The Cut Read online

  *

  Two hours later, I’m watching Kate and Jon, canoodling disgustingly down the end of the garden, down by the bonfire. I know what the conversation is about. He’s trying to soothe her. He’s winning her round about my impending party.

  Yeah, so they’re swathed in smoke and in each other. I snarl quietly to myself, but I’ve got a satisfied grin on my face as I stroll along the upper landing, past Kate’s blue porcelain vases and lacquered tables and hanging baskets bursting with dried flowers.

  In the room she shares – for now – with my dad, I find her handbag, which contains just twenty pounds. Hell. Not worth taking.

  Five minutes later, I’m in front of my mirror. I’ve crossed my legs, my legs are criss-crossed, with a mesh of black diamonds from my most tawdry pair of tights. My movements are constricted by the most uncomfortable of little black dresses, and glossy black high-heels pinch my feet. I have put up with discomfort before, and I shall do so again. I grin into the mirror. My silver earrings spin like little mirror-balls.

  I’m putting my lipstick on. The radio is jabbering away in the background. To my annoyance, it’s one of those stupid public-guilt ads again, trying to persuade the middle classes to sponsor the Third World. Some tosser’s talking about his journey to the office, and saying how hectic it all is, bumper-to-bumper, all these people behaving as if getting to work is the most important thing in their lives. And then, as if in a sudden epiphany of conscience, he remembers little Kwame, the African child he’s been blackmailed into sponsoring, who doesn’t even have fresh water every day. We’re supposed to experience a vicarious ‘Aaaah’ moment as he comes over all caring and perspective-hit. We’re informed that the organization still has 400 children ‘available’ for sponsoring – like a sale, Last 400 Must Go! – and we’re expected to give them a call and grab one off the shelves. Well, they can fuck off. There’s too many people in the world as it is.

  I scowl into the mirror. I finish applying my lipstick, grab my bag and wink at myself. ‘See you later.’

  *

  Not Domingo, tonight. Too many memories.

  No, instead I get a taxi right down the sea front, along through the next town and to Paradise City, major haunt of the techno-crazed, Lycra-sheathed and generally over-excited of the South Coast. Half the clubbers of the region don’t know it exists, and that’s the way the other half want it to stay. I only found it because Damien gave me some covert flyers from the record shop. (I don’t know what he imagined I’d do with them. Maybe he thinks I’m still in the schooldazed habit of sticking them on folders next to Ryan Giggs and the well-eyebrowed Gallagher brothers.)

  They’re a whole subculture, these coastal clubs. Tackiness sheened with surface gloss. Drinks at London prices without London style. Posh and pretty Sussex girls called Hannah and Pippa and Emma, shimmying and shimmering in silver mini-dresses. Or ‘Babe’ T-shirts tight across their nipples. Tripping in the fantastic light, stretching under the strobes. And later, puking bad-E bile into cracked Armitage Shanks, before rinsing their mouths and going home to Daddy.

  I’m reasonably confident of not being turned down by the bouncers – although their system is a law unto itself. I don’t intend to pay for the ten-quid ticket myself, though. No way.

  I lean against the cold brick wall along from the pounding entrance, raising my eyebrows at any groups of men who pass. Some of the young posers pause. They suck thoughtfully on their cigarettes, making little flares of hesitation in the darkness, before lumbering on after their mates, deciding a pint of Stella is a better option than me. One or two laugh raucously after making secret little comments in each other’s ears, so I just look down at their groins with disgust and contempt, then back up to their eyes, holding that expression.

  Soon, as I knew there would, there comes a boy who approaches me. He’s not bad-looking, but he’s got gingerish blond hair with a centre parting. He asks me in a slight Scottish lilt if I am going in, and I shrug, telling him I might be, if I could afford it. Within seconds, he is snared, and he’s paid for us both. I smile, and I’m all over him, stroking his leather jacket as the crowds thunder down the stairs into this outer vestibule of the Inferno. I’m telling him my name’s Jane, saying I’ve just got enough to buy him a drink when we get in.

  When the wall of smoke and sweat hits us and the harsh, industrial noise swallows everyone up, I cut myself adrift from his arm, slipping into the reddish darkness, ignoring his plaintive wails.

  Now we enter the second stage. I need to pick a target more carefully.

  First, I shoulder my way to the bar. My dress is still tight and uncomfortable and I have to keep hoisting the shoulder back up. I manage to get served fairly swiftly by putting on my best smile. After paying the price of a decent meal for a vodka and tonic, I mix with the shadows, holding my glass like a lantern, and move up to the gantry between the two dance-floors.

  I slink discreetly between the slobbering couples to observe the Bacchanalian frenzy below me. I’ve got a very precise idea of what I am looking for, and I’m not sure that I’m going to find it.

  I can feel clouds of boiling moisture gushing from the maelstrom of clubbers like some primal energy, a creature raised from another dimension by the whirling of their arms. And then there is the noise, the bedlam so intense that it seems to transcend normal hearing and instead go straight for the nerve-centres. The allure of Paradise City, so I’m told, is its wildly eclectic mixture of styles, but at the moment, we’re in jungle phase. One record merges seamlessly with another, cranked up into Uzi-fast drum rolls. I can see, in flashes of light, the tiny figure of the DJ – like some celestial techno-mage behind the great ebony curves of his decks – bobbing frantically, mixing, matching and scratching. Piercing whistles sometimes cut through the throbs, or are they screams? It’s so hard to tell. And through it all, the heat gets thicker and every movement drenches me in a tropical sweat.

  I lean on the slippery rail, blinking the smoke out of my eyes. I sip my rapidly warming drink and move half-heartedly from side to side as something I vaguely recognize comes on. Goldie, is it? Hmmm. I start to wonder whether this was such a good idea. I’m not going to find what I need here.

  The DJ lifts the mike, almost eating it with his big black mouth, and the words boom out, stentorian but crunched-up like it’s the voice of God(zilla). ‘All right, massive, massive.’ I’ve never been a particular fan of this pretentious, surface culture, so I don’t know what’s so fucking massive. His ego, probably. He’s giving out ‘respect’ to some posse or other. Again, I’ve never understood why gangs of clubbers qualify as posses, nor the criteria for getting respect. I imagine it’s something to do with having the right designer clothes and ‘attitude’.

  I sip my vodka and sigh.

  ‘Sheep, aren’t they?’

  The speaker is a young man, twenty-ish, with blond hair and wire-framed specs. He raises his eyebrows at me and I smile uncertainly back.

  I grin at him, sipping my drink. ‘They all need a sheepdog. Or a dip.’

  He sighs, nodding as if under a great melancholy. ‘It doesn’t need much for the pack instinct to take over.’

  All right, so I’m sizing him up. His voice is calm, educated. His shirt and paisley waistcoat look pretty expensive, and I’m fairly sure those are designer lenses. A graduate professional, I reckon. A man at home with sleek cars and pints of real ale – someone who, given the choice, would rather be at home listening to CDs of Paul Weller or the Beautiful South.

  OK, so this is as good a place as any to start. And you can just about hear yourself think, up here.

  I open my mouth. I close it again, then decide to say it anyway. ‘So why did you come, if you hate it so much?’

  He sips his drink coolly and raises elegant eyebrows at me. ‘I might ask you the same question.’

  Might you, indeed? Great. Sounds like you got that one straight out of a book. So, now what? Ask him what music he likes? Never a good move, as he might mentio
n someone totally unknown, and go on about their difficult third EP for half an hour. Or we could opt for the Pulp Fiction school of conversation and babble about names of hamburgers and the best way to shine your shoes. Bollocks to that – I believe in getting to the point, don’t I?

  I lean forward so that I’m closer than would normally be comfortable. There’s a scent of some rather nice aftershave around him. I quite fancy him, actually.

  ‘Would you pay a hundred pounds,’ I ask him, opening my eyes wide in what I hope is a seductive gaze, ‘to have sex with me?’

  He laughs first, looks down at the throbbing throng below, blushing slightly. Then he looks back at me again, sees my perfectly serious, enticing face and holds my gaze. For that all-important moment.

  Beneath us, the music suddenly cleans its sound, is sheened with synths. The club slides (via Baby D) into its classic Euro-pop hour. And still he doesn’t break eye contact. I feel hot.

  ‘Well, I – I mean.’ He takes a gulp of his cocktail – more than he intended, judging by the way he has to blink back the impact. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I was expecting to be asked,’ he admits eventually, and pushes his glasses back up into the little white dent at the top of his nose.

  I rather like him, actually. I grin, and swivel from side to side ever so slightly, drinking deeply and slowly from my glass and letting my cheeks flush with the scarlet of promise.

  The beats hammer beneath us, shifting into Ace of Base. Incongruous Nordic reggae, icy and blond.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I say to him, with a quick, full smile. ‘You’d thought that if you kept me talking for long enough, bought me a few more drinks, had a dance and then another little drink or two . . .’ I move even closer so that I’m almost nestling into his body. ‘You thought you’d eventually have got it for free?’

  His mouth makes incoherent sounds of protest, but his smile is as broad as my own.

  I laugh. I’m surprised, actually. It sounds genuine, unembittered. Must be the drink. ‘Good try,’ I tell him.

  He shrugs. He turns away briefly, carrying the strobes in his lenses, then turns back to me as the light whirls and fragments over our bodies. ‘You seemed to be rather nice,’ he says with another shrug.

  ‘I am, when you get to know me. I just think it’s a bit pointless standing here for six hours, shouting into each other’s faces over music that neither of us really likes all that much, drinking over-priced cocktails – and probably dancing to Whigfield, or something equally horrendous, yeah? – just so that we reach the stage where you ask me for a drunken fumble up my Channel Tunnel. I mean, it’s all a bit fucking pointless, isn’t it?’

  He looks deep in thought for a minute, then laughs again and runs a hand through his short blond hair. He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I’d never really thought of it like that before.’

  ‘No, well, there you are. And the truth is, that I need a hundred quid, and you could probably rather do with a shag. Girlfriend just left you?’

  I throw the last bit in as a hopeful spice, like that stuff labelled ‘Mixed Herbs’ that you put in each and every pasta dish because you know it won’t do any harm.

  He pulls a face. ‘For the moment,’ he says in a hollow voice, and drains his glass.

  I finish mine off too. ‘Right, then. That settles it. Shall we go?’

  ‘Look, I think – don’t get me wrong, you’re very pretty and all that, but I just –’

  ‘Just what? Don’t think I’m worth paying for? Look, think of it as a consultancy. A small business enterprise.’ Hands on hips, I gaze up at him, seeing myself twice in his glasses. ‘I mean, just look at the market competition. You can spend thirty quid and get some slapper riddled with diseases, smelling of rubber and cheap soap. Or you can have me. A nice girl. The sort of girl your mummy would be glad to meet. Mmm?’ I tap him on the cheek. He’s quite stubbly, but soft at the same time. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  I grab his hand and lead him from the balcony. He doesn’t resist. As we get to the cloakroom, it starts up – the familiar da-da-da-da of ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield.

  I just love being right.

  *

  It was that git at the bus-stop who first put the idea into my head – when I, just as a joke, told him it would be a hundred quid for me. And it came to me, after I saw JJ so casually preparing himself for a night without me, showing how little he really valued me. I realized that I could very easily know my own value, and know it in cold hard cash, thus solving a major problem.

  If Marcie ever knew, I doubt she would appreciate the irony. But it’s different from any time she ever did it. I was careful, I was discreet, I was choosy. And I had a particular purpose in mind.

  He saw, he came, he paid. I have to say that it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant experience. He had expert fingers, and managed to find places that I thought men were oblivious to.

  I’ve read about it, how these women detach themselves from the act. How it becomes just a transaction. Jesus, I couldn’t. That was the problem.

  Anyway, Chris – that was the guy’s name – was really decent about it, actually. Decent, fucking hell, what a word. Didn’t think I’d ever use it, certainly not about a bloke. I made him go to the cashpoint before we went back to his, just so that I could be sure. He put fifty in my purse before we started and got the other fifty out almost straight away afterwards.

  My general impression of him turned out to have been more or less right. He had a little flat not far from the harbour, quite tidy and tasteful. A couple of large plants – he said one was called Robert, and I laughed politely. (Robert Plant, get it?) Athena prints on the white plaster walls. Nice hi-fi system, wooden coffee-table with wicker mats. Books abandoned on the sofa – William Boyd and some sci-fi thing.

  And yes, he was really gentle, almost too much so. He kissed me at the end, and stroked me, and said in a small-boy voice that it was a shame he wouldn’t be seeing me again.

  I shrugged and said something about how things might have been different. He blinked – he’d not put his glasses back on – and I looked again at that little white indentation at the top of his nose, and the slight, untrimmed bits of stubble on his face. It occurred to me that maybe these might be the kind of things you learn to know and love about a spouse, a lifelong partner. You realize that they’re not perfect, but because they’re nice and they put up with you, then you come to love their little defects.

  Maybe my dad loves Katebitch for her fat thighs and her red lips.

  My mother was a sword-thin woman, with albino-blonde hair. She was elvishly beautiful, but horrifyingly pale, as if someone had turned the colour down on her picture. She was painted in pastels. And she faded from this world.

  I can’t see Kate fading. She’s ominously, colourfully present. Splashing herself on the world in bright oils – that emerald garden, those chocolate flowerbeds, those strawberry tablecloths. Maybe that’s it – my father is so frightened of losing a partner again that he’s found himself someone so hideously larger-than-life that she can’t possibly disappear.

  *

  And I stared into the darkness, and lay awake in the stranger’s flat, with his money in my bag and his body slumbering beside me under a soft duvet.

  I breathed strange-smelling air – pot-pourri of some sort – and listened to the alien sounds. Cars on the sea front. The distant hiss of the sea. The occasional shriek, a crunch of pebbles from the beach.

  I lay awake, wondering what kind of person I was, thinking – as I had so many times in these past few weeks – that I ought to hate and despise myself, but feeling nothing inside. A hollow. I would say it was like hunger, only hunger needs to be satisfied and is only temporary.

  I looked at him, the stranger who had given me my one and only taste of prostitution, and wondered how familiar that close-cropped head might have become if I had met him on an ordinary night out. If I had met him instead of JJ. I would have got to know the name of that aftershave, rather than just i
ts scent, and I might have got him some for Christmas in a little cardboard gift-box. I might have got talking about William Boyd, or that sci-fi author, and started to read their novels just because Chris liked them. I might have found out what his favourite children’s TV programme was, and bought it for him on video. (I’ve always wanted someone to do the same for me. Mine was Willo the Wisp – it was just so bloody surreal and psychedelic, I could watch it for hours.) These night noises could have become as softly familiar as his dressing-gown and his sheets. They might have moulded themselves around my life and comforted me. But no, it was never to be; I was fated to be his fuck, and that alone.

  I lay awake, swaddled in thick sadness, for hours and hours, watching the orangeade-light from the street and feeling that old numbness deep within my soul.

  Twice, I almost slept. Once, I nearly touched his shoulder to turn him round, wake him, tell him everything.

  Everything.

  But I left, in silence, before the break of dawn.

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Shadows

  We meet in a cold, grey no-man’s-land, on the footbridge above the roaring motorway.

  It isn’t quite raining, but drizzle hazes the world, makes the air taste cold and damp above the petrol. Underneath the bridge, the traffic thunders on: great slabs of freight trucks heading for Dover, cars of all colours, buses with sleek black windows.

  I mount the last steps and I’m up here on this giant span of concrete. She’s there at the other end: scraggy blonde hair blowing in the wind, stripy stockings, hands in the pockets of her black PVC coat.

  I smile wryly and walk towards her. She approaches me, and we meet in the middle of the bridge.

  We are here at Marcie’s own request. It was quite strange. I called her, told her I had the money. She told me to bring it round, and I was halfway to the tram-stop when my mobile went again. It was Marcie again, telling me this location. She said exactly which junctions it was between – I didn’t think her capable of that much precision. So I had to get a cab out to the edge of town, worryingly close to the wasteland where we left Birthmark. I got out on the nearest road bridge, in the grey land of open skies and swirls of tarmac threading round each other and, in the distance, a half-finished hotel site dotted with yellow JCBs.