Camden, 1969
He wakes with a start and realises he has been dreaming of Carter, Carter of all people, doubled up in the back of The Dog And Duck, an Ilford moon slanting down from high, picking out the loose threads on the back of his old man’s jacket. It’s a mile too wide at the shoulders, fairly swamps the boy, but he’s been swanning about all day in a fug of Old Spice and Holborn, in love with his big fat shadow, flashing the ten bobs that spring from every pocket with an occasional shower of tobacco flakes, the guts from long dead rollups that have lodged in the seams since 1966... Yes, it’s Carter alright, crumpled on the floor, though he can’t see the face. Just the jacket, and he runs a finger over the stitching, worrying at a small tear, testing for warmth or movement...
But then it’s morning, and his hand is caressing the lace hem of Jessica’s knickers, working at the elastic that leaves sweet little crenellations in her flesh. He traces the outline of a flower petal on her bottom, thinks things over for a second, then gives her right cheek a playful spank and is away.
“Bastard...” sleep mumbled into the hot side of a pillow she presently untangles from her hair and hurls blind somewhere in his general direction.
He feels the merest breath of its passage on the small of his back, a warm, soft air kiss, but is now at the window, opera glasses in hand, already making a tentative split in the curtains, a lens-width give or take, difficult to maintain in the skittish summer morning breeze. Thick with head cold and hangover, the taste of early hours Dunhills and red wine still lingering, he finds the post box and tries to focus (unsure if the failing is with him or these ancient Dollands, found wrapped in sheets of a pre-war Standard and boxed with all the flat’s previous incumbents in the small spare room). A pair of cracks in the left eyepiece make an imperfect crosshair, and he guides them up the street, quickly to the junction and telephone kiosk, but the car isn’t there.
It’s probably too early, he thinks, give it another hour, though his watch has stopped, clocked off sulkily in the seconds before midnight, and he gives the hands an idle twirl before getting back into bed with the escapee pillow. It’s a grandiose term for an old mattress on the floor, a lumpy single one at that with a particular spring that’s had his number from day one. He feels Jessica’s breasts pressed against his chest and finds her wrist, such a slender little thing, a stray blown Hampstead leaf would surely break it in two. Ten to five. It’s too early, give it another hour. He wants to protect her, spirit her away somehow, but already knows he’s going to run. Oh Jess, what have I done, forgive me Jess... For the first time, he’s aware of a soft hum from the record player, turntable still spinning, having headed long off into the night without them. He cannot remember the record. He’s been drinking too much, methodically emptying the flat of it’s extensive collection of lurid liquors – jetsam from cocktail parties long ago, God-Save-The-King days - and lately a rich seam of Bordeaux, a vintage from before Jessica was born that gets her squiffy after three glasses and horizontal after four, cursing the single, Platonian vine with her name embossed on each and every grape, glistening in the dew...
