Nature and Necessity

by Tariq Goddard

  All three of them burst out laughing.

  ‘You don’t feel like dancing my dear?’ asked Eager.

  ‘She makes me feel like the family’s grey sheep,’ said Regan without thinking, ‘you’d guess she’d spent her whole life just waiting to jack her booty!’

  ‘Sometimes the simplest possible answer is not always the most obvious one. I think she’s tired and unhappy. Those aren’t high spirits Regan; they’re your mum’s way of trying to forget about it all.’

  ‘What’s she got to forget about? I mean, she has the perfect life, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Has she? Did she tell you that?’

  Regan opened her mouth to reply only to find she possessed no answer. Inquiringly she peered over the dancefloor, and at her mother’s latest manic display of energy. Petula, sensing she was being stared at, looked back. It was the first check on her rush. Regan was casting a critical eye on her, and indeed, would seem different to her from that night on. A moment earlier Petula had briefly felt something snap and give way in her ankle, but quickly danced over the abrasion. The pain may have affected her acumen; why else was she wasting time mooning at a party pooper who lacked the wit to seize the moment as she had? If Regan did not know how to enjoy herself she jolly well did, and there was not a moment more to lose. The night was getting away from them. Petula was in agony and yet euphoric. Life was sweet. Record decks were her new favourite instrument, verses and choruses could go hang – she had seen the future and could dance to it. Grabbing the whistle off Fogle’s neck she blasted it for all she was worth. The music was just as beautiful as it had been before, Fogle scooping her off the floor and rubbing her in toxic perspiration, the swelling ankle forcing her to dance on one foot now, anything to keep up with the changing frequencies, anything to keep up with the others, anything to keep up with all this marvellous… ecstasy.

  *

  Jazzy stabbed his knife into the ball, left by the son of one of Petula’s guests from the summer before, and watched it deflate under his hand with no obvious satisfaction. He was used to carrying on with a conversation long after it was finished. Music was thumping over the lawn, shrieks of laughter carrying across the garden and down the hill, to where he was slumped on the drive, weighed down by a jagged melancholy that had struck his legs dead. Embracing his pain, Jazzy stretched out on the track in a star shape, the heavens too far away to be the coded shapes and messages which would normally have vied for his interpretation.

  The gravel beneath him kept him bound to earth, it was prickly and rough, like cut hair stuck in his collar, the irregular incisions probing through his clothing a reminder of nature at her most closely inhuman. Jazzy wondered whether an untimely accident might qualify as a suicide attempt; it was not impossible, a car quickly speeding up the drive unlikely to know what it had hit until it was too late, his sorry flesh mulched into the potholes he so loathed to fill in life as his soul ascended to a far kinder place…

  Thinking better of his personal dissolution, Jazzy crawled into the bank and wiped the lingering taste of Esther’s lip gloss off his mouth. Revenge had not tasted as sweet as it should, his vindication at taking the war back to Tinwood ebbing before he even finished his correctional beating, with the effects of his redemptive fuck nearly as fleeting. He sighed. For this he had waited so many years; there was no such thing as victory, all roads led back to life.

  Before him, crouched in the incline, sat his bungalow, squashed by the unkempt bushes and overgrown hedge that ringed it off from the rest of the farm like a wall, shabbily anonymous and unloved, easily confused for another of the estate’s condemned relics. The hedges had grown so high that his little garden had developed its own weather system, frost covering the mossy grass as no light could get in, the building utterly overwhelmed by the bocage that hid it from view, lending it the look of an underground bunker.

  He had no wish to go in and resume his life, the one he so often complained he ‘wanted to be left alone to get on with’. Jazzy’s longing lay in the opposite direction, to rejoin the party he had all but debarred himself from; the lights, laughter and noise that tauntingly continued without him at The Heights. Was he the rejector or the rejected, banisher or banished? In all the to-ing and fro-ing Jazzy had forgotten the order of sequence. Nor did he have any great wish to remember, suspecting that to do so might lead him back up into the path of advancing traffic, with Esther’s thoughtful kindness lending a gratuitous helping of self-reproach to his usual diet of thunder and woe.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he mumbled, his rolling papers stuck together and tearing at the first ruffle of his impatient touch. Crossly he fumbled in his pockets for another pack, finding only a twisted bit of fruit-gum foil and an unpaid parking ticket. It was too much. Could not, for once, the lies be the truth and he, and not his sister, be the heir anointed? He would be a good and kind and generous ruler, no one would have anything to fear from his reign, there would be no reprisals, no recriminations, no hangings or shootings, only justice and peace. The tatty grey shawl of internal exile, dragged by a king never-to-be would be cast off for good, replaced by the dignity and fellowship of a Camelot in which he wielded Excalibur. This fantasy was at once so pathetically base, yet nakedly true to his unacknowledged intentions, that Jazzy winced, glad that no one could peer into his mind and listen. What burnt his conscience most deeply was that the sensible, and still very good compromises once open to him, were all but impossible in the stew he had helped to prepare, simmer and bring to boil. It was hardly conceivable that in his short life he could have gone from living in a rural palace to dwelling on a frog’s bottom just yards away from his former splendour, the juxtaposition all the more torrid for his trying to convince himself that his lowly hovel represented progress. It was not that he really cared about the trappings of wealth or status (though he had to confess to a soft spot for comfort), just that in the absence of any other trappings they were preferable to his meta and physical stasis.

  Jazzy stepped over the broken gate and approached the side door, the front one long-obscured by rotting piles of wood that waited there, year after year, for cutting. The bungalow walls, originally granite-grey lumps of concrete, were buried under thick smears of brown algae and creeping ivy, the small windows practically eyeless, hidden under the detritus of a prolonged winter and delayed spring. Loose slates hung menacingly from the roof, blocked and broken guttering patrolling the building’s fringes, the chimney that had twice caught fire the Christmas before reduced to a crumbling red stump. Broken glass, fragments of brick, rusty beer cans, dog bones, soggy newspapers and torn bin-bags populated the garden, choking the snowdrops and daffodils, with what grass remained thin and irregular thanks to the all-seasonal shadow cast by the vegetative fortifications. Some of this, Jazzy had to concede, was his fault, and some of it not, a life wasted apportioning the blame all he had to show for his years as master of this mess. Having never wished to acknowledge the entirety of his character, his feelings, no matter how repetitive, came as a reliable surprise to him. The geographical upshot of this failure to progress was marked by Jazzy’s attachment to the same spot, however much he had grown to hate it, and the expectation that it would, without his lifting a finger, one day change for the better.

  Jazzy nudged open the door, which was warped and stuck against its frame, its shaded location affording it no exposure to the sunlight that could have shrunk it back to its former shape. He was, he knew, all too ready to embark on an argument, as what he required now was complete understanding, in whatever form he decided it should take; and what human could give that? The thought of Jill, sat all night watching television, sipping cider and doing nothing to help him or housekeep, suddenly enraged him; he needed a partner, not a passenger, though just as quickly his anger palled. She was as much a victim of their exclusion as he, and to that end, he must show her more compassion and thoughtfulness, however hard it was to stick to this resolution in practice; her simpering agreeability too often stoking the rage
it sought to placate. But for all her talk, what had she ever done to concretely help him? He needed a doer, not a dippy chatterbox…

  The dim hall, packed with obstacles of every kind; broken video recorders, stacks of mouldy photo albums, an iron mangle and second-hand fridge, awaiting use or sale, always insured a collision or two, doing nothing for Jazzy’s mood as he approached their living quarters at the other end of the dank building. Despite the exhausting vexations of the past few hours, Jazzy was alert to a subtle difference in his hearth. The bedroom door was closed, thin shafts of darkness pouring through the cracks in its rickety frame. On a normal evening Jill would have been curled in front of their small black-and-white television that was enthroned on the chest of drawers at the foot of their bed, until she fell asleep to the dulcet burrs of closedown. Instead the kitchen light was still on and a familiar noise, not immediately identifiable but one he had heard her make many times before, was being emitted uncommonly loudly. Without having made his mind up as to why, Jazzy felt a volt of apprehension puncture his gloomy irritation, followed by fearful disbelief. Quickly he stumbled towards the kitchen and snatched open the cloth partition that acted as a door, tearing it down as he did. Once in, he could not quite believe what he saw.

  His partner, or at least, the soles of her feet, were waving to him, like hands raised during the terrifying descent of a roller-coaster ride. Between them were the olive oven-bun buttocks of his neighbour, never before observed in this position, pinning the rest of Jill to the sideboard that had been all but broken asunder in his last climactic strokes of lust. How, thought Jazzy, had Mingus got his arse that colour living in Yorkshire? Fighting the urge to be sick, he realised it was of no accord. His partner was being fucked by another man. Squeaking like a spring relieved of a great weight, Jill started to jabber a torrent of loving nonsense into Mingus’s ear, his slight body leaning into hers, as he slowly fought to recover his breath.

  Time, a lot of time, appeared to elapse before Jazzy heard himself shout, ‘Right, right! That’s enough, I’ve seen everything, what the fuck is this? What the fuck are you two doing? Don’t deny it, I saw you!’

  Mingus bolted back, losing his balance on account of the jeans still rolled round his legs, and fell as heavy as a plank onto the floor. Panicking like a writhing fish out of water, he accomplished the buttoning up of his trousers from where he lay, so that as he struggled to his feet and faced Jazzy head-on, he could at least parry any incoming blows with his modesty covered.

  ‘Get out of the fucking way, I don’t want to see you. Cunt.’ Lamely, Mingus hung at Jazzy’s side, as Petula’s son glared at Jill aghast. Unlike her lover she had been slow to remorse, and whatever shock registered by Jazzy’s entrance had gone by the time he laid eyes on the face he thought he knew. There was a twinge of regret on her lips, but not the kind Jazzy sought, rather a feline crossness at not having been afforded the time to enjoy a post-coital cuddle, having sampled the rest of the goods.

  ‘You could at least pretend,’ yelled Jazzy, ‘do you know what you’ve just done to me? Christ, I can see the come dripping down your fucking leg!’

  ‘Don’t make it worse,’ she said quietly, ‘I know it looks bad.’ ‘Looks! Bad? Bad! What are you talking about? You haven’t seen bad!’

  ‘Jazzy, please.’ Mingus had unwisely put his hand on Jazzy’s arm in an attempt to recover the situation. ‘I’d just come to say hi before I went back… and then…’ Pausing, Mingus followed the line of Jazzy’s look down to Jill’s naked thigh, a trail of what he left further up on its way down, his qualifications nefariously inadequate in the face of such physical proofs, ‘I didn’t think anything would happen… and I’m so sorry you know…’

  ‘Nothing happened! You’re trying to tell me nothing happened? What kind of mug do you think I am?’

  ‘No, I said I didn’t think anything would happen…’

  ‘Christ! Are you going to get it out and fuck her all over again? Get your hand off me you cunt!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I… it’s not as bad as it looks! I mean, it’s not happened before.’

  ‘Too right it hasn’t boy, I’d have known, what? You think I’m a fucking mug now?’

  ‘Jazzy… we were just talking, and then…’

  ‘You can’t deny it, I saw you! Right, I saw you!’

  ‘I’m not trying to deny anything.’

  ‘Just stop talking, okay? Shut up, I want you to shut up now. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen; you’re going to shut up. Or I am going to punch you, right?’

  Jill had adjusted her skirt and, having reached down to pick up her panties and stuff them behind the radiator, was watching the two boys with a dissociative interest, as if she were waiting for a quarrel that had begun long ago to finally resolve itself.

  ‘I swear this has never happened before Jazzy.’

  ‘I know it’s never happened before; you snake, you think I could live with someone you’d been stuffing and not know, right? I know it’s never happened before. But everyone knows what you are, you know that?’

  ‘Okay, you can call me anything you like. You can hit me if you like.’

  ‘Just shut up, I don’t want to talk to you, you fuck off, fuck off right, you just fuck off, stop speaking, I don’t want to hear you, okay? Just fuck off out of it. Now, fuck off!’

  ‘Please Jazzy…’

  ‘Go on, get out, get out before I hit you. Fuck off cunt.’

  ‘Fine, if you want to hit me hit me, if it makes you feel better. I want you to hit me, go on.’

  ‘I said get out, get out of it, cunt.’

  ‘What are you going to do to her?’ Mingus pointed at Jill who, having lit a cigarette and reached into the fridge for a can of cider, had admittedly never looked so capable of looking after herself.

  ‘It’s none of your business. Friendship over, right? That’s it. I want you out of my life. That’s us finished, for good, right? Over. Hang on!’ called Jazzy, ‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’

  ‘You told me to go.’

  ‘You think you can just walk out of here after this? That I’m just going to let you get out of here scot-free after what you’ve done? This is my home, my house, my table, my chairs, my food and drink and my girl, right? No way, no way are you going to just waltz out of here after what you’ve done to me, no way! You lay one in her, take a piece and not pay for it.’

  ‘What do you want from me? I said you could hit me.’

  ‘How about you begging forgiveness for starters, on your stomach like the snake you are, and you, you slut,’ Jazzy glared at Jill who was nonchalantly sipping from her can, ‘I haven’t even got started on you yet!’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down and stop working yourself up. You know Jazzy, this is probably for the best,’ said Jill, the perverse beginnings of a smile tickling the ends of her mouth, ‘I mean, we haven’t been getting on for a while, have we?’

  ‘I don’t believe this! Are you mad! I can’t believe what I’m hearing, right? You should be on your knees begging me for forgiveness! What have you been telling her?’ Jazzy asked, ramming his fist against Mingus’s shoulder, ‘Turning her against me because of some bloody book you read at your college. Yeah?’

  ‘Grow up.’

  ‘No,’ said Jazzy, pushing Mingus again, ‘you need to hear this and listen for once’ – Jazzy tapped his ear vigorously – ‘you’ve made her think you understand her, right? That you’re so weird and cool and intelligent, completely down with women and understand their feelings yeah? That’s not you man, that’s me, so stop pretending to be me and find some tail of your own, you poof!’

  ‘Oh fuck off. She’s lovely, too good for you, I never did it before but it isn’t that no one else would have in my place, anybody would have given the chance! You’re the joker Jazz. No one will tell you, but so what? Somewhere in yourself you know you are.’

  ‘You mind your manners or you die motherfucker!’

  ‘Go on then, kill me you
prat!’

  Jazzy lunged forward but Mingus had already taken the precaution of driving his fist straight into his erstwhile friend’s ribs. Something cracked. By the time Jazzy had recovered his pose Mingus was gone and Jill had opened another can of cider, a provocation too far for Jazzy who pulled it out of her hand and smashed it against his head. The physical pain was neat shorthand for what he was feeling inside, the second self-inflicted blow from the can releasing a catalytic torrent of invective that Jazzy was soon lost inside, his injuries hanging out in all their betrayed and humiliated agony as the cider streamed down his snarling face.

  ‘How could you? In our home? The place where we live? No! No! No! I won’t have it, I won’t have it! You owe me an answer, right? Are you listening, can you hear me, are you bloody deaf, dumb and blind all of sudden? Speak for Jesus’s sake, I’m not having this again, it’s answers you owe me, answers, a reason, get it? A reason why you had to destroy our life here, kill our lives, why did you do it Jill, why?’

  Jazzy had earned the right to ask, their shared past acting as a deposit before a future he never once doubted they’d still share, the shock that Jill might have wanted to do what she did more appalling than the actual crime. The deed could be palmed off as mistake, the heinous spell of an outside influence, but her motive could not. He needed her to admit that she was as sickened by her reasons as he, and then the healing could begin, albeit it within the frame of perpetual and unconditional contrition.

  ‘Listen Jilly, all that you love is all that you’ll ever own, you leave love and you’re homeless, right? What you’ve done, right, is disgusting, no one could argue that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. No, because I can’t help that part, so don’t piss on me by using that against me, okay? Don’t piss on my face… you’re a bitch but I love you!’

  Before this storm Jill said nothing, no words at all, not to Jazzy’s exhortations for an explanation, apology or answer, his hands coming close to but never actually touching her; not with so many other things to break first.