I coughed and said, ‘I’m sorry, Caduta, but what is all this?’
‘Mr Guyland. He said there were to be several explicit love scenes.’
‘With you?’
She lifted her chin and nodded.
‘That’s all nonsense, Caduta. There aren’t any love scenes in the outline.’
‘Lorne Guyland said that Mr Goodney promised him three long love scenes, with full nudity.’
‘Good God, how old is Guyland? What’s he want to be in the nude for?’
‘He is a disgusting person. Listen, Mr Self — John. I need your reassurance that this will not happen.’
‘You got it.’ I glanced round the room. The bagladies smiled encouragingly. ‘Look, Caduta. There are no sex scenes between you and Lorne. There’ll probably be a scene or two with you in bed together, in the morning sort of thing — but with sheets, okay?’
Til be frank with you, John,’ said Caduta Massi. She shooed the children from her lap. ‘I am forty-three, as I say. My tits are not so good any more. My belly is good, my ass is good, but the tits?’ She waved a hand in the air. ‘I have second-degree cellulite on my outside thigh. What have you got to say to that?’
I had nothing to say to it. Caduta was wearing a two-piece suit of grey suede. With a little bounce she drew the skirt up to her hips. I could see the stocking tops, the tender skin, the billion-lira panties. She took a fistful of her outside thigh and squeezed, making the flesh frown.
‘See?’ she said, and started to unbutton her shirt.
I glanced round the room again. One of the dads popped his head through the doorway. The head smiled, then withdrew. The bag-ladies stared on, stonily now. One of the children pawed at my lap, as if returning my attention to the lady on the velvet throne.
Holding my eye, Caduta parted the flounces of her shirt. She freed the clip that marked the centrepoint of her cleavage in the hefty brassiere. ‘Come, John,’ she said.
I stood up, I moved forward, I knelt. She gathered my face to her heart. I sensed all the voluminous stirrings in there, deep among the mortal heaviness.
‘You never had a mother, did you, John.’
My voice was muted, but what I said was, ‘No. I never did.’
——————
There are, at the latest count, four distinct voices in my head. First, of course, is the jabber of money, which might be represented as the blur on the top rung of a typewriter — £% ¼@=&$! — sums, subtractions, compound terrors and greeds. Second is the voice of pornography. This often sounds like the rap of a demented DJ: the way she moves has got to be good news, can’t get loose till I feel the juice—suck and spread, bitch, yeah bounce for me baby… And so on. (One of the subvoices of pornography in my head is the voice of an obsessed black tramp or retard who roams the Times Square beat here in New York. Incomprehensible yet unmistakably lecherous, his gurgled monologue goes like this: Uh guh geh yuh tin ah fuh yuh uh yuh fuh ah ah yuh guh suh muh fuh cuh. I do a lot of that kind of talking in my head too.) Third, the voice of ageing and weather, of time travel through days and days, the ever-weakening voice of stung shame, sad boredom and futile protest…
Number four is the real intruder. I don’t want any of these voices but I especially don’t want this one. It is the most recent. It has to do with quitting work and needing to think about things I never used to think about. It has the unwelcome lilt of paranoia, of rage and weepiness made articulate in spasms of vividness; drunk talk played back sober. And on the TV they keep showing hysterical ads or the fucking news … All the voices come from somewhere else. I wish I could flush them out of my head. As with vampires, you have to ask them in. But once they’re there, once you’ve given them headroom, they seem pretty determined to stick around. Don’t Jet them in, these crashers. Don’t Jet them in, whatever you do.