Novel Extract - Tong Street Blues - chapter 38 of 'The Other Elephant' - set in London in the 1970's

He wakes up. He was dreaming of the smell of patchouli.

The day pokes fingers of sunlight between streaks on the grimy window and into his dry eyes. His head is parched from last night’s intoxication, last night’s dream. He feels like he’s slept for three weeks. Only he knows that’s wrong. It’s three weeks since the funeral, but he knows. In that time he’s hardly slept, except for last night, this morning. This morning’s dream. He was dreaming of the taste of apple, dipped in cinnamon sugar.

He sits up. He’s in his own bed. Some remaining inkling of self-preservation had made him leave Alvin’s pad, late in the night and seek his own, safer place. He pulls protesting limbs to the sink and gulps water. It oozes over his wizened tongue and down his throat in slow motion, like a stream of new rain creeping over a parched desert, with the burning ground sucking moisture from beneath as it tries to run. He was dreaming of the wetness of fucking, with her wonderful, fair skin sliding beneath his sweating body, his mind burning with the joy of it.

He remembers yesterday, before the dream, he had climbed to the top of Sandringham flats because he couldn’t bear it any more. Oblivion beckoned and he followed and he toked on Alvin’s pipe, and now he understands. It’s something else, the fulfilling blast of smack, but it’s not real, because this morning the world is still dry. He feels parched from his skin to his core, like brittle, bark-less twigs high on a beach, bleached and sand blasted. Out of the reach of the water.

He was dreaming of Sandy. Now he needs to find her.

                                                                                         

Novel extract: The Other Elephant

This is a short extract from my novel, The Other Elephant  :-

He’s walked right up the Edgware Road, trying to find this address. The small grocery shop at the top of the terrace is closed, dilapidated metal shutters heavily padlocked. The carcass of a Ford Cortina stands on bricks, rain pours from the wheel arches and into an oil-skummed pool that covers half the width of the road. A train squeals and judders past, right behind the cramped little terrace. Once the train’s gone, he can hear water fizzing from the broken down-pipe at the corner of the house. He’s pissed in better streets.

He wasn’t welcome elsewhere. Now it’s dark and this is his last chance. Twelve Belmont Grove, Maida Vale is a very fine sounding address, only it’s really just part of the arse-end of Kilburn, that’s why he’s taken so long finding it. The rain soaked rucksack drags his shoulders down, only his guitar is dry. He’s got to get out of this freezing rain. Since Rotterdam he’s had two hours kip, his clothes have been wet for thirty-six hours, his stomach’s been empty longer. The Guilders he nicked only just paid for the ferry, but he’s got past hunger, all he wants is a smoke. And to be warm.

He’s been wondering how to greet her, rehearsed so many opening lines. Make her laugh, that’s the way in with chicks, right? Why should she be any different? He knocks. As the door opens, an unfamiliar face is a shock. He knows she’s the wrong one. He mumbles his opening line.

‘What?’ She shouts, but doesn’t seem to be addressing him. Just somebody.

‘Can I see Mairi?’

‘Why?’ He doesn’t blame her for being suspicious. This area’s probably full of derelicts.

‘I knew her years back,’ he says.

‘So you’ll know the rest of her name, then.’

He shakes himself out, into the reality of this situation; the concrete of her stare. Not sure he can handle it, but he’s got to make an impression, somehow. At the moment she’s a wall, just bouncing him back. Make ‘em laugh, right?

‘I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.’ But this chick doesn’t laugh. ‘Her name’s Mairi Shona Maguire,’ he says.

She stares at him silently, still concrete, still a wall.

‘So who are you, then?’ She asks, eventually.

‘Joe,’ he says.

‘Just Joe?’

He nods.

‘Wait there, just Joe.’ She slams the door.

He presses numb fingers onto the chill of the frosted glass, but she’s gone. To his white fingertips the glass feels warm. There are faint sounds, muffled by the barrier. He tries to drum on it but his fingers won’t co-ordinate. At last a figure appears. The door catch clicks back twice before opening. A pale face framed by a dark halo of chaotic hair peers around the door. This is the right one, but she’s still a shock. It’s ten years since he last saw her. He trawls up his line.

‘Jonathan Joseph Maguire at your service, ma’am.’

He bows, unskilfully, from his stiff waist. The rain that has accumulated in the polythene which he has so lovingly wrapped around his guitar tips over his head and neck.  As he straightens, the icy water pours down inside his jacket. Cold as he is, it still makes him shudder out loud, ‘Oh Shit! Shit!’ He meets her eyes for a second. She has stuffed her knuckles into her mouth, is she laughing?

‘Hi, Mairi.’ Not much of a greeting after so many years, but it’s all he can manage just now. ‘Can I come in, please? I’m bloody freezin’.’

She backs away slowly down the narrow hallway, leaving the door ajar. She calls out, ‘Gina, Gina!’ But her eyes seem fixed in a stare, directed at him. This could be an invitation to come in, he’s too cold to wait for any more.
                                                                              *

 

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