Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  "It hurts," she said. She stood up and curled to the floor, began to jerk as if she was being kicked.

  "Pauline. What is it?" Barry said. He leant to comfort her, then began to choke, cough.

  "I can't breathe," he said.

  Ced began to cry. I couldn't draw breath either. I felt strong fingers around my throat; my hands rose there and tried to pull away things which didn't exist. Russell clutched his head. He thought he'd been shot.

  Ced walked backwards out of the room, tripping and crying. He said, "This is what you've lived with all your life? Like this?"

  "It was different when Mum and Dad were alive," I whispered. I didn't like the way they were looking at me. As if, why are you here. What are you doing in this house?

  I turned on the TV to drown them out.

  Ced called Peter. As if he would care. He hates this house. He's never been into pain; he's a master at avoiding it. We never discussed that night, the bruises they all suffered. Peter didn't come to visit while they lived there. He said, "They aren't the sort of people who suit my image," but that was bullshit.

  It was a week or so later that Paula and Barry moved out. Thanks, they said, but we can't live here any longer. Not in a haunted house.

  Russell moved out, too. That disappointed me. I didn't think he'd be affected.

  Ced stayed. Out of pity, mostly. Also out of guilt avoidance; he knew that if I died, he'd be to blame. He would never forgive himself.

  It was just Ced and me after the ghost people moved out. I can't think of everyone at the séance in any other way; they're ghost people. They brought ghosts with them, kept the ghosts hidden in their bedrooms, then revealed them to me, to scare me out of my own house. My house. We scared them off, though. I smashed their dishes, mimicked their orgasms, stole their toilet paper, invited Samantha and her friends over to stay and walked around naked. It was that last, I think, which finally scared them away; all my scars.

  I wear long sleeves at work. My hair cut in a fringe, to cover most of the scarring. I don't want the patients to think of me that way. Ced used to tell me I needed to own the scars, and I told him he sounded like my counsellor. "That's not a good thing," I said.

  I called Dougie Page when they moved out. I said, "My housemates think the house is haunted and they've moved out."

  He laughed. He laughed a lot, Dougie. He said, "Who'd be haunting your house?" but he said it jovially, like he was keeping a secret from a kid by making a joke.

  "You tell me," I said.

  I thought, "You stupid man. You think I don't know? You think you're protecting me?"

  at twenty-eight

  I had not intended to have another housemate. The temptation was too great to turn them into lovers and that always led to trouble. But when Ced moved out at last, thinking I was safe, my house creaked and groaned around me. An ant's footstep echoed in the place.

  So I went back to my old habit of playing with the classifieds, something I hadn't done seriously for years, but I still liked to read them. It felt like news, gossip; opening the back pages was like telephoning a friend who prefaced every conversation with, "Have you heard?"

  I didn't want anyone living with me, but this intrigued me.

  I can cook and give toe massages and I'm not

  looking for a friend. Is there room for me?

  So I answered the ad, and Robert moved in two days later. Dougie Page did a check on him and said Robert was clean.

  I liked him immediately because he didn't do a double-take when he saw I wasn't a guy. Was he expecting a guy? Did guys like toe massages and no friendship? He didn't say, "If your name's Steve, mine's Gloria." He said, "Show me to the best room in the house." I bowed my head.

  "Of course," I said in my quietest voice. I led him up the stairs. Opened a door; gave him a shove and pulled the door shut.

  "Welcome to your new home," I said through the keyhole, and I would have run away but I couldn't for laughing.

  "Ha ha," he said. He meant it; he really was laughing. "I assume I'm not really to be in the bathroom."

  "Only if you find it suits you," I said. "No, this one's my room; that one's a good one, you get a good view of the bedroom next door, when they forget to cover the window, and this one has always been the master bedroom but I never got around to moving into it. So please yourself."

  "How about this one, then?" he said, and dumped his garbage bag in my room. I stared at it; listened to it rustle.

  "All right then?" he said. "Promise I won't hog the blankets or snore too loud. And you'll be able to discover what sort of a massage I give with my toe."

  So he didn't intend to pay rent or buy food, presumably. But his voice filled the room and didn't bounce back.

  "If you can make golden syrup dumplings, you're in," I said, but I was going to let him stay no matter what his cooking was like.

  After a while he asked if a friend of his could move in. It was another guy, Ben, who was a great cook and gave me lectures about Jewish history. He was a bit of a pain in the arse; no sense of humour. There was such a great movie on TV I called Ben to watch. He huffed and tutted halfway through, till I said, "If you want to do some heavy breathing, go phone one of your girlfriends. I'm trying to watch this movie."

  "And you had no idea how offensive this movie would be to me?"

  "Why would you be offended? It's just a movie."

  It was about Nazis, told from their point of view. Very sympathetic. Ben was such a sensitive thing. I came out of the bathroom a couple of days later, my towel around my waist. I caught him skulking around at the top of the stairs. He gawked at me, he shuddered. I said, "What's the matter, Nazis goose-stepping on your grave?" It's long been a favourite of mine. He hid in his room without a word.

  I was glad he was there when the police arrived, though, banging at the door and shouting, "We've got a warrant to search these premises."

  I opened the door. I had fluffy slippers on, my hair in pig tails. "This place? What for? Do I need to tidy up first? God, sorry, it's such a mess. Does anyone want a cup of coffee first? Before you get started?" I herded them down the hallway as I spoke. They began pawing my things while the boss cop followed me to the kitchen. On top of the fridge is a picture of Dad. In uniform. With me on his knee, wearing his hat. I slammed the fridge door when I replaced the milk; the photo wobbled, toppled. The cop jerked to catch it, missed, braced himself for the smash.

  "No glass," I said. "Happens all the time. I like to keep it up there, though."

  He replaced it. "Your Dad?"

  "Yep."

  "Does he work with us?"

  "Did. He died quite a while ago, on a job."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Yeah, I know. Mum's dead, too, before you mention her and feel awful."

  "That's no good. I would have thought people would be more sympathetic. Leave you alone."

  "Not around here. I think I remind them of their own mortality."

  He shook his head, swallowed coffee in gulps. "Look, I'm sorry about this," he said.

  "What's it about, anyway? Neighbourhood gossip come up with something, has it? They don't like me, anyway, and even more because, I don't know, I just act like any other young, healthy woman. I don't think I should be in mourning all my life, do you?" My voice cracked.

  "Commendable. Commendable," he said. "The thing is, scuttlebutt says you're involved with the supply of drugs to the high school. I know we're not going to find anything, but we need to be seen to be doing something."

  I let my mouth drop in horror. I had never managed the art of summoning tears on call, though. "Well, anything to stop that going on. I work in a hospice and I've seen what happens to people. Vegetables, some of them. It's a terrible thing."

  They didn't find anything.

  They didn't look in the backyard.

  Robert and Ben were pretty pissed off about the raid. Robert paid me back by taking my car the next day, while I was asleep.

  "I need to impress someone," the n
ote said. He left me the keys to his bomb, like I had no one to impress. Just a bloody job to get to. People relying on me to get them through the day. Look into their eyes and say, "Tell me what you see. What do you smell?" Take an interest in their dying that nobody else takes.

  I jumped in his car and the bloody thing wouldn't start. I revved and revved, feeling the minutes pass by, I was late for work now and I hated to be late. I hate that. They think I'm reliable, there. They ask me to do things they wouldn't trust others to do, because I'm reliable. Finally the engine kicked in. As I droved away, I saw Mrs Pleat rocking her screaming baby and glaring at me.

  "Fuck you, too," I said, my smile wide enough to break my face.

  I didn't figure out who dobbed me in until the next time I returned from the dark room.

  I waited a long time for my twenty-eighth birthday to be celebrated. The only thing in the mail was the Granny card. No plane ticket. I rang them to say hi but they were out. The card said:

  "Happy happy happy day

  We hope your blues just go away."

  How did they know? And why didn't they do something about it? I heard Ben and Robert muttering and I thought, great, they're planning a surprise dinner. But it wasn't that. "She's never out of the fucken place," Robert said. "We'll have to do it while she's upstairs." They were going to wait till I was asleep, then they were doing a runner. Dougie Page called me, told me things he shouldn't know. Things I didn't want to hear spoken. My teeth ached, my stomach filled with acid. At midnight I lay in my backyard and beneath the smell of jasmine was a deeper smell.

  My history.

  The slighted don't have to die to appear in your room. I ran over a kid's dog, on purpose, and told him the dog was not worthy of life. That was too much. It was beyond a slight.

  I didn't shower for a week, went to a concert, farted, lifted my arms. I stank. Everyone around me hated it. I memorised their faces; they were there, all right, when I went to the dark room, and unless thirteen strangers died within a few weeks of each other, they were still alive. The word suicide seems to jump out at me. I see it everywhere. I have a list somewhere, which I scrabble out and add to whenever I hear of a new way, a new reason. The lists for both are pages long.

  There's one thing I've noticed, a similarity. Not in every case, but in a lot. The person left behind says, "We were just about to…." Go to Europe, celebrate someone's twenty-first birthday, get married, buy a house. Always something special. It's never after, always before, and that's where they're different from me. I would never ruin a good night like that. A woman at work once had her hair done, hours of work, missed half a day, and she popped in to show us. She was going to a ball, some huge ball, and she thought she would meet someone nice there, she'd heard about him and he sounded nice, their friends were matching them up. We didn't see her for a week and we assumed she'd return with honeymooner's cystitis. She slumped at her desk and didn't speak.

  "So, how was the ball?" someone finally asked.

  "I didn't go," she said. We laughed; it was a joke. "No. When I got home that day Liam had killed himself. So I didn't go." Liam was her brother.

  "How did he do it?" I said. I got shushed, kicked. "What?" I said. People are so picky.

  She didn't say; she never said. It was a subject of great frustration to me.

  Then it was almost midnight and I knew the only friends I could trust. They waited for me, clicking their teeth, waiting. They all waited, not with beer and a plate of fresh prawns, but with tiny mouths, which pucker and suck, little nails sharp as knives to paper-cut you to death. I remembered the caresses now, why they sickened me. I remembered that, as I was drawn out of their clutches, on my last visit, their fingernails had dug in, sunk in like claws.

  I started Robert's car and waited for him to come home. Fuck him. Let him get the smell out. Let him remember me forever.

  I locked myself in the garage and visited the dark room for the fifth time. Sixth. I went there for the sixth time.

  Robert's car became my special womb, exhaust fumes smelling like perfume, and a brown bottle of brandy I bought for my birthday. I played Swan Lake; my toes twitched, my fingertips felt light as feathers. If I could have stayed right there, at that point, I wouldn't have needed the dark room. I wouldn't need to know about the dark rooms waiting for other people.

  There were many more this time, and my eyelids felt heavy; I could barely keep them open to take in the faces around me.

  The driver of the other car was there again, the one who shouldn't have been on that road, at that time, and said to me, "If it wasn't for you I'd have been home free."

  And there were many others. I breathed in the car's exhaust. I curled up like a baby, because I was safe here. The room was a long way away and I wanted to see it again. I wanted to be noticed.

  Old, reliable Darren was there to greet me, not a day older than when I threw the milk at him. And Peter was there. I stretched my hand out to him but he stared coldly at me. Why? What had I done to slight him? Darren had a yo-yo and Peter had a stanley knife. He was so kind outside the room; here I was seeing into his soul.

  "Peter," I said. Miaow. I couldn't speak. I reached my hand to him, but he sneered.

  Mr Williams took it. He pressed something there; a raffle ticket, how subtle. He's slighted because I don't buy fucking raffle tickets from his crappy little cunts of children. I laughed and he cringed. The other neighbours surrounded him and drew him back; the Oakes, all five, and Jody Morris, poor resentful bitch.

  I felt stronger, somehow. I felt they were scared of me. I sat up, took my first step on the floor. It was soft, foam mattresses, and I walked carefully. They stood, cringing, while I stared into their faces.

  Lacey; because I knocked her perfume bottles over. She didn't have time to resent her death. I could smell her cheap perfume; the fumes of it made my eyes water.

  The room smelt worse, this time. Shit, naphthalene, cheap perfume, and a pauper's stench, unwashed, old clothes, cheap food coming out of the pores, free soup dripping like snot. The filth under their fingernails would rest in the cuts they made and little mushrooms would grow like maggots.

  I felt rats nibble my toes, but it wasn't rats, it was Mrs Pleat and Mrs Sanderson, loving thy neighbour, chewing my toenails to the quick but I couldn't get my legs away and when they tore the nails out with their teeth I screamed, and I heard all the people in the room snicker.

  Auntie Ruth was there, her jaw flapping and snapping, wanting to capture jewels. And all those concert faces; what did they think of the stench here? If they couldn't bear my sweet smell? They breathed through their mouths; I could see ants crawling over their teeth.

  I saw a girl with big tits, and she smothered me with them. They smelt of beer and semen, and I felt her hand on my own tits, squeezing like they were play-doh, and I could feel my flesh changing shape between her awful fingers.

  Then I saw old Bess. My old friend Bess, oh, Bess, how is your life? Would you like a seat? Oh, please. She watched me, licked her lips, an excited observer. I stared into her eyes; she looked away. She was guilty. They were all guilty. Shallow, empty people with nothing to complain about.

  I passed the ghost people, those housemates I'd called friend, and I laughed at their fear. "All in the mind," I said. Weow, weow. Their hands covered their eyes, they fell to my feet, they cut me, tiny lines across my shins, criss-cross like a charm to ward off evil. One of Russell's roots stood beside him; together forever ha ha. I skipped around the room, bumping, bumping, shoving. They grabbed me, wanted bits of me. Scott's wedding guests were there; I recognised the baby's breath. They muttered, whispered: Did you see the dress she's wearing her very presence sickens me can you believe that fake smile snob who is she didn't bring a present not wanted here sat up the front doesn't mind turning her back she's scared the children how could she come to a wedding with a ladder in her pantyhose?

  There were other voices, people with shopping bags and name tags, mall dwellers: She's so rude how
could she ignore me I thought I was the only one with that coat she nearly knocked my kid over trod on a dropped magazine she's better-looking than me piss me off.

  I put my hands over my eyes, shut my eyes, that made them stronger, too strong. Robert and Ben picked me up and threw me back on the table, Ben would peel me for a lampshade and Robert stuck his toe in my cunt, his foot, his whole leg was inside me and I was ashamed because Maria's family were there, not her parents, but sisters, brothers, not Adrian, in-laws. Why is she here she doesn't belong.

  And the drivers are back, waving their keys, red light abuse pull out change lanes, strangers, strangers from the library, the street, the pub, all know me and I don't know them. Faces I can't put a tongue to.