by Jonny Glynn
I remember that night for other reasons too. It was the night that David’s dad left him. He woke the following morning to find that his father had gone. Just upped and gone in the dead of night, never to be seen again. It affected David, and I felt sorry for him. Run off with another woman, said Dad. Men are all bastards, said Mum. Burn, say I. And burn. Burn the bloody lot–be rid of me. That brazen, peevish juvenile–skulking and parading, the fraud. The liar. Impostor. Pretender. I was there, I saw it! I did it! And look at me, look at me, look at me! The legion of me. The innumerable manys of me, me, me. Every moment and episode. The christening, the wedding, the funeral, the wake, the receptions and sunsets and more bloody sunsets–endless bloody sunsets–and views and culture and tears and beaches. I went there, I saw that, I did this, I’ve done that, I knew him, I had her, that was me, that was mine, this was there and that was that. Every step taken from the cradle to the grave brought to you bright from Happy Snaps. Quality control applies. The amazing magnificent glorious red-eyed moments of my life. To hell with them all and burn! Burn the bloody lot. Burn it.
‘Chuck the whole bloody lot on,’ I grumbled, troubled, thrashing around wildly for another box–grabbing one and tipping its entire contents in at once and then throwing the box in after–arms trembling, Milka watching. All those little moments, tumbling urgently into the flames, all those memories curling and blistering and raging–green and blue and orange, licking and peeling, chewing me into flaming oblivion…Be rid of me…Be rid of me.
There was a letter from Valerie. It was in my hand. Her last letter. The one with the line ‘Nao he nada, senao que matao a meu marido.’ I handed it to Milka. She read it, pausing at the Portuguese, and then looked at me for explanation. I translated: ‘It is nothing, they are only killing my husband.’ She smiled and then dropped the letter into the fire. It floated for a moment, held suspended in the heat above the flames, and then delicately danced ablaze. We watched it burn.
Milka handed me an old school report. The headmaster’s comments were: ‘A good term–did well in the field project, but could ask more questions. Good to see Peter settling down, although Mr Gretner has had cause to mention expressions of temperament twice this term–but I am pleased to say that the worst of last year seems to be behind us. Let us hope Peter can maintain this. Excellent performance as Bumble in the school play.’
Milka smiled. I don’t know why, but her smile means so much to me. It touches me. And moves me…Is that my conscience? Or my feelings?
She opened another box. It was full of the newspapers with reports of Emma’s death. She stopped before tipping them into the flames and looked at me, it was as if she knew.
I couldn’t bear it. I was still in my pyjamas and dressing gown. I went indoors, leaving Milka to finish the job. I watched her from the bedroom window, flickering ghost-like through the flames, leafing through the last of me, and burning me.
‘Been through you with a fine-tooth now,’ he said, stepping out of the wardrobe and helping me into my overcoat. ‘She knows it all now. She knows all about it. Seen all around and been into every inch of you hasn’t she?’
He was right.
‘She saw Emma’s picture in the paper–she read the reports, she knows what happened–she knows who you are–she’s seen into you, seen through you.’
He was right. The light bulb in the hallway flickered. Through the window I could see her opening the last of the boxes. All of Emma’s clothes. Her little jumpers and little dresses, her little shoes and little socks. All the little bits, and all the little bobs, of a little life lost…The flames licked high, crackling bright…All was gone.
She stood watching the last of it burn. I thought how like an angel she appeared–abstract and ultra real. A vivid white imagining.
‘She’s the angel of death,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said, and looked away ashamed.
Milka left at four fifteen…I told her I’d see her next Wednesday and gave her the spare set of keys. I said if I’m out just let yourself in, I’ll leave your money in an envelope on the side. She smiled and said okay.
She’ll be the one that finds me. She’ll be the one that tells my tale. She’ll say kind things, and remember gentle truths.
The flat seemed so empty after she’d gone. I shuffled from room to room listening to the silence and the hollow nothingness of no-one else. I stood in the spare room for quite a long time staring at a stain on the carpet that looks like a screaming face. Every carpet’s got one. Then I got back into bed and wrote everything down and started remembering it all over again. Replaying it all in an endless loop. Round and round it goes. There’s never any forgetting. The twisted cycle of remembrance, unendurable pain and intolerable embarrassment. He said I should go to sleep and dream it off. He was kind to me and tucked his hands gently under my chin, being careful of my bruises. All of it was coming back to me. All the horrid details. And the burning.
When I woke it was dark. I felt confused and out of sorts. I was tangled in the blankets and still wearing my overcoat and sweating profusely. I sat up and was suddenly aware of someone sitting in the shadows watching me. I turned sharply with a start to see who it was. At first I thought it was him. But it wasn’t. The figure stood and moved slowly towards me. It was Milka. She was dressed in Emma’s burnt and singed christening gown. Her eyes a pixellated red. She whispered something that I didn’t understand, and then I woke…The house was silent. I sat on the edge of my bed. I felt so confused and abstracted. All these terrible dreams. Bloody opium. Everything out of kilter–time, and what to do.
I found a copy of today’s Metro that Milka must have left behind. No mention of Monday’s antics, the Sudder Street scandal. I’m half tempted to return to the scene of the crime, and see if anyone’s found them yet, but won’t–the spineless morality of the consequentialist in me prevents. The headline today by the way read:
TOMMY COOPER FOUND IN FISHCAKE
Hmm?…I pondered whilst making a pot of brown.
Peter Crumb’s Pot of Brown
Ingredients:
One large onion
Two handfuls of small button mushrooms
Two cloves of garlic
Two bay leaves
Two cubes of Oxo
One small tin of double concentrate tomato purée
One tin of kidney beans (optional)
Two tins of chopped tomatoes
Four lumps of dark chocolate
Two fat handfuls of lean minced beef
Finely chop the onion and brown till golden in a hot pan. Chop and add the mushrooms and stir on a medium to strong heat for five minutes. In a separate pan brown the mince and then add the onions and mushrooms. Chop and add the garlic, bay leaves, Oxo, tomato purée, tinned tomatoes, kidney beans and chocolate. Season, stir, and then leave on a low heat for about an hour. Serve hot with rice or a challah.
Serves one person all week.
…It was the incongruity of it that made me think of the squirrel. The story itself was perfectly straightforward. It involved a pensioner choking to death on a small plastic keyring of Tommy Cooper that had somehow found its way into a fishcake. Nothing odd about that, I agree. But it made me think of the squirrel and its scone. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I went out into the garden to find the little devil’s booty and dig it up. It didn’t take long. I went to the spot where I’d seen him digging, saw the up-turned earth, got down on my hands and knees and dug until I found it. It was still whole but very soggy and infested with soil. As I was digging I noticed that the nosy curtain-twitching bugger that lives upstairs was watching me. I knew what I was doing was strange and I knew I looked odd, on my knees in the garden in my overcoat and pyjamas digging up an old scone, but I thought how dare he? How dare he watch me? I’ve always been a head-turner, I concede, but this I thought was too much–it’s an intrusion! Brazenly eyeing me, in my own back garden–how dare he? Don’t be intimidated, Crumb, I told myself–what you do in your own back g
arden is your business and nobody else’s. I felt like a feminist with my tits out on a sunny afternoon. Let him watch, I thought. Watch all you bloody want, you pillock. You pervert. You gutless coward.
I dusted the scone, smelt it and put it in my pocket. Then I found a stick, crossed to the blackened burnt-out dustbin and gave the smouldering charred remains a poke and a stir. The ash was so fine and powdered, everything had burnt, all had gone, mingled into one, ashes to ashes, and starting to rain…I glanced at the sky, the first few heavy drops of a downpour were slowly starting to fall, and the goon upstairs was still watching me–there he was, a shadow in the window, twitching behind his curtains, the timorous dolt. I discarded the stick and leant forward over the dustbin and then reached down into its dark interior and plunged my hands into the still warm ash. It was so soft–like flour. I played with it, tumbling it between my palms, turning it over and rubbing it into my skin. It was nice, and so warm. I don’t know why but for some reason it made me smile. Right, I thought, let’s really give him something to remember–let’s really give him something to gossip about with the others at those meetings they all have to discuss the carpet in the corridor. Yes, those meetings they never invite me to. Those meetings they think I don’t know they have. Residents? What the fuck am I? Yes this’ll give him something to complain about–keep him feeling connected and superior–the turd. Yes, come on, Crumb–I was starting to giggle–come on, Crumb–give him a real proper madman show, give him real proper bonkers. I pulled off my overcoat and unbuttoned my pyjama top, stripping myself naked to the waist. Why stop there? I heard myself consider. My fingers pulled my draw-strings and my pyjama bottoms dropped around my ankles, exposing my fleshy distended manhood. There was something elemental in it–certainly something mental in it–something African and wild, a crackpot connection with nature, sensual and hungry as the rain wet my body. The middle classes travel halfway around the world to see this sort of thing, I thought–and my penis was semi-erect, which both surprised and delighted me. I ceremonially lifted the dustbin high above my head and then tipped its contents out all over me. A hot black cloud of ash billowed all about me, shimmering in the moonlight, its particles glistening in the cold wet air, coating me in a fine grey patina. It was beautiful. I could taste it. My hands were working it into my face and around my neck, over my body, and between my legs and through my hair, encasing me in a thick crust of ash–burning me and stinging my cuts. That’ll show him, I thought. That’ll show him.
I came back inside and looked at myself in the mirror. I had to laugh. The folly that lives beneath–swollen, naked and painted grey. What a monster. I cackled like a loon, very loudly–Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Hahaahah! I could hear him anxiously pacing about upstairs, wondering what was to follow. I put the scone on a dainty side plate, dressed it up nicely with a pat of rancid butter and a dollop of apricot preserve (damp goes with butter and mud is not unlike apricot in texture), threw on my overcoat and went upstairs. I’m taking it up to him, I said, and I’m finally going to have it out with him. This has been going on for years and frankly it’s intolerable. I’ve been meaning to have a word since the day I moved in. Skittish feelings of inferiority have so far prevented, but not any more, I’m knocking on his door and saying hello.
I shouldn’t have, it was a terrible mistake…What bloody evil followed remains now and forever.
I stormed up the stairs to confront him. A jittery consciousness pushing at the awkward edges of unease, a knotted goading invasion of nausea and dread and an acid spike of hatred kindling within. I smudged butter and ash over his spyhole–I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, rang his doorbell and waited, ears pricked, listening. I could hear him gutlessly crawling around under his bed, summoning the courage to answer–the pathetic cunt. After about five minutes and five more doorbell rings of various lengths, I at last heard his frightened cautious shuffle down the corridor towards me, and then a timorous enquiring: ‘Yes?’
‘Hello,’ I said, loudly and with confidence. ‘It’s your neighbour. Could you open up?’
There was a brief pause, and then he bashfully piped, ‘What do you want?’
‘I thought I’d come and introduce myself,’ I said, sounding as reasonable and as mild-mannered and as sane as I could. There was another pause.
‘I see,’ he said, rather knowingly. It momentarily confused me, and I remember noting a tick in my thinking. With hindsight I realize I should have paid that tick a lot more mind.
‘It’s a little inconvenient at the moment,’ he went on, stammering excuses and bluffing polite go-aways. ‘I was about to turn in, couldn’t it wait until the morning?’
The cunning swine–of course it could wait, all things can wait–got to get on with them, though, haven’t we?–vexing me with his possibilities and alternatives and damnable choices. Turn in to what I wondered? Think of something, Crumb. My mind was racing and then I remembered the scone.
‘I’ve brought you something,’ I gleefully continued. ‘A peace offering. I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. I should have popped round years ago I know but…well, better late then never…’
There was another pause–slightly longer this time. Come on, I thought, open up…My luck was in, his about to run out. I heard the key turn in the lock. The fool, I thought–he’s let his manners get the better of him, he’s told himself that he’s being ridiculous and that his suspicions about his neighbour are nothing to worry about and that everything will be all right and that human beings are essentially good. I don’t need to put the safety chain on, he’s thought–that’ll seem hostile and suspicious and untrusting, be friendly he’s told himself, you’ve nothing to be afraid of, be confident and smile. The fool–he had everything to fear. He turned the key and opened his door. If only he hadn’t. Never open your door to strangers at night, however rude it may feel.
‘Hello,’ I said, as gracious as a vicar on a Sunday afternoon, expansively offering him my hand and stepping forward into his space. ‘My name’s Peter. It’s joyful to meet you–I’ve brought you a scone.’
You should have seen his expression. He didn’t know what to think or where to look or what to say. He was quaking. There I was, my features swollen, blackened with ash, smiling like a minstrel and offering a scone–he nearly shat his pants.
‘I just thought I’d pop round and introduce myself,’ I said again. ‘We’ve been neighbours for years now. I’ve often seen you about, coming and going, twitching behind the curtains, pacing up and down–I thought I’d bring you an offering and say hello.’ I pushed the plate and scone forward into his hands, forcing him to take it. The poor man was terrified. He just stood there staring at me, so I smiled at him–a real big toothy beamer, which seemed to scare him even more. His muscles twitched, involuntarily pulling him backwards. He was like a frightened child, cowering. This was too easy. It was pathetic. I could hear his kettle reaching the boil and the switch clicking loud. He’s got a metal kettle, I thought. One of those posh ones. Plastic kettles click quiet.
‘Have you got a brew on?’ I enthused, pointing down his corridor and stepping past him. ‘Which way is it–through here?’
‘Please–I’m sorry–No–Please–’ he hurriedly babbled behind me. I ignored him. The layout of his flat was exactly as mine, I turned right and stepped into his living room.
‘Well well well–who’s this then?’
Sitting straight-backed, bolt upright on the sofa was a dark-haired bespectacled woman staring at me. Her mouth was open and her hands held out in front of her, frightened palms facing, and ever so slightly shaking. She didn’t say anything, she was too scared to.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘My name’s Peter. I live beneath. I just thought I’d pop up and introduce myself. I’ve brought you a scone. Only the one, I’m afraid. To be honest I didn’t realize there were two of you.’
They were both staring at each other. This was their nightmare come true. A blacked-up semi-naked madman in their living room. They’d
read about this in the papers. Every evil imagining was flitting through their frightened minds. I didn’t really want to scare them–certainly not terrify them. I was just having some fun. Taking advantage of their smug middle-class window-locked concerns and their ABC1 fear and paranoia–playing with them, teasing them, that’s all. But they weren’t amused. It was obvious they thought I was care in the community gone wrong, gone horribly wrong. They honestly thought that I was going to do something awful to them, gut them or something. She had rape on her mind, I could tell. It saddened me to think that that’s how I’m perceived. People look at me, I’m aware of that, I’ve grown accustomed to the stranger’s eye being on me, as I’ve said–I’ve always been a head-turner. But you are what others make of you, Crumb–and what these two made of me was obvious, an unhinged corruption of the human condition let loose in their front room with evil intent. A criminally insane painted monster. It’s too black and white to be true but what do you expect, Crumb? You turn up in the middle of the night all but naked, covered in ash, offering scones, and you think folks aren’t going to wonder?…You’re right, I’ve only myself to blame–but still, I digress…
‘D’you mind if I sit down?’ I said, and not waiting for a reply I parked my arse in a big white armchair and settled comfortably back, sighing like an aunt at a funeral.
The bespectacled woman looked at me, closed her gob, swallowed and then said, ‘Please…We were about to go to bed…’ A tight, mean little accent grovelled in the back of her throat.