by Amy Lilwall
‘Why would you look for food when there isn’t any?’ said the inside of her head. That’s different, that was totally different. Eating was really important, whereas running nowhere wasn’t. The She-one was facing the door; her hair all tied up at the back swung from side to side, side to side. Jinx touched her own hair and thought that she would quite like to make it bounce like that. In fact, maybe that was why she was running nowhere.
Jinx pulled at the door and squeezed through the new, bigger line.
Susan looked up.
‘Oh!’ she said, then her voice went all breathy. ‘Jinx! You haven’t had your breakfast, have you?’
Jinx stared at the thing she was running on. That was where the long rumbling noise was coming from. She felt the same feeling that she got whenever she saw that nasty vacuum bot and backed towards the door. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.
‘Don’t be scared, Jinx. It won’t hurt you.’ The She-one put her hand out and touched something, and the rumbling changed, it seemed to be less angry. Her running slowed down and Jinx noticed that her chest was bouncing in the same way as her hair. She winced and put her hands over her own breasts. That sometimes happened to her when she was running. It wasn’t very nice… But, oh! Did that mean that the big She-one had… just like her?
Jinx stared at Susan’s chest. She had never thought about it before, yet it was something that she was sure of. In fact, she knew that they were the same. Were they? She looked at Susan’s hands. One swung next to her hip and one held a bottle. Then she took her own hands off her breasts and held them up to inspect them. Same. They were the same.
Susan let out a ‘Hoo!’ as the machine stopped. ‘Come on then. Let’s see how Bonbon is.’ She got off the thing and went walking towards the door.
One leg, two leg, one leg, two leg. Hmmm. They opened and closed in the same way as Jinx’s. In fact, she followed Susan across the hall, watching her legs then looking down at her own, just to make sure. Yes. Yes, they did. But… they were funny colours. The big She-one had one blue shiny leg and one black one – not really the same as Jinx’s. But then again, Jinx couldn’t ever remember seeing the big She-one’s legs like that. And she would definitely remember seeing legs that were two different colours. Definitely.
Jinx stopped at the kitchen door. Maybe she could change her legs?
‘Oh Miss Bonbon, what’s happened to you?’
Bonbon sat with her mouth still over one knee. She looked up at the She-one from the side of her head.
‘Are you hungry? Is that why you’re all scrunched up in the corner like that? Is that why you’re sucking on your knee?’
Bonbon moved her hands, as if to clap a reply but… she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she was hungry, but that wasn’t the reason why she was, scr… was scran… was in the corner or the reason why she was sucking her knee. That was a bit silly, asking three questions at once when they had different answers.
‘Scrunched,’ said the old littler.
Susan bent forward, her hands on her knees, waiting for an answer.
Bonbon continued to look back at her from the side of her head.
‘Oh, you’re not a well bunny, are you?’ Susan turned and reached up for the packet of flakes on top of the fridge.
Jinx gazed at the big She-one, angora rabbits tumbling through her head; what a funny thing to say; Bonbon was not a well bunny! She laughed. Bonbon wasn’t a bunny!
She heard other laughter; it was Bonbon. They looked at each other. They had laughed at the same time. They had both laughed at Bonbon being an ill bunny! Oh that was lovely… They had never, never laughed at the same time.
Susan turned around. ‘Did you just laugh?’ she asked. ‘You did, didn’t you? I’m sure that you both laughed.’ She put one hand on her hip. ‘Do it again,’ she said, tipping her chin.
Bonbon and Jinx opened their mouths to make a laughter noise. Nothing came out.
‘You probably need something funny to laugh at…’ Susan crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. ‘Ha aba thith?’ she asked through her tongue.
They wrinkled their faces and stared at her. Jinx took a step backwards.
Susan stopped pulling the face and laughed at herself, wiping her bottom lip with her hand. ‘That would probably scare me too,’ she said, turning back to the worktop. ‘I’m sure I heard you laughing…’ Picking up the box of flakes again, she bent and filled up both bowls.
Mmm, flakes, thought Jinx, looking at the bowls, then at Susan’s feet that were just next to them. She had different feet today, no, different shoes. In fact, she quite often had different shoes. Today they were big and round-looking with funny bits of rope criss-crossing up the front… Jinx hadn’t seen these ones before. The shoes usually lived together at the bottom of the stairs in one long line. The He-one’s and the She-one’s. Maybe that’s how she changed her legs? In the same way that she changed her shoes…
Jinx looked at Bonbon. She’d stopped sucking her knee and had one leg over the basket.
Hungry, thought Jinx.
‘Come on then, you two, eat up.’
They went to the bowls, got on their hands and knees and started to eat. After a minute or two, the fronts of Jinx’s legs got achy. She sat back and started to feed herself with handfuls of flakes instead, crunching them with her mouth open. The She-one stood with her bottom against the fridge. She had a little pot in her hand and was using a spoon to pick up whatever was in the pot and put it in her mouth.
Jinx watched the thing then realized that her legs felt better and she could start eating normally again. Just as she leaned forward, Bonbon came up and started to eat with her hands.
Bonbon stopped and watched Susan. Un-crunched flakes dropped from the roof of her opened mouth to her tongue as she stared at the little shiny thing that sat in the air for a moment, before plunging back into the pot and tok, tok, tok, it scraped the sides, came back up and re-entered the waiting mouth.
What was that thing? thought Bonbon, rubbing her hand against her leg to remove the flake crumbs. She sniffed at her hand and noticed it was yellow. It would smell for ages now, like it always did when she picked the flakes up in her hand.
She looked back up at the shiny thing. And the She-one’s clean white hands.
He had a carful of nice things to bring in; what could he have bought? Something expensive. Tactless git. She half-smiled, half-pouted, thinking of the floating kiss he’d sent her just before he went.
In four years, he’d never done that.
And then he’d tapped his cheek as if to say, ‘Where’s mine?’
She’d loved it when he’d tapped his cheek. He’d looked so cool.
She could be cool too.
Wow, he’d really gone to town, that box was enormous! Probably sushi. That was her favourite. And some sort of cake, something French maybe, an Opéra or a Paris Brest – something that she didn’t know how to make herself. It would, after all, really piss her off if he’d bought something that she could make, she thought as she ran down the stairs. And she would just eat it, right in front of him. Because she was cool and didn’t obsess about things like bellies. She’d munch it down.
She deserved it after an hour of running.
Susan gave her hair another scrunch with a towel before tapping one of the many coloured squares on the glass-top coffee table. The squares merged together and a woman’s face appeared: ‘Fold away and close AbLab,’ said the face. The base of the running machine folded itself back into the opposite wall. The same woman reappeared in a short stretchy pink suit on the screen that covered the length of the underside of the machine. ‘Good jahb!’ she said. ‘How about an upper-body boot camp?’
‘No,’ said Susan.
The woman made a praying gesture and bobbed. ‘Closing AbLab application,’ she announced. The screen turned back into the wall.
Susan sniffed the air. He couldn’t know that she’d used this thing, she thought, squirting perfume onto her wrist
then spinning in a circle with her arm out. ‘Suzie, really; don’t you think you’re being a bit sensitive? Blah, blah, blah…’ She stopped spinning. He could think what he liked; she was doing this for Susan not for Hamish.
Of course, had it not been for the floaty kiss, she would have gone back to bed after having to cut herself out of those stupid white jeans.
She ran back to the upstairs window.
Where was he going with that box? What was he… Next door? Oh, there was Mrs Lucas. Mrs Lucas was waving up at the window; bugger, she’d been caught spying… Yes, hello, Mrs Lucas. Waving back… Had better go outside.
‘I’m afraid I’ve been borrowing your husband,’ called Mrs Lucas as Susan strolled up the path. She turned to Hamish as he appeared next to her, holding the box. ‘Oh you are good,’ she said. ‘Just stand it on the end of the conveyor belt. It leads right to the kitchen worktop.’
‘Are you sure?’ strained Hamish, looking over his glasses, being all considerate and, and happy to go the extra mile. Susan smirked.
‘Quite sure,’ she said, looking into the box, ‘wonderful, thank you so much. Such a good old stick, isn’t he?’
Susan weighed up the holiday belly and the floating kiss, and now, the fact that he had gone shopping for a little old lady. ‘He’s not bad.’
‘Any sign of the littler?’ said Hamish, brushing his hands together having put down the box.
‘No.’
‘What’s happened?’ Susan approached the fence.
‘Blankey’s been missing since last night.’
‘Oh no!’
Mrs Lucas nodded. ‘I’m afraid so…’
‘Have you checked everywhere?’ Susan asked. Then felt stupid for asking.
‘I’ve had the house upside down,’ nodding. ‘It wasn’t really necessary. She usually comes when I call her; and she even missed her bath today. She never misses her bath.’
‘You bath her?’ wincing as soon as she’d said it. Hamish shook his head at her; of all the things to ask, Susan…
‘Yes. Twice a week.’
‘Mmm,’ said Susan, the bat-woman from Batch Mode looming up in her head, wings fully spread.
‘I’ve always said that we should do that.’ Hamish, now walking to the other side of the fence, pointed a finger at Susan as if to say: ‘Haven’t I? Told you so.’
She ignored him. ‘I’ll check inside the house for her. Sometimes I see her in the yard. Maybe she’s hidden away…’ She was useless again.
‘Oh, would you? Thank you so much. I’m so worried that something might have happened to her.’
Susan remembered seeing Bonbon lying on the angora cushion, covered in rose petals. The same fear filled up her stomach, not my Bonbon, and she thought how horrible it would be if Bonbon got lost… If either of them got lost. ‘Of course I’ll check,’ she said. ‘In fact, if you don’t mind, I’ll call round this evening, to see if she’s back.’
Mrs Lucas held her hands together under her chin. ‘Oh how kind!’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Her hands twisted and rubbed around each other like two lovers.
‘You seem worried.’
‘You’re a psychotherapist.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘I read something about mental health out patients.’
‘Right.’ He stretched the word into two tones.
‘Is that normal?’
‘Erm… Of course. It depends on the illness, and the seriousness of that illness…’
‘Yes, but is it normal for people to slip through the net?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘To go unsupervised, you know, not take their medication and to actually deteriorate once left to their own devices.’
‘It would be unwise to leave a serious case unsupervised. With outpatients, a carer, or very often a family member, might make regular visits.’
‘How can you know for sure that it’s a “serious” case?’
‘Erm…’
‘I mean… What starts out as “harmless” can degenerate fairly rapidly sometimes, right?’
‘Well…’
‘Because I was reading about a man who was deemed “well” by the authorities, then cut off his own nose.’
‘Ah.’ Hamish had read the same story. ‘You know why these stories make the headlines, don’t you?’
‘—.’
‘Like plane crashes.’
‘Because they are rare.’
‘I would like to think so.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘But the problem with mental health is that it’s not like a broken arm or…’ He searched about her face for an example. She’d let her hair twist around her face like curly fern leaves deadened amber by autumn. ‘A haircut, a bad one. No…’ He winced. ‘Scrap that.’
She laughed. At least he had made her laugh.
‘Generally, physical health issues and pain are easier to locate and cure. Mental illness is quite different, it must be sought out and even when you think it’s gone, it might just be dormant.’ He drew his chin backwards and clasped his hands over his stomach. ‘What made you bring this up today?’
‘But as long as he takes his medication he should stay “rational”, right? Just like you and me?’
‘Um…’ Were they still talking about the nose-man? ‘If he was following his treatment plan then that kind of thing really shouldn’t have happened.’
‘But how would they know if he was?’
‘Well, they would have seen it. They were using equipment that monitored his brain and the reaction of the medication.’
‘Then why did he…’
Hamish shrugged. ‘Like I say, it’s very rare that kind of thing…’
‘Where is she now?’
‘They’re both in the dining room. Look.’
Jinx pressed her nose up against the window. She saw a socked foot with its underside squashed against a chair leg and, for the fourth or fifth time that day, thought about her own body. It wasn’t just similar, it was exactly the same. She looked up towards the table; they were eating. Not with those silver things, spoons, but with funny little sticks that opened and closed like a long beak. ‘We don’t eat the same things as they do, do we?’
Bonbon put her face to the window and watched the funny sticks as they hugged a morsel of something right up into Susan’s mouth. She turned to Jinx. ‘No, we don’t.’
‘Maybe we’re not the same then.’
Bonbon stepped forward and looked right into Jinx’s face. ‘We can only eat what they give us, Jinx.’ Her eyes darted around the space in front of her as if looking for the being that had got inside her body and made her mouth say what she had just said. Where had that come from? She closed her eyes; spoons grew up through the darkness behind them, and as they got taller, their rounded top bits split into yellow flake-stained fingers. When she opened her eyes, Jinx’s face was at the end of her nose, her eyeballs angled at the cushion that was still stuck to Bonbon’s ear.
‘Oh,’ said Jinx, stepping back and tracing a line around her own ear. Then: ‘But that’s alright because flakes are nice, aren’t they?’
Bonbon thought about this. Flakes were nice most of the time. But then, the thing they were poking at with sticks might have been nice. And the thing with the spoon this morning. Maybe that was just as nice as flakes…
‘Flakes?’ came a voice from behind.
Jinx spun around then launched herself at Chips, kissing him all over his face. ‘You’re here!’ she laughed. ‘I’ve been waiting all day and now you’re here!’
Bonbon watched all of this kissing and touching. When had that started? ‘Your head’s gone all red,’ she said to Chips.
Chips thought for a while. ‘Why?’ he said.
Jinx stood back to look at Chips’s head and laughed. ‘Doesn’t matter!’ she said. ‘And oh look! You’ve got your humcoat on!’ She leaned forward and sniffed it before opening it up and squirming into it. ‘Blankey brought it round for you! I knew
she would!’
‘Blankey?’ Chips looked from Jinx, to the floor, to his own shoulder, and then up at the sky.
‘Blankety-Blankey!’ sang Jinx.
Ever since he’d been a liar, ever since he’d told that lie yesterday, he had hidden away. Blankey would see him and tell him he wasn’t there when she came to his house. ‘And why weren’t you there?’ said a voice inside his head… He squeezed his eyes shut. Because… Because… Because he’d been sp-spying on Jinx and her big she-one.
‘Hello?’ laughed Jinx. ‘Hello? Chips, are you hiding? I can still see you…’
Chips opened his eyes. The last time Jinx had been this close to him was when they were doing The Big Cuddle at his house. He kissed her on the end of her nose, knowing that she would like that. She did. She giggled and started to do up Chips’s buttons over her back. He was so skinny that both of them could fit inside his humcoat really easily.
‘We’ve got the same humcoat, me and Blankey,’ said Bonbon, holding out one arm, then the other, to look at the way the grey on her coat was darker in some places and lighter in others. ‘You’ll see when she comes over.’ She was sure that it looked nicer than Blankey’s. She dropped her arms. ‘But I haven’t seen her at all today, and today is the day after Saturday. She usually comes the day after Saturday because that’s when her biggerers go to the shops.’
Chips coughed and looked at the sky again.
Jinx stopped buttoning the humcoat and gasped at the good idea she was about to have. ‘Shall we go to see her in her Outside?’
‘No!’ shouted Chips.
The other two stared at him.
Chips looked at Bonbon over Jinx’s shoulder then lifted some of Jinx’s hair to whisper something in her ear. ‘What about our Big Cuddle?’
Jinx giggled again. ‘Alright!’ she said.
Bonbon felt weird about all of this. Really weird. Not in a cross way but… in a way that made her think that she would also quite like to be inside somebody else’s humcoat with them. She hugged herself over her own coat. Hmmm, she’d never felt that before. Looking at Chips, she wondered if he’d like to come into her coat. Or she into his. She watched them cuddling each other, like the bin-bag in the kitchen when there were too many things inside. ‘I’m just going inside for a minute.’ They hadn’t noticed that she’d spoken. Their giggles looped through the air, only to be blocked by the flap of the vacuum hatch as Bonbon crept under it.