Forget Yourself (13 page)

“Blondee.”

I was standing at the door to Frederick’s hut.

“Pilsner,” I replied. He was leaving. I couldn’t see his face, he stood in the doorway, light glowering behind him. He was a shadow, flat and featureless.

The evening had dimmed and no-one would be around. Only lovers saw one another at night—it was in the book. The more I seemed to see of the world the more I saw how people would pick and choose the rules, picking at them like loose strands of fabric, picking at them until there would be nothing left.

“How surprising you’re here,” he uttered, his voice as monotone as ever but softer, softer and quieter. He moved forward and on past me, fading into the dark.

Inside Frederick stood by his bed, confused and naked, his slight belly deflated and his cock limp over his balls, which hung even lower.

“He saw you,” he stated.

“I guess so. Why—” and I stopped.

He raised his eyebrows as response. I knew why. Frederick had given in to Pilsner, or Pilsner into Frederick, moaning and writhing and sweating and kissing. We were sharing each other. That was how things were. I couldn’t tell if it was simple or if it was complicated, and I thought of the softness of Pilsner’s voice, something I had never heard before. It scared me.

“Is he all right?” I asked.

Frederick stared at the wall without an answer.

“Are
you
all right?” I asked.

He nodded.

At his motion we left his hut and walked foot-by-foot toward the pool, Frederick still pulling on his clothes.

“Why don’t you just
be—
with him?” I hesitated as I wasn’t really sure what the word meant.

He pulled a shirt over his head, sleek and shiny, a rare fabric. I stroked the sleeve.

“I, well, I did ask,” he said.

“You did?”

“The—when it started, the first time. Mmm.” Frederick stopped walking for a moment. “He said ‘things are best left as they are’, or something like that. I didn’t question it, not really. We, we met—after that—and we wound up meeting about once every rations. That’s how it’s been for a while.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

At that moment I tripped, the rocky ground meeting me diagonally, a sharp stone in my knee.

“Fuck.”

“Here,” Frederick reached his hand and helped me up. A hole was torn in my trousers, the skin raw beneath. There wasn’t any blood. I picked at the minute boulders lodged around the graze. I spent a few moments carefully lifting at each one and dropping them into my pocket. Frederick watched me. When I was finished I spoke again and we resumed walking.

“So, why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Frederick followed me, two quick-step paces behind, his mind racing to keep up with his legs. There was another pause before he spoke, his words hushed and slow, pressed through dry lips.

“It wasn’t—it’s not—my place to say. This is his secret, his secret thing, not mine.” He caught up with me. “Are you angry?”

“I don’t know.”

I wasn’t, not really.

We reached the water. I took off my shoes and felt it lick at my feet.

“You can clean that up,” Frederick said, bending down to take my calf in one warm hand and dripping water onto my graze with the other.

I stood over him.

“Why is Pilsner unhappy?” I asked.

Each droplet tickled my knee then raced down my shin.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why he’s unhappy. Your guess there is as good as mine. He wanted me every now and then and he gets me every now and then.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?” As the words left my mouth he stared up at me, his eyes wide and white, not quite believing I asked the question. He was right, there wouldn’t be any talking about it, not with Pilsner.

Frederick returned to dropping dollops and drips of water over my knee. I ran my fingers through his hair.

Not long after that the world had begun its watching. It was Pilsner. It was his doing, those eyes watched for him. Those tongues spread his gossip.

My pity twisted into anger.

I was angry. Ketamine had gossiped about me, certainly, but she had done so without thought. Pilsner did it from spite. I would have shared. I would have talked to him. What option had he left us?

Burberry did her best. She’d laugh or giggle or chew on her lip and tell me that the whole world didn’t matter. What mattered was how I saw myself. What mattered was how we felt toward one another. ‘And whatever you’ve got going with Frederick,’ she added, flicking a dreadlock of her hair behind her ear and grinning.

By the next casino-event it was everywhere. Now the stares were everywhere, and they crawled all over my skin, an itch, a rash that they had thrown over me and which blanketed my body. I wanted them to go away. For once I wanted to be like the others, not watched or monitored, not made the subject of idle tongues. I’d had enough.

The roll of dice and huffy-shuffle of cards was familiar, though each time the booze had been different. Now it was ‘Liquibuzz’: an array of bright colours lit by candlelight, a flame placed behind each bottle, red and green and blue drinks shimmering. The glass clutched in my hand was slick with syrupy red liquid and my lips were coated with the sticky tingle of sugar. The bottle said ‘strawberry’, and I had never tasted strawberries. I didn’t like them.

It was my third mug.

Burberry’s glass was stained a heavy-inky colour, where blue and green had mixed together into a rich ooze. She raised the glass to her lips over and over, taking tiny sips, giving her hands and her mouth something to do.

The others would watch us just out-of-sight, talking from the corner of their mouths. Burberry had noticed them and glanced at me. Every mouth’s murmur was about us, I knew it, and Burberry knew it. She gave up her sipping and downed the rest of her glass in one go, a dark dribble dangling from her lip.

My perfume-heavy neighbour, Fluffed, was one of the few not staring. He clutched a glass of yellow liquid, which cast a golden shimmer of shadow on the wall of the tent. He still had most of it left: he had been too busy talking to the attractive man by his side to swallow. He would be talking about something else. The rations had been meagre this week and the weather hot and sunny. He would be talking about those. Or perhaps he was uttering the words that would carry him into sex. I watched their lips, placing my thoughts into their mouths:

That’s some shirt you’re wearing.

Wanna take it off?

Of course.

Let’s fuck. We’ll fuck.

We’ll fuck.

We’ll fuck and it’s okay, we have no ties, we never tried to love more than one person, just sex, just sex over and over—

Do you like my perfume?

Then there was Tanned. He was across from us, in a different circle, his head bobbing in and out of view. I watched his hand, to see what he had been drinking. Red, it was red—his drink matched mine.

A woman smiled and smirked by his side, a look broken only by each sip of green ooze. His new girlfriend. I had never seen her before. She was plain and her face too big and round, a plate of skin around tiny olive-eyes. She was nothing next to Burberry.

I gently moved my hand a few millimetres to my side, letting my little finger rest against her leg.

A woman with a blue drink stared.

A woman with an orangey-red drink stared.

A man with a blue drink,

a green drink,

a yellow drink.

When my eyes met theirs they glanced away.

“Don’t worry about them,” Burberry whispered, her melon-blackberry-sugar-breath buffing my face.

“I wish they’d stop,” I said, meeting each stare in turn, one by one.

“They will stop. They’ll get bored.”

But how did she know that? The world was filled with little enough scandal. Others were more careful than us.

“Hello there.” I jumped at the voice in my ear. It was Jay. I hadn’t seen him. His breath smelled of every one of the sugar-fruits. “Don’ worry about all the—” he gestured at the others, a sweep of his hand driving their gazes elsewhere, “all of that. You two jus’ do what you want. Do what you want. Life is too short and the world too fucking small.”

He waddled away. Burberry smiled and raised her eyebrows, relieved by the drunken display of sympathy. At the other end of the casino-tent he stumbled, staggered and fell into a pile of cards, drawing angry cries and one of two quick slaps to the legs as he kicked, trying to get up.

I had to leave. We kissed, her sugar-silted lips pressed to my mouth, and I stepped outside. I didn’t stop until I was by my triangle home.

I planted my arse to the ground.

I closed my eyes and found a small stone. I clasped the stone, dry skin meeting dry rock. I took a deep breath. The breeze was scented with Fluffed’s perfume and gently sounded of footsteps and clatter. Another deep breath, filling my lungs, deep against the darkness. Another long draw of breath and I gripped the stone securely. It was the only firm thing in existence. I drove it through the ground. I traced a long circle around me, switching hands halfway. There was the circle and there was me.

Images splashed through my head—Fluffed’s hair, Pilsner’s face. There was a city, miles upon miles of coloured blocks waiting for people to go to work, to fight, to have sex. There was a giant, lying dazed and naked between the towers. There were soft gently-wobbling breasts beneath a coarse shirt and there was the roll of dice and the tang of sour yoghurt. There was a stone woman, and there was a man, floating away in a chlorine-soaked pool to be with his new lover. There were flecks of blonde hair dancing about the floor and then there was gravel doing the same. There was an endless purple sea, a blank stare and the end of the world.

In front of me was Tie. In the old days I’d see Pilsner at the courtyard but Tie would come all the way to my hut, panting and sweating even in snow-flurried hail-pelted times. He’d bring me some of his rations. One day he’d brought me sugar and bread, which was fluffy and crunchy and spread itself over my teeth. He’d taken pity on me, he’d say, and he’d smile. Sometimes I’d punch him on the arm, which made him smile more. At first I was suspicious.

I asked him what he wanted: was it to fuck me? I couldn’t bear to imagine his huge body crushing the air from me.

He had looked hurt, really hurt. He’d shaken his head and told me he didn’t want to fuck anyone.

I hadn’t said anything. What was there to say? He seemed to forget about it afterwards, I hoped he’d forgotten.

He’d listen to my early-day rambles. I’d think about how I used to be. It wasn’t uncommon. I had no comparison really, so I used the neighbours as examples.

I suggested that I was like that woman, the one who sewed everything.

He said her name was Rings and said that I didn’t know what she was like—I’d never spoken to her.

With some authority I was that she was kind: she had a kind face.

He’d indulged me and said yes, maybe I was kind.

Then I suggested I might have been like that man with the long white hair. He looked cruel, but like he didn’t enjoy being cruel. Maybe I was like him.

Tie agreed: maybe I was.

I asked him what he was like.

He said he didn’t know. He supposed he was fat.

I wasn’t sure what to say. We’d stepped from my hut and were silent until we reached the courtyard, where Pilsner’d stood fiddling with the tap.

I did it again: perhaps I was rich. Perhaps I was wealthier than anyone. My words tore through the quiet.

Pilsner said it didn’t matter. He shot the words at me in his unchanging voice.

Tie told Pilsner to leave me alone.

Pilsner said that whomever my body was before, they were dead. I was Blondee, and that’s all I ever was.

Tie’s voice swung like a lead stick: shut up, Pilsner.

Pilsner glowered.

After that I’d stopped wondering about my old life.

I stepped from the circle. It was too much. I had to confront him. It wouldn’t wait. My hair, skin, teeth and nails felt dirty.

I hated him.

I hated Pilsner. I hated his condescending voice, his knowing everything, his gossipy words. I reached his hut before I even realised I had been walking. He was on the other side of the thin wall, I knew it, and I felt the weighty throb of anger. He had no right to talk about me, to talk about the life I had built—it was none of his business, and if he wanted Frederick he could have claimed him. The anger pulled at my arm, and I threw my palm at the wall, over and over,

batter batter batter,

my hand clenching to a fist,

clunk clunk clunk,

and soon he would be running out to me, his monotone voice flexed with anger, wanting to know what I was doing. And I could shout, I could shout at him, “Who are you, who are you to tell me what I am?”