The corpse ignores me. I run after it, grab it by the shoulder, give it a shake.
It falls apart. Messily. Like Stilton cheese when you try to put it on a posh water biscuit. As its head hits the turf, the mouth says, ‘Remind me to give you the last of those tapes to convert. I keep forgetting.’
Then the face crumbles bloodlessly into many wet chunks.
Our friend can go again
‘Thank you for seeing me,’ Melodie’s mother says. Her Canadian accent is so cute. It’s the day after my corpse dream and the late-night session with Emile the hairdresser, and we are sitting in the sun outside a cafe near the Southbank Centre, close to where Mel’s orchestra are rehearsing. Some other harpist will be playing her part. I can’t begin to describe how it makes me feel to look at Mel’s mum. Her daughter is gone for ever. I should have been able to save her.
I start babbling about how sorry I am. She closes her eyes and nods. I can tell she’s not taking it in. She’s put up a mental shield and everything I say will roll off it. I shut up. We sit for a while saying nothing, watching the river traffic.
Then she says, ‘Melodie was always too sensitive. Even when she was a child. Save the whales. Save the worms in the garden. When I thinned the lettuce, she would take the little plants I’d removed and replant them in plastic bottles from the recycling. Maybe this shouldn’t come as such a shock, really. I think all artists are vulnerable to mental illness, don’t you?’
Oh, god. What do I say? Do I lie?
‘Ms Tan, I’m not a doctor or anything like that. I only met Melodie a few times. But for whatever it’s worth, I don’t think she was mentally ill. I’m not sure what happened. I know she’d been sleepwalking. I don’t think this was suicide.’
I can’t believe I said that. I’m not supposed to be talking about this. In a minute I’m going to be spilling my guts to this poor woman, and how will that help? I’ll feel better, but what could possibly ease her mind? Pain is bleeding off her and I’m just going to make it worse.
But she doesn’t appear to take in what I’ve said. She carries on.
‘If only we’d known, maybe we could have helped. She worked so hard, you know? She hardly ever came home. We Spacetimed every week to stay in touch, and of course we attended many of her concerts virtually. She seemed . . . strong. I just don’t know what to think. It’s like she had this secret life I didn’t know about. But you have to let your children go. You can’t keep them safe. I’m sorry, I don’t even know what I’m saying—’
I put my hand on hers, and when I touch her skin I remember how I did the same when I first met Melodie. And look where that got us.
Melodie’s mum gulps. She hasn’t actually shed any tears, but she is shaking. It takes her a minute to pull it together. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘So we need to look into the sleepwalking. I just have to find out what happened. I have to know. It’s too late, but somehow that doesn’t seem to matter.’
‘There’s one thing I’ve been wondering,’ I say carefully. ‘Who is Melodie’s patron? Did she tell you?’
‘Patron? What do you mean?’
Uh-oh. Why do I always. Say. The wrong. Thing??????
‘Nothing, never mind.’
She appears to assimilate this, throwing her head back and shaking her hair a little like she’s trying to get control. ‘If she had a patron, she never mentioned it. Melodie had many, many admirers. A lot of older men, of course. That’s the way of the world, I guess. There was a man from Dubai, I’m not going to say he was a sheikh because I really don’t know, but he sent her a Jeep when she was seventeen. We made her give it back, of course.’
‘Of course.’ And here I thought I’d done well from my ASMR subscribers. People sent me hand-stitched journals and once I got a baseball cap. A Jeep would be on another level.
‘I’ll check her e-mails and let you know if I find anything,’ she says to me. There’s a deep intelligence in her eyes, and somehow I feel ashamed. I’m meddling in things I don’t understand.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I keep saying. Every time I say it, she looks like she’s been slapped. Can’t do anything right.
When it’s over, I’m relieved, but my state of mind is fucked. I stagger across Waterloo Bridge and get on the Northern Line.
Some days, riding the Underground feels like an act of ritual humiliation. I have a bad habit of looking at people. I don’t mean making eye contact – I would never do that, this is London – but looking at people when they aren’t looking back. Watching out of the corners of my eyes. I rarely get caught because people are so involved with themselves, they’re busy in their own private AR worlds.
I study people because I’m trying to figure out how to do it. Be one of them. They make it all look so easy. Ever since my illness started, on any given day I’m all but writhing with insecurity and fear; I always feel like I’m two millimetres from falling apart. When I’m on the Tube I try to act like everyone else. I envy other people’s shoes and bodies and hair and trousers and handbags and tiaras and body tech. Maybe I’m just needy. I never feel I am quite plausible.
I never feel real.
Real or not, I bump into Antonio changing trains at Leicester Square. Physically bump into him. He pretends it’s an accident, but I don’t think it is. We’re still on one another’s tracking after Mel’s death.
He throws his arms around me wordlessly. All the people and their shoes and handbags fall away from my mind. I can feel him breathing and I can hear his heart beating, slow and dependable. He takes my hand.
‘Come with me, Charlie.’
We get back on the Underground and now it feels completely different because I’m with him. He takes me to his flat in Shepherd’s Bush. The place is like a monk’s cell. There’s a bare, stained futon on the floor, a small fridge in the corner, a kettle. The wardrobe looks like it dates from c. 1975. One leg has been propped up with an empty sports supplement bottle. There’s a yellowed mirror bolted to the wall and a couple of cardboard boxes stacked under the frosted window. No decorations. As I glance around, I realise I’m violently jealous of what he’s earning, that he can afford to live without roommates. He even has his own shower room with toilet.
‘It’s good to hold you,’ he murmurs, folding me into his arms. I’m wary at first, because I know what he’s like, but as the feel and scent of him surround me, I find myself embracing him back, fiercely. My lips are against his neck. He makes a rumbling sound deep in his throat and pulls me closer. Heat radiates through his T-shirt as my hands range across his back. Muscle. Strength. The next thing I know we are kissing. His tongue tastes so good. Everything about him is lovely and just right.
I want him. Immediately. It’s like this compulsion.
‘Do you still use an implant?’ he whispers, and my entire body shivers. The ring of happy muscles high up and deep inside me gives a spasm of anticipation even as I hear the small, still-rational part of myself say:
‘Are you fucking kidding me? You know I don’t.’
‘Such a shame,’ he groans, and his hands are up inside my shirt. Hot and muscular hands, just like the rest of him. Antonio isn’t one of those fit guys who acts like they’re doing you a favour by humping you. He pays attention during sex, and he can bring everything out of you that you’ve got, and then some. Before I know what is happening, my shirt is up over my head and he’s kneeling in front of me, licking my nipples, biting me, the whole works. I’m caught. I lose track of myself for a moment. He’s giving my body his total attention. He’s running his hands all over me in a way that is always, always just right. Antonio knows how to touch me.
I grab his head and pull away, and he tilts his face up. All dark eyes, cheekbones, eyebrows two artistic slashes and his lips swelling as he smiles at me.
‘We will just play, then. Don’t worry. I can control myself. I have been practising the many disciplines.’
He’s so funny, but I’m thinking of Mel.
‘We can’t, Antonio. This is wron
g.’
‘How can pleasure be wrong? We both need this. This day is all pain, otherwise. Life shouldn’t be just about pain, Charlie.’
I’m barely listening to his words. I’m feeling his breath on my skin.
‘We can’t bring back the dead,’ he murmurs, punctuating his words with tiny kisses all over my belly. ‘But we. We are alive, my friend, and life is for the pleasure. I know you want me. You know I want you. Is a shame about the contraception, but we can work around this. Look!’
He points to his jeans. The rocket’s on the platform and firing up to go, no doubt about that. I’m aching inside with a combination of memory and anticipation.
‘Why can’t you just use a bloody condom?’ I groan.
He waves his hands around dramatically, eyes flashing.
‘You don’t understand. The loss of sensation, it’s criminal. I am the physical person. I can only have the best, or nothing.’
If there’s any logic in that, I don’t follow it. I’m so hot and juiced up, and I can see the outline of his business and I just want a piece of him so much. He falls backwards on the futon and beckons to me. I follow. Can’t seem to help myself.
I unbuckle his belt and his cock springs into my hands. It’s gorgeous. I remember it so well, dark and smooth and unreasonably stiff. I slip my mouth over the head of it and suck, but I can’t get more than the first half into my throat without choking and gagging. I now remember that it takes both hands and my mouth to get Antonio off, his digger really is that big. When I feel it in my mouth I remember how it fitted inside my body – barely – and again all my inner bits start clenching and throbbing uncontrollably.
‘This is wrong,’ I say, coming up for air.
I hear the smile in his voice as he strokes my hair, my skin, and says, ‘You like that it’s wrong. You love that it’s wrong. Let me lick you. I want to make you come.’
Just the sound of his voice has set me off. He drags at my clothes and I start coming even before he has my pants off, and when his tongue gets on my clit I almost go through the roof. The inside of my body is firing off like a pachinko machine. When it gets like this, I need to have the fucking. The more times I orgasm without fucking, the more cock I need to finally finish me off.
‘I need it,’ I gasp. ‘Now, Antonio! Fuck me now.’
He laughs. ‘You don’t know how I want to, but—’
I slap him across the face.
‘Now! Fuck me, you fucking bastard!’
I don’t really know what’s come over me. I’ve never slapped anyone in my life. He pulls back, whips around, rummages in his trousers. Wallet. Money spills on the bed, Brazilian reals.
‘WTF?’ I shriek. ‘I want you to fuck me, not pay me!’
‘Condom,’ he gasps. ‘Emergencies. Forgive me, God, for my weakness.’
He turns his eyes towards heaven and says a few more words in Portuguese. Then Antonio and his condom are on top of me, he’s drilling me, I’m clenching and wrapping my legs around him, scoring his back with my nails. Melodie is dead and I’m fucking her gorgeous boyfriend and it’s so so so so so so good.
Antonio is saying quite a few things I can’t understand. I don’t know if they’re dirty, but he sounds inspired and works me over for quite a while in various positions before he finally comes and collapses on me. Then he rolls us over so I’m on top, still skewered by his giant, indefatigable prong.
Sorry, but there really isn’t a better word for it.
‘I like it when you tell me what to do,’ he gasps in my ear. ‘Can you feel how hard our friend still is? Two for the price of one condom, yes? Our friend can go again.’
And he does. For that I can almost forgive him for calling his penis ‘our friend’.
We could have been doing this all along, I realise, as we lie there after the second round. All that silken skin and sculpted muscle spread on the mattress beside me, his dark hair that smells of limes falling around my face, the musk of his scent making me primitive. I’m dizzy, can scarcely see. If only I had insisted on condoms back when we were together, instead of slinking off and poisoning myself with synthetic hormones. We could have—
‘You’re thinking too much,’ he says, touching my forehead. ‘No thinking. It spoils the delight.’
He goes down on me again. I don’t know what happens to the condom, but at the end of all that cunnilingus as my back arches and my pelvis rocks up off the bed, I’m aware of a sudden stab of pain and I hear myself yelling, ‘Ow, ow, help!’
‘Charlie, what’s wrong, I thought you were enjo—’
I’m choking with laughter. ‘My toes! Cramp!’
Trust me to have toe-curling sex and end up with swimmer’s cramp. Horrible, but how can I care? Ripples of the orgasm are still washing over me. Antonio smiles and massages my foot. Soon every muscle in my body feels like it’s made of bright liquid. I lie there smelling his skin and just breathing. So happy. His lips are by my ear again.
‘I’m going to miss you, Charlie. Maybe one day you can come to São Paulo.’
‘What do you mean, São Paulo?’
But I already know. It’s so obvious, I should have known. The reals spilling out of his wallet. I sit up, feebly trying to get my scarf back on before he can see what’s become of my hair. It’s the only thing I’m still wearing. Ish.
‘When do you leave? Today?’
‘In an hour I must get the train to Heathrow. I’ll fly to Toronto tonight for to the funeral, and then back home. I want to see my family.’
‘An hour.’ I look around at his bare futon. It’s soaking wet, and now I understand why the room looks so empty. Duh.
‘Don’t be upset, dear Charlie—’ he begins.
But I’m not upset. I’m relieved.
‘Not much time,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s get in the shower. I’ll give you a farewell blow job if you reckon you’re up to it.’
‘I am up to it, and more, for I have another condom,’ he tells me solemnly. ‘For strict emergencies, you understand.’
* * *
Mel’s body is being flown back to Toronto, which is the ostensible reason why Antonio has to leave now. I ride the train to the airport with him. He hasn’t shaved, and in full daylight I notice little flecks of grey in his beard. I never asked how old he was; he looks about twenty-eight but maybe he’s older than that. It’s like sitting next to a movie star. Everyone else on the train is flat and dull, but even with his face shadowed by his hoodie, Antonio is a work of art. He has draped a companionable arm around my shoulders and I lean into his warmth. I want him to have nothing to do with Mel’s death. Obviously. Because if he somehow orchestrated it, then I’m complicit.
I should not be snuggling with him. I am a very bad person.
‘She used to skateboard,’ he tells me. ‘When she was a kid. She had to give it up. Too much risk of injury. I saw a video of her once, she was maybe ten? She was flying, those arms spread out, and the way she floated her weight over the board. She was a person who did everything well, or not at all.’
‘How did you meet her?’ I do not want to know this. Why am I asking this? Why can’t people leave me out of things?
‘She was a Pilates client at the studio. You know Assan? She worked with him, and we just got to know each other.’
Then he bursts into tears. Oh, god. This is the Tube. Doesn’t he understand there’s a national rule against breaking down on the Tube?
‘I can’t look at her mother, Charlie. So composed. Such dignity. And I am breaking to the pieces. I have no right to break to so many pieces.’
I pat his hand. ‘It doesn’t work that way, love. Everyone expresses their grief differently.’
Still, my heart squeezes. I’m feeling very crap about myself. I liked Mel so much, and she’s dead and I’ve just shagged her boyfriend . . . People don’t know what a terrible person I really am. I pretend to be nice. Like, right now I’m comforting Antonio but in the back of my mind I’m still wrangling with what O said about h
im.
I mean, he can’t be the Creeper. It can’t have been him in my dream last night.
O has planted the seeds of doubt. She’s so cynical. Always the boyfriend. He was there. How did she get out of the room? All of those things make sense, but Antonio isn’t like that. Besides, what possible motive could he have? The two of them were obviously in love.
Or is that just what I’ve been telling myself so I won’t have to think about Antonio and me as a . . . thing?
Fuck, what if I’m the Creeper? I have as much reason as anyone to get rid of Mel. Look how quickly Antonio came running to get me into bed after she died! Maybe the Creeper is a manifestation of my subconscious desires.
No. I’m losing it now. I wasn’t even thinking about Antonio (much) until he messaged me. And I had no clue Melodie existed before then. On logic alone, the Creeper can’t be me. Whew. So there’s that, then.
This is fucked-up. Have I mentioned this lately?
‘Charlie! What’s the matter? You’re shaking.’
I’m shaking because I don’t trust him. Or myself. Or anyone.
‘I’m not feeling very well.’ I don’t sound even a little convincing, but he nods sympathetically.
‘It’s a lot of . . . trauma.’
I love the way he pronounces ‘trauma’. Sounds like ‘trowma’. I melt a little, and then I remember that I’ve got to be less gullible. Having a lovely accent doesn’t make someone a good guy.
We arrive at the airport and I walk with him as far as I can before he has to go through security. It’s not an ideal place to have a serious conversation.
‘I wanted to let you know the memorial service for Mel is going to be livestreamed. The family wanted to keep the guest list very small, but there will be a string quartet and some poetry readings, and Laszlo Verccilli is going to sing. I send you the link, OK?’
My mouth is dry. I nod.
‘Are you sleeping?’
‘Too much,’ I say. ‘I’m sleeping a lot.’
‘But no problems? Bad dreams?’
I shake my head. He sounds so sincere.
‘And you?’ I have already planned my response if he asks me to do dreamwork on him – because it would be an obvious way to draw me in if he is somehow behind all this. I’ve already decided to say that I can’t handle it and I’m taking a break.
Sweet Dreams Page 15
