Section Thirty One

"persistence in a righteous cause"

-You can shut up as well! -I've had enough persistence and enough bloody excitement for one day.
She skipped across the road. Traffic hooted and blared, but she waved them airily down.
She paused at the kerb. Her feet ached.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
Her head ached.
She shook it. She clenched and unclenched her fists. She was outside the closed door of the pensione. It creaked as she strode back into the airy patio.
"Signora, is Antonio back? Has he returned?"
"No. Purtroppo. He is very busy today." She now had on a high-necked blouse.
"Oh? What does he do?"
"A bit of this, and a bit of that, you know?"
-Yes, I certainly do. -Song of the week around here. "So, you haven't seen him today?"
"No, signorina, he has not been in touch today so far, but I will pass on the message when I see him. Or if he telephones."
"Yes, please ask him to come to my room if he returns. I would like a word with him very much."
Her eyes narrowed. "Certainly, signorina."
-Right. -Up the rickety-rackety stairs. -Let's water-blast this city dust from our nerveless, quivering body. -Let's return to the spiritual. -Let's get some hope in our soul. Up to her landing. She paused, looking upwards. -Wonder what's up there.
She edged upwards. The colour of the paint on the wall darkened instantly from pale blue to deep red. It was as if this new area were under some other jurisdiction, like crossing a county border and seeing an instant change in the road-surface.
It wasn't that gloomy, but she felt a kind of trepidation. Like entering another world. -Bluebeard's Castle, here we come.
Up the dark stairs, an unexpected crunch to the feet, a somehow cooler, damper atmosphere. Why? She tiptoed up the steps; she felt like Wee Willy Winkie; she felt as if she ought to have a nightcap and a candle-stick. A faint sonorous clanging struck her ears, a distracted murmur of voices.
She hit a right-angle and then another immediately after and then came up into a totally unexpected square of light. A huge window gave out to a view of the sea, somehow angled up to cut out the traffic - it captured the essence and immensity of the ocean, almost literally flooding in to and through her eyes. She could almost feel her retinas being bleached. She crept past.
Immediately after she crossed this cube of light, the passage blacked over, as if the angle of the window were also designed to restrict the amount of peripheral light.
She groped her way, temporarily blinded by the memory of the glare, reaching the horizontal, each step scouring and crunching, a faint, high-pitched humming being emitted from somewhere, an earthy but not stale smell whipping in from the end of the corridor.
The murmur had separated into individual voices but she couldn't make out what they were saying; at this distance, she couldn't even detect the language, couldn't even tell if they were using a language.
A board creaked. There was no diminution to the voices. She could now make out the regular rhythmic tapping of some object? limb? weapon? on the floor? door? wall?
She crept forward again. Something brushed against her face. A spider's web. She brushed it off. -No matter. -Continue. A door. She almost banged against it, it was so dark. There was a catch on it. She slid it back and stepped through. She noticed that it was lockable from the other side, so left the latch in the open position and slid the door to. It was well-oiled, well-made, well-fitted. Silent.
Her feet suddenly felt a change in texture. A plush red carpet. She was in a new, and somehow-sealed-off corridor. It was bright again.
The door swept back, and the place felt instantly airless. The voices were now louder, but they seemed even more distorted, and although they seemed to stem from one place, they also seemed to seed the whole spectrum of 360 degrees. She seemed to be swimming in voices again.
All along the corridor there was a number of doors, all painted white, all numbered palindromically: 101, 202, 303...
She stooped to listen at a keyhole. Her head caught against the door. It swung inwards. Not silently. But easily. They looked up.
"John!"
It was he. It was also the woman she'd seen on the stairs earlier. They were naked. On the bed. He was smoking an outsize cigarette. She also had her mouth full. A sort of mirror-image. The woman stopped, mid-frozen.
John looked up. "Janey," he yelled, the cigarette spilling onto his chest. He threw it into a bronze ashtray. "What on earth are you doing here?"
"What the hell are you doing here? And what the hell are you doing?" Her raised voice through the opened door raised more voices and more accompanying bodies and they disgorged out to the hall. She could hear their feet echoing behind her. The girl rolled off him.
He leapt from the bed. "Janey. But. I didn't. Realise."
"No. Quite evidently you didn't, you little shite. I've been charging around this Godforsaken city, looking into every nook and cranny, playing all your messages, reading all your fucking despatches, reading through everything I've ever written about us, getting worried sick about you, and then I find you - find you..."
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't realise. Hey, look, it's brilliant - fantastic - to see you again!"
"Don't give me that. When I was hunting high and low, out of my mind with worry, you were romping the low fantastic with this tart in this - fucking opium den!"
She couldn't move herself from the threshold. The others were pressing closer. She turned and looked at them. They were all exotically dressed. Caliphs, sultans, dancing girls. Wobbling in their various states of undress. She still couldn't understand a word they said. They pressed closer, and forced her fully into the room.
The door closed.
They fell silent. She had been forced round. She was facing the door. She tried to wrench her head around.
The door opened.
A gang of them. The kids massed in the doorway, muscling and menacing, pulsing out until the door-jambs jammed.
The twittering inhabitants flapped in circles of panic, knocked themselves over themselves, came grinding to a halt.
One of the youths, aged no more than seventeen, apparently the leader, stepped forward.
Silence. The human menagerie ground their feet on the thick-pile purple carpet. She looked up. She sensed the others were doing so too.
He cleared his throat, as if about to to make a speech.

then ducked back beneath the ranks of his followers - three lieutenants stepped forward and hurled CS canisters into the arena - huge arcs of their arms dealing and spreading panic - they ducked back too, the whole mass of them massing back - the double-doors closed, bolted hard and good - trapped in trapped in breathing a blanket of fellow humans eyes streaming ears and mouths blocked blocked blocked whistling around in the wind of their own panic woebegone and winded thrashing into each other no air no air no control windows barred and locked bolt-holes bolted in on them no air no air breathing their own wind eyes and ears streaming head pounding her knees buckling sagging to the carpet on a crawl on a crawl to the bed the room fogged misted to an opacity an opacity shifting and sidling in the side-draught of their panicked motions fingernails in the counterpane hooking in and not quite dragging it off clawing her way up and on it pulling her last weary limbs to rest on its mottled surface falling down laying down side-face-resting presenting her body's profile to the bedding sinking in sinking through the sheets while the animated torpor flayed around her sinking through the iron of the springs, each cut and crinkle eating in and through her, reverse-levitating through the space down to floor easing through the flow, each splinter and grain of dust pocking her skin creaking through the ceiling and drifting down at last to her own bed.
Soft Landing.

She got up. Took her clothes off. She sat down and unlaced her trainers, marvelling at the fact that she could ever have thought that they could have come off. She examined her feet: they were bruised and bleeding.
She staggered to the bathroom; it was agony; her feet murdered her afresh every step she took; she had to tip-toe like someone walking on offal. She sat down on the toilet-bowl, feeling the salts bleaching out of her; she felt the constantly-surprising relief that she was no longer pissing blood.
She checked that there was a bath-towel in place, ready for her shower. She took a dress out of the wardrobe. Lightweight. Blue. Flowery. Flouncey. On impulse, she tried it on. Lay on the bed awhile to rest her feet.

He floated slowly down into the room, protruding feet-first through the ceiling, gradually emerging to the room-space, thumping onto the floor, standing and shimmering, the air and dust-motes disturbed around him. "Oh, you've got changed. I like the dress. Do you smell nice? I can't smell any more. Do you smell nice and clean? You always used to smell nice and clean when I knew you. When I was there. When I was here."
"What do you mean, here? What do you mean? If you're not here, where are you?"
"Oh, I'm here, all right. I'm nowhere else! Nowhere for me to go. They kidnapped me well and truly; yes, they've kidnapped me to death. They've grabbed me here and I can't move anywhere. It's weird. It's really strange. Being a ghost."
"John, what do you mean, a ghost? What is all this? What the hell was all that going on up there?"
"Well, there's no rule to say that ghosts shouldn't have a good time, is there?"
"You're sick."
"Not as sick as I used to be. At least I don't have to inject any more."
"You're smoking again!"
"Not often. Don't know why at all, really. It's not dangerous any more, but it doesn't do anything for me anymore, either. Just do it because I couldn't do it before, I suppose."
"I just can't believe this, you know? I just can't believe it. I come here looking for you. I traipse footsore all over the place. I get hassled, almost robbed, and then I come back and find you here."
"Well, this is where you should have expected me."
"Are you really dead? Tell me you're not dead."
"Of course I'm dead. I'm a ghost, aren't I?"
"No, John. Please no. Not after..."
"Yes. I'm sorry."
She paused. Glared at him. "You don't look like a wraith. You look pretty solid to me."
"Oh, solid as you want, honey. I'm all man."
"Don't take the piss out of me, you little shit. Don't patronise me. I saw what you were doing before. You haven't changed."
"Like I said, you need some fun, you know. It isn't easy being a ghost."
"John, is this real? 'Cos, if this is some bizarre joke, I'm not impressed."
He sank onto the bed. All-too-solidly. "No, Janey, this is not a joke. Janey, they killed me. Here. Go back to Room 101 and you'll see the bloodstains. Sorry about the room number - bit of a cliché that."
She grabbed a small tuft of his sparse hair, and twisted it. "Oh, John, no. It's not come to this, surely? Surely surely. You bastard. Why did you have to die?"
He paused. "I like the dress."
"John, don't start."
"Don't start what?"
"You know. It's not the dress. It's what's in it that you're interested in."
He edged closer. He opened his eyes wide, all baby-blue and innocent. He rubbed shoulders with her. He reached out around her neck to stroke the little hairs at the side of her nape.
"John, don't do this. Please."
He planted a kiss - firm but gentle - on her cheek and scratched her nose.
She went wet. Suddenly. Floodgates. She jabbed her little finger just below his rib-cage. Gently.
He kissed her again on the cheek. Lingered.
She turned and looked at him. Stared him down. His eyes lowered.
She pushed his chin back up with the palm of her hand. Kissed him full on the lips. Tongues. Arms twined.
A shuffle to each other. Groin to groin.
She hugged him so hard she thought she'd squeezed all the breath out of her body.
She relaxed. Drew back an inch or two. Stared into his lost eyes. Bit his nose. Tiny bites.
She allowed him to thrust his hands under her thighs. Pull her up. Clench and unclench the nails towards her buttocks.
She angled her leg over, pointing her toe, let the cloth of her hem ruck up and towards what she had.
She dug her nails in not so gently to the nape of his neck.
Pulled and pushed him.
Pulled and pushed him.
Kissed him rough and kissed him hard. Kissed him soft.
His hands reached out for her nipples, thumbed them through the Summer material.
He kissed her in retaliation. It was like a fight of giants.
They lumbered against each other. Horizontally.
They were suddenly gradually lying on the bed, hugging each other, casting the past away.
They rubbed and rolled and rocked in each other's arms and made the old bed creak.
He kissed her down below, where she was soft and gentle and damp.
She twitched slightly, the spasm rocking the hemline.
His head was tented in the material, but he pushed it back, unenveloped her to look at her.
She wanted him to carry on. Pushed herself towards his lips.
Gobble gobble gobble.
Thoughts came mist-swirling in - she wanted him where she wanted him - she wanted it wanted the warmth within her wanted the warmth around her - ground and grumbled within this envelope of warmth and movement and sweet pain - she moved her body independent to her mind huge sweaty thing writhing around not this crystal-clear thing set in an ice-cold sea I see it all beneath me and I approve I am Queen Victoria of the bump and grind I raise my thumb to let the antagonists remain let them remain let them CONTINUE
Ah, sweet souls grappling below her she loved them as children liked to see them happy in play she seemed several feet above them seemed to hover then DIVE back into herself and FEEL the thrust of his tongue, FEEL the thrust of his tongue, FEEL the juices flow to meet him, FEEL the bone-against-bone clash...
...FEEL herself drifting off, HEAR the banging on the door
...and the pounding on the door
...and the knocking on the door waking her up. She started. Her hand was at her crotch. The smell. The smell! Where was he?
The banging continued. "Signorina. Signorina." A male voice.
Guiltily, she smoothed her dress down. Got off the bed. Went to the door. Opened it blearily. "Antonio?"
"Si, signorina."
"I'm sorry. I fell asleep."
"That's OK, signorina. A good time for a siesta." Somehow, he managed to enter the room. Glanced around at the disarray of flung clothing. He was clean-shaven. Quite tall. Very elegant, stylish. Was he gay?
He sat down at one of the two small chairs. She sat down at the other, acutely aware that she was wearing no underwear.
"You are the signorina who knew John Morris?
"Yes, that's right. I - er - used to know him. I know he was here once. So I tried here. No-one's heard from him in ages. Did you know him? Have you heard from him recently?"
"Alas, purtroppo, no. I did know him, I mean. But I have not heard from him for some time." He wrinkled his nose. His eyes widened. He pulled out a cigarette pack, seemed to sense some disapproval, and put it away again.
"You've no idea where he is?"
"No."
"You haven't tried to find him?"
"No, signorina, if someone chooses to disappear around here, that's the end of it."
"You don't get involved, huh?"
"No, signorina, and if you had lived here for any period of time, you would understand that."
"When did you last see him?"
"About three months ago."
"And how was he?"
"Not well, signorina."
"Not well? How not well?"
"Diabetico, signorina. Not well."
"Will you please stop saying 'not well'? I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap. I'm just very worried."
"Signorina, when I last saw him, I had brought him some of his insulina. And some needles. He was then OK for a while, or so I thought. But I never saw him again."
"Didn't you try to find him?"
"I tried, but - no sign. What could I do?" He shrugged his shoulder.
"So you just shrugged your shoulder and left him to die?"
"Die, signorina? No, I think he escaped - I mean, went away. What makes you think he is dead?
"'Cause I've seen him. I mean - I don't know. You think he could be alive?"
"Must be alive, signorina. Things just got too hot for him here. Where he is, I don't know. Maybe not even in Italy. But I feel certain he's alive. Keep hoping, signorina."
"OK. Thanks, Antonio."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful. But we see how things work out. You stick around a bit. I make some queries."
"OK. Thank you."
A shrug of the shoulder. A brief smile. A flounce backwards. Then he was gone.
-Right, you. -Shower! -Get this dream spunk out of you. Her feet were now in perfect condition. She was past surprise. She strode into the bathroom like an Amazon going to war.
She showered. Lots of soap in the hole. Lathered it all over. Good girls' school scrub. Foaming it over her body. She reached into the disarray for her makeup bag. -Might as well go the whole hog. Was the disarray somehow subtly different? She checked a few things. Everything seemed to be there.
-Is this dress OK? -Have to be. -Haven't got another one, come to think of it. She sniffed at the potentially offending region of the cloth. -Seems OK. -It's just me. -But wouldn't it have smelt - smelt where he - where he... -Oh, no. -Of course. -He didn't.
She sank onto the bed.
He didn't. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't.
HE DIDN'T!
-Even my fragments of dream are being taken away from me.
She put the dress back on. It was bone dry, but felt clammy. She applied her makeup. Carefully, rather than lavishly. She stepped into the court shoes. They pinched slightly, even against her born-again feet. Slight swellings of the skin eased over the constraining curve of leather.
She jigged a brief tap-dance.
Bearable.
Wearable.
And slung a sweater around her shoulders. And picked up the rucksack, incongruous against her new outfit. And clumped back out.
Antonio and his mother were huddled at the desk. Dark, exaggerated, monochrome shadows seemed to pick them out. They nodded a farewell. Briefly.

"learn to look in the opposite direction"

She stepped outside. Deliberated. The pinch in the shoe made the decision. The train! She checked out the map: Piazza Amedeo station was quite close. She idly traced what must have been her return route. Nothing registered. "You fucking cow!" The words came spinning back. Every face that passed was a potential witness to her embarrassment. -If you're listening in, just stay away!
She kept her head down. Stepped and side-stepped. Stepped and side-stepped, her world a maze of cracked groundlines and asphalt textures.
It wasn't far at all. She was inside the building before she knew it. "Un biglietto di andata sòlo per Napoli Montesanto." -Really getting the hang of this now! She made her way to the platform. It was strangely deserted. But not that strangely. She looked at the rails. They glinted SILVER. -No, no settle down. -I wonder what the hell it was that little shit Giles slipped me...
She made her way to a red-painted seat. Sat down. Stared out across the rails. On impulse, she opened her rucksack and took the notebook from her folder. Opened it. It seemed to creak and sigh. Everywhere else was silence. She opened it out.
A piece of purple paper that had been marking a long-lost place fluttered out and blew away.

next...