‘Fucking her for years, and now Son is too, in secret. Oh yeah, and Mistress has mob connections — she used to strip in a mob club. Anyway, one day, in the restaurant— they all work in a restaurant, or a pub, or a bar, or a club. We haven’t decided on that yet. Mistress works there too. Anyway, one day — Mother and Son are pretty close, and Mother has a, a sort of mothering interest in Mistress. Mother doesn’t know anything. Anyway, one day, at the restaurant, where they all work, or the pub, or the bar, or the club, there’s the daily delivery from the bakery. Father and Son open a case of flour. But it’s not flour — it’s heroin. Now Father has had mob connections. He just wants to give the stuff back. But Son, he —’
I’ve done this speech so many times now — keep me fuelled, and I can drone it out with seamless fluency, making no effort at all. And so my mind was free to wander unpleasantly, as it always wanders now when unengaged by stress or pleasure. My thoughts dance. What is it? A dance of anxiety and supplication, of futile vigil. I think I must have some new cow disease that makes you wonder whether you’re real all the time, that makes your life feel like a trick, an act, a joke. I feel, I feel dead. There’s a guy who lives round my way who really gives me the fucking creeps. He’s a writer, too… I can’t go on sleeping alone — that’s certain. I need a human touch. Soon I’ll just have to go out and buy one. I wake up at dawn and there’s nothing. And when I wake up at night, in minus time… better not to ask — better not to say.
Her devilish eyes never leaving mine, Doris swayed out of her jacket and pressed a handkerchief to her glowing brow. Her manly white shirt also glistened in its silk. I stared, and mumbled on. So far as I could see, she was definitively flat-chested. And yet her slender-ness, too, was weirdly stirring,especially when you gazed at the athletic, the intricate throat. Selina’s throat is fuller, more volatile, more flammable,as indeed are her tits. What is it with tits? You don’t need them, do you. Doris doesn’t … The pub doors opened and stayed that way. In they file: not so many regulars now, not so many middle-timers in brackish suits with a tabloid under the arm. No, here come the young, in manmade colours and animal health, in city noise and detail, with all their clothes and tits and money.
‘So in the end,’ I was saying, ‘we come to the big showdown between Father and Son. Oh yeah, and the —’
Tell me,’ said Doris. ‘What’s the motivation of the Butch Beau-soleil character?’
‘Uh?’
‘The Mistress. What’s her motivation?’
‘Uh?’
‘Why is she sleeping with these two guys? Father gives her money. Okay. But why the Son. It’s a big risk for her. And the Son’s such a meatball.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s brill in the bag.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Maybe he’s a hot lay.’
‘That’s not motivation. That’s not something we can show dramatically. The whole point about the Mistress is she’s not just a dumb blonde, right? Then why does she behave like one? I don’t think an audience would buy it. A considerable woman, wrecking her life for sex? I think we need to provide some motivation.’
Fat Paul cruised past. ‘Veronica’s on,’ he said, and made the big-tits sign: two caved palms, raised and tensed. Doris looked up sweetly.
I said, ‘Ah, you chicks. You writers. Come here.’
I led her by her cold knuckly hand. We passed through the damp dust of the velvet curtain, into deeper noise, deeper smoke, deeper drink. Twenty loud people watched the big woman on the small stage. She was spider-dark, and hefty, and good at her job — the face all voided, as it must be. For several minutes she danced slowly, then half-reclined on the waiting straightbacked chair. Now one hand welded the deep breasts, while the other sought the sequins of the pants, and slipped within, working, working. I bent down and whispered into the tracery of Doris’s ear.