Help met He screamed. Slotted into my belt is my wide jungle knife. I unsheathed it. I took his sock, I shook it, I tied it above his calf, I tightened it. I touched the blade on the place that was red and now swelling. I sliced into him. Oh, the feeling!
Louis, meanwhile, was still gabbling, jabbering, hollering. He kept telling me that tourniquets were not proper medical practice any more. People get gangrene that way. Or clotting. He asked me what I was doing with the knife. And when I put my lips to the raw, new wound and sucked, his eyes widened as though I was draining out the very pith of him.
Then the storm abated. There was a strange quiet, a moment of respite, and Louis did something, Ronny. Something unthinkable. Before I could spit, he grabbed hold of my head, my chin, he placed his giant polish-smattered fingers over my mouth.
What would happen if I made you swallow? Monica? What would happen?
His blood and that tiny sting, discovering a new world inside my soft pink mouth. He held me and held me. I thought he would kill me. Then he let go. He watched me spitting and choking. He staggered back into the shack. I heard the mattress creaking as he lay down upon it.
God’s truth. M.
♦
Connie was small and had a child’s tread. So light she almost floated. When she entered her room, she was not heard. Lily was entirely engrossed, her eyes wide, her mouth ajar, her hand at her throat.
“What are you doing?”
Even as she spoke Connie knew that this was the silliest question. She could see perfectly well what Lily was doing. She was invading. She was knifing and filleting. Lily looked up, noticed Connie, was surprised that she’d materialized so silently but wasn’t in the slightest bit ashamed at being apprehended. Connie saw it. Lily held out the paper. “This is Ronny’s letter,” she said, “so why do you have it?”
Connie was laughing inside but also white with fury. “Those are my letters,” she hissed, “and nobody else’s.”
My birthright, she was thinking, my deathright.
Lily reached out her hand for the rest of the bundle. Connie bounded forward and stopped her. She grabbed her wrist. Her hands were tiny but surprisingly powerful. Lily tried to free herself. Connie snatched the letters first, and then slapped her, so hard, with the back of her hand, that the neat little ring she wore snicked into Lily’s cheek.
Lily gasped, amazed. She’d fallen back against the wall. But as soon as she’d exclaimed her lips snapped shut and her eyes tightened. Blood began trickling down her cheek. She did not try to stop it. Instead, she straightened up. She was tall. She towered. A skyscraper. A terrible, flat building. Ominously one-dimensional.
“Give me that!”
Connie put out her hand for the letter Lily still held.
“Why should I,” Lily smirked, “when it’s Ronny’s?”
She folded the letter with a violent precision; once, twice, three times, then slipped it into her shirt pocket. In the same movement she withdrew Connie’s lipstick, pulled off its cover, twirled it out, applied it to her lips, smacked them together, closed the lipstick and returned it to her pocket.
“Does it suit me?” she asked, primping hatefully. Connie was stunned by the spitefulness in Lily’s small voice. But more stunned, really, by how protective she felt. The letters. The words. They were hers. Hers. Nobody else’s.
She put her head to one side and stared at Lily’s lips. “It suits you perfectly,” she whispered, her eyes in slits. “I know.” Lily kissed the air and then left her.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Thirty-One
Nathan returned the stolen book on Monday morning, but during his tea break he travelled to the Fine Art Bookshop – it was only a short trip on the bus – and attempted to buy a copy of his own. Unfortunately they didn’t have another volume in stock, but the assistant found a different text – in Italian – which also contained a representation of Antonello’s Pieta, as well as a further full-page colour illustration of another of his better known works: a painting of Saint Sebastian, who posed, quite exquisitely, the very epitome of youth and strength and gorgeous-ness. Almost naked, too, Nathan noted, vaguely unsettled, except for the briefest pair of tight, white, extremely modern-looking shorts.
Nathan paid up (a considerable sum) without a moment’s hesitation and took his prize back to work with him. It was Laura’s day off. Secure in this knowledge, Nathan kept his new book split open, its spine creaking, under his counter, and in between customers he glanced down at it, expecting, each time, that the sensation he felt – the charge – would be less powerful, watered down, weaker. But it was not.
During lunch he rang the number on Connie’s business card. He received an answerphone message. The premises were now closed, any further inquiries etc. He jotted down a second number and rang it.
He found himself speaking to Connie’s mother. As a ruse, he improvised a story about being one of Connie’s old customers seeking out a prescription. It was all very simple. The deceit. Almost a treat. He rang on, to an aunt’s house, and she, in turn, gave him the number of a distant relative in Sheppey where she thought Connie might be staying.
He smiled to himself as he copied the digits down on to the back of a lost property form. Then, on the spur of the moment, he turned the sheet over, and under the heading Item(s) Lost, he wrote: Inhibitions.
Then quickly scratched it out.
♦
Jim had given Ronny his bed, because Ronny was so much taller than he was, and the sofa seemed a far more appropriate resting place for his own more compact torso. Ronny enjoyed lying on the bed. It was soft. He could smell Jim on the bedclothes. On the sheet and the blankets. At night, if he couldn’t sleep, he’d run his fingers along the scratches in the wall. Little sketches. Bats and leaves and tiny figures. Silly voodoo. Sometimes maps and sometimes doodles. On the windowsill he’d found an old compass. He chiselled his own name with it. The plaster disintegrated. It felt as soft as chalk.
In the morning, though, when Ronny awoke and tiptoed through to the living room, he couldn’t help noticing that Jim was curled up completely, almost foetally, on the sofa, and even then seemed to experience almost as much difficulty finding space on it as he himself had.
“Jim.”
He stared down at him. Jim was deeply asleep. His eyes blinked rapidly under their swollen lids. And with each blink, a tear. Ronny watched the tears, gently lulled by their quiet regularity as they travelled from Jim’s eyes and down on to his pillow. The pillow was stained with them. Little tidemarks, like splotches of lichen, white-edged. Ronny gazed at these marks, fascinated. How many nights of tears were resting here? How many years?
“Jim.”
The curtains were closed, but it was breezy outside. They moved intermittently, turning the grey ceiling and the walls into a kaleidoscope of rippling shadows.
“Jim.”
Jim did not seem like he was about to wake, so Ronny took a step away from the couch, intending to go into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. But it was this smallest and quietest of shuffling movements that generated something giant and raw and completely unforeseen: a scream, so shrill and wide and terrible that Ronny himself started violently and began screaming too, and Jim, who was hardly awake yet, opened his eyes to find himself standing, surrounded by a wild tornado of wailing – jolted, exposed, breathless.
“What? What?”
He blinked, dazed, seeing Ronny, not recognizing him at first, then recognizing. “What?”
Ronny’s heart was beating crazily.
“God,” he sat down on the sofa. His knees were weak.
“What am I doing?”
Jim looked down at himself, at where he was standing, completely disorientated, panting.
“I don’t know. God,” Ronny repeated, feeling his new, smooth head with his left hand.
“Was I sleepwalking?” Jim said. “Did I do anything?”
“Do anything? No. You jumped up and screamed, that’s all.”
&
nbsp; “Did you do anything?” Jim seemed suspicious. “Did you?”
“Me? Nothing. I was going to get a glass of water. You scared me when you screamed so I screamed. It was…” he grinned shakily, “very frightening.”
Jim finally stopped panting. He felt ludicrous.
“I’m sorry, then.”
“And you were crying,” Ronny said. He turned and touched the pillow where Jim’s cheek had been. It was warm and damp. It made him think of the Mediterranean sea, although he’d never actually been anywhere near it.
“I don’t cry.”
“Yes. While you were sleeping. And another thing…”
“What?” Jim was hunched over. His hands were linked tightly across his belly.
“We’re the same size.”
Jim didn’t know what he’d been expecting Ronny to say but it hadn’t been that. Ronny stood up. He was wearing some pyjamas. Old ones that belonged to Jim. And his white shoes. He never took them off.
“Look. They fit. The pyjamas.”
He stood next to Jim. “Up straight…”
“What?” Jim scowled.
“Up straight.”
Ronrty placed his hand on to the small of Jim’s back.
“Pull up.”
Jim jerked, reacting nervously to Ronny’s touch.
“There,” Ronny pulled his own shoulders back, “we are eye to eye. See?”
They were eye to eye.
“I am a firm believer,” Ronny continued, “in good posture.”
Jim smiled. He couldn’t help himself. It seemed like Ronny was a firm believer in only the silliest of things.
“Good posture.” He put his hand to his forehead. He felt ill. “I don’t feel too good.”
He went and sat down.
“Pills,” Ronny said. “Your body’s missing them.”
“I feel weak.”
“Then I’ll get you something to eat.”
Ronny shuffled into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Inside were two eggs and a large bundle of small, foil-wrapped butter pats; the kind you might find in a café or at a service station. In the cupboard was tea, powdered milk and some tins of beans, meatballs, peas.
Ronny took hold of a couple of the butter pats and the two eggs. He walked back into the living room. “Eggs all right?”
“Fine.” Jim was curled up at the end of the sofa. He had a blanket tight around him. He was shivering slightly. He looked anxious.
“I like these,” Ronny held the butter pats aloft, “but the process involved in making tin foil is actually very harmful to the environment.”
“Really.” Jim seemed unstimulated.
“Someone told me that once while I was eating a Kit-Kat.”
Ronny returned to the kitchen. Here he opened the first of the butter pats, placed it into Jim’s only saucepan, waited until the butter dissolved and then broke an egg on top. When it had cooked he placed it on to a plate and then repeated the process over.
After they’d eaten – Jim ate with his right hand, still determined to gratify Ronny, although the effort almost killed him; he was shaking too much for any real competence on either side – Ronny asked whether Jim would teach him to whistle. Jim’s chest felt tight. He shook his head. “I haven’t much breath today.”
“Go on.”
Jim closed his eyes for a short interlude. “Just give me a second…”
He spent some time considering how it was that he whistled. Eventually he decided on a good way of demonstrating it. “If you pucker up your lips and then get your tongue and crush the tip of it down on to the back of your bottom row of teeth…”
Ronny looked confused.
“You do have a bottom row of teeth?”
Ronny bared his teeth. They were perfect.
“Perfect teeth,” he said proudly.
“Really?” Jim frowned, he felt a moment’s unease and then suppressed it. “No fillings?”
“None. How about you?”
“No, none either, but my teeth are a mess.”
“Why?”
“Because I won’t allow anything inside my mouth.”
“How about food?”
Jim grimaced, then he tried to demonstrate the whistling again. Ronny copied. On his first go he trilled quite sweetly. He couldn’t believe it. He slapped Jim on the shoulder. Jim was disconcerted and began hiccupping.
“Oh no,” he closed his eyes and held his breath.
Ronny gazed at him fixedly. “When did you last see a white horse, Jim?”.
Jim opened his eyes. He hiccupped. “A white what?”
∨ Wide Open ∧
Thirty-Two
Lily arrived in the kitchen dressed and ready for college but with a pillowcase stuck to her left cheek. Sara was pouring Connie some coffee. “Now what?”
“It won’t come off.”
Lily picked up a piece of toast and ate a corner of it dry.
“Did you cut your cheek?”
“I suppose I must’ve.”
Lily smiled thinly as she chewed, avoiding Connie’s eyes.
Sara went to inspect the pillowcase.
“There’s a lot of blood, but it’s very dry. Does it hurt at all?”
“Itches.”
“Let’s put the case under the tap and wet it. Maybe it’ll ease off more gently that way.”
Sara moved Lily over to the sink and ran the warm tap. Lily was forced to bend over and have her cheek fingered and manipulated. She did not complain, but she stared at Connie’s bare knees and feet with an expression of intense smugness.
Very slowly and gently Sara eased the pillowcase off. The left side of Lily’s face was stained brown with dry blood. Sara used a tissue to wipe it clean but avoided the small, still-moist-looking cut on Lily’s cheek. Then she pulled down the bottom lid of Lily’s eye and peered inside.
“Pale. Maybe you should skip college.”
“Nope.”
Lily took the tissue and slapped it on to her cheek.
“I’m off.”
She strolled out.
Connie inspected her small gold ring. Sara poured some washing liquid on to the pillowcase and began rubbing at it.
Connie drank her coffee and tried to stop herself from yawning. She hadn’t slept well. Her brain had been buzzing. She rubbed her eyes and debated what to do next. What could she do?
“I want to show you something,” Sara had wrung out the pillowcase and was standing by the back door, “outside.”
Connie stood up. She was wearing a short cotton nightdress. “Can I come like this?”
“Uh…here…” Sara took a mackintosh from a hook and tossed it to her, then threw her a pair of large Wellingtons. Connie yanked them both on. They went out and Sara walked over to the washing line with Connie clumping along behind her. Sara pointed.
“I gave this a rinse through before you got up.”
Connie stared at Jim’s towel. It was a grey, breezy day. Quite nippy. She wrapped the mac closer around her. “Well, thank you.”
“No, look,” Sara was smiling. She pointed. “See?”
Connie peered more intently. “Prison issue,” she read, out loud.
Sara hung up the pillowcase. The blood stain was still evident.
“Ruined,” she muttered grimly, and then turned resolutely back towards the house.
When Connie came downstairs again, properly dressed in some old jeans and a grey woollen sweater, she found Sara sitting at the kitchen table fiddling with Luke’s camera. Her hair was unbrushed and she wore no make-up. Her cheeks and chin and nose all had the soft, dull shine of tan-coloured freshly laid eggs.
Connie pulled out a chair. “So will you give it back?”
“The camera? Eventually. I’m trying to work out the timer.”
“Pass it over.” Connie took the camera and inspected it. “Okay…”
She explained how she imagined it would work. Sara listened carefully. Then she took the camera back again.
“I’m going
to take some pictures,” she said, “do you want to watch?”
Connie checked the time. It was still early.
♦
I Her cheek was leaking when she found him. On the beach, naturally.
“Ronny.”
He glanced up. “Lily.”
“So…” she looked at the shell piles, “will you be making another uh…” she couldn’t remember the word he’d used previously.
“No,” Ronny continued sorting, “today I’m constructing something for Jim. It’s a new project.”
“Right.” Lily’s voice was plainly laced with a fine jealous thread.
“Jim’s grief,” Ronny said, “I’m making it solid.”
“Jim’s grief?”
Lily didn’t understand.
“Well, anyway,” she added, almost roughly, “I have something for you.”
She pulled the letter from her school bag. “It has your name on it. When I saw it I just knew that it was yours.”
She offered the letter to Ronny. He put out his left hand and took it. “Thank you.”
He glanced at the handwriting. Horrible, jagged. He stuffed it into his pocket.
“Won’t you read it?”
“What’s it about?”
“Insects, blood and a cave. Somewhere foreign. A bat cave.”
“The bat cave.” Ronny nodded.
“Don’t you want to know how I found it?”
“Yes.”
Ronny clearly did not want to know.
“Connie. The woman I was with yesterday. She had a whole pile of them. I tried to get hold of the rest but she hit me. See?”
Lily showed Ronny her cheek but he was not looking. She put her finger to the moist lip of the cut and felt tiny granules of sand nestling inside it.
“So…” she dawdled and then tightened her resolve, “I suppose I’ve got a bus to catch.”
“Then I hope it’s not a fast one.” Lily frowned, smiled, then took off.
♦
Her half-empty coffee cup. The washing line. The hen coop. A boar. Beetroots under tarpaulin. Her wedding ring. Her toothbrush. A paperback romance she’d been reading. A kitchen scale.
Thames Gateway 01; Wide Open Page 16
