Iain Sinclair - Dining on Stones

I brought crisps and peanuts up from the bar. And I drank cloudy water from a glass with a lumpy residue of Steradent or some other fixative on the bottom. Salty food left me hungrier than before and stung the raw sides of my cheeks, which I had the habit of chewing when I was nervous. The Grays bookshop had me spitting blood and gristle.

I stretched out on the bed, the yellow canvas bag beside me. I didn’t take off my clothes or roll back the covers. I wouldn’t sleep. I put my arm around the bag, felt its bumps, tried to guess what was inside. Rather disturbing images assailed me, half-dreams. I always keep the light on at night — and also, in the unusual circumstances of finding myself in a hotel room, the television. Sound down. I like that blue glow and ignore the screen.

Something inside the bag moved. The woman from the train. Her head. Talking. I could hear her banging on about pain and loss. Meanwhile, I could see one of the politicians, a minister, being grilled on television. Nodding, smiling. Using his hands. Dark rims under his armpits. And I could hear the woman’s voice: demanding to be let out. Let out? Keep this up and I’ll chuck her through the window of one of the trashed cars. Into the swamp.

I touched the zip and it opened like a wound. Like, as I’m forced to picture, the back of a dress. The smell. Her presence is overwhelming. Underwear, nightclothes, a pair of skirts, stockings. Sponge bag, notecase. A metallic box that might be a portable computer. All of it grey. Every single item. I lay them out on the bed. I stand up, move away.

I don’t like that box. I put it in the bag, zip it. Carry the bag to the cupboard. Close the door. I can still hear her voice: Before the sun rises, the dew will have destroyed the eyes.

I turn up the sound on the television. I go into the bathroom and run the taps. When I come back to the bedroom, the voice has stopped — but her clothes are arranged with great precision on naked sheets. The coverlet has been folded and placed on a chair. The red blanket and top sheet stripped back. A grey dress, underclothes on top, Italian shoes. With ice-pick heels.

It occurred to me that — as the water was running — I should avail myself of the shower. It wasn’t unpleasant. I stayed there for some time. Until, despite the warmth of the water, I began to shiver. I wrapped myself in a towel and sat on the seat of the toilet. I could spend the night here. Take off as soon as it gets light, find a café in Grays. Hang around the shopping centre until the bookman turns up.

I needed sleep. A few hours should do it. Shut my eyes, forget about the woman and the train. I’d worked myself up about the Stoker, a real book after all these months. I returned to the bedroom. The canvas bag was on the chair, zipped. I opened the cupboard. It was empty. The coverlet was back in place.

I made myself a cup of coffee. It wasn’t bad. You could almost taste it, the genuine aroma. The cup in your hands, my hands. I lifted the bag off the chair, turned it to face the window. The quarry, at night, had a kind of beauty. Street lights where there aren’t any streets. An Umbrian hill town. A red glow, low on the horizon; the beams of cars driving through clouds towards the suspension bridge.

I turned back the sheets. Slid in, naked. Tried to find a tolerable position in which to pretend to sleep. I twisted and turned on the nylon pillow. Something stuck to my cheek, a sheet of paper, a message from the management. I felt for the bedside lamp.

It was a glove. A grey leather glove. I sat up, wide awake. There were two gloves, one on either side of me. Except that they weren’t gloves, not even the stretchy surgical kind. The condom-fingered ones with which forensic pathologists pick maggots from a wound. These gloves were marked with veins and downy hair. They had fingernails. Peeled hands. I pulled them on, the left first (weaker, female) and then the right. And they took, the graft took. My hands, up to the prominent bulbs of my wrist bone, were grey. And smooth. And cool as water.

She misread him badly, the thief. Cora started when the bell rang. He should never have been let in. She was paying for security. These flats were supposed to be tighter than Paddington Green. He didn’t generate enough energy to register on CCTV. He was at the door, bag lifted in front of his face, to ward off the blow.

‘So sorry. Used to have one just like it. Your papers and stuff, inside. Address. Didn’t touch. Came straight round.’

‘I don’t have an address. I hadn’t decided to stay — until you stole my bag, leaving me no choice.’

‘I’m trying to explain. I’m a book-dealer …’

It was the middle of the night, early morning. Neither of them had a watch. Dormitory noises from other units, snoring and snorting. The walls were cardboard. You could hear dogs fart in their sleep. Milk pouring into thick glass.

She’d been quite wrong about him. He wasn’t young. Bad skin doesn’t fade with age, it weathers. Greasy hair stays greasy however many times you run your head under a cold tap.

‘Must be important, I thought, the computer.’

‘You said you didn’t touch the bag.’

‘Weight. I felt the outline. Had to carry it from — ’

‘You touched it? Felt it?’

‘No.’

‘Played with it?’

‘No.’

‘Open it now. Show me what you did.’

Rocking on his heels, he hugged the bag. It had been a mistake coming here. No colour in his skin. Nightdirt sticky in the corners of his eyes. She was only wearing a shirt. She scratched at the inside of her thigh.

‘Take it out.’

I shall see Mr Wells in a few days and I will ask him on your behalf for permission to translate The Invisible Man into Polish.

For years, Conrad referred to his neighbour, Mr Wells of Sandgate, as L’Uomo Invisible. He never worked out how the front door at Spade House opened without the intervention of any human agency. As he stood there, with Hueffer, waiting to announce their literary collaboration.

Cora didn’t want him here. She wanted to be invisible, to stay in this room for ever.

Reluctantly, the man set the bag down. The floor looked as if it were made from wood, but it was wood-print linoleum. The riverscape had already been translated into Polish. Her hand closing around her wrist closed on nothing. She folded her arms, anticipating his furtive glance at her breasts. She ordered him, again, to open the bag.

He lifted out the laptop. He wouldn’t touch her clothes. She raised the lid, activated it. Checked her files.

‘Go to the bathroom,’ she said. He froze. He had been backing towards the door. ‘Take the bag. Dress yourself in the clothes. And don’t tear them. Take your time.’

Her hands on the computer keys, skin rough as an Aberdeen fishwife. A transplant that hadn’t taken. The sun climbing above low clouds, over Northfleet and Gravesend — where, in the old days, East Indiamen waited on the tide.

In her bag, a smaller bag: lipstick, toothpaste, powder, tweezers, razor. An old-fashioned, barber-shop cutthroat.

She unbuttoned her shirt, took it off. Wrapped it like a surgical dressing around her arm. He would be standing in the bathroom, wearing the grey dress and the grey shoes. Her things on the glass shelf.

Her naked feet made a sucking sound. The acoustic memory of each footfall lingering in a brief interval of silence.

She closed the bathroom door behind her. When the steam cleared from the mirror she would see her own face. Her face over his shoulder. The sharp bones. The lifted razor.

On the laptop screen, in the empty flat, with the view of the river, words appeared. I must close,’ it is already late. I only hear the bells of the ships on the river, which remind me how far I am from you all.