14: SODOM AND GOMORRAH

  On the ninth day of their friendship Ingrid went to spend the weekend with her parents and Kevin got a chance to catch up on what Forbes and Darren had been getting up to in his absence.
  What they had been getting up to was the usual debauchery. Forbes appeared to have abandoned his cultural yearnings and spent all day cacked out in the room with Darren. Occasionally late at night they would make shambolic stoned forays into the red light district to catch some bed shows.
   The attic room had become a meeting place for the whores who plied their trade at Betsy's. It had long been one of Kevin's dreams to live in a brothel, or at least a bohemian boarding house full of prostitutes, but now that he had achieved it he had to say that, as with many things, the reality didn't match up to the fantasy.
  The prostitutes in his fantasy all wore lace petticoats and brought him soup to cure his tuberculosis and insisted that three of them sleep in his bed with him to keep him warm so that he could stay alive long enough to finish the novel or painting he was working on; they only really went on the game in order to buy him soup or opium; while he painted and coughed they filled his garret room with pretty childlike prattle of the kindly old gentlemen who had taken them to the opera and the foolish young aristocrats who had fallen madly in love with them. 'Ah, cher Kevin, I am so happy my head is in a whirl! When I marry him we will live in a big house and you shall come and stay with us in a room that is very warm to dry out your chest. I shall have a silver hair brush and a maid to brush my hair and a new pair of silk stockings for every day of the week! Yes, every day! And I shall have a bowl of chocolate-covered cherries and a Pekinese dog called Fou-fou. Yes, a Pekinese! Can't you see me with a Pekinese? And I shall go riding in my carriage every day and eat chocolate cake at Maxim's, and say to all the fine ladies "Hello, Mme. So-and-so, isn't it a fine day? Isn't it a fine day to be alive and eating chocolate cake at Maxim's!"...But Monsieur Kevin, what has happened? Should not your lung be on the inside?' 'I'm all right...leave me child...must paint...' 'But there is blood everywhere!' 'Leave it...use it for paint...' 'Lie down, you foolish boy, I will bring you soup!' 'Make it oxtail, then...need some brown...finish painting...'
  The whores at Betsy's would loll around apathetically on his bed yawning and idly skinning up and scratching their crotches and breaking wind without decorum and picking what were possibly pubic hairs out of their teeth and talking about the ill-favoured donkeys they had fucked the night before.
  "Ach, the pig, he did not give me time to take off my tights."
  "Should have charged him for virgin. Ag ag ag ag."
  "Ag ag ag ag." This was their laugh.
  "Fat Greek came back to me last night. Very fat man, very small penis. Like trying to find air valve on dinghy."
  "Ag ag ag ag."
  Occasionally one of them would offer to fuck them all at a discount in return for all the weed of theirs they smoked, but no-one had taken them up on this.
  An English boy who had another of Betsy's rooms, a horse-faced pony-tailed boy named Donal, had also attached himself to Forbes and Darren. He spent most of the day and night in the attic with them, apparently oblivious of the fact that Darren had little time for him and Forbes very obviously despised him. One afternoon before Kevin left for Ingrid's, Forbes, on a slight return to his culture jag, had announced that tomorrow he was going to look for Spinoza's house or some plaque on the sight thereof. Donal had said, "Didn't Tarantino write Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam? I'd like to see where he stayed. I mean, there should be a plaque there, yeah?" Forbes had groaned, "Oh, my God," and given Donal fully ten minutes of his entomological stare with sneer in full flight.
  Kevin had talked to Donal several times before going to Ingrid's or when the others had still been up when he got back. Donal had apparently crisscrossed Europe several times armed with little more than a student railcard, a bottle of suntan lotion, and a stout wooden staff, having many adventures and meeting exotic people, falling foul of brigands, being given shelter by philanthropic millionaires and kindly peasants, and bedding beautiful women.
  That Saturday afternoon he told them another episode of his adventures. At the end of the previous installment he had been stranded in Lourdes after helping what he had thought to be a crippled pilgrim along an alleyway. This person had pulled a knife on him, taken his wallet, and attempted to stab him anyway. A group of very butch nuns had come along and driven off his attacker and given him a holy medal. The medal was silver and quite old and he had subsequently pawned it for enough money to buy food and shelter for the night.
  He took up where he had left off.
  "The next day I hitch-hiked to the Spanish border. Because of my unwitting part in that credit fraud in Lyon I told you about, I didn't think I should cross by any of the official exits. Probably a bit paranoid, but I thought it was best to be on the safe side. So I went off the road and started walking across the Pyrenees. And I got completely lost in the mountains, and night was falling, and the next thing I fell down this fucking ravine and twisted me ankle so badly I could hardly walk. So I'm there on this mountainside about to die of exposure, when along comes this incredibly weatherbeaten and grizzled old Spanish man called Ramon, who I took to be a shepherd or something. He had a face like mahogany and he was wearing one of those sheepskin jerkins that are just like a whole sheep. He must have been about eighty but he was strong as an ox, muscles like iron. He just picked me up across his shoulders and carried me like I was a newborn lamb. He took me to this shack halfway up a mountain and gave me food, and wine, and this incredible homegrown weed like nothing I've ever had before or since. And he started telling me all these amazing stories about fighting against Franco when he was a kid and smuggling British airmen across the border in the war. He shows me this old shotgun and goes, 'This gun here, she kill many Falangeists,' and I'm thinking, hmm, yeah, should I believe this? Anyway, to cut a long story short I woke up the next morning to find him firing a Kalashnikov out the window and half the Spanish army outside lobbing mortars at the house. It turned out he was some sort of quartermaster for the Basque separatist movement. Anyway, this mortar blows out the window. I got all sorts of splinters of wood and glass in me hand; you can still see the scars here, look. Ramon tells me to surrender and does a runner out the back and into the trees but gets shot in the leg about twenty yards away. So I'm there waving a pair of his underpants out the window on the end of a broom, the best white flag I could improvise, shouting something in Spanish which he's told me means 'Don't shoot, I surrender' but which turns out to mean 'You'll never take me alive, you sons of whores,' because he wanted me to hold them up while he made a getaway. It was very sticky for a time, but eventually we worked out a common language and the soldiers occupied the house. It turned out he had about 200 pounds of Semtex in the cellar.
  "The upshot was that I spent a week in a Spanish jail while they checked me out, and then was given a grudging apology and two weeks in a top hotel in Barcelona as compensation. There I got off with this Italian countess who was addicted to opium, and her 15 year old daughter who not only was an albino but suffered from an even rarer hereditary disorder and used to drink a quart of sheep's blood every day to combat it. She also had a split personality, I mean a really split one. Half the time she thought she was a Russian girl called Natasha who'd lived in the 18th century. When she was Natasha she could play the piano beautifully but not when she was herself. She kept calling me Ivan when she was getting off with me. Ivan was the woodcutter's son who'd lived on Natasha's estate. Freaked me out totally. Anyway, it turned out the pair of them were art thieves, but that's another story."
  "Fucking hell," said Kevin.
  "What an extraordinary pack of lies," said Forbes.
  Donal rose and stared at Forbes coldly.
  "I'm going to get some food," he said stiffly.
  "That was a bit rude," said Kevin when he'd gone.
  "Well, I mean," said Forbes.
  "It could have been true," said Kevin uncertainly. He'd been enthralled by and totally credulous of the story, at least until the countess's daughter had made her appearance.
  "Don't be ridiculous."
  "There are people that things like that happen to."
  "It would be unbearable to think so," said Forbes.
  Later that afternoon when Kevin and Forbes were sitting downstairs in the hash bar drinking coffee Kevin encountered another resident of Betsy's whom Forbes had told him about but whom he had not yet met. This was the Sodom and Gomorrah man. He was a little old man with a long white beard who wore a shabby black suit and clogs. He came out of the door leading upstairs wearing a sandwich board bearing slogans in Dutch and passed through the bar shaking his fist and shouting incomprehensibly at the whores. The whores variously jeered and swore or cooed and groped at him as he passed them, causing him to shout and gesticulate even more furiously. As he reached Kevin and Forbes' table he attempted to swat the joint from Forbes' hand and gripped Kevin by the shoulder and stared at him with watery eyes.
  "Poor boys, poor boys," he said tremulously. "Poor lost boys. Leave this place, boys. This place is Sodom and Gomorrah. Let it burn, let it burn. A rain will come."
  He shuffled on to the next table, where Call-me-Keith was sitting unhappily nursing a straight cigarette and a coffee he had just fortified with whisky.
  "Sodom and Gomorrah!" he cried, shaking his fist at Call-me-Keith.
  "You don't have to tell me," said Call-me-Keith miserably. Call-me-Keith had developed an impressive array of nervous tics and twitches lately.
  Early on Sunday afternoon Kevin and Forbes had a horrible surprise. They were awakened by the door being kicked open and four thuggish apemen bursting into the attic yelling and brandishing bicycle chains and knuckle-dusters. Two of them proceeded to viciously kick Darren's prone and blanketed form while the other two dived onto Kevin and Forbes' beds and started to punch them in the chest.
  It turned out that these were Darren's older brothers and two of their friends. They were here for a visit en route to a football match an English team was playing in Holland later in the week, which they were attending in order to beat up some Dutch football fans. They said they would be staying with them for the next few days. Darren's brothers affectionately kicked him in a bit more then got out skins and bottles of spirits while the other two stuck their heads out the window and started to yell football chants at people passing below.
  Kevin and Forbes very quickly fled the room. They holed up in a bar across the street and peacefully drank the day away.
  "I have quite missed our little tete-a-tetes this past week," said Forbes. "Darren has been opening my eyes to areas of human experience which have hitherto lain beyond my ken, but every so often one yearns to hear a third syllable. You have been rather shamefully neglecting me, you know, considering the extent to which I have subsidized your stay here. Oh, how sharper than a hound's-tooth jacket is the ingratitude of a friend."
  Some time in the early evening when the place was starting to fill up a group of boisterous backpackers came and sat at the next table.
  "Americans," groaned Forbes, "and I have no aspirin. We must leave this place immediately."
  They finished their drinks and left.
  "I'm sick of only seeing tourists and degenerates," said Forbes outside. "Let's find an authentic Dutch place. I want to meet some real Dutch people."
  They walked along several streets putting their heads in the doors of various bars. Forbes said no each time. Eventually they came across a bar in a side street which looked no different from the others they'd been in but whose clientele seemed to be ordinary Dutch workers and businessmen and no obvious tourists. Forbes proclaimed this congenial and they went in.
  Forbes beamed at everyone as they made their way to the bar.
  "Hello there, Dutchies," he said. "Yes, this is more like it. This is the authentic Holland."
  Everyone smiled back at them.
  "Fucking friendly bunch," said Forbes. "I like the Dutch."
  A smiling man in overalls standing next to them gabbled something at them in Dutch.
  "We love Dutch people," Forbes said to him. "We are having a fucking good time in your beautiful city."
  They got some drinks and went and sat at a table.
  "This is what it's all about," said Forbes. "Look at them. Salt of the earth. Hearts as big as the IJsselmeer." He raised his glass towards someone else who was smiling at them.
  A tall suited good-looking man a couple of years older than Forbes came over to them from the bar.
  "Good evening," he said, giving a small kind of bow.
  "And a fucking good evening to you," said Forbes heartily.
  "Pardon me for asking, but are you English or Americans?"
  "I certainly will not pardon you for asking that," said Forbes. "We are English, of course. Note our upright posture and lack of chewing gum. If we were Americans we would probably have tried to fuck you for a pair of nylons and a Hershey bar by now."
  The man smiled. "Speaking for myself I do not wear nylons but I would certainly do anything for a chocolate bar. You are English then. I have not known many English boys before. May I ask how you are enjoying your stay in Amsterdam?"
  "Having a fucking good time actually," Forbes enthused. "Even better now we've found a place like this."
  "Splendid," said the man. "Will you allow me to buy you some more drinks?"
  "We certainly will," said Forbes.
  "Good. Then if you will excuse me." He bowed again and went back to the bar.
  "Fucking nice bloke," said Forbes. Kevin had to agree.
  The tall suited man came back from the bar with their drinks and a short chubby beaming man with a blond beard.
  "My name is Peter de Groot," he said. "This is my friend Paul. Will you permit us to join you?"
  "We would be delighted," said Forbes.
  "Thankyou." Peter half-bowed again and they sat.
  "I am Forbes," said Forbes, "and this is a cheap piece of trade called Kevin."
  "I am very pleased to meet you." Peter turned to Paul and spoke a sentence in Dutch that included the words 'Forbes' and 'Kevin' then said: "Regrettably Paul does not speak any English but we will manage somehow."
  "Yes we fucking will," said Forbes. "We have things in common which transcend petty differences of language and nationality. Already I feel an unspoken bond between us which needs no articulation."
  Peter smiled and translated this into Dutch for Paul. Paul nodded and beamed and Forbes beamed back. Paul said something in Dutch and Peter translated: "Paul says he also feels a strong bond with you."
  "Why not?" said Forbes.
  "After all," said Kevin, "none of us are German."
  Peter smiled. "Regrettably Paul's father was from Germany but I will not translate that bit. May I ask how long you have been in Amsterdam?"
  "Two weeks now."
  "Then what a tragedy it is that you have only now discovered our little bar."
  "It certainly is," said Forbes.
  "May I propose a toast to new friendships?"
  "You certainly may," said Forbes.
  They drank to that and then Forbes proposed a series of toasts, to Anglo-Dutch relations and then to various famous Dutchmen, beginning with William of Orange and taking in all the painters and finishing with Van der Valk, and then to Edam cheese and windmills and tulips and the Smurfs. The original drinks quickly went and Forbes got a round in which he insisted should be Bols. Then Paul taught them a traditional Dutch drinking song which sounded like a Martian trying to swallow a live bullfrog and by the time they had mastered that the Bols had gone. Peter got some more in and proposed toasts to Queen Elizabeth and the Beatles and so forth. Neither of the Dutchmen showed any signs of being affected by the alcohol. Paul just kept beaming and Peter was as dapper and urbane and politely smiling as ever.
  "There are many places such as this in England?" he asked.
  "Not a single one," said Forbes.
  "I am surprised," said Peter. "I find that very hard to believe."
  "There isn't a single one where we could meet such fine people and be welcomed with open arms by complete strangers."
  "Perhaps in Holland we are more open and relaxed."
  "Salt of the earth," said Forbes.
  Forbes proposed getting another round in. Peter said, "No, it is rather expensive here and I do not think you can have much money. Perhaps you would like to come back to my apartment? We can carry on drinking there and also have some cannabis. You like to listen to music? I have a very good stereo."
  "We would be honoured," said Forbes.
  "So then, let us go."
  Forbes had to go to the toilet first. Peter smiled at Kevin and Paul beamed.
  "You are passive, yes?" said Peter.
  "I suppose so," said Kevin, somewhat taken aback, feeling that such a piece of pat character analysis was uncalled for on such a slight acquaintance and dismayed that his lack of forcefulness was that obvious.
  Peter looked pleased. "I thought so."
  Forbes rejoined them and they went outside and round the corner to where a Jaguar was parked. Peter patted it fondly as he unlocked it. "Fine English car," he said.
  They got in and drove off.
  "May I ask where you are staying?" said Peter as they drove.
  "In the shittiest doss-house in Christendom," said Forbes, "in a room overrun by rats and spiders and now football hooligans."
  "That is terrible," said Peter. "If you wish you may stay at my apartment tonight. I have some spare blankets and some comfortable couches."
  "Well that's fucking hospitable of you," said Forbes. "You're...you're good people." He appeared to have a tear in his eye.
  They parked outside a building a few streets away, rode up to the third floor in a lift, and entered a luxuriously furnished apartment. There were some spacious leather couches, a couple of thick rugs, some tasteful abstract paintings and various Indonesian-looking ornaments. On a side cabinet there was a cage containing several gerbils. Forbes went over to this and poked his fingers through the bars and made strange chirruping noises at the inmates.
  "You...ah...enjoy gerbils?" asked Peter.
  "I prefer rabbits," said Forbes.
  "Rabbits? I would not have thought that was possible. Personally I do not even particularly enjoy gerbils but I keep them for friends."
  "How very considerate," said Forbes.
  "Please, sit down."
  Kevin and Forbes sat down on one of the leather couches. Paul put some mellow jazz on Peter's very good stereo and then sat down on another couch and beamed at them. Meanwhile Peter poured out a large glass of brandy for everyone. Then he took a carved wooden box of Javanese design off a shelf, laid it on a glass coffee table in front of Forbes and Kevin, and opened it to reveal several compartments inside, each filled with a different type of cannabis. Next to it he placed a silver cigarette case opened to reveal cigarettes on one side and on the other several packets of cigarette papers, which turned out to be monogrammed with his initials, and several pieces of slightly shiny card printed with oriental designs, which turned out to be the most perfect roach material Kevin had ever handled in his life, surpassing even train tickets and D.S.S. appointment cards.
  "Please, help yourselves," said Peter.
  "You are a fucking gracious host," said Forbes.
  The two of them set to work while Peter sat down next to Paul holding his brandy and regarding them smilingly.
  "Fucking nice place you have here," said Forbes, looking at the opulence around them.
  "Thankyou."
  "May I ask what you do for a living?"
  "I am an actor in pornographic films," said Peter matter-of-factly. "I am abnormally well built."
  Forbes choked on the mouthful of brandy he was taking and looked at Peter in disbelief. "You're joking."
  "No, it's true," said Peter, "I have a very long penis."
  "I mean about the porno movies."
  "Yes, it's true, that is how I earn my living. I hope you are not shocked?"
  "No, no, I think it's wonderful," said Forbes delightedly. "Just be sure you remember the old adage: 'Never work with children or animals.'"
  "No, I would not do so. The films I make are tasteful products, just me and perhaps another man and several women, although in my youth I made some of which I am now ashamed."
  "Would we have heard of any of your films?"
  "I am not sure of most of the English titles. Some I remember are 'A Man Called Horse', 'Muffdive at Dawn' and 'Bunfight at the SM Corral.'"
  Forbes roared with laughter. "Absolutely colossal," he gasped. "Perhaps we could watch some of them later."
  "No, I cannot bear to watch myself on the screen. I always see where I could have improved my performance."
  Forbes roared again. "May I propose a toast," he said weakly, raising his glass, "to the first film star I ever met, and a fucking decent bloke."
  They toasted. "Please do not be slow to drink," said Peter. "There is plenty more where this came from. Please also do not be sparing with the cannabis. I think you will find it is very good quality. If there is anything else you require please do not hesitate to ask. I normally keep a bottle of amyl nitrate to offer my guests but regrettably I find I have run out."
  "An appalling oversight," said Forbes. "We are never coming here again."
  "You would have liked that? I am sorry."
  "No, no, I was joking. You are the most considerate man in the whole world, Peter. In fact, I think I would like to marry you."
  Peter smiled. "Well, let us not get ahead of ourselves."
  Peter topped up everyone's glass while Kevin and Forbes lit their joints and settled back on the couch.
  "Perhaps now we should talk about our inclinations," said Peter. "Paul likes to watch people having sex."
  "Good for him," said Forbes warmly.
  "He does not often try to join in but he will sometimes unobtrusively lend a hand if he feels he will not be in the way."
  "That's fucking considerate of him."
  "You do not mind that?"
  "Lord no," said Forbes. "I like to watch people at it myself."
  "Ah," said Peter. "Then I will fuck Kevin up the arse and you and Paul will watch?"
  Forbes blinked. "Hang on a tick," he said. "We seem to have skipped a bit here."
  "I am sorry. I have not consulted Kevin. Kevin, perhaps you would like me to beat you up first?"
  "I'd like to go home now," said Kevin in a small voice.
  "I think there's been a rather amusing misunderstanding," said Forbes.
  Peter looked nonplussed. "Kevin is not passive?"
  "Passive as a log," said Forbes, "but neither of us are queer. Well, we watch the ballet occasionally, but that's about the extent of it."
  "Ah," said Peter raising an eyebrow. "This is a disappointment to me." He turned and shot a torrent of Dutch at Paul. Paul looked vexed and made the noise 'Tchah!' "Why then were you at the Mermaid?"
  "Is it a gay bar, then? We had no idea. We just thought everyone was being friendly."
  "And you, too, were being very friendly. You can see how we might have misinterpreted this. Kevin is not, then, a cheap piece of trade?"
  "Just a term of endearment."
  "I see," said Peter. "This is very embarrassing. Kevin in particular looks very pale now. I cannot convey how sorry I am to have caused you such alarm."
  "No, it's we who should apologize," said Forbes. "Sorry to have led you on and wasted your time and all that. No hard feelings, I hope." He rose and Kevin did likewise. "We'd better go now."
  "Please, finish your drinks and your joints," said Peter.
  "No, no, we'd best push off. Thanks for everything and better luck next time."
  "You are welcome," said Peter, rising and escorting them to the door. "It has been pleasant to have met you even if we did not have sex. Please, take your joints with you at least. I apologize again and hope that when some time has passed we will all be able to laugh about this."
  "I intend to laugh about it as soon as I'm safely out of the flat," said Forbes.
  Peter smiled urbanely and bowed as he held the door open for them. Over on the couch, Paul looked grumpy and muttered something that Kevin was fairly sure was the Dutch for 'prick-teasers'.
  The experience appeared not to have soured Forbes' opinion of the Dutch and their hospitality.
  "Fucking nice blokes for chicken-hawks," he said as they walked back to Betsy's.
  "I suppose we were a bit naive there," said Kevin.
  "Yes, we should have seen that one coming, really."
  A while later he said:
  "Maybe you should rent your arse to him. Let him keep you while you remain here in thrall to Ingrid. You are definitely staying here, are you?"
  "Yes. It'd be a nice place to live even apart from Ingrid. I can see myself living here."
  "You still think you're going to get off with her, don't you? It'll never happen."
  "I'm going to make it happen," Kevin decided. "I'm going to start asserting myself. I'm sick of being passive." But privately he thought that Forbes was right.
  Back at Betsy's they found the Sodom and Gomorrah man mounting the stairs ahead of them with his hand up the leopardskin skirt of the skankiest whore.
  In the attic room they found one of Darren's brothers' friends making violent love to a prostitute on Kevin's bed.
  "Everyone's down in Darren's room," he left off grunting long enough to tell them. "They're stitching up that Keith nonce."
  In Darren's room they found Darren and his brothers gathered around Call-me-Keith. Call-me-Keith was lying on a bed naked apart from some women's underwear. He was apparently unconscious but had a dreamy smile on his face. Two naked whores were lying next to him fondling him and Betsy was standing over him with her tits out placing a joint in his mouth. Darren was taking pictures of the tableau with a little camera.
  "Perfect, perfect," he cried. He put down the camera and went and took Call-me-Keith's wallet from where his clothes were lying on the floor and removed some traveller's cheques from it. He noticed Kevin and Forbes standing by the door and grinned at them.
  "Betsy put some sort of opiate in his coffee," he told them. "He'd been kicking off about me brothers being here and me smoking weed. He was threatening to cut the trip short. So Betsy fixed him. Won't have any more trouble out of him now."
  Call-me-Keith groaned and the joint fell from his lips. Betsy started to replace it and then had a better idea.
  "Get camera," she said.
  Grinning, Betsy took her dick out and dangled it over Call-me-Keith's groaning mouth.
  Darren started to snap more pictures and Kevin lurched out to be sick.



Chapter 15
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