by Paul Finch
"Only if he's Catholic."
"Nah. Catholics love dead things."
"Shut up!"
"Tell you what though, seriously. Your dick would need a good old dose of bleach afterwards."
"Thing is, would it be squidgy and full of pus, leaking out all over you, or hard as a board with a hole in it?" Groans, pretend retching and titters. "No, no-I'm curious. Really."
"Can't see the attraction, personally."
"The attraction is you're not twenty quid down getting her drunk, mate. Sounds good to me."
"Maybe he was just randy. Any port in a storm type of effort."
Sniggers.
"Anyway, consent and all that, you can't prove she said 'No,' can you?"
I was burning up inside and now I was incendiary. I threw down my pencil and stood up. "You're sick, you are. All of you."
"What? He's the sick one. We're just talking about it."
"Well bloody don't!" I said.
The life model was leaning against the doorjamb, blowing cigarette smoke as I squeezed past her. "Lock him up and throw away the key, I say. He's a danger to children, whoever he is." I could smell the sweat under her copious talc. Everyone knew she'd been having it off with Max Prosser, even though he was a married man with two kids. Her scarlet fingernail paint was peeling and didn't match her lipstick. She was the one who made me feel sick. Matter of fact, they all did.
I got home that night and found Percy quiet but by no means dejected. I think he was living in a self-protective bubble and under the same circumstances I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same. I definitely wouldn't be sitting going through my press cuttings or going to the pub for a chat with the locals. That would take nerves of steel and I don't think Percy had any nerves at all at that point. His wife had been taken away from him and the slow realisation of that was bound to be difficult. Horrendously so.
I'd bought a loaf of sliced bread and said I was going to make us beans on toast for tea. Wandering in as the toaster chattered, Percy told me he'd lost his job in the shop. When he went in to do the shopping for the old dears, the owners had said they didn't want him any more. They said they didn't want any arguments, they knew he'd been putting his hand in the till-which was a complete lie, Percy said. It was just an excuse. It was obvious why they didn't want him to come back. I volunteered to go in and talk to them but Percy frowned, pained, and said he didn't want a fuss.
"Don't you mind what people are saying about you?"
"They can say what they like. There's only one person I care about, and she's not here, God love her."
Later, when I lifted his plate of untouched beans on toast and asked if he wanted the TV on, he said no, he wasn't that interested. I could watch if I wanted to but he was going up. He was tired.
At the door he hesitated, with his back to me.
"I expect they're saying I 'did' things. I didn't. I just didn't want to let go of her, that's all. I didn't want to be on my own. Forty years we'd been together. She was my first sweetheart. And my last. I just wanted one more day, see. Then I thought, another day wouldn't hurt, would it? Then I thought… I don't know what I thought."
The next day I wanted to go to the shop and say to their stupid faces: "He loved her. That's all he did. He loved her." I wanted to, but I didn't.
At the weekend I took the train home and that was where the police spoke to me. Perhaps they'd got my number from Percy, or he'd said he had an art student as a lodger and they got the number from the college. My heart beat faster as I took the receiver from my mum. I thought they'd make me feel stupid but they didn't. I made myself feel stupid by rattling on, trying to be chatty and sound as if nothing was amiss, when everything was amiss. As soon as they'd come off the phone my mother was there, wanting to know what on earth was going on, the police ringing. I said, "Look, just shut up Mum, it doesn't concern you, all right?"
As it was, the police didn't press charges against Percy. I'm not certain what charges they could press. It wasn't the sort of crime they'd come across every day-if it was a crime at all, technically. They told me they'd appointed a psychiatric social worker. They said some other things but I didn't take in the details. The upshot was, they didn't wish to take it any further, in terms of prosecution. They didn't consider it a wilful criminal act, or something that required the full punitive force of the law. In fact I got the distinct impression they wanted to brush it under the carpet.
"Good. Thank you."
"He is going to need care though," the man on the phone said. "Does he have a daughter or son?"
"No," I said. "No children. Nothing. Nobody. Enid has a sister but she and Percy don't get on. All they had was each other."
The policeman told me there'd been a post mortem to "rule out any possibility of foul play"-which was as evasive a euphemism as any I'd come across, the more I thought about it. Considering what we were discussing he was a master of sensitivity and diplomacy, finally informing me that the funeral arrangements were being undertaken by Enid's sister. I thought of asking why Percy didn't have a say in the ceremony, but the answer was self-explanatory-though I didn't know if Percy would see it like that. I didn't know how Percy would see the situation at all. The conversation drew to a close as the officer enquired if I had any questions.
"How did she die?"
"Fatal heart attack. In her sleep one night, from how Mr Bisp described it."
The idea of Percy describing these matters to the authorities, of him facing a dark uniform across a scrubbed wooden table in an interview room, filled me with horror. The idea of him reliving it as he recounted it in detail upset me even more. I couldn't help imagining the moment as he woke up, bleary, to find his wife's body lying next to him in bed not only uncommunicative and inert but cold to the touch.
I sat in the darkened room for a while after I'd put down the receiver thinking about the policeman's offer to arrange "someone to talk to", which I politely refused. Straight away I rang Percy, but got the engaged tone. I knew he'd taken his phone off the hook, and that set off a whole pile of other alarm bells in my mind, and worries about how he was coping. My dad came in and said my mum was upset and he wanted me to explain what was going on. I said I would when I felt like it.
I still hadn't told them anything by the time our car pulled up outside that small terraced house in Newport the following Sunday night to drop me off.
I had my own key and let myself in, noticing a Squezy bottle lying in what was laughingly called the front garden (a mere strip of grass and a brick wall, really) but thought nothing of it until I stepped indoors and felt my nose assaulted by the strong reek of urine. It was immediately obvious what the plastic bottle had contained and what had been squirted through the letterbox. The idea of someone doing that curdled my stomach far more than the actual smell.
A mop and bucket of water mixed with detergent stood at the foot of the stairs, but there were no lights on other than the hall light I'd switched on as I came in. By now my dad's car was on its way back to Ponty. I called out Percy's name. No answer was the stern reply, as my Nan used to say.
I put my foot on the bottom step and called out a second time. "Percy?"
I went upstairs, thinking he might have fallen asleep. He was always dozing off in the early evening and often I'd find him in his armchair with his head back, mouth wide open as if catching flies. Maybe he'd lain on the bed for a nap or, as I mounted the stairs, another dread thought occurred to me-that he might have done something stupid. I even rapidly began to think it far from unlikely. My grandmother and grandfather had died within days of each other, the latter of a fall, accidental or otherwise. Nobody in my family acknowledged or even voiced out loud the possibility that, for them, being apart from each other might have been impossible to bear. That they'd wanted to share death as they shared everything in life… As one…
But no. Thankfully my worst fear quickly dissipated. The bedroom was empty. The bed that Enid had died in-and lay in for weeks-stood perfectly, immaculate
ly made without so much as a dent in the covers. Green nylon sheets pulled taut to the corners. Eiderdown as old as the marriage folded down at one corner. Cheap, flat pillows. The scent of Imperial Leather and Pledge furniture polish in the air. The vanity mirror with Enid's hair brush and jewellery box arranged in front of it, the small earrings and starry brooch I remember her wearing, and a half a brick lying next to it.
My inevitable question was answered by a harsh and unexpected draught making the hairs on my arms prickle, which came from a hole in the smashed window through which said object had been hurled from the street, no doubt accompanied by some choice language. I shuddered.
Downstairs I found Percy's shopping basket hanging on its hook. Next to the telephone on the hallstand he and Enid grinned at me from the framed photograph taken on their wedding day.
For the life of me I couldn't think where he could be. He wasn't out socialising and he hadn't gone to see Enid's sister. He was always here to meet me when I arrived, or surely he would have let me know in advance? Even in his perilous state of mind-whatever state of mind that might be. But deep down I could only think that something bad had happened.
I rang the hospital. At first the receptionist said sorry but they couldn't divulge the names of patients. I said that was ridiculous. I asked her name, because if something had happened to Percy and I wasn't told there would be hell to pay. The tone of my voice more than anything forced her to put me through to somebody else.
No, I wasn't family, he didn't have any family. I said I was Mr Bisp's lodger. I lived in his house. I wanted to know what had happened to him, please. I was told he'd had an accident. The details weren't forthcoming so I decided to curtail the phone call and get over there right away.
He'd been beaten up on the bus on the Saturday evening. I don't know where he'd been or where he was coming back from, but some yobs recognised him from his photograph in the Western Mail and laid into him. The nurse told me his face had impacted gravel so she supposed he'd been thrown off. I saw a shrunken, misbegotten figure propped up in the hospital bed, helpless as a child-head swollen up so much he couldn't wear his glasses which sat on the side table, two black eyes, one of them barely a slit, the other all colours of the rainbow, bandages wrapped mummy-like round broken ribs, swellings, bruising, cuts, contusions. What the heck had they done to him? Had a boot done that to his face? Hideously I could almost make out the imprint of a sole. I tentatively approached the hiss of the oxygen tube, not wanting to wake him unduly, but he had heard me come in and turned his head fractionally, as if even that hurt.
"You've been in the wars, feller," I said, sitting in the chair beside him. "Look at you."
He reached out and took my hand. Squeezed it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the nurse plump the pillow on the chair by the window and leave without looking at us. Perhaps she'd read the Western Mail too.
"See the game Saturday?" Percy croaked.
"Bloody awful," I said.
"Bloody were," Percy said.
Every evening that week before I went back to the house, I made sure I went to the hospital. Sometimes he was chatty. Sometimes he was sleeping. But I sat there anyway in case he woke up. I wanted him to know I was there. I took him some apples. I knew he liked Granny Smiths-"nice and sharp"-not them sweet red things, and not grapes-"never been a grape person". Once or twice I got a smile out of him. Once or twice.
On one occasion I took my sketchbook with me and drew him, just for something to do. Nothing special or anything. No big deal, no different from any other scribble. By now I'd heard I'd got into Lanchester Poly in Coventry (as was) to do Graphic Design starting in September, so topping up the sketchbook had just become a habit. I didn't even want to show him the finished thing, but he twiddled his fingers in the air. He took a look at it and gave a tiny hoot. "Picasso, that is."
I said, "If it is, I'm a millionaire."
When I got back home to Pontypridd that Friday my mother said there'd been a phone call, the person said they'd ring back. On the Saturday evening I was told the person had rung again while I was out and this time my mum gave me the number she'd scribbled down. I recognised the code for Newport. It was Enid's sister. I geared up for an argument, not knowing what she was going to tell me, but she said she'd heard yesterday from the hospital that Percy had died. I didn't want to say anything to her so I went quiet. I didn't really want to talk to her at that point. I blanked out what she was saying for a while then I heard her say it had probably all been too much for his heart. I said, "I thought his heart was all right."
She said she'd found my name in the address book next to the phone. "This is a hell of a task, I tell you."
"I feel for you," I said sarcastically.
"Yes, well…"
"You don't seem sad."
"Sad? I'm livid. The things that man did. It doesn't bear thinking about. To my own sister. What was going on in his head? It was disgusting."
"You never liked him."
She grunted. "No. Is it any wonder?"
"He never liked you."
"I bet he didn't. I wish she'd never set eyes on him. My sister was a good woman. Now look at her. Look what he's done. I'll never get over this. Never."
I thought, poor you. I hung up without saying another word.
In spite of her having my phone number and address I never got information about any funeral, either that of Percy or of Enid. Maybe they buried them side by side. Maybe, by some bizarre desire for post-mortem morality, they buried them in separate plots. I have no idea. I could have gone to the cemetery in Newport and looked, but I didn't. I didn't want to be morbid like that and I felt they deserved their privacy.
I sat at home that Saturday night and didn't talk about it, though I would in time. I slumped on the settee beside my mother watching The Generation Game on the telly in the sitting room. My father was installed in the middle room listening to the sports results. They didn't say a word to each other all evening. He came out at about nine o'clock and made himself a ham sandwich with sliced bread, then went back in and shut the door.
LUMP IN YOUR THROAT
Robert Shearman
And there he was eating a sandwich, and it was just an ordinary sandwich with no particular lumps in it, she thought it was ham and tomato, it doesn't matter what, but the sandwich was smooth-and he was telling her a funny story from work, and it wasn't that funny really, but he was laughing and so she was laughing too-and then suddenly he stopped-the chewing, the talking, the laughing, all of it, stopped-his eyes popped out, his mouth fell open-he put a hand up to his throat in what looked like wonder, and then his knees buckled and he went down to the kitchen floor, hard, and he didn't care it was hard because he wasn't going to get up again, was he?-"What is it?" she cried at him, "what's wrong?", but he was beyond speech now, his eyes rolling in their sockets, he was choking, she should hit him on the back, or, or get him a glass of water, or, or-but then the eyes stopped their rolling, all that rolling came to an end and they stared straight ahead and not at her, and the body shuddered and then (and this was worse) stopped shuddering, and in one final heave he sprayed out the contents of his mouth. And she noticed that the sandwich hadn't been ham and tomato after all. It looked like egg mayo. So. There you go.
She thought she might scream. Was she going to scream? She thought she might. Because it was all so quiet, wasn't it? Half an hour ago she'd asked him what he'd like for dinner. Ten minutes after that she'd asked if he could help her on Saturday with the supermarket run. She thought she might scream, because he was dead, wasn't he, was he definitely dead? (Yes.) Her beautiful husband was dead, although even as she looked at him now she thought he wasn't all that beautiful. He'd run a bit to seed, his skin had blotched, that extra weight he'd always talked about shifting had never actually shifted at all. Oh, and there was that single black hair growing out of his nostril.
She'd scream. It was decided. But just then, she started in surprise.
Because his face seemed to
quiver. The eyes stayed dead, the mouth stayed dead, but there was a quiver, and she looked and looked and it seemed to come from his throat. The throat rippled. Then bulged, something was trying to get out. Something was heaving against the constraints of the skin-and then it gave an almighty shove, and the force jerked the head so it arced backwards and left the neck jutting up towards the ceiling. The skin broke. There was blood, and there was sinew, and there was a little hand tearing through and reaching out into the light, scrabbling for purchase, grabbing on to the chin finally to haul itself out-all of it, out, its head, the shoulders, the little bloodied body beneath, this little mannequin, her husband.
She gawped at him. He gasped for breath. Steadied, then glared at her. "What the fuck are you looking at?" he said. He was covered with gore. "Well, get me a fucking towel."
She rinsed the towel with warm water, and sponged him down the best she could. "Not so hard, you want to rub my fucking skin off?" It was her husband, naked, and no bigger than six inches tall from head to toe. And he was young and handsome, the way he used to be.
"I'm hungry," he said. "Peanuts."
"Peanuts?"
"I want peanuts."
"We don't have peanuts."
She was stooped towards him, and he slapped her hard across the face. "Liar!" he shrieked. "You better not be holding out on me!" His voice was high and tinny, like a record sped up, she thought she might laugh. He slapped her again, and this time he used his itty bitty nails, and there was blood.
In the back of the cupboard she found an old jar of peanut butter. She never bought peanut butter, Chrissie must have left it when she'd last been home from college. She offered it to him. He tipped it over on to its side, and clawed at the contents, he pulled it free in gobbets over the kitchen floor. He dug out all the hard bits of nut, stuffed them into his mouth. At last he'd had enough, lolled back sated against the side of his own giant corpse. He grinned, farted.
"Now listen," he said. "You tell no one about this. This is just our little secret, okay? You tell no one, or I'll hurt you so bad."