Cathexis

by Clay, Josie

  “I'm very well, m'dear. I have news”.

  Carol was an old friend who worked in the tax office and wrote plays in the evenings. “Clive Dennis Lance Hammond” she said. “That's him isn't it?”

  “Carol, are you about to do something unethical?”

  “Absa-fucking-lutely, darling. Listen, he's been a very silly boy. He's paid no income tax and worse, no VAT. Our Clive is in big boo-boo trouble – it won't be long before the bailiffs move in ...poor diddums”.

  Carol's gloating shocked me, although I couldn't help but enjoy the way my blood fizzed satisfied.

  “But how come?” I said “His trucks are everywhere”.

  “Not for much longer, darling. That's what happens if you run before you can walk”.

  She loved talking in sayings.

  “God”, I said, “talk about comeuppance, I...”.

  “Confucius, he say” she interjected, “sit by the river long enough and the dead bodies of your enemies will float by. In short, what goes around, comes around”.

  “Crikey, well thanks for that, but don't get yourself into trouble on my account, will you?”

  “Listen Min, I'm working for the man, my pleasures are few and far between ...look after yourself Minnie Mouse”.

  Chapter 3

  Apparently, we were going to 'The Ducking Stool', a dripping venue between the arches near London Bridge.

  Santa had managed to hoodwink me, enticing me to her flat with the promise of a quiet evening, some food ...relaxed ...low key. It would usually begin tolerably enough, me munching bean sprouts and uncorking wine, while Santa marched about, pulling various pairs of trousers on and off, phone constantly clamped to her ear. Narrowing my eyes suspiciously when I heard her say

  “Yeah, the girls are meeting here at nine ...laters”.

  “We're going out aren't we?” Pouring myself a tumbler of wine as if it were squash.

  “Oh come on, Min” she nudged me coaxingly. “it’ll be good for you, maybe meet some new people, you know, have a laugh...”.

  Hastily zipping up her jeans, she skidded to the intercom, intercepting the first buzz. There would be six more before nine o'clock.

  As soon as they'd all tramped up, we all tramped down again and I found myself in a cab, wedged between Santa and a rare beast – a Tory dyke. My leg cringing away from her chunky, floral print thigh and spiteful perfume. To me, the word 'Thatcherite' had always sounded like a euphemism anyway. I allowed my chewing gum to sit on my tongue until mint filled my nostrils.

  The lager and gum had formed an unpleasant amalgam, which I fished out and pinched between my thumb and finger, scouting about for somewhere to put it. Holding it aloft, buffeted by bodies, I hated this, flesh everywhere, making the dance floor undanceable and the bar unreachable. Hundreds of us, thousands, where did we all go? If only we could form this army in the day.

  Shouldering through the pint-thrusting throng towards a space I'd spotted behind a sofa where the unbroken machine of music was at least three decibels short of merciless. The constricting corset of social phobia tightened around my torso. I was so weary, faces eddied before me on a manic carnival ride. Since I'd found no suitable place for the chewing gum, I popped it back in my mouth. A sharp nudge to my arm, sending a splat of lager to my boots. I cast my eyes down, scowling. The nudger pinched me, but as I turned to confront my tormentor my irritation shifted to amazement.

  “Surprise!” Candy shouted at my ear.

  “What are you doing here?” I yelled back.

  “Same as you, probably”. I could just about hear her and I watched her mouth as it described the words 'shall we?' Her plucked eyebrows rose even higher on her forehead, then she smiled and said it all.

  I met the cab driver's stare in the rear view mirror as Candy molested my thigh, bringing her hand, with each sweep, ever nearer my crotch.

  “Your place or mine, babe?” she breathed in my ear, giving my lobe a tug with her teeth.

  “Have you got alcohol?”

  “Yeah baby, and charlie” she said, gyrating her hips.

  “...yours then”.

  She continued her treatment, her thumb inevitably pressing the seam between my legs. It was at that point I knew I didn't want her to touch me; tonight I would be stone butch.

  Her flat, above a hairdresser's in Liverpool Road. I blasted away the latent curl of perming solution with a fat line. Eryka Badu emoted in the background as we tested tongues and I released her rather endearing breasts.

  “No” I said, as her hand skirted my groin. She looked affronted but her vanity was soon restored when I whispered “I'm going to fuck your brains out”.

  After my first volley, she lay on the sofa, one foot over the back, the other on my thigh, touching herself ostentatiously. I felt nothing other than a faint nausea at the sight of her belly button piercing, I drank and watched her fingers. While I chopped out two more lines, she ran a huge black dildo across her tongue and dipped the tip in the cocaine, setting it on the coffee table as we snorted.

  “How old are you?” I said. “And don't make me guess”.

  “Thirty six” she replied.

  “And your parents don't suspect?”

  “Nah, I'm a career woman, innit”.

  She writhed at me again so I took up the dildo and played it between her engorged labia.

  “Do it babe” she moaned.

  I stuck it to her hard, her appetite rapacious as she assumed increasingly debasing positions, contorting herself around the bludgeon, squelching rudely ('sauce on the wrap?'). Jack-hammering into her, aware I was hurting her but that was precisely what she wanted. I could relate to that.

  Leaving her sticky and swollen.

  “Stay babe” she’d said.

  Walking home past the dark house in Palladian Road, Candy's alien musk re-flowering on my fingers as I wiped away my tears.

  At home, waiting for the dawn. From aces to kings, all cards aligned, indicating I would see you today. You won't see me though because I'm vacant. Did you calculate the falling time ahead? Why did you make me fall? We could have just fucked, but you told me I was the one. You changed the tides within me and you promised me always, silly bitch. You were out of your depth weren't you, Nancy? So saving yourself, you pulled me under. I understand and it makes me love you more.

  Today was October and the drug had let me off sleep for this night. Autumn was the best time, despite its suggestion of winter, which was the worst. The sharp light, coupled with the silver air stirred my sentience. Watching from outside myself, abstract and atavistic, I marched down Palladian Road, heading for 'Yummington's' to fetch my customary Saturday treat – a brie and apple bagel and fresh orange juice. Trying hard to regain myself. The house, still quiet.

  'Go away'. Anorexia draping herself across my lap, pleased with my hollow stomach, she wanted to keep it that way. I decided to eat in, in case I was tempted to throw my breakfast in a bush on the way home. Biting adulterously into the bread, I monitored the street for a curly catch.

  The volume around me increasing, as people seated themselves in twos and fours. A bolus of bagel diplomatically edged around the tumour of loneliness metastasising in my throat. Home, I must go home ...I am ridiculous.

  There was activity so I slowed my pace to take in the tableau which was audible from the neck of Palladian Road. Nancy sitting on the steps, Nikolai across her knees, Pieta fashion. But rather than a lamenting mother, it was the child who was dolorous, bucking and screaming in full blown tantrum. One of his little boots bouncing down the steps to the pavement as a chubby fist clenched around a hank of Nancy curls and pulled down unsparingly, prompting her to bark his name in formidable fortissimo.

  My eyes shifted to the Saab, where Sasha was regarding me glumly from the back seat. I lifted my hand to wave but found myself cocking my index finger in backwards beckon. She grinned and wiggled her little digit in collusion. We smiled at each other and wiggled good-bye. That would be the last time I saw her as a chi
ld.

  Chapter 4

  Another of Santa's soirees, this time in the Marquess Estate, standing with my back against the hubbub, peeling off a callus with my teeth. It had to be done and so I'd faced the wall, in the way you would hide a yawn with your hand. The only reason I let myself be led, like a bull with a ring through its nose to these affairs, was to put water under the bridge. Although logical, the plan was flawed because I seemed unable to perceive time and events in a linear fashion. If say, I were on a train, entering a tunnel, I couldn't accept I would be at the entrance and then in the middle, followed by an eventual emergence into the sunlight. I'd be at all or any of these points simultaneously, never entirely in any of them. Never in the moment.

  Nor could I stack events behind me chronologically. They were arranged by significance and association The day I achieved my degree for example (a first at Chelsea College of Art), is filed next to the day my mother knocked out the last of my milk teeth because I'd spilt paint on the table cloth, although these events took place seventeen years apart. Each memory bound with a million others, threading through the warp and the weft, the material of my life.

  Not knowing anyone, I scanned the room for Santa. She was engrossed in a blonde, boyish woman. This begat a floor-sliding autofocus moment, because for a second, it seemed Santa was talking to me ...me, but altered. Perhaps I was in the future. Now they were heading my way and so, sweeping my shyness under the rug, I turned on my smile.

  “Min, I'd like you to meet my friend, Tove. Toves, this is Mins”.

  “Hello” we said synchronously, shaking hands with an equal degree of pressure.

  “Minnie, you'll love Toves, she's arty like you”.

  Santa mouthed 'Hi' over my shoulder and squeezed away, pinching my arm secretly.

  Tove and I checked each other out with interest. Clearly of the same tribe, in fact, we could have been sisters, her the better looking. The same short, chopped hair, at the same point of blonde, her blue eyes lighter than mine. She was a fraction shorter and my shoulders were broader. Her features finer, but we shared dimples when we smiled and the same groove in our chins.

  “So, how do you know Santa?” I said.

  “Actually, I used to go out with her a long time ago and now we're friends” she shrugged.

  She had a great accent. “So, how do you know her?”

  “I nearly knocked her off her bike when she was cycling like an arse”.

  “Sounds an interesting story”.

  “Not really” I said, training my smile on her to show I wasn't being dismissive.

  “Tell you what” she said, “if you can actually guess my age, I'll get you a beer”.

  Stroking my chin appraisingly (this was some kind of Nordic trick no doubt), I drew my eyes up and down her pleasing frame.

  “Thirty four”.

  “You got it right, I can't believe it. Most people think I'm younger, actually”.

  “Nah” I said “you're the same as me”.

  I followed her to the kitchen where she jacked open two bottles and nudged one into my hand.

  “Cheers” we clinked.

  “Tell me” she said, taking a swig, “do you have any actual Danish in you?”

  “Not yet” I replied.

  She paused, wide eyed then laughed beer out of her nose which made me laugh beer out of mine.

  We traded profiles: she was a photographer with a passion for industrial landscapes and dark forests , but she worked for local authorities and newspapers to make ends meet.

  It had to be in my genes ...a dormant troll awoke and sniffed the air. We discussed music and I suddenly remembered how much I enjoyed Kraftwerk, but we both agreed Bowie was king. And so we tacked around each other, testing the water and throwing ropes across until we were broadside. Tove Winther was to become my next girlfriend.

  “Sorry to interject, ladies” Santa bustled in, snaking an arm around us both. “A group of us are heading for the G-spot, just down the road. I think it's old skool 80s night”.

  Tove linked her arm through mine and we strode forth like gay Nazis. “Bloody hell!” Santa said, “Talk about the Aryan race!”

  Santa had made an unfortunate error; instead of old skool 80s, it was more like, well, school. We stared at the chalkboard in horror,

  'Tonite – Brace Face. An evening dedicated to our younger clientele'.

  “Oh well, we're here now” she said, steering us in. The back of my hand was stamped with a tiny, smiling set of teeth.

  “Oh my God” Tove said “they are actual children”. We peered around incredulously before sidling through the juveniles to the bar. I pointed out that technically we were old enough to be a mother to most of them.

  “I don't fancy younger women” Tove said.

  “Me neither” I replied. “Oh God” I added “one of them is eye-balling us”. She was sitting at the bar, sucking a blue drink through a straw.

  “Shit, I feel like Humbert Humbert”.

  “But you don't actually fancy her, do you?” Tove said logically.

  “I know, but just being here makes me feel like a paedo”.

  Santa had no such hang-ups, bopping with the youngsters. “Incorrigible” I said, assuming the persona of Miss Jean Brodie. Blue drink teenager, loved up on something, unfurled a ritualistic, provocative mating dance before us.

  “Jesus” I said, “I am actually Edwardian”.

  Butterflying her bottom against each of us in turn, she spun round expectantly. We clapped obligingly. “Bless” I said.

  “Min, I need the loo” Tove said. “Come with me, I'm worried they're going to eat me”.

  As I waited outside by the telephone, blue drink butterfly, who had followed us, was lolling, Lolita-esque, sucking a lolly pop. Tove emerged rubbing her hands along her flanks.

  “Watch this” I said. Picking up the ‘phone, pretending to talk for a while, scanning the room with an expression of concern, before singling out blue drink butterfly and beckoning her over. Raising her eyebrows, she sashayed hither. Gosh, she was surely no more than 16.

  Putting my mouth to her ear . “It's your mum” I said, passing her the ‘phone. We walked off, laughing as the young girl stuck a finger in her ear. “Mum?” she shouted.

  “Come on Sister George” I said, “let's get out of here”.

  The night sky sentinels that skirted the Woodberry Down Estate seemed to shift between the Victorian dwellings of Hazel Road as we began our ascent, the tower blocks a beacon to home.

  The Charedi moved around us like monochrome ghosts; we were invisible to them. Sundown after Sabbath made them gregarious and though gone midnight, the streets of Stamford Hill resounded with the shrieks of children and the hubbub of elders, sauntering rather than scurrying for once, the schtreimels on their heads, resembling furry hat boxes rather than hats.

  “Wow, this is actually incredible” Tove said, smiling at the 'chosen ones', who didn't return her pleasantry.

  “They don't see us” I explained.

  Religion repelled me, especially the hide-bound Hasidic flavour. But we weren't so different, adhering to a complex, ritualistic and exclusive law, perpetuated through fear and habit, which would protect us from harm and deliver salvation. We even had a dress code. They rocked in faith and neuroses ...just like me ...aside from the babies and the hats.

  A little boy, curling one of his peyot ringlets around his finger smiled at me timidly – the children still had their own eyes.

  My bed, now aloft, elevated on four left over fence posts, cleaved to the wall on one side and formed a modest mezzanine over the sofa, accessible via half an antique ladder which I'd hauled from the tip and lovingly restored, resting it on hooks at the foot of the bed. My room was now partially clad in wood, like a boat or a cabin. The ladder creaked cosily as I made my way up and thought of Nancy and her phobia. Tove passed me up mugs of tea and followed. On the walk home, we'd confessed that were in love with someone else and were still trammeled by longing.
r />   “Would you go back to your Sophie if you could?”

  “Yes” she said “What about your Nancy?”

  “In an eye blink” I replied.

  In bed, as if next to myself, I encircled her in my arms and she nudged her bottom into my lap. Her t-shirt smelt of washing powder and the back of her head looked like mine, her ozone aura reminding me of Nancy's hair.

  “Sweet dreams” I said and sunk into an oceanic sleep. We were both somewhat taken aback when, in the morning, we awoke to find ourselves having sex. The impetus of our dreams powerful, as if our respective beloveds had lounged above us with the gods, contriving an entertaining and guilt free solution. Although unseismic (more akin to sisters practising on each other), the sex was tender and sound.