My Demon

by Lisa C Hinsley

  “The name is Alex, and first there aren’t any bugs in here. I’m way too clean for that.” Alex ignored the mess on her floor. Lily raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. “Secondly, I did have pins and needles.” Alex glared at her mother. Leave me alone, she thought. Go away and nurse your thumping head somewhere bloody else. “Everything’s fine.” Alex waited for Lily to turn around.

  “What’s going on with you, Alexandra? You’ve been different recently, and I can’t quite figure out how.”

  Lily rested the back of one of her hands on her forehead. She squinted into the dim light in Alex’s bedroom. On impulse, Alex leaned over her bed and pulled open her curtains, letting the late morning sunlight stream in.

  Lily’s hand lowered to shade her eyes. “I want to help you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m growing up. You know, becoming an adult. Paying my bills. That’s what adults do. Isn’t it?” Alex said. A smile crept across her face. Like the one she hated so much on Clive. Maybe she was Clive. Clive was her. She was the guy in Fight Club, wrestling with herself. This is Alex’s stupid grin…

  Lily raised her hand away from her eyes. Impossibly pale already, her face whitened even more. “What are you on about?” she asked.

  “I’m just saying I understand the necessity of paying bills. Mother,” Alex said, her voice tight, controlled.

  “Hang on, little lady. You are still my daughter, and you have absolutely no right to make such outlandish insinuations!” Lily shouted back, her tired face twisted with anger.

  “If I’m your daughter, how come I put you to bed most nights?” Alex cried out.

  “How dare you!” Lily shrieked. She strode up to Alex and slapped her hard.

  A shocked silence fell over the bedroom as Lily and Alex faced each other, Alex holding her cheek where she’d been hit, and Lily covering her mouth with one hand.

  Alex spoke first. “Don’t you have a client to fuck through the phone or something?”

  Silence encompassed the room once again. Alex watched Lily’s face crumple and her tough-person stance collapse. Alex closed her eyes. Shit.

  Alex sat for a long time in her room, not wanting to leave and risk bumping into Lily. How could she talk to her own mother that way? She may be a drunk—but she was still her mother. Alex hung her head, her shoulders slumped as she picked up the bank notes. Lily spoke some truth. Alex was changing. Scary alterations in her reactions, her thoughts—changes she couldn’t control. She had always reigned supreme in her little world. After Dad disappeared and Mum fell head first into a wine bottle, Alex had taken over. Slowly, with amazing patience, Alex molded everything to suit her. Lily hadn’t even realized, or if she had, she was too drunk to care.

  Now Alex felt the control she’d earned over so many years crumble away. She’d offended her own mother in a terrible way, and she’d stolen enormous amounts of money while somehow setting up her best friend for the fall.

  “Oh shit!” In half an hour Becky would be waiting for her in front of the Post Office. She pulled on some clothes, put a thick wad of notes in her pocket and stuffed the rest of the cash under her mattress. The room was a tip, but the money was hidden from any perfunctory glance her mother might care to perform. Alex slammed the door behind her and bolted for the stairs.

  Alex wasn’t sure where Lily was, or even if she was still in the house. Alex made it down to the front door, but as she pulled down on the deadbolt, she slapped a hand to her forehead. The clerk at the post office would probably require paperwork for the payments.

  Alex released the lock and opened the living room door a crack. She peeped inside. The sound of running water came from the kitchen. Ceramics cracked against each other; perhaps Lily was venting her anger on the dishes. Alex leaned further into the room and took a tentative step, her eyes jumping between the dresser and the open kitchen door. A plate or something crashed down onto the tiles, followed by a series of somewhat surprising swear words. From the sounds of it, Alex guessed about five minutes worth of clean-up was involved.

  Taking her chances, Alex snuck thief-like past the sofa and to the dresser. She grabbed a handful of bills from the drawer, hoping she had the right ones. Seconds later Alex softly closed the front door, leaving her mother still swearing over the breakage.

  Alex jogged to the bus stop. If she caught the bus, and speed walked from the high street to the Post Office, she might not be unforgivably late, just terribly late. She pulled her mobile from her pocket for the third time. The power indicator blinked down to one bar. The way her life was going right now, Alex figured she’d better save the battery for a 999 call.

  She was gathering a sweat, or a shine as her nana might have put it. After all, ladies don’t perspire. Like I’m a lady, Alex thought. Perhaps she should have called Becky to cancel, and tried to make peace with her mother. But Lily would want to sit with her on the sofa, and engage her in a serious discussion about their argument. Hell, Alex had the money needed to keep a roof over their heads, and the electricity going.

  Alex quickened her pace, breathing quickly now, as she tried to leave the seesawing action of her brain behind. The bus stop came into view as she rounded the end of her street. For a moment she fought with an overgrown hedge that tangoed with her every time she walked this way, and as she emerged, a smell of strawberries, ripe and red filled her nostrils.

  The scent transported Alex back to Wimbledon earlier that year. Her mother had gone strawberry picking and come home with an entire crate of strawberries and about a gallon of double cream. She was having a good week, not too much wine poisoning her tongue, and Alex suspected the offer of strawberries and cream was a wordless apology. The two of them watched hours of tennis eating overflowing bowlfuls until their tummies ached, all the while shouting at the telly as if they were the experts. Then the strawberries grew little grey beards and had to be thrown in the bin, but not before they filled the house with their pungent aroma.

  “No, don’t appear,” she said. The sweet scent told her Clive was on his way. “Don’t need you. Don’t want you. Don’t need you. Don’t want you,” she repeated the words, as if that might be enough to make the demon stay away.

  Old Mr. Duggan, from Number Seventeen, walked towards Alex. He smiled and tipped his hat. Alex scowled, her teeth clenched, muttering her mantra, and ignoring her neighbor. She hardly noticed when Mr. Duggan stopped, his walking stick hung in mid-air as he followed her with his eyes. He frowned, his expression worried, then the end of his stick connected with the pavement, and he passed by.

  Clive appeared behind her. He kept pace with Alex, listening to her chants, no doubt a gloating smile across his face. “You haven’t any control over when and how I appear or disappear. Why waste your breath?” Clive asked.

  “Maybe you’ll get offended, and hell, if that works, I’m game,” she replied, her tone short and sharp. “Don’t need you. Don’t want you.” The bus stop drew closer. Alex searched through the group of waiting passengers. With a few of them, she had at least a passing acquaintance. Behind the shelter a low wall marked the boundary of a pub car park, the edge smoothed by countless bottoms over the years. Alex approached The Lamb, and sat down. She fixed her gaze away from the small crowd, hoping if she avoided eye contact, she’d be left alone.

  Well, mostly alone.

  Clive took a seat next to her. He wiggled his bum on the wall, as if the scratchy surface poked through the thin fabric of his costume. “That’ll ladder if I’m not careful.” Clive grinned and elbowed her in the side.

  “I wish you’d just go away. And fingers crossed, all this mess would go with you.” Her voice cracked, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught Clive glancing over. She blinked furiously to clear her vision, but a stubborn tear fell and coursed down one cheek. Clive leaned over and wiped at the drop with a fingertip. He held his finger out in front of him, and studied the bubble of liquid as if it was a precious jewel. Alex stared as the tear rapidly dried up on his ho
t skin. “What are you?” Tears pressed against the inside of her face again, and she took two long deep breaths in an attempt to relieve the pressure. “Am I crazy?” she whispered before Clive could answer.

  The demon shook his head slowly, and stared unblinkingly into her eyes. “You, babydoll, are perfectly sane. But there are so many things I can’t tell you.”

  The bus Alex wanted pulled up to the stop.

  “And yes. I am a demon.”

  Alex got up, ignoring Clive, and walked over. She waited behind some concerned old lady, whose name escaped Alex. The woman glanced back, frowning and smiling at the same time. She must have seen the tears. Alex prayed for the lady to turn away, begged whomever might be listening—her God, any god—that she wouldn’t be dragged into a conversation. Alex hung her head, and examined the cracks in the pavement as she shuffled towards the doors.

  Alex flashed her bus pass, and pushed through the standing passengers. She took the steep stairs up to the top floor two at a time, and sighed in relief at all the unfilled seats. The front row on the left side of the bus was unoccupied. Alex hurried there, and sat down. She pressed her body against the wall, her bag hugged to her chest.

  “You look so sad, Alex. Cheer up, it’s not all bad.” Clive snuggled up next to her, and placed one of his extra warm hands on her knee.

  She ignored the demon, feeling depressed, confused and angry all rolled into one.

  He studied her for a while. She caught glimpses of him in the corner of her eye. His seemingly permanent smile faded until his expression mirrored her emotions. Maybe some of her sadness passed through to him, as he pulled back his hand and joined her in watching the streets as they rushed past.

  When they neared the stop Alex needed, she finally broke her silence, not caring who might be listening in the seats around her. “All those lives.” Alex indicated to the people milling about on the pavement as the bus drove by. “People living decent normal lives, like her, the one with the kid in a pram.” Demon and human watched a young Mum as she waited by a pedestrian crossing. The bus moved on, and they passed from view. “I see normality slipping away. It’s like sand escaping between my fingers. I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she whispered, her voice almost soundless. Clive followed the movement of her lips, not answering.

  Alex’s stop came into view, and she got up to leave. The man sat on the seat behind her gawked, his expression vaguely repulsed. She guessed he’d heard some of her one-sided conversation. She gazed wide-eyed, at him, until he turned towards the window. “This is my life now, stare management,” she told Clive as she descended the stairs and jumped out of the bus. The doors closed with a wheezy gush, and Alex made her way to town.

  Chapter Five

  Becky was waiting outside the post office. “Where the hell did you spring from? And what time do you call this?” Becky tapped abjectly on her watch for effect.

  “I’m so sorry.” Alex stared down at her feet. “It’s been a horrible day.” Alex leaned against the wall alongside Becky. “Can I bum a butt?”

  Bec retrieved a crumpled pack of Silk Cut from her handbag, and tapped out a couple of fags. “Here.” Becky offered one to Alex before flipping hers deftly into her mouth, producing a lighter almost in the same instance. Seconds later they both stood there puffing away. “Since when do you smoke without a pint in your hand and a pub seat attached to your bum?”

  “Since my world shifted ten degrees to the left.” Alex dragged deeply on the cigarette. The nicotine flooded her system, numbing the end of her nose and her cheeks.

  “What happened to the jolly, I fucked my man in the cinema, Alex I heard on the phone earlier?”

  Alex turned to Becky. She didn’t say anything at first, her face screwed up in a frown. The nicotine headed for her stomach, causing a mild attack of nausea. She held the half-smoked butt out, rolling the filter between her fingers, watching the red glow disappear under a growing head of ash. “Do I seem different lately?”

  Becky glanced back over, fag hanging between her lips. Smoke flooded out of her nostrils and hid her face for a brief moment. “You’ve been a bit down in the mouth. Who can blame you? You’ve been looking after your drunken mother since you were, what? Nine years old?”

  A bus lurched around the corner and past them. Alex exhaled. The smoke wafted through the air and faded into nothingness.

  “Oi, I’m the one who’s supposed to need cheering up here,” Becky said. She nudged Alex with her shoulder.

  The girls finished their cigarettes in silence.

  Becky sucked her Silk Cut down to the filter and dropped the butt on the pavement. “Why are we here, anyway?” she asked.

  Alex nodded. “I’ve got some bills to pay. Going to be dark in the Walker household otherwise.”

  Becky frowned. She took a deep breath, and linked arms with Alex. “Well, hurry up and get inside.” Bec pulled them towards the entrance of the post office. “Then you’re taking me out for ice cream, you hear? And you’re still paying, I don’t care how miserable you are. You’re going to tell me exactly what’s got to you. Understand?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Do you mind if I stay out here and finish my fag?” She took another from her pack. “Kind of in a chain smoking mood today.” She looked sheepish.

  “That’s fine. See you in a mo,” Alex said, and walked into the post office. Clive was already waiting in the queue, right at the end. Alex rolled her eyes miserably and joined her demon.

  “Thought you’d gone,” she said in a whisper. “Hoped you’d gone.” She kicked at the carpet.

  “No need to sound so disappointed.”

  Alex shrugged.

  “I was giving you some time alone with Becky.” He put an arm around her shoulders.

  “Aren’t you the ever considerate demon.” Alex pulled out of Clive’s hold as the queue stepped forwards.

  “Have you thought about adding your name to the house and utility bills?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “So you don’t have to pretend to be your mother again.”

  Alex shook her head, frowning. “Why would it matter?”

  “So you can pay things as and when they come in.” Clive spoke slowly, like he was conversing with a child.

  “Oh. Yeah. I suppose it makes sense. How do I do that?”

  A tall black woman stood next in the queue, her face unlined and a perfect shade of chocolate. She wore her hair swept back, the color streaked with grey. She glanced over at Alex. Her dark eyes filled with concern. Her mouth, painted with ruby lipstick, fell open, perhaps about to speak.

  “What’re you staring at?” Alex asked. She put her hands on her hips and frowned.

  Immediately, the woman in front turned back round.

  Clive touched Alex’s arm. “Change the details over the telephone. Pretend to be Lily. It’s not like you don’t imitate her all the time anyway.”

  Alex cocked her head to the side as she considered Clive’s suggestion. It was a reasonable idea, considering the circumstances. The queue moved swiftly, and Alex soon completed her transactions and found her way outside to rejoin Becky. Bec finished smoking her last cigarette, and crumpled the pack in her hand. She let the rubbish drop next to the pile of butts.

  “You shouldn’t litter,” Alex remarked. “Filthy habit.”

  “I’m a filthy kind of girl,” Bec said with a grin.

  The girls strolled arm-in-arm to The Oracle. They made their way out the other end of the shopping center and towards the ice cream parlor. A canal divided two strips of restaurants. People milled about, sat in the sun on the steps leading down to the water, eating, smoking, and chatting. They entered the Häagen Dazs shop and ordered a triple scoop cup each. With their cups of ice cream, they settled down in a booth at the back.

  “I’m sorry you lost your job.” Alex tried to keep her voice level. How would she speak if she didn’t know the truth? How would she say things differently? She poked her spoon into a scoop of
caramel chew-chew.

  “You sound guilty.” Becky sucked on a spoonful of mint chocolate chip.

  “Uh…” Alex couldn’t think of an answer, and for once wished that Clive would pop out of nowhere and feed her some asinine line. He’d disappeared after she paid her bills, made his usual excuse about being needed elsewhere before puffing out of the post office in a cloud of red smoke.

  Becky nodded. “I understand. It’s survivor’s syndrome or something. I read it in one of my Dad’s Reader’s Digests.” She leaned on the table, cup of ice cream in one hand, spoon in the other as she thoughtfully nibbled at a chocolate chip. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re so sad?”

  Alex opened her mouth. She closed it again, tears welling. She blinked a few times, and dropped her gaze. The creamy white of the caramel chew-chew swirled into the strawberry scoop.

  “Don’t wait too long, or I’ll start going on about how heartbroken I am about being sacked from the shop. Or how irked I am that I didn’t even thieve any bloody money.” Becky put the back of her hand to her forehead. She rolled her eyes until the whites showed, and flopped down in her chair. Becky peeked at Alex for her reaction. “To be honest, you’re the reason I never quit. Aggie did me a favor firing me.” She shrugged. “I hated that job, but I’m no thief. And no, sweets from the pick-and-mix buckets at Woollies don’t count.”

  Alex gazed into her cup, and wondered why she’d ordered so much. She couldn’t force the spoonsful into her mouth. The taste was sickly sweet. She wanted to be home, hiding under her covers in her bed. Perhaps if she stayed hidden long enough, everything would be back to normal when she finally emerged. Alex debated calling Clive from wherever he’d disappeared to after the Post Office and asking if he could transport her. She was pulled from her reverie by Becky.

  “What’s with you? I’ve never seen you low like this.” Becky reached out and placed one of her hands on Alex’s. Bec had small hands, so dainty and pale, she could be made from porcelain. At first, Alex thought her touch was cool. Then she realized her best friend’s temperature was probably normal. Clive burned.