He held his hands out to his sides. ‘Don’t go givin’ yourself airs. I’m a man, an’ a soldier I’d pretty much fuck a hog in high-tops if there weren’t nothin’ better.’
‘Nice image. Thanks for that.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but we ain’t exactly the types used to sipping tea together; we don’t got that sorta relationship. I can fuck you or I can hit you, you just make your mind up which it’s to be.’ He ran his fingers through his hair.
‘I got something else,’ I said.
‘Yeah?’ Red slumped back onto his stool. ‘You got fifty grand in that bag, ‘long with the eggs n’ all?’
‘Just you sit and listen.’
I made him pancakes, just like my mother never did. A cloud of white flour smoked from the bag into the warm, wet morning; the crack of eggs, then ripe apricot yolks dropping into the bowl. I poured in buttermilk and a box of jewel-black blueberries.
I told him everything and he listened, made himself another cup of coffee, got one for me, sat back down again. The light showed me the echo of his bare feet on the tiles, a whisper of heat before they were gone. His face gave nothing away, but I was grateful for the stillness in his gaze, his eyes watching the mouse-hole.
‘You got a pan?’ I asked. He sipped his coffee.
‘Over by there.’ He nodded his head. ‘So, you think as how I’ll help, now you’ve told me your story?’
‘You don’t have to,’ I said as I took down the pan. ‘But the way I see it, neither of us gonna go to the police. Even though you ain’t really dead, despite my best efforts.’
‘Sorry ‘bout that.’ He grinned.
‘And I still don’t think you want it getting round how you and your Daddy got took by a hooker and her pimp – not with your Daddy’s stance on morality and firm, Christian values.’
‘You read his campaign shit?’ Red asked. ‘That sure is dedication to the cause.’
‘Well, way I see it, we’ve both been fucked royally.’ I poured out some batter, watched it hiss into a circle then looked up at him. ‘I mean sure, you got me, so if you wanna get on with fuckin’ or hitting me, I guess there ain’t much I can do about it.’
‘I ain’t mad at you no more,’ he said. He tapped his finger on the rim of his mug. ‘What you just told me, you lied ‘bout any of it?’
‘Not as far as I know.’ I flipped the pancake.
‘Darlin’,’ he said and the light made his eyes jade green and dangerous. ‘Don’t you remember how it is, between frogs and scorpions?’
‘How is it, Red?’
‘Your Daddy never told you that one?’ He smirked. ‘Scorpion asks a frog to take him across the stream, seein’ as he can’t swim. Frog says no, you might go sting me, but the scorpion says, hell, if I do that, we’s both gonna drown.’ He picked up his mug, watching me over the rim. ‘Frog says all right then, yes, so off they go, but halfway across, scorpion goes right ahead and stings him. As the frog feels the poison creepin’ through his legs, he says – what you go and do that for, now we both gonna drown? Hell, you even said as how you wouldn’t sting me? Scorpion says, sure I did, but I never said I weren’t a scorpion now, did I?’ He drank. ‘Guess you can’t change your nature, when it come to it.’
‘I get it.’ I looked over at him. ‘But you sure which one of us is the frog?’ He chuckled, then his face cracked into a smile. I turned the pancake onto a plate and walked over to the refrigerator. There wasn’t much inside, but there was some butter on a dish.
‘You got any syrup, Red?’
‘Not sure.’ He picked up his fork.
‘That’s okay.’ I went back to the counter and rolled down the grocery bag, revealing six plastic bottles. ‘I bought my own.’
Standing between the trucks, standing over Red’s prostrate body, I licked my finger. It was sweet as anything.
‘You can stop being dead now,’ I said.
Red rolled onto his side and grinned up at me. ‘Hell, I’m all over molasses and grit. Daddy always said I was headed for a tar n’ feather.’
‘You better move, before the ants get wind of you.’ I held out my hand and helped drag him to his feet. I saw the gun next to Lisa’s spilled pocket book and went to retrieve it, but Red didn’t let go of my hand.
‘You sure?’ he said. His t-shirt was stained, a great bloom of crimson dyed syrup soaked into the cloth. The air around us smelt like cotton candy and gasoline, just like a fairground. I could almost hear the music, the sound of flying horses, broken ponies, going round and round, all fixed grins and gilded candy-cane poles.
I pulled my hand away, reached into my jeans pocket and took out the pages I’d torn from the notepad. ‘This is a list of all the people I remember Margarita and Paris conned.’ Red looked but didn’t respond. He pulled the remains of the blood pack detonator from his pocket and kicked it out of sight. ‘Take it,’ I said. ‘One of them’s bound to press charges.’
‘That ain’t what I meant,’ he said.
‘Please,’ I said, and I held the list out to him. As his fingers closed around the papers, I put my other hand against the side of his face and I kissed him. He slipped his free arm round my waist and he kissed me too, his mouth hot and urgent as if we breathed through each other and might drown if parted. We clung together, suspended between this world and another, as the tick-tock of the universe slowed, as the horses came to a stop. I saw morning light spilling through the vines of the conservatory, with cool, grey tiles underfoot, its air still as a saucer of milk. I saw Carillon, and Red’s smile thought the steam of morning coffee, and felt the finger curl of desire at the base of my spine. A big house, needing people to make it a home, needing better people than us. Our kiss tasted of sugar, and it made my teeth hurt.
‘Stay,’ Red said, as he held me, as I felt the sticky sweetness of his body seep into my clothes. I let my forehead rest against his cheek for a moment and closed my eyes. Then, I pulled away and looked at the mess I’d made of him.
‘Oh Red, you said it yourself. I’m just a hog in high-tops.’
He winced, dragged his fingers through his hair and let his hand drop by his side. ‘No you ain’t, Margarita—’ but the vision of Carillon faded. The water of the swamp flooded my mind and I tasted its salt black darkness again.
‘That weren’t nothing’,’ he said. ‘That was just me being an asshole.’ His fingers clashed against mine, then closed around my hand. I didn’t stop him, but neither did I let his fingers relax into his. ‘What you goin’ back there for?’
‘Red, it’s not that, it’s—’
‘Well, what is it? Fuck me, I know we ain’t normal or nothin’, but tellin’ me what you’ going back to is better?’
‘I’m not finished,’ I told him. He frowned.
‘Not finished? What the hell else d’you think you’ve got to do here?’ I didn’t answer, and saw the question building in his mind. ‘What you not finished with? You don’t mean to—’ I pulled my hand away from his.
‘This ain’t real,’ I said, and picked up Lisa’s pocket book. ‘This is just that old death and sex thing. You’ll be all better with a shower and a good night’s sleep.’ He turned and struggled out of his jacket. Light flashed through the hole we’d shot in it earlier, a single eye watching me as he looked away.
‘Don’t do it,’ he said.
‘What, leave you?’
‘Not that.’
I didn’t answer. I walked away.
Lisa flinched when I opened the car door. She was hunched down in her seat, clutching the water bottle under her chin. I had the keys ready in my hand, and fitted them into the ignition.
‘I know you hate me—’ she began, but I glared at her and snapped off her words with a look. It would be so easy, she was already dead after all so who would ever know? Hell, I wasn’t even in the country, now was I? I let my gaze drop and as it did, I saw Mr Pooter where he lay in the glovebox. His little pearl buttons were bright against the blue of his velvet jacket and the light c
aught on the wet black bead of his eye as he regarded me steadily.
I flipped down the sun-shield and wiped the residue of red, the colour and the man, from my face. The taste in my mouth was one I remembered from childhood, sugar-spun and circus-sweet. I looked at Lisa hunched up in the passenger seat, waiting for me, trusting me even now, even after everything she’d done.
‘I need a shower,’ I said. I started the car and eased it from the parking lot. The rear-view showed me the front of the casino and, as we pulled away, Red. He stood between the trucks, shading his eyes with his hand, watching us go; a dark brush stroke against the hot shimmer of the asphalt. Tell me who you love, I thought, and I’ll tell you who you are.
‘There’s something we gotta talk about,’ I said. ‘Face to face.’
‘All right, Rita,’ Lisa said. ‘Whatever you want.’
I’ve always written and told stories, for as long as I can remember. My first self-published work at the age of seven, fully illustrated in felt pen and crayon. I continued with a series of insightful ‘When I grow up I want to be an author’ essays, and an attempt at a ‘Bonk-buster’ series of supernatural thrillers written from a position of utter ignorance on all topics, until I was distracted by Art college. A never ending, or never finished, fantasy epic kept me going through my twenties, but it was motherhood in my thirties which concentrated my mind enough to actually finish a novel. It’s amazing what a bit of life experience and the sudden curtailing of your free time can do to concentrate the mind.
After that I began giving myself permission to take my writing seriously enough to spend time on it and listen to critiques. The writing festival in York proved invaluable, and time and disappointment got me to the point of producing something readable, which I was lucky enough to have read by Urbane Publications.
If you make or write anything, the number one question you get asked is ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ In answer to that question, it’s an easy process which combines working on your craft every hour you can for as long as possible – hard graft – reading as much as you can of everyone else’s work – stealing – and inspiration, which is just one of those things that just happens. The inspiration for ‘Nemesister’ comes from a dark episode of family history, and a moment from a dream; an image of a man standing in the doorway of what I knew was an abandoned shack, which was gone as soon as it came and yet lingered, the way some dreams do.
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Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill Page 24