Henning Koch - The Maggot People

Honey woke up coughing. “Jesus, you smoke, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I need cigarettes or I die.”

She laughed and slurped her coffee. “I like you better like this, without those puta madre robes. Under all that nonsense there’s a man, I can’t see what’s wrong with that. Personally.” Her face clouded over and he saw her brittle wrinkles emerging. “I have to get back to the bar and give Sergio his money.”

“Don’t go back. You’re safe here.”

Honey reached down to pick up her dress and said in a forced, breezy voice: “You don’t know much about girls, do you, padre? We like doing our own thing and we get bored easily.” She smiled. “There again, the way you were going for it last night I could tell you hadn’t had a pair of thighs round you in years.” Her careworn body, covered in cellulite and folds of white pinched fat, filled him with a strange affection.

“You’re lonely,” she said. “Did your mother give you enough hugs when you was a kid?”

“I told you, my mother’s dead.”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t dead when you was a child, was she?”

“No.”

“Well then! Did she or didn’t she?”

“I can’t remember,” he said. “Probably she did. But that’s not important now. What’s important is that you stay here; you mustn’t go back to Sergio.”

“Why not? He’s a good enough bloke,” said Honey. “Could be worse, anyway. He’s not a mass murderer.”

“Not yet. What about the spitting thing?”

“It’s only spit. I’ve had worse.” Her sharp features softened. “I know why you want me here with you. Shall I tell you?”

He nodded. After the mind-reading capabilities of all the maggots he had met, it was comforting to lie there next to Honey, whose deviousness seemed innocent as gamboling lambs.

“It’s because you’re surrounded by wankers. You’ve had ‘em milling around you for a while. It took you a while to get it straight in your own mind, but now you’re sure. They’re wanky, no doubt about it, only you can’t think of nothing to do about it because they’ve got loads of dough and they’ll squash you just like that!” She clicked her fingers, then blinked at him eagerly.

“Am I right?”

“Close.”

“So we’re the same. You and me are the same.” Honey sat up and started wriggling into her panties. “I really have to get back to the bar. I got all my stuff there, Michael; I can’t just leave, can I?”

“What fucking stuff? A pile of scuffed-up magazines? Broken ashtray? Couple of tubes of squashed lipstick? Some torn nylon miniskirts? Or what?”

“Yeah! It’s my fucking stuff and I want it!”

“Wait! We haven’t finished yet. And anyway I’m going to make you an offer. I’ll personally take you out and buy you whatever you like.” He stopped and let his words sink in.

“How much money you got, padre? What did you do, raid the collection box?”

He showed her his wallet, stuffed with O’Hara’s hundred-euro bills. “I’ve got enough,” he said. “You have to listen. You won’t survive if you go back. Things are going to change for you very soon; you won’t recognize yourself. What we did last night was a one-off. I’ll never touch you again.”

Honey had experienced this sort of thing before: life-weary, sometimes impotent men with money (or without) who wanted companionship.

“You’re not getting me, mate. Sergio won’t be happy about yesterday; you made him look a right idiot. I’d get out of here if I was you; he’ll find you. We’re not far and it won’t take him long to track down a shambles like you, a fucking priest who don’t even shave, sitting about with a pack of fags and a bottle of vodka. I’m telling you, the Barrio Xino aint big enough… and if he finds you he’ll beat the crap out of me as well.”

“I’ll shoot him if he gets anywhere near us,” said Michael, stretching out on the bed and lighting another cigarette. “I have a gun, you know.”

“I’ve met a lot of crazy fuckers in my time, padre, but you really take the biscuit.” She snuggled into the sheets and scrunched up her face. “It’s weird but I do feel safe with you. If you keep me in drugs I’ll stick around for a while. But I need clothes, man, I can’t wear this fucking miniskirt any longer.” She wagged her finger in the air. “Just don’t get hurt, okay? That’s a deal-breaker. And don’t ask me to come down the fucking hospital if you get knocked about. I can’t stand wasting time in those places. Medics checking you and telling you a load of shit and taking your blood. They don’t know their face from their ass.”

“What about you?” he said. “Did you get hugged enough?”

“To be honest,” said Honey, “I never even knew what a hug was. To me it was just some bloke wanting to stick his cock in.”

“And your mother, what happened to her?”

“I reckon that was where the rot started. If she’d been around I wouldn’t have gone on the game. I met Sergio in Benidorm. I was down there for a holiday, sunning myself on the beach and enjoying a couple of pints with the girls. We had a good time back then.”

“Then what happened?”

“I was only sixteen when mum died and then we lost the house. Mum didn’t have any family ’cause no one liked her and they chucked her out. ’Cause she was on the game as well, you see.”

“And Sergio treated you well?”

“Sergio put me to work and for the first time in my life I had some money. He’s a fucking bastard but at least he survives. If some cunt comes along and gives him shit he beats the hell out of them.”

“And you like that?”

“He’s not a coward, anyway. I tell you Michael, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a coward.”

“What was your mother like?”

“She was a sweetheart. I’ll take her with me when I go. Oh fuck, now you’re making me fucking cry! Anyway, it’s all over now, nothing you can do. She was a poor thing, now she’s a poor dead thing. Done is done. You only get one shot, Michael. After that you’re done. One shot.”

“That depends,” said Michael. “My people reckon you get more than one shot.”

“Your people are wankers, we already agreed about that,” said Honey. “And even if they’re right, even if you come back, you’ll only end up doing the same bloody thing all over again. It’s fucking karma; you don’t get past it. How many times have I told myself I’ll never pull some stunt again? I think I’ve learnt my lesson, but I never have learnt it. I keep fucking up. It just repeats itself and now I don’t care anymore. I’m a loser but at least I can hold my head up. Because I can say I’m not a wanker.”

The new clothes Michael had bought for Honey made her feel like Grace Kelly. She tottered out of the Hostal Paradiso in a pair of mauve silk trousers, a leopard-print silk scarf, flouncy pink blouse, wide-rimmed hat, oversized sunglasses and so much rouge that you could have written your name on her cheek with the tip of your finger.

She crossed the street as if expecting all the traffic to stop for her, then collapsed into the waiting taxi where Michael sat nervously glancing at his watch. “God, this is not my idea of fun,” she whined as she settled into the vinyl seats, crossing her bony kneecaps and plugging her glossy mouth with a cigarette. She lit it with a gasp, ignoring the protesting cab driver who finally gave up and lit his own. “I’d rather just stay in bed with a magazine.”

Michael leaned forward to give their destination to the driver. “St. Joan de les Abadesses, Ripoll.” He felt a searing pain hounding through him. For a moment he feared his maggots were dying until he saw that they had actually reflected back at him the wave of bleak emotion they had just sensed.