London Fields

  'Yes. This is it,' said Guy. He gave a sideways smile of encourage­ment and asked, 'Are you all right?'

  Nicola smiled back at him without opening her mouth. 'I think so.' She took his hand. 'It's just that I'm not a great one for pubs,' said Nicola, who in truth had always preferred expensive cocktail bars and violent speakeasies.

  'We met in a pub.'

  'Well then. They can't be all bad.'

  He got out and moved round quickly to her door. A hand appeared. He raised her up into the night.

  'You look splendid,' he said, and added in a louder voice: 'I'm just wondering whether we oughtn't to leave your coat in the car.'

  Nicola looked like a million dollars. Or a million pounds, anyway. Over the V-neck jacket and rear-split skirt of a black velvet suit was flung a blond mink coat ('It's fake,' she had lied); court shoes, sheer stockings, diamonds on her ears and on her throat at the end of a fine gold chain, and a gold watch, and a gold clasp on the black leather bag.

  'I mean,' said Guy, 'they won't know it's not real.' When, earlier, as planned, she had come straight down the stairs in response to his buzz, Guy had been seriously alarmed (and, of course, seriously touched) by the guileless opulence of her dress. How hard, and with what intelligent success, she had tried to look sophisticated. And they were only going to the pub to watch the darts and root for Keith, who perhaps had told her that the place was rather grand.

  'Who won't?'

  'The people in the pub.'

  They'll try and steal it, do you mean? But you'll protect me. Anyway they wouldn't dare.'

  Guy smiled palely. All he had meant was that the coat might cause ill feeling, in the Marquis of Edenderry. But of course he kept this to himself.

  They entered the pub and its loud world of primitive desires, desires owned up to and hotly pursued and regularly gratified. Daily fears having been put aside for the night: that was the idea. The desiderata included goods and services, sex and fights, money and more TV, and, above all, in fateful synergy, drink and darts. A shifting tabletop caught Guy an early and awkward blow, flooding his vision with a familiar distress; so he just squeezed his way through after her, after Nicola, for whom the heavy press seemed to part as far as the tips of her coat's bristles. Hell will be noisy and crowded, he thought. Hell will be busy. Now they reached the body of the Marquis of Edenderry, and here was air, and space - and tables, and chairs. The pub was simply too big to be slaked by mere human beings. They sat, and were immediately attended by a uniformed waiter whose erectness and impatience declared that tonight would be high efficiency, high turnover, the managerial team having no doubt set their sights on an epic profit. There were also alert sweepers with longhandled brushes and dustpans, to tackle the upended ashtrays and the shattered glass. And when a fight broke out near by — surprisingly vigorous and sanguinary for so early in the evening — two ageing bouncers cruised along and floored the likely victor with crisp punches to the nose; they then administered some exemplary stomping with cross looks cast about. Guy hummed and hawed and twice apologized to the waiter before deciding on a beer, Nicola having asked, with an air of considerable timidity, for a cognac, which is what she had been drinking all afternoon. The waiter stiffened, wiring himself still tighter, and moved off. Guy was pleased, or at any rate looked pleased, to see some of the same old faces from the Black Cross. They now regarded Nicola with an admiration that expressed itself in frowns of pain, of grave disappointment. The sexual slanders, the lies told in the Black Cross, Guy felt, were somehow active here in the Marquis of Edenderry; but they could never really touch her. He gazed at Nicola, serious and inviolate, in her glad rags. He didn't know that her mind was working like silicon with incredible calculations as it might be the trajectory of the last dart bisecting the angle of his erection: arcs, tangents, targets.

  '1 hope Keith wins,' he said.

  'Oh he'll win,' she said. Guy smiled at her with his head tipped, as if questioning her certainty. She could have told him what she believed to be true, that she felt it in her tits; 1 feel it in my tits. But of course she kept this to herself.

  At 7.4 5 precisely North Kensington's Keith Talent pushed open the double doors of the Marquis of Edenderry and stood there removing his car gloves while all the heads turned. Stay cool but don't tighten up.

  He lifted his chin, surveying his immediate responsibilities. There were some shouts from further back. Heavy support. Don't ask about an opponent. You play the board, not the man. Mike Frame, the landlord. And Terry Linex and Keith Carburton from Rare Perfumes: a nice gesture. Appreciate it. Now Mike Frame stepped forward and placed a serious hand on Keith's shoulder, urging him on to the cleared stretch of barspace. Two men in suits, sponsors from Duoshare. And Tony de Taunton from DTV. DTV. TV. With intense formality Keith was offered a selection of select wines, a choice of choice spirits. No way. Lager. Lager's kegged. It's kegged.

  'I understand you usually throw number three for the pub, Keith.'

  'Third gun. That's correct, Tony.' Keith explained that the pub's two top darters, Duane Kensal and Alex O'Boye, had both been unavailable when the Duoshare came round this year. Absently he added that such things were always unpredictable, where matters of parole and remand were concerned. 'No, I'm the underdog tonight,' said Keith. Lower expectations. 'Suits me down to the ground.'

  'Well good luck.'

  'Thanks, Tony. Yeah cheers.'

  7.50 and the double doors swung open again, meaningly: the clatter faltered, and there was a schoolyard sound from within, whoops, harsh laughter. Keith turned. Not too quick. And faced the entrance with his ready sneer. Four Japanese. That one! Paul Go! Seen him down the Artesian! Fucking maniac on the treble twenties! Did two ten-darters in half an hour! Came out of his trap with a maximum! Never smiles! Did the 170 finish! . . . Don't ask about an opponent. Keith sipped his lager. So Paul Go beat Teddy Zipper. The fast-throwing oriental had what it took to put one over on the South London drayman. Keith parked his sneer at the bar while the exclusive huddle opened out to include his adversary. Then he turned, looked for a moment into the unknowable ferocity of Paul Go's lidless stare, nodded his farewells, circled his tongue round his right cheek, and slowly unmoored himself into the smoke and the noise — and the pub's waves of love.

  'He's coming over,' said Guy. 'I think he's coming over. He certainly looks . . . ready for anything.'

  'Doesn't he,' said Nicola. 'I love the stingray outfit.'

  'I think we might need more chairs. If he joins us we might need more chairs.’

  Still some distance off, Keith was now walking the gauntlet of his friends and fans. Handclasps and handsmacks, savage and farcical winking, the great dry head jerking in recognition and acknow­ledgment. Playfully he slapped the drinks from offering hands, and tossed spare cigarettes over his shoulder, like Henry VIII with his chicken legs. Laughing faces filled Keith's wake.

  'He looks like the Pied Piper,' said Nicola.

  'He looks . . .' said Guy, with doubt, but so raptly that it came out anyway. He couldn't imagine ever feeling superior to Keith again: the male principle, so positively charged. 'He looks', said Guy, 'like Marmaduke.'

  Finally he was nearing their table, back first, and windmilling his arms - at Curtly, Dean, Fucker, Zbigs One and Two, Bogdan, Piotr, Norvis, Shakespeare.

  'Best of luck, Keith,' called Guy, his glass raised, but much too early, for Keith was still craning to heed some chant or goad.

  'Best of luck, Keith.'

  'Yes, good luck, Keith,' said Nicola.

  He was now looking beyond them and flapping his hands in authoritative summons.

  'I think we might need more chairs,' said Guy.

  'Right then,' said Keith, and gave a courtly sniff. 'Guy, Nick: Debbee. This is Debbee. Debbee? This is Analiese. Analiese? Pet-ronella. Petronella? Say hello to Iqbala. Iqbala? Meet. . . meet. . . meet. . .'

  'Keith!'

  'Sorry, darling . . .'

  'Sutra!' said Sutra.

  'Sutra
,' said Keith, who had not known Sutra long.

  '1 think we might need more chairs.'

  'Right then. What's it going to be? Glass of milk for you is it Debs?'

  'Keith!'

  'Jesus,' said Keith, closing his eyes in the greatest disgust. 'Here comes summer. Look what the fuckin cat's dragged in. Look what's just crawled out from under its fuckin stone.'

  Guy and Nicola both turned and looked up: behind them stood a faded blonde, or a blonde's ghost. She stared at Keith with what appeared to be numb yearning.

  'I'll get another chair.’

  'Guy? Don't move a muscle. She's pissed, innit,' said Keith, going over Guy's head. 'You. Fuck off out of it.'

  'No. Uh, I think I shall get another chair.'

  Guy was travelling ever further afield for his chairs; when he returned, having tugged and wiggled another one loose from the surrounding stockades of noise and need, he found Keith in mellower mood, hospitably waving a hand in the air.

  'Irish like,' said Keith as Trish slowly sat. 'Pint of vodka, is it? Bucket of mephs?' And he started to order drinks, at no point and in no wise neglecting the flurry of ogreish winks and pouts and thumb-upping and triple-ringing with which he primed the hopes and assuaged the fears of the innumerable followers and disciples and other Keith Talent-addicts who had filled the place as thoroughly, it seemed, as they would have filled his own apartment. A home fixture: Keith was playing at home.

  'Blimey. We'll have Kath in here in a minute. I'm like You fucky Nefner that's who I'm like. I have, I have never made no secret of my, my admiration of the, the female charms. Look at this,' said Keith, turning on Debbee with the hot wind of his stare. 'Miss Debbee Kensit. Sixteen today. On your feet, girl.'

  Debbee rose. The black net T-shirt with its lively catch of breasts; the loose white knickers worn, fashionably, outside the tight black shorts; then the two bands of stark flesh before the thick pink tubing of her legwarmers. Debbee's round face was pleasant, more than pleasant, until it fully smiled. The smile did a lot for Debbee: it did things like halving her IQ. And it took you, if you would follow, into a world of gum and bone, of dismay, and childish deals to do with love and pain (though only Keith knew the touch of the terrible tenners left trembling on sideboard and mantelpiece). Guy, who found himself taking comfort from the vivid sprawl of Keith's commitments, had always believed that you had to be thirty-five or forty before you got the face that you deserved. Debbee showed that you could get that face on your sixteenth birthday. But deserved didn't come into it; no, not at all.

  'Sixteen as such,' Keith was going on. 'Pure as soft-fallen snow. A virgin innit, saving herself for the man of her dreams. Me I never laid a finger on her. No danger. Because she's special. Special. Special to me.'

  'How is your finger, Keith?' said Trish. 'How's your poor finger?'

  'Not thy expect any you old slags to appreciate something like that. Hey! Now now, girls,' he said with a priestly look. 'Now now, ladies.' Around the Marquis of Edenderry loudspeakers were clearing their throats. 'Best behaviour, all right? Don't do it for me. I'm not asking you to do it for me. Do it for darts. Okay? Do it for darts.'

  Apart from feeling that she might, at any second, black out from neglect, or even die of it and save everyone the trouble, Nicola considered herself to be usefully placed for the time being, and well prepared, like an athlete or an artist, for a necessary audacity in the play. She sat sunk down into the shape of her chair and her coat with her shoulders combatively flexed, her legs crossed, and one shoe bobbing patiently. Looking from face to face - Debbee, Analiese, Sutra, Petronella, Iqbala, Trish - she felt no jealousy; but rivalry had always roused her. Only Petronella, she had incidentally concluded, would give her any trouble in a fight. Petronella was tall and thin but powerfully well-balanced in the thighs and, most crucially, would be hugely and astonishingly dirty, would go nuclear, in the very first instant. Nicola had always been both gratified and alarmed by how good she was at fighting with women, on the rare occasions when it had come up. She liked women, and women liked her, despite everything. In the past she had had many close girl friends, and one close girlfriend. But in the end there was nothing you could do to women (and there was nothing they could do to you). Except you could scratch and bite them, you could mark and twist their softness, if the need arose, and Nicola was good at fighting women. She had learned how in a much heavier league, fighting with men ... It was Keith who worried her. Keith, she decided, was not at his best. She didn't at all mind his talk, his gruesome presence, his antigallantry. The trouble with Keith, tonight, in the Marquis of Edenderry, as elsewhere and at other times, was that he was formless — he had no form. He had gathered women round him or up against him to make an island of non or neg terror, for terrornight. And it hadn't worked out. He was terrified. She could see that he was terrified, pitiably brittle, with a disgraceful bad-stomach recalcitrance in the constant flicker of his face. So Nicola was now looking for a hook (knowing that a hook would be there), to get them through it, something to give him courage and lend form to his chaos. She wasn't going to let him be the louser-up of her reality. However, she didn't feel like talking yet, and was glad when Guy showed he had his uses by asking, with a frown of interest,

  'Keith, who are you up against tonight?’

  'Never ask about an opponent. You play the board, not the man. It's a thing between you and the darts . . . Paul Go.'

  'Is he Japanese?'

  'I got respect for every man I play.'

  'A very determined people.'

  'Fucking loansharks,' said Keith, assaying, for once, a racial slur. He could think of nothing worse to say about them, having, for example, barely heard of World War II. Keith's father, who had certainly heard of World War II, and had successfully deserted from it, might have asked if everyone knew the terrible things they did to some of our boys back then; but Keith was reduced to a few half-remembered grumbles from the fillers in his tabloid.

  They got a big yen for big yen. Tokyo Joe, he'll be stuffing his pockets.'

  'Yes well they do have their critics.'

  'So do I, mate! Oh yeah. I've heard them. They doubt my power. Question mark over my temperament - all this. I'm just a jammy bastard, according to some.' There came the spit and crackle of another announcement, and again Keith's face flickered huntedly. 'Well the shoe'll be on the other foot. I'm going out there to silence the knockers once and for all.'

  But Keith stayed where he was, as time kept passing, and despite the general lurch the pub gave towards the streetward side of the arena. The women looked at him from their accustomed state when out on the town with their men: that of more or less frowzy silence. Trish had already gone off and faded away somewhere.

  'Better be going to the dressing-room,' said Keith irresolutely. 'Compose my thoughts.' He smashed a palm into his chest and quickly staggered to his feet. A heart attack? No: Keith was feeling for his darts pouch. Brutally he yanked it out. 'It's not a dressing-room, not as such,' he went on, with a shy smile. 'The Gents. They clear the lot of them out. To allow the two contestants to — to compose their thoughts. Okay ladies! Wish me luck!'

  The ladies wished him luck, all except Nicola, who excused herself and disappeared in search of the Ladies.

  Where does a lady go, in a pullulating pub, if she wants to meet a gent, and enjoy a bit of privacy? Nicola knew the answer. Not the Ladies: you can't have a gent in there. The ladies wouldn't like it. Not the Ladies. The Gents, the Gents — the gents being so much more tolerant and fun-loving in this regard. Ladies aren't supposed to go in the Gents. Only gents are. But this was no lady. Unless she be - unless she be Lady Muckbeth . . .

  At first Nicola lingered near the entrance, by the machines. What would they be dispensing these days? Not just cigarettes and condoms, not in here: also hairpieces and prostate-kits and pacemakers. After one last hopeless shout through the doorway the man in the frilly shirt moved off — and Nicola walked in, into the world of white testosterone.


  She did so proprietorially. The big youth who came fast out of the stall looked at her and hesitated on his way out, thinking better of washing his hands. She lit a cigarette with detailed calm, and raised her chin for the first inhalation. There were three men in the men's room: Keith, who looked up from dabbing his face at the basin and frowned softly as he caught her eye in the mirror; a haggard milkman bent over the white pouch of a urinal, his forehead pressed to the tiles, weeping and faintly whinnying with pain as he micturated; and Paul Go. It was over to him in his corner she sauntered, to Paul Go, expressionlessly tending his darts, aligning flights, barrels, shafts, points. She stood so close to him that in the end he had to look up.

  'Do you speak English?'

  He gave a sudden nod.

  'And where are you from? Japan, yes - but Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku?'

  'Honshu.'

  Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya, Yokohama, Nagasaki?'

  'Utsonomiya.'

  'What?'

  'Utsonomiya.'

  'Been with us long, have you Paul? Tell me. Do you know what I mean by Enola Gay?'

  He gave a sudden nod.

  She stared for a while at the black fluff on his upper lip and then turned her blond fur on him, and said to Keith, 'It's funny, isn't it, darling?'

  Keith seemed ready to agree.

  'People are always saying that the Japanese are different from us. From you and me. More different. More different than the black. More different than the Jew. More different, even, than that little creature over there.' She indicated the micturating milkman, who wasn't at all offended. Still entirely caught up in his lone drama of self-injury, he had lifted a hand to his tear-stained face, and altered his stance to that of one about to seat himself on a high stool. 'We should surely be able to address the matter in a liberal and inquiring frame of mind. I mean, when all is said and done, just how different from us, spiritually, humanly,' she said, and turned again, 'are these fucking monkeys?'