The Museum of Doubt Page 23
Charlie took the flask out, drank from it and handed it to Gordon, who held it open without drinking. Whisky incubi flew from the mouth of the flask and wormed into his sinuses. Charlie said he knew what Gordon meant. He said: In the old seventies, they’d come to Waterland, mind Gordon, over-21s only, it was a discotheque, it was a meatmarket, uhuh, and when I say meatmarket I don’t mean in a disgusting way, mind eh, it was all totally stylish, sophisticated folk, beautiful underage girls and groomed, aye, groomed lads in their twenties with their first wages and first jackets trying to get them drunk. It was kind of like the place to go. On the playground, uhuh, and the shopfloor and the old office, where were you going? Waterland. Seven nights a week, regular hours and the DJ he was he was he was just staff, aye, just staff. Used to, eh, spin the old discs myself of a once in a while. Uhuh. Now there’s no Waterland at all, no. There’s all kinds of clubs at Waterland. You can be at Waterland, aye, but not be Waterland. The boys, and the eh the old lassies, it’s like in the daytime they’re in their bedrooms dreaming new clubs, aye, they’ve hooked the rhythm into their ears and a bit of a sherbert fizz in the veins from the old self-medication, and by evening the club has a name on a thousand bits of paper. Last week you had Soma, Deep Wide, Halo Labz, Santiago and Made. The clubs come and go and change in a night, they’re only people and a DJ and a few records, and they’re more real than Waterland is. On Thursday they say Going to Soma? and on Friday they say Going down Deep Wide the night? and they’re two different places in the same place ’cause Waterland is just the cold dead venue and the club, the club, the club’s the only thing that gives it life. Aye. So. I reckon I’ll just have to go and burn the cunt down.
Charlie’s eyes gave Gordon a quick stroke with the edge of vision.
It’s that time of year, sure enough, said Gordon. Bonfires.
Jesting, Gordon my man, jesting, said Charlie. Not like the eh, the insurance is eh, not like I was needing that kind of instant cash flow. No worries, no, no. Not if I win the old lottery anyway, heh, aye, heh. Mm. Can you wait a minute?
Charlie got out of the car. Gordon watched him stand for a moment in the rain with his hands in his pockets, looking up and down the street. Charlie sucked half an inch from his cigar, let it fall and twisted it out on the road. He went to the boot. Gordon saw the boot lid rise in the mirror. Charlie was out of view for a few minutes. When he slammed the boot down he had a canister in his hand. Him and Gordon were looking at each other. Gordon couldn’t tell whether Charlie was staring at the back of his head or meeting his eyes boxed in the rear-view. Whatever it was he was adding something up. Boy’d always been adding something up. That time he’d bought out his partner in the massage game after he hired an actor to make it like he was from the income tax and given the daft idiot a stroke. The partner’d hardly been able to sign his name after that. Charlie’d always brought him flowers and fruit and sat with him, talking away while his old partner sat there and shook a bit. What happened to that one? They say he got better but he never got his stake in the massage place back, did he? and Charlie selling it on to those developers a few weeks later like he’d known from day one. What was that partner’s name?
Charlie came to Gordon’s side of the car. Gordon lowered the window. What’s with the eh, what’s with the leaves? said Charlie.
Autumn leaves, said Gordon. Assortment. Pick and mix. For a bonfire.
Uhuh. A fire. D’you not think it’s a bit on the old wet side? Maybe best to have the bonfire indoors, aye.
There’s twigs in there as well, said Gordon. What happened to that daft partner of yours who had the stroke? What was he called?
Ah Gordon. Oh, Gordon. Charlie shook his head and swung the canister gently from side to side, making the liquid glug. There was a smell of petrol. How many, I mean, eh, how many times, it was a long time back, aye, we were younger then, how many times can I say I’m eh I’m eh I’m eh, aye, sorry? I wasn’t expecting your heart to eh do. To be. To do. You were all of 35. You’ve made a full recovery, uhuh, full, aye. Your career didn’t suffer.
Right but what was his name? said Gordon.
Charlie stopped swinging the canister, squatted down and looked into Gordon’s eyes. He held up fingers.
How many fingers am I holding up? Tell me five things you own. Who are you married to?
Gordon stared at the. Try to count the. He turned to the pouring, gathering in the, dammed by the. Remember the. And the little, the sweet, and the fuckable, the tasty and the warm, the neat and the new, the green and the plastic. It was all there, only the names were not.
Smithie, he said. Smithie’s the one. When we landed there was clapping, there was clapping all around us, and Smithie looks at me and says: welcome to fantasyland.
Are you a wee bit tired, Gordon my man? said Charlie. Weary? With the old life thing, I mean? He waited for Gordon to answer. Gordon took a drink and said nothing. Charlie watched him for a while and went to the boot to fetch something else. He opened Gordon’s door, took the flask from him gently and put it away. He was wearing gloves now. He took Gordon’s arm and eased him out of the car.
Come on, Gordon, he said. I’ll show you where you can make your, eh, bonfire.
Charlie led Gordon to the door of Waterland. He gave Gordon a crowbar and showed him how to use it to bust the padlock. Gordon tore the lock off and kicked the door open. A set of CCTV screens inside glowed blue. Charlie switched on the lights, opened the CCTV bothy with a key, took out the video recording events at the back door and left that machine empty. He handed Gordon the petrol canister and the twigs and leaves and pointed to a set of stairs up.
You want to go on to the big dancefloor, he said. Uhuh. Build your fire in the middle of it. There you go, I’ll put the lights on for you. Plenty of the old gasolene on the parquet, aye, use a coupla chairs if you fancy. Should be a lovely blaze. I’ll eh join you later, got to eh got to aye. Bring some baking potatoes in the old silver foil.
Wait, said Gordon. He put the stuff down and went out to the car. He opened the boot, took out the rest of his shopping from the garden centre and brought it inside.
Got everything? said Charlie. Here’s your matches. Off you pop. Mind and give the cameras a wave. He patted Gordon on the shoulder. See you later.
Gordon walked up the stairs. Charlie called after him: Gordon! Maybe! Just maybe! Eh? and pulled the entrance door hard shut with a rattle of the exit bar. Gordon heard the Jaguar tyres hurt the road like a shriek cut off by a muffling hand.
Gordon walked on to the dancefloor of Waterland, an oval auditorium with seating booths on two sides, a shuttered bar at one end and a wall of speakers, topped with a dual turntable, at the other. The wooden floor was stained and scored under the dilute white house lights and splinters were starting to rise out of it. Flaps of cloth hung off seats oozing crumbling foam. Gordon emptied out the leaves in the centre of the floor and organized them into a neat mound. They were dry and crisp. He set a few twigs aside for the house and laid the rest on top of the leaves. Good kindling. He only needed solid timber to have embers for the baked tatties later. There were a few barstools with thick wooden legs and struts and padded leatherette seats. Gordon laid a couple on the fire and set a couple more on either side of it. The slatted steel shutter sealing off the bar was fixed with a padlock. Gordon loaded the shotgun, stepped up to the bar and let the padlock have it with both barrels at point-blank range. The lock snapped open and the shutter furled itself. Gordon helped himself to a sextuple Grouse, lit the fire, reloaded the gun, held it broken in the crook of his arm, sat on the barstool and sipped his whisky, inhaling the lines of smoke and watching the maggoty wriggles of red gnaw at the leaves and hatch into yellow flame. Gordon tossed a little whisky onto the fire and it blazed blue.
The lights went out. A drum break shot from the wall of speakers, birthing a dogged, body-resonant thump of bass and a string section which first whined, then moved to the edge of panic. The drums cleared a fresh path and the voice of a w
oman, sad, petulant and vengeful, Sixties-reedy, sang:
I won’t love you any more
I won’t love you any more
Sorry
Sorry
You made me think I loved you so
The tricks you used were only low
I guess now I see
That you’re wrong for me
Our love is awry hope you understand why
I won’t love you any more
A red strobe began to flash and lasers started up. A pair of bare legs jerked into the strobe field, smooth, slender and strong, dancing to the music in white shoes with two-inch pointed heels. The legs, mythically long, stretched far up towards the roof, with only a vast, twisting structure in between preventing them reaching it. The curved structure was tightly sheathed in white fabric, printed with large overlapping circles. It moved from side to side in time to the music and was attached to the legs. Two bare arms of fantastic length were fixed to the structure and at the peak an immense head tossed to and fro, short blonde hair, heavy black circles of eyeliner and mascara, and pale lipstick. She was a lovely young girl in a minidress. She was Gordon’s kind of lassie, young and bonny, not bony. She looked like Julie. Only Julie was ear-high to Gordon and this one had to be seven feet easy. Maybe eight. And everything built to scale. Her dance steps made the building tremble.
The record stopped, the strobes and the lasers came off and a gentler, dappled light sequence coloured them the colours of the rainbow in succession. The giant approached the fireside.
It’s members only, she said. Are you a member?
No, said Gordon. But I’m armed and the boss is a friend.
I’m the boss tonight, said the girl. She had a deep voice. It travelled a long way to reach her mouth. Gropey Charlie owns the venue but the event is mine. This is White Sugar. Northern Soul till the early hours. It’s called White Sugar because I am white, and because I’m sweet, like sugar. You’ve set fire to the dancefloor.
It’s that time of year, said Gordon.
D’you like Northern Soul?
I don’t know.
Listen to this. She climbed up to the decks and played more tracks.
I never got the bar open before, she said. I’ll give you free membership for that. That’s you the first member. Just for tonight, mind.
They went to the bar. Gordon left the gun by the fire and strolled beside the giant girl while she tacked forward in tiny steps and swayed to the sound of The Ellusions, mouthing the words, air boxing and tossing her hair. She picked Gordon up, lifted him over the bar and set him down on the other side. He fetched her a Red Bull and gave himself more whisky.
Her name was Sheena and still at school she’d gone on a pilgrimage to Wigan to the shrines of Northern Soul. She’d got a basketball scholarship to Detroit University but came home because her American wasn’t good enough and the clubs of the city no longer paid anything but token, exploitative homage to the lost true souls of soul, to the genius of their pre-funk forefathers. She wanted a job but it was hard to find one. It was hard to find a bed that fitted. It was hard to get clothes. Or friends. The ceilings in her parents’ house were low, the walls close together, and you got tired of sitting with your knees up against your face. Sheena started to inhabit the many clubs of Waterland. She fell foul of some door policies and others sought her out. She didn’t dance to anything post-1980 and mostly hung at the edge of the lights, stooping to the dwarfish punters with Walkman earphones in her hand, offering Northern Soul, trying and failing to make converts. Some of the punters, particularly those who’d been tripping heavily, were terrified when the face of the beautiful giant loomed down into their plastic consciousness. They chatted about the Northern Soul Monster with dread and anticipation in the queues. The door policies got tougher and Sheena took to hiding in the club after it closed. There was a big roof space she’d roam with her Walkman. She had candles up there for reading. When the club was shut she’d come down and play the decks. Sometimes she’d be inside for 48 hours at a time, living off leftover beer and drugs and sweets and napping in the booths.
You want to find yourself a nice lad your own size, said Gordon.
I don’t want someone my own size, said Sheena. I had a boyfriend, five nine, very slim and good-looking. I was happy with him, even though he wasn’t into the music. I dumped him ’cause he always made me go round his mum’s house on my knees. She was half-blind and he didn’t want her to know I was so much taller than him.
Charlie should be here with the potatoes, said Gordon.
What’s wrong with you? said Sheena.
Nothing wrong with me. Careful.
There is. When you listen to enough soul music you learn soul-searching. I can search your soul.
Do I have one?
Yes. At the moment you’re empty, but there’s a lost soul inside you. A soul without a club. Without a club your soul is like a punter wandering through the empty venue of the man, without music to dance to or people to dance with. You need a club. The creed of White Sugar is my creed. There has to be music. The music has to have four beats to the bar. And you should never, never, betray anyone you love.
I’m in a club, said Gordon. The club of men.
I don’t know that club.
It’s a good one. But it’s not been the same since Smithie left.
I don’t know who Smithie is.
We were in Bangkok. Welcome to fantasyland, he said. And then I couldn’t find him. I heard a peacock screaming.
Gordon heard a peacock screaming in the garden outside the window. He got off the bed and watched the lustrous blue creature promenading across the lawn. The grass had just been watered. In the centre of the garden was a tree with a broad, sinewed black trunk and millions of tiny shining leaves. Smithie hadn’t woken him. Bangkok had turned cold. Gordon pulled the white bathrobe tighter and fetched a mini-Teacher’s from the fridge. A maid arrived and offered to do something to the bed.
Go ahead, said Gordon. Is it morning or afternoon? She was fine.
It’s six o’clock in the evening, said the maid. You just arrive? She laughed and tore at the bedlinen with thin, powerful arms.
It’s freezing, said Gordon. Cold.
Air conditioning, said the maid. She leaned over the bed, smoothing down fresh sheets. You can change it. She finished the bed and showed him the dial. It’s too low. What you want, 25? She turned it so the arrow pointed to 25. Gordon moved towards her. She took a step away. Gordon loosened the cord of the bathrobe, dropped the minibottle into his pocket and took out a folded wad of banknotes.
Is sex with the maids included, or is it extra? he asked.
No sex, said the maid, holding her arms tensed in front of her, crossed at the wrist, palms outward. She backed towards the half-open door and opened it wide with her heel. No sex. All the maids are married. I’m not a maid, I’m the housekeeper, and I’m married too. You want to go to the red light district. Yeah, red light. Plenty of girls there for foreign men.
Gordon sat on the bed and suckled the bottle for the last drops. A boy in polyester blue with a six-hair moustache and an angry frown came to take away the things the housekeeper had left. He watched Gordon the whole time.
You look like my son, said Gordon. Although he’s a white man, of course. Where’s the red light district?
You take a cab, the boy said, and went out swiftly.
Gordon called Smithie’s room. There was no answer. It was getting dark. Gordon put on a cerise polo shirt, beige slacks and black moccasins and went out. He padded along the corridor to where Smithie was staying and knocked on his door, saying Smithie’s name, then shouting it. He drummed on the door with the knuckles of both fists. No Smithie. Gone off to find a drinking place. The drinking was the one, the one before the taxi, before the tarts. Only you had to be sure you drank together otherwise where were you, you were heavily outnumbered by foreigners. They were small and polite and once your back was turned they’d come at you with their knives. It was a
wonder Smithie’d ever done business with the Bangkokies. Said he’d played golf with them. Dodgy business. You had the advantage of height and weight, of course, but what was that when all you had in your bag was irons and the Bangkokie had his knife. Soon as they sensed the power of your swing they’d steer you into the rough and rush you. Bamboo stakes in the bunkers. Miserable.
He came to a door that led to the outside, to a path between hard glossy bushes, lit by globes of light, leading to the reception building. The door was pulled open as he was approached by a Bangkokie in a coffee-coloured uniform, like a policeman, only without a gun. The policeman smiled and nodded at him and saluted. Oh, they were polite. The heat closed around Gordon like the numbness brought on by certain pills and gases, irreversible once swallowed. He stopped and turned, moved his hands to catch a cooler pool of air, and the heat was everywhere.
You OK, sir? said the policeman.
Open a window, said Gordon. It’s stuffy.
You’re outside.
It’s cold inside, said Gordon. Open the windows and it’ll even things up.
Sir, reception is straight ahead.
Gordon went to the reception desk and asked about Smithie. He’d left his room key and gone. No message.
He came here on a business trip once before, said Gordon. D’you know where he used to go?
Don’t know, said the girl at reception. She was fine. Maybe he went for a drink in hotel bar?
Gordon looked at her. She smiled. He asked her if sex with reception clerks was included, or if it was extra. She lowered her head, shaking it violently, and began rearranging papers and pens on the desk behind the counter.
You want red light district, she said.
A woman in a black dress was singing in the bar, a Bangkokie with hair down to her waist, shoulders bare and a big voice. She was singing I’ve Got a Crush on You. Men dressed like Gordon were sitting alone with drinks, tapping one or two fingers on the table, nodding their heads and wagging their moccasins in leaden time. The singer had one hand on her mike and one hand resting on the lid of a grand piano. She turned to Gordon, sang: Sweetypie, and winked at him. Over 30. Too old. Gordon walked away, parted the doors onto the car park and crossed over again into the warm electric dark outside.