Along the River Run

By Paul Buck

Drinking to excess is living when you're young. But what happens if living becomes rape… assault… death?!!
Lisbon: that city at the mouth of the Tagus, that city that whispers, licks and seduces its visitors, that city that haunts those seeking refuge or its pleasures. Who would wish to escape?
It is the start of the millennium and two 'lads' from South-East London are trapped in Lisbon among people and experiences set to push them to the limits. Attempting to lie low after a fateful night back home, the friends find themselves navigating an unfamiliar and unnerving new reality.
A crime novel inspired by a real-life incident, and distinguished by its sensitivity to subtleties of language and dialogue, Along the River Run is a story of guilt and retribution played out amid the streets, sounds and sights of this bewitching city.
Just as the undercurrents of Lisbon's Tagus are ever present, so the literary undercurrents of the capital as written by Pessoa, Saramago or Sa-Carneiro are there to enrich and pervade the evolving narrative. The novel follows the author's much-praised earlier book on Lisbon, a cultural exploration in a 'Cities of the Imagination' series, setting up authoritative background research for this haunting story of psychological destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prototype Publishing
• Release date: Nov 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913513054

Paul Buck

Paul Buck has been writing and publishing since the late Sixties; key titles include Violations, Lust, Walking into Myself… His work is characterized by its sabotaging of the various forms in order to explore their overlaps and differences. Through the Seventies he also edited the seminal magazine Curtains, with its focus on threading French writing from Bataille, Blanchot, Jabès, Faye, Noël, Ronat, Collobert and a score of others into a weave with English and American writers and artists. While editing and translating are still a daily activity – in partnership with Catherine Petit, the Vauxhall&Company series of books at Cabinet Gallery is their responsibility – he also continues to cover new ground: Spread Wide, a fiction generated from his letters with Kathy Acker; Performance, a biography of the Cammell/Roeg film; Lisbon, a cultural view of a city; A Public Intimacy, strip-searching scrapbooks to expose autobiography; Disappearing Curtains, an exhibition catalogue that collides with a ‘journal’; Library, a suitable case for treatment, a collection of essays. In recent times he helped Laure Prouvost to write her film Deep See Blue Surrounding You, around which her Venice Biennale pavilion, representing France, was based. Further ventures through textual issues around transgression, perversity, and intimacy to appear include: Indiscretions (& Nakedness), a set of prose narratives; Street of Dreams, further essays, and Without You, a fiction that voyages through film essay.

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Paul Buck has been writing and publishing since the late Sixties; key titles include Violations, Lust, Walking into Myself… His work is characterised by its sabotaging of the various forms in order to explore their overlaps and differences. Through the Seventies he also edited the seminal magazine Curtains, with its focus on threading French writing from Bataille, Blanchot, Jabès, Faye, Noël, Ronat, Collobert and a score of others into a weave with English and American writers and artists. While editing and translating are still a daily activity – in partnership with Catherine Petit, the Vauxhall&Company series of books at Cabinet Gallery is their responsibility – he also continues to cover new ground: Spread Wide, a fiction generated from his letters with Kathy Acker; Performance, a biography of the Cammell/Roeg film; Lisbon, a cultural view of a city; A Public Intimacy, strip-searching scrapbooks to expose autobiography; Disappearing Curtains, an exhibition catalogue that collides with a ‘journal’; Library, a suitable case for treatment, a collection of essays. In recent times he helped Laure Prouvost to write her film Deep See Blue Surrounding You, around which her Venice Biennale pavilion, representing France, was based. Further ventures through textual issues around transgression, perversity and intimacy to appear include: Indiscretions (& Nakedness), a set of prose narratives; Street of Dreams, further essays, and Without You, a fiction that voyages through film essay.

Along the River Run

Paul Buck

This book is for Catherine

Along the River Run

quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus:

            (which the gold-bearing Tagus knows)

               from Catullus XXIX

            … A way a lone a last a loved a long the

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve

  of shore to bend of bay,

       from (finish to start of)

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Summer had come quicker than expected. It was too hot to stay in and watch tele any longer. They resigned themselves to going down the pub to meet the boys, have a drink while they were about it. Make a change. All that Coke had given Mel wind, but it was better than being drunk. She hated vomiting. Or watching others vomit. The stench gutted her. Stupid. So stupid. They were ready. ‘Let’s off.’

‘God, I’m feeling horny tonight,’ Di said as she scratched at herself through her dress. The door was sticking again. She pulled it hard. ‘Know what he said tonight?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Said he’d fuck me brains out.’ She smirked. ‘Guess what I said?’

‘Can’t.’

‘That’s right! Can’t.’ Di laughed. ‘I said, can’t, cos I ain’t got none.’

The phone rang, clipping away their laughter.

‘Speak of the devil.’

Di turned, pushed at the door and crossed to answer.

Mel remained on the step, impatient to get off. ‘Who is it?’ she mouthed.

‘Yeah, Dave,’ Di said, as a way to inform her sister.

‘Tell ’im to phone yer mobile.’

‘Hold on.’ She looked over at Mel. ‘Start walking. Catch yous at the corner.’

Mel nodded, fluttered her fingers as a farewell gesture and got going down the path. There was no gate, that had rotted off its hinges years back after dad drowned.

Her scream was lost in her throat, its sound choked as she gagged for breath. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely keep her feet. She was being grabbed, she could feel more than one pair of hands assaulting her.

Backwards. She was pulled backwards through the gap in the fencing, through the privet that marked this edge of the park. They had been unable to lift her legs as she kicked out. They had been scratched and cut on the way through.

She kept on struggling, even though they held her tight. There was nowhere for her to go. She was becoming a pain. A punch in the face would quiet her. It didn’t. A second did. Right in her mouth. One tooth, two, dislodged, fell forward. His hand hurt. He swore at her for making him do that. She flopped to the ground.

‘Hold her, just in case.’

The taller pushed her skirt up, paused briefly while he clocked the sexy knickers. This was not how it should happen, he thought, but blanked it as he ploughed on, grasping the elastic and yanking them down as best he could. He managed to bend one leg enough to remove one side, let them remain on the other leg. He was anxious to get on with it.

Stupid bitch, why did she have to conk out? He couldn’t get it in, she was too dry. He spat on his hand and wiped the spittle along her crack. That made it easier. He penetrated her this time. It was hard, it wasn’t as much fun as he thought it’d be. It was fucking annoying. He’d drunk too much. He knew that. It wasn’t happening. If he tried more, he’d bring all that beer up. He could already feel it in his throat. He thrust again. And again. Nothing was happening. He was hard, but not excited. Nothing would happen. It had to happen. He letout a deep-throated groan, of course it had happened, and pulled out.

‘Your turn. Have a go.’

He stood. He was frustrated and paid little attention as he stepped over towards the right. He would hold her still. His foot caught in something, the knickers clinging to her leg. He stumbled forward, he couldn’t help himself, yanking the whole body sharply after him as he fell. He swore again, too loud this time. Enough to mask the cracking sound that came from the girl as her body skewed round while her head remained wedged between his mate’s knees.

The mate felt something, felt a shudder. Not that he paid any attention. He was focussed on other matters, readying himself for his turn.

He moved into position, pulled his zip down further, and released his stiffening cock. It was his turn now. She looked out of it. Just his luck. His mate was still stumbling and falling, trying to regain his feet, if not be sick. He wouldn’t be sick. He was going to fuck her. That’s all there was to it. She was ready and waiting. He climbed between her legs and stuck it in. He was ready for it. Come on, slag. Show some action. He pushed again and again. He would come, but this was no fun. She wasn’t doing it. He slapped her face, he needed to revive her. Nothing happened. He was sick of this lark already. He pulled himself out. He would have kicked her, she was useless. But he couldn’t be bothered.

They should go, someone would come along sooner or later.

She’d be okay, she’d find her way out.

They set off across the wooden bridge. Her body would be found cold on the grass in the morning.

The sun was overhead, beating down hard on the tourists and all those there to provide for them. Everyone had to earn their living.

Lee and Jake were seated at a table outside a sandwich bar watching people passing. Lee wouldn’t have taken any further notice of the guy with the glasses if he hadn’t produced a lighter and set it to work. Only then did he twig the ruse and follow the action.

The guy was around thirty, smartly dressed, fresh shirt and creased trousers. He could have passed for a tourist, but he wasn’t. He was Portuguese. He was acting like a tourist, removing sunglasses from the stand outside the shop, trying them on, inspecting them. With hindsight, the first Lee would have known that his intent was different was when he edged away, three pairs clutched in his hand.

He had stopped, his back to the shop, and withdrawn a lighter from his pocket. He applied the flame to the tags on the glasses, one after another, scrunching the labels in his hand as they came away. He had three pairs of glasses for sale. It was only a few metres to the main pedestrianised thoroughfare, the Rua Augusta, where the tourists strolled in greater numbers, where he could approach those struggling under the intense sun with offers of quality shades for knockdown prices.

He wasn’t alone. He had a companion, to whom he passed a pair to sell.

The lads finished their baguettes and headed off towards the crowds. Lee worked his way towards the guys, he wanted to hear their patter. The prime culprit turned and smiled at him.

‘You just arrived? You look like you just arrived. You English? How can I tell? I tell because you no glasses yet. I have glasses. I sell you glasses. Very cheap. Very quality. Look…’ And he raised a pair to Lee’s face, before shifting it to his own to show how good it could look on a suave man like him. ‘Makes you look good. Just right for handsome gent like you. Girls will like it, no?’

‘Sure will, mate. But not today.’

Lee stepped forward to move along. The guy could see that he shouldn’t mess with these two. No meant no. He turned away, saw a middle-aged couple and set about offering them quality protection.

‘Nifty little business that, don’t you think, Jake?’ Lee addressed his friend after opening up a suitable gap.

‘What? Selling glasses? Not really.’

‘Depends what you pay in the first place, what the profit margin would be.’

‘Yeah. Guess.’

‘S’pose you got them for nothing? Nicked them like.’

‘Course, if you did that…’

‘You saw nothing, did you?’

‘Saw what?’

‘Saw them nick those glasses.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, right before our eyes. When we was eating.’

Lee explained the blag. Jake looked round a couple of times to see if they were still selling, but they were already too far away, and he was bumping into the oncoming traffic. And there were girls to take a shufti at. Girls with little on. They were the tourists. The locals were easier to spot, they didn’t reveal so much flesh. No bare midriffs. No short skirts. They weren’t flaunting it. But they looked real nice just the same. They both agreed on that.

They had been in Lisbon three days. They felt like they were getting to know the place. Both were pleased they had each other for company. They reckoned it would be pretty lonely otherwise, no-one to speak with who could understand English. Not many anyway. The guy at the desk in the hotel they’d found, he spoke good English, and he could understand them too. And some of the shops. Well, not so much the shops, as the eating places. Provided they kept to the fast food joints, like just now, or the McDonald’s and eateries in the tourist areas, they would be okay. But as soon as they wandered in places away from the centre, in little back streets, where the locals lived and ate, or drank, then there were problems. They had to point to make themselves understood. They had no choice, they had to get a drink or die of thirst in the heat. Not that the people minded their lack of the lingo. They seemed friendly enough. Some of the old ones laughed a lot. Laughed more than their grans back home ever did. No, that wasn’t so bad. Though they reckoned it’d still be better to keep to the centre, to keep to what they could handle.

This street had loads of clothes shops, and shoe shops. They wondered why there were so many shoe shops. Particularly as there were masses of high heels on display. Who’d buy them? This town had very uneven surfaces, constructed from little stone cubes, hopeless for heeled shoes. You only had to look around, everyone had flat shoes. Only a few pampered old dears, mutton dressed as lamb, seemed to wear heels, and they were stumbling all over the place.

Down the bottom end of the street, outside a clutch of banks, stalls were erected daily. Some were manned by black guys. They weren’t Portuguese. They sold African objects, not only carvings of tribal stuff, but leather bags, woven cloth items… And there were a number offering henna paint tattoos, something that’d last the holiday. Others were offering to paint portraits, or selling stuff already done. Lee dallied to survey them, much to Jake’s annoyance. One guy was doing very colourful paintings of the town, in glaring colours. Not fluorescent, Lee thought, but a kind of day-glo. He tried to think what his art teacher would have called it. Couldn’t. No matter. They were somewhat unreal, but colourful… That’s what he’d say. Colourful. They was fun.

They were glad to be on holiday. To forget all their worries. Not to have to work. Even if their employment was flexible and variable, it was still work. Just relax, enjoy things, live a bit.

They passed through the giant Triumphal Arch, but the vast square, the Praça do Comércio, before them didn’t look too enticing at that time, and on its far side they could see the excavation works blocking off the river. They didn’t fancy it. They turned back up the Rua Augusta.

‘There’re still at it,’ Jake commented. Perhaps they had sold some and replenished their stocks.

The main guy turned into their path, recognised them and stepped aside.

‘Ain’t gonna try his luck again with us, that’s for sure,’ Jake noted.

‘You gonna bop him then?’

‘Might do. Why not?’

Lee laughed. ‘Best not, Jake.’

‘I know.’

They ambled by.

‘We could do that. Easy.’

Jake nodded. No sooner said than forgotten though.

They continued up to the next square before determining to return and rest in the hotel for an hour or two.

Siesta. That’s what they call it, they thought. ‘Siesta’s a Spanish word though, innit?’ Jake queried. He wondered if Portugal was part of Spain. They didn’t think so.

‘No, course it ain’t. They’ve a football team, the Portuguese.’

‘So have Wales,’ Jake stated, being smart, ‘but they’re still part of England.’

‘Yeah. No they ain’t. Britain. Part of Britain, dummy.’

‘Oh yeah.’

As Lee fell back onto his bed, he let out a loud sigh. ‘This is the life. Could do this every bleeding day.’

‘Should send some postcards.’

~~~~~~~~

When Jake had seen those holiday programmes on tele, the hotel rooms always looked the same. Everywhere looked the same, world over. Reminded him of Aunt Mary’s flat. Clean and tidy like. Looked okay. Colourful, but not enough, not really, quite plain really, when you thought about it. And now here they were in something he’d call tacky. Tacky and… faded. Not only that. Things barely worked. Okay, it has a light, but what does that mean? Well, it means so long as one of the lights in the room works, whether on the ceiling, or over the bed, the room has light. What’s the problem? Or that the shower attachment has water coming out of the nozzle is enough, surely? That it’s faulty and also sprays from cracks along its length that tend to aim for the tiled floor is not his problem, that’s for that girl, the chambermaid, to mop up later. Or the door handle that has been mended so many times from misuse and forced entry that it barely holds onto its job. He quite liked that one, he’d remember that for later.

Jake hadn’t needed to apply any pressure to open the window-doors onto the balcony. The latch was so primitive he was surprised it even held the two sides together. Anyone could come in whenever they wanted through that opening. Likewise he could probably step into other rooms in a similar manner if he chose to.

He poked his head out and looked along the balcony in both directions. It was one long walkway that connected all the rooms on that floor. It even went round the corner at either end. Anyone could just walk in.

He hadn’t felt like snoozing any longer. He had unfolded the Sight Seeing brochure of the city, a freebie picked up at reception. Nothing struck him, though the map might be helpful. Perhaps not. They would find things out as they went along. A woman in a simple black dress was seated against a shop window on the Rua Augusta. He could see her clearly. She was singing. She had been singing for some while. It was a sad sound. A kind of wail. Not really to his taste. He wondered how much longer she would go on like that. People dropped money into the box in her lap. Her head was tilted upwards, in a way that most people didn’t. It reminded him of an animal, their cat, lifting its head to listen for something. And yet she was the one singing. Then he understood, she was blind. Poor thing. He was glad he wasn’t blind. He couldn’t begin to imagine how awful it would be.

He saw the two guys who dealt in sunglasses. Seriously, they could do that. Not that he was skilled at nicking stuff. His old Uncle Bob had told him about when he was a lad at school, one of his classmates used to go into Marks & Sparks, lift a pair of trousers, go round the counter and present them to the girl on the other side and say they didn’t fit, could he have his money back. And he got it. That was in the Sixties though, yeah, right. Had to be ancient times, couldn’t happen today, he reckoned. What a wheeze though. They had it easy then.

‘What you doing?’ Lee asked.

Jake hadn’t heard him wake and stretch on his bed.

‘Nothing much. Watching those guys again, with their shades.’

‘We could do with some.’

‘Have to find another patch.’

‘Not to sell. To wear. We need ’em… for ourselves.’

‘Oh, yeah. We do.’ Jake stepped back into the room, bumping the door back against the wall. He tended to be clumsy, always had been. He lowered his voice. ‘Could go next door, their window’s open, lift theirs. Or other stuff. It’s a singe. Dead easy.’

Lee swung his legs round. The bed only just contained him. These hotels needed new beds, people all over were getting bigger. He came round for a look. They both agreed it all seemed pretty simple, though people did live in the block across the way and might see them. Have to do it at night when they were asleep, or when they were out, they reckoned. After all, nobody closed their windows, too bloody hot for that.

‘But the bottom line, Jake, what’s the bottom line?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Think. What d’yer think?’

‘Dunno. Go on, tell me.’

‘Have they anythink worth taking?’ Lee said quizzically, paused, then: ‘This is a pretty crummy place, you don’t stay here if you’ve got valuables, now do yer?’

‘Yeah, right. You’re clever, Lee. Give you that.’

Lee smiled, tapped his head, and turned to the door. ‘Back in a mo.’

‘Lots of bloody foreigners here, have you noticed?’ Lee had been for a quick recce round the corridors, up the next flight, just to get a feel of the place. ‘Saw a couple of crackers go into the room down the corridor, one after next. Quite tasty. But they were German. Sounded German. Like in those war movies.’

‘Shame no English birds here.’

Both knew already though, even after their few days, that each morning when they had been down to breakfast, the people were not the same as the previous day. A few were. But not many. People didn’t stay long. As if they were passing through. Perhaps they’d get lucky tomorrow.

‘Here, Lee. Why do they have two toilets next to each other, like this?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Jake. That’s not a toilet. Why’d they do that?’

‘That’s what I wondered.’ Lee pushed open the door to the bathroom and looked in. ‘Don’t you know about that? That’s for washing your feet in.’

‘Oh, right.’

Jake continued pissing, looking down at the bidet as he did. No, he didn’t really understand. But if Lee said that’s what it was for, he must know. Lee had been abroad before, he hadn’t. He’d meant to, but hadn’t. He’d been ill, had to give his ticket for the match to someone else. And his expensive bleeding plane ticket. Had been a lousy game anyway, he’d watched it on tele. Thought he’d seen Lee and the boys in the crowd, singing and larking about. One day his team might play in Europe, then he could go and support them. Pigs might fly. Though he’d only been an avid supporter for a short while, Millwall had been a great team for many years, even if they weren’t Premiership at the moment.

Lee reappeared in the doorway. The bolt didn’t work, Jake could only push it too. ‘Not everyone has their own toilet or shower you know. Not on this floor. There’s a commonal… one for everyone, sharing, down the end. Saw this guy coming out, clutching his towel like, like in one of those comedy films. Dripping everywhere. Rushed to his room when he saw me.’

‘Be good if those German birds came from the shower, all wet and dripping,’ Jake said. He started thinking of those films too where scantily clad girls ran around, speeded up. Always made him laugh. The woman from Eastenders, Peggy, she used to be in them, once. Not now. She was pushing her years now. But once, she was pushing her tits everywhere. ‘Reckon they have their own in their room?’

‘Reckon we’re in with a chance, do yer?’

‘Do you?’

‘Now why should we… Germans, Jake. Who wants a bit of German stuff?’

‘Show ’em who’s boss.’

‘Just like me dad, Jake. You’re just like him. Germans are still scum, still a bunch of Nazis.’

‘Nothing changes, Lee. They got to know their place.’ Without a pause he started chanting into the mirror: ‘Eng-land. Eng-land…’

Lee joined in. After a handful of rousing encouragements, they stopped.

‘Besides, we might change,’ Lee said. ‘Think there’s a big difference in prices, rooms without a bathroom are much cheaper.’

‘But we wanted one with a bathroom, didn’t we?’

‘Course. Wasn’t exactly thinking though when we arrived.’

‘But now…’

‘But now, doesn’t seem so important.’

‘We can run around the corridor too, starkers,’ Jake added, and laughed.

‘See how