Tripping over the top step, Michael sprawled on the landing then rolled onto his back. Cupid was waiting. The cherub dived like some pudgy hawk, plunged his fingernails into Michael’s chest, thrust his face against the stricken drinker’s ribcage and chewed.
Michael dug his thumbs into Cupid’s eyes - eyes that, according to myth, had overseen a billion blossoming romances. Shrilling, Cupid recoiled. Momentarily free, Michael plunged into the bathroom, slammed the door and slid the bolt. For a heartbeat he stood in darkness, listening to Cupid’s yells of pain. Then he yanked the cord and hard light ricocheted off white tiles.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” gasped Michael.
Suddenly, claws were gouging the opposite side of the door. Michael cast about for a weapon. A toothbrush? A shaving razor? Pathetic! What about that bottle of mouthwash? Would it scald Cupid like holy water splashed over a vampire?
A vampire, thought Michael suddenly. Cupid certainly wasn’t a vampire, but tiny connections sparked in Michael’s mind. Stripping off his jacket and jumper, he inspected the bite marks in his chest. No, they were not the neat double-pinpricks of a dandy. Concentrated on the upper left side of his ribcage, they were the ugly clusters of a wild beast.
Understanding flashed like lightning.
Cupid wanted to dig out his heart and eat it.
The frantic scraping against the door continued.
A weapon, a weapon . . .
If holy water wouldn’t repel the abomination perhaps hot water would.
Michael yanked the showerhead from its fitting then wrenched the heat dial to maximum. The shower was a poorly manufactured foreign model, bereft of a temperature-limitation device. Often, Michael had nearly been parboiled by the wretched instrument. Now it might save his life.
After a few cold spurts, the shower spat steaming water.
Michael would not open the door to Cupid but if the putti broke through the flimsy wood, he would prepared.
Perching on the toilet he waited like a gunslinger listening for the church bell that announced it was time to duel.
When he woke up, Michael believed he was in Heaven.
He was smothered by white clouds, gently swirling. Had he passed over, as the euphemism went? No, he decided. The clouds were hot and wet and he could hear shower water drumming inside the bathtub.
Sitting up, he winced at a throbbing pain in his skull. Probing his scalp, he discovered a contusion as big as a hen’s egg. Evidently he had fainted, knocking himself unconscious on some hard surface.
But that did not explain the shower pumping scalding water or the teeth marks carved into his chest.
With a croaking yelp, Michael remembered Cupid. For a second or two he whirled into a terrified panic. Was the malign sprite still present in the house? Hovering patiently outside the bathroom door? Or lurking elsewhere, with the patience of a funnel web spider poised for an ambush?
Suddenly, the tension easing, Michael laughed at the whole foolish saga.
The previous night, his strongest fear had come to pass. He had suffered a seizure and it was preceded by delirium tremens - literally translated as the shaking madness.
At the time, the madness dimension had felt unspeakably awful. Now it was comforting. It explained everything. Cupid had been an hallucination, a freakish contortion of the mind, and it seemed so real Michael had injured himself attempting to resist it. The fingernail gouges stippling his chest were caused by his own fingernails as he grappled with the apparition. Though deeper, the bitemarks had not been engendered by Cupid’s savage teeth but once again, his own fingernails as he doubled his efforts to cast off the pouting, rotting, evil-reeking putti.
No enemy existed except Michael’s Calendar-scrambled mind.
Michael ventured onto the landing. Gouges and incisions sagged into the bathroom door but they too were his handiwork. Wasn’t it possible that, terrified, he had not attempted to open the door but to claw his way through - as if his capering brain had plunged him into an animalistic frenzy?
In the living room, Michael peered at the Venice photograph. Cupid was missing from the corner of the frame but that did not prove anything significant. Most likely, Michael had torn off the cherub in a fit of rage. He never liked the tubby little fucker. Perhaps this act of petty vandalism triggered, if not the hallucination itself, the form the hallucination had adopted.
“Bloody hell. What a bizarre night,” he sighed.
Monstrously hungover, he donned a woollen coat - he was too vain to venture out in his tattered leather jacket - grabbed the hazelwood knobstick and strolled to the petrol station.
In a celebratory mood, he bought three bottles of Calendar.
Home again, he put the bottles on the carpet by the sofa, switched on the television and drank. Diagnosis Murder was on the box and Michael dreamily imagined he would quite like to be a crime-busting MD.
The first bottle was soon gone. After starting on the second, Michael fell asleep.
He woke with a sour belch.
Stale whisky clung to his teeth and grabbing a bottle from the coffee table, he swilled it away with fresh whisky.
Slouching on the sofa, Michael noticed snow-speckled darkness against the window. Night, again. He fidgeted. Then he spotted Cupid sitting on the television set, legs dangling in front of the flickering screen.
Except for a slow blinking of the eyes, Michael grew absolutely motionless.
Cupid watched him, grinning. His appearance was unchanged from their previous encounter. His skin was green and rotten. His eyes swam with bloodshot - except for the irises, which were sour yellow discs.
Cupid tipped his head forward as if to say Are you ready?
Michael told himself Cupid was an hallucination but knew in his rapidly pumping heart he was not. He couldn’t be, because Michael was still drunk from the afternoon. He was not withdrawing. He was not delirious. He was not on the cusp of a seizure.
“Oh fuck,” he murmured, philosophically.
With a phuff of wings, Cupid rose from the television then hurtled at Michael, swooping low over the coffee table then angling up toward his face.
Michael dived sideways, flipping over the armrest. Bouncing off a cushion, Cupid rose, flapped in gleeful circles in the middle of the room, then swooped, uttering a shrill cackling cry.
Accustomed to Cupid’s tactics, Michael aimed a punch at the cherub’s face. Cupid dodged, giggling, then swooped again. Michael rolled, scrambled to his feet and, suspecting it was impossible to lay a fist on the creature, flung himself into the hallway then slammed the door against the pursuing putti.
Cupid thudded against the wood.
The door handle revolved, slowly, but Michael grasped it, gripping it so tightly it seemed the brass would crumple in his fist.
“This cannot be real,” Michael told himself.
No. It was real enough. It simply was not commonplace . . . Or was it? Had Cupid attacked other men before? Men who were broken-hearted? Men, perhaps, who were sober?
Surely not, reasoned Michael. The handle wriggled as Cupid attempted to force his way through.
Unless Cupid always won these tussles. Unless it chewed out its victims’ hearts then disposed of the corpses in some way.
How could a flying baby get rid of a dead body? The stupidity of the question angered Michael. The heart was perhaps the beginning of the cherub’s banquet - the symbolically potent hors d’oeuvre of a larger feast. He hungered for the heart and guzzled the rest out of necessity.
How many lovelorn men seemed to commit suicide every year without their bodies being discovered?
Love and death. Two sides of the same coin.
A coin grasped in the chubby paw of Cupid.
“Why are you doing this?” Michael yelled through the door. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”
Twisting, Michael glanced at the front door. An idea formed. No one spoke of Cupid as a real hello-there-he-is creature. He was a furtive being, fearful of discovery. If Michael mana
ged to get outside then retreat to a public place, he would be safe.
Where, though? It was night-time. The shops were shut, the streets empty.
The petrol station, mused Michael. No. He could not stay there until morning. The man behind the counter would not allow it; if needs be, he would call the police and Michael would be dragged away.
It had to be somewhere that people habitually gathered during evening hours.
A nightclub? A brothel?
Suddenly, Michael knew what he must do. He still wore the coat from his last trip to the petrol station. In the pockets were his wallet and mobile phone.
He dug out the phone with his free hand. He scrolled through the address book, found the number of a taxi rank and dialled.
“Yes? Hello? It is? Good. I want a cab for the Golden Horse Hotel. Straight away. More than straight away. Instantaneously. I want you to - to materialize like the fucking Tardis.” He gave the operator his address. The cab would arrive in ten minutes. Which could be thirty minutes. Or an hour. Whenever; it did not affect his plan. He was strong enough to stop Cupid twisting the door handle and bursting through. Then, when the ride arrived, he would plunge out through the front door and sprint to the cab. If Cupid was averse to being seen by anyone except his victims, he would not follow. Not if there was a chance he would be spotted by the driver.
The handle stopped jerking. Silence.
Somewhere deep in the house a cupboard door squeaked open. Michael knew which one: the cubby hole under the kitchen sink. Melissa had nagged him to oil the hinges but he never had. Probably, she saw this as a indication of his worthlessness.
He can’t even be bothered to get some WD40 . . .
A muffled clattering followed. Cupid was looking for something.
Michael realised exactly what it at the exact moment the hand axe chopped into the door. He had bought the axe years ago, before he met Melissa. He had lived in a cottage with a logfire and he needed it to -
A thin bulge swelled from the door. Splinters scattered on the floor.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
Shit! thought Michael.
Chop. Crunch. Thunk.
The door paint split. A crack appeared.
In his mind’s eye Michael saw the crack widening and Cupid’s face leering through. Here’s Putti!
Letting go of the handle Michael ran to the front door, yanked it open and stumbled outside. Cupid continued chopping, not realising his prey had gone.
Michael shut the front door and locked it.
He stood in the driveway, panting. Snowflakes fell like feathers. Groaning, Michael stumbled onto the garden, dropped on all fours and vomited ferociously, braying like a donkey.
When he raised his head, wiping tears from his eyes, he saw Cupid on the living room window sill, a dumpy silhouette gripping an axe.
Slowly, the axe drew back, preparing to shatter the glass.
Michael grimaced, waiting for the blow to fall.
Cupid paused, stamped his foot in frustration then cast the axe aside.
Michael understood. Cupid did not dare break the window because he did not want be seen and, on a quiet street, late at night, nothing got neighbours peeking out of their homes as much as smashing glass. A beer bottle, a taillight - it barely mattered what had smashed, as long as something had smashed, and it was made of glass.
Checkmate, thought Michael. Then, No. Not quite.
Cupid might find a silent way of getting outside. Through the chimney, for instance. It would be tight but the cherub was small - and squashy - enough to squeeze up through the flue. There were other possibilities too. Maybe it could pick the lock on the front door with an elongated fingernail. Or prise up the floorboards and burrow like some hairless mole. If Cupid was thousands of years old, and Michael suspected he was, he would have learned a few crafty tricks.
Michael grabbed a flowerpot, holding it up so Cupid could see. He pulled back his arm as if preparing a throw.
The threat was clear. Step outside and I will break glass.
Cupid was defeated. And he knew it. The cherub stumped along the sill, kicking ornaments flying with its ugly little feet and making obscene gestures, some understandable and others, belonging to days gone by, wholly mystifying.
The stand-off lasted fifteen minutes. The taxi pulled up outside the house. Michael wanted to make an obscene gesture of his own but Cupid was already gone.
Since his drinking habit began, Michael had grown reckless with money. Alcoholism was an expensive vocation in itself. Even if one favoured cheap booze, the amounts imbibed thrust a man swiftly into debt. But there was another reason for Michael’s financial carelessness: he had stopped believing money was something that existed outside himself. Spending cash on liquor had become so natural, so fundamental to his way of life, the cash itself seemed to be an aspect of himself - something that was as much part of him as his lungs, hands and feet.
He could have chosen a cheaper hotel than the Golden Horse but he was not in a thrifty frame of mind. Fifteen floors high, with pretty waitresses and an elderly, distinguished-looking concierge, it was the lodging place of the affluent.
Michael checked in at midnight. In a dishevelled condition, he went straight to his room, showered, shaved, sprayed on some of the hotel cologne. Then he rode the elevator to the bar.
“A Glenfiddich,” he said to the barman, knowing Calendar would not have a place amongst the optics glittering on the wall.
“Single or double, sir?”
“Double of course.”
“Ice?”
“Oh yes.” Michael had not taken ice in his whisky in a long time.
The bar was busy - with a wedding party. A sickening irony, thought Michael. But just the sort of thing he ought to have expected.
Michael spotted the bride and groom, sitting on a crimson couch, as happy as kittens in a box of wool.
Christ, thought Michael, staring at the groom. One day he might be hunted by Cupid. If everything goes awry and his heart is torn apart like wet tissue paper, he might find himself duelling with the malign sprog of amour.
The groom was clean-shaven, face shiny and hair glossy in the way a man’s face is only on his wedding day. His bride had the preternatural lustre attainable only on this special occasion. They would never look so star-bright again. Michael guessed it was something to do with optimism. You’ll never have it so good again, he thought, sourly. This is the zenith. From now on, it will be decay, despair, disillusionment . . .
Looking at the wedding guests, he realised that he was wrong. There were countless couples in the bar, some young, some middle-aged, others so ancient they might crumble into dust at any moment, and they seemed happy too. Grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunties, brothers and sisters-in-law . . . Michael saw every combination and he saw love in abundance. Perhaps romance wasn’t a game he could play, but others certainly could. After all, not everyone shared the same talents. Not everyone could sing or paint or sculpt philosophers from bronze and marble, but there were those who certainly could.
Michael grew angry. Why was Cupid picking on him? What had he actually done wrong? Melissa ought to have been the homunculate bastard’s target. It was Melissa - and this was the truth he could barely contemplate, even in his darkest moments - who had abandoned him for some graceless, overweight, cheap-aftershave-reeking work colleague. She deserved to be punished, not him, Michael, who had committed no crime . . .
But it wasn’t about punishment, was it? It was about a certain kind of natural order. Why would Cupid want Melissa’s heart, when it was a heart healthy with love? Because . . . because . . . and now Michael understood . . . Cupid was a rotting, mouldering thing and the hearts it wanted were rotting and mouldering too . . . It preyed on those who hated love. Who believed, however fleetingly, that love was not a meadow trembling with fritillaries and brimming with birdsong, but something vile, a glob of snot and gristle slubbered in faeces . . .
Maybe, thought Michael, if I learn
to love again, Cupid will leave me alone...
“Are you all right, sir?” Speaking softly, the waiter gazed warily at Michael.
“I, uh - yes, fine. Just thinking,” said Michael dreamily.
“I think you’ve had enough to drink. Really, sir, I do.”
Michael looked at the Glenfiddich. “I’ve only had a couple of sips.”
“You were drunk when you arrived.”
“No I wasn’t.”
“You were slurring. And you do have an odour of liquor.”
“Well, this is a bar.”
“Even so, sir.”
“These wedding guests . . .”
“What about them, sir?”
Michael dug a ten pound note out of his pocket and proffered it to the waiter. “Which ones are the bridesmaids? I want a bridesmaid, you see. A pretty one. You must know the sort. Youthful, sweet-tempered . . . Look,” he delved out another tenner, “get me a bridesmaid. One that I can -”
“You want me to procure you a wedding guest?”
“Not procure, merely -”
“Please leave the bar, sir.”
“But -”
“You really will have to go.”
Michael’s temper snapped. “Well fuck it then. Fuck it in deep and to the sides and all around the garden.” He shattered the glass on the bartop.
Turning, he strode to the elevator and rode it to his room. Immediately he ordered a bottle of Glenfiddich from room service, praying the waiter had not tipped them off about the volatile drunkard who had misbehaved in the bar. It appeared he had not and the bottle promptly arrived.
Michael sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.
He was drunk but he was immeasurably stressed too, a calamitous combination. He thought about his procrastinations in the bar.
Maybe, if I learn to love again, Cupid will leave me alone . . .
Cocking his head back, Michael laughed bitterly.
“Truly,” he scowled, opening the whisky, “I am the King of Bullshit!”
Sitting back, propped against the pillows, he drank and drank.
Vivisepulture Page 6
