by M J Dees
Teresa sat up and scanned the air. There it was again. She grasped for it but knew it was beyond reach.
Buzz. It flew past her left ear taunting her with its agility.
“Bastard,” she muttered, becoming more determined that the insect would die.
Teresa looked around. She spied the creature against the duvet and lunged for it. She eyed her clenched fist. Was the beast inside? She unclenched her fist and out flew the mosquito, unhurt. She lunged again. Did she have it? She ground her fist in an attempt to guarantee the insects mortality. Once more she opened her hand, but her palm was clean, no bug. Then, she spied, in between her middle and index fingers, a black smudge. She spread her fingers and saw the crumpled and crushed remains of her enemy. For a moment she eyed the entomological corpse as a victor salutes a worthy adversary and then flicked it onto the floor, turned off the light and went back to sleep.
Teresa had no way of knowing how long she had slept. This time it was the sound, not of a mosquito, but of more than one mosquito.
Her immediate reaction was that the mosquitoes had seen what she had done to their friend and had now come for revenge
She switched the light on again and hunted for the insects; she saw several, all beyond reach. How could she hope to murder them all? Perhaps there were hundreds.
She decided her bed sheets would protect her, turned off the light and hid beneath the covers but it soon began to get scalding, and in any case, she was sure she could feel one of them attacking her leg through the sheet.
She sat up and turned the light on again. There was a fan on the ceiling. Perhaps if she turned it on the mosquitoes wouldn’t be able to land on her. There seemed to be a controller as part of the light switch on the wall, so she got up and fiddled with the controls until the blades of the fan began to whir into action. She then returned to bed and trying not to listen to the occasional buzz, she closed her eyes and attempted to get back to sleep. After what felt like a very long time, fatigue overcame the fear of being bitten, and she slept.
When she awoke, it was daylight, and she felt an overwhelming desire to itch her ankle, her arm, her leg. Still tired, she lay in bed and listened for sounds of activity in the house.
After a while, she heard what sounded like Mariana in the kitchen, so decided she should get up and dragged herself into the bathroom.
After a wee, she observed herself in the mirror with horror. An army of red blotches had joined the big white dressing and black eyes.
Oh Brilliant,’ she thought. ‘Things are just getting better and better’.
Once she had showered and dressed, avoiding any disruption to her dressing, she wandered down to the kitchen to see what Mariana was doing.
As she rounded the kitchen door, an old woman seemed to leap out and scream at her, Teresa shouted back.
“My God!” exclaimed the old woman, placing her hand on her chest.
“Jesus! You scared me.” Teresa responded, doing likewise.
The old woman found a nearby stool and sat on it.
“I’m Teresa,” Teresa said after a long pause and held out her hand, which the woman ignored.
Mariana rushed in.
“What happened?” she asked, breathless from her race down the stairs.
The old woman and Teresa observed Mariana.
“Jesus! What happened to you?” Mariana asked Teresa, staring at her pockmarked skin.
“Mosquitoes.”
“Oh my God, are you OK?”
“Never mind her. I almost had a heart attack,” the old woman snapped.
“Sorry Nanny.”
Nanny?
“This is Teresa. Teresa this is Nanny.”
“You have a nanny?”
“Well, Nanny was my nanny when I was growing up, but now she still helps around the house.”
“Cooks cleans, does the dishes, the laundry, and takes the dog for a walk.” Nanny elaborated.
“Dog?”
Teresa felt a sudden urge to be alone, to be at home with her cats without human interference. She had been aware for some time that when with other people, she often desired solitude but then when she was alone Teresa felt lonely and longed for the company of others. There was no pleasing her. She used to get frustrated with her daughter not doing as she was told and long for someone to take her off her hands for a while so she could have a break but then they need only be separated for five minutes and Teresa would begin to miss her and long to get back to her.
Sat there in Mariana’s kitchen, she longed to be far away, not least because she had a growing sensation within that soon she would need to do a giant fart.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” she asked and headed straight for the bathroom.
Teresa sat on the toilet. She felt bloated. She tried to poo, but only the smallest of farts escaped. Reaching for the toilet paper her arm brushed against her breast, which felt tender, an indication that her period was on its way.
When Teresa went back down to the kitchen, the old woman had gone, and she had laid out breakfast on the large white kitchen table. Teresa wondered whether everything in the house was white.
“Is everything in the house white?” she asked.
“No,” Mariana answered, confused.
Teresa accepted some coffee and some bread, which she began to dress with slices of cheese.
“I know we were going to hang out together.” Teresa began.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Mariana interrupted. “You just want to get home don’t you?”
“Well…” Teresa smiled.
“It’s fine. After breakfast, I’ll run you home. Just give me a chance to have a quick shower first.”
“Thank you, Ma. You’ve been excellent to me. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Mariana. “I feel responsible. If I hadn’t invited you to the beach, none of this would have happened.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Mariana smiled.
“At least I met an excellent doctor,” she said.
Teresa laughed and then winced.
”I better not laugh,” said Teresa. “It hurts my head.”
Mariana laughed for both of them.
“Have a cake,” she said pointing to a spread almost as large as the one Mariana’s mum had offered. “Dotty makes these. They’re better than mum’s.”
“Thanks,” said Teresa “But I think I’ll stick with the cheese.”
After breakfast, Mariana had a shower while Teresa brushed her teeth and collected her belongings.
Teresa felt a little guilty to be abandoning Mariana on what looked to be turning into a beautiful Sunday, but she was glad to be going home. She was in no state to face the public in any case.
“Do you want to come in?” Teresa offered as Mariana pulled up outside her house.
“Thanks, but I’ll leave you to it. Have a good rest, and I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Thanks.”
Teresa got out the car and leant down to close the door.
“Thanks again,” she said. “See you at school.”
At the front door, Teresa was just about to place her key in the lock when a sound made her stop. She listened. There it was again. That bird. Another striped cuckoo. She’d never seen one in years, or at least not paid attention to them, and now, here they were, popping up all over the place. The Saci bird.
In the house, Oliver and Ramsey rushed to see her. Oblivious to the state of her face, they brushed up against her in excitement
Teresa dropped her bag on the floor and walked into the kitchen. Stray tiny balls of cat food crunched under her feet. The cats’ bowls were almost empty.
“Good job I came home when I did,” she said to them as they brushed around her legs.
She took the bag of cat food out of the cupboard and put a handful in each of their bowls, which they started to devour.
Teresa went to wash the dusty cat food residue off her hands and wondered whether there wou
ld be any water in the tap. There was. Teresa was ambivalent about the current supply of water. On the one hand, it meant the water tank would refill. She could also refill the ice cube dispensers and all the plastic bottles she’d collected to store water. She could also fill the kettle without going to the bathroom. The downside of having a supply of water was that she had no excuse for not doing the washing up that had been accumulating in the sink and now sat there festering under a small cloud of fruit flies. She decided there was plenty of time to do the washing up and decided instead to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Tea was a taste she had acquired during her time in England, along with salt and vinegar crisps, brown sauce, chocolate buttons, Polo mints, jelly babies and shortbread, none of which were available in São Paulo.
To put the kettle on she had to unplug the microwave. Some years ago, Brazil had changed the type of electrical plug and socket it used. None of the plugs, even the ones that worked, were the right size for any of her appliances and the house was littered with adapters and extension cables. Also, even the new type of electrical plug seemed to have two kinds, fat and thin, so that some of the plugs would only fit in some of the adapters she had purchased. This led to a shortage of holes for her large plugs. Both the kettle and the microwave bore large plugs, and because they also shared the same area of the kitchen there was not enough big plug capacity, and she could use one at a time. So, every time she wanted to use the microwave she would need to unplug the kettle and every time Teresa needed the kettle she would need to unplug the microwave. Teresa had found it tough to source the correct adapter. So far, she had managed to buy five, but these were deployed at the ends of various devices and appliances around the house. She would put the kettle on and realise five minutes later that it wasn’t plugged in. Today was no exception. Five minutes later, she unplugged the microwave and sat back down to wait a second time for the kettle to boil.
The cats fussed around her, punctuating attacks on her feet with attacks on each other. When the kettle boiled and she walked into the kitchen, ball of black fur darting between her feet and she was in grave danger of being tripped.
Opening the fridge door for the milk, she noticed a remarkable absence of coldness. She smelt the milk. It was off. She checked the plug. It was plugged in. She checked the lights on the fridge door. The lights indicated the fridge was running at maximum power. It wasn’t. She checked the freezer. That seemed to be OK. Teresa pressed a few buttons then just left the festering milk next to the festering washing up and resolved to drink her tea black on this occasion.
She sat back down and pointed the remote at the TV, pressing the small red button. Nothing. She pressed it again. Still nothing. She considered the possibility that the power company had cut off the electricity or that there had been a power cut, but the boiling water in her cup and the small red light on the television disproved this theory. What could have caused the simultaneous failure or her TV and fridge? Neither was under guarantee.
It would have to be music then. Teresa put on the iPod. Belle and Sebastian started on the shuffle; I’m a Cuckoo. She could relax and kicked off her shoes.
When Teresa awoke, it was dark, and she had a splitting headache and a damp sensation in her knickers. She got up from the sofa but there it was. A small red spot of blood on the couch/mattress.
“Bollocks,” she said out loud pulling the sheet off to reveal a stain on the mattress below.
Teresa rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a pinch of salt and a damp cloth. Thank God, she had water. Teresa rushed back to the mattress and rubbed the salt on the spot. Her mother had told her it was good for removing blood stains when she had tried to wash the blood out of her sheets when she’d lost her virginity to her childhood boyfriend, Guillermo.
She padded the stain with the damp cloth then covered it with kitchen towels and sat a couple of heavy books on top, a dictionary and Learn How to Paint, to soak up the stain while she went for a shower. The cats chased her, but she rushed to close the bathroom door before they could squeeze in.
Clean, dry and wearing a fresh pair of clothes protected by super strength tampon and maxi-strength sanitary pads, she led the cats into the living room and observed the damage on the mattress. The tissues had lifted most of the stain so, following a rub with a clean damp cloth, she laid new tissues and replaced the books.
She tried the TV again, but it still didn’t work. She tried the fridge, but it still wasn’t cold. She decided to email the Head, explaining why she wouldn’t be in school for the next three days.
Chapter Seventeen - The Car - 9th February 2015
The metallic rattle of the front gate roused Teresa. She shuffled in her slippers to the door and opened the small window in the middle, but there was no one there. She noticed a piece of paper wedged into the gate. The electricity bill.
Checking that the cats weren’t close enough to escape, she opened the door, grabbed the bill and closed the door again. Oliver and Ramsey sat at the opposite side of the room wondering what all the fuss was.
Teresa sat back down and opened the bill.
“Ninety?” She said aloud as she read the total. She couldn’t understand how this was possible. Flipping the bill over, she noticed a whole panel explaining the new traffic light system, based on the level of water in the state’s hydroelectricity generating reservoirs. The power company charged their usual tariff when the levels in the lake were high. However, when levels were low, the status would switch to amber, and they would add a cost of R$1.50 per so many units of electricity. An additional R$3 would be added per so many units when levels were low, as they were now, and that, it seemed, was the reason that Teresa’s bill was such a shock.
She breathed a sigh of frustration and put the bill down on the sofa beside her, knowing that she would need to do some budgeting if she was going to make it to the end of the month.
The cats jumped onto the sofa next to her as if they sensed that some consolation was required.
Her head throbbed, and her stomach cramped. She treated herself to some more painkillers and another cup of tea. The TV still wasn’t working so she decided to make herself a hot water bottle and listen to music in bed. It was too hot for a hot water bottle, but it eased her pain, so she opted to sweat.
Teresa decided Benny Goodman might be the answer. It was happy music, which made her feel better, and the fact that it was Jazz made her feel a little bit cultured.
Teresa had an old-fashioned turntable for playing vinyl. She had bought it not long after she moved into the flat when she had found a pile of old vinyl records in the back of a dusty cupboard. Since then Teresa had visited second-hand stores to ferret through the vinyl, and Benny Goodman had been one of her greatest discoveries. A ten-inch album, she slid the shiny black disc out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. Lifting the needle arm, she moved it first to the right which engaged the motor and started the turntable spinning at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, then moved it left and lowered it onto the edge of the black disk. There was a moment of crackling and hissing before the sound of trumpets burst through the speakers and filled the room.
Although the TV was not working, the Internet was. So, Teresa pressed the ‘on’ button of her, now aged, laptop and waited for it to start up.
When the computer had gone through all the checks it needed, it paused a couple of times giving Teresa the impression it had crashed. It concluded the start-up process with a message assuring her that it now started 12% faster than it did before she installed the Power Tools Performance Enhancer 2.1 utility. She was not impressed, and double clicked on the Internet browser icon before going to make another cup of tea which she knew she could do before the application would open itself and be ready for use.
The browser was ready, and she found herself wandering through sites, clicking on any links which seemed of interest. The first side of Benny Goodman had finished, but she couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn the record over. Then she saw an advert that caught her ey
e.
‘The secret to health and happiness without effort.’
Teresa snorted with derision but still followed the link to a website with a video which kept talking about interesting facts about the secret to being slim and happy but which never seemed to get to the point. Every time the presenter, a beautiful, happy and very slender woman wearing a white doctor’s coat which flapped open to reveal just how healthy and happy she was, seemed to be about to reveal the secret to the perfect body and the key to unbridled happiness, the secret that THEY don’t want you to know, she would start talking about another compelling piece of research THEY have tried to keep secret to stop you from finding out the secret to real fitness and unparalleled delirium with no effort whatsoever. After about ten minutes of compelling research presented in a delightful manner by the woman with the most beautiful body on the planet, Teresa was told that all she needed to do was order a pack which contained everything she needed including two types of herbal pills which the Chinese have sworn by for centuries but which THEY don’t want you to know about. The price seemed very reasonable. Teresa glanced at the bill sat next to her on the mattress sofa and thought about how one expenditure or another accounted for every centavo of her salary. She closed the laptop, set it aside, laying her head on a cushion, she drifted off into a deep sleep.
Teresa awoke in the middle of the night, still lying on the sofa with a splitting headache. She got up for a glass of water to wash down her painkillers. The cats followed her into the kitchen. She had tried the tap before she remembered that there was no water at night and instead looked inside the fridge for a bottle. There was nothing in the fridge, and as she surveyed the line of empty bottles by the kitchen sink, she realised she had forgotten to refill them all. Teresa turned to the kettle which had a small amount in the bottom together with a collection of limescale residue. She poured it into a small glass and unwrapped her medicine from its packaging. The cats took it in turns to investigate their litter tray, food bowls, water bowl and scratching post. Teresa smiled a weary smile at them, dropped a tablet on her tongue and drank the water, wincing as the small pieces of limescale joined the tablet on the way down her oesophagus.