By Flower and Dean Street

by Patrice Chaplin

‘Oh don’t keep going on about it. Don’t exaggerate. She’s just sluggish.’

  Christine was left with her perfect body which she could only pamper and look at. Ken was stranded with terrible impulses he couldn’t understand. He became meek. Sometimes Christine thought she’d rather the volcano erupted than that they go on like this. They got through Christmas.

  17

  It was the New Year. He sat on the bed and looked at his hands. He looked at them as though they were to blame. The phone rang again. Bunty said, ‘Shall I come round?’

  ‘No. No. That’s the last thing I want.’

  ‘I want to talk to you ...’

  ‘Talk to Joel.’

  ‘He laid me on the bed, spread my legs, put my arms above —’

  ‘You disgusting bitch!’

  ‘Well, thank you very much! I was only trying to help you.’

  It was nearly dark and the flat was oppressive.

  ‘Fatboy is disgusting.’ She laughed. ‘Actually, I’d quite like it with the right person.’

  He looked at his hands again. They were filling up, they were hungry. He crushed a matchbox and it gave him pleasure.

  ‘Fatboy can’t get it together unless it’s perverted.’

  ‘You’re a cow! Why do you tell me such disgusting things? I’ve got my own problems.’ He put the phone down. It was dark.

  There was some spilt powder on the dressing table. Stockings lay tangled by the window. The plants were upturned. A nail-varnish bottle, its top off, lay on its side, and the scarlet stuff had crawled out and almost reached the edge, when its escape had been cut off by oxygen. The full-length mirror was cracked. She hadn’t taken the white fur. ‘Violent bitch!’

  The phone rang. ‘Perhaps you’re frightened.’

  ‘Not if I can keep moving.’

  ‘One night stands, eh?’

  ‘I was talking about travel.’

  ‘Perhaps you like what’s out of reach?’

  ‘I only like what’s out of reach.’

  ‘Fatboy whipped me last night. Tonight it’ll be the other way round. He wants me to dress up. I just think of you.’ She was breathless.

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’

  ‘I’m coming —’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘ ... over — cheer you up ...’

  *

  When he woke up, the street was silent. Deadly silence of the middle of the night. The cat was slipping across the dressing table.

  The phone rang. Bunty said, ‘I love you.’

  He put the phone down and sat on the edge of the bed, head in hands. He supposed he wanted something. A pee? The light on? A cigarette? He must need a cigarette.

  The phone rang again. He left it off the hook and started to shake.

  Everything was closing in.

  18

  He went back to the conservatory, and the feel of the lovely smooth tomatoes calmed him. The leaves were cool.

  She came in quietly. The conservatory light winked and glistened and made her look flashy.

  ‘Come and sit in the studio. It’s warmer.’ That got her out of there.

  ‘I wondered how you were?’

  He shrugged. ‘How’s Matthew?’

  She sat at the tapes table. On it, the remains of his breakfast — a greasy plate, a knife, a fork, an apple. She stabbed her cigarette out on the plate. ‘Are you eating here?’

  ‘I did this morning. I couldn’t face the flat.’ He looked sideways at his conservatory, all the windows filled with ripe tomatoes.

  ‘You’re in your own skin, Ken. That’s what’s wrong with you.’ Her lips were overpainted. ‘I need money.’ She crossed her legs and the short coat fell away and her thighs gleamed. She leant back provocatively. ‘It is my past you disapprove of, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who am I to disapprove? I didn’t like it because it harmed you, but that’s over.’

  In the days when she had lots of men she’d looked plump and comforting. She hadn’t made love for a year and she looked like a whore. He offered her another cigarette and wished she’d go away.

  ‘You’re so fussy. A prig. I’d never have thought it. Matt’s so upset he craps himself. Has for ages, but I didn’t think I should tell you.’

  Ken closed his eyes.

  ‘Of course he senses everything’s wrong,’ she said.

  ‘Everything isn’t wrong, Christine,’ he said gently. He shook his head, gestured with his hands, tried to speak. ‘Unfamiliar things seem familiar.’

  ‘Have you done something wrong?’

  She didn’t like the way he turned, the look in his eye. ‘I mean, you keep disappearing in crowds.’

  ‘If I don’t like crowds, is that a crime?’

  ‘No. But you behave as though you’re guilty. It’s the only way to explain it.’

  He could see the flesh then — globular, orange. His mind was full of it. It was flooded with blood.

  ‘Why say you were at Joel’s when you were in the conservatory? What’s the reason? Tell me.’

  ‘I keep seeing flesh.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right. We all do.’

  ‘No. The inside flesh, under the skin.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a road accident?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must have and forgotten.’

  ‘I’m haunted, by all sorts of things.’ He looked with longing at the conservatory. ‘I think I’d be better on my own. For a while.’

  This wasn’t what she expected. She started crying.

  ‘I can’t cope, Christine. You can see that.’

  He went behind her and bent slightly. His lips touched her hair, tenderly. He put his arm round her. It slipped up against her neck. Then he saw the knife. Then he understood what he wanted.

  Her fingers were grappling with his arm.

  He jumped away, over to the other side of the studio. ‘Christ, Ken. You hurt my neck. You don’t have to squeeze me that hard.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You said I had stamina. That’s the only compliment you’ve paid me for a long time, but it’s not true. I need love.’

  ‘Go on, let me,’ said the coarse voice. ‘Let me do it to you, pretty boy. You’ll like it.’

  ‘You know that,’ said Christine. ‘You know how much I longed for you in bed. Christ, we were doing it all the time. It was like the first time for me. I’ve never had anything like it.’

  ‘I’ll do it free. It’s my speciality.’

  ‘Shut up!’ he screamed.

  ‘Of course everyone knows. Frances told me to frig myself. How does that make you look?’

  He rushed towards her and grabbed the knife. The greasy steel glinted magnificently.

  ‘No!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Put it into me, big boy.’ Harsh cigarette cough.

  Holding the knife down by his side he walked quickly into the conservatory and shut the door.

  There was silence.

  ‘Ken!’

  Then a low animal moan and something red shot against the glass. For a moment Christine thought it was tomato juice. It gushed down the window, dark and rich. A hoarse shriek and more blood splashed against the opposite side. A loud crash, glass tinkled. Tomatoes, sliced, hacked, plopped against the windows, against the roof. More burst, their juice mingling with the blood and chopped flesh. Long shattered sounds, glass crashing, hideous screams. The noise was deafening. He’d almost destroyed the conservatory. Then there was a last tremendous crash as he fell through the jagged glass and half lay among the mess of tomatoes, ripped to pieces.

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  nbsp;