Sin City (68 page)

“No. Two centuries. Except time went backwards then. I was twenty-one again, with thick brown hair and a bushy beard and not a mark on my lithe body. You mean to say you didn't even notice?” This time it's a real laugh. I don't join in; I'm still too overwhelmed.

“I felt just the same last night, when you were lying on the carpet in my arms. Though that wasn't meant to happen. I only took you home to tell you the whole story. I felt it wasn't fair to go on hiding things, and I couldn't broach the subject in a public restaurant with waiters breathing down our necks. It would be easier at home, I thought, more private and relaxed. Except it wasn't easy – impossible, in fact. Once I'd got you home, I longed to keep you there, not frighten you away with ugly stories. Losing you seemed worse than anything, worse even than the scars themselves. Then, once we'd had the meal, and wine, and we were stretched out on that carpet, the scars just disappeared. You'd healed me, Carole, and I was a normal healthy guy again, round about your own age and horny as all hell, who was wild to … to …”

“Screw me?” I suggest.

“The word's not good enough. Love you. Make love to you. Christ Almighty, Carole, you just can't understand how much I wanted that. I lay awake all night, feeling furious and bitter – all the things I thought I'd licked – and old again, old and grey and finished because you'd gone.”

“Gone?”

“In my mind you had. I'd told you in my mind, you see, and what else could you do but go? And if I didn't tell you, well, how could we continue avoiding one another, sleeping separately? As it was, I had to almost tie myself to the bed-posts to stop me barging into your room.”

And I thought he was asleep, dismissed him as a wimp. I stub my cigarette out. The room smells smoky: acrid smoke from scorching flesh, burning villages. I sit in silence, scared of my own power; power to heal him – or blow his life to bits a second time. Being loved feels almost like a burden, a responsibility which I'm not sure I can handle.

He gets up from the bed, offers me both hands, scoops me from the floor. “You deserve a medal for endurance, darling. I don't think I've ever talked so long before, and I've certainly never seen you sit so still. This must be a record. You're so full of energy – I love it. Even your face is always on the move. You've got so many expressions, do you know that? And you're so … so involved with everything. If I buy you chocolates, the whole of you lights up; if you're mad, you're really roaring mad. You should have been an actress, a star. You are a star. And I'm your fan. I love everything about you, Carole – your real cute English accent, the way you eat your strawberries – two tiny bites, as if you're scared they might bite back – then gulp, just like my lionfish; the way you love all food, never leave a morsel; the kind of crazy way you laugh, your kindness to Norah, your …”

“Kindness?” As far as I recall, I spent most of the time avoiding or resenting her.

“Yeah. That touched me. You're a real good person, darling. I mean, the fact you came back now, had the guts to do that when …”

I pull away. He's going far too far too fast, assumes I've accepted him, that the scarring doesn't matter. It does. It does. Okay, he loves me, but that doesn't mean everything's just fine. Yet how can I reject him like Laura and that nurse did, be another no-go in his life? He
is
a hero, brave and loyal and incredibly accepting. I'm still bitter about Reuben and my father's death and a host of other things, while he's moved beyond that; builds gardens, raises orchids, even charms the desert; can cry for the bitch who ditched him when I'd be glad she died. I love him for all that, and it isn't simply pity. He's far too good for pity. The problem is he thinks I'm good as well, doesn't realise what I'm thinking underneath, or understand the rotten selfish reasons why I slunk back here at all. It was more to do with Suzie than with him, a desire to do her down; plus abject craven fears about losing my job, alienating Carl. Yet he still thinks I'm wonderful, big-hearted.

He strides over to the window, pulls the curtains back. We both blink against the brilliant desert light.

“Carole, you're hurt. I didn't realise.”

“Hurt?”

“Your knee. And both your feet are bleeding. Gee, I'm sorry, honey. I've been rambling on for hours, while you're shivering in those damp pyjamas. You'd better take 'em off. I'll fetch some antiseptic.”

I'm the child again, the little girl who must be fussed and spoiled and petted. I can hear him in the bathroom, opening cupboards, running water in the basin. If I play the child's rôle, let him bathe my knee, that means removing my pyjama bottoms. Then I'm a woman, with a woman's body, a body which he loves, which turns him on. Already he's admiring it, standing at the door while I stretch and yawn, finger-comb my hair.

“Look, Victor, I think I'll have that bath now. It'll warm me up and clean my grazes at the same time. Don't worry” – I force a laugh – “I promise not to touch the shower this time. And why don't you fix breakfast while I'm in the bath? I'm starving now, aren't you?” Toasting muffins will keep him busy, keep him off. I still need far more time, time to sort out what I feel, process his last twenty years.

The bathroom floor is damp still, though Victor's mopped the worst up; left me antiseptic, soothing creams. Can you love a guy because he's more concerned about your footling little grazes than the fact that half his body's scarred? I help myself to bath salts, flinging in several generous handfuls till the water turns a murky green; then strip off my pyjamas and climb in. It's heaven. I didn't realise how stiff and tired and achey I was feeling. The hot water lulls my body, but my mind is still racing round in circles. Victor's life – the hell of it, the waste, yet the way he's battled on, outlawed all self-pity.

I close my eyes, try to shut my mind off, but the pictures keep on coming. I can see his body bursting into flame as he sits beside the corpse of his best friend; see him sick and silent in the hospital, watch the dials on a life-support machine record each twitch and shiver of his illness. I can't see Laura – only the diamonds flashing on her hand, and all her letters, long and loving letters, written in a neat and childish writing, with red biro kisses at the bottom. He was loyal to her. That's rare. I've seen too many clients betray their wives and girlfriends, even two-time a fiancée the day they bought the ring. Oafs and rotters, all of them.

No, not all. I suddenly see Victor, young and bearded Victor, sitting in a bar in Vietnam. Half the bars were brothels, so he said. Sudchit's there as well, ogling him, haggling, trying to lure him in. He's smiling, saying no, saying no to Le Thi Sang, to Sun-Hee, to all those gorgeous Eastern girls. He can have hardly slept with anyone in all these years and years. While I've been through a hundred men in just eleven days.

I sit bolt upright in the bath, splashing water everywhere. It's as if only now I realise what I've done. I hear my own voice, stupidly offhand: “A hundred pricks. So what?” How could I have shrugged them off like that, pretended they were nothing, believed that I was shielded by some footling plastic cover? I stare down at my body. I'm scarred – like Victor – scarred indelibly.

I reach out for the soap, a brilliant yellow bar in the shape of a whole lemon, lather it between my hands. I can't smell soap or sharp astringent lemon, only sweaty heaving bodies, unwashed underarms, the stink of men on heat. All one hundred of them are crowding round the bath, as if to prove exactly what I've done, really rub it in. “No!” I whisper, horrified. “Go away. Get out of here.” They don't. They only press still closer, digging in their nails, gasping, panting as they come, tugging at my hair. That Jewish guy, he's there again: not Reuben – Nathan – though I was angry with him just the same; his onion-flavoured breath, only half disguised with peppermints, the long hairs in his nostrils, coarse hair in his ears; his bristly chin butting at my bum as I kneel down on all fours and he comes in from behind, ramming ramming ramming like a piston engine. Is he furious as well? It feels like it. We're hating one another as we make what he calls love.

Make love. Victor's word. I'm tainted for him now, tainted by a hundred pricks. Con-men's pricks and thugs' pricks; pricks which almost choke me as they hammer down my throat. Semen in my mouth, slimy adult snot. I smack my lips, pretend to swallow it, pretend to come myself, pretend to smile. Everything pretend, to make those jerks feel supermen.

God! I sound like Naima, angry and embittered, despising every client. A lot of whores are angry, get worse with age, tougher and more cynical – anti-life, anti-men, anti the whole human race. I was right in one way – a hundred men is nothing, not compared with Naima. A hundred in eleven days, three thousand in a year, fifty thousand by the time I've reached her age. I cling onto the bath. I'm trembling, shivering. Of course I wouldn't stay that long – except that's what all whores say. Naima did herself, and Joanne, who's forty. They all intend to quit, get out before they're lost, but the majority slag on, because there's nowhere else they'll fit, no one who'll accept them. So the spiral just continues. They're bitter, they're unlucky, so they keep on losing, losing, like Victor did at cards.

I must escape; I've got to, break the spiral now before I'm just burnt out. I pick up Victor's sponge, hold it in both hands. Victor said I had the power to heal him, but it could work the other way. He's already shown me that men can still be caring – sensitive and gentle, that I can't dismiss them all as pricks and tricks, that at least there's one exception, one guy in the world who's got a heart, a conscience. He's already tried to buy me out, get me free of Carl, offered me a lifeline. The word's quite apt – it
is
a lifeline – a way to stop me becoming dead inside, dead and hard and toughened like his skin.

Instinctively, I flinch. That's the problem, though, the reason it won't work. I just can't accept that skin. I'm not as brave as he is, nothing like as decent. The age thing doesn't bother me. He's boyish, in a way, and so crazily in love with me, he's like an adolescent, bashful and passionate at once. But his body and his cock, those ghastly creepy scars …

Mind you, I could accept his help and bugger off. He offered me a let-out with no strings attached, not a quid pro quo. I don't have to sleep with him, or love him back, or save him. I stare down at his sponge, its tiny holes, its uneven squashy shape. It looks alive, as if it's breathing. I'm clutching it too tight, squeezing all the life out. I cradle it more gently, sniff its soapy sweetish smell. No, I couldn't just run off. Not now. He's showed me what love is – giving, not just grabbing, caring, staying loyal. Loyal like Norah. She can love as well. She's always put me first like Victor does, came to Las Vegas in the first place just to make me happy, when the whole idea probably scared her stiff; risked God knows what to buy my wedding dress. I've been pretty cool to her, used her when it suited me, ignored her other times.

Have I ever loved anyone, ever really given in my life? Oh, I use the word a lot. I loved Reuben, didn't I, maybe love him still. Sexy handsome Reuben, kissing me all over; lying faithless Reuben, grabbing all I had.
Do
I love him? Did I? Do I know what the word means? I'm better at the bad things – anger and revenge. I know what anger means. I'm furious with Reuben for taking all my cash. I could have used that money to start a different life, included Norah, set us up together in a decent London flat. And I'm furious with every guy who's bought me, even the pathetic ones. I can hear my silly voice again. “Yeah, I love you, Dad”; see that raddled father whimpering “Kay, my little Kay.” His daughter – Kay – was grown up now, he told me, never wrote at all, refused to even speak to him. No, wait – she's speaking now, lisping through my voice. “Pop,” she's saying. “You're the best Dad in the world.” He's preening, on cloud nine. His clammy flesh is squelching into mine, his clumsy hands with their bitten broken nails fumbling for my nipples. “Dad,” I mouth again, as he pulls me on his lap, holds me closer, his stubble to my breast. My arms are round his neck. I can feel the boil swelling on his back; hot and lumpy, throbbing; its pus erupting, spilling over; pus inside me, running down my legs.

I slap them with the sponge, slap my eyes as well. What's the point of blubbing? He paid me, didn't he? They all paid bloody well, and I'm in this game purely for the cash – cash I've wasted, most of it. I sold my cunt to buy an instant wine-glass-froster, screwed my father for an electronic Wonder Key Ring which finds lost keys, lights up in the dark.

I jump up, turn the tap on, just the hot one, let it run, hotter, hotter, hotter, till the water's almost scalding me. That's okay. I've got to burn away my pain and shame, sterilise my body, kill off all the germs. I snatch up the bathbrush, dig it in the soap, scour my naked breasts, scrub down my whole body, scrape off all those men – their nail-marks, tooth-marks, fingerprints, their sweat and sperm and slobber; dislodge festering little pockets of revenge, grimy coils of anger and resentment. I can smell lemon now, stinging cleansing lemon cutting through the reek of sweaty men. They're leaving, shuffling out, fighting through the door, elbowing and jostling one another, swearing, swapping insults. The last half dozen swagger off; last two, last one. I hear the door slam shut, let out a deep breath. I'm absolutely knackered, as if I haven't slept a wink for years and years, instead of just one night. My body feels quite raw, but at least it's clean now – gasping tingling clean, not even anger left.

I put the bathbrush down, let myself lie back. The water's tamed a little, still hot, but lulling hot. I'm too tired to go on thinking. My mind is raw as well. Too many shocks and problems, too many guilts and fears. I haven't any answers, but it doesn't seem to matter quite so much. I want to simply drift, float away in a haze of pine and steam. I close my eyes. Frightening things like wars and scars recede; dangerous things like love condense in tiny droplets on the walls. I'm falling, flowing with them, sinking even deeper in the water. Only water, only warm green water, the scent of summer pinewoods, lemon groves in flower …