Papr:Kut - Novel Extract 'Here, look, smell that!' says Steve, 'Here, look, smell that!' says Steve, taking a sniff of the weed, which is wrapped up in silver foil, and there's a wide smile on his face, like he's smelling a beautiful cake. Jason leans in and smells it. It smells like cat's piss. He leans back against the red bean-bag and watches Steve's translucent, big-nailed fingers working on the joint. They feel their way over the weed and rizlas expertly, like a blind man's hands. Steve's twenty-five but looks older. His hair's dyed blonde and is thinning a bit on top. His eyes are grey-blue and seem to darken, the drunker he gets. They're pretty dark now. He teaches English at one of the Language Schools in Modena, but has a small sideline in drug dealing, and that's how he can afford to live in an apartment of his own. Jason's known Steve for a few months now. They met in the pub where Jason works, and Jason was glad to have someone intelligent and English to talk to. He was glad of a sensible conversation. He was also slightly flattered to be talked to by old, mature, "seen it all, mate" Steve, with his dangerous hair and latent, shark-fin aura. Steve had come into the pub to look for new clients and had spotted Jason immediately. He prides himself on his ability to sniff out a new client, though Jason, with his grungy look and ambivalent, distracted manner hadn't been too hard to spot. Their initial conversations had pivoted on drugs - which drugs Jason had tried, which he hadn't, which were worth trying, which drugs old Stevie could provide him with. 'A relationship with a client is like sex,' Steve had said. 'You always put the other person's pleasure first.' He had seemed to Jason like a promising mentor. 'This should be good stuff,' says Steve, indicating the joint he's rolling and he's nodding to himself as he runs his tongue across the rizla. 'I've got a new supplier - Tunisian bloke. Luigi was a waste of time. Always stoned. No good for the job. Fucking dagos!' 'Fucking dagos!' echoes Jason. They both love slagging off the Italians. It's an important pressure valve for them. It's something they can spend hours doing. Steve's better at it than Jason, because he's lived here longer - about five years now. He also worked on a few camp sites in Tuscany as a teenager, though something bad happened to him then, which he won't talk about. 'Oi, Jason? What's worse? A dago or a queer?' Steve scratches his crotch and looks at Jason intently. He loves slagging off the queers too. Most of the other English language teachers at his school are homosexuals, and he jokes about them a lot. His first question to Jason was 'You're not a fucking queer, are you?' This had shaken Jason slightly. He had spent the night chatting only to girls to prove to Steve that he wasn't. Now, he just shakes his head and smiles - Steve comes out with this kind of stuff all the time. He wouldn't be Steve if he didn't. And Steve lights the joint and passes it to Jason. And, holding it carefully between thumb and finger, Jason takes a few tokes and then passes it back to Steve. And the joint goes back and forth between them. 'Who you seeing at the moment?' It's sudden; the shark-fin coming out of the water, the eyes turning dark and intense as the sea when there's a storm coming. Jason shrugs. He hates being questioned about his personal life. He ums and ahs and makes up a few things while Steve listens intently. Steve's too interested in his love life, he sometimes thinks. He's glad when the phone rings, breaking the intensity of Steve's intensely silent listening, and he gets up to answer it. While Steve talks on the phone, he finishes the joint and then picks up one of the poetry books that Steve leaves lying round his living room to impress the girls he brings back here. He has a steady girlfriend, Maria, an Italian thirty-five year old with red hair and a hot temper who's always wanting to move into his apartment with him. Steve won't let her, and they have loud, heated rows down the pub when they're both pissed. Jason thinks Maria's a bit of a drama-queen and tends to avoid her. He sometimes wonders what she's like in bed. She must be pretty good for Steve to stay with her. The poetry books in the apartment are mostly anthologies of modern poets, like this one he's flicking through at the moment. Ted Hughes is Steve's particular favourite. 'Craftsman!' Steve says. 'Master!' In addition to the books, there's a poster for a Lake District poetry symposium on the wall which he always looks at when he comes here. Steve also writes poetry. Sometimes, when he's very drunk, he'll go and fetch the scrappy sheets of paper it's written on and read it out to Jason. Some of the poems are long and heavy-going and seem a bit pompous to him. Steve often becomes very emotional when reading them, and the tears stand out in his eyes. At these times, Jason feels embarrassed and irritated, and becomes absorbed in the dirty sheets of paper with coffee mug imprints on them that Steve's reading from, and Steve's translucent, crabbed fingers. Steve also writes short comic verses which Jason likes better. The comic verses tend to be pretty obscene. They're mostly about the mishaps that homosexuals have during sex. He laughs at these when Steve reads them out, though he always feels like a bit of a fake for doing so. Tonight, the apartment's looking good. Steve's bought some colourful Persian carpets from a shop in the Via Saragozza, and a tall cactus that stands in the corner and nearly touches the ceiling. The Union Jack curtains have been replaced by lemon-coloured drapes. When Jason first came here, the apartment was filthy, with dirty cups and plates all over the place, and clothes carpeting the linoleum floor. But business has been good to Steve lately, and he's started employing a cleaner - a Tunisian woman who comes in twice a week. Steve finishes on the phone - 'Sorry, business' - and throws himself back into his chair - the chair only he's allowed to sit in - and eyes Jason hungrily. He looks at him slouched against the red bean-bag in his flared jeans and blue T-shirt as he rolls another joint and considers his mode of attack. Jason has proved resistant to his offers of skag and this has surprised him. He's tried offering it to him. He's enthused about it to him. He's taken it in front of him. And every time, Jason has just shaken his head. When Jason shakes his head, Steve feels like someone's tickling his insides. It's the way he does it - so nonchalant and dreamy and innocent. Steve's determined to get him hooked. It's not so much for the money. It's just... He runs a hand through his hair irritably. He's been in a bad mood all day. He has bad days, sometimes, when things just don't feel right. Like now. Things don't feel right now. He wants Jason to soothe him by telling him who he's currently fucking, but the little shit won't say. He just shakes his head in that dreamy, nonchalant way. Perhaps if he spikes his drink, he'll be more pliable. As the thought occurs to Steve, he wonders what the hell's the matter with him. He's never wanted to spike anyone's drink before, except Maria's when she was getting too rowdy, and that was understandable. Lately, he seems to have been spending so much of his time thinking about Jason. And what for? All the little shit does is come here and smoke his weed and drink his ice-cold Merettos. Oh well. He leans back and takes a deep toke of the joint and asks Jason what he's reading at the moment. When Jason first told him about his interest in reading, he'd been surprised. It's still a surprise when spiky-haired, grungy little Jason starts enthusing about the latest novel he's been gripped by - and it's not just the usual sci-fi trash that most kids read. He reads serious stuff too - literature. He listens, half-amused, as Jason pours out a convoluted plot line. When Jason has run himself out, they talk about music and how crap the presenters on Italian MTV are - busy little buzzers who deserve to be swatted. They complain about the crap on TV generally. They agree as they do every time they talk, that Italian culture is Anglo-dependant. And all the while, Steve has his eye on Jason, scouring him hungrily, searching for weaknesses. More Merettos are drunk and Steve probes some more, wants to know why Jason's come to Italy, what he's really doing here. Jason is evasive. And Steve senses a wound, throws in some suggestions - 'You're running away. Everyone who comes to live in another country is running away from something.' But the tight-arsed little git just nods and smiles lazily and reaches out for the joint, like a kid stretching out his hand for a candy bar. What does he think this is, Christmas? *** Just one present, but a big one, under the tree. Snowmen on the wrapping paper, smiling and waving - happy snowmen. He moves towards it carefully. His hands press at the paper. It gives. He feels all round it, but can't guess what it is. The Christmas tree lights are on. Red and green and pink and yellow. He likes the Christmas tree lights. He carefully tears at the paper. A layer comes off. Strange - another layer of paper underneath. He looks up, looks at his mum. She looks strange, strained. She's watching him. So's He. He's smoking as usual, a cigarette parked between his heavy finger and thumb. His hands return to the present. Another layer comes off. Another layer underneath. He looks up again. They're both watching him. She's frowning, he's smiling, slightly manicly, it seems to him. He returns to the parcel. Another layer... Another layer... Another layer... And here, what's this? A plastic bag? And inside... Paper. Plain, crumpled paper. Just paper. He looks up at his mother. He doesn't understand. And he does understand. His face feels red. He's going to cry. No, don't cry. Don't cry! His mind is roaring. Her face is red. And... 'Look! Look, Jason, here are your presents.' And she's dragging them out from the cupboard under the sink. He's still looking at her. 'It was just a joke, darling. It was your dad's idea of a joke.' And Him, still smiling, but not really smiling and walking up to him and mock-punching him on the jaw and laughing that laugh of his which isn't really a laugh - ahahahahaha! 'You've got to learn to take a joke, son - ahahahahaha!' *** Steve feels hungry. He's put a pizza in the oven which he tells Jason to fetch, watches him pads out to the kitchen in his socks to get it, calls out to him to find some clean plates, knowing there aren't any - they're all dirty and piled up in the sink - listens with satisfaction as the tap goes on and Jason starts washing up. When he's washed up and brought the pizza back into the living room, Steve slices him a quarter and tucks into the rest himself. And, for a while, he's too busy eating to notice him. When he does look up, Jason's toying with a bit of crust from his pizza. 'Are you gonna eat that, or just play with it?' He smiles and nods and puts the bit of crust in his mouth and chews it slowly. He never seems to eat much - Jason. Steve sighs. 'Let's have another ice-cold Meretto,' he says, pushing his plate across the floor. Jason nods and pads back into the kitchen and returns with four more Merettos - one each in reserve. He levers the tops off and passes one to Steve, who's huffing and blowing a bit for some reason. 'You know what? I really want to sit with my top off.' He looks at Jason expectantly, then pulls his T-shirt off and throws it across the room. It's slightly warm, but not excessively so. Jason averts his eyes slightly and continues to play with his pizza, but briefly takes in Steve's hairy chest. 'That's better! Now, how about a bit of MTV?' And now Steve's feeling a bit pissed and it's time for some coke. He gets his stuff out, lays it carefully on the table, smiles at Jason and 'Hey, Jase, want some?' He shakes his head. Sometimes he partakes and sometimes he doesn't. Tonight, he's playing hard to get, the little shit. Steve hates it when he turns him down. He thinks about forcing him, twisting his arm behind his back - playfully, of course - but settles for a smile instead. 'Sure?' He shakes his head again. 'Go on. This is good stuff!' He shakes his head again. Fuck! Oh well. Now... Here we go... Chop-chops expertly with the silver blade, the light off the blade in his eyes, for a second. Now inhales. What relief! Chop, chop, his thoughts are running sharp, blade-like. I'm king. Everything's clear. Life's gone light - what was all the fuss about? He eyes Jason's leg, rejects the thought. I need a fuck. Call Maria. He starts talking. Jason...looks strange. What's the matter? Keeps talking. His thoughts are sharp and clear - God, I'm good! Talks some more. God, I'm God! How can he not understand? The little shit just doesn't understand. *** Later, Jason's asleep under a rug on the sofa while Steve, alone in his low Japanese style double-bed, is smoking a joint and coming down and pondering how to get him hooked. He fantasises about giving him his first shot of skag, about the dreamy expression on his face as he slides back against the red bean-bag, about him hammering on Steve's door, bloated-faced and desperate and dependant. The thought of not opening the door is a tempting one and he holds off letting him in for several minutes. But he does open the door eventually, and, as he inhales on the joint, draws intense pleasure from the idea of cooking up some gear for him, and then injecting it into his arm. He replays the fantasy several times, and always insists on doing the injecting himself. When Jason tries to plunge the needle, he grabs his arm and holds him off, takes the needle from him, clenches his arm between his knees and slides the needle in himself. 'It's my job,' he's saying, half-asleep now. 'It's Steve's job, Jase.'
Copyright © 2003 Ian McLachlan |