by Guy N Smith
“Well, yes, now that you mention it. I did see a couple last week, one with a deformed leg, another had an uneven beak that made feeding difficult when I threw it some bread.”
“White bread?”
“Yes”, she sensed a reprimand in the tone of his question.
“You see, Miss Leonard, in our efforts to be kind, we are actually inflicting cruelty upon the creatures we love and admire. Most of the park ducks up and down the country are fed white bread by well meaning visitors. It fills the birds’ crops but there is no nourishment in it. Their appetite satisfied, they do not look for more beneficial food. White bread yesterday and today, and there will be more tomorrow. In effect, they are under nourished and over the generations they will become cripples, as we both have seen. In your case, you are living on junk foods. If you bear children …”
“I don’t want children! Ever.” She almost shouted.
“Which is fair enough,” he was surprised. “I am merely illustrating a parallel between birds and humans. I would advise you to eat more whole foods whether or not you intend to have a family.”
“My boyfriend used to fetch takeaways most evenings,” it was as though she needed to exonerate herself, “I always used to eat sensibly then. Whole grain rice, pulses, you know.”
“Used to!” Doctor Whittaker straightened up in his chair. “You mean that he hasn’t returned? The last time we talked he had walked out, you expected him back. A lover’s tiff.”
Kate was amazed by the other’s memory. He saw perhaps thirty patients every day, morning and evening surgeries, home visits when his turn on the rota came round. He listened to a wealth of chitchat and trivia. But he had remembered her telling him about Paul.
“He’s back. Well … Sort of.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Kindly but obviously curious. “How can he be ‘sort of back’? Can’t he make his mind up, keeps on coming back and leaving again?”
Kate sensed that she was blushing; the last thing she wanted was to discuss Paul, the trauma of her night hours. “He’s back but he’s going to leave as soon as he finds a flat of his own. In the meantime, he’s sleeping in the living room.”
“I see,” the doctor spoke emotionlessly, expressionlessly. “You mean that the relationship has ended but that you are still good friends?”
“That’s right.”
“This could have a bearing on your problem, the lead up to and, finally, the break-up itself. Live-in relationships are no different than marriages. Were you very close?”
“He was, he still is. Me, I’m a loner, I’m happier with my own company. I don’t want another permanent relationship; I don’t like others around me. If I need people I can always go out, I go to the art society a lot.” That wasn’t true, she had not been for months. Because they didn’t appreciate ducks, they criticised her for repetitive work. She didn’t want to paint landscapes. Or the cathedral. Still life bored her to tears. The trouble with most art teachers was that they had to find fault in order to justify their own existence. Whatever you drew or painted, they invariably suggested some kind of alteration, usually spoiled the picture for you. They destroyed creativity, you were merely reproducing their ideas. So you were left with a feeling of frustration. Mostly the class consisted of raw amateurs, just there to pass the time. Kate did not need people.
“Man is gregarious by nature,” he went on. “Like ducks. Living alone is fighting against Nature. I know, I’m on my own, too.”
Kate was on her guard. She didn’t want a man. The doctor was small. Like her father. Like the rapist. And Paul.
“I like being alone, too,” his expression was whimsical, “I’ve learned to cope. I’m a survivor, if you like. But it would be wrong of me to give you my technique because I don’t believe that being a loner is a good thing. All right, if you insist you like it, then there’s not much I can do to dissuade you, it would be hypocritical of me. I suggest, though, that you get out as much as you can, exercise and eat more sensibly. In the meantime,” one of his sudden changes of mind, a fast turnaround back to his desk, a flourish of his ballpoint, “I’ll give you something to make you sleep.” He tore a sheet off his pad, handed it to her. “Throw the others away, flush them down the toilet.”
She stood up, felt a fleeting sense of dizziness, that all too familiar tingling of her nerves. Nowadays small men always did that to her, a doctor was no exception. She found herself wondering whether or not he was circumcised. In this case, it wasn’t likely to make any difference to her. It was a compelling thought all the same.
“I want to see you in a week or ten days,” he turned to make a note in his diary. “That’s an order, if you haven’t shown up I shall send you an appointment.” He smiled disarmingly. “Good luck with the ducks, and don’t go feeding them white bread. I like ducks, too, you know.”
Kate glanced at the prescription on her way to the chemist’s. She wondered if Temazepam would give her nocturnal respite from her obsession.
12.
Maurice Gee’s body weight had maintained a miserable 112 lbs since adolescence, his puny frame had made him the butt of innumerable ‘six stone weakling’ jokes all his life.
In fairness, he had strived to put on weight and had invested in a bodybuilding course. His microscopic muscles had tautened but it had made no appreciable difference to his physique. Beneath his staid, shiny office suit the change was not noticeable.
He decided to eat more. Food became an obsession but still he did not gain weight. He ate three meals a day, slowly and fastidiously; during the working week he often did not have time to finish his lunchtime course before resuming his afternoon duties as a telephone operator. He was repeatedly late for work, breakfast was a meal to be savoured at the expense of missing his bus into the city centre. His evening meal lasted from his arrival home until nine o’clock or later.
Which was just one of the reasons why his domineering wife, Barbara, left him within five years of his retirement. That, indeed, was a blow and temporarily deprived him of his second obsession. Sex.
In addition to his frail, sickly build, his pinched features, his oversized nose and hollowed cheeks had not attracted the opposite sex in his younger days. Barbara, too, had seldom been dated by men, her domineering personality, sharp tongue and overweight physique had them seeking a more slimline partner of a more gentle and understanding nature.
It was not love that had brought Maurice and Barbara together, rather a fear of loneliness as they approached their forties. All that they had in common was a love of food; she devoured hers quickly and noisily, became irritated by her husband’s slowness. Sex was a duty to be performed by a wife but not to excess. Maurice’s fondness for it was becoming unhealthy, she decided after ten years. Couples usually lost interest in later middle age, so her mother had once informed her. You had to put up with it for a few years but after that your man didn’t bother a lot. Apparently, this was not the case where Maurice was concerned.
Finally, she could stand his advances no longer and left home to go and live with her ailing sister on the south coast. Barbara Gee made it clear to her gluttonous and sex mad husband that she would not be returning. Marriage had certainly been an experience, one that she could well have done without and would now do her utmost to forget.
So Maurice was left to eat his huge evening meals at his own leisurely pace. He could slurp and break wind without fear of a volatile reprimand. Only one pleasure was lacking in his life. Sex.
It was several months before he mustered up enough courage to go in search of a prostitute. As he did not possess a car, nor was he able to drive one, he went in search of a woman on foot, slunk furtively through the red light area of Barker Street. Soliciting whores occupied doorways, glowing cigarettes denoted a presence in the shadows. He cleared his throat innumerable times until finally a woman stepped out in front of him. That was when he almost turned and fled; the urge which had driven him here in desperation was virtually non-existent.
“Er … I …well, you know …” Maurice regarded her in the light of the overhead streetlamp; she was beautiful by comparison with his ex-wife, he could overlook her slovenliness. In fact, it was an added attraction. All the same he would need time to psych himself up.
“You just come with me, luv, and we’ll ‘ave a good time,” she took his hand, led him down a darkened alleyway.
An arousement wasn’t easy, he kept glancing furtively around him. Something moved in the shadows, made him jump. It was a mangy cat, scavenging for food.
“Money first!” she held out a hand. “A tenner won’t ‘urt you, will it?”
He fumbled for his wallet, spilled some coins, which bounced and rolled. She helped him find them; he thought he heard a clinking noise in the pocket of her frayed coat but wasn’t going to argue over a few ten pences. A crisp tenner, folded neatly eight times, changed hands. Liz unfolded it, stepped back into the light just to check, and seemed satisfied.
That expedition was a disaster from start to finish. For some reason the desired erection eluded him, her fondling, grimy fingers failed to arouse him. She was getting impatient. Frequent footsteps passed by on the pavement a few yards away; she could have made twenty or thirty quid by now.
“You’ll ‘ave to try again another night,” she became exasperated, extricated herself from his embrace. “A lot of blokes ‘ave difficulty the first time.”
But she had refused to refund his fee. The most infuriating aspect of that first abortive mission into the sleazy area of the city was that, upon his return home, he managed to do all the usual things which he did in an attempt to satisfy his lust since his wife’s departure.
In due course, he mastered the technique of whore hunting. He imposed a strict budget upon his pleasures. Once a week, on Tuesday evenings, and he refused to pay more than twenty quid. Liz was cut-price, the cheapest on the beat, but he avoided her from thereon, she held too many memories of failure, she inhibited him.
His preference was big women. Like Barbara. Not that Barbara had been particularly sexual but he had become accustomed to her, his only pleasures had been associated with her voluminous body. Her body odours had been an aphrodisiac. His only means of domination throughout his marriage had been during sex. Which was why he concentrated on the older, overweight slags. They reeked of BO and they didn’t object to his repertoire or deviations.
It was one night in April when he came upon the Big Girl. She didn’t smell, except of heady perfumes, she was smartly dressed in dark attire and much younger than his previous contacts. He almost passed her by because she was likely to be too expensive.
“I only charge a tenner,” she told him, “and you can pay me afterwards.”
Which was a bargain. He wondered if there was a hidden snag; if there was, then he would refuse to pay. So he accompanied her across the stretch of waste ground to the derelict houses beyond, let her take his hand after he had stumbled and fallen. And he was fully aroused by the time they were inside the dank smelling room and the door was scraped shut.
She certainly knew how to titillate a man, her slender fingers were sensuous as she indulged in a variety of foreplay. The sudden flash of torchlight dazzled him momentarily; she seemed to be conducting an examination of his hardness. In all probability she was checking him for cleanliness, she was the kind who would be particular. Which was very considerate of her; it gave a client added confidence.
So far he had not seen her face, it had always been in shadow. Curious, he leaned forward, hoped for a glimpse of it. But in the very second when he might have viewed her features, she switched off the torch.
A moment of ecstasy; he felt the soft, loose flesh being pulled forward, grunted his delight.
Next moment he was screaming in pain.
Such agony he had never experienced before. Maurice Gee writhed then slumped forward, his fingers instinctively closing over that damaged area of his body. He felt the treacly warmth of fresh blood; its slipperiness prevented him from securing a hold.
Feeling, searching, his first fear was that he was a victim of castration. No, his member was still there, its hardness beginning to soften.
Oh, Merciful God, what had happened to him.
He called out for her, the Big Girl, she surely would not have done this to me, she had no reason to. An accident of some kind, she would help him, she was so kind.
“Are you there?”
No reply. She wasn’t there, he sensed an emptiness, groped it with his blooded fingers but she was gone. Just a shaft of orange street lighting slanting in where she had left the warped door ajar when she had squeezed through it.
“Why, oh, why have you done this to me?”
Just like Ricky Reed, Maurice almost fainted. A roaring in his ears, the slanting light dimmed, brightened again. He stumbled, lurched, somehow made it to the door and managed to force it wide enough to squeeze through. He was bleeding profusely, he felt it on his crotch, his thighs, his trousers fast saturating.
It had not occurred to him that pressure would staunch the bleeding, his hold on his injury was limp, blood dripped steadily as he shambled on an erratic course towards the lighted street. If he could make it to there, somebody would help him. A passer-by, a kerb-crawler or a prostitute would call an ambulance, surely.
Somehow he made it out on to the street. His vision blurred, a red streaked fog through which he saw figures standing at intervals like guards on sentry duty. He could not make out whether they were male or female, he didn’t care. He had to steady himself against a wall, bowed his head. He heard footsteps coming towards him. Thank God.
“Lookin’ for me, feller?” A coarse woman’s voice. “I can fix you up, all right. Cheap if you don’t mind the décor.” She laughed.
“Please …” he straightened up, turned towards her, still holding himself. “Look!”
Through the crimson mist he saw her recoil from him, throw up her hands. Then she turned to run, screaming all the way.
“Please … come back,” he croaked after her, somehow found the strength to break into a stagger.
Up ahead he saw other figures turn to flee, heard the clicking of their heels along the pavement. A mass terror-stricken stampede as they fled from this bleeding ghoul which had materialised out of the shadows. A prostitute’s nemesis heralding the Night of Reckoning.
Then they were gone, leaving him all alone in the deserted street of a whore run, a pathetic cadaver who sank to his knees, both hands pressed to his groin, blood oozing between his bony fingers, dripping steadily on to the concrete.
Maurice Gee groaned softly to himself. He was going to die; he had resigned himself to that. Sobbing, asking for mercy and forgiveness, remembering how he and Barbara used to go to chapel on Sundays. He had sinned in the eyes of the Lord, this was his punishment, the Angel of Death had appeared unto him and circumcised him on the eighth day. He had fornicated and angered his God.
Barbara had been right all along, now it was too late. He just wished that he could see her one last time to tell her.
Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin, cast it at his feet and said. Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.
Maurice Gee whimpered, stared in terror up and down the street but the fog before his eyes was too dense for him to see. He covered his face in case she came again, that woman dressed in black who was surely a manifestation of Barbara, come to circumcise him just as Zipporah had done to her own in biblical times.
No, please, I repent. Forgive me for what I have done.
Then the blackness closed in on him and he slumped forward into the gutter.
13.
Rarely did Detective Sergeant Jason Ford show any sign of outward emotion. That had been one of his wife, Serena’s, on-going complaints throughout their marriage. His temperament transcended calmness, his stoicism was infuriating in a domestic crisis. On duty, out of ea
rshot, his colleagues referred to him as ‘Robot Cop’.
Tonight, he was clearly shocked for maybe five to ten seconds. Ted Arnold saw his colleague’s expression in the glare of the patrol car’s headlights and his flesh went cold. If Ford was disturbed then that was one good reason for remaining behind the wheel. His thoughts switched to Amanda Chapman’s killer, they hadn’t caught him yet.
Even so, corpses never affected Ford. So this one had to be really bad.
Ford had spotted the body lying in the gutter, grunted to Arnold to stop: it was probably a drunk, a dropout meths drinker. They would lift him on to the pavement, sit him up against a wall, leave him to sober up in his own time.
Arnold had drawn up to the sprawled figure, his companion had got out. And that was when routine had become an emergency.
Ford had rolled the body, stooped over it. And when his head turned back towards the car the colour had drained from his features. A mouthed grunt; it meant he needed assistance. And that was bad.
“Radio Casualty,” Ford was not one to explain, words wasted time. “Tell ‘em we’re on the way with a mutilation. He’ll need emergency surgery, a transfusion.”
“Why … what …” Arnold found himself standing back. There was a pool of blood beneath the figure when Ford lifted it. Already it might be too late. Road accidents were daily routine, you accepted carnage. Only when kids got killed did it get to you. But this was something much more terrible. Not just the blood, something you didn’t understand because you hadn’t met with it before.
“Hurry. Get him in the back.”
Ted Arnold’s skin crawled, he found himself recoiling from the bloodied flesh that sagged out of the guy’s fly, tried not to think how it might have happened. The man was light, either of them could have managed to lift him on their own. They laid him across the rear seat, Ford went inside with him.
“What the fuck happened?” Arnold drove between parked vehicles, switched the beacon and siren on.