Michael Dibdin - The Tryst

He tapped out the rhythm on the floor. Tracy yawned.

‘Sounds a right loony.’

She lay staring up at the ceiling for a while. Then she rolled up and leaned over the boy, flicking her tongue around the whorls of his ear. Steve started and quivered in her grasp, moaning with surprise and pleasure. His throat was dry and his heart pounding. He wished that this had never started, and that it would never end. He twisted round to face her, reached out and placed his hands on her ribs. He could feel the underside of her breasts pressing against the base of his thumbs. This was just as he had imagined it in the stories he used to tell himself: the stotters gone, Tracy come to him, the warmth and the cuddles. Was it possible to make things happen by imagining them, by telling stories about them?

‘So where does he keep it all?’ Tracy asked, putting the earphones back on her head and adjusting the volume. Steve blinked at her.

‘What?’

There was a long pause before she answered.

‘The money he gives you for the shopping and that. If he don’t ever go out, he must have it stashed away somewhere.’

Steve felt it would be a shame to ruin the good impression he seemed to be making by admitting that he didn’t know the answer to this question.

‘It’s in this big trunk upstairs,’ he said, remembering his improved version of the old man’s story.

‘Get out,’ Tracy murmured.

Oddly enough, the fact that Steve knew his story wasn’t true only increased his resentment at not being believed.

‘It is! I’ve been up there! I’ve seen it! There’s this old trunk full of gold and jewels and stuff, in a big room up at the top of the house.’

Tracy said nothing. Her eyes were closed and her body twitched in time to a music only she could hear. Steve assumed that she had already forgotten what they had been talking about. He had grown used to the fact that the stotters’ attention span lasted only a few moments.

‘Where the fuck those wankers got to?’ she remarked at last, turning off the Walkman. ‘We got to get out of here, find somewhere to live! They’ll pull this place down around us if we stay.’

Mistaking this for a joke, Steve laughed. Tracy twisted indignantly out of his grasp and sat up.

‘They fucking will !’ she shouted. ‘Bastards, that’s all they are! Fucking bastards.’

Steve felt as though half his body had been torn away. He had lost her. But how could he have guessed that she would still be worrying about things like that after what had just happened? Couldn’t she feel the amazing power generated by their closeness, the energy that set the air between them humming and crackling like high-voltage electricity? This stuff too, he sensed, could light and heat your life, and kill you.

‘Here, what about this old geezer?’ Tracy demanded suddenly. ‘We could stay there! Where’s he live?’

Steve didn’t know what to say. What she was suggesting was unthinkable, of course, out of the question. But how could he explain that?

‘Where’s he live?’ Tracy repeated urgently.

Steve shrugged.

‘Long way off.’

‘Where?’

‘Other side of the main road.’

‘By the Esso?’

‘Other way.’

‘What, by Tesco’s?’

‘You know the park? Round there.’

‘That’s where Debbie lives!’ the girl exclaimed triumphantly. ‘She’d be just round the corner.’

‘Who’s Debbie?’

‘Paxton Grove, that’s where Debbie lives, her and the baby. It’s all council, most of it. Is that it?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What do you mean, sort of? Don’t you even know the name of the street?’

‘It’s on the corner, isn’t it?’ Steve replied with a touch of irritation.

‘Which corner? By the park?’

‘No, the other end. Grafton Avenue. But look, it’s no good. He won’t let us in.’

‘If you ring that special way …’

‘He’s frightened of strangers — ’

‘We’re not strangers!’ Tracy shouted angrily. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends of yours.’

Steve fell silent. He just couldn’t get across to her the impossibility of what she was proposing. Tracy had another drink and offered him the bottle, but Steve shook his head, which felt quite muddled enough already. The girl thrust the bottle in his face.

‘Goon!’

It was more a threat than an offer. Steve raised the bottle to his lips, but kept them closed to prevent any of the liquid entering his mouth. Tracy snuggled down beside him, her left hand ruffling his hair. Steve lay there as stiff as a corpse. Something that could only be the girl’s other hand was prowling about on his jeans, smoothing and squeezing the material over his penis.

‘ We could just go,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘You and me. He wouldn’t be frightened of me, would he? Not of a girl.’

For the first time, Steve began to think that maybe there was some point to what the stotters got up to in the evening. If it felt anything like this, that would explain a lot, even the stories in the lavatory. He had often done it to himself, of course, what Tracy was doing to him, but he’d never realized the difference when someone else did it to you. He wondered what he could do to her in return, to make her feel what he was feeling.

‘What number is it?’

Her voice seemed to come from very far away. Steve had no idea what she was talking about.

‘The house,’ she prompted.

‘Number two.’

He was going on to explain that it wouldn’t work, not even just the two of them, because old Matthews was so far gone that he was quite capable of thinking that Tracy was the devil in drag. But there was no one to explain to, for the girl had taken her hand away, got up and walked out of the room. The floor seemed to be shaking beneath him, as though the wind was making the whole house shudder. It made him feel slightly sick. It was the booze, of course. He was just drunk, fucked up, out of it. He couldn’t understand where Tracy had gone so suddenly, unless she’d had to pee. He lay there, waiting patiently for her to come back.

But she didn’t. Instead, wee Alex appeared in the doorway.

‘Come on,’ he said.

As the epithet that invariably accompanied his name suggested, Alex looked as though he’d been conceived on the cheap. There was a low-budget, no frills air about him which perhaps explained why Steve had never been frightened of Alex in the way he was of Dave or Jimmy. What had happened the week before had made no difference. The boy knew that Alex had just been trying to keep in good with Dave. He would have done the same himself in the circumstances.

‘Where we going?’ he asked as he got to his feet.

‘Ask no questions, you’ll be told no lies,’ Alex recited mechanically.

Steve looked round the room at the mattresses and the plastic bags full of Tracy’s things.

‘Shall I take something?’

Then Dave’s voice, outside the room, roared, ‘Just hurry the fuck up!’

Steve got moving. He had learned the hard way never to make Dave say things twice, because that wound him up. So when they got to the hallway, he was relieved to see that Dave looked quite calm. Tracy was there too, putting on her black and white make-up. Alex pointed to the stairs, wiggling his forefinger back and forth.

‘Upstairs?’ Steve frowned. ‘Why, what’s up there?’

Dave laughed.

‘ “What’s up there?” ’ he mimicked several times.

Each time the question made him laugh afresh. Alex and Tracy joined in the laughter, but Steve sensed that their hearts weren’t in it. They were just trying to keep on the right side of Dave, as usual. This seemed sensible, so Steve laughed as well.

‘What’s so funny?’ Dave demanded aggressively. There was no trace of humour in his voice or on his face. Alex punched Steve on the shoulder. The boy felt totally confused. It was as if they had all changed parts: Tracy had treated him like one of the stotters, while Alex was coming on tough like Dave. Steve couldn’t think who Dave was acting like, but certainly not himself.