by Heide Goody
“Joking.”
Blenda shook her head.
“No, Jeremy. I wasn’t joking. What’s your news?”
“No, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me.”
He gave an awkward grin.
“I thought we should get matching tattoos. You know, his and hers. ‘True Love... Forever.’”
“Really?” she said flatly.
“I made the appointment and everything.”
She came over. He thought for a moment it might be to hug him, to tell him that this was another one of her brilliant jokes but it was only to step past him and flip the ‘open’ sign on the door to ‘closed’.
“I need to change,” she said and went into the back room. Clovenhoof passed the time reading the ingredient lists on shampoos, hair relaxers and exfoliants. Some of the chemical names were quite beautiful, reminding him of the names of his underlings in the Old Place.
“Those are truly awful shorts,” said Blenda, reappearing, her white work tunic replaced by a scoop neck top.
Clovenhoof looked down at his yellow and blue Bermuda shorts.
“I thought they matched the shirt,” he said, pulling at the hem of his purple and green Hawaiian shirt.
“They distract the eye from the horror of the shirt,” said Blenda. “Like a clown at a train crash.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“I made an error of judgement with you,” she said. “There’s a fine line between kooky and...”
“Irritating?”
“Total psycho nut-job. You served up a dead person at a dinner party.”
“Only his blood.”
“What do you think would happen if I told Gordon Buford?”
“He might commend me for taking my work home with me?”
“He would fire you. He would call the police. I could call the police. Without sounding horribly like an American, I could sue you. Out.”
Clovenhoof obediently stepped out onto the pavement. Blenda followed and locked up. The summer sun was a fat orange ball settling over the rooftops.
“I told you that if you cocked up that job I got you, I would snap you like a twig.”
“I remember,” said Clovenhoof.
“Go get professional help,” she said. “Get your head examined. You are not Satan. You are a man. Sometimes wonderful. Sometimes strange. Sometimes a total psycho nut-job. Sort yourself out or I will snap you like a twig. Got it?”
“Got it,” he nodded.
“You live that way,” she said, pointing down the street and walked off in the opposite direction.
Ben leaped into action at the sound of Clovenhoof’s footsteps on the stairs. All the windows in the flat were wide open and he had four electric fans positioned around the kitchen and living area on full blast. He ran round, closing windows and turning the fans down to medium. He didn’t want to arouse suspicion. Nonetheless, he left the twelve electric air fresheners plugged in and turned up to maximum, not that they were making much impact on the smell that permeated the sun-baked flat. The stink seemed to take the most violent notes of an open sewer, of spoiled food, of animal musk and released them as a Greatest Hits compilation.
Nothing would get rid of it and, much to his mounting horror and paranoia, his temporary flatmate didn’t seem to notice it at all.
“Hi honey, I’m home!” called Clovenhoof.
Ben, having shut the last window in the bathroom, came out into the living room.
He wafted a hand in front of his nose.
“Sorry about the smell,” he said with the kind of blokiness he had never actually felt and shut the bathroom door behind him. “I’d give it a few minutes if I were you, eh?”
Clovenhoof looked at him and shrugged.
“Do you think my shirt and shorts combo looks like a clown at a train crash?”
It was Ben’s turn to shrug.
“Which one’s the clown, which one’s the train crash?”
“Not sure. Not gone to work again today?”
“How can I?” said Ben giving a cheery but false grin. “Got my favourite lodger to look after, haven’t I? Thought I’d cook us up a nice spicy curry tonight. Extra strong.”
“I prefer crispy pancakes,” said Clovenhoof.
Ben made a noise in his throat.
“Any news on your flat?”
“I know they’ve stripped out the kitchen but there’s some rebuilding work and painting still to do. I’ll ask them tomorrow. They’d gone home by the time I got back.”
“Do you think Nerys has scared them away?”
“I heard that,” she said, walking in.
“Haven’t you heard of knocking?”
“Haven’t you heard of locking your own door?”
Ben looked at Clovenhoof.
“It’s not my door,” said Clovenhoof.
“We were just discussing dinner plans,” said Ben. “Perhaps we should all go out.”
“I’ve come to tell you that your flat stinks,” said Nerys. “It’s putting Aunt Molly off her toad in the hole.”
“It’s Ben. He’s done a smelly shit,” said Clovenhoof. “Secretly, I think he’s quite proud.”
“I’m not talking to you. I still haven’t forgiven you for turning me into a cannibal.”
“You’re not a cannibal.”
“I ate human flesh.”
“Blood.”
“Semantics.”
“You’re only a bit cannibal.”
“You can’t be a bit cannibal. You have defiled me. My body is a temple, you know.”
“What? People have to take their shoes off before they’re allowed inside?”
“I think,” said Ben, cutting across them very loudly, “there might be a problem with the drains.”
“Then get them looked at, Ben. Ask those builders downstairs to help.”
Ben shivered at the thought of tradesmen coming into his home and poking around.
“I’ll get it sorted.”
“See that you do,” she snapped. “It smells like you’re living in an abattoir.”
“I quite like it,” said Clovenhoof.
The one-eyed woman in the Skin Deep tattoo parlour just off Birmingham Road sat at her small counter and played cards by herself under the bright glow of a circular magnifying lamp. She nodded at Clovenhoof as he entered. Tattoo templates hung on framed sheets on the walls. Clovenhoof had noticed with some pleasure that his likeness featured on more than a couple of them, although most of them were rather unflattering.
The woman leaned to one side and peered at a battered appointments book.
“Mr Clovenhoof,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“You’re late.”
“We had an eleven o’clock booking.”
“But I expected you sooner. She’s not coming, is she?”
“No.”
“And you’ve come to cancel.”
“Yes.”
“Because who wants ‘True Love Forever’ on their arm when their true love has left them?”
“Who says I wanted it on my arm?”
She fixed him with her one good eye and took in his mischievous expression.
“I don’t do short hand, Mr Clovenhoof,” she said and he grinned.
She returned to her cards.
“Well,” he said, “I can see you’re rushed off your feet...”
He turned to go and a poster by the door caught his eye.
Tarot Readings
Questions Answered.
Problems Resolved.
Readings by Mistress Verthandi
(Tuesdays and Thursdays)
He laughed.
“What?” said the woman without looking up.
“She told me to seek help, get myself sorted out.”
“There are worse kinds of help.”
“Wednesday today.”
“If only I weren’t rushed off my feet.”
She gathered the cards together in front of h
er and kicked a seat back for him to sit down.
“You’re Mistress Verthandi?”
“On Tuesdays and Thursdays. Names are impermanent things. Ten quid for the basic reading. More if you have specific questions.”
He sat down.
“Ever had a tarot reading before?” she asked.
“Nope.”
She began to deal the cards out, face down, in an unobvious pattern on the counter between them.
“You ever see that James Bond film with the voodoo stuff?”
“I like James Bond movies.”
“Good for you. Me and Jane Seymour use the same deck. This is the Celtic Cross spread. Standard stuff. I turn over the cards and they help us find answers to your personal questions.”
“And does it work?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you believe in this stuff?”
She tapped her black eyepatch.
“Do you want me to tell you I traded this eye for the gift of second sight?”
“Did you?”
“Fact is, Mr Clovenhoof, it doesn’t actually matter what I believe. You can say it’s magic. You can say it’s subconscious influences or the synchronicity of Jungian archetypes. You can say it’s the work of the devil if you wish.”
“Doubt that.”
“It works. It helps people. Let’s see.” She turned over the first card. “Two of cups. Reversed. That indicates an instability in your relationships. We knew that anyway.” She turned over another. “Here. The Knight of Swords. Again reversed. This represents the thing that opposes you. A skilful warrior. Guardian of the gateway. Interesting.” She flipped over another card. “This one’s interesting. The Ace of Coins. Two-faced. Man and woman in one. The duplicitous twins. Two people – two women or maybe not - in your life who are not what they seem.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t say. Ah, but here. Look. The Fool.”
Clovenhoof gazed at the picture, a young man with a pack over one shoulder and a rose in his hand.
“The fool is me?” he suggested.
“The fool is one who departs in search of answers. The sun behind him is divine wisdom, the thing that he seeks.”
“He’s going to walk off a cliff,” Clovenhoof pointed out.
“He plays a dangerous game. This is a journey of the heart, not the mind. But he holds the rose, a precious thing of heavenly beauty in his hand. Maybe he doesn’t appreciate what he already possesses.”
“Interesting, What else?”
She turned over another card.
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
She turned over further cards, a sixth, seventh and eighth. She gazed at them for a long time.
“What do they say?” asked Clovenhoof.
“Hmmm.” She looked at the cards some more and turned over others.
“Problem?” said Clovenhoof.
“Depends.”
There was a strange expression on her face. Looking at her, he saw a woman who was probably younger than Blenda but to whom time and fate had been less kind. Her face was heavily lined, her long grey hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. If she’d met her, Blenda might also have said something about the lack of a proper health and beauty regime or words to that effect.
“Depends on what?” said Clovenhoof.
“What kind of reading you were after. Whether you wanted some reassuring ‘if you love her set her free’ platitudes or some brutal honesty.”
“Oh, I’m all for brutal honesty.”
“You are surrounded by death, Mr Clovenhoof.”
“Uh-huh,” he nodded.
“I was perhaps expecting a stronger reaction from you.”
“I work as an assistant mortician.”
“I can see that, or something very much like it, here.” She stabbed at a card. “But here” – and her hand waved across the entire spread – “death again.”
“I held a rather unsuccessful dinner party the other week.”
She looked at him and blinked (or was it winked?).
“And you’re going to get a big surprise soon.”
“How soon?”
“Very soon.”
“What kind of surprise?”
She gave him a lopsided smile.
“Death, of course.”
Clovenhoof left Skin Deep with a spring in his step. The sun was out, Britain’s brief summer now running into four consecutive days, he had killed two birds with one stone, cancelling the tattoo appointment and finding professional help in a single action and, furthermore, he had a big surprise and a death to look forward to, two things he was generally in favour of.
He trotted down Jockey Road onto the Chester Road and into the flats. The builders were making busy noises in flat 2a but he decided not to disturb them. He was sure they’d let him know when their work was done. He put his key in the lock to 2b but the door would only open a few inches.
“Hang on!” squealed a panicked voice from within.
“Ben?”
“Just a minute!”
“You’ve put the security chain on.”
“Yes, just hang on!”
There was a plastic rustling sound and the hiss of aerosol.
“Why? Are you doing something sordid in there?”
“What?”
“Are you wearing women’s clothing?”
“Yes! Yes! Go away. Come back later.”
“Not a chance,” grinned Clovenhoof, stepped back and barged the door. The security chain popped from its housing and he stumbled in.
Ben knelt in the short hallway between the door and the kitchen with the blue and brass trunk open next to him. Inside the base of the trunk, nestling in the folds of a large transparent plastic sheet was a dead body. It was definitely dead and clearly had been for a very long time. The flesh that remained on the corpse was brown, oozing and almost completely rotted away. The putrid juices had soaked through the body’s clothing and much of it lay pooled in the base of the trunk.
Ben stared at Clovenhoof.
Clovenhoof stared at the body.
Well, it was a big surprise. And it was death. How brilliant.
“Surprise!” he shouted, wishing he had some party poppers or streamers to mark the occasion.
Ben burst into tears.
Clovenhoof shut the door, made tea for both of them, and tried to ignore Ben until he stopped crying. However, he unavoidably picked up some details that Ben wailed out between sobs.
Clovenhoof thrust a hot mug into Ben’s hands and looked down at the stinking remains.
“So this is Mr Dewsbury?”
“Yes,” sniffed Ben.
“The previous occupant of my flat?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s been in this chest for the past...”
“Year. Nearly two.”
“And you’ve not shown him to me before?”
Clovenhoof was incredulous. A gruesome treat like this, hidden away. It was like keeping all the chocolate biscuits at the back of the cupboard and only offering visitors custard creams.
“He had awful taste in ornaments,” said Clovenhoof.
Ben sipped the tea, winced at its heat and sobbed again.
“He was a horrible, annoying man. I used to dread bumping into him.”
“Why?”
“He always had something to complain about. Totally OCD. Everything had to be just right, just so. You could never do anything right in his eyes.”
“He’s not your dad though, is he?”
Ben sniffed.
“Is he?” said Clovenhoof.
“No. But... he ran this poxy little campaign. Keep Boldmere Beautiful. He’d print up these leaflets and spend every weekend stuffing them through letterboxes. He’d badger the council to plant flowers or put in new litter bins. He protested against the building of Housing Association flats on Gate Lane. He’d patrol up and down the high street, checking tax discs, shouting at teenagers and accusing them of lowering th
e tone of the area. It was all just an excuse to be nosy, to get involved with other people’s business.”
“Sounds like an arse.”
Ben gave a bitter mirthless laugh.
“You have no idea. He didn’t like my shop.”
“Why not?”
“It was a second hand bookshop for one thing. And he didn’t like the name Books ‘n’ Bobs. He didn’t like the use of ‘n’ in signage. God, you ought to have seen what he was like with greengrocers who misused apostrophes. He was a punctuation fascist.”
“I can see why you killed him.”
“I didn’t mean to! It just looks...”
Ben shook his head and wiped away fresh tears.
“He came up to see me one evening. I let him in. I didn’t want to argue on the landing. I was polishing my Seleucid armour. I had my sword out.”
“That’s not a euphemism, is it?”
“Jeremy! This isn’t easy.”
“Sorry.”
Ben sighed.
“We talked. We argued. No, he argued. I tried to ignore him. I turned.” Ben looked at his curled fingers, seeing an imaginary sword in his grip. “I turned quickly. Maybe my hands were sweaty. Maybe there was polish on the handle.”
He looked up at Clovenhoof.
“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
Clovenhoof looked at the body. There was a gore-soaked rip in Mr Dewsbury’s jumper, just below the neck.
“Where’s the sword now?” said Clovenhoof, looking over at the shield and helmet on the living room wall.
“I got rid of it. I had to. I just gave it away.”
Clovenhoof nodded.
“What are you going to do?” said Ben.
“Do?”
Clovenhoof bent down and poked Mr Dewsbury’s cheek with his fingertip. His finger went straight through the flesh, knuckle-deep into his mouth. He stood up and inspected the glistening liquid coating his finger.
“Are you going to call the police?” said Ben.
“Do you want me to?”
Ben seemed to give this some serious thought but eventually said, “I just want it all to go away.”
“You want to get rid of it?”
“God, yes.”
“Shame,” said Clovenhoof wistfully. “Okay.”
Ben sniffed noisily and wiped his nose.
“Okay?”
Clovenhoof nodded.
“Okay. I’ll help you get rid of it.”
