by Trevor Veale
“Come on, sit down and get comfy. We can stay here for a bit then go out for a meal.”
He started changing channels on the TV. She sat next to him and he put an arm around her. He had The Simpsons on really loud.
“Fancy a smoke?” he said.
“I quit ages ago.”
“No, I mean a smoke – you know, helps get us in the mood.”
Oh God, he’s still using that shit! she moaned to herself. She felt she was going back to the days when he and Hughes, the underbutler, bought bags of weed from the head gardener.
He looked at her and smiled. “It’s all right,” he said. “The cops ain’t gonna bust us here.” He put his smoldering cigarette in the ashtray.
She could feel his eyes on her face and wondered about what future she would have with him – another addicted man she would have in her life. She couldn’t believe it; she was thirty-eight and sitting on an orange couch watching a fifty-something man roll a joint. What was that all about? She felt it was unreal, and glanced at her watch.
“Don’t do that,” he said. He was igniting the end of the joint with his burning cigarette.
“What?”
“Look at that watch all the time. Take it off.”
She looked at the watch on her wrist. It suddenly seemed absurd, like a Salvador Dali soft watch. Ticking away the hours in a world that didn’t make sense.
“Give it here, come on!” he took a long pull on the joint and put a hand out. He motioned with his fingers and she meekly stripped off the watch and placed it in his hand.
“That’s better,” he said. “What do you need to know the time for? You’re with me – I’ll tell you the time. Cop hold of this spliff.”
He handed her the joint and put the watch in his pocket. “Don’t worry about the watch. I’ll buy you a new one. That one was junk. I was embarrassed to see you wearing it. You’ll have a Rolex next time.”
Yeah, and pigs’ll fly out of my butt, she thought.
Against her better judgment, she took a deep tote on the joint. She immediately felt dizzy.
“I got a sackful of watches,” he told her. “I got all the colors: red, black, gold. You name it.”
“Where?” She studied his face. As the effect of the dope kicked in, the fleshiness of his features were accentuated.
“In the bank,” he said. “In a safety deposit. Not here of course. In Slobodia – and all the cash that isn’t stashed away here.” He smiled and took back the joint.
They smoked it down to the roach and Sharon realized she’d lost all track of time. The air in the room felt stuffy and hard to breathe. The smoky smell got up her nose and Simpkins’s hand was creeping up her blouse, toward her bra hooks.
“Let’s work up an appetite,” he said. He turned the television off.
Although the apartment had a double bed, with a brown and green swirl bedspread, they made out on the scratchy couch. Simpkins pulled his shirt over his bloated body and threw it inside-out on the TV. He slid his belt out and unzipped his pants. She watched him yank them down over his plump legs and began to feel apprehensive. His skin looked mottled and thick curly hair grew all the way up his legs to his gray underwear.
She could smell him from where she was sitting. He smelled ripe and gamey, the cheap cologne he wore at the palace unable to conceal his odor. She thought of game birds that hung in the palace kitchen and started to feel nauseous, so she undressed quickly and stretched out on the couch with her arms at her sides. Her bum tickled, and she almost giggled when Simpkins straddled her and began kneading her butt. He kissed her and nibbled her nipples, yet inwardly she felt numb. Thankfully her vagina was as juicy as an overripe papaya and her heavy breathing, under the impact of his slamming, made it sound like she was panting with pleasure, so the experience was soon over.
Afterwards they had shrimp and pasta at a nearby café and Simpkins played footsie with her under the table.
“This is like old times,” he said. “Only better, ‘cause now we can start planning our life together.”
He put three shrimp tails in his mouth and crunched them. Crunchity-crunch. This is how my life is gonna be, she thought.
They arranged to meet the following week at the bench in the little park. She wore her one pair of clean underpants, jeans and a white T-shirt, as the spring weather was so mild – and no bra. It was over an hour before she saw him, walking toward her with a brown canvas bag. He sat down next to her.
“How are you?” he said. He gave her a sly smile. Why do I always feel I’m being used, she thought.
“Good,” she replied.
He looked more disheveled than the last time she’d seen him. His canvas bag was bulging.
“D’you like flowers?” he said. He unzipped the bag and pulled out a bunch of battered begonias. “I got these across the border,” he said, winking.
He brushed the flowers against her cheek and she closed her eyes at their softness. She felt his fingers gently seeking hers. They sat for a moment, their hands joined, and she saw the strain in his face. Whatever he did in his spare time it was certainly taking it out of him – or maybe it was the drugs.
“Sharon… I want you to come and live with me… I’m so messed up…” His voice began to crack.
“God, Sim, you really put me on the spot,” she said. “It’s too early – I don’t even know what you do when you’re not at work.”
“I’m a recreational substance courier,” he said lamely. “I do runs across the border.”
“Drug running – I might have known! You’ll get yourself killed.”
“No, I won’t,” he said. “I’ve got you in my life – that’ll keep me alive.”
“Why don’t you just quit?” she said.
“That’s the difficult part,” he said, fiddling with the zipper of his bag. “When you sign up with the Slobodians, it’s like being a soldier – you gotta do what you’re told, or else…”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
Nevertheless, she went on meeting him, and eventually invited him to her place. He and Craig got on famously, often playing video games together in front of the TV, although her dad usually kept out of the way. Sometimes she wouldn’t see him for a week, then she’d come home and he’d be sitting on the front steps, smoking. He’d look up at her and smile. “I was expecting you,” he’d say.
The end of April made everything come to a head. Days were getting longer and the weather was warm enough for T-shirts. Simpkins wore one that said I WENT TO SHEKELS AND ALL I GOT WAS BURNED. They talked about it and his deteriorating appearance.
“I watch you doing your rounds,” she said. “You used to look so smart – now it’s like you’ve gone to seed. What happened?”
He shrugged. They were walking back to the car and the sun was going down. It was a fresh-looking sunset, red and glowing. Clouds formed islands in the red sky. “Yeah, I know I look bad, really bad, like I just crawled out from under a rock, but this is a disguise: blue jeans, black leather jacket, old sneakers – like a uniform. In fact, it’s just like when I’m in service!”
He gave one of his cackles. Then he stared at her. “You look lovely, you know that?”
She put her hands on her hips.
“Know what this is?” he asked.
He reached behind his back and pulled out something from under his shirt. It was a switch-blade. “Want to see the gun?” he said, smiling.
She shivered. They were standing near his car, he was about to take her home. She felt it had been exceptionally warm for the last few weeks, but now the air felt chilly.
“I’ll be sorry when you get out of this car,” Simpkins said, opening the door for her. “I hate it when you leave. You want to get tipsy?”
She shook her head.
“You want to get high then?” he smiled.
“I like being sober.”
“I’ve lost track of time,” she said as they were driving back. She didn’t
have a watch any more, and he still hadn’t given her a Rolex.
“I want to fuck you,” he said. “Let’s sneak upstairs when we get to your house.”
“No,” she said emphatically. She turned away from him and looked out the window.
“Okay, okay. You got Craig and your old man to think about. I understand. Let’s go to my place then.”
“You should go to a clinic,” she said.
“Why?” he looked amused. ”Because you’re on drugs. Coke, crack, whatever it is.”
“Who told you that?” He gave her a sidelong glance.
“It’s obvious.”
“Okay,” he said. He lit a cigarette. “I’ll think about it.” He cackled again.
She stared at him. Part of her wanted to reach out and take his cigarette. She was weakening again.
“You shoot cocaine, I bet. You take crazy risks. For all I know, you might have AIDS.”
“You think I’d fuck you without a rubber if I had that?” Simpkins looked hurt.
They fell silent. She was thinking he was the worst kind of boyfriend: bloated, in denial, a criminal, possibly sick.
He smiled. “I can’t believe you think I’ve got AIDS.”
“Have you taken an AIDS test recently?”
“Listen, you got nothing to worry about, all right?” He sounded genuinely offended. “I don’t need a fucking AIDS test – I don’t shoot coke, I don’t even snort it any more. The most I do is booze and Saint. Here, have a ciggie – I know you been dying for one.”
She opened her mouth and breathed in the lit cigarette, feeling the smoke in her lungs. She hadn’t had one for three months. Her hands began to tremble. They smoked quietly as they drove through the murky streets, passing the cigarette back and forth. The air in the car was smoky and blue. When they got to her place she invited him in.
That same night, Sharon’s father, Lusher, who’d been sinking half liters of beer in the pub all night, overbalanced while stepping off the curb and pitched headfirst onto the pavement. A passing policeman had sat him on a low wall outside the pub, and called an ambulance. In the early hours after Simpkins had gone, Sharon heard the approaching sound of an ambulance as she lay in bed. Her father had incurred a jagged wound when he rapped his head on the pavement, and the hospital, understaffed and starved of resources, had been unable to do more than disinfect and bandage the old man’s scalp, before returning him home. Sharon realized she had been left to care for a father addled as well as an alcoholic and began to feel increasingly desperate.
Chapter 28
Dawna Takes Center Stage
Halfway through May a grand inaugural ball was held at Calliper palace, to celebrate Princess Dawna’s twenty-fifth birthday and her reentry into court life after her post-natal recuperation. Her entrance into the grand ballroom was dramatic. She wore a deep blue dress to emphasize her startling eyes, blazing sapphires round her neck, and a single gold bracelet on her slim right arm. Her golden hair was fashioned in a regency style, and her earrings were two perfect pearls suspended from golden clasps. Her allure was breathtaking, and after her entrance no one could speak for several seconds.
To break the silence she smiled her resplendent smile, displaying superb dentistry, and the assembled guests burst into spontaneous applause. King Godfrey, aloof and prim in his admiral’s uniform (for it was a First Thursday) at the other end of the room, stroked his chin and began humming like a sun-soaked bee besotted by the fragrance of a flower. Other dignitaries, similarly beguiled, wanted no more than to spray the lovely princess with adoration. Queen Letitia, who after seeing the princess’s dress instantly regretted her own, would have preferred to spray her with invective, especially as she thought Invective was a powerful pest control.
Impelled by a moment of rash delirium, Godfrey swept forward through the crowd, his medals clinking on his chest, lifted the princess’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Prince Catheter, who had been about to plant a formal kiss on his wife’s cheek, was galvanized at his father’s obvious infatuation to move forward and gently pry her hand from Godfrey’s slavering mouth. Then he caressed her, to another burst of applause.
Although his love had long been dedicated to Lucinda, Catheter felt pleased and a little lightheaded as he hugged his wife, the mother of his infant son. He felt his brain beginning to dissolve into the same sugary sludge he experienced the first time Lucinda called him her Poopsy Prince. Moving through the crowded ballroom, he kept his hand on his wife’s waist and pulled her close beside him when the court photographer stepped forward.
Pictures published the next day showed the royal couple looking as happy as a pair of puppies, with just a slight gritting of the teeth detectable in Dawna’s smile. Sitting up in bed, Letitia froze in horror at the pictures in the center pages of the Bugle. It seemed to her that Dawna occupied a more prominent position than Catheter, infringing the rules of protocol, while she and Godfrey were relegated to the background – which was completely out of order.
Consternation flared up in her innards. She’s taking over, she told herself. It was like Frankenstein’s monster come alive. She felt herself facing a hideous menace – being sidelined by her own daughter-in-law. She tugged the bell cord and let her maid lay out her clothes while she hurried through the morning shower, her mind going back and back to those horrifying pictures. Since her son’s marriage she had found herself wearing an almost perpetual frown at her daughter-in-law’s encroachment. She had tried to shrug off her misgivings and welcome the princess into the Gorm family, but this latest impudence made her bowels freeze.
A week later Dawna handed her son Angus to his nurse Betty for bottle feeding. She had tried breastfeeding him, but found it too painful. She could not enjoy her body through her son’s mouth; it was too much like suckling her husband, whom the baby resembled. When Catheter discovered she had given up nursing the baby and taken up flirting with Jamie Dipp, he became angry. One night, after more pictures of Dawna and Dipp appeared in the Bugle, he stood in the center of the living room that adjoined the two princely bedchambers and railed at her. His loud voice woke the baby, who had been sleeping in his crib in a corner of Dawna’s bedchamber. Beneath her husband’s rant she heard the soft crying, felt it in her heart, and quietly rose from her chair to comfort her child. She went to her bedchamber, took him from the crib and brought him back to the living room where she sat holding him in her lap, pressing him gently against her waist. Catheter realized she was using the baby as a shield against his scolding and left the room, slamming the door hard.
Left to herself, she thought tenderly of Tori, her roommate at college, stir-frying bok choi and tofu in their kitchen, and walking with her in the evenings. She wondered if Tori had another boy- friend now, as she had hinted in her last text, and if she still suffered from depression. She thought of inviting her to Melloria for a visit, then laughed to herself. Although she longed to see her friend again, Catheter had objected to her continuing contact with her, on the ground that she was a commoner. Angus slept on in her arms.
When she put Angus to bed she got a candy bar from her nightstand. It was routine now- she had returned to her world of food gratification and enjoyed it with a delight reminiscent of revisiting a childhood haunt. She ate the candy bar in the bedchamber, watching her son sleep. She considered her possibilities. If her new relationship with Jamie Dipp turned serious she would definitely get a divorce, no matter what the fusty old laws of Melloria decreed. Then she would fly to America and base herself either in New York or LA. If however, as she suspected, Dipp was going to drift out of her life she would need to plan carefully. She didn’t want to be caught living as a single mother relying on modeling, however much people praised her beauty. She went over to the crib and laid a hand softly on Angus’s sleeping body. She felt a surge of vindication and relief. She kissed his forehead then went to her underwear drawer and took another candy bar. She unwrapped it, feeling so happy that she was leaving Catheter and that he was going to suff
er.
A few days later, on a moonlit night in early June, two people on horseback converged along a bridle path that girded the fringe of the Forest of Gorm. The riders leaned forward in their saddles and greeted each other with a kiss. Catheter and Lucinda were meeting again.
Lucinda now lived in a cottage to be near the stables where her splotchy gray mare was boarded. She worked at a nearby training school where she had set up the work experience program for young Mellorians that Letitia approved of. Although he rarely mentioned it, Catheter was equally impressed with Lucinda’s project, especially as it provided jobs for unemployed youth.
They cantered back to the stables, bedded the horses and walked hand in hand across the paddock to Lucinda’s cottage. There they ate broiled trout and shared a bottle of wine before their trek upstairs. In the small square bedroom he undressed her slowly and explored her body as if they had been separated for years. She let him, and although she wanted to do the same to him she knew how important it was for him to arouse himself by being firmly in command. She only hoped he would continue to be firmly in command when he became king.
In the early hours of the morning Lucinda awoke. Catheter was asleep with his mouth gaping open. Lying beside him, she thought about their future. It seemed pretty hopeless, but she was determined to wait out the years, seeing him whenever she could, until some sort of miracle occurred – or death intervened. Catheter’s breathing settled into an odd rhythm of puffs and sighs. Wide awake with her thoughts, Lucinda stared at the round white clock on her nightstand. The ticking sounded loud in the tiny room and the shafts of moonlight on the pitch pine floor made everything look romantic, which was to her sweetly ironic.
Suddenly she heard the doorbell ring. A small urgent ringing. She was out of bed in an instant, stumbling across the floor. “Poopsy, there’s someone at the door!” she turned and hissed.
Catheter let out a whimper in his sleep and rolled over. She went over to the bed and gently shook him.