‘Reg! Reginald! Reggie!’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Oh Reggie!’

Reg’s workmates only tease him at a distance and anonymously and wonder over a cuppa if he’s dangerous or not. Reg is in his late twenties, olive skinned and good looking, with deep black eyes, and short cropped hair. He’s very fit. He’s got a blue butterfly tattooed on his upper right arm. He wears jeans, trainers and a tee shirt, all splattered with plaster.

‘Fuck you!’

‘Steady Reg, we’re just joshing is all.’

Reg crosses a room in a half built house, in a half built cul-de-sac, on a half built estate, in an over-built world that is dying. In the corner of the room his workbag lies on the floor. He takes out a packet of fags and lights up. He slides down the wall and sits staring into space. He repeats the word ‘fuck’ quietly to himself several times before taking down a deep cloud of smoke. ‘Just float away,’ he says to no one.

‘You ask him.’

‘No you.’

‘Fuck off.’

You can’t be a good-looking guy in your twenties and be called Reginald and like it, right? But you can be a shit hot plasterer. And you can spend all day every day on your own, one foot from a wall and go swish-swish and do your head in, right?

‘Right!’

Reg stubs out his cigarette and goes back to his plastering. He moves fast and efficiently.

Inside a portakabin on another part of the site is a room half full of men in mud and hardhats, making much noise inhaling roll-ups, blowing on teas and having fucking-cunting-conver-fucking-sations. It’s the best works canteen in this corner of the world and Dolly’s tits and spotted dick are not up for discussion as to being the best tits and dick in this part of the fuck-me, uni-fucking-verse, and doesn’t she just love it, jaw, jaw, jaw! There are six damaged trestle tables, sods of chairs, and remains of battered lunch boxes. One of the labourers is called Dave and he dominates the whole slosh of them and every cup of tea he’s ever drunk, by always piling in first and holding court with both hands tight, right!

‘You’re right Dave.’

‘No mate, Reg is alright,’ consents Dave, about their slightly distant co-worker.

‘Never seen anybody work so fast and so perfect. Yeah, work of art.’

‘Fuck off Dave.’

‘No, that’s real art, not like that piss stuff you read is supposed to be art. But don’t butter him up, no really, don’t even pretend you like him, or it.’

‘Why the fuck not?’ asks a young and suppurating other.

‘Funny fucker. Yeah, sensitive, and I don’t mean, you know. I mean touchy, and yeah, I do mean, mean, as fuck.’

‘What? Tight.’

‘No, nasty.’

Reg isn’t surprised by the way he is ‘cos to him it’s obvious. If you think about it, where are your horizons? That wall one foot in front of your face for all of your life until you can’t lift a float any more?

Reg smashes his head into the freshly plastered wall that he’s just been working on, stands back and looks for a moment, examining the indentation of his forehead. Reg smiles and deftly smoothes over the damaged area.

Back in the corner of the cabin Dave says, slurping, ‘But fuck it he earns. When you’re that good you can’t help it. Seen his car?’

‘Scuse me,’ says some other, slurping too.

‘Yeah right,’ some other says, same as before.

‘He does earn, Ern!’ some sad arse giggles, ignored.

‘When you’re that good you can’t help it. Seen his car ‘scuse me?’ says another, uninventive on his own.

‘Yeah right. Is that a joke?’ says another Alec in the corner, to sad arse, repeating his over-spiced lunch.

In a local pub on the other side of town, after dark when the last whistle shouts, a fat landlord polishes a glass with spit and dirty fingers. Down the end of the bar on a bit of a platform a bright light fills a space. Dust particles float on the hot air and mingle with drifts of swirling blue smoke. A woman’s hand shoots upwards into the light, and holds its position. The fingers stretched out tight, reaching skyward. The fingernails long and red, the eyes a piercing blue, and the music to Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ hits the system. Her fingers start to click and the lady hits her first note. ‘Never know how much I love you, never know how much I care….’

And the fat landlord to nobody in particular, or maybe the stranger in the corner, says,

‘Georgina is the end. No really. And she is the beginning. She comes down here every Friday and Saturday night and sings her heart out. And God she sings. And we don’t know who the fuck she really is. We don’t know where she comes from. We don’t know where she goes back to. But that’s the deal see. No questions, and she goes on all night for nothing. And fuck me, sorry mate, I’m no expert, but fuck we’re talking Hollywood, Las Vegas, and top ten Brit Awards for the rest of our lives. Fuck me yes I am an expert, so fuck you! She just walked in one night and got up in the corner, and I swear to god, I fell over, and so did the rest of the pub. Now there’s not a man in here who wouldn’t kill. No I’m serious. Yeah sure they all want inside her knickers, but you know what, it’s beyond that. What they’d kill for is a smile, a laugh, and yeah, just to protect her. I don’t know if she knows it but she’s got her own private fucking army. Never mind inta-fucking-fada, they’d die for her anytime and believe they’d gone straight to heaven. Funny innit, really. We don’t know who the fuck she is.’

And he goes on polishing his glasses, and you’d think they’d wear away but he has to keep in check, so he lines them up carefully one by one, and ‘Fever’ keeps him going.

In his half finished room Reg hears a sound of crunching gears that missed, so he breaks for the window with another fag, ‘cos the wall will always be there like all the other walls. And outside there are no surprises, with muck and desolation all around, and building crap in piles, and the rain still coming, except for a brand new Range Rover just arrived. A man and a woman get out of the car carrying some papers. They are wearing hard hats, green wellies, and Barbours and they are not enjoying the weather, so the man reaches back into the car and pulls out a golfing umbrella, opens it and holds it over the woman’s head and another man approaches them from the site, and his hard hat and a yellow safety jacket match well with the wellied people, thinks Reg, like buttercups, and meadows, and get to fuck my lovelies! And Reg mutters foulness through the blue smoke in his eyes.

‘So what about building sites? Don’t come here in your green fucking wellies and your fucking green macs, and expect respect. That takes blood, sweat, tears, terraces, meat fucking pies. Just winding you up now. We’ve all been abroad, and you know what? I bet I can make a more authentic paella than you can. What? You can’t cook? Well fuck you, tosser. Swish fucking swish. A good mixer is worth his weight in? What? I pay my man the money ‘cos down here we know what it’s worth, and you do a day’s work for a day’s pay or you go fuck you. And I swish my way onwards, day after day, until I could kill.

‘So you know what I do, not to kill you?’

On a Friday and Saturday night I go to this place, this pub. It’s crap, but it’s heaven. It’s heaven ‘cos there’s this lady, this creature, this… And life becomes…and swish turns into a different swish. And something new takes hold. And, you know what? Forget it!

Reg takes one last drag from the butt of his fag, moves from the window into the middle of the room and performs a martial arts kata. He does this every so often to keep loose he says, in his mind and his body. He takes up the final pose and holds it in perfect balance. He breathes.

It’s that night of the week and Georgina the singer is doing what she does. First, staring in the mirror for some time. Just looking inside, discovering, preparing, finding the source, diving into the eyes and swimming to the soul. Singing isn’t just singing, not with Georgie. There’s a process, a touching of the depths, then the make-up and clothes. Georgina, through the reflection in the mirror, all close up and intense, applies her make up very carefully. If we were there we would see nothing else, and drown in those blue, blue eyes. And she’s untouchable, and her smiling deep red mouth.

The same white light is shining, and Georgie is curved in silhouette and wearing a long tight fitting red dress with a low cut back and long tight sleeves, and standing with legs slightly apart, with her weight on her right leg, her right arm and hand extending upwards. Her left arm is crossed over her head clutching her right elbow. She has bobbed black hair. She starts to click the fingers of her right hand as the fat barman staggers and drops one glass onto the others and they glitter to the floor, and he spits and goes fuck it, and dribbles from the corner of his mouth.

Reg is drawn here every week staggered by what he sees. He doesn’t advertise it. They’d think he was a tosser, or worse, those portakabin gibbons. Not that that matters. If they deserve a kicking, they get a kicking. The way it is. It’s just the hassle, all the jibing, and the spoiling of his weekly memories. The getting away from those pink walls, that swish and swish, and mix and swish, and water, and swish, and polish until the pink mirror looks back at you and calls you a cunt. Roll on Fridays.

But life sometimes just don’t work how we want it, right? So one wet day like all the others in the corner of Dolly’s portakabin of the big tits and dick to die for and custard on the side, in a corner of the half built site, a little bird tells them through Dave that on a Friday Reg goes to this pub and listens to singers.

‘Strippers?’

‘Not even.’

‘Tosser.’

‘Yeah. Like serious stuff, you know, jazz and things. And my little bird tells me that Reg is drawn there every week staggered by what he sees, but doesn’t like to advertise it.’

‘Wanker.’

And that’s Dave holding forth, except until his chair is swept from under him and he goes crashing to the floor. The others at the table jump and scatter to the corners of the room. Reg is standing over Dave and looking at him carefully for a moment. Reg takes a chair and sits next to Dave, and leans over his prone and undignified shape. Dave doesn’t know whether to move off the floor or not, or move his position at least. Reg talks quietly and precisely.

‘You know what Dave? I’ve always believed that if they deserve a kicking, they get a kicking. The way it is. What do you think?’

‘Yeah. Absolutely,’ agrees Dave diplomatically. ‘But it’s got to be serious, and it’s got to be meant, the offence I mean.’

‘It’s just the hassle Dave, the spoiling of those weekly memories. But you mustn’t get in a rut. You know like, when you’re enjoying something too much. Test it, leave it alone, see what it feels like to be without, or different. Know what I mean?’ asks Reginald, his close and cosy breath all over Dave’s good heart. ‘Like getting away from those pink walls that look back at you and call you a cunt. You know Dave, like I told you before. Privately. In confidence.’

‘Yeah,’ pleads good David carefully, ‘I’m a cunt too.’

Roll on Fridays, thinks the kabin, and slurping covers the sound of Dave’s heart, and Dolly’s tea comes up, as Reg quietly replaces the chair and moves off back to his room, alone. Dave gets off the floor slowly and tries not to wobble in public.

And Friday does come around, ‘cos when you’re still alive they do. The pub is packed. Reg is sitting at the bar, staring into space. He has a drink in front of him, and he is smoking. The bar is agitated and horns are rising and Reg breaks it all with a question for the throng, elbowed, and tight in.

‘Where is she, what the hell’s going on?’

And the landlord feels the pressure and comes with a, don’t blame me, ‘cos I don’t control her and if she doesn’t show, she doesn’t. And fuck, so be it, they say.

‘Fuck, yeah.’

Reg picks up his fags and lighter and turns to go, and falls out of the packed and noisy pub and crosses to his Jag parked outside, gets in and drives off before the place erupts. Reg pulls up in the carport of his detached house in the suburbs. In the kitchen Reg pours himself a large whiskey. He drinks long and slow, and swills out the whiskey glass and puts it down carefully on the draining board. He goes to the kitchen door, turns off the kitchen lights and goes upstairs.

So Reg comes home, quietly, silently, smiling, late and tired, and what? Happy? Content? Maybe a little, to his comfortable, rich, worked-hard-for house on the avenue, number one hundred, and climbs into his bed alone.

And on the next Friday night you could just about see over and through the silhouetted heads and shoulders of punters in the belly-packed bar. There is a lot of movement so you catch glimpses as you can. And what you see is Georgina in full swing, in full make-up, in full dress, in full spotlight, in full heaven, finishing off Peggy Lee and much much more. The whole pub erupts, and she takes her applause, and it’s so deadly deserved. Georgina blows a kiss and disappears behind a curtain. Somewhere in the back of the pub Georgina wipes that red, red mouth. And the pub is hushed in the background, as her army expires in foul air. Georgina comes out of the pub at the back of the dark quiet, dressed in street clothes, wearing dark glasses, and carrying a large bag. She crosses to her Jag parked outside, gets in and drives off. Georgina pulls up in the carport of her detached house in the suburbs. In the kitchen Georgina pours herself a large whiskey. She drinks long and slow, and swills out the glass and puts it down carefully on the draining board upside down. She goes to the kitchen door, turns off the kitchen lights and goes upstairs.

Georgina sits at her dressing table looking into her gilt edged mirror once more. She gently touches her bobbed dark hair and wipes her searing blue eyes. She takes out her contact lenses and puts them to one side. Georgina steps into her bathroom to take a shower and the water is turned on hard and hot and fast, and the sound of the shower going strongly, and after, in the half light of security, her tattooed blue butterfly catches in the night, a Canary Blue for sure, to those who know such things.

So Georgina goes home, elated, exhausted, silently smiling, late, and what? Who could possibly know, to her comfortable, rich, worked-hard-for house on the avenue, number one hundred, and climbs into her bed alone.

Reg lies on his back in the middle of his large bed, his hands behind his head, and he stares at the ceiling, and contemplates the evening, and the stars that go swish swish across the sky.

On his dressing table is a gilt edged mirror, a wig stand with a dark bobbed wig, a contact lens box with searing blue lens’s glinting in the half-light of security. Dark red lipstick, false red nails, and other bits and bobs and whatever else that keeps us all alive, of make up and assorted dressing table things.

And Reg looks a bit lost and very alone in the middle of his very big bed, with distinctive swish sheets.

Good night Reg, and sweet sweet dreams,‘til next weekend of course.

And the same to you Georgina.