Chrysalis

by Jeremy Welch

  “The economy must be bad here, everyone is so skinny and they can’t afford cars either, look at all the cycles. I mean look at that scrawny girl over there next to the lamp post.”

  His eyes wandered in the direction of the pointing sausage. Talking on her mobile as she leant against the lamp post was Dasha’s property, the Mediterranean girl. Dressed in blue jeans, a white sleeveless T-shirt and a purple jumper wrapped around her neck. She could be one of a thousand girls waiting for her boyfriend. Without her work makeup she looked young and fresh but frightened. She was talking rapidly into the phone, her eyes darting around her as if she thought she was being watched. The only time her eyes stayed still was when her gaze fell onto the police station opposite the old Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Her eyes focusing on the main doorway of the police station, with each swing of the doors her face reflected disappointment and her nervous scanning continued.

  Arriving at the concourse in front of the stock exchange building the Americans formed a Dunkin’ Donut circle, the middle of which was occupied by a spherical women in matching lilac trousers and jacket. Sebastian hid amongst the flesh watching the police station.

  “The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is probably the oldest in the world. It was established in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company for dealings in its printed stocks and bonds,” the lilac lady robotically started.

  His view of the girl was interrupted as the Americans swayed from one foot to the other alleviating the pressure on their feet.

  “Oh dear Lord, how long does this go on for? It’s not God’s work all this money making. I’m starving too.”

  The police door swung open. Three men appeared. One with an unnecessary raincoat folded over his arm. The second an elderly tall thin man in black trousers, white open-necked shirt and a black coat falling to his feet. His black ringleted hair capped by a white skullcap and a collection of white string threads which fell from each belt loop of his trousers. The third was Dasha, lip swollen and a black eye. His hand clutched what looked like a photograph album.

  The conversation between the three was animated. Dasha brandishing the album at the raincoat man as if preaching against sin from the pulpit, lips moving quickly without a pause. The raincoat man listened impassively; he had obviously heard it before. With each wave of the album the skullcap nodded vigorously. The raincoat rose and fell with each shrug of the shoulders. Sebastian turned to look for the girl but a mound of purple-rinsed hair blocked his view. Looking back at the trio he saw the raincoat man walking away. Dasha holding the album in both hands smashing it on the top of an imagined table to try to attract the attention of the retreating raincoat. The elderly man put his arms around Dasha and led him away in the opposite direction. The doughnut broke up into bite sizes to re-form into a line of weebles. As they departed Sebastian looked again at the lamp post. She had gone.

  Chapter 7

  He had decided after a few days’ writing that it was time to ask Anneke to review what he had done in the hope that her input would deflect from his frustration with the output. The peace of the early morning would be best, there being no witnesses to the potential humiliation. This decision had met with some unplanned events that week that had already sapped his strength.

  The celebration of his commission for the magazine I Amsterdam with Pepper had been a success with the inevitable tumbling into bed, followed by the late night departure. She had looked different that night as her hair had been dyed red.

  “Not sure I have ever slept with a redhead before,” had been his only comment before she laughed then made love to him.

  The thirst of desire slaked, the post-lovemaking followed the familiar routine. She rested her head on his chest. The chemical smell of the newly dyed hair mingled with her perfume and his effort. Stroking her hair the shards of moonlight shone through.

  “Not sure that red suits you,” he said after consideration.

  “It’s for the show, we are fire eaters after all. It’s part of the act. Salt is the same,” she replied as she pulled back the sheet to get dressed.

  The disappearance of Pepper to the company of her sister was something Sebastian had concluded was the price to be paid for sleeping with an identical twin. Her departure always left him with a feeling of second best, being used. It was always a disappointment to wake up alone and discarded.

  The first of the unplanned events was the arrival of Pepper earlier than usual, at lunchtime. Her face had the muscular tightness of a decision made, a confirmation of a pre-determined plan of action. Perhaps it was the red hair that gave her the look of control. Sebastian was pulling the cork from a bottle of wine. Without a word spoken she walked in and drew the curtains. The only light in the room was the pale blue background of the computer screen. He turned to observe the activity, opened his mouth for a greeting.

  “Ummmgh,” was the only noise to come out as Pepper’s tongue shot into his mouth even before she had kissed him.

  Her hands frantic, almost aggressive. She pulled him bedward tearing his shirt and trousers off. Her hair aflame against the background light of the computer screen. Sebastian felt exhilarated and a little startled.

  Her hands grabbed his and raised them above his head, her knees pinning his shoulders against the mattress. He was trapped. Her eyes stared at him, wide with the pupils almost pushing the iris of her eyes into the white surroundings. Hitching up her skirt it was now a solo performance. Sebastian’s role passive, the provider of the stump.

  “Christ, what’s got into you?” he gasped with excitement and dangerous pleasure.

  She collapsed on the bed beside him breathing heavily. He turned to look at her. Her shirt had ridden up and her belly button twinkled with a diamond piercing as it rose and fell with her recaptured breath.

  “Oh my God!” Sebastian pulled the sheet to cover himself. He wanted to get out of bed and run but felt vulnerable, naked in front of his… his what? New lover? Assailant? His co-conspirator with Pepper?

  “For fuck’s sake, Salt. What have you done? Christ, what am I going to say to your sister?”

  She smiled conspiratorially – with him or with the absent Pepper he couldn’t work out.

  “Indeed, Sebastian, for fuck’s sake. Oh, for heaven’s sake lighten up, you Brits are such prudes.”

  “A prude, a fucking prude! Are you mad! You have walked in here pretending to be Pepper and well… and well you know what you’ve done.” His risen pride subsided with confusion.

  She giggled lightly as she tucked her shirt into her skirt. “I think you mean what we have done. We had fun, Sebastian, that’s all. You, us and fun, it’s a good combination. We should do it again.”

  “Again? Us, what do you mean us?!” His voice raised in disbelief. “And what do you think I should tell your sister?” he simpered.

  “Oh Sebastian, you keep asking that, stop being so contrite. We have done nothing wrong. Here have this.” She passed over a glass of wine as if a prescription. He needed it but found drinking hard with the sheet tucked under his chin like a child poking its head from the bedclothes to see if the creature of his nightmare had departed. But it hadn’t.

  Salt sat next to him on the bed. Ruffled his hair and smiled.

  “I see what she sees in you. When you are as close as we are we share everything. Believe me, she won’t be upset, she knew it was going to happen, it always does. I think you should take it as a compliment. We don’t do this to everyone, just the ones we like.” It was said softly as if comforting a child.

  “What, share everything, like a party dress?”

  She laughed.

  “No, Sebastian, not a dress, important things. Everything is better shared, isn’t it? I mean if you watch a beautiful sunrise it is always the more beautiful for being shared.”

  “It’s not the same though, is it?” He knew there was truth in what she had said but couldn’t reconcile that with his
wounded pride. He had been seduced; it was unfair, wrong and not the natural order of things. Well not the natural order of things in Hampshire anyway. Perhaps it was different on the West Coast.

  The feeling of indignation rose as his mobile rang flashing the name of Zoe as the caller.

  “Do you want to take that?” she said, looking at the phone as she sipped her wine.

  He looked at her incredulously, the thought that a phone conversation with a normal human being could take place in the circumstances.

  “No, not at the moment, I will ring her back. I mean I will ring them back later.”

  2

  The walk to meet Anneke was troubled. He couldn’t reconcile the event, as he decided to call it, with Salt and his wanting for love and shared mutual affection. Prude, was he? The juxtaposition of her desire for sex and his desire for love now contradictory. He always knew that his affair with Pepper was temporary, hers for pleasure and his the search for something shared. Could it be nationality as Salt has suggested, or was it upbringing? His certainly very British whereas theirs New World and liberated. Even worse was he now thought of them as a single unit, Salt Pepper; perhaps they were one.

  “Oh God!” he groaned to the early morning dawn. No one need know what happened, well no one but Salt and Pepper. As he passed the house with the cat he looked into the downstairs window. There it was, open green eyes, knowing and judgemental. He lifted his arms in the air and lurched towards the window to scare it away, making a noise like a ghoul on a ghost train ride. Impassively the cat remained.

  Pulling out his phone he tapped in a message to Zoe.

  “I miss you,” was all it said. As if anticipated the reply came with the speed of a solar ping.

  “Me too, when can I come to see you?”

  Arriving at the café he didn’t need to look for her. In the shadowy corner she sipped her coffee; her hands thoughtfully tapped a remembered tune on her packet of Marlboro Reds. Eyes like a metronome scanning the passing commuters searching for someone. Occasionally holding the vision of a passing woman before dismissing her as unknown, the wrong one.

  “Sebastian, here again for your tutorial?” She gave up her search and looked at him with a welcoming smile.

  The welcome enough for him to know it was the right thing to do, to talk to her. The meetings always the same format. He the student and Anneke the tutor. Her role to start the session and his to slowly, nervously reveal his thoughts. After the many previous meetings to discuss his writing he had left less disconsolate and the future seemed almost tameable.

  Sebastian took his seat by her side, in the now familiar position of both looking out towards the street; it was as she insisted.

  “You happy?” she asked as the lead question.

  “Yes and no actually.”

  “How is it going with Pepper?”

  He didn’t want to look at her so he stared out of the window. The streets busier now with the hurried energy of early commuters.

  “That’s the no bit, well not all no, I suppose it’s mainly the no bit but within that there is a yes and no.” He looked at her reflection in the window to see if she understood. It was difficult to gauge as the yellow streetlight fought for dominance with the light of early morning. He felt her smile.

  “I thought this would happen. You know they are identical twins, more than identical twins. They are two parts that make one. They were born holding hands. It’s as if Salt was afraid to arrive alone.” She knew what had happened.

  “Yes, I know all of that but it’s not normal to do what they did.”

  “Sebastian, try to understand. Your relationship with Pepper was always going to carry the seeds of a potential separation. Salt would never have allowed it to continue.”

  “Great, just bloody great. So what do I get out of this other than being a performing stud?”

  She laughed softly.

  “Sebastian, is that what you see yourself as, a stud for the procreation of a superbreed?”

  Petulantly he replied, “No but certainly more than just a shag for the pair of them!”

  “You are wrong, Sebastian. It’s not like that at all. The two of them have a unique approach to life. Everything they do is for each other, they must share every experience, it’s what keeps them together. To turn the question round, what did you want out of Pepper?”

  The tutor probing and the student ponderous. A pause, a false start and then Sebastian spoke hurriedly as if the thoughts spoken would then be forgotten.

  “More, Anneke, more. I wanted more, something I had once. It’s as if there is a noise from under the floorboards. The sound moves from under the floorboards to behind the walls. The noise persistent, almost thumping to escape the darkness but I can’t find the exit for the noise. I can’t release the noise.”

  She waited to see if he would continue. Sebastian interlocked his hands and twisted them hard making the knuckles white.

  Softly, she asked, “What happened?”

  Still twisting his hands but harder, his fingers now completely white from lack of blood.

  “Nothing and everything.”

  His hands parted. His index fingers drew small circles round each other.

  “Our orbit was small, just the two of us. Over time the orbit got larger and larger. Well mine did and over time we were in different orbits.” He closed his eyes in the childlike belief that when he opened them it would all be different, as it was previously.

  She said nothing, but looked at him.

  “Open your eyes, Sebastian. Look at me.”

  He turned towards her. As tears formed in his eyes he couldn’t quite see her.

  “If only I had finished the book, it would have been different. It would be different now. We would be as happy as we were then,” he mumbled into the scented handkerchief offered by Anneke.

  Her hand touched his cheek. Her palm firm and her fingers not quite covering his face.

  “You still can be. You now know who you are writing the book for, don’t you? Treat the writing as a talisman.”

  Chapter 8

  The sound of tinkling wine glasses woke him. Opening his eyes he was blinded by a concentrated beam of early morning sunlight channelled through the glasses. He moved to avoid the blinding light but it followed him making his eyelids warm. Covering his eyes with his hand he looked toward the companionway. There were now two lights dancing around the room, hopping from one surface to the other.

  “Do you believe in fairies?” she said. “Tinkerbell and her friend have come to see you.” With unencumbered sunlight pouring into his room he could see the two silhouetted faces of Salt and Pepper.

  “Do you know the story of Tinkerbelle, Sebastian?”

  Pulling the sheet cover over his head.

  “Of course, everyone knows Peter Pan.”

  Sebastian remembered his mother reading Peter Pan to him in the twilight of summer evenings in the hope of getting him to sleep. It never worked as once the story had been finished he had waited those seemingly endless twilight hours ‘til darkness in the hope of seeing Tinkerbelle; she never appeared except in his dreams.

  “You’re right, they do, but few know about Tinkerbelle. Do you know why she is sometimes spoiled and jealous?” Salt asked.

  “No I don’t.”

  “The reason is because fairies are so small they can only have one feeling at a time, so there are no counter-balancing emotions.”

  As they came into his room both dressed in denim shorts and T-shirts, painted glittering nails glistened in flip flops.

  “And today she is here to ask your forgiveness. Do you? Do you forgive us?”

  “Yes, yes I do,” he said, grateful for the cover of the sheet.

  “Well not one of the three of us must ever leave Neverland as you know what happened to Tinkerbelle after Wendy left?”

&nbs
p; Sebastian laughed poking his head out from under the sheet.

  “I do. I wouldn’t want that to happen to any of us.” Sebastian was struck by how collegiate they had become. When he first met them they were “we” and now the three of them were “us”. The thought gave him a sense of belonging.

  “Get dressed, Sebastian, we are off for a picnic.” Pepper spoke over her shoulder as she looked for the photograph of Zoe.

  As the two of them made no concession to removing themselves from his room Sebastian took his clothes into the bathroom. He couldn’t quite decide why, as there was nothing they had not seen before. Whilst dressing he was relieved that they had taken the initiative to bring “the event” to a conclusion. He had been puzzling how to extract himself from the situation. The thought of delivering any of the standard relationship-ending lines too embarrassing to contemplate.

  “I’m setting you free.” No, that would not have worked. “It’s not you, it’s me.” That contained all of the truth but little panache. Also who would he have said it to? Salt? Pepper? Both? He pulled his jeans belt tight as he imagined the embarrassment of the scene. Salt and Pepper both on the sofa, side by side, as he delivered the line to accompanying mumbling and ceiling staring.

  “I can’t tell you how nice it is to see you both, I really can’t.” They knew he meant it too. “So how do we get to Neverland?”

  “We fly there by tourist rickshaw from Dam Square. The location is a secret for now but we know you will love it. Food and wine is prepared, and so are you at last. So let’s go.” Pepper now full of enthusiasm pulling at his arm.

  The day was heating up as they walked towards Dam Square. Sebastian felt elated at the resolution of the “event” and with Salt and Pepper on each arm he knew what it was like to walk the red carpet. Even the bouncers outside the Casa Rossa looked benevolent as they cast envious eyes at Sebastian. Walking towards the rickshaw stand at the corner of the square Sebastian was conscious of the passing looks of women. Firstly they scanned the two redheads taking in their slim bodies, matching denim shorts and T-shirts, a glide down to the glistening toes. Completed in seconds and met with approval. Their eyes then focused on Sebastian. A more ponderous quizzical glance. What did he have? The glances asked. Was he famous? Rich? Had they missed something in his physique, was he handsome? He must have something to be with these two. Perhaps he had an insatiable talent for pleasing women sexually. As they looked at their male partners it was obvious that was the real reason for his company. A wry and flirtatious smile crossed their mouths as the trio walked past. The eyes of the male partners betrayed their thoughts: lucky bastard.