by Ray Cluley
He won’t bleed right, not anymore.
Tanya looked up because it sounded like Grandma but of course Grandma wasn’t there. The curtain shivered in a breeze. The back door was open to let some air in for Mother but Tanya couldn’t feel any.
He’ll not be able to work, not a good job. And you know what will happen then.
The blood had come without her seeing. A small drop of it on her fingertip, a perfect half sphere rising from her skin. A tiny ruby.
The curtain brushed at the floor, tipping fly carcasses from its folds
You could . . .
Tanya popped her finger into her mouth and, watching the curtain, sucked her own blood away.
The curtain was still. Tanya thought about what Grandma did and thought if she did it, yanked the curtain down and let it fall on her, then Father wouldn’t need to worry about work until he got better, and Mother might even get better too and everything could go back to normal. Except it wouldn’t be normal because Tanya wouldn’t be here, she’d be with Grandma, and that bit would be all right but not being stuck in the curtain. She wondered what it would feel like, letting it take her blood, all of it, and she wondered what it would feel like to let her blood, let it do whatever it did when you gave yourself scars.
It will feel noble.
Tanya stood and went to the kitchen where she couldn’t see the curtain anymore and couldn’t hear it use Grandma’s voice. She would ignore the curtain’s call. There were dirty dishes still from when she made the stew and she thought she would wash them for Mother. That was what she meant to do.
Instead, she took up the knife she’d cut the vegetables with. She took it to the front room.
She still felt no breeze, yet the curtain, heavy as it was, shuddered. Tanya sat where it bunched in the corner, where the crooked pole dropped too much of it to the floor so that it gathered. She took up a length of it and felt immediately the pull of it in her hands. Was this how it felt when Father paid? Was this how it felt when his arm was swamped within its meaty crease? She felt warmth, like she’d plunged her hands into heated mittens, but none of it came from the cloth. Her hands were blushing, and wherever the cloth clutched her it fattened pink, red—and her hands were numbing. She had to be quick.
She held the knife to the curtain edge and pulled it across. The flesh parted easily, easier than she had expected. Like slicing a mushroom. One moment, and suddenly Tanya had a long corner length of bloodcloth in her lap. It curled where it had been cut and it bled a little before it could close. But it wasn’t the curtain’s blood really: it was hers.
Her hands tingled as if she’d been leaning on them too long, the tickly prickle of pins and needles. There was no blood on them. On the wall it rose in peaks, her blood rising like fire from the curtain’s new wound. She wouldn’t touch it again. This time she would bring her arm down in a long hard swing, dragging the blade through the cloth-flesh until she had split it down the middle. She would make it bleed. She would make it give back all that it had—
Mother’s scream was so shrill, so loud, so close, that at first Tanya thought it had come from the curtain. It had burst the still air of the room at the precise moment she struck and she thought she’d stabbed Mother, that Mother was behind the curtain. But Mother was not behind the curtain, she was beside it, as sudden as her scream had been, and she wrenched the knife from Tanya’s hand and pushed her back to the floor with surprising strength for one so sick.
“What are you doing? Don’t!”
Tanya landed hard on her behind, teeth coming together on her tongue. She covered her mouth against the pain with both hands. The long slit in the curtain gaped at her as if surprised. There was nothing inside it, and nothing behind but wall.
“What are you doing?”
Tanya couldn’t answer. She couldn’t say anything, her mouth hurt so much. She wasn’t even sure Mother had asked the question this time because she didn’t wait for an answer. She pressed the parted bloodcloth together quickly, kneading it with more vigour than she had the bread, smoothing it over with her palms. It took nothing from her, of course, but it took the shape she forced it into. She retrieved the bloated slug-length of its severed piece and pushed it to open flesh, rubbing it into a new seam just as she had countless times at the Drapery, because the cut was fresh. It held. And it healed.
She turned to Tanya. Her breath was wheezing. She was wide-eyed, and Tanya saw the fear there turn to anger, but before she could take the full force of any reprimand, Mother’s expression changed again. It softened. A glance down at something that had caught her eye caused her to return Tanya’s pained look with one Tanya had never seen before. For an absurd moment it was like she had a sister instead of a mother and only the quiet tocking of the clock separated them.
“Oh, baby.”
Tanya looked to her lap and saw the skirt of her dress was stained with blood. Not much, just a little where it bunched between her legs.
“It’s mine,” she said. Something she’d made the curtain give back. It made her want to smile, but she didn’t because Mother was kneeling down next to her like Gerald had tried to do and she put her hand to Tanya’s cheek and then to the side of her head, tucking a curl behind her ear.
“Yes, it’s yours. Just a bit earlier than expected, that’s all.”
She began stroking Tanya’s hair back.
“I heard Grandma.”
“Hmm?”
Mother was smiling. She was breathing easier, too.
“In the curtain.”
“Never mind the curtain,” Mother said. “Not now.”
The curtain was quiet. It made smiling back easier, especially when Tanya saw that, despite Mother’s efforts, it now had some scars of its own.
The Tilt
“Ça y est, Carcassonne,” the bus driver told them. “You are here.”
“Really? Already?” Nicky pulled the single iPod headphone from her ear and yanked the other away from Luke. He grabbed at it but she was already winding up the wires. “We’re here,” she told him.
He leaned to look out of a window across the aisle. Tourists were moving in groups, staring up at the towers or down at ice creams bought from a nearby van, colourful and incongruous against the medieval backdrop of stone walls and battlements. “That’s the citadel.”
“Yeah, we’re here. Carcassonne.”
The driver was still turned around in his seat, pointing. He’d promised to tell them when they’d arrived at the hotel. He was pointing to the huge gate and crenellated walls of the citadel.
“We’re staying at the Best Western,” Luke told the driver.
The driver pointed again, nodding. “Oui.”
“In there?”
But the driver was checking traffic, waiting to join it again.
Nicky shrugged at Luke and said, “Cool.” They grabbed their bags from overhead and stepped off the coach. “Merci.”
“Are we actually staying in the Old Town?” Luke asked.
“Must be.”
“Maybe we’re round the back of it or something.”
“Well what did they say at the travel place?”
“Charming hotel close to the castle,” Luke said. “Something like that. But this isn’t close, this is inside. I bet he dropped us at the wrong place.”
“Stop being a whiny bitch. Let’s just have a look.”
The bus pulled away and already Luke had shifted his attention to something new. “I’m looking,” he said, “I’m looking.”
He was looking at a young man photographing the gates.
“Tell him you’ve got a nice opening he can look at,” Nicky said, and Luke laughed. She slapped his arm. “Just don’t make me a fag-hag the whole weekend.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find you a nice French girl.”
“Ooh la la.” She hooked her arm through his and they crossed over into Carcassonne’s citadel. “Wow, look at this place,” Nicky said.
They were in a wide open space between two huge walls.
“What’s this, the bailey or something? The moat?”
“Moat? The water would be flooding through the gates, you idiot. We’re in the Lists, with a capital L. The Upper List, actually. Runs all round the town.”
Nicky was always the one who read the travel guides. She’d learnt all about Carcassonne on the plane while Luke eyed up an air steward.
“You’ve got one big outer wall for protection, and all this space for troops, but if the attackers got in you could retreat into the town.”
“Behind another big bastard wall.”
“Exactly.”
Tourists were taking pictures and admiring the architecture. Kids were running around, kicking up dust where horses used to. Above them, other tourists were walking the battlements, looking out over the river or down into the town itself.
“Wanna walk around them?” Nicky asked.
“Let’s find our hotel first.”
They approached another gate—“Those are the Narbonne Towers,” Nicky told him—and into the town itself.
Nicky gasped and gripped his arm. “OhmyGod it’s gorgeous here.”
Luke had expected ruins, but Carcassonne was a proper town. Its narrow cobbled streets were filled with souvenir shops and food stalls and antique dealers and all sorts. In the summer the place was probably packed, but they were able to walk freely, visiting off season. Though cold enough for jackets, the sky was a bright blue and surprisingly clear for October.
“Wow, look!”
Nicky left Luke for a crêpe stand, impressing him with her fluent French. She laughed at something the man said as he spread a thick coating of Nutella over her pancake before folding it. “You want one?”
Luke shook his head. “No thanks.”
She took an exaggerated bite, adding extravagant sound effects.
“Very lady-like.”
She showed him her chewed food and Luke turned away, laughing.
“I don’t want to be a lady,” she said, words thick with masticated pancake batter. She pointed at the buildings around them. “You know, in the old days, all of this would have been blacksmiths and carpentry shops and fruit stalls, stuff like that.”
“Fascinating.”
“Hey, come on. I love all this stuff.”
He smiled. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I brought you. All the history and French and pancakes and everything.”
“It was cheap, wasn’t it.”
“You know me so well.”
She nodded. “All our lives.”
It wasn’t true but it felt like it. Nicky had once added that it felt like all their lives plural, as in all their past ones, and Luke reminded her of that now by calling her a hippy. She laughed, linked arms with him again, and together they worked their way deeper into the town.
S
Their hotel really was inside the citadel.
“This,” said Nicky, “is fucking, awesome.”
The Best Western Hôtel Le Donjon was sort of cute, if you liked that kind of thing: stone walls for the ground floor, yellow rendering for the ivy-clad walls above to set off pretty blue shutters. “Not bad.”
“Everything’s right on our doorstep.”
“Is it Donjon as in dungeon?”
“Why,” Nicky asked, “did you want to bring me somewhere kinky?”
“Honey, you’re not my type.”
“Good looking, intelligent, fun?”
“The female form,” Luke said, and shivered. “Ergh. Horrible.”
“I’ve got a great arse.”
“Yeah, but nothing in front to play with.” He demonstrated with a well known hand gesture.
Nicky slapped the gesture away and took a photo of the hotel.
“Donjon mustard?” Luke said. “It would go with the colour scheme.”
“You mean Dijon mustard. Donjon is French for keep, I think.”
“Oh. That’s slightly disappointing actually.”
The interior was spacious and cool, with a subtle scattering of objets d’art, an attractive man on the desk, a lounge area—
“Fuck me, that’s a proper suit of armour!”
Nicky was talking with the receptionist but she smiled at Luke and said, “Yeah, you did good. Classy.”
“Remember Di Caprio in Romeo and Juliet? Orlando in Kingdom of Heaven?” He stroked the armour.
Luke was pretty sure that everything Nicky said to the reception guy afterwards was French for I’m sorry about my friend, he’s a bit of a dick sometimes, but the man gave Luke a smile that might have been more than polite and he gave Nicky a key card. She waved it at Luke.
“Room 3.”
“Trois!” Luke said.
“Stop showing off.”
The man directed them around the corner with an elaborate gesture and Nicky led the way.
“I know a lot of French,” Luke said.
“Whatever.”
“Baguette,” he said.
“Très bien.”
He exaggerated an accent for, “Déjeuner . . . Déjà vu . . .”
“Here we are.” She swiped the card and turned a red light green.
“Déjeuner.”
“You said that already.”
“Déjà vu!”
“Very witty.” She pushed the door open and they went inside.
It was a modest size, with two windows providing a lot of light. There was a mini-fridge, tea making stuff, all the usual. And a double bed.
“You did tell them twin, didn’t you?” Nicky asked.
“Of course I did.”
“This doesn’t look like a twin.” She went to the window.
“I’ll see if we can swap.”
But Nicky beckoned him over, “Look.”
Their view was tiled roofs, the top of a distant rampart, and one of the round towers. A light breeze buffeted a flag on its blue-grey pinnacle. Behind it all stretched green hills and French farmland.
“I don’t want to swap,” she said.
Luke shook his head. “No way.”
“Don’t butt-fuck me in the night.”
“Don’t sit on my face. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Most men don’t, that’s why I switched.”
They dumped their bags, opened some drawers and cupboards, checked the bathroom, and then jumped up and down with squealing giddy glee.
“We’re in France!” Nicky said.
“Yeah, baby!”
“Let’s go look around.”
S
It didn’t take long to look around Carcassonne. There were only a dozen or so streets within its walls, and all of them led back to a square where several cafes and restaurants competed with each other for business. It was a friendly competition though, with staff standing in doorways and waving to each other across the expanse of tables as they waited to see where new arrivals chose to sit.
“Oh look, here we are again,” Luke said, “back at the square.”
“This way.”
Nicky led him down a cobbled street he was sure they’d used twice already, but this time it took them to a shop declaring chocolat, nougat, and fabrication artisanale, whatever that meant.
“Okay, it’s official, this place is amazing,” Nicky announced. She stepped up to the window for a proper look at the display. Huge slabs of chocolate were stacked atop each other, bricks of nougat in the space between them, and long strings of marshmallow in various colours draped the whole lot wherever there was room, filling gaps like fluffy mortar.
“You gonna buy something then?” Luke asked.
“I’m just going to salivate against the glass for a bit.” But she went inside.
Luke waited. If he had his bearings, at the end of this street they’d come back to the big church, the basilica of someone or some such.
“How much of this do you think you could get in your mouth?” Nicky asked, returning with a heavy-looking paper bag in one hand, and offering a long thick string of something foamy and pink in the other.
He took it from her and held it in both hands before his mouth. Nicky snatched it back. “Please, I don’t want to know.”
They dawdled, Nicky taking pictures and pointing out sights that were mostly cute old buildings. And then, sure enough . . .
“The Basilica of St. Nazaire,” Nicky announced, always the tour guide.
“Next!”
“Heathen.”
“Have you read the bit in the Bible about how being gay is like laying with a beast of the field?”
“Have you?”
Luke held his hands up in surrender and Nicky mimicked him for a truce.
“You said we’d explore the streets first and then visit places,” Luke said.
“I think we’ve done the streets.”
“I think we’ve done the streets twice.”
“Let’s do the walls,” she suggested, “or the Lists.”
“The castle.”
“La grand Châtelet, actually.”
“Potato, potarto.”
Nicky broke off a wedge of chocolate. “Let’s have a drink and decide.”
“Drink drink, or coffee drink?”
“Drink drink.”
“Brilliant. Let’s go.”
The street looped into a new one taking them back the way they’d come. They took their time, passing chocolate back and forth.
“When do we start talking about it?” Nicky asked eventually.