by Liz Jensen
But we don’t even get that far, do we. He’s slid down on to the floor and I’m still on the sofa, and he’s pushing my legs apart and sliding his way up and my roll-on’s stretched to the limit until suddenly he’s shoved it right up round my waist and my legs are free and my undies are off and my tits is being squeezed and licked at again and after a bit of hopping about his trousers are off and he’s showing me this thing of his. Which is strange to look at, because I haven’t seen one in the flesh before, just little boys’ ones, which is not the same. Anyway, this thing, which looks to me a little bit like one of them toadstools with a long stalk called a stinkhorn from The World of Fungus, it belongs inside me, that much I do know.
Next thing – no time to think or say nothing – he’s jammed it in there, so painful, right to the hilt, and I’m gasping like a fish.
They turn up at tea-time and park the hearse in the forecourt. You can hear them but not see them because they’ve drawn the curtains, which they must have the habit of, in a place like this. I don’t go near them curtains myself, because of the Gadderton girl hiding in the folds somewhere, but I get Ed to pull one side back a bit so’s we can take a peek.
—There you go, my darling, he says. —Anything for a lady.
That’s when I take a look at him, and I notice he’s not such an ugly old codger for his age, even though you can see the splashes of different colour on the skin of his head, and he’s in a wheelchair most of the time and his hearing-aid screams when you get close.
Not bad.
—Well, he says. —They didn’t stint on the flowers, did they.
I used to be a swell kid, I’m thinking. So when’s he going to spot it then?
But he’s too busy because of Doris. White flowers, loads of them, on the coffin, them reeky ones that pollinate your clothes, can’t get the orange off even with a dry-clean at Mr Speedy’s, ten pounds minimum for a two-piece. Puffed-up men in hats and black regalia, what a miseryguts job. Mrs Manyon lording it, fussing about with the relatives.
—Blessed release really, she says, with that last set of scans. You don’t want to put them through chemo at her age, it’s downright cruel plus the state can’t really afford it when there’s kids queuing up for kidneys and whatnot. Sometimes things are best left to Mother Nature.
There’s one lady there looks like she must be the granddaughter, five she’s got and two under seven, and another one her husband who’s maybe in Personnel. He’s holding her by the arm like she’s a barrel with a special handle. She might keel over, but she don’t. They get in a black car and drive off behind the coffin one.
She’s the one who sent the chocs which was Doris’s booby prize.
—I hope I die in the lilac season, I tell Ed. —Cos there’s no beating lilac.
—I was just remembering that film, goes Ed. —Road to Morocco. It was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. She had that touch of the Dorothy Lamours, our Doris.
As soon as he’s said that I hear something right next to me. It’s Doris, laughing.
—D’you hear that? I ask Ed. But he’s turned to look at the Welsh girl’s tits and I’m on his deaf side.
—Are you there, Doris? I whisper over the scream of Ed’s deaf-aid.
There’s this tinkly shiver chasing up and down my spine. Silence, but I know she’s there. Her and the Gadderton girl, laughing at what Ed just said, and laughing at Mrs Manyon, and laugh-laugh-laughing at the funeral man and all the tommyrot that’s in store for her in church.
* * *
—I’m off on the rigs tomorrow, Mum, came to say goodbye, says Hank. —Thanks for signing the paperwork.
—That Wife of yours still hasn’t apologised. You should make her say sorry.
—Her name’s Karen. And I think you’re the one owing an apology.
—They were just a handful of bloody pebbles. Could’ve got them on the beach.
When he has buggered off I just sit there, listening to the hum in my head getting louder and louder, till I have to jump off a cliff in my head, into a sleep that is dark green like Gadderton but bottomless.
Well, it was quite an experience, that first bit of whatcher-macallit that me and Ron got up to on the settee there. Fooling around, he called it. As in, Wanna fool around again, hon? Not at all what I’d expected, from what Marje’d said, even though she’d given me the gory details about what Bobby had done to her in places like the coalshed. Not as bad as I thought it would be – and you could even begin to see how if it wasn’t too painful you could get to like it, just like ciggies. Our mum would’ve had a heart attack if she could’ve known what we were getting up to, but she was gone, wasn’t she, no one there to say to us, You mark my words, girls, you will come a cropper.
And that body of his, it was like one of them statues of a god you see in them pictures from Ancient Greece, but with hair, hair on his tummy and chest and a whole gluey nest of it where his thing lay, all shrunked and shrivelled now. I look for a long time, and then I can’t resist touching so I slide my hand ever so gently down his flat belly that is breathing soft and has a sheen of sweat, because I want to touch that magical stinkhorn thing of his again and see if it will go hard in his sleep. But he senses something and flips sideways and wriggles into a new position – and it’s then I see it.
A huge ugly scar, on the side of his thigh.
It’s purple and jagged and it shocks me right through. There’s stitching marks that’s purple and not well done, and I realise he never told me nothing, it was all about his buddies as he called them, and who got shot down and killed on what mission, and who had a close shave.
I nudge him awake and point at the scar.
—How d’you get it?
He laughs, all sleepy.
—You like it, hon? Doc did a real good job, eh. He was a British guy. Yeah, I was invalided out for a while there, man. Damn near lost my leg.
He starts humming a tune, ‘Blue Skies’. So relaxed, lying there on the floor in the candle-light, the two of us. His hand on my belly, mine stroking the scar. I shut my eyes and he starts singing the words in his gravelly voice. All out of tune he is, but so what.
Blue skies smiling at me,
Nothing but blue skies do I see.
Bluebirds, singing their song,
Nothing but bluebirds from now on . . .
Then he turns and kisses me, and I kiss him back.
—So how did it happen? Is it a war secret?
I kiss the scar; his skin is salty.
—No, it’s no secret, hon, ain’t gonna have no secrets from you, sweetheart. I’d just shot down this Junker 52, that’s a troop carrier. And bam, before I could even congratulate myself, these Messerschmitts start attacking. So I’m putting some altitude between us, and then there’s this big crack and a shell hits the windshield.
I kiss him all over while he’s talking, I want to kiss it all away.
—I don’t know what the fuck happened. It must’ve got deflected through the top of the canopy and down on the instrument panel – anyways, I get hit in three places, left chest – there was a scar here, hon. He takes my hand and puts it to his chest, and I feel a small ridge under the hair. —Oh, plus left arm.
He shows me a dent. —And left thigh.
I wipe the wet off my face and kiss the thigh-scar again.
—So what did you do? I say, looking up. I can’t imagine this, even after Iris.
—Well, I know right away the thigh wound’s real bad, so I drop my belly tank and get the ship under control, then head for home. Put a tourniquet on my leg, gave myself a shot with the hypodermic, and took sulfanilamide tablets right there in the ship. Don’t know how I did it, just followed my training, I guess. Landed at my own base one hour later. Got out the cockpit, walked maybe three yards, then just collapsed. Woke up in the hospital, with the doc saying, I don’t know if we can save your leg, Lieutenant Taylor.
I breathe, my head rested on his tummy, my face right next to his thing that’s asleep. And then he’s str
oking my hair and running his hands through it —You’ve got such beautiful hair, sweetheart – and the stroking gets sort of thicker and he is pushing my head down and then I get the idea that it is my mouth he wants there, it don’t seem like such a bad thought, and so with his hands doing the explaining I put my lips around and it’s straightaway growing like a miracle plant and the groaning noises he is making, they are the happiest groans I have ever heard and it works me to a wild pitch too, just knowing the effect it’s having. So with his hands on my head and his fingers tangled in my hair, we do it another way.
Afterwards he kisses the top of my head and smears what I’ve spat out across his tummy and rubs it into mine like body lotion and says I’m a real A-1 honey, and rolls over and sings more ‘Blue Skies’, lullabying himself to sleep with his gravel voice.
Never saw the sun shining so bright,
Never saw things looking so right.
Noticing the days hurrying by,
When you’re in love, my how they fly . . .
And a minute after that he’s breathing the way he does when he’s asleep, gentle and quiet as anything, leaving me all lonely and in awe, because those dangers he’d passed, they made me love him more. Blue days all of them gone.
OLD NAZI
—Twinkle twinkle, little star. What you say is what you are. I am singing the kid a song, see, who says I am not fit to be a mother? There’s an old mop leaning against the wall, that’s been mopping up blood. The mop is red from the blood because the blood is fresh, and it’s all over me and all over the baby. And Zedorro, he’s hovering in the air in his black cape like a vampire above us, and when he smiles you can see his bloodsucking fangs. Under the cape he’s wearing a white utility shirt that cost seven coupons from Hope’s. The Slut Fairy’s there too. She’s lurking in the shadows like a snake waiting to steal an egg. Zedorro’s getting ready to rip flesh and suck blood.
—There’s blood in that mop if you want some, I tell him. —Keep away from me. Suck the mop.
But he flies down lower and lower.
—Suck the mop! Suck the mop! Suck the mop!
A whining woman is there too, whining about the thing she has lost, going: I need to find her, I need to find her and tell her how I have lived my whole life with a part of me missing, a part of me missing, a part of me missing. I am like half a person, I have always been half a person, and without my other half I can never be whole . . .
* * *
—Calm down now, Gloria. Bad dream? I’ll adjust this drip here and then when Dr Sharma’s had a look at you, you can have another nice rest.
I’m rubble. Feels like something’s slid off down or sideways in my head, got lost down the back of it like something down a sofa, can’t be bothered to get it back, the furniture’s shifted about, there’s stuff that was at the bottom come to the top and stuff that was at the top slid to the bottom.
—You took a little turn for the worse, Gloria, says the brown doctor. —How are you feeling?
—Stabbed in the back.
—What was that?
—I had no choice, did I.
—Try and have a sleep. You’ll feel better after some rest.
—She was asking for it! I tell him, but the door has closed.
—They’re busy men, says the nurse, making a face.
—Are you in love with him?
She snorts.
—Dr Sharma? You must be joking! He’s old enough to be my father!
—Does he pay you for sex?
—Let me sort out this pillow, she says, as if she hasn’t heard.
—You should charge them, I tell her. —They can always pay a bit more than you think, especially if you’ll do American things. Sucking cocks and that. Take it from me, love.
But the room’s gone quiet.
I’m teaching Marje to smoke, cos she’s got her knickers in a twist about Bobby. There’s been no letters for a week. Bobby’s an airman, like Ron. He does them raids on Germany, like they does to us, but less now. When we see a plane going over, I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking: if this was Germany, that might be Bobby. That plane might get attacked, the pilot might be killed, or he might have to parachute out. She’s forever counting the formations out and counting them back in again, and every time there’s one missing – sometimes more – she’s a nervous wreck.
Smoking’s s’posed to calm you down, but not the way she does it. She takes to it even faster than I have, masters it quicker, holds the ciggie like Greta bloody Garbo of course, she ain’t as pretty as me but she knows how to hold herself because of her poise thing.
—I bought an old parachute yesterday, she tells me, puffing out smoke. The hens is pecking around our feet out in the yard.
—What for? How much?
—Swapped six eggs and five clothing coupons with Deirdre’s mum. Want to see it? I’ll show it you.
And out she goes and comes back with this hump of cloth, slippy and thin when you touch it. It looks ghosty.
—I’ll use Mum’s sewing machine, she says, smoothing out a bit. —I’ve got a pattern.
—I’d be superstitious, I say, fingering it.
It’s heavier than it looks.
—If I’ve got the wedding dress, I’ll have the wedding, she snaps. —Soon as the war’s over, and Bobby’s home, and Dad’s back. We’ll have a big family wedding.
We haven’t got no big family, but Bobby has. They’re from round Redland, he and Marje were sweethearts from way back. Then they broke up cos she fancied another bloke but then she found out the other bloke was already married to a girl in Sheffield who was up the duff, and then the war came and everyone signed up and she and Bobby got back together, and she ain’t a virgin no more, I can tell you, after a certain moment in the coalshed followed by many more moments in all sorts of places including our hen-house, she told me once, must’ve forgot her poise that day. He’s a good-looking boy, got a touch of the spic about him with his dark hair and flashing eyes and big laugh, you could picture him with a cutlass and a parrot on his shoulder and a yo-ho-ho. He asked her to marry him the night before he went away, and she didn’t want him dying without knowing the feel of her body, did she.
She sits down crumpling the parachute up in her lap, face all dreamy, thinking of herself in that wedding dress.
I might borrow that dress off her one day, I’m thinking. For my own wedding. To Ron. That’s a happy moment, that is, the two of us out in the yard dreaming our silly dreams.
An ambulance comes.
—Your taxi, madam, says the driver, wheeling the bed in. —Come to take you home.
Where’s that, I’m wondering. Bristol? Tooting? Chicago?
—Sea View, he says. His face is red and blue, all mottled like a lobster. I had a client like him in Balham, Mr Loomis, he was generous to me.
—Know any jokes?
He thinks for a minute.
—What d’you call a mushroom that walks into a bar and buys everyone a drink?
—What?
—A fun guy to be with, he goes. —Fungi, as in mushroom. Get it?
Get what?
Sea View, and sure enough there is a view of the sea, a little wedge of grey-blue through the window of the lounge. There’s an up-your-arse matron in charge, can’t remember her name any more, doesn’t matter. Then this woman turns up with a little boy, a toddler.
—How’re you feeling, Gloria? she goes.
But I’m watching the little boy, I’ve seen him before, he used to spit out his custard, muck up the lino with it. Every day he’d do that, or turn a whole bowl of good mashed potato and gravy upside-down, and if his father was around he would probably say, Jesus, Gloria, can’t you teach that kid some goddamn control, for Chrissake?
In his American accent.
—How old is he then? I ask the woman who looks familiar.
—Nearly two.
—Younger than I thought, I thought he’d be fifty by now, I thought he’d be approaching retirement.
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—Nice view, from this wing, she goes, because we’re staring out. —Are you feeling more yourself now?
—I was hungry the whole time in the war, so was Marje. We used to watch the hens laying and pounce on them eggs, we could’ve eaten them raw we were that desperate.
—Hank’s still on the rig, she says, but he sends his love. He’s sorry you’ve been poorly.
Rig? I’m wondering but I can’t be arsed and I let it pass. But it nudges the back of my head like bad medicine. What’s a baby boy doing on a bloody rig?
I must’ve been asleep for quite a while because the Welsh nurse, her bump’s well established now, there’s no hiding it.
—You getting married, then? I call. —Or won’t his wife divorce him?
You can tell her sort, I know it better than I know myself. But she doesn’t even blush, she just pretends not to hear, she’s learned bad habits.
I want to warn her: Love can kill you, you know. Or if it doesn’t, it can leave you half dead. Did you ever see a building site with one of them wrecking balls, they hang it from a crane and they swing it, bash down ceilings and walls that was once a house? Love will probably kill you, see. And if it doesn’t, you’ll be maimed like Iris, or you’ll end up like me.
Full of holes.
I don’t like the news but sometimes I watch by accident and when I do it always has a bad effect on me. Who do they think they are, coming on and depressing everyone like that?
Today there’s a man who was a war criminal, he was a guard at one of the death camps. Eighty thousand people were gassed there, but they weren’t wanting to do him for the gassing, it was about some prisoners they say he shot for fun. It’s worse, if you do it for fun and it’s not part of your regular job. He’s eighty-something and he is blind and he has cancer but he’s looking well on it. It all happened when he was young, just late teens, early twenties, and he said his support for Hitler was a youthful indiscretion. He’s denying he did the killing of course, and the Jew man is saying that’s making it worse, because the first crime is the first crime, he says, but the second crime is the crime of denial. You hide your crime, you deny the past, or you forget the evil you did, forget it on purpose, and you’re committing another atrocity.
