With Love and Squalor Read online

  Before leaving, Ray and Jim broke into the small animal shed and shone their torch from one enclosure to the next.

  “We’ll try one of these this time, eh?” Ray said, stepping over the board and getting in amongst the rabbits.

  “Aye. Let’s have the black and white yen,” Jim said.

  Ray picked it out by the ears, handed him over to his brother and the two men set off for home, talking gently to their new pet every step of the way.

  Fisher Of Men

  Dee. Four days in Paris and still a virgin. Tried the trick with Victor Noir at Pere Lachaise. Judging by the shine of his crotch am definitely not the first. Hope it worked for the others. Left a kiss for Oscar and a cigarette for Jim. Fingers crossed. Love you lots, Lisa xxx

  I’d been looking forward to the holiday since January when Dee and I made a pact as our New Year’s resolution. No matter how delicious the blokes we dated, ignoring whatever itches we got, we’d save ourselves for a couple of dishy Frenchmen, let them take us all the way and all the way back again.

  Almost blew it with Robert after the prom. Even when I told him Aunt Flo was visiting he didn’t stop. Only took his hand from under my dress when I mentioned getting blood on the car’s upholstery. After that he didn’t even want to kiss.

  Dee stopped dating altogether.

  Sitting on the café terrace writing postcards, I missed her terribly. If she hadn’t broken her femur while schooling one of her horses, she’d have been sitting right next to me soaking up the atmosphere and helping me keep an eye on every man who stepped into range.

  She’d have loved watching the passers by as they were caught unawares by the over-watered window-box on the other side of the Rue Beaurepaire.

  I really owed it to her to get my knickers off as soon as I could, and at Chez Prune I could practically smell the testosterone mingling with the heat and the aromas of coffee and tobacco.

  The nicest looking customer wouldn’t have been out of place on display at the Louvre. Only problem was that he was busy. Kept stroking his girlfriend as if leaving her alone for more than a few seconds would cause her to spontaneously combust.

  Behind me a group of students were setting the world to rights. Words poured from their mouths like they were in competition, their voices lyrical as the water of a fountain. The things they said, it was more like someone pissing into the gutter.

  “Course I wouldn’t kick her out of bed, but look at those calves. If my dad shaved his legs they’d look better than that.”

  “And those shoulders. Perhaps she works in the fields.”

  “Or milking cows.”

  “Still, she’s not bad for an American.

  “We’ll see. If nothing better comes along…”

  Dee would have sorted them out right away. Me, I was going to take my time. Wrote another card instead.

  Mom. You were right about French men. All the charm’s on the surface, like frogs turned into princes. There are some nice English girls at the hotel. Tomorrow they’re taking me to the Orangerie and for lunch. Jet lag gone. Eating the vitamins you packed. Next week Rome. How exciting. L xxx

  If it hadn’t been for the waiter, I might have been upset about what the boys were saying.

  He hadn’t stopped watching me since I’d arrived, even when he was serving other customers. When I couldn’t see him I could sense him checking me out, felt my body blush under the cotton dress I’d chosen for the evening, the pink one you can see through when the sun’s bright.

  He wasn’t traditionally handsome, but had one of those interesting Parisian faces - deep set eyes and a bent nose that suggested he’d seen a bit of life and knew how to kick back when it gave him a knock. I liked him.

  When he ran out of things to do, he came to lean on the post-box to smoke and watch me write.

  After his third cigarette, he disappeared inside for a moment then arrived back at my table with another glass of kir.

  “On the house,” he said, his accent making me tingle. “And now,” he winked at someone inside, “it’s time to bring some romance to the evening.”

  Above us strings of bulbs lit up in an array of colours, bright against the dusk, just like Eiffel’s tower.

  I smiled at him in appreciation, dealt Dee’s card to the top of the pile and turned it sideways. Picking up my pen I wrote:

  post script - am wearing lucky pants.

  When the lights came on, I’d pretty much decided. The waiter could take me after his shift, show me some of the ropes he obviously knew so well.

  I smiled at him again to let him know and headed into the cafe to the bathroom to check myself over.

  As I stood, I bent over right in front of those sewer-mouthed boys. Let my dress fall open while they watched. Shut them up for the first time in an hour. I was pleased that I’d decided against my lucky bra after my shower.

  Chez Prune has one of those quaint bathrooms where men and women share the sinks and the mirrors, the kind of thing that reminds you how chilled the French are about such matters.

  I put on lipstick, brushed my hair, checked my teeth for stray bits of salad and blew myself a kiss.

  When I got back to my table and the fresh air, there was someone new to check out kneeling on the opposite side of the road.

  This time it was as if he’d been plucked from my own imagination, as if he’d been painted into the scene while I’d been away.

  The beard he wore was practically a work of art, neatly sculpted to pencil thin it lined the edge of his angular chin. A pendant dangled from a chain that fell from his unbuttoned shirt and his ponytail was kept neatly in place by a perfectly tied black, velvet bow.

  It didn’t even matter to me that he was wearing rectangular shades in the half-light of dusk.

  I’m not sure even to this day whether it was because I’m fickle or because I was getting cold feet, but I didn’t sit back down at my table.

  Instead I picked up my glass and carried it over to where the young man worked, sketching busily on the floor.

  “Funny time to start.” I was becoming a lot more confident about speaking French. Hardly had to think about what I wanted to say any more.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “There aren’t many people passing this time of night,” I tried to explain as I took a look over his shoulder.

  The outline he’d drawn was of a man lying sprawled face down between the canal and the road.

  The hands of the artist worked quickly, selecting pastels from his box and rubbing and shading with paper-towels.

  It wasn’t long before he’d finished the trousers, creases and folds immaculately placed at the bend of the knee.

  “So do you come here often?” I was hoping he’d see the funny side of the question.

  Didn’t bat an eye-lid.

  “Forgive me,” he finally said. “Time is short.”

  He stood to check his work and knelt again. “I must finish by 10:47. Then I can talk.”

  Typical of me to start a conversation with a nut job I thought, only I wanted to see how the picture turned out almost as much as I wanted him to get inside me. I wandered over to the canal bridge and sat on the steps. Came close to telling him I needed to get laid by 10:56 to see if he could fit me in.

  Didn’t.

  He set to work on the feet, shading the pink of a sock between turn-up and a brown leather shoe to the left, on the right making it all sock, even drawing a hole over the big toe.

  “Tell me,” I urged. “You’ll finish on time.”

  He looked at his watch and began to talk.

  “I’m from a long line of crocheteurs,” he said as he sketched a shoe in the middle of the road, stepping back every so often to let a scooter or a car go by. “Pickers, I mean. Rag and bone men.”

  “Rag and bone men?”

  “Two centuries ago, my ancestors raked through the Paris garbage every night. What they found they sold at the city walls.”

  He drew a few coins here and there cool
as you’d like, then got back to the main body of work.

  “But you’re not looking through garbage.” I looked up at the waiter across the road. Gave him a little wave. He opened his hand, gestured at the lights and went over to take an order from the boys.

  “True, but things change. We evolve. The jobs your children will do are yet to be invented.”

  “I don’t have children.”

  “You will.” If it was a chat-up line, it wasn’t the best I’d heard. “The other name for what they did was ‘pecheurs de la lune’.”

  “Fishermen of the moon,” I said in English just to hear the beauty in the phrase. “So that’s who you are.”

  “Correct.” He wiped his hands quickly and started work on the shirt.

  The picture reminded me of someone. I tried to shake the thought from my head on account of the way the limbs were twisting.

  “The time please?” he asked, too busy to check for himself.

  I checked my watch. “Three more minutes.”

  He stopped talking and I stopped asking him things.

  The shirt he drew was white. Clean and crisp like it was fresh on. From the cuffs, hands jutted as if they were clawing the ground.

  The artist lit a cigarette, filled the air with exotic curls of Gauloises.

  He passed it over for me to hold.

  The silence was unsettling. I decided to break it.

  “What’s the going rate for the moon’s fisherman these days?”

  He looked up at me, eyes hidden behind his shades. Instead of answering he put his fingers to his mouth and blew me a kiss.

  I felt bad for the waiter. Looked over in case he’d seen.

  I don’t think he’d noticed anything. Instead, he was waving my bag over his head and running in my direction.

  “Mademoiselle,” he called. “Your bag, Mademoiselle.”

  If I’d seen the car, I would have warned him, but the brakes didn’t screech until after the collision.

  Something shot from his mouth. Could have been teeth or gum.

  The way he flew through the air reminded me of Dee when she was thrown from her pony.

  He landed beneath me, his body taking the shape of the drawing.

  One of his shoes rolled along the gutter and came to rest in the middle of the road.

  The tinkling of coins stopped only when the body came to rest, the waiter staring at the floor like a fish at a market stall.

  And the crocheteur?

  Gone, just like the drawing and his equipment.

  I took a drag on the cigarette he’d given me to hold. Coughed my lungs up as the tobacco hit. Emptied my stomach into the canal and looked at the moon’s reflection in the ripples of the water.

  A Whole Lotta Rosie

  Fifty years to the day Rose has been walking on the planet. Not that she’s walked on much of it. Sheep farms in the summer. Back home the rest of the time.

  Hasn’t been far.

  Not that she’s needed to.

  A huge fish in a small pond, you might say. Six foot four and eighteen inches round the biceps. The blokes on the station all kid on she’d crush any man who lay between her thighs, but they’ve all taken their turn at one time or another and all gone back for more.

  She goes over to the pen. Tucks her golden locks into her polka-dot bandanna. Hikes up her jeans and takes out the only sheep on the entire ranch that still has wool on its back. Turns it over like she’s tossing pancakes, grabs onto the fore-legs and drags it backwards through the swing-door.

  The rest of the crew stand round in their wide-brimmed hats and their sleeveless shirts. They’re smoking to a man and look keen to get down to the pub.

  Trapping one of the sheep’s legs between those enormous thighs of hers she gets to work, flat out like a lizard. She’s so busy trimming the fleece that she doesn’t see the crew tip-toeing around and getting into position.

  As she makes the last stroke and turns off the switch, she gets up awaiting her round of applause.

  Tom Brody, owner of the land, walks up to her with his hand outstretched ready for a shake. He doesn’t know that Rose is intending to crush his bones into dust. She doesn’t know that he’s not going to give her the chance.

  He leans forward.

  Instead of shaking, he pushes her hard in the chest.

  She falls backwards over Shifty, who’s curled in a ball behind her.

  The sheep gets up and runs for the door.

  The other four guys pounce onto Rose and pin her down.

  It’s not easy keeping the nation’s arm-wrestling champ floored, but they’re big men and are skilled in stopping wriggling creatures getting away.

  ‘Happy birthday to you,” they sing like a choir of horny dingoes.

  “Get the fuck off, you mongrels,” she shouts, but it’s all part of the fun.

  She hears the sound of the clippers starting behind her. “Not the hair boys,” she shouts, “Not the bleeding hair.”

  *

  Two days later and Rose is back in the city. She loves the big nights. The rush of adrenalin and the buzz of the attention.

  She watches from the curtain that separates her from the audience. Watches her opponent milk the crowd as she struts down to the stage.

  A woman gets under the rope and steps in front of Mo. Next to anyone else, she’d look huge, but alongside Mo she looks small. Her huge cleavage is easier for Rose to look at than the landscape of scarring on her face. She gives Mo a pen then squeezes her breasts together till they look like two bald men kissing. Mo signs them like she’s a celebrity and the woman lifts her shirt so all her friends can see. They whoop and cheer like they’ve never had it so good, a flock of mutton in sheep’s clothing.

  Word on Mo has travelled far, even up to the sheep station. Goes by the name of ‘The Maori Mountain’ and Rose sees for herself that it’s not all about the alliteration.

  The way she plays the audience it’s more like a Miss Universe contest than Victoria’s arm-wrestling final, heavyweight division.

  The Mountain steps up and flexes. Lets those at the front rub on oil, those muscles of hers straining against her tattooed skin as if they’re trying to burst out.

  “Blooming poser,” Rose says and then she sniffs hard at her bottle of salts. Like snorting urinals, she thinks.

  The announcer looks over and she gives him the nod, making sure she’s hidden when the spotlight turns in her direction.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” (though it’s mostly ladies), “Undefeated in the professional arena,” (that since the age of eighteen), “The Queen of Victoria, the Maid of Melbourne, The Sheila of the Shears…”

  “Christ, get on with it,” Rose says to the back of the curtain. She looks at the wallpaper. The cheap bastards haven’t changed a thing since she first appeared there.

  She counts the fading flowers of the pattern while she waits to hear her name.

  “A whole lot of Wrestling Rose Robbins.”

  The floor shakes as the guitar booms in.

  Ba da ba da ba da ba.

  The shrieking and the booing begin, the shrieks winning on a split decision.

  This is the part she hates. All the frills and nonsense. The only things that matter take place at the table. Even so, she does the sponsors proud, hitting the high-fives, punching the air, singing along to her theme-tune.

  “She aint exactly pretty,” (her fans scream), “She aint exactly small,” (like the song was written for her), “42, 39, 56,” (in her dreams), “You could say she’s got it all.”

  The sweat’s pouring down her face by the time she reaches the stage. Has something to do with the synthetic fibres of the wig, cheaper than the natural stuff, but not as forgiving.

  “Nice look,” George shouts into her ear as he goes over and kisses her cheeks. “Might even buy you a drink after this is done.” It’s true. She looks good in the pink bob, like Louise Brooks after a few good meals.

  “Might even accept,” she tells him, pulling of
f her silk cloak and handing it over.

  She points to the words written on her t-shirt, ‘OFTEN LICKED, NEVER BEATEN’ and draws another cheer and a couple of boos for her effort.