It took him ten minutes of frantic body searching to locate her amongst the dancing dervishes. When he did, he found her talking again. This time she was involved in yet another passionate discourse, this one about teachers.
Now Wright hated teachers. He believed they should remain locked in the classroom where they could keep their opinions firmly on the blackboard or rub them to dust where they belonged so as not to inflict them on him as they so perpetually did.
He looked at the woman Kelly was talking to and immediately he knew what this one did during daylight. She taught. Expressing his not too high opinion of her or her chosen career, Nathan stuck a finger down his throat and pretended to reach. Kelly saw him and flexed a foot in deliberate warning. Wright stiffened, contemptuously he removed his finger and braced himself for more introductions (which Wright felt were the dysentery of divisions, the plague of identity and the anarchy of unfamiliarity. And a right royal pain in the arse).
‘Debra, this thing wet nursing the wine is Nathan,’ Kelly giggled, pointing in the direction of a stooped Wright who was actually suckling it. A bloody gracious introduction Nathan frowned. He found himself nodding again, shaking sweaty palms again and, feeling like a politician during the electoral sucking-up season, searched for a baby to kiss. There were no shrieking infants available so he kissed his cup instead, draining it dry.
More names to forget, Wright groaned.
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Ritual introductions intrigued Nathan. He’d noticed how nervous most people were with them. How they either took a step forward or one backward, depending on their first impression of the person they were meeting. How that no-one ever remained stationary even if sometimes this was the illusion. No-one ever did. Sometimes they twitched, sometimes they arched their back or hid their unease with the crab response - a sideways movement instead of the forward or backward crawl.
Most, on meeting Wright, just wanted to run.
________________
Kelly interrupted his intrigue and asked for a refill. He was distant and disinterested. Then wasn’t. He was too busy acknowledging two newcomers (more names he’d donate to the vacuum in his head). He nodded a greeting at a Daniel and the sausage roll by his side who was apparently the man’s wife. She was a minuscule thing tiny enough to live in a cigarette packet. Wright remembered her from his fountain frolics in the kitchen. She, in turn, looked accusingly at the human hose, remembering him from the stains on her kaftan. Wright stood looking as innocent as possible, looking at her. She sure was small. The girl, who could have been a woman had she decided to grow, was fragile and mousey and so not about to remind Wright of his spouting incontinence.
Bored with the proceedings, Nathan felt it was time for some drastic action. So he decided to partake, decided to talk. He finally joined the conversation that was floating about him in thick verbal strands. He knitted with them, did his best to be amusing for Kelly’s sake (and his own safety for he knew she’d kill him if her friends told her he was rude, or mute. Or just plain boring).
For a while Wright tried his damnedest to make a good impression but he soon found that this new couple were smiling back at him so woodenly that it was difficult to tell if he was making any impression at all. (In fact, they were so quiet it was almost impossible for Wright to tell if they were even alive still).
The wife blinked, then raised her glass to thin snail lips and Wright sighed in relief, pleased that he hadn’t been wasting his laser breathe on the definitely deceased. He was also thankful that he wasn’t about to be charged with murder for boring them to death (although he felt they could achieve that without his humble assistance).
Suddenly, the taller cadaver spoke. In subdued tones, he asked Nathan what he did for a job. Nathan immediately applied.
‘I’m an air hostess,’ he speculated, having harboured a secret desire to be one, or screw one, for most of his life. Silently, he congratulated himself on gaining his wings. Wanton wings which Kelly smartly clipped.
‘Nathan, don’t be ridiculous! Don’t you ever give a straight answer to a reasonable question?’ She cautioned, asking the impossible.
‘We air hostesses are straight,’ he argued, horrified at the accusation. ‘Any that are bent become stewards, or are sent back to the factory,’ he testified. And Kelly was getting furious but Daniel, who resembled a stretched ferret, looked convinced. And his wife? Well she still appeared to have died about the time the armistice was signed.
Nathan grinned, trying to look innocent. Which he wasn’t so Kelly invaded his left shin with her Wright aimed shoe and replacing innocence with pain. Considering Wright’s conduct over the years, and the fact that all his girlfriends had found violence the only sure way to keep him under control, that Wright wasn’t a complete cripple was a miracle ranking with the fishes and the loaves or his first fuck.
‘Okay,’ he wailed, palms outstretched in furtive apology to the enraged stiletto before he turned back to the ferret in the black polo neck sweater.
‘Okay, so I’m not an air hostess, not really...,’ he admitted, somewhat sad at having been forced give up such a promising career. He paused to examine Daniel and decided that had Kelly not fired him, this furball would have allowed him to pursue his high flying ambitions.
‘....actually I’m a female impersonator,’ Wright stated flatly, cupping non-existent bucket breasts and flexing his verdant eyelashes.
‘Actually, he’s an arsehole,’ Kelly interjected so loudly that it woke up Dan’s dead wife. Seeing the resurrection, Wright crossed the non-existent chest and recited a silent prayer for her. Then he tried to evade the threat of another swift kick by being honest. He said that he was only kidding and told the truth to the beard on the face of the ferret (before Kelly crueled him for life).
As succinctly as possible, he explained to the bush that he was a Graphic Designer. Daniel, in dire need of defoliant, looked confused. He peered confusedly at Wright through his plate thick spectacles, his two bug eyes staring blankly at Nathan as he spoke. Seemingly, the half-wit was having more difficulty with the truth than either of Nathan’s two prior bits of bullshit.
‘Sorry...a what?’ he stammered mystified, brow furrowed, small ferret brain working overtime. Nathan could almost hear the ailing computer in his head frantically searching through the files there for any information on what a graphic designer was. Or did. Smugly, Wright refused to give any clues. Instead he watched as the twit squirmed, saw him going through the encyclopedia in its skull and decided the man was a few volumes short. A through to X apparently.
Just when Nathan was at last enjoying himself, Kelly buggared the fun by explaining all.
In public, she was always exuberant and effusive about his job and she seemed genuinely proud of Nathan’s creative talents.
________________
Strangely, Kelly never mentioned it in private. She never said anything reassuring to Nathan who really needed it - constantly. But it was different amongst others, then she flowed ebullient with pride and compliments. Then, she actually seemed in awe of his gifts.
In private, she never even bothered unwrapping them.
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It was no use. Even after what was an expansive explanation the lobotomised ferret still looked mystified by Wright’s profession.
‘Advertising,’ Kelly coaxed. Nathan saw a bulb begin to glow dully in the dim recesses of the stretched one’s brain.
A small gasp of recognition escaped. ‘Ah...’ He scratched. ‘You make television commercials?’ He guessed, head bowed, neoprene hands folded under a chinless jaw still a little unsure of his answer yet silently pleased with himself for apparently at last solving such a complex mystery.
‘No,’ Wright said. The man’s jaw hit the floor.
With a demon grin loitering across an angelic face, Wright watched the man squirmed anew. Nathan was enjoying himself, but again Kelly ruined such good sport.
She explained to the feral one that Nathan certainly could do television commercials. (The man smiled). Then said Nathan could, but he didn’t. (The chin hit the floor again. This time there was resounding thud).
Unfortunately, as far as Wright was concerned anyway, Kelly rescued his dislocated chin. She finally managed to dispel all lingering doubts by explaining in vivid detail what a graphic designer did. Or didn’t do (and Wright didn’t do anything that didn’t suit him. So Wright didn’t do commercials).
‘Oh,’ the ferret nodded, quietly stroking the growth on his face, an almost smile appearing where his chin should have been. He still wasn’t sure but he was growing more confident that he was getting closer to the truth minute by explanation.
Wright gave up thinking the idiot would never know if he didn’t know now and so drifted off.
His mind removed from it all, he listened for a while to the garbled voices that sped about him. He was well aware of why he’d acted so churlishly. He knew he was, had been, bored so had purposely goaded the man in the polo neck with the frail wife with no life.
________________
Wright had a motto: “T’is better to be despised than forgotten”.
Where others chatted amicably, he goaded. It was his way of dealing with vacuous people in loud places and whenever he got bored, at megaphone parties, or meat market disco’s, he’d try to liven up the proceedings by being a complete pain in the arse. He’d cajole, needle, or insult any-one within striking distance in a noxious attempt to elicit some response, any response for Wright firmly believed that aggravation was as good a way as any to get people animated.
His success rate was stunning. Usually he pissed people off so adroitly that not even his mother would speak to him.
________________
Lighting another cigarette, inhaling deeply, he looked about the room trying to decide who to set fire too. The crowd had thinned but he was still stuck here and almost asleep, he decided to flambe some unsuspecting soul in in an effort to liven up the party which had now lulled to a quiet roar. On more serious reflection, he decided to keep his pyromania to himself just in case the fat one tried leap on whoever Nathan had decided to make a Roman Candle out of to smother the flames. And so crush to death whoever Wright had chosen to ignite.
That idea shelved, he considered snoring but he knew that such an unsubtle hint was a trifle unfair for the words currently swapping mouths for ears about him weren’t all that tedious. It was just that he was tired. And bored. So he nodded politely for two hours in loose necked reply to anything any-one said to him.
At one thirty, feeling more like Noddy than Nathan, he lent over and kissed Kelly. Kelly recoiled in shock.
‘What was that for?’ She enquired, surprised by the sudden show of affection then, adjusting her scowl, turning it to a smile, gave him a hug. Nathan was looking lost and lonely.
‘I think you’re wonderful,’ he said wrapped her in his arms. Kelly was shocked. Nathan hadn’t said anything this nice to her since....since...
‘Nathan you’re drunk,’ she realised.
‘And you’re wonderful..’
‘And you’re whacked..’
‘Probably....but that doesn’t alter the facts.’
‘The fact is you’re pissed and I’m still sober, so be a good boy and get me a drink will you..’ It was more of an order than a request. He hated being patronised but he didn’t want to displease her (mainly because she’d refuse to give him a head job later if he didn’t start seriously suck up to her) so he took the cup she handed him and was about to go in search of the nearest vat when she grabbed him.
‘Nat...’
‘What?’ He growled annoyedly before Kelly smothered him, burying her glazed lips on his prickly cheek, hugging him tightly, whispering in his ear that she thought he was pretty special too. Wright knew better but he felt she had every right to her opinion. He didn’t argue and instead he let his lips do the debating until she sent him on his way.
Watching him stagger off, Kelly tried figure out just what the attraction was. She couldn’t decide if she truly loved him or whether she was merely infatuated with him.
She knew which-ever it was, she certainly should have been less confused than she was.
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It was 2.30 am. It was now a dark Sunday morning and it was still raining. Bundled in the front seat of the car, his two cold hands held over the spouting vents of the dash in the hunt for heat, Nathan was pleased to be on the way home at last. Relaxed, he lay a weary headache on the high tan headrest and snuggled close to Kelly as she threaded her way past the drunks and the car thieves who were about the only others sharing the lonely morning road with Wright and Kelly. And her swearing and swerving.
Almost asleep, but awake to the promise of sex then sleep, Nathan contented himself for the moment with holding her warm hand. Wright was receptive and amorous and hormone aware of the potent lure of the female flesh that was driving him home. To bed.
Leering drunkenly, he watched her cute posterior casually caress the seat beside him. As they stopped at the lights, he realised how randy he was. How much he was looking forward to some sweaty gyrations on the trampoline mattress before sleep overtook them.
Kelly soon cancelled any hopes he had of such early morning gymnastics.
When the lights turned green, Kelly saw red. Turning to the drunk next to her, she told Nathan she wasn’t impressed with him or his behaviour, saying that she was weary of being embarrassed by him. Eyes ahead, deciding she was angry with him, she said that next time she’d date a primate who’d surely prove more socially acceptable - so Wright suggested she date a chimpanzee. So Kelly threatened to bend his banana. So Wright threatened to peel her, grabbing for the front of her dress. He grew sullen and sulked when she slapped him away, informing him that his demeanour was infantile, his attitude juvenile and that he had the mental age of her brother (who was three).
To prove her wrong and prove his maturity, Wright shoved his thumb in his mouth and sucked it hungrily.
Chapter Fourteen
AMAZING GRACE
SMALL BUT FAMOUS, nurtured by the Mediterranean, the island swam eerily in the crisp afternoon heat.
Nestled coyly on the western shore of this always summer place, a hidden beach of white powder sand wedged tight between fractured planes of sculptured granite. On the barren hills beyond, stuck like moss to tree, weather tough scrub dotted the brown bare landscape.
Interrupting the erosion, separating land from beach, there was a line of bushes thick, dry and destitute growing gnarled from dust soil. Almost invisible, perched static between calm sea and cinema blue sky, mainland Greece appeared as a mere fleck on a summer horizon.
Basking under the flare sun, lying naked on the soft sand, an expanse of eve pure paleness, a solitary figure, a young girl, was sunbathing.
Sabine was nineteen and not at home. She was French by kiss, unhappy by nature, and a shop assistant by unkind fate. She was on holidays from the grimy little shop on the Rue De Ville where she sold magic lotions to withered old women who thought beauty really was only skin deep.
Contentedly alone on the deserted beach listening to Athens FM on a small radio, she pictured Paris. Thought of the small room she occupied with her witch black cat Sheba and the treasured collection of James Dean memorabilia that clung as fan paper to the mildew damp walls. Of the grim weather and her lover Pierre who visited her in her comfortable bed.
Laid her, breathed fevered with her, whenever his wife was blind to his absence.
She remembered his odour, his touch, his urgency.
The memories were to delicious to ignore so she sent a vibrator finger between sunglazed legs in nostalgic reminder, toying and teasing in the slit darkness until the the clitoral wand grew blood rich and magic. Her legs spread, her breathing quickened, she heaved and shuddered until the wand wavered and the hot need vanished.
By her side, face down, a paperback romance was spread half read in the mattress sand by a faded straw bag she’d bought last year while holidaying in Spain that sat upright, as if on guard, and was packed tight with her workless necessities. The clothes, cosmetics, oils, food and drink.
Relaxed and revitalised by her week in the sun, she sighed, deliciously contented atop a large, brightly coloured beach towel the size of a bed sheet while behind her, unseen, the bushes rustled as an oddly dressed man brushed creeping by.
Echoing from a glass shore, cool waves, vigorous yet controlled, lapped rhythmically. Lifting her head from the soft towel she stared at a welcoming sky which was cloudless. Convivial.
Reaching into the fathom depths of the souvenir straw, she sought out the almost empty bottle of tanning lotion and gently, shielding long lashed eyes from a beach perfect sun, flipped the cap from the hot plastic and began anointing herself with deliberate, lazy strokes taking care not to miss any area of supple skin which, young, stretched taught over an inch perfect frame.
Successfully cloaked in the shield solution, her urgent urge now satisfied, she rolled leisurely onto a well tanned back. A languid nymph of glistening bronze, she was blissfully isolated from Paris and parents, and serene, propped on one elbow, her legs outstretched and bikinis discarded, she sipped an iced Campari from a tall glass through a pink ribbon straw. Deliciously, she drew the slick amber liquid between pouting lips that were glossed red, moistened by the slow sensuous caress of a long slender tongue.
Lying still, drinking slowly, her mind wandered.
She lay dreaming.
Closer now, from the scrub bushes and so still hidden from view, the parched leaves again moved imperceptibly as he crept on.
A relatively tall man (but short on all fours as he now was - creeping) dressed mad elegant in a baggy white suit, snuck unnoticed through the arid undergrowth toward the white beach. His face was intense and decisive as he crawled stealthily over the hot sand trying to avoid the prickles that, painfully persistent, reminded him what an unwelcome stranger he was.
Wrapped noose like around a thin neck, fitted over a high collared polo shirt, he wore a wide yellow tie embroidered garish with small green bowler hats down its flapping length. On feet socked in neon blue, red sandals gleamed in the glare of a benevolent Grecian afternoon.
Quietly, breathing stilled, he slid cautiously over the crystal sand which shifted lazily under each stealthy step.
Sin exhausted, pleasure gained, drink finished, Sabine rose and scampered innocently bare to the translucent sea. Cupping finely manicured hands, she collected translucent pools of the clear water, cooling herself with the salt dew by pouring the sparkling liquid over strong arms, then fantasy thighs, then pert breasts that tilted toward her fabulous face. Perspiring slightly, she dove gracefully into the shallow depths to calm the furnace flesh. A sweet mermaid memory, she slid fluidly through the scant waves, moving easily through the blue wetness.
The bushes parted. He ogled entranced as, like a goddess awakened, she strode damp from the shimmering sea. Drying each porcelain curve with the rug towel, Sabine settled weary into the radiant sand.
Binoculars to bulging eyes, the bushes rustling with the slight disturbance, his attentions were focused immediately forward as he followed her every elegant movement in neat perversion, staring hungrily at her two full lavish breasts sliding enchantingly across a bronze chest.
Sabine reached for the paperback, her face shining like a polished mirror, brown and beckoning.
Lowering the binoculars toward her playful hips, he devoured the narrow darkness held shadowy and suggestive between the teasing thighs.
She looked up. Sent intense green eyes at a placid sky, watching the seagulls swoop and slide against the azure backdrop coating her vision. With a lazy flick of a Chanel fragrant wrist, she casually, deftly, swept aside an encroaching thicket of liquid blonde hair from a perfect face.
The light was intense. Searching the bag, she found her sunglasses and concealed the limestone orbs, deep and clear, behind the dark lenses.
The temptation was irresistible, she was irresistible, a quiet perfection soaking the golden rays that fell upon her like manna from heaven.
Sweeping out of the bushes toward her, Wright, shrieking undying love, pounced, falling on her like a man’a from hell.
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‘Nathan what are you doing to the cat, you pervert!’ a loud voice suddenly enquired, interrupting his pounce. And dissolving his daydream.
So cruelly replacing fantasy with reality that it almost gave him an acute myocardial infarction. Looking up, he let go of the cat, wished Sabine luck and, grasping an ailing heart, saw Kelly hovering. Overhead. And overly annoyed as grim faced she rhythmically tapped a stilettoed foot upon the meandering garden path, her confined but nimble toes dancing in dull warning on the cracked pavement, a concrete ribbon that joined the house to humanity.
Wright smiled innocently. Whispered to the cat: ‘Der fuehrer, now we’re in trouble...’
Rising to his feet, he confronted her.
‘Great expression Kel ...is it yours or did you rent it from an undertaker for the day?’
Kelly’s expression remained grim. She continued tapping.
‘I was just playing with it,’ he explained, furiously patting the cat, stroking it into a mindless purr.
‘You’re always playing with it,’ she said. ‘Damn wanker...’ she added coolly, casually adjusting the sweep of her gilt hair searching Wright’s eyes for any sign of resident intelligence. He gazed at her. Blankly.
‘I meant the cat!’ he added, defending his dishonour.
‘Copulating with it more likely,’ she said, accusingly.
‘Not while I’ve still got you,’ he reminded her, tossing teeth at her and wrapping himself amongst her arms before she could escape the advance. Or accuse him of pet-a-phelia.
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While he’d been busy creating Sabine, giving her a well deserved holiday and solo sex while dallying with the cat Kelly, unseen and unheard, had crept silently up the garden path (which was exactly where Wright would lead her anytime given half a chance).
Frowning, she’d stood grudgingly intrigued by the deviant display taking place in the middle of the front lawn.
With arms crossed, handbag at the ready, she’d waited to pounce if this cat cavorting went beyond the bounds of decency and had acted smartly when censorship demanded, suddenly intervening and becoming an unwanted referee.
And just when Wright was about to score Sabine.
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Kelly. Kelly Catherine Grace. “Amazing Grace” Wright called her and amazingly she bore a striking resemblance to the woman after whom she’d been named; namely Grace Kelly.
The story was that Kelly’s mum had wanted the best for her daughter so bequeathed this dreadful name to her in the forlorn hope that such a title would manifest for her daughter the similar fairy tale existence.
She’d wanted Kelly to marry a prince just like the real Grace Kelly had but so far, and so galling, her daughter had failed miserably to find royalty. (Had found only a frog her mother said. A lily pad loiterer who, no matter how many times Kelly kissed it, failed to mutate. Wright staunchly refused to become amphibious or, much to Kelly’s mothers perpetual chagrin, croak).
Kelly’s attributes were obvious. She was elegant, educated and well mannered. She was intelligent and attractive - beautiful even, stunning actually, a tall leggy blonde superficially superb.
So very demanding.
She could afford to be. Nagged Nathan with the confident aplomb of the truly sensuous for she was one those women who knew instinctively that there’d be other men just waiting to get at her if this one didn’t suffice. (Or refused to reform. Wright refused to reform so remained under sufferance).
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A coitus interruption, the fro