Free Dreams of Leaving by Rupert Thomson

right?’
    â€˜All right.’
    The black guy spun on his heel, and walked over to a white Mercedes parked in the shadow of the side-street. He drove past Moses in low gear, tyres trickling on the tarmac like something about to explode. Moses wound his film back thoughtfully, his eyes following the car as it turned the corner.
    *
    He returned to The Bunker twice that week. It was closed both times, lifeless. He wondered whether it had closed for good.
    Two weeks later he was driving up to Soho to meet his flatmate, Eddie, for a drink when he happened to pass the club again. This time he noticed a few people clustered round the doorway. It was raining. A slab of violet light glistened on the slick black pavement. The place looked open. He stamped on his brakes and pulled into the side of the road. A horn blared behind him, headlights flashed full beam. Fuck you too, he thought.
    Leaving the engine idling, he crossed the pavement. It
was
open. £2.50 to get in. The blonde girl selling tickets smiled at him. Change of plan, he decided.
    He parked his old Rover in the side-street and ran back to the club in case it closed while he wasn’t looking.
    â€˜Is there a phone in here?’ he asked the girl.
    â€˜Down the corridor on the right,’ she said.
    But he postponed the call to Eddie (Eddie was always late anyway) and, moving down the corridor, turned left into a room with a small bar and a dance-floor. Black walls. The usual barrage of lights. Iggy Pop’s ‘No Fun’ slammed out of head-high stacks of speakers. A Mohican danced alone, fists clubbing the air. Already damaged sofa-seating seemed to shrink back against the walls. A short flight of stairs led to a second room, also painted black. Lengths of ripped black netting gathered like stormclouds on the ceiling. White neon tubes fizzed above the bar. The facing wall, a solid mass of mirror-tiles, glimmered a dim silver. There were black tables, sticky with spilt drinks. His kind of place.
    He walked back through the club to the main entrance. The blonde girl was talking to a man whose name, if Moses had heard it right, was Belsen.Moses waited for her to notice him. His size made that inevitable.
    When she turned her head, he said, ‘I’m sorry, where did you say the phone was?’
    She laughed. ‘Have you been looking for it all this time?’
    â€˜Sort of.’
    â€˜Come on, I’ll show you.’ And then, to Belsen, ‘Won’t be a second.’
    Belsen’s watery eyes followed them down the corridor. His face looked as if it had been made of wax which had melted, run, then hardened again. He was wearing a Crombie and drinking Coke out of a can.
    â€˜Who’s that man?’ Moses asked the girl.
    â€˜That’s Belsen. He’s the bouncer.’
    â€˜I don’t think he likes me.’
    The girl smiled. ‘He doesn’t like anyone. That’s his job. There’s the phone.’
    Moses thanked her. He dialled the pub where he was supposed to be meeting Eddie and when Eddie came on he said, ‘New venue, place called The Bunker.’ He gave Eddie the address and hung up.
    On his way to the bar, he bumped into somebody he recognised from a club in the West End. Moses knew him as The Butcher. The Butcher wore a naval cap and a belted leather apron. A meathook earring swung from his left ear. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, exposing a pair of scarred white forearms. The Butcher sold speed. Moses bought a £5 deal and headed for the Ladies. ‘The Ladies is cool,’ The Butcher had told him.
    The Butcher was right. Chinese-red walls. Hairspray and smoke instead of air. Men slumped in wash-basins. Girls with their eyes on the mirror. Moses stood in line for one of the two cubicles.
    When his turn came, he squeezed inside and bolted the door.
    A couple of minutes later somebody wondered what he was doing.
    â€˜Wanking, probably,’ another voice