Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
For my mother and father. Please don’t read this.
Images which idealise are no less aggressive than work which makes a virtue of plainness. There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera.
– Susan Sontag, On Photography
DEAN/DANIEL
I’m sick in my mouth on the bus into work. I swallow it down; the sandwich I ate at the bus stop is still identifiable by texture and flavour.
When the bus pulls over, I wobble on my heels. I imagine going over on my ankle, the bone snapping and breaking the skin. I imagine taking a photo in A&E and sending it to Ryan; yikes, guess I can’t come in! But I can’t make myself fall over. It’s like trying to keep your head under shallow water; you just can’t.
‘You alright there, petal?’ asks the bus driver.
‘Just about,’ I say.
I get to the bar half an hour late. We were supposed to open at twelve. Ryan won’t be here till one, at least. I press my forehead against the cool glass of the door, repeatedly miss the lock with the key, and leave behind a smear of pale foundation.
I do the bare minimum to open, and carefully sip water till Ryan gets in. He whines at me for getting makeup on the door （again） and for failing to take the chairs down from the tables on the mezzanine. He calls it the mez. My head throbs. He asks me what time I got in （four a.m. – I say two） and if I’m hungover （‘no’）， then leaves me alone at the bar while he fannies on in the office.
I chop fruit in peace for an hour; I kill six lemons and flay a pineapple. I leave the limes, the taste of my last shot of tequila is still sour on the back of my tongue.
I hear them before I see them. Men in suits, marching down the street, twelve of them. They burst in, shouting, red-faced, thoroughly impressed with themselves, and I’m stuck mixing Old Fashioneds for half an hour.
They complain I’m taking too long. I offer them a Manhattan as a quicker alternative, and the leader of the pack scoffs. His designer tie is loose, and he flicks open the top button of a monogrammed shirt; an enormous watch cuffs his thick wrist. Great pains have been taken to appear visibly wealthy. Probably ‘Aal fur coat and nee knickers’， as my mam would say.
‘A bit girly for us, darling.’
‘It’s basically the same as an Old Fashioned, it’s just a bit quicker to make,’ I say, each hand twirling a bar spoon through two glasses. His eyes are fixed on my tits, so he doesn’t catch me sneering.
‘They’re pink, aren’t they? Aren’t those pink?’
‘No, it’s bourbon-based.’ I think he’s getting it mixed up with a Cosmopolitan; he doesn’t want it, regardless.
They ascend to the mezzanine and complain loudly about how long they waited. They don’t tip. Of course they fucking don’t.
I’m praying it’s just going to be the one round, but they buy two bottles of Auchentoshan and I am in hell. It is an effort not to stand with my head in my hands, or sit down on the floor, or vomit into the bucket of ice they make me bring them. I try putting a Merzbow album on over the sound system to chase them out. It’s funny for about three tracks, but they just think the speakers are broken, and the noise makes my headache worse.
The leader separates from the pack. He comes downstairs and leans against the bar. I wait for him to buy another bottle, but he just starts talking to me. Talking, and talking, and talking. His slicked-back hair is thinning, and a strand of it keeps flopping in front of his eyes – he slaps it back into place as if he’s killing a fly.
‘I’m a partner, you see,’ says the suit. Received pronunciation – he can’t be local. A Home Counties transplant. A coloniser. He probably lives with all the footballers up in Northumberland and brags to his city-boy friends about how his Darras Hall mansion only cost him a million, how he lives next to Martin Dúbravka, and how, really, quality of life is just so much better up here, as long as you keep away from the rough bits.
‘My time is very expensive,’ he says.
‘So is mine,’ I say. He misinterprets this, and slaps a twenty-pound note on the bar, his meaty hands spanking the granite surface like it’s his secretary’s arse.
A woman has appeared behind him. She’s skinny, middle-aged and alone. Her fake tan is a nut brown, her dye-job is much too dark, and her teeth are stained. She’s shaking. I take her for an alkie.
‘Excuse me,’ she says. The suit ignores her – maybe he doesn’t hear her.
‘There you go, then, a nice little tip for you.’ Demeaning, but I pocket the money. ‘So, you’re mine for the day now, are you?’
‘Maybe the next five minutes.’ Another twenty on the bar, in my pocket. ‘I’m just going to serve this lady,’ I say.
‘How much to get you to sack this off and come home with me?’
‘It’s too early for this,’ I say. His expression has darkened in the time it took for my eyes to roll.
‘Excuse me.’ The alkie is barking now, but the suit blocks her out with his bulk.
He leans over and grabs my wrist, his belly pressing against the bar top. He snorts, his tiny, piggy eyes narrowed and bloodshot from an afternoon’s drinking.
‘You’re shaking,’ he says. Charming that he thinks the shaking is down to him and not the result of what I had presumed to be a visible hangover. He tightens his grip; I watch my skin turn white beneath his fingertips. The room is spinning. He’ll regret this when I vomit on him. It’s a shame I can’t make myself sick without sticking my fingers down my throat – it’d be a perfect way to get out of this without moving. I could scream, of course, but my voice is raw with the residue of last night’s cigarette smoking. ‘Are you frightened?’ he slurs. He is drunker than I initially suspected.
‘Let go of me.’ He doesn’t. I can’t reach the fruit knives. There is a line of pint glasses in front of me, and I grab one with my free hand. ‘I’m going to count to three,’ I tell him.
The alkie pounds the bar.
‘How old do you think my son is?’ she asks. The suit lets go, dropping my wrist like my skin has burnt him.
‘Gary, what the fuck?’ Another suit descends the stairs, wobbly and embarrassed, in a cream summertime suit. He’s the same age, but better kept, though still red with too many tumblers of scotch and too many holidays without an SPF. ‘Sweetheart,’ he begins. The woman interrupts him. She isn’t an alkie, I suppose, just a rough mam.
‘How old do you think my son is?’ She thrusts her phone into my face. My website is up on the screen. She is showing me a black-and-white photo: a boy kneeling, his tongue between my index and middle finger, my ring finger digging into his cheek.
Ah.
‘He’s twenty. He signed a consent form and brought ID. I can show you.’
‘Bollocks,’ she says. ‘What a load of bollocks. Hew.’ She taps Gary on the shoulder. Cream suit asks what this is all about – Rough Mam ignores. ‘How old does this lad look to you? Does he look twenty? Does he fucking look twenty to you?’
Gary looks at the mam, looks at me, looks at the photo.
‘I think we should leave,’ says Cream Suit. ‘Chaps,’ he calls. ‘Chaps, it’s time to go.’