continued... 3
He was clenching his fists as he walked; he was blinking and wearing an incredulous smile. It was like coming home to discover your flat ransacked, your possessions lifted, and then finding the burglar casually inspecting the spines of the books on your shelves. It was that blatant. The waste, the missed opportunities...
"Good evening," someone said.
He had been walking away from the University, down a tree-lined road glowing with amber streetlights, with the dormant museum over on his right. Cars passed slowly, with predatory intent. A woman had fallen into step with him; she had a narcoleptic smell of soft perfumes about her. Even the way she said "Good evening" made his scalp tingle and his eyelids heavy.
"Hello," he said.
A car slowed down beside them, but then gunned its engine and sped off down the street.
"Cold to be out for a walk," the woman said. She was about his mother's age. Her hair was a deep maroon and glinted like rust in the streetlights. "I could warm you up if you like?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Business," the woman said. "Fifty pounds?"
"You're a prostitute?" Paul said, grasping finally what was happening. "Oh, I see! Yes, fine. That sounds good."
Would it still count? He didn't see why not. Paul would have come straight here if prostitution had occurred to him.
He offered the use of his flat, but the woman said she never went back with men. "Clients", she called them.
"Not that I'm casting aspersions on you," she explained. "You seem like a nice young guy. But if I make a rule, I stick to it."
"That seems reasonable."
She led him into Kelvingrove Park, and by a circuitous route into a capacious tangle of bushes. There was a kind of clearing in the middle of them, and the ground was dry.
"We can lie on my coat," she said. Paul gave her the fifty pounds - he had taken out over a hundred that morning and still had a considerable sum left. The woman folded the notes into her handbag, and in the dim interior of the bushes Paul could see her aiming an encouraging smile in his direction.
He took off his jacket and his shirt, carefully laying the shirt on the ground and hoping that it wouldn't get too dirty. He had just taken out his cock when a beam of blue light played like a strobe across the leaves. Paul could hear branches snapping and leaves being crunched underfoot, and as he ducked down he saw, through a gap in the bushes, the checked black and white band around a policeman's hat.
Paul looked around to see the prostitute's rump disappearing through a hole in the clearing as she escaped on her hands and knees. With fumbling fingers Paul fastened his shirt and slipped his jacket back on. He crouched down, folding himself into the darkness, and the blue beam passed over him to paint the shadows. The policeman had moved on, away, and Paul could hear him laughing with another one. Was this a routine check, or had they seen him leave with the woman?
It was exhilerating. His fingers had missed half the buttons on his shirt, and when he went to fasten them he saw that his hands were shaking. He was grinning. He crawled out of the bushes, half of him still expecting the prostitute to be waiting for him, but she wasn't around. Possibly she had made a run for it, or the cops had caught her. Either way, goodbye fifty pounds. He almost didn't mind.
Paul walked on as nonchalently as he could. He crossed into the tree-lined avenue where the cars still growled and prowled, and then he headed back along to Partick and the corner of Byres Road. His shirt, so vibrantly blue, felt like a statement of intent or a deliberate provocation. He wasn't trying to hide anything.
Byres Road, in the space of less than an hour, had woken up. There were groups of students walking from one pub to another, and on Ashton Lane, despite the cold, people stood out on the cobblestones and under the narrow cinema marquee with glasses of wine and pints of lager, their breath a frosty cumulous above their heads. The interiors of the bars and restaurants smouldered with a golden light as he walked past them. He still had a fair bit of money in his pocket.
Paul took himself up an exterior flight of concrete stairs to a cavernous bar above the cinema, where, on plump tan leather sofas, people were sitting with friends and drinking and talking and laughing. A canvas screen stood at one end of the room, and projected onto it was one of the satellite music channels. It was playing "Sound and Vision" by David Bowie, a live performance Paul hadn't seen before.
Blue, blue, electric blue, David sang. That's the colour of my room/Where I will live. It was a mournful yet strangely optimistic song.
Paul bought something refreshing, a vodka and tonic, and stood at the bar. Above him, the bare rafters, painted black and looking to Paul like the exposed workings of a film studio. He sipped his drink and felt immeasurably calm, despite the loud music, despite the people.
A girl stood next to him, holding her purse and trying to get the barman's attention. She was a student, probably. She had blonde hair that fell in waves to her shoulders and was wearing a crimson halter-neck top, subtly jewelled with sequins that winked and sparkled as she moved, catching the dim light from the rafters overhead. When she looked around at Paul, he didn't look away. He smiled. She reached over and plucked a leaf from his hair.
"What have you been up to in the bushes?" she laughed.
Paul grinned. He was on the verge of asking to buy her a drink when she said:
"I like your shirt."