Anna let me lie on her bed for most of the day, distilling the flood disaster as a tragedy that couldn’t have happened to anyone else. She was attentive and gentle, stroking my hair as I tried to resist falling asleep. She asked questions at the right time, in the right places. I then lay down on her pillow and looked around the room, imagining what it must be like to wake up everyday to face those walls and windows. Cream paints, bright colours peaking out of the cupboards; the sun pressing through the glass panes and the day always irresistibly perfect.
‘Just as I was walking home, this memory from school came back to me.’
‘Which one honey?’ Anna asked even though her mobile phone was ringing on the bedside table. She mouthed “ignore that” and looked at me with the curiosity of a mother.
‘Being in high school and the principal interrupting our class, asking for our attention. There was a tragedy he wanted to tell us about.’
‘What was it?’ Anna asked.
‘Jason Voorhees is dead,’ and I laughed like I hadn’t laughed in a while when telling that story. ‘Nobody was impressed with my reaction.’
‘Why was it funny? I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not if you have never watched a horror film in your life. Jason Voorhees was the killer’s name in Friday the 13th. Just one of the best films ever made, Anna – how come you don’t know this?’
She looked at me as if I were to blame for one of the world’s worst attrocities.
‘Jason Voorhees was also the name of the twin who committed suicide. Jason and Jeremy Voorhees, Olympic champions.’
‘The poor boy,’ Anna lamented. It was meant for Jason as well as myself. That I was a boy back then that couldn’t respect death when he found it, that couldn’t leave the world of film fantasies separate from reality.
‘In a way, it was a succes de scandale. The whole school heard about it and everyone hated me for a few weeks. They couldn’t stop talking about my disgraceful behaviour. They couldn’t stop spitting at me when I walked down the hallway. Like I was the dirtiest thing that had ever existed. How dare I laugh at Jason’s death?’
‘Did you try to move schools?’
‘Why should I? It was such a subtle thing. Some laughter after an announcement – utterly forgettable to most people. Except that they didn’t forget. They carried it silently in them because I had been so offensive. I became unforgettable.’
‘Kids can be so cruel,’ Anna concluded, patting my head in a way that signified the hair stroking session was over. But I refused to move from the bed. Moving meant dealing with my flooded possessions, with my landlady, with getting my life back on track.
In the morning, Anna called her shop and told the staff she wasn’t feeling too well and that she would be working from home. We then took to the streets for one of our usual psycho-geographed walks. Into the depths of Bethnal Green we walked, following strangers until they disappeared into corner shops, barbers, mosques or residences. We let trees hang over us and pigeons cross our path. We let the distant sound of factory motors be our soundtrack. We let ourselves follow the conversation as it took its own path and became circular.
It was only when we were tired of spending shoe soles and had decided to return to her flat that I spotted the mormon missionaries from the day before in Victoria Park.
They were wearing the same shirts and trousers from the previous day, carrying the same suitcases, but their ties were of a different colour; dark red for the taller one and spotty blue for his companion. They looked fresher, like they’d taken a long soak in the bathtub or enjoyed really good sex that morning.
I had told Anna a little bit about them – had even tried to convince her (unsuccessfully) to help me visit them at night during our sleep – but she wasn’t too interested in any of that. But when we got closer and she realized how good looking they were, her spirits picked up and she smiled impishly at me.
‘You’d think they’d do a different neighbourhood today since they were here yesterday,’ Anna commented.
‘You’d think. There’s work still to be done here. Someone has caused a commotion and stirred up their emotions. Let’s follow and find out who!’
The boys turned into an alley running parallel to Bethnal Green Road; we followed. The boys walked past frightening corrugated gates; we followed. The boys entered a Victorian house with a plaque above the entrance that effectively cast a spell against my presence there; we stood and stared at it.
The most popular kids in school when I was in seventh grade were a pair of blond twins who were destined to represent Canada in the Olympics. Where they went their legend in the pool followed: how fast they swam, how quickly they turned, how smoothly they cut through the water to break records and delight trainers. Their parents were rich too, which added that extra glow to their corn-rich hair and golden complexions.
In the perilous world of seventh grade politics, I navigated in a circle distant from the blond twins. Like everyone else, I knew of them and secretly hoped to one day enter their sacred friendship circle. I still listened to crap music in that stage of my life and couldn’t think of anything classier than the preppy cashmere sweaters the twins wore around their neck when they weren’t practicing in the gymnasium. Down the school’s corridors they glided, a promising smile touching here and there, the hint of recognition a powerful elixir.
Three years later and one of them was dead from a messy suicide while the other lost all interest in sports and drifted into an apathy that prematurely stole his looks.
In my quest to understand my past and recognise why I was flatlined in the present, I searched for information on the twins. The Internet was my best friend forever: Facebook, MySpace, Friends Reunited, you name it. I was there with all the information I could remember about them, neatly jotted into my pocket diary as a list.
Nobody ever explained to me why the twins had self-destructed so sensationally. Why the suicide? Why was the survivor’s slide into depression not stopped by the parents or close friends? I would have sent him to the Betty Ford clinic or an expensive psychiatrist in America. I would have hired new coaches to inspire his continued swimming practices. I would have dangled a fake Olympic medal in front of his face until the hypnosis worked.
The Internet, like most of my friends, failed to shell out the information I needed. The surviving twin appeared to have a Facebook profile but it was locked to scrutiny and all my invitation requests were ignored. The tantalising closeness to the truth left me in despair.
At the end of seventh grade, we posed for our yearbook photos likes animals lined up for the abattoir. Some of us already sensed that those photos would capture us at our most gangly and awkward; photos meant to embarrass us for eternity. But the twins had received unique and special treatment that year: their portraits were done beside the swimming pool, unlike our studio ones. Two photos were taken with the boys side by side, then their faces cropped for their own places in the yearbook. If you bent the page, though, you could match their photos together and imagine them standing side by side, the cool water in the background.
After the suicide, I had dreams with the boy’s body in the swimming pool, a blood red rose expanding from his slashed wrists. His body slowly sinking to the bottom during that late hour he should be practicing. Nobody around to save him. Nobody around until it was too late. Later, they said his brother blamed himself for it. If he had shown up for practice that day everything might have been different. But they had had a fight and threats of quitting the Olympic practice had been thrown around.
And when they grew older, they joined the circus and travelled the world, searching for their own private Trevor.
I was visiting my local gym more often, swimming dozens of laps in order to keep in shape. The lifeguards still ignored me as I pulled myself out of the water and let my cut muscles do the talking. They were deaf mute to my body’s incessant, hysterical language. In the showers, I spotted Father Christmas soaping himself in the corner. The mould on the walls could have easily eaten off the skin from my body. The running water whispered the name of the ruined twins. Dead here. Dead there. Forgotten by the world. No longer meant for fame or fortune. Stuck in a Canadian dead end town.
I swam nearly everyday – it beat the blues and gave me long, deep sleeps at night. I dove within myself with the energy gathered during the day, reached the bottomless pit that opened into other people’s consciousness.
‘You need a new heart,’ the gym receptionist said to me one day.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said you need a new card. Your membership date has expired. Here, give it to me and I’ll print a new one for you.’
She dutifully made me sit on a revolving stool, stare at the camera and smile. My hair jutted out in different directions in the camera’s reflection. My eyes squinted. Her uniform was crisp and clean. Her name was Zelia. I wanted to ask her how much she earned and if there were any positions available. I could see myself sitting behind the reception all day, gently castigating patrons for forgetting to wear their goggles or bring change for the locker room. On the hour, doing a tour of the building to make sure randy couples weren’t spilling their endorphins into each other and scaring wholesome eyes.
Bound the restless hours of the day, I stepped into the light and searched my neighbourhood for new job ads posted in corner shops. The Job Centre wasn’t playing my luck anymore. In any case, I hated the disinterest in the eyes of the agents – the way they couldn’t wait to stamp my book and send me on my way. They were more interested in gossiping amongst each other.
‘I’m ready to be heartbroken,’ I announced to nobody in particular. I sat on a bench in Bethnal Green Park and stared at the other jobless individuals sketching the day in their minds. Our eyes met somewhere in the middle, above the lazy daisies and the plain pansies. Heartbroken, every single one of us. Bound to the day like prisoners to a chain gang. Taken round the courtyard for a bit of sun then back to the cell.
Not too long after Trevor and the Twins’ performance, I was approached by a pair of Mormon missionaries on Old Ford Road. They had just done a circuit of Victoria Park (unsuccessfully, based on the despondent look on their faces) when they spotted me as the perfect specimen to seduce. And I was seduced: they were the most beautiful set of boys I had ever set my eyes on. Their preppiness reawakened those memories of middle school, the unfulfilled popularity dreams. Their white teeth glittered like miniature skyscrapers stuck to their gums. Their blue eyes were as inviting and fresh as the Atlantic Ocean. The way they touched my hand as they asked for my minute made me wish I could give them hours instead.
‘Did you know you are the greatest thing since bread came sliced?’ the tallest one said to me.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Bread. Sliced,’ the other tried to helpfully explain.
‘I don’t have any money,’ I alerted them.
‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ the tallest one asked, scrutinising me more closely.
He did seem familiar. Had I visited him in dreams before? One of those accidents where the unconscious routes led me astray and landed me in the mind of a beautiful unknown stranger.
‘It’s possible,’ I said. This insinuation of a mystery between us seemed to disturb them. They took a step back and looked at each other in full Plan B mode.
‘You have a nice day,’ they nearly said in unison. I watched them retreat, marvelling at their perfect derrière. I had no doubt they spent many hours at the gym, perfecting their male forms so that other males could appreciate the perfect specimens they embodied.
‘Come back on a rainy day,’ I whispered into the air and continued on my way home. Waking life was sometimes as strange as dreams. The secret was to know when it had any meaning.
When I arrived at the residence, all hell had broken loose. The Portuguese twins were sitting on the sidewalk, weeping into each other’s arms. The landlady stood to one side, furiously screaming down her mobile phone about lawyers, damages, payments, repairs and immediate action. None of the other bedsit dwellers were around since they worked or studied; it was a prime moment for stepping into the limelight and taken on my landlady’s fury head on.
‘What’s up?’ I asked the Portuguese twins.
‘We have been flooded!’ my landlady shouted before the twins could respond.
‘Everything lost. Everything lost,’ the twins sobbed. They looked more than ever like little girls in need of a parent.
‘My room, what about my room?’ I cried out in desperation.
‘We are dealing with it,’ my landlady informed me.
‘Who’s we? Who’s dealing with it?’
‘They’ve turned off the water supply.
‘I need to get into my room! I need my things.’ I ran into the building and nearly cracked my head when skidding on the wet floor. Puddles formed everywhere and the walls cried long held tears that reached from the ceiling into the ground. I skipped steps and rushed into my bedsit, hardly noticing the pain in my right hip as I clumsily slammed it against the door’s edge.
My bed was soaked, my clothes ruined. My books curled at me like snarly lips and my posters peeled off the walls, some already on the floor. I gasped when I saw Trevor and the Twins’ poster floating on the ground. Colour had seeped off them, rendering their entire selves more unreal – nostalgic and long gone. I lifted the poster and let the water slide down it. I couldn’t believe my luck. What would I do next? Something cast a long shadow into the room and chilled my skin. I couldn’t feel my body anymore nor could I see the landlady covering my losses.
It was time to call Anna and beg for help.
Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald, Flight 714, Tintin and the Picaros, 1997
Tintin brings me back memories of being in eighth grade, the Algebra or Arithmetic teacher screaming at me after they discovered a copy of his adventures hidden inside my exercise book. Life was much simpler back then, where every bullet missed its target, every expedition had a happy end and every villain was vanquished (but sometimes able to escape and appear in a later story.) The stories hold less magic today to my adult self, though the nostalgia is plentiful to keep me turning the pages. Depiction of some of the non-European characters is problematic but I didn’t spot any of the offensive material which apparently exists in other stories. Interestingly, there are hardly any female characters in these stories – the plots centre exclusively on male friendships, companionship, adventure and battle. Tintin belongs to a long gone era – I’d be curious to know whether young boys today relate to him at all.
I haven’t been writing lately because of tendonitis / repetitive strain injury / carpal syndrome. My hands are now feeling much better and I’ll probably pick up again this Sunday (more rest tomorrow, just to be sure).
Walking down deserted and dark Regent’s Canal tonight and I suddenly realised that my novel is called “Jason Voorhees is Dead”. Now I have to figure out a way of working Jason into the story!
The image of two men kissing rose from my consciousness in the morning when I woke up. The faint hint of coffee hung in the air and I immediately remembered falling asleep on Anna’s couch. It was the first time I had slept over her flat. I looked around her living room and the way the early morning sun gave everything the hint of possibility and freshness. An aura seeped from her bookcase, a glow slid down her crème curtains, a vitality spruced up the flowers in her vases. I closed my eyes and tried to return to my dream and capture again those two shirtless men, shaved heads and tattoos on their backs, embraced in love; but the images retreated with every second and became harder to catch up with. The deeper I tried to dig myself into Anna’s leather couch, the faster they flew from me until they were a pleasant memory to be jotted down in my pocket diary when I had a spare moment.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Anna asked a bit later when she walked into the living room with our coffees. She knew how to make them American-style: black and hard as batteries. She wore my white shirt from the night before and scrunched up socks, a faint whiff of sex about her person. We were the only two people in the flat and I was immediately filled with dreadful images of us being too drunk and ending up in her bedroom.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asked coquettishly while pointing at the white shirt and crossing her legs at the edge of the sofa.
I eyed her like a wounded animal, not sure if I should strike back or flee. ‘Of course not.’ I sipped my coffee and prayed for my memories return.
‘Perhaps I could teach you some yoga moves this morning. If you like.’ Now that Anna’s pet business was a success, her eyes had started to wander again. Her latest interest was yoga.
‘Sure. As long as I don’t have to move from this spot or do anything.’
‘It will energise you. I’m sensing that you haven’t been feeling well lately; I think you could get a lot from yoga.’
‘Can I get a job? Some money? A ticket back to Canada?’
‘Ask the universe and it will answer back. But be careful what you wish for,’ she said mysteriously. Her eyes disappeared into her coffee and her hair grew darker. A cloud crossed the sun and shadows lengthened across the living room’s wooden floors. If Anna had asked me to be her housemate, I would have said yes on the spot.
‘What happened last night?’
‘You don’t remember?’ She was genuinely surprised.
‘N-no,’ I stammered. I wasn’t sure if I should be worried.
‘After Trevor and the Twins finished their performance, you went up to them and asked for an autograph.’
I cringed.
‘Then you asked if you could kiss them. Very loudly. A few people laughed and you got upset.’
‘Why don’t I remember this?’
‘I don’t know!’ Again, genuine surprise in her voice. Her head bobbed around like a doll’s; her voice’s timbre went up a notch. The coffee hurt my stomach and I failed to recollect when was the last time I had eaten anything.
‘What a bunch of homosexuals they were,’ I said, disgusted with myself. I never wanted to step foot in The Black Swan again. I never wanted to run the risk of someone laughing at their memories of me, my recollections smashed to smithereens.
‘Yes, indeed they were,’ Anna laughed. ‘And you are smitten!’
After a benevolent breakfast of toast with butter and jam, we took to the streets to clear our heads. She tucked her arm inside mine and pressed my body against hers. We psycho graphed the neighbourhood and followed random strangers because we didn’t know where we wanted to go.
‘If we keep doing this, we’ll eventually find a café where we can sit down and have another coffee.’
‘I like the way you think,’ I said, my first affectionate feeling for Anna that morning.
‘I dreamt with Ivette last night,’ Anna almost whispered as we walked down Old Grove Road. ‘I think she was trying to tell me something.’
‘She wanted to tell you where she buried her jewellery.’
‘Why would I want any of that?’
‘That’s what you need to tell her next time she shows up.’
‘She scares me now.’
‘She scares me too,’ I confessed. ‘I sometimes get her in my dreams. I made the bad mistake of wanting to visit her in the dream world after she passed away. It’s my fault she’s come back. She’s got no peace.’
‘We could visit her parents and ask to pray to the ashes. That might help.’
‘That won’t help at all. Ivette is back to kick some ass,’ and we both laughed. ‘She would have loved Trevor and the Twins. If she could remember their performance. It must have been thoroughly shit if I can’t remember anything!’
‘I remember it as if just happened a minute ago,’ Anna said. ‘It was no big deal. But all the men in the audience behaved strangely afterwards. Senseless violence outside the pub. People falling into each other. Pints thrown on the floor. It nearly broke into a riot. Your friend from the Underworld helped me get you out of there even though he wanted to stay behind and get an autograph too. I nearly said autopsy!’
‘Did you catch his name?’
‘Something like Beckham. Something like David.’
‘David Beckham? His long lost clone who doesn’t look remotely like him?’
‘Here, let’s sit down in this café for a while,’ Anna suggested and I complied by pulling a chair free and offering it to her. She gave me change from her purse for me to order coffee for both of us.
‘I’m sure he said Beckham. And David.’
‘I thought your memory was perfect from last night.’
‘It was for the show but everything else is a mystery. I wish I had invited him to come home with us. He looked a little lost outside and he didn’t seem to know where to go.’
‘That would have been a mistake.’
‘How come?’
‘The last thing I needed was to wake up beside him!’
‘And what if it was beside me he woke up?’ Anna asked slightly insulted. The coffee swirled around her cup, about to be projected into my face.
‘We must be very disciplined when it comes to him,’ I explained. ‘He mustn’t be allowed into our homes or our circle of friends. We must keep him at bay.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s an idiot. Because I say so. Don’t question me.’
‘Ok fine,’ Anna agreed. She knew when it was time to drop an argument with me.
‘He loves himself and he’s a danger. I can see him back at his apartment taking off his clothes and staring into the mirror. He doesn’t love anyone else. If you are with him, you are on the wrong side of the road. Do you understand? I talk to him when I’m at the Underworld because I don’t know anyone else there anymore. All the regulars have disappeared. It’s now a young crowd that sees through me and pretends I’m not there. Even Steve the bouncer is ready to quit that place. Where am I gonna go once it’s all over? The 20th century ended and somebody forgot to pull me alive into this one.’
‘You are being melodramatic again.’
‘I get this way the morning after. I’ll get over it by Tuesday.’
‘You’ll be dust by Tuesday.’
‘I will. And I’ll have no other option but to come back and haunt you alongside Ivette.’
‘Her again.’
‘She’ll be around for a while. But if you want to help me Anna, we could ease her way into the afterlife.’
‘What will that involve?’
‘We go back to yours and try to fall back asleep. I’ll teach you a technique to enter Ivette’s dream. We can agree on what to say to her. We’ll give her a good talking and she’ll leave us alone forever.’
‘I can’t be bothered going back right now. Let’s sit here for a while. If I give you some money, will you go buy the paper?’
A quick look at our fellow coffee drinkers said to me that the place would be packed to the rafters in no time with bleary eyed, hung over types in search for the meaning of life in the newspaper’s latest crossword puzzle. Bacon sizzled in the kitchen and my stomach hungered for life. Anna squinted and tried to read something in my eyes. I had nothing to give back to her. I tried my best to remember Trevor and the Twins but it was as if they had been transported back into the 80s and there was no chance of them ever coming back. When we were finished with our coffee, I’d invite Anna to help me scope the neighbourhood in search of new Trevor and the Twins posters. It was a full moon night again and the foxes couldn’t wait to come out and hunt for food in London’s back alleys.
‘Oh look,’ Anna said pointing towards something in the distance above my head. I turned around and follow her finger’s direction until my eyes reached the open second floor window on the building across the street. A man stood near it only in his underwear, moving back and forth in the room.
‘Is it…?’
‘Yes it is him,’ I said. The bartender pacing back and forth, talking to someone outside our field of vision. A beautiful day that had suddenly been spoiled. At least Anna was amused. She didn’t notice gradient in darkness. To her, coincidences meant London was small. To me, coincidences were the work of the devil.
‘It’s a horribly small neighbourhood we live in,’ I concluded. ‘Drink up, drink up. It’s time for us to hit the road again.’
My parents loved taking my brother and I on long trips during our holiday. On the night before our departure I would be filled with apprehension as my bother prepared the sandwiches that would go into the fridge and that we would eat the next day during our car ride. I’d sit in the kitchen watching her silently cut the bread with a long black knife, her eyes occasionally resting on me as if to check I wasn’t missing anything. Father would check the car was OK and that we wouldn’t have to stop to change a tire or get the motor fixed. My brother would hide in his bedroom, doing whatever boys two years older than me did. Staring at his Dungeons and Dragons posters on the wall. Reading science fiction novels. Picking zits from his nose. Blocking his door so I couldn’t push through and tease him.
I’d wake with a start in the dark, my mom’s head floating above my field of vision, her hands shaking me gently. Her voice would command me to get dressed and get in the car because the time to leave was nearly upon us. Then she’d nod reprehensibly when she’d notice I had gone to sleep in my travel clothes so I wouldn’t have to worry about putting them on in the cool darkness of the room.
My parents wanted to visit as much of Canada as possible. Each holiday a different city, a different province. Sometimes the ambition was to cross the entire country in a rented car and then return by plane. There weren’t enough days in our school holidays to match these plans, but we went along with them. We wanted to hit the road and never come back – keep driving eternally, chasing the warm weather and keeping winter at bay.
One particular holiday stayed with me for the rest of my life. I was eight years old at the time, obsessed with Lou Ferrigno in his role of Hulk as well as getting some mega muscles on my little frame. My father found a T-shirt of Hulk at Eaton’s the previous Christmas and I wore it continually. In my parent’s car, I stuck my head out of the window and let the wind whip my long thin hair, travel inside my Hulk T-shirt and fill me up with invisible muscles. I shouted at passing cars until my mother told me to shut up and sit back down.
The countryside went by like moving sand. The sky burned down under the weight of the growing stars. A dusty motel or B&B was our home at night by the time we pulled over for rest. And then my brother and I collapsed in our bed while our parents watched TV and ate some takeaway dinner.
‘Where are we going to Mom?’
‘I told you a million times – we are going to visit your aunt in Alberta?’
‘How far is Alberta?’
‘You’ll know when we get there.’
My mother knew I wasn’t stupid. I just asked so we could talk through the interminable hours in the car. I’d read my comics a million times over. I’d play the occasional Dungeons and Dragons game with my brother, not caring too much if the goblins ate me or the cold coins fell down a hole I couldn’t crawl through and rescue them.
Dad was silent during that holiday, but when he chose to speak to us he gave his full attention. When we reached Alberta and could suffer the heat without being trapped inside a metallic object, he taught us to play cricket and make glue by mixing flour with water. He taught us to run as fast as we could when he had the hose turned on and pointed at us. He taught us to laugh a little more at ourselves and not take things so seriously. My brother and I didn’t fight so much that summer.
I remember now what I loved so much about that holiday: my aunt’s werewolf photos. She collected them from magazines as wide ranging as Reader’s Digest and National Geographic. Every hint, every exposé, every investigation that dug up an image of the creature got cut out and stuck to an album she kept in the kitchen beside her recipe books. When she had nothing better to do but watch a roast in the oven, she pulled out the album and slowly flicked through the pages, reading each article attentively, inspecting the photos for a clue she hadn’t gathered before. I’d sit beside her sometime with my Hulk comics and ask if she thought Hulk could beat werewolves. She’d laugh and tussle my hair before saying I was silly: of course werewolves were much stronger than Hulk.
We all had our monsters we liked to play with in that family.
I wonder where my aunt is now. I wonder if she still lives in Alberta; what she’s up to. Has her werewolf collection grown? Does it now live in a library or a museum thanks to its comprehensiveness? On some nights of full moon I think of my family back in Canada and wonder if they see the same side of the moon. Life took me far from them and now I don’t know how to go back. I don’t know which ship will sail me in that direction, which plane will land near their towns. I could find out if I wanted to – the Internet is there for that – but my mind is broken. I’m stuck too far in the memories of the past to make sense of the present. I don’t know how to go back to the past without hurting myself, without destroying what’s there.
The past is my album of werewolf photos. I can flick each page over as I wish, lying on my bedsit mattress, the full moon filling up my room with dark hues and silence.
‘Would you like to go on a holiday with me?’ Anna once asked. She had her eyes on Italy – some rustic location with access to the sea and olive orchards.
‘If I win the lottery tomorrow, count me in.’
Anna didn’t realise how much she hurt me when she threw her money in my face like that. It didn’t matter that she wanted to share some of it with me – it hurt.
‘Buy me a one-way ticket back to Canada, won’t you darling?’ I once mumbled at her, five in the morning and drunk in her kitchen. She shook her head from the comfort of her bathrobe and smiled beatifically.
‘Of course darling, but only if I can come with you.’
‘Wanna be introduced as my wife to the family?’
That always made her giggle.
The other option was to ask Georgeval Francisco da Silva to invite me to live with him in Brazil. Lately, he had started joining me at my table when I visited his café. Shyly at first, as if he were afraid that I would raise a major objection to his company. I’d smile and always break the silence first. Somebody had to do it. His hand lightly shook next to mine on the table.
‘Do you miss being a priest?’ I once asked him.
‘Not anymore. But in Brazil it was difficult. People didn’t let me forget,’ he said with great sadness. When he closed the café at 6pm, he sometimes strolled to nearby St Paul’s and stepped inside for a quick prayer. He religiously attended services during the weekends but he never broke his promise to keep his past in the Church a secret. He eyed the priests as if he knew a secret and they sensed that knowledge in him.
‘I’d like to go on holiday to Brazil one day,’ I told Georgeval during one lowest moments. ‘Go and never come back.’
‘You would love it there,’ he laughed and slapped me on the back. Off he then went to attend a customer and leave me to my black coffee. The door to the street opened and in walked the girl with the drawing pad. I saw how she recognized me as she sat down by the front window. She carefully placed the drawing pad on the table and fished a few pencils from her black leather bag. Her nails were painted black. Silver bracelets jangled on both of her wrists. As she tucked herself into the seat, she looked in my direction as discreetly as possible. I turned so she could get a better view of my face. I wanted her to guess I was happy to pose for her drawing.
She raised her arm in a theatrical gesture, smiled and placed the tip of the first pencil on the paper. It slid quickly across it as she etched the café’s interior and its furniture. The sun that shone in. The posters on the walls. The comings and goings of people on their lunch break who only have time to grab a sandwich on the go. I could tell she was leaving a space open on the page where she would include me. The page fluttered every time the door opened. I was too far to see details in the drawing, but close enough to guess she was taking inspiration from the previous drawing I’d seen her create in the Roman Market café.
Some days drew into better endings than others. Sitting in Georgeval’s café, the sun slowly disappearing from view, the memories of my happy childhood intact, and about to become a piece of art – again – made me realise that contentment wasn’t impossible in London. There were pockets of peace where I could live in, even if for only a short while. I had no doubt there was darkness around the corner, and the dead waiting to see me at night when I slept, but as long as I kept myself close to people who were going somewhere, a path was bound to open which would show me where I was meant to go.
There is a young, upcoming actor who enjoys sitting in Victoria Park on one of the benches facing the pond, writing in a notebook. According to the newspapers, he has been cast in a big budget film with Oscar awards written all over it. He seems so concentrated, studying his words so carefully, that I can’t help but wish him the best of luck in nailing his character and climbing that stage in front of millions to accept his award for Best Actor. He is beautiful and remote. I would never dare to sit beside him, especially with so many vacant benches nearby. He has that sheen of success I’ve recently come to be acquainted with on Anna. Life comes so effortlessly to him. The jigsaw’s pieces fall into place without a flutter of his long eye lashes. His floppy fringe tastes the best shampoos. Beautifully manicured fingers, soft hands that know velvet, caress his skin. His ears only hear what he wants to hear. His mouth only tastes the best. He takes love when he wants it, where he needs it.
I walk past him and release my breath. Geese are in the air, matching my thoughts as they fly away. Now that summer is properly over I can indulge in fantasies where I give up the UK for a place in the equator. The posters of Trevor and the Twins still hang from some trees in the park. Some have graffiti on them – new eyes to Trevor’s nipples, rude words on the twins’ backs. Autumn is a bitch. Winter is a death. Spring is the return. Summer is all I want from life.
Into the obscure paths I go. The places in Victoria Park few dare go when the weather is foul and the dark clouds are closing in. I tuck into my winter coat, disappear my face behind the scarf’s protection. I’m letting my hair grow and it gently whips around. I laugh to myself because I know there’s nobody around to hear me. I am made of steel. I am made of Plexiglas. I am see-through and unbreakable. At least for today. Inside Victoria Park’s hidden flower garden, I find a Trevor and the Twins poster unlike the others: it has a date and a place for their first appearance in London. I pull out my pocket diary and black bic pen to take note. Whatever plans I have for that day will be cancelled. Nothing will take precedence over the introduction to Trevor and the Twins.
They have announced an appearance in a pub in Hackney called The Black Swan, where they’ll perform magic and introduce their music to the world. It will be a cabaret act unlike any seen by London, they claim. The Portuguese twins squeal with delight when I ask them about the show – they are glad to find another person curious and willing to attend it. We make plans and kiss each other on the cheeks when we say goodbye.
Who do I find at The Black Swan when we arrive? Underworld’s premier bartender and bitch extraordinaire, in one corner with a bottle of beer. It takes me a minute to realise that he reminds me of myself. He’s wearing dark blue jeans and a beaten up leather jacket. His hair is black and curly like a wannabe L.A. waiter-cum-actor. His pose and fit body can’t hide the lines on his face, the narrowing prospects of breaking into the business and becoming a success. At this distance, I almost feel sorry for him. I almost feel like going over and giving him a big hug. But I’m not stupid. I know that any contact outside the Underworld would bring out the worst in him. So I stand my ground and play aloof. I can also hold a pint and stare at the empty stage, counting the minutes until Trevor and the Twins arrive. Then I see him fish a bottle from his jeans’ front pocket and pop out a pill. He quickly slips it into his mouth and downs it with a swig of his beer.
The place fills up quickly and there’s a sense of urgency in the raised voices that fight for attention. The beer is over priced and warm so I follow the Portuguese twins example and stick with vodka. Standing side by side with them I notice for the first time how small they are. I am their parent this night, holding their hand through the first adult event of their life.
When the Underworld’s bartender walks past us on the way to the bar, he eyes me like a piece of meat. In this context he doesn’t appear to recognise me. One of the twins pokes me and smiles. She thinks I’ve just been signalled to follow him for a chat. I look at the retreating bartender and it’s true: he has turned and looks at me as if he’d issued a command. I’ve lost something somewhere. My mind is muddled but I don’t deny him; I give the twins a quick pat and approach the bartender as he leans on the bar counter and turns towards me.
‘Funny seeing you here,’ he says.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Didn’t think you went anywhere apart from the Underworld. You seem… attached to that place.’
‘I’m not attached to anything if you want to know the truth.’
‘That’s good to know. I like guys like that.’
‘What’s that in your front pocket?’ I ask. Being direct and nosey is one of my worst traits.
He’s taken by surprise probably for the first time in his life. He looks at me sideways, a gash growing in his mouth, his lips turning dark.
‘I saw you earlier pull out a bottle. I thought maybe you could let me have one of your aspirins?’
‘You like to watch others, don’t you?’
‘I can’t help it. It’s one of those things I do almost unconsciously. I come into a place like this and my eyes immediately take in my surroundings and the people in it. Then I start listening, smelling, and paying attention to the tiniest details on their bodies. I just can’t help myself.’
He pulls out the bottle and pops a pill on his hand. It’s your standard bottle of paracetamol.
‘Oh sorry, no – I don’t take those. They are bad for your liver. But thanks anyway.’
‘You’ll just have to drink more.’
‘Who will carry me home?’
‘I will if you want,’ he suggests with his ironic smile and a touch to my arm. If I had enough money, I would get drunk just to test this offer – but I don’t. The Portuguese twins have in the meantime moved closer to the stage. It’s the sort of set up they are used to when they perform their own pieces – they might have even performed in this pub a few times (I forgot to ask them.)
A certain silence falls on the crowd when a man climbs on stage with a microphone. Just a minute ago he was behind the bar so he must be the manager of the place.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announces with a degree of fake pomposity, ‘it is our pleasure here at The Black Swan to introduce you tonight to the greatest new cabaret act in town.’
He pauses to look around and make sure all eyes are on him. The lights dim slightly and he claps his hands: ‘Trevor and the Twins!’
A round of applause feels The Black Swan, a pint crashes to the floor and a girl shouts in despair at the beer ruining her shoes. But this doesn’t matter to anyone because a tall muscular man, shirtless and in black trousers, enters the stage followed by two shorter and blonder versions of himself hidden behind Venetian masks.
My eyes are immediately drawn to this set of twins on stage. They look like David and Chase, but are not they. They’ve been cast from the same mold, smile the same way, lovingly look at the audience with deep blue eyes that glitter from behind the masks; however, their beauty is slightly off, spoiled by some unseen/unclassifiable feature. Milk left in the fridge for too long. Looks good when you see it, but the moment you take a breath you nearly choke.
The bodies of all three of them glow slick from baby oil rubbed before coming on stage. The Portuguese twins are beside themselves with fascination. They clap their hands like little children and move closer to the edge of the stage. Be careful, I want to shout out. Don’t get too close! But there’s no way they can hear me. There’s no way I can get away from the bartender. The three creatures on stage have the audience in their grip without having done anything. They simply stand there and look at us, their faces frozen like statues.
A tape recording comes on, a synth sound that imitates a happy organ. The masked twins move to the edges of the stage while Trevor steps back. Trevor lifts his arms and tattoos on the insides of his biceps become visible. They are tattoos of the masked twins. Trevor then pinches his own nipples. The twins go down on their knees and reach their arms into the audience. They each grab one of the Portuguese girls and draw them to themselves. The girls go meet their end in silence and dignity. Each one is given a chaste kiss on the lips then left to stand suspended in pleasure as the masked boys stand up and walk back to Trevor’s side.
‘What the hell?’ comes out of my mouth but the bartender doesn’t reply. He shakes all over as if suddenly struck by a fever, his bottle of beer tipped to the side and making a mess of the pub’s floor.
All the lights go out apart from a trio of coloured ones that point at the performers. We have now entered the realm of dreams. Nothing is what it seems any longer and I have the distinct impression I can read everyone’s mind tonight.
The nightclub was called Underground. It passed off as a venue for live music for most days but on Fridays they made an exception and allowed DJs to spin people on the dance floor into a nightlong reverie. £5 to get in but you paid only £3 if you had a flyer (I was a pro at scouring the Tube entrance for discarded ones or finding the few leafleteers who carried them before the doors opened.) The bouncers were always serious but never truly unfriendly. It got to the point where I could chat with them while getting some fresh air then forget their names (and vice versa) in the morning. The week repeated itself like a never-ending story.
On that Friday evening, I kept going back and forth – in and out of the club – hoping to bump into David and Chase. I talked to the bouncers with one eye to the side, scanning the street and new arrivals for a hint of them. I lit one cigarette after another until I’d run out and needed to shamefully beg one of the bouncers, Steve, to sell me a few of his. The music thumped inside and made me sick. The first hints of winter’s chill were on everything – from the depressing drizzle that fell on the city to the drab coats everyone was wearing. I longed to be one of those people who could fly away at one moment’s notice to a warm climate until winter was over.
They never showed up. I scanned each and every blond man with blue eyes that walked past me, doubting my own memory at times: could I truly remember what they looked like? All the boys blended into each other and were a source of fascination, desire and repulsion. I felt that perhaps my intuition was right and they were at that very moment in Victoria Park, walking in silence through the dark trees, dodging the park ranger’s van and holophotes, playing hide and seek, uncaring of the cold or the rain.
Anna called me on the mobile to say she was having a few people over her place and that I was invited to join them. She didn’t say why the invitation was last minute, why she hadn’t mentioned a gathering the time we had spoken two days before. I leaned against the Underground’s bar, one finger stuck in one year to block out as much noise as possible, and shouted at her that I would think about it. Did she mind if I came by a few hours later? Would she be asleep? She said she’d wait for me – even if people were gone by then we could still sit in her kitchen with a cup of coffee and talk about life. She’d be wrapped in a colourful afghan, her thick black hair spread out like a fan; I’d be drunk and incoherent, my stomach flat against my back but my pride too strong to ask her for food.
The bartender was nicer to me this time. More caring, more sympathetic. And when my attention travelled into the middle distance and energy began to leave my body, he gently tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out two men kissing in the corner.
‘Are they the ones?’ he asked with a smile.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I replied, surprised that my mind should be such an open book to him. The two men were beautiful in their own way, but not my David and Chase. Not my blond beauties in love with themselves, ignorant of the world. Not my breath to touch them, not my eyes to see them, not my self to be part of their lives.
I had never felt like this about anyone or anything before. Not even my parents’ death had affected me this way. During my last trip outside to stand with the bouncers, I fell into a reverie of my life back in Canada – growing up in a fairly normal house (cousins, uncles and aunts, summers in a cottage by the lake, the occasional sky trip in the winter) – and nothing was out of order. All was in place like a show display at IKEA. The right books on the shelves, the right sofa, the right carpet, the right brilliance to the light, even the right smell in the air. Hockey league trips. Fathers and sons naked in the sports centre’s shower rooms, smacking towels and talking about nothing as the water washed away the day’s stress and tension. Mother with the table laid out for dinner. Flowers on the windowsill, my memories drowned in their water.
It felt like such a long time ago. It felt as if I crossed to the old world in an ocean cruiser and got stranded. I had leave to stay after an arranged wedding. I could tear it up anytime I wished and return to Canada.
‘You look depressed,’ Steve the bouncer said. ‘Maybe it’s time to call it a day?’
‘Steve, you know I’m always the last one to leave. If I went home now I’d be breaking with tradition.’
‘Actually, I’m always the last one to leave.’ He smiled and shook the silver bracelet on his left wrist. He had never had to use his fists on anyone at Underworld because it was the sort of place that didn’t attract trouble.
When the lights came on and the drunks had gone home, I took to Islington’s streets. I didn’t want to wait in line with the rest of them for a night bus. I used my feet one in front of the other, my thoughts still in a difference place. Opening the memories of Canada had been a mistake; I now couldn’t shut that door and return my concentration to David and Chase.
No chippies open to kill my hunger. No taxis I could afford home. No end to the drizzle and the cold wind. No end to the points on the sidewalk I had to jump over or go around because someone had been sick. Collateral damage at a citywide level, the weekend just begun. And the trees rustled as the double-decker bus went by with barely three people in it – the bus that could easily take me to my doorsteps. Only halfway home did I realise that I was directing myself to Victoria Park.
‘They won’t be there,’ I said out loud. ‘No they won’t.’ And the two girls up ahead crossed the street.
My entire body was cold and I craved my bed. For the first time in years I wished I had a television I could go back to. A trusted companion to switch on and talk to me until I fell asleep. Its blue warmth radiating everything in my bedsit. Tell me the stories of the world and what is wrong with our planet. Tell me of children who disappeared and parents caught killing. Tell me of jobs disappearing and how I’ll have to be on the dole for just that much longer.
If London had hills, they would be like sorrow. Over at Hampstead Heath, I guessed that it didn’t matter to the solitary souls drowned in its pond. Into Victoria Park my mind flew and scoured its grounds for a hint of life.
Why was my life stuck and undone? Why was there no direction I could follow? Why did one day follow the next and yet I didn’t move? I felt as if I was learning London’s each corners but my limbo remained the same. I kept to the East End but my eyes were now troubling with the thoughts of expanding West. What else but fight unemployment with legs worn down to their stubs. One second after the other. No clocks on my person – not even on my bedsit’s walls. Just those posters that stare forever at each other.
By the time I got to Victoria Park, my resolution to jump in and search for David and Chase had evaporated. My sanity had returned and now my body ached from the cold. I couldn’t stop shivering. The messenger was telling me to go home and get under the covers before I got sick. It was already bad enough I was losing weight – I couldn’t afford to be laid down with the flu and lose all those potential jobs. Victoria Park was like a large person, a mute that knew some secret of mine I wasn’t aware of. Victoria Park would outlast me. It would be there once I was down in the ground. And so would be the bench that David and Chase carved their names (magic words I didn’t own and therefore could not enter their minds when they slept). David and Chase were portals to minds I wasn’t interested in investigating. I needed all my energy for the weekend. I had a lot of dream adventure to do, a lot of minds to go into, a lot of flying pyrotechnics to perform.
By the time I slid my key into the lock, the sun was hinting its appearance over the horizon. Canary Wharf’s lights were on, the polish cleaners nearly done with cleaning the office floors. I heard my building sleep and I wondered who was home. I had completely forgotten about Anna. Knowing her, she would still be up, tied to the promise of a conversation over her kitchen table. All those realisations she had had since she started working with animals. All the wisdom she would impart to me so that I could finally find my way in life. Sorry Anna, I whispered into my dark bedsit. Sorry but my bed comes before you. Sorry but I don’t like the fact that you never offer me food. Friends don’t let each other starve to death. I was a bad friend for not calling her. I would offer my apologies instead when I visited her sleep.
The sun could have burned through my curtains. The building could have gone up in flames. Nothing could wake me from the sleep of the dead.
A rumour went around that a man was spotted in Victoria Park masturbating. He was a proper throwback to the 70s, when flashers and peeps didn’t have the Internet to escape to. Word reached me first through our landlady, who was jogging one Sunday afternoon and saw the man through the corner of her eyes standing by some trees behind the pond, furiously jerking something in her direction. She slowed down just a second to see what it was (she thought he might be gesturing for help) when her mind caught up with her eyes and registered a long penis between his legs. She understandably kept running and reported the incident to her husband, who thought it was one of the funniest things he’d heard.
The second incident happened a week later when one of the Portuguese girls living in my building was coming back from the Pavillion Café with a croissant and coffee and noticed somebody following closely behind. She turned around thinking it was someone she knew and came face to face with a bearded man in a grey coat that reeked of stale sweat and had nervous jumpy eyes. She looked down and saw his hand furiously working up and down a long appendage. It startled her so much she dropped her coffee and croissant, gasping in fright. The movement startled the pervert too; he quickly slipped it back into his fly and walked away from her as she stared in shock. She later told her twin sister (a more cautious, shy type who shared the apartment with her and made a living as her dancing partner in cabarets) that his slack penis was so disproportionate and slick that she suspected it to be a sausage or a stuffed plastic appendage. The shy, cautious sister swore never to walk through Victoria Park again by herself.
I had minimum contact with the people who lived in my building but occasionally we would bump into each other in the hallways or at the local pub, one conversation leading to another until we were up to date with the flaws of the people running our lives and neighbourhood. The twin dancers from Portugal were the only ones that talked to me about their lives. They seemed to get no sense of sexual tension from our interaction and, therefore, weren’t threatened. They had tiny round faces and willowy black whiskers. Their bushy eyebrows were in a constant state of surprise and attention.
The myth of the masturbating pervert spread across the local talking points. How often did he expose himself in the park? Did he not have a job? Did he not have better things to do with his time? (Like auditioning to be in an erotic film?) Was he in search of a girlfriend? I walked through Victoria Park and kept my eyes out for him. I knew he didn’t expose himself to men – probably out of fear of getting a beating. I did wonder, though, if I’d catch him in full mode towards a female jogger or walker. I never saw any police patrolling the park and wondered how many people had called the authorities to complain about him. Maybe they all felt sorry for him and hoped the next person to come along would take the matter into their hands.
I thought of the pervert as I sat by myself on a bench in the park Friday morning. In less than twelve hours I wished to enter the nightclub and find David and Chase dancing to mindless pop music, their eyes ignoring the rest of the world. I couldn’t decide what to wear, what to say. I couldn’t decide if it was a bad idea to spend the little money I had left over on a mindless night of indulgence. Alcohol sapped your body and your wallet. And the detestable barman would be there too, creeping me out with his knowing looks and beautiful sculpted face.
I pulled out my pocket diary and a black bic pen; I drew the pond, the detestable pigeons, the swans’ ugly ducklings, the red leaves moatted on the water’s edge. I sat for a long time staring at the point in the sky where the clouds drifted away from the sun and my eyes weren’t in danger of getting cataracts. The winds hustled the trees and a faint hint of incense hung in the air. Ever since summer had ended my skin had begun to lose its colour. Soon I’d be back to my usual white skin, my phantasmagorical self a set closer to disappearing from London’s eyes. And so I drew what I saw around me in order to anchor myself in the moment. Black ink on bleached paper. The barest hint of rain in the drizzle that stroked me, travelled through the wind that blew across and through the pond’s fountain.
Someone told me once Queen Victoria asked for the park to be created because she was fed up with East End people travelling to Hyde Park during the weekends. Keeping the riff raff out. Now, with every day that passed, I heard the accents of posh young couples from the West End in search of their first property to own, or foreigners from continental Europe fluttering like butterflies all over fairy cake crumbs left behind on café tables. Victoria Park will one day be theirs now that they can’t find a roof around Hyde Park. While the mommies push prams to quiet their babies, dad and son check their blog on a laptop. And the sun washes out everything from everyone’s skins.
In the midst of this normality I conjure the pervert in his grey jacket and stuffed trousers: his sad, searching eyes; his beard with bits of food stuck to it; his dishevelled hair that has never seen a comb; his isolation and need to affirm his identity by pushing his sexuality onto others. He’s a broken tear in the park’s peace, the water’s sedate surface. If I could be his agony aunt, I’d tell him to go to Vauxhall and find some studs to make him company. They could jerk off in the basement of windowless buildings then breathe a sigh of relief when the sun rose and the night was over.
It’s really a perfect day and I know the club will be full. There’s a tension in the air, the weather about to break – the kind of mood that pushes people into betting shops, on the prowl for sex. And I’ll join the throng that pushes and shoves in the Tube, sweating our lives away under neon lights until we reach our destination, just so I can catch a glimpse of that perfect couple on the dance floor. If they show up. There are hundreds of nightclubs in London and they could be anywhere. They could have decided to stay at home and watch a film. They could have decided to climb over Victoria Park’s gates and spend the night lying on its grass, talking about strangers that watch them dance from the shadows. And the stars will circle briefly above their heads but never quite shine – London’s incessant airplanes and high-rises won’t let the light through.
I could easily live in Victoria Park if they offered me a job to take care of it. I’d tend the park so carefully – so gently – all its visitors would leave with a smile on their face. Until my dying day I’d pledge allegiance to the park. How to apply for a job in the park? I thought of asking for a job in the Pavillion Café but I get the feeling that the stubbly, organic coffee crowd don’t match me.
The benches aren’t comfortable enough to sleep on. I’ve considered taking a nap on them but I worry someone will come along and still my pocket diary and black bic pen. They’d be desperate to go for my wallet. People walk past me plugged into their personal soundtracks. They walk alone and stare at their feet. Counting one step after another. Not seeing the world. Not seeing potential danger. Not seeing the man behind the tree zip open his fly and pull out a long piece of glistened flesh. The soundtrack of their HMV lives protects them from the darkness of others. None of them could recognise my face.
I see the Portuguese twins in the distance, chatting to each other and carrying shopping bags. They are crossing the park without a worry in the world. They are now sharing a joke and don’t seem to notice my presence behind them as I follow them home. Geese fly over our heads, heading north. The trees shimmer and sway like an audience for the dancers; the girls acknowledge this by doing little jumps in their steps and tilting their heads to the sky. I’ll miss them when they return to Portugal. I’ll ask if they can send me postcards and keep me updated on their adventures. I imagine they’ll have a presence online somewhere, with pictures, videos and banalities documenting their day-to-day life. They’ll even have photos of London that will romanticise their time there and make it seem like the best years of their lives. Nobody will question the lack of boyfriends, the lack of sunshine in their bedroom, the lack of money. They’ll never be interrogated and they’ll never return. I must remember to sketch their faces next time I see them so they can be forever remembered in my mind. Afterwards, I’ll lie in bed holding my pocket diary across my chest, close my eyes and picture the two of them spinning to a Waltz. Then I’ll go into their symbiotic minds and we’ll talk about life for the next eight hours. I’ll take them flying if they wish. I’ll tell them everything will be alright and that they’ll be a great success back in Portugal.
By the time I get back to my bedsit, I barely have time to eat a sandwich and get ready for dancing.
Wild cherry cafe on Roman road, East London, oil on panel, 15×15 cm, 2009
Originally uploaded by olechko
There’s a funeral home on Hoxton Street. Every hour, the two wenches that work in it step outside a few times a day and stand by the entrance door smoking their cigarettes. They are large women with frizzy bleached blond hair, pasty skin and faces lined with deep crevices. I have never heard their voices but I imagine they are as rough sounding as they look. Hoarse like a saw going through wood. Inside, I imagine they have their own coffins picked out and couldn’t give a shit about dying.
I’ve never seen any men kissing on Hoxton Street. I spend enough time walking up and down its sidewalks, during the day and night, to know whether such an event is possible. It’s not the type of street (yet) where libidinous boys can exchange saliva publically.
It takes me about 45 minutes to reach Hoxton Street if I follow Regent’s Canal then join the main thorough fairs at Kingsland Road. I enjoy coming here because of a small café, run by an ex-priest from Brazil called Georgeval Francisco da Silva.
‘Come and sit down, my friend,’ he always says when I walk through the door. If there is nowhere for me to sit, he makes space available on the newspaper table kept by the counter. I don’t know why he treats me with so much warmth; we don’t know too much about each other. There’s something in me, I think, which reminds him of someone in Brazil. Perhaps a son or a friend; perhaps someone who died. His smile is genial and white, too bright for me to read anything behind it. His eyes narrow like slits when he smiles. The silver cross-hung by a chain around his neck bounces up and down when he laughs. His short stubby hands, darkly tanned and covered with thick hair, prepare the best sandwiches in town. Cheap and cheerful little treats for someone who can afford to spare the change given to him by the government each week.
‘Off to the jobcentre?’ he asked me once when I’d eaten my sandwich and finished my coffee.
‘How did you know?’
‘Just a feeling,’ he explained hunching his shoulders and giving me that understanding smile of his.
I’ve wanted to ask him a few times who I remind him off. It could be I’m even the victim of mistaken identity. I build an incoherent picture of Georgeval by listening to what his Brazilian patrons say when they speak. I don’t understand Portuguese but I can pull one or two words out of the long stream of singsong sentences. He seems well liked by the Brazilians that live in the area. He allows them to post their job and house share ads on a notice board. He takes their leaflets and neatly displays them by the front window. It’s with the older ones he really enjoys talking to. They reminisce about their land and exchange stories. Georgeval has the look of a man with musical skills. Strong, stubby fingers that gently pluck a guitar’s strings. A low voice that sings ballads and elicits surprise from the audience. A skill not known by many who spend their day with him. Then I imagine Georgeval naked, entering a cold waterfall in the midst of a Brazilian heat wave. His laughter as carefree as a child’s.
With some food and heat in my body, I take to London’s streets again. I count down the days until Friday because I wish to return to the nightclub and find David and Chase. My beautiful blond twins. I’ll pluck up the courage to introduce myself and express how special they are. But not too soon or they might become scared and run away. It has happened before.
I kick the leaves, crunch the life out of broken branches, startle squirrels nuzzling in bushes. I am nearly part of the wild life that seeps in the city’s border like a schizophrenic consciousness. I am colourless like London after a long period of rain in the autumn. I am silent and wordless, unchanged for days. At night, I dream of Ivette but I’m not sure if I am in command. I fear that she is visiting me and trying to impart some message. She has a look on her face that blames me for something, some cruel act I can’t recall. Did I kill her in her sleep? I can’t recall. I am blameless to myself. I refuse to accept she is completely gone. Others may have moved on but to me she still comes. Also silent and heavy, so unlike herself when she was alive.
On the Thursday, I notice posters across East London. They appeared over night, pasted to walls and trees. A shirtless, Eastern European type in the middle of the image, smiling his white teeth at the viewer; two young men flanking him, their backs hinting at smooth skin and sinewy bodies, blond as the muscle god in the centre. “Trevor and the Twins” in bold capital red, covering their waists. A new circus rolled into town. No explanation as to who they are or where they’ll be appearing. On one corner of the poster, so tiny you only notice it if you are looking for contact details, the address for a website. I pull out my pocket diary and make a note of it. There’s something devious about Trevor and his twins – like they are going to cast their black magic on whoever dares approach them. Ruin a couple of lives. There isn’t much to ruin in mine. They are welcome to it. I’ll swap places with them if they want. I’ll be the pale boy in the poster, dark hair in need of a shampoo drooping down one side of his face. I’ll be the one that gets ripped up and squashed by hoards of teenagers. I’ll be the one contacted by the local council and threatened with a fine for illegal use of public space for advertisement. And just as they are rounding on me, I’ll roll out of town and take my circus to new grounds. I’ll never come back.
In a café near my bedsit I hear murmurs of “Trevor and the Twins” in nearby tables. Everyone is talking about them. It’s a mystery. It’s a performance by artists. It’s a new TV show. It’s a silly idea. It’s killing time and generating conversation. I drink my coffee so slowly that it goes cold. A girl sitting across from me has a journal open in front of her. She draws something into it with attention and care. When she leans down to fetch an eraser from her back I lean forward and catch a glimpse of Trevor with his twins as imagined with lead and scratches. She smiles at me and goes back to her drawing. Trevor and his twins would be impressed. I feel a pang of envy. She could draw me if she wanted. I’d pose for hours, as still as she wanted me to be as long as she paid for another cup of coffee. Milk and sugar please.
I place my pocket diary on the café’s table and lick the tip of my black bic pen. The ink tastes like dishwasher liquid. I sketch the blonde girl with her magical drawing pad. She lifts her eyes and smiles again when she realises I’ve turned her into my model. She could have been a pop star in the 80s if she’d been born a decade earlier. The café smells of fried potatoes and bacon. The posters on the walls show green hills and white houses in Turkey. She flips to the next page and starts a new drawing. It’s war.
Daylight savings kill the afternoons. I leave the café and find Roman Market in darkness. Young hoodies lounge around benches looking terminally ill. Their boredom has no cure. The best thing is to not make eye contact. Unless they are blond, of course. In which case the contact is like a slam that only gets resolved at night when I fall asleep and travel into their minds. There are whispers in the neighbourhood that the kids haven’t been sleeping well. Their dreams are unlike any of the crap TV shows or movies they watch; they involve men kissing and an angel-like beauty that has godlike pecs and a propensity for swooping down on them with his wings and taking them for a ride. The kids can’t concentrate on school because they are far too preoccupied by the homoerotic dreams that stretch their tracky bottom pants and stain their underwear. The kids will be alright.
I fight the day until I have no other option but return to my bedsit. Another jobless day. Another etch on the wall. Another year perilously close to ending on a low note. If this goes on for too long I’ll forget what it’s like to work. I’ll never make a million, I’ll never visit the Playboy Mansion, and I’ll never fly in a private jet. I’ll never amount to much. But I’ll be a sketch on a young artist’s pad, displayed in a trendy, out-of-the-way East End gallery. And my image will sear itself like a hot brand on the minds of each viewer. I’ll go home with them and have instant access. Wireless connection that doesn’t need a password. In and out as I please. Complete content control. And when the sun rises in the horizon and London’s towers are surrounded by the morning mist, I’ll wake up refreshed and safe in the knowledge that I’ve done some good by changing other people’s consciousness.
I know where to find one of “Trevor and the Twins” posters near my home. I ripped off the wall as carefully as possible. I know exactly where I’ll stick it on my bedroom wall. It will go where the light hits in the middle of the afternoon. It’s a patch of the wall I enjoying staring sometimes when I can’t be bothered going outdoors.
