Copacabana Page 2

  “So what do you reckon?” Pete said.

  “About what?”

  “How do you like Copacabana?”

  “Yeh, it’s sound.”

  Pete snorted and then mimicked John. “It’s sound…” He appeared to be reaching a new level of drunkenness. It was no longer enough for him to sit here and talk. This was too sedate for his liking. All of a sudden he wanted to get up and move about and cause some kind of stir.

  John sensed this dissatisfaction and wondered what he might do to counter it. For his part, he was more than happy to stay put. “How about another cocktail?” He said.

  “Nah. Not here. Let’s go over the road,” Pete answered.

  “Why? What’s over there?”

  “A whole world of trouble.” Pete winked.

  After paying the bill, they made their way onto the bustling sidewalk and then crossed those wide traffic lanes which ran in both directions from Leme to Arpoador. On the far side lay the long curving promenade of Copacabana and here they stopped before a beachside kiosk in front of its small wooden bar. Behind the counter stood a chubby man wearing a soiled white apron who gave Pete a single nod in reply to his drinks order. Then he turned and dug out two cans of Skol lager from the fridge to his left and sat these down on the counter along with a couple of white plastic cups.

  Surrounding the kiosk were five yellow tables, some twenty red plastic chairs. Two young lads were sat down at one of these tables, slouched low in their seats, and both of them looked suspicious to John. They had a manner he recognised from home. It belonged to his former friends, to a lesser extent himself. You would need to keep your eye on them closely.

  Now Pete approached these two figures and they rose from their chairs in unison, smiling broadly. “Pete!” Said the taller one, adopting the same cheerful tone as the waiter before. There were handshakes all round and then Pete started talking to them in Portuguese. He spoke fast and sounded fluent to John. One of the young men laughed at something Pete said. The Englishman seemed able to translate his humour, his personality, himself.

  Pete gestured towards John, introduced him in turn, and everybody nodded amicably. Then the tone of his voice dipped lower and a short discussion ensued. John was certain that Pete was buying drugs. Cocaine, most probably. To support this theory, he went to his trouser pocket after a time, as did one of the men, and they each took something out before exchanging these things skilfully in the course of a swift handshake. Pete turned around to John and flashed a number of wraps contained in the palm of his hand. “You don’t want any of this, do you lad?”

  “Nah, I prefer the weed,” John answered.

  “Is right. You stick with the pot. Leave the hard drugs to your Uncle Peter.” He then promptly disappeared around the far side of the kiosk, along with the two locals, while John sat down at a table alone, staring out across the deserted beach, straining his eyes to witness the dark sea at its far edge. He could discern the white fringe of its breaking waves and hear their commotion, but beyond that there was nothing. The water’s vastness had been swallowed by the night. Disappointed by this fact, he turned the other way and looked back over the road at the tall skyline and considered the assembled rock-face of hotels and apartment buildings, noting the lights that were still on in one or two of these hundreds of rooms. Underneath them, at street level, life continued at four in the morning. There were screams and shouts and the avenue showed no sign of winding down. A dark blue car flew past, crossing John’s line of vision at such speed that it dragged his attention along in its wake. He had time enough to note that its windows were completely blacked out and to catch the whoomp of a mighty bass-line from deep within. The car had shot through a red traffic light which John was sat in line with as if that light did not exist. Maybe because of the blacked out windows, John was left with the impression that the driver couldn’t see where he was going.

  Pete returned to the table, a dusting of white powder at the base of his nose, and began looking around at everything there was to see as if it had been referred to him urgently and required his immediate attention. John received a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Having a good time, lad?”

  “Yeh, sound.”

  Pete picked up John’s can of Skol and gave it a shake. “What’s up with your beer?”

  “Nothing. But I wouldn’t mind a can of coke.”

  “You want a can of pop?”

  “Yeh.”

  Pete turned to the kiosk’s owner. “The boy wants a coke. Not a cachaça; not a beer; but a Coca-fucking-Cola. Can you believe that?” The man simply nodded. He had no amazement left in him. But for Pete the soft drink was clearly an affront to his wired sensibility. He saw it as an act of desertion and it led his thoughts to take an ugly turn. Now he started to have every faith in this annoying future which John’s arrival had first suggested. He saw it stretching out before him: his always having to look after this youth. And yet their bond was questionable. It was not written in stone, nor were they bound by blood.

  The two Brazilians reappeared from the back of the kiosk. They walked over and explained to Pete that they had to leave. Pete implored them to stay, offered to buy them a drink, but they were resolute and only shook his hand and promised to see him again shortly. It seemed to John that they could read Pete’s face and therefore knew where he was headed mentally and it was for this reason that they’d decided not to stick around.

  Pete looked back at John, clearly disappointed by these fresh departures. “This is fucking quiet for a Wednesday night. I don’t know where everybody is. Normally this place is bandit central.” John nodded slightly in reply. Pete could sense John’s impatience and knew that his young guest wanted to head back to the apartment and sleep. He had only napped for a couple of hours after a thirteen hour flight. It had been a very long day for the boy and yet Pete felt like prosecuting this same tiredness. His own mind was now reactionary. He thought to himself, This lad has not got what it takes. The thought was a pointless one. It had little substance and no subtlety at all. He was only painting slogans in his mind.

  “You want to get your head down?” Pete asked him. It sounded like an accusation to John’s ears and Pete’s face bore traces of a snarl.

  “Nah, I’m alright,” John answered, picking out another cigarette and sparking it up before he took a sip of his fresh cola. He was thinking about the drink’s caffeine content. He was struggling to stay awake and needed all the help he could get.

  Pete fought off the temptation to tell John he was lying. He fought off the temptation to tell him to fuck off home. What he said instead was “Good, ‘cause I’m just getting started.” In reply John looked back out to sea. The body of water had started to detach itself from the sky and become distinct, darker than the heavens. The new day was already beginning to stir and John found its progress demoralising. He sat there in silence, greatly fatigued. “Unless you really want to go back?” Pete added, eventually.

  John showed as much defiance as he could muster, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not up to me,” he said.

  “Fuck it then, we’ll go,” Pete answered and abruptly got up from the chair he had just sat down on, making it clatter behind him, dramatically unimpressed.

  “Only if you’re sure,” John added, also getting to his feet.

  “Whatever,” Pete replied. He was already striding off in the direction of home.

  Back at the apartment, Pete took the remaining cocaine out of his pocket, picked the bag open, and tipped it onto to the coffee table. Then he licked the plastic wrap clean, hardly aware of his surroundings or present company. There was a deep dark frown rooted to his brow. The wildness had come down and Pete wanted done with himself. The phantoms were out in force and he was fighting with them, unsuccessfully. It was no contest. They were nowhere to be seen. They would never fall to him this way. It was as if Pete was slashing at thin air.

  He leant forward and bent down and snorted up a line, then fell back against the sofa and briefly clo
sed his eyes. “I don’t give a fuck,” he said. “Seriously, I do not give a fuck.” Then Pete paused for thought, only for the same simple defiant idea to occur to him once more. “I don’t give a fuck at all.” He said it again and then again. It sounded like a mantra, repeated at length, in order to hammer the fact home.

  John sat opposite Pete in the room’s one armchair. Watching. He had never seen his host in such a state. Had he acted this way before, even back in Liverpool? What did he know of his friend, really? John made no attempt to answer these questions. Instead he finally closed his heavy eyes, and although the boy could still hear Pete’s voice, it was far off now, meandering away, less and less intelligible. Then he heard nothing at all.

  Chapter Three

  John had never needed a lot of sleep. He woke at nine-thirty and stuck his head around the door to Pete’s bedroom and stared inside. Pete was shrouded from top to toe beneath a thin yellow sheet. He lay static and silent underneath it, flat on his back, and the only sign of life came courtesy of that heavy breathing which disturbed the fabric directly above his mouth. It was perfectly clear he was dead to the world and John thought better of trying to bring him back to life so early in the day.

  John returned to the kitchenette, looked in the fridge, took out a tuna sandwich from yesterday and then wolfed it down while standing over the sink. He entered the bathroom and washed quickly. He clothed himself in a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and put on his Adidas Samba trainers. Then John took the spare key from the coffee table, shut the front door quietly behind him and went downstairs. He felt compelled to venture out alone.

  Stepping into the street of Aires Saldanha, John was immediately troubled by indecision. He didn’t know what to do or which way to go. It took a conscious act of will for him to turn leftwards. Even a decision this simple was fraught with difficulty and he continued to wonder whether he shouldn’t have taken a right instead.

  The afternoon was sweltering hot although no-one else seemed put out by this temperature. They went about their business, these dog-walkers, beachgoers in bikinis and skimpy trunks, even men in suits and ties. As John walked along the street, he also noted a series of doormen in blue work shirts sat out on stools in front of their apartment buildings, all of them sweating calmly, watching the world go by with the ease of old hands. The whole scene was disturbingly vivid on account of it being so alien and John felt himself sticking out like a sore thumb. Everybody else was giving a perfect performance simply by being themselves.

  John decided not to stray too far from the apartment block in case he struggled to find his way back. His only ambition was to stay out of the apartment until Pete woke up, and then to return with an air of casualness, as if to prove that he was capable of looking after himself. To this end, John stopped at the first corner he came to. There was a bar there, more importantly a large television fixed to the wall which was showing the replay of a football match, thereby granting him somewhere to train his eyes. A clock in the corner of the screen told him the game was only ten minutes old, meaning he could follow its progress for another eighty.

  He took a seat at an empty table close to the television. A waiter soon approached and John held up one finger. “Coca-Cola,” he said and the waiter nodded sombrely in reply before walking off to fetch it. This transaction, simple as it was, pleased John no end, and he perked up at once on account of having made himself understood.

  John thanked the waiter once he returned and poured the coke into a glass. He took a large gulp of the drink and called for patience from himself. All this strangeness would pass. One day he would sit at this bar, knowing the waiter’s name, sharing a joke with him just like Pete might do.

  John knew that he had to show himself willing to spend time on his own. He did not want to be a total burden on his friend. Not even all that money could excuse such a state of dependence. Nobody liked a clingy mate.

  For twenty minutes the televised match was slow, sluggish, but then it suddenly sprang into life. A player in orange rounded one defender, used his speed to pass another by, then he unleashed an accurate thunderbolt into the top right hand corner of the net beyond the reach of the goalkeeper. Afterwards, he peeled away to celebrate wearing a lordly expression, as if this was par for the course, only to be expected.

  “What a fucking great goal,” said John out loud. He turned to the waiter, who was leaning against the bar, in order to have this opinion seconded, but the waiter only shot him a disgusted look in return. He must have supported the other team, John realised, the one wearing red and black.

  By the time John returned to the flat, Pete had surfaced, but was still very much the worse for wear. He had only dragged himself from the bed to the sofa and then continued with his lying down. He looked drained of life. It was obvious that the night before was still doing him harm. “Do us a favour,” Pete croaked, without opening his eyes, “pass us that bottle of Gatorade from the fridge.”

  John went and took out the large cold bottle and brought it over. Pete sat himself up with difficulty, like an infirm patient, and gulped the drink down. In his haste, the Gatorade ran across his cheeks, dribbled onto his neck and naked chest. He tried mopping it up with his bare hand, then looked over at John. “You’ve never showered in Gatorade before?” He asked, sceptically. “This stuff is a marvel. You can also use it as a body lotion or to wash your clothes. There’s no end to its applications…” Then he winced, broke off from his joking around. This little riff had cost him dear, brought on a stab of pain, punished Pete for opening his mouth. “Do us another favour, will you, there’s a packet of Aspirina in the bathroom cabinet…”

  They spent a number of hours watching TV together in relative silence, semi-darkness, with hardly a word passing their lips. The only sounds other than the televised shows were those of Pete slugging from his bottle of Gatorade or emitting the odd groan. Meanwhile John searched for something to say about these programmes, or life in general, but nothing occurred to him that he did not find ridiculous or preferred not to discuss, so he kept his mouth shut.

  At long last Pete made a sudden series of difficult movements, pushing up on his elbows, placing his feet on the floor. “I think I’m gonna go back to bed,” he said.

  “That’s sound,” John answered. “I wanted to go out on my own anyway. I can’t knock round you with you all the time. You need some time to yourself. I’ll be fine. I’ll go and have a quiet drink.”

  Pete turned and looked at John as closely as he could. The boy’s argument was eager, unconvincing. “Alright then, but we still need to have a talk, me and you.”

  “About what?”

  “About last night, next week, what we’re going to do with this money…About everything, John.”

  “Yeh. OK. Fair enough.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Pete staggered to the bedroom, rummaged around, and then came back carrying money in his hand. “You’ll probably need this. There’s two hundred reais. Should be more than enough to tide you over.”

  “Nice one. Thanks.”

  “And be careful out there.”

  “I will, yeh.”

  Pete watched John go out the door. A quiet drink was not the norm here in Copacabana. As far as Pete was concerned, the very concept was suspect. He rarely managed to drink in moderation and return home at a reasonable hour. But maybe John could succeed where Pete failed all too frequently. Hopefully the boy’s shyness would keep him in check. At least he knew that he was out of his depth.

  Pete could see that John was trying to do the decent thing, and at least he recognised the dilemma – that Pete had a life of his own – the problem lay with the proposed solution. He suspected that John was incapable of looking after himself in Rio de Janeiro, no matter how hard he might try. And yet Pete didn’t have sufficient strength to help combat these shortcomings right now. He was suffering from one of those spellbinding hangovers which held him firmly in check, petrifying his mind and body. They laid him low conclusively and there was no way he
could get out of the apartment until the worst of them had passed.

  With John gone, Pete dragged himself into the bathroom to splash water on his face and consciously avoided the mirror, aware of its message already. He would not look at it until he felt sure that he was on the mend. He had no wish to see what he already knew. He needed a good night’s sleep. There was also Ester to consider. She was due back from Italy in two days time and he wanted to be back on form for her return. He would need to pull himself together, spruce himself up.

  Chapter Four

  John returned to the terrace restaurant where he had sat the night before, surrounded on all sides by the same ceaseless commotion. He looked for Antonio, the waiter who had greeted Pete warmly, hoping for a little of the same preferential treatment, but when John caught sight of the man and looked pointedly in his direction, Antonio roundly ignored him.

  Resigned to being friendless for the night, John spotted an empty table for himself near the edge of the terrace and hurried to make it his own. It had not been cleared of glasses but at least there was nobody sitting there already. A large green menu lay on the tablecloth. John went to pick it up and then stopped himself despite his hunger. All he’d eaten today was a tuna sandwich and then a large bag of crisps while watching TV, and yet the thought of ordering food was enough to deter him from doing so, as was the imagined ordeal of having to eat it in public.

  A different waiter arrived and John finally ordered a beer, less out of any real desire than a wish to fit in. He was an incompetent drinker who knew his limitations and normally kept to them as he was not fond of alcohol at all. Give him weed, any day of the week. It agreed with John in a way that booze did not. Rarely did he experience that successful phase which other drinkers enjoyed, no matter how brief, when their personalities suddenly became bigger, brighter, better, before it all started to go wrong. In spite of this fact, John decided to persevere for now, hoping that the foreign location would make a difference; that somehow his drunkenness would pan out differently here in Brazil.