Degrees Of Separation 1 - A Handful Of Dust

"April is the cruellest month."
T.S. ELIOT. The Wasteland

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
By Alaric McDermott

Chapter I
A Handful Of Dust
15th April 2001

Sometimes the rats came, but tonight, thankfully, was not one of
those
nights. When they did come, Mary could do little about it. They would
scurry
around her feet, noses twitching over the debris which people had
left
behind - hamburger cartons, cigarette packets, chocolate wrappers.
Mary
would sit in her doorway and watch them, always nervous that one of
the
creatures would come too close. If one did, she'd make a vague
shooing
motion. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't. Once, a rat
had
sniffed at her hand.

No better, no worse. It was important that she kept hold of that
thought,
because it was the mantra that governed her life. No better, no worse.
The
day had given her nothing, and it had taken nothing from her.

A couple walked past her doorway. They were holding hands. The girl
looked
at her, briefly, hanging back from the man, but the look was all.
Nothing
was said. Nonetheless, Mary was disconcerted at the momentary loss of
her
invisibility.

She pulled her sleeping bag more tightly around her shoulders. The
night
wasn't cold, but it was useful nonetheless that the coat was warm,
because
good sleep needed warmth.

Colin arrived and sat down by her, squeezing into the gap she had
left
between her half empty bottle of cider and the wall. Without asking, he
took
a swig of the cider. She merely mumbled a greeting, although she was
happy
to see him and would have been more demonstrative if she could have
found
the strength. He was particularly welcome because Colin nights were few
and
far between since he'd started selling The Big Issue, the
self-support
magazine for the homeless. Usually these days he earned the money for a
bed.
It was generally when he didn't, when cash was short, that he came
here.
Sometimes, though, he came just for sex.

She didn't mind the sex. But she loved the warmth he brought. And the
easier
sleep.

She glanced at him, searching his face to gauge his intentions, but
found
only his usual blankness. His beard was wilder than she'd ever seen
it,
puffing up around his neck like a wire collar. His eyes were more
yellow
than usual. His skin was white as parchment, and he'd been in a
fight,
because there was a fresh, livid purple bruise under his ear.

She moved the bottle and snuggled close. His arm didn't come around
her, as
it sometimes did, but that was okay. She supposed that he was
weary.

His heart was beating like a triphammer.

She could comfort him, she recalled.

Once, she had comforted a man on a regular basis. The man might have
been
her father. It might not. She couldn't get a mental grip on those
things any
more. Maybe she'd never got a mental grip on those things. What did
it
matter? She was as she was, and where she was. And a little better
suddenly,
for Colin's visit. Well, certainly no worse.

Comfort. She rolled the word in her head. Comfort.

A sly thing, as far as she was concerned, not always birthed from love.
A
flicker of passion and compassion trapped in a bubble of time.

But enough, usually, to hold sway in the battle of the night.

She reached out to touch him. It was a labour. He moved slightly, but
it
wasn't exactly towards her, and it couldn't exactly be described as
a
response. The denim around his crotch was stiff with accumulated
dirt.

She worked down the zip of his pants, slipped her hand inside them. As
an
afterthought, she pulled the sleeping bag across to mask the activity.
There
were few people about this early in the morning, but the
occasional
stragglers from the clubs would stroll by, as with the couple a few
moments
before, and the police were about most nights as well of course.
So
concealment was the best policy.

Colin gave no indication by sound or gesture that he was aware of what
she
was doing, but she worked with a ragged determination. The muscles in
her
wrist ached within less than a minute, but she didn't dare expose
him
further, which would have helped, remembering that he always had
difficulty
in fastening himself up. The doorway of HMV was not the most
appropriate
place for complicated dressing.

In her early days on the streets, when she was nimbler and he was
more
alert, she had used her mouth on him from time to time, extracting from
the
miasma that was her past the fact that men really liked her to use
her
mouth....

...Men?

No.

A man.

One man.

The reason for her difficulties?

She didn't know....

...And once, they had found a comfortable and secluded spot by the
canal, a
spot usually fought over but on that night oddly and fortuitously
abandoned,
as though an invitation to treat. They had made love twice that night,
a
heaving bundle of rolled back old clothes.

He had touched her breasts.

He had kissed them.

She remembered little of her life, but she remembered that night.

He would never have agreed even then to pleasure her, though, in
similar
fashion to the way in which she was pleasuring him now. These days,
of
course, he was too drawn of energy, but in the past he had been
selfish.
That had never surprised her. Men were selfish creatures by nature,
she
believed. Something, again to do with the past, had convinced her of
that
before she'd even met Colin.

She felt the familiar sign, and she speeded up her work as best she
could,
exchanging pain for motion.

A slight lift of his body and a sigh, his stomach distending then
relaxing
like a deflating balloon. It was done. She removed the hand and
then
snuggled closer. This time he did bring his arm around her.

For the first time since his arrival, he spoke. "Wanted to see you",
he
said.

For a moment, illogically, she considered telling him that she loved
him. It
would have been a lie, but she was tempted by the hope that telling
him
might bring about a change. They might as a result end up facing the
world
together rather than alone. In the end, though, she withheld, deciding
that
any such declaration would, in an unfriendly world, be a thing of
little
value to him, and also that it would involve a compromise that she was
not
prepared to make.

She contented herself by replying, "Keep me warm."

Her response had taken so long to frame that he was already asleep.