By rights I should of stopped him. Getting a Coke I mean. He was wired enough. Been cooped up in the bus and he’d never exactly been into sitting still. But it was better than that other drink. He tried me on for that one first. That Red Bull they reckon gives you wings or the one in that booze-look black bottle they call Mother. Mouthful of that shit just about makes my heart cave in.
So the kid wasn’t waiting. He had hold of his Coke while the talk got underway. Started full on glugging. I can’t be sure word for word what happened then. The guy behind the counter just picked up the kid necking his drink and came out with this high-pitched yapping about how he was into it before I’d fixed him up for cash. So I was kind of half into the catch-up at my shoulder and half-staring up above the counter to get our order square, get the yellow guy paid and get him off my back. And the issue there was being skint for starters. Or as good as. Which the little shop bastard figured out no worries. No prizes for that, with me fucking fidgeting round in my bag to check for any loose pingers, and trying to add Bub’s hotdog onto the four-fifty chips and fit the kid’s fucking burger on top of the Coke he’d already sculled, and then the guy slamming his till tray, still ranting, and having to ring the order on again with two dollars chips taken off and me telling him to keep the fucking egg if the fucking egg cost me a buck. Trying the whole time to keep an ear out back for him. But like I’ve told you, the Eagles were twanging on about motels and desperados, with the fan cranking through them and the foam in the vats going spare so the whole shop was a boil-up of hollow metal noise. Everything clattered as they shovelled in chips. I don’t know. I wasn’t even blinking by then. I was parched as a bitch and the air in the place was so groggy with fat I couldn’t get a breath. I was trying to count and the answer wasn’t coming, and between the cruisy flies and the Eagles and the chop of the fan I was totalled. I just lost track of what was what.
But he kept up talking. He wasn’t letting me off.
At some point he said, Fuck, you look old enough.
I said, Yeah, well. You get that.
He said, So. How’s your mum.
The guy behind the counter was ripping off a ticket from the book to give me. It had a three and a spade on it but the spade was red, like a heart wrong way up.
I said, Same old. Yeah. She’s right I suppose.
He said, See much of her these days.
I said, Not a lot.
He said, Shame.
I said, It is what it is.
He said, True.
I said, She turns up when she wants to. Whatever. Suits me.
He said, She get through the shake okay.
I said, Unit’s a write off. Not a scratch on her though.
He said, That’d be right.
I said, I reckon.
He said, How about yous.
I said, We’re clearing out.
He said, Aftershocks.
I said, Among fucking other things.
He said, You got help.
I said, Yeah right. Who the fuck does.
He said, So where yous off to.
I said, That’s what I’m on my way to jack up.
He said, Nothing sorted then yet. At a loose end.
I said, Too soon to tell. Suppose something’ll turn up.
He said, Early days. No worries. Early days, eh.
I just stood there and listened. It was when he said early days again. I don’t know. Some cold idea just spazzed through my head like goosebumps.
Which is why when Bubs revved back up I whipped off one of her jandals and gave her a good one. They were the jelly kind, thick with glitter on the inside, and I can dish it out when I’ve had enough. The tread stood out on her leg like a fish, even before she got the chance to start up a howl. For a couple of secs I just stood with the stretchy strap flapping in my hand, staring at the little red fish bones squiggling up out her skin.
Then it was all on.
Behind the counter the guy started kicking up at me again. Loud as, to get it over top of Bub’s screech. He was waving his yellow hand at a jar on the counter, which had a stash of coins poked through the lid, and a pic glued round the side of some black kid’s head saying you could donate and be an Angel. I said, Yeah, well, you can fuck right off. Let the angels pay for my feed. Or you’re so fucking holy, why don’t you make it free, eh.
I suppose I was hardly toning anything down by getting in his face like that. I suppose I have to be thankful that Bubs got taken off my hands and propped over on that corner seat. And thankful that he reached her a tool out his high-vis jacket and started doping her with it. I suppose I shouldn’t of had this jet of panic shoot out around my back teeth. I shouldn’t of made this choke, like bad luck was dizzy and sticking to the roof of my mouth.
Suppose I should of sat my arse down, like he said.
But as it was, I just paced. I looked down at the manky vinyl squares and raced round them, scuff by pissed-off scuff. Even worse than the kid by the finish.
And where the kid had fucked off to was through another grotty blind, but this one was green beads in jingly plastic blobs, and you went through to a restaurant. Not that anyone would want to. The kid was just standing there, in the empty diner where the lanterns hadn’t even got bulbs and red tassels dangled off everything in the dark. The only thing lit was the fish tank, filled with a thick green the creatures were straining to swim through. And just looking in at the scummed-up glass you felt like the lonely fucking hard work of their fins was leaving some kind of filth in your throat like your words couldn’t hope to ever float to the surface. I wanted to explain to the kid. I’ve wanted to for years since then. He was looking at me, and the chunks of sick green bead went tingling over his face like the bubbles in the fish tank you could tell held zero oxygen. And back there is where he should of stayed. Maybe he would of, if I’d found a way to explain.
But everything was fucking with me. When I turned back, there was Bubba sitting on the chair snot-faced and grinning at the tool, and above her head the gross sack was swinging and the bubbles of glass that poked through the rope looked like fish scales. So I knew I was out of it. The fact that those weird bits could match, but I couldn’t get our trip straight to save myself, that was proof to me. I wasn’t going anywhere fast, even if I tried. Not without him.
Which he’d figured, by then. You could tell by the veins, the smile that kept lifting their red-brown ends. The fly lazing round on the fuel of his collar.
He said, Where’d you say your next stop was.
I said, Fuck knows. I don’t.
He said, All right. No need to spin out. You should calm it down.
I said, Well there’s not many fucking connections from nowhere to nowhere.
He said, How many of the crew you got with you. Just these two.
I said, The others got fixed up.
He said, How’s that.
I said, You know. Out of town. Into care. After the shake. Until I could get somewhere sussed.
He said, How many you got now.
I said, Just the four. Three boys. And her.
He said, Oh, yeah.
He looked at Bubs and said, Sweet as. Heard you finally got a girl.
Then he said, You see my story in the paper. After the big one.
I said, Nah. What’s the go.
He said, I was right in it, mate. Took on the quake. You should of seen me.
I said, Missed it. Must of.
He said, Yeah, well. I was all over the paper for a couple of days. Plus TV. They made out I was a lifesaver, mate. Digging people out.
I said, True.
He said, No joke. I was a bit of a hero.
That’s when the kid came back through the curtain. The flight path of green beads went mental as. He’s never learnt to slow down, my kid. That’s what I always see: my boy launching his face through the beads at us. The bubbles of the blind going ping and clack. And his voice sounding squeezed up out his skinny body.
I saw that bit, the kid sai
d. I saw that bit about you on TV. They interviewed that woman after. You made out you were some superhero. Then that woman came on and said you were full of shit. She said you weren’t anywhere near.
The beads were coming to a stop like air running out. I had the ticket for our feed screwed in my hand. The jar on the counter wanted money for angels and in the poster taped round there was a sad black kid. And in the chiller staring back at him there was a high-rise of Mother cans. On one side of the shop there was the line of orange chairs, with Bubs sulking and squelching on the last one and the spider plant drifting in its glass bin over her head. She was waggling a socket in her hand and he was tickling his thumb in where her T-shirt stopped. When the kid said that. Like I’ve said, the kid’s memory was none too sharp. He moved way too quick, my kid, but he wasn’t the brightest.
I didn’t move when he pulled up from Bubs and just eyeballed the kid. Got a mouth on you, haven’t you, he said.
He just stood and toed it, my kid. And shook. The shake moved the light in his hair. I would always have left it uncut, my kid’s hair. So the smell of our days could keep lifting off of it.
Pay you to watch that, he said, stepping up, closer to the kid.
The kid said again, You’re full of shit.
The guy behind the counter had come through and was shoving the wrapped-up feed at us. His mistake was trying to stop it. You could feel where it was heading. And I thought I had given him the ticket with the heart on it. I remember looking at the three and the red spade. But later, when the cop had sat me down by the fish tank, I still had it in my hand. And the jandal, too, with the glitter in the jelly like a held breath. I kept checking back for that dance of little specks. The cop said it was choice, the description I gave him. Gave him a lot to work with. But through the coated glass the traffic was going nowhere and the sirens lit everything with high-pitched fins. He was crouched by the tank and echoes that weren’t fish kept trying to spread through the slush. And my brain was full of goosebumps again.
scenes of a long-term nature
They will meet at the east wall of the kitchen, where the last of the sunset runs sour in the tea-towel checks. They will fill the kettle, a joint action, him levering off its stiff oval lid, her taking up the handle and posing it under the drizzle of the cold tap. It will take her both hands. It will cause a quaver in her shoulderblade. But they will sing, a shorthand hum of tune they can’t place, the residue of years in its half-vanished verse. They will wait. Through the net-trimmed window, they’ll watch the washing line mill the glow of evening. There will be something still strung from a peg, and they will blink, but neither will be able to recall what it is. Tomorrow, we’ll get it tomorrow, he’ll say to her. The base of the jug will rumble and flick itself mute. Grub’s up, he’ll nod. They will watch the knots in each other’s hands as they work, the his and hers cups, the spoons with their lacy crowns on, enamel names of holiday towns, the brackets of blue-tinged tendon in their wrists. She will pop open the trays with the weekday pill slots and top up the pellets from their silver sleeves. He will shave an apple for them, ruling off the red with a penknife in a loud frill of peel. They will listen for the theme to their programme, an off-pitch saga beaming through the lounge, a summons for their slippers to aim for their side-by-side armchairs.
They will have children. The skin of her belly will swell and split into a mesh of silver ripples, a heel from inside loosening the net. He will remember the evening she sits, no longer agreeing to the seams of her clothing, and the kick of his son will lift the globe, setting the fine streaks moving like he’s gazing down through shallows at a flexing school of fish. They will have more. They will sleep in relays, pass in the hallway, stumble for each other to graze at palms and face, then blunder on to the sound of children bawling from sleep like their hearts are stopping. Her nipples will crack, crevices opening and crusting in the pink. She will not let him touch them. He will stare at the milky latch of his son’s mouth puffing at the counterweight of breast and feel orphaned. She will steer her body backwards onto surfaces that are all too hard. She will wear puke on her sleeves and nappy pins clinking at the hem of her skirt, for convenience. She will always look flushed. They will hold small nests of breathing wool at chest height in a cradle of elbows and everything will ache. They will sing about pirates, they will sing about ribbons. Everything will ache. The rooms will fill with objects of broken colour, levers that whir, buttons that spin. They will watch them with the ghost of sleep still in their heads, the days out of focus through a cloud of other eyes they can’t shut. They will step around unwashed clothes. The grass will grow, to silence the war of the lawnmower. The television will whisper. They will nuzzle the scalps of their children where the traces of palest hair turn down the soft track of spine and they will inhale. And inhale. It will be years that everything goes on aching.
They will nearly end. There will be nights when she sits awake on the edge of the bed, the moon a hard rim that doesn’t answer her squint. She will know he is lying. She will hear it in his reassurance. In the low gear his car rolls into the driveway, idles before he comes in. She will know it, side-on, in his torso, when she stares at him smoking out the back of the house, the weight of out-breaths leaving his body in low strokes, steady, embittered through the axle of ribs. She will know his smile is rigged. The way he takes off his clothes in the considerate half-light of the bathroom will be too tidy. She will listen to the reasons he tells her she’s wrong, all wrong, but she will know even under his defence, the phonics of hunger she’ll hear somewhere in his chest. Yes, his diaphragm, moving against his meaning. When she meets the woman, her replacement will only be a version of her, wearing a dress in a shade she might have chosen, travelling the room with a slur she might have once had in her own hips. She will like her. She will want her to die. She will trade grins, click glasses with her, and wish her a future that is too big for him. She will write on the back of a bright serviette while she watches them on the company dancefloor, a Bic-pen parallelogram of bile that scratches down all her petty fears. It will be a cliché. She will stuff it in the dregs of her cocktail. It will soak with cosmopolitan. She will watch the green dial on the dashboard all the way home, snapping at him each time he edges over the speed limit. She will know because he never snaps back.
They will fit. They will learn to. She will hoist her skirt and thumb her pants aside with one hand, holding him in the other so she can smirk down and guide herself on. He will run his fingers through his mouth, a long suck, before he kneads them home. They will pump and shudder on each other, laughing at their rude grace. There will be an order to sweeping the drapes closed, a ritual of fingertips slipping down the stiff joins in their shirts, drawing their heads and ankles out the narrowing cloth. When they kiss it will feel like an elegy. When they kiss it will be a dirty joke. She will let him prop her on the frame of the bed and beat upwards until they grunt with rowdy fun-loving come. Or in the winter they will take to the hump of cold quilts and stage a lazy all-in-one fuck, barely peeling the covers off the places they push into one. They will know the poses each other strikes as they wipe themselves clean in the bathroom later, dopey balletic hunches to yank on the toilet roll and ease off the glisten of love.
There will be an illness. One will take the other to appointments down the long halls where clocks click backwards. Everything will be too clean for the pain. One will fill out the forms on the clipboard. Everything will be blue or green. There will be the thud of machines to lock one into sleep. One will write details over and over while the other leans back from the waist and splits open. Everything will be too well-lit for the fear. The radio set to mystic static. The heels of the nurses set to disinterest. The fingernails underscored on the vinyl handrests of the endless chairs. One will bring coffee in paper cups with a blossom of milk left on the surface. The other will watch it turn, leaking tendrils into the dark. It will be like the emblems on the doctor’s coat. It will be like the danger clotted in their body. It
will be like the numbers that drop and hover on the screen. One will breathe in for the other. It will be their turn, another time, to breathe out.
They will piss each other off. Just plain irritation. She will hate the way he blows his nose in the shower and it never quite rinses. He will hate the way a rain of beige powder is forever spattered round the basin. He will know it’s not fair but he’ll still hate the way she bleats bad muzak behind supermarket trolleys. And the way a gully of careless grey will weave up the part in her hair. She will hate the way in middle age he suddenly stops indicating, veering them into roundabouts through a peal of urban fuck yous. No one will come from Mars. Or Venus. They will just get on each other’s nerves. Then shrug it off.
They will feel black and blue with talk. A marriage-load of the same old arguments. Money on the A side, sex and children on the B side. Either way the needle will be stuck.
They will fight. They’ll stage three-day slanging matches which have the children bolting for their rooms, though once the kids are teens they will stand by their doors, roll their eyes and laugh. She will discover a talent for scrapping which is nothing short of magnificent. She will battle till she feels the pupils of her eyes dilate. She will thrill to the judder of doors, unhinging everything as she walks out on it. She will pick up the vacuum cleaner once and send it in an unplugged wobble of dust across the room. The children will giggle for years about Mum and her spazzes, dizzy Mum and her tiffs. He will know what’s at the heart of them. He will load the kids in the Triumph, when they’re little, and take them for an iceblock. They will bring her one home, blue with frozen promise and wrapped in a cocoon of fineprint.
Deleted Scenes for Lovers Page 7