Linger Awhile

  The bug had stuck to the ceiling but not in a place that gave me much of a view. I got the top of a speaker or whatever and below that what I assumed was a female and very shapely leg ending in a black-and-white cowboy boot. I did better with the audio. I’ll call the voices I and J:

  I: Try to keep still, OK?

  J: Why should I keep still? I didn’t ask to come here, I’d rather be dead. What gives you the right to stick that thing in me?

  I: I love you, that’s what gives me the right.

  J: That’s what you think, you dried-up old piece of shit. Ow! That hurt.

  I: If you’d hold still I could find the right place. Of course it’s going to hurt if I keep getting it wrong. Ah, there we go. How’s that?

  J: Am I supposed to like it?

  I: You’ve got a little colour now and you’re looking much better.

  J: Get your hands off me, you creep. Stop taking my clothes off.

  I: You’re getting colour from the top down, very nice. Ow! Why’d you hit me?

  J: Just because you brought me back from the dead, don’t think you can put your hands all over me.

  I: Would you rather be dead?

  J: Oh, never mind – you might as well finish now that you’ve started. If you’ve got enough of what it takes.

  I: I feel a little faint but it’s worth it to see you looking so good. Mmmmm!

  J: Stop that! And what’s going to happen when you’re all used up?

  I: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

  J: What’s that thing on the ceiling? It wasn’t there before. Are you taking pictures of me?

  (At this point Fallok removed the bug and stamped heavily on it.)

  Her voice! Listening to them almost drove me mad.

  The pictures in my mind as I imagined what was going on! The erection it gave me! I took time out to pleasure myself but I still couldn’t calm down, I was burning with passion, aching to possess this woman. My love had sprung up like a monstrous cactus the first time I saw her on video. Now Fallok is enjoying the fruits of my labour. I never should have told him how to go about it and I fully intend to take her away from him. Yes! To have her for myself, to feel her responding to the urgent life in me! One way or another I’ll do it. Ah, Justine!

  9

  Justine Trimble

  8 January 2004. Crazy! Is this how Lazarus felt? And crazier from one minute to the next. I kept trying to push this old guy away but as the new life flowed into me I was getting horny. So I stopped pushing him away and pulled him on to me. If fucking was music he wouldn’t of been no more than a tin whistle but in my mind it was Gene Autry giving it to me real good and singing, ‘Whoopee ti-yi-yo, rockin’ to and fro, back in the saddle again …’

  The old guy fainted when he finished and I must have used up too much juice because I could feel myself fading to black-and-white again which was a real comedown. When he opened his eyes the old guy – Istvan Fallok his name is – said, ‘How was it for you?’

  ‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘Only I think I’m fading back to where I was at the beginning.’

  ‘I noticed,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I’ve got enough blood left to give you a top-up.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen now?’

  ‘You’re a good-looking girl, Justine …’

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘You could have guys queueing up for you.’

  ‘What, you’re going to pimp for me?’

  ‘Calm down, you don’t have to go all the way – just get them in here and I’ll soon have you in Technicolor again.’

  ‘When I get them in here you’re going to do that business with the needles and tubes?’

  ‘Unless you prefer the classical method of satisfying your need.’

  ‘You mean … ?’

  ‘Think Bela Lugosi, think children of the night.’

  ‘Jesus, you’re trying to turn me into a vampire whore! I’m not some tramp you picked up, I was a star, I rode after the El Paso stage and saved the goddam gold.’

  ‘Justine, you don’t like black-and-white much, it makes you feel terrible and you look like hell. I told you, just get the guys in here and I’ll do all the heavy work.’

  ‘Never mind, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way. I’ll be a vampire whore. Come to think of it, I won’t need you then, will I.’ I wanted to hit the street before my colour was all gone, so I grabbed a jacket and headed for the door. ‘Hang your head in shame,’ is what Gene Autry and me sung to the old guy as I hauled ass out of there and into the dark.

  10

  Istvan Fallok

  8 January 2004. I stood there and watched her go out of the door; I couldn’t think of anything useful to do. All kinds of feelings were churning around inside me. Blood was a practical necessity for Justine. Mine had worked for her and I guessed that her reconstituted system would accept any type. What she was doing now was certainly the simplest and most direct way of getting what she needed; thinking about it, imagining her sinking her teeth into the neck of her first victim, excited me and filled me with a kind of perverse pride. I hoped she’d leave whomever she drank from enough blood to be going on with but I couldn’t help worrying a little about her ability to restrain herself.

  While I waited for Justine to return I played back our brief history. Today was the 8th of January, so it was just over a week ago, on New Year’s Day, that I did a tiny Justine in a test tube. And it was on the 2nd of January that I began my preparations for the full-size primordial soup for the full-size woman. I googled for Port of London, and trawling eastward down the Thames on the website map I found TDG European Chemicals in Halfway Reach by Old Man’s Head. Names to conjure with. They put me on to Gainsford Drums in Walthamstow and Bob was my uncle. When the drum was delivered I stood looking at it for a while, thinking about what would come out of the soup.

  The 6th of January was the big day. When I got to the point of zapping the soup I hesitated. What if nothing happened? This, after all, was the first moment of the rest of my life. What would my life be if this moment was a failure? The idea of Justine had got into my old man’s head and by now she was my without-which-nothing. ‘Please,’ I said as the 240-volt juice hit the soup, ‘be there!’

  And she was there. I’d imagined her rising naked from the soup like Aphrodite but she was fully clothed in her El Paso costume. The sight of a full-size live monochrome woman was something of a shock to me and she was in a similar state. ‘Wha?’ she said. ‘Where? Who?’ She was very weak, and I had to hold her up to keep her from collapsing.

  ‘First, let’s get you out of these wet clothes,’ I said.

  ‘Who,’ she said, ‘you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Nobody here but you and me.’

  ‘Who you?’

  ‘Istvan. You can call me Ish.’

  ‘Talk funny, you.’

  ‘I’m English. This is London.’

  ‘London, Texas?’

  ‘England.’

  She shook her head. ‘The gold,’ she said, ‘don’t let them.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I’m taking care of everything.’

  ‘El Paso. Tornillo. Hit stage.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to hit the stage,’ I said.

  ‘You,’ she said as her shirt came off, ‘stop.’

  ‘It’s OK, you have nothing to worry about.’ Actually, her monochrome brassière and then her naked breasts were not at all erotic. Quite the opposite. Dead white skin, grey nipples.

  ‘You,’ she said, ‘not in this movie. Go way.’

  ‘This is the only movie there is,’ I said, ‘and I’m the leading man.’

  ‘Shit,’ she said, and fell asleep or fainted. The reality of this whole thing was nothing like what I’d anticipated. I was trying to remember why I’d been so smitten with her, so much in love that I’d had to bring her out of death and video into my primordial soup. I saw a whole lot of problems looming ahead of me while she lay there sleeping the sleep of the undead
.

  I hadn’t really thought through the problems of having a monochromatic companion. It wasn’t just the lack of colour – in black-and-white she had no strength, could barely drag one foot after the other. Yesterday when I took her out all bundled up proved to me that colour was the only answer, so I rang up my nephew Arkan Vulvic who’s a nurse at St Eustace and asked him to get me a blood transfusion kit. Everything but the blood, which I thought would be pushing it. I’ve got him enough special deals on electronic equipment to make it hard for him to say no but he sounded a little worried. ‘Nothing illegal, I hope,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘You know me – always fooling around with one thing and another.’ Without asking more questions he sent me plastic bags, tubing, needles, cannulas and instructions by messenger. That was when I transferred about a pint of vintage Fallok to Justine. I felt a little strange afterwards but she was looking great and she didn’t say no when I wanted what lovers want. It was disappointing.

  Now she was out on her first hunt. I sat there waiting for her and picturing it in various ways. Would she suddenly sprout fangs and would her eyes light up as in the movies? No, it would be more erotic, more subtle, lingering kisses and soft caresses until she would bend to his (or indeed her) neck, brush it with her lips, then sigh and drink her fill. I almost envied the victim.

  I waited and drank Irv’s whisky with a minimum of water. The hours passed; I dozed in my chair and didn’t wake up until after three when she waltzed in, plumped herself down in my lap, and gave me a big wet kiss with a lot of tongue. ‘Wake up, Uncle Istvan,’ she said, ‘I’m hot to trot.’ Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were sparkling and she was wearing a Guernsey instead of the jacket she’d left in.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ I said.

  ‘Later – first I want a little action. Give it to me good and I’ll come in Technicolor for you.’ She was out of her clothes and on top of me in a flash and I have to say it was a whole lot better than the first time.

  She sounded as if she was enjoying it too. ‘Well, shut my mouth, I’m a-headin’ south on the Dixie Cannonball,’ she sang, ‘Hoo-ee!’ After she settled down she kissed me and said, ‘How was it for you, old buddy?’

  ‘It was great. How come you’re being so nice to me?’

  ‘I told you, I’m hot to trot and right now you’re what I’ve got. You can get back in the saddle any time you want.’

  ‘Thank you, I’ll just rest for a bit. Tell me about your evening. But first I want to know where you left my jacket and where you got that jumper.’

  ‘Jumper?’

  ‘That sweater you’re wearing.’

  ‘I’ll get to that,’ she said, ‘but first I have to tell you what came before.’ Snuggling up to me in my chair, she took my hand and placed it on her breast. ‘Feel the excitement in me,’ she murmured. ‘What a night!’

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘When I went up those steps out to the street I was weak as a kitten and the whole world seemed to be losing colour along with me. I was leaning against a wall feeling as if I’d been dipped in shit three times and pulled out twice when a woman came walking by. She stopped when she saw me. ‘Are you all right?’ she said. I shook my head and she came closer. She was wearing a red jacket. She was pretty, she smelled good, she was plump and juicy. I was about to fall down but she grabbed me before I did. ‘I’ve got you,’ she said. ‘Thank you,’ I said. I was going to kiss her on the cheek but she turned her head so that I kissed her on the mouth. Such soft lips, and she was kissing me back with her tongue in my mouth. Her jacket was open at the top and there was the smooth bare skin of her neck and she smelled so good as I went for it. She gave a little sigh as she felt my teeth, almost as if she’d been expecting it, then she gasped as the blood began to come. I thought I would drink just enough to get me back on my feet but I couldn’t stop, and as she got weaker I held her tighter. She never said anything after that one little sigh, just surrendered completely. Telling about it now I get aroused all over again – I’d never had anything in my life like the thrill of holding her close and taking what I wanted. It made me wet and squirmy, and while I was drinking there were strong colours all around me, I could hear distant voices and street sounds as if they were next to me and I could smell Chinese food and hamburgers miles away. Then suddenly there was nothing left in her. I was so sad because I hadn’t meant to take her life. I carried her down some steps and left her there. I looked in her handbag to see what her name was. It was Rose, I’ll always remember her, my first. I didn’t take any money or anything from her and I left her bag with her.’

  ‘Next time take their ID.’

  ‘What’s ID?’

  ‘Driver’s licence, that kind of thing.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘So the police won’t know who it is right off when they find the body. You left her close to here?’

  ‘Just a few doors down. I could have slung her over my shoulder and taken her somewhere else but I didn’t want to attract attention.’

  ‘What happened to my anorak?’

  ‘What’s an anorak?’

  ‘The jacket you had on when you left my place.’

  ‘It had some blood on it so I stuck it in a garbage can.’

  ‘We call them dustbins. Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. What does it matter?’

  ‘My keys were in one of the pockets, on a keyring with a little torch that had “Hermes Soundways” printed on it.’

  ‘What’s Hermes Soundways?’

  ‘This studio, this place where we are right now. And even if the keys are lost the anorak can be traced back to me, so I’d like to find that dustbin. Where did you go after you left Rose?’

  ‘I don’t know. After a while there was a big wide street with lots of lights and people and buses.’

  ‘Oxford Street?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Did you dump the anorak before you got to the big wide street or after?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘Where did you acquire the Guernsey, before the big wide street or after?’

  ‘What Guernsey? Cattle?’

  ‘The jumper you’re wearing, the sweater.’

  ‘Man gave it to me, I was cold.’

  ‘And what did you give him?’

  ‘What he wanted.’

  ‘Before big wide or after?’

  ‘After, I think.’

  I was beginning to see a life of endless worry unwinding ahead of me. I could see the classic scene where the police pathologist says, ‘There’s absolutely no blood in this body, and look at those bite marks on the neck.’ I could see them coming down my steps and knocking on my door. I shook myself and pulled myself together. ‘We have to move the body,’ I said. ‘Put some clothes on and let’s go.’

  When we got to where Rose was I looked down at her pretty face all pale and dead and I felt sad. I’d turned Justine loose on London and this was the result. The name on her Visa card was Rose Harland. ‘Rose Harland on her Sundays out / Walked with the better man …’ I said as the Housman poem came to mind.

  ‘Did you know her?’ said Justine.

  ‘No. Let’s get her out of here.’

  Justine picked her up as if she weighed nothing and carried her up the steps. We propped her up against a wall and while Justine held her there I went to Berwick Street for a taxi. We pretended Rose was drunk and took her to a street near Euston Station where we left her at the bottom of some other steps. There were a few drops of blood on the collar of her jacket so I removed the jacket and put it in my rucksack. I left the empty handbag with her.

  Next we searched the streets north of Oxford Street and got dirty and smelly but didn’t find the anorak. ‘Before’ and ‘after’ describe time and space but do not necessarily mean south and north. After an hour or so I realised that our efforts were useless so we went back to my place. Justine was still full of her adventures. ‘I tell you, it was some kind of a rush,’ she said. ‘The worl
d was roaring in my ears and I thought if I didn’t get laid soon I’d drag some passerby into an alley and rape him. I was shivering with the cold and wondering what to do next when this guy came up to me and said, “You look cold.” “What about it,” I said. “I could warm you up,” he said. “Less talk, more action,” I said. We went to his place which was nearby and that’s where I got the Guernsey.’

  ‘Did you … ?’

  ‘I didn’t harm him. I wore him out with sex but that was all I did. He was OK when I left and sleeping like a baby. I had one more go-around with another man I met – I didn’t hurt him either – and then I came home. Now I’m really hungry.’

  I made scrambled eggs for her and she wolfed them down, then she ran to the loo and vomited. ‘Maybe I drank too fast before,’ she said. I gave her some toast and she kept that down. ‘I think what I need now is sleep,’ she said. She undressed and climbed into bed and I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

  Lying there she looked so sweet and pretty that for a moment I felt as I did when I fell in love with her. Everything was different now – our reality was so hedged about with practical detail that I always had the uneasy feeling of having forgotten something important. Nothing would be simple from now on, and I was wondering if I mightn’t be too old for reactivating dead women from videotapes. I went down to the studio but didn’t turn on the lights. I raised the blinds and there was enough light from the street for me to see by. I poured myself some Bowmore’s and added about a thimbleful of water. As my insides lit up I tried to think seriously about life, the universe and everything but only pictures came into my head: Justine with Rose Harland; Justine with Man No. 1 and Man No. 2. As fast as I faded them to black they reappeared with full sound effects.

  Someone was coming down the steps: Grace Kowalski. She peered through the glass and then knocked. I couldn’t evade her indefinitely so I opened the door and let her in. ‘Hi, Istvan,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’