Iain Sinclair - White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

Caroline, forgive me. I must be scourged, my faults must be beaten from me. I will be whipped into the light of truth.

He laid his face upon the table; blood, meat, squashed to his chest, bare backed; the bulky trousers tied with a cord; over the table, forced forward, up on the toes of his boots. Beard to the cold wood; Caroline.

The knotted scourge cut into him. I will take upon me the sins of men, that women might be set free from their chains. Do what you will. Gather up the force that is in evil things, and put it to use. The sharpness of the pain-flower spreads, salt sweat running into his eyes, tears. The sweet mystery of pain.

Flesh will rise to be the spirit’s minister. Praised be pain and praised be joy! Both are holy. You martyrs of Charterhouse. You blessed fathers going cheerfully to your deaths like bridegrooms to their marriage. O cut and split, this shell of skin! False restraint, self-virtue, keeping the truth away. Let bleed!

Joy is more bitter than pain and pain dearer than delight. The woman who says that sensuous delight needs some restraint is so muddled and bewildered by false ideas and false feelings that her instincts are utterly perverted and she does not know what she says. Have we not treated pleasure as a sort of harlot? See what she has become!

Only strength of passion can bring it to purity. Prostitutes have an objection to show their bodies; many will not do it for any sum. They have made a pure thing impure. I loathe their restraints. What I require, I require at your hand. Do it with thy might. Do it.

It is Caroline who unbuttons herself, long skirts falling to the floor, shift, who is naked, bright, who stands behind him, her sweet breath on his neck. The scourge of pleasure is in her hand. It is Caroline who releases the rope at his waist, whose small hand runs over him.

If all pain were seen in the light of martyrdom were not the work done? It is done, the light, the word spoken.

Her wet mouth, fevered with his prophetic heat, gobbles at him, swallows the incontinent spasms, the words falling into gasps, the barking howl of joy.

Paid off at the yard gates: Joblard is underground, at Tarxien, investigating the apsidal temples of Malta, the Hypogeum at Hal Saflieni, red ochre oracle, hive of voices around woman clay, the bell-shaped skirts; he is tapped into cool stone, the voices rush at him, reverberating certainties, he has not the speed to form the questions, split tongue; my sister-in-law, red hair, is sitting, cross-legged, with the television set, waiting. We are going to eat at the Huntsman.

A photograph of Hymie Beaker, of Buxton Street, savagely attacked, beaten. At his corner, edging towards Vallance Road. No discovered motive. Thin bones snapped, the paper of his face slashed and torn, handfuls of hair. In the London Hospital; between death and the road.

An identikit portrait of a man seen lurking, talking: horror hybrid, the features of myself and Joblard, blended. Cut and put together. Gone out of the human range.

Where two men are.

We had walked so often, after the initial incident, beyond the lorry loads of dwarf chickens awaiting ritual slaughter, the dribbling stench of fear; passing the house, trying to repair the psychic wound. But had never again seen Hymie Beaker, the tailor. Nor the red haired woman. The doors and windows bolted.

The third man had escaped.

It was closing in on Nicholas Lane’s flat; it was all collapsing. Young Kernan Quinn had been careless, he had never been anything else, but it hadn’t mattered up to now. Nicholas Lane had been away so much, running about town, in such frenzy; the telephone, never stopping. Freaked: Kernan went out, took himself to the pub. He didn’t drink but he had to get away from this oppressive sense of catastrophe; not knowing that he carried it with him, a shirt. It was all closing in, breathless, the dim weight of the town folding him in on himself.

All kinds of weird stuff going down, whisperings in corners, significant matches struck and blown out. The whores, unoccupied, were drinking heavily. The police, occupied, were drinking even more heavily. The grass in the corner wanted to drink most heavily, but lacked the poke.

‘Can I take a look at that, son?’

Kernan ignored the Scotchman, name unknown, motives questionable. A presence, clammy in undershirt and golfing jacket. ‘I think I read that one. It’s a good one, that is.’

Kernan lifted the book and held it in front of his face; he hadn’t turned a page since he’d sat down, the book wasn’t his, he’d picked it at random, a light one, easy to carry.

‘Thought it might have been something else. Not what I thought. That’s the wrong book, son. You’ve got the wrong book there.’

‘Fuck off.’ Kernan spoke, provoked. Not to the Scotchman: to the world at large. ‘Sod off.’

He’d heard Nicholas Lane putting the Scotchman down when he tried to run him books lifted from the Seaman’s Library. He’d been on the dry and getting to be bad news all over; they’d had a whip-round to buy him a bottle of Bells and put him back on the brazier. Bury the bugger.

‘Listen, son, listen to me. I think I’ve got something for your gaffer. Know where he is?’

Nothing. Kernan squeezed out a pimple at the edge of his nose, speculatively licking his finger. Saw from the window the taxi pull up across the road.

‘Listen to me, son. Tell your gaffer to come round, tell him. Got something that’s for him. His kind of stuff. God, it’s strange! Fucking weird stuff, you tell him. Great covers on ’em. Sick! Want him to have first crack. You fucking tell him, son.’

Secretly, the Scotchman hated bookdealers, and as he sold to them, he exacted a terrible revenge. He razored out, with unusual care, one page from the middle of the text, so delicately, it was never noticed. The books were passed on, shelved, never read. In many of the great collections were books that had been emasculated and were valueless. The Scotchman liked that. It made him feel good. It never came back on him. Thinking about it, he smiled; terrifying Kernan, who was already on his feet and backing towards the door.

Shaving a block and rolling up, long white scrivener’s fingers, the uninhibited exercise of skill; Nicholas Lane at home. The slats were down. Kernan in, hand out to grab the toke. The world at his elbow, heavy street door wide to the night, chains dangling impotent.

‘I’d like to examine that Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir. A Study in Scarlet . If you have it, Sir. If you can put your hand on it.’

Nicholas Lane is putting his hand on J. B. Priestley, his veterinarian finger wriggling into its rectum, sure that there is just one more scrape left.

Quinn hovered, twitched, a shadow, skin tight, eyes swollen from the operation. Mind flicking on/off; the blackouts better than the rest. Nothing, man? It’s great! Pains of light. Hitching up his trousers, he’s so much thinner, are these his trousers anyway?

The phone drills in on them. Sort it out. Howard Omega. All the good books hidden in the bed, family decamped, the Scotchman might have been casing the place. ‘Nice mirror you’ve got there, son, worth much is it? Get a few quid down the Lane for those dolls.’ Pointing to the blackened fetish objects. Who point back at him, phallic blasphemy, point him out.

Nicholas Lane takes Mr Klamm into the back room, a trail, beneath lethal towers of books, slippery canyons, lightless, towards the bed, peels back the sheets. Klamm does not blanch, sniffing his goal. Lane rummages, looking for the flimsy text among scattered 3-deckers, limited editions, movables.

Phone drills again, a delivery. Can Lane hold? Omega. On Suk’s behalf. Just for a couple of hours. Few mates will come round and collect. Worth an ounce or two.