by Clay, Josie
I'm sitting in Fritz, watching Nancy take out the recycling. She is jouncing down the steps, her hair lifting in the breeze. I recalled an old sci-fi film about aliens who invade people's bodies. The people look the same, but they are subtly altered. “That’s not my Tommy” says a mother beseechingly to a doctor. “That's not my Nancy”.
I'm no longer within her, coursing through her, influencing decisions. I've been purged from her system. But that part of me doesn't know where to go; it's been set adrift. I can't assimilate it because it didn't exist before Nancy. I'm the negative, it is the photo. It wanders uninvited through her house in a hidden dimension. When it waits on the sofa, I imagine her lowering herself onto it and briefly, it embraces her, before she shoos it away like a cat.
This is what a memory is, but I am not a memory. I exist in the here and now, I am a fact. Nancy, why can't you see me like you used to? Perhaps that's the key. I will have to re-present myself – me, but subtly altered, a version that doesn't yet exist. When I've moved on, I will bring new things to your table. I will be familiar like family , but different and intriguing. And when you composite the past and the future, I will be perfect. Nancy, we weren't ready, this was a dress rehearsal. One day it will come round again, I know it.
In the meantime I had a legitimate connection. There was a debt to honour.
Having made sure the Saab was absent, I climbed the steps of 12 Palladian Road, clutching an envelope containing a birthday card and a cheque for £200. The door was still the door.
My heart jolted as the sound of a particular gearbox shifted into reverse and particular tyres steamrollered a plastic pop bottle languishing in the kerb, prompting a hollow whip-crack that ricocheted off the house and punctured my throat.
Like Lot's wife, I turned, foolishly drawn by the destruction of Sodom. The Jezebel's eyes flashed at me with what? Fear? Irritation? It started in my ankles, an uncontrollable trembling that in no time had reached my lips. I banished the fear with the slam of the car door. It's only Nancy, I kidded myself. But it wasn't only Nancy anymore; it was a serpent headed gorgon, a behemoth of black uddered basilisk.
“Happy birthday” I said to the beast, offering the envelope.
“Thanks” she said, kissing the air next to my head. I loped down the steps nonchalantly.
“Minette” she said, “take care”.
It was only Nancy after all.
Over the next week, I prodded my pin number into the cash machine at least three times a day, needing to know the cheque had been cashed, something of mine going into something of hers.
After seven days I texted 'Sent cheque for £200 please concur'.
'Have received nothing' came the reply.
'It was in the birthday card'.
After time had elapsed and I knew there would be no further exchange, I pondered what this meant. Was it her intention not to cash the cheques?
“No” gloated the dark voice. “She threw the card in the bin unopened.”
Meanwhile, a new situation was unfolding, Remy, maintaining contact via notes thoughtfully placed in poly bags under Fritz's windscreen wiper. They started off benignly enough.
'Hi Minsk, just spotted your car and wondered how you are doing? R x'.
'Hi Minsk, TJ said she saw you and you looked sad. Hope you are OK. R x'.
And then in an altogether more sinister vein: 'I know you fucked someone else. You will pay, bitch'.
I hoped her dope-addled brain would lose its train of thought before following through with the fatwa. I'd never intimidate Nancy this way.
“Salt and pepper?” enquired Candy, the Portuguese proprietor of 'Tummy Time', where I normally fetched the team's lunch order. Candy and I had flirted outrageously for years, though I was almost sure she was straight, given the bleached, preppy pony tail, orange pallor and silver shadowed eyes. She sparred with men just as relentlessly – some women will flirt with anyone.
Thanks to M8 kissing one of our leaflets before posting it through the letterbox of a prestigious, double fronted house, we'd landed the biggest job of our career to date.
“Chilli sauce on the wrap, babe?”
“Yes please”.
“Yeah, a girl needs something hot inside her on a day like this, innit?” she giggled suggestively.
We'd taken on more staff, but Clive was becoming increasingly morose and distant, often disappearing on spurious errands. Our opinions about running the business were diverging. He wanted to expand, running jobs in tandem with several teams, competing not just locally but London-wide. This would be unmanageable, I argued; we would be unable to ensure quality. My view was we should remain high end, specialised, bespoke. The business should be us and not some blokes in a van reading The Sun.
The wheezing sauce bottle raspberried rudely. Candy smiled.
“Remind you of anything?”
“Yeah, yoga class” I said.
“Oh babe, she sighed, stopping her rigid eyelashes with her wrist . “You're funny, you are”.
The ace of spades reminded me of Nancy's pubes, as I turned the cards in clock patience. Kings were undesirable.
Although I appeared to function within normal parameters, as soon as I got home and shut the door ...I didn't. My sorrow would steadily increase through the day, the nature of my work allowing me to dwell on it. Utilising only a small portion of my brain. I was able to saw, mix, carry, measure and even converse successfully. That left the major part to analyse and probe my pain, worrying the wound until it flooded me with renewed voracity ...my only connection. I tortured myself, recalling loving gestures, heroic sex and private things that passed between us. At times anger attempted to bristle my chest, but it really wasn't me and evaporated into a gnawing desolation so acute I could do nothing but cry, all promises annulled. These complex , repetitive internal dialogues always ended the same way – an overwhelming yearning for Nancy, whatever her incarnation.
I would talk to M8 and cry.
“She's not real” M8 would say.
“She was real”.
“Only because you made her real M8. You were her finest moment, you brought something out in her that was too brilliant to sustain because she's just a boring straight lady. She'll never be lost and lonely like us, she doesn't have the capacity”.
“M8, why am I now hearing 'Pearl's a Singer'?”
“I don't know M8, but since you are, it's like Nancy tried to stand up when she played the piano, but she couldn't so she had to sit down again, it's as simple as that”.
“Thanks M8”.
Chapter 18
Angle-grinder, circular saw, cold chisel. I was making entries in the bought ledger, something which gratified my obsessive compulsive disposition. Why was Clive buying all these tools when we already had them? Plus, without discussing it with me. It could only mean he was expanding the business under my nose and not very stealthily.
“What's on your mind, Clive?” The telepathy had gone. Rain drummed the contemporary summer house we'd just finished, in which we were now sheltering. Cornered, he removed his cap, ran his hand through his clotted hair and rubbed his stubble, fingers trembling.
“I'm exhausted” he said.
“You and me both”. I wasn't about to let him off that easily. “Now, what is it?”
He put his head in his hands.
“Min” he sighed, “I can't do this anymore”.
I thought of Nancy, but dragged my focus back to Clive's fidgeting Timberlands.
His intention, it transpired, was to take Matt and Quincy and start up his own business, essentially cutting me out. He would graciously recompense me for the tools he'd been stock piling and pay me a fee for the gardens I'd designed which were scheduled. I could keep the maintenance round and take my pick from our current tool stock.
Incandescent with rage . “You fucking cunt” I spat. “After all these years”. I wanted to kick him in his pathetic excuses for balls (how had this weasel made a baby?), but instead I booted an 80 litre bag
of peat.
“You'd still be delivering pizza leaflets if it wasn't for me, you utter, utter cunt!”.
“I know” he said, hanging his head in shame.
I drove home sobbing, “Fucking arse! Fucking tit wanking arsehole”. The fear had come home.
I slept for the next 36 hours and dreamed of impossible landscapes where the sea was higher than the land and of tall trains, the steps of which I was too exhausted to climb. Then I would be on the train with a party of people who insisted they knew me even though I didn't recognise them. Next, dashing around with a slimy fish in my hands, barely alive – its repellent cartilage lips distending into a tube, desperate for its own element. After turning on taps that didn't work and approaching puddles that evaporated before me, I was again in the impossible landscape, the sea before my face, posting the fish into the upright water. I watched it swim off, turning and glinting in the vertical waves. Nudged to the surface by a persistent ringing. A lobster see-sawing in the cradle of an old, black telephone; a transition from sleep to waking Dali would have approved of. Grappling about for the shell, I put it to my ear, clearing my throat.
“Hello?'” I croaked.
“I'm with you, Min” said Quincy.
Each installment of the £2,800 of my severance package Clive and I had agreed went to Nancy – the cheques duly banked.
“We've got a problem guv, this cement's not setting ...it's freezing”. Quincy and I attempting to partially pave a strange, sinister garden in Islington. Now December and a tiny frozen stalactite hung from the tip of his nose. He pinched it away and cupped his hands before his face.
“I saw His Nibs's livery the other day”. His tea breath billowed before him.
“Yeah, I've seen it too” I said . “Ivy Gardens, what a lame name”.
We both agreed that Clive had picked a problematic plant.
“Ivy Gardens” mused Quincy. “Sounds like a 1950’s band leader”.
“Or a retirement home” . I added. Quincy snorted.
The jolly refrain of 'Afro' etched the icy air. I fumbled up the phone with numb hands.
“Sweet Jesus, shit the fucking bed!” I gasped.
Quincy lifted his chin in a 'tell me' gesture and I showed him.
“Answer it”.
I looked again at the display just to make sure – 'Nancy calling'.
Having not had time to get nervous, I answered breezily.
“Hello?”
“Hi Minette”, sounding perturbed. 'I'm very sorry to bother you, but I didn't know who else to call.
“Can you help me?'”
“What's the problem?”. My hands were starting to shake, so I stood.
'It's Nikolai. He's locked himself in the toilet on the landing. I tried to climb the ladder ...but I can't”.
I laughed, visualising her predicament.
“It's not funny (a nervous giggle evident in the word ‘funny’). Could you bring your tools?”
“Of course, I'll be right over”.
“Thank you so much. See you soon”.
“Shit, shit, shit” I hissed.
Quincy watched in amusement as I stamped over the paving, my heart widening with elation and terror.
Come on Minnie Bracewell, don't lose it, my foot shaking treacherously on the accelerator. I rummaged around in my mental dressing up trunk to find a suitable persona; one which would have the courage to face the chimera's gaze. But she needed help and had virtually begged me ...I held the upper ground. If I succeeded, which I knew I would, she may view me in a different light. As far as I was concerned, I completed heroic tasks unnoticed every day. Some stuck in my mind due to their potentially harmful consequences.
I bolstered myself with previous triumphs:
1) When I was a kid, younger even than Sasha, I defended a fat kid from a big bully boy. When my mother saw my swollen eyes and burst lips, she shut me in the wardrobe for the night, but it was worth it.
2) I'd fairly recently protected a weeping woman from a man brandishing a length of four-by-two. 3) I'd remonstrated with a dangerous looking man after he had kicked a pigeon for fun.
4) I'd intervened when a group of youths were terrorising a small Hasidic boy.
Perhaps not so much bravery as scant regard for my own wellbeing. In some ways, I welcomed a good kicking, often fantasising about being hurt, raped, damaged in some way so I could be martyred.
Although this situation presented little in the way of physical danger, it was no less perilous.
As I bounded up the steps, two at a time, high on my own propaganda, the door swung open so swiftly I was heralded by the door knocker banging of its own accord.
Already she seemed smaller than I remembered. Her urgent, faceted eyes reflecting several emotions: a 'kick yourself' uselessness, an undertone of stress, a soupçon of embarrassment, all overarched by something more gratifying ...she was pleased to see me.
Barrelling down the hallway, I squatted in front of the keyhole.
“Nikolai, it's Nette”.
“Nette, I'm stuck in the toilet” he asserted, proudly.
Nancy hovered behind me, pulling her sleeves over her hands like a teenager.
“Yes, I know sweetheart. Don't worry Mummy and I will get you out”.
“But Mummy can't get me out”. His voice now quivered on the brink of hopelessness.
I turned to Nancy “Why can't he unlock the door?” I whispered.
“He says he's forgotten how” she shrugged.
Running my fingers around the door frame, it was inset, the hinges hidden. I looked around for inspiration and spotted the ladder outside, leaning against the house, the lawn all but rotted away, leaving a vile, frozen bog.
As I climbed the ladder, it sank through the frosty crust.
“Please be careful” Nancy said, anxiously attempting to hold my calves.
“Nancy, that's not helping, let go”.
On tip-toe on the top rung, I nudged the vent light open with my head.
“Hello Nette, are you flying?” Nikolai gazed at me in wonder – he could only see my eyes. In an excruciating position at full stretch, the window digging into my scalp, I encouraged him to wiggle the bolt at which his little fingers worked uselessly. I told Nancy to try and get her fingers under the door and pull.
“Can you do it?”
“Yes I think so”.
“Now, Nikolai”, I spoke calmly, “can you push against the door, like a big strong, erm, Charizard?”
He splayed his hands on the wood.
“No, can you push on it with your shoulder?”
He did so and his face reddened.
“Zaaard!” he roared. I commanded Nancy to pull.
“Now, Nikolai, slide the bolt towards you baby”.
It moved easily and the door swung open.
“Not a baby” he said as Nancy enfolded him in her arms.
She made coffee and hummed to herself. Having pinched the scummy soil to my nose, I concluded it was borderline anaerobic: it could be a drainage problem.
“Can you replace it?” sliding a cup in front of me.
“Well, yes, but I can't guarantee it'll survive”.
“Please try” she said, “for me”. She smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes in a wholly irritating fashion. I regarded her evenly so she had no notion how my heart knocked against my ribs.
Never one for small talk, I was compelled to bring to her attention the elephant that was happily sitting between us at the breakfast bar. It was time to make it real.
“Nancy, do you miss me?”
The question hung in the air like a stalled glider. She turned and slopped the coffee grounds into the sink.
“Minette,” she said, “you don't miss what you don't want back”.
Wincing from this body blow, I studied her perfect ebony helixes, tumbling about the chestnut, angora shoulders. I'd got my good kicking. Too much reality for one day ...too much.
Chapter 19
Clivey Gardens' v
ans ubiquitous, usually parked up, the occupants peacefully snoozing or turning a tabloid. From time to time, I would see Matt on the move. He would raise his hand in sombre salute.