Close Observation Ch. 10

'No, I like older guys' said Emma.

'Which one?' asked Ron.

'I can't remember his name. The one that wore glasses,' said Emma.

'That's Alexander,' said Ron.

'Alexander. That's a nice name. I wonder if he'd like to keep me. Perhaps he can rent me a flat in Chelsea and put some money in my bank account every now and again,' said Emma.

'Maybe. Does that happen?' asked Ron.

'Certainly does. Katie used to live in Kensington in a flat that a guy bought for her!' said Emma.

'Fucking hell,' said Ron.

'Fucking hell indeed,' said Emma. He liked the way she said, 'fucking hell,' with her posh accent. 'Do you think they'll book me again?' she asked.

'I don't know. They seemed impressed,' said Ron.

'Are you staying at mine tonight?' asked Emma.

'If that's alright,' said Ron.

'I think you should,' said Emma, cheekily.

'Aren't you sore?' asked Ron.

'Anal might be a bit much,' said Emma.

'Don't worry about that,' said Ron.

'It'll be fine then,' said Emma. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. He'd been watching the road so hadn't expected it. It felt nice.

***

Katie rang about an hour after they got back. Emma was asleep. Ron went into her living room.

'Alright?' said Ron.

'No,' said Katie.

'What's going on?' asked Ron.

'Layla's fucking Marie now,' said Katie. She sounded drunk. Ron had expected that she would.

'That's still bothering you,' said Ron.

'Yes,' said Katie.

'I think they hooked up after the thing at the club, in Mayfair... Obviously, they were doing stuff during the booking, but... Is this, is it difficult for you hearing this stuff?' asked Ron.

'Yes. Did you drop them off together?' asked Katie.

'No, but Marie suddenly said she wanted to meet up with uni friends in Chelsea, like right after I'd dropped Layla off. It wasn't that subtle,' said Ron. He knew how Katie was feeling.

'I can't stop thinking about her. It's embarrassing to admit this to you,' said Katie.

'We've all been there,' said Ron. He thought of Marie. He thought of her when she was at the clinic. She'd be talking about therapy and mental health stuff, and she had this confidence. She knew exactly what she was doing, she was poised, she was professional and spoke with authority. He would look at the Doctor, and he thought, she's hacking it, she's doing this well. The doctor respected her, Ron could tell that he did, and Ron couldn't even put into words how impressed he was. He thought about her when she was with men, with punters, and the contrast between the two states of affairs. He probably wanted her as much as Katie did. He probably wanted her more.

'I met her, and I thought, I'll tell her I need to show her stuff, about pleasing women, but that was horseshit. If you're bi, you're bi, you don't need tuition. I just wanted to have sex with her. So I did. And within fucking twenty-four hours of first getting her into bed, it started up, it went beyond just sex. Does that make sense?' said Katie.

'It does,' said Ron.

'I can't get her out of my head,' said Katie. Cuddles the cat sat next to Ron on the settee. Ron petted him. He worked his fingers in behind Cuddles' collar, just in front of his throat. Cuddles seemed to like being scratched there.

'There's nothing I can say is there? The only thing that's going to heal this is time, but it's going to hurt for a while. Alcohol and whatever else is going to make it worse.' said Ron.

'Do you want to come over?' asked Katie.

'I can't,' said Ron.

'Why don't you fancy me Ron? Men normally fancy me,' said Katie.

'I'm attracted to you,' said Ron.

'Then come over,' said Katie.

'I can't,' said Ron.

'Why not?' asked Katie.

'I'm at Emma's place,' said Ron.

'Does she still not feel safe?' asked Katie.

'It's not really like that,' said Ron.

There was a pause in the conversation.

'I see. ...How long's that been going on?' asked Katie.

'Since last night,' said Ron.

'Ok. ...I didn't see that coming,' said Katie.

'I didn't,' said Ron.

'Does she know you're talking to me? Can she hear this?' asked Katie.

'She's asleep,' said Ron.

'Ok... Do you think this is going to be serious, do you like each other?' asked Katie.

'I don't know. I honestly don't. We came back last night. She felt like shit because Layla was with Marie, and I felt like shit because... we came back, then it went from there,' said Ron.

'I thought Vicky would have you first,' said Katie.

'Because of her tits,' said Ron.

'Yeah. ...I'm drunk. Can you stay at hers tomorrow night?' asked Katie.

'At Vicky's?' asked Ron.

'Yeah. She's got a four-hour booking and I've had trouble getting a flat that's available. Can you either be there from ten 'till two or stay the night?' asked Katie.

'Yeah that should be alright,' said Ron. He had the Veterans Team the next day. He expected he'd be tired. He wanted to spend tomorrow night with Emma.

'Emma's busy so you won't be missing out,' said Katie, as if she'd read his mind.

'She's busy?' asked Ron.

'She's got an overnight booking with one of the chaps from that stag party,' said Katie.

'Did he give a name?' asked Ron.

'Anthony. Very posh,' said Katie. It was the cavalryman, Le Brodeur.

'I was hoping I could be with her when she was working for a while, after the thing,' said Ron.

'I know. She said she'd be alright though. I think she quite liked the guy. Has he got a big dick?' said Katie.

'I can't remember' said Ron.

'One of the Arab guys emailed me,' said Katie.

'Oh really? How are they doing?' said Ron. He hadn't thought of the chaps. He really liked them; he'd enjoyed working with them.

'They've offered to fly me out. To Saudi. They said they'll give me twenty grand,' said Katie.

'Jesus,' said Ron.

'I might have to do it, Ron. I'm struggling with the coke,' said Katie.

'So do it,' said Ron.

'I told myself I was finished, and I've stuck to that for four years,' said Katie.

'Do what you need to do, I won't tell anyone. If they get in touch again, say hello from me' said Ron.

'I'll try and remember,' said Katie.

***

Fudaki told Ron that Rumiko had spent eight thousand two hundred and twenty-seven pounds the day before. He said that she was insane and that he was planning to have her committed to an asylum when they got back to Japan. Fudaki left at eight-forty-five, so Ron sat with Ishi while she watched children's television. The programmes were on English television but she seemed to enjoy them. It was an hour before Rumiko got up. She greeted Ron warmly. He thought she had a nice smile. It took her forty-five minutes to get ready. Ron wondered what horrors the day would hold.

Things started off nicely. Rumiko showed him a tourist map they had brought. She pointed to Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. Ron was quite happy to take them there; he was happy to do anything rather than shopping.

There weren't too many tourists in St James' Park. Ron bought peanuts, and Ishi loved it when squirrels came up to eat them. There were other people with kids, and Ron handed peanuts out so they could feed the squirrels as well. Even Rumiko seemed to enjoy it. He took them to the other side of the park, to Birdcage Walk. They walked that way up towards Buckingham Palace. Ron could hear shouting from Wellington Barracks further up the road. He felt excited as they walked towards it. Soldiers from his regiment were practicing drill on the square in front of the barracks. They were getting ready for the Queen's Birthday Parade. They drilled in khaki uniforms but wore their bearskins. Ron saw that they had some work to do before they were ready, but he felt proud to see them. He recognised some faces.

Rumiko and Ishi saw Buckingham Palace, then saw the Houses of Parliament and Horse Guards. Ishi seemed to like the cavalry horses at Horse Guards. Ron walked them up to Charing Cross tube station. Rumiko wanted to go shopping on Oxford Street. On the tube, he noticed young man eyeing Rumiko's handbag. Ron looked at the man. He asked him if he spoke English. The man said that he did, in a heavy foreign accent. Ron politely told the man that if the police found him on the floor of the train, having been badly hurt, they wouldn't care. This was the truth. He suggested that the man should keep his hands to his fucking self. The man got off the train at the next stop, but Ron saw him get back on another carriage further up.

Oxford Street felt worse than being shot at. In the afternoon, they went to Covent Garden to do more shopping. It was a hot day and there were people everywhere. Ishi started to get irritable and kept crying. He got them back to the hotel and felt a wave of relief.

***

After he left Rumiko and Ishi, Ron went to the club in Mayfair. He hoped Le Brodeur would be there and he was. Ron was respectful and polite. He told Le Brodeur there'd recently been an incident with Emma, and he told him it had made him realise how vulnerable the girls were. He said he was 99.9% sure that there was no need to have this conversation with him, but that just in case, Le Brodeur needed to be aware that Ron didn't care about doing prison time, and that there were no practical limits to what he would do to someone who hurt Emma. Le Brodeur said he understood.

***

At Vicky and Annabelle's place, they showed him the room he'd be sleeping in. It wasn't as small as he thought it would be. They asked him if he wanted to come and live there. They said that they worried about customers knowing where they lived, that sometimes they found themselves looking over their shoulders when they were walking around the area. They said they'd feel safer if he was there. Ron said he'd have to think about it, but he was pretty sure he could make a profit out of subletting his flat in Elephant. The rent at the girls' place was a lot, but it was a steal compared to boroughs just a few hundred yards up the road. It was a beautiful square; they were basically living in a Belgravia flat but paying Pimlico rent. Ron knew how desperate middle-class professionals were to get even halfway reasonably priced places to live in London. He had an idea of how much someone would pay to live in a decent place as close to the centre as Elephant and Castle. With the Toby money and the Katie money coming in, and a few bob from subletting, Ron's financial situation would be healthy.

The punter was a city type. He worked in finance, stocks or whatever. Ron didn't see him; only heard him from a couple of rooms away. He had four hours with Annabelle and Vicky. They told him afterwards that he'd been taking cocaine and so had had erection problems. It had been frustrating for them, trying to please him, but they said they had fun with each other. They'd both sampled the punter's cocaine and were high and talkative. Ron told them he would move in and they were pleased. He asked them to give him a week or so.

He thought the bed in the room was comfortable.

***

Emma had texted Ron just after nine to tell him that she was safe. Le Brodeur had bought her perfume that she liked. Ron got to the Community Mental Health Team building early. He read his book about a battle between the French army and Vietnamese guerrillas in the 1950s. He liked the book. Toby had given him the day off so he could come to the appointment. He'd be back with Rumiko and Ishi the day after.

Just after the hour, Marie came and got him. She opened a door next to the reception desk and called him through. He felt his pulse quicken. He felt the burning sensation in his cheeks. He hoped he hadn't gone red in the face. Every time he saw her it was like this now. He was scared of saying the wrong thing and embarrassing himself, and even more scared that she'd realise he adored her. She smiled. She was wearing a skirt which went down to just above her knees, with leather boots which ended just below them. She wore a modestly cut, light grey blouse. Ron thought she looked incredible. He could see the shape of her body, and how beautiful her face was. There were a few other people in the waiting room, all male. Ron saw that they noticed her.

They went to the room where Ron had seen Marie and Doctor Smith-Crowden on the previous two occasions. The sign on the door showed that the room was engaged. Marie looked with consternation at the sign for a second.

'That's odd,' she said. She put her head close to the door and listened. 'Ok, let's have a quick wander back to the desk.'

They walked back along the corridor. There was a door to get into the reception area. Ron normally saw two or three staff members in there. Ron waited whilst Marie went in. He heard her say to the staff members that her room was taken. They told her that an assessment had overrun, that they were waiting for an ambulance. They said she could have what they called the MDT room, that there was a 'Do Not Disturb' sign they could put on the door. Marie said she wasn't happy about the situation, that the Veterans Team had block-booked the room, and that she had had the impression that assessments were carried out in Room five and Room seven. The admin lady said that duty had been very heavy and that there were emergency assessments going on. She apologised to Marie.

Ron didn't understand the terms they were using. What struck him was the way Marie was speaking. She was respectful but she was confident and spoke with authority. He always thought her voice was beautiful, it was one of his favourite things about her. When she was laughing, or talking about something that amused her, her voice would often go very high pitched, and it would feel to him like the loveliest sound that could exist. He'd be able to hear it in his head for days afterwards. Even now, he could remember snatches of her voice. It could make the hairs on the back of his next stand up. Listening to her here and now, listening to her talking in such an authoritative way, it wasn't so much that her voice sounded beautiful, instead, it sounded exceptionally, deeply impressive to him. This was a self-possessed young woman, someone people listened to. It was also someone who had sex with men, and women, for money, until she was senseless, until she was gasping for breath and screaming. Ron couldn't imagine wanting anyone more than he wanted her.

They walked to the MDT room. It was a large room with chairs all around the outside. There was a table in one corner. Marie pulled chairs up and she and Ron sat down. Dr Smith Crowden came in a couple of minutes later. He apologised about the room. Ron still thought he looked like a Royal Marine.

***

Ron told Marie and Dr Smith-Crowden about his particular friend, Guardsman Furlong. Furlong had been in his platoon. They'd been playing the board game Trivial Pursuit once, at Christmas time. Ron wasn't sure why a bunch of squaddies had thought that playing Trivial Pursuit would be a good idea. He remembered the game being played to a poor standard. Guardsman Furlong had been asked which country a famous boxer from the 1970s hailed from, the answer being Panama. Furlong miraculously knew the answer. He pronounced Panama with emphasis on the second syllable, as if it rhymed with banana. Afterwards, people called Furlong 'Trigger,' after a character in a popular situation comedy who wasn't particularly bright. Furlong had been good with his hands, though. Every now and again he would get fed up of being called Trigger and would punch someone in the face a few times as hard as he could. The point of the story was that Guardsman Furlong was the only one in the company who was trained to use a metal detector. In Afghanistan, when they left the Forward Operating Base to go on patrol, he would go first with the detector, trying to locate IEDs before someone could step on them. Ron could remember how scared he'd been, knowing their lives were in the hands of someone who pronounced Panama to rhyme with banana.

He told them he remembered what it felt like when the other side started relying on mines. He'd kept getting the same feeling; it would start as soon as he woke up on days when they were patrolling. He wondered if he might be killed or maimed, or if one of the people he was responsible for might be killed or maimed. He tried to describe what it felt like; he said it was almost like if you accidently put your hand into very hot water, and you felt that reflexive trigger where you involuntarily jerked your hand out again. The fear had been like that, around his torso and around his ribcage. It had felt like his body was experiencing something it shouldn't experience, something it should be forcibly, immediately removed from. Marie took notes as he spoke. She looked up at him when he was trying to describe it. Marie had a wide jaw; you could see it more when her hair was up like it was today. She had dark skin and she was tanned as well. The colour of her lips and her mouth matched with her skin. He looked at her eyes. He thought she was more beautiful than anyone who'd ever lived or breathed.

He spoke more about Afghanistan. He told them about when an Afghan had taken a pot shot at them. It had probably been one man with an old Russian rifle. No one was hit but the pent-up frustration of the fear of the IEDs had got people to the point where they were psychologically on the edge. The lads had let go with every single thing they had. Someone had fired a Javelin anti-tank missile in the sniper's general direction. It had been impressed on them that the missiles were expensive for the taxpayer. He remembered the bloke who'd shot the Javelin: he'd fired it on his own initiative, despite the fact that initiative was frowned upon. They'd pissed themselves when the missile went off; you could hear the laughter over the noise of the gunfire. The Javelin took out a clump of trees. Toby had said in his report that the Guardsman had denied the enemy a tactically advantageous geographical feature.

***

Katie rang him just after he left the Mental Health Team building, as he was walking through the car park. She asked if he could take Marie and Emma to a job that evening. It was a group booking, six customers. He said he could do it but six people seemed a lot. She told him she was still thinking about Marie.

In the afternoon he went running then did some weights. He kept reading his book. The French army lost the battle he was reading about. He was getting to the point in the book where the Vietnamese guerrillas were closing in on the French troops' positions. He felt sorry for them. He left to pick the girls up at six-thirty, just after he'd eaten.

***

The customers lived in a three-story terrace in Hammersmith. The bottom floor was white stucco on the outside, the rest of the building was traditional London brick; mainly light brown but spotted with other colours. In Elephant and Castle, where Ron was born and raised, you could look at how many buildings still had the traditional London bricks and it told you the extent of the damage the Luftwaffe had done when they were trying to bomb the docks.

One of the students said they would move their car just before the time so Ron could park. There was indeed a spot waiting for him, which he was grateful for. They'd asked for lingerie, so Marie and Emma had been able to dress before he picked them up. Ron didn't think they'd attract any attention going in.

Katie had said the customers were art students. Ron didn't really know what to expect. She'd said there'd be six of them, and that the one she'd spoken to on the phone had sounded posh and a bit wet. Ron went up the path to the door first. There was no gate to open, there was a little wall, dividing the tiny front garden from the street, which parted in the middle. The 'garden' was concrete, but there were pots with flowers in that Ron thought looked well maintained and elegant. He advised Emma and Marie to mind the steps as they went up the path because they wore heels. Emma was wearing purple shoes with bits of silver metal, like jewellery, in a pattern set into the sides. She'd told him they were made by a particular designer that Ron hadn't heard of. When he'd picked her up, he'd said that he liked her purple shoes. She'd told him that they weren't purple, they were deep violet. She'd smiled as she said it.