The Man From Mandalay

Leonard lives in a dated one-bedroom flat carved out from somebody's basement. Wedged in an era that favoured orange and chocolate brown swirls for all interior decorating needs, his few visitors shudder involuntarily as they creep through the door. Leonard doesn't mind the colours. After fifteen years living on the street, he welcomes the confinement of his orange ceiling.

Leonard didn't always live on the streets, in the cardboard condominium he called Mandalay, eating scraps of other people's sandwiches. His early years dragged by in The Children's Hospital, a stone grey fortress on a hill with barred windows and whitewashed yards all tied up with barbed wire. When he reached eighteen a distant aunt came to claim him. He followed her to a grimy cottage on the outskirts of Brighton where the last dregs of his teenage life ebbed past.

It was summer when she died, and the nights that summer were warm and sultry. The streets of Brighton were aflow with revellers, beaded hippies in tie-die smocks. The sounds of Bob Dylan and Joan Byez reverberated through the streets as hippie caravans ploughed through Brighton in jingling convoys. Leonard carved himself out of nook on the beach and stayed there until the revellers left and the summer sun starting sleeping. Then the beaches grew wet and the wind blowed cold. He moved into town and staked himself a plot outside the old public library where the falling leaves made a friendly mattress.

A man called Old Arnie lived across the street and eight doorways down in a nest made from rusting shopping trolleys and plastic bags. He was friendly, and helped Leonard trawl the bins for left-overs and bottles. He had no legs, on account of his diabetic condition, and he trawled himself round the street on an old red cross wheelchair that had no arms or brakes. The tyres were snarled up by years of snagging on rocks and broken glass and he lurched dangerously from side to side as he trailed up and down the street looking for empties. Eventually Arnie's wheelchair stopped working altogether. He couldn't pull himself along on his arms. He had to move to another place, a hostel near the park where he shared a dormitory with thirty other men. He cried the night before he left the street. He liked to sleep under the skies and drink whisky for breakfast to take away the stiffness in his legs. Now he would not be able to do either.

Shortly after Arnie left, a new woman called Annie fell into town and claimed the empty patch. She was frail looking except for two fat plaits which burst out from the side of her head. She wore a knitted pink shawl slung around her shoulders and a pair of woolly socks. She wore moccasins all year round except in summer when she enjoyed the feel of the hot slates beneath her feet.

Leonard saw her first outside the old swimming baths, washing her clothes in a thin grey puddle. Her flaxen plaits glinted like gold as the sun caught them. As she squatted down to rinse her socks her buttocks spread roundly out and the dress she wore clung to the line of her thighs. Time seemed to stand still as he watched. When she looked up and caught him watching he blushed and hurried away. Five days later the street formed a committee to evict her from her patch. Arnie's patch was a desirable luxury residence, being located as it was over the laundry room and close to the Salvation Army. Annie had violated the etiquette that demanded that newcomers defer to the upwards mobility of street veterans. They tore down her cardboard walls and shredded her carpet of plastic bags Her shawl was slung into a muddy puddle and stained with oil. Leonard watched her stroking out its lacy strings in the shadow of the old acacia tree. Her plaits hung limply down her neck. Leonard thought for a long time that night. The next morning he shunted his possessions to the corner of his patch and carved her a nest of sycamore leaves and bin bags on the dry slabs against the wall. He lined the corners with dry rags and washed out his mug.

Her eyes grew wide as she inspected her new home. Leonard stood back, awkward, as she shyly prodded the fresh linen rags and marvelled with her eyes at the sheltered facilities. His face warmed with pride. He took her bag and fetched her water in his mug. As she sun settled down behind the old acacia tree, they sat in silence, the gold in her hair flashing in the darkness.

Leonard had few possessions. The old chocolate box he carried around contained only an egg cup, a pair of socks and a packet of colouring pencils. The pencils felt smooth beneath his fingers. He liked their citrus colours and the satisfying scrape of their blunt heads against the pavement. He drew roads on the pavement to show Annie where he'd been. She asked about the hospital. He began to remember. He drew the hospital with its stark grey lines and high walls. Thoughts mutated into images with jarring colours and tremendous lines that thrashed across the pavement. Annie watched his story unfold. Tangled faces, dark shapes, angry skies. People began to gather round his pictures. The rough hum of their discussion distracted him. They moved on to another patch but the crowds followed him, always murmuring. Occasionally children threw money down around him. They sought out sheltered corners, smooth pavements in shady backstreets. Soon half of Brighton was splashed with the vivid colours that tormented his mind.

It wasn't long before the vultures swooped. A suspicious looking man in a mac and shiny shoes began to loiter among the burbling crowds, watching, always watching. He always looked uneasy, scribbling furtively in his notebook. Annie noticed him first. She shook her head and warned Leonard that they should move on. But the man in the mac followed. One day he loitered longer than usual, after the crowds had dispersed, puffing tensely on the stub of a cigarette. He never looked Leonard in the eye. The man's name was Peter and he wanted Leonard to come and work in his studio.

The studio was small but glamorous, lots of burgundy and gold and cherubs. It seemed strangely out of place at the top of a brand new shopping complex. Peter installed him in a back room with a fat pile of paper, and a bucket of paints. Leonard didn't like the paper. It lacked texture. He liked the little waffle patterns you seemed to get on paving slabs, with their rough surfaces and funny little crenelations. The brush felt clumsy and glided too smoothly over the paper. He couldn't draw a thing.

Peter bit his tongue and gently offered Leonard an ultimatum. He had until the end of the renovation works to produce some pictures. The builders brought in buckets of paint and a pile of concrete slabs for the new balcony. Leonard ran his fingers over the slabs, enjoying the roughness under his fingers. By the time Peter returned, the studio walls were plastered with the colours of Leonard's imagination. Vibrant oranges and purples, black shapes, grotesque faces, dismembered women in stiff white hats and sensible shoes.

Leonard was allowed to choose concrete slabs from a fat catalogue of builders supplies. Peter contacted masonry specialists from all over the country to commission dainty oval slates that would melt harmoniously into the latest interior design fads.

Annie came to visit him in the studio and marvelled at the high ceilings and gilt-encrusted frames. She tip-toed hesitantly through the purple galleries, holding her moccasins in her hand and turning her head, wide-eyed, in all directions to catch the many faces that lined the walls. Leonard took her by the hand and led her to a window seat. They kissed under a painting of a huge Chinese lady surrounded by fat lotus flowers.

She took to coming every day when Peter was out to watch Leonard work. He was delighted that she sat with him. He wondered if she wasn't becoming more beautiful. A sparkling green light trembled in her eyes now as she looked at him, and the sheen of her braids reminded him of finely polished walnut. Sometimes she let down her braids and let her thick hair crinkle in corrugated folds about her face. She was beautiful. Sometimes Peter came back early and caught her, barefooted, on his desk. She watched him as he moved about the studio, the stub of a dead cigarette welded to his yellow fingers. The flapping tails of his Mac wafted a cloud of yellow smoke over them as he strode past. She found him weird. "There's something spooky about him. I mean, he's not your typical art dealer type is he. I'd be careful if I were you Len, don't let him take you for a ride Men like that, they exploit the likes of us. We'd best be keeping ourselves aloof, wouldn't you say?". Leonard merely shrugged and resumed the vacant gaze that punctuated his bursts of painting.

Leonard's first exhibition met with considerable critical acclaim. All the darlings of the local art world were there. They cooed and clucked and marvelled at the quirks of nature that endowed people like Leonard with precious talents. They struggled to keep the disgruntlement from their voices.

Annie was there, in a dress the colour of salmon that sparkled under the lights. Fine pink net dusted her shoulders and chest and gave her skin an iridescent glow. Leonard had never seen her look more beautiful. She'd stacked her curls in a fat top-knot that wobbled precariously when she walked. She fluttered cautiously by his side, smiling coyly at the people who surged forward to shake Leonard's hand.

The exhibition was a success. Five major pieces were sold that night to businessmen from Panama who'd flown in for a convention. Several large-scale works were commissioned by prominent local figures. The money was pouring in. Leonard had no idea how much. Annie nagged him. "You should find out, you know, otherwise Mr Smarty-pants over there will be making a fine penny from all your hard work. I tell you Len, we need to be ahead of the game with this shark". Leonard thought things over. Later that night they shuffled up to Peter. Annie asked for a breakdown of Leonard's earnings. Peter took a sharp inbreath of nicotine-tainted air from his stubby cigarette and shot out a cloud of smoke with a sharp hiss. "Don't worry about the technical stuff. I'll take care of that for you. That's what managers are for". "No thanks. I tell you, we want to keep our own money. We are quite financially independent, thank you very much". Her slow tongue laboured over the long words. Peter stifled a smile and stamped the end of his cigarette into the floor with the toe of his shiny shoe."We can talk about that later" he said curtly, raising one eyebrow almost imperceptibly as he turned away. "Well" she flounced indignantly, her cheeks flushed. "What an uncommonly rude man he is".

The next day Peter sought out Leonard and Annie in the local cafe. He flapped out the tails of his coat so they billowed behind him as he sat. He dusted the table with a handkerchief before resting his arms on it. He had a proposition. Under the greasy yellow light that hung over the table he told them about an apartment he'd seen that morning, close to the studio, off the street, with real running water and a big wooden wardrobe. Annie's face grew warm as she listened to his talk of wallpapered walls, wall to wall linoleum and flushing toilets. She rubbed Leonard's knee under the table. Leonard nodded slowly. The joy on Annie's face was incentive enough to leave the street and surrender to the comforts of interior living. He signed the lease and a blank cheque for rent and Peter shook their hands.He still didn't look at them.

They moved in shortly after. Annie bought flowers from the stall on the corner of the road and set them in a jam-jar on the kitchen table. She busied around, wiping up the grime with a rag from her old bed. Leonard stood in the window and watched the children playing in the street below. Over the rooftops he could see their old street and the cage of shopping trolleys that set off the winos' corner from the rest of the unofficial occupants. How thought how much things had changed. A new picture began to form in his mind, the pieces slowly sliding into place. Each night, before he went to sleep, he worked another little corner into focus, nudging colours into the foreground, shadows into the roughness of the concrete.

Months ground past. Leonard painted by day in Peter's studio and worked by night on his special picture under the flicker of the yellow street-lamp that warmed their tiny flat. His art brought in more and more money. Peter skimmed off a fat portion for himself, siphoned off a slice for unspecified "overheads" and promised to look after the rest for Leonard. Annie nagged Leonard to assert himself. "Its your money. Take control of it" she urged. "He'll swallow you whole if you don't." Leonard nodded benignly as he carried his jar of brown water over to the sink again. His picture was nearly complete.

The chocolate box grew fatter and fatter as work came in and pieces sold. Annie had her ears pierced and wore a pair of tiny hearts in place of the usual metal studs. She bought a lipstick the colour of peaches and a new dress that rustled when she walked. She took to wearing nylons. Leonard 's heart swelled with pride. He wanted to draw her in her salmon coloured dress and catch the green light that danced in her eyes. He busied around the back of the studio and found a stash of old cardboard, rough like concrete, that offered a satisfying resistance to his blunt pencil. He sat her down by the window to catch the golden highlights in her hair. A warm light the colour of peaches filtered through her gauzy dress and turned the linoleum pink. With his pencil he captured the curve of her neck and the soft down that bristled on the back of her arms. The pencil scraped away at the scratchy cardboard. He stashed his drawings in a secret place and never let her see them. Annie didn't tiptoe through the gallery any more. Her hips swaggered jauntily now as she flounced down the long galleries, her bare feet squeaking on the hardwood floor. She took to tossing her old shawl over her shoulder with a flick of her chin and shake of her burnished hair. Sometimes she tied it over her breast with a broach in the shape of a strawberry. She didn't flinch any more when Peter came into the room.

The exhibition was scheduled to open on the Saturday. At the centre of it all, mounted in a plain black frame on a wall of red flock, his masterpiece screamed its welcome, a jarring myriad of colours and textures and emotions that seemed to writhe in on itself like an endless bloody vortex. There were no eyes, but it still seemed to watch people as they back-stepped round the room. Peter had set the price, a ridiculous amount of money, scorned Annie, strawberry red lips moist and a distant sparkle filming her eyes as she followed society's darlings round the room. Leonard shrugged, and tried to sink back into the corners. Oppressive, these people with their gushing praise and inaccurate commentaries. The simplicity of the streets with its basic demands beckoned through the half-open window. He stood leaning close to it, drinking in the mossy air.

At midnight, the doors closed politely on the last of the darlings. It had, Peter declared with a clumsy theatrical flourish, been an immense success. People had looked, and gushed and bought. Bought twelve small slabs and a painted concrete bird bath shaped like a dragon. As for his masterpiece, it had sold, at the eleventh hour, to a fat man from Manchester who fancied himself as an artist. He carted the painting away in a truck. Leonard felt like a prostitute as he watched the Mancunian's fleshy back brace its brittle weight. He felt part of himself slip into the van with the picture, sold like a whore to the highest bidder. Leonard asked Peter for his share of his money. When they got home, he stored it in the old chocolate box and stashed it under the dresser. Annie nodded approvingly. Five thousand, seven hundred pounds. A lot of money for two people who had been living on the street twelve months earlier.

The sun had already set when he got home the next day. A light drizzle dusted his shoulders as he fumbled with his keys in the darkness. Two storeys up an inky black square stared out from the grimy wall. It crossed his mind that the lights should be on. The hallway and stairwell were dark as treacle and smelt of mildew. His hand shook against the clammy balcony as he climbed upwards, towards the green door with the number 7 made out of shells. He hated the dark. Another dark doorway, another clumsy battle with the keys. When the door finally slid open, darkness rushed out to meet him He fumbled for the light switch and flinched in anticipation. The switch clicked but the room remained as black as coal. He groped his way across the room to the edge of the bed and settled down to wait.

Morning found him sitting there still. As the sun stole in through the window, the room took on a dreadful, eerie clarity. He sat quite still and watched his life and all its displaced contents loom into focus. Cupboards wrenched open, coat hangers strewn across the dresser, a train of nylons running across the linoleum to the door. Her cupboard with its bare rails and the empty space where her suitcase had been yawned mockingly back at him. And the fat, mocking space under the dresser where the chocolate box had been.

At the other end of the country, Annie tears open her bags. She sets the old chocolate box with its fraying pink ribbon squarely on the table. Three white kittens with eerie blue eyes smile knowingly up from their chintzy nest on its battered lid.They grin lopsidedly as she twists open the lid. Her hands shake. She feels the click as the lid slips off. A high-pitched giggle as her hands dive into the box. Licking her lips. A pause. "Shit". Her pitch rises, arms flapping hysterically against her sides. "Shit". She seizes the cardboard box and hurls it into the wall. A hundred stiff little pieces of cardboard are propelled into the air. They fall, spinning like sycamore keys, in eerie slow-motion. She thrashes at them, arms flailing. She sees herself in a hundred little cameos, over and over again. He is there too. She picks up one of the little cards. Under the picture of the Chinese woman and the shrivelled lotus blossoms a couple embrace. She remembers the day. With Leonard, in the sun. She studies the picture again. The face in the picture is Peter's.

She turns to him, words sticking in her throat. He stands there, watching her quietly from the side of the kitchen. He draws tensely on his cigarette. As she throws herself down and pounds with her fists on the table, he turns, very very slowly, back to the window.

Sun falls on his soft hair and glints somewhere in the back of his eyes. He sits quite still, framed like a statue at his kitchen table. His skinny silhouette is smeared across the orange floor and walls, bending obligingly where the floor hits the wall. Outside, the soft whirr of wheels running smoothly on the pavement blends with the whine of aeroplanes and lawnmowers. A flicker of a smile glances across his face as he stands and walks over to the window, his shadow hurrying to keep up. He waves at his friend from the window. Old Arnie throws back a wave as he gambols up the curb in his smart new wheelchair. Leonard, his face aglow in the afternoon sun, reflects that Arnie's smile is very probably the most beautiful he's ever seen.

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