Ugly Things

by Mark Yarwood

  When I did tell them? When I announced that Tom’s miracle cream had scarred me for life, they smiled, all the suits together, and they offered me money. I took it.

  Then they took it away.

  It’s just the sort of trick magicians do.

  You’re looking one way, while they are hiding the ball or coin or egg somewhere else. The injunction is quicker than the eye. The shark in the suit is faster than the ex- shark in a suit.

  I pass the fax machine in my small office space and head into the bathroom. I bend closer to the bathroom mirror, my eyes searching beneath the carpet of sliver and brown hair that surrounds my face. I see a single shard of dry skin and peel it off. Underneath is a slightly pink, but clear area of skin. Between my thumb and forefinger, I grab more skin and begin peeling. The hair gets in the way, so I start trimming. More skin peels away as I pull it, leaving fresh smooth skin underneath.

  FUCK YOU, I say, thinking of my boss and the other suits sitting round the big table in their giant meeting room.

  I try not to think of Janet as I begin shaving, knowing that she likes the feel of my beard on her body. I picture all the eyes that have looked at me strangely, their pupils fixed on my hairy cage that has kept me confined to a life of desperation.

  Shaving had always been a pain, an annoying procedure done in the early hours, just after a long hot shower. Years back, I would have given anything not to have to shave. Now, standing in my new bathroom, feeling the blade cut away the lawn of hair, it’s an indescribable pleasure.

  Look at my face, slightly flushed, almost sore round the neck, but smooth and completely free of infection. But only in this town. This is my prison .

  I open the bathroom window and listen to the seagulls complaining overhead, as the breeze strokes my skin for the first time in God knows how long.

  I walk back towards the fax machine because nothing can hurt me now. I look at the large angry looking letters on the fax paper.

  WE HAVE INFORMED THE POLICE

  THEY HAVE THE EVIDENCE

  YOU ARE FINISHED

  Kevin must have kept some of the envelopes. He must have kept them somewhere, hidden them from me. It’s not his fault. I keep telling myself that if he hadn’t written the threatening letters to the company, then someone, somewhere, perhaps a young girl who served him in a shop once or a cousin he hasn’t seen in years, or perhaps an old school teacher, would die.

  Perhaps he’s done me a favour.

  When I tell Janet about the fax, as she closes the shop, she tells me that it’s a blessing. Things have a way of working out, she says and winks. When she touches my smooth, hairless skin, she shakes her head sadly. On her fingers is red paint. It could be blood.

  ‘Your old life is over,’ she says. ‘Now you can start again. Now you can make art.’

  I tell Janet that Kevin had been sending threatening and abusive letters to the company we both worked for. The whole business I lay before her. I told Kevin to stop sending them, but he must have sent a couple more and that was enough. Now the police will come for me.

  ‘They won’t do a thing,’ she tells me as she flips the sign on the door, so I’m looking at the word: OPEN. ‘Not unless you actually go there and assault someone. All they’ve got is a lot of evidence, all they need now is for you to go and assault someone and they’ll have you bang to rights.’

  Keeping an eye on Kevin might be a good idea, I start to think.

  Where is Kevin?

  I ask Janet if she’s seen Kevin. She tells me that he turns up for work in the morning wearing his gloves, doesn’t really touch anything, and generally just stares at her.

  ‘I liked your beard,’ Janet says, one eye closed, holding up her hands in a make shift frame like artists do.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You look too beautiful now,’ she says and pulls me up the stairs and towards her room. ‘But you can still use your body to make art.’

  ‘I’ll do it, but only for the money,’ I tell her.

  ‘All we have to do is cover ourselves in paint and screw,’ she says and pulls my T-shirt over my head. ‘While the rich snobs watch.’

  I grab my T-shirt back off her and pull it on. ‘What? You want me to screw you in front of an audience of rich snobs? You’re crazy.’

  ‘It’s performance art.’ She tries to lift my T-shirt.

  ‘It’s prostitution.’ I yank myself away from her.

  ‘You should be use to selling,’ she tells me.

  ‘Not myself. Not my body.’ I walk backwards, trying to find the door.

  She walks forward, looking a little disappointed at me. ‘You have nothing else now. Nobody is giving you products to sell. You’re beautiful, you’re the product now. All you have left is your body. That’s all you’ve got left to sell.’

  ‘You’re sick and twisted,’ I say as I open the door.

  ‘Don’t think of it as sex for money,’ she says. ‘Think of it as marketing. Maybe it’s me…you don’t want to have sex with me.’

  ‘It’s not about sex…’ I begin.

  ‘You’d rather have sex with someone like…Jenny. That blonde slut that works in the café. Yes, you’re just like all the other men. Blonde, pretty and up for anything and you go running. Go make art with her then.’

  I run down the stairs, out of the shop, and slap bang straight into a large viscious looking man a little shorter than myself, but wide and meaty looking. He grips my shoulders to steady me and then stands back.

  ‘You look like someone’s after you,’ the lump of pink skin says. The fat neck bulges out of a light blue shirt worn under a neatly tailored, but worn suit. His face seems connected together like patchwork. Several ancient scars run in various directions across his rock -like face. He smiles as he digs into his jacket pocket and takes out a thick cigar and lights it. His teeth, which appear between some scarred lips, are yellowish and cracked. ‘You should be careful, my friend.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say and go to walk past, but he grabs my elbow, his lumpy fist tightly gripping me. ‘I wanted to talk to you. I have a proposition to put to you. You are a good looking boy.’

  The rock man lets go of my arm and looks over towards a black, and ancient looking Jaguar motorcar parked on the other side of the street. He takes a deep puff of his cigar and nods towards the vehicle. ‘We should get in my car.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard…’ is all I say as he plants a spade of a hand on my back and pushes me to his car.

  ‘I don’t like anything young,’ he says and wipes the bonnet of the car with his sleeve. ‘I guess it’s because I’m old, but I just like surrounding myself with antiques. Old things, like this car. Old means reliable. They don’t make anything reliable these days. Everything electronic you buy is made to break. I read that somewhere. You can’t buy anything that will last for the rest of your life. Maybe I’m just getting old. People are the same. In my day people were tough, but now they just break so easily. People are always having mental breakdowns and need fixing.’

  I move away from his arm. ‘Well, I have to…’

  ‘In these sort of places, places by the sea, I mean, people come to die.’ Billy opens the door of the Jaguar. ‘I like it here though, because everything’s old, like me. Young people don’t know nothing. They think they do. I used to think so, but I didn’t know bugger all. And the people I cut up or slapped about, knew even less. That’s what life is about, killing or hurting or maiming someone stupider than you. I suppose you’d call it the stupid chain instead of the food chain. You ain’t saying much.’

  I just shrug my shoulders, but don’t move towards the car, where he’s standing like a chauffer, with the door open for me.

  ‘Like I said, you’re young and handsome.’ He nods. ‘I bet someone’s always taking a fancy to you. I bet you have to fight them off.’

  I hear footsteps behind me and I turn and see Kevin standing hunched over, his eyes looking between me and the mound of suit holding the door o
pen. ‘Mate, I don’t think Janet likes me.’

  ‘Looks like you’re busy,’ the man says. ‘I’ll come back another time. I’m Billy Wallis by the way. I’ll be seeing you around.’

  Kevin pulls me round by the collar and doesn’t bother to wipe his hand clean. ‘Mate, I don’t think she likes me.’

  ‘Janet?’ I ask.

  He nods as I listen to the Jaguar roar away. Kevin kicks his foot at some rubbish lying between the cobblestones. ‘She’s definitely, I think, trying to get rid of me.’

  I walk and Kevin follows. ‘What makes you think that? What are your clues?’

  ‘She fired me today.’ Kevin puts his hands deep into the pockets of his baggy jeans.

  ‘Kevin,’ I say, ‘I’m nearly broke.’

  Kevin shakes his head side to side. ‘Mate, just like that she fires me. Now what do I do?’

  ‘Those letters you sent to our old boss, really fucked things up for me,’ I tell him, but he’s just muttering to himself about Janet and lost love. Kevin isn’t capable of love. His mother took away his ability to love and left him with habit. Most people, most normal people, start with a wild passion and slowly ease into routine. Kevin? He just cuts out the middleman. Most of the time he doesn’t even bother with the relationship side of things. His imagination is enough. Inside his head there is probably the greatest love story never told.

  Kevin, after we get back to the cottage, suggests that maybe he needs to do something drastic. Perhaps, he says, he could get one of those planes to write her name in the sky, or spell her name out in rose petals. Maybe he could make her a compilation tape of all the songs that remind him of her. He could always make a secret video about her, he suggests.

  When I offer my thoughts and say that he might try telling her face –to- face how he feels, he gives me this wide -eye crazy stare. ‘Mate, you don’t know her.’

  I shouldn’t say it, but I can’t resist. ‘I’ve had sex with her Kevin, so I probably know her better than you.’

  Kevin moves a dirty plate from the sofa and sits down. ‘Mate, having sexual intercourse doesn’t mean you know someone. Sex is like animal instinct. It’s basic.’

  Kevin points to his head. ‘Mate, it’s up here that it counts.’

  That’s all I need, Kevin giving me lessons in love, as if I don’t know what it’s like to be with a woman. I know what they want to hear. I know the special passwords that will open their legs. And it’s not open sesame. It’s not a minimum of six figures made up by letters and numbers, but with no commas or hyphens. It’s not your wife’s or husband’s, and not even your children’s, middle name. It’s not even English most of the time. It’s like learning another language. They don’t teach it in school. That’s why men don’t understand women.

  I happen to look down at Kevin’s feet and I see dirt round the bottom of his shoes.

  In Kevin’s room there is a stick of rock. It reads: Kiss my dirty feet.

  The other day, while cleaning his room, I noticed another stick of rock which read: Lick my bottom.

  Kevin says that Janet is supposed to live with her mother, but he has never seen her. He’s heard noises from upstairs sometimes, but has never seen an actual old woman.

  ‘She’s ill or something,’ I tell him and start picking up the dirty laundry from around the lounge.

  ‘Mate, she never calls out or anything,’ he says, blinking rapidly. ‘Never asks for anything. Mate, I think that’s strange.’

  ‘No offence, Kevin,’ I say, ‘but you’re hardly one who should be judging what’s strange or not.’

  For a moment, but I cannot be sure, I see a different emotion ripple across Kevin’s face. And then, in a blink, it’s gone. I recall what was written on the stick of rock I found on the kitchen table: I want to kill you.

  There’s a knock at the door and suddenly it’s open and Janet, with her multi-coloured hair tied back, is walking into the cottage and stands with us in the lounge. She looks at us both.

  ‘Kevin, I’ll need you to come into work early tomorrow. Forget what I said today.’ Janet looks at me and then back at Kevin. ‘Can we be alone Kevin? Thanks.’

  Kevin jumps up and hurries off to his room. I’m left holding a pile of dirty clothes while Janet holds another stick of rock in her hand. She holds it out to me so I can read the bright red words running through it: Let’s fuck and make art.

  Neither of us say anything. The phone starts ringing in my make shift office and then stops and the fax machine starts rumbling to life.

  ‘All you have to do is have sex with me while covered in paint and we’ll make loads of money.’ Janet puts the stick of rock on top of my laundry.

  I go and throw the laundry in the laundry basket outside my office and look at the white paper tongue hanging out the fax machine. In large black letters it says:

  STOP CALLING US

  DO NOT THREATEN US

  WE WILL TELL THE POLICE EVERYTHING.

  Janet is standing behind me, and she says, ‘Sometimes you have to forget what is logical, what looks like art and do what seems wrong. You have to step out of your comfort zone.’

  I ask her what the hell she is going on about. I tell her that what she is planning to do is not art at all. Go and fuck Damien Hirst, I say.

  Janet strokes my face. ‘Do you think Picasso wanted to paint those shit pictures with people with two eyes on one side of their face and blocks for heads? No, he could paint well and properly, but he knew that he wouldn’t sell any paintings that way. He had to adapt. He had to forget logic and step out of his comfort zone. Then, and only then, can you really make art. Children at school using potatoes to paint pictures, they know more about art than all the critics in the world.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say and tell her I have things to do.

  ‘I preferred you when you had the beard,’ she tells me and walks out of the house.

  I think about what she wants me to do, and I suddenly realise I have little choice, and if I want some money then I’ll have to go along with her. And at that moment, I hate her more than I’ve ever hated anyone. More than I hate the bacteria that got into my face, more than the beard that had lived on my face like a parasite.

  Right then, I want to do anything that will make her hate me. I change my clothes and head over to Shelley’s café, knowing a girl called Jenny will be working. Kevin and I had been there a few days earlier and had noticed her looking at me and smiling.

  Not a few seconds after I’m seated at a table in the café, Jenny is standing by me, her pad and pencil in her hands, waiting to take my order. I smile and she smiles back.

  ‘What are you after?’ she asks.

  ‘A cup of coffee and some company,’ I say.

  I see her cheeks flush a little as she writes it down. She goes away and comes back with a coffee. She seats herself opposite me and rests her chin on her hands, looking across at me, not blinking. ‘I’m glad you shaved off your beard.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re glad.’ I smile and lean forward, mirroring her stance. ‘Aren’t you seeing Janet from the craft shop?’ She seems to scrutinize my face for a few seconds.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about her,’ I say and reach a hand across the table. Her hand touches mine.

  ‘Want to go upstairs? I have a room upstairs.’ She looks around the café. ‘It’s not busy and Shelley can cope on her own.’

  I’m a little surprised at how well it’s going, but I don’t ask questions.

  ‘Do you want me to keep my uniform on?’ Jenny asks, when we get up to her room. ‘Some guys like it when I keep the uniform on.’

  I say it doesn’t matter and look around the small room and the single bed. It looks like someone has started painting half the room purple and got bored. You can still see the peach paint on half the wall. Jenny’s clothes cover the floor, so I just step over them and sit on the bed.

  ‘Some guys like a girl in uniform,’ she tells me and pulls up her dress and sits astride me. I can fee
l that she doesn’t have any knickers on. ‘Men like policewomen or nurses or women in the army. They like to be dominated.’

  I say to her that I wonder if Nelson made Lady Hamilton wear his uniform when they did it. Jenny asks, ‘Who’s Nelson?’

  ‘Nelson? Admiral Nelson. Battle of Waterloo?’ I say.

  She shakes her head and starts kissing my mouth. Quickly, so fast that I hardly notice, she’s undone my trousers and is pulling my little soldier out and drags him towards her vagina. He’s sucked inside and she’s bouncing on top of me, sucking at my face.

  When she’s close to my ear, she says to me, ‘I’m so glad you’re going to be making art with Janet too. I can’t wait.’

  Chapter Seven

  Janet’s sex art classes had already begun. Jenny kisses my face and neck and pushes herself down deeper, grinding on top of me. She’s making breathless noises in her throat. I don’t know if this is real. Women can make it sound really good if they want. They say you can tell, but you can’t. I don’t know what’s happening, because Janet’s standing in the doorway, pointing a video camera at us.

  ‘See, this is art,’ Janet says. ‘This is what people want to see when they say they want to see art.’

  Janet moves round us and she disappears behind Janet’s back and then appears on my left. This is pornography.

  ‘Young men have piles and piles of art stashed under their beds,’ Janet tells us. ‘Cavemen would draw pictures of a cavewoman they fancied and then knock one out. Of course, this was after they discovered fire or they’d be masturbating in the dark.’

  This is pornography history class with Janet Coleman. Yet, I’m still having sex with Jenny, who doesn’t seem bothered at all by the camera.

  I wonder how many other people Janet has dragged into her sex art cult.

  If you get a willing couple, maybe two couples, and film them having sex various different ways and you have some interesting camera angles, then you’ll have yourself a product. If you can get the couples to go that extra little bit, get them doing some kinky stuff, then you’ll have yourself a higher priced product. You don’t need to sell this kind of stuff. This product will sell itself.