by Miles Gibson
‘You’re a big girl,’ he said, pushing his suitcase through the door. He rubbed his eyes and grinned. He was staring at Mrs Halibut’s breasts. He wanted to bite them, he wanted to skin them and wear them as mittens.
‘I don’t want anything,’ said Mrs Halibut as he sat down at the kitchen table.
The salesman laughed. He opened one of the books at Healing Hands and tried to practise Manipulation.
‘Don’t touch me,’ warned Mrs Halibut. ‘The dogs will get jealous.’
The salesman laughed again. He stared at her breasts and wiped his tongue around his teeth. He wanted to steal them, he wanted to stuff them and use them as pillows. He opened the second book at Reproduction and read aloud from His Majesty the Male Sex Organ. When he had finished he unbuttoned his trousers and offered a practical demonstration.
Mrs Halibut lowered her eyes. ‘Would you like a small glass of wine?’ she said.
When the salesman woke up he found himself alone in a ditch. His Majesty had been tarred with molasses and wrapped in a jacket of chicken feathers.
Mrs Halibut lived alone and was content. She had no time for men. As caretakers of the world they were greedy, superstitious and violent. As companions for women they were entirely unsuitable. God had made Her one mistake when She had created men.
Chapter Eighteen
The world that morning, yawning in the rising heat, oozing with nectar, creaking with fruit, smelt of fertility, a plump and bursting ripeness. Mrs Reynolds hurried from town, running through the dwindling shadows, towards the safety of the herbalist’s cottage. The path was choked with nipplewort and toadflax, thistles and foxgloves. As she kicked through the undergrowth the feathered grass pressed against her skirt and sprayed her legs with seed. Small moths, doped with pollen, flew at her face and fell in flames at her feet. She slapped at the air, cursing, fighting forward, drowning in the rush of sunlight. She ran blind, afraid to glance across her shoulder for fear of finding the naked nigger stalking her with giant strides. She felt his blowtorch breath on her neck, sensed his smell in the nettlebeds, heard his laugh in the cackle of crows.
When she reached the cottage she collapsed on the doorstep and burst into tears. Mrs Halibut came out to help the unhappy woman into the safety of the chintz sitting room and administered cups of sweet, mint tea. For some time Mrs Reynolds could do nothing but cry and snort and wring a handkerchief in her hands. But finally she calmed herself and told the story she had prepared. She told the herbalist about the man in black who had rented her room. He was a darkie. He ate live lobsters, breaking the meat from the claws with his hands. He wouldn’t wear shoes and slept on the floor. His feet were filthy, his language obscene and his eyes followed her everywhere. She suspected he had not previously enjoyed the company of decent, Christian women.
Wrapping her face in the handkerchief and pulling at her nose she explained that, on catching sight of her legs, he had become mad with excitement. And then, with a pantomime of dramatic pauses, rolling eyes and curling fingers, she managed to convey the full range of his carnal appetite, bringing her performance to a dramatic conclusion by bursting into tears again and biting on the handkerchief.
Mrs Halibut was sympathetic. She accepted that Mrs Reynolds might be given to some exaggeration but, nonetheless, she was impressed by the woman’s catalogue of miseries.
‘How can I help you?’ she said.
‘I can’t throw him out – he’s dangerous – he could kill a woman with his bare hands,’ sobbed Mrs Reynolds.
‘Well, I can give you something to help him sleep at night. It’s what we call a natural soporific,’ explained the herbalist.
‘Can’t you give me something stronger? Something to take away his strength?’
Mrs Halibut shook her head doubtfully. ‘You would have to mix it with his food. He would suspect something was wrong,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter. He’s a hungry bastard. Perhaps you could find me something to take the edge off his appetite. Something that was so nasty he would be glad to leave me alone.’
Mrs Halibut thought for a long time. ‘Does he eat mushrooms?’ she asked casually.
‘He’ll eat anything.’
‘Would he recognize a toadstool?’
‘He doesn’t look at his food and, anyway, he spoils everything with pickle,’ said Mrs Reynolds in disgust.
‘It’s dangerous.’
‘I’ll take the risk.’
Mrs Halibut frowned and raked her fingers through her hair. She tried to persuade Mrs Reynolds that there were other ways to remove a man. Why, she might easily bury him alive in silence or flay him with jealousy and gossip. But Mrs Reynolds would have none of them. She had been humiliated by the sailor. He had scratched and scrambled through her underwear, forced her to run naked through her own house, screaming, prised her open and bullied her belly in lewd and violent outbursts of lust and then, most terrible of all, he had thrown her aside in favour of Polly. She would not be content until she had withered his penis and watered his blood.
‘I have to think of my daughter,’ she whispered.
Reluctantly Mrs Halibut went into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door and knelt down to gaze into the sparkling chest of secrets. There, among the bundles of herbs and the necklaces of flowers, beneath the shelves of garlic paste, horse radish, ginseng root and belladonna, in a space alone on the frosty floor, stood a bowl of toadstools. She removed the bowl and carefully chose her poison.
Mrs Halibut loved toadstools. She had a superior knowledge of their qualities and failings. There were the tiny beech sickeners, with their scarlet caps and vague, coconut perfume, that could be used to drown a man in vomit. The humble liberty caps that fired the blood, scrambled the brains and coloured dreams. Fairies’ bonnets, stewed in alcohol, were potent enough to knock down a horse and puff-balls, sliced and fried in butter, made an excellent breakfast.
When she returned to the living room she presented her guest with a single, tiny toadstool. Mrs Reynolds held it between finger and thumb and gave it a sniff. She was disappointed. She examined it carefully, rolling it in the palm of her hand. It didn’t look dangerous – a shaggy stem plugged by a smooth and innocent cap of flesh – it looked so small and mild she doubted that it would have an effect.
‘What is it?’ she said, sniffing it again. It had a sweet and sickly odour that tantalized her nose and tried to make her sneeze.
‘Amanita Virosa.’
‘Is it poisonous?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Halibut. ‘It’s what we call the destroying angel.’
‘How do I use it?’
‘Slice it,’ said Mrs Halibut. ‘Mix a slice with a few button mushrooms in a fresh green salad. A little oil and vinegar. A sprinkle of pepper.’
‘Will it work?’
‘Yes, I think he’ll want to leave you alone,’ said Mrs Halibut. She blinked her green eyes and stared at the toadstool.
‘It’s not very big,’ Mrs Reynolds complained.
‘It’s big enough to kill a man,’ said Mrs Halibut softly.
Mrs Reynolds smiled and wiped her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She slipped the fat petal of poison into the pocket of her skirt and set out again for Rams Horn.
Chapter Nineteen
The big sea boiled, hissed upon the crackling shingle, steamed from the wings of the gulls. The sky roared. On the beach, a yellow newspaper, caught by the furnace draught, began to flutter, scampered, rolled, took flight and sailed high above the town towards the shelter of the hills.
Matthew Mark Luke Saint John was missing when Mrs Reynolds reached home. He had helped himself to a breakfast of eggs and sausage, washed the frying pan, wiped the table, swept the floor and locked the door to his room. Mrs Reynolds retrieved the destroying angel from her skirt and hid it carefully in a corner of the refrigerator. When the sailor returned she would be ready with a welcome of cold beer and toadstool salad.
Alone in the house, she seized the chance to re
scue her daughter’s clothes and shoes, picture books and one-eyed bear and move them into her own bedroom. They would sleep together now until the African was gone. During the morning she stocked the bedroom fit for a siege – biscuits, fruit and cake in a box, a bottle of brandy under the bed. She tested the bolt on the window and dragged the chest of drawers into position beside the door, ready for the moment when darkness came and they built the barricade. Then she went downstairs to sit and wait for Polly to return.
Dust floated, soft as pollen, in the stagnant air. At noon the heat pressed against the walls of the house, testing the bricks and twisting at the loose rafters. Sunlight pushed through the curtains, cutting the rooms in half with shadow.
At two o’clock the front door rattled and Polly appeared, face freckled and dress crumpled with sweat. Mrs Reynolds, furious with fright, pulled her into the house and scolded her for failing to obey instructions. Why had she come home in the afternoon? She knew it was dangerous. Did she want to be attacked again? Dear God, did she want them both murdered and buried under the floorboards?
‘He didn’t hurt me,’ scowled Polly.
‘Hasn’t he done enough damage?’ screamed Mrs Reynolds. But the sight of poor Polly, sprawled sunburnt and exhausted in the hollow of the old sofa, made her anger evaporate.
‘We’re going to get rid of him,’ she whispered as she knelt before the sofa. She took Polly’s face in her hands and began to drench it with kisses.
‘Are you going to send him away tonight?’ whispered Polly. Her face collapsed. She stared at her mother and burst into tears.
‘Don’t cry. He’ll soon be gone,’ promised Mrs Reynolds and rocked the child in her arms.
In the late afternoon gusts of hot sand whirled over the esplanade and scratched a warning at the windows. The shadows in the room crept silently towards the sofa where mother and child lay sleeping. As dusk appeared, Mrs Reynolds woke Polly and retreated to the safety of the bedroom. The shadows grew to fantastic lengths, softened, leaked one into another and filled the town to the chimney pots. The sun rolled slowly into the sea.
Above Rams Horn, moored among the cabbages on the Upton Gabriel Road, Charlie Bloater came on deck to smoke his evening pipe of shag. Somewhere a blackbird was singing. The air still glowed with heat. He smoked and spat and stared at the world until it grew dark and his pipe blew sparks.
Later, wrapped in the twilight, Mrs Halibut locked her cottage and stole as far as the beechwood to collect a purse of belladonna.
When the Dolphin closed, the last to leave were the doctor and his friend Tom Crow. They strolled into the warm and perfumed night, climbed the cliffs to the Wheel Barrow and sat in the grass to watch for stars in a sky as dark as Guinness. Bats whistled above their heads. Beneath them the town lay shuttered and silent.
At midnight, on Regent Terrace, Mrs Clancy wrapped in silk, opened her bedroom window and beckoned home the spirit of her lost husband before crawling into bed to dream of the ghosts at Fatehpur Sikri. The town sank painfully into sleep.
At one o’clock in the morning a drainpipe creaked in Empire Road, a cat hissed, and Vernie Stringer fell into the street. He hit the cobbles with a gasp, somersaulted and lay motionless, stretched like a broken albatross in the gutter. A moment later Smudger ran from a doorway and helped him to his feet.
‘Did you bring a torch?’ whispered Vernie, nursing his elbows.
‘Yes,’ whispered Smudger. He pulled a bag from his shirt and flourished a long rubber torch. When he pressed the button a spear of yellow light sprang from his hand and pinned Vernie’s plimsolls to the cobbles.
‘And the masks!’ prompted Vernie. ‘You didn’t forget the masks?’
Smudger pulled a pair of his mother’s stockings from the bag. He had stolen them from the laundry basket and spent most of the afternoon cutting and knotting them into shape.
‘They’re enormous,’ complained Vernie as they hurried down the street.
‘No,’ said Smudger. ‘I worked on them so they fit perfect.’
He pulled a mask over his head. He had fashioned crude slits for the eyes. The foot dangled from the top of his skull like a nipple.
‘Jesus, you look horrible!’ whispered Vernie with an admiring glance. He struggled to fit his own mask.
They ran on tiptoe through the phantom town, alarmed by the silence, the empty streets, the narrow houses planted in rows like tombstones. It was like this when you were dead. Perhaps they would meet the dead in the next street, rising up from Hell through the drains, shuffling towards them with stinking flesh and foaming faces.
‘I hope she drank her Bournvita,’ whispered Smudger.
‘Nothing can go wrong,’ promised Vernie. It was a night of miracles. They were loose in the town and before them Sickly’s mother lay waiting, shackled by sleep to her great feather bed. He thought of her curled with her head pushed under the pillows and her bum stuck out through the sheets. They could do anything. They could feast on her glorious, unfrocked fat, thumb her tits, squeeze her snapper, bite her bum; while she, with her eyes closed and legs open, would know nothing.
He touched the blades of the kitchen scissors he had hidden in his pocket. The blood sang in his ears. It was a night of miracles.
‘I hate it,’ said Smudger as they ran down the Parade towards the esplanade.
‘What?’ whispered Vernie.
‘Bournvita,’ said Smudger. He shivered when he heard the sea. It seemed to rumble in the darkness as if it might, at any moment, flood the beach and drown the streets. He stared out towards Whelk Pier. His mouth was dry. His blue eyes grown as hard as marbles. They turned and ran towards Lantern Street.
When they reached Sickly’s garden they squatted in the bushes to watch the house. Old George was wheezing peacefully in one of the dusty flowerbeds. The dark air was scented with honeysuckle.
‘Give him the signal,’ whispered Vernie.
Smudger took aim with the torch and stabbed the button. Three short bursts of light flashed across the lawn and tapped on the kitchen window.
‘He’s fallen asleep,’ hissed Vernie impatiently.
‘No,’ said Smudger. ‘He’ll be there.’
They crouched in the bushes, hardly daring to breathe, until at last the kitchen window swung open and Sickly appeared, a luminous dwarf in crumpled pyjamas, waving at them to approach.
‘You’ll have to climb through the window. I don’t know how to unlock the door,’ he called out in a hoarse whisper as they scampered across the lawn. Vernie made a sprint at the open window and vaulted neatly into the kitchen.
‘Did the tablets work?’ he demanded as he turned to help drag Smudger aboard.
‘Yes,’ said Sickly.
‘Is she asleep?’ said Smudger, staring around the kitchen gloom.
‘Yes, snoring like a pig,’ said Sickly.
Smudger grinned and scratched his ears through the stocking mask. He saw Sickly’s mother as a huge porker rolled in straw, ears loose, trotters stiff, her pink belly hot and steaming.
‘Let’s go,’ said Vernie.
‘I’m not coming with you,’ said Sickly.
‘Why?’ demanded Smudger suspiciously.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sickly. ‘I don’t want to look.’ He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
‘You’re scared.’
‘I’ve seen it,’ he reminded them, scornfully. He turned away. His feet pattered towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ said Smudger, flashing his torch in Sickly’s direction.
‘I’m going back to bed. When you’ve had a look you can get out again through the window,’ he said and disappeared.
‘We don’t need him,’ sneered Vernie. He felt confident now they were inside the house and he trusted the power of the sleeping tablets. Sickly’s mother was already their prisoner. His own mother had fallen out of bed while under the influence and spent the rest of the night asleep on the carpet. It was strong medicine.
They crept upstairs
by the light of the torch and into the forbidden bedroom. Smudger swung the torch beam over the wardrobe, along the floor and found the bottom of the bed.
‘Jesus,’ gasped Vernie. His eyes blazed like bonfires. His ears smouldered. He thought his head would explode. Sickly’s mother lay asleep in the bed. She was sleeping naked because of the heat and one of her legs had slipped through the sheets and glowed, soft and pale, in the torchlight.
He stared at the leg for a long time. It was so lovely he wanted to scream. The narrow beam of light licked across the heel of the foot, over the knee and settled on the swelling thigh. It was so lovely he wanted to throw his arms around the wicked curve of it, shake it, squeeze it, sink his teeth in the plump and smothering softness.
‘Pull down the sheets,’ whispered Smudger from the safety of the door. He rubbed at his face through the mask. The stocking stung like nettles.
Vernie crept towards the bed and hesitated. ‘Hold the light,’ he gasped. ‘I can’t see nothing.’
The torchlight flashed, danced against the wall and settled again upon the sleeping woman. Her face was buried in pillow and she whistled softly as she breathed. A strand of damp hair curled against the edge of her mouth. Vernie flexed his fingers, stretched out a hand and gently, very gently, drew down the sheet. She was sleeping slightly twisted, with her arm concealing her breasts. She smelt of carnations, burnt sugar and hot sultana cake.
‘Pull out her tits,’ croaked Smudger. He was clutching the torch with both hands, holding it at arm’s length, trying to control the trembling beam of light. It had worked! He couldn’t believe it. She was there on the bed in the stark, staring, snapper-screaming nude!
Mercy Peters opened her eyes and peered blindly around the room. ‘What is it?’ she moaned, still stupid with sleep.
‘Nothing,’ whispered Vernie.
‘What’s happening?’ she roared, clutching at the sheet and leaping, startled, from the mattress.
‘We were looking for the dog,’ squealed Smudger. He turned to run but his rubbery legs sent him spinning in circles. In the confusion the woman snatched the torch and trapped the outlaws in a corner. The sheet had fallen from her shoulders and she stood, tall and naked, before them. But Vernie and Smudger crouched, dazzled by light, and hid their faces in their hands.