by Angela Peach
“Freya. I made love to Freya,” I blurted and thinking of Norwegian passion calmed me. In the toss of a coin, my mind was quiet. I would need to take a minute later to consider why this should be so.
“Five? Finished or going higher?” Helena asked.
“It doesn’t matter, Helena. We weren’t together and I had needs, just as you obviously did,” I told her sadly, resigned to the wasteland of years that lay between our meetings.
“Look, you’ll have to go now. Edmund’s mother is coming to take me buggy shopping. Leave me your number. I promise I’ll call.” She smiled but her smile no longer dissolved me.
She handed me her phone and I tapped my details into her contacts folder. “I’m sorry, Helena. I had this meeting so differently in my head but I’m a dreamer, I always have been. I just, oh I don't know, longed for a happy ending.”
“Maybe our ending has not yet been written,” she said, filling my battered heart with hope.
For the first time, I looked into her eyes and gave her a proper smile. I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Until next time.”
I left, closing her door behind me, determined not to look back lest I see her reflection watching me and I ran back in. I kept walking back down the row of terraced houses, feeling my legs grow weaker and weaker, finally buckling under the torrential rain when I was out of her sight. I let myself fall to my knees, caving in to the maelstrom of emotions creating a tornado in my mind.
I touched Helena!
She was there, in front of me, in my arms, kissing me. She said she still loved me but she was married and about to have a baby in a few months. I ran my fingertips across my brow, back and forth, a habit I had when the thoughts behind it became almost too much, like ironing out the creases would straighten my mind.
I was unravelling. I felt my heart break in two, all the love inside pouring out before onto the puddled pavement. I heard my choked sobs before I realised I was crying and threw my hands over my face, hiding my shame. The rain pelted my neck and soaked my newly dried clothes but all I could think about was that I no longer knew where I belonged. For ten years, I had held on to love in the form of Helena and now I would need to let go and I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t let my love for her fizzle out like a match under a tap.
Then God sent an angel to rescue me.
“Be still,” I heard and my heart began to calm. Strong arms lifted me to standing and I was being shushed.
“You should have waited for me,” she said.
“You weren’t in,” I said to Freya.
“Quick. To my car we run,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to where we could shelter from the rain.
“You weren’t in,” I repeated, shaking my hair dry like a dog.
“My best friend, Mavis Street, had a medical emergency. I had to attend on her and keep illness from her. I tried to get back in time but you’d left me already. Now I am straight here while I buy soup.”
“Soup?”
“Yes, it’s Tuesday. On Tuesday, Mavis Street will only eat soup.”
“Any particular type of soup or is she not fussy?” I said, playing along.
“Tomato. She has her ways but now, my Nick, give me your hands. I take your bruised heart and smooth the path to Freya,” she smiled, taking my hands in hers and rubbing them warm.
Oddly, I did feel the cold lift, my fractured heart began to knit back together and I drowned in the mesmerising blue of Freya’s eyes.
“Later you will tell me about Helena. First we go to Mavis Street and you will dry off.” She beamed a smile at me. “I’ll take you and caress my light into your dark, don’t worry.”
And I didn’t worry. My mind had emptied and I let the windscreen wipers hypnotise me, as they flicked back and forth, until we pulled up outside a quirky, little house set back along a path in a lake.
“Who lives here?” I joked. “Bilbo Baggins?”
Freya frowned at me. “Be kind, Nick. Mavis Street is a dwarf.”
I swallowed my embarrassment as curiosity overtook me. I was privately pleased to be allowed a glimpse into Freya’s hidden world and interested as to why her best friend would be a dwarf. I knew Freya did have a secret because some nights before sleep claimed me, I’d hear her door banging shut as she leapt out into the night.
Intrigued, I followed her into Mavis’ house, hit by a wall of hot air as the door closed behind me.
“I am back, Mavis Street,” Freya said, loudly. “I have my lover, Nick, with me.”
I cringed a bit at her calling me her lover. We hadn’t established that yet and I still had to figure out where Helena’s return would fit into my life. If at all.
“I’m in the kitchen,” I heard a low voice answer back.
Freya nodded her head toward the kitchen and I followed her in, seeing the dwarf woman in her dwarf kitchen fetching a bowl from a cupboard that might have been too high for her had the room not been made in miniature.
“Did you bring the soup?” she asked Freya, then seeing me she beamed broadly, with her slightly lopsided mouth. “You must be the lover.”
“Hmm-mmm,” I replied, non-committal, looking around the room, fascinated and feeling like a giant.
“I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Nick. I have heard lots about you, that you paint. I’d love you to paint me, I’ll pay. Oh, look at my tongue rushing away. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Mavis Street and I have an enlarged heart.”
“Hello, Mavis Street,” I said, unable to conceal my amusement. It was one of those surreal days that feels like a puppet-master is pulling all the strings and I have to travel the directions I am thrown down.
“Mavis Street is my best friend,” Freya said.
“You already told me that,” I pointed out.
“You’ll be our best friend, too,” Mavis Street said.
“I will?” I questioned, my lips curling into a smile.
Mavis Street met my eyes. “Oh, yes.”
“You’re a freak like us,” Freya added.
I would have laughed but any laughter gargled a death in my throat as I regarded Freya and Mavis. As alike as sausages and cheese.
Freya with her beautiful blue eyes, white hair that fell down her back like an ice-cap and a figure that made me ache under her nifty, home-made dresses.
Mavis Street: dwarf with an enlarged heart and lopsided lips; with a head too large and hair too curly; a brown eye and a green eye; a nose that was flattened by imaginary punches; wearing clothes that held the tell-tale signs of Freya’s sewing skills to fit her snugly. Mavis Street was ugly but there was something in her low voice that made me think she might be the most beautiful person in the whole world. She had the voice of honey love.
“She knows,” Mavis said, turning her back on me, taking the cans of soup from the carrier bag Freya had lain on the table. “Would you like some tomato soup, Nick?”
Suddenly, I was ravenous and I nodded, licking my lips as my taste buds itched on my tongue. Freya pulled a chair out at the small table and I crouched down to sit and await the food, while Freya and Mavis heated the soup and buttered some bread.
I grabbed a piece of bread and hungrily began to eat, reaching greedily for the first bowl of hot soup and burning myself as I spooned in the hot, orange liquid.
“She’s a one,” Mavis said to Freya, regarding me.
Freya smiled proudly. “She’s my one,” she said, as I ate.
“I’m here, you know,” I managed between gulps.
When I’d finished eating, Mavis came over and gave me a card. She said, “If ever you need a job, you call me.”
I looked at the card. It said ‘Mavis Street: Dwarf Adventurer’.
“Thanks,” I said, scraping my chair along the floor as I stood up. “I have to get home,” I told Freya.
As I walked to her car, I heard the honeydew voice remind me, “I meant what I said about you painting me.”
I threw my hand up in a wave of acknowledgement but I was gro
wing tired, my eyelids heavy with the strain of the day and I needed my bed. I sat quietly, lost in myself before the curtain of black would descend on me.
“I’ll sleep alone,” I told Freya, as I climbed the stairs to my flat. I felt her eyes on my back but I was too exhausted to face her and I almost fell in my door, managing to lock it behind me.
I should have let sleeping dogs lie, I thought, as I flung my clothes off into a corner and dropped onto my mattress.
There was one sleeping dog I’d like to die.
CHAPTER SEVEN
If there was one thing that confused me more than my situation, it was women. For example, I hadn't had any attention from any women for the last couple of years and had kind of thrown myself into my art work instead. Now I was struggling to keep track of how many were interested in me.
This was exactly what I was thinking when I looked outside my studio window and saw Malena skulking nervously outside, obviously unaware she was being watched and chewing on a fingernail as she contemplated her next move. Frowning, I wiped my fingers clean on a dirty rag (well, smudged the oils into the creases of my fingers to be more precise) and headed to the door.
“Malena? What's up?”
She jumped guiltily and stared at me like a rabbit caught in headlights.
“Oh! Hey, I wasn't sure...how you doin' Nick?”
“It's Nikki, not Nick.” I'm nothing like that psycho. “I'm okay. You?”
“Yeah, good.”
The atmosphere was about as awkward as it could get as we both stared each other down. I noted she had her t-shirt on inside out, but bit my lip against pointing it out.
“Was there something I could help you with?” I prompted.
“I...can I come inside?”
“Sure.” I stepped back and she hesitantly shuffled past me into my studio where the awkwardness intensified. I had to resist the urge to run around covering all my work, especially as she didn’t seem at all interested in any of it.
“So I'm not…I'm not like you.”
Oh no.
“That's okay. Everyone's different, right?”
She gulped and I swallowed, hoping she wasn't aiming where I thought she was.
“I need to know. I need to understand...I mean, I kissed you first. What does that mean?”
“It doesn't mean anything other than you were confused...”
“You're right!” she interrupted, moving to stand in front of me. I held my ground, not wanting to offend her by stepping back. “I am confused, Nick.”
“Nikki” I growled, hating how even in denial at being compared to her, I sounded like her.
“I can't stop thinking about it. About you,” she admitted, looking like a lost lamb. I idly wondered how many other cute animals one person could resemble. I sighed, trying not to look into her Poppy-like eyes lest the day-nightmares resume. Also, she was extremely hot, and I was still a red blooded lesbian at the end of the day.
“You will. It's just your mind's way of distracting you from...well, you know.”
I wasn't actually prepared for her launching herself at me, lips puckered and tasting of smoke from a recent cigarette, which is why I took so long to respond (although red blooded lesbian inside me might have had more than a little sway in the delay) but I tried as tactfully as possible to extract myself from her. When I'd succeeded, her face crumpled and she turned away from me quickly.
“Why don't you want me? Aren't I good enough? Was Pop prettier, huh?”
I swallowed thickly, glad this wasn't Nick dealing with this particular problem — she would have been likely to just tell her to fuck off and get over herself or something.
“No, it's not that. Oh man, you kinda remind me a little too much of Poppy, y'know? When I look at you...I just see her.” This was as close to the truth as I was willing to go and I was quite proud of myself for finding a way that wouldn't completely hurt her frayed emotions anymore. Until she turned around.
“So you do want me?”
“Um...”
Unable to lie on the spot, because there was indeed a very horny part of me that did want her, I just ended up staring at her helplessly. She took advantage of my hesitancy and stepped forward again.
“Look, it's okay. I broke up with Brad yesterday. It's not like I'd be cheating on him or anything.”
“You had a boyfriend?”
“I couldn't stop thinking about you. Do you...do you think when Pop died, she, y'know...d’you think a part of her soul came into me?”
“Oh Malena, please go home and think about this properly.”
“I'm not confused!” She shouted. “Well, I am, but not about how I feel about you, Nick!”
“I'M NOT FUCKING NICK!”
And as if possessed by my counterpart, I shoved her with all my might, sending her flying back onto my desk.
Well, after that it seemed only right to have sex with her to make up for being such a bastard.
*** *** ***
After Malena had left (with a nervous promise to call me soon) I knew I wouldn't be getting any more work done, so I headed into the house for an update on Amanda from mom. This was handy, especially since I didn't even need to ask for it, and it satisfied my nosey curiosity about what they were all getting up to.
“Nikki, they've just had a big delivery turn up on the back of a truck,” Mom whispered excitedly as I walked into the house. “Did they say they were expecting anything when you were out with them yesterday?”
“Did it look like an altar?”
I laughed as mom's head turned slowly to look at me, mouth hanging open in shock.
“Mum, I'm just kidding. No, they didn't mention to me what they might be getting delivered. But I'm willing to bet it's something perfectly normal. And un-occult-ish. Listen, I think I'm going to go out for a wee while, want me to get anything fir ye?”
Mom frowned at me, looking puzzled.
“What? Did I say something weird?”
“Why are you talking in a Scottish accent?”
I stopped, feeling my blood freeze. Had I? Was I?
“I gotta go,” I mumbled, hearing even in my own ears the Celtic-ness struggling to break through. I ignored mom (had I called her mum?) and ran to the door, grabbing my helmet and keys. I needed to ride, and ride fast.
I literally span the wheels in my haste to gun away quickly, and nearly peed my pants as the front end lifted slightly, threatening to throw me onto my back. But I managed to keep some tenuous control, and almost sighed as I put some distance between mom and myself. Of course, I knew mom wasn't what I was running from, but everyone knew you couldn't run from yourself.
Damn Nick! How dare she leak through into my world, into me! I don't know how she managed it, but it wasn't funny. I could practically hear that cruel laugh of hers in my head, mocking me as she no doubt felt mighty proud of her accomplishment.
I tugged on the throttle, pushing my speed up past levels I was comfortable with until I was too scared to take my eyes off the road to even check how fast I was going. It was terrifying, but not nearly as much as the thought of turning into Nick.
A figure in the distance caught my eye, strange because it was such a scorching hot day and they were heading seemingly nowhere. I braked, glad of the distraction, and prepared myself to offer them help. Taking in their bare feet, dirty white shirt and faded jeans as I got closer, I deduced that it was possibly a young male in his early twenties. Although definitely not a cowboy, he walked with enough purpose that said he knew where he was going. Now I wanted to stop and help more to quench my curiosity than anything else and as I coasted up to him, he heard me slowing down and turned.
Yup. The sun had gone to town on him, and I sucked in a breath as his almost comically bright red face looked at me, puzzled as to why I had stopped.
“Are you okay? Do you need directions or anything?” I shouted over the noise of the engine.
“No, you're good. I know where I'm going.”
He tried to smile, but
the tight skin on his cheeks prevented it from filling out properly. Glad he couldn't see me grimacing behind my helmet, I pushed on.
“Well, can I give you a lift? You look like the sun's caught you out a little there.”
“No, I need to do this journey by foot. Otherwise he won't see me.”
“Who won't see you?”
“The Indian. You have to walk to him with no food or water, or he won't see you.”
I turned off my bike and removed my helmet, fully intrigued.
“What Indian? And how do you know where he is? There's nothing out this way but sand and dust.”
“Oh, he's out here. The directions are to walk out of town past the burnt out tree, then walk towards the ten o’clock sun until you hit a trio of rocks. From there, you have to use your intuition about which way to go, cos he never stays in one place. People say it's the Earth that shifts, not him,” he added conspiratorially.
“Can I join you?” I found myself asking. I didn't expect him to say yes, to be honest, but he nodded happily. He waited patiently for me to remove my leathers and helmet, stashing them with my bike out of view of the road before we started walking.
We made small talk for a while, but it dried up along with the saliva in my mouth and we continued the journey in an awkward kind of comfortable silence. I used the time to think about what I was going to ask the Indian (if he actually existed) and to hope he was well stocked up on food and water. I wondered if getting fed was part of the deal? In fact, I wondered what exactly the 'deal' was? All I knew was that this felt right, like I was supposed to be doing this, for whatever reason that may be. Perhaps this Indian could give me some answers.
After a while, we found the burnt out tree and I checked my watch. It was nearly eleven. Could an hour really make that much difference to the position of the sun? Without discussing it, we both came to a mutual decision about which way to head and carried on. By now, I was starting to feel pretty dehydrated and I wondered how he was managing. Plus, my pale skin was not liking the intense unwavering heat, and I was on the verge of quitting and heading back to my bike when we saw the trio of rocks in the distance. Having come this far, I decided to just carry on, if not so I could at least rehydrate myself before attempting the journey back in the unforgiving midday sunshine.
