Straight away, Mr and Mrs Wallace got wittering about building a holy shrine for Stevie in his bedroom, with all his medals and certificates. We all had a cuddle. Even Martin gave me a kiss on the cheek, more as a ‘sorry for the loss’ rather than a ‘congratulations on the gain’. He took my bank details all the same, and explained someone would be round the flat to pick up the trophies and everything else in the next week or so. I’d have to tidy.
It was time to retreat back to the Capital. Mr Wallace seemed intent on buying me one last gin down the Southern Cross, but I lied and said I had a shift that evening at the Ristorante, hotfooting it out onto Captain Cook’s Crescent with Mr Sawyer. It was strange being on Stevie’s snaking street again – me and him had had many happy voyages down it over the years. And this was to be my last.
I felt a little queasy, hugging everyone goodbye again. Martin offered me a lift to the station, and we sat together in the front, with the rain causing interference on the windows. As we sallied forth, Martin told me a few stories about Stevie as a nipper, playing football with his son, and one about his son doing well now on a computing course at Teesside. I had to pretend to be interested. While we sped forward, all I could think about was getting back to the flat. I looked forward to seeing Lucifer, and the two Stevies, and the 243 bus that says ‘Hello’ at my window every eight to ten minutes, Monday to Friday. I looked forward to telling them all about the money.
Meaty Stevie and Fruity Stevie appeared to have been fighting while I’d been away. Fruity Stevie had bruises down his yellow arms and legs, and his red cherry eyeball had turned black. Meaty Stevie wasn’t bruised at all, but you could tell there’d been some retaliation because his skin was red raw, and a bit scabby round the edges. I tutted at them, tearing the clingfilm down the middle and sliding them to opposite ends of the worktop. I incarcerated them under two glass mixing bowls.
Neither protested.
One weird thing about Stevie was he only ever listened to music by people who’d killed themselves.
On my next day off (a Tuesday), a pair of removal men came round to remove Stevie’s clothes and trophies, and more or less half my memories of him. All I had left were his CDs, some sports paraphernalia, and a spare house key on his silver AAA keyring. And all his money.
The removal men turned their noses up at the two mouldy effigies in the kitchen, and refused a mug of Lemsip Max Strength, but they didn’t turn their noses up at Stevie’s bad fashion sense. Stevie’s empty wardrobe gaped open like yet another square mouth. I tried my best to plug the orifice, stuffing Stevie’s records into the compartments where his boxers and socks used to live, and listening to the odd one as I went. Work the day before had been murder (I annoyed Nina by stepping on her toes, and I annoyed Paolo for doing some sums wrong, and they annoyed me too, by being annoyed at me), so the moody, blue music mirrored my emotions quite well.
To the sound of Nirvana, Elliott Smith, INXS, the Manics, and the manic cars outside, I wondered if it was possible to kill yourself just because of the music you listen to. I refused to put on the Closer album, just in case it had voodoo powers, causing its listeners to attach shoelaces to their necks and fall off a climbing frame. It eyed me up from between Unknown Pleasures and Still, while I shimmied about, halfheartedly shaking my bottom to the harmonica part of ‘Suicide Blonde’.
Some of the songs were more miserable than others. Richey Edwards out of the Manic Street Preachers wrote lyrics about abortions and mausoleums, while Nirvana now and then sang about moist vaginas and Mexican seafood. Generally, though, the theme was suffering.
My ears were suffering by about three. I decided I needed some fresh air. Also, I wanted to find out why Kurt, Ian, Elliott, Richey, Michael and friends had topped themselves. Was it because they listened to depressing music? Or was it because their wives and girlfriends depressed them?
I did the trick with the door, and stomped up the High Road with period pain grinding my insides, like a hedgehog doing stretches in my womb. I popped a couple of ibuprofen out of the Medicine Bag. It felt sickly brushing shoulders with the obnoxious, raucous schoolkids piling out of the fried-chicken shops and yapping at each other. For some reason, the kids of the Capital speak with queer Cockney-Yank accents, and wear baggy sports-smocks – it must be all that gangsta rap they listen to, piping out of their phones like shady, subliminal Linguaphone. That afternoon, Tottenham looked like a watered-down wannabe Compton or Bronx, or a shoestring-budget Kriss Kross video. I didn’t fancy a cameo.
It was a relief to get through the door of the internet caff. I put 50p on the counter, then slumped down at computer number 8. The guy behind the counter had far too much forehead and not enough chin. I could feel him watching me, in between mouthfuls of his steaming curry. I rubbed my womb and ignored him. After checking my empty email inboxes, I did some research on the dead members of Stevie’s favourite groups, and I was saddened to find most of them had kicked the bucket because of girls. I kicked the bottom of the computer desk, lightly.
I felt like a wicked witch again. A nasty piece of work. To add to the effect, just then the sky darkened, and the heavens opened. Over the top of the monitor, I watched shards of lightning pin-pricking the far-off estates. The kids of the Capital yapped louder, shutting their chip boxes and running for cover.
Planet Earth has enjoyed a rich history of nastiness. In the olden days – long before the world’s first nice person, Jesus Christ – there used to be these tyrannous, gruesome creatures called dinosaurs roaming about. These so-called ‘terrible lizards’ would still be around today, wreaking havoc at our supermarkets, garden centres and beach holidays, if it wasn’t for a freak explosion that occurred just before the Ice Age, killing them all off. Sadly, though, it didn’t take long for new tyrannous, gruesome creatures called humans to colonise and conquer the Earth’s surface.
I wondered if the world was due another freak explosion. While it was nerve-wracking being in a small room filled with electrical equipment during an electrical storm, I had eighteen mins remaining on the PC I didn’t want to waste. The gaps between flashes and rumbles were getting slimmer and slimmer, so I decided to write my will, just in case. I brought up Microsoft Word and picked the fanciest, most formal, flowery font I could find. I typed:
The Last Will and Testament of Kimberly Clark
To whom it may concern. Providing I’ve still got my looks, don’t burn me. Embalm me please – I would like an open casket, and would like to look my best. Then bury me in an airtight, watertight coffin – the most expensive you can find, please. Keep my organs where they should be (I did think about getting a donor card, but I don’t want to look like a doner kebab once the doctors have finished with me). Don’t let anyone muck about with me at the funeral parlour, e.g. treating me like a puppet. Play ‘Celebration’ by Kool & the Gang at the service. Make sure everyone’s well fed. Give all my money to the Samaritans, or another charity dealing with suicidals. There is a hamster in Flat D above a halal butcher’s on Tottenham High Road that desperately needs feeding. Thank you. Hopefully I will have had a good life by the time you read this. Farewell.
I double-clicked PRINT, but nothing happened. I clicked PRINT again, and again, and again, and again, giving the printer icon a miniature heart-massage with the cursor. Still no reaction. I glanced across at the guy behind the counter, but he was too engrossed in his curry to notice my plight. The hush of the internet caff made me shy, so I just clicked PRINT again, instead of complaining. Still nothing happened.
‘Print print print … I’ve gone and pressed print, but why’s it not fecking printing?’ the chubby Irishman beside me blurted out, obviously having the same trouble.
The guy behind the counter looked as gormless as the open-mouthed printer. He put his dinner to one side, then twiddled the wires in the back of the Epson halfheartedly and sighed through his nose.
My neighbour clearly didn’t like being sighed at – especially with only three mins remaining on his PC.
>
‘’Ere, black boy, why’s it not print?’ he snapped, getting up from his spinning chair.
Ah, racism – the last bastion for the ignorant and indignant. I cringed, with my eyes down at my keyboard, sensing danger. Round about me, everyone else became suddenly transfixed by their own keyboards.
‘What did you call me?’ grunted the guy with the curry.
‘Black boy,’ coughed the Irishman, striding up to the desk. ‘Well, you wouldn’t want me calling you white boy.’
To keep myself busy, I glanced across at his frozen monitor. Of all the things, the irate Irishman was trying to print out a clip-art image of a smiling woolly monkey, wearing a fez and juggling peanuts, with the words SMITH FAIRYTALE FUNLAND in a large speech bubble.
‘You leave now, you leave,’ said the guy behind the counter, heroically/foolishly standing his ground. The only weapon he had at his disposal was a tepid punnet of lamb madras, whereas the Irishman had biceps like triceratops’ legs, and some fairly nasty insults, to boot:
‘I’ve already paid, you fecking grandmotherfecker,’ he replied, getting right in his face. Despite the brilliant insult, my heartstrings sagged sadly for the internet fellow. It must be an awful job, looking after slow, petulant, fickle, self-centred, mute computers. Not to mention slow, petulant, fickle, self-centred, vocal customers. ‘No, you leave. You no talk to me like that,’ he said.
‘You fecking nigging grandmotherfecker,’ I think the Irishman said next, though there was a bus going past. Then, a loud drum-roll of thunder.
Round the caff, everyone kept the act up, pretending to be more interested in the internet than in the insults. I wished the lightning would strike us down, after all. I hated the idea of it hitting an innocent family household (perhaps halfway through the little one blowing out their birthday candles), when it could hit this internet caff, full of selfish, ignorant scumbags.
At least, next to these bastards, I didn’t feel like a witch any more. Yes, I was a chronically bad girlfriend, but I realised there’s more tyrannous, gruesome creatures than me roaming the Earth – it’s just that they don’t have unstable, suicidal partners, that’s all.
Perhaps I was a good person, underneath it all. I wasn’t sure.
I decided to put it down to fate. If the lightning killed us, I’d accept my lot (probably reborn as a slug), and suffer my sins graciously. If we survived, I’d start my life afresh, and be as nice as possible to everyone and everything, from then on.
I waited for something to happen, while the thunder drowned out the arguing. I picked fluff off my raincoat, and straightened the Guillotine with my fingertips. I wasn’t going to die looking ropey. It worried me that my will hadn’t printed out, although, thankfully, it was still frozen on the screen in front of me. Hopefully it’d still be legible in the instance of an electric attack. Hopefully the Microsoft screensaver wouldn’t kick in before the ambulancemen got to me.
With the lightning more or less overhead, I tried to convince myself I’d enjoyed a good innings. I could recall about five or six times I’d been overwhelmingly happy, and about fifteen times I’d been uncontrollably upset. As the flashes and rumbles got closer and closer together, I felt sick, imagining us all turning into crispy charcoal and bubbling fat – and the world not being any worse off for it. I prayed for a quick, painless death. But, more than that, I prayed for a second chance.
What I got was silence.
Through the window, I saw the lightning moving on, pointing out distant landmarks in the Capital while the thunder grumbled, having trouble keeping up. I breathed relief into my fists, feeling suddenly ecstatic. Round the room, everyone was still tap-tapping obliviously at their keyboards, like the last pitter-patters of the storm.
In my belly, I felt something shift. I was going to be a nice person. From then on, there would be no more cruelty. Nina’s toes wouldn’t have to fear coming into work with her; my landlord wouldn’t have to worry about his flat flooding again; and no future boyfriends would be coaxed into suicide after spending too much quality time with me. And I told myself: if I ever find true love again, I’m going to keep hold of it.
Looking about the caff, I tried to conjure up some empathy for my fellow customers. Maybe they weren’t ignorant scumbags, after all – maybe they were just trying to keep their heads down and survive, in a town that’s not well known for its community spirit. Over by the counter, the Irishman and the internet man were still bickering, only with less enthusiasm and conviction, now the creative insults had run dry.
I wondered if I could employ some forcible kindness to ease the tension. I weighed up my people skills. In the end, though, I didn’t have to step in. It could’ve been the storm passing, or it could’ve been fate again but, just then, the printer kicked back into life, spitting out six copies of my will, and one sheet with a smiling woolly monkey on it, wearing a fez.
‘Eh, eh, who are these?’ the internet fellow announced, trying to sidestep the argument. He fanned out my six wills, and wafted them.
Embarrassed, I got up out of my spinning chair. I didn’t want anyone to laugh at my last rites but, fortunately, they were typed in an almost illegible font, and being wafted, too. I smiled at the internet bloke, just to be nice, then removed my purse and said, ‘Thanks, love. Er, here, I’ll pay for his too.’
I placed a pound on the counter, to cover the seven printed sheets (including the monkey), plus a generous 30p tip for my long-foreheaded, chinless friend.
‘No, no,’ the internet fellow protested, meaning, ‘Thank you.’
‘Cheers, like,’ the Irishman said to me, with a furrowed brow, meaning, ‘Have you got fecking brain damage?’
Thrown by my nice gesture, the chubby Paddy rolled up his woolly monkey picture and stormed back out of the caff without saying anything else. Me and the internet fellow watched him disappear, trudging between the puddles. My friend took a shy mouthful of cold curry.
‘Thank you,’ he said, also meaning, ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t worry. He was an idiot,’ I said, which wasn’t particularly nice of me, but it was the truth, at least. ‘Are you alright?’
The internet fellow nodded, no doubt appreciating his crap job a bit more, now the Irishman was gone. I decided to make it even better for him.
‘Here, here’s my number, if you ever want a … friend, or anything,’ I said, scribbling my Sony Ericsson digits onto his napkin. Then, I gave him a winning smile, posted my six sheets of A4 into my handbag and sauntered out of his shop.
The internet fellow dribbled a little sauce, all merry and confused. As I slipped past the window, I waved, and I could tell I’d made his day. He didn’t dare wipe his chin with the napkin.
I don’t have a complete heart of stone, you know.
While I’ve always found humans a bit on the unbearable side, I’ve got a real soft spot for nature, and the flashes of beauty it fires at you throughout the year: for instance, plaintive winter nights when the moon’s gloomy face reflects your own, like a huge, distant shaving mirror; or the double rainbow me and Stevie rode past on the FirstCapitalConnect in spring 2006; or that fleeting whiff of ozone I sniffed up last summer, blessing me with the gift of time travel, sending me hurtling back to my first ever kiss, on a wet and windy Wednesday night outside Marton Country Club.
I find it strange how people get annoyed when it rains. Alright, so you get drenched and the bus is always packed and steamy, but what people don’t realise is the rain transforms the street into a never-ending silver mirror, reflecting the sky. Birds nest in the paving slabs. Planes go down the drain.
I think the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen are the stars, especially when you go up the hills in North Yorkshire and you’re away from the pollution, and you can see simultaneously into the future and into the past. Often I’d go up there on my lonesome, taking the track up the back of Guisborough, and sitting for hours up one of the evergreen Christmas trees, tucked under the blankety blank night sky. The tree would
cuddle me and keep me warm, pointing out every single star and constellation with its branches – including some that haven’t even been named yet. So I’d name them after me.
Another – less conventional – sight of natural beauty is my current bathroom in Tottenham. In the weeks following Stevie’s death, I noticed the inside of the bathtub gradually turning from white to coral pink, as if by magic. Every day it got pinker, like a huge porcelain poppy, with dainty black seeds in the middle. I scraped a sample of the pink out of the bath with my tweezers, popped it in my handbag, then went down to the indoor market to build myself an outfit coordinated to the tub. However, days later, the poppy seeds had sprouted – turning the coral pink to a sickly, mouldy black. It took four days to scrub the porcelain white again, and the day after that I took my coral pink dress, shoes and hairgrips back to the market, to get my money back.
There’s so much effortless beauty in the world, in all manner of guises, it’s a wonder I’ve spent so much of my time on Earth in a foul mood. I often wonder who the happiest people are – probably Buddhist monks, since the whole point of being one is to look after each other, keep your karma on the good side, and keep your mouth shut. I imagined my karma levels were a bit ropey at the minute, but that was going to change. I wanted to go to Heaven/Nirvana/Valhalla desperately, if it was still possible. I wanted to see more beautiful sights.
It was high time for some random acts of kindness, I thought.
Kimberly Clark gets … the Seal of Approval
It seemed daunting at first, unadulterated altruism. It’s just not a very natural human trait, is it? Nowadays, people seem to prefer being scornful and slanderous – to earn brownie points and respect from their so-called pals – though they won’t look very clever in years to come, being whipped by Beelzebub and his minions in Hell.
Kimberly's Capital Punishment Page 7