Sylvia
(By Norman Plum)
Many years ago, not more than four but certainly less than seven, a series of poorly managed business affairs had convinced me to bury my light in the northern English town of Crewe for a short spell. This may seem a peculiarly random and unlikely choice for a man of my Ulster climes but the nature of the conclusion of aforesaid business engagements and the characters of the second and third parties involved made random and unlikely particularly appealing. The exact nature of the entanglements I cannot divulge here for reasons of legality and simple good taste, enough to say that my intentions were divergent from my desires on that occasion and my grammatical grandeur may have led to a misunderstanding of mutuality twixt myself and the baser elements of the Belfast black market economy. Be not concerned with this past however as it has no bearing on my tale of the heart, save only for impetus of direction.
I had taken up residence in a bijou studio bed-sit sited within a two up two down Georgian terrace sundered into eight self contained domiciles, perfectly suited to my needs of anonymity and adequately provided for monetarily by means of night shift employ within a twenty four hour petrol station. The hours were an excellent fit for a man of my vicarious lifestyle choices, having always been considered quite the night owl eleven pm to six am fitted my waking hours succintly, and the nocturnal nature of the shifts prevented me from making my habitual splash amidst the small hours nightlife of Crewe and encouraging news of my presence to spread.
I could not however bring myself to lead a completely monastic life and became quite the regular at a local gentleman’s venue in the company of the third finest troupe of ladies of negotiable clothing the town had to offer, the cocktail bar providing refreshment to my sober mind and the girls up on stage proffering enough happy memories for pleasant preponderance whenever a five minute let up in my late night labours would allow. As a place to spend in limbo Crewe was certainly bearable.
As my countenance became familiar at ‘Madame Creamy’s’ I came to be on first name terms with the lavatory attendant, a veritable prince among men called Kwame. It was through Kwame that I sourced information concerning the pecuniary methods by which the temporary affections of Sylvia could be acquired. Sylvia was a dancer on Monday nights, Tuesday afternoon’s, and a glass washer on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. On the busy Friday and Saturday nights she wasn’t allowed on the premises due to an unfeeling aesthetic prejudice towards her glass eye and eczema. Strippers can be a cruel breed. Suitably knowledged I approached the lass and enquired to ascertain her interest in a dalliance.
With her good eye she looked me up and down while her glassy peeper held my smouldering amorous gaze with impassive haught. She bit gently on her lower lip and her working eye fired alight as it came to rest upon my crotch. I was much relieved that I had had within myself the presence of forethought to position mine own wallet so as to exaggerate the stature of my solitary corduroy bulge. Possibly aroused (Her glass eye betrayed nothing and the eczema at the corners of her mouth denied the portraiture of sensuality in a smile) she acquiesced in sexily aloof fashion fan-fared by a low snarled grunt of husky native northwestern angleterre tones.
There were caveats however, as any prudent young lady should impose upon a new suitor. The time and place of the rendezvous would be of her choosing, being a lady of a dense and hectic social schedule a time had to be found when I could fit into her needs so she could take care of mine. She decided that she would meet with me at six thirty on the morning of the Thursday of that week at the petrol station when my shift was finished, being as how she finished ajaxing the poles at ‘Creamy’s’ around six this time most opportunely slotted into her schedule. Thence a taxi to chez moi and forty five minutes of hot passion, no more because she had to meet a postman at quarter past eight and had a doctors appointment at half nine.
I endeavoured to haggle the time reasoning that any mail she needed to collect could wait on the doormat, or in case of a bulky package or a recorded delivery could be collected at the mail depot at a more convenient time. At any rate an hour and fifteen minutes seemed a rather excessive amount of time for any lady of letters to expend upon the simple collection of correspondence. She was a brass tacks kind of girl however and promptly reminded me exactly who the professional was and exactly where my business and my nose lay, indeed she grew quite agitated and it took all my wiles and charm to convince her that I was not in the pay of the local constabulary; or as she assumed to ascertain from the manner of my speech… a poof… or as she put it ‘a fuckin’ scuffer or a bumboy are ya?’
My heterosexuality and depravity assured the only remaining issues to be discussed were that of cost and payment, forty pounds sterling for the work to be done and the expense of the taxi fares were to be borne by myself, we agreed that an amount to the tune of fifteen pounds should suffice, but more interestingly my little rented minx suggested a rather alluring sweetener. For the price of twenty-five pounds half a gram of nefarious white powder could be procured to aid the fumbling proceedings. At this my heart leapt and I immediately gained a stronger sense of kinship with this woman, her face locked expressionless by eczema clearly concealed many mysteries. I must take this chance to explain that a man of my keen and active intellect can find the sedateness of sobriety a trifle cloying, and while narcotic stimulation may be regarded as unhealthy voluntary lunacy in some of the more unenlightened and repressed quarters of society I must confess that I find the emotional lubrication of such intoxicants quite exhilarating. Indeed I do not feel I should be able to call myself even half the man I am today without the learned awareness of my more bestial nature. To look upon my countenance you would surely agree, though unfortunately I must deny you knowledge of my current localities, again for reasons of taste, decency, and investigation pending, but please take my word for my character as golden. However, I digress.
The tryst was set and the concord secured with currency of eighty pounds up front. I proffered my hand across the steaming glass washer and having agreed to all caveats and sub clauses with deposit of monies (showing a standard of trust any young gallant should show a young lady, although ‘young’ is a generous term as Sylvia was most likely between thirty and forty-five, her skin condition made ascertaining her age rather difficult.) we agreed to meet. She spasmed the left side of her face in a process that looked not without discomfort, it may have been a mild stroke but I like to think she was coyly endeavouring to wink her glass eye.
The time the two days took to elapse felt like an eternity to my yearning groin and the wee small night hours drudged past turgidly as I toiled in the petrol station, my mind a mile away from charcoal briquettes and microwaveable burgers. Finally, at long last my labours were relieved at six a.m and I only had to wait in the icy Crewe morn for my Sylvia and the fulfilment of my desires. At ten to seven she duly arrived, resplendent in tight lycra and caked, smeared, lipstick. With haste we adjourned to my lodgings, and I emphasise the haste as her tardiness was to be deducted from my time with her. She really did have to see that postman.
Now to aid your understanding of events to come I should furnish upon you a description of my bijou studio bed-sit as it’s condition was crucial to what was to unfold. Being quite the man about town I was rarely in residence, and when I was it would be chiefly in an unconscious and supine state. The meagre furnishings were a single bed, a kettle, a toasted sandwich maker, and a chair for said appliances to sit on, essentially serving as a kitchen. Due to this culinary arrangement and my financial inability to employ a maid the carpet beneath was a veritable smorgasbord of breadcrumbs, sugar, melted cheese, and instant coffee granules. Unbeknownst to myself this hygienic neglect had attracted verminous mice that had taken up a squatters residence in my abode, they came for the cheese but stayed for the coffee. The presence of these unwanted neighbours had never come to my attention vis a vis my regularity of unconsciousness, inebriation and slight use of my dwelling space.
Sylvia was quickly alert to the timorous wee beasties existence however. On opening the door her nose wrinkled emphatically, ‘Urrgh, mings of fuckin’ shite in ‘ere.’ She promptly informed me. This was news to me as I can only suspect my thirty a day Dunhill habit had rendered my olfactory senses immune to the aroma of excrement. I can only assume that the loss of half her sight and rash impaired sense of touch had enhanced her sense of smell to compensate. I assured her that the shit was not my own, being of exemplary toilet habits were solids were concerned, and that I was totally at a loss as to how such a filth could have transpired within my residence. This cut no ice with Sylvia who recognising the rodential infestation insisted a refusal to divest her clothing in ‘this pit’ lest she contract some disease. I pointed out to the lady that with her already rampant collection of skin complaints it was highly unlikely that she could catch a worser affliction at which point she kicked me in the bollocks and smacked me in the face. The punch to the head was excruciating since her fist was heavily weighted with many sovereign rings, I must also mention that this was a well rehearsed right hook and it tore a bloody gash across my right eyebrow. To this day I still sort a scar in that place in the shape of the badge of Crewe Alexandria football club branded from a gold plated band she wore in partisanship. While incapacitated she purloined my kettle and sandwich maker then absconded, presumably to meet that postman.
Believe it or not dear reader I was feeling very disappointed at this turn of events, quite low indeed. The kick in the happy sacks had put paid to any idea of lovemaking, even to myself, and I rued my misplaced trust in a Monday night stripper without first getting references. Achingly and slowly I hauled myself to sitting position on my now vacant chair and took stock of my situation. I fortuitously had roughly half a bottle of Serbian cognac left over from a previous nights revel and after locating it in my laundry pile cum wardrobe fond it still roughly half full. I raised the comforting elixir to my lips and began my ruminations. The cocaine I had prudently acquired from Sylvie on our meeting, being rather eager to feel the security of possession of said substance and wasted no time in ingesting the lot. It was a nowhere near the weight of half a gram and I can only assume a generous helping had been the fuel to fire my concubines fists. The blood in my eyes was proof enough of its potency.
Almost instantly liquor and chemicals flared rage at my mistreatment. Once again my attempts at happiness had been foiled by someone else’s crap. It was like that botched horse theft in Dungannon all over again, all my careful scheming ruined by idiot accomplices and the telltale smell of shit once more, whatever possessed that mushroom addled wanker Cairan to muck that stallion out into domestic bins for the council rubbish collectors to find I’ll never know. I only planned to keep it in his mum’s house for a day, who could have thought a horse could shit that much in twenty four hours, it wasn’t even as if we’d been feeding the thing. However I digress once more and let slip more than I should. The booze and drugs offered not the solace I had hoped for, having planned of course to share the feast. Debauchery for one is a flavourless meal.
What had done this to me? Why had I been brought to this nadir? Whose fault was it? Not my own doing surely? I sought answers in another caustic slug of rum and the coke numbed my tongue so my brain had silence to analyse. Of course I was not to blame, the architecture of the scheme had been flawless arranged and secured by the profits of my unusually honest toil. Could Sylvia be possibly the one in the wrong? Certainly she could not escape the taint of culpability, the manifestation of her displeasure in violent form was most unladylike, but then was not the reason of her vexation not entirely ladylike and proper? How could I blame a creature for so correctly comporting herself in the daintiness of her sex and refusing to roll in excrement with me? Although a refund would have been nice, at least thirty pounds would have done as saw no problem with her keeping ten for her trouble. Clearly it was the shit that was to blame and therefore the mice by direct association. Everything had gone entirely to plan until her discovery of the vermin’s droppings. Yes, that was the culprit, the mice, the very same fucking mice that even now I daresay hid in my bijou studio bed-sit mocking my despair though they had grown fat on the crumbs of my existence and the generosity of my presence.
‘The fuckers!’ I cried and rose swiftly from my kitchen throne in righteous anger. I kicked apart my laundry pile which I assumed to be the most comfortable space for them to dwell, but there they were not, the drawers I wrenched from the sideboard and flung upon the floor screaming all the curses of heaven and hell to fall upon their evil, furry, little heads. I bellowed assurances of their slow destruction and that their very hearts and brains I would take from them and lay at my ladies feet for the insult they made to her. The covers I tore from the duvet and pillows and let them fall, the bed I upended and dived to the ground where it had stood, there I made search along the walls for sign of entry or possibly a telltale trail of cheese, crumbs, and coffee, but aside from shit there was nothing to find. Temporarily beaten back I made myself as comfortable as possible on the pile of shattered debris that made up the whole record of my existence in Crewe. Torn newspapers unrecycled documented the dates and events of the world elsewhere, a chronology that mocked the meagreness of my experience. Looking around me I saw no mice to conquer, my enemy had vanquished me before I even knew the fight was on, my rage had achieved nought but my own destruction.
Another slug of rum from the bottle I had prudently stored in the corner so as to protect it from my rampage restored a modicum of clarity (also I assume the initial rush from the cocaine was wearing off true to the drugs famously ephemeral quality). Looking at my bed I could see that I had snapped the frame, also certain legal ramifications of obligations of short term rented tenancy were beginning to dawn on me. The time to leave Crewe had clearly arrived; I had gained nothing from my stay save shredded maelstrom of worthless possessions and a pile of mouse shit. In fact I mused that I had also lost two hundred and fifty pounds as I saw no hope of ever reclaiming my deposit back from Mr Sharma the landlord. The foreign voiced thundering from next door also promised the imminent arrival of the local constabulary, which while I won’t enter into details was not advisable for a man of my well documented history.
Taking all that was worth saving, the rum and the fags and the coke in my nose, I absconded with haste still attired in the uniform of a Maxoil petrol station employee. A badge of allegiance now woefully inappropriate as I would never again re-enter their premises, possibly maybe for scotch eggs and pornography but certainly not for work as I could be certain the boys in blue would certainly attempt to locate me there and this I could not allow. I proceeded to the bus station and embarked on an unusually random direction once more changing my attire and name on my way, as was my custom. Norman Plum is a nom de plume after all.
I never saw or heard of Sylvia again but I’d like to think she remembers me fondly every time she has a toast sandwich.
