Imperfect Strangers

by David Staniforth

Where the book had been, sitting beneath it, as if specifically hidden, and I can see why she would be ashamed, sits a box of tampons – half empty. For some reason I can’t quite fathom, I flip the lid and take one and place it in my pocket. Mother would disapprove. I suppose that’s reason enough. A shudder grabs me as I recall her monthly ritual: rags hanging from a rope strung over the bathtub, dripping acrid-bleach into my bathing water. Rags far too soiled with shame to be dried outdoors in the wind. The memory doesn’t bring on an episode, but it does sketch a sensation of spider’s web on my cheek. It’s nothing but a trace of memory on my skin, but as quickly as a thought I brush it away. I have to.

  Smoothing away the recollection, rubbing the pains that come to my wrists, I drag my attention back to the drawer. From under the box of shame, its corner only just visible, a thin diary beckons. Yesterday’s date has a reminder, written in the most exquisite handwriting, to collect photographs of a cousin’s wedding. The words: Remember to bring to work, follows, in a different hand, by order of Colleen. Ha Ha!!

  This unsettles me somewhat.

  Replacing everything in exactly the same position, I close the drawer and determine to check at a later date to see if I can find the photographs. I put on my shoes and twist the cap to my head. You’ll grow into Arthur had said, when I was new to the job. That was eleven years ago, and now, at the age of twenty-eight, it’s still too big. Turning off the lamp three times, I glance at the window. From thirteen floors up – 12B, though I prefer the most feared of primes – the spread of the sleeping city takes on a strange, far-removed quality, as if viewed on a cinema screen. In the middle distance there is an expansive patch devoid of light: a large area of darkness enclosed by the park’s boundary.

  Sally lives just beyond the park – her home nestled on the edge of darkness.

  She’ll be in her bed, all warm and comfortable and safe. I can’t see the house, but I know exactly where it sits. There’s a light near the park-gate that’s brighter than those lighting the pavement. A few days ago I walked from the gate to her house and counted the number of streetlights.

  Sally has nothing to fear from shadows.

  I look beyond her house and notice the occasional flash of emergency-blue, before wandering back to the streets below where traffic lights command empty junctions. The damp tarmac shows a distorted reflection, the colours muted as if the tarmac has absorbed and destroyed some of the brilliance.

  The thought disturbs me, so I turn away from the window. When I shine the torchlight onto Sally’s desk my note stares back. Torch off. Torch on. The writing, To Sally, shouts loudly in my mind. It’s my own voice this time and I can’t seem to shut it up.

  Off. On.

  TO SALLY, the voice in my head yells.

  TO SALLY!!!

  And through my voice, as if I’ve awakened her from the slumber of soft music, comes mother’s.

  IDIOT, she screams, laughing, before launching an abusive string of put-downs. STUPID. FREAKing HEADCASE. Whojathinkyar?

  Off. On. Off. On.

  Five now. It’s not working. I could try seven, or eleven or thirteen. I could keep going to the thousandth prime of 7919, but I suspect it would make no difference.

  ‘Shut up.’ I blurt, but I can’t drown her out. More and more foul words stream into my head. ‘Shut up, shut up,’ I cry, trying to be louder than her. I know what she wants; I know it’s the only thing that will silence her. I try to hear the music, but I can’t, it’s gone. Lost to my mind already.

  I have no choice other than to give in to her, so I pick up the note, screw it into a ball and stuff it in my pocket. This isn’t the end though. One way or another, I will have Sally. She’s under my skin now, like a splinter. It’s only a small part of her, but small splinters are the most difficult to remove. The flesh sucks them deeper, holds onto them, and, refusing to let go, eventually absorbs all trace.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Waking more readily than me, Steve keeps the alarm clock on his side of the bed and usually stops it at the first wail. “Steve!” I grumble. “The alarm!” I use a low, warning voice, clenching my eyes against the pulsating pain in my temples. “Steve!”

  The alarm continues its cry. Why the hell doesn’t he turn it off? I fling out an arm, backhanding Steve’s side of the bed, and discover why. He’s not there, and it all rushes back to me then in a rapid flood of recollection. My fingers outstretched, head pounding, I waver around the vicinity of the rude noise, only to knock over the wine glass.

  “SHIT!” The echo of the expletive pounds through my skull, cave-like amid the drip drip drip of abandoned wine. Finally, I find the elusive off button, flop back to the pillow, and just lie there looking at the ceiling painted orange by curtain-filtered streetlight.

  Through the resulting silence whirs a milk float, the sound of tyre on tarmac suggesting a heavy fall of rain in the early hours. A little bird song accompanies the clink of bottles. I say a little, because most birds have already flown away to winter in warmer climes. My parents have flown away too: have done ever since I first left the nest. Five months in Cyprus, spanning every winter. Yes, I wanted my own place. Yes, I desired my own space, room to breathe, some distance from my parents, but I didn’t want this much.

  “I still need you,” I whisper.

  Right now I couldn’t be any further removed from my little-Sally-lying-awake mornings. My parents are not preparing breakfast in the kitchen, their voices muffled by ceilings and closed doors. They’re not singing along to the breakfast radio. There’s no rumbling boil of the kettle. No clatter of crockery. The heart of this house is silent. Those little-Sally-lying-awake mornings that were so comforting are now so long gone that they seem to have belonged to another. I felt safe, cared for, and would only come down when the smell of bacon became too strong to resist, its sweet yet charred scent drawing me like a bear to a picnic. I miss it so much, I realise, as I lie here, listening, my lips pinching tighter with every drip that falls onto the recently new carpet – Ivory-velvet-plush – £38 a square metre.

  When I reach for the bedside lamp an orchestra begins tuning-up in my head. A wash of pink-haze floods the room, and despite its muted quality the light rips through my pupils like razor wire. Screwing my eyes I listen to the drip, drip, of rich-red Barolo: a robust wine– according to the label – complex on the nose, with subtle notes of violet and pencil lead accenting the cherry and plum fruit. Its fragrance reminds me of the recent break to Florence. The street-music is absent, however, as are the art galleries and the man who took me there.

  I sit up and slope against the faux-suede headboard.

  Faux? I think. Faux! with a snipe of sarcasm.

  Faux! meaning false. Fake. Manufacturers and retailers using the French to make their product sound fanciful. Oh it’s faux-suede madam, the assistant had said. Why not just call it fake, I had replied, not quite meaning to, not realising I’d even spoken out loud until I noticed the look on the assistant’s face.

  I have no problem with what it is, but it isn’t suede, so don’t pretend that it is. At least be honest. Call it fake. False-suede. Like Steve: a false boyfriend. Faux boyfriend: not as reliable, luxurious or long lasting as the real thing. Looks good initially but soon wears out. Faux: not genuine – a fancy looking lie.

  In the mirror, my eyes not yet fully functioning, I see only tempestuous hair around a grimacing expression as I command my lids, heavy with yesterday’s makeup, to attention. On the dressing table, my perfumes, ornaments and brushes stand before a bevelled mirror; I have them arranged just as one would expect them to be in a shop display. And from the mirror, as I lean forward, my eyes coming to focus, stares back the image of what looks to be an Alice Cooper fan who’s woken in the wrong room.

  The cause of the breakup is scattered across the floor. The photographs. Tears begin to roll, adding to the mascara tracks on my cheeks. Torn into pieces, is the image that caused my fury and led to me kicking Steve out and downing two bottles of B
arolo – well almost two. The carpet has absorbed the last half-glass of the second bottle. Ivory-velvet-plush with a splash of burgundy blush! It’s the latest trend madam, produced with only the finest vintage and guaranteed not to fade. Faux-spillarge. Lends a certain decadence to the room in which it is fitted, therein demonstrating a kind of devil-may-care disregard for convention, no? I almost laugh.

  Almost.

  “Shit!” I snap at the carpet, and, “shit, you shit,” to the section of the photograph that captured Steve’s image – him in the background, his lips melting into the bridesmaid’s face, his hand attached to her bottom, the pale blue satin reflecting light around his fingers demonstrating the depth of his grope.

  I had been taking a photograph of my young nieces, innocently oblivious to Steve’s skulduggery in the back-of-the-room-shadows. Bad things happen in shadows, I think, before recollecting the fun I’ve had in them too.

  It had been a good night. I’d envisaged my own wedding; I often do when attending someone else’s. My heart had actually fluttered while imagining the day Steve would ask me to marry him. How would he do it? Where? This might come as a shock, he had said, back in Florence the month before. This is it I’d thought, as he sat there, gently taking hold of my hand. Don’t be mad, he’d continued. Odd! I recalled thinking, as I carefully adjusted my posture into the perfect pose for accepting. But, the thing is… I know we said we were going to be a bit more careful with money, but… the thing is, I’ve ordered a case of that Barolo we liked. What! I’d yelled. The guy said it would store well. Ten or even twenty years. A bargain at the price. An investment really.

  An investment!

  Yes, I should have said, SO ARE DIAMONDS! I hadn’t even liked the Barolo. I found it rather heavy. Too rich. I would have preferred something more subtle, like a chianti. Or something stronger. Like, a DIAMOND. I’d fumed inside, but smiled accommodatingly, demurely, as I always did when he disappointed me.

  A scratch at the door pulls me back from the bustling street in Florence to the present near empty silence of the house, back to the half-warm, half-empty bed. I swing my legs from the mattress, and for a moment I sit there, motionless, letting my toes sink into the plush pile of the carpet.

  The scratch at the door becomes more demanding.

  “Alright, Sukie,” I grumble with impatience before adding in a softer tone, “I’m coming.”

  Placing a hand to the mattress, I steady myself before walking across the room and opening the door. Sukie, my parents’ West-highland terrier, rushes in. Her kinked tail wagging eagerly, she scampers around the room, sniffing at the carpet while looking nervously up at the bed. “Go on Sukie,” I say, “sniff all you like, that nasty man has gone.”

  A quick glance through the curtain shows the park in darkness. Through skeletal tree-fingers a fringe of light grey tinged blue indicates the approach of another new day, the first day of my new life as a single woman. I’ve had enough of fakes, I determine, no matter how good they may look, no matter how enticing their sales patter.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Through a fuggy Barolo fog, my head mirrors the bus journey to work: pot-hole-jolting and full of noise. With a painful squeal of brakes we come to a halt, and all those who stood in readiness for a quick exit stumble forward. Still sitting, feeling very much like a puppet with seized joints, I’m wondering, can sorrows actually be drowned? I think not, wishing I’d stayed in bed. The last to exit, I step down from the bus and spot Kerry Lombard crossing the road and recall exactly why I decided to come to work rather than stay at home. Sorrows thrive on drink, but they shy away from company.

  The grey sky accents Kerry perfectly: black hair – cropped as sharp as her navy trouser-suit – reflecting the cold light like polished-granite. Aged twenty-nine she is three years older than me, three inches taller, and three times as acerbic. All the same, against all expectations, we hit it off from the moment we met.

  “Kerry. Kerry, hold up.” The request is obviously not as loud as it sounds in my own head. Kerry steps onto the pavement, oblivious, and continues on her way. Wonder why opposites attract? Up is generally good, whereas down is mostly bad: I’m feeling a bit ‘down’ at the moment; there’s a ‘down-side’ to everything; I’m ‘down-trodden’; Erm… you’re very ‘up-beat’. Funny how bad connotations come to mind easier than good ones. Maybe it’s just my mood, or maybe there are just more of them.

  Twenty yards ahead, setting a fast pace, Kerry steadily increases the distance between us. People coming towards Kerry part to let her through, it’s not as if they have any choice. Kerry looks straight ahead and walks like a speedboat cutting water.

  “Kerry,” I shout, louder this time, stiffening my shoulders as I canter to catch up. I always swore, when I was younger, that I would never run in this Barbie-legged fashion, but I didn’t account for heels and a tight-ish skirt. I wasn’t going to work in no boring office either – rock chick I’d set my sights on, learn the guitar, form a band. I only managed five chords, which is supposedly enough, but I couldn’t string them together very well.

  Kerry’s smile, at once welcoming, alters to one of perplexed amusement as she completes the turn to face me. “Rough night Sal?” A smirk defines her sharp features and her lilac-grey eyes glint with questions.

  “You could say that. Kicked Steve out and slept with a bottle of wine.”

  The smirk tightens into a scowl. “What for this time?” she says, tipping her gaze to the sky... “No, don’t tell me. The usual. And let me guess: at your cousin’s wedding – evidence photographic.”

  I nod in confirmation, my jaw working up to a reply that doesn’t get chance to materialise.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Sal.” Kerry holds up her hand, palm facing me, as if to stave off the expectant question. “How did I know? Obvious really. He’s a man, he’s a shit, and he’s done it before. Let me add another guess: one of the bridesmaids?”

  I nod, fingertips pressing against the pulse in my temples. The pain feels bigger than my head. I shouldn’t have run. I feel the need to throw up and edge towards the gutter, just in case. No sick rises, just a very loud, foul tasting belch. “I’m never going to drink again.”

  Kerry screws her lips into a yeh I’ve heard that before, expression, then carries on talking. “So stereotypical. The man’s a walking cliché. No doubt, though, you’ll leave it a couple of days and take him back as usual?”

  “No, not this time.” She’s on one of her rants, not actually listening to me at all. “I said, not this time.”

  “Yeh, yeh. You always say that Sally. You’re the mirror to his cliché. The doormat to his foot-wipe.”

  “I’m–”

  “Did I say foot-wipe? I meant ass-wipe. You’re toilet-roll, Sally – walking, talking, toilet-roll – softly absorbing all the crap he puts you through.”

  “Thanks. You paint a lovely picture.” Why, exactly, didn’t I stay in bed? “Can we just get inside, I really don’t feel well.”

  Kerry doesn’t acknowledge my request as an invitation to drop the subject, and now I’m the one who’s not actually listing. Thankfully, as we approach the office steps a distraction from Kerry’s disapproval appears in the form of Colleen and Philippa weaving towards us through slow moving traffic. The horn of a white-van trumpets a rhythmic blast, Colleen slaps a hand to her heart, and a guy looking barely eighteen laughs through the passenger window as Philippa, all legs in a text-message skirt, squeals and leaps to the pavement.

  “All right love,” he bellows. “Nice legs! What time d’they open?”

  Oh, good grief: think of something original. But just as I’m thinking him all kinds of idiot, I start feeling sorry for him as he wilts in the frost of Kerry’s glare. The two older guys in the van are in hysterics. It’s plain the young lad is emulating the example they’ve set: a vicious spiral of do as I do in order to fit in, to be one of the boys. As the traffic begins to move on, the boy looks relieved. No doubt egged on by his fello
w workers, twenty or so yards further down the road, he leans out of the window and throws Philippa a piercing wolf-whistle.

  “Another bastard in the making,” Kerry shouts while emulating male masturbation in the direction of the departing van. “All of ’em, all bastards, all tossers and shits.”

  Kerry draws her attention from the van, momentarily letting it land on other male drivers who may or may not have been staring at Philippa’s legs. She then looks at me, raising her eyebrows. I know what it implies. She’s giving me the may I expression, while tipping her head toward Philippa and Colleen.

  The shrug I give in return implies: whatever, tell them what you like. I don’t really give a damn. To the thought I add, ma’am, a rhyming play on words, one of many invented by Steve that enter my mind without permission. I don’t really give a damn, ma’am, buzzes through my head in Steve’s voice, and though it amuses me, it has a sting of annoyance.

  “She’s kicked Steve out again,” Kerry blurts, making no attempt to disguise how much she relishes the disclosure. “For good this time. Apparently! Shagged some bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding.”

  “He didn’t do that!”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “He just snogged her… and, kind of squeezed her bum a bit.” I don’t actually believe it was quite so innocent, but I can’t help feeling that any defamation of Steve also taints me.

  “Oh, ’scuse me, I suppose that’s all right then.”

  Wouldn’t you just know it, tears come to my eyes, but I hold them back and return Kerry’s cold-lilac gaze. For a best friend she can be a real bitch at times. “No, Kerry, it isn’t all right. That’s why I’ve kicked him out.”

  Kerry looks away, up the steps that lead to the office block, her lips bunched into a tight pout. Looking away like that, I’ve come to learn, is Kerry’s apologetic look, the nearest she will ever go to an actual apology. It’s a victory of sorts, but one that feels rather hollow because I sort of agree with her. She always said he was no good. Then again, being a lesbian – though she’s never actually declared the fact – she inclines towards thinking all men are no good. Dump him, she told me, he’s a shit. “Maybe I will take him back, when I’ve cooled off.” Kerry doesn’t even glance back. “I don’t intend to, but…”