Man Hating Psycho

by Iphgenia Baal

  — Jesus, I said.

  — You’re telling me, J__ said. — Another?

  The bottle of wine was finished and I was pretty pissed.

  — I dunno, I said. — I kinda need to eat.

  — One more then we’ll go somewhere, J__ said.

  Too drunk to disagree, I accepted. J__ went to the bar and came back with another bottle and two packets of crisps, which he opened and tore down the side then set in the middle of the table.

  — Where was I? J__ said.

  — You’d just kicked the dead fox, I said.

  — Oh yeah, J__ said, — So the women are like, ‘what do we do?’ And I’m like, ‘bag it and bin it’, but the women are like, ‘no fucking way’, and come up with some fucking insanity like we, meaning I, had to bury it. So they give me a spade and send me into the garden and tell me to dig.

  — Fucking hell, I said.

  — Innit, J__ said. — So I’m about to say, ‘this is crazy’, when I catch sight of X__ and it’s just like, I don’t know, there was something really off about it. She was so pale and just staring at me in trance and so I’m like, ‘ok, I wasn’t there for you before and if this is what you need from me, I’ll do it’. So I’m out in the garden and I’m digging and I dig this fuck off big hole. None of them help, mind. They go back inside and I can see them through the kitchen window sat around the table, drinking tea and I could tell they were talking about something important because they were sitting really close together and every now and then one of them turns to look at me. So, eventually I go back inside, like, ‘I’m done’, so they all come out and look at the hole and then they look at each other and they’re shaking their heads and they’re all like, ‘bigger, it’s got to be bigger’. They go back inside and I don’t know what else to do. I carry on digging. I’m digging and digging and I’m telling you, I dig this hole so big you could fit a person in it.

  — Creepy, I said.

  — You’re telling me, J__ said. — So it’s starting to get dark and I look in through the window and the women have vanished and I’m about to go inside and look for them when they just appear, like materialise next to me. They’ve got all this shit with them. X__ has a wooden drawer and C__’s got a tea towel and all these candles and they tell me we’re going to have a funeral.

  — Are you serious? I said.

  — That’s what they said, J__ said. — So I’m there thinking, ‘how’m I gonna get out of this?’, you know. I nip off to the bathroom to text Tinder girl. It’s too late to cancel but I let her know I’m gonna be late when there’s a knock at the door and it’s X__ and she’s like, ‘come with me’, and takes me to her bedroom and makes me sit on the bed and I’m all like, ‘I don’t think this a good idea’, but she ignores me, starts rummaging around under the bed. I’m watching the others out the window, lighting candles ’n’ shit so when X__ hands me this box I’m not even thinking, I’m still like, you know, ‘if you wanna talk’, ‘I think we should talk’, but she hands me this box, a shoebox, and is just like, ‘open it’.

  J__ stopped talking. Leaning back in my chair I looked at him through my glass of wine, his face distorted like a grotesque, his blonde hair tinged green by the drink.

  — Well? I said. — What was in the box?

  J__ shook his head.

  — Fuck, he said.

  — What? I said.

  — It was the baby, J__ said.

  — What? I said, sitting up in my seat.

  — No, J__ said. — I mean, it was the box they gave her, you know, afterwards. To remember. The scan and a piece of paper with handprints and footprints.

  — Shit, I said. — I didn’t realise… I trailed off, not wanting to put into words that I hadn’t realised the abortion or miscarriage or whatever it was had been so late, late enough to make it an actual baby and not just a blood clot. — Heavy.

  — Nor did I, J__ said. — It was so fucking heavy. I had no idea, you know, she hadn’t told me anything and there I was worrying about what to say to Tinder girl and she’s showing me this and I feel like a proper cunt. Like, who even am I? But then I look at X__ and it’s like I don’t even know. Like she’s a different person, somebody else, and she’s holding up this piece of paper with these tiny footprints and she’s staring at me, pale as fuck, and when I touch her, she’s cold. I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m like, ‘fuck the box’, try and take the piece of paper and give her a hug, you know, tell her, I don’t know, that she shouldn’t have gone through all that alone, that I was sorry, and I’m choking up because it’s like, what the fuck? But then the others start calling for us to come down and X__ is like, snap, box away, straight back to normal, and goes downstairs so I follow her, of course, try to take her hand but she shrugs me off and then we’re in the garden and the others have arranged it all. They’ve put the tea towel over the fox and there’s a patch of blood seeping through and they’ve put coins on its eyes and flowers all round it and man, I just felt like I was in over my head, you know? I wanted to duck out, but then X__ just shoots me this look, like, ‘you owe me’, so I don’t say anything, you know?

  — OMG, I laughed in bemusement. — This is insane.

  — You’re telling me, J__ said but doesn’t laugh. — So somehow I’m roped into being the undertaker and I lower this coffin thing into the hole and obviously the hole is way bigger than it needs to be and I was gonna say something when C__ starts reading. Wait. Reading this.

  J__ takes out his phone and types.

  — What is it?

  J__ puts his phone on the table and slides it over, rotating it so the screen faces me. It is open on a website called English Bestiary.

  — Scroll down, he said. — To fox.

  I ran my fingers along the screen until I came to an entry written in italics.

  — I like ‘feely wiles’, I said, reading the first line. — What are they?

  J__ shrugged. — No idea, he said. — It’s a load of fucking nonsense, but this is what they decide they’re gonna read. They do this whole ceremony.

  — I think it’s Middle English, I said. — Like, the fox is a wily animal that people hate because of its harmful deeds…

  — You understand that? J__ said.

  I shook my head. — No, just guessing.

  J__ shivers.

  — Don’t tell me you’re one of them?

  I laughed.

  — Anyway they’re reading this shit and X__ is like crying and they were really freaking me out. It was like none of them would look at me but I could tell they were watching and I’m really not getting it. I’m just waiting for it to be over so I can go but it goes on and on and then, when the funeral, or whatever, was done they’re like, ‘now you’ve got to fill it in’.

  — Man, I said. — You know, I saw X__ just before I bumped into you. I wasn’t gonna say but it was kinda weird.

  — She’s different, right? said J__.

  — She’s different, I said.

  — Yeah, well, so then it’s like I fill up the hole and when I’m done I don’t even go in to say goodbye, just slip out the alley at the side of the house and vanish. Make it to the pub to meet Tinder girl and I’m only five minutes late but yeah, the date was a total disaster.

  J__ sits back in his seat, his manner shifting.

  — So was this it? I said. — Have you spoken to X__ since?

  J__ pours more wine, finishing the bottle.

  — Not even. I don’t hear from X__ for the rest of the week and I don’t hear from Tinder girl either and to be honest I was glad of the headspace but then Saturday night I get another call. Another fox has snuffed it. A dog got into the garden. They’d been in the kitchen at the time and watched the whole thing. X__ begged me to come, said crows kept coming down and pecking at the carcass, that there wasn’t anyone else. So, of course I go round, and I’m ready to do whatever I’ve got to do but fuck, if you thought last time was bad, this was beyond, just beyond. There’s fox all over the lawn, guts, ent
rails, but they weren't red, they were black. I don’t know, is that bile? Whatever it was, it was rancid. And the girls, well, they had lost it. X__ was like lying under a blanket shivering, C__ had been sick, L__’d legged it to her boyfriend's. And you know, the weather had turned, it was one of the first warm days so the smell was rank, gutsy. I almost hurled. This thick, black shit smeared all over the grass, all over the patio. Like Marmite, only there was no way so much Marmite could exist in one place. It was like the equivalent of how much Marmite the whole country eats in a year. It looked like the time the rats got into the bins and left the lawn covered in strings of black bin liner and the week’s rubbish, only this wasn’t teabags and plastic, it was animal. Ribbons of intestine. Gross. Gross. Gross. And worst of all its head, which was the only part of it still intact, had one eye open staring up at the sky.

  The bartender rings the bell for last orders and this time I offer to get the drinks in, half in protest at being told I can’t drink anymore and half because I want to hear the end of the story. I get us a large glass of red each and return to the table.

  — So? I said. — What did you do?

  — I did my best to sort it out, J__ said. Put the fox in a bin liner.

  — Where was the mum?

  — No sign, J__ said. — No sign of either of the parents, just one of the kids asleep on its own. Anyway, I open up the hole and put the fox in with its brother…

  — Or sister, I said.

  — Or sister, J__ said.

  — And was there a funeral? I said.

  — No funeral, J__ said. — The girls didn’t even come out. X__ stays up in her bedroom and I can feel her watching me out the window but each time I look up she’s not there. When I’m done and I go back inside, there’s no sign of anyone so I just let myself out but I knew it was just a matter of time…

  — A matter of time until what? I said.

  — A matter of time until the last one, J__ said. — And sure enough, I got the call a few days later. The parents never came back, just left the last surviving of the litter on its own. The women'd gone maternal and tried to feed it warm milk on a platter but the fox wasn't having any of it. It starved to death. They'd found it on the patio, skin and bones, right outside the back door, like it'd been knocking or scratching, trying to get in…

  — Fuck, I said, thinking that in all my years in London, a city full of foxes, I’d never heard a story like this.

  — This time I arrived to find X__ home alone but surprisingly chill. We sat and talked while I put the fox in a bin liner. Not about anything heavy, just what I’d been up to, what she’d been up to, that it was cool we were talking, how this was all a bit weird. So, I went out and opened the grave, put the bag in, covered it up. I could see X__ through the kitchen window, standing by the sink, so I went in to tell her it was done, which is when I saw it nestled in the long grass like a lost shoe.

  — Saw what? I said.

  — A paw, J__ said. — I guess the cub must’ve chewed it off in the throes of starvation or something. It was so tiny and so perfect, claws still soft, like a baby and I dunno, I saw it, like, set in a clasp or something, surrounded by semi-precious stones, like one of those things that Victorians used to wear, you know?

  I nodded, thinking I knew what he meant.

  — And then I thought about the box, the shoebox under her bed, and I just thought the whole episode seemed so symbolic I thought maybe she’d want to keep it, the handprints, the footprints, like a talisman, a good luck charm.

  J__’s words are slurred. The bartender rings the second bell. J__ wobbles to his feet.

  — Let’s get outta here, he says. — You got any ciggies?

  I finish my wine. — No, I say. — But I’m sure we can ponce one.

  We go outside and succeed in liberating a couple of fags.

  — Which way are you walking? J__ said, lighting up.

  I nodded in the direction of home. J__ looped his arm through mine and we started to walk, not talking.

  — So? I said.

  — So what? J__ said.

  — So what happened with the paw?

  — Oh, J__ said. — Yeah… so I went inside and I'm like, 'look what I found', and X__ takes her time, putting down the sponge and pulling off rubber gloves, finger by finger, before turning to look at me. I'm like, clueless, 'this is for you'. I'm holding the paw, holding it out for her in the palm of my hand but when she sees it, I dunno. First, she kinda froze and I couldn't tell if she was looking at it, had taken it in or what. Then I thought she was gonna cry but she doesn't. She just stares at it and stares at it and stares it. Then bam! She slaps the thing out of my hand and comes for me, screaming, hammering her fists into my chest, scratching my face, totally mental, shouting, screaming in my face like 'get the fuck out. Get. The. Fuck. Out. Getthefuckoutofmyfuckingkitchen’.

  VODAFONE.CO.UK/HEEELP

  Most nights I remember to switch the ringer to silent when I go to bed, but that evening I’d come home drunk, passed out in all my clothes, and forgotten to do it. It wasn’t the shrill, persistent and usually un-ignorable ringtone that woke me up though, it was the electronic shivers of the thing vibrating in my pocket and dissipating into my guts.

  The call was from a number that wasn’t in my Contacts. That in itself didn’t mean much. I’d got a new phone a couple of weeks ago and not been able to figure out how to auto-transfer the address book. Too lazy to enter the hundred and twenty-one numbers manually, I’d saved the important numbers — work, family, boyfriend — and figured that my actual friends would call me, when I would save their number, while anyone who didn’t call wasn’t my actual friend.

  The call rang off and the screen locked. In the darkness an impression of an iPhone floated, scarred onto my retina, like when you accidentally look straight at the sun.

  I dimmed the brightness, unlocked the screen and opened Missed Calls. The number seemed familiar, like a number I’d dialled before. If that was the case it meant the caller was someone I’d known for time, since my pager days, when I’d known all my friends’ numbers off by heart because I was always having to punch them into phone box keys.

  The number called again.

  I picked up but didn’t say anything, just in case.

  — Hello? Hello? Hello? a voice said.

  I put the call on mute.

  — Are you there? the voice said.

  I listened, not to the words, which were standard phone call fare, but to the sound of the voice. Male, breathless, in an enclosed space…

  — I know you’re there baby. And I’m here too. Hello? Hello?

  I felt like I recognised the voice, especially when it said ‘baby’.

  I unmuted the call.

  — Who is this? I said.

  The line went dead.

  Laying the phone aside, I struggled out of my jacket and jeans, paused to guiltily remember I hadn’t brushed my teeth then got under the duvet and tried to sleep, but tomorrow’s hangover was already kicking in. I tossed and turned for a couple of minutes then unthinkingly reached, once more, for my phone.

  I selected the number from my Call List to save it, entering it as ‘Who’ before going into WhatsApp to see if ‘Who’ had an account with a profile picture. I found that they did but the picture wasn’t of ‘Who’, it was an Internet meme of a cat that said, ‘I’m not bipolar I jus remember shit out of nowhere and my mood changes’. Sounded pretty bipolar to me. A text notification.

  — Ding!

  Can’t say i don’t miss u bitch

  The message threw me. Not because it was rude but because I couldn’t think of anyone who talked like that, like ‘bitch’, unless they were joking. I got a disorientating feeling of there being something, or someone, I was forgetting. A situation I’d ignored, a person I’d insulted or neglected.

  — Ding!

  Hey

  — Ding!

  Don’t ignore me

  — Ding!

  I know ur there

>   When the number called again I let it ring out, not wanting to encourage Who by letting them know I was there while I tried to figure out who they were. Sitting up in bed. Giving the screen my full attention.

  — Ding!

  Call me back

  With the message thread open the notifications from this point turned from a ding to a whoop!

  — Whoop!

  I just miss you babe

  — Whoop!

  I know ur getting my calls

  — Whoop!

  I tink we are meant to be

  Flicking the switch on the side of the phone, I turned the ringer to silent.

  U n me

  I know I’m fucked up

  But I need u

  I love u

  Another call.

  U will always be mine

  Another text.

  I’m gonna find who trew him out the window

  That message settled it. I must’ve been mistaken when I thought I recognised the number or thought I recognised the voice because this message was clearly not intended for me. I didn’t know anything about any window or anyone who’d been thrown out of one.

  Starting to feel sorry for whoever it was, who was clearly having a time of it, I decided to intervene.

  Yo. I think u’ve got the wrong number…

  The reply was immediate.

  No.

  I’m not sure what to say to that. I reply with a single character.

  ?

  Who doesn’t reply for long enough that I’m about to put the phone away again but then another message arrived.

  All I wanted to say is that I saw u ok

  I saw you with him

  U didn’t see me tho

  The first two messages are whatever. Who thinks he saw whoever he thinks he is talking to talking to someone else. So what? But the last message is creepy. What was Who doing? Hiding behind trees following his ex-girlfriend (it had to be an ex) around on a date?

  The number called again. It rang twice then disconnected before another call came through from a withheld number. Who was clearly stupid and his antics were starting to grate.