Deleted Scenes for Lovers

by Tracey Slaughter

  short for the sea

  Slippers.

  Out here in slippers.

  You wouldn’t credit it, she mutters at the door-glass.

  Put out here. Tipped out. Like some mangy cat.

  Like some dero.

  Like some dero they used to wind up at the bus shelter when they were bits of kids, old winos with piddle-stinking coats baled up with snarls of twine, goat-greasy hair in dags. Once, another girl said she’d seen a stringy dangle of a willy but Mer reckoned it was probably the twine undoing. And their eyes. Eyes just blinks of grit-bewildered wet in their paper-bag-coloured faces. Those boys—the boys Mer got round with in them days—they’d poke at the winos, rip up sticks and stab at the humps of old-man till they growled and limbs shot out in a scuffle from wild sheets of the Star. But Mer never did. Couldn’t bring herself to. She never got into it, poking the scruffy old hulks along the bench. Because of their eyes. Their eyes took too long, so long, to unpucker the crinkled smut of their faces, and even then you could tell they didn’t pinpoint anything. They blotched and unblotched, the way that a baby’s eye does, never really getting a sense, a grip. Slimy eyes, helpless. Like two more tiny mouths.

  She blinks her own eyes, now she’s shoved out here. Old Mer, on a doorstep in who-knows-where, and getting bloody cold on top of it. Freezing out here in just her slippers, thank you very much, and her good light frock with the daisies on it is no guard against the night. She squeezes her own eyes, looks down the hill, tries to spot where she is. But her lids go and drizzle. And the dark has pretty well blocked the town out—when you could have turned her round three times and lost her in the daylight.

  Wes would not have stood for it. Son or no son, Wes would’ve squared up for her sake. Would not have stood by and let his own son turf her out.

  She tells him in her head: Wes, no offence, but that boy of yours has proved to be a proper so-and-so. You’ve been singing his praises all these years, puffing him up as a decent young chap. A company-car type, up-the-ladder and on-the-level. But don’t you believe it. Wes. I’m booted out. He’s booted me out. And I don’t have a clue where in the blazes I am.

  Simple, Mer: You’re in your slippers, aren’t ya?

  That’s what good old Wes would’ve chuckled and said.

  He liked to have her on, to rib her. She misses that: being egged on, teased, when she’s grumpy or prim. Wes always knew how to tickle her. Simmer her down.

  From the very get-go. When she was sat there, plonked there, right out of sorts, on the seat outside the finance place, that day he met her. When she’d been in, in her mightiest shoes and the owl brooch that Arthur had given her (May he rest), and the papers all folded neatly into her stiffest purse which she’d buffed last night specially, and she’d licked her good finger on the right hand where the tendons hadn’t snapped and she’d used it to swish up the corners of the pages the way she’d seen officially done in the bank, and she’d eyeballed the upstart in the suit behind his desk, and tapped at the bottom lines, all the numbers she was due, she was owed, that should be coming to her. But him saying no, in fact, she was cleaned out. The whole thing collapsed, and that was that, in fact. Kaput, her life savings, every shilling she’d put by; her nest egg, snuffed. So she’d stumbled out to the seat, and had blinked at her bloated feet in their high-and-mighty buckles, and grabbed and grabbed at Arthur’s owl with its plumes of cut glass coming unstuck and tried to look down and excuse herself into its gaze with ugly, sorry belches. Honest, Arthur, I couldn’t have known, luvvie. I could never have seen it coming. Then Wes, out of nowhere, had parked himself, not too familiar, a bum-span away, just rummaged around with his few bits of shopping and whistled to himself, a sideways squeak through a gap in his teeth, a ditty from her childhood. And when Arthur’s owl had dug in its claws, all screech and reckoning, she’d begged it out loud, Please, Arthur, I’m not up to it, if you take on it’ll be the ruin of me. Wes had just leaned over, given her a friendly nudge. A ruffian grin. A perk of the higgledy eyebrows, half-long sprouts, half-bald. Don’t want to get your undies too bunched, love, he said, with a cluck-wink like her dad used to give her, a cheery wet quack of the tongue, she can’t be all bad. But Mer didn’t know which way was up, so she let him deposit her next to him on the bus, let him rub against her as the bus chugged along, let his bony odd little knees with their flakes of psoriasis swerve against her purse. And she let him lead her through his little front gate, and let him mine his scungy sink for one or two tea things—have them rinsed in a jiffy, he said—and she let him plop a few sweet chunks in her brew, and my word, that was what woke her up. It was a rugged cup. And she told him. She came to her senses with his fag-end of china in her hand and said, Oh, my word, that’s a rugged cup. You could stand your spoon up in that.

  Put hairs on your chest, love, he chuckled back.

  And she’d stayed on. A shocking turn of events, Mer knew, but you see, it was the company. You wouldn’t trade that for the world, the company of Wes, with his antics, his monkeying about, his cheeky quips and the lovely tobacco-cackle he fired at you if you got lofty on him. All phlegm and mischief: he near fell in half-laughing at how grand her little ways were sometimes, and she swatted him, giggling back, Oh, you’re the limit, you are. He was a kid, most days, and in need of his bum paddling. Certainly, it took some time getting used to the sight of him blundering about in his PJs, the wishy-washy flap of which was never quite hitched respectably. But you could fall into step with him easily, move in, bit by bit, watch him trek back and forth to fetch your few belongings, waggling his string bag, his eyes twinkling like lozenges. He’d convinced her, when the corns on her big toes hurt, to keep in her slippers. You don’t want to wreck yourself. No one’ll see. You want to get off your high horse.

  And now look, she snaps at him, dear old Wes, in her head. Now just look at me, out here in slippers.

  In her head Wes, ever saucy, replies: I tell you what’s worse love, you don’t have your teeth in.

  And she feels her gob drop open in the black air and half the night suck into her chest with the shock of it.

  Oh, where is she? How many jolly steps has she been? She’s been trooping about without thinking, and the town is pitch. Certainly there are poles but they hardly gush light. There’s great brackets of blackness around those light-blobs, whole nowheres the lamps do sod-all to alter. Her eyes only make them fizzle more. One or two cars throb past, and she almost has the time to shake a hand out, shuffle to the kerb. But she’s too late, ignored. Wobbles on. Hears a dog jack-knife on the end of its chain, someone’s tin-lid shriek for the slither of scraps, another mutt hack and banter at the gaps in the fence. Don’t get your dander up, she tells it, puffing. There’s a vegetable pong of leaves going off in a swimming pool, someone’s tea gone black on a stove, the phew of a dollop of catshit nearby in the darkness. She is glowing (Yes, Wes, ladies glow) as she trudges, peering for the letterbox. A couple of young blokes clump down the road, their jeans flapping. Black hoods make them eyeless. She pulls up, clutches her collar, tries to ask, but it comes out as wheeze, gobbledy.

  Foo-hoo-hoo, she hears.

  Please, she manages, gummy. I’m a bit upset. Could you tell me where I am? Could you please?

  Ol’ lady, one of them scuffs back around, pulls a slug of spit up and launches it, you in hell.

  Please. You see, I’m just a bit upset.

  Said you in hell, ol’ bitch. You in the right place.

  The boys punch each other, gung ho, move off blurting rap. Mer hears a dog flail up against the fence again, clawing. Other mutt-allies clatter and huff.

  Bits of kids, she says to Wes. Would you credit it? But I have to fetch my plate back, no two ways. I can’t get by, I’m sunk without that.

  Well, it’d match your slippers.

  Slippers, she sobs at him. That was your bloody doing.

  And the tipple was his fault as well; his favourite sherry she’d gone and bought, and had ready when they’d picked h
er up this evening, showed them proudly, such a lovely drop. And Wes’s son and wife had seemed to nod so kindly, tilt it gratefully under the hotel lightbulb. Margie, the wife, chipped in with some very nice things about the way Mer had flossied-up the bottle with a fancy bit of ribbon, and Mer had said, Yes, it wasn’t easy, mind you, the way the mucked-up tendons had left most of her fingers swinging like broken clothes pegs from her hand. And the evening had seemed to get off to a fair start. They’d taken her out to their car and Wes’s boy was the sort who you felt escorted you, just that firm type that you felt ladylike around. Handed you into the seat and attended to you, helped with your belt when the bugger of a clip got stuck and the tendons turned it into a silly performance. That’s not a problem, Merilees, he had said, Wes’s boy, as he leaned in to sort it. And a rather untimely pop of wind had squeaked out of Mer as he levered over the vinyl, and she’d blushed, My goodness, I don’t normally fluff, but he’d only smiled and pretended not to hear. And she’d had no option but to let another trump go as she’d heaved herself up out the car, and it seemed like a fine forecast for the meeting that no one remarked either way, although Mer could hardly stop a murky bubble of laugh thinking of how Wes would’ve had her on. Wes would’ve giggled up a burp and said, There you go, Mer, it’s a smart fart takes the elevator up.

  Mer had carried the other parcel to the dinner table: she was getting around to it, you couldn’t rush. And there certainly were a few awkward points to begin, as they’d settled into munching. But the tucker was lovely. This is such a treat, Mer kept saying, such a real treat, and the fuss over the seeds that jabbed under her denture and meant she had to slip it out had not spoiled the occasion too much. Not even when the ruddy thing caught her by surprise and slopped out and battered on the table before she had a chance to catch it (Oh dearie, my tendons). And perhaps it was just how gracious the two of them were, overlooking the gaffe and the gravy-spurt and going on smiling, that sped her up, that made her get to the reason for the visit, the parcel and the cause for her trip in person to see them. She’d come a very long way, and stopping off at a hotel was not something she was used to—but that was what it called for, the parcel, it was delicate. You see, she said, scrabbling at the worn paper wrapping, You see, it needs … it needs …

  It caught at her heart to unpack it. You couldn’t tone that type of sadness down: her heart was all over the show to see that dress. It made her scrounge about for a way to explain things, it put her astray with its pumping all funny, its wobbling about in her chest. But she’d tried to go easy, to warm up to the exact thing, because the truth was when Wes first told her it came as a terrible shock to her as well, it gave her a mighty turn to see him step shy and doddery up the hallway until he stood, as good as starkers, in the kitchen bulb which whined with the back door breeze. She’d backed into a chair, she’d folded up, she’d felt crook. A bloke in a dress made her queasy, and what’s more it was her Wes, her mate, her fella, balanced there with his jittery ankles clearly not cut out for those sort of perilous patents, and his leg hair squished under pantyhose the colour he brewed his dreadful gumboot tea. The frippery of the whole get-up just bulged at her, the pecking of plastic beads, and his half a dozen hairs wetted back and clipped with bobby-pins. It had not been easy, to take it all in, to get her head round it. She felt like bolting, to be honest, for a spell. But his eyes were like lozenges, like little dobs of honey, and she’d come to be almost giddy with love by that stage. Not that it ever took the form of more than a cuddle, mind you, a steadying hug, a nudging little lie-down for comfort from time to time, just a nestle in the chill, in the scrum of old blankets, against each other’s joints, no fiddling about, just chat. Like: Mer, he’d said to her one night. What’s that short for? Short for Merilees. Oh, he’d muttered. I’d thought it was French. Could be wrong, but I thought it was French for the sea.

  She had somehow ended on that, telling Wes’s son and his Margie. Stopped because it swamped her, the romance of that. No one had ever said anything so … magic, in my life, she ended, holding out the dress. My name’s … Wes said my name’s short for the sea.

  And she looked up into the face of Wes’s son.

  He had a terrible grip on him. No more escorting. She rebounded, fluttered. What’s more, he was raving. At the end of his long driving arm, her head went bumping, her legs sprawled. She was hoofed out. Reeled. Came to her senses in spirals against the glass back door. Heard a noise like the buzz the old tellies used to make. Bright black and white, big bars of tuned-out squeal.

  Got a hold of herself. But didn’t think to ask for the bits she’d left inside. Her plate. The parcel.

  The dress, Wes, she tells him on the roadside, the dress. What you should’ve been laid out in. Tomorrow. What I came for. What you should’ve worn.

  Where’s that letterbox? Where should she turn in? The bloody house has evaporated. Where has it got to, Wes? She’s come to an edge, a fork, and the lamp lets a ruffle of light down. Her dopey slippers glow in it. A cluster of milk bottles glint like balloons on the verge. A kid’s trike has toppled. Someone’s squelched a handprint in before the concrete got dry. She sits down, suddenly, down by the hand-hollow. Lets her useless fingers dangle in it.

  When the car pulls in nearby, a kid is half out the door before it parks. Muddy, kitted out for rugby. She drags herself up, all trunk, hears her frock snag, treats her knee to a doozie of a graze. Croaks out: Please, please. The kid jumps, rams his hand up to his gob. Shouts, Da-da-da-daaaadddd. She must look like something the dog sicked, a monster. The man swoops out, the handbrake wrenched, the motor still on.

  Please. I’m very upset, she tells them. There’s been a bit of an argument. I’m only in my slippers.

  He’s hardly impressed, the man—in fact, he needs it like a hole in the beeping head, Mer hears him tell the woman who half comes out the house, toddler rucked up and grizzly in her arms—but he puts her in the back of the car, says he’ll sort her out. The boy jabs himself into the front seat, keeps swivelling round to gawp.

  I feel very upset, you see, she repeats. I’m not sure which way’s my hotel … whatsaname. Down the road away. By the sea.

  Might know the one, the man says.

  I been to practice, the kid says. We hammered them. He fidgets, tapping his father, bum squawking in the seat. We taking her to the police?

  Oh, I’m very upset. I’m only in slippers. My hotel is … down by sea. You’re very kind. Please.

  She drunk, Dad?

  Mer shrills, Young man, I’ll have you know.

  Then she thinks of what Wes’s son yelled at her: clear out of his dad’s house, right away, fuck off, clear out. So it’s true, then: she’s homeless, she’ll end under the Star, tied round with dirt and string. But she still straightens, Young man, I’ll have you know young man. Oh, I’m no dero.

  Sobs: My name … Wes said my name’s short for the sea.

  But she’s lucky, she guesses. The tyres crackle into place. The boy gets out, punts the rugby ball round the gravel as the man walks her into reception. The hotelier’s mouth crimps: there’s bound to be a telling off coming. Fancy losing a key. But the man puts his hand down hard on the visitor’s book and the desk judders. Just enough to sort it. No need for bother, eh? He wants shot of her. The man’s got weight in his hands, a thumbnail laboured to black like the handle of a tool. He even smells like brick.

  He delivers her. She shuffles in, quivers.

  He’s almost out the room when she says: A dress wouldn’t look any good on you.

  You what?

  It’s not unholy, you know.

  You’re wasted.

  Wes’s son and his wife said, they said. But it wasn’t unholy.

  Bloke? In a dress?

  It looked just right on him. It’s what he should’ve rested in. My Wes. I tried to tell them that. That was all I was coming here to try to say. He was lovely.

  You’re trashed.

  It was right. If you’d seen him. It’s how
he was most … himself.

  What are ya? the man sneers. Closes the door on her.

  Mer sits on the bowed bed, blinks for a time. Or longer. Lowers herself. Silver scales are on the spread, she can feel them, even with her daft fingers. Could’ve cut you down a nice dress of this stuff, Wes, if it weren’t for the tendons, made waves, made gatherings. She dreams him, wedged in his quiet box, narrow limbs garnished with shine, like trimmings of sea. Dreams looking in, the dress, like he likes them, all fluting and gleam, making up for the chill. Making up for finding him, flat in their kitchen, turned that knuckle-bone colour, eyes dug out, has-been. Eyes that won’t open. Then stay open, too long, when you blotch them with your thumb and your tears and your talk runs out all lonely.

  The slippers gape.

  Drop off, one by one.

  consent

  Let me tell you about consent.

  I consented to smile at him. At least, the muscles of my mouth moved for him as much as they did for any customer. He leaned on the counter, sideways, as I rolled the ice cream he ordered, triple-scoop, orange chocolate chip, and he tapped a twenty, folded horizontally, up and down on the metal trim. He was so tall he could look right over the counter, so tall that whichever way I bent his look would be all over my arse or boring right down the groove between my little tits. I tried to pull the apron loop up a bit round my neck, to jam it one side on the sliding glass so it didn’t fall down again. But the ice cream was hard that day. All day I had been refilling the metal milkshake tumbler we kept the scoops in with boiling water from out back at the Zip. To roll from the carton he wanted, I had to bend right down, poke my skull into the cabinet, drop my whole weight on the scoop, rock it wrist-wise to get any kind of curl into it. He leaned over and told me he liked how I handled a cone.