by Clay, Josie
‘All my love, Sasha x
‘PS. I know you have a birthday coming up ...I have something for you.’
Chapter 24
Dale burst through the front door in response to my quivery call and after reading the latest installment, paced the kitchen, quarter lover, quarter mother and half mad.
“Right” she said. “We're going to see Nancy right now”.
The Saab was there.
“Stay here” she said. “I'll see if she's in”.
Loping up the steps she drew back the knocker, the little black dog barking at the window. She ruffled her hair and planted her hands in her back pockets, a non-aggressive pose, her breasts rising and falling, she shifted her weight. My Dale.
The door drew open and my chest slammed in a corresponding gust. Nancy, smiling enquiringly, Dale talking and moving her right hand as if she were a man describing big tits. She gestured towards the car. Nancy ducked her head squinting and I looked to my hands in my lap, fearing I might be petrified literally as well as metaphorically. Nancy nodding, listening intently, a pinch of salt playing around her lips. Dale shrugged, ending the overture. Nancy spoke, looking to the car and then Dale's hand wound round and round, my heart contracting as I realised she was beckoning. Oh God, oh God, mechanically opening the door, keeping my eyes on my Blundstones, hyperventilating, walking a tightrope, strange dolphin clicks in my head telling me to run away, my body an awkward contraption. Looking up impassively, I climbed the steps, both extraordinary sets of eyes on me.
“Hi” said Nancy. “Please, come in”.
She closed the door behind us. “Yes, downstairs”, she motioned, me in front, Dale's hand on the small of my back. The familiar floor, turning the landing where Nikolai had got stuck in the toilet and descending the stairs to the kitchen. The last time I'd done this, Sasha had been a little girl. The dog skittered madcap, immune to the gravity of the situation.
“Sebastian, bed” barked Nancy and he arranged himself tidily in a wicker basket. “Can I offer you coffee?” We both declined. “So” she said, filling the kettle, “please sit down. So Dale, it is Dale isn't it? Dale has explained how Sasha is being a bit of a pest”.
“Shit” I said, “we should have brought the laptop”, as if dismissing Nancy. I almost laughed and forgot why I was there. “Erm, sorry yes, er, well, I wouldn't say pest exactly” I flustered. Bafflingly a wisteria tickled the kitchen window. “It's more that she...”.
“It's more that we're concerned for her”. Dale, saving me.
“How so?” Nancy listening and busy doing stuff, like she did when I used to sit here on this stool, probably a habit she couldn't help now.
“Well” I said, “she claims she loves me and she thinks I feel the same way”.
“And have you done anything that could have led her to believe this is true?” Heating milk in the microwave.
My face flushed and she saw my indignation. “Sorry” she said, “I could have put that better. Is there anything which she could have misinterpreted?”
“Nancy, I've done nothing except give her encouragement and advice. She's subverting anything I do or say”.
“Yes, I understand” she nodded, taking it all in her stride, probably employing subtle calming techniques. I had an urge to upset her apple cart.
“You know she's got the locket, don't you?” That would do it. She sat, narrowing her eyes in recollection.
“How did she get her hands on that?”
I explained the lost and found story.
“She knew about us all along” I said. “She told me”.
“Yes, I thought she did, she was always talking about you, she was very fond of you”. Her eyes crinkled kindly, as if this was some fucking tête-à-tête over quiche.
“Yeah” said Dale, “and now she's too fond”.
“Look” I said. “She's a highly intelligent, focused girl. She's special and I don't want to hurt her, but frankly she's scaring me and I don't know what to do”.
“You must reject her” Nancy said.
My ‘phone beeped.
“That could be her” Dale said.
“She doesn't have my mobile”,pressing Read now. “Oh, my mistake, she does”.
'Hi Minette, I'll bring my folio tomorrow together with my present and we can celebrate your birthday. Can't wait S xx ;-) PS. I hope you like my new look.’
Passing the ‘phone to Dale, who handed it to Nancy. Her eyes swept across it, consigning the storm to a teacup.
“What new look?” said Dale.
“I have no idea” Nancy said. “I haven't seen her since yesterday morning”.
“Can't you talk to her?” I said.
“Text her back” Dale said. “Tell her you don't want her to come”.
“That won't put her off, she'll think it's you keeping us apart”.
“No” said Nancy, “allow her to come and reject her face to face”.
“I'm worried she might do something stupid. Despite everything, she's vulnerable”.
“Minette, I know my daughter”. She stood and moved her cup to the sink. “She'll get over it”.
I couldn't sleep, thinking about mothers and how they didn't have the monopoly on best practice.
Dale's sleeping form, her face moon silvered, like a stone effigy, a hand spanning my thigh, the heat from it intense, one of us sweating, probably me. She took a deep breath and licked her lips . I had to kiss them.
Breathing, “Minky, try and sleep”.
“I can't”.
She sighed, “turn over”, and fitted herself against me from chin to ankle, arms locked across my chest. “I'll tell you a story. Kan ya makan fi cadimi zaman” she purred, “al asri walawan”.
I yawned, wrapped in her total velvet.
Chapter 25
“Happy birthday, Minky”, placing a coffee.
I sat up, a large flat box on the duvet.
“How long have you been up?” I said, screwing my eyes.
“Ages, so long in fact that I fashioned this for you”, presenting an envelope. Utilising the label from a cat food tin, a collage on card resembling a good humoured ransom note.
'To my chicken who is the cat's Whiskas'. The fluffy, feline porn star in a pink heart.
“That's genius” I giggled, glancing at the alarm clock.
“Don't worry” she said, “it's only 7.15, she won't come yet”.
“It'll be sooner rather than later” I said. “She can't wait”.
“Try it on, try it on”, Dale clapping as I lifted the grey, wool pinstripe suit reverentially from the black box, Galliano in gold letters on the lid. Svelte and snug, I stepped into my boots.
“Fucking gorgeous” she said, “skitsnygg”.
As if bespoke, it cosseted and flattered. She smoothed my shoulders and the trousers rippled onto my Blundstones in rakish folds. “I'm so relieved it fits, do you like it, Mink?”
“Like it?”, admiring in the mirror the cut from the side. “I even fancy myself”.
The letterbox rattled and our eyes met ominous. We peered out the window at the benign bald spot of the postman. “I feel strong wearing this, Dale”.
“Well then you should wear it today baby, but use a napkin at breakfast”.
Opening my cards as the bacon sizzled. Dale inspecting a kitten sitting in a 'fuck me' stiletto shoe.
“Who are Jean and Bob?”
“M8's mum and dad”.
We ate my fanciful, white trash breakfast of eggs, bacon, Bird's Eye potato waffles, refried beans and maple syrup.
“Let's have some pop, Mink”.
“Do you think that's wise?”
“Come on” she said, “don't let her hold us hostage”, wringing the cork from the bottle but freezing mid-pour as the letterbox rattled. “OK, let's get this done” she said, handing me a glass. “Are you ready?”
Another impatient rattle. “Coming!” Dale shouted sweetly. Necking the bubbly, refilling my glass.
“Hi, you must b
e Sasha, I'm Dale, pleased to meet you” from the hall.
“Hello Dale, where's the birthday girl?” projecting her voice.
“Oh do go through” Dale said, “don't mind me”. Sasha didn't, already in the kitchen.
“Ta-da!” she announced, flinging her arms out theatrically.
“Gosh” I said, “that is a new look”. Her squiggly hair bleached: a manic, black-eyed angel.
“Do you like it?”
“Er, yes” I said. Dale in the doorway, arms folded like a bouncer.
“Anyway” she said, “Happy Birthday”, ostentatiously planting a kiss on each cheek and staring into my eyes, willing telepathy, the chemical plum of alcohol on her breath. “Ooh, is that champagne? May I have some to toast your health?” Spilling it into Dale's glass.
“Have you had breakfast?” I said.
“Yes, Cheerios. Here's to Minette and all those who sail in her” she giggled, thinking herself frightfully funny.
Dale roused, “Would you like something else to eat, Sasha?”
“Oh no thank you” she said dismissively.
Dale caught my eye and did the wobbly glass hand in front of her mouth. Sasha took a glug , smacking her lips . “I'll get your present” she said, barging past Dale. The snicker of a zip and she returned. I peeled back the expensive Kath Kidston paper, a half memory emerging.
“Recognise it?” she said.
The drawing she'd done as a child of Nancy, me and the strange, horned father. She pointed at the Todor goat thing. “Out of the mouths of babes, eh?”. Shark eyes fervent. The urge to take her over my knee and give her a good hiding almost insurmountable.
“Sasha, what is all this?” Her head snapped back in comedy puzzlement.
“All what?”
Dale excused herself, climbing the stairs. “Oh Dale” she said, “don't go too far, I've got something to show you!”, retraining her sights on me.
“This isn't the Sasha I know”, shaking my head.
“What do you mean? “Shotgun eyes cocked.
“You seem so brash and, well, presumptuous. That's not like you”.
Frowning, she recalibrated.
“I'm sorry, I'm just excited, remember how I was when I was a kid? Always so pleased to see you. I remember you smelled of cucumber and you always took my side against Nikolai and even mum. That time with the boots when I trod mud everywhere, I thought she was going to kill me, but you took the blame. That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me. You don't forget things like that. It was an indelible moment ...I knew you loved me”.
The strobing sepia of an old film, Sasha's dawning fear, Nancy's rising anger, the little hand in mine.
“Sasha, I was very fond of you”.
Neither pleased or displeased with this statement. “You'll understand” she said . “I've brought my folio”. A thin, gold chain around her neck and a walnut sized lump under her t-shirt, she grasped my hand and led me to the living room. “Oh Dale!” she chirped. “It's show time”.
“OK” she said, kneeling on the Persian rug before the folio, tucking some rococo curls behind her ear. “This is something I've been working on for a year, although the source material has been gathered over a number of years, incorporating images I took when I was a child and also found material that I have manipulated in Photoshop to both abstract and enhance, to give the collection cohesion. It is simply called 'Body of Work' “.
I put on my glasses. The heavy cover landed with a woomph, sending cinders in the grate every which way. “OK, the first section consists of pictures I took as a child and contemporary found ones”.
A set of four 8” x 6” prints mounted in a square:
An open Pokémon album.
Nikolai's doleful face and overexposed open hand.
Nancy from a low angle, hair contorted in motion.
An out of focus butterfly on stone paving.
They had a silence about them, compelling. Another flurry of ashes:
Mine and Nancy's legs standing, our jeans facing each other up to her waist and my hips, boots and Birkenstocks toe to toe.
Half of my face, blurred and bleached out, eye caught sapphire, teeth white.
A bowl of Cheerios with a child's hand grasping a spoon.
A small foot in a red sandal, matched next to an empty, giant Blundstone.
Touching and well grouped, even softening Dale.
The page turned with another unsettling gust.
“Part two” Sasha said. The format enlarged to 10” x 8”:
Taken from the living room window, me on all fours, unrolling a length of turf. Beneath it, a picture of Nancy from behind in silhouette, gazing out of the kitchen window, motionless. On the opposing page, me laying on the patio, wracked with laughter, arm clutching my ribs, the photographer standing over me, her ragged shadow falling across my face. Nancy had taken this, an innocent enough snap but not something you would sit down and share with your daughter …the icon fidgeted.
Me in a tatty khaki vest, hair like a boy at the seaside, striking a muscle man pose, fist to forehead, popping out a bicep and frowning gruffly.
“Nice body” Dale mused.
“Crikey Sasha, it's a bit me-centric isn't it?”
“This is the third section” she said, rapt with purpose.
The impact initially the size, now 12” x 10”:
The top of a tree through a window, green on blue, heavily pixelated like pointillism. A synaptic spark behind my eyes, a gentle cascade of panic, escalating to a full-blown landslide on the next picture:
A pair of boots, my boots, foggy in the way crime stills lifted from CCTV are, similar to the image I'd rejected at second selection stage. Dale looked on with interest at the print of Nancy in the doorway, brandishing a bottle and two glasses and the image below it of me, cross - legged on the bed, a silver camcorder in front of my face.
“Where did you get these?” I muttered, Dale double-taking my cornered face. “Sasha” I said, “that's enough”.
“No, but the fourth and final section is the best, I've tidied these up, it took weeks, I virtually repainted them” she said, turning the page:
The black crotch of my pants.
Dale gasped “Jesus”.
My gash, parted by Nancy's thumbs.
“You shouldn't have seen this, it was private”, hiding my face in my hands.
“And finally” Sasha said, turning the page:
Two pictures of me from the same angle, the first with Nancy's three fingers inside me up to her knuckles. The next, Nancy's profile, her serpentine tongue about to penetrate, in pin sharp clarity.
Dale sighed like an exasperated teacher. “What are you trying to prove?”
Sasha tapped her lips, choosing her words.
“Could you give Minette and I some space please?”
Dale took my hands, my face an inferno of wrath and humiliation.
“Do it now” she said. “I'll be in the kitchen if you need me”.
Unable to draw my eyes from the travesty, her boots rubbed across the floorboards.
“How did you get this?”
“I was twelve” she said. “Everyone was out so I poked around Mum's room, you know how you do when you're a kid. I thought I might find a vibrator or something. Anyway, right at the back of the wardrobe on the top shelf, I had to stand on a chair and remember which order I took everything out in, I found mum's 'you' box. It was like finding treasure again. All pictures of you, music tapes you made, I love Astrid Apple by the way thanks to you, and a camcorder and all the cables. So I put everything back, took the shoe box to my room and charged the camera”. She drained her glass and rocked in recollection.
“At first I was scared, I thought she was torturing you or something because you were screaming. But as I watched and listened to the dirty stuff she was saying, I understood it was a game and that you liked it. God, I was so turned on I thought I was dying and I couldn't stop watching it, slow-mo, still pause. I know you intimately,
Minette”. Her florid countenance leered on the outskirts. “Something made me find it so I'd know what to do”. Her blonde chaos edged nearer. Taking off my glasses, I closed my eyes, I'd seen enough. “Minette, I'm in love with you” she said, “and Dale won't want you now, will she?”
