Gary's Unexpected Saturday

Gary’s mind throbbed, his throat burned like someone had taken a blowtorch to it. It was the weekend but it was still dark and he’d awoke to find a remorseless sensation of fright pummeling him, the disconcerting fear that the guilty and the prematurely dying have.

His eyelids dragged themselves apart and he was greeted by the sight of himself in the mirror in the wardrobe door, buried there beneath the covers and looking like a cloth hillock. It was uncomfortable when the first thing you saw in the morning was yourself.

There was his head, freckled and orange, his eyes buried in his face like a pair of golf balls in a bunker, the same old features but with new wrinkles every day, and there heavy in his mind and never far away, the nagging sensation that things might have been different and maybe they still should be.

He was hot and dry mouthed and his paunchy stomach felt as ill at ease as his lungs and throat. His balls and dick howled too, they felt sore. He knew it, this was drink and smoke and this was the feel of last nights infidelity. He groaned and shut his eyes again. He knew it wasn’t true, but he felt like Jackie was watching over him, perhaps holding a scalding cup of coffee that she was going to hurl in his face, a knife in her hand ready then diving in to stick him in the throat. She was a tender wife, she was merciful. She'd place a finger on his lips and tell him to be quiet as he gurgled. “Shush Gary,” she'd say, “shush.”

Jackie was actually away on a team building exercise with Pauline and the other grey people from her office, but Gary couldn’t help thinking about her bursting in and knowing everything. He had the ingrained siege mentality of the married man, he always expected the worst.

With effort he managed to roll over and look at the pillow to his left. To his relief he saw that a note rested where a woman’s head should have been. It was written on a crisp and slightly furled piece of lined notebook paper, the spidery hand only legible because he knew who’d written it. A cute misspell finished the note above the name and the kissed sign off, betraying the authors foreign birth.

You’re great but I had to go.
Thanks for last night. I had great time..
Daisy
x

Daisy Chu had dark hair and eyes with cool epicanthic folds that he had noticed when she’d sat next to him in the cafe yesterday. It was late Friday afternoon and Gary had been tearing up the sugar packet on his table with what he liked to think of as his tender scholarly hands, grumbling about the price of the coffee and feeling just about as dislocated from everything as he’d ever felt before in his life.

Daisy had sat next to him, teary, obviously looking for company, for a conversation that she could steer in the direction of sympathy.

“What’s the matter?” She’d been in the self help lecture he’d just given.

Daisy told him the goofy story about how Glossophobia prevented her from speaking out and making the most of her educational journey. She’d said she didn’t know what to do about it. Gary had been proud of himself for not laughing at her foolish sounding pronunciation of the word Glossophobia, the substituting of the letter ‘L’ for an ‘R’ and the hurried jumble that she’d spat out the final cadence ‘phobia’ in. He gently rolled the word around in his mind as he liked to do, feeling the italics and probing the sound of it in his head. He loved words. He had grown up wanting to be a playwright but it had never worked out.

“I know what fear is Daisy, can I call you Daisy? And I know how to attack it. That’s the main thing. You channel your fear and you make it yours. Recognise what it is then move on it.”

“But I know what my fear is-”

“Shhhhh,” he soothed, “through hard work, fear can become something incredible, it’s a fuel that can burn.” Gary had a profound knack for producing such sentences in the face of adversity. Oblique little mantras that really didn’t mean anything but gave the impression that he’d picked a positive strand out of the nothing. This had been key in his success as a motivational speaker.

“But tell me! How I can learn when I cannot speak? I can’t discuss what I wish to! I am afraid,” she wept.

Gary looked deeply at her and imagined what it would be like to have some kind of true feeling. It might have been nice, actually caring about what she was saying, or believing the words that came out of his own mouth. He drank, quaffing most of the lukewarm coffee in one go, realising to his silent horror that he’d forgotten to stir it properly. He endured the sour initial taste and the saccharine finish of the two sugars as one might a trip to the dentists, a necessary evil. He adjusted his trousers, and made room for himself.

“I can help you Daisy. It’s my job.” He'd set the cup down amidst the papers she’d brought and watched her face as the name badges and notes lay where she’d dropped them, soaking up the small puddle of liquid that was slowly seeping across the surface and dripping onto his satchel that was by then prostrate and forgotten on the floor.

Saturday morning. He hauled himself from bed (revealing the downy shoulders that reminded Jackie of a teenage boy's poorly bearded cheeks) and shrouded himself with his black silk dressing gown. He made his way down to the kitchen, pristine and proud, its polished white and black surfaces seldom used, its breakfast bar too familiar with takeaways and microwaved meals.

It was straight to the fridge and the milk right out of the carton; a mouthful of this, a nibble of that. This was a hangover after all and Gary had never had much willpower. His father George had often remarked on this, on his flighty son who could never be relied upon to finish anything and who didn’t like the outdoors. He would often mutter under his breath at the boy and say things behind his back, or declare to his friends that he didn’t like the cut of his jib, bitterly telling them all that one day he had a mind to deliver a slap that would knock some drive into him. But he never did. Gary didn’t know any of this. He had seen his father as a distant Luddite with a bare personality and calloused hands, an old man with a lack of wit and originality that was sincere yet far from endearing. George was dead fifteen years now.

Gary sat himself on a chrome legged stool, scratching himself beneath the white spotlights in the ceiling. He was bathed in their artificial glow and could see his shadow projected onto the table surface next to him as if in some kind of show, perhaps in one of the plays he would liked to have written, the sparse, dialogue driven pieces that explored atavism and solipsism and other long winded terms that he wasn’t totally sure he understood, the kind of terms he bandied about in his lectures to help justify to people why they should find their lives satisfying and unique.

He puckered his lips in the morning air, leisurely replaying the drinks in the bar with Daisy and the feel of her thigh under his hand in the back of the taxi. He recalled the static of her tights with fondness and felt himself getting hard again at the thought of her.

The answer machine beeped. It had been dormant on the counter beneath a framed photo of him and Jackie, but now it wanted attention. The pre programmed voice blared out first, followed by another that was no less disinterested but ten times more real; his daughter Beth’s. He marveled at how bored she sounded. She was a lot like her mother.

"Dad are you there? Dad?...God you’re never there. ..um...OK well look I’m staying at Zoe’s house tonight so I’m not coming back for dinner. I’ll probably stay over too. Pick me up tomorrow. You’d better call when you wake up.”

How he missed the little girl who listened to what he said and thought he was cool. He still tried to engage with Beth, usually around the dinner table, attempting to prove he was interested and that he could still relate to her, that their minds might connect given half a chance, but she didn’t seem to care anymore. When he asked her anything, enquiring about her day or what she was doing in school, who her friends were or what she was doing this weekend; she would stare at him witheringly, would pause and sniff like it was the least important thing in the world and then condescendingly swat him away like a horses tail on some little bug flying too close to its arse. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ She’d say before turning back to the flickering TV on the sideboard.

He called her back and she picked up the phone after a single beep. She’d probably had it in her hand, ready for his call.

“Dad?”

“Hey Beth! You alright?”

“I suppose,”

“How was your night? What did you get up to?”

“Not much. The usual.”

“That’s great!”

“Yeah,”

“Yeeeah.”

“So are you coming? I want a lift.”

“Sure no problem. And do you want it now?”

“Yeah,”

“Are you at Zoe’s house?”

“Yeah,”

“And you want me to come over there now?”

“I just said that didn’t I?”

She hung up.

Gary’s smile faded and he smoothed his hair down. This was his relationship with his daughter now and there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. Not since fucking up some months previously.

He cringed to remember. In the summer he’d met a Romanian immigrant who cleaned at the college where he’d been giving a series of dull lectures about corporate competencies. They’d met standing outside the building in the blistering heat, each wishing they could be relaxing somewhere rather than working their dull jobs. The conversation had began with Gary asking for a cigarette. It had ended with him offering her cleaning work, easing the burden on Jackie and giving Carla, for that was her name, extra cash to spend on Bartosz, her five year old who had a drastic case of irritable bowel syndrome that was driving her crazy.

Everything had been fine. She came and hoovered, made the beds, did the washing and polishing and everyone was happy, until after just two weeks and without any real provocation, the two of them ended up having dreary wheezing sex on the sofa in the lounge. The affair lasted two weeks before Gary ended it, firing Carla quickly and managing to massage his conscience by giving her a decent severance wage and telling himself that the fact that he felt guilty proved he was still a good person. Weeks passed and he thought he’d gotten away with it until he arrived home one evening to find Beth with a pair of Carla’s sticky rubber gloves in her lap. She’d found them down the sofa and although that didn’t say much it said just enough for her to draw a conclusion once she saw the look on Gary’s face.

He pulled up outside Zoe’s in his people carrier and without bothering to call went straight to the front door, rapping on it smartly.

The door swung open and he was greeted by a boy who looked on the cusp of adolescence. There was the beginnings of acne, the appearance of hair between the eyebrows, crust at the corners of his large mouth that looked like it had been carved into the face with a hacksaw. He looked as if the mere fact he was alive was an annoyance.

“Oh hello!”

“Who are you?”

Gary bent down and put both his hands on his knees as he lent in close.

“I’m Beth’s dad, Gary. What’s your name?”

The boy turned his head away; tilting it back as if he’d just caught a whiff of a harrowing dog turd. Gary’s breath had washed right over him and the boy did not appreciate it.

“I’m Aaron,” he sighed. “I suppose you’ll be wanting Beth.”

“Thanks big man. That would be great,”

“Great,” he repeated.

Aaron walked into the house shaking his head slowly; Gary could hear him muttering but couldn’t make out the words. The house was average. They had a TV and they had a stereo. There was also a coffee table which Gary was amused to notice had several copies of those trashy magazines, the cheap types with single syllable exclamatory titles where the headlines feature horrifying things that have happened to plain looking women.

“Hold on I’ll get her.” Aaron stood at the bottom of the stairs, pulled the hood on his sports sweater over his greasy long hair and immediately threw his arms wide like an opera singer. He screamed up to his sister, his voice ringing throughout the downstairs at disconcerting volume.

“Zooooooeeeeeee? Zooooooooeeeeeeee!!”

“What do you want Aaron?” came a cry from upstairs as a door was torn open, allowing the thrashing chug of heavy metal guitars to suddenly escape, blaring out into the whole of the house.

“Zoooooooeeeeeeee!”

“You’d better shut up you before I come down there and shut you up!”

“Zooooooooeeeeeeeee!” He repeated in an even higher pitch, squeaking a little in that way that boy’s voices do when they’re starting to break. “Zoooooooooeeeeee! Fuckin’ Zooooooeeeeeee! Zooooooeeeeeeee!”

“That’s it!”

The sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs; it was Zoe and Beth and neither of them so much as looked at Gary as they flew into view, a mass of black clothes and white skin. Beth grabbed Aaron from behind by his arms so his shaking torso was pitifully exposed. Zoe punched him hard in the stomach. The boy lay on the floor winded and as the girls started kicking him he somehow kept laughing. Shocked Gary was sure that if he could have, Aaron would still be screaming his sister’s name out, just to see how far he could take it.

Gary shouted out at last to make it stop and the girls whirled around as the music blasted amongst them, guitars wailing. Zoe looked embarrassed but Beth simply curled her lip and placed a podgy hand on her waist. Gary noticed this and stood, arms by his sides with fists clenching and unclenching, unsure of himself. The reality of this premature confrontation hit home suddenly and his eyes dilated like pools of spilled oil. He realised he was afraid, afraid of his own daughter.

Thankfully Aaron came to the rescue. The boy picked himself up from the floor, smoothed down his lank wave of hair and looked at the two girls with their tight black t shirts and their flared denim jeans where chains dangled loosely, at their sweat bands and matching fake tattoos. He laughed cruelly in a small high pitched stutter, his teeth with their train track braces gleaming slick with saliva.

“Beth your Daddy’s here,”

“Thanks Aaron,” she said, “but do I look like I’m fucking blind?”

“Bethany, we don’t say that word!” Gary managed, in an effort to re-establish himself. He held on, glaring for half a second before turning toward Zoe. “Hey Zo is your mum in? I want to thank her for looking after my Bethany.”

Aaron laughed.

“I’m afraid not Mr Alderman,”

“Oh well just tell her I said to say thanks then will you?”

“I’ll do that,”

“Great well let’s get home then, shall we?”

“We’re not going home Dad. You’re taking me and Zoe to the Roller Derby,”

“Oh, wow are you girls playing? That’s great!”

“We’re watching. Not that you'd know, but we actually play on Monday’s.”

Gary ignored the jibe. “I’ll take you if you like. I’ve always wanted to see the Roller Derby.”

Zoe raised a hand as if she was in school. “I’m sorry Mr Alderman but my mum says I have to stay here and look after my brother,”

"What?” said Beth.

“She did!”

“That’s OK girls he can come with us if he wants, I can keep an eye on him if we all go. It’ll be fun!” He looked at their faces “I’ll call and let your mum know.”

“Great,” Aaron hitched his crotch with both hands, “I love fun.”

Gary paid for them at the Roller Derby. They were in a large hall with a circular track ringed by the crowd. Aaron was slurping noisily on a can of Coke and surveying everything, a look of surly amusement plastered across his face.

“So what the hell are the rules to this thing?”

The premise of Roller Derby, Gary had discovered, was for two players to try to skate past a pack of players in front, scoring points for every opposing team member they managed to fight their way past. He explained this to Aaron carefully.

“So basically they have to beat the shit out of each other?”

“Well not exactly, there’s quite a lot of skill involved, they have to-”

“Yeah, could I get a Hot Dog Gary?”

When the teams came out Gary shifted in his chair and swigged on his mineral water. He looked at the audience and saw that everybody here was much younger than him. He sucked in his stomach and untucked his shirt. The others came and sat; Aaron to his left and Beth to his right with Zoe rounding things off at the end. As the pack set off, the sound of bodies clunking into each other and the echoing shouts of the crowd made Gary feel disembodied and strange. Noises and crowds reminded him of childhood nightmares where he was crushed by oncoming masses, unable to run properly, as if he was underwater and his limbs wouldn’t do what they were supposed to.

Aaron seemed to be enjoying himself. He jumped out of his seat as two girls went sprawling on the floor in a mess of arms and legs just two metres away.

“Shit!” he whooped, laughing and clapping Gary on the shoulder, “See that Gary? She almost broke her fucking arm!”

One of the players with a single painted panda eye on her face and blood painted on the corners of her mouth fought through the pack and established herself as the lead Jammer.

“She’s good!” Gary shouted.

“Yeah, she’s awesome!” replied Zoe, grinning broadly. Gary thought to himself that she was a nice looking kid and that she had a nice smile and she really took care of herself. He was sure her chest wasn’t that shapely the last time he saw her.

“Yeah I know!” said Beth, catching Gary’s eye for a fleeting moment and taking a bite out of her Hot Dog, the mustard and the ketchup squelching together in a contrasting amalgamation of colour, her teeth sinking deep into the bread.

“What position do you play Zo?”

“Its called Pivot. I’m one of those girls at the front. Beth blocks, she’s the best.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Gary said, “Beth’s always been strong. I remember once on holiday in France Beth tackled the leader of the kids club because he didn’t like her drawing. Isn’t that right Beth. You were so upset!”

"He was trying to embarrass me,”

“So you tried to kill him?”

“He deserved it.”

The referee blew his whistle loudly. The main body of the pack had fallen to the ground and were writhing on the floor in a heap of wheels and discomfort. One of them had lost her footing under a particularly ferocious shoulder barge and had taken out several of the other skaters. It didn’t look like any of them came of it well.
What do you call yourself Beth?” Asked Gary.

“Beater Blocker.”

“That’s funny,”

“It’s a pun.”

“Yeah. What’s yours Zo?”

“Miss Disaster”

“Is that a pun too?”

“No.”

“Well sounds like it is!” he said, winking.

The whistle blew again as the players climbed to their feet unsteadily, helping each other up. Time was up and this early bout was over. It was probably a good job, Gary had sensed that he was going to have to tell Beth to cheer up, that this whole day was a treat. Maybe a break would do her a little good.

“Dad I’m going to the toilet.”

“Me too,” said Zoe.

“Well don’t take too long, you don’t want to miss anything.”

They stood and shuffled out sideways, making for the corridor without looking back. Gary watched them both, his eyes flicking from one to the other.

As fifteen minutes passed by, the next bout started but still the girls hadn’t returned. Gary could feel a fret coming on like the onset of a nosebleed, that hot feeling you get as the red liquid trickles and you don’t quite know what it is yet. He scanned the hall.

Aaron was toying on his phone and whistling to himself. Gary leaned his gingery face down to speak to him, surprising the boy who, as he turned was shocked to see a pair of quivering nostrils above him and Gary far closer than he’d actually thought he would be.

"Have you seen the girls?”

“No!”

“They went to the toilet over ten minutes ago,”

“Maybe they’re getting drinks? They always go off together. It’s fine.”

“I’m going to check on them.”

“Do what you feel,” Aaron shrugged.

Gary made his way to where the toilets were. He walked through the corridor which was deep blue in colour and lit by strip lights that maintained a steady whitened glow that bounced off the narrow walls. He knocked on the ladies toilet door and pushed it open ajar, calling inside hopefully. There was no answer and he could make out no whispering within. He let the door thump shut.

He stood thinking, they were probably smoking or something. He was unsure about his appropriate response. Should he plump for moral sermonising or liberal acceptance? He thought about maybe even asking if they minded if he shared one with them; they’d probably think that was cool.

Gary wandered back down the corridor and came to the end. There was another doorway to his left that declared itself open to ‘Staff Only’. He pushed it easily and was greeted by the disdainful sight of a moist outdoor service yard. It was walled in with bare brick, smelled strongly of cigarettes and was set out in an L-shaped narrow space that turned a corner where all the boxes and rubbish from the kitchens were stored. It was an area where dirty water was chucked and where pigeons shat. A metal grille span on one of the walls and he could make out crumbling concrete in between the brickwork.

His first instinct told him that this was pointless and he should turn back, but something caught his eye. There was a black blobbed mass that seemed to be moving in one of the corners between two tall stacks of boxes. He was confused up until the moment where he wasn’t, one glorious minute of not knowing sandwiched in between. The realisation arrived quickly and with a flurry of shock. He saw a flash of white and a twirl of pink wrapped about a twine of darkness that he realised was a ponytail of hair. It wasn’t difficult to see, like a solved puzzle it was revealed, the two girls pressed up and against the wall together and enjoying a passionate, heavy embrace.

Zoe had her back turned to him and her hand was digging up Beth’s shirt, kneading softly into her breast, the two of them were kissing hard. Beth had her hand on the back of Zoe’s neck, stroking her skin and playing with the loose fronds of black hair corkscrewing down from beneath her ponytail and the tubular looking neon hair band. There was no other movement around, it was all still and grey and everything seemed pale in the damp autumnal sky, the furred rain drizzling upon them from the static thatch of cloud above.

Gary stood with one hand on the door watching. He felt unable to move. He thought about clearing his throat and making himself known but something told him he shouldn't, that it would be an unforgivable intrusion none of them would forget.

He turned, ready to leave, breathing deeply and shaken, but decided to look back just one more time. He would not be able to explain why he had to have one more look if you asked him, he would only be able to tell you it was inevitable that it would happen. He was that youth again, the one he’d always been, the boy in the field by the electric fence, surrounded by the damp and ankle deep in sludge, knowing not to touch the metal but unable to help it. He could never walk past without touching the thin wire, the thrill of knowing what the jolt through the nail would be like and the shock of it always being the same, sticking a finger out no matter what was unavoidable, doing it to do it was the only thing that ever mattered.

He turned and of course at the exact same time Beth opened her eyes. The two of them made direct eye contact across the yard. Beth continued with her kiss but her eyes remained on her father, a final silent rebellion. Gary wondered immediately if he had known all along that this would happen. They gazed, frozen and locked in the moment as if someone had pressed a pause button. All that could be heard was the muffled sound of the crowds back in the hall and the thrum of the skates on the wood, the buzzing of an extractor fan up on the stone wall above their heads.

Gary opened his mouth ready to say something, but instead just nodded at her, thinning his lips with what he intended as a smile. Beth blinked and looked for a second more before shutting her eyes again, returning her full attention to Zoe. The moment was over.

Gary stepped back inside and let the door close, shaking his head as he made his way back to the noisy sports hall. He sat down next to Aaron in a daze. The boy leaned in to him.

“Hey Gary, your phone rang so I answered it. It was your wife, she said for you to call her back. She mentioned something about some note?”

Gary closed his eyes and breathed deep as he accepted the phone. It immediately rang again in his hand, with Jackie’s name emblazoned and flashing on its screen in front of him. He declined the call and turned the phone off.

He was staring into his lap when the girls returned. Zoe was smiling broadly. Beth followed nonchalantly behind.

“Hope we didn’t miss anything!” she said and looked at her father.

“No it’s fine, you didn’t miss much,” said Gary, “either of you two want a drink? I’ll be paying.”

Kodiak

I was in the shed out the back of our house and I was picking up heavy logs that were going to go on the fire in the house. Earlier it had been tearing it up in our little hearth but now it was dying out so it needed more fuel. The logs we’d collected were a little damp to the touch and they had layers of moss and grainy dirt and grime all over them, not to mention insects. My dad stood with his arms folded and the wind blowing the wisps of what little hair he had left up into the air so that they were pretty much standing on end.

“You need to pick all the crap off them first.”

I opened my mouth to speak but Stewart butted in just like he always does. He’s six years older than me and he thinks he’s got twice the brains I have. He’s too stupid to realise he’s wrong.

“Hey dad that’s a one man job,” he pointed down to the pile of logs that he’d just helped me lug out of the shed, “and I’ve got homework to do. Can’t he do it?”
Dad rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully.
“You’re probably right, you get on inside. Nicky you can finish up here.”

I hate my brother sometimes. I knew he had no intention of working; that he just wanted to stare out of his window at our neighbour Becky Prendergast all night. He’d recently bought himself a pair of expensive binoculars and he’d sold a load of stuff on Ebay just so he could pay for them. I’d met her a few times and she seemed like a nice person and everything and she had a nice pretty smile and “really awesome tits” as Stewart liked to say but she wasn’t worth selling your TV for.

My dad pointed a finger, a warning point that he didn’t seem very sure about.

“Nicky they’d better be completely clean; I don’t want any mess on my carpets when you bring them.” He paused, squinting, before carrying on, “you need to make sure the moss comes off and they’re not wet. Otherwise they won’t burn.” He came over and crouched next to me and showed me how to quickly pick off all of the moss in one big lump. Even down on his haunches he’s taller than me and I couldn’t help but feel insignificant. He ran his hands along the surface of the wood and tugged off any stray pieces and extra bits of rough and felt the wood with the backs of his hands, checking for dampness I assumed. Dad’s good at doing those kind of outdoor mans jobs where you need to have a plain mind, he thinks in straight lines and that’s useful.

I looked at his arms and the tattooes that live on them in sporadic areas. He says he likes his tattooes and that they all mean something to him. He’s got my birthday on one arm and Stewart’s on the other. He’s got quite a few on his back and he even has one on his leg. He has union jack flags, lightning bolts, curvy ladies and cords of rope and twine. I don’t know what even half of them are. Over his heart he even has two that are crossed out. They were names but now they’re not there anymore, they’re just two scribbled blue blocks. He says this is because they don’t mean anything to him now and that he doesn’t want them there any longer.

I sat down as he went indoors. It was a dry day so the stone floor of the yard was ok to sit on. Still after a few minutes my backside started to get cold so I sat cross legged like a Red Indian, only rather than sitting on my rear I pushed my trainers back underneath me to make a kind of seat. I sat like this standing the different logs on end between my legs, picking the moss from them as patiently as I could. I can’t exactly say I felt happy about it but I felt like a caveman, this seemed like the kind of thing that they would have to do. I felt like Stig of the Dump, I’d just read that book and it was playing on my mind a lot.

I read a lot you know, usually at night when dad’s asleep and when Stewart’s locked in his room on the phone or lifting weights or whatever it is he does in there. I’ve got a lot of books in my room, all kinds, I don’t know where they came from; I imagine they were my mother’s but I’m not too sure because my dad won’t tell me.

The light switched on in my brothers room whilst I sat working on the logs and listening to the sound of Becky’s dad Mr Prendergast mowing his lawn with that sound that’s like a hornets buzz. Mr Prendergast always uses it in the evening and gets complaints from the other neighbours including my dad.

Mr Prendergast works in “some insurance place” as my dad says and he moved here when his wife “took off”. When the Prendergast’s moved in Mr Prendergast came over to say hi to my dad. The two of them stood in the kitchen drinking beer that Mr Prendergast brought over, talking about their lives and hovering side by side as they looked out of the window onto our garden out the back; neither of them sure how they felt about each other yet. I was eating my dinner, it was macaroni and cheese that I had actually made myself and I was feeling pretty good about it so I only heard a half of what they were saying but it seemed like they got on OK. Dad told Mr Prendergast that the local school was good and he told him that he liked his car. Mr Prendergast joked about how the weather up here wasn’t quite as good as it was down South but I could tell that Dad didn’t really agree with him.

We met Becky a week later when she started school and it was pretty obvious that Stewart liked her straight away. One Saturday when I was lying on my bed looking out of my window I saw Becky walking home from the bus smiling to herself about something. As she smiled, the fronds of sunlight beat down right upon her mouth and shone off of her braces so that it looked like she had some kind of weird alien freak mouth. I laughed hard about it but when I mentioned to Stewart that she had a mouth like Jaws from James Bond he told me that he was going to “smash me in my face if I didn’t shut up”.

That’s when I realised he was serious.

So there I was as Stewarts light beamed out into the evening. The curtains slowly unfurled and I saw his muscled forearms perching on the windowsill up above with the two eyes of the binoculars stretching out from his face. He was chewing something as usual and he was holding his binoculars in one hand whilst his other rested and bunched up into a fist that made little circular movements on the sill as he watched across the way over the tops of the trees. When I stood up and moved so my back was to the wall of the house I could see upward at what he was looking at through the corner of the window pane, it was Becky in her room. I couldn’t make out exactly what she was doing thanks to the angle of the window but I could make out a bit of skin and I could just about see a dash of her blonde hair, the tips of it dangling soft in the light as the evening slowly turned dark.

The next day I woke up, had breakfast (Corn Flakes) and then sat upstairs in my room reading. My bedroom is where the book boxes are. They’re big wooden crates that look like they’ve been specially made just to hold old hardback volumes and paperbacks with folded yellowing pages and dust that creeps down in the leaves of the paper. I often pick out a book at random and inspect its folds and its creases and smell its pages because I love the smell, the mustiness and I love thinking about all the people who’ve looked at the pages I’m looking at right there at that moment. I like to think about those people and imagine who they might be and what they might have done.

I sat lying on my bed and kicking my feet up in the air as I lay on my stomach in that way I like. From the big boxes pushed against the wall I picked up an adventure book about two brothers called the Hunt boys who go looking for rare animals for their dads zoo. It was written by a man named Willard Price. I thought his name was strange and that the picture on the front was cool.

The book was turning out to be really pretty good, the two boys in the story were a little older than me and Stewart but the difference in their ages was the same, Hal was the older (19) and Roger the younger (13). In the story the two of them head to the wilderness and end up having to fight a huge bear called the Kodiak bear which apparently is a lot bigger than the Grizzly.

I was interrupted by Stewart. He kicked open the door and then walked over and kicked my bed.

“Hey needle dick. Why don’t you pull your head out of that book whilst I talk to you? What you doing?”
“Reading.”
“Don’t get clever.” He snorted back a piece of phlegm to the back of his throat.
I put the book down because I knew he was going to try and make me do something.
“Listen-”
“I’m not doing it.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet!”
“I know I’m not going to like it.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,”
“How?”
“I’ll do the washing up on your nights,”
“No.”
“Hey that’s a good offer!”
“No. You’ll only find some way of getting out of it and Dad will make me do it.”
“I won’t!”
“You will.”
“Jesus,”
“Pay me.”
“What?”
“I want money.”
“I don’t have any money.”

I knew this was a lie, I’d been in his bedroom only three evenings ago and I’d opened his underwear drawer and rooted around to find the ski socks that he used to keep his cash in. I don’t know how he made his money, he didn’t have a job. I suspected he stole some of it from dad and that the rest of it he made selling cigarettes to kids at school because he was tall and had some hair on his top lip so he could get served in the corner shop. He had at least thirty in that sock in notes and a bit extra in coins.

“Ten, I know you have it.”
“No way that’s all I’ve got. I’ll give you five,”
“No you have more. Ten.”
“Eight?”
“You want me to do something? It costs ten.”
“God alright. When did you turn out to be such a little leech?”
I made a face at him. He leaned over and thumped me and gave me a dead arm.
“That’s for going in my drawer.” He flexed his muscles and puckered his lips like he was kissing the air and gave me the finger as he walked out backwards.

Later we sat on the bench round the bend by the road outside of the corner shop whilst Stewart smoked one of his cigarettes. He offered it to me but I decided not to smoke any because they’re bad for you. He wanted to go and find Becky. His plan was that I would get into some kind of trouble and then Stewart would save me or stop me from doing whatever it was that I was going to be doing. This would happen right in front of her and she’d be impressed and this would supposedly make her like him. Personally I didn’t think too much of the idea but I don’t have that many friends in our area so I had nothing better to do.

“I think what you should do is maybe get hit by a car or stand in the road so you’re going to get hit and then I can come and save you.”
“I’m not getting hit by a car.”
“I’d do it for you.”
“You would not!”
“I swear I would, if it was for something this important.”
“But I might get killed,”
“No you wouldn’t I’d save you,”
“I don’t think so,”
“Alright then Einstein you think of something.”
“Maybe I should call her a name or something. I could call her a bitch?”
“No don’t call her a bitch.”
“Why not?”
“She might hit you before I do.”
“Oh.” I thought on this for a second. “How about if I just come with you and act cute? Girls like that don’t they?”
“Yeah they do they love kids. They all do.”
“It’d be like I was your kid or something.”
“You are,”
“No I’m not.”

It took us a while to find her but eventually we got her down at the park. I can’t lie I was pretty excited about this, I’d enjoyed our search across the estate and near the shops nearly as much as I’d enjoyed spying on the local areas where the teenagers hung out. I felt like we were Hal and Roger Hunt, Becky was our Kodiak and now the green park with its football pitches with the brown dirt area that lay patchy beneath the goalposts and the swings that had been swung round and over the bars they hung from till they were tight and unreachable, was our hunting ground.

We walked over.

She was stood with her hands in her pockets, wearing denim shorts and a pink t shirt with sleeves that were hardly there. She wasn’t exactly like a bear or a wild animal when you got up close to her but I didn’t mind. She was stood by the climbing frame which her friend Sophie was hanging upside down from, suspended by the crook in her knees. Sophie’s t-shirt was hanging loosely towards her neck because of the gravity and she was showing her stomach which was quite fat and could be seen pale in the distance. Stewart was walking like he was a tough guy and I followed a few steps behind.

“Hey Becky,” he said when we arrived.
“Hi Stew,”
“I want you to meet my brother Nicky.”
“Hello Nick,” she said grinning at me with her metal mouth, “this is my friend Sophie.”

I looked across at Sophie and I felt hot all over. She looked down at me for a second then put her hands on her hips and said out loud;
“He’s sooo cute.”
“I know!” said Becky “Where did you get him from Stew?”
“I found him in a basket by the canal and took him in. My dad didn’t like it at first but I talked him round.”
They both laughed. I blushed.
“How old are you Nick?”

I actually couldn’t speak; all I could do was look at the ground and turn a horrible red. The girls both cooed to each other like pigeons and then started laughing at how cute I was. As they did Stewart winked at me but it didn’t make me feel good because I wasn’t acting at all.

After a short while Stewart was talking to the girls on the roundabout whilst I sat on the grass away from them. They were laughing and I felt bored and stupid and the melted chocolate bar he had given me that he said would “seal the deal” if he gave it to me in front of the girls was sitting in my lap because I didn’t want it. I wondered if this was how the Hunt brothers did things. Did Roger ever feel stupid and little?

I was going to go over and tell Stew I wanted to go home when I spotted some bikes across the park travelling over our way and ridden by two other guys who might have been seventeen or maybe eighteen or nineteen, I couldn’t be sure.

One was wearing long denim shorts, a baggy red t shirt and a baseball cap. The other was wearing tracksuit bottoms, white trainers and had a cigarette behind his ear. They pulled up at the roundabout next to Stewart and the girls and I could see them talking. At first I stood where I was, watching things but I wanted to hear what was going on so I ran over as fast as I could. I stopped behind them.

“What you girls doing with this loser then?” was the first thing I heard. It came from the one in the tracksuit. The other friend was on his bike and looking the other way not caring much at all by the look of him. His bike was a little BMX and he had bright blue pegs on the back, I’d wanted one like that for years.

“Not much,” said Sophie. Becky didn’t say anything.
“Stewart Hughes. I remember Little Stewey from primary school. You forgot your kit and had to do PE in your boxers. Remember his boxers Matt?”
“Yeah! It was well funny!”
“Looked like you’d shit yourself!”

I looked at Stewart who looked at the floor. The two older boys laughed.

The one in the tracksuit looked over at me. I didn’t look away but I did squint my eyes because the sun was glaring and it made it hard to make out his face properly. I felt small in my shorts and my t shirt but I wasn’t afraid.

“And who’s this then? What’s your name?”
“Nick.”
“I see you know my little mate Stewey then?” I could make out the silhouette of his head and saw the shadow shape of his cheeks widening with his smile. A hooped earring hung from his ear.
“He’s my brother.”
“You never said you had a brother Stewey,”
My brother didn’t say anything.
“What do you think of your big brother then Nicky? I suppose you think he’s the big man don’t you? Walking about like he’s ten men all the time it’s hard not to eh?”
I shrugged, saying no without actually having to say the words.
He laughed and looked at my brother mockingly.
“What have you got no other mates Stew?”
“Course he doesn’t!” laughed Matt.

Stewart couldn’t look up and meet their eyes like I could. He’d wimped out. “Dear oh dear Stewey. Looks like Nick here isn’t very impressed with his big bad brother is he!” They both laughed at him but still he didn’t say anything. “What a puff!”
The one on the BMX called Matt nodded at Sophie.
“Fancy a ride?” he said, “We’re going down the precinct.”
“Alright,” she grinned and climbed onto the pegs. She linked her hands around his waist and pushed her chest up close against his back. “Bye Nicky,” she said as she looked down at me. I held up a hand by way of a goodbye as they cycled off and failed to prevent the spread of blushing red from creeping up my neck and burning my cheeks.

The remaining boy stood between Stewart and Becky pointedly.
“What about you?” he said to her.
“I don’t know,” she said and she glanced at Stewart.
“Come on. You’re not staying here with these kids are you?” I noticed at the edge of his zip up tracksuit top, the point of a tattoo at his wrist. I wondered if it was like any of my dad’s. “You might as well come with me, we’ll have some fun.”
She paused and I could see her thinking but it didn’t take long for her to make up her mind.
“You know what; I don’t think I will.” she folded her arms and she looked away. “Fine,” he smirked and he turned his bike around, climbed onto it. He cycled off, spitting his cigarette out of his mouth to his left as he went. I watched it spiral through the air with its little puffs of smoke still trailing up out of it.

It landed on the floor and I watched it there with my back to my brother and Becky and the ember burning in the grass until it died and spent itself out, a black tip that was finished; lying forgotten by everyone except me.

As he began to cycle away I didn’t think twice, I pulled the chocolate bar that Stewart had given me earlier out of my pocket and ran forward a few paces like a javelin thrower. I drew back my arm as far as I could and threw it after the older boy. It stopped a little short but he turned around and he saw it and he looked back and he looked right at me.I stayed where I was, looking back at him, trying to stare him down like a big man. It wasn’t much but I was satisfied with the distance I got on my throw and I’d very nearly hit him.

He waited for a moment before turning round and cycling back towards me, pulling up fast in a sharp and intimidating skid. I had it in my mind to tell him where to go but I soon found that I was incapable and actually pretty frightened.

“What was that? You throwing stuff dickhead?”

I didn’t know where to look or what I could say, my stomach dipped as if I was riding in a car and I’d gone over a hill too quickly.
“No!”
“Yeah you was. Trying to act the big man eh?”

He got off his bike and let it drop to the floor and approached me. I stood my ground several yards away from Stewart and Becky, not knowing what to do. He wasn’t far off six feet tall and he moved fast. He pushed me in my right shoulder with an extended index finger.
“Well do you know what happens to big men who mess with bigger boys?”
I said nothing.
“They get shown what’s what,” he said and he leant in and grabbed my balls.

He squeezed them for a second and gripped them in his palm, “They get shown what’s what.” He repeated.

In that long moment then the midges buzzed around my head carelessly and I stood, unable to move, my head swimming. His eyes glared down at me and his mouth leered open and slack as he cupped me. It occurred to me that I might have made a rash decision trying to get at him.
He released me and smirked and I could smell chewing gum on his breath as he spoke.
“Remember that.”

He poked me in the chest again as if to drive the point home one final time and then turned away and picked up his bike. I didn’t wait to watch him ride away; I just turned my back and walked. I returned back to my brother and Becky.
“What did he say to you?” said Stewart.
“That was really brave Nick!” said Becky.
“I want to go home Stew,” I said.
“I think we might stay here, it’s still sunny.”
“Fine!” I shouted, and I turned and I ran, ignoring him as he shouted after me.

I ran back across the green of the park, away from the yellow roundabout and I ran through the gate and onto the tarmac pavement with its loose scuffed stones bouncing under my trainers. I ran back to my house as fast as I could, running for some of the way with my eyes shut tight, the beads of sweat quietly soaking my hair at the back of my neck and running in salty rivulets down my forehead onto my cheeks and nose.

The gate clanked shut when I got back and I ran inside and up to my room and locked my door. Inside on my bed was the Willard Price book about the Hunt brothers. I looked at the cover and I thought about them and the Kodiak bear that they fought and I suddenly felt, for the first time in my life, that a book could be bullshit. I angrily swept it onto the floor and I kicked it across the room as hard as I could where it bounced off the wooden crates up against the wall in my room. It lay there splayed open; face down as if someone had put it there to temporarily save their place.

Later on I made my way downstairs for dinner feeling wrung out and empty. My dad was smoking at the table, drinking a beer and doing the crossword. He asked me what was wrong and why I’d come back on my own. I told him simply that I was OK and that I was feeling tired so I came back.

He took a drink from his can and stuck the pencil behind his ear and said breezily that it wasn’t safe for me to be out in the evening on my own past nine o clock and Stewart probably shouldn’t have let me come back on my own, that I was too young to be out on the park.

“I know,” I said.

A Little Out of Touch

I’m in the supermarket and I’m looking at the bar of chocolate sitting there on the shelf. It’s one of the big ones. Fruit and Nut.

“Hey Gerry,” It says to me, smiling and jiggling its little corners at me. “Hey Gerald.”

“What do you want from me?”

“You know what I want. Come on; touch me.”

God all the things I’ve lost; my job, my car, my dignity. I’m thirty two, unemployed, going bald and I’m hideously fat. Now to top it all off I’m talking to a piece of confectionary.

“Hey! I’m talking to you. Come on buddy, put your hands on me, touch me. You wanna see my baby brown skin don’t you? Come on feel my nuts.” The chocolate has a heavily accented voice that I cannot place.

“I can’t!” I squeal at it, my voice rising up in a little note of desperation, a simpering whimper that makes me feel like even less of a man than ever.

“What are you queer is that it? Ooh little Gerry can’t even make happy with something he wants. You gotta’ take what you want Gerry you know that. You’ve been losing weight recently haven’t you? You’ve been doing really well haven’t you? You’ve earned this. Do it. Unwrap me. I want it.”

I hug myself, grasping my sausage meat flesh. I know how I look; I’m a whale, a big fat beast who makes people feel ill. I can’t help it if I comfort eat. It’s the only thing left for me now.

“Gerry let’s do this! Take me I’m yours,” the chocolate bar starts jumping up and down a little on the shelf and making orgasmic groaning noises at me like some mackintosh wearing deviant who’s just found a dog eared porn mag in the trash next to the bench he’s sleeping on.

“I hate you!” I hiss, drawing a look from the girl standing in the aisle next to me with her mother who’s trying not to look my way. People often do this. They take a look at my tracksuit trousers hanging low beneath my corpulent torso and they look at my trainers with my huge load bearing feet stuffed inside them, spreading the tongue and laces of the shoe wide, forced apart unnaturally to fit me in them, and they quickly look away. “I’m a man!” I scream at them, “I did this to myself!” I bellow, “I wasn’t always like this!” Then I wake up.

“Quit whining,” it says.

I know it’s looking at me so I just go on and thrust a hand out, picking it up and unwrapping the black and blue outer wrapping and the golden foiled inner layer.
There’s a lot of groaning going on as I shove it in my mouth and chew down on the nutty gorgeous milkiness but I don’t know if it’s coming from me or the chocolate bar.

It’s over pretty quickly. The girl is looking and I smile down at her. She smiles back, an empty mouthed gummy grin that reminds me of my elderly neighbour Gladys. Gladys has no teeth and always talks to me about the weather. “It’s a cold one tonight Gerald!” She often roars at me, for she’s partially deaf too.

The girl does nothing but look at me and my chocolate smeared mouth, smiling with her eyes as well as her gums. I look after the mother as she leads her daughter away then and I think of Carol from work. Her curls, that smile, her business suits and her high heeled red shoes that made me think of things that wouldn’t normally have occurred to me, the seedy pink of a neon sign, the deep red of the London underground logo, my sisters heart shaped calculator and the red of my own burning cheeks whenever I’d speak to any woman, least of all her.

I’m in the bread aisle. The Pastries and the cakes bubble around in their little containers with Perspex lids, like popcorn they fizz and jump about. I don’t wait for them to speak, I grab a jam doughnut and a pecan slice and I eat them. My eyelids flutter and I feel tremulous and weak at the knees. I forget my diet, I forget that constant fear of what people think. I remember that life is for living and doing what you want and I remember that what I want right now is this, even if it isn’t human contact or comfort, but just the sensation of taste. At least it’s something tangible and constant, transgressive and brilliant, something man made and all for me.

I wipe my hands on my brown t-shirt, the pastry flakes floating down to the tiled rubbery floor of the supermarket. I shuffle on, dropping my original basket, the cans of tuna, the chicken, the skimmed milk and vegetables rattling about like lobsters in a fishermans cage.

I need more. I open up a packet of biscuits and I quickly consume them all.

“Do it do it do it!” scream the Digestives.

“I am!” I wail, crumbs flying from my mouth and peppering the laughing packages on the shelves in front of me. I drop the pack to the floor, half eaten, half broken, giggling to itself in a mania entirely of my own making.
I remember my office. I remember Carol smiling at me. I remember her bringing me cups of coffee with a little Rich Tea resting on the side of the saucer. I remember the little smiley faces she left on the post it notes she gave to me when she took one of my calls. The little love hearts she did over the tops of all of her letter i’s instead of dots. She had large teeth but I liked that about her. She wore white blouses and blue skirts and she snorted through her nose when she was on the phone laughing as she sat at her desk on her lunch breaks, not knowing that I was watching, unable to tear my eyes away from her.

“Yeah baby! Faster faster faster!” The crisps section is a particular low point. I eat about eight packets, sitting on the floor right there with the grease coating my fingers and the salt stinging the little coldsores that rest upon the corners of my mouth like twin barnacles.

Then I hit the fizzy drinks, I hit the cheeses and I hit the cured meats. My T-shirt is soaked in various stains and is sticky to the touch and my breathing is laboured and inconstant as, my mouth crammed full of produce, I am forced to breathe through my nose which is blocked with the cold I’ve been struggling to shake off for the last couple of weeks.

And then I’m sat on the floor, my fist plunged into a jar of strawberry jam that’s moaning softly to itself and crying out my name and laughing and telling me that it doesn’t mind if I want to touch it. I take another paw and scoop it into my mouth and I feel like a bear. A disgusting bear.

And yet again I'm finished and I toss the jar aside, ripe with shame and saturated in crumbs and filth. Then just as I feel that pang of disgust I turn my head and I realise I’m being watched. Two men stand, one wears the incongruously coloured uniform of the supermarket, he’s young and open mouthed. The other wears a dark woollen jumper and peaked hat, he’s proud of his job as an enforcer here and his arms fold slowly. He makes no effort to hide his contempt for me. I don’t blame him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Eating,”

“Well are you going to pay for any of that?”

“To be honest I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I think you’d better put that down and come with us sir,”
I try to get up but I can’t so I roll over on my front and push myself up onto my knees with my hands. I then stand up with a little assistance from the younger of the two. Brett, as his name badge declares, is a young man whose hair is tightly gelled in a series of spikes that are dyed blonde at the tips. I can tell he does not appreciate this situation being a part of his day, his breath smells of mints and as he looks down at me his aftershave is overpowering but not strong enough to stop me looking up his nostrils and being shocked at the vast quantities of nasal hair that exists there.

“I’m sorry about this,”

“Well, that’s ok, but you really need to pay for this stuff.”

“I’ve been feeling a little out of touch lately.” My brow’s pouring with sweat and all I can think of is Carol’s beautiful plump behind on that final day at work as she stood at the window pulling the blinds in my office, my hand itching and making that fateful manouevre, groping and grasping for her curved leering femininity and not knowing what it was going to cost me. And I also hear the chocolate bar all over again as I remember what I did, and the moment in that office when I knew I was going to do it. What are you queer? Go on touch me.

“Well you can’t go around just taking in sight you know,” said Brett.

“I know that.”

“You’re going to have to come with us.”

“Yeah,”

Brett walks first with the security guard following, polished shoes tapping on the linoleum floor, his breath on my neck and his hand on my shoulder. And I look then, at the gleaming lights and the ringing tills and I listen to the murmur of the customers and the squeaking of the trolleys wheels and I swear that I can hear the distant laughter of the food ringing in my ears.

“Do it!” It cries, “Go on do it!”

Gardener

It was only now, later on standing on the lawn, lathered in oily sweat and with one arm swinging the leaf blower in a lazy slow motion arc, that he considered the dreamlike quality of the valium he had taken and how much he was enjoying himself.
His hooded eyes blinked steadily beneath his sunglasses like a pair of sheets on a washing line in a mild breeze, coolly rising and falling in their docile summer manner. The vibrations from the leaf blower skittered and shuddered pleasingly, sending a constant rhythmic massaging up his load bearing arm as it swung left to right in that 180 degree turn, scything the leaves and hubris into the packed brown earth at the sides of the lawn with its breath.
He stood, feet locked into position on the lawn, and slowly, after letting go of the ignition trigger and allowing the blower to die out, lowered it. It hung from the strap on his shoulders, loose by his side like a firearm. His arm still felt the residue of the vibrations, much like an eardrum that’s been too near to a powerful speaker. His muscles felt muffled, warped and fuzzy, the sensation pleased him. Swaying slightly in the closeness of the afternoon and the haze of the drugs he surveyed his handiwork so far. A spotless lawn.
There was still work to be done though. The rolling grass of the Radford families’ garden still needed cutting, the expansive flowerbeds had to be weeded thoroughly and the willow tree out front needed pruning. It was hard work and involved long hours but it would please his father to see him do it, never mind the fact that he didn’t have a choice in the matter. At least it had got him out of the house on a good day, he couldn’t argue with the weather.
He ran his tongue along the backs of his top teeth slowly, stopping at the right hand side of his mouth and poking his tongue out of the corner. He tentatively felt a solitary downy hair that protruded over the edge of his top lip – a survivor from last night’s wet shave. The tip of his tongue poked at it gently, flicking it and enjoying the dextrous pinnacle of contact between hair and soft flesh.
Crickets sounded out in the afternoon air and the sky was a piercing blue. The shade was almost exactly the same fulsome colour as the eyes of his Aunt Deb’s old dog Princie. The dog was deaf and stupid and brought nothing but bad odours and soiled carpets with it wherever it went. He remembered seeing Princie’s grave in Aunt Debs back garden some years previously and recalled feeling nothing but contempt for the little punk and the way that it had died, running out into the road and getting splattered over the tarmac like a little bundle of bloody rags.
Globules of sweat formulated on the back of his neck, convalesced at the top of his spine and ran down the bare stretch of skin that met the edge of his vest like the shore meets the bubbled cream of the ocean. He spat a long lazy jet of phlegm infused saliva, failing to notice it splattering onto the tip of his steel toe capped boot. He surveyed the garden around him and the thickening heavy cloak of atmosphere that the heat created and decided that he didn’t really mind being out here in the sun. This community service could turn out to be better than jail after all.

Later on he had moved onto the flowerbeds and was knelt in the hot powdered soil. Steadily he plunged his trowel around the green based stems of the weeds, forcing the blade down under the shallow roots and gouging the plants out. Afterward he tossed them over his shoulder into the wheelbarrow that stood behind, solemn and expectant.
He had realised by now the effects of the drugs and couldn’t help but feel grateful that Grandpa Ted had shattered his pelvis, leaving that veritable goldmine of pharmaceuticals at home ready to be pilfered. The Valium made the work a mildly surreal experience. He found it hard to concentrate, every few seconds he would find his attention slowly wondering off whilst his body continued to work away at its monotonous task. He felt as if he was in a pleasant dream and his brain was full of light feathered candy floss. His vision was clouded and white and his thoughts were inconsistent and tangential. Nothing mattered.
After a time he found his scattershot attention wondering aimlessly towards the Radford families outhouse. They had left it open so that he could access the assorted gardening paraphernalia contained within. Seemingly in no time at all and without knowing how he had got there, he was standing in the doorway swaying and surveying the place. It was a small stone building. The building reeked of organisation and seemed to have the idea of intent but absolutely no evidence of use at all, almost as if it was someone’s idea of something that they should own just so they could say they owned it rather than say they used it.
His attention was caught by the large refrigerator that stood proud and gleaming in the far left corner, resplendent in white with the fiercely minimal logo emblazoned on its door. He glided over to it immediately and tugged it open. Inside he found precisely what he had hoped would be there. He helped himself to a six pack.
The shuffle back to the flowerbed and the glare outside was decisive and quick and soon he was sat in the dirt chugging down the beers and drifting off in a glazed fantasy entirely of his own making. He chose not to think about the job at hand or the commitments and promises he had allowed himself to make to his father and that septic judge at the court. As he drank he lay on his back, propping himself up on an elbow, his head falling backwards happily, his sharply featured face and sweat licked hair dreamily lolling in the sun. The bright red handle of the trowel protruded from the ground next to him, patiently buried and waiting to be removed like poor little Princie in Aunt Deb’s garden all the way across town.

It was at least three hours later that he awoke – flat on his back and gently reeling back to the land of the living like a handful of sand tossed down the windshield of a car, tumbling wayward and steady; irregular but true.
Confused, he tugged his sunglasses off and saw the cans of beer scattered all around him. Specks of dirt peppered his arms where he had lain in the dirt. The sky was by now carrot orange and darkening fast.
He rose steadily and began to pick up the empty cans, loading them into the wheel barrow along with the few odd weeds, roots and leaves that he had cleared from the flowerbeds earlier. He then pushed the barrow to the top of the garden as fast as his legs would allow him. Once there he quickly scrabbled in the dirt, making a hole with his hands and cursing his forgotten trowel. When the hole was big enough he threw the empties in and hastily kicked the dirt back over them and pushed the good earth in with his boots, stamping on it hard. He then emptied the contents of the barrow on top.
After wheeling the barrow back down the garden, filling it with tools and transporting them all to the outhouse, he was getting himself ready to leave, all the while preparing the lies that would be required to explain why the day’s work quota had not been met when the sound of a car pulling up on the driveway stopped him short.
The floodlight came on as the car door opened, anticipating the night no doubt but unnecessary in the crepuscular glow of the late July summer fade. The sound of the hard soles on the paving slabs as whoever it was climbed out of the car echoed out. He was reminded of the sound of the corridors at school, of the hallways of police stations and of the emergency room. The car door shut crisply and the footsteps drew closer. The driver of the car was alone, there was no other discernible sound coming from fellow passengers. No other sound emanated – it had not been locked.
The gate swung open as he stood there awkwardly still and shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. He was suddenly illuminated by the false glow of the floodlight, no longer covered as he had been before, by the criss-crossed shadows of the wall and the vinery that climbed up it. Mrs Radford stopped as she saw him. He could only make out her outline which was lit from behind. He blinked but said nothing, he tried to make out her features but he could not.
She took a step forward then and walked towards him. She was svelte and lithe with her narrow waist. She wore a white summer dress with a large black belt. Her hair was made up in a late 60’s style bouffant bob. It was shadowy brown and probably dyed but it was hard to make out.
“You the gardener?”
“Yes.”
“Working a little late aren’t you?”
“I guess. Just finishing up actually.”
“It’s David isn’t it?”
“No its-”
“What happened to David?”
“I don't know. They sent me.”
“God. No one tells me anything.”
He stared back at her blankly and suppressed the urge to shrug.
“You drink?”
“No.”
“What?”
“You heard me I’m not drunk.”
“Slow down. I’m asking you if you’d like a drink.”
“Oh.”
“Lets try this again...Do you want to come in for a drink?” She repeated herself slow and sarcastic as if she was talking to a retard.
“Yes.”
She nodded towards the French doors that led from the patio into the house directly into the lounge. He stood silently as she sloped over.
Sloped is a good way to describe Mrs Radford. She moved quickly and coolly, swaying slightly from side to side with her bouffant head drifting and her perfect behind shuffling after her in a narcoleptic drag of movement. She didn’t look at him as she pulled the keys from her bag, put them in the lock, turned them and opened the door and walked inside. He followed her.

As he surveyed the spacious lounge area of the house in all of its softly lit ambience he was stuck by the capricious nature of the place. Seemingly old and homely bits and pieces lived incongruously with intellectual and modernist looking items and furniture. It was as if two different minds had clashed and compromised on an uneasy alliance over the decor. A battered leather chez lounge was stationed next to a minimalistic and expensive looking metallic table whilst a large shelf of old dusty novels with yellow pages lived right next to a black marble plinth upon which rested some shapeless and challenging stone sculpture. The carpets were cream coloured and clean and the 4 lamps that stood in each corner of the room were tall and heavily shaded in 30’s style Chinese imitation velvet with tassels at the bottom. He didn’t like this place all that much – it didn’t fit. They didn’t even have a fucking TV.
Mrs Radford was busying herself on the other side of the room, crouched down and flicking through a wooden box of records with her painted dextrous fingernails. She found the one she was looking for and put the record onto the hi-fi with great care and attention. He stayed where he was; close by the French doors and slightly unsure of himself and his surroundings, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans and the sweat on the back of his vest drying out slow.
After the initial tinny fluffy crackling sounds an acoustic guitar picking out a haunting melody drifted out of seemingly every corner of the room.
“I insisted we get surround sound,” she explained matter of factly after noticing him turn his head quizzically. “It’s the only way to listen to music. As soon as technology becomes available – you invest. That’s progress.”
He nodded his head slowly, his eyes not leaving her. He wondered when that drink was going to arrive already.
“Leonard Cohen.” Again she nodded at the stereo. “I don’t expect you to have heard of him. This song is about the French resistance in World War Two.”
“Oh.”
“You have heard of France haven’t you?” She smirked.
Again he said nothing. Sometimes it’s better to say nothing, sometimes you don’t have anything to say.
She smiled wryly at having failed to get a rise out of him and walked exactly four paces to her left to the sideboard that stood against the wall where she started to prepare some drinks.
“I like to listen to him every night. His voice on his earlier recordings has a hauntingly bleak quality that helps me relax. I can relate to the tragedy in his voice because I’ve experienced a lot of tragedy in my life.”
“Yeah,”
“Whiskey Soda?
“Ok.”
She held the drink up in one hand, offering it to him without moving and smiling at him as she did. After a moment he realised that she wanted him to come to her. He obliged, leaving a trail of muddy footprints on the cream carpet as he went that stretched from the French doors to just one step in front of her, some twelve ft covered. Her green eyes flicked down to look at the stains.
“Do you know what else I do when I come home?”
“No.”
“Bring me my bag.” She said smiling broadly.
He turned his head. He was still high he realised.
“It’s on the table over there.” She pointed and sipped her drink, clunking the ice against the inner ridged indentations and sides of her glass. He could hear the lemon fizzing. She wanted him to walk past the creamy blue leather couches and go to the large glass topped table on the far right of the room where her bag rested.
He trudged across to fetch it and brought it back to her leaving fresh footprints along the carpet on the way. Why not? It didn’t bother him in the slightest to do it. In actual fact he enjoyed it.
“Thank you dear.” She touched a hand to his elbow, “Sit down.”
“Thanks. My legs are sore. From the work I mean.”
“Get much done?”
“A little. I fell asleep though.”
“Oh?”
“I was tired.”
“Mike is just gonna love you.”
He could only assume she meant Mr Radford. He looked across at the photo on the wall. The grey hair, side parted, the gold rimmed wire glasses, that beaming smile and the felt tip red coloured tie and powder blue suit. He sure looked like a Mike. He looked like a fucking prick.
“Yeah it was hot.”
Mrs Radford pulled out a small Tupperware box from her bag and sat on the couch next to him. She was close enough for him to be able to smell her hair and make out the freckles on her thin nose and the tiny blonde hairs that coated her top lip in ever so faint brushstrokes. His tongue flicked at the rogue hair at the corner of his own mouth as he looked at her.
“It certainly was,” she said, removing a long thin joint from the box and lighting it.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“And why are you here?”
“You asked me.”
She held the joint up and waved it slightly, as if she was writing her name in the air with its tip.
“This is something I like to do; it helps to break up my day. My day really needs breaking.” she giggled, “I mean why are you here today? What did you do?”
“I stole a car.”
“Just one?
“No.”
She laughed.
He accepted the joint from her and sucked at its tip greedily, his lungs inflating and ingesting the smoke. They were a pair of bellows inside him.
“You don’t say much do you?”
He smoked, surveying the back of his hand and looking at the distance between it and her knee, how the distance between their bodies caused his spatial focus to shift ever so slightly in a noncommittal tectonic shift.
“I like that,” she continued, “God knows I hear people talking all day long and I swear that not a single one of them ever actually says anything. You should hear my husband. He thinks so much of himself – he thinks he’s so damned smart in his suit and his office and with all of his money.But really what’s money Mike? What is it? Happiness is coming home at the end of the day and being satisfied with everything that you’ve done. Bob Dylan said that you know, you’ve probably never heard of him.”
She slouched in her seat still further as she talked and talked but he wasn’t really listening to what she was saying. He didn’t really care. She was boring.
All the goddamned adults and parents always found some reason to feel dissatisfied with the lives they had built for themselves. They all found ways to blame circumstance for the way things had gone rather than their own goddamn shoddy decision making. He was tired of it. Stupid people and their stupid lousy tiresome ways. Everybody had their own fucking agenda, he wished they would just admit it and stick to it and stop blowing off about it and bothering him with their problems.
“Are you hungry? I could kill for some olives. Do you like olives?”
He did not like olives.
“No I don’t want any of your damn olives.”
“Well I do. Be a doll and get me some from the kitchen.”
He didn’t move.
“Listen kid, I want some olives and I want to sit in my house and listen to my music. Do I need to remind you who’s here on community service here and who is the owner of this house? Mike had them imported from Sicily. A young man like you should love olives – they’re sophisticated and delicious and it’s important that you try them.”
He rose without a word. Sometimes it’s best just to let people have their way. It saves time.
He floated through the lounge into the hallway, hovering to the sound of the soft acoustic guitar with his head lolling and rolling around like the ice in his empty glass that he was still carrying by his side. He could faintly hear Mrs Radford singing in the lounge.
Before he knew it he was in the kitchen opening the overstocked fridge and removing the jar of olives and then he was turning and walking right back to the lounge. This felt like a lucid dream. The slow burning soft unreality of the day and the sound of the judges voice booming down at him in court and the sound of his father’s disappointed voice and the feeling of not actually caring about anything except yourself and not feeling guilty about it and not feeling obligated to do anything you don’t want to do just because someone else thinks you should do it. This was the uncertain sensation of knowing something is out there and knowing that maybe you want it and feeling that maybe you’ve got a God given entitlement to it but knowing that you’ll probably not be able to do anything about it and that you’ll feel bad about it but at the end of the day it really just doesn’t matter that much.
“Wow the whole jar. How spontaneous of you.”
Sarcasm washed over him. She laughed to herself a little. “I want you to try one of these. I guarantee you’ll like it – it’s important for you to like them because they’re new to you and you should always try something new and because they wouldn’t make them if they weren’t good.”
As he reluctantly held his hand out he heard a key turn in the door.
Mrs Radford placed a handful of olives in his palm and turned towards the doorway that led through to the kitchen and through to the rest of the house.
“Mike’s home.”
She turned and placed one hand on one hip and stood defiantly with her legs apart firm and implanted on the carpet like the gardener had been implanted on the lawn earlier that day. She was watching the doorway intently as they both stood listening to the sounds of Mr Radford arriving, the shuffle of his shoes on the tiles of the kitchen, the sound of his keys being placed on the kitchen table and the sound of him sighing heavily, punctuated by a silence that could well have been him rubbing his bleary eyes beneath his glasses or him running a hand along the smoothed line of his jaw.
“Hello husband,” she said as Mike walked into the room.
He looked just like his photo, jowly and fortyish andwearing the wire gold framed spectacles. He wore a grey suit and grey shoes that matched his grey eyes and his grey hair. He looked tired and small.
“Aren’t you going to say hi to our guest?”
Mr Radford didn’t say a word; he just looked down at the footprints on the carpet.
“I said aren’t you going to say hi darling?”
She was actually pretty drunk. He looked at her in profile as she stood up and pointed at her husband with her drink. She was still a pretty fine looking woman; he had to give her that. She had all the right things in all the right places. It was just a shame she had to be the same as all the others.
“You know what Mike you arrive here late again and you don’t even say one word to me. Not a single word of greeting. Not only that but you also don’t even look at me. Not a glance. Nothing at all! You walk in the door and your first thought is to look at the floor. I just can’t believe you. I’m your wife Mike. I’d have been the mother of your children too if you’d have been fucking capable Mike. Even now I’m talking to you, addressing you like a real life grown-up and you don’t have the guts to talk back or answer to me! You can’t can you!”
Mike Radford followed the footprints on the floor with his eyes. He looked at the gardener.
“I’ve had more goddamn words of wisdom from this boy in fifteen minutes than I’ve had from you in a damn lifetime of marriage!” She smoothed her hair down with one hand. The gardener looked on. “You know I look at myself in the mirror and all I can see is potential. I’ve been wasted and I’ve been squandered and it’s a goddamn tragedy! You’re a lousy husband, you’re a lousy man and you didn’t fucking nurture me the way I should have been nurtured! I’m all your fault!”
She swayed slightly as she stood, pointing at her husband accusingly, her teeth bared in all their white brilliance like perfect little stalactites. She’d obviously been building up to that.
“I’ve said it before Mike and now I’ve said it again. And I still mean it.” She reached into the jar and pulled out an olive and popped it in her mouth and chewed furiously as she started to cry.
The gardener stood watching the Radfords. Mr Radford watched his wife. She was chewing olives and crying in loud cloying choking breaths in between removing the olive stones from her mouth and dropping them onto the floor petulantly. She stamped her feet and made little sobbing and whinnying noises in between chewing. It was dark outside but dimly lit in the room. The record played on.
God he thought to himself. It’s like some people enjoy being unhappy. They’ve got nothing else to talk about.
Mr Radford took off his jacket. He tossed it onto the floor over the footprints and went to get himself a drink. He didn’t care.
Upon seeing this, Mrs Radford gave an almighty sob. It had been no good; her words had just bounced off him. After she exhaled with the cry she bent over, then as she stood back up she inhaled sharply.
Too sharply.
Suddenly before she knew it she was choking on an olive. Mr Radford watched as his wife hunched over where she stood, coughing loudly in a series of quick painful braying contortions. Her face was red and blotchily purple as she struggled for breath and there was unbridled panic in her eyes. Her bouffant hair wobbled wildly as her hand clutched at her lovely neck and she looked about desperately. She simply couldn’t breathe. She looked up, trying to signal what was happening to her.
He looked over at Mr Radford who had not moved and was watching his wife choke, impassively sipping his drink and ignoring his desperate wife with the immutable face of a Roman statue.
There was only one thing for it, his hand had been forced. Cursing loudly the gardener quickly grabbed Mrs Radford from behind, hitching his interlocked and fisted hands beneath her ribcage and heaving inwards and upwards as hard as he could. Mr Radford watched the whole thing play out calmly, never taking his eyes from his wife for a minute.
When it was all done with and the olive stone stuck in Mrs Radford’s airway had been dislodged after three hefty and costly heaves he stood away from her. She crouched coughing away on all fours like a dog. Like little dead Princie used to do when he fouled up the carpet somewhere. Mr Radford had not moved a muscle. He still hadn’t even spoken.
The gardener breathed heavily as the record came to a grinding halt. He opened up his fist and looked down to see the small handful of olives crushed up into a paste and smeared on his palm. He wiped his hand on the expensive looking couch cushions.
No one spoke and it was pretty clear that it was time to leave so he did. He didn’t say anything to either of them. He knew he probably wouldn’t have to.

Brief Snapshot

Picture the scene. It’s my birthday. I’m ill. I’m 17 years old. Mum and dad are still on speaking terms at this point but the cracks have long since started to show and there’s a fat fruit cake in front of me. This is the moment right now as I look down where I get a feeling of ultimate serene dissatisfaction and I realise that I don’t enjoy birthdays anymore. I resolve to drink nothing but alcohol for the rest of the night.

Picture the scene. It’s the last summer I spent at home before leaving and not going back. I’m standing at the bar serving lukewarm drinks to lukewarm people and smiling to myself as I realise I’m going to steal the tenner from the 12.50 I just got, running the whole round through as just one drink.

Picture the scene. Me losing my virginity a lot later on than I’d led everybody I know to believe I had. My drunken hands fumble at her bra and my solitary bloodshot eye traces the outline of her lips and teeth and the imperceptible fair hair at the corners of her mouth. I wonder how on earth I have managed to do this and I do not realise that this is all going to end embarrassingly for me in just five minutes time.

Picture the scene. I’m 13, I’m alone and I’m burying my brother’s guinea pig in the back garden after it finally fucking died. I drop it into the shallow grave I have dug for it and I fill it up with spadefuls of decomposing grass and dirt stone and shit from the compost heap nearby. I don’t feel much at the time but for days afterward I have nagging feelings of remorse about burying him in compost and I think about the grass and clay sediment clumping down on him, getting in his fur and teeth as he lies there on his back, feet facing dead upright in the air. I conclude then that I am against the ownership of animals.

Picture the scene. I’m sat at a funeral right at the front of the church. It’s his funeral. I’m watching the vicar read the eulogy that I wrote but was too scared to deliver. I look down at my hands and remember how they shook so damn much when I was writing it that I could scarcely hold the pen much less right the words. I stare down dry eyed and listening to the people around me sniffling away, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.

Picture the scene. It’s me on holiday in Spain aged twenty and devouring pages of Hemingway. I’m sitting and thinking and folding pages so I can come back to them to reread and saying over and over to myself “God could I ever write like that?” No I decide. I don’t even bother to try.

Picture the scene. Its five minutes ago and I’m stood looking out of my window watching the child on the roof a couple of doors down from me aiming a toy gun at the traffic below and pretending to kill everyone out there. I sympathise with him and I want him to turn round and see me watching him so I can give him a fraternal wave. He doesn’t though and I find myself feeling actually a little bit relieved.

Picture the scene. I’m drunk yet again sitting opposite a girl on what I think might be a date. The boundaries have not been set so I pepper my conversation with eye contact and genuine interest rather than my usual mutterings and ignorant grunts of acknowledgement. Her thespian friends soon arrive though and I feel strange and out of place and unable to contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way. I make my excuses and leave, walking to the bus station and feeling in some way vindicated for going. On the bus I feel like I’ve made a big mistake and I'm embarrassed even though I'm on my own.

Picture the scene. Picture the scene. Pick that one or another one or any one of hundreds of others like it. Pick any one you like if you want. There’s no narrative and there’s no rich interwoven tapestry or incredible fabric of meaning. It’s just several choice cuts of things that have happened to me. That’s all it is and that's all it has to be and then it’s all over and no one is the wiser for it no matter what they might think. To be honest you might as well just not have bothered.

Last Supper

...Shocked and looking across the pinewood table at Paul she could barely register a word he was saying.
“I’m sorry to have to do it like this but I just feel like I owe you the truth.” His hands were laid open on the table, palms upward and facing the ceiling in an almost holy pose. His eyes looked teary and suffused with what she felt was blatant faux sincerity.”You know I pride myself on my honesty. I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t true.”
Christine stared at the plate of food she had lovingly prepared earlier. Prawn cocktail, his favourite. The prawns had been stacked up in a tower that was shaped like a rook from a chess set. The tower was carefully placed on a mixed bed of dry crispy kelp and rocket and fashioned to look like a remote cliff top retreat. She had elaborated by fashioning little rocks for the base of the tower from croutons and had then coloured them dark with minute droplets of balsamic vinegar to give them an added sense of authenticity. Melon balls lay in pools of salted water crafted to look like buoys as if they had just drifted in from a windswept Nordic sea. The bread rolls had been carved to look like seagulls and were positioned so that they were bent over, dipping their crispy beaks into small nests of butter that sat on each side plate.
She was especially proud of the birds sculptures. She had specifically researched breeds of gull native to North Western Europe and had taken great care to ensure that every aspect of their physiology had been accurately recreated.
“God what a waste” she thought. The meal sat uneaten and mocking now, a bitter metaphor for her relationship.
“I think you know this will be better for us in the long term. Things haven’t been right between us for a long time now have they? I mean, you can’t say that this hasn’t been coming.” He leaned back in his chair cooly and placed his hands behind his head. “You work such long hours and you know that I have my needs as a man– at the end of the day I don’t feel that I’m being stimulated anymore...and that’s down to you.” He paused, clearly thinking, before continuing earnestly. “Try and look at it objectively. Now you can concentrate on your cooking more. You can really push for that star! I’m only holding you back. If you think about it what’s really happening is I’m helping you out by leaving. I’m doing this for your benefit. Long term I mean.”
She looked up at him then and was disgusted with herself for still finding him so handsome. Wordlessly she began to set about her prawn cocktail with relish. She brought the fork down on top of the tower and sliced it right down the middle in one clean stroke. She then slowly and deliberately broke off the seagulls head with her left hand. She speared two of the round melon buoys, mashed some of the prawns onto them and crammed the whole lot into her mouth, fork following fist grotesquely.
She chewed furiously...


Christine stood in her kitchen proudly with her hands on her hips. She looked at the huge fridge and the huge freezer, the blackened hobs and the steel sinks and smelled deeply the various fatty aromas and steams that arose all around. The kitchen porters were miserable, the waiters were distracted and the chefs were stressed, all was as it should be. This was her restaurant and tonight was her night.
Her chefs’ smock was almost a part of her now, it was the skin that she might shed at night but would never really take off. Her hat was customised and replete with a feather and numerous badges that demonstrated drama; elegance; humour; colour. Her trousers were striped rather than checked and she wore customised rubber non-slip shoes that cost her over £500 and that she insisted were worth every single penny. Everything about her screamed success, she just needed the reviews to prove it.


...She finished off the culinary trompe l’oeil with gusto and attempted to wipe the remnants of seafood sauce from her chin. With the napkin that she had concertinaed and fanned out to look like the tail of a peacock she wiped it, accidentally smearing her lipstick as she did so and giving the right corner of her mouth an inadvertent prostitutes finish. Paul was still talking.
“I mean after all I lent you the money didn’t I? I think that it’s only fair that I see my investment returned to me. We’ll be needing it you see – so we can find a new place. Of course you can keep the flat; I wouldn’t want to see you on the street...”
Christine reached out, took a fat swig of the by now thoroughly depleted bottle of white wine and reached for her cigarettes.
“I don’t want to hurt you Christine but it’s a necessary evil. I MUST go to her. I have to be happy, I owe it to myself – I deserve it.” His nostrils quivered and his eyes widened. “My god you’re not smoking mid-meal are you?”
She looked at him as she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Paul’s careful comb-over looked ready to flop down over his brow. She could swear steam was about to spurt up from the rim of his cashmere turtleneck sweater.
“This is my flat and I’ll smoke whenever I like Paul.” She signalled with her fork at his plate. “Are you gonna eat that?”
Without waiting for an answer she stood up and walked around the table and took his plate from him. Ash dropped onto his hand. She sat back down and begun to demolish his meal, pulling merrily on the cigarette in between mouthfuls and chugging wine down fervently...

Tonight was the unveiling of the new menu. Tonight Dan Nelson, esteemed critic from The Standard was coming. His opinion was important; with his badge of approval she would be right on track for the Michelin star. She clenched her fists – she was nervous and she didn’t mind admitting it. She decided to have a quick check out front to make sure everything was ok.
Bursting out of the double doors and into the dining area she surveyed the place. Rackwells, her beloved restaurant. She adored every inch of this place, the low ceilings, the curved alcoves cut into the rustic stone walls and the casual elegantly lit vinery that garbed the bar and the doorways and the trellises by the tables like a cool summer gown. She loved the tables too, the green wine bottles with red candles stuffed into the necks, the glistening cutlery and the cloud white plates decked out across the surfaces.
There was no music; there was just the quiet murmur of voices and the clink and the clank of service. The sound was all the music Christine needed, the bustle and noise of her own restaurant all she ever wanted to hear. It was a symphony to her.
She made her way over to the maitre d’, her non slip shoes squeaking on the wooden floor as she trod and looked him up and down for what felt like the millionth time. He’d been a hasty and recent appointment, replacing Paul at very short notice.
“Simon are we set?”
“Yeah we’re all good.” He had the air of a man who’d been asked the same question thousands of times before.
“Have Maggie go all around the free tables’ one more time, I don’t want any marks on those bloody glasses.”
“She’s already done it twice.”
“Look I just want everything to be perfect. Go and tell her will you.”
“Whatever you say Chrissie.”
“It’s Christine.”
“Christine.” She was sure she could detect a hint of sarcasm in his eyes.
He was an odious little man, squat and flat footed. He was completely bald yet he still somehow managed to maintain a thorough crop of pube like hair that at all times could be seen at the top of his neck, front and back. Christine was confident that the hair covered almost every inch of his torso like an enormous wiry fur rug. She had a sense for these things.
She checked her watch. 8.50pm. Nelson would at least be on his way by now.


...”Christine!” Paul exclaimed. “Can’t we be grown up about this?”
Christine finished off the food and burped. She took off her glasses and then laid them on the table next to a stray crouton that had slipped from the plate in the frenzy of fork and knife and malice that she had just exacted on his starter.
“Why? Are you hungry Paul?”
“I’m sorry ok! I know this isn’t what you had in mind when you invited me round here.”
“You got that right.”
“Look we just connected. These things happen. I was powerless-“
“Your dick was powerless. You knew what you were doing.”
“Her and I, we have everything in common. You and I, well all we have is Rackwells. Our restau-“
“My fucking restaurant Paul. Mine.”
“Bought with my money. All I’m asking is a little recompense now and the rest by the end of next month. That’s not too much to ask is it? I need it. WE need it.”
“What so you and your bit of fluff can settle down and have wee pompous kiddies, feeding them foie gras and soufflé instead of baby food whilst I’m out on my arse and bankrupt? No thanks.”
“When you get angry you get vulgar. It’s more than a little pathetic.”
“Well I guess that’s the Glasgow in me love.” She pursed her lips and shook her head slowly. She felt sick...

Christine watched Simon closely from behind the bar. He looked like he’d been squashed into his suit. How was she supposed to create a good impression tonight with that troglodyte greeting the guests? He didn’t have Paul’s casual grace or his winning smile.
She shook herself, violently shrugging off the memory of him. She had to remain on task. Tonight was too important. She poured herself the third nerve steadying drink of the night. It was a healthy one; four parts gin to one part ginger ale. She raised it to her lips and put it down again before adding a cube of ice to take the edge off.
She drank lustily and thought about the evening. She’d seat Nelson in the corner so he’d have the optimum view of the restaurant, letting him see her team of handpicked waiters zipping about the dining room like cross pollinating bees. Then it would be on to the meet and greet. She’d send Simon over there and she’d watch him closely, reading his lips and making sure he stuck closely to the script she’d given him, the “Hello sir”, the “May I take your jacket?”, the “How was your journey?” She’d watch the oily smiles and the casual small talk, the open and over friendly body language and the insipid yet necessary sycophancy. She’d drilled it into Simon and God help him if he failed to deliver.
She savoured the tang of the fiery liquid at the back of her throat and winced as she swallowed it down, feeling it carve a trail right down to her empty stomach. It was up to her tonight. She had to take the bull by the balls. This was her meal and that was where the buck stopped. She finished the last of the drink and poured herself another, bigger than the last.
As she poured she looked down at her hands. They looked gross and pulpy to her, sallow and fat. She stared through casually unfocused eyes at the veins as they seemed to become more tumescent, increasing their blue colour and practically glowing beneath her paper like skin. She could feel them throbbing and pulsating, her hands two balloons at the end of each of her arms inflating and deflating steadily like two autonomous bags of the darkest blood imaginable. She thought deeply about what she had done. She thought of Paul.

...By now she was drunk. She had finished off all the wine in a matter of minutes, recklessly throwing it back purely because it would irritate him.
“You’re being churlish Chrissie.”
She laughed cruelly. Turning her hurt feelings into something far darker.
“The thing is Paul, that I actually don’t care about what you say. I really don’t.” She placed both hands on the table and leaned forward violently as she uttered the final word, lurching forward a little in her drunken state. The flame on the candle nearest to her blew out in spiteful exhalation. “I never have.”
“Look maybe I should just leave. It’s obvious that I’m not going to get any adult conversation here. I had hoped that I could do this sensibly but obviously you’re not going to let that happen.”
“Obviously.”
He turned in his seat and made to rise, ready to leave and glad to do it but stalled at the look on Christine’s face. She was suddenly contrite and anxious for him to stay; she wanted to postpone the finality of his departure.
“Please wait.” Her voice cracked slightly – more than she intended. “At least eat this last meal with me.”
He sighed in that pompous way of his and sat once more, humouring his drunken companion. He maintained his disinterested air.
“Can I at least eat this course myself then?”...

9.30pm. it was time. Christine hurried into the kitchen yelling orders to the staff. She was a dictator, this was her country and these were her subjects working her land. As the staff set about their tasks she went to the doors and peered out the porthole, swaying slightly as she watched Simon who was glancing at his watch. It was 9.45. The front doors swung open.

...They ate the roast beef in silence. It had been quite badly overcooked as it had sat neglected and temporarily forgotten in the oven. It was now tough and chewy. Minutes passed.
“So are you going to tell me her name then?”
“Isabel.”
Christine drank yet more wine. The tone had become slightly more cordial now as she settled into the slow acceptance that the relationship was over. However she had still opted for the most expensive Bordeaux they had and had taken great pleasure in Pauls slow realisation, disapproval and attempts at concealing his irritation.
“And what does she do?”
“She’s a journalist.”
“Oh?”
He said nothing. He spooned another mouthful of steak into his mouth followed by some damp looking red cabbage. He visibly forced it down.
“And what does she write?”
“She’s a critic.”
“Film? Theatre? The NME?”
“Don’t be facetious. I think you can take a bloody good guess at what kind of critic she is.”
“Of course!” Yes of course. A food critic; she simply had to be. Christine found herself practically choking on the irony. “What paper?”
“The Standard.”
She emitted a small cry that was for the most part bitter laughter but was also part abject dismay. She then really started to laugh. Bitter little bursts of air squirted out of her nose as her shoulders shook, it was too much. She took another drink, composing herself. It really was an excellent wine.
“There’s a critic from the Standard coming to Rackwell’s next week you know.”
“I did know that actually.”
“I bet you did.”...

A woman walked into the restaurant. Her shoulder length brown hair shook like a shampoo advert as she glided over to Simon who was busy mopping his brow with a red handkerchief. Christine watched them exchanging words. Simon reached behind his head absent mindedly and began twiddling the hair at the back of his neck between his forefinger and his thumb. He pointed at the corner table – the table reserved for Dan Nelson. Christine rested her head against the glass wearily. Her breath steamed against the glass as Simon turned and approached.
He entered.
“Change of plan. Dan can’t make it tonight so they’ve sent someone else.”
“I saw.”
Simon shifted from one foot to the other, his furry hands stuffed into his pockets, waiting for Christine to say something and in no rush to hear it. She remained silent though he could swear he heard teeth grinding within her pursed lips. “So?...”
“So what?”
“I mean, what’s the plan?”
“Nothing’s changed Simon.” She lied.
“So there’s no change in script or anything?”
“Oh just use your judgement will you. That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“Ok.” He left. She didn’t need to watch him to know that his fixed automatic grin was etched across his fat shaven face.
Sighing she made her way to the kitchen. It was time for a menu adjustment.


...“How long?”
“A few weeks. A month and a half maybe.” He’d pushed the remainder of the beef away after painfully forcing three quarters of it down. “Did you make any dessert?”
“Raspberry cheesecake.”
“Oh, well you know I love cheesecake Chrissie. But I’ve got to admit, I’m a little full.”
“How about I bring it out and you can maybe just try a little...For me?”
“Well I suppose I could. I’ll give it a proper professional appraisal.” He winked at her.
Christine sashayed into the kitchen. She felt as if a keen buzzing noise was ghosting around inside her head. Like the alien ringing of tinnitus she felt it, the cool and deliberate fury of betrayal washing and lapping against the inside of her mind. On the breakfast bar the cheesecake lay. Next to it was the knife. She picked up the cake with a pointed glance back to the knife and carefully carried it back into the lounge where Paul sat at the table tapping away at his phone...

Starter

Slow cooked Hens Egg with Pearl Barley Parmesan Cream and Rosemary.

Main course:
Roast Loin of Salt Marsh Lamb with Rosemary Potatoes and Summery Salad moistened with Olive Oil.

Dessert
Mint and Chocolate Parfait with Fresh Mint Sorbet

She made her way to the walk in fridge. To her left as she walked in was a large blue ice box that had been sealed up with gaffa tape around the edges. She opened it up, using a knife to slice the tape apart. Inside the box were several sealed polythene bags containing various hunks of meat differing in size and girth. She chose the choicest cut she could. It was dark and wine red. Seams of blood ran down in rivulets and collected at the bottom corners of the bag as she held it up to the light, her breath steaming out and clouding the bag with condensation. This was all very fitting.
Soon she was cooking. She forgot all about the alcohol in her system and simply allowed its loosening effects to aid her. It was almost as if she was floating above herself watching her body work. Her nervousness ebbed away, as did all of her other emotions. All that was left was Paul, the way his hair fell, the olive hue of his skin and the way he airily waved his hands as he articulated himself. She thought of him inside her and between her legs at night and felt the burn and the pain of the thought of him doing the same with Isabel. She remembered the parties they’d been to and the friends she thought they had had. She remembered the thrill of opening the restaurant together and the first time he had walked her into this very kitchen standing behind her and edging her inside the doorway with a smile on his face and his hands over her eyes so as not to spoil that first wondrous surprise. She remembered vaguely the first time she had met him.
As she poured and kneaded and kept a watchful eye on cooking times she thought about how it was all over now and she thought about how her hand had been forced. She remembered the look of panic in his eyes and the flopping and flailing of his arms and his muffled cries of shock and horror in those final few violent moments.
And with all that came a liberation. She poured all her feelings into the food, right into the ingredients and the careful preparation, the sauces and the dressings and the delicate flourishes of presentation. Christine’s dark hair fell over her face as she worked, oblivious to everything around her as she stood, lost in her head and enjoying every glorious minute of the work.
The starter and the altered main course came and went in no time at all and as the final flourish of the dessert was completed she rang for service. When the ringer chimed out to her as loudly as any cathedral bell had ever done she started violently. Her hands started to shake and she could feel her pulse quicken in the aftermath of the catharsis she had just gone through.
Simon appeared through the doors ready to collect, his round flustered face all of a sudden a joy to look upon.
“You done?”
“Yes I think I am.”
“You think you are?”
“No. I know I am.”
“Ok.” He held out his hands.
“Actually I think I’ll take it to her myself.”

...“Paul.”
He looked up.
“Is there really nothing I can say to change your mind?”
His face softened.
“Chrissie baby. I’m sorry but I’m in love. And it’s not with you. We’re over.”
“Ok.” She breathed deeply. “But what about the restaurant?”
“I’d never take that away from you. But I want my money back, and I want it as soon as is possible. I don’t want things to have to get messy. Legally I mean.” He returned his attention to his phone. “It’s nothing personal you understand.”
“But you know I can’t afford!...” She stopped and collected herself.
“I’m sorry. But there’s nothing to be done about it.”
She made a monumental effort to force some cheer into her voice but it only came out as bitter and taut.
“Hey well at least we had this meal together eh? What did you think of it? Here.” Standing next to him at the end of the table she placed the cheesecake in front of him.
The buzzing in her head had begun again.
“Tell me what you think. How does it look? Do you like it? You always used to love my cheesecake Paul. That was the one thing you always said I did better than anybody else. You remember, I know you do. Chrissie you’d say, that cheesecake. That’s your speciality. Well here’s your favourite and just one last time I want you to try a bit and give me your honest opinion. It’s me you’re talking to here, it’s the same old me and it’s the same old cake! You won’t get any better anywhere else, believe me I know. Nothing’s changed! Nothing at all!”
“Well alright.”
He tentatively took a forkful, cutting downward so as to get an even slice of each layer. He put it into his mouth and chewed carefully. Christine watched unblinkingly, she couldn’t hear a thing. Her hands tightly gripped the back of the chair that she stood behind.
“WELL?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes!”
The pitching buzz in her head threatened to overwhelm her completely.
He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled derisively.
“Well to be perfectly candid with you it’s a little... ”
She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence.
Wordlessly she grabbed the back of his head holding a huge chunk of his hair and scalp as hard as she could in her fist. With her other hand she picked up a handful of the cake and stuffed it into his face as hard as she could, cramming as much into his mouth as was humanly possible.
She then pushed him back off his chair, his foot flicking upward and hitting the underneath of the table which in turn knocked the cake onto the floor. Now Paul was on his back – still reeling from what had been a powerful ramming blow to the face – his nose bled freely.
Christine pushed the cake across the floor towards him. Her mind was a blank emotionless canvas. She straddled him and held his nose and then began stuffing his mouth with cheesecake in quick forceful shoves. Each time she grabbed a handful she pushed it in deep inside his squirming mouth as far as it would go, forcing her hand in up to the knuckle and sometimes even beyond. She ignored the noise and suppressed his struggles beneath her weight for a time but both were long since finished by the time she forced the last bit of cake into him.
When he was dead she rolled off and lay on her back breathing heavily as she stared at the ceiling. She’d never killed anybody before. She couldn’t deny it; she was as exhilarated as she was ashamed. Her heart rate soared inside of her and she closed her eyes.
After a time the buzzing in her ears gradually subsided and she climbed up and on to her feet.
She then set about tidying the table, carrying the plates into the kitchen where they would need a good scrub. She simply could not abide mess...

“Good evening.”
“Oh hello there.”
“We were expecting Mr Nelson tonight. I do hope everything’s ok with him?”
“Oh yes sorry about that, he was called away very suddenly. He never mentioned why. They asked me to fill in.”
“Yes I can see that. You must be Miss Ross?”
“Why yes how did you know?”
“I’m a great fan of your work.”
“Well that’s very nice of you to say. I guess now I can honestly say that the feelings mutual.”
Neither of them laughed.
“Oh so you enjoyed your meal then?”
“Oh yes. The dessert in particular.”
“I am pleased. They’re my speciality you know.”
“Yes I’ve heard all about them.”
“I can imagine you have.”
Miss Ross looked up at her sweetly. Christine smiled back. Her hands were behind her back, one gripped the wrist of the other arm tightly.
“I see you have a new Maitre’D.”
“Yes. Pauls moved on.”
“Oh? That’s a shame.”
“Yes it is rather. I think we’ll manage though. After all, it’s all about the food isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s all about the food here.”
“And the food was really good wasn’t it?”
“Well I enjoyed it.”
“Wonderful. At least you’re happy. That’s the main thing.”
“Yes. That’s the main thing.”


...Once the plates had been cleared away and washed and the table had been wiped down she looked upon his body splayed out christ like on the floor with legs together and arms out wide. She couldn’t leave him there. He couldn’t stay here anymore.
She went to the kitchen and fetched newspapers, a knife, some polythene bags and a large blue ice box to put him in...

Christine nodded at Isabel. She tried to force a smile but it came across as more of a constipated grimace. Isabel smiled back, her pretty eyes glittering sweetly. Christine turned on her heels and stalked back to her kitchen then. She didn’t plan on reading the newspapers in the morning but she fully expected that the reviews would be favourable.