Sin City (11 page)

“Who is it?”

“Room service, Madam.”

That could be a ploy. Easy to say “room service” and then lunge in with a knife. I creep towards the door, glue my eye to the spy-hole. I can see a Christmas tree. I unhook the chain, open the door a centimetre. The tree walks in, on bellboy legs. A waiter follows, the frightening tailcoat kind, with an icebucket on a sort of silver pedestal. The Bollinger. Behind him is a waitress with a huge film-star bowl of fruit, and a second girl with two silver goblet things. I watch, amazed, as the procession files right past me, through a flush white door I'd assumed was just a cupboard, into another room I haven't even seen – a palatial sort of dining-room-cum-lounge. The four unload their goodies, and I'm suddenly a prize-winner, official and computer-certified, as the champagne cork explodes across the room and golden bubbles froth into the goblets. The bellboy is fussing with the Christmas tree, the white-gloved waiter shining up the fruit-knives. I smile at them, but their faces stay like masks.

I wish they'd stick around, make a little party. But it's like the hospital again – inmates versus staff – impossible to bridge the gulf. They're already at the door, bowing and salaaming, bidding me goodnight. It must be night (official) and they've turned it into Christmas with the tree. I feel touched and close to tears. It's such a glamorous tree – golden boughs with tiny golden birds on them, shining golden balls, gold star at the top.

My father always bought a real tree, the sort which sheds its needles and drove my mother mad. She made him stand it on a dust-sheet and kept hoovering around it, so that all the tinsel trembled and half the things fell off. We never had expensive decorations, only bits and pieces made of silver foil or milk-tops, and some wooden pegs Dad dressed in bits of lace and stuff as dolls, painting in their faces with smiling mouths and kiss-curls. Every December, from the time I was six or seven right up to last year, my mother said, “Surely you're too old now for a tree.” I used to die inside, imagining no tree, no smiling pegs, no Christmas Eve wobbling on the ladder. But my father always worked the Christmas miracle, braved my mother's nagging.

It was a Beechgrove tree this year, Beechgrove everything. We had senile turkey yesterday and pre-sliced Christmas pudding, semi-cold; and all the staff wore tinsel on their caps and were fiercely and continuously jolly which made things quite a strain. (Though half the patients in Norah's ward didn't even realise it was Christmas. I envied them. I even envied Norah, who just ploughed on with her jigsaw whenever there was a break in all the whoopee.)

I sit stiffly at the table, goblet in both hands. It seems wrong to drink alone, especially with that second glass still spitting bubbles at me. I wonder if I'll ever have a honeymoon. I'd like to be a couple. It must be far less frightening to be joined and vowed to someone, one flesh and one heart. I've never been that close to anyone. Even with Jon, I felt awfully sort of separate. All the same, I'm missing him, feeling almost randy. All this crazy luxury sort of turns me on – satin sheets, fur rugs.

I have to smile when I think of Jon on satin. Once he'd moved into his lodgings, he never bothered with sheets and things at all – or pyjamas either, come to that – just a rumpled sleeping-bag rolled out on the mattress. I shut my eyes to see him in it: dark head and sturdy shoulders sticking out the top, one hand flung across his middle, nails bitten to the bone; phone numbers and memos scribbled on the palm in smudgy ink. I watch him getting up: the four hairs on his tummy (he was very proud of those), the black shock lower down, his size eleven feet keep tripping over things. I still miss him quite a lot.

I wish he hadn't left me. I've been worrying ever since that it wasn't just the court case, but the fact I wasn't good enough in bed. That's something you can never really gauge. I mean, you can't compare yourself with friends, when it's such a private thing, and there are no official gradings, like for eggs or civil servants, so that at least you'd know you'd made it. It's not that I don't come – I do – but I'm always worried that other girls come better or more quickly, or take huge cocks down their throats and still don't gag, or have it twice a day. I've only done it eight times in my life – eight and a half if I count the Irish boy – and not at all since Beechgrove. The pills just killed it, even thoughts of it, damped down everything: grief, death, ambition, sex. I've stopped them now. Dr Bates said not to, but I didn't want a Vegas dulled with Valium.

I push my chair back, get up to inspect a statue in a niche – a naked Grecian boy with all his vital bits and pieces sculpted in. He's marble like the floor, hard and chilly marble. I walk up and down that floor, just to hear my footsteps, prove I'm still alive. It echoes and applauds. Wonderful. I stop at the window, push aside the curtain, gasp when I realise how high up we are. Below is the main street – what they call The Strip. Strip is such a small word – strip of paper, strip of lino, strip of sticking-plaster – crazy word for that huge great shining switchback of a street. Lights cascade like fountains, spin like catherine wheels; colours eat each other up, spit out showers of sparks. I can't see any people. I suppose I'm too high up to make them out, but it feels more as if they've all been marched away, locked up in their cells.

It's still completely silent. The cars have muzzled engines, thick padding round their wheels. I check my watch. It's stopped. Not much point rewinding it when I don't know what the time is. There isn't any time. I'm in a sort of limbo where it's dark and night for ever, and nothing's fixed or certain any more. I'm almost missing Beechgrove – the comfort of the timetable which served up time in small and easy portions; day and night always carefully divided into different pills and rituals; clocks ticking reassuringly so you couldn't lose your bearings. It must be worse for Norah. She's had timetables for over fifty years.

“Norah,” I say softly. I need to try my voice out, make sure they haven't gagged me. It seems ages since I spoke last, at least to anyone that answered. “Jon,” I beg. “Come back.” Or Jan. Yes, Jan, I'd like you here.

Jan went home for Christmas, a whole six days ago, got some extra time off. I'd love to have gone with her, if only for a day or two, but her mother doesn't invite me since the court case. My own mother is unwell, which is what she calls it when the Cure has failed (again) and the doctors re-admit her. She didn't even write or send a card. I felt really wretched yesterday. It was quite the loneliest Christmas of my life. The only thing which saved it was thinking of today – the holiday, excitement.

It's hard to feel excited on your own. I trail back to Norah who is breathing very heavily, a hoarse and whistling sigh with every in-breath. Even if I wanted to share the bed with her, there wouldn't be much room, despite its size. She's sprawled right across the heart diagonally, lying on her face like a baby in its cot. I steal two pillows, ease the bedspread off, lug them into the other room, make up my own bed on a white velvet sofa with a white goatskin rug in front of it. I feel like some rejected spouse who's just had a quarrel with her other half. No one's meant to sleep alone in Vegas – brides with bridegrooms, gamblers with their moneybags, even the Mafioso with their molls. I'm beginning to wish I'd never come at all.

I get up to switch the lights off, but instead of blessed dark, there's a blaze of coloured light-effects, my own private light-show echoing the one outside. I blink as blue and silver breakdance on the ceiling, turquoise chasing pink. The damn thing won't turn off. “Fucking hell,” I say, as I creep back to the sofa, hide my eyes. Even so, it's impossible to sleep. The sofa's sort of bony, and my waistband feels too tight. I peel my skirt and tights off, toss them on the floor. Some passing genie will probably pick them up. I haven't unpacked yet and my nightie's at the bottom of the case. Who wants nighties in this heat? I'd rather have a nightcap.

I pour out more champagne, raise my glass to the statue in the niche, the naked Grecian boy. “Cheers!” I say. “Nice to have you here.”

He's staring at my bush, one hip pushed towards me, mouth half-open, pouting. I touch a finger to his prick, shiver suddenly. I feel strange, hot, even though I've taken half my clothes off. I undo the fiddly buttons on my blouse. The boy's watching me, excited. I drape it round his shoulders, unhook my bra. It's a relief to take if off. I go up closer, press my naked tits against his cool white marble chest, feel my heart beating into his. I wish he had a real heart, real flesh arms to cuddle me. He seems to move, in fact, as the coloured lights keep flashing on his limbs, joining our two bodies. My nipples have gone stiff. I'm almost frightened. Can marble turn you on, or is it the champagne?

I take the bottle with me to the sofa-bed, lie back on the pillows, touch my breasts. Jon was always rather rough with them. He hated the word “foreplay”, was so keen to shoot his bolt, he hadn't that much patience for the slow-and-gentle bit. I stroke them sort of gingerly, then grope my hand down lower. I feel dry and out of practice, a genuine virgin-bride. I lick my finger first this time, try a dab of spit, but my mouth seems dry as well. I tip up the champagne, let a trickle run between my legs. It's stinging cold and shocks. I stifle a yell, then touch the rim of the bottle against my … my … I hate the word cunt. It sounds so brazen. But vagina is embarrassing and “front passage” is pure hospital. Jan calls hers her starter-motor, and Jon christened mine Abigail, which I suppose is as good a name as any.

Abigail is moistening, though not from the champagne which has mostly trickled off and soaked the bed spread. I keep jabbing with the bottle neck. It's cold and very hard. I have to stop myself from crying out – I daren't risk waking Norah, shocking her. She hasn't got an Abigail, was probably born without one, and even if she did have, those endless pills would have atrophied it by now. I'm beginning to understand about the pills. They're given for the staff's sake, not the patients'. Things like sex or anger, or even love and happiness are all potentially dangerous, may result in noise or extra work. Best to lop them off, damp them down. I can see their point. I'm scared myself, feeling almost violent down below. A finger isn't long enough, or strong enough, and the bottle is too full. I shut my eyes. I can see all the pictures in the other room – Bacchus squashing grapes between his body and a nymph's; Apollo taking Cyrene from behind. I suppose they're meant to rouse the bridegrooms, give them new ideas, but if you haven't
got
a bridegroom …

I'm hot and restless still, can feel Apollo's nails digging into my shoulder as he slams against my bum; that tiny smirking Cupid biting both my nipples. I put the bottle down, fumble for the cork. It's time I gagged myself, shut up shop, before I go too far. The cork fits perfectly. I try it both ways up. Upside-down is nicer, the metal bit cold and hard and edgy against Abigail. It doesn't shut her up, though, only makes her greedier. I'd better be careful or the cork might disappear. Imagine ringing for a doctor and having to explain you've lost a cork inside you.

The bottle's safer, really, though still too full to manoeuvre very well. I daren't drink a whole magnum, and half of it is Norah's anyway. I drift back to the table, unstack the fruit bowl, pile peaches, lychees, mangoes on a tray (the pineapple's so perfect, it looks sculpted), then tip out the champagne into the bowl. I return to the sofa with the empty bottle.

It's much easier with it empty. I can move more, relax more, let both of us go wild. I pause for breath a moment, stroke its cool glass back. It's beautiful, that bottle, hard and smooth and heavy in my hands. I wish it had a voice, though. I try to make it speak, tell me it loves me and I'm great. I often do that when I'm all alone, imagine people – two or even more – all saying I'm sensational. It's safer really, just pretending. You can't disappoint them then, or risk a baby. I close my eyes. It's Jon's voice I imagine, but it comes out like my father's, deeper and more smoky.

“Sweetheart, you're sensational.”

“I'm
not
, Dad.”

I put the bottle down. The game is getting serious. I'm not sure I want feelings, not at all. My top bit's close to tears, yet my bottom bit's still slavering. I'm also starving hungry. It's hours since we last ate and drinking always makes me ravenous. I go and fetch some fruit, refill my goblet from the bowl. I'll have a little picnic on the goatskin rug. I sit cross-legged among nectarines and mangoes, fur tickling my bare bottom; gulp some more champagne. I'm no longer quite a hundred per cent stone-cold clear-eyed sober. The bubbly's probably stronger over here, vitamin-enriched or fortified with hormones. And those flashing lights don't help, make me feel more pie-eyed than I am. I scoff three peaches, bite into a fourth. They're so huge and juicy, I'm almost full already. I giggle suddenly, uncross my legs, press the bitten piece of peach against Abigail. It feels cool and silky. Smashing. I move it round, so the downy velvet skin is touching her, tease it gently up and down her open mouth. She drools, begs for more. I try a lychee next. They're so small, they go right in, first scratchy and unskinned, then slimy peeled. (I'm glad they brought the fruit knives.)

I even try the pineapple, uncut. That's wild, really rough and prickly, almost hurts, especially the leaf bit on the top. “Leaves!” shrieks Abigail. “More like bloody loofahs.” She prefers the lychees. I peel a second one. It's moist and sort of squelchy like Abigail herself. Why don't they put lychees in the sex books? Or whole fruit salads? The grapes are good as well, especially cut in half. Bacchus should be here. It was his squashy purple ones which gave me the idea. Why not have a party, invite all the gods (not the goddesses) – Bacchus and Apollo, Mercury and Mars? At least we've got the strobe lights and the space. I dip a strawberry in champagne, slurp if down, stagger up to fill my glass again. I remove a rose from the arrangement on the table, stick it in my hair, admire myself in the antique gilded mirror. Yeah, Dad's right. I look sensational – breasts dappled pink and turquoise, silver nipples standing up.