Minnie Chase Makes a Mistake (3 page)

Then, suddenly, she heard what sounded like voices on a television in another room or a sound of something muffled behind closed doors. Minnie had never been so thankful when she realised James George wasn’t out after all. Padding silently across the polished wooden floorboards in her stockinged feet she flung open the bedroom door to see the grand finale to her evening horribilis.

Dusk had cast a deep purplish light over the bedroom while shadow-shapes created a ghoulish atmosphere that befitted the scene – it was cult horror-movie stuff. Minnie saw flailing limbs and wild zombie eyes glazed to an unseeing sheen while two heads thrashed together on sateen pillows. Deep moaning and grunting was accompanied by terrible high-pitched squeals that somehow sounded more shocking than screams. The acoustics in the high-ceilinged room made the sounds even louder.

Minnie’s mouth took on a strange metallic taste. The horrible incessant squealing set her teeth on edge. As her eyes adjusted to the shadows, the unfolding horror in front of her made her feel dizzy and she stretched a hand out to the wall to stop herself from keeling over. The earth moved. Or at least something shifted beneath her feet. 

She saw James George, the man she loved more strongly than she had ever imagined it was possible to love. But he appeared to have been possessed by the devil. He was rolling and writhing around, naked limbs glistening with a satanic slick of sweat. Minnie could hear the slobbering sound of human lips smacking feverishly together. Her husband-to-be had been bewitched by a peroxide blonde Medusa with hair extensions that swirled and curled down to her waist. She had incredibly cute cupcake breasts that didn’t move even though she cavorted and bounced like a gold-medal Olympic gymnast. She also had long, slender legs as flexible as pipe cleaner that stretched and pointed and flicked. So supremely athletic. So unlike Minnie.

James’s tongue, meanwhile, was licking and slurping, intently working over the Medusa’s skin as if he was frantically trying to devour a melting ice cream under the midday sun.

Minnie shut her eyes for a second. She opened them again slowly but the nightmare scenario was still there. It
was
real and she screamed out once, ferociously, so loudly that she felt her ears pop, a high altitude, low oxygen experience.

She stood in the shadows and screamed again and then again, a continuous escalating screech like a construction yard drill trying to bite into hardened metal. This tremendous scream had the power to break the Medusa spell over Minnie’s bed. The bodies sprang apart like a lightning strike splitting a long-dead tree trunk. Theatrical horror was frozen on the faces of the two people who suddenly realised that they had been caught in the act.

Minnie’s ferocious scream began to run out of power and emotion and she croaked to the finish, hand over her throat to finally deaden the vibrations. The bodies in the bed frantically scooted backwards to put distance between themselves and Minnie. A crumpled sheet was hastily lifted as though a serious medical procedure was taking place behind it on the pillows. 

‘Christ, Minnie?’ croaked James George. His disbelief was tangible, it was as though she’d risen from the dead after a decade-long absence.  

‘James?’ whispered Minnie, voice hoarse. The tension in her knees unlocked and she slid down the wall and landed with a thump on the bedroom floor. She didn’t say another word knowing there was no possible answer to the question that had just died on her lips. 

James George started to inch his way to the edge of the bed, fingers splayed over his bare crotch as he frantically scanned the floor for clothing. Then he sprang from the mattress like a springbok and tugged on his underpants as fast as humanly possible, practically jumping in with both legs at once. Minnie eyed him bitterly as she curled up tighter into a ball on the floor. 

‘What are you doing home?’ he yelped. There was a faint trace of accusation that Minnie didn’t miss. Just brilliant – this was
her
fault. If she hadn’t left The Savoy earlier than planned, this naked performance of lust and betrayal would have gone unwitnessed and uninterrupted. 

She narrowed her eyes, furious and bereft.

‘Minnie, look… I can explain…’ 

But realising that the events were explanation enough he failed to deliver the end of the sentence. He paused and then crossed his arms across his chest and stood, with his hands jammed under his armpits, shivering even though the summer night was warm.

She had certainly ruined the moment for her double-crossing husband-to-be. Minnie considered her options. She could fight for this love or leave in devastation. 

Minnie watched from the floor, she saw that James George had now taken a scatter-gun approach to dressing and was grabbing whatever clothes he could find and was dragging them on. Medusa did not move a muscle, she simply watched with a slack mouth and eyes wide.

The fight had suddenly gone out of Minnie. She heaved herself up from the floor, shaky on her feet, and backed out of the room. Then she turned and ran. James George cantered after her, hot on her heels, and grabbed at her as she reached the front door. Minnie somehow escaped and spun away from him, slithery in her black taffeta dress.

‘Wait!’ shouted James George as he watched her race into the night. ‘Stop! Minnie! I love you!’

3

Worst fears

Minnie launched herself from the house and into the night. She sprinted like she was possessed, still shoeless and now shivering feverishly. She was trussed up in a cocktail dress with a fluttering train that had turned to a jet propellant whoosh. She was a missile on a zero deviation trajectory to get her precisely to her target. To Angie’s house. Safe house.

Angie was Minnie’s best friend. They had grown up together and now lived two streets away from each other in south west London. Angie had set up a thriving business called Howl Couture, which specialised in animal accessories. Selling bling and bespoke blazers for pampered pets was a lucrative business. Minnie knew this to be a fact because she had set up the e-commerce side of Howl Couture and was astonished how much money people paid for dog collars encrusted with jewels and other glittering additions to their spoilt pet’s wardrobe. Angie was raking in the cash, which helped fund her passion for rescuing and rehousing abandoned animals. The business-from-her-bedroom situation suited Angie because it allowed her to be a stay-at-home mum to a menagerie of waifs and strays.

Minnie ran even faster when she saw Angie’s front door. James George’s parting words were disappearing, engulfed by the night. Minnie tried to hang onto them but they were already beginning to fade. Meaningless words that would break down in the earth’s atmosphere and vanish forever. 

 Angie answered the door with a cat draped around her neck; a breathing fur stole that eyed Minnie with haughty feline resentment. Angie had similarly transfixing green eyes but hers were warm and welcoming. Her curly, cauldron-black hair was marvellously dishevelled as though Minnie had caught her sleeping like a bat. 

‘Minnie! Oh!’ exclaimed Angie, snapping out of a doze-dazed state.

She didn’t need to ask if there was something wrong. Minnie’s expression said it all:
help me… save me. 

Angie reacted like Minnie had taken a flesh wound from a firearm. She quickly hauled her into the house and slammed the door. Once she was confident that her friend could breathe without assistance she ushered Minnie down the corridor into a living room that was swarming with a horde of curious cats and dogs. Angie, foster person for abandoned animals, had a home that was a welcoming sanctuary for four-legged friends and, in Minnie’s case, two-legged friends in need. Rescue operation on all levels. The house possessed the distinct aroma of cat’s pee and patchouli – a curious combination that shouldn’t have worked but Minnie found it reassuringly comforting. She associated the smell with Angie, who, according to circumstances, was Minnie’s sidekick or her saviour and always her faithful best friend.  

‘Angie,’ cried Minnie, collapsing onto a huge, squashy sofa upholstered in a bright butterfly pattern. She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest. ‘Oh!’

‘Ohmydeargod! What is it?’ cried Angie panicking. ‘Tell me where it hurts.’ She grabbed Minnie’s ankles, heaving them up onto the sofa until her friend assumed a horizontal position. 

Minnie started talking but she could only manage a jumble of words interspersed with a series of fits and gasps. Angie shrugged off her cat stole and was on the verge of checking Minnie’s airways. Minnie tried again to regurgitate the story but, hyperventilating, the best she could do was keep repeating isolated words and disjointed phrases. 

‘Stop. Slow down. Wait. STOP! Hold on…’ pleaded Angie. ‘Calm down, Minnie. I don’t know what is going on. Breathe… more… another one… that’s it, that’s better, just take your time.’

Minnie pulled a cushion over her face, her voice became a mumble from behind the velvet tapestry. Then she sat up. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said. 

Minnie sat with a large dog bowl on her lap. It was the first thing Angie could get her hands on when Minnie announced she was going to throw up. 

The blood abruptly drained down to Minnie’s feet and dizziness set in; nausea loves company.  

Then Minnie started to babble, making no sense. 

‘You’re in shock,’ soothed Angie. ‘I’ll get you a blanket.’

James George’s penis puppetry performance was tattooed onto Minnie’s mind. She knew she would be forever haunted by the exhibition.
Talk about the night from hell
, she thought despairingly.

She brought Angie up to speed starting from the moment she flung open the bedroom door.

‘The noise…‘ she bent over the dog bowl as her stomach heaved dramatically although she wasn’t actually sick. ‘…The woman… was a… screamer.’

Angie looked momentarily alarmed. ‘Are you sure she was okay?’

Minnie groaned. ‘More than okay. She was ecstatic.’ Minnie pictured the scene. ‘Even though she was making that horrendous sound that reminded me of a guinea pig being eaten by a fox.’

‘Don’t be silly, how would you know what that…’ said Angie fearfully, her voice tailing off. 

Minnie nodded. ‘Next door neighbour’s pet.’

Angie paled. The evening was going from bad to worse. 

The two friends sat in stunned silence for a moment. 

‘James George,
really
?’ Angie’s shock was understandable. It was completely out of character. James was a code breaker not a heart breaker.

‘Yes. Really,’ cried Minnie. She sat with her head in her hands, inches from the dog bowl. ‘He was punching way above his weight, too. She was absolutely gorgeous.’

‘
You’re
gorgeous,’ said Angie, crossly. ‘Don’t put yourself down.’

‘I’m barely average,’ reasoned Minnie. ‘I’m sensible not flexible.’

‘Minnie, stop this.’

‘
This
was proper gorgeous.’

‘Really?’ Angie looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps he paid
this
for sex.’

‘Is this supposed to make me feel better?’ asked Minnie miserably, suddenly suffocatingly hot underneath Angie’s blanket. ‘Because it’s not working.’

‘Damn, men should be given out in sample sizes,’ ranted Angie. ‘Like those small tubes of toothpaste. It would be good to trial them first before we invest in the real thing. Save so much time and trouble later.’

Minnie didn’t respond, too stricken to voice an opinion.

‘You should cry,’ urged Angie, looking concerned. ‘Let it all out.’

‘I harden and freeze, remember?’ sniffed Minnie, shocked and dry-eyed. ‘Quantum rules of physics.’

Angie raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Really? Because it looks like you’re sweating profusely to me.’

Minnie continued to talk Angie through the bedroom scene in graphic frame-by-frame detail – ‘James George and Medusa: The Director’s Cut’. She needed to expel the words as forcibly as one would exorcise an evil spirit. She could feel a leaden lump in her gut. Minnie ploughed on, desperate to rid her body of the images from the adulterous horror show. She knew she had to do this, now, before they became a part of her and she felt possessed and demonic herself. Angie listened, horribly fascinated but visibly shocked as Minnie recaptured the scene in painstakingly excruciating detail from distinguishing birth marks to hair extensions.

Angie frowned, furious. The more she heard, the angrier she got.

There was a moment’s silence as Minnie ended the description with her fleeing the scene, shoeless and breathless, into the silvery-grey summer night.

Angie jumped to her feet scattering animals. ‘I’m going round there,’ she seethed.

‘No! Please,’ begged Minnie. ‘It will make it worse.’

‘
Worse
? What could possibly be worse than what you’ve just been put through?’

‘No more drama. Please.’

Angie flounced around the room. ‘I just hate it that James George did this to you. I could bloody kill him.’

Minnie started to speak but the words came out as a gurgling sound.

‘It’s not right,’ continued Angie. ‘It’s despicable behaviour.’

‘Please don’t go,’ begged Minnie. 

Angie sat back down, lips pursed. ‘What the hell was he thinking?’

Minnie shivered, face still hovering over the dog bowl.

‘Did you recognise the woman?’

Minnie shook her head.

‘What if I phone James George instead?’

‘And say what?’

‘You don’t need to know the details.’

‘What’s the use?’ said Minnie wearily, suddenly exhausted.

‘Death threats are often effective.’

‘Let him suffer in silence,’ pleaded Minnie. ‘For now.’

Angie opened her mouth to suggest more immediate cut-throat action but Minnie looked so incredibly sad and weary that she couldn’t put her friend through any more misery.

‘I’ll stay right here,’ Angie soothed. ‘It’s okay. And I promise I won’t phone him.’