The Terrible
Page 11
Marcia says, play the lottery numbers this week.
Henry is cutting into my thoughts and interrupting Marcia’s voice and saying my name again, sounding flustered. Sleepily I climb out of bed and put yesterday’s knickers on inside out and then I am putting on my clothes and going down the stairs and taking my bag from the kitchen and he is apologizing profusely, then I am outside and the door is shut behind me.
Henry’s large black Doberman, Davies, trots beside me as I make my way down the stony driveway toward the front gate. Henry suggested that the reason for our “affinity” is that we are both beautiful Nubian creatures. I wanted to vomit, but the whiskey held me down. Drink is good for drowning out nausea; I swear by it.
It is quiet here in the country. I can hear birdsong. I can hear the sound of a helicopter overhead.
I take a right
toward the town center and then
I am walking by a stream in the park and thinking about love/money.
My phone is ringing and it is Henry but I let it ring off. I am in a mess, to tell you the truth. The red letters are mounting up. I have more than four substantial bills, plus there is the rent due on my room. I need to make a lot of money in the next three days.
Henry is phoning again, apologizing for this morning, over and over. I tell him that I’m having a problem with some bills. There is a silence and he asks me to come back. Says that we can talk about it.
Back at the house, Henry wants to know if I want to lie down upstairs for a while.
I see that he has put aside another envelope for me by the stove in the kitchen, which makes up the rent for this month. Just.
I slept badly last night and am not in the mood to pretend I am enjoying something that I’m not.
I think that the dismay is showing on my face, so he asks me if I want something strong to drink.
There is only ever one answer to that.
We sit in his drawing room and drink whiskey and sing songs and then we go up to bed. The whiskey takes effect on Henry, who, thank God, falls asleep, and then I do.
An hour or so later he is lying behind me whispering my name again and again. You make me like this, he says. You must excuse me. I feel so sexual when I’m with you. You just bring something out in me.
I count to ten.
1 Henry has stopped whispering my name
2 because he has fallen out of the bed
3 and is sprawled out on the floor,
4 giggling, completely drunk. I
5 climb out of the bed and he is
6 lying on his back, helpless and naked.
7 Giggling just like a baby.
8 This is sick.
9 I do not know whether to laugh or cry.
10 This is fucked.
Without thinking too much, I begin to put on my clothes for the second time today. I leave the knickers on the carpet by his head. He doesn’t seem to know quite what is going on.
He is saying my name again and watching me put on my clothes, trying to compute,
drunk and trying to compute.
I leave the room.
I walk down the stairs and he is still calling my name.
He has daughters. He has a family. It does not seem fair that someone so old should have a doting family and someone as young as me should have no one.
I can hear Henry’s voice coming from upstairs. He sounds a bit desperate now. As though he’s panicking a bit. I’m in the kitchen. I call 999 on the phone.
a) “I was walking by this old man’s house,” I say.
or
b) “I’m a nurse. He’s taken a bit of a fall.”
or
c) “I’m a friend of the neighbor and I saw the door open, so, naturally, I rushed in to investigate.”
I give them the address.
I hang up.
The cream envelope is over on the worktop, by the side door. From his basket, Davies gives me a long look.
I open the latch on the back door. Davies is at my feet. Taking a deep breath, I feel awake. I breeze out of the house and up the stony path. Davies is running with me. Outside the sky is pink and I don’t feel bad,
not even a bit.
11 I hear sirens.
I wonder how he was, my father. Tall. Blackshining. I wonder who he was. If I knew that, then perhaps I could understand what is happening.
Half inside a dream and half inside something else,
a man appears out of the dark light of the morning, his back to me. I reach out my hands. He could be my father, this man. His neck is the same color. His hair soft, silver-black. He turns around
and the homeless man asks me for money.
I give my father fifteen hard-earned pounds and stagger home, my hands on my face. I remember who I am, I think.
An African,
one most magical African
on a bridge on Primrose Hill. I shudder.
I am three sheets to the wind, perhaps. This earth tunnel. This life thing, it’s frightening.
What are the codes to the thing? I thought I had them once, armed with my great knowledge of the Bible, and the blue powder dream-book, which disappeared when Mum did.
What is the code to feeling exactly like you belong?
I stagger over Primrose Hill Bridge. It is November and already bitterly cold. I keep my head down, quite invisible in this picture-book scene, especially in the twilight. I search hard in the cracks on the ground to see Signs, Facts and Other Things, pining for the sight of my brother. I wonder,
Is he still a seer of things?
Will I burn in hell, perhaps,
and if I am resigned to that fact, where is the way out? Will dying hurt at all?
Could it hurt more than life, in any case? What is the code to being able to see straight? On what timeline is the lady passing me in the street with her yoga mat while I stumble around the dark? Are timelines measured by number, and if so, what are the winning coordinates? Is life an illusion too? Is it liquid silver, like Time?
One day Little Roo and I were digging for treasure in my auntie’s garden and Grandma came out and said, You dig and you dig, child, and you’ll get to Australia.
So where is our Australia? We’ve been digging,
it seems, for years. Is life hidden in the lining of our seams? Are we wearing it inside out?
data
I think William really loved you, said Grandma.
Let me tell you the story.
One day, the sun was shining, she said,
and William appeared at the front door. He had dirt on his boots. I saw from the upstairs window
him changing them in the car, getting all fresh for us,
putting on some lovely brown shoes.
That’s him, I said. That’s him all over.
Grandma nodded.
That boy really loved you;
he came straight up.
He looked me in the eye and said,
I love your granddaughter, so, so much,
and I want to marry her. I promise,
I promise to take care of her.
And Granddad nodded and said that was fine by him.
She paused. Patted her head wrap.
What’s he doing now? These days?
I think he has a girl,
I said.
Some girl. I don’t know who.
I caught myself screwing my face up.
Poor girl, said Grandma. He really loves you. He’ll always love you.
But William was much like a lot of things. So good he didn’t seem real enough.
I nod and I nod but I don’t tell Grandma
he called me every other day for the first three years. He remembered every birthday. He was always, always there.
I don’t say
now if I
call him, the line goes dead.
My mother’s formidable North Star is still busying herself in the kitchen.
Yes, he loves me, I say.
Shame it didn’t work out.
Granddad hobbles out of the living room, on the way upstairs. It takes him a great amount of time to move around these days. Granddad is different. Softer and quite unsure of the world.
He smiles, eyes crinkling,
and says,
“I was going to tell you you look like Yrsa. You look a lot like Yrsa.”
the animals
Fredrick Stimpson still doesn’t know what you look like. Answers the door blindfolded. Likes to pretend he’s a household pet. Likes being made to fetch things and wash your worn underwear with his hands. (Remembering not to wash your underwear is harder than it sounds.) Fredrick Stimpson is painfully shy, so he stays fully clothed the whole time. His house is a large, large one
(all these grown men in houses that swallow them). You talk about the rain. He sounds like he’s from further south. He grew up on a farm, and it shows.
The first time he shows you how to handle him, you are mesmerized.
You take to it easily, though. What a wondrous exchange. Ever heard a cane whip through the air? Slicing atoms. Whoosh. Crack.
Fredrick Stimpson always has the money. And that’s why you see him, of course. Let’s be honest.
Fredrick Stimpson
is partial to being chastised,
wonders if he’s done something wrong
on the weeks you go under
and he doesn’t hear from you. He calls you “mistress” on the phone,
says
your pet misses you.
INTERIOR:
OLD-FASHIONED HAMPSTEAD HOME. YOU and MALCOLM are sitting in his blue Victorian-style living room.
MALCOLM
It’s like we don’t get a summertime at all, in this country.
YOU
Not at all. Terrible.
MALCOLM
Green tea or peppermint?
YOU
Oh, peppermint. You know me. Haha.
MALCOLM
Oh, of course, I remember—you don’t like green tea.
YOU
Gives me stomachache.
MALCOLM
Ah yes, stomachache.
Silence. You both stare at the TV. MALCOLM is always nervous to begin with. YOU stare at the television. Beads of sweat are forming on his forehead. MALCOLM is a lover of china dolls. They adorn his bookshelves and cabinets.
MALCOLM
I lost some weight last week.
YOU
Oh, wow, well done.
MALCOLM
Yes, thank you. I suppose the trick is to make sure it stays off. Not so good at that. [Hangs his head shamefully] I’m an overindulger.
YOU
[Needing this to be hurried along]
And might you need to be punished?
MALCOLM
Oh, of course . . . the notes! I’m always forgetting to email!
MALCOLM hands YOU the notes and hangs nervously by the piano as you read.
YOU
Ah. Headmistress. Headmistress today.
MALCOLM
[Clears throat] You’re a fast reader! Haha.
[Now unsure] Um. Is that okay?
YOU
Oh, yeah, sure. I just need to
[YOU open your coat and you’re wearing the wrong thing—the leather all-in-one.]
. . . change.
MALCOLM
Oh, I am sorry, I should have said. I’m sorry. I am sorry.
YOU
No, no worries at all, it’s quite all right. May I use your bathroom? I’ll be two minutes.
MALCOLM
But of course.
YOU go to the bathroom and struggle to peel this leather costume off your skin. It takes longer than expected. Your silk blouse is creased, but thank God you brought it. YOU change into a tweed pencil skirt and put the shoes back on. MALCOLM calls to you from the hallway. . . .
MALCOLM
Ready!
YOU
Righty ho.
INTERIOR:
STUDY.
MALCOLM’s paddles, switches and two canes are arranged neatly on the polished walnut desk. The money has been placed diligently in a brown envelope. YOU pop it into your handbag. YOU study yourself in the mirror. You’re an actress, and you’re wonderful.
MALCOLM appears, sheepishly, in a school uniform. On first glance it is ridiculous. But we all have needs and you have a heart. Making people feel good must be taken seriously.
YOU
Get out again and knock.
MALCOLM disappears at once. A timid knock follows.
YOU
Yes?
MALCOLM walks into view, his head low,
skin flushed.
YOU
Come here,
boy.
son.
Sonny goes and dies quietly.
Like a punk, says Roo.
Can you believe he died?
says Roo. That motherfucker. He was ill, I heard. Was working myself up to maybe visiting him in hospital, I don’t know. To talk everything out, really try with him. To be a son. Or at least an acquaintance. Ha. Isn’t that a shitter?
growls Roo into the headset.
He wasn’t worth it, I say.
Are you okay? I say.
Got a cold, he says,
and I think about these parents of ours
our makers
our stars. (Such impossible, complex stars.)
How they came, exploded,
and fell away.
They are not ours, the stars,
and never have been.
horrible info
Something is stopping you from getting out of bed.
Fact. Things are as gray as you can possibly imagine. Fact. You’re falling under.
Fact. You are no one’s child anymore
and your hands are still cold. You drink red wine to soften the edges of the day. But there are bad things curling the edges, brown/
black . . . and the wine is giving you headaches. Fact. Migraines. Fact/
the terrible is in your throat
the dark does not know how to get out of you
the darkness burns a hole in your liver;
it is too much
and it is not enough
it is almost unbearable.
Drink vodka and red wine at the weekends
make countless new friends at night
delete their numbers during the week
because names, you can hardly remember names.
You must go somewhere else. There is not enough light.
Some days you can’t breathe; you know what that feels like:
when you are bored at night
and everything bad is
loud and important
take to the streets. It’s a one-time thing, this life.
You’ve got to move. When in doubt, always move.
Or you ain’t going to make it.
green:
a run
Someone says one day
above the din, above the constant fever,
“You’d make a lot of money in South Africa, you know. All the models there look similar to you. I reckon you could do it.”
You don’t need to hear anything else. You set off. Cape Town bound
with £180 in your bag.
Roo calls.
What is it? you say.
I’m literally on a plane. I’m going to South Africa.
Where? How come?
South Africa. I have to.
I have to go
away.
I haven’t been feeling very well,
not very well at all.
(You want to cry, but don’t.)
Raa, says Roo.
I promise to call, you say. When I’m settled.
One thing I have to tell you first,
says your brother.
But he doesn’t speak,
he really doesn’t.
They are telling us to switch off our phones.
What?
Hurry up, man,
you say,
the woman’s going to shout at me.
You hear him breathing.
It’s reassuring, hearing the air of those you love the most.
Today I met my daughter.
What? you say.
Yeah,
says Roo,
I didn’t know either. I feel amazing;
there’s nothing like it.
I held her and it was everything.
Oh my God,
you say.
Oh my God,
you say.
Oh my God, you have a daughter!
you say.
I’m so happy for you. For us.
And the lady is coming over to tell you to please hang up the phone and you say,
Roo.
Roo.
We’re literally taking off.
I have to go,
I have to go,
but I LOVE YOU
and her
and I’ll call you when I land.
Listen to you, he says.
Raa.
Listen to you getting all emotional.
Shut up, you say, and hang up.
awayness; an almanac
You may not run away from the thing that you are
because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe. As certain. The thing is deep inside your linings, way down in the marrow. People have a lot of words for it.
There are ten thousand names for it and you. Wherever you are, it catches you up. It catches you in South Africa. Wherever you are and whatever it is, the terrible is trying to grip you and sometimes you’re walking down the street and it tries to knock you clean off your feet and send you right underground. The terrible comes like a bang in the night. It takes a drink and several more and comes to plague you in the morning; it damn near poisons you with all the drink it needs to stay alive. It toys with you the morning after—stays the entire day, squeezing you by the shoulders, making your hands shake. It smiles at you, the terrible. Sitting, arms folded, in the corner of the room. It just can’t help itself. It just needs friends.