I got to fifty-seven stitches by the time Donald reached climax. Veins bulged in my forehead, as Donald’s Jap’s-eye bulged open in the condom. Once he’d let go of me, the wet curtain stayed scrunched around my back, like he’d shed his skin and left it as a memento. I peeled it away from my cold, clammy flesh, then balled it up and stuffed it into a binbag. I grimaced as I plodded across the carpet, noticing the tiny specks of red and brown which had collected in the Vaseline.
I swayed about awkwardly on the spot as Donald pulled off the condom. There was a small stool sample attached to the reservoir end. Donald looked unfazed as he lobbed it towards the binbag, though it took him three attempts to get it in.
Satisfied and shattered, Donald laid back down on my bed, leaving a stain. I kept my eyes to the ground.
‘Ehm,’ he mumbled, after a long, dismal silence, ‘so you definitely can’t get me a drink?’
Kimberly Clark in … the Return of Two Characters You Thought She’d Forgotten About§
To wee or not to wee, that is the question.
Donald had given me cystitis. For the next couple of weeks, every time I went to the toilet my vagina burned, like I was pissing out turpentine and someone was setting fire to it. On top of that, I had periods coming out of my bottom. No matter how soft or slender my turds, without fail they split open my anus, producing the most vivid, scarlet toilet water.
Donald hadn’t half given me rough sex. My cervix felt like an over-twanged elastic band. I don’t think he meant to be so violent with me – I think he just hadn’t had sex in a very, very long time.
I felt crummy all through summer. I whiled away the journey to the Wethouse each morning with a carton of cranberry juice: every housewife’s favourite cure for cystitis. My rectum had prolapsed, so I tended to stand all the way to the Bush, much to the delight of the pregnant and elderly ladies of the Subterranean Love Train. I smiled tight, bright red cranberry lips at them.
Despite being a regular at Wood Green Boots, I wouldn’t be seen dead buying Anusol. At the Wethouse, Malcolm’s dad couldn’t understand why I was walking like Charlie Chaplin all of a sudden. He just frowned at me each morning, instead of saying ‘Hello’, while I grabbed the mop and laundry trolley from the store cupboard. It was my job to change the sheets and clean out the dorms that week, trundling systematically up and down the corridors to the sound of groaning bedframes and groaning old men.
Occasionally, the gang left me presents in their dorms, such as boiled sweets, unfinished cans of Super Skol or strange notes in strange handwriting. That morning, I found one which said CAN YOU CLEAN MY RINGPULLS, while another read BE WARE THE PASTA MEN ARE COMING, in a childish, spasmodic scrawl.
Occasionally, the gang left me diarrhoea in their beds. If one of the residents happened to soil themselves the night before, it was my job to clean them up and sort out new bedclothes. Fortunately, the week had gone by so far without any upsets. I was almost having a nice time, turning each floor from matt tan to glossy mahogany with my mop, until, that is, I came to Kimberley’s dormitory.
I knocked once, bracing myself. There was a shuffling sound behind the door, then a bloodcurdling squeal as I pushed it softly open. Kimberley was standing on her bed, dressed head to toe in black and white, with four pairs of shoelaces tied round her neck and strung to the curtain-rail. I made a choking, gasping sound, banging out pulses in places I never knew I had them. I wondered if she’d been waiting for me. On cue, as soon as we made eye contact, Kimberley leapt off the bed, grinning for a few seconds in defiance of the Earth’s gravitational pull. Gradually, though, the smile faded as Kimberley’s face went red, then purple, then blue. I shrieked, lunging at her with my arms outstretched.
‘Diee! Diiee! Diiii!’ Kimberley screeched at me, hardly able to talk, with the noose wrapped so tight around her voice box. In a moment of inspiration, I clambered onto Kimberley’s bed, and pulled with all my girly might at the curtain-rail. The plastic was flimsy and the screws were a bit rusty and, after a couple of hefty tugs, the whole rail came loose from the wall. Me, Kimberley and the curtains came crashing to the ground, with a horrid thud.
‘What are you doing?!’ I yelled, in a whisper. ‘You don’t want to kill yourself.’
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Kimberley groaned back.
I grabbed at the shoelaces round her neck, loosened the noose and pulled her to her feet again. I shook my head. To make a point, I was about to set to work on Kimberley’s bedsheets when, suddenly, she ripped open one of her empty cans of cider and began going at her jugular with the serrated edge. I grabbed her arms, then, for five minutes, we tug-of-warred with the can: Kimberley trying to pierce both our throats with it; Kimberly trying to save us.
I hated that woman. In the pocked mirror, we looked like twins; a pair of conjoined dogs, chasing our own tails.
Eventually, the serrated can fell out of Kimberley’s hand and I managed to punt it out of her dormitory and halfway down the corridor.
‘Why can’t you just be nice?’ I gasped.
Kimberley cackled – a spine-twisting cackle that made even the crumpled curtains quiver.
‘Why can’t you just be nice?’ she jeered. ‘You’re not fucking superior.’
I decided there and then I was going to quit the job. I slung the mop against Kimberley’s bedhead, then charged off down the corridor to the sound of fading, reverberating laughter. I used to think it was strenuous working at the Ristorante di Fantasia, holding cups and plates and stroking men’s necks with my bosoms. At the Wethouse, I was a slave to my own worst nightmare: myself.
As I marched down the square-spiral staircase, I had all these overblown, romantic ideas of leaving the Capital for good. There was no need to stay, after all – I’d only come to keep Stevie company while he ran round his racetracks. However, a move back to Teesside was daunting, too. At least, in the Capital, the anonymity allows all your shameful personality traits to go more or less unnoticed. Elsewhere, in the smaller, more tightly knit towns of Britain, it would be all too easy for people to realise I was a miserable, malingering battleaxe.
Then again, there was always the lure of abroad. Tears hid in my throat as I wondered what I was going to say to Malcolm’s dad:
‘I’ve just been offered a better job, in a better hostel!’
‘I’m a fucky prostitute!’
‘Stick your job up your arse, you big daft twat!’
All I knew was I had to get out of the Wethouse. The reception was unusually busy that afternoon, and I glanced heavy-lidded at all the roaming beasts: louts with gaunt cheeks and distended beer bellies; Father Christmas-a-likes with sacks full of Super Skol; skeletal ladies; a shrieking dwarf wearing nothing but Bermuda shorts; a human swearbox; a wolf threatening to huff and puff and blow the TV lounge down; and a two-headed monster with hair like Hitler and a rather tight T-shirt.
‘Kk,’ the monster spouted in disbelief.
I hardly recognised the two of them, so downtrodden were they, with downturned mouths and faces the colour of old bedsheets. We shared a hug, lurching awkwardly in the packed corridor.
At first I thought there’d been a death at the Wethouse, and Shaun and Sean had come to sweep the body off to their new-fangled funeral parlour but, instead of a black body-bag, they both had blue sleeping bags, and one grubby rucksack between them.
SHAUN KIMBERLY SEAN
Kk
Ey up, Kimberly
As if, lads! What youse doing here?¶
Aw, sort … long story
How’s the funeral business coming on?
It went a bit tits-up
Fucking understatement
Fuck off, it’s bad enough as—
Tit
See, it turned out we—
We needed more than five grand to set it up
And the bank wouldn’t help us out
Bad credit
But it’s more than that
Aye
We blew the money
&nb
sp; We’re really sorry, Kim
At the bookies
Boro were meant to win
Fucking knob
Fuck off
I bet even Kim knows never to bet on the Boro
Not really
At this point, the two-headed monster started fighting with itself, throwing fists around, growling and cursing. I tried to break them up, but it was difficult, what with them being twice my size and joined at the hip.
Lads, lads
You fucking prick
Look, Kimberly, we’re dead sorry
We can’t really pay it back
We’re fucked
Cos, we lost the house and everything
And, like, the Court’s after us
Unpaid whatnots
You lost everything?
We know we’ve got a problem, like
Fucking, it’s an addiction
But not our fault, like
Yes, the first step to getting rid of your problem is admitting you’ve got a problem. I wondered if they wanted me to cheer and pat them on the back. I just stared at them. The four eyes stared back. I felt terrible. It wasn’t just that they’d lost all of Stevie’s money – it was the crushing realisation that another of my good deeds had turned sour. Before Stevie died, I was a relatively happy housewife, and Shaun and Sean had comfortable jobs in the lifeguard and cocktail industries. Now, we were three sorry souls in a homeless hostel, with two sleeping bags, bad credit, and a prolapsed arsehole between us.
I had to leave. I gave Shaun and Sean a slight thump on each shoulder, then stormed out of the Wethouse with eyes like kitchen sinks. I bawled as I trawled down Uxbridge Road. I wanted to jump under the Ghost Train but, instead, I jumped onto an empty carriage and rode it back, wet-nosed, to Seven Sisters.
By the time I reached the top of the escalator, I realised I’d been so annoyed with Shaun and Sean, I’d forgotten to quit the job.
Kimberly Clark Finds (and Loses) … the Secret to Eternal Youth
If it wasn’t for the Halloween decorations in the windows of Tesco, I might’ve made it through October without even realising my birthday had come, or gone. I could’ve side-stepped it, staying blissfully unaware and blissfully twenty-three years old until next year. Once you hit adulthood, birthdays are a nuisance. They’re like an obnoxious, loudmouthed infant who says to you ‘God, you’re old’ once a year, in front of all your friends.
It snowed the day before my birthday, catching me off-guard when I dragged open the curtains to find the world had turned white. I blinked wildly, half-asleep, half-blind. Everything seemed to be in slow motion: cars edging nervously in single file down the High Road; pedestrians hobbling, flat-footed, with their arms outstretched. It made me sad to see a few young and old folk slip over on the ice, bashing their bottoms and elbows; their hands red raw. In Britain, snow is a horrendous natural disaster. I felt a bit selfish, sipping coffee in the safety of the flat, while everyone outside struggled valiantly against the half-inch of snow. I considered going out to buy some industrial-strength antifreeze, to cure the pavements, but I didn’t have the pennies for it.
Halloween has always been a strange time for me. Not only does it herald my birthday, it also heralds the evening all the local ghosts and ghouls come round to my house, demanding my sweets and birthday money. I wasn’t looking forward to the next day’s festivities. With Stevie gone, I had no expectations of receiving any cards, let alone any birthday money.
Nevertheless, I didn’t fancy getting my windows egged. To be on the safe side, I wrapped myself in the Arctic gear and grudgingly trudged up the High Road, to stock up on pick-n-mix from big Sainsbury’s. It was treacherous out. It took me almost five minutes to travel the first 200 metres, compared to Stevie’s personal best of 20.97 seconds, albeit in much better conditions.
In Sainsbury’s, I filled my basket with chewable Vitamin C tablets as well as the sweets, then clodhopped back down the hill, with a lemon-sharp facial expression. The snow seemed less slippery down the back alleys, but I still took a few dives as I skated between the wheelie-bins. I hoped no one was sitting by their windows, sipping coffee and watching. Halfway down the first alley, I came across a couple of youngish lads, struggling to unload some electrical gear from their lime green Fiat Punto. They must’ve been moving house, or else they’d bought all their Christmas presents early. I offered to help, since one of them was good-looking, and their trainers didn’t seem to have much grip.
At first, they seemed suspicious, when I dropped my Sainsbury’s bag and grabbed hold of one of the tellies, but I wasn’t going to run off with their fancy goods – not in this weather. I flashed a smile, breathing heavily as we hoisted a Hitachi hi-fi, Acer laptop, Bush hi-fi, Panasonic TV, iBook, Epson Stylus printer, and another Panasonic hi-fi out of the fuzzy boot, like deconstructing a very expensive game of Jenga.
‘You must like music, then,’ I said to the good-looking one. He just laughed, slamming the boot shut with his elbow. I laughed back, possibly too loudly.
Once we got all the gear in through the back door, I half expected the lads to give me a hug, or offer me a cuppa. In the end, they just nodded and gave me a halfhearted ‘Cheers’. I hobbled back to my Sainsbury’s bag. I wiped my nose. I watched the back gate squeak shut and, with it, my one and only chance of spending my birthday with a man with nice facial features.
I tugged at my coat toggles and toddled onwards. Going back to the flat seemed unappealing now – I didn’t want to spend my birthday weekend sitting in silence, accidentally eating all those sweets, and calling myself fat in the mirror. After all, Malcolm’s dad had forced me into taking three days off, so I felt obliged to at least try and make the most of it. I was almost tempted to tart myself up and head down to China White that evening, to find the Square-Faced Bachelor, or any other suitable polygon-faced stranger. However, deep down, I knew my destiny was just to get drunk with the old duffers down the Dutch Pub, before dithering back to the flat at daft o’clock, eating all those sweets anyway, and still calling myself fat in the mirror.
Onwards, then, to the Dutch Pub. While birthdays can be like an obnoxious, loudmouthed infant, they can also be like a precocious, foulmouthed student, pressurising you into having fun against your will. Surely the anniversary of your sloppy, traumatic extraction from a human’s womb should be spent sedately sipping coffee and staring out of the window at snowflakes, not getting slaughtered. Nevertheless, I had my heart set on finding a new man, and I certainly wouldn’t find him amongst the rubble of the flat.
The Dutch Pub was more or less empty when I got there. I plonked myself down in the corner with an extra-large Smirnoff Ice, feeling embarrassed. The whole point of having friends is so you don’t look awkward in pubs and nightclubs. Luckily, the speakers were screaming Europop at an ungodly volume, so the barman or the fellow with the Mirror couldn’t hear me shuffling about and sniffing. After a few more Smirnoffs, the place began to fill up, and I fooled myself into thinking Mr Sunday might turn up with someone else’s nan (or, better still, on his own, with a red rose between his teeth), and sweep me off my feet. In the dream, I wore easy-on clogs and an easy-off dirndl.
After another lonely hour or so, with slushy self-hatred setting in, I peeled myself off the leatherette stool and decided to call it a night. The sun had won its staring-out competition with the snow, melting a path for the pedestrians, though I still took a few more dives on my way home. That could’ve just been the drinks, though.
The combination of crisp, Christmassy air, streaky headlights and snowfall kept me from crying as I tottered up the last stretch of the High Road. Before I got to the flat, it took six or seven rummages in my handbag to find my keys and, when I lunged blindly for my front door, I was surprised to find it was already open. The hallway was crammed with sour-faced residents, and two men in black outfits with NECROPOLITAN POLICE badges. A rush of blood flushed my cheeks.
It turned out we’d been burgled. My stomach tightened – I hop
ed they hadn’t taken Lucifer.
I wobbled on the soft concrete, drunk and dumbstruck. There was a lot of damage and mess up the stairway, and all the surfaces were dusted in silver, like a greasy robot had been rubbing himself up against the furnishings. My voice sounded distant and rodent-like as I gave the police my name and details, such as which flat I lived in, and what I’d been up to that afternoon. I didn’t mention the dream about the dirndl.
My neighbours appeared to be full-time workers, which meant the best time to burgle them was between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday–Friday. They looked shattered, but smartly dressed.
I took a few deep breaths, trying to sober up. As it turned out, Lucifer was alright. In fact, they hadn’t stolen anything from my flat (D), since it was on the third floor, and burglars aren’t keen on long, creaking stairwells. Even so, it made you shudder, the thought of someone having so much disrespect for your one and only home in the world, barging in, smashing up your fixtures and fittings, then taking off, like magpies, with your hard-earned trinkets. By the looks on my neighbours’ faces, a lot of trinkets had disappeared that afternoon. They’d written out a list for the Necropolice. Underneath the police address and incident number, I saw written:
HITACHI HI-FI
ACER LAPTOP
BUSH HI-FI
PANASONIC TV
iBOOK
EPSON STYLUS PRINTER
PANASONIC HI-FI
My skull split open, and four-and-twenty blackbirds flew out.
I wanted to sneak off to my room, wash away the robot fingerprints and smother my head in a pillow, but the policemen wanted us to stay a bit longer, for an uneasy chat. They’d found a wood plane amongst our shoes in the hallway, and they pointed out the door had been easily kicked in because some idiot had made it so good and loose. Had it been flush, the burglars might not have been able to do the trick with the door, let alone kick it through. My cheeks twitched. I could feel my neighbours’ eyes drilling holes through me. I decided to admit the plane was mine – the seven Smirnoff Ices forced me into it.
Kimberly's Capital Punishment Page 17