The Cheek Perforation Dance

Further praise for The Cheek Perforation Dance:

‘Compelling and disturbing. Pre held ideas about male and female sexuality are turned on their head. Intrigued? You should be. This is a very intriguing novel.’

Irish Independent

‘If you’re searching for a gentle holiday read then allow us not to recommend this. The skill of this courtroom drama is in the construction: Thomas intercuts the court case with flashbacks to their love affair suggesting several disquieting notions of what constitutes modern love.’

Arena

‘Distressingly believable.’

Front

Praise for Kissing England:

‘To say this is elegantly written would be an understatement; the unique essence of England, and being English, is captured perfectly. Imbued with a delicate blend of humour and irony, Kissing England evokes as many personal memories as the ones it creates.’

Time Out

‘Wry, dry, it’s White City Blue meets Brideshead Revisited. Cracking stuff.’

Daily Mirror

‘Thomas balances unremitting explicitness with acutely observed set pieces.’

The Times

Dedication

For us, then

The fourteenth Veintana, Quecholli, was dedicated to Mixcoatl. The feast was celebrated by one or two days of hunting and feasting in the countryside during which the hunters adorned themselves like Mixcoatl himself and kindled new fire to roast the game. Subsequently, a man and a woman were sacrificed to Mixcoatl in his temple. The female victim was slain like a wild animal: her head was struck four times against a rock until she was half-conscious; then her throat was slit and her head decapitated. The male victim displayed the head to the assembled crowds before he himself was sacrificed by heart extrusion.

An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods andSymbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, by Mary Miller and Karl Taube

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Praise

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading

About the Author

Other Books By

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

— Patch, slow down

Says Joe. Patrick turns, and looks back down the sunny London street. Patrick’s friend Joe is wearing a green and yellow martial arts tee shirt, and notably scuffed indigo jeans. Comparing this choice of attire to his own suit and tie, Patrick wonders how he and Joe must appear: like a banker and his drug dealer, discussing prices; like two guests en route to a mildly bohemian wedding; like the accused and his friend, walking to court.

— Don’t want to be early, do you?

Patrick nods, assessing the truth of this. Then Patrick says:

— Guess not … – Thinking, considering – How about a pint?

Joe lifts his hands:

— It’s nine in the morning

Patrick:

— But they’re open. The pubs are open round here, because of the meat market

— I know they’re open – A sigh, a smile – I was just wondering whether you really want to get lashed half an hour before …

Joe stops; shrugs. Patrick turns on his polished black shoes, walks briskly and authoritatively up a side street, and presses a pub door.

Inside the pub the atmosphere is already noisy, and yeasty. The Smithfield pub is full of office lads beering up before work, and meat-market porters winding down after work. Finding two stools by the sticky bar, Patrick pulls, and sits, and says to the barwoman:

— Pint of Guinness … – Looking sidelong – Joe?

Joe does another vague shrug. Patrick persists:

— Joseph?

— … 6X. Half

— Pint of 6X please

The barwoman nods and takes two glasses from the shelf above; Patrick gazes around the bar. In the corner he can see a platoon of nervy, wide-eyed student kids. The students are giggling and nudging each other as they order beers with their breakfasts.

—Takes me back

Says Patrick. Joe, a bit vague, says:

— Sorry?

— Those kids – Says Patrick – Look at them. That was us once. We used to come here after tripping – Patrick widens his eyes – Remember?

Joe grins, and nods. Patrick returns his gaze to the students. Feeling a small ache inside, Patrick marvels at the youth displayed: the impeccable complexions, the innocent cheekbones, the naively exuberant gestures; the gold Saxon hair of the girls.

—You’re only twenty-nine Patch

— I feel ninety-seven, right now

Joe sighs:

— Well. What do you expect? This morning of mornings?

Hmming, Patrick tips the beer to his lips. The Guinness is cold and very bitter. Patrick remembers how he never liked drinking this early.

— God, it’s too early to drink

Joe looks at him blankly. Then says:

— Shall we go?

Manfully struggling with his pride, and with his desire to get drunk despite, Patrick nods, and rises. Together the two old college friends walk out of the pub into London: into the sweetly polluted summer air. They take a right. Then another. Their route takes them past the meat market, past the place where John Betjeman lived, past the church where they filmed Four Weddings and a Funeral, past the hospital ward where Mozart had his tonsils out; and past the ad agency car park where Patrick got his one and only blow job from a Muslim girl.

At the last they make a left, and find themselves staring down the boulevards of capitalism at the noble dome of great St Paul’s. Joe starts walking towards the cathedral, but Patrick says he knows a short cut. Joe nods acquiescently. Patrick steps right and guides them into a garden, then into a courtyard, then through the pink granite undercroft of a Malaysian bank; here they turn and find themselves facing a huge great building site.

— Jesus – Says Joe – I thought they’d finished London

Patrick tries to smile but fails. Patrick does not feel like smiling. He feels like turning, like going back to the pub. Patrick is thinking about what is to happen: what is awaiting him, in ten, twenty, thirty minutes. How many minutes?

Pulling back his stiff left shirtcuff, the cuff so diligently ironed by his mother last night, Patrick checks his watch. Its white face stares back at his white face.

9.20 a.m.

Patrick looks across the thundering street. Pensively he surveys the chaotic building site: the raw new girders and gleaming steel fire escapes; the piles of creamy new bricks.

Joe:

— OK?

With a nod Patrick says:

— OK …

But Patrick feels far from OK. Patrick feels so far from OK he wonders if he might be about to start trembling, or worse. Patrick desperately does not want this: he does not want to look scared in front of Joe.

—Joe …

— Uh?

— I think maybe I …

A knowing expression:

—You want to go in on your own?

—Well …

— Don’t worry mate – Joe claps Patrick on the shoulder, and starts skipping left, into the traffic, calling out as he goes – I’ll see you inside

And so Joe goes.

Alone, now, in the middle of the city hubbub, Patrick swallows and fights himself. His nerves once again quelled, he stares across at the building beyond the building site: his destination. On the top of the building, bright against the cloudless blue sky, is a statue of a woman, holding scales in her golden hand.

Oh, sure, right. Trust a woman?

Dismissing the irony of this, Patrick threads through. The pavement by the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, is a tumult of chatting journalists, sweating handicam men, and young foreign sightseers knocking into people with their enormous blue rucksacks. Ignoring the crowds, hoping they are all similarly ignoring him, Patrick makes for the lowslung main door of the courts. But Patrick’s boldness is holed. By the sound of a familiar car door, and by the even more familiar sound of a young woman’s voice. The girl is saying:

— Yes Dad I’ll call you

Jesus. Can it be? Can it be? Patrick stops still on the pavement, staring blankly at the side of a big red bus, dumbed. It sounds like her; it certainly sounds like her. Like her. Like his ex; like his accuser; like the truelove he hasn’t seen for a year.

But. Patrick thinks again: no, no, it can’t be; doesn’t make sense. She wouldn’t just be … here, standing right by him, would she?

— I think I’ve got to give evidence first thing Daddy

Unable to resist, Patrick turns, and looks. A recognisably big BMW is parked hard by the pavement. Climbing out of the back of the car is a striking blonde girl with a shortish checked dress showing long suntanned legs. The sight makes Patrick’s knees infirm. Because. It is. It’s her.

And now the memories engulf him. As Patrick stands and tries not to react at the sight of his ex-girlfriend, his tormentor, the principal witness for the prosecution, the best friend he allegedly raped twelve months ago, he reacts by remembering. He sees it all. The whole tableau of love. He sees: a bugle on a windowsill; a pair of handcuffs in a fridge; an Aztec history book stained with claret; a sunny Torrington Square, nearly two and a half years ago.

Two and a half years ago?

Silent, and still, Patrick stares. At Rebecca.

2

— He’s still staring

— That’s nice, Rebecca

— No, he is

— OK … – Murphy sighs – OK …

Rolling on her back, Murphy shuts her sarcastic eyes. Slightly frustrated, Rebecca gazes away from the man, and looks around the square. The late May sun is shining but the place is empty: Torrington Square is nearly deserted. Apart from a few Indian girls in flared jeans chatting by the Brunei Centre, and a small group of Japanese girls with miniskirts and superpale legs, sitting demurely on the steps of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Murphy and Rebecca are alone on the mangy bit of central London lawn between Birkbeck College and the Institute of Education. Torrington Square. Musing again on the man, Rebecca says:

— It’s definitely him

— Uh-huh …

— I wonder what he does

— Indeed

Murphy is lying flat out with her skirt hitched up: tanning; ignoring her friend; her head pillowed by her folded pink cardigan. Murphy is using a textbook to shield her eyes from the glare. Rebecca’s textbook. Opting not to mention this, Rebecca says:

— He’s the guy I was telling you about. The one who always sits over there – Brightly – He must work round here, he’s rather young for a lecturer tho, maybe he’s a postgrad or …

Murphy opens her mouth:

— Rebecca … shut the fuck up

Narrowing the space between them Rebecca snatches her textbook from its cowboy-hat role on Murphy’s face. For a second, Murphy seems to scowl; then Murphy breaks into a profile of a smile. Rebecca smiles, too.

Using a grass-stained elbow, Murphy is levering herself onto her front, and visoring her eyes with a flat unwedding-ringed hand so as to look over at him.

A sharp, Murphyish breath.

Rebecca says:

— So? What do you think?

Murphy sets her lips; considers the question. Then:

— He looks a bit …

— What?

— … You know … Brutal … Stone Age – Another look, through the telescope of her squinting eyes – Hasn’t shaved for a while

Rebecca mulls this; Murphy says:

— Just your sort. Another puppy drowner

Staring down at her painted toenails half hidden by her sandals, Rebecca demurs:

— Well

— Why don’t you just wait outside Wormwood Scrubs and have done with it?

Rebecca, chuckling:

— Can’t help it if I’m partial to … a bit of rough …

A Murphyish snort:

— Bit of rough? That guy’s on parole

Rebecca slaps Murphy’s suntanned thigh; Murphy does a laconic ‘ouch’ and then says:

— Anyway, what about Neil? Forgotten him already?

— Neil Schmeal

—Wagon Wheel

Silence. For a moment the two of them observe a Japanese girl protecting her face from the sun with an angled A to Z. Tucking some of her brown hair behind a thrice-pierced ear, Murphy says:

— Still hungry!

Rebecca hands over the second lunch bag:

— Here

— Ta …

Reaching into the shared brown paper bag Murphy takes out the last sandwich. Plastic sandwich podule open, she extracts the coronation chicken sandwich and lays it flat on the bag. Then she lifts a flap of the bread so as to examine the contents.

— Hm

Picking up the sandwich she sniffs the curry-scented, yellowish paste. Nose wrinkling, she puts the sandwich down again, plucks something from the sandwich filling, and then holds this up, in front of Rebecca’s face, like a priest presenting the communion wafer.

—What’s this?

Murphy is holding up an almond. Rebecca says:

— It’s an almond

— Almond? ALMOND?? – Murphy’s voice is almost a yelp – Why do they do this? Why do they put fucking almonds in a bloody chicken sandwich? Why can’t they leave well alone? What’s happening to the world?

Rebecca smiles, says nothing; plucks grass.

Consideringly, Murphy begins removing the bits of almond, diligently extracting them from the gunk, then smearing them with a wince of repugnance on a convenient bit of lawn. This done, Murphy re-examines. Pointing to another suspicious constituent of the curry-sauce-yellow sandwich filling she looks over at Rebecca, reproachfully.

Rebecca sighs:

— Raisins …

Murphy:

— Raisins? Really? Oh, for God’s sake. Did I ask for raisins? Did I say please can you put some fucking dried fruit in my fucking chicken sandwich?

Rebecca’s friend is making an I’ve-had-enough face. Rebecca notices Murphy’s ankle chain. Sighing, exhaling, Murphy squints at the sandwich, looks at Rebecca, squints at the sandwich. With a decided air Murphy bags the sandwich, leans back, takes aim, and expertly lobs the sandwich bag into the nearest bin.

Clapping her hands Murphy sits up straight, cross-legged again, triumphantly laughing; Rebecca laughs, too: feeling happy in the sun. Making a cunning face Murphy does a blatant grab for the last of Rebecca’s lunch; successfully filching from the other paper bag a chocolate bar. With a shrug Rebecca watches as her best friend eats the bar; Murphy is talking with a mouth full of chocolate:

— Anyway. What about the boyf?

— Him …?

— Yeah. Neil. Supergeek. You gonna give him another chance?

Rebecca moues, as if to say: enough said. Sat back on straight arms Rebecca turns and glances over at the guy who hasn’t shaved for a few days. He isn’t glancing at her. He is busy with his own sandwiches, washing them down with a can of cola, idly flicking through his big newspaper. Occasionally he seems to look up and stare vacantly at the Fifties brickwork of Birkbeck. Trying her hardest Rebecca wills him to look at her: look at me, look at me, look at me … please?

As if commanded, he turns his face … and looks at the bike sheds behind Birkbeck College. Offended, rolling over, Rebecca says to Murphy, who is examining her stomach for a tan mark:

— I’ve seen him here a few times now

—Who invented cellulite?

— That guy …

— I mean you never hear Jane Austen banging on about it, do you? Did Elizabeth Bennett freak out in case Darcy saw her orange peel?

— He often eats his lunch here

— So when did cellulite start? The Sixties? I blame feminists. I reckon lesbian feminists must have invented it. To put us off getting naked with guys. Woman-hating bastards. Chop their tits off I say

— How old do you reckon he is?

— Are you still banging on about that … thug? He’s gross, Becs, he looks like he’d mug your mum

— He’s quite … sexy …

— You’re such a slapper, Jessel

— He looks … interesting …

— Psychotic

Rebecca shakes her head and goes to answer but Murphy is checking her ironically big plastic watch. The watch with the knowingly naff boy-band motif. Looking up, tongue clicking, Murphy says:

— Gotta go

— But … it’s not even two

— It’s called work, girl

— … Stay …?

A certain pause. Murphy looks over; Rebecca looks back. Rebecca notes that Murphy’s face is nicely tan, her eyes green, her nose stud silver in the early summer sun. Murphy is laughing, as she makes a spastic voice, as she lodges her tongue behind her bottom lip:

— Derrr … Werrrk

— Unfair!

— What’s it like being a Hampstead heiress with nothing to do but check your bikini line?

— I do do the occasional PhD

— Yeah?

With a somehow sarcastic expression, Murphy reaches and lifts another of the books that have slipped from Rebecca’s Prada bag. Slow, ironic, Murphy recites the title:

— The Broken Spears. The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

Rebecca is shrugging; Murphy:

— … Call me a stupid cow with skates on, but I thought you were doing the Crusades?

— Well

— Too easy was it? Thought you’d tackle a few more subjects? Brainiac

Murphy looks like she’s thinking of another insult; to stop her Rebecca picks up the paperback that Murphy was reading. Slowly Rebecca recites the title, in a similarly stilted way:

— Veiled Voices, an anthology of Arab women’s poetry

Murphy looks vaguely abashed; and a tiny bit proud. Rebecca says:

— Not exactly the lightest of reading … – Checking the title again – Any good?

Murphy shrugs and says:

— Actually, it is … it’s very good, kinda horny

— Kind of horny?

Murphy laughs:

— Well it’s … interestingly confessional – A glance between them; then Murphy shrugs again – OK so I’m easily aroused …

Before Rebecca can ask her next question, her usual question about Murphy’s love life, Murphy has barked

— Fuck, Becs, I have to go. My boss’ll be chewing her arm off. Conceptual dustbin lids don’t sell themselves y’know …

Rebecca smiles:

— No. Hold on. I’ll come with you, I’ve got to buy something from Waterstone’s

— K

Preparing to go, they look around.

— Er …

— Golly …

Hands on hips they assess the mess they have somehow made. Surrounding their lunch spot is a fairy ring of mobile phone cards, choc-bar wrappers, doodled-on diary pages, and bits of cigarette packet. And Aztec history books, scrunched-up tissues, hay-fever nasal sprays, empty mocha coffee cups, Hello! magazine, OK! magazine, Arab women’s poetry paperbacks, and splinters of smeared almond. Murphy laughs; Rebecca laughs. Laughing as one, they stoop to it: with a burst of zeal and energy they bend to collect the rubbish, bag the books, collate the other stuff, and spend a minute mutually grooming grass stalks. Then and only then do they start walking. As they leave Rebecca checks the corner of the lawn where he was; he isn’t.

Ah well …

But he is already just a memory, a memory almost forgotten as they stroll happily across the grass and down the steps that lead under Birkbeck College. This is their normal short cut: today the two old college friends’ route is blocked by crowds of weird people. By bearded blokes in bad Hawaiian shirts, by hairy-legged women with Marxism For The Twenty-First Century laminate badges. Walking past a parade of temporary bookstalls set out in the sun with an array of yellowing Workers Power titles, Murphy finally stops, wrinkles her nose, blurts:

— God, they ming

Rebecca:

— Murf, please

— But they do. They smell. Yuk

— Murphy

— But why? Why do they have to pong? Does it say that in Das Kapital?

The two college friends push through one particularly gamey cell of would-be Irish Republicans from Guildford as Rebecca explains:

— It’s a Marxist Weekend, they take over the Union every spring for a weekend and have … I don’t know … conferences … I suppose …

Evidently unsatisfied by this Murphy stops short on a pavement and starts loudly reading out the signs installed everywhere: the Luton Comrades For A United Ireland poster, the Kidderminster Spartacists Meet In The Marlborough Arms flyer. Then:

— Correct me if I’m wrong, Becs, but didn’t, like, these people lose? Weren’t they like … totally wrong?

— I’m going to Waterstone’s

— Yeah? Try that poetry collection, you might like it …

Rebecca nods. The two of them are on the corner of Malet Place. In the sun Murphy smiles and reaches over and holds Rebecca’s face and kisses her on the cheek.

— And take care, ducks

With that done Murphy twists on a heel, and walks away down the road.

Still stood still, Rebecca watches her friend depart. From this vantage, the slight overfatness of Murphy’s bottom is obvious, despite the pink cardigan tied around. The sight of this tugs at Rebecca. Flushed by something, Rebecca realises that it is actually this, the pathos of Murphy’s self-consciousness, the pathos of Murphy’s awareness of her own physical imperfections, that constitutes a large part of why Rebecca loves Murphy. Considering this, this odd fact, Rebecca gazes, half in reverie, as Murphy suddenly turns, brightly smiles, and does a sarcastically soppy wave back at Rebecca.

Observing her friend’s cheery wave, Rebecca feels overwhelmed. From nowhere, she now feels an engulfing sadness, as if something soon, something looming and near, something awful is about to happen to her dearest friend that should forever change …

Dismissing it from her thoughts Rebecca goes over to Waterstone’s the Bookshop. Pressing glass she enters. Immediately inside she pauses in the welcome cool downdraught from the doorway aircon. Where to? Travel, Cookery, or Magazines? Or Medieval History, as is proper and right? By her self-imposed schedule Rebecca is all too aware that at this moment she shouldn’t even be here: she should be back at the London Uni library reading up Frankish chronicles. Disregarding her postgraduate conscience Rebecca instead makes her way slowly round Fiction, Crime and New Titles, before climbing the black metal stairs, and the second flight of stairs, at the top of which she turns and makes that guilty but familiar, wicked but much loved right turn: into Literature, and Drama, and Poetry, and Art. Her trueloves …