by Naomi Joy
‘Is something wrong?’ she asks, when he doesn’t let go.
‘I can’t do this, I’m sorry,’ he replies.
His hands drop to his sides and her fingers search for his.
‘What? Why? What’s happened?’
His mistress is oblivious. She doesn’t know his poison, so she can’t administer the antidote.
‘I’m worried about you,’ she says with puppy-dog eyes. ‘Emelia doesn’t deserve you.’
Her thick tresses drip down her neck, her back, almost all the way to the curve of her hips. Her chest shudders as she breathes. In and out. In and out.
‘I want to do the right thing,’ he starts, staring just south of her collarbone. ‘And the right thing is to stand by Emelia. She’s not well. She needs me.’
‘You think you should be with someone just out of duty?’
Her hand snakes onto his leg, her hair falls forward, her dress dips down at the front. She moves him through to the lounge then climbs on top of him as if the conversation is the exact opposite of the one they’re actually having. She grips his chin and, just when he thinks she’s going to kiss him, she slaps him. Hard.
‘What the—’ he exclaims, the after-sting running laps around his head. No woman has ever stood up to him like this.
‘You’re a pussy,’ she snarls. She tightens the grip her thighs have round his body, kissing him, pushing herself deeper onto his lap, straddling him to the point of suffocation, her flimsy dress riding high, one of her heeled sandals sliding from her foot to the floor.
‘Take these,’ he mumbles into her mouth, a wicked smile playing on her lips as two blue pills part her lips, his fingers wet with her saliva. She swallows.
‘That’s more like it,’ she muffles back, her soundwaves reverberating down his throat. She kisses him harder and then, seconds later, she’s limp. Her body a ragdoll.
‘Yes,’ he says, moving his hands up under the delicate fabric of her dress, yanking down the sides of her underwear. He isn’t strong enough to stop himself. Powerless to this power over him.
He’d caught this woman’s eye a while ago. He’d fancied her from the very first moment they met, but he hadn’t considered it would ever actually happen.
She’d knocked on their door one night. Model-hot. Cute bunches of iridescent hair flopping around each of her ears, cow-like eyes above plump lips, arms squeezing her breasts together, a God’s honest crucifix (yes, really) dangling down between them. This woman, in all her doe-eyed glory, had come to him, and she was standing on his doorstep now with a bandage over her knee, her calf stained rusty-red from a recent accident.
‘Sorry about this,’ she’d beamed, radiating body heat and helplessness.
‘I just wondered if you had some antiseptic?’
He’d let her in and she’d walked to their lounge window, entranced by it.
‘What an incredible view,’ she’d said and he’d thought the same: enjoying the one down her top.
She’d smudged blood across the apple of her cheek. If he pulled her close she’d smell like antiseptic gel and chamomile lotion and at that moment he’d thought, I’m going to do this.
‘You have a little something,’ he’d said as he’d licked his finger, then touched the skin of her cheek. The precursor to all great love affairs.
Emelia never stood a chance after that. Her demise would have to be fast-tracked now there was a new girl he was dying to kill.
Blog Entry
24th December, 4.09 p.m.
Anthony appears at the kitchen doorway, his moon-white face fading to lily-white skin and I wonder, just for a second, if we’re going to talk about last night. About the woman he brought back.
He’s texting as he passes through the threshold, then he spots me. He turns, watery eyes wide, and smiles.
‘You’re back,’ he says, croaky voiced, as if he wasn’t expecting me, still feeling the effects of last night’s indulgence. ‘Merry Christmas Eve.’
He leans in to kiss me – something metallic on his breath – almost as normal, almost as though his lips hadn’t been on another woman last night. I search the lines in his face for the answers I know I’ll never get. Why me, Anthony, what did I do to deserve this?
‘You too,’ I reply, hunching my shoulders, cupping my hands under opposite elbows, hugging myself, in need of the comfort. It has been such a long time since someone has touched me without an agenda. Mum’s long hair had stuck to my cheek as she’d hugged me goodbye the other day, wispy and split, just like her. Anthony’s kiss like an unwanted tattoo on my cheek now, an outward impression of love, nothing more.
‘You OK?’ he asks, moving towards me, grabbing my shoulders briefly, leaning in. ‘Cat got your tongue, darling?’
Something has changed in him. The affected softness I am so used to is missing and I stand, shaking, the sudden force and release of his grip knocking me off-centre.
‘I was…’ I begin to say, tasting his stale breath as it beats against my face. ‘I can’t go away with you,’ I manage, finally.
He sighs. My hands are still tight to my elbows, my mind tying itself in knots as I try to work out what’s about to happen. I watch him pull a wine glass from the cupboard then bend to the rack beneath, taking his time to select a bottle. I don’t know why but I imagine the base of it, heavy, making contact with the side of my head.
‘And why’s that?’ he asks, eyes narrowing, weaselly, furtive.
I am not sure why I have come back here. To him. To this. A word – run – flits through my head. I’m not thinking straight, I can’t bear to be with him, or my parents, but I’m not sure how to be alone, either. A horribly weak part of me wants him to draw me close, to wrap me up and take me to bed. At this point I wouldn’t even care if he stuffed me full of pills that I’d never wake up from. I am going to die anyway – what’s the difference?
He takes a long pause as he narrows his bloodshot eyes and pops the cork, the sound like a muffled starter pistol, warning of worse to come. His question causes something in me to crack and I pound through to the hallway. I feel his footsteps thud as they follow me through.
I pull the camera from its hiding place – this one was useless anyway – and hold it high.
‘I didn’t see who she was,’ I begin. ‘And I don’t want to know.’
I let the camera drop to the floor, its glass eye smashing into the wood, a barrier between us.
‘Ah,’ he replies, his focus on the jagged shards on the floor. ‘Are there any other devices in my house that I don’t know about, darling?’ His words are like steel, unwavering and unapologetic.
‘No,’ I lie. ‘This is it. And, to answer your question, I won’t be able to go away with you on account of your infidelity.’
A heavy cloud of silence fogs between us.
‘The tickets,’ he says slowly, ‘were a motivator, darling. I didn’t really expect you to be well enough to go.’
I raise my eyebrows, allowing him to elaborate.
‘I leave tonight,’ he says.
‘What?’
Again, I am outmanoeuvred. Caught off guard.
‘My flight’s tonight.’
My mind splits, half of it elated – he’s going without me, I finally have the freedom I want – half of it thick with defeat – he’s won, he doesn’t care any more, it’s over, I’m over.
‘I have cancer,’ I mouth, in shock. Christmas alone, with only my tumours for company.
He doesn’t say anything in response, and silence licks at our lips.
‘I know,’ he replies. ‘And I have a ticket to Greece,’ he adds. ‘I was going to tell you it was work, or whatever, but now that you know, I guess… Well, it’s better like this, in the long run.’
We stand opposite one another, a new line drawn in our toxic relationship.
‘Are you going with her?’ I ask, meek, quiet, embarrassed.
He holds me in his stare for a moment, weighing something up. ‘No,’ he replies, after a while.
I notice a thick blob of brown liquid pooling at the bottom of his nose but ignore it, his brow creasing in confusion as he dabs it away with the back of his hand.
‘I’ll be gone when you get back,’ I say, finally.
‘Fine,’ he agrees.
My stomach drops, no longer an organ but thick with heavy, stone-like growths that force it to plummet to the floor. I clutch it, and then follows pain, stabbing.
I turn, fast, and then – I run. Free from him. Finally.
Blog Entry
25th December, 11.15 a.m.
I stand at the lounge window of my studio-flat watching the sleet battering the pane, my phone in one hand, a dirty stick of Christmas chocolate in the other. My jeans are baggy, the denim bunched and gathered round my waist where I’ve hiked them up and wrapped them over to keep them in place. I am a skin shedder, serpent-like.
I’m not moving a muscle, except for my eyes, which dart across the grey vista below, expertly tracking a woman on the street. She’s been caught out in the rain, light hair soaked to dark, a pile of papers above her head, the bottoms of her jeans wet through.
I’ve been making a habit of this since Anthony left for Greece. Staring. And, yes, I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m looking for her. For any woman peeking up at his flat with a wry smile. I’m not entirely sure why I’m so caught up in this mission. Now that I have what I want I should be able to move on, but I can’t. I want to warn her, to tell her the truth.
I thought I saw her earlier. I’d tracked a woman in a red coat from a distance. There’d been something about the way she moved, the way she walked, no, the way she strutted, all the way to Anthony’s flat. She’d been looking up at the block, walking so close I’d heard her heeled boots strike the pavement beneath, and then, she’d buzzed. Did she think he was there? Hadn’t he told her he’d gone away?
I’d sized her up, my heart thudding in my ears, until she’d turned round and looked right up at me, across from her, in my studio. She was lined. Middle aged. No, it wasn’t her. I’d looked away.
*
I venture outside. The streets aren’t as busy as usual today, but still feature their regular collection of detritus: blue and green wheelie bins in orderly lines, rows of neatly parked cars up and down the surrounding roads, and dark, dead leaves that meander down the pavements with each passing gust of winter. I trace the oak trees and silver-birch lined paths of Regent’s Park, my legs pumping, my hair flapping in the wind, strands flying incessantly across my face, cold hands stuffed into coat pockets, the sounds of birds high up in the trees floating across the dying landscape, their tranquillity at odds with my inner ferocity. Then my phone bleats at my side, pulling me from my daydream, to let me know it’s low on battery. That’s when I realise – glumly – that my charger is still at Anthony’s flat.
Lucky, then, that I have kept my key.
*
I push the front door wide. The place smells different now that I am not welcome here and it hurts to be reminded of that as I hurry through to the bedroom, my feet bouncing along the plush carpet. Anthony told me he’d chosen this soft and fluffy flooring so I would feel as though I were walking on clouds when I went to bed. Because you’re an angel, darling. I think he’d said.
I will be soon, Anthony, I will be soon.
I become aware of my reflection in the full length mirror to my right. The body within it is not one I recognise. Nor is the face. My hair is knotted and frayed, a patch of dark frizz in the centre, the skin hollowed underneath my cheekbones but bunched together in a thin, fatless roll under my chin. My lips are pale and thin, my eyebrows unkempt and furrowed. I wail soundlessly, a croak, a wordless cry that would morph into a howl if I let it. But I don’t. I tear my gaze away and I’m confronted by the Emelia he loves in a picture-perfect photograph in the mud-trench on the heath, beaming at the camera, her happy eyes so full of life, her perfect nails pulling his hand round her waist. I gasp, then take it in my palms. If only I could go back. Escape. Run.
I decide to write a note, to warn the woman who’s staying here, in my place, now that I am not. RUN, I write, in block capitals, pushing it beneath the bed, hoping I will scare her enough to make her listen, to make her think twice about him.
I am overcome with nausea and rush towards the window, fling it open, cold air on bare skin, a sting on my cheeks, noises from the outside let in. I breathe the evening air in and out, my breath forming smoky clouds, then close the window, the cold breeze dying as it thuds shut, the room quiet again.
I turn, drop the picture to the floor, its sharp edge cracking into the fragile bones of my feet, sending shockwaves of pain up my shins. I howl, then bend down and pick it up, not hesitating as I fling it into the perfect wall opposite. I enjoy the way the frame crunches into the plaster, the sound the glass makes as it shatters then falls silently to the carpet below.
I race through to the kitchen, determined to ruin him, and rip open every box, every tin, every packet, every carton, until the room is a patchwork of colour, an expression of modernist art – Woman Scorned – and then, satisfied with the mess I have left him to clean, I raise my index finger and scrawl a word into a puddle of tomato soup laced with God knows what on the kitchen island.
Murderer.
Blog Entry
29th December, 10.50 a.m.
I’m on my way to my first support group meeting. Mishti suggested I might want to attend a session and I’ve taken her up on the idea – out of curiosity rather than anything else.
I walk into the foyer of the building, my breath still visible as the door swings shut behind me. No money wasted on heating in here. It’s the kind of catch-all community centre that houses a whole festival of clubs: cancer support groups on Mondays, Quaker meetings Tuesdays, kids play zone on Wednesdays and Thursdays, exam hall every other Friday, alternating with judo. I pull my coat tight to my body and leave my scarf and hat in place due to the lack of central heating. It occurs to me that this group can go pretty much under the radar in the winter on account of all the covered heads. In the summer you’d spot our shiny topped and skinny group a mile off. I skim read a poster on my way through to the main room. You may find your loved one… helpless or hopelessness, oversleeping, a bleak outlook… exhibits loss of interest in daily activities…
It’s a poster for depression in cancer patients. It really annoys me that these things are listed as a watch-out for sufferers’ families, as if it’s normal to be full of joie de vivre when you find out your life has been aggressively shortened. Surely it’s weirder to be happy? Surely that’s the sign of mental impairment?
I pull wide the door to the meeting room. It smells of a church hall, wooden and musty, and I quickly scan the faces of the other members before taking an empty seat in the circle.
Mishti stumbles in a little late, a thick scarf wrapped in giant loops round her neck, her healthy glow at odds with the sallow complexions of the rest of the group. She squeezes my hand as she takes a seat next to me. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she whispers.
‘Welcome!’ booms a young man with translucent skin. ‘Now that we’re all here let’s get started with new faces.’ I run my eyes along the network of very visible light-blue veins that trace his neck and fan out over his bald head. I settle into my seat and nod at him, trying to hide the fear in my eyes. I’m not going to end up looking like that, am I? First, he introduces himself as the head of the group, a five year testicular cancer survivor who set this whole thing up to get cancer patients out of their bedrooms and talking to each other. Then he turns to me.
‘Right,’ I say, stealing a glance at the door, weighing up the embarrassment of leaving before this whole thing begins, wondering if I could ask where the loos are and just run out, but Mishti senses my reluctance, and shoots me an encouraging look. The leader smiles wide and I wonder if he should welcome new members with such an enthusiastic grin. I’m certainly not happy to be here.
I stand up. ‘My name’s Emelia Thomps
on.’ I hesitate over saying the word Lyon, but only for a moment. I perform an awkward wave, very low, like I’m waving to the floor. I manage a half-smile.
‘We like to do name, age, diagnosis and favourite animal next,’ the group leader says, laughing. ‘You know, just for a bit of fun.’
I blink at him, ‘OK. Well, I’m thirty-five years old. Multiple tumours in my stomach, gall bladder, lungs, womb.’ I watch his eyes widen. ‘And my favourite animal’s a… dog, I guess.’
‘Oh, I love dogs, Emelia, good choice,’ says the man who, I’ve decided, would be better suited for running a bustling youth group. His tone’s entirely wrong for people who are dying.
‘Breed?’ asks a different man, one from the main group. I turn to look at him. He has a butt-shaped chin and piggy eyes. The expression on his face tells me my response is going to be really important.
‘Spaniel,’ I say, after a while.
‘I like pugs,’ he replies, and crosses his thick arms over his chest.
‘Cool, Matt, pugs, yeah, thanks for that,’ concludes the group leader. ‘So, most of you know me already, I’m Nick, I run the support group here, I’m thirty-five too—’ he winks at me ‘—and, as you know, I’m a five-year testicular cancer survivor. Like Lance Armstrong when he was a legend.’
A woman opposite me with a birdlike face and blue cardigan crosses her legs and appears to widen her eyes slightly at Nick’s introduction. I smile at her and we catch each other’s eye across the hall.
Next, we whip round the rest of the introductions, liver, brain, bone, blood, breast, and I contemplate if it would be possible, between us, to form a Frankenstein’s monster of diseased body parts. The pattern of the meeting is fairly straightforward: one person talks about the awful week they’ve had, their cancer’s back, bigger and badder than ever, but they’re still going to fight. The group murmurs its support. Living up to its name. The next person is doing OK, four years’ remission. The group murmurs its congratulations.