by Ray Robinson
* * *
He was telling Jade he thought Kenneth might have accessed a flash of his retrograde memory, when she stopped him—rudely, he felt—and said, — I need to know where I stand.
Antony took the phone away from his ear and placed it on the table. He walked around the room, hands to head. He opened a drawer and stared into it. Then he picked up the phone again.
— Hello?
— I’m still here.
— I really like you Jade. I like you a lot.
— Is that it?
— Look, you know I can’t…
She started screaming down the phone. He heard a few distinct FUCKs, BASTARDs, and SELFISH WANKERs before she hung up.
He paced about some more and then went to the freezer and scratched the ice from the side of a vodka bottle. He needed to get out of the flat.
* * *
It was weird seeing the kitchen without the labels and wall planner.
Lizzie didn’t offer him a drink.
— So, he said. How you getting on without him?
She stared out of the window, arms folded. Antony heard a noise upstairs, coming from her and Kenneth’s bedroom. She’d taken ages to answer the door and her hair was a total mess. Sex hair, he thought to himself. Another noise made her turn to Antony.
— What do you want?
— Kenneth seems to be settling in.
She snorted. — Really?
He wanted to shout: DON’T YOU FUCKING MISS HIM?
— How’s Sarah doing? She OK?
— A lot better. Now.
— Can I ask you something?
She flashed him a worried look.
— When was Sarah born?
Hesitantly, she said, — ’93. Why?
— Was it an easy birth?
— It’s never easy.
— Was Kenneth there?
— Course not.
She eyed him slowly.
— What’s going on in that head of yours?
— Nothing.
He made his excuses and left.
* * *
Luckily, you have your own fair, shoulder-length hair, and you’re far from being hirsute, but you always have a bath, shave twice, and moisturise first anyway.
Then you slip tonight’s outfit on and prepare your make-up, lining everything along your dresser-top: brushes; concealer; cream foundation; translucent powder; eye shadow; mascara; blush; and liquid eyeliner.
Rimmel. Estee. Lancôme. No. 7. Clinique. Chanel.
Then you tie your hair back.
You find beiges the best for covering the Blue Jaw. You place the powder on a make-up sponge, pat it on, and then use concealer to hide the suitcases under your eyes. A bit of loose powder on the puff fixes the first layer.
You blend the edges and place the normal foundation on over the top; Dermacolour Light; as close to your original skin tone as is possible.
Start with the forehead, and then spread across the bridge of the nose, eyebrows, ears, and under your nostrils. Blend, pat, trowel it on over the Blue Jaw. Then gently wipe over the chin, down towards the neckline and over your Adam’s apple.
Clarted up, you look ghost-like.
You comb and pencil your eyebrows, thinning out the arch.
Eye shadow. You tend to use variations of beige and light browns between the eye and nose. It draws attention to the eyes, and it’s at this stage that you think of Val.
Eyeliner. Thin point from inner eye and thicken outwards. Blend with your fingers to finish off. Then use a touch of white below the brow-bone and a bit of shadow under the eye to give it a smoky look.
Mascara. You always use a couple of coats and do the top lashes first, keeping your eyes shut for a minute to avoid clarting your eyelids. When dried, you brush the lashes out.
Blusher. You perfect that whole apple-and-cheekbone, equidistance-between-ear-and-nose-thing, that you learned from your women’s magazines.
Finally the lippy. You draw in the shape with the Nude Shade lip-liner, just outside the natural line, and then colour in the lips to give them a basic foundation. Then apply the lipstick. (Val’s lipstick used to extend well behind the natural lip line, which leant her face that cartoonish-look of a surprised, smeared snarl. You loved it.)
An hour later, you’re ready.
* * *
It must be the tablets, he told himself, the mirtazapine making him into a happy zombie, changing his circuitry, reformatting his hard drive, corrupting his libido, CTRL Zing the need to hang. The muffled, polyphonic tones of ‘Vicious’ made him jump—his jacket was calling him. He stood there and stared, afraid of the noise. Then the room seemed to dim in the silence. A minute later, a solitary buzz. He read the message:
Your mum. penmevan cottage mevagissey cornwall.
Call her. Jack.
And then a telephone number.
It felt like Jack could see him. Like Jack was watching him sitting there in a pretty dress in front of the TV and laughing his fucking head off.
The words Jack would use.
Antony got into to the shower and washed her from him, and then he read the text again, wondering: why?
6.
The Day Centre’s Christmas party—it was the only day of the year the staff got to kick back a little, because the clients brought either their family or other carers with them. Idiotically, Lerch had been administered a suppository that morning and so, much to his shambling irritation, he wasn’t allowed any of the finger buffet or minging sarnies or mountains of soft crisps. But, when no one was looking, Antony sneaked some Cava into his sucky cup. He managed to hold it down.
After work, Antony popped into Cheaper Sounds. The young bloke was there, the one with the bonehead, and when he saw Antony he looked all hangdog. Poised, the boss looked at Bone Head, then Antony, as if waiting for something.
Antony went downstairs to the vinyl and cassette section. He found an early sixties compilation on cassette and went back up. Bone Head wasn’t there. The manager served Antony without speaking to him. Antony asked him to gift-wrap it and the manager huffed and stuck it in a shiny little box with stars on.
— Thank you so much. Do you have any cards?
The manager squinted with a just-perceptible curl of the lip before shoving a small card into the bag.
* * *
Nurse Bog Breath intercepted him at the front door.
— Kenneth went walkabout this morning.
— Is he OK?
— He’s drunk.
— Well, it is the festive.
— He was verbally abusive to one of our new staff members.
— And what do you want me to do about it?
She sighed.
— Try and have a word with him. He respects you.
Antony went up to Kenneth’s room to find him in bed, fully clothed, snoring.
* * *
Stomach a mess, he pressed Jade’s number.
— You have every right to be angry with me, he said quickly.
She sighed over-dramatically.
— Ah, well, I was preparing myself to forgive you anyway, arsehole.
They both said sorry and laughed at the same time.
— Really. Everything’s fine?
— Shut up, soft lad. Christmas.
— What about it?
— Eileen. She told me to invite you for dinner.
— Eileen?
— My mother.
He was, quite literally, speechless.
— It’ll be laid back. No pressure. There’s usually a big crowd anyway. John’s bringing his friend, the absurdly named Moon. You can get some signing practice in.
— Thanks, but I’ve made other plans.
— What’s that smell? Can you smell that?
— Eh?
— Like somebody’s bum’s on fire.
— Am I that transparent?
— Come on, it’ll be fun. They know we’re only mates.
The word ‘mates’ was laced with a mote of
resentment.
— Really, she said, what else you going to do?
He’d planned to sleep as late as possible and spend the rest of the day in a pretty dress eating pizza and watching TV while getting very stoned and not thinking about all the perfect little families in the world, and him, yet again, on his lonesome, feeling totally ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’.
— Look, come round for twoish. We’ll have done the embarrassing presents thing and we’ll be well stuck into the booze by then. Grubs up at four. What do you say?
— I say thank you.
* * *
— YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
He tried to compose himself.
Deep breaths. Calm down.
They were told there was going to be a team meeting after work that day.
— YIPEEEEEEEEEEE!
Start again.
A compulsory meeting. Ooooh?
The staff had been speculating all day about what it could be, and when the Area Manager turned up, well, they all thought that’s it: Game Over! The service is in for the chop. The council are withdrawing their funding.
No such thing.
The manageress was taking ‘early retirement’.
See also: the old heave-ho.
— WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YES!
She feigned some croc-croc-crocodile tears and the staff contrived a facsimile of boo-hoo-ness. The Area Manager went on to say that they weren’t to worry—the manageress wouldn’t be leaving until they’d appointed a new replacement. Adverts were in all the rags the following week and interviews would be held early in the New Year.
— Fucking YES!
— Someone that can do the job properly? PLEASE!
As they were leaving the Centre, the Area Manager took Antony’s arm.
— Can I have a word in private, Antony?
He thought that’s it: I’m in the shit now.
She said that a few people had been singing his praises and she would welcome his application for the position of Service Manager.
— What?
— Really.
He smiled a toothy smile.
Then, looking all serious, she went, — How’s your counselling going?
— Fine.
— Good. I saw one for a few years. She helped me turn my life around. You stick with it. You know you have my full support.
He wanted to whip out some mistletoe and give her a Christmas tonguing. She shook his hand and smiled, meaning: we’ve got rid of the f-f-f-fat cow at long last.
When he got back home, he rolled a joint as fat as his joy and began.
* * *
It’s important to supply slow and easy pressure to the neck. Transient hypoxia is what you’re after; too much bilateral pressure to the carotid sinuses and you’ll find yourself being taken away in a body bag.
You manipulate the tension on the neck and the resulting asphyxiation with the rope, the pulley system and your own body weight. Generally, this depends upon your system and weight and general fitness levels and whether or not you’ve been drinking or drugging to heighten the effect. But you have to be careful at the onset of orgasm, for split-second failure to release the mechanism, when you literally become weak at the knees, will result in suffocation and death.
You will die in three, not-so-easy stages:
Cyanosis. Carbon dioxide retention will turn you a beautiful shade of blue. You’ll be panicking. Your respiration will be fast, deep and erratic as you struggle to bre-bre-bre-breathe.
Vascular congestion and haemorrhage. Your breathing will be totally fucked. You’ll be convulsing madly, struggling, kicking, fighting. Doing the hangman’s dance.
Complete loss of consciousness. Dilated pupils, terminal vomiting. Your face will be covered in petechial haemorrhages; the epiglottis and subglottic spaces will be packed with blood; the pharynx and tonsils and tongue-root will be engorged.
It will take between two to five agonising minutes for you to die.
* * *
He screwed the hook-eyes in, tied the keys and passed the cordage and chain over the clothes pole, twisting, smiling, remembering his night up on Cloud Hill, remembering the end that became a beginning, how he hit the ground with something whispering down his veins. A voice in his head. A song in his skin.
* * *
It was his last appointment with the psych for four weeks. The psych talked for ages about Antony’s feelings towards the hands-off parenting of his childhood.
— Yes, it’s lucky you had Eddie in your life, the psych said, but it’s a parent’s responsibility to mirror their children.
— What’s ‘mirror’ mean?
— Approval and admiration. The child wants his parent to notice him, to praise him, to respect him. They should provide a role model.
Antony laughed.
— You have no debt to your parents, Antony. Yes, they let you down, and let you down terribly, but look at who you are now, at the person you’ve become. You’re not a result of them.
The psych’s face was full of compassion, but his words seemed dented, broken.
* * *
It manifests itself in a nagging throb behind your ears, a sharp twinge along your sides, a spasm in the facial muscles that construct a malign sneer. It’s the perennial cynicism that convinces you to finish masturbating, roll over, and sleep the day away. Formed in response to the prospect of spending yet another Christmas day with someone else’s family, someone else’s loved ones, feeling at worst like an interloper, at best a spare part. It’s the old Christmas spirit insisting you ignore texts and phone calls, draw the curtains, turn off the lights, get your favourite videos out, pour another drink, and don’t even bother getting dressed.
Fuck Santa, it sings. And you can stick consumerism and playing happy fucking families up your arse.
But Antony did it: he dragged himself from the warm spot of his bed and stood before the window. Snow had yet to fall in the city, but the distant hills were dusted with the stuff.
* * *
Jade’s folks’ house was a spectacular Georgian four-storey beast with huge bay windows and a cupola at one end. The adjectival kind of house Antony had always dreamt of living in. Maybe in the next world.
Even the cab driver said ‘nice’ when he saw it.
Jade was her usual delish self in a pair of slouchy, wide-legged trousers and some nifty little boots and a shimmery V-neck that showed a tasty bit of cleavage. And you could see where she got her looks from: her mother was a total yummy mummy. And when Antony was introduced to Eileen—no old school ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ monikers in their house—he shook her hand and went,
— You never told me you had a sister, Jade.
Eileen punched him softly on the shoulder and said,
— You’ll do for me, creep. Come meet the others.
The living room was festooned with garlands of twinkling lights and had that Yule scent of pine, tinged with the gunpowder smell of pulled crackers. Antony noted a ravaged advent calendar; he noted baubles and tinsel, torn wrapping paper stuffed into black bin bags. A Christmas compilation was playing to about ten or twelve people scattered across the sofas and floor—a scene straight out of The Waltons. The only thing wrong with the picture was the depressed man standing within it who saw something not entirely normal.
A wagging golden retriever, Biscuit, gambolled over and nudged him with a cold wet nose, and Jade’s dad, Pete, greeted Antony with a ‘now then, son’, giving him a fierce manly handshake.
Antony pulled their presents from his bag: Pete’s, a bottle of single malt anCnoc; Eileen’s, a large bottle of Bombay Sapphire. They both made a lot of appreciative noise and he even got a peck on the cheek from Eileen.
Then John introduced him to Moon and signed an apology for his parents: Not to worry, they could escape to the village pub later on. Antony finger-signed back and John laughed; Antony was slurring his fingerspelling.
Jade took him to one side to give him his pre
sent: Amnesiac by Radiohead.
Was she trying to be funny?
* * *
Eileen served the food and they all got steadily pissed. There was some great banter between Eileen and Pete and everyone seemed relaxed and in high spirits. And then it hit him: this was why Jade was so mature and settled and at ease with herself: normal parents—what a complete fucking oddity!
He pictured Kenneth at the unit, looking doleful in paper hat.
At one point during the afternoon, Eileen came and sat more or less on Antony’s lap and started grilling him about his family and job and where he came from, et cetera.
He couldn’t help it—he started undressing her with his eyes. Jade rescued him as he began to stutter, saying she’d give him a tour of the house.
As soon as they were upstairs she stuck a finger in his ribs.
— You’re caned, aren’t you?
Every time he blinked, he saw Eileen naked. A very pretty sight.
— Is it obvious?
— Just stop bloody smiling all the time. And stop flirting with Eileen.
She play-slapped his wrist.
— You got any with you?
He smiled again.
They walked the full length of the house and he counted five bedrooms, then she opened a door onto a narrow, winding staircase, and when they got near the top she stepped behind him and put her hands over his eyes.
— Trust me. Up a bit. That’s it.
He heard a door creak. Felt an icy breeze.
— OK, open.
They were up in the cupola, lit by coloured fairy lights. Below them, two deep valleys snaked out across snowy moors, and on the horizon, the urban orange haze of Oldham and Rochdale.
— Do you know how lucky you are?
— I know. Pete and Eileen are great. They’re like my best friends. It’s amazing to have these two wonderful people always on my side, cheering me on from the wings. They’re kind and thoughtful and loving and affectionate and wise and…