by Irvine Welsh
We go back to the house and Jerry takes a bottle of wine from a rack in the kitchen and opens it. He pours himself a glass and offers me one. I can take the odd glass of red wine as it’s high in antioxidants, but I’ve had more than enough of that shit at the reading and the restaurant and I’m fucked if I’m drinking alcohol with this prick. I open a San Pellegrino. This asshole sure loves himself; he seems less concerned with Lena’s disappearance than his own career, such as it is.
— I was getting stuff together for an exhibition; I got people in New York and London lined up, but it all takes money and I kinda ran out of bread. I’d been hoping that Lena . . . well, that’s another story, he shrugs, lifting the glass up to the light then taking a sip. — Any idea where she could’ve gone?
— She was banging on about some big art project and wanting to go out to the Glades to shoot film, I lie again, then adding, — She wanted a filmed landscape as background for her little green men.
Jerry looks intently at me, like he’s trying to work out if I’m bullshitting. — Her future humans, he laughs, sitting down in one of the leather chairs.
— Yeah. I force a smile, annoyed at myself for colluding with this prick against Lena. I sit down on the couch opposite him.
— Cool . . . he says, then nods. — I tried to get her into multimedia, so I guess I gotta take some of the credit for that, and he flashes a self-satisfied smile. — So how do you know her? Are you an artist?
An aggressive snap of the air conditioning clicking to life makes me shudder. He catches the weakness and acknowledges it with a smile. It chills the room as much as the cold air pumping out of the ducts. — No, I’m a personal trainer. She works out with me.
— Wow, I thought you looked kind of, well, fit. He raises an eyebrow. — But that doesn’t seem like Lena’s thing.
— No, she’s been — I check myself, — well, had been working very hard.
— Good. Well, um . . . He raises his brows, settling his drink down on the glass table.
— Lucy.
— Well, Lucy, his eyes narrow, — if you’re feeling better, you should get off and I’ll carry on with my bad Sherlock Holmes impression.
— No, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, and to give me that key back. It was entrusted to me, and I can’t let you keep it.
Jerry suddenly switches on that cutthroat gaze again. It unnerves me and I detest myself for it. — Why would Lena entrust a key to you, Ms. Fitness? I’m not getting this.
— I dunno, she just did. Look, I know who you are, and I know that Lena doesn’t want you here!
— Oh yeah? He smiles, pulling himself out the chair and standing tall. He must be 6’, 6’1". There’s nothing but cruelty in his eyes and his tight mouth. That utter certainty of his own power. I feel fear rippling through me, weakening me. — Well, I don’t know who you are. You got some fucking nerve. You gonna take the key back? You gonna throw me out?
Oh my God. The last thing I want now is another fight. But the adrenaline is starting to rise in me, to burn off the anxiety. — If I have to. I stand up from the sofa. In addition to his height, he has a swagger, like he’s maybe done a bit of boxing or karate.
— Well, he smiles, patting his pocket, indicating the key, — come ahead, little lady.
Fucking patronizing creep; I just want to get close enough to do to his balls what that fish did to poor Jon’s. I open my palms in a conciliatory gesture. — Look, it doesn’t need to be like this . . .
Then he suddenly lunges toward me, his hand reaching out and grabbing my chin. I didn’t react. I feel his alcohol breath in my face and I didn’t react. — Know what I reckon? I think you’re the one who’s been up to no good. I can smell it off you!
I have to stand strong. Thank God that the fury is rising, melting fear’s paralysis, and I break his half-grip with a sweep of my forearm, then smack him with a left jab, which rocks him back. It’s not a killer blow, but I’m relieved to be in the zone, reacting like I was trained to do. — I’m warning you, back the fuck off!
He touches some blood around his lip. Looks at it, then me. — Too late for that now, bitch!
Then he leaps at me and, once again, I’m found wanting in my response, trying to bring up my knee, but missing, as we crash to the floor, him on top of me, his weight squeezing my breath out. I’m struggling to get traction, as he’s punching at my face. I’m blocking, but I’m pinned, and if he connects properly and I see stars it’ll be ground-and-pound and it’s all over. My sacred numbers aren’t stacking up. The stats never lie. They predict the outcome of the tennis game before a single ball has crossed the net. The election result before a single vote is counted. And as he connects again, a hook around my guard, I can feel it, feel him, pressing against me, hard against me, and I shout, — STOP! . . . and he halts for a second, and I tell him in an urgent, desperate gasp, — . . . we should fuck . . .
— What?! His fist is clenched above my face, ready to pound down again. — What did you say . . .?
— Don’t pretend this isn’t where this is going, that you don’t want to either . . . you get off on this as much as I do . . .
He looks flabbergasted for a second, then an abhorrent smile rips his face. — Looks like I’ve finally found a bitch who fucking gets me . . .
— And some, I pant, as he rocks onto his knees and starts to unbuckle his belt and unzip himself. I’m groping behind me with my left hand, and feel something solid in my grip, I’m thinking it’s a fireside implement, like the brass tongs or a poker. I see his expression change in recognition, but as I lift it and bring it down on him, with everything I’ve got left, I realize it’s the ax, and it’s swinging toward his head: wedging into his skull, almost perfectly splitting his parting.
I immediately feel not just the strength, but the life flooding out of his body, as he collapses, his dead-weight on top of me, half rolling off as I crawl out from underneath him, the ax still embedded in his head. There’s no blood at first. Then it starts to gush out, like a gurgling Miami Beach drain, almost fountainous, soaking into the antique rug. I sit back on the couch, my arms wrapped around myself, unable to move.
I’m there for a very long time, cold in the air conditioning, immobilized as the lifeless body’s blood seeps through the rug, pooling on the wooden floor and flowing slowly toward my feet. Luck, skill, deceit: you can upset the odds. You can force the hand of chance. Fuck the numbers; life is about exceptions. The exceptional make the exceptions, Dad used to say to me.
But to what end?
I don’t care about him. Some people can do nothing except exploit others. They see themselves as lions or tigers, high-end predators, but in reality they’re more like rats or cockroaches, just dirty fucking time-wasting pests. They are there to teach us to be guarded, cautious, and circumspect in our dealings with others. But they are vermin and they need to be crushed. There can certainly be no remorse at their passing.
I look through to Lena’s small office where the big Apple Mac sits on the desk. I’ve really messed things up, and it strikes me that there’s only one thing I can do to try and make it all a little better. And as I get into the computer and Lena’s email account, I can see my perfect opening.
44
CONTACT 17
* * *
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Please Can We Just Talk?
Lena,
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what you said. I just wish you would try and be less hurtful in your tone and more like the daughter I know. And whom I love more than anything, whatever you might think.
Yes, we do fear for you. Maybe it’s stupid. We’re small-town, God-fearing people, and perhaps we’re wrong to feel that way, but the world sometimes seems such a horrible and dangerous place, and perhaps when you become a mom, you’ll realize the overwhelming need to protect your children.
But I do realize that I have made mistake
s, and I want to put it right. I want this because I really love you so much.
I’ve actually lost some weight myself, as I’ve been following a Weight Watchers’ program.
I noticed you have a new iPhone. Can you please answer it when I call?
Love,
Mom xxx
* * *
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Yes We Can
Mom,
I’m sorry if I’ve seemed hurtful. I had to get things off my chest. I hope we can now have a more measured correspondence without recourse to manipulative behavior (you) or nasty, coldhearted abuse (me).
First things first: I want to express how proud you’ve made me, taking the first steps with this Weight Watchers’ program. We can argue the effectiveness of different programs, but mine is working very well (I’m at 132 lbs) and we should be encouraging each other. I’m enclosing an exercise plan and a diet sheet, which my trainer, Lucy, feels is appropriate for someone of your weight and age and general health. Follow this and you will see rapid and sustainable improvement.
The iPhone number isn’t mine, but belongs to Lucy. I only borrowed it to check some texts. My own phone isn’t up and running yet, as, to be quite frank, I’m enjoying the freedom from interruptions as I’m working flat out on my new art project and have a deadline of two months from now. After this I’ll get a new phone number sorted out.
I’ve been renting a space in a high-rise in downtown Miami, and working from there rather than the dark old studio. It has great views over the bay, the light floods in, and it’s working wonders with my mood.
Love,
L xxxx
PS Lose the weight for YOU. Dad’s affection/attention shouldn’t be related to how much you come in at on the scale, but if you respect yourself and realize that YOU are worth the effort, then other people will respect you more too.
45
FLA VERSUS NYC
WHEN YOU SUFFER from depression, you just have to hang in there. I read every darn self-help book on the subject. Unbelievably, following the advice of one, I even wrote stupid letters to and from my ten-year-old self. “Lena, you are such a brave and beautiful person . . .” All silly, hollow, useless stuff from snake-oil salesmen, profiteering from the misery of the weak, desperate, and insecure. There are plenty of miserable people in America. I know, because I was one.
It took me a while to realize that Jerry was having an affair with Melanie Clement from the GoToIt gallery in New York. Or not so much to realize it, but to admit to myself that I realized it. I sat and ate and painted and sculpted. Or tried to paint and sculpt. The more I ate, the less I worked. I usually watched movies or shows on cable, pretending, as many artists do, that it was all research, all about the images. How many episodes of CSI Miami do you need to watch?
It was a sunny Chicago afternoon, where spring had just kicked in and the city was visibly coming back to life. Jerry had returned from a “business trip” to New York, (or perhaps it was a “visit” to his parents in nearby Connecticut, in whom he’d hitherto shown zero interest) and he looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. There was something in his scrutiny which went beyond embarrassment and concern. Culpability? Guilt? Whatever, his tone was softer than it had been of late. — You’re depressed. So am I. We’re in a rut here. We need new inspiration. We have to get out of Chicago.
— I’m not moving to New York!
— Who said anything about New York? Baby, this stuff with Melanie is all in your head, he preemptively attempted to assure me. — No, fuck New York. Miami is the place. Every photographer worth their salt, he began, then corrected himself, — every artist worth their salt goes there, for the light.
I had no interest in leaving Chicago, I loved the city and had come to regard it as home, but Jerry persisted. And I knew we couldn’t carry on like this; at least by leaving town it seemed as if we were doing something. So we drove south, a U-Haul truck towing Jerry’s car. We mixed it up between luxury hotels and seedy drive-through motels, where every room looked like it had a horrible story to tell. We pulled into Miami Beach just as the sun dipped over the back of the downtown skyscrapers. When we reached Ocean Drive, an angry rasp of neon assailed us, screaming party time in our faces.
We headed for an art deco hotel on Collins, pulling into a parking lot, which was a field of tiny white pebbles, cemented into place. Inside, the hotel lacked the promise of its facade: a stack of functional rooms with floors covered in linoleum and windows darkened by shabby curtains. Ours faced onto an alley and another parking lot. Not that we were around much; we immediately hit the bars, nightclubs, and galleries of South Beach. Initially, it was wonderful, it seemed like the big adventure we needed to restore our relationship. We decided it was for us and went house-hunting. I took out a mortgage on the place on 46th, which had a big self-contained workshop space at the back. I instantly decided to convert it into my studio. This took a long time and consumed a lot of my energy. My weight started to drop.
I had planned to work with metal in addition to plastic, so I needed welding equipment as well as a kiln, drying racks, tool storage, and workbenches. Good fireproofing was also essential due to the proximity of inflammable materials, as was a proper extractive ventilation system because of the chemicals and resins I’d be using.
My biggest purchase, though, was a large stainless steel Phoenix incinerator, designed for animal carcass disposal. This model was both highly efficient and simple to operate. Unlike other incinerators, it had one chamber only, as it functioned at extremely high temperatures. You just loaded in the carcass, switched it on, and walked away, without needing to monitor the heat levels. It even had an inspection door so you could see when the animal carcass was reduced to ash. And you could get a medium-sized dog in there.
Inspired by Germaine Richier, I was enjoying my move into sculpting, and loved my new space. The workshop became my refuge. It seemed like the transplant was working out for me, at least creatively. Jerry was out all the time, drinking (“networking,” as he put it) and, for all I knew, fucking. But by that point I scarcely cared. My work was my real passion. I had my first exhibition in a gallery in Wynwood. Although many of the critics were still sniffy, the smaller 3D pieces I was producing were even more popular with collectors than the paintings. I was doing well: working hard, and losing weight, having gotten out of the habit of rewarding myself with eating.
Jerry told me he was desperate to exhibit his pictures of me. Before, I might have acquiesced, but my confidence had grown due to the success of the sculptures and the validation it gave me as an artist. I also knew his so-called project was a shallow, pitiable attempt to cash in on my fame, and would humiliate me in the process. I point-blank refused and told him he was crazy. He kept on at me, growing more enraged with each rejection, to the point I grew fearful at what he might do. Jerry was strong, physically intimidating; he’d wrestled and fenced, and he regularly worked out with heavy weights. We argued, and he slapped me hard across the face. Time froze. All I could feel was the steady throb on my cheek. That and my heartbeat. Jerry didn’t even try to apologize. Then he packed up his stuff, and the strangest thing was that I begged him to stay, even though I knew, with that slap, it was over. He said he had to go to New York as he needed “time to think and to get his exhibition together.” In his sulky, disappointed tones, he acted like I was the abusive party.
I watched him load up his car and drive away. It was a stormy night and the hot air tasted like dust, the dry wind whipping my hair into my eyes. I was both terrified and relieved that he was going. I had grown scared of him, of what he might do to me. Yet I couldn’t see what my life would be like without him. Everything I had ever imagined about myself had disappeared into the last slam of his car door and that engine starting up.
So he stayed up in New York, with her—Melanie—trying to get his stuff exhibited in her GoToIt gallery. Still flogging the dead
horse of his clichéd pictures of Chicago’s downtown homeless. He called me most weekends, usually from a bar when he was drunk. In between trying to harass me into signing a “contract” he had sent down, allowing him to exhibit those horrible pictures, he would make everything out to be my fault. — You never want to come out and enjoy life. You’ve reverted back to being the no-fun fat girl from Potters Prairie you were when I first met you. I tried my best. But I guess we are what we are, he’d muse: pretending to be sad, but sneering and dismissive.
His words ate away at me. I kept trying to work through it, but they resonated in my head. It was like a switch I couldn’t turn off.
And Mom kept sending me food. She always had. Her brownies, cakes, and pies, wrapped in those vacuum-sealed packs, arrived in a box each week, sometimes twice a week. Back in Chicago, in the loft, I just put them out where the other occupants or our constant traffic could gratefully munch through them. Here, alone in the house on 46th Street, they were all mine. Previously, I had just guiltily trashed them or let them go stale, but now I started to reward myself with them again. When I was rushing with the sugar or feeling that comforted, satiated way, I couldn’t hear Jerry’s voice. The voice of disapproval.
The weight came back on, and as for the art, I got stuck. I could put a lump of clay on a wheel, but I couldn’t form it. The welding I kept messing up. My touch and eye were out of sync. The molds wouldn’t set right. I took out my frustration on the suppliers, criticizing the quality of the materials they sent me. Inevitably, they stopped supplying.
Then Jerry told me that he was opting to stay in New York for a while, as it was more “vital” and “real” than Miami. In reality, he’d left me for Melanie Clement, that immensely privileged daughter of a wealthy financier and his fashion-designer wife. Melanie’s trendy GoToIt gallery ran one space in TriBeCa and another out in the Hamptons. I heard she was opening a third in Brooklyn, which promised to be “a new cutting-edge environment for more challenging artists.” I assumed this was the niche Jerry was desperately trying to wedge himself into.