The Dog and Frog on the night of Christmas Day. It was the only pub open in the Underbelly but Beth, I and the fire had the place to ourselves. Damp wood cracked and spat onto the flag stone hearth as it burnt one side of our faces pink. She had returned to black from the pre-Christmas mousey look. Beth’s ever-changing appearance made me study her childish face with ever more intent. We talked about the a rotten Xmas we’d both had. Mine with Mrs Williams and Mr Konstantin; Beth’s with Ray. After a few warm shots the conversation started to flow. I found an almost full packet of cigarettes in the bottom of my bag and within minutes the place was fugged.
“Where’s Ray?”
“In his flat, pissed, asleep, who cares?” Beth replied.
“Fair enough.”
We slagged off and laughed at Ray and Mike then raised more than several glasses to Trudie. Beth told me about her days living in a filthy squat playing bass for a punk band by night and working in Camden Market by day.
“Did Trudie do that too?” I’d lost touch with her many years before.
“Christ no. I was the truly bad girl, she just dyed her hair, wore stripy stockings and short skirts. Trudie liked her home comforts. She was not the adventurous sort.”
“Which makes her disappearance all the more baffling.” I changed the subject. “So the punk thing is the real deal for you then?”
“Of course it’s a real deal.” She flexed her index fingers. “We’ve all got to be somebody. It’s better than a nobody right? What about you, are you a somebody or a nobody?”
I swilled my ice round the whisky and looked down into prospectively.
“It’s hard to tell. They say you’re only a somebody if somebody loves you and I guess that makes me a first class nobody.” I downed my shot.
“That makes you stupid.”
“Probably.”
“Look at all the successful people who never met anyone but were still somebody. There have been some well famous celibates, look at Gandhi?”
“Yeah, Phillip Larkin,
“The Pope.”
“Stephen Fry.”
“Cliff Richard ;all men either to warped, old, ugly or unfashionable to have sex. Which bracket would you put me in?”
“Unfashionable.”
“You bitch.”
“Well you are. None of your clothes fit you and if they did, you’d have to go on a diet.”
“See you’ve hit upon the basic problem. Unless you’ve got a girlfriend to dress you, you can’t get a girlfriend. It’s unlikely that Mrs Williams is gonna be much help.”
“I take your point, you may well be right.”
“So where does Ray go wrong?”
“Ha you tricked me.”
“You tricked yourself lady.” I jabbed an accusing finger in her arm.
“I’m not talking about Ray, not tonight. Tonight is a Ray free night.”
“Why do you stay with him?”
“Do you know what he got me for Xmas?” Beth reached into her large. “This.” Beth stamped an exact replica of the dolphin oil burner I had received from Mrs Williams down on the table. I burst out laughing.
“It’s not funny!”
“I beg to differ.” In one deft move I reached down into my bag and retrieved mine.
Leaning on the white balustrade of the bridge, we let the December night air wash over our pissed and smiling faces as it pushed on downstream with the current. The dark whorls curdled and gurgled like dozens of babies under the stanchions below.
“It doesn’t bother you being here?”
“Not really, I find it calming actually. Despite all the mud and the muck, I don’t think of it as an evil river. It just does its job. In fact I feel quite sorry for it having to deal with all the shit that we and everything else dumps in it.”
There was little doubt, Beth was extraordinary to me and I sensed that she knew this but as much as I wanted to tell her, I couldn’t help feeling that any such stance would be viewed as unspeakably predatory. She turn and looked upstream and then back at me. The breeze had blown a subtle tear across her cheek.
“You know what we should do?” Before I could reply she spun me round and was rifling through my shouldered bag. She emerged with the dolphin oil burner. It was soon part of a pair in her hands. She passed one to me; her intent was clear.
“I thought you felt sorry for the river?”
“Think of it as an offering. Besides we are returning the dolphins to the sea. Ready? On three. One, two, three.” We tossed the ornaments over our heads and waited for the splash. We were surprised therefore to hear a smashing sound and a loud groan.
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