While she worked, she listened to the radio: a phone-in programme about problems in relationships. Her problem was she didn’t have a relationship; hadn’t been out with anyone for close on eighteen months. Of course, working in the library didn’t help. All the librarians were female, except Leo who was way past forty, and Terence who was gay.
‘He’s completely unemotional,’ a woman was complaining. ‘He’s never said he loves me, not once in three whole years.’
‘I love you,’ Megan mouthed, wondering what it would feel like if someone said it to her; how she’d respond, what might happen next – and next, and next. She was so intent on the fantasy, she didn’t notice that the rice was boiling over, until she was brought abruptly back to earth by having to clean the spattered hob.
She poured the rice into the baking dish, and added sugar and a pinch of spice (which she’d found at the back of the largely empty cupboard, beside a packet of clothes pegs and a mysterious can of dog food – Gran had never owned a dog). There was a certain sense of achievement in producing something from scratch, instead of relying on tins and packets. If she carried on at this rate, she might even manage to bake a cake – her mother’s Victoria sponge, maybe, which she could still recall in its moistly golden glory. Those childhood sponges had been filled with jam and cream, which oozed out in a glorious gunge as she bit into the cake. Then Mum would reach across and gently wipe her mouth, and Dad would plant a doting kiss on the top of her dark head. By the time she was ten, she had as many kisses on her head as actual hairs. They stayed in place for years, sticking up from her scalp like little shiny hair-ornaments – until they perished with her parents, clearly losing heart. (In any case, her aunt soon chopped her hair off, in an attempt to ‘tidy her up’.)
She began flicking through the recipes, each one bringing forth new memories of her mother in the kitchen, making magical meringues, all air and crunch and sweetness, or chewy brandy-snaps that left lovely, treacly fragments on your teeth, or slabs of sticky gingerbread, so dark and rich and soft she’d imagined curling up and sleeping on it, like a mattress with an in-built midnight feast.
Regretfully, she closed the book and peeked into the oven, relieved to see that a good brown skin had formed. ‘It’s ready, Gran,’ she called, putting the dish on a tray and carrying it into the sitting-room. This clean and simple supper was a definite advance on lumps of mangled meat, repulsive bacon rinds, obscenely sizzling sausages, or eyes forlornly staring from decapitated fish-heads.
‘It tastes funny, dear,’ Grandma said, having swallowed the first spoonful.
‘That’s just the milk. I used a different sort.’
‘No, it’s the rice that’s odd – all gritty.’
Megan sampled it herself. ‘Oh, Lord! It’s still half-raw. I’m sorry, Gran, you’ll have to wait a bit longer while I put it back in the oven. But I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and you can fill up on ginger biscuits.’
As she returned to the kitchen and re-lit the ancient oven, she was suddenly struck by an appalling thought. She had completely overlooked the possibility that both soya beans and rice might well have sensitivities, and, indeed, parents. Wouldn’t they be much the same as potatoes and tomatoes? Yet here she was abusing them, subjecting them to blistering heat – even eating them, for God’s sake. Horrified, she ran a sinkful of cold water and submerged the baking dish, leaving it there to recover, while she went to fetch the biscuits. But just as she was arranging them on one of Gran’s chipped plates, she was assailed by further doubts. Biscuits were made from wheat, and wheat was undeniably a plant. And hadn’t she read in this morning’s Daily Mail (though obviously not taken in) that it was now scientifically proven that plants could and did feel pain? More than that, the article had said, they actually responded to love and kindness, growing taller and more luxuriant than those maltreated or ignored. So how could she allow her grandmother to dunk ginger biscuits in scalding tea, then chew them to extinction? She stood undecided, agonized, her eye falling on the sugar packet. Yet more cause for alarm. Biscuits were full of sugar, and she had poured sugar into the rice, despite the obvious fact that both sugar cane and sugar beet were also living, feeling plants.
Wretchedly she sank onto the kitchen stool, running through various categories of food. Not one seemed safe to eat. Oil? No, cruel to olives. Cereals and bread? No, wheat again, or oats. Fruit and vegetables? She’d already ruled out plants. Chocolate, perhaps? No, cocoa beans had parents, and were also susceptible to pain. Jelly? That was mainly water and ought to be safe enough, except gelatine was derived from cows, and even the vegetarian kind was made from some sort of moss. One day, science might invent a new, miraculous foodstuff, fashioned solely out of chemicals and swallowed in pill form. But Grandma couldn’t wait that long. Her health was bad already, and her weight had dropped to barely seven stone.
Glancing up, she caught sight of her reflection in the grimy windowpane. She, too, looked thin and gaunt, and her hair was straggling round her shoulders in so limp and lank a fashion, it would have had her aunt reaching for the shears. She had never been much to look at, with her boyish figure, sallow skin and insipid grey-blue eyes. Fiona might be overweight, but she had gorgeous auburn curls, and Julie’s Cornish-cream complexion was the sort you saw in beauty magazines. Compared with them, she was a complete and utter failure, prone to eczema and spots, with no taste in music or clothes, no proper job, no savings, and unable even to cook. And, on top of everything else, she had spent her life to date inflicting mindless cruelty on other living things.
She stole back to the sitting-room, longing to share her pain with Gran. But the poor soul was fast asleep, her open mouth trailing a long spittle-chain across her shabby cardigan. However, she did look truly peaceful as she lay dozing in the old armchair; hands loosely clasped, wrinkled face serene. Perhaps, if she explained things, went through all the arguments carefully and slowly, even showed her the piece in the Daily Mail, Gran would understand. It would mean they would have to die, of course, and death by slow starvation was a terrifying prospect. On the other hand, Gran was highly principled and had always hated cruelty, so once she grasped the harm they were doing, she would want to take some action. Indeed, Gran herself had given up meat, several years ago and, although they’d never discussed the issue, it might indicate she was already prey to scruples and misgivings. Besides, she was nearing the end of her life. Life expectancy for women was somewhere around eighty-two, and not only had Gran passed that figure, she was ready and willing to go. She had admitted as much just recently; saying she hoped she wouldn’t linger on to become a vegetable.
A vegetable! The wrong word entirely. Why did every line of thought lead back to the same dilemma? Yet a solution was now in sight, which, although frightening in the extreme, would also solve a host of problems for them both. If her grandma lived much longer, she might have to face such horrors as dementia or deafness, arthritis or incontinence, stroke, angina, macular degeneration – the list was grim and endless. And her own future seemed composed of haunting questions with no answers: how she would find the time and money to train as a librarian; how and where she would live once her grandma passed away; how she’d face the loneliness (not to mention shame) if no boyfriend ever materialized? A slow extinction, even at her age, would bring merciful release from her terror of a car-crash, her dread of ending up alone, her fear of crowds, of people. If she and Gran were simply to fade and fray, like the once-claret-coloured carpet, the once-brilliant fuchsia curtains, wouldn’t that constitute a natural, peaceful end? And they could die with a clear conscience, knowing they would never harm a fellow sufferer in this sad and brutish world; never add to the tide of cruelty raging all around.
Decisive at last – even calm – she seated herself beside Gran’s slumbering form, taking the small, claw-like hand and warming it in her own. The vigil would be painful and protracted, but help would be on hand. In fact, even as she closed her eyes, she felt her parents’ never-quite-extinguishe
d love beaming down from Heaven, giving her the courage to face the long, dark, hungry, empty, weary end-time.
Venom
‘Happy, darling?’
‘Mm.’
‘More wine?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Hey, are you OK?’
‘Yes, fine.’ Amy slumped back irritably against the slab of rock. Everywhere she looked was barren, dehydrated – parched and rugged ground panting for some rain. The brochures from the travel agent were totally misleading. Where were the lush green pastures, studded with wild flowers? The sparkling sapphire skies? Despite the malevolent heat, the sky here was more the colour of a bruise.
‘Want to finish up the keftepes?’
She shook her head. Two were more than enough. A peculiar country, this, in which all the sap and juice had been leeched out of the landscape, while the food was clogged with grease. Everything they had eaten for their picnic seemed to be oozing fat through its pores; globules of yellow gunge pooling on the aubergines, salad leaves slippery with oil, even the blubbery cheese leaving a greasy after-taste.
Removing her gaze from the leftovers, she stared up at the mountain range, its row upon row of craggy peaks like the back teeth of a giant. Teeth with no saliva. The whole area was arid. Though who was she to criticize, when her insides were much the same? Her vagina was no longer soft and plushy but dried up and inhospitable; her womb a shrivelled husk. Rob hadn’t seemed to notice yet, but that was the trouble with marriage. You became one flesh, and remained more separate than ever. She flashed him a guilty smile. It was she who was at fault. Sterile. Damaged goods.
‘Where would you like to go tomorrow?’ he asked, reaching out to squeeze her hand.
Home, she longed to say: back to a rainy English summer and their overgrown back lawn. ‘How about that church you wanted to see?’ A church would be cool, at least, and, anyway, she ought to try to please him. He’d done nothing wrong. ‘St Nicholas’s, wasn’t it?’
‘Aghios Nikolaos,’ he corrected her, proud of his basic Greek.
She hadn’t even bothered trying to learn. The language seemed too alien, and the words all felt like pebbles in her mouth.
‘Yes, we could take the bus.’ He fired half a dozen olives into his mouth, spitting out the stones in quick succession. ‘And another picnic, if you like.’
‘Great.’ Rob’s love of picnics had less to do with buying food and more to do with extending his vocabulary and improving his pronunciation by chatting with the natives in the warren of local shops. And she’d stand silent, perversely missing English shops. She couldn’t understand why she felt so low, so homesick. This was a holiday, for heaven’s sake, a second honeymoon, not a spell in gaol.
‘Pudding time!’ Rob announced, unwrapping a package of Greek pastries. He held out a baklava, offering her a bite. The pastry was literally dripping oil and honey and, since oil and honey were symbols of fertility, she ought to devour the lot – eat every baklava in every shop in every town in Greece.
‘More?’ he asked, sucking a drool of syrup from his thumb.
‘Yes, please.’ She took another bite, mechanically chewing and swallowing. The sweetness was so intense it hurt her teeth, but perhaps it would transform her, change her bitter mood.
‘I love you, Amy,’ he whispered, kissing her on the lips.
‘Love you, too.’ The kiss tasted of olives, with an overlay of aubergines. She wondered what she tasted of – honey-tinged despair?
‘Hey, watch out – a wasp!’ He sprang to his feet to drive off the intruder.
‘Don’t, Rob! They’re usually quite harmless if you just leave them be and don’t react.’ She stared, entranced, at the creature. As it sucked frantically at the syrup, its whole body and being were throbbing with desire: black eyes bulging, transparent wings vibrating in a paroxysm of pleasure. And the powerful, throaty buzzing sounded majestically loud in proportion to its modest size. ‘It’s really rather beautiful, you know. I wouldn’t mind a dress like that – black and yellow stripes.’
‘Well, it’s your birthday next month …’
She had no desire to think about her birthday. With every year, her egg supply declined. ‘No need to worry at your age,’ the GP had reassured her, but she had a strange, uneasy feeling that her ovaries were twice as old as she was: already in their forties and shrivelling by the second.
‘Oh, God! More wasps.’ Rob let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I know you say they’re harmless, but I think we ought to decamp.’
‘OK.’ She made no move, however, but continued to gaze with fascination at the half-dozen new arrivals, all equally enraptured by the feast. Their tiny bodies were quivering and pulsing, their wings whirring in near-ecstasy. If only she could be that focused when she and Rob made love, instead of trapped inside the counting-house of her head, checking days and dates, trying to pinpoint the exact time of ovulation.
As if reading her mind, he came to sit beside her on the rock and stroked his fingers teasingly along the length of her bare arm. ‘Why don’t we go back for a siesta?’
A siesta meant more sex, of course. And sex meant disappointment. Would it happen this time? Almost certainly not. And, on top of that, she just couldn’t seem to relax; forever watching herself like a harsh, judgemental critic. Even now, while Rob was kissing the inside of her elbow, she was sitting tense and wary, rather than enjoying the sensation and surrendering to his touch. She felt a genuine envy for the wasps. They didn’t agonize about how to suck up honey, but just literally got stuck into it.
One of their small band, however, was staggering about, clearly having difficulties, as it lurched towards the pastries, only to blunder back again. ‘Hey, Rob, see that wasp? It looks completely drunk!’
‘Well, sometimes they do get drunk, if they’ve been eating fermented fruit.’
She laughed, despite herself, as the creature continued to zigzag back and forth, buzzing louder than the rest, as if crying out for help. ‘It needs to lie down in a darkened room, with a couple of Alka-Seltzer!’
Far from lying down, the wasp suddenly zoomed up from the picnic cloth and dive-bombed straight towards her, landing on her hand. Alarmed, she tried to shake it off – too late. A tiny, threadlike sting shot out from its body and jabbed into her finger. ‘Ouch!’ she yelled, as a jolt of pain shocked through her whole arm.
‘Shit! I knew that would happen!’ Rob frowned in dismay as he inspected her hand. ‘It’s already swelling badly. We’d better go straight back to the hotel and ask them for some ice. Is it hurting much?’ She nodded. The pain was so acute it was as if an entire swarm of wasps was stinging her at once, and with a sort of manic glee.
She hardly recognized her hand, which had swollen to the thickness of a boxing glove. There was also the pain of betrayal. She had trusted and admired those little beasts. She sat nursing her hand, letting Rob do all the clearing up. Finally he heaved the knapsack on to his back, and helped her to her feet.
‘I wonder if you’ve had some sort of allergic reaction? I mean, I’ve been stung in the past, but the swelling was nothing like as bad as that. Look how red your knuckles are! And your whole hand’s incredibly hot.’
Then it’s a punishment, she thought, for being moody and morose, and about as sexy as a bowl of congealing porridge.
They trudged back along the steep and rocky path, occasionally tripping on loose stones, which rattled down in front of them in a rush of indignation, as if annoyed at being disturbed. The whole terrain was sun-scorched; not a blade of grass in sight, not a single bush or tree; the only colours stagnant-brown and sluggish-grey. It was as if some giant had come here with a blowtorch and cauterized the landscape, leaving it seared and charred. And the sun was like another sort of blowtorch, carbonizing everything it touched. She found it quite a struggle to keep going and was tempted simply to sink down where she was. The blistering heat of the sun and the burning in her hand had somehow fused together into vicious, flaring spasms. The sting had also start
ed to itch – an itching so intense it was all she could do not to rip the skin off; even rip her fingers off. A wasp’s venom must be incredibly potent to wreak such damage in so short a time.
It was a relief to reach the town and see signs of life, normal cheerful bustle, splashes of rich colour: the russet-red of roof-tiles, the green of succulent shrubs. She paused beside a fig tree, its overhanging branches bursting with ripe fruit – each lush, fat, purple globe a brimming womb.
‘I’d pick you some,’ said Rob, ‘but I don’t think we should stop. Your hand’s looking really nasty. It’s puffed up even more.’
She tried to keep her mind off it as they traversed the maze of streets that led to their hotel. There was no one in Reception but, in answer to Rob’s shout, the grandmother came shuffling out – one of the large family that owned and ran the place. She had greeted them when they first arrived with a series of wide, toothless grins, while her surly son registered their details. Unlike the son, the woman spoke no English, but Rob addressed her now in Greek and, after a long and somewhat halting exchange, gave a reassuring smile.
‘Darling, this lady will look after you. Her name’s Demetra and she tells me she’s had thirteen children and knows something about wasp-stings! She’s also given me the name of a pharmacist, so I’ll trot off and get some antihistamine, while you stay here, OK?’
The Biggest Female in the World and other stories Page 6