by Liz Miles
Then Froufrou disappeared.
“You idiot!” Trace shrieked at Ed. “What’ve you done to my little Froufrou?”
“You take a look for me, Freako, I caaan’t,” she wailed at me.
I put my case down and looked over the edge. Something was hanging from a sparkly collar hooked over a branch like a Christmas decoration. Its legs were whirring like a tin toy’s. The branch was several feet below the edge of the cliff, growing from a gnarled tree clinging on to the almost sheer rock face. Apart from a thin ledge a few feet below that, there was nothing but a long drop down to the ground below.
I would have liked to measure the distances accurately but unfortunately I didn’t have the correct measuring equipment in my suitcase. I thought, I must remember to carry a plumb line in future, or perhaps I could throw pebbles down and count the seconds.
“It’s sort of okay, she’s still alive. You can look,” I called to Trace.
Trace rushed to my side and peered down. “Froufrou, my baby, my little one, don’t go away, we’ll get you, I promise, babes,” she shouted. Froufrou clearly couldn’t go away even if she wanted to and she looked up at Trace with bulgy eyes—her throat constricted by the collar—and set up an eerie howl.
Ed joined us to look over the edge and let out uncontrollable guffaws. “Oh, man! God, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I must get this or no one’s gonna believe it!” he said, crying with laughter and getting out his mobile. He snapped photos wildly. The wind started blowing and Froufrou slowly revolved half a circle one way and then half a circle back again. Round and back, round and back.
“Wow, thanks for showing me every angle, rat-thing,” Ed called down. “I’ll make a video too.”
“How DARE you! You’re sick! That’s my bloody dog, my little baby!” screeched Trace. “And it’s all your fault. You go and get her now. You put her down and you’re the one who’s meant to have the muscles. Well, use them!”
Ed laughed. “Whoa! You crazy or what?” he said. “No way! I’m not risking my life for that! It’s only some dumb rat-dog! Just leave it. It’ll die soon, then I’ll come back and take some pics of its skeleton and we can have a laugh over them. Oh, wow, I’ve got a really great idea! We can put before and after pics up on the net—maybe even make some money or get famous from it.”
“I hate you,” she shrieked. “We’re finished, you’re dumped, get it? I’d rather go out with Freako than you!”
I knew I was probably grasping at straws, but I thought I could see an opportunity.
“I’ll get her for you, Trace,” I said.
“How the hell are you going to do that, Mr. White-kneed, skinny, I-so-don’t-think-so superman?” she demanded, a little unnecessarily I thought, but I made allowances for her agitated state.
I snapped opened my suitcase and produced a short piece of jute rope.
“What the hell? You some kinda bloody perv carrying a piece of rope round with you in that case?” asked Trace. We all stared at the rope and could see that it clearly wasn’t long enough to do anything with—except perhaps throttle someone, which Trace clearly wanted to do.
“It’s just in case,” I said, not meaning to make a pun.
“That’s good, that is. I like that. Just in case,” said Ed, but he didn’t sound as if he liked it. He eyed it suspiciously.
Froufrou’s howl had gone up an octave.
“You stupid bloody useless ignorant males,” said Trace looking exasperated, “I’m ringing nine-nine-nine.”
But there was no signal.
Trace began to cry.
“Run down and get help, Ed, please! You can run the fastest,” she pleaded.
“After what you said to me? No way,” he said decisively. “Remember, you dumped me.”
“You’re a disgusting, heartless, weirdo-sicko coward!” screamed Trace.
Froufrou’s howl turned into a thin wail.
“I’ll go,” I said, hoping to redeem myself in Trace’s eyes. I moved toward my case to close it before setting off when suddenly Trace pounced at it and grabbed one of my seven super-sharp pencils.
She jabbed hard at Ed with it. Jab, jab, jab. “Coward, coward, coward,” she chanted.
“No one calls me a coward!” shouted Ed, taking a step backward to avoid her and trying to grab the pencil at the same time, but Trace was quicker. I stood transfixed, staring at my pencil.
She took a step forward. “Oh (jab) yes (jab) you (jab) are,” she jabbed. How dare she use my pencil like that? I thought. I could see where they were heading so I rushed to the rescue and lunged forward.
I was aware of two things as I sat up on the edge of the path where I’d slipped over. The first was that I had been successful in my rescue: the pencil was safely in my hand and it was still in one piece—only the outer bit of the lead was broken off so I would be able to sharpen it.
The second thing I noticed, apart from the crows cawing as they circled round like vultures overhead, was the silence. Froufrou’s wailing had completely stopped.
I got up slowly and replaced my pencil and the rope in my case and snapped it shut. Perhaps I ought to peer over the edge, I thought. Trace was lying on the ledge, face up. Her eyes were wide open with an unblinking expression of surprise. One tiny leg belonging to Froufrou was visible from underneath Trace. One of Trace’s hands held a bunch of leaves, as if she’d been picking them for us like the lucky heather, and there was a long red scratch up her forearm. Up above her the branch, where the tin toy Froufrou had hung, was snapped in two. She must’ve tried to grab it, or Froufrou, on the way down.
My eyes traveled further down the rock face to a gully way below. I could see a shape that could be Ed but I couldn’t be sure so I went back to my suitcase and got out the binoculars. I wiped the lenses with a cleaning cloth and carefully adjusted them to focus on the ground below. I didn’t dwell long on the shape that had been Ed, as he looked a mess, which wasn’t very pleasant. I replaced the binoculars and took out all three egg and cress sandwiches—the walk had given me an appetite—and snapped the suitcase shut again. Then I strode briskly down the path, munching the sandwiches and enjoying the clean air and the freedom of the great British outside.
When I reached the bottom I called the mountain rescue service from the public call box, although it didn’t escape my notice that there was a certain irony in calling the “rescue service.” Does one “rescue” a corpse or simply pick it up? I mused.
• • •
The police officer looked at me and gave a long sigh.
“Well, it’s not quite normal, is it? Most people don’t go round carrying measuring equipment, callipers, an engineer’s square, and a short length of rope and so many sharp pencils when they walk up hills, do they? They carry sandwiches, water, maps, a compass, and the like in a rucksack.”
“I’d already eaten my sandwiches and I am not like most people, Officer. ‘Most people’ are not going to be famous mathematicians, Officer, like I am,” I answered.
“Slightly odd one in here, but I think he’s telling the truth. There were no other witnesses to the incident—but I don’t think this one’s capable of making anything up—just a bit weird. And I wish he’d stop calling me ‘Officer.’ It’s not bloody natural in a teenager,” I overheard him say to another policeman outside the room.
I bristled. Of course I had told the truth—more or less. I told him that Trace slipped while hysterically looking down at her unfortunate dog and Ed tried to grab her to pull her away, but they both slipped and went over, quick as a flash. Well, I could hardly say that I had pushed them over the edge, killing them both while rescuing my pencil, could I?
• • •
“I understand,” said the young mortuary assistant. “Of course, a quiet little moment won’t do any harm although I’m not sure it’s strictly allowed. Close to her, were you?”
“I was very close once,” I replied, thinking of the time I retrieved my pencil from Trace’s cleavage.
> “Well, I’ll be just outside. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need me. There you are, she looks perfect, doesn’t she?” said the mortuary assistant as he gently pulled back the sheet, exposing Trace’s head. He stroked her hair, patted my arm, and then left the room. I heard the door click shut after him. Luckily Trace’s eyes were closed so she couldn’t look at me with accusing eyes. I imagined her suddenly sitting up and saying, “So what’re you going to do to me now, Perv? Not that I can do anything to stop you!”
I glanced at the closed door then folded the sheet down to Trace’s waist, exposing her beasts. I surveyed them carefully, then I put my suitcase flat on the floor and opened the brass catches as quietly as I could and removed the pair of callipers. I carefully adjusted them and measured the left breast widthwise between the callipers’ pincers and then I placed them over the right breast. It was a full 50 millimeters smaller. I smiled.
Then I covered Trace up to her neck again and put the callipers back into the suitcase. I had just snapped it shut when there was a light tap on the door.
The door opened and the mortuary assistant’s head popped round.
“Said your goodbyes?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, this is closure for me,” I answered.
“Would you like to say goodbye to your other friend?” the mortuary assistant asked.
“What other friend?” I asked, feeling a little puzzled.
“Edward, of course,” he said.
“Oh, no, no!” I reply in horror. I’d already forgotten about Ed and the thought of seeing him again was very distasteful.
I mumbled my thanks and set off quickly for home.
So she was flawed, I thought. I was right all along. I no longer have to think of Trace’s breasts—I can put them out of my mind for ever. Closure. I can put the callipers back in the shed and concentrate on my mathematics.
“Froufrou! I’m home!” I call as I walk through the front door. Froufrou runs yapping toward me. Yes, believe it or not, Froufrou had been dragged out alive but a bit squashed from beneath Trace. I thought it my duty to take her in and we get on very well together, even though she has a little problem and will have to sleep on incontinence pads indefinitely due to her trauma.
I go into the bathroom and stand in front of the full-length mirror. Two sprigs of lucky heather, Froufrou’s and mine, are stuck with tape to the corner of it.
I drop my trousers and pants and carefully peel off the tape from around my left testicle.
“Perfect, it’s worked!” I think, looking at the reflection of my symmetrically hanging scrotum.
Yours Truly
A. M. HOMES
I’M HIDING IN the linen closet writing letters to myself. This is the place where no one knows I am, where I can think without thinking about what anyone else would think, or at least, it’s quiet. I don’t want to scare anyone, but things can’t go on like this.
Until today I could still go into the living room and talk to my mother’s Saturday morning Fat Club. I could say, “Hi, how are you? That’s a very nice dress. Magenta’s such a good color, it hides the hips. Nice shoes, too. I would never have thought of bringing pink and green together like that.” I could pretend to be okay, but that’s part of the problem.
In here, pressed up against the towels, the sheets, the heating pad, it’s clear that everything is not hunky-dory. I’ve got one of those Itty Bitty Book Lights and I’m making notes.
Today is Odessa’s day. At any minute she might turn the knob and let the world, disguised as daylight, come flooding in. She might do that and never know what she’s done. She’ll open the door and her eyes will get wide. She’ll look at me and say, “Lord.” She’ll say, “You could have given me a heart attack.” And I’ll think, Yes, I could have, but I’m having one myself and there isn’t room for two in the same place at the same time. She’ll look at my face and I’ll have to look at the floor. She won’t know that having someone look directly at me, having someone expect me to look at her, causes a sharp pain that begins in my eyes, ricochets off my skull, and in the end makes my entire skeleton shake. She won’t know that I can’t look at anything except the towels without being overcome with emotion. She won’t know that at the sight of another person I weep; I wish to embrace and be embraced, and then to kill. She won’t get that I’m dangerous.
Odessa will open the door and see me standing with this tiny light, clipped to the middle shelf, with the pad of paper on top of some extra blankets, with two extra pencils sticking out of the space between the bath sheets and the Turkish towels. She’ll see all this and ask, “Are you all right?” I won’t be able to answer. I can’t tell her why I’m standing in a closet filled with enough towels to take a small town to the beach. I won’t say, I’m not all right. God help me, I’m not. I will simply stand here, resting my arm over my notepad like a child taking a test, trying to make it difficult for cheaters to get their work done.
Odessa will do the talking. She’ll say, “Well, if you could excuse me, I need clean sheets for the beds.” I’ll move over a bit. I’ll twist to the left so she can get to the twin and queen sizes. I’m willing to move for Odessa. I can put one foot on top of the other. I’ll do anything for her as long as I don’t have to put my feet on to the gray carpet in the hall. I can’t. I’m not ready. If I put a foot out there too early, everything will be lost.
Odessa sometimes asks me, “Which sheets do you want on your bed?” She knows I’m particular about these things. She knows her color combinations—dots and stripes together—attack me in my sleep. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night, pull the sheets off the bed, throw them into the hall, and return to sleep. She will ask me what I want and I’ll point to the plain white ones, the ones that seem lighter, cleaner than all the others. Odessa reaches for the sheets and in the instance when they’re in her hand, but still in the closet, I press my face into them. I press my face into the pile of sheets, into Odessa’s hands underneath. I won’t feel her skin—her fingers—only cool, clean fabric against my cheek. I inhale deeply as if there were a way to draw the sheets into my lungs, to hold the linen inside me. I breathe and take my head away. Odessa will pull her hands out of the closet and ask, “Do you want the door closed?” I nod. I turn away, draw in my breath, and make myself flat. She closes the door.
• • •
I’m hiding in the linen closet sending memos to myself. It’s getting complicated. Odessa knows I’m here. She knows but she won’t tell anybody. She won’t go running into the living room and announce, “Jody’s locked herself into the linen closet and she won’t come out.”
Odessa won’t go outside and look for my father. She won’t find him pulling weeds on the hill behind the house. Odessa won’t tell him, “She’s in there with paper, pencils, and that little light you gave her for Christmas.” She won’t say anything. Odessa understands that this is the way things sometimes are. She’ll change the sheets on all the beds, serve the Fat Club ladies their cottage cheese and cantaloupe, and then she’ll go downstairs into the bathroom and take a few sips from the bottle of Johnnie Walker she keeps there.
I’m hiding in the closet with my life suspended. I’m hiding and I’m scared to death. I want to come clean, to see myself clearly, in detail, like a hallucination, a deathbed vision, a Kodacolor photograph. I need to know if I’m alive or dead.
I’m hiding in the linen closet and I want to introduce myself to myself. I need to like what I see. If I am really as horrible as I feel, I will spontaneously combust, leaving a small heap of ashes that can be picked up with the Dustbuster. I will explode myself in a flash of fire, leaving a letter of most profuse apology.
Through the wall I hear my mother’s Fat Club ladies laugh. I hear the rattle of the group and the gentle tinkling of the individual. It’s as though I have more than one pair of ears. Each voice enters in a different place, with a different effect.
I hear them and realize they’re laughing for me. They’re celebrating the fact that I can
no longer pretend. There are tears in my eyes. I’m saying thank you and goodbye. I’m writing it down because I can’t simply go out there and stand at the edge of the dining room table until my mother looks up from her copy of the Eat Yourself Slim Diet and says, “Yes?”
I can’t say that I’m leaving because she’ll ask, “When will you be back?”
She’ll be looking through the book, flipping through the menus, seeing how many ounces she can eat. If I tell the truth, if I say never, she’ll look up at me, peering up higher than usual, above the frameless edges of her reading glasses. She’ll say, “A comedian. Maybe Johnny Carson will hire you to guest host. When will you be back?”
If I go without answering, the other ladies will watch me leave. When I get to where they think I can’t hear them, when I get to the kitchen door, they’ll put a pause in their meeting and talk about their children.
They’ll say they were always the best parents they knew how to be. They’ll say they gave their children everything and it was never enough. They’ll say they hope their children will grow up and have children exactly like themselves. They’ll be thinking about how their children hate them and how they hate their children back because they don’t understand what it was they did wrong.
“It has nothing to do with you,” I’ll have to say, “It’s me, it’s me, all mine. There is no blame.”
“Selfish,” the mothers will say.
• • •
I’m here in the linen closet, doing my spring cleaning. I’m confessing right and left and Odessa knocks on the door. She knocks and then opens the door. She’s carrying a plate with a sandwich and a glass of milk. Only Odessa would serve milk and a sandwich. My mother would give me a Tab with a twist of lemon. My father would make something like club soda with a little bit of syrup in it. He would use maple syrup and spend all afternoon telling me he’d invented something new, something better than other sodas because it had no chemicals, less sugar, and no caffeine. Odessa brings me a sandwich and a glass of milk and it looks like a television commercial. The bread is white, the sandwich cut perfectly in half. There are no finger marks on it, no indentations on the white bread where Odessa put her fingers while she was cutting. The glass is full except for an inch at the top. There are no spots in that inch. The milk looks white and thick, with small bubbles near the top. It looks cool and refreshing.
