Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

a photographic list of dancers

She walks left along the High Street towards Royal Terrace, where she turns left again and continues down past the Palace Hotel and through the cemetery at St Peter’s Church. Before I know it we’re on Lucy Road, at the top end next to Rossi’s ice-cream factory. Lucy Road is the centre of Southend’s sleazy nightlife, a back alley that runs parallel to the neon-bathed Golden Mile. By day it’s barren, filthy-looking, dominated by a huge litter-strewn coach park. I follow her down the street, and I count each of the desperately named nightclubs as I pass: Chameleon, the Liberty Belle, Papillion Music Bar, Bar Blue, Talk Nightclub, the Lounge, Chinnery’s, Zinc Bar, Pockets Bar (snooker), Route 66 Bar (pool), and finally Sunset Exotic Dance Bar. It’s at this bar that she stops, ringing the buzzer on a big black door by the side of the main entrance. She lights a cigarette with a match, flicking it onto the road. A large man opens the door, thick with muscle and fat, shaven head and tattoos covering his pallid skin. He gives her a long hug and she follows him inside. Is she a stripper? Is that what she is? I pull out my phone from my rucksack and immediately google the bar to see if they have a photographic list of their dancers, but I can’t really find anything other than a few generic shots of girls, all of them blonde, looking suggestively into the camera. Maybe she’s going inside for an audition? But why would he hug her like that? Strangers don’t hug like that. I walk up to the big black door and put my ear to it. Nothing. Not a sound. I spot her match on the road and pick it up. I sniff it, before putting it in my wallet.

I decide to wait for her on the other side of the road, in the coach park, just behind a large white van. I stand there for a couple of hours. At least it feels like a couple of hours; it’s certainly a long time. It might be longer. Nothing. Nothing at all. No sign. No opening of that big black door. Nothing. I figure she’s either still in there, or she’s used another exit. It’s hard to tell. I don’t really feel like waiting much longer, and besides, I’m famished. I really am. It feels like I’ve been awake for days. I need to eat, to rest, to regain my strength. Even if I don’t see her again today, I now know where she lives, that’s the main thing. And now I know where she possibly works, I can visit the Sunset Bar tonight, when it opens. If she works here, she’ll be dancing tonight.

painting the sky

I walk out onto the esplanade on Golden Mile in the direction of Thorpe Bay and Shoeburyness. The sky is wide and the sea is flat. Kite surfers are gliding by, out in the estuary’s mouth, and in the grey distance beyond a huge container ship is interrupting the horizon, slowly making its way into the estuary.

As I walk past the multicoloured beach huts at Thorpe Bay I catch up with an elderly couple ahead of me. They’re talking loudly and are blissfully unaware of my presence behind them. I decide to hold back, worried that if I do pass them I might give them a fright, especially with my stick. My stomach is tying itself in knots with hunger, I should really carry on past them. I can see Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a café in the distance. I should head straight there, but I can’t ignore their conversation.

‘You’ve always been awkward … ever since I first met you.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Remember the wedding dress?’

‘What about it?’

‘The palaver we went through …’

‘Well …’

‘Well, that’s when I knew I was about to marry an awkward bastard … sometimes I can be bothered, sometimes I can’t. I’ve been like this all my life, you know that with everything and everyone, and it’s getting a lot worse the older I get … and I’m getting old …’

‘What? …’

‘I said … it’s getting worse the older I get … It’s like yesterday with that poorly pigeon, why wouldn’t you let me take it home?’

‘I’m not having a pigeon in the house.’

‘But I could have made him better …’

‘They’re filthy creatures.’

‘We’re filthy creatures … we have cats in the house, full of fleas and things …’

‘Cats aren’t pigeons.’

‘I bloomin’ hate those cats …’

‘What have you got against our cats?’

‘I’ve had to put up with them for too long, always hanging around, scratching, falling off the furniture … I can’t stand them, Elsie …’

‘Why haven’t you told me this before?’

‘I’m telling you now.’

They both stop: agitated, facing each other to carry on the argument. I walk by them without being noticed. The old man looks tearful, I think. I don’t look back at them. I think it’s best I leave them there, behind-hand. Instead I look down over the multicoloured beach huts; the tide beyond them has gone out and the brown mud is beginning to dry out in the faint sunlight that’s just started to seep through the thin veil of grey cloud. People are already out on the mud, walking in pairs, fours, larger groups and alone. I follow their footprints out into the estuary until they meet up with the feet that made them, out towards Mulberry Harbour, the old concrete harbour wedged permanently in the mud. Men are digging for bait, following the receding tide, children are running around, flinging the mud at each other — I can just about see them, rolling around in it, making strange little structures with it. Pools of sea water have gathered where the bed naturally dips, creating temporary eco-systems to be disturbed by curious children, fathers and sons, friends. It’s tempting to go out there and join them, all I have to do is take off my shoes and roll up my jeans, my stick would support me, but it’s not a good idea, I’ve nowhere to clean up afterwards for a start. I have to keep in tip-top condition for tonight. I have to look as good as I can. So I continue along the esplanade, out towards the peninsula of Shoeburyness, my stomach rumbling along the way, my stick click click clicking in a peculiar rhythm.

being wrong

My mind goes back to Uncle Rey again. I’m beginning to feel a little guilty. I really should have made a start in sorting through his papers and belongings. People are counting on me to do a good, thorough job. But all I can really think about is Laura, my Laura, his Laura. I feel as though there’s no fixed point any more, except my obsessions, those recordings, the telescope, the things that need to be packed away and hidden from view. But the more I try to hide things, or, better still, ignore them, the more things are revealed. Why am I so fixated on the image of Laura? Why do I go on listening to these urges? What, or who, am I trying to save? What a complete and utter mess. Just like Uncle Rey, I have nothing to cling on to any more. It seems to me that if I let go of this Laura, like he did his, like him I’ll regret it for the rest of my miserable life. This is my lot. This is all I have. There’s nothing else for me.

I have to find her, that’s all I know. But first I must eat; my stomach is turning and turning, it feels like I haven’t eaten in weeks. I need sustenance to get me through the day. If I am to find her again tonight, to save her from whatever it is she’s frightened of, whatever it was she was too afraid to speak about on the pier, then I have to do it on a full stomach. My strength has to be up. I have to feel fit and strong, ready to tackle anything that might be thrown my way. It has to be this way, for her as much as for me. If it even is her, I mean the girl from the pier. I might have it all wrong. I could be wrong, I mostly am. I’ve spent my whole life being wrong, feeling wrong, making the wrong choices, doing the wrong things. This could just be another repetition, the same thing … I simply don’t know.