Читать книгу What Kind of Child - Ken Barris - Страница 6

Tuna

A woman stands behind the counter in a dusty shop that sells books on African themes. Her skin is smooth and pale. A cigarette dangles from generous lips. She has short silver-blonde hair and grey eyes. Her ring and index fingers are stained by tobacco, particularly the flesh on either side of the large middle knuckle. There are five small gold rings in the upper rim of her right ear. She stares at me silently, as if I have not spoken to her.

I explain the problem that confronts me, and request her assistance.

She remains silent, refusing either to speak or hear. The silence between us – bear in mind that we have known each other for ninety seconds – reminds me of certain beaches. Long stretches of white sand, rimmed with biting cold water, scored by wind. Whiteness hurts your eyes, the muscles of your calves ache as you walk for miles, getting nowhere in soft, abrasive material.

I repeat my problem.

Behind her, books are stacked up to the ceiling, thousands of them, extending down this long, narrow bookshop, this ark of words. Millions of words, probably billions, arranged with infinite flexibility and intelligence. Her eyes widen slightly as she begins to acknowledge my existence, they focus, the irises engage: I could swear that they begin to dilate, and then halt their progress, as if I have been successfully calibrated.

She takes the cigarette out of her mouth. It descends with her hand to the glass counter, where it sticks up fuming between ring and forefinger, an obscene chimney. The silver ring on her thumb flashes. Her mouth is attractive, I note that, mobile, interesting, the flesh naturally dark in a pale face. She bites her lower lip – she has uneven teeth – and lets go. Her mouth opens, and a single word falls out: ‘What?’

Later, I begin to understand that she has heard only what a cat would hear as feline speech, the flex and slide of vowels, but not all of them. My voice, in her ears, is a flat trombone of feeling, a murky jazz organised around one double question of desire: do I want her, and if so, how much?

* * *

We stand in the small space next door to the bookshop where she works. It is a tattoo shop in Long Street, a cupboard hollowed out between more significant spaces. I have fetched her here. She kneels down beside the old man lying on the floor, unconscious. I crouch above them, curious about what she will do. Her odour rises as I stoop over her – nutmeg, tobacco, mildly sour almond milk – from her neck, hands, arms, the hollows where they join her body. And then a natural bergamot rising from her hair. I inhale and concentrate, confused by rich disorder, knowing I can enter her soul this way.

She bends over the supine man and puts her ear to his mouth, listening to his breathing. Her torso lifts as she takes his wrist, absently stroking parched brown skin. It is obvious she doesn’t know anything about first aid.

She straightens his head, and looks up at me. ‘He’s fucked,’ she says. ‘Serious, we’ll have to call an ambulance.’

‘There is no phone here. That’s why I came to your shop.’

‘Stay with him then, I’ll go back and phone.’

I straighten up as she rises, step back, out of her way. She looks at me – her expression strangely helpless – and leaves.

Her name is Ana Cocked, can you believe it?

* * *

Talking of which, she lies spread-eagled on her kitchen table. Shins dangling over the edge, limp with satisfaction, though the position flexes her thigh muscles, increasing their tension and curvature. I stand above her, half-clothed, my upper half. Her head is turned to the side, her eyes track me.

They narrow suspiciously as I ask, ‘Do you have a pair of scissors?’

She decides eventually – bear in mind that our life together has been roughly ninety minutes – to risk giving me such dangerous information. ‘In the drawer, Lucas. The top one, below the kettle.’

She begins to rise.

‘Stay there,’ I command. She subsides, though anxiety invades her body, stiffening her visibly. I step out of the crumpled ring of my trousers, find the pair of scissors, and return. Her alarm increases as I bring the implement down between her legs. She lifts her head, eyes widening.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ I reassure her.

It is a mistake to imply that I might. Her fear increases. She begins to struggle upwards again. I lean forward and press firmly down on her forehead, which is pleasantly damp.

‘Trust me,’ I insist. The cliché, the fact that I have used one, its banality, reassures her. We are arrested in that position, her head lifted against the pressure of my hand. Then she gives over, allowing me to do what I must. I snip off a tight curl of her pubic hair – it is more densely white than the hair on her crown – and carefully place it in my breast pocket. I thank her solemnly. Later, it will go into my collection.

Laughter gurgles from her, relief escaping, ‘You are a pervert, do you always do this?’

‘I always do this.’

‘You are a snatch.’

‘Byron did it too.’

‘Who is Byron?’

‘A poet. He was a lord, an English lord who wrote poetry.’

‘This Byron was a snatch. Are you an English lord?’

‘No, I am an ordinary South African peasant like you.’

‘I am an ordinary Flemish peasant. You talk like an English lord.’

‘I wonder how many English lords you’ve heard talk.’

‘You are too brown to be a lord of England. You could only be a lord of chocolate.’

I bow mockingly, bend down, and kiss her where it matters most: in the centre of the universe.

* * *

I coat the griddle pan very lightly with olive oil and wait till it begins to smoke. Then I place a thick tuna steak on it, giving each side a few minutes. Orthodoxy has it that the fish should be seared outside, and left raw inside. My own observation confirms that raw tuna is bland. Heat releases the flavour, but not too much heat – just enough for the lightest touch of pink – otherwise, of course, it will taste canned. I add black-bean sauce and rice wine to the vegetables in the wok, which by now are perfectly al dente, turn down the gas, and stir for a minute or two. The meal is ready.

Ana cuts through her steak, stares at it aghast. ‘This fish is raw,’ she complains. ‘You haven’t cooked it long enough.’

‘It’s supposed to be raw.’

Her expression is indescribable.

‘You’re not supposed to eat raw fish. You can get worms, you know.’

‘You’re not supposed to eat raw haddock. You’re not supposed to eat raw pilchards, or hake or sole. You are supposed to eat raw tuna.’

She ignores my tantrum: ‘It’s too thick to fry like that, in such a little oil. That’s why it’s raw in the middle.’

She cuts off a sliver, chews gingerly: ‘Man, it’s disgusting! Raw fish!’

‘Why don’t you put it in the microwave oven for a few minutes?’

‘Good idea,’ she replies, unaware of my sarcasm. ‘The vegetables are tough, too, I’m going to put the whole damn plate in the mike.’

I sit slumped at the table, listening to the obscene hum of the machine as it vandalises my work. Then she retrieves the ruins, and I notice, not for the first time, how loud the controls of a microwave can be, and how the door opens and closes with a clang.

We eat. I pretend not to be piqued. She throws amused glances at me between mouthfuls, irritating me even more. I watch her chew that renovated masterpiece. Smoke curls up from the ashtray beside her. She puffs and eats, her cigarette stinks. The woman is crude, she speaks crudely. She eats crudely. Her accent is crude.

Taking everything into account, Ana Cocked is irresistible.

* * *

I return home with the first tattoo. The old man has gone back to work, and I’ve been to see him. My shirt slides over the bandage. It hurts as I move, more or less between the shoulder blades, slightly to the left.

‘What the hell is that?’ asks Ana when she sees the tattoo for the first time, her voice harsh as always, unsurprised.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet. He tried to show me in a mirror, but I couldn’t make myself look at it. Not yet.’

‘Jesus, it looks shit. What the hell did you do that for?’

‘What sort of shit? Is it bad – is the picture bad? Artistically, I mean.’

‘Turn round, let me see again.’

She brushes her fingers against it, lightly. Her fingertips are more gentle, more subtle, than her tongue could ever be.

‘No,’ she says. ‘No, it just looks sore. It’s a weird picture. I think it will be better when the swelling goes down.’

I almost choke with anxiety, not trusting her judgement. Anything she likes is probably crap.

‘What made you choose that picture?’

‘I didn’t. I let him choose –’

My voice fails. I swallow, and continue: ‘I let him choose the picture.’

I cannot see her expression – she is still behind me – yet I sense intangible heat, as the waves of her incredulity mount and beat against my inflamed skin.

‘Jesus,’ she says. ‘Jesus. You haven’t answered me yet: what did you do that for?’

‘I don’t know.’

A short, husky laugh escapes her. Then: ‘Fuck my dog.’

‘At least, I don’t know if I want to discuss it.’

I turn away and sit down gingerly on the edge of the bed, trying not to flex my back.

She climbs onto the bed behind me, on all fours, to study the tattoo. I wince as the movement causes me to change position slightly.

‘It’s not so bad. Actually, it’s quite good, once you work it out.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a boy or a young man looking out through a cage.’

Her hand again, reading the image. This time I flinch.

‘There’s a strange expression in the eyes,’ she says, dreamily. ‘Now that I think of it, he looks like you.’

‘What sort of expression?’

‘Strange, Lucas. Oh, I don’t know. Kind of still. Not peaceful though, more like shocked.’

I hear Díaz’s high-pitched, rusty voice over the pain of the needle: ‘That is how we found the youths in Cholula. We broke open the cages and let them go, but still they looked like this.’

‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Where did you say?’

‘Keep still,’ he said. ‘Nothing will ever change it. Even now, in paradise or hell, they will bear that look.’

I left it there. I was concentrating too hard on the needle to think about anything else.

She brings me a glass of whisky. It helps to ease the discomfort. In that release, briefly, I trust her enough to talk about my motive.

‘I can’t see colour properly,’ I explain to Ana. ‘I’m colour-blind.’

‘Is that true? Are you really colour-blind?’

‘Yes. No. Not really.’

Her ears and scalp twitch, like an animal’s. ‘What do you mean, Luke?’

‘I’m blind to my own colour,’ I reply. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

‘You bloody South Africans,’ she says, shaking her head. Then she gets up and pours us another round of cheap whisky.

* * *

There is nothing crude about Bettina Moore, though her jaw is too big. She wears very large glasses, and her hair is cut straight and even, not far below her ears. I believe the word is ‘bobbed’. It lends her an androgynous aspect, though she is strongly female. She is ash-blonde and naturally pale, about my own age, younger than Ana. She is tall and rangy, and has a Bishopscourt accent. She doesn’t smoke, her breath is sweet.

This is how we meet. I stand behind her in a library queue, slightly to the side. I notice a sculpted quality about her hand. In this diffused light, it is made of fine white marble, bearing a naked quality that shines out beyond the obvious fact of its nakedness, speaking of pathos.

Naked sculpture can be more interesting than the human original. Some emotion of the subject is singled out, made evident. It becomes unbearable that she is both at once, model and carving, united in one shape. I need to touch her hand. I need to trace its length with my fingertips, plumb its meaning, taste its narcissistic sorrow.

The library queue is slow. The air is sleepy, smelling of dust and books, a blank page in its own right, offering time and opportunity to rupture the membrane of public order that isolates us all so terribly. I am about to reach out and touch her, then stop, suddenly aware that the book she holds was written by my grandfather. Everything changes. Given such good reason, my action will seem less outrageous, even legitimate.

I touch her hand. She turns round, and the world changes again; she absorbs my image, and is not indignant. Her face slips out of control, melts into surprise, pleasure, and finally embarrassment. I find this tedious as always, and yet gratifying.

She struggles to suppress that expression before the moment washes out of her control entirely.

‘Arthur Turner,’ I say. ‘My grandfather.’

‘Who?’ she asks. ‘Pardon me? Oh, you say – Arthur Turner is your grandfather?’

She holds the book at a distance, and studies the cover.

Not long before he died, my grandfather managed to publish a treatise on the philosophy and advantages of alcoholism. To his surprise, Sweet Logos was fairly successful. It’s out of print now, but I know that there are copies in one or two libraries.

‘Do you know his work?’ I ask. It’s a dishonest question. He only published that one book, apart from a couple of academic papers.

She shakes her head, ruefully. ‘I should, I suppose. But I’m afraid that this is the first time I’ve seen his name.’

‘It’s a good book.’

That, too, is a lie. In my view, Sweet Logos is rambling and precious.

She bows her head slightly, and turns away, signalling the end of the conversation. Her neck arches, its length exposed. My interest in her pricks up. Actually, I salivate. It is a pale column, with the finest blonde hairs stirring on the surface.

‘It’s more than a good book to me,’ I continue, suddenly unwilling to fade back into the queue. ‘It’s autobiographical. I’m in it.’

She turns back again, and looks at me cautiously from beneath her pale brows, her elegantly curved forehead. Her blue eyes flicker, small rapid movements of the iris, as she reads the planes of my face.

‘I’m the little boy in the second part, where he describes his relationship with his daughter.’

I don’t know why the transition from first contact to bed has always been so easy for me. I have the natural advantage of good timing, an exact sense of leverage. I know when to apply pressure, when to yield. In Bettina’s case, the turning point is her responsive smile, so legible, so quickly suppressed. I make her see me as that little boy in his grandfather’s book, a creature she can manage more easily than my adult self. A child can possess another child with less effort.

I’ve already learnt by now that when Bettina is disconcerted, her resolve shatters, everything gives way at once. A single tap in the right place will do it.

‘Here,’ I say, taking the book from her hands. ‘Let me show you, allow me to read you a certain description.’