try and help Mum. She was now rigid as a board beneath Nigel,
her eyes shock open in fear and fixed on the fitting body on top of
her. Nigel's face had drained grey-blue and froth and spittle were
foaming out his mouth. He was still having severe body jerks, like a
jack-hammer left fallen to the ground. I Tried to pull him aside, off
Mum, but it was impossible. Not only because of his trembling limbs
but he also seemed to have taken on a mysterious weight which ground
him in his seizure. Mum began panicking again, screaming that he
wasn't breathing, that he was suffocating. Nigel's face was certainly
void of oxygen and his eyes bulging forward of their sockets. Not
being able to pull Nigel off I lent over and held both his arms into
his sides, subduing the violence of his seizure. But barely did I
have him in my grip than his body quit trembling, slowed to a stop
and slumped down heavy across Mum. Now I could move him. As I did Mum
scrambled free and out the bed, her legs giving way as she hit the
floor. Mum fell and collapsed into a drunken, naked sprawl against
the dresser.
He's
dead!!! She screamed, her face almost parallel to the ground. Is he
dead?
Nigel
was face down on the bed, quite motionless. Bizarrely his penis was
still erect and a thick globule of yellowish cum had oozed out its
mouth. But he looked dead, his face drained even of the bluish tint.
Mum tried to pick herself up but collapsed back down before barely
getting her arse off the carpet. She crawled over to the bed, pulled
her top half up, and kind of swayed backwards as if getting Nigel
into focus. She began shrieking again, but this time a shriek which
expressed horror at what had passed not that which was passing. It
was a different sound, not so piercing and carrying subtle undertones
of grief and tragedy.
Shut
up, I shouted, he's alive! He's fucking alive!
It
was only a slight movement I had seen, but he had definitely moved. I
suddenly felt elated,. Overcome with the need to cry. He's alive, I
said again, he's OK. Nigel now stirred a little more. His eyes opened
slowly like emerging from a sad dream. He was lightly groaning. I
pulled a cover over his embarrassment. Nigel put a hand across his
forehead and shifted himself into the recovery position. In the
recovery position he met Mum's evil face, staring at him with a
vicious hatred, his welcome back to the land of the living. He asked
for a glass of water. Considering Mum's state it was maybe the most
preposterous request he could have made. A tremor of vile hate
rippled across Mum's face.
Er,
yeah, ya'v got water in ya own fucking flat! Dont ya think its about
time you fucked off back there! Bringing this shit into my house.
Then
she reached forward and whipped the covers off Nigel, leaving him
laying there naked. You disgust me, she hissed. You fucking
animal!
Nigel
never did get a glass of water. He struggled to a sitting position on
the other side of the bed, his back to Mum, and painfully pulled his
clothes on. Shoes with no socks, shirt not tucked in, he rose and
left.
So
Nigel suffered from epilepsy. That's what the medication was for, why
he had such strange, climaxes, why he sometimes seemed confused, why
his face and eyes were a little bloated. It was also probably why
he'd become a young recluse, living in fear that something like this
would happen. Whatever the truth, Nigel was never welcomed back again
and Mum kept a special dislike for him which never waned.
After
that episode Nigel reverted back to his old night time antics with
added vengeance. Only now, rather than just standing motionless at
his window holding the kitchen knife he'd wave and stab it about,
finishing his show of hate by turning face on and opening his arms
like a deranged, self-adulating vision of Christ. He also stopped
hanging out his window in the daytime, and the two plants which had
adorned his ledge for the past few weeks mysteriously ended up
smashed to smithereens across our front yard. These things were all
signs, signs it was time to be moving, that our tenure in North
London was just about up.
Long
before first ever meeting Fat Alan I knew all about him, right down
to his most intimate details. For example, I knew that he was from
Manchester; that he owned the Pig & Whistle pub in Latimer Road;
that he weighed 504lbs; that he had a penis no bigger than a seven
year old; that mum had to ward his belly away with one hand while she
wanked him off with the other; that he broke wind as he came; that
he'd sometimes shit himself just to procure a strip down wash; that
he was so fat his arms weren't long enough to wash his own hair; that
he had his underpants specially made; that he wore a towel nappy to
bed; that his toilet had been reinforced, that the u-bend was twice
non-standard size to accommodate his colossal spill; that he drove a
car that had had the passenger seat removed, the dashboard modified
and the driver's seat doubled in size; that he was 43 but had already
had two heart attacks; that he'd started binge eating while nursing
his beloved mother through the last stages of terminal cancer; that
he'd been charged but not convicted of molesting young girls; that he kept promising to write Mum into his will but
never did. Each time mum returned, two or three evenings a week,
she'd tell me all about him, screwing her face up in disgust as if
trying to wring the memory right out of her skin.
God,
and he's got these disgusting sores on his arse where he sits all
day, she said. And the same things are now beginning to appear
under his arms and chin. It's the moisture and friction or something.
The fucking pig. I'd love to just empty his fucking till and make
off... but he watches that thing like one of them hawks.
Far
from despise Alan, Mum's stories made me pity him. Not his obesity or
handicap, but imagining that he must have harboured genuine hopes
that mum liked him, or at least cared about him as a person who was
probably living out the last days of his life. Sometimes I'd almost
bring myself to tears pretending I was him, overhearing Mum gross
herself out on the vile details of her visit and making fun of
everything from his laboured breathing to the hairs which sprouted
out his toes. After all, he was not only supplying Mum in free booze
but was also paying for her services as nurse, cleaner, and part-time
barmaid. On top of that he had to suffer her alcoholism and
bizarre personality shifts, hold his tongue as she raged, screaming
through his bar that he was a pedophile, and put up with her various
indiscretions with the punters, listening as she got flash-fucked in
his own bedroom, on his own bed. My heart kinda went out to him. And
then I met him.
I
only knew it was human and not a stalagmite of waste from a
liposuction clinic as it had ears and arms. It sat spilled over a
tiny wooden barstool in the kitchen, a hideous blancmange of fat and
skin, preparing the pub-grub for the orders below. Arranged in a
semi-circle around him was everything he needed: fridge, microwave,
knife draw, crockery, sink, chopping board, cooker, bin, etc. From
this layered blob a pair of arms were shooting out this way and that,
furiously multitasking: cutting, peeling, chopping, dicing, rattling
pans into flames, dumping things into pots, checking the grill,
slamming it back, adding milk, boiling water, prodding steaks,
cracking eggs, opening cupboards, grating cheese, emptying tins,
binning rubbish, turning sausages, turning dials, pressing buttons,
taking plates, dollop of mash, spoon of peas, ladle of gravy, pushed
along, shouting: NO: 21 SHEPHERDS PIE AND CHIPS! All of that while
still having the time to acknowledge me and toss me a can of Coke
from nowhere, his mouth breaking into a delicious grin when I missed
the catch, his way of showing he could still catch people off guard
and beat them to the draw. I watched this thing curiously, the head
sank into the mound of neck, the neck furrowed out onto the
shoulders, a huge filthy, grimy wifebeater vest containing his main
bulk, curtains of fat and skin draping down off his arms, his elbow
pads somewhere along his forearm, his groin lost beneath a huge flab
of gut, the legs in black cotton pants, and finishing him of, a pair
of bare, swollen feet that kept lifting off the floor and struggling
about as he wobbled and reached from side to side. Just them Mum
appeared at the door. Knowing I was watching her she looked over
towards Alan, pulled a look of repulsion and shook her head in
disgust. Then she waggled a curled finger and mouthed for me to
follow – she had something to show me.
Out
in the garden mum put a hand over her mouth and doubled up and
staggered about in hysterical laughter as a pair of Alan's pants hung
on the line and billowed in the breeze. They were pegged up from
either side of the waist. Me, Mum and both the barmen could have
comfortably fitted in them. Mum pulled at them and showed me the
undercarriage of the crutch, the horrible brown stains that not even
an intensive 90 degree wash could remove. Now we both staggered
around laughing, grunts and squeals escaping from us as Alan screamed
out a finished order from upstairs. Mum looked up to the kitchen
window and said something about the fat cunt taking the order down
himself. She snatched my can of Cola from me and going back over
to the washing line poured a good spill of coke in the seat of the
pants, turning to me laughing as it leaked out the underside like
watery shit. She was a good few drinks down, right on the cusp of
wild humour turning into meanness.
He'll
notice, I said.
He
won't fucking notice! Who d'ya think hung 'em there, coz it weren't
fucking 'im. Anyway, when I put them on him he has to lay on his back
with his legs off the bed. He can't even see me over his chins and
guts!
After
being shown the handicap toilet, the modified car, the special
banister rail and the small two floor platform lift that got Alan
from bar to kitchen to bed, we rejoined Alan in the kitchen. Mum went
over and stood near him. His fat hand squeezed her bottom and he made
a comical beeping sound. Mum tensed and straightened and jumped back
just out of reach. She asked if she could do anything to help but
Alan said, Nah, yer alright luv, just yer presence is help
enough... ain't nothing like a beautiful woman to make the rigours of
work worthwhile, int that right lad? his words floating
over to me. Int that right, ya Ma's a beautiful woman?
I
didn't answer.
He's
shy that one, Mum said.
Aye,
yer did say so. I do remember yer saying t'same.
From
declining any help it wasn't long before it had quickly
turned into Alan relentlessly asking for things, and saying stuff like would
ya be a doll and would ya help a sick man out and pass us that there Luvvy, etc.
Soon Mum was in constant demand. Not in the way of the cooking of
the food but fetching stuff, taking it away, clearing the work space,
sent downstairs to deliver messages to the barmen, loading the
dishwasher, tying off binbags – all the while having to dodge
Alan's hands from groping or slapping her backside. As Alan gave out
orders and talked as he cooked it became apparent that he had a
bitter contempt towards the mobile, forever calling them lazy
cunts and suspecting them of doing nothing, cursing the bar staff
and threatening to sack the incompetent and skiving cleaning lady. A
few times his bitterness even carried over my way, joking that I'd
been put on pause and asking if it was nice to watch yer
mam run off her feet? There was something very selfish in Alan,
him even getting worked up over the quality of ingredients he had
been shopped. At one point he ordered the head barman up and showing
him a butcher's bag of mincemeat screamed how was he expected to
serve that tripe to his customers? He hurled the bag of raw mince into the landing where it burst and spewed out into a meaty mess over
the carpet. The barman silently turned his back, cleared up the mess, soaped the
carpet and left. I saw him pacing around out in the garden, smoking
furiously while shaking down his right arm and gripping and
ungripping his fist.
I
hadn't been in Alan's presence for more than two hours and already I
despised him. He had that slippery, fat fingered, bureaucratic way
about him – something sadistic and hating of the life sat at his
mercy before him. Then another thing came up. Every time Mum was
reluctant to carry out a certain chore Alan would turn to his wallet,
offering to pay Mum an extra few quid for this and that. He went so
far as to lay a ten pound note on the top of a tray of chicken
innards and told mum it was hers if she'd clear them away and go and
dump them in the park around the back for the dogs. Mum took the money, flung the innards out into the garden and stood down in
the bar drinking for ten minutes instead. Other times, on occasion, Alan
would raise an arm and look at mum and she had to run a towel over, dry the pit and apply some cream. In the afternoon he began harking on constantly about his feet and ankles hurting and how they
could do with a rub and a soak. He seemed to be joking at first, but
after an hour of this he then had mum crouched down on the floor
fondling and squeezing his feet, cracking the bones in his toes. Mum
looked at me while she did it, now drunk through and putting on an
exaggerated face of hate.
At
just gone five, when the last of the grub had been done and all the
plates and cutlery returned, Mum helped Alan tidy the kitchen and
load the dishwasher. Once finished, like he did every evening, Alan put an hour in behind the bar. He never really did anything, just stood up at the end, held up on crutches, scrutinizing everyone
with suspicion, watching every order taken and making sure there
wasn't a pack of peanuts or a double measure given away or pinched.
Sometimes, for no reason, he'd waddle over to a table and demand a
pint of beer back from someone, saying that they'd paid for beer and
not froth. He'd empty the pint away and pull a new one, reprimanding
one of the barmen and making him watch how to pull a pint before
waddling back over and giving the client an exact replica of what
he'd just taken away. If a child was in the bar, even if it was 14,
he'd pull beastly faces at it as you would do a baby. With a huge
fake smile and loud voice he'd repeat how he loved 'people' and
'family'. Whenever the young hawkers came in the bar selling their
stolen goods he'd call them over and give them the Five Minute
Green Light but made it clear he'd not tolerate drugs being
pushed on his premises. He was too stupid to realize these were
junkies and not the dealers – the only 'pusher' of misery around
was him and his beer pumps, it eventually being pissed away into some
of the sorriest homes in the area.
The
takings of the bar caused more bad will and suspicion than anything
else. With Alan not physically able to be downstairs all day he was
permanently paranoid at what was going on with the tills and if there
were scams being pulled. To deal with this he'd send down for the
till receipts and all the paper money three times a day. Not that
that would stop any small time scams, but it would stop scams in the
hundreds (or find out about them immediately). It was over the till
takings that real sadistic side of Alan came out. He had this habit
of after having received the receipts to have Mum go down and bring
the money up. He seemed to take a perverse delight in putting her in
that position, knowing that she'd probably never handled that much
cash in her life, that it was her instinct to run or pocket a note or
two but she couldn't as he had the receipts and the tally. At the
same place where earlier he'd chopped up food Mum now placed the
money down in front of him, his beady eyes on her all the while,
almost as if it made him hungry watching. Mum would lay the money
down, another little dream gone with each pile. When it was all down
Alan would kind of cup his fat hand and push a fifty Mum's way. As
she took it he'd tap her hand as if that was love and they were to
say nothing more about it. But that wasn't love; it was paying for
love; it was business. It was what allowed for the pretence of love,
the pretence of having someone in this world who actually cared a
damn.
With
love paid for upfront and the till takings locked away in a strongbox
under the sink it was time for Mum to turn her real tricks. Before
the evenings entertainment got underway she'd disappear down the
corridor for a few dulling slogs of vodka that'd hopefully get her
through the ordeal, may even give her some sadistic pleasure in
carrying it out.
Ok
chuck, me an yer mam ah gonna go make ourselves scarce now fer a
bit... get the ol' blood flowing in me fer t'morrow. Y'help yerself
to Cokes an theres them crisps and peanuts up there. There's TV in
main room, videos an' all... and, er, do mind them naughtier ones at
back o' cab'nit, hey, like a good lad. Alan looked at Mum as if
to get some assurance that what he'd said would suffice.
Come
on, she said, drunk and cold, lets get this over with! Mum
eased Alan down the landing, up two steps and then stood with him as
he caught his breath before ushering him into the bedroom.
In
the front room I sat not watching TV but waiting for the time to pass
and mum to return so we could go home. There was a weird smell in
this place, something like a public changing room at the swimming
baths. Music and drunken laughs and celebration floated up from the
bar downstairs and carried something of a wartime depression with
them. From the bedroom I could hear Alan had gotten all angry about
something, telling mum that she had to remove them gradually. Mum
came out, went into the bathroom, filled a basin with water and
returned. Now imagining Alan, laid out naked on the bed with a
pathetic little hard on, his arms not even long enough to touch
himself until his mistress arrived, his bulk didn't seem comical
enough and in no way pitiful or sad. In a way it felt like the right
punishment for the right man, and that for all his meanness and
bitterness and contempt a fitting turn of events that he was the real
invalid at the whim of another who had everything he wanted.
There
was no noise that came from the sex, after all it was a pinch wank
and maybe a finger up the arse. It was all one way traffic with no
stop lights, Alan's pressurized little balls choking up their
contents within minutes. It was doubtful as to whether he could
physically penetrate someone anyway, and even if he did he'd not have
the energy or acrobatics to do much more than that. After twenty
minutes Mum would come out in a dressing holding the basin of water.
She'd empty it and shower and then we'd be getting ready to catch the
last bus home. It was always the same when I went there, the same
routine that eased Alan into the last days of his life.
In
the same year of the affair, one morning while being helped down to the bar by the cleaner, Alan had a third and fatal heart attack. He
died holding onto the special handrail he'd had fitted. As we didn't
have a telephone Mum arrived at the bar that evening, alone, to the news of his passing. The barman had kept the pub open thinking Mum may know
what to do and what would happen with jobs, salaries and the like.
But Mum was as much in the dark about these things as anyone. Between
the three of them they sold out the last evenings drinks and divided
the takings evenly. Mum left with a crate of vodka, some stray
bottles of whisky, a gold watch, a carton of cigarettes and a box of
Monster Munch crisps. She arrived home that night in a taxi, drunk
and sad.
Alan's
dead, she said strangely, the fat cunt just keeled over and
died this morning. She wasn't being mean or heartless, those were just her
words and how she used them. Somewhere inside her something still had
gone, even if it was only an easy ride. I helped her in with the
booze and crisps and in the dark she sat and smoked, the clinking of
the bottle against the glass, like a rattling ghost, through another
lonely night.
Coming Soon...
Hey All... just a little note to let you know that there'll be a few more days before the next post arrives. At the moment I'm working on a long awaited text for my other site and that has taken priority over everything else. I'm three pages in and will hopefully post on Thursday.If Friday doesn't find me dead or something worse, a post will follow here shortly after. From then on in it should be uniterrupted sailing for the rest of the series which I'll write to a conclusion leading up to the NewYear. The little break also gives me the opportunity to reflect and think over the second half of these writings and make sure the texts don't become lost in themselves, that they finally add up to something more worthwhile than any individual post. If not all becomes lost and a waste of time, because these lives I relate were not lived and died for entertainment value... there was something much more bleak and tragic behind them, soething much more lost than taking a bad turn or drinking a glass too much.
Thanks for staying with me...
My Mother's Sex Life #11: Fat Alan....
Thanks for staying with me...
My Mother's Sex Life #11: Fat Alan....
to follow soon...
The
Hobbs Hotel was a mid-priced tourist joint in the heart of central
London. It was also a hotel with a 'DHSS Welcome' sign in its window,
which meant it accepted government housing cheques, and by virtue of
doing so turned a profit all year round regardless of the class of
clientele it took in. It was a classic honey trap. Past the luxurious foyer,
past the Indian porters with their burgundy backed waistcoats, past
the reception desk with the leather signing in book and antique
wooden key racks up behind, you entered a back world of blood, puke
and filth, mothers rushing around with armfuls of shit splattered
sheets, naked, dirty children following, bawling; drunk men thumping
down doors for entry; schizophrenics wandering the halls arguing bizarre equations with themselves; perverts peeping from
spyholes; half naked prostitutes skipping from one room to the next;
wrinkled old women, the colour of smoked mackeral, dressed up like
dead movie stars; fat guys with their doors ajar, laying atop their beds with acorn sized
erections. All this and more, perfumed over with the stench of dirty
nappies and boiled cabbage which floated up from
the residents laundry and kitchen below. Though,unfortunately, by the time you was
being led through this commotion you had either already given over your pounds sterling or had nowhere else to go.
In
an attempt to keep the disparate mix of clientele separated as best
as possible, the hotel had a system for rooming its guests. Generally
the real bad problem families (mostly Irish gypsies) were kept
out of sight in the basement rooms. Single women, stable couples,
and the insane were mixed throughout the first floor. And poor, but
relatively clean families, were put up on the top floor. That
left the second and third floors free for tourists and business
guests. If you'd have stripped away the main front wall the floors
would have resembled something like the different coloured strata in
rock face. We were on the top floor, with two adjoining rooms between
us. Mum had a room to herself and the other I shared with my brother
and sister.
The
manager of the hotel was Mr Patel. He was a small, slight, well
groomed Indian man of around forty five who had given his lot in with
the British. The first time I saw Mr Patel he greeted us from
the taxi as we arrived. The second time he
was standing outside the door of my room with his hands behind his
back and a long, thin, light brown, bulbous headed cock poking out his
pants. On seeing me he spun around panicked, hunching up and
dropping his keys.
– What? Where
is your mother? he stammered, his back to me, stuffing his penis away
and zipping himself to attention.
– She's in the
other room, I replied, we've swapped.
– Swapped?
You've swapped!That is strictly forbidden. Whatt'if there should be a
fire? How da bluddy hell am I suppos'd to know where you are, where
is at your mother? You cannot just swap willy nilly like this! You
cannot!
Mr
Patel still hadn't faced me. He'd said all this while fluffing his
crutch flat and walking briskly away, hoping I'd not seen what he
knew I had.
– Tell that
mother of yours that I'll be back, he called out. This will just not
do!
I
watched Mr Patel hurriedly take the fire escape. The light flicked on
and through the round, wire glass panel of the door I followed the
back of his head, his shiny, brilliant black hair as it went down the
stairs. With myself the wrong side I pulled the room door shut.
I stood and waited in the corridor. Barely a minute later the lift
rang open and Mr Patel's polished shoes and silver suit stepped out.
He looked at me and made a move like he was going to give chase.
– Get in your
room! He screamed. Get in your bluddy room!
*
* *
Mum
despised Mr Patel. She smiled and flirted for him and let his hands
find places they shouldn't, but in private she hated him like I'd not
seen her hate anyone barring my stepfather. The problem was that mum
had made the terrible mistake of giving sex for the promise of
favours, transferring power from seller to buyer. And once she had
started down that road there was no turning back – at least not
until she received the ultimate pay-off: a move into permanent
accommodation. Of course, Mr Patel had no official say in such
matters, he was no more than a small private landlord, but he assured
Mum that his word carried heavy influence and he could procure speedy
rehousing with the right letter of recommendation. Though,by way of reason, our rehousing wasn't at all in his interest. That would take Mum away from him,
and he had no desire for that happen. To get around this
problem he'd create difficulties and instances to save us from. It
would finally turn around to be mum in debt to him and not the other
way around. The pussy she had already banked was then used to pay off the new debts, leaving the one she thought she was fucking for still
outstanding.
For
example, one day Mr Patel called up and told Mum we had to come down
to the reception. When we arrived he handed Mum a computer printout
and stood there with his hands clasped in front of him, staring at
her. Mum asked what it was and Mr Patel said it was a phone bill for
97 pounds which I had rung up, and which had to be settled
immediately. Mum scrutinized the bill and pointed out that there were
calls to foreign numbers dating back from before we were even in the
hotel.
– Don't worry
about that, said Mr Patel, I assure you it was this one here who did
it! Look, phoning them dirty sex chatting lines!
That
was true. Out of curiosity I had phoned up a few chat lines but had
promptly hung up as soon as someone answered. But the calls home to
India at 3am in the morning, made while we were living the other side
of London, were not mine.
Mr
Patel told mum that if she didn't pay he'd have no option but to
report us to the Housing Authority which had placed us there. He said
he couldn't have that, that if all the tenants rang up such bills
he'd be bankrupt within a month.
– And don't
forget, he said, when you are thrown out of here YOU have made
YOURSELF homeless and will not be rehoused again.
Mum
looked away, knowing she was being done. Visibly she steeled herself
against something.
> Well, I can't
pay it in cash... You know that, she said.
Mr
Patel took the telephone printout. – Cash! Cash is not your
problem! He cried. No, don't worry. We can wangle the cash from
Social Security. But to do that, I would be doing a favour for you,
not for myself. Understand?
Mum
pulled a sour face. She understood alright. She understood Mr Patel's
wicked smile just fine.
As
we went back upstairs I asked Mum what would happen.
> Well, I'll
have to fuck him again now won't I, she said, and shivered like he
was already inside her.
From
then on Mr Patel made himself a regular visitor to my mother's room.
After a while he even stopped knocking, letting himself in with his
master key at his choosing. He also tried to worm his way in with me.
Seeing I occasionally swung a cricket bat through the hallway he
began talking of cricket, of Sachin Tendulkar and how Kapil Dev was
the greatest all-rounder the world had ever seen. He told me that his
uncles were down in reception watching England vs Australia and that
I should go and join them. As he said that he lit his eyes up with
excitement, but I saw past that, to the slyness underneath, and the
words 'little bastard' that held up his smile. I replied that
cricket was boring on TV and didn't interest me. Over a period of
weeks Mr Patel adopted various strategies to get rid of me so as he
could fuck Mum in peace. To each suggestion I turned my nose up and
shook my head, until he deplored me for the distraction I was,
sitting the other side of his cheap partitioned walls as he drove it
into Mum full of rage and anger, demanding that she call him a 'paki'
all the while.
> I'm am not a
paki! I am not a fucking paki! He'd scream, finally letting out an
deep animalistic roar as he pumped my mother full of climax and hate
.
As
the months went by in The Hobbs Hotel, and it dawned on us that we'd
be there for some time, my mother became more and more miserable,
finally sinking into an acute depression. This depression was the
catalyst which sent her spiralling into her most dire period of
alcoholism, leaving her bed-ridden for months and almost sucking the
life right out of her. During the onset of this oblivion Mr Patel
would be in and out her room in no more than five minutes, sometimes
up to four times a day. Now it was sex for nothing. Mum was incapable
of bargaining, and wasn't conscious enough to know she had anything
to bargain with.
> She's OK, Mr
Patel would say to me as he left her room, just sleeping it off.
As
the days and weeks drifted by My Mother became a recluse – haggard
and loose and dead in the bed. She befriended a young prostitute from
the first floor and used her to run her booze and cigarette errands,
and only left the room herself once every second week to shuffle down
to the post office to cash her Social Security book. She was in such
a wretched state the even Mr Patel stopped entering for sex.
Mum
was now down to pure existence. Alcohol had mollified her so much
that it was as if her bones had been removed. She was now just a
huge, loose, dirty sprawl of fuck on a filthy bed that men would walk
in on, empty into and then leave. In the dark of the room, barely
eating, surviving mostly on alcohol, her skin had bleached a deathly
white palour, like she'd been submerged in water for weeks. It got so
desperate that every few hours I would creep into her room to make
sure she was still breathing, and to turn her around so as when she
vomited it would be over the side of the bed and she'd not choke to
death.
Sometimes,
as I crept around the room, Mum would sense my presence. She'd cry
and moan that we had to get out of this place. At times she'd try to
rise, her pathetic drunken face full of the strain of trying to right
herself, crying through the frustration of incapability before
collapsing back down into the pit of passive life she had become. The
only thing she could do was reach out for her glass and drink some
more. And when, as often happened, she dropped the glass or put it
down straight off the edge of the bedside cabinet, I'd hear her
ghostly whinge through the walls and go and replace the glass and
refill it too.
The
room itself was then permanently in semi-smoky darkness. It smelled
like a vomit factory, her sick bucket and floor full of thick, slimy,
yellow bile cut through with slithers of congealed blood. The bed was
a soiled, decomposing mess – almost something organic. As Mum
rarely got out of bed there was never the occasion to change the
sheets or flip the mattress over, and so over the piss and vomit and
tears were laid blankets and towels and clothes so as Mum had a dry
warm patch to lay on. The floor was a litter of bottles, plastic
bags, bits of half eaten food, clothes, crisp and cigarette packets.
It had become a chamber of infinite misery, my mother's struggle now
drifting through her unconsciousness, a low drone of pain coming out
of her and reverberating around the room as tears leaked out her eyes
and soaked her pillow. She was dying, and somewhere beneath the drunk
of alcohol she knew it too.
Mr
Patel no longer even passed. Instead he'd either phone up to my room,
or collar me as I passed through the foyer, making sure I had checked
on Mum and that she was still alive. He said that another death would
ruin him.
> I cannot put
up with this much more longer, he'd say. That top floor is beginning
to pong... my other guests are complaining!
At
least three times a week he threatened he was going to report mum to
the DHSS and have us removed, but I guess having two rooms let out
for two thousand pounds a month stopped him doing anything quite that
drastic.
Mum
never did really pull herself out of that period of drinking, at
least not while we were in the hotel. The place had become
insufferable to her and, no matter how much she may have wanted to
get sober, her overriding need was to black out the hell that life
had become. She did however calm down enough to begin eating properly
again, and once she had gotten some strength back she cleared the
room out and cleaned herself up. She was still drinking in excess of
a bottle of vodka a day, but now was at least out of bed as much as
she was in it, and washed and applied a little make-up.
After
being seen a few times, and at least semi-conscious, it wasn't long
before Mr Patel was sniffing around again and pulling her against his
groin and whispering sordid innuendos into her ear. The major
difference now though was that he had experienced the downside of My
Mother's wildness, had realiszed she wasn't for keeps (even under
hostage) and had decided that it was maybe time to fuck her for the
ultimate payment he had always promised. So, in my mother's clearer
moments, life was just as obscured as before, only then by Mr Patel,
his angry, clenched face all she could see as he drove it into her
and released his pent up anger against the British, or his own secret
shame of having put his lot in with them. Whatever the reason for the
rage that channeled through his sexual endeavors, within a week, a
smiling Mr Patel, overjoyed that he did indeed hold some petty sway
in local government, handed mum a letter which said that on
recommendation of the hotel's management we were the family most
likely to benefit from immediate rehousing. The DHSS had found us a
final, temporary property to move into until such time that permanent
housing became available.
Mum
lit up with relief. Sure, it was still only a temporary fix and we
hadn't seen it yet, but it was a two bed-roomed flat all to ourselves
and we would be the only ones with the key. As Mum looked over the
letter again, and I strained to read it too, Mr Patel somehow worked
his way between us, linking his arms around our waists and smiling as
if there was a photographer to catch the moment. But there was no
photographer, just a grotty, ill lit corridor with worn red carpet
stretching out in front of us, and the smell of dirty nappies and
boiled cabbage drifting up the stairs.
Mum
pulled away from Mr Patel, letting his hand fall to his side. For a
second he looked like he was going to reach for her once more, but
then stalled and resisted. Mum was free, and as they say: that was
the end of that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)