A Singular Man Part 23

"You're a big girl. I might rupture."

"Gee you look handsome, Smith. I'll carry you."

"Mustn't let you. Miss Tomson."

"Come on, I'm strong."

"You'll strain yourself."

"I want to."

"Let's walk."

"Smithy, hold hands."

On the green carpet with a swing of linked arms. Her blue dress open down her spine. All those bones are pearls. Jasmine flowers on the curtains. Deep throated train trundling through the station, whistle wailing. Below this unholy hotel. Full of the strange spirits lain here before.

"You're strange Smith. It's sad."

"Why do you say it's sad."

"Wasted all this time. I never thought you liked me."

" O G.o.d."

"You do. Smithy."

'Tes."

"I like you. I think. I do. Yesh. Let's get off our clothes."

Untie the tie. Unb.u.t.ton the s.h.i.+rt. Minute ago so light with loneliness, nearly blew away. When her clothes are gone. One by one on the floor. Leave your pearls. Makes me gulp. Such an impertinence sticking out like that. Cast iron. Apologise. Nurses can sting it with a rap of the finger on the end and make it go down. Mine's flying. Zeplin, biggest it's ever been. On its mooring. Look. No time to be shy. Got to turn away. A gasp.

"O G.o.d Smith."

"What."

"I saw it."

"O.".

"It's big."

"It's normal."

"Honest to G.o.d it's not. I never would of thought it was as big. It smiles. That's why I gasped. That is really something."

"Thank you."

"It's beautiful. You're an endless surprise."

Smith waving his flag. Black ones are even bigger. Matilda tells. Miss Tomson I'm pleased you like it. Maybe it's all the months its wanted to rear for you. Compa.s.s needle. True north. Corrected pole. Room to write Sally Tomson. It chuckles too. All yours till coffin time.

"You've got a fine body Miss Tomson."

i Yeah I know. You're trembling Smith."

"You have the most beautiful body I've ever seen."

"Isn't it something."

"Yes."

"Gee you're trembling."

"I know."

"Let me hold it, this crazy thing."

"Wow."

"There for the grabbing all the time in Golf Street."

"Sally, your hair."

"Such a beautiful p.r.i.c.k. Got to look at it. Kiss it.

Makes me feel weak behind the knees."

"Golf Street."

"Thirty three. Why some nice girl hasn't got her name tattooed. Right here on the side."

"MissTomson."

"Could choke to death on it. Gee I'm shaking a little too. Grab me."

"Yes."

"Like my pent house shakes sometimes. You're slender Smithy. Wonderful sneaky guy. It's just like you never kissed anyone before. I want to tell you things. Feed you. d.a.m.n you with that, not telling me."

Smith closing arms around the lanky soul. Just in a string of pearls. Now you know. Your b.r.e.a.s.t.s s.h.i.+ne. Twin beams from a lighthouse on a lonely coast. Lift them a little to put a kiss. Hair on my hand. Warm. Kneel between your legs to pray. And in deference to the jungles disappearing the world over, growl.

"Smithy what a marvelous sound."

"Grrrrrrr."

"You're so close you could give me a heart beat."

"b.u.mp."

"Was that it."

"Yes."

"Thanks. b.u.mp. There's one for you."

"Thanks."

"Christ I can't wait. Give me that. Give it to me."

"You're laughing."

"I know."

"And crying. Tears."

"Of course I am. Get it in. Before I die. Of all the simple things. Jesus. b.u.mp. Have a heart beat."

"Thank you."

"Feels like an oak. Don't move."

"Don't cry."

"I've got to cry. O Jesus. Shake the hay seed out of my hair."

Tomson smiling. Months of dreaming of this sunflower. Opened now. Head rolling, a little s.h.i.+p back and forth on the sea, delicate white nose a sail. Long hands sliding down Smith's back. Clutching over his simple a.r.s.e. Warble of a bird. Crossed tonight, the wide rambling lobby. Red carpets spreading warm under a black piano, gleaming. Played with sad hands. On your b.r.e.a.s.t.s across your chest. Under me here. Inside you. Singing out your groans. Never knew you were so musical. Lungs dragging in air. Flattery. So soothed my nerve-wracked mind. Pleases you. Apple end you said. To eat. Down your mouth like all of me you tried to lift in your arms. Treetop out the window. Knockings in the radiator. Tiniest lines of age round your eyes. Where sadness starts. Feel I'm cras.h.i.+ng. Into a country dance at a cross roads, as nearly I did once rus.h.i.+ng towards the West with Bonniface for a toothbrush holiday at his unsteady country seat. Give you this gold ghost like the one I was driving. Taking an instant detour. Through a white cottage at the side of the road. In an explosion of stones and dust and within a hands' breadth of a gentle old soul having a cup of tea. Miss Tomson, she spilled not a drop. In you. Zounds, as we went through a hedge and field and back on the road, Bonniface screamed. First and only time ever had him scared. But I left every dancer unscathed and right as rain. Smithy, I've got a ruler in my handbag. Make you embarra.s.sed to measure it. Widen my field of interest. The size. No one will believe me. G.o.d you helpless little guy. I am. Two women in one day. Both my secretaries. Ports in storm. Smithy I'm breaking in two. Hold me together. Don't let me go. Or leave me. Even when it's coffin time. Smithy, not so loud, you poor poor guy. Let it go. Under the waves. Got you wrapped. Tickling me under the heart. It is. You rascal. Tell me a story. Were you ever honest. Sally. You see. Bonniface said at the University, realism was our friend. Both of us cheated. And they caught the poor Bonniface. Who threw you Goliath's collar in the dark. But the college officials were mesmerized by his brilliance and candor on other issues. As the father of a child, waiting tensely for another. Smithy I feel pregnant already. Shush Bonniface was grim that day crossing the cobble stones glistening in a recent rain, tutor at his side. To appear before an august body and great clanging bell that rings your future. Your b.a.l.l.s Smithy, they're slippery. Listen. I stole to watch in the window of the great hall. Bonniface's tutor, a man of love brilliance and sorrow. Who stood brus.h.i.+ng grey hair aside, said gentlemen I stand here before you to plead to put facts, sad and uncomfortable. Mr. Clementine need not have sat his examination to get his year but elected to do so because he felt he could excel. Four days prior to sitting his paper he was notified by his landlady to quit his premises. Sally, he peed all over them. At the same time, gentlemen, he found that his wife was pregnant again. Gentlemen, most of us have known the onslaught of fatherhood as it woefully pounded upon Mr. Clementine. Smithy, these little b.a.l.l.s are antiques. Sally, of a priceless period. But outside the window that day, Sally, chilly and cold. Bonniface's tutor had tears in his eyes, and a left fist raised gently. I could bear to hear no more, tears in my eyes too. Smithy, love to see you cry. And suddenly a shaft of sunlight struck down. Across the features of Bonniface as he smiled. The august body rose. Alone Bonniface shook his tutor's hand. And that night walking forth from those university walls, Bonniface said, Smith, my dear George, my name is cleared, I must have drink. And out we went on the granite streets. Gently torturing and tormenting the town. Untold human horsepower in reserve. Bars as wamp till the pubs were closed. Bonniface said get married George. Say yes to love. See little babies grow.

Through trial And misfortune Through misery And pain Maybe later Vaulting fences Like their Daddy.

Smithy, I feel so good full of you. Want to kiss it up again. Does it need a rest. Did you get drunk with your friend Bonniface. Yes, near the ca.n.a.l. He said he desired malt, must find malt. And ripped a divining rod from a nearby innocent fence. Held it high in his hand, said, ho. Ho what gives. Ho. We crossed the bridge. As the divining instrument led. Yours Smithy. It's now so small and sweet. We went under the trees. By the little gardens. Up a path to a green door through flower beds. Ho. The door of this house ajar. And we walked in. Bonniface behind divining rod, through the blackness. Up stairs. I was holding to the back of his coat I said vouchsafe. He said me leader. Follow. Down a hall. Another door ajar. Bonniface fiddled with a switch and lo, there was light. Jesus saves and satisfies. Smithy, do you ever think he's been laid. Sally there were a hundred bottles marked X and Watling Street on a table in a room. Which we grasped and consumed foolishly in the dark. Bonniface said will the world ever be this way again. And if not, why not. Good things are now. Not hereafter. Smithy youVe often been silent. Did the world do something to you. To make you such a quiet man. Because it's so good to hear you talk. I must pee. That's what happened that night. Bonniface said, Smith I do not trust this divining rod to steer you to a suitable bowl. Therefore suggest you use the window this dark night. I said I wouldn't. Jesus don't pee out this window Smithy. But Bonniface said, my dear George, let me show you how. A manner and method in everything, thus, you raise the window, quietly. Handling the part carefully out through the opening made thereby. A mechanism I don't quite fully understand in the skull sends a message to the apparatus, pee, it says. And whee, signal received, a stream now emits arclike over the windowsill. Cascading down upon the old fas.h.i.+oned flowers spied walking up the path to the free repast. Just as Bonniface lectured, tasting each beautiful vowel, I heard unbecoming stirrings in the room below. A trembling of voices. Lights had been switched on to watch the demonstration. But with the murmurings below, Bonniface requested smartly a dousing of illumination and p.r.o.nto return to stoicism. We sat stony in the dark, each with a refres.h.i.+ng thick brown beverage to hand. Steps up the stairs now, following upon the slamming of a door below. And click click along the hall. Another click. The switching on of the lights by an unknown hand. Bonniface yelling out the window, O my G.o.d I will roll mothb.a.l.l.s in your direction soon. The door which was green swung open, the lights blazing, just as they were when the world was born. A brutal busty madam of fulminating nature stood framed in the door, shouting, what are you doing in my house, who's responsible for that disgusting downpour. Bonniface looked up from peaceful reverie. My good madam, how dare you address my friend and I in such a fas.h.i.+on. How dare you. And interrupt this gentle and kindly celebration following upon the heartfelt pleadings of my tutor. Mr. Smith, here, was a field officer in the last conflict. Many footsoldiers gave willingly of their lives under his command, as he busily figured new strategy. Furthermore I envisioned for him a nice mercantile future, with marriage, children and ponies for them to ride. She said, get out of my house I'm calling the police, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds p.i.s.sed right in my bedroom window onto my husband and me in bed. Smithy go and do yours and come back, and tell me. You shy, aren't you. Yes Miss Tomson. Go to make a tinkle. Tinkle. Now tell me Smithy, push in close, let me hold them again, gee too small for tennis, if I phoned you, said I was full of a baby what would you say. Delighted. Would you. And what did Bonniface say to Madam. He said Madam I find it impossible to forgive you your manner in which you suggest such foulness. Who wants to waste p.i.s.s on you anyway when it's needed for the benefit of roots and stems of flowers. Smithy you've never talked like this to me before, such a sweet story. Did this madam belt him one. Well madam was not lightly to be dismissed by the logical hauteur of Bonniface, she shook and trembled rather violently in the flesh. Made a rash charge at the Bonniface, who catlike was up, entwining wiry arms around her, her bosoms unflatteringly bursting forth from one of those modern manufactured fabrics. She screamed manhandling, fingering. As one heard a couple of hours ago in the Pomfret. Frequent fingering universal. And a figment, Bonniface said, of her imagination. Then gripping her person, as madam shouted loudly take your dirty hands off my t.i.ts, if my husband wasn't a cripple down there he'd come up and kill the both of you. Bonniface chucked her back out into her hall. Dare you madam, interfere with my social life. Nor should my lily hands toy with your mortal appendages. Vouchsafe they are huge. Wait till I get my stethoscope. Me mental and moral scientist madam. Bonniface then turned, said, my dear George, do pardon that unwholesome mar upon the evening, drink up, while I finish my pee. Smithy I really thought you were going to do yours out the window. Get us raided. Cops streaming in. We're on private property, Miss Tomson. You have it all figured, you scare me Smith. Guess we're both of us operators, without clothes, let me try a punch, watch this now, this left hook, below the belt, all them hours you spent at The Game Club. Christ Miss Tomson, got a nice little punch there. Smithy you see, I could really take you, I could. Want to fight. No, please Miss Tomson. Come on Smithy. Anyway, even though you're getting yellow, I like your stories. Little incident was rich. Whole big world behind you, I knew nothing about. You're a lion, you're loving what I'm saying, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I'm such an open hearted girl, do you think it will come up again. I'll make it. With a kiss. O poor Smithy I ask for too much. You got grey hairs here, and now I know why they make lolly pops. It stirred, ah ha, you don't know how exciting to make it stand up. Sort of sentimental, can I think it's all for me, it does. Yes. Sweet, I wouldn't play tennis with them, fun to tell you everything I think. Hold my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Was going to tear up the newspaper a moment before I saw your ad with the slave pay, the funny sequence of words got me. Miss Tomson, I'm going to advertise more if it finds the likes of you. Smithy how did you escape madam. She rushed out her front door, turned and shouted up remonstration and got caught in the undertow as the Bonniface unleashed the urine once more. Gee he really needed a pee, Smith, like to meet him, in a raincoat, if we add up both our ages what would it be, length of it in feet, it's beautiful, to sit on. Miss Tomson. Open up my eyes at you, sitting so pleased, and all you had to do was look and askand up it went again, when I nearly think it can't, it won't, you said make it, you'll kill me, I'm dying, slipping right down, can't hold on, fingers slipping, shade pulled quietly over the brain, goodbye, don't go yet Smithy, I'm coming. Glued together. Sally, I'm only going just as I'm coming too. Sally. G.o.d. Don't mention him Smithy, they'll hear screaming in the lobby. Sally, you blanket over the desperate cold cares and mailmen lugging all the undelivered dread. Wait now till Monday. Till perhaps the Bonniface will come again rapping on the empty door of 604. Or enroll in The School Of Higher Graduation across the hall. My former friends will turn my funeral into rout. With some vulgar word drifting over the quiet peace. Four simple threadbare letters brought together. Scattering my acquaintances into the landscape. All listening cowering behind the gravestones and edifices to a meek Bonniface song.

In twilight Too true The enemy farts.

Get ready.

Miss Tomson throws back her long fis.h.i.+ng rod arms. Two mouse blond powdery puffs of hair. Steamy incense of her sweat. Kiss her all down the inside of the arms. And ask her now.

"Miss Tomson."

"Yesh."

"Will you come to my funeral when I die."

"Jesus Christ, Smithy. You poor kid. Sure I will. But you're not going to die. You've got a long way to go. Sure I'll come to your funeral. But you're going to live for years and years. Tell me who was the first woman you ever slept with. So I'll have plenty to think up when I write your epitaph. I'll come to the cemetery with it written on a sign. You know you were the sweetest employer I ever had. When I hold this. It's going to be a great shame when you die."

Miss Tomson's eyes gone grey because they do at dawn she said. Marble canopy over my last remains. Few miles south of here. And she'll walk that day on her tall blond legs through the gate of the garden of deads. In her hand a little bunch of violets. Crossing the pebbled paths, a wind blowing and bending the branches of trees and some leaves will fall and float to the first step of my tomb. Near the gra.s.s verge with its little sign. Perpetually Endowed. And Sally it was that latter word the first woman I ever slept with said to me. She was a queen with hair like sugar cane and her face and lips like soft sweet putty. She saw it and said you're well endowed. The night it happened I had been tempted away from my college rooms. Had a crazy man who visited me every Friday afternoon and smoked a cigar in front of my mirror. Would laugh loudly at his image uttering dramatic remarks, and said he was an actor. I left him and went to a tavern by the quays where the college bucks were drinking and singing hymns. There was Giles who invited old men back to his college apartments for games. Members of the rowing club riposted, for G.o.d's sake, man, clean up your life. Outside this pub s.h.i.+ps were wheeling in the river, winches trembling, cables stiffening across the dark waters as they pulled bows towards the sea. And under a table there was her leg. She was blond like you as well as a queen.

"Don't leave me Smithy, not for a few hours anyway.

Promise."

"Promise."

"I'll drive you back to town. You know. I went by Golf Street once. Taking Goliath for a walk. It was so sad. Looked up at your office and all of it empty and I nearly cried. Cigar guy, out viewing his big time display window comes across the street. Wants to know if he can help. Told him to mind his own business. You know what he said, sister if you got any connection with that guy, they caught up with him, so you better beat it. I said sic him Goliath. Did that guy skidaddle. I was gloomy. I thought G.o.d, here I am making all this money, and my poor old friend Smith had to beat it. Felt like leaving you money in my will. Even talked to my lawyer about it. You know they made a plaster model of me, it's everywhere all over town. Gave me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s thinking what some guy might do to the cast. They had to tame down my lines. I don't know, you don't think they're too big. Why do you smile. You know Smith I don't even love you. I'm going to look at you as a curiosity in my life. You never even took me out. Or even bought me a soda. All the while I'm thinking you're broke. Till I see your apartment then I think you're the biggest tightwad who ever lived. I still do. And here you are in my arms. You haven't even offered to pay for smacking up my fenders."

"These are fine fenders."

"Just fit your hands. Wish I didn't have troubles. I'm supporting my brother. He's out of work, trying to start a corporation. I said why don't you operate like a friend I know which was you. I said he just has four walls and a pencil and cleans up. My brother wants his own building with his name on top. Said it's necessary with the kind of people he knows. G.o.d Smith you're so beautiful just lying there. You even have shoulders, not much, but impressive. If I tickled it like this it will grow big again. You better realise I'm just an innocent girl. Saying it to such an innocent guy. Sure I'll come to your funeral. This will need a little box all by itself."

Sunday morning down on the station with big stacks of newspapers lifted off the train. Cars come slowly by and take one home. The Boar Hotel, four windows curtained, closed to the light. Rain cleaned sky, with white puffs of new clouds coming from the west. Miss Tomson's black long car parked with five others on the circular drive. She pranced up two steps and waltzed in between the shrubberies. Perhaps took a right swing towards Norbert's jaw. G.o.d will never keep her out of heaven. Even when he knows.

Hers Were large Without hope For tiny Hands.

14.

GEORGE Smith standing three thirty in the afternoon on the sultry dim lit platform of Battery Station. The day's work done. Express trains speeding by on the central track between the pillars of the rapid transit system. Forty eight days since the Sunday with Miss Tomson. Counted, for their lonely, empty deadness without her. Smith standing three thirty in the afternoon on the sultry dim lit platform of Battery Station. The day's work done. Express trains speeding by on the central track between the pillars of the rapid transit system. Forty eight days since the Sunday with Miss Tomson. Counted, for their lonely, empty deadness without her.

Smith looking at his watch. Three thirty three. Removing a white silk glove to take a square of hanky to wipe sweat off the brow. A slender black briefcase sadly full of onion paper copies of recent correspondence. Miss Martin glum as she types the actionable acrobatic answers in room 604. While I look out at the white lavatory wall of the air shaft mentally writing there antidotes to naughty scrawls elsewhere in the world.

The yellow caution lights go green at the end of the station. As Matilda with her five wedding rings, had white little circles under the gold on her dark finger. Red lipstick on her lips lighting her face. Chopped me little lambs livers for dinner and said Mr. Smith you're not ready for redemption. Or burning holy s.h.i.+t. We got tight together on corn liquor. Mr. Smith, forget that high cla.s.s wh.o.r.e Miss Tomson.

Today, like all the afternoons since, I go for a sit in the park zoo. On a bench under a tree hanging with colored balloons. Mothers munching popcorn pus.h.i.+ng new babies by. Forlorn on this Battery Station waiting. To take tea in the hotel with the dull green high bronze roof. And stay to stare down through soft green c.o.c.ktail light. At my white thick cup floating a tiny bag of leaves. Hunger in stomach and heart.

The disappearing swaying rear dots of a train down the tunnel. Stale faces. Person there full of rancor. Lurking among a few grabbers at life's banquet taking early trains. Five o'clock my fencing lesson. Hopeless foil las.h.i.+ng in all directions. Can't help smiling behind the mask at my amusing madness. Till yesterday Master Ferendelli wrenched back his head gear, gave me a great show of teeth, said really Mr. Smith, it would be so easy to run you through, please don't smile because you think I am a pin cus.h.i.+on.

Hoped so much to show Miss Tomson. My sword play which I took up Tuesday first thing after that Monday morning. Lathering each other in the deep blue tub before we left for town. As she stood in the bathroom doorway ready to wash. b.r.e.a.s.t.s freely flas.h.i.+ng. I nearly fainted. Till she covered them with her elbows. Nature gave you everything Miss Tomson. Yesh I guess I'm really something. She sat quietly on the edge of the bed. I pressed it harmlessly against her t.i.t gently nudging her backwards one last time. Timbers s.h.i.+vering. Not bearing or caring to go back into the public world. Or silence as we drove back to town. Said I'd pay for all the b.u.mps and damage, as she popped me out in front of Merry Mansions. Hugo opening the door. I blew a kiss to her from behind his back. And she smiled and waved roaring off down the street.

This leaning lurking shadow near me on the station. Don't dare to look up these days in case Bonniface is staring at me out of those red barrels he calls eyes. His presence has always led me drifting to disaster. The note he sent to Dynamo full of gentle beauty, regretful for the death of Miss Tomson's dog, which he said was buried in Dogdale Cemetery with every dignity. In soft moments admit that Bonnif ace is the kindest man I know. And after all the unanswered phone calls, I mailed the news to Miss Tomson, said I'd take her there to Goliath's grave, if she drove.

The shadow b.u.mping against Smith's shoulder. Pa.s.sengers filling the platform. The distant rumble of a train. Sound of spitting. A misdemeanour. Smith looking. Rancid face. Giving one a frosty spine. And a voice growling. At me.

"Why I'm better than you are."

Smith looking up. Into dark unkind eyes. Glaring. The mean head turning sideways to spit again on the platform. Smith sidestepping into a puddle collecting a drip from the roof. Hoping for the train. Someone throwing a piece of chewing gum at the large rat gambolling down the tracks. A shout said the rat will get electrocuted. Can only see Miss Tomson everywhere, stepping out of the distant ads on the wall across the tracks. Train please come. Before this voice says something again. Clouded in an apple smell of drink.

"Why you fancy pants."

Smith's cast down eyes. Such random sadness. The world will never rear up green again. And I've had to come out into life to mix on stations, benches, in zoos. To see others living. Walled and curtained off, by the blankness Miss Tomson left. Great dim desert. Coast to coast. Where horses run thirsty and thundering. In our short sleep together I never closed an eye. And she sat up strangely and said help. Help me. I kissed her on the brow and pushed her down again. She fell silent and asleep. Her hand toying between my legs. A touch I feel across all the grey stretch of days. To drown this ugly voice.

"Why I'm going to bust you one."