‘I was just trying to be nice,’ I murmured. I considered offering my neighbours some sweets, but I guessed no amount of rhubarb-and-custards could bring back their electrical goods. They carried on scowling as I shifted from foot to foot. Strangely, it seemed the only thing that might’ve made them a bit happier was if I’d lost all my trinkets too.
In the end, I sloped off silently, up the stairwell, trying to avoid an argument. Behind me, I could hear the policemen’s pens tutting as they scratched more notes into their pads. I couldn’t bring myself to mention the two youngish lads and the lime green Punto – I felt bad enough causing the burglary, let alone helping with the getaway and putting my fingerprints all over the stolen goods.
That night I went about scrubbing the silver dust from everyone’s doorways, although it meant waking some of them up and being scolded again. I felt pathetic. When I finally got tucked up in bed, I tossed and turned on the lumpy mattress, wishing the good-looking one’s badly behaved fingerprints weren’t soaking away in the corner of my bedroom, in a bucket. In a way, I wished they were all over my body, attached to the rest of him.
Kimberly Clark in … Halloween XXIV
There’s nothing like a good burglary to make you feel uneasy in your own home. As predicted, I woke up alone on my birthday morning, with hair like snakes and ladders in my tights. I rose just before 9 a.m., to the sound of my neighbours’ grumpy footsteps, thumping around the building.
I hoped they all had insurance.
I re-straightened the bedcovers, then re-straightened the Guillotine. In the fridge there were a couple of crusts, which I turned into toast, and, as I sat crunching them on the windowsill, I knew I had to get out of the flat. By the sound of those thumping footsteps, none of my neighbours had insurance. I finished the crusts and set my compass for my last remaining friend in the Capital. I slithered down the stairs on tiptoes, hoping to avoid contact with Mrs A or Mr B or Mr and Mrs C. I had to do a new trick with the door: gently unbolting the brand-new Yale lock, and closing it as quietly as possible behind me. On my way out, I checked the WELCOME mat for birthday cards, but nobody loved me.
I was frozen by the time I got to Tooting. My Promiscuous Pal Polly from Southampton opened one of the many front doors in Tooting, and I stepped through it and smiled. Her house was a cross between your grandma’s sitting room and an old brothel. She’d left the paisley wallpaper and faded pouffe, and she’d also left skimpy underwear and fishnet tights round the radiators and round the carpet. The fishnets were giving off a weird smell – either she’d been catching mackerel in them, or they hadn’t been washed for a while. I sat as far away from them as possible, on the counter in the kitchen.
Polly was cooking an assortment of Mexican food – she’d decided to celebrate my birthday by seeing in the Dia de los Muertos with burritos, tacos, chicken fajitas and enchiladas. And tequila.
We were smashed by the time it got dark, rummaging sloppy-fingered through her dressing-up box for suitable Halloween costumes. Polly was a sceptic when it came to three things: celibacy, teetotalism, and ghosts. Her issue with ghosts stemmed from her stepfather’s seasonal seances, conducted in his shed with like-minded phasmophiles from Hampshire. In seven years, not once did Polly see or sense a phantom; all she could see in that shed was mid-life madness. Nevertheless, Polly was happy to make herself look ghoulish for the night. She was always willing to become someone else, in the name of entertainment and/or escapism.
Polly covered her thick, cream foundation with thick, green Frankenstein make-up, and we tried to screw a bolt into the side of her head, but she reckoned it was hurting her too much. I tugged the off-white mattress-cover off her mattress, and Polly let me pierce two eye-holes in it, to create a reasonable ghost outfit. It might’ve been more convincing if the sheet hadn’t been patterned with semen streaks, period blobs and thousands of unidentifiable pieces of fluff. After five minutes of laughing at ourselves, we headed over to the shop in the monster clobber, to stock up on more sweets and turn our pound coins into ten-and twenty-pence pieces, for the kids. I doubted Polly wanted her windows egging, either.
I was having a whale of a time under that sheet. I wasn’t sure if it was the costumes, or the tequila – or both – but, before long, I managed to forget about the burglary, and the rest of my bad fortune. I understood now why Donald and the folk at the Wethouse enjoyed drinking so much: it gives your shit life soft edges. While we walked, I wanted to grab Polly and cling on to this precious moment for ever, but it was difficult getting my arms out from under the mattress-cover.
‘BOO!’ we howled at passers-by, but they ignored us. They were ghosts and zombies too, except without the fabulous sense of humour or the costumes. Or the alcohol.
Back in Polly’s pad, we polished off the first Cuervo bottle and a few Doritos, then tried to make a dent on the sweets, for our afters. The kids started coming around five – some of them with their mams and dads, but mostly dragging along sulking older brothers or sisters. Depending on the mood, me and Polly pretended to be terrified of the costumes; or we put on a kind of pantomime, which involved Polly’s arm being chopped off with a meat cleaver, and the walls of her hallway being splattered with tomato sauce. The kids loved it, screaming and running away as fast as their legs could carry them.
We must’ve dished out about twenty or thirty quid by the time the last tiny terror toddled off down Welham Road, rolypolying full of sweets. Me and Polly swaggered back through to the sitting room, dancing to no music. The tequila was beginning to taste like salty bathwater, so we cracked open a bottle of Bianco Bianco BIANCO BIANCO BIANCO, then carried on tossing ourselves around the room. We felt like poltergeists, making the furniture topple over, or launching Doritos through the air into each other’s mouths.
Later, Polly left me revolving in the mattress-cover to busy herself with something in the kitchen. I felt gloriously nauseous. When Polly returned, she had a large washing-up bowl of liquid, with fruit floating in it.
‘Punch!’ I yelped.
‘No, no – apple bobbing,’ Polly snickered. We placed the bowl on the dining room table, although technically it wasn’t a dining room – it was just a slightly different part of her sitting room. Technically it wasn’t a table, either – more just a cabinet with a chair next to it.
I volunteered to go first, quickly yanking off the sheet and throwing my head into the bowl. The cold water was refreshing at first – until my brain got starved of oxygen, and the Granny Smiths turned into bright pink sea anemones.
‘How is it?’ Polly giggled, kindly holding my hair back, like a half-arsed torturer/interrogator.
I gurgled wordless bubbles. It took three or four plunges to finally get my teeth round one of the apples.
‘Not bad,’ I answered, pulling it out of my gob on a long leash of saliva. We laughed.
Polly tied her hair back with a bobble, then gingerly lowered her head into the soupy froth. I smirked as she writhed helplessly in the shallows, green buoys swirling around her. She wasn’t very talented at it. She kept making seal honks whenever she came up for air, and I shuddered, mopping my face with the mattress-cover. The fourth time Polly came up for air, the Frankenstein make-up had more or less dissolved. By the seventh gasp, her thick foundation had disappeared, too. She plunged her pasty face back into the water for another twenty seconds, at which point (‘Thank fuck,’ I mouthed) she finally got her teeth round one of the apples.
I cheeeeeeered, just to be nice, then I fell silent. I stared at Polly, put off by something. With all her make-up gone, I could see a plum-coloured patch of bruises round her left eye-socket, like a cheap Phantom of the Opera mask.
‘Are you alright?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Just soaking,’ Polly slurred, smiling.
‘Naw, I mean the bruises …’ I said, gesturing at my own face, though I was referring to hers.
‘Shit,’ Polly said, running off to look at herself in the mirror. While she was in the bathroom, I heard her
say again, ‘Shit.’
‘Are you alright?’ I called out, again. I could hear her heavy breaths clanging off the sharp porcelain walls. I didn’t want her to cry.
‘Not really. It’s that … fucking Persian again,’ Polly eventually replied, referring to Mr No Tomorrow.
My eyes dipped. I knew there was something sinister about him. Anyone who takes a girl bungee-jumping on a first date must have some problems with their brain cells.
I went through to the bathroom, as white as a sheet, even without the sheet. I put my cold, damp hands around Polly and squeezed her. She wasn’t one to roll tears, but her face looked pained, as she explained what had been going on between her and Mr No Tomorrow. It sounded fairytale-ish at first: Polly liked the Persian’s pretty cheekbones, and Mr No Tomorrow liked her contraceptive microchip. Apparently, though, he fooled her into saying she loved him, after three free dinners and some expert lovemaking, then quickly began pressurising her into the idea of ‘quick marriage’. Despite harking on about this ‘quick, romantic marriage’, it soon transpired that Mr No Tomorrow wasn’t interested in love at all – he was only interested in British citizenship. He must’ve been an illegal citizen after all, and, the way Polly described it, he hadn’t taken kindly to rejection. After turning him down for the thirteenth time, Mr No Tomorrow had turned on Polly, and turned her face inside-out.
I carried on holding Polly, feeling awful. For a bit, we stared at the two girls in the mirror, secretly wishing they had much happier lives than the two girls staring back at them.
Polly was desperate to go and put on more make-up, but I said not to bother. It was getting late, after all, and the double bed in the other room was screaming out our names.
‘Polly!’
‘Kimly!’
I scratched my earhole.
‘So, what are you gonna do about him?’ I asked as we sloped back through to the sitting room, dodging the patches of splashed water, smashed Bianco Bianco BIANCO BIANCO BIANCO bottles, chewed apples and strung-out monsters.
‘Well, obviously I told him it was over, but he wouldn’t have it. And now he keeps coming round unexpectedly all the time,’ Polly said glumly, at which point the front door burst open, and in stormed Mr No Tomorrow. We froze. His face looked red and devilish, and he wasn’t even wearing a mask.
It turned out Mr No Tomorrow was furious, thanks to this text sent at precisely 6.66 p.m. (or 7.06 p.m., to you and me), from Polly’s pink Nokia: FUCK OFF STOP PHONING ME I DONT EVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN
Mr No Tomorrow wasn’t very good at taking orders. For starters, he was standing on her WELCOME mat, despite being unwelcome. He’d clearly spruced himself up to stalk Polly for the night (gel in his hair, lashings of aftershave), but the grooming was spoiled by his gruesome facial expression. He spouted, ‘Polly, we are need to talk.’
Mr No Tomorrow was the type of man who liked to talk with his hands. However, he hadn’t accounted for all the water on the carpet and, as he stepped forwards with a look of pure malice, suddenly the look turned to fear as he slipped and clattered into the banister rungs. Me and Polly leapt to attention. We scoffed at first, but were quick to react to Mr No Tomorrow’s misfortune, chucking the off-white mattress-cover over his head and shoulders and bundling him back out of the front door. He made an almighty racket as he struggled to break free, but me and Polly weren’t daft. We kneed him frantically in the general direction of his testes, then slammed the door shut, remembering to lock it this time.
Panting, me and Polly slumped with our backs to the ketchup stains, rattled but relieved. We were shaking so much, we gave the whole building a pulse.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Polly murmured into her chest.
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ I said, feeling a bit dismal now, and sober. Technically, it was my fault for bringing Mr No Tomorrow into Polly’s life, but I didn’t feel up to talking any more.
We made the short walk of shame to Polly’s bedroom. It was only half ten, but drinking more Bianco Bianco BIANCO BIANCO BIANCO somehow didn’t seem so funny now and, in any case, it’d just become a very, very long night. We got changed into sleeping outfits (Forever Friends T-shirt for me, SEXY BEAST for her), then tucked ourselves into the double bed, like two gloomy tax bills posted in the same envelope.
As soon as we shut our eyes, that’s when the excessive banging started. Not banging in the sexual sense, you understand, but banging as in loud, spine-chilling BANGBANGBANGing on the front door. Polly recognised the unmistakable din of Mr No Tomorrow’s fists – after all, she’d been banged by them herself many times before. We cringed in silence. There was nothing we could do to stop it – unfortunately, Mr No Tomorrow wasn’t bright enough to realise we weren’t going to open the door. For about half an hour he didn’t let up with the banging, like he was trying to bludgeon his way into the house with his knuckles.
Me and Polly groaned now and then, desperately trying to drift off to sleep, but our dreams kept getting punctured every time Mr No Tomorrow punched the door. My heavy eyelids flickered. Polly had some ear-muffs amongst the erotic lingerie in her closet, and they worked quite well, getting rid of Mr No Tomorrow. That is, until he started screaming:
‘Polly!’
‘Open door!’
‘Kimly!’
We fell asleep with ears burning.
As I slept, the cheese from the burritos and enchiladas gave me odd dreams. First of all, I found myself hovering over the Pacific Ocean in a large off-white hot-air balloon, in search of the mythical Great Southern Continent. I saw a tiger shark sinking its jagged jaws into a man dressed like John Travolta. I threw down a lifebelt, to no avail. There was a freak storm, and I got swept off course, crashlanding on what seemed to be my old school playing field. The balloon popped, covering me in milk. I sustained no apparent injuries. Later, I saw me and Stevie skipping away from the wreckage, hand in hand. We were skipping along the Applegarth in Guisborough except, instead of tarmac, it was paved with what looked like bottletops. Stevie had a bottle containing a green, foaming elixir, which he’d decanted into two gigantic champagne flutes. In the dream, we were both very drunk. When we got to the end of the lane we came across a vast comic-book graveyard; all overgrown, with gnarled trees, and Halloween pumpkin lanterns. At this point, the colours in the dream became suddenly vibrant, like someone had turned up the lucidity knob. A long-forgotten memory flashed before me: I saw myself and Stevie as twenty-year-olds, supping Pulse cider in the graveyard. It was early in our relationship – I remember we kissed excessively. We perched on the wall skirting the cemetery, giggling at nothing. Stevie had an idea: he wanted to dance on the Black Monk’s grave. He was being uncharacteristically daring – I think he was trying to impress me. I wasn’t impressed. I’d already warned him about my schoolfriend, Daniel Brady, who’d treated the Black Monk to a fine bit of Saturday Night Fever, and met a watery death off the coast of West Australia. Nevertheless, I whooped as Stevie clambered over the overgrown fence, and onto the ancient, mossy monument. I cackled as he sexy-danced on the podium. I fired Pulse cider out of my nose. I figured he’d be alright. But then, the colours in the dream became dull again: I saw Stevie, stark naked, splashing helplessly in the North Sea. A whisker. A black, hooded figure. A seal. A wooden box. A Marks & Spencer suit with a puddle where the person should be.
I woke up with scruffy hair. And the flu. And heartburn. And creased legs. And sweaty armpits. And a brain tumour.
Or perhaps it was just a hangover.
I grunted, realising me and Polly were stuck to each other like a pair of balled-up paper dolls. I prised myself off her, then prised off the ear-muffs. My ears felt red hot. As far as I could tell, Mr No Tomorrow had stopped banging on the door. It was about nine o’clock in the morning, I think. Scraps of daylight highlighted the windowsills.
Polly rolled out of the double bed, mumbling something about tea. I coughed in the affirmative. My throat was so clogged with mucus, I could hardly get any words ou
t.
I coughed again. My feet felt hot and sticky, so I kicked back some of the bedcovers and hung my toes out to dry. Polly laughed. At first I thought she was going to comment on the smell but, instead, she pointed and said, ‘God, have you lost weight? Have you seen how much your anklebones stick out, love?’
Kimberly Clark and Her … Identity Crisis of Many Colours
I wish I’d never clapped eyes on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Just like the Barbie annual inspired me to wear a pink tutu and roller-skates on the Dia de los Muertos 1989, this year the Tibetan book forced me to defecate behind a bush in Polly’s back garden, with a dog’s tail stuck between my legs. Polly wasn’t aware I’d used her mink fur stole as the tail. She wasn’t aware I was having a crap amongst her rhododendrons, either.
‘Bark!’ I barked, self-consciously.
I squeezed out a rock-hard shard of shit – the type that typically marks a terrible hangover. It had a beautiful red marble effect to it, from where my anus was still bleeding. I wiped myself on a handful of dock leaves, then stared at my faeces, still pinching the tail between my cheeks. On page 190, the Tibetan Book of the Dead said the only chance a sticky-out-ankled person has of side-stepping death is to eat three mouthfuls of their own dogdirt. Surely, though, it couldn’t be good for you.
I grimaced, sweating profusely. I could hear Polly upstairs running the shower, and I thought to myself how lucky she was to be cleansing her body, as opposed to force-feeding it faeces.
‘Bark!’ I barked again, telling myself, ‘It’s just a brown sausage, it’s just a brown banana, it’s just a brown carrot, it’s just a brown Mini Milk …’
Kimberly's Capital Punishment Page 18
