The next time she fell pregnant he didn’t get angry at all. On the contrary. He brought her cups of tea, kept asking how she was, wanted to make sure she didn’t overexert herself. And he’d nuzzle her swelling belly, kiss it, and whisper to it—what are you going to be when you grow up? What are you going to be? Over the next few weeks she produced a grandfather clock, two sixteenth-century tea chests, and an ornate dining table designed to seat a party of twelve. Every time they’d appear, pushed and pushed, after so much pushing the wife thought she’d burst, he’d unwrap the covering gloop and snip the cord like a kid opening a Christmas present. There were manymore Chinese takeaways, and the wife began to associate the taste of sweet and sour with the nausea she always felt after giving birth. And it wasn’t just Chinese takeaways the husband would buy; bit by bit, the hand-me-down furniture was replaced with fresh items he’d get from Argos. But every new item she’d produce from her stomach still somehow made them look as drab as the hand-me-downs, and a bit more plasticky to boot. In the bedroom the husband would become more experimental—wonder if they’d produce different types of furniture if they had sex in different positions. They did it standing up and were soon blessed with a Victorian standing lamp. They did it on all fours, and out came a whimsical framed portrait of four dogs playing poker. He invested in a lavish edition of the Karma Sutra, and was delighted with the gold statuette of Vishnu she delivered, so very exotic.
One evening, in a daze of sweet and sour, she told him that she missed the set of brass toasting forks he’d sold that day to buy their dinner. He looked perplexed. Told her patiently that they had no need for toasting forks, brass or otherwise. She agreed; but added softly that they were their children, weren’t they? Right down to their little brass handles they were their children, and she missed them. He told her that she couldn’t possibly miss something she hadn’t even had until one o’clock that afternoon; she was being illogical, it was just her post-natal depression playing up again. And she supposed that was true. In the same way that she couldn’t help but feel there was something different to their lovemaking now. She’d lie beneath him, watching as he bounced around on top—well, whenever the Karma Sutra allowed bouncing—and she’d zone out a little watching his face, the gritted teeth, the rolling eyes, the spit, all that effort, all that work. It didn’t seem like it had anything much to do with her anymore. She no longer felt the urge to squeal; if there was any squealing to be done, he’d be doing it, and it’d be a squeal of avarice. But when she tried to bring this up, as delicately as possible, she’d be told the same thing. Illogical. Post-natal Depression.
And then, one day, something truly miraculous happened. She’d just given birth to a four-poster bed, and thought little of the fact—she coolly admired all the frills and drapes, but she’d long ago taught herself not to get too attached to things like that. It was a big bit of furniture, it all but filled the room, and the wife wasn’t sure how her husband could get it to the dealer. But, she considered wearily, that was his problem, his part of the job, let him deal with it. She tried to swallow down the inevitable taste of sweet and sour sickness that took her after a delivery, no matter what she ate before it. And was about to go into the kitchen, make herself a cup of tea, when she felt something fall out of her body and hit the floor with a dull clang.
It was a kettle, she saw. Not an especially nice example of kettledom, the stainless steel a little rusted. Not antique either—her Mum’s one was just the same, and she doubted that predated the seventies. Under normal circumstances, the kettle would be a disappointment, you’d be lucky to get a fiver for it. But sitting on the floor next to the opulent bulk of the four-poster bed, it looked laughably banal. Probably no better than the hand-me-down kettle they had in their hand-me-down kitchen.
But it looked like her.
She’d all but given up looking at her children for any signs of resemblance, to see whether they took most after mummy or daddy. However impressive it might have been on its own terms, the four-poster bed was really just another four-poster bed; she knew intellectually it was of her flesh, but she felt no bond to it. But the kettle was something else. She couldn’t work out why they looked so similar; the spout didn’t look like her nose, the handles were nothing like her ears. Maybe it was just because it a bit tarnished, a bit dirty, and it wouldn’t go for much in Oxfam.
“Peek-a-boo,” she said to the kettle, and smiled. “Peek-a-boo!”
And she knew then that she was going to be all right. She could cope with all of this. Produce children who weren’t going to be her children. Live with a husband that she knew less and less day by day. Make love that wasn’t love at all. If she could just have her little daughter by her side, see her face whenever she needed to, remind herself what this whole family thing was supposed to be about. Was she a daughter, maybe he was a son . . . ? She picked up the kettle gently, ever so gently. Daughter. Definitely daughter. How lovely! Up to now all the furniture had been boys.
She’d got her now, daughter, she told herself, daughter, and she wasn’t going to get away. She cradled her in her arms, and the baby kettle gave a sigh of calm that quite broke her heart. She wouldn’t tell the husband, this was all hers, she was all hers. And she took her into the kitchen, kissed her softly, and shut her in the cupboard.
ROADKILL
i
He’d said he liked companionable silence, that was a sign of friendship. But when it came down to it, what they had was just silence, really, wasn’t it? As they sped down the motorway in the dark, no sound except the low roar of the engine and the occasional grunt of the windscreen wiper, she felt drowsy, she thought at least that she might get some sleep. But she didn’t dare—it’d seem rude—they weren’t companions, not really, in spite of what they’d done—and he kept on stealing little looks at her, throwing her awkward little smiles, and saying, “Sorry I’m being so quiet, sorry.” If he wanted the companionable silence then why did he keep popping up with such stuff as, “Oh, look, only twenty-two more miles to the nearest service station,” or “Oh, look, cows”? Always with that apologetic grin she’d found rather endearing only a day before.
“Do you want some music?” he said at last, “would some music be nice?” He fished around for a wad of CDs with his spare hand, “I think some music would be nice,” he said, “I’ll see if I can find Elton John.” And then she didn’t so much hear it as feel it, there was a thud, and a quick streak of something very solid against the windscreen. “Jesus,” he said. He didn’t drop the CDs, she noted, he put them back safely into the glove compartment. “Jesus, what was that?”
“Pull over,” she said. And he looked at her with bewilderment. “Pull over,” she said again, and he did so. The car stopped on the hard shoulder.
“Jesus,” he said again. “We hit something.”
You hit something, she thought. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I think so,” he said, “yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Are you all right? What do you think it was? I mean, it just came out of nowhere. You saw that, didn’t you? There was nothing I could have done. Jesus,” he looked up at the windscreen, “I hope it hasn’t damaged anything.”
“You should check,” she said, and he just gave her that bewildered expression again, so she sighed, undid the seat belt, and opened the door. She wondered whether he might be in shock, but she’d seen him look bewildered a fair amount that weekend, and it couldn’t always have been shock. She wondered whether she might be in shock too. “Fuck,” she said, as she stepped out into the dark and the rain, “fuck fuck,” but actually she felt good, some fresh air at last, and something was happening, there’d be no need for a companionable silence now, she didn’t feel like saying ‘fuck’ at all. She gave the windscreen a cursory inspection, and from inside the car he gave her a hopeful thumbs up. She gave him a thumbs up back, but she hadn’t looked, not really, there could be shards of glass all round for all she cared. And then she turned and walked back down the hard sho
ulder to look for a body.
It wasn’t rain, not really, just a bit of wetness in the air, and it was refreshing. She liked it out here in the black, on her own, and she wondered how long she could get away with it, with not returning to the car, returning to him—pretending instead to look for whatever it is they might have hit, she’d never find it now. And then she saw it, maybe about two hundred yards behind the car, a little mound that had been knocked into the middle lane. She stood parallel to it, but couldn’t make out what it was. She thought it might be moving. She waved back, indicating he should reverse the car. For a moment nothing happened and she thought she’d have to walk all the way back and tell him what to do, “fuck,” she said, and then, slowly, surely, the car began to back down the hard shoulder towards her, he’d got the message.
“It’s just there,” she told him, as he wound down the window. “Try to angle the car a bit, so we can see what it is in the headlamps.”
“What is it?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Try to angle the car. You know. So we can see what it is in the lamps.”
He did his best. She still couldn’t identify it, it was sprawled in such an odd position, she couldn’t even see if it had a head. But there had to be a head, because it was definitely alive, whatever it was it was twitching, you couldn’t twitch without a head, could you? “Probably a bird,” he said, and she jumped, she hadn’t heard him get out of the car, “you saw the way it flew at me, probably a bird.” And he sniffed. But it looked a bit large for a bird, and besides, surely that was fur? “We should go and get it,” she suggested, and he looked horrified. “It’s in the motorway,” he said, “we can’t walk out into the motorway.” But there were no cars coming, no headlights in the distance, and the creature twitched again, for God’s sake it was twitching. “It’s not as if we’ll be able to help,” he said, and she gave him a look, said a “Sod it” under her breath, and then ran out into the road.
Up she scooped it into her arms, and she made to dash back, but as she did so she felt that the creature had been stuck down on to the tarmac, she fancied there was resistance as she pulled it up, and she was suddenly terrified that she’d left bits of the body behind, that she’d make it back to the safety of the hard shoulder with only half an animal and the rest of it trailing after her. “Are you all right?” he asked, and his arms were out wide, and for a moment she thought absurdly that he wanted to hug her, after all that had happened, and she thought, no, he wants to take the animal from me, he wants to share this—but not even that, now his arms had dropped uselessly to his sides, he was doing nothing to help, nothing. And as she reached him she had a sick urge to drop the creature to the ground, but what would be the point of that, why bother rescuing it in the first place? And though she suddenly felt such revulsion to it, she kept it in her arms those few seconds longer, she knelt down and laid it out gently on the hard shoulder. And she realized at last that it was fur, matted fur, and she wondered whether it was matted with blood or with rainfall. “There,” she said, as she pulled away from it at last, “there you go,” and, stupidly, “you’ll be all right now.” And it did have a head she saw, thank God, and it turned that head and fixed her with its eyes.
“It’s a rabbit,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Or a hare. I always get the two muddled up. Aren’t hares supposed to have longer ears? Or is that the other way round?” He thought for a bit. “Do you think those are long ears?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor me. If we had another rabbit here, you know, side by side. You know, we could compare.”
They stood there for a good half minute, just looking down at it. And it lay there, for the same length of time, just looking back. “It’s not moving much,” he said.
“No.”
“Do you think it’s dying, or what? There isn’t much blood. I mean, unless there was in the road. Was there a lot in the road?” She didn’t answer. “What do we do now?”
“I think,” she said heavily, “we have to put it out of its misery.”
“Right,” he said, “right. And are you sure,” he went on, licking his lips, “that it’s actually in misery? I mean, it’s not making much noise. It’s not squealing or anything. Surely if there were misery, there’d be squealing and stuff.”
“Help me find a rock,” she said. And they both went up to the embankment, scrabbled around in the grass. It didn’t have to be a rock, anything sharp or heavy would have done, but it was rocks that they found. Hers was better than his. When he saw that, he dropped his to the ground.
“How are you going to do this?” he asked her.
“I’m not going to do it,” she said, and she’d never been more sure of anything. “You’re going to do it.” And she gave him the rock.
“You could have just left it in the road,” he said. “Why didn’t you just leave it in the road? Some car would have come eventually, squashed it, there’d be no need for rocks and shit.” And she felt such a flare of anger at that, but she didn’t raise her voice, “Go on,” she said. Go on, finish it. Finish what you’ve started.
So he stood there, all five foot six of him, weighing the rock in his hands, aiming downwards. “You’re going to have to get closer than that,” she said. “Jesus,” he said. “What, right down in the, you want me on my, right, Jesus.” And he got down on his knees. “I hope you’re happy,” he said. “I hope this is what you want. Jesus.”
“You’re going to have to hit it pretty hard,” she told him. And she almost laughed at the look he threw her then, and it wasn’t funny, not really, she really mustn’t laugh. But he’d tried so hard all weekend to accommodate her, to keep smiling no matter what, and here on his face at last was something like fury. “Go on,” she said. And he muttered something, and lined up the rock to the rabbit’s skull, as if he were taking a snooker stroke, for God’s sake, as if he were swinging a golf club. “You might want to hold its head,” she added.
“I’m not touching it,” he said. “I’ll kill it, but I won’t touch it. Oh. Oh. Wait. Look.”
And she’d had enough suddenly. “I’ll do it,” she said, “if you can’t.” I just want to get home, she thought.
“No,” he said. “What’s this?”
She stooped beside him.
The rabbit had a wing. It was thick and black and leathery. And wide, it lay stretched out to the left, a wider span than the body from which it had unfurled. The rabbit blinked at them, as if it was as surprised as they were.
“It can’t be real,” he said. “It must be stuck on.” And he hadn’t wanted to touch the creature before, but now his fingers were all over it, feeling the wing, prodding at where it met the fur. “I can’t see any join,” he said. “I thought it must have been stitched on or something, but it just comes out of the skin.” The rabbit gave a little cough, almost politely—and from out of its right side a second wing unfolded. It spread even wider, and it fluttered a little under the drizzle.
The rabbit shuddered and gave a single grunt. It was only for a beat, it was very quiet, but they both heard it. “I don’t see what difference it makes,” she said.
“Maybe there’s some sort of scientific base nearby,” he was saying. “You know, where they put ears on mice and things.” He was on his feet now, looking about, as if expecting to see a laboratory on the horizon. “Do you think that could be it? I mean, maybe it escaped. Maybe they want it back.”
“Give me the rock,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” And for a moment he genuinely didn’t know. Then he grinned at her, talked very slowly, very patiently. “But, no. But we can’t kill it now. That would be terrible. I mean, look at it,” although he was doing nothing of the sort himself, he was beaming with a big smile now and his eyes were bright. “I mean, what if this is even better than an experiment from a lab? I mean, this could be a new species. Can you just think of that?”
“No,” she said.
“Look,” he said. “Look.” And then he was silent for a moment, as if trying to work out what she should be looking at. “Okay, look. We came out here for something magical. Didn’t we? I mean, that was the whole point. And maybe this is it. This is something magical.”
“It’s in pain,” she said.
“We’ll get it a towel,” he said. “There’s one on the back seat, I think. Yeah, we’ll make it nice and comfortable. Go on,” he said. “Go and get the towel. Go on then,” and there was just a touch of impatience in his voice now, and as she looked at him his eyes were gleaming in the rain, it was raining for real now and it made his face look shiny and alive.
And she fetched the towel, and he wrapped up the rabbit within it as gently as he could. Lovingly, she thought, almost lovingly. She tried to help, but he waved her away. He stroked the wings and he stroked the fur, and told the creature it was going to be okay. The creature looked at him a little doubtfully, but at least it didn’t make that grunt of pain again, that was something. And they carried it to the boot, they shut it in, and then they drove away.
Remember Why You Fear Me Page 8
