THE TOILET

STEPHEN HARGADON

Down in the neon gloom of the Toilet, among the mumblers and dribblers, the dead souls with their dead dreams, Rio Snagg indicated, with a buyer’s nod, that he wanted the same again; the same again being a pint of the celebrated local brew, Knicker Sniffer, a fierce and sooty fluid cited as the malign inspiration behind many a Friday night coshing and bludgeoning. The Toilet was Snagg’s least welcoming local. Here it was always dusk. Good times were bad times, bad times were good times: it made no difference down here. The shadows consumed him, the minutes became hours, and each pint constituted the arrival of a new world, a new day. To refuse a pint was to be against life.

He could never remember being here; or why he had come here; or at what hour he had left. Time stopped, but the world up there went on, oblivious to the underworld, this minus-world behind a numberless door and down a flight of stairs on Ruskin Road, between loan-shop and chicken-shack.

The Sniffers were disastrously cheap, all day every day, and after four or five of them, the familiar memories came, of childhood and violence, mostly; missives from a world he had once passed through, thinking it a mere succession of days, a thing outside him, without knowing it was life, and part of him. He saw the grey swell of the sea. The salt-bitten pier, with its barnacled pillars and creaking wood, stretching towards an unknowable continent. The golden clatter of the arcades. Seagulls swirling and rising, diving whitely. Greasy chips. Test Your Strength. The hot cage of his father’s Ford Escort. ‘Too Much, Too Young’ on the radio. Sticks and fists and jags of glass. The compliant girls. He remembered the terraces and being part of another grey swell, the human surge beneath a corrugated roof. He saw narrow streets and open windows; powdery clouds and a rain of knives.

After a few more Sniffers, the memories disappeared. Other thoughts took over: abstractions and theories, the mathematics of life and fate. He came here, to this basement bar, to remember and to forget. He came to talk, explain, persuade, but no one ever listened. He downed his sixth pint in three, nodded to the barman, and climbed into light.

The city hit him with all its glare and grit, its circus of spores and dust. That last Sniffer had winded him. He was getting old. Here was the world, unreliable beneath the sweating sky, older than everyone: but still vigorous, still getting the job done. There was the park with its trees and turds. The pound shops and betting dens. Over there, a street-drinker in his fatsuit of many anoraks, cradling a toxic jumbo. Those ciders. White Force. White Lightning. White Shark. They sounded like splinter groups of the Ku Klux Klan. And beyond, in the gauzy middlezone, he saw a figure coming at him, towards him, out of memory.

“Rio! Rio Snagg. How’s it going, mate?”

That mate sounded false. A fake mate.

“Do I know you?”

“You tell me.”

Rio saw the raised arm, the falling hammer. Clouds crumpled and the world was flushed away.

“Careful, Rio. You’ve made a right mess of the pavement.”

***

“Can you describe him, sir?”

“Yeah. Lanky sod. Bald. Shaven. Looked a bit pissed, very pissed, which is nothing new for him. Got a bloody big hole in the middle of his head now. Can’t miss him.”

“Very droll,” said Inspector Frank Burroughs. “I was talking about the assailant. The man, or indeed woman, who attacked Mr Snagg with a spanner.”

“Hammer.”

“Hammer?” Burroughs frowned at his notebook and jotted down this development. “Tell me about the attacker.”

“I’ve told you all I can, squire, which is nothing. Or mostly nothing.” The supposed witness was a tubby fellow with an egg-shaped head and fidgety hands. He wore a voluminous short-sleeved shirt: untucked, it looked like an Arab’s smock or tunic. “I ain’t got time to notice everything. If I did that, I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, I’d still be counting the flowers on the wallpaper.”

The two men were standing inside Smiler’s Speedy Loans, near where Snagg had been attacked (the scene was now taped off) and a few steps from the Toilet’s gloomy doorway.

“I didn’t see nothing,” continued the witness. “Not really. Happened so fast. It was like boom, all over.” He said this with some sourness, as if the police should have slowed it down for him. “Busy, like I say. Studying form, in Kelly’s. Concentrating. There’s a lot of variables to weigh up. Form is only the half of it. You’ve got the weather and all sorts. Let me give you a tip, mate. Captain Mudd, two-thirty at Plumpton, ten-to-one. Get on it.”

“I don’t gamble.”

“Tssh! No one can say that, not if they’re telling the truth. Life’s a gamble. Every day you take a chance. Breathe in – you gamble. Breathe out – you gamble. There ain’t no other way. You can’t escape that fact. Take my advice. Captain Mudd. Inside knowledge. Straight up. My brother-in-law’s having it off with a stable lad. Now that’s gambling.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Are you quite sure you saw nothing?”

“Nothing. I was working on my forecast. In Kelly’s. Tell the truth, that Snagg likes his Sniffer. And his cider. And his meths. Probably fell over. Wouldn’t be the first time. Always making a nuisance of himself. Getting worse, too. Talks jibberish. His personal hygiene is highly questionable. It’s his mum I feel sorry for. Church of England she is, a proper lady of the old school, nicely dressed, she shouldn’t have to put up with it. But we all have a cross. I choose to put mine on a coupon.”

“You’re something of a philosopher.”

“Not me, no way. If I was the sort to take umbrage, squire, which I’m not, I’d say that was an insult. Philosophy’s for drunks. Drunks and layabouts. The stupidest child is a philosopher. Why’s this? Why’s that? It’s not a thing for a grown man to be doing. The pubs is full of philosophers. Grand ideas and sod all to show for it. Your Snagg’s a philosopher. Always with his clever feeries and the Thornford Advertiser tucked under his arm like it was the Magna Carta or something. Where does it get him, all that thinking and worrying? He’s got a blinking great hole in his head now. No, listen, if you’re gonna do something, you gotta do it. No use talking about it. Even less use thinking about it. You gotta get on with it. I’m a man of action. A man of science. Kelly’s is my college. I study. I learn. I balance the books. And I never see nothing, not unless there’s money in the seeing. Captain Mudd. You heard it here.”

“Are you quite sure you’ve nothing further to add? An unusual item of clothing, perhaps? An idiosyncratic accent. A tattoo. A limp. Gaits can be very distinctive.”

“No, mate. Like I say, all I saw was the spanner.”

“Hammer.”

“Yeah, something like that. I wouldn’t know. I’m a numbers man. I reckon he just fell over. Put that in your notebook and we can all go home. Job done.”

Tall, moustachioed Burroughs, smart in his mac and polished brogues, looked through the stickered window at the yellow tape tightening and loosening in the wind. He had seen the daubs of blood on the pavement, the darkening flecks. The witness, in his flapping tent of a shirt, whistled ‘Boiled Beef and Carrots’.

“Nasty business,” said Burroughs. “Broad daylight, too.”

“Broad daylight is just the night-time with the lights on. Makes no difference round here. Not these days. Why don’t you have a word with that Serb firm over Weston Heights?”

“Our investigations are wide-ranging. We’re not ruling anything out. Or in.”

“Don’t give me that, squire. You know you can safely rule out most of the borough.” The witness moved to the window. “That lush over there – you can rule him out, he’s blotto, don’t even know his own name. And that old dear, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And that mum with her pram – as if. See, there’s nothing to it. Process of elimination. I’ve done most of it for you.”

“So the victim came from that direction, you say.”

“Yeah. Came out of the Toilet next door. He’d had a few. Wobbly, unsteady. A sad case. Say la vee. Is that it, squire? Can I go? I need to attend to my business. Time is money. I can’t be seen chatting to you all day, can I? Got a few quid on the Chunichi Dragons. Cheers. And do yourself a favour – Captain Mudd, Plumpton.”

“You’ve been very helpful. I’ll be in touch should I need anything further.”

“Sure.”

Burroughs flipped shut his notebook, walked out of Smiler’s, and made his way to the Toilet.

***

“Afternoon.”

The barman, a surly figure in a soiled, pale pink polo-shirt, did not reply. He lurked, fish-like, in the shadows at the far end of the bar, turning the pages of a grubby newspaper. Burroughs repeated his greeting and asked, with cheery puzzlement, “What refreshment do you recommend?”

The barman emerged from his lair, bringing his scars and stubble into the spotlight. Without speaking, he began to pour a pint of Knicker Sniffer: the dark liquid filled the glass in thick, hissing spurts. The other pumps were purely decorative. The revered Sniffer was the only beer on sale. If you didn’t like beer – or more specifically, the Sniffer – then you could try the spirits: Kremlin vodka, MacBell’s whisky, Luton Dry Gin.

“Thank you,” said Burroughs, perching himself on a high stool. “It’s a dark one. Almost like stout.” He took an experimental sip and grimaced. “Unusual. Hints of charcoal? Chestnut?”

The thick brew rippled like fur in the glass. The barman swiped a cloth along the counter, leaving grey, soapy streaks.

“Quiet in here,” said Burroughs, looking round the basement. He was the sole patron. Pop music crackled from the speakers. Jaunty, pompous tunes from twenty or thirty years ago. “First time I’ve ever been in here. Always wondered what was down those steps. Intriguing venue.” This, of course, was a lie. Burroughs knew every slosh-shop and binge-pit this side of the steaming sewer they called a river.

“Now you know,” said the barman.

“Unusual name,” mused Burroughs, wiping a stringy deposit from his moustache. “Not exactly the Royal Oak, is it?”

The barman inspected a glass, spat on it, and polished it to a satisfactory shine.

“Historical, mate. What you call a local talking point. Heritage. This used to be a public convenience back in the old days. Well before my time, of course. It wasn’t just any old bog. It was classy. But them was classier times.”

“Times change.”

“People don’t. This was once the finest convenience in the borough. This was the lav to be seen in. A lot of famous faces used to come down here. In the old days. Lord Shotton, Leon Heath, Norman Trueblood. General Beauchamp-Foskett brought his nephew here. Sheldon Le Strange, the actor. Montague Dodd of Inspector Feverel fame. The Archbishop of Canterbury. Viscounts and Earls and those what said they were. The odd queen, too. Gangsters, dancers, thieves, bankers. Fingers McPhee. Joey Voyce. Bobby Palmer, played in goal for Spurs. There was half the Cabinet down here some nights.”

“We had a more fluid society in those days.” Burroughs knew all about the old days. And the new days. And all the days in between.

“Dunno about that. All things come to an end. It’s hard to believe, but one day the United States will be rubble like the Roman Empire, just a load of stuff in a museum that no one wants to see.”

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.”

“Yeah, sure. Toilet got closed down in the eighties. Too expensive to maintain. Cutbacks. Cheaper to let people piss in the street. But someone bought it, Barney Villiers I think, and he turned it into a private club. Then he got busted and it was taken over by some berk from Brum who opened a wine bar called Up Periscope. Submarine theme, lasted about a month. It’s been through countless hands since then and had all sorts of names. Dandy’s Den. Cuckoo’s Nest. Deano’s Jazz Shack. Swaggers. Charmers. Rogues. Jesters. Champers. Anything with a sodding ‘s’ on the end. Didn’t matter what it said over the door, everyone still called it the Toilet. The name just stuck, didn’t it? Even when Joe Torino bought it – after that tear-up in Mexico City when he slaughtered the Greek – and it became the Aztec Lounge, even then everyone still called it the Toilet, or worse, but not to Joe’s face, obviously. So the Toilet it is. And the Toilet it stays.”

“A colourful past. I thought it might be busier…”

“Telly’s bust,” said the barman. “We usually have the racing on. Our regulars are all in the betting shop. Kelly’s. There’s booze in there, I’m sure, but I can’t prove nothing, and I don’t care anyway, I just work here. Do you know anything about tellies? Boss said a bloke was coming today. Emlyn or Eamon or something. Is that you?”

“No, no. I wouldn’t know a cathode from my elbow.”

The barman looked at Burroughs with distaste.

“If there’s no telly, there’s no racing. And if there’s no racing, there’s no drinkers. Simple as.” From a pair of speakers hanging lopsided above the bar came a wavering voice, accompanied by flatulent synthesisers. The sound was erratic and fuzzy. The singer rhymed cool with fool, night with light; he’d been waiting for this moment all his life. “Our regs,” said the barman, “don’t come for the conversation. They need something to look at, to take them away from their troubles. More than anything, they need something to take their mind off the Sniffer.” The barman was busy griming the pumps with his rag, distributing a sharp, fishy odour. Fruit flies danced over the sink. “I reckon someone’s interfered with the telly. Sabotage. I can’t prove nothing, but it’ll be the Verona boys.”

Burroughs journeyed deeper into his pint. The taste, at first acrid and full of salty barbs, grew soft and rounded in his mouth. He barely noticed the globules and grit. He was speeding up.

“Ted Verona, Steve Verona. Them scuzzers up at the Finch and Pistol,” said the barman. “Warren Chance, Sol Lazlo, Doc Greaves. Been giving our regs a bit of grief. A lot of grief. It’s not on. Innocent pleasure-seekers attacked.”

“Sounds like your average turf war.”

“You’re part of it. I know what bacon smells like.” The barman sniffed. “No offence, like.”

“None taken. I’ve heard worse.”

“I can believe that. Another?”

“Please. You know, I’m beginning to enjoy it.”

“That’s what they all say. I’m teetotal. More or less. I stick to gin. And vodka. The clear stuff, no impurities.” The barman worked the pump and the Sniffer spattered into the glass. Burroughs thought of cowpats and gut-rot. There was a dampness down here, beneath the traffic, as if the shadows were made of sweat and breath. He heard, or thought he heard, small, thrusting voices buried in the music, beneath bassline and drumbeat. Imploring, passionate voices.

“They’re out of order, doing civilians,” said the barman. “You can’t do that. Not in a democracy. Your mob oughta go up the Finch and Pistol and do those Verona boys. And do the Serbs while you’re at it. Keep Britain tidy. Here you are.”

“Thanks. I believe there was an attack earlier. Outside on Ruskin Street.”

“I don’t know about that. I was working. I saw nothing and heard nothing. It’s the Sniffer they’re after. Sniffing round the Sniffer.”

Burroughs took swift, leisurely gulps: the brew was slipping down nicely.

“It’s a family recipe. Passed down through the generations. Don’t ask me what family. It’s a staple round here, like our whelk and liver puddings. Want one?” The barman indicated a pile of glazed, beige dollops under a plastic dome next to the cash register.

“No thank you.”

“Some say it’s got powers. The Sniffer, I mean.”

“Powers?”

“You know, like healing and that. Making you more alert. Physical rejuvenation. I ain’t saying it’ll turn you into Linford Christie or nothing, but it’ll perk you up. Sort of like an energy drink. One of our regs, old geezer called Franny Chadwick, ex-postman, gets the horn after six or seven. I didn’t believe it myself at first. Then I saw him sitting in front of Match of the Day with a stiffy you could spin plates on. I thought he had a linesman in his trousers. Feller’s ninety-two. It’s got to be the Sniffer. Or he fancies Alan Shearer.”

Burroughs finished his pint, indicated that he’d take another.

“Good lad. You’ve got the taste. You’ll be talking Shakespeare next. I’ve heard others say it gives them mental strength. Ideas and that. Thoughts. There’s big money in it,” said the barman, rubbing a scar under his eye. “What with all this healthy living. The big breweries want a piece. Even the Dublin boys are interested. Can’t have those lunatics getting hold of it, though, not for any money. You’re not of Irish stock are you?”

“No. My mother’s father was Welsh.”

“We show the rugby, too. Six Nations, Twickenham.”

“That’s good to know. By the way, did you see a tall fellow in here earlier? Lanky, bald. Shaven rather than bald. Bit of an eccentric.”

“Couldn’t say. I was busy. Working, cleaning.”

“Goes by the name of Rio Snagg.”

“Ah, Rio. Good old Rio. You should’ve said. I thought you meant a normal person. He’s a local landmark. Rio’s always in here. Practically lives here. He ain’t bothered by a broken telly. He’s a talker. Talks to walls, mostly. Reads books, too – or so he reckons – but I’ve only ever seen him with the Thornford Advertiser. The small ads. You know: lawnmower for sale, Mandy’s Massage, aerials fixed and fitted, used VW Golf one careful owner. Rio says they’re full of hidden codes. Talks about all sorts, does Rio. Art, politics, philosophy, all that rubbish. Bit of hiss-tree. Always got a theory. No one’s interested. Bit sad, really: he’s young enough to know better. Should be out having fun with a Doris or three. That’s what I was doing at his age. Still doing it now, when I get the chance. Rain or shine he’s down here on the Sniffer, eyes glued to the Advertiser. It’s no life for a man in his prime. ‘Get yourself down a beer garden,’ I say. ‘See the world. Get laid. Watch the football. Have fun.’ But he don’t listen. He’s harmless.”

“So he was in here earlier. What time did he leave? Approximately?”

“Leave? He ain’t left.”

Burroughs looked over the empty chairs, the dented tables, the leatherette banquettes with their cig-burns and gum-scabs.

“He’s in the toilet,” said the barman. “Might be a while yet. Took his Advertiser with him.”

“I need to go myself.”

“At the back, through the doors, down the stairs. I’ll set you up another.”

“Thank you.”

Burroughs veered towards the shadowy corner indicated by the barman. He could feel the Sniffer in his brain and gut, pulsing in the hollows of his body. He pushed open a pair of swing doors, grey and institutional, and descended into a zone of dripping pipes and sweating walls. In a dim corridor (where the music still crackled and fizzed), he passed mouldy posters advising against drunken copulation: a face covered in sores and scabs, wormhills of pus; pocked lips; a scrotum encrusted with warts; a naked girl, pregnant and sobbing, the smooth swell of her belly curiously out of proportion to the rest of her frame – the bulge, on which she rested a limp hand, looked like a tumour or graft, a monstrous blister. There were further images showing car crashes and broken bodies. A soundless screen up by the ceiling showed women dancing in bikinis.

Burroughs came to a door bearing a sign he had seen innumerable times. He entered. A foul smell surrounded him like a mist, a meaty dampness. Warm faeces, vomit, bin-slops. Burroughs, who had encountered many vile odours over the years, covered his nose with a handkerchief. The air was humid. Pools of tawny water on the floor. He heard the steady hum of machinery and the slap of churning liquids. It was a large room, more like a warehouse or hangar than a lavatory. Cream tiles, a vending machine, a row of perhaps twenty cubicles on one side, mirrored pillars and ranks of basins in the centre, and a long metal trough stained with moss and rust on the far wall. Bloody towels, scattered tools. The mirrors were cloudy, smeared with grease and dust, and the few lights reflected in them looked like eyes, watching Burroughs as he walked further into an echoing space that seemed to have no end, a series of familiar but subtly altered zones, repeated as in a pattern, and multiplied by the mirrors. There were blind alleys and false exits. He turned and could not see where he had come in. The vile smell, fading, then gathering, seemed to touch him. Music came from somewhere – hissing trivialities, shrill enchantments.

“Snagg? Rio? Are you there, Rio?”

Burroughs saw himself from many angles, a dapper figure, handsome. He realised that the room was growing more intricate, with alcoves and cul-de-sacs, and even a ginnel or underpass sloping up into what he believed was the pale light of the street. Again he heard the thump and rumble of machinery. Cogs, pumps, pistons.

“Snagg? Are you there?”

Burroughs noticed – and wondered why he had not marked this before – that the cubicle doors were covered in diagrams and illustrations, some etched into the paintwork with great skill and care; looking closer, Burroughs saw that they were anatomical drawings. A diseased womb, shrivelled like the husk of an eaten fruit. A blackened lung. A human arm with its pink plaits of muscle. An eyeball, frightening in its fragile intricacy.

He opened the cubicle doors one by one. Broken bowls, puddles, discarded clothes. Crusted pipes and rusting chains. Dabs of hardening waste. There were obscene drawings on the walls, crude and vicious, quite unlike the delicate medical images, along with scratched threats and scrawled invitations, crass haikus of lust and torture.

Behind one door came murmurings, human words. Burroughs stopped.

“Snagg? Rio?”

Burroughs opened the door. A man was there, shirtless, slumped on the bowl, trousers down at his ankles. The liquids seeping from the wound on his forehead had begun to form a crust, golden at the edges, around a crimson yolk. His face was bloated and bruised, his eyes blackened. He looked exhausted, defeated, a sodden copy of the Thornford Advertiser at his feet. Lucy’s Five Star Massage. Europa Satellite Dishes. The walls of the cubicle were covered in slogans of death and retribution.

“Doctor.” The man struggled to speak. “When can I go home?”

“I am not a doctor. I am a detective.”

“Tek tiff.”

“Are you Rio Snagg? It is hard to tell, you have made such a mess of your face. I doubt very much that this was the result of a single blow with a spanner.”

“Please help. Everything hurts. I have nothing left.”

“Snagg, is your name Snagg? I cannot assist you if I do not know your identity.”

“Help me, doctor.”

“Delusional.”

A spasm took hold of the man’s body. It looked as though the outer points of his form were being pulled inwards, into the pit of his being.

“They’re taking it away…up here. Gone. Drained.” The man lurched forward, releasing a sickening smell. Burroughs retreated. The man fell against the wall of cubicle. Burroughs saw that there was another hole, or wound, at the back of the man’s head, a tidy incision.

“Help me, doctor. Take me home.”

“I cannot,” said Burroughs. “I am not a doctor. I am not your doctor. You’re not listening.”

“Gone. From here.”

“Where is your shirt? You seem to have got yourself into a bit of trouble. Too much Sniffer. I’ll get the barman. Help is on its way, my friend.”

Leaving the cubicle, Burroughs walked towards his many mirrored selves. Someone called his name:

“Burroughs! Frankie boy! Is that you? How’s it going, mate?”

Burroughs turned. He saw a raised fist, a falling hammer.

“Yeah, it’s you, all right, Frankie boy. No mistaking.”

Everything crumpled.

Burroughs fell into blackness.

***

Burroughs nodded for another, his fifth, and it was soon in front of him, foamy and silty. He saw his face in the mirror behind the bar. A thin, scarred face, his hair shaved to a silvery fuzz. He could not remember how or when he had gained those scars. A fight, probably. Several fights. Knives, blades, pliers. He thought of other times, other people. The filthy grey swell of the sea, the thrill of being thrown and dragged by its force. Sandcastles and rain. That boy at school he had almost strangled with a belt. Desks covered in graffiti: football teams, pop bands, sexual slurs. The narrow streets and open windows. This was no good. He must think of the here and now. The future. He had work to do. He must attend to his studies.

“Looking serious today, chief,” said the barman. “Treating yourself to a brass?”

Burroughs shook his head.

“Try her.” The barman pointed at an advert: Michelle’s Luxury Escort Service. “I can recommend her. She’s my sister-in-law. Ex sister-in-law.”

Burroughs sipped his Sniffer and stared at the Thornford Advertiser. The truth was in here. He could see it, shimmering between the words, like a watermark.

***

This is the fourth story by Stephen Hargadon to be published in Black Static. His stories have also appeared in LossLit and Popshot Magazine, while ‘Just Browsing’, his essay on secondhand bookshops, can be found at Litro. He has read at the Verbose literary night in Manchester. He is currently working on a novel. He avoids shady basement bars. Visit his website at stephenhargadon.co.uk.