by Amy Lilwall
The toe of a great big boot thumped down at the opening of the door. Chips scrambled up, opening his mouth to tell Jinx to leave, but his voice wouldn’t work. So he dragged her up by her arm and pulled her towards the vacuum hatch.
Jinx screwed up her face and tried to ask why was he dragging her up by the elbow, weren’t they enjoying their Big Cuddle, but, oh no! A huge biggerer was covering them up in his shadow. He walked towards them; one of his legs seemed to take longer to hit the ground than the other. ‘What’s going on here, then?’
Jinx turned and ran.
Chips stood, staring up at his He-one. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be gone.
‘Well, Little Chips, you seem to be a bit of a ladies’ man, don’t you?’ he laughed. ‘Now, at least, I know what you were up to when I came back earlier.’ He bent towards Chips’s cupboard. ‘Come on then. Back inside. And this time I might tighten your lead.’ Chips climbed into the cupboard while the He-one fiddled with the fastening on his lead. ‘My my,’ he said, running a finger down one side of Chips’s chest. ‘You are getting skinny, oh dear, that won’t do.’ He dropped the lead and shuffled over to another cupboard. Chips jumped down and ran to where he had found Blankey’s bag. He hoisted out his humcoat and dragged it back into the cupboard. ‘We don’t have many left, I’m afraid,’ tipping the rest of the flakes into Chips’s bowl and putting the box on the floor. ‘What’s that you got?’ He pulled a one-armed pair of glasses out of his top pocket and stuck them on his nose. ‘You found it then?’ he grinned, rubbing Chips’s head. ‘Good boy. We can get rid of that smelly one I think,’ poking him in the stomach. ‘But we need to keep an eye on our weight, Mister.’ How had he become so skinny? He picked up the empty flake box to read it and knocked the cupboard door really hard with his elbow, bang! Oh dear, putting the box back down, had that come off its hinges? No. No, it hadn’t… Now where was he, ah yes… Ah no… No… It was no good. He couldn’t remember. Something was drawing him to upstairs. Yes! Tilda! Tilda was upstairs waiting for him. ‘I’m sorry, old chum, I have to go.’ He recognized a throb in his elbow and looked around to find what had caused it. The cupboard door hung open so he closed it; why was his elbow throbbing? Probably bashed it on the way down the stairs. Oh well, he’d live. He took another look at Chips and tried to think of things that he had forgotten. Food? Yes. Just done that. And water? He glanced at the empty water bowl, his mind still thinking of the food bowl, said ‘yes’ again. ‘Righto. Bye-bye then. Did I tell you I’d be gone tomorrow?’
Chips looked at him. Yes, he’d said that yesterday.
‘Nadia’s coming to pick me up. I’ll be back in a few days,’ he said as he walked away.
Chips looked down at his lead. Whenever he talked about Nadia, his eyes went all shiny and wrinkly, as if he’d got stars stuck inside them and all the sharp corners were making him wince. Nadia hardly ever came, though… Chips felt his own eyes grow hot and sad. The He-one hadn’t even tied his lead after all that. It was probably because he’d thought of other things and forgotten that he’d wanted to tie him up. Or maybe it was because Chips had found his humcoat. Usually, when Chips showed him his humcoat he didn’t tie up the lead. Chips had worked that out; the lead was only put on him to stop him from going outside and getting cold. Huh. What was that? As he slipped his humcoat on, a pink, flat thing fell out of it. He squatted in front of it and sniffed it. It was one of those coloured leaves that grows on flowers. He scrunched it up in both hands and pushed it into his mouth, before turning and falling onto his bowl; crunching and snuffling loudly through his nose until the flakes were gone and he lay on his cheek, panting, his eyes falling on the blue tube. He opened it and tipped the flakes into his bowl, taking big handfuls as they tumbled out and stuffing them into his mouth.
Only afterwards did he think of Jinx.
His Jinx.
They were just about to enjoy their cuddle.
Never mind, he thought, yawning and feeling all warm in his humcoat and full in his belly. He’d had a lot of things to think about today and he needed to make them all, well, calm down a bit before everything would go back to normal. She would still be there tomorrow, he yawned again, and it would be better because things would be more normal… Yes, he would see her tomorrow, eyes closing… He would go and find her first thing tomorrow.
She was in a foul mood, this morning.
Hamish rubbed at his eyes and went over the lead-up to his error, just once more, to make sure that it had been him.
But he knew it was.
Yesterday was Saturday. She had been to collect Bonbon from the vet’s – sorry, doctor’s – and then she had gone to one of those specialist places, to buy Bonbon a new humcoat. About time too. When she came home, she was in an okay mood because of, well, some drama at the specialist store that hadn’t turned into a drama, but had obviously pumped a bit of adrenalin around her.
He had just squeaked the cork out of a niceish Bordeaux.
She collapsed on the sofa: ‘Well, this is a nice surprise!’
Ah, she’d thought it was intentional. ‘It wasn’t intentional, I just fancied a glass,’ he said.
She was in a good mood. She laughed. ‘You are funny.’ Then she leaned right back into the corner of the sofa and yawned. ‘Seriously, though, thank you. It is lovely to come home to a little treat like this.’ She nodded her nose towards the wine.
Ah. Well, he wasn’t going to push the point. Instead, he poured some wine into the only glass on the table and decided that he’d been dealt a good hand that evening. ‘I’ll just go and get some olives.’ And he did. As well as another wine glass.
She didn’t notice. She had lots of things to tell him about the vet – doctor – being so guarded when recommending a store, and then the same thing with the shop assistant slipping up by telling Susan that she had to wait, when really she didn’t have to do anything! And then the fact that she had learned to communicate with Bonbon, and that she had since told Bonbon that they mustn’t communicate in public any more but, having been in the other specialist shop that seemed much more chilled out, she’d probably been a bit paranoid. Wasn’t it crazy how this dog-eat-dog world could provoke these bouts of paranoia?
Yes, it was. All of this had been quite interesting, actually. When she was in the right mood, and had something in particular to talk about, something that had lit her wick, she became animated and her hands would fly all over the place. He loved the way she’d beaked both of her hands when she’d said ‘dog-eat-dog’ and made one bite the other…
But anyway, what did he think about all of this? Did he agree with the communication thing? He answered, and she listened, and she reminded him of every time she had ever listened to him, with those eyes that looked right to the back of his… Eventually one shoe came off and one of her legs was resting over one of his. He broke off his sentence to say: ‘You know, this reminds me of when we were first together, and you used to listen to me. I always had to concentrate on something to stop my lips from quivering.’
‘Really?’ she said, surprised. ‘Like talking even more?’
And it was all uphill from there.
Until, and he knew it as soon as he had said it, they were both in bed, on their backs and naked and she had said, that was pretty good, and he knew he had to say something nice, to keep the mood buoyant, even though his eyes were closing. Oh he couldn’t, he just couldn’t… So instead he rolled over, tucked himself under her arm, put one hand over her breast and kissed the part where her ribs were or where her armpit was or somewhere around there…
‘Did you think that was good?’
He’d heard it, echoey, as if it were far, far away. But he knew that this time he had to answer.
He could have said anything, anything at all. Or even nothing! Nothing would have been much better. Instead, his hand slipped down from her breast and on to her stomach where he shook it a little with the palm of his hand and said: ‘My little holiday belly.’
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sp; Oh no. Too late. He’d said it. That had woken up his eyelids.
She was silent for a minute, and thinking back now, that must’ve been a disbelief silence.
‘What?’ she said eventually.
‘Oh Susan,’ he said in a come-on-you-know-I-didn’t-mean-it voice. He could have retracted it, right then and there. He could have fallen on the holiday belly and pretended to eat it, making her scream with laughter. He could have moved his hand all over her body saying ‘my little holiday arm, my little holiday leg…’ He could have even said something like: ‘I absolutely forbid you to get rid of it. It’s the sexiest thing that you’ve ever, ever acquired…’
Instead he said: ‘It’s normal, Suzie, it’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.’
He couldn’t apologize. Then he’d be all sheepish and practically admitting the fact that her holiday fat should have remained something that they could both know about, but mustn’t address.
So… He told her that he loved her, kissed her again on her ribs/armpit and pretended to go to sleep.
Yes, it might have been ever so slightly his fault. In fact, he knew that it was because he was wincing.
So now, even though she claimed to dislike Shepherd’s, because he was ‘obsessed’ with it, and would sigh and huff whenever he said he was going there, he’d slipped out of the house with a big shopping list in his ScreenJotta. He read through it as he walked from the drive to the car… Ice cream, goat’s cheese, sushi, she’d love the sushi. He had to get the right balance; if it was all mung beans and celery, then she’d think he was trying to feed a diet. That wouldn’t do… He was right to go with cheese and ice cream. In fact, it was a roundabout way of saying sorry, wasn’t it? It said: ‘I believe that there is no reason for you not to eat this.’
And flowers. He’d get some flowers; just in case.
‘You’re lovely the way you are,’ was all he really wanted to say. She would realize the message. She would say to herself: ‘Shepherd’s is his way of showing me that he loves me.’ And she would roll her eyes a little because ‘Men love you in their own special way; you can’t expect them to be very original’. And he would ignore the fact that she would be essentially plopping him into a box marked ‘Experiences with Men’ – including her father – and tying a big social cliché ribbon around it. At this point he would lead her into the dining room; for the plan didn’t stop at cheese, ice cream and sushi; heavens no! He had planned to fish out the candles that he’d found last week and prepare a nice, restaurant-like table.
Fish out the candles. Sushi! Ha! That was good.
‘Hello there.’
Hamish looked up. A small lady floated towards him across the neighbouring driveway, the dividing fence covering up her legs. Her eyes smiled at him through skin like autumn leaves, her mouth showing off all of her veneers.
‘Hello,’ he said with no emotion.
Usually she would stop and put her hands on her hips, leaning back slightly, and look out towards where the driveway ended and the world started and say something like, ‘Off out?’
This time, she floated right up to the fence and put her hands on it. They seemed a bit shaky and in one of them she held a handkerchief. Barriers. She was handling the barrier. She wanted something from him.
‘Yes… Hello,’ she said. Not quite able to ask him.
He put his ScreenJotta under his arm and looked over his glasses. He could break barriers. ‘Is everything alright?’ releasing some emotion into his eyebrows.
‘Erm… I was wondering… Are you going to the supermarket?’
‘Yes, I’m off to Shepherd’s,’ he replied, surprised, as always, about how old she looked. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Yes,’ she enthused, ‘it’s Jerry’s favourite.’ She looked to the side, folding her lips and licking them at the same time. ‘The thing is, Jerry’s in hospital, and… I can’t get out really. I wondered… if you wouldn’t mind—’
Hamish cut her off, striding towards the fence, emotion now yanking his face in all directions. ‘Yes, of course!’ he said. ‘Of course.’
She beamed, giving the fence a little squeeze before scrunching her hands up under her chin. ‘Oh you are kind!’ she smiled. ‘Now, shall I jot down what I need?’
Hamish was surprised; ‘Oh, wouldn’t you like me to take you there?’
‘Well!’ she said, looking at her house with one finger in the air. ‘I would have loved to come with you but…’ She looked at him from the side of her head. ‘My little Blankey’s been missing all morning and I’d like to be here when she comes home. Silly, isn’t it?’
Hamish put his mouth on upside down. ‘Blankey?’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘My littler.’
‘Oh, right!’ he said. Jinx stood inside his head with another littler that he didn’t recognize. Was that a memory? Or had his brain just made that up? ‘When did you last see her?’
‘Yesterday evening.’ With her handkerchief hand she pushed her other sleeve up and scratched, revealing the scrunchy bird-like bottom of another handkerchief. ‘What with Jerry and, and now Blankey…’
‘Of course,’ Hamish said again. Then still gripping the fence, swung backwards a little. ‘Is it… Will, erm… Do they think he’ll be coming home soon?’
She looked straight at him. ‘He’s one hundred and thirty-four years old.’
Hamish stopped swinging; his mouth fell open.
She laughed. ‘That’s about one hundred years older than you, is it not?’
The maths had shocked him – one hundred years older? ‘That means he was born in…’
‘Nineteen eighty-two,’ she smiled. ‘In the house next door but one from mine.’ She gazed at nothing for a moment, sadly. ‘Yes…’ she tailed off out loud a private thought.
‘Wow,’ Hamish said cheerily. ‘That was before… before tablets.’
She laughed again. ‘That was before everything. That was before personal computers and, and internet in the home, Wi-Fi, oh yes! Certainly before Wi-Fi.’
Hamish’s cheek twitched. It was one of the things he knew about but could not imagine. He was incapable of visualizing a world without Wi-Fi, incapable. It was well known that only very intelligent people were able to do it.
‘We’ve seen a lot!’ she chuckled again.
‘I can certainly imagine.’
They were silent for a moment. ‘Anyway,’ she said eventually. ‘To answer your question, I don’t think he’ll be home soon.’
‘But what will you do?’
‘I’m going to my daughter’s this weekend… I’ll stay with her for a while. I was supposed to go today but,’ she looked about her, ‘what with Little Madam going off like that…’
‘Well, just you remember that we are here. You mustn’t hesitate, if you need anything.’ He looked at his wrist. ‘Networks,’ he said to it. A list streamed up in front of him. ‘Lucas,’ he said. Mr and Mrs Lucas were highlighted in the list – request action? ‘Business card,’ he said. Business card sent. The screen faded back into a ticking clock face. ‘I’ve just sent you our number so you don’t even have to come out of the house if you need us…’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry, do you know how that works?’
She dipped her chin and raised her eyebrows. ‘The telephone?’ she asked.
‘No, the…’ Then he blushed and let out a smirk. She was making fun of him. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘One becomes accustomed to ubiquity.’
‘Hmmm,’ he hmmmed. Nobody said ‘one’ any more. Hearing it was like hearing a chord played on a harp.
‘I’ll just get a scrap of paper, and I’ll jot down what I need.’
‘Paper,’ he smiled. ‘Righto.’ Many elderly people were still in the habit of saying ‘paper’. He remembered his list under his arm. ‘Oh but… I have my ScreenJotta here if it’s easier.’
But she’d shuffled off towards her porch.
Hamish looked up at the house. He’d left Susan upstairs trying to get into a pair of white jeans t
hat she’d had since she was about fifteen. His eyes wandered up to their bedroom window. One hundred years… he thought to himself. And to his surprise, she was looking back at him. Her face, behind the tinted window, was blank and puffy, and a little grey. Lifting his hand to his mouth, he decided to do something he had never done; he didn’t know why… Just to try it maybe… Just to be original… Just because he’d done something nice for Mrs Lucas and that had felt good… He kissed his fingertips and blew the kiss up to her, imagining it like a jellyfish climbing through water. Behind the window, her face flooded with redness that contrasted with the gleam of her teeth. Her mouth pushed up her cheeks and forced her eyes to squeeze out a little twinkle. She opened the window, put her opened hand out and snapped it shut around the jellyfish.
He took a step back to get a better view of the new Susan, the real Susan. In that moment, he had changed her back. And it had been so simple!
He decided to continue with his experiment and strained his cheek up towards the window, tapping it twice with one finger. She laughed and kissed the palm of her hand, for quite a long time; in fact, she even closed her eyes. Then she held her fist outside of the window and opened it, palm upwards yet tilted towards him; she gave her hand a little bob as if she were releasing a bird.
He let one hand out of its pocket to reach out and catch the kiss. Hearing the scrunch of driveway footsteps, he smiled and tipped his head at Susan, baffled at how he’d just managed to brighten up what had looked to be a pretty grim day.
‘Here we go.’ Mrs Lucas gripped the fence with both hands; something was tucked between the finger and thumb of one hand. She steadied herself and gave it to him.
Immediately he was alone in his office, having just pulled on his gloves and opened up his cabinet. The woody, almost burnt smell crawled up his nose and back out again, over his face, his shoulders and kicked up goosebumps along each arm. It was as if she’d given him an opened jar full of ants.
‘Where did you get this?’ he stage-whispered, letting his eyes glance left and right.