by Dan Mooney
“I warned you,” he growled.
TRY TO FIX
For fuck sake. Get a grip on yourself, you maniac.
Denis made tea while Plasterer sat in the living room, clenching and unclenching his fists. The big clown looked as though he might spit nails. As the kettle boiled, Professor Scorpion stood behind Denis, a ketchup bottle in one hand, a BBQ sauce bottle in the other. His feet were planted against the ground as though he was bracing himself against the backfire of the two condiments, while spraying the walls with a look of rigid determination etched on his rotting face. The brown and red sauces made splatters on the wall that reminded Denis of scenes from gory slasher films he used to watch. The blood slipped and slicked its way down the wall in rivulets. The sound of the liquids escaping the plastic was rude. Penny O’Neill walked around as the Professor sprayed the walls, dipping shredded newspaper in water and glue, which she would then fling at the ceiling with venom. Some of them stuck, some of them hung down and some of them made blobs on the kitchen table. Deano followed Denis as he walked around the kitchen surveying the damage. “It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right,” Penny O’Neill repeated absently as she fired glue balls. There was a hard edge to her voice. Hard but brittle underneath. Denis made the tea with trembling hands and carefully placed the tea bag into the organic waste bin. Deano reached by him and lifted the bin over his head, emptying the contents all over his hairy body. Most of it splattered Denis as it headed for the floor. Denis ignored the filth for the time being. The Professor was on the move again, emptying flour into a bowl while he cast serious sidelong glances at Denis. He made a fist in the bowl and hurled it about, powdering the room. He grunted in satisfaction as Denis was forced to stand aside to dodge the worst of it. Penny O’Neill dumped what was left of the glue and water on the kitchen floor, where it began spreading with slow inexorability. There was no need to tackle it just yet. She’d be coming home for sure, but not anytime soon. Her text had said she was going to Frank’s to let him cool off. Plasterer had nodded knowingly when he found out. He called for a meeting, and tea.
Denis followed the suggestion, grateful for the opportunity to let someone else take the lead, though ever so slightly concerned by the domineering attitude the clown was displaying. There was no controlling the situation, no way to fight the mass of thoughts that surged through his head. They were making him nauseous. The organic waste on his clothes wasn’t helping. The walls still looked like they were spattered in blood. It ran in little tears to the floor.
“I know you feel guilty,” Penny O’Neill told him, as if speaking to a simpleton, “but it’s going to be all right. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.”
“Do I?” Denis asked, confused. It was nice to know that’s what he was feeling. The tremble in his hands was probably an indicator of something. Penny O’Neill could be exceptionally helpful when she felt like it. Her tail was flicking from side to side, and her hips swayed gently as she moved about the kitchen.
He made his way into the living room, the tea perfectly balanced on the saucer. Tiny ripples ran across the liquid.
“Penny O’Neill says I’m feeling guilty,” he said to Plasterer.
“Maybe you are,” the clown replied, sitting back in his seat and regarding Denis coldly. “Sit down. You’ll ruin the couch.”
Denis sat down. No point in arguing. Plasterer had been right all along. Denis had been reckless while the clown had urged caution. He had done this to himself with his stupid behavior. A Monday night, and instead of SVU while Penny rested her head on his lap, he had a ruined kitchen and stains on the couch.
“We’ve got a failed experiment here, Boss,” Plasterer told him in a calm and measured tone. He was still clenching and unclenching his fists.
“We do,” Denis replied.
“It was a fine idea, don’t get me wrong, but you’ve screwed the whole thing for us. It’s time to bail. Hit that parachute cord and land safely away from that plane crash waiting to happen.”
“It hasn’t already happened?” Denis asked. That was odd. The grocery store definitely felt like the plane crash. She hated him now. There’s no way she couldn’t.
“Not yet. Not with that one. She’s determined, you see. Remember what Frank and Ollie were like at the start? It’ll be worse with her. This one doesn’t know when to quit.”
Plasterer shook his head slightly as he spoke.
“Do we move out?” Denis asked, still confused. He briefly forgot that he owned the house.
“No, no, no. You see what she’s done to you? What you’ve done to you? You need to tell her to go. Tell her you’re sorry, and that you want to keep being her friend if she’ll have you, but she has to go. I think we can agree on that, right?”
“Will that fix everything?” Denis asked. “Will that make everything go back to the way it was?”
“I’m not so sure, Boss. It might, it really might, but she’s got a lot of dog in her. She’ll not take it easy, and she may redouble her efforts. That girl wants something you no longer have, something we don’t want to give, and she’s determined to get it. She may come back, but right now we’re working on damage control. It’s time to cut her loose.”
“It’s time to cut her loose,” Denis echoed. “I’ll tell her in the morning.”
It felt good to have the decision made, sort of. Something else was blossoming at the same time as his sense of relief, a nagging feeling that this was all wrong. Once she was gone, she’d be gone, and he’d be back to normal. That should have filled him with contentment, but it didn’t. Perhaps he was still feeling guilty. He decided he should ask Penny O’Neill about that. No, for some reason there was a sense that this wouldn’t be the great wonderful restart that he wanted. It would be something different. He tried not to focus on it.
See what he’s got you doing? How he’s got you thinking? This isn’t you, it’s him. And it’s you.
“Don’t think about it too much, Boss,” Plasterer warned him. “Try not to think at all. It works for Deano. Clean instead. You love that. The walls are a mess in there, and so is the ceiling and the floor. I’ll order them to behave and you clean up.”
He was right again; Denis did love cleaning. He could just let it all fall out of his head while he cleaned. Turn on the radio and listen to some classical music and clean. That way when she arrived home she’d see a completely spotless kitchen. She’d understand, a little anyway. She’d get that he liked things a certain way, and maybe she’d hate him just a little less. He steeled himself for his three big jobs. He’d wash the flour off his hands, get the kitchen clean, then he’d write his to-do list for tomorrow and first on the agenda would be telling her that she had to move out.
He never told her though.
He got out of bed at the appointed time and fixed things in the appointed way. The bed was made, the pajamas consigned to the laundry basket, the laundry basket consigned to the laundry room and the pajamas, as well as some other odds and ends, were consigned to the washing machine. Teeth were brushed the appropriate number of times and a tie tied the appropriate way. He wasn’t just dressing and preparing for his day, he was getting ready for war the only way that he knew how, clad in armor of office shirt and trousers. The only way he knew how. Somehow though, she had fired the first shot before he even got up. She was already out of the house, and sitting on the kitchen side table was a tidy cardboard box in which three expensive-looking ties sat, carefully rolled and stored in top condition. Next to the box was a note that read:
Denis, I’m sorry. So very sorry. It is your life and your house, and I’m a guest here, I know that. There’s no reason for you to change the way you are, you’re just fine to me. I’m going to give you a little space for a few days and stay with Frank and Tash. I’m on the end of the phone if you need me and I’ll be back on Wednesday.
Love,
Rebecca
&
nbsp; He read the letter four times. Love, Rebecca. He read that part eight times. He folded the letter carefully and placed it in his wallet. The notepad paper, with the tiny little flowers on it, made a stark contrast with the Spartan wallet he carried.
“What’s that?” Plasterer asked, walking into the room, adjusting his gloves.
“Just my wallet,” Denis said hurriedly. There was no reason that Plasterer had to know what it was. He was altogether too pushy about his advice anyway. Denis opted to keep the note to himself. In fact, where Plasterer and his other housemates were concerned, he might just keep more than a few things to himself.
“How did you sleep?” he asked the clown, as he fixed his morning coffee and weighed his breakfast cereal.
“Fine,” grunted Plasterer. “I’ve got Deano hair in my mouth though. That fur ball is great as a hot-water bottle, but he makes a shocking mess. Where did we ever get him?”
Denis smiled at the thought of Plasterer and Deano spooning each other.
“Did you tell her?” Plasterer asked.
“She’s gone out already. Says she’s going to give us a few days to settle down.”
“She’s smart, that one,” Plasterer observed, clearly unhappy. “Knows you’re likely to pull the trigger on this one. She’s making her move first, and waiting for you to think your way into another decision.”
“Probably,” Denis agreed nervously. He couldn’t tell the clown that she had written him a note, or that she had signed it Love, Rebecca. He definitely couldn’t tell him that it made him happy and relieved. He said no more, and went about his perfectly normal day.
* * *
And so it was that Tuesday operated exactly as it should. There was routine, room cleanings, an inspection of his housemates’ room, which looked as he expected it would—as though a bomb had hit it. He had to apply in writing for access to their room. He was an automated cleaning machine and no stain, mark, scuff or pile of dirty laundry was safe from him. He stopped at Rebecca’s room and wondered how she had managed to get so under his skin that he was already calling this her room. Hers. Like it belonged to her, as if somehow she belonged in his life. Downstairs, Plasterer smashed a bowl into the wall. For fun.
In the evening there was NCIS, SVU and CSI. Wonderfully structured acronyms that made him relax into his evening. Deano curled up by his feet as they watched TV, and the effect was warming. The mood in the house was markedly different, even the Professor could feel it. He shuffled about the house with increased energy and urgency, and he even managed to say a few sentences with fewer than thirty words in them. Denis was proud of him. Work was done and things filed. It was lovely, and it should have been all Denis wanted, but something felt missing. Her spot on the couch was empty and her absence conspicuous.
His batteries were fully recharged by Tuesday night, but he looked to where she usually sat, and imagined her there laughing and discussing people and things about her work. Penny O’Neill sat with her head in his lap, purring contentedly. Her blond mane didn’t seem as comforting anymore. He tried to think of something else and found himself idly wondering what it might be like if her hair was brown, dark brown and ever so slightly curly. And so by the time Wednesday rolled around, he found himself losing concentration during the afternoon. She would sit with him that night, he thought to himself. She would eat the dinner he cooked and tell him that it was lovely. There was something about this that enticed him. He tried to steer his mind in another direction, but it seemed always to float back to her. He would have to try harder. It’s an easy enough task to perform if you know how, and Denis Murphy was an expert in not thinking about things he didn’t want to think about.
Her arrival was without incident. She said hello quietly, not looking in on him, pottered about the kitchen with some things and went to her room. She arrived back a few minutes later and put on a wash. Nothing was mentioned about Monday night. Nothing was mentioned at all. He sat during her arrival, bolt upright, breathing heavily through his nose. Next to him at his desk, Plasterer sat motionless. Something about his body language seemed to be giving him away though. He was hoping she’d walk in, hoping she’d see him. Denis cringed inside and silently begged for the moment to pass. He heard her move back upstairs, and he sighed with relief. Plasterer just blinked.
Denis made dinner as she went about her evening. The tension was palpable; it floated all about the room. He pushed his way through it with even, measured strokes for each chop of each vegetable. Every now and again he’d look at her as she walked by, doing this or that. She did the same, shooting glances his way as she passed. The radio did all the talking. Eventually, she sat down at the table and unfolded a newspaper. She left it right in front of where Denis would typically sit. He tried to suppress a smile. She pretended not to notice it. He set the table for dinner, laying two places. Now it was her turn to try not to smile while he pretended not to notice. She cracked eventually, when her dinner was served. He returned the smile. Penny O’Neill had been right. Everything was going to be okay.
They ate in silence for a while, both smiling occasionally at one another. The tension had evaporated, and they were back to the comfortable familiarity that he had begun to get so used to.
“How is it?” he asked her eventually.
“Delicious,” she replied.
Denis had been a clever enough wordsmith in his day, but right there and then, he could think of no words to describe the elation he felt. Her simple blessing, one barely significant word, meant more to him than a month’s worth of well-ironed socks.
In the doorway, behind Rebecca, Penny O’Neill and Professor watched. They hardly moved, just stood in the doorway watching. He ignored them. It’s not easy ignoring a long-legged blond woman who also happens to be a cat, any more than it is to ignore a rotting corpse that also happens to be a professor, but Denis managed. There was no way that he was going to allow this moment of reconciliation to be ruined.
“How has your week been?” she asked.
“Fine,” he replied. “I got a lot of work done, and lots of tidying and cleaning. I missed you though. It wasn’t the same without you.”
Suddenly, Plasterer was in the doorway. He gestured for Denis to come to the doorway. Rebecca smiled at him, her most brilliantly wide, utterly heartwarming smile. It made his heart race. It made him think of afternoons sitting on grass with his head in her lap while he read. Plasterer gestured again, impatiently. Denis smiled back at her and asked if she’d like some tea. Plasterer shook his head from side to side, seething, before slowly turning and making for the stairs. Penny O’Neill and the Professor both backed away in perfect unison and then turned and marched up the stairs. Deano stood in the hallway; he had been hiding behind them. He crept behind the hallway door and continued watching them through the gap between door and hinges. Considering how hard it was to read the emotional responses of a hair ball, it was something of a guess, but Denis felt that Deano was pleased. There was no way to know if that was true; he just had a feeling. Later that evening, as they sat by the TV, watching sitcoms that made Rebecca laugh in the most adorable way, Denis decided to make tea. In the kitchen, Plasterer stood by the kettle.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” he leaned in and whispered, his voice calm, but loaded with the threat of reprisal.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Denis whispered back.
Careful now.
Rebecca was calling something from the living room. Something about an actor on the television. Denis couldn’t hear her with Plasterer whispering so close.
“The others are confused. They expected her to be gone by now, but I’m not confused. I know what you’re doing. And I think you’re an idiot. A fool of a boy who doesn’t know what he wants. You can’t tell where the real danger is, and you can’t even decide what you’re feeling from one minute to the next. You’re an emotional cripple, Denis, and
on top of that, you’re blindly stupid and massively ignorant. But that’s okay. You run the ship—for now. So I’ll just wait here until you come crawling back to me, like you always do. Something will go wrong, and Plasterer will be there to fix it again. Eventually you’ll realize that I’m what’s good for you, Murphy. When you do, you know where to find me.”
Oh fuck.
Rebecca was calling out something else. Something about the same actor. Denis fixed a smile on his face.
“Stop watching me,” Denis told Plasterer shortly. “I’ve got company.”
Plasterer nodded at him slowly, but something told Denis that the clown wasn’t agreeing with him, he was deciding something. Denis didn’t want to think about what exactly was being decided here, so he chose not to.
“Sorry,” he called in to the living room, never taking his eyes off Plasterer. “I was in a world of my own there for a little bit. Gimme a second. I’ll be in and you can tell me about it.”
The look the clown gave him was unsettling. Like it was sizing him up, weighing and measuring him for the kill. He’d seen Plasterer bully the others, he’d watched the clown grow in strength, and confidence, and now it seemed that might be coming around to haunt him.
The week rolled on, as weeks do. Wednesday became Thursday, which wasted twenty-four hours being itself before it became Friday. For Denis Murphy, those delineations weren’t real, and so Wednesday’s tasks became Thursday’s tasks and so forth. More and more, time on his to-do list was being allotted to watching television, something Denis did a lot of during the week. It relaxed him to sit with her and just let the time pass. She relaxed too. And laughed. Sometimes she stretched when she was tired. She would lock her fingers together and then twist her hands over her head, and the natural curves of her body became so much more glaringly obvious. Denis found himself staring and hoping she’d get more tired, so she might stretch again. It reminded him of a cat. Penny O’Neill was in his head and at the door at the same time. She was watching him again, just like she had at dinner. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
