see me for a private dance later.’
She walks away, swinging her hips, towards a group of men dressed in expensive-looking suits. Married men out for a drink after work. Probably lawyers and solicitors with too much spare change in their pockets, their wives and children tucked up in bed at home. But who am I to judge? They huddle around her, cracking jokes – crude gags – with a familiarity that suggests to me they’re regulars. I decide that I might as well see her later on for a private dance, even though I don’t really like the look of her.
I wait for her at the other end of the bar, near the curtain into the private room. She takes her time getting from the stage and over to where I’m standing. While watching her dance I’d been listening to a conversation between two of the bouncers standing just inside the door. Big, hefty men, who look like they enjoy the constant threat of violence that comes with their job.
‘Listen, I don’t care how much money I owe him. He’s not coming through that door. And if he does, the cunt’s going straight back out through it …’
‘He’s going to be angry with you …’
‘Fuck him.’
‘He could bring trouble …’
‘Fuck him.’
‘Real trouble … gun trouble.’
‘Let him, I’ll fucking eat him alive …’
‘You’ve got to calm down …’
‘Fuck him.’
‘Just calm down. We’ve got a job to do.’
‘I don’t care. It’s his own fault … the fucking lag. Flashing his fucking cash. If he’s so fucking flash and he gives me his money when I want it, then he brings it on himself …’
‘Just pay the man his money back …’
‘Fuck him.’
As she walks through the bar a thought comes to me: this primordial scene is fuelled by absence: wives, children, work, daily lives. It’s a detachment, an easy step aside from the general order of things. It makes perfect sense to me. I smile to myself and order another whiskey from the short, stocky barmaid.
Before I know it the dancer is standing next to me. She acts like I don’t really exist, looking back up to the stage.
‘Will you dance for me?’
‘Of course, darling.’
‘How much?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Good.’
‘Come with me.’
I follow her through the curtains into a room that I immediately find disappointing. It isn’t ‘private’ for a start: various dancers are dotted about on low platforms, dancing for other men. She leads me to an empty platform in the corner of the room.
‘You can put your drink on there … sit down. What’s your name?’
‘Jon … What’s yours?’
‘Paris.’
She dances for me, taking off what little she is wearing. Having never experienced such a thing before, I enjoy it, at first. Then something terrible begins to happen: her skin starts to peel away, quickly, revealing her red, blood-sodden muscle and sinew – decaying, bubbling and oozing stuff. It feels like I’m watching speeded-up footage of a rotting corpse, the flesh putrefying, turning to liquid, finally foul gas. I try to rub my eyes to shift the terror from them, hoping it’s just the drink fooling me, but it’s no good, the more I try to shift these rotten images the more intense they become. Her flesh falls from her bones, like slow-cooked shanks, onto my lap, my shoes, smearing down my shins, collecting in a purplish, stinking gloop by my feet. I want to be sick. I want to run away, to run out of the bar, but I can’t move. I want to scream at anyone who’ll listen: ‘She’s dead! She’s dead!’ But I can’t make the words in my mouth. The whole room seems to collapse in on me, I whirl within it, spinning.
‘Hey … hey … what’s wrong? Are you okay?’
I look up at her. She’s standing over me, her performance over, trying to feign a smile, but clearly worried.
‘Are you drunk?’
‘No … no … I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here … I’m not supposed to be here … that’s all … I really shouldn’t be here …’
‘Fifteen pounds, then …’
‘No … no … I can’t pay. If I pay then it’s real … I’ll just go … I’ll just get out of here and go home.’
‘You’ve got to pay …’
‘No …’
She signals to someone near the curtain who I hadn’t noticed was there when we walked in. Other dancers have stopped now and people are looking over at me. She puts her thong and stockings back on, nearly tripping up as she steps back away from me, just as the hefty bouncer I was listening to moments before walks over to us.
‘He refuses to pay.’
‘Really.’
It happens quickly. I am on my back, chair legs interrupting my vision. He stands over me and demands my wallet. I give it to him. He passes the fifteen pounds to the girl and then throws the wallet back at me. Something hits me in the ribs and the air disappears from my lungs. I am gasping for breath. Suddenly I’m being dragged across the stinking carpet; I can feel it burn my knuckles. The door swings open. Cold air. I swallow it. I can see blackness and orange, headlamps and paving stones. The whiff of petrol fumes. I come to my senses on the pavement; I scramble to my feet, clutching my wallet. He’s standing by the door, looking down at me.
‘Now, fuck off!’
I walk away. My ribs hurt, but it’s manageable. The traffic beside me is waiting at a red light at the junction of Rosebery Avenue. I can sense passengers on buses looking at me. I continue to walk, in a strange myopia; just the pavement ahead to lead me away from what has just happened.
the phone call
I can’t remember my journey home. I figure I must have used the usual route. I just remember opening the door to my flat and the smell of something stale irritating my nostrils. I think I must have fallen asleep on the sofa, after making myself some food, as I have a vague recollection of being in my kitchen for a short time, standing over a hob, eating something from the pan before it was even cooked properly. Then blackness.
I’m interrupted by a persistent ringing, which becomes louder and louder in the blackness until I realise it’s my phone. Before I know it my eyes are open and I’m fumbling for it. I stare at it as it rings. I answer just in time. It’s my brother.
‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Something
