Fleabag

by Phoebe Waller-Bridge

  He put a cover over me, and a bottle of water by my arm and sat outside until I fell asleep.

  Thought he could have at least tried to touch me up a bit. Never quite let it go.

  –

  I text him. Tell him I’m single and horny. He gets back saying he’s out, and can be here in twenty minutes. Great. Quickly drink half a bottle of wine, shower, shave everything. Decide I’m going to up my game a bit. Dig out some Agent Provocateur business – suspender belt, the whole bit. Open the door to him. ‘Hellooo.’ We get to it immediately. After some pretty standard bouncing, I realise he is edging towards my arsehole. I’m drunk, and owe him a ‘thank you’ for being nice to me at the festival, so… I let him. He’s thrilled.

  The next morning I wake to find him sitting on the bed, fully dressed, gazing at me. He says that last night was incredible – which I think is an overstatement – but he goes on to say it was particularly special because he has never managed to actually… up-the-bum with anyone before – to be fair, he does have a large penis – and although it was always a fantasy of his, he’d never found anyone who could do it with him. He touches my hair and thanks me with genuine earnest. It’s sort of moving. He kisses me gently. I kiss him back. Then he leaves.

  And I spend the rest of the day wondering…

  Do I have a massive arsehole?

  –

  Five to eleven at the café. I’m still thinking about it.

  Haven’t heard from my sister. No transfer yet. Wonder if Martin’s murdered her, and is now stalking round the city looking for me.

  The door smashes open. Joe.

  JOE. ALLO, SWEETPEA!

  FLEABAG. His legs are too long for his body.

  JOE. Look at this beauty!

  FLEABAG. He holds up a ukulele that someone just gave him in the pub last night.

  Just gave him a ukulele.

  He says he’s written a song.

  I don’t want to hear it.

  He pulls out another ukulele that apparently another person gave him in another pub.

  JOE. Crazy ’ow the world speaks to you all at once eh!

  FLEABAG. He says he’ll sing his song to me. Then he’ll teach it to me. So we can both sing it to Hilary.

  I tell him I’m too busy and sit in the back until I hear him leave.

  He tinkles a bit, but I don’t hear him sing.

  –

  Schoolkids used to come to the café. Mainly because of Hilary.

  Basically, I’m shit at presents and for Boo’s birthday two years ago I panicked and bought her a guinea pig. She called it Hilary and now I’m left with it.

  I don’t feel anything about guinea pigs. They’re pointless. But Boo took Hilary very seriously as a gift. And then everything became guinea-pig related.

  –

  I think she was just relieved to have a different animal associated with her. When she was about five, she mentioned, on a childish whim, that she liked owls. For the rest of her life she got owls. Owl duvet covers, owl pens, books about owls, trips to owl sanctuaries. She fucking hated owls. Show her an owl and she’d lose her shit. What she really liked – and I knew this – was screwdrivers. Crazy about them. We’d spend hours unscrewing things, then screwing them back up. She slept with screwdrivers under her pillow until she was about ten.

  Come to think of it, a screwdriver would have been a better present than a guinea pig.

  –

  Midday. Still haven’t heard from my sister. Martin’s going to hate me. I picture his massive, Scottish head. Hope he hasn’t beaten the shit out of her or anything. No, he’d never do something as sexy as that.

  I’m joking. Jesus.

  –

  Hilary is fat and ginger with a frizzy bits. Like Annie, the orphan. If she was grown up. And fat. And a guinea pig. Which – well, who knows what became of her.

  She has this punky bit of fur that explodes off the crown of her head and falls over her eyes. Makes her look pretty badass. She has a really straight expression. Boo always said, if Hilary was in a band, she’d be the guitarist who takes the music very seriously. She did take music seriously actually. Whenever Boo played stuff in the café she’d be all –

  Plays some beats. Nods like Hilary. No expression, but totally in rhythm.

  She’s also a sneaky little shit. She knows how to open her hutch door. I’ve seen her do it. She pushes the little wood stopper until it drops out and the door just swings open. She then freezes, as if she hasn’t done anything, then she actually turns around – and lowers herself down onto the counter, little legs kicking, looking over her shoulder – checking… checking… She often does a little poo in the excitement. Once landed, she creeps along the counter all the way to the window. Then, when she gets there, in her frenzy of freedom, she sits down and looks out. Watching the world.

  If she wants me to think she’s really profound and poetic doing that, I’m not rising to it.

  –

  Apparently guinea pigs need other guinea pigs. Or they can die of loneliness.

  But Hilary didn’t need a mate. She got more than enough attention. The punters loved her, she was always on someone’s lap, and she had Boo, who never left her alone. They adored each other. The morning Boo’s boyfriend told her he’d fucked someone else… she walked right past me, took Hilary out of her hutch and sat out the back with her for hours.

  I once read a story from the paper to Boo and Hilary about how a little kid repeatedly stuck rubber-ended pencils up the class hamster’s arsehole, because he liked it when their eyes popped out. He was sent to a juvenile bootcamp.

  I read it out as a bit of a joke, but Boo was distraught.

  BOO. They sent him away? But he needs help!

  FLEABAG. She was a surprising person.

  (To BOO.) Yeah. He pencil-fucked a hamster.

  BOO. He’s obviously not happy. Happy people don’t do things like that.

  FLEABAG. Fair point.

  BOO. And anyway, that’s the very reason they put rubbers on the ends of pencils.

  FLEABAG (to BOO). To fuck hamsters?

  BOO. No, because people make mistakes.

  FLEABAG. But now Boo’s gone it’s a death café so no one comes in. Hilary just sits in her hutch like a lump. Staring at me. I don’t know what to do with her.

  –

  Six o’clock. Two yoga-body girls come into the café and order risotto off the menu. I go to Tesco. Microwave their economy meal. The girls were talking about never wanting to give birth, because of what it’ll do to their sex lives.

  Still haven’t heard from my sister.

  I put an empty crisp packet in the microwave and watch it shrivel.

  Play with my phone for a bit.

  –

  BOO (recorded voicemail). Hi this is Boo. I can’t come to the phone at the moment but leave a messiagio and I’ll get back to you.

  FLEABAG. Someone should probably disconnect that.

  –

  I start texting Tube Rodent. I apologise and apologise and send him a picture of my tits. He ends up sending me one back. I think it’s of his cock.

  –

  My boyfriend before Harry used to make me send him pictures of my vagina wherever I was. Ten or eleven times a day. I’d have to go and lunge in a disabled toilet and take an attractive picture of my vagina. Which is not easy, on the whole. Specially as he always wanted a worm’s-eye view. It often looked like someone had dropped a little bap on the floor of a hairdressers. And taken a photo of it.

  One temping morning, he asked me to take photos of my favourite bits of my body.

  I went to the disabled loo.

  Mimes unbuttoning her top. Bored. Takes pictures of her breasts. Stands up. Mimes hitching up her skirt, pulling aside her knickers, takes pictures of her vagina. Bored.

  Mimes buttoning up. Flicks through the photos. Bored. Chooses one. Send.

  Puts phone away.

  Beep beep.

  Takes phone out.

  EX-BOYF
RIEND. Oh that is so hot. Send another one, you beautiful bitch.

  Mimes unbuttoning her top. Bored. Takes pictures of her breasts. Stands up. Mimes hitching up her skirt, pulling aside her knickers, takes pictures of her vagina. Bored.

  Mimes buttoning up. Flicks through the photos. Bored. Chooses one. Send.

  Puts phone away.

  Beep beep.

  Takes phone out.

  Now say something so dirty you shock yourself. Send me another picture. Oh God, I’m wanking.

  FLEABAG. It exhausted me, but you’ve got to do it. Can’t have them looking elsewhere.

  The boss banged on the disabled-loo door. It was my fourth visit that morning.

  BOSS. Is everything alright in there?

  FLEABAG. He’s Australian.

  (To BOSS.) Yeah – I’ve – I’ve just – got cystitis.

  BOSS. Oh you poor chickadee! My wife gets that all the time! Cranberry juice is what you need. Buckets of it. Shall I get you some from the canteen?

  Hon?

  Hello?

  Are you crying?

  –

  FLEABAG. I’m going to stop waxing. I met a man who said – I say ‘said’ it was more of a yell – how much he loved a ‘full bush’ and how ‘rare they are these days’. Although it was inappropriate at the time – family friend at Mum’s funeral – it filled me up with something. Hope? Relief? I don’t know. Can’t bring myself to grow one.

  –

  I call Tube Rodent. He comes to the café with a bottle of wine. We drink it.

  He whispers to me

  TUBE RODENT. I have an enormous penis.

  FLEABAG. I say: really? He says

  TUBE RODENT. Yeah.

  FLEABAG. I say: well that’s lucky, because I have an enormous vagina. He says

  TUBE RODENT (confused). Awesome.

  FLEABAG. We fuck behind the counter. He’s very bony. All corners. It’s like having sex with a protractor. He doesn’t come. He says I’m being too intense, whatever that means.

  We turned the lights off and it’s quite dark now. He’s pulling on his trousers, looking for his phone to see if his friends are going out tonight. He’s wearing this pink-and-purpley paisley scarf. He looks like a lady.

  He hops over to the window and leans on the sill. He turns his phone on and he screams. Really high-pitched. The light from the phone made Hilary’s eyes flash red in the darkness. She must have wandered over to the window while we were having sex.

  For a second I laugh at his reaction, but she moves, and he screams again. She tries to run towards me, but she panics and sort of slips off the side. She lands on her stomach and struggles a bit, but Tube Rodent sees red and kicks her.

  She flies against the wall with a thud.

  He stares at the furry pile on the floor.

  But she twitches. It makes him jump. He kicks her again. She goes flying across the floor.

  I can’t move. I think about Boo. I think about them playing together.

  Tube Rodent’s panicking. Mumbling something about a rat phobia.

  I tell him he can go, and he disappears.

  Hilary is on her front, but her back is to me. She looks like a… furry bullet.

  She’s still alive, but…

  I put her back in her hutch and we just sit for a bit.

  –

  I text arsehole guy. He texts back saying he has a girlfriend and was really drunk the other night, but would love to hang out in a non-sex way. Sorry if he led me on.

  I send my ex a picture of my vagina.

  I send Harry a picture of my vagina.

  I text Lily.

  Still nothing from my sister.

  Hilary’s not moving.

  BOO (recorded voicemail). Hi this is Boo. I can’t come to the phone at the moment but leave a messiagio and I’ll get back to you.

  FLEABAG. Hilary starts making a horrible, chattering noise. I take her out of her hutch again. I put her on my lap. I stroke her, but she doesn’t stop. I put her back.

  –

  I go to The Rabbit and Winslow pub. I smoke outside. Three people are laughing by the door. I can just make out the braces and the white hair through the crowd.

  I can hear him.

  Someone’s let him on stage with his ukulele. He’s singing a song. People are laughing and clapping.

  I listen to it from outside. It’s about a train ride he once took through Ireland, where a man told stories to everyone about love and home and romance and adventure and surprises and beautiful women and beautiful men and mothers and daughters and fathers and sons and monsters and fairies and parties and wishes…

  All the usual crap.

  The whole scene is something out of a revolting romcom, but he’s nailing it.

  He goes to the bar afterwards. Everyone buys him drinks. The man doesn’t need to work.

  I realise I didn’t give Hilary her Earl Grey.

  –

  Ten thirty at night. I hammer and hammer and ring the bell. I can see his silhouette at the top of the stairs but he doesn’t open the door.

  –

  Back at the flat. Harry has obviously been round. The TV has gone and it smells like he did a shit. He never used to shit in the flat. He was really weird about it. Used to go to the pub over the road.

  –

  Sit on my stripy sofa. Open my laptop.

  Anal

  Gang bang

  Mature

  Big cocks

  Small tits

  Hentai

  Asian

  Teen

  Milf

  Big butt

  Gay

  Lesbian

  Facial

  Fetish

  Young and old

  Swallow

  Rough

  Voyeur

  Public

  Suddenly the sun’s creeping in and I’m raw.

  Lease is up today. Still nothing from my sister. I leave the flat.

  –

  BOO (recorded voicemail). Hi this is Boo…

  –

  FLEABAG. I put the closing sign up outside the café.

  Three minutes past eleven. He’s not here yet. I watch the door.

  Ten past.

  The door flies open.

  JOE. Alright, baba ghanoush! Forgive me – I’m a little late, but do I have a morning story for you today or what! Listen to this –

  FLEABAG. I tell him to shut up and close the door. He looks confused. But he does it.

  (To JOE.) Why do you come here, Joe?

  JOE. What?

  FLEABAG. I close the blind and lock the door.

  (To JOE.) Why do you come here, Joe?

  JOE. Tea, love. And to see my ladies.

  FLEABAG. Hilary’s still not moving.

  (To JOE.) It’s okay, Joe. I understand. There’s nothing wrong with you.

  I take off my top. Unhook my bra. Place them gently on the counter.

  He stares at me. I step forward. Showing him my young tits.

  He shuffles a bit. His breathing changes. He’s trembling.

  He moves his hand up.

  –

  Nine o’clock that morning. My sister’s door.

  Martin’s looking down at me.

  MARTIN. Hello, you.

  FLEABAG. Is Claire here?

  MARTIN. Aye.

  FLEABAG. I try to get past him into the house. He doesn’t let me.

  Claire comes to the door. She’s crimped her fringe. I deliver a beautifully constructed joke about it. She snaps at me. Says I have to stop talking to people like I’m doing a stand-up routine. That some things just aren’t fucking funny.

  I laugh. And then I don’t laugh. My throat goes dry. No one says anything for a bit.

  (To SISTER.) You didn’t transfer the money…

  SISTER. No.

  FLEABAG. You’re not going to Finland.

  SISTER. No.

  FLEABAG. Why is he still here?

  SISTER. He didn’t touch you.

 
FLEABAG. He tried.

  SISTER. He said it was more like the other way round.

  FLEABAG. That’s not true.

  SISTER. Why would I believe you?

  FLEABAG. What? Because I’m your –

  SISTER. After what you did to Boo.

  FLEABAG (to audience). That wasn’t my fault. He wanted me… he… wanted me so…

  –

  It’s eleven fifteen now.

  Joe is shaking.

  I’m standing. Topless. Just the right angle.

  His hand keeps rising, until it rests on his eyes.

  JOE. Put your clothes back on, darling.

  FLEABAG. What?

  JOE. Put your clothes back on.

  FLEABAG. Come on, Joe. I’m not going to judge you.

  JOE. I come here for my tea, darling. And to see you. That was a sad thing that happened to your friend.

  FLEABAG. You’re weak.

  JOE. That may be true, but… I’m going to go now.

  FLEABAG. Stay. Come on. Please. Joe. I’m twenty-six years old, Joe.

  He stops. He brings his hand down from his eyes. He finally looks at me.

  JOE. Go home, darling. I’m sorry. This ain’t my bag.

  FLEABAG. I grab his arm as he walks past. He’s thin but baggy. His skin pinches in my grasp. It’s disgusting.

  The door closes behind him.

  –

  I sit on Joe’s chair for a bit. There’s something not right about that man.

  Hilary’s teeth are going again. Crashing against each other. The noise is unbearable. Relentless chattering. They do that when they’re distressed or angry or – I can’t listen to it. I take her out of her hutch. I hold her little body to my naked chest. I can feel her claws. She can hardly move. Her bones feel bent and her breathing is shallow. But the teeth are going like – she won’t – I stroke her body. I look into her face through her ginger, punky bit. I imagine sticking my finger in to make her eyes pop out. I imagine it. I imagine doing that – I can’t imagine doing anything else and as my hand moves down her body – I – I –

  When I first gave her to Boo she was so tiny. I put her in a little gift box from a crappy card shop. She just sat there on a bit of cotton wool. Looking up through her tiny punky bit. She was ridiculous. A little overexcited fuzzball. She’d just sit in your hand like – (Makes a mini-explosion sound.)

  Boo’s face. Boo’s face when she opened the box – a huge grin spread across her whole body.

  BOO. What is this!? Is this a guine – Did you get me a – What – What is this!?