Rudy is on his way to Parliament Hill. Even though it’s a mile and a half away, he’s going to walk. Rudy walks everywhere. He doesn’t believe in cars, he hates London Transport and the thought of negotiating a spindly little push-bike through the ruthless streets of London makes him break out in a sweat. He’ll get in a cab if someone else orders it and he’ll accept a lift if someone offers it, but otherwise, Rudy walks.
Rudy is what you might call non-conformist. Rudy hasn’t got a job. He busks on the Underground, he signs on, the state pays his rent. He hasn’t got a girlfriend. He sleeps with a girl called Maria nearly every other night, but he won’t call her his girlfriend. He doesn’t watch the telly, he doesn’t read the papers, he doesn’t read books, he refuses to buy CDs. He’s a vegetarian and he lives over a kebab shop. He breaks the rules. Even the shape of his body, the size of his feet, the length of his fingers are non-conformist.
He’s tall, very tall, about six-foot-three, with thick, unruly hair that he keeps tucked behind his ears. It’s thinning a bit on top, but unless he’s sitting down or with someone taller than him (unlikely), that remains his secret. He has his father’s Italian features – thick eyebrows, an expressive mouth and very, very long eyelashes. That’s the first thing that most women ever say to him: ‘God, your eyelashes are so long.’
Very embarrassing.
He keeps himself in fairly good condition, washes his hair every morning, shaves every day, buys himself clothes occasionally, nice clothes, tactile clothes, chunky hand-knitted jumpers, moleskin trousers, huge desert boots for his size elevens, a big cashmere overcoat. It’s all second-hand of course, he couldn’t afford to buy nice stuff like that new. But when you know which shops to go to, when you know exactly what you’re looking for, it’s amazing what you can pick up for next to nothing.
Rudy’s thirty-three years old and he’s never had to work in an office, answer a phone or write a memo. He’s never experienced that moment of ultimate flatness when you open your payslip and find that your boss hasn’t given you a surprise pay rise, that your tax code hasn’t changed overnight and that the accounts department hasn’t cocked up and given you too much money by mistake. He’s never had to wake up before ten o’clock or stay late or go to an office party. He only wears ties for weddings and funerals and he gets his hair cut whenever he feels like it. He can take his dog to work and have his lunch whenever he wants and for as long he likes. He doesn’t have to be nice to anyone he doesn’t like (except the police when they come to move him along every now and then) and he doesn’t have to go on training courses or learn a company mission statement. He doesn’t have to pretend to be ill if he wants to stay at home and watch television and he doesn’t panic if someone in his department gets a better car than him. And best of all, better than anything else, he doesn’t have to pay those thieving bastards at the IR a single penny of his hard-earned cash. In fact, the only thing he has in common with someone who works in an office is that if he wants to smoke a fag he has to go outside.
He lights a cigarette now, a slim white Craven ‘A’. He lights it with a lighter shaped like a pistol, which Maria gave him for his birthday, and smokes it as he walks.
The sun-baked August streets of Kentish Town are thronging with fantastic women in fantastic clothes: midriff tops, halternecks, hotpants and skimpy sundresses. They are patchworks of honey, gold and strawberry pink skin. Some are rake-thin, some are muscular, some are flabby and some are curvy. They are all absolutely beautiful. He could fall in love with every one of them.
Rudy can feel his libido rising as he walks.
In the park, Rudy picks up a reasonable looking stick – about a foot long with a good wide berth and no sharp bits – and tosses it skywards. It spirals across the horizon a few times before coming to a halt underneath a bouffant horse chestnut. Mojo is there almost before it’s landed, skidding to a halt and having to retrace his steps a little. He locks his powerful jaws round the stick and brings it back to Rudy.
‘Good boy … good boy.’ Rudy buries his fingers into the warm ruff of thick hair under Mojo’s chin and gives him a good tickle. He picks up the stick from where the dog left it at his feet and throws it again. He watches the huge animal gallop off into the distance for a while and then turns his gaze to the bench at the foot of the hill. Is she there? He tucks his hands into his pockets and starts the steep walk back down towards the bench. There is someone sitting there, hard to tell even if it’s a man or a woman from this distance. His pace quickens. Mojo appears at his side and joins him as he walks purposefully downhill, his rubber-soled suede boots squeaking against the greasy tarmac path underfoot.
A shape emerges from the undefined blob sitting on the bench. It has bare shoulders and brown hair. Could be. Could be her. The hair is long – yes, it is definitely her – and is held back with a black plastic claw-type-thing – reminds Rudy of an eagle’s foot. He loves that thing.
She turns briefly to watch a hyperactive Highland terrier tear past in pursuit of a pigeon. Her nose, in profile, is perfectly straight, like it’s been hand-finished with a plane. Her mouth is turned up ever so slightly into a small smile and she’s wearing that dress again. That dress that Rudy loves so much. It’s a sort of crushed velvet and tie-dyed about ten different shades of claret and bottle green. It has very thin shoulder straps and, as witnessed on the one occasion that Rudy has seen her walking, a skirt of the perfect weight and shape to be easily inflated by the slightest gust of wind, revealing an extra inch or two of her lovely legs. There’s no wind today, though. It’s bright and still and excitingly warm, no clouds in the sky at all, save for a few smudges to the east that look like they’ve been left there by grubby-fingered children. Parliament Hill is as busy as you’d expect it to be on the warmest day of the year – there are people everywhere, stretched out on the grass, semi-clothed and sunbathing.
Rudy approaches the bench and considers his next move. Where to sit? Right here at the furthest edge of the bench, away from her? Towards the middle, closer to her, but still leaving her ‘personal space’ unencroached upon? Or should he just take his chances and plonk himself down there at her side? His breathing becomes hard and heavy as he tries to scrape together the nerve to sit down. In and out. In and out. In and out. Just do it, just do it, just … bloody … well … do … it. His breath by now is audible and the girl turns to meet his eye. She looks uncomfortable. Fuck. He lets his breath go, takes the other end of the bench and pulls a battered old paperback from the inside pocket of his jacket. Doesn’t know what it is. Some old shit that Maria lent him a couple of years ago. ‘Oh, you’ll love it. It’s so funny and so observant about men and life and relationships. You must read it.’ So he’d just smiled and said thanks and tucked it into the bowels of his overcoat thinking, ‘How many years do I have to know you, Maria, before you’ll understand that I don’t like reading, I don’t like books, I don’t like words, I don’t like other people’s thoughts in my head – how many books are you going to lend me before you realize that I’m just not interested?’ But then he’d noticed that it was written by the same guy who wrote the book that the girl in the Velvet Dress was reading. So last week he’d pulled the book out of his pocket and he’d started reading it. And it was quite funny, he supposed. About a man who runs a record shop in North London who’s useless in relationships. It might have reminded him of himself if he had a job or if he ever actually had any relationships.
Rudy opens the book and then inexplicably clears his throat rather loudly, as if trying to attract someone’s attention. The girl cocks her head a little in his direction and Rudy decides to turn the throat-clear into a full-on coughing fit. The girl turns away and immerses herself visibly deeper into the book on her lap. So, no sympathy, thinks Rudy. Hmmm … interesting. Very interesting. Not even a flicker of concern. She’s either a heartless bitch or she’s just very shy. Rudy decides to go with the ‘very shy’ option. It fits in better with his overall fantasy of her. If she turned out to be a heartless bitch, then he’d just have been wasting his time every Saturday morning for the past six weeks.
That was