Birdman

45

The woman behind the bar always nodded, said hello to him. She was a dried-up old object, her face wasn't worth putting make-up on, but she always speckled it with carnival colours. Sometimes he forced himself to respond but one day last week he'd been here early and spotted her talking to DI Caffery. Bliss, standing at the bar, warm and agitated, decided that for her lapse of judgement the barmaid deserved to be ignored today. He took his drink into the lounge.

Joni would be here soon, and in spite of his excitement he was determined to remain dignified. With all the time he had spent here, tense and aching because Joni was rubbing her raw artificial teats in someone else's face, he had come to understand and master the behaviour required of a pub drinker. So Harteveld's request for information about the women was an easy one. Bliss never made a move, just bought drinks and listened. So innocuous he was, the girls looked straight through him as if he were a ghost, and prattled out all their precious secrets, until he knew everything from how bad PMT was to how soon they'd be missed.

They'd have laughed if he'd made a pass at them, or tried to squeeze their little thighs. So he kept still, waiting for the day when the girls would come to him, far sweeter in death than they had ever been in life.

Light streamed into the pub from an opened door. Joni. Aroused, Bliss raised slightly off his hindquarters, tasting the back of his teeth with his tongue. Then he saw, a footstep behind, the friend. He subsided, anger rising. He didn't like Joni's friend. She was a high-minded bitch, loftily referring to herself as 'an artist', swanning around painting the girls in the pubs as if she could elevate them through art. And the punters too, he himself had been painted by her several times. But he remembered back to when she'd been one of the girls. Then her name was 'Pinky'. 'Probably because of the way your clitoris pokes out from your hairy patch,' he had whispered to himself. Pinky the Clitoris. He picked at a piece of dried skin on his nose and watched her thoughtfully. She headed straight to the bar, nose in the air, not bothering to acknowledge him.

Joni approached — bored-looking. He smiled, folded his hands sweetly in his lap. 'Hello, Joni.'

She sighed resignedly. 'Hello, Malcolm. Thought you'd be here. Nothing changes, does it?' She dropped her belongings on the floor and slumped down on the padded bench a couple of feet from him, her bottom pushed to the edge of the seat, feet stuck straight out in front of her. She was wearing knee-high leather boots and a suede skirt which stopped mid-thigh. Her blond hair, pinned with two sweetheart clips above her brow, was cut in the way that all the girls on the streets seemed to be wearing it. Bliss didn't like it. It irritated him that Joni had a mania for fixing what wasn't broken, such an impulse for change.

He forced himself to smile. 'A drink, Joni?'

'S'pose.' She looked at her fingernails, her bottom lip sticking out. Joni had a fine way of behaving like a child. She hadn't grown out of it in all the years he'd known her. It wasn't cute any more — he should tell her that. Tell her it wasn't cute — tell her it pissed him off more than he could contain. 'Wine, I s'pose.'

At the bar the artist waited to be served with her head held back, like a horse on a tight rein. Too good for this place. He approached, smiling politely, thinking of her clitoris. 'Good afternoon.'

She gave him a funny look, 'Good afternoon,' and, picking up the two glasses, turned away. Bliss smiled to himself. Bitch. He took the drink from the creature behind the bar and carefully wiped the sides of Joni's glass where it had been touched.

Joni didn't acknowledge him when he put her drink down, but he didn't mind. He'd become used to this.

'Are you both well, girls?' he asked politely. In his excitement his mouth had filled with saliva and he had to talk carefully to stop it spilling out. 'The world treating you well, is it?'

'No, it is not.' Joni pressed her lips into a pout. 'Some woman got pulled off the street just round the corner from us.'

'Oh dear.' Bliss sipped his lager. 'Do they know who it was?'

'No.' Giving him a dirty look, she jerked to her feet, impatiently threw her belongings over her shoulder, downed both drinks and headed up the stairs with a toss of her blond head.

Bliss and the Clitoris sat in silence. She sipped her beer quietly, a red flush creeping up her face. He let the silence settle around them before he spoke.

'Well, I must say I've never seen Joni quite so upset.'

The Clitoris nodded. 'She's worried.' She spoke to her drink, not to him, the way most people did. 'Says she's thinking of getting out of Greenwich. She wants to leave.'

Bliss felt the skin on every inch of his body prickle. He let the tightness in his stomach and cock slacken before he spoke. 'Does she now?' he said, letting his gaze wander up the stairs. 'I wonder where she'll go.'