Tales of Sin & Fury, Part 1 (35 page)

‘One of the Kangas goes “Who're you talking about, Miss Holmes? What people is that?'

‘“Nothing,” she goes.

‘It's all “Miss Holmes” now with them. “Holmes” was good enough before. “Come here, Holmes.” “Get out, Holmes.” It takes something like this before they talk to you decent.' Debs' voice is shaking.

‘That poor chile,' says Beverley. ‘She was feeling better after the massage class we done. She cheer up a bit.'

‘She was going on about how she'd do anything to get out of here,' says Debs. ‘But I don't think she meant this.' Her thin face puckers as she starts to cry.

I'm staring ahead of me. ‘Scylla and Charybdis.'

‘Do what?' asks Debs.

‘Nothing,' I reply. I have no heart left for explanations.

Thursday 20th December 7.00 pm

Anthea threw up her left leg as high as she could reach and her toe kicked the frying pan she held in her hand. Bert's new camera flashed and clicked, ‘Higher, Mum!' He looked young for eight, with brown hair and eyes and an air of uncertainty about him.

Freddie held the frying pan like a banjo and pretended to play it. Bert tried to work out whether to hold the new camera horizontal or vertical.

Morton took the frying pan and posed pretending to play tennis with it. Bert moved back against the sink trying to get it all in frame, and banged into the dirty dinner plates piled on the draining board. Behind Morton in the picture, a Father Christmas costume hung on top of six coats on the back of the kitchen door. Beside it, a bicycle with a crumpled front wheel leant against the fridge.

The dog took up the rest of the roll of film. On instructions, the long-haired brown mongrel sat to attention, lay down, rolled on her back and caught a ball in her mouth.

‘Dusty understands everything,' said Bert. ‘She can nearly talk.'

‘Yeah,' said Freddie. ‘But they speak a different language on the planet Dog.'

Bert fed Dusty some biscuits. Then he went to bed, leaving the new camera on the dresser next to a pair of football socks, a plastic bottle of flea powder and his school homework.

The front door closed as the other housemates left for the cinema.

It was Freddie's turn to wash up. He did it through a haze of steam with cascades of hot running water, singing
Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick
and using a wooden spoon on saucepans as accompaniment. The dog sat beside him, her ears cocked and eyes hanging on the sink in case some crumb might fall from a dirty plate.

Freddie threw her a piece of gristle, ‘You've had yours already, but there you go.' The dog snuffled it up and licked the floor where it had been.

Anthea came in from burying the supper bones in the garden; she put her leg out to stop Dusty rushing out to investigate while the door was open. Morton covered the half-empty casserole dish with tin foil, spread out some new pages from his talk and started reading to her:

‘It is impossible within this brief lecture to do justice to the broad context of orally-based fiction in the classical world, which may include what are now recognised as the West's very first novels. These date from the first few centuries AD and include titles such as
Daphnis and Chloe
by Longus and the
Ephesian Tale
by Xenophon of Ephesus. Such works have enjoyed enhanced popularity and renewed academic interest since the 1976 conference in Bangor organised by the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. According to Trenkner, writing in 1958, these first novels may themselves have developed from traditions of popular storytelling, absorbed by the educated minority of the Hellenistic population.'

He stopped reading to scratch his ankle. ‘I thought Bert deflea-ed the hound?'

‘He did,' said Anthea. ‘It needs time to take effect.' She sneezed and fumbled in one of the bags under the table for a tissue.

Morton continued, ‘Nor can I do more than mention briefly the 12
^th
century Byzantine novels such as
Drosilla and Charikles
by Nikitas Eugenianos, works which were once dismissed as tacky examples of mild pornography but now reinstated as offering an interesting reflection of the mindset of their time.'

Anthea put her arms on the table and rested her head on them.

‘Similarly I can only refer in passing to the long global history of the portmanteau story – inset or nested tales – multiple narratives of many hues harnessed together to pull one literary chariot. The best known example for us in the West is of course the
1001 Nights
or
Arabian Nights
.' Morton stopped reading and looked across the dinner table at Anthea. Her eyes were closed. ‘You're drooping, love. Is this a bad time?'

She nodded. ‘Sorry. Things on my mind. From the session today.'

Freddie finished the washing up, left the kitchen whistling to himself and a few minutes later shut the front door behind him. Above the sink a small piece of card was stuck on the wall with bluetack, saying, in Freddie's handwriting:

‘Leave no trace

‘Except your smiling face

‘That's the way I like you best.'

The dog slunk back to her box in the corner and curled up to sleep.

Morton pushed his typescript away and held out an arm to Anthea. She came round the table, stumbled over one of her bags on the floor, and sat on his lap. He rested his cheek on her breasts. ‘How's it going? With the counsellor lady? What does she say?'

‘Not a lot,' said Anthea. ‘Mostly she listens. She said to me, “The questions you're asking – about life and death and time and non-ordinary realities – nobody knows the answers. If anyone says they do, they're kidding themselves. I can't give you any,” she said, “We just don't know, it's as simple as that. All we can do is honour our experience and try to make what sense we can of it. That I can help you with.” That's what she says. So she just listens.' Anthea paused, then added, ‘I don't think she's got any hair.'

‘Alopecia?' said Morton. ‘And does she help?' He started playing with her nipples.

‘How do people get alopecia? … She does help, yes. Just telling things, with a witness, helps to process them. Things I've never talked about to anyone. And she's very supportive. But there is so much that I haven't told her yet. And I keep getting the feeling that it's all too late.'

‘Too late for what?' He was undoing the buttons of her blouse.

Tears came to Anthea's eyes. ‘Too late to stop the inevitable from happening. The inevitable that I can feel in my bones. I'm worried about going to Greece.'

‘You're not starting to believe that stuff you're studying?' asked Morton. ‘Irrational prophecies? Advice from people who've snuffed it? The Post-Mortem Counselling Service?'

‘No, of course not. But… ' she looked into his face.

He smiled. ‘Forget the doom and gloom. My girlfriend the prophet.' He kissed her on the lips. ‘My girlfriend the rosy-cheeked.' He kissed her eyelids. ‘My girlfriend the brainy.' Little kisses on her forehead. ‘My girlfriend the sweet-natured.' A row of kisses down her nose.

‘Your girlfriend the fat,' added Anthea.

‘My girlfriend the buxom and beautiful.' A kiss on her chin.

‘Your girlfriend the crazy,' said Anthea.

‘Yup. My girlfriend the crazy.' He laughed.

As they slid off the chair onto the floor, he undid her bra. Her cardigan came off with her blouse. He kissed her collar bone and all around her nipples. He pushed her bags aside.

‘Morton, what are we doing?'

‘Bert's asleep and the others are out. Come on.'

Her trousers and knickers came off easily. She laughed.

The dog woke up and looked with interest. There was a repeated thudding sound as she started to wag her tail, whacking it each time against the cupboard door.

Anthea slid Morton's trousers off. He squeezed her plump buttocks.

‘Ouch, that hurts! I fell down the stairs at the library.'

‘Sorry, honey. My girlfriend the battle-scarred.'

Anthea chuckled. The dog made a low sound halfway between a yelp and a friendly growl. Anthea felt Morton's erection with her fingers. He buried his face between her breasts. The dog stood up, still wagging her tail. Anthea and Morton kissed mouth to open mouth, squirming together cramped under the table.

The dog stretched and came over to investigate.

‘Morton! She's licking my toes!'

‘She knows there's a bit of fun going on.'

‘It tickles!'

‘Good girl! Back in your box!' The dog ignored Morton. ‘So much for Bert's training.'

Anthea rolled onto her side facing Morton and they hooked arms and legs around each other as he went into her body. She wriggled her hips and smiled. He kissed her upper lip then her lower lip. She ran her hands through his hair and made it stand on end.

The two bodies corkscrewing under the table with gasps and grunts offered only backs to the dog. The feet did not keep still enough to lick. Dusty sat and waited for a hand or a look, food or attention. None came. The bodies became noisier and more frantic and nearly rolled into her. Then they cried out, using sounds which were not recognisable as any instruction to sit, lie down or walk to heel.

After a while they were still, and the sound subsided. Only slurred murmurs slipped between the two of them. The dog waited some minutes. No-one paid her any attention. Eventually, she picked her way back to her box through Anthea's bags. On the way she knocked one of them over and the contents were tipped out.

A jar of face cream rolled one way and a pair of scissors landed with a tinkle. The bone skidded across the floor and collided with Anthea's temple. She cried out, ‘What was that?'

She disentangled herself, sat up quickly and banged her head hard on the underside of the table. ‘Oh!' She fell back down again and lay still with her eyes shut.

‘Ant? Ant? Are you OK?' Morton crawled to her head and put his hand on it. She didn't respond. ‘Ant? Can you hear my voice?'

Her eyes opened but her face did not move.

‘Can you hear me?' he asked again.

‘Hello,' she said without expression. Then, ‘What happened?'

‘You banged your head, honey. Then you passed out. Maybe a touch of concussion.'

‘I banged my head? … Yes, I remember!' She turned her head slowly and her eyes focussed on the bone lying beside her on the floor. ‘Oh my God. That hit me first. How did that get here?' She tried to sit up. ‘That's weird, that's freaky… The bone hit me in the face…'

‘Best to lie still, love. Calm down, the bone fell out of the bag. Along with this other stuff.' Morton crawled around under the table and collected the hairbrush, chocolate wrappers, and cheque book that were also spread out on the floor. ‘Careful, now, keep still. For a few seconds you were out like a light. I'll get something to cool your head.'

Her eyes were staring. ‘Why did it happen? Why that bone? Why then?'

‘Just a coincidence.'

‘It's a warning.' Anthea turned on her side and grabbed her bra off the floor. She scrambled out from under the table and struggled to put it on, then fumbled after her blouse and cardigan. ‘You write about chance. It has meaning. That's it, I'm not going to Greece.' She pulled on her trousers.

Morton came back with a wet tea towel. ‘You should be keeping still. Here, sit down, where's the bump?'

Anthea's legs gave way underneath her as he pulled up a chair. ‘I feel sick,' she said. ‘That bone hit me. Because I haven't been listening. I have to take notice. I'm going to cancel the trip to Greece.'

‘Calm down, sweetheart. You're giving way to superstition.' Morton held the tea towel to her forehead. ‘And it's because you're a bit concussed. You have the symptoms. You might need a doctor.'

‘No doctor! This is between me and the bone.'

‘You focus too much on the particular. One bone. One coincidence. You're not thinking clearly.'

Anthea pushed away the tea towel and tried to turn her head to look at him. ‘You don't understand. When I was out I saw it. After I banged my head. I saw it. I saw the hill where it's going to happen. I saw it all. Like a flash. Sky and ground! Everything breaking! Stones rolling and the sun upside down! Like a snapshot and then gone. Everything gone.' Tears started to run down her cheeks.

‘You're not making sense, honey. This all sounds a bit strange,' said Morton.

‘What about everything else that's happened? It's as if I'm cursed. The lady said to me, consider all the information you have when making a decision.' A tear dripped off her chin.

‘So a bone hitting you on the head and some concussed fantasy is information?'

‘If you decide what's information ahead of time, you've drawn your conclusion before you start.' She wiped her wet face with her sleeve. ‘That's not very rigorous. You'd never do that with an academic paper.'

Morton put everything back into the bag, including the bone. ‘Concussion makes you emotional.' He pulled her towards him and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘So be it. Your research. Your trip. Your decision.'

‘My life.'

‘My girlfriend the prophet.' He looked around on the floor for his trousers.

‘I'm serious. However much you tease me, I'm not going.'

The dog ambled back and set to licking Anthea's feet.

‘That tickles!' Anthea started to snigger. ‘Dusty, no!' Morton turned to watch as the dog carried on licking and her waves of giggles gave way to torrents of rib-shaking, helpless laughter.

Thursday 20th December 9 pm

After soaking in the bath for an hour, Alex climbed dripping out of the tub and wrapped a thick white towel around her body. She combed her hair out and left it to dry. She wandered into her kitchen and lifted a tea towel from a cake she had made. She patted it absent-mindedly and replaced the tea towel. She walked into her sitting room and looked out of the window. From the fourth floor of the tower block the lights of south London were spread out like the dashboard of a giant spaceship travelling through the night, with no-one at the helm. She put a tape in the cassette player. Humming to the tune, ‘Let's Get Together and Feel All Right', she sat on the bed, pulled out a small pair of scissors, and cut her toe nails. After she finished, she scooped up the bits off the carpet and put them in the wastepaper basket.