The Swap Page 17

  Deptford isn't lovely but Harvey reminded himself that she had been living in Croydon and relaxed. He opened his flat door with something of a flourish: no point in doing all that cleaning if you didn't show off a bit. The kitchen he'd spent extra time on, even going so far as to throw out the milk cartons and beer cans that he usually stored on the window ledge for decorative purposes, so he led her there.

  'Er, you know, there's not much to it.' He saw a certain something in her face. Was that disappointment? 'You were expecting something a little bigger, yeah? Well, I kind of live at work mostly. I just need a place to crash really so this is like my crash pad, and . . .' She laid a hand on his arm and he stopped. For some reason he had started trying to talk like a Miami drugs baron. He was even beginning to work in a little of the accent.

  'I like it, Harvey.' She said his name to bring him back to earth, or at least to the right side of the Atlantic. He nodded and felt the red wine swoosh from the back of his head to the front.

  'Er ...'

  'But I just don't see anything of you.'

  'Oh right, yeah, it's just a place to crash.' He stopped again. 'I guess I haven't really done much with it.' He tried his own voice instead. 'I'm not here that much.'

  'How long have you lived here?'

  'Um, well,' shit, 'about fifteen years.'

  'Fifteen years? Harvey!' She walked through into the pine-fresh lounge and once he'd put the kettle on he followed.

  'I know, I haven't really been here that much.' He said it again but even to him it sounded hollow.

  'What can I learn about you from this flat?' She looked around interested, as if playing a favourite game.

  'Er, well, not much probably.' Jesus, what did she expect, cushions and cut flowers?

  'The posters of course are distinctive.' She examined a Tomb Raider – with Lara swinging from a rope – as if looking at some rare collector's item. It was a generic poster, really commonplace now since Lara had got so popular. He should have taken it down and gone for one of the Japanese ones: same graphic but with Japanese writing . . . bit less common . . . his brain sort of came to a standstill. He hadn't got what she wanted. Perhaps she hoped for Impressionist prints or something, but he'd never really got on with art. 'I know a lot about art, but I don't know what I like.' That was his favourite line when asked, which wasn't very often, and this was fortunate because it was entirely untrue. He had done Art History for A level, but that had mostly been eighteenth-century English art, and all he could remember was a lot of horses and really weird trees. If he hadn't fancied the girl who sat next to him he might have swapped to cookery. What was her name? And why didn't she ever come to the reunion?

  Women like men who like art, that was a truth that he had learned down the years. It had almost got him laid when he was seventeen but it seemed to be coming back to haunt him. Maisie shook her head, as if slightly disillusioned, and moved on to his records and CDs. Harvey felt a welling of relief: this was an area he was more at home with. But of course women don't care what music you like, that was another truth. Even harder to bear than the art one. And it wasn't that he wanted her to take in all that he'd got in one glance. What mattered was what he didn't have: Elton John and U2 and George Michael and all that other shite that people who don't like music always owned. This was where he was revealing his character: in what he hadn't got in his record collection. But she didn't stop to consider. She just smiled at the amount and moved on to the DVDs. Here Harvey had rather let himself go. Deptford Market had a healthy trade in slightly suspicious DVDs and he had begun collecting several years ago. From a first, primal choice: Blade Runner Director's Cut, through the Die Hard box set and right up to the Matrix interactive edition, he had, he felt, found a cross section of modern cinema to rival . . . well, anyone else he knew.

  So it was with a certain sinking of the heart that he heard her words: 'Wow, you sure like action films, Harvey, and what is it with you and science fiction? You're not an alien, are you?'

  This last comment was especially dispiriting to Harvey as it wasn't actually the first time that he'd heard it. Indeed, for a time in his twenties when the shop was getting started he had moved in a circle of friends, mostly from Camden, who were, frankly, too cool for him and the suggestion that he was an alien who had recently landed had become something of an in-joke. On his birthday one year they had all arrived wearing deely-boppers and had given him presents themed around space, including a silver hat to protect him from rays from other galaxies. They had not remained his friends for long, and the last he heard the coolest of them all, a terribly witty gay man with impeccable taste, named Peter, was working as a supply teacher at a comprehensive in Stafford. But it was as close as he had ever been to feeling like Bleeder Odd and that realisation made him close his eyes for a moment and wince.

  'Hey, are you OK?' She came over and put the back of her hand to his forehead. 'Did I say the wrong thing?'

  'Yeah, no, no problem. Just, you know. I don't like being called an alien.'

  'OK.'

  He could sense that she was trying not to giggle and he frowned the more. 'It's kind of a sore spot.'

  'I see. Does it happen a lot?' The giggle made its way out and he felt his shoulders go up and despite himself he gave a little snort of amusement.

  'Yes, actually.' They both snorted in sync and then she moved into his arms in such a slinky, sensual sort of way that she was almost being satirical, but not quite. He kissed her and she let him and then smiled and said, 'Mmm, hello' in a way that made his genitals awaken and begin to plan ahead.

  'Let's er . . .' He tried to explain what his groin was saying but it's a hard language to translate.

  'Do you have a bath?'

  The question was so unexpected that Harvey was jolted into articulacy: 'Er, yeah, in the bathroom.' He pointed to make the position clear.

  'Come on then, show me.'

  So he showed her his spotless bathroom, and she ran the taps and found some bath foam to pour under the hot water, just like in a proper person's house. Admittedly it was Thomas the Tank Engine bathfoam, which came with a free game where you pressed buttons to make Thomas go round a track . . . but it was a genuine bathroom product. The fact that the bathroom now smelled heavily of strawberry bubblegum seemed all to the good. She then exclaimed aloud and ran off to the sitting room, returning with three fat little candles from her bag, which she claimed were meant to be a present for Lisa. But she sat them on the corners of the bath and he lit them with his fag matches, and then she turned off the light and made him a stranger in his own bathroom. How did women do that: transform somewhere into somewhere else in a minute? The water pressure in South London is quite low so it took some time for the bath to fill but he made up for that by kissing her. And at the end of one kiss, she grabbed the back of his T-shirt and peeled it up over his head. Harvey felt a powerful desire to fight her off and drag it back down. His stomach hadn't looked too good in the clear light of a Sunday afternoon, but the candlelight and the steam, he realised, would give many things a genuinely sexy glow. Would it work for his stomach? He wasn't entirely convinced, but vague memories of other romantic evenings from the past brought the thought that if he allowed her to remove one item of his then he could do one in return. He stepped back and sucked in his breath as hard as he could: first impressions last, and then reached out for her. She was wearing a tassly, beaded sort of shirt with buttons that came down to her cleavage and he fiddled with the buttons and then fearing that he might wait too long just sort of grabbed the bottom and heaved. It came up and he could hear her giggling and she seemed to be about to ask him to stop so he pulled harder and she emerged, rather red in the face, but with a pretty smile, from underneath.

  'You animal!' she said sweetly and then turned to test the water in the bath. She was, Harvey realised, far more at ease with this than he was. Which was unfair as he was the one who had been single and out there for the last . . . well . . . for ever really, and she was the one f
rom the loveless marriage. He was meant slowly but firmly to show her what love could really be like now that she had left her evil husband. Instead, here she was unhooking her bra and letting it swing playfully from side to side, while he stood with his arms squarely folded over his belly, trying not to panic. He wasn't complaining, mind, it was just an observation.

  In the end, she did lose her nerve and made him turn around while she stripped and when he looked again she was lying back under the foam with her hair up in a dishevelled bun, looking like one of those adverts for bathroom products at the back of the Sunday supplements, which Harvey always found it very hard to flick past.

  'Shit, you're beautiful.' He reached for his belt and then paused to consider: which side to give her? Full frontal or his arse while he took his pants off? Tricky. But of course she was better at this: perhaps some people are just born good at sex, like with chess. She just put her head back against his pale green bath and closed her eyes with a long slow 'mmmm' of pleasure. She was a cat, he thought . . . only one that liked water . . . not a great image, but enough to calm him a little as he whipped his trousers off with panicked efficiency, tore off his pants, remembered at the last moment that he still had his socks on – that would have been an error – and tried desperately to decide how to get in. He went for the tap end. Not as romantic as snuggling in next to her but frankly he wasn't sure he'd fit. It's a fine line between eroticism and ludicrousness for most people and Harvey had found himself way too close to that line on a number of occasions. Once he was in she opened her eyes and looked at him with great sweetness. 'Look at us two,' she said softly, lifting a dappled foot and running it up Harvey's chest. He was glad of the bubbles because without them his penis would have appeared above the water, Jaws-like, rather earlier than was appropriate.

  'Yeah, amazing.' Perhaps he'd leave the dialogue to her. He took the foot in his hands and kissed it, she squealed as he ran his tongue along the sole and a wave washed along from her end to his.

  'I'm very ticklish, Harvey.'

  'Are you?' He tested this claim by moving his hand from her foot up her leg, like silk in the soapy water. The back of her knee felt so soft and interesting to his fingers that he stopped there for a while and just stroked it gently, causing her to wriggle but not to squeal. He'd always liked legs; long or short, there were very few female legs that didn't stimulate his curiosity. He liked the funny knobbly bits of them, the ankle bones and the knees, the way they widened as you moved up them, the muscle lines that seemed to lead you, as if you were following some sort of map. If you looked closely at a woman's leg he believed it was possible to suggest that it was designed to lead you where you wanted to go. He explored her knee and then his hand followed the map of her body up the inside of her thigh and she closed her eyes and made a low very satisfactory sound.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  There are some experiences in life that seem sent to haunt us and render us unhappy. Some because they are so terrible that they cannot be fully forgotten or left behind, others for the more bittersweet reason that they are so perfect we can never fully experience anything similar without drawing critical comparison. When Harvey awoke on Monday morning he knew that the previous night would, for him, forever be something he would strive to repeat, without any real likelihood of success. He woke early, needing to pee and with his mouth feeling as if it had been chemically corroded. In the bathroom, after the simple joy of a relieved bladder, he examined his mouth and found that his tongue was still purpled by the wine. Who drank this stuff, for Christ's sake? He fetched his toothbrush and scrubbed his tongue with it. But he did have to admit that the wine had been a help, in ways that beer might not have been. His penis, for all its cavalier behaviour earlier in the evening, had behaved itself when it mattered. They had stayed in the bath for a while, and he had had a bit of an explore. She was so soft. As he scrubbed now and spat purple liquid into the sink he thought about that: it had been like sliding his finger into warm butter. He snorted noisily at the crudity of this image and then stifled it, lest she hear him sniggering in the bathroom. Then they had both sat up and kissed and looked into each other's eyes for a while with their hands under water touching and exploring. It was very possibly the most erotic experience of his life. Was it better than the time he saw Jenny Butter-worth's knickers as she climbed over the stile when they were sixteen? Hard to judge really: it certainly went on a lot longer. Her hand discovered his penis, standing patiently to attention with a smile on its face. Returning the smile, she ran her fingers down it as if they'd been meeting like this for ages. Harvey, to his embarrassment, made a sort of whinnying noise as she did it. It wasn't a noise he had made before and it sounded almost pathetic with desire. It had been such a long time since he'd had any sort of sex and almost beyond memory since anyone had touched him with such tenderness. With a broadening smile she had slid forward a little so that their bodies could entwine, her face right against his and he could bring his hands up and run them foaming over her breasts. As he turned the toothbrush over and began to descale the roof of his mouth, he thought again of the sheer availability of her. He had wanted her since he first set eyes on her as she walked into the reunion, and while this wasn't in truth a very long time, an awful lot had happened since. Perhaps he had always wanted her. Perhaps she was meant to be his, destined. He spat again and imagined himself, not for the first time, on a silver surfboard crossing the infinite wastes of space. After a bit of fiddling about she had put one hand on his shoulder and, with her eyes never leaving his, had lifted herself up and forward and then slid downwards so that her knees were tucked outside his legs and his penis, directed by her other hand, slid neatly and perfectly inside her. He hadn't expected her to do this and it was so totally, electrically erotic that for a moment his penis considered simply exploding with emotion. Which is where the wine made up for its many disadvantages. With a final grimace at the mirror he made his way out and back to bed. But the thoughts in the bathroom had warmed him and stopped him feeling tired. So he woke her up.

  'So, are we going to go?' They were sitting at his breakfast table and Harvey was wearing the slightly smug look of a fully satisfied man. He wouldn't previously have said that he owned a breakfast table because he always ate muffins and coffee on the train to work or sent Josh to McDonald's when he got there; except on Sundays when he allowed himself a fry-up at the local café, Sid's: not wanting to become too much of a health freak. And so breakfast had not entered his flat for many years. But it did so now and he was surprised by how easily such a major invasion could be carried out. It seemed a change into some past life, as if her presence had carried him back to another more innocent age before choc-chip muffins and lattés. There was bread and milk and tea and marmite and they laid all the elements out on the table exactly as if they were going to sit around and eat like grown-ups. They might even have had boiled eggs but didn't fancy it. But they could have done, that was the point. He had performed for her, he had satisfied her, he had fed her and he had entertained her in a tidy flat. As he sipped his tea, he did so with an air of almost complete complacency.

  'Go?' he said.

  'To Cornwall. Remember we spoke about it last night?' She had been sitting on his lap for a bit while the bread was toasting under the grill and he had wondered, as many men wonder, how women manage to smell so good first thing in the morning. But now she was sitting across from him and looking at him with eyes that seemed filled with a green warmth, as if she was radiating care and concern and support across the table.

  'Oh yeah.' Of course, he was a murder suspect, he'd rather forgotten. 'Um, OK, but I think we should maybe plan it a bit, yeah? I mean, we can't go this morning – I've got a small delivery at the shop first thing. But we could go after lunch. Maybe stay the night and see Bleeder tomorrow. Why don't you come down to the shop about twelve and we'll go from there? What do you think?'

  'You've got a delivery first thing this morning?'

  'Yeah, so what?'
<
br />   'Well, it's twenty past nine.'

  So it was that Harvey arrived dishevelled and sweating at Inaction Comix. If he had had a car that worked at least there might have been some drama attached to a life-or-death race through the heaving streets; but by public transport he just got the same trains as usual only he swore and smoked more while he was waiting for them. But even all his efforts, including an heroic final run down Old Street from the tube to the shop were not enough and he arrived panting at ten thirty to find the delivery men gone and Josh standing looking very pleased with himself beside a large cardboard box. At least it wasn't Thursday. That was the only positive thought that Harvey could muster as he ignored his assistant's cheery greeting and stood, breathing hard and eyeing the box with a cold distaste.

  'What have you bought?'

  'All right, Harv? Good weekend?'

  'What have you bought, Josh?'

  'No problem opening up for you this morning, don't mention it.' The sarcasm was accompanied by an ingratiating smile, which rather spoiled its impact. Harvey was troubled by the smile. For, while most of the shop's merchandise arrived on a Thursday, the Monday van delivery was also important. Particularly significant was the fact that you could buy anything loose directly from the driver. This was how the shop got many of its more idiosyncratic items. The South Park keyrings that said 'you killed Kenny' in Spanish, for instance. Or the photobook of stills from the making of Deep Throat. These were items that Harvey liked to think gave the shop its specialness, its originality, that separated it from other comic shops. But there was one simple rule for these sorts of identity items: Josh was not allowed to buy them.

  'I've told you if I'm not here, either ask them to wait or tell them to come back next week. Haven't I told you that, Josh?'