Forget Yourself (24 page)

In the hallway everything was different.

The surfaces were bare wood, smoothed and varnished to a fine shine which was slippery under my fingers and toes. At regular points along the hallway were paintings, paintings of nothing, paintings of paint, exploding into a hundred colourful swirls.

Five paintings later there was a staircase, leading downwards. “Husband,” I called, “husband where are you?”

There was a grunting from downstairs, furious, mad, the sound of a pack of animals swarming for food. The stairs were as slippery-smooth as the hallway, and I took each slow step one-at-a-time, placing one and then the other firmly on each ledge. There was another painting, and I reached out to touch it, but my shoulders fell forward and my legs gave way—a step slammed against my elbow, another on my hip, then my head, and knee, my hip again, clenching closed my eyes as I reached the floor at the bottom.

The grunting was everywhere, all around me. Cries and moans and whispered words—like that like that ohhhhh like that.

I opened my eyes to a white-lino floor, and pressed myself up, waiting for a twinge or shriek of pain. Nothing came. I stood amongst a dozen naked bodies, bodies in heaps and around one another, some slow and serious, some quick-quick-quick with giggles and big haw-laughs. In pairs and threes and four and more. The walls were made from glass, and light shone on every dip and pit.

I called for my husband again,

“Hermee, come over here,” called two men, both dark-skinned and wide-grinned. One waved as the other kissed his jawbone.

I called for him again, but he wasn’t there.

“Hermee,” a woman behind me breathed into my ear, her dreadlocks on my neck. “Why do you look so startled? Come and cuddle me, we’ll talk about it.” She looked like her, full breasts and lazy gaze, given up for the sake of a marriage. I had known her body, languid and sleeping in a triangle. I had felt her tongue many times. How could I leave her?

I turned to her. She stared at me in concern, and I stared back. I knew her. I’d known her for years.

“Hera.”

And she took me in her arms, and I in hers, as I stroked the thick ropes of her hair.

No. No no no. It didn’t fit. The memory was wrong—I shared the house with my husband, I had known that. What were all those people doing there? I didn’t know them, I couldn’t have known them.

It was a false memory, a fiction—I had never lived in such a place and neither had Burberry. I had fallen asleep, like Frederick, there next to me—we had both been asleep.

I huddled myself close to Frederick—he grunted and rolled away.

THE BIG GLASS DOORS WERE OPEN
, the warm air soft over the farmyard. Everyone was naked as before. There was a fence, rickety, built by one of us; below it the furrowed earth and green shoots, prying their way upwards. Beyond was a smaller house made of glass, a tangle of green leaves inside, a few with plump red fruits bursting from the stems, plants I didn’t recognise. To the side was another hut, this one made of wood, straw spilling from the small entrance, a cluck-cluck-cluck echoing from within. On from that were more shoots, climbing upwards—all to be picked, chopped and eaten. Some to be smoked.

The group were sat on logs eating from bowls and plates, skin bare in the pale sunlight. The last breaths of a fire were gently puffed into the air. For some moments I watched them unnoticed, then a woman called to me:

“Hermee, come and eat.”

A fat bird clucked and cooed about my legs, stabbing at the ground with its face. Come here you, one of the men called, grasping it as it flapped its wings and carrying it to a small wooden hut. Hera shouted through full lips, her dreadlocks flowing, but I couldn’t hear her words.

I awoke to bright sunlight, blasting in through the window. There was another class scheduled, they were becoming more and more frequent; the women were hungrier.

Frederick was already gone. I had failed to make him breakfast. I would have to make it up to him later. I slipped on, then buttoned up, a shiny-silk shirt and made for the door.

They were all there, waiting for me. Row after row after row, each on their own seats. Each turned to me and gave a smile of relief. A sigh or two drifted through the evening air. All watching and waiting.

This time I walked in amongst them. They cleared a space in the centre, between legs and wide eyes. There was a clattering over the stone: chair feet and boxes, wood and metal and plastic. I picked my way through, careful not to catch the flutter of my skirt under heel. I closed my eyes and flicked through each page of the magazine, searching for something to talk about. I opened my eyes and kept them lowered, careful not to meet with any expectant glares. I was surrounded by legs, bare and poised.

A bride was sat on a log, surrounded by stick-thin trees. Her hands were clasped in her lap, one leg hung limp over the other.

I introduced the day’s topic: sitting. Then I coughed, ready to continue. I told them that sitting properly was important for a woman.

I paused, expecting a murmur to ripple outwards through the crowd. It didn’t.

A hand held aloft: then what is the proper way?

I needed to demonstrate with someone.

There was a scuffle of limbs.

I made my choice, running my hand over the shoulder of a young woman by me. She nodded, her head bouncing quickly.

I told her how to position her legs, feeling her soft skin and the light fuzz of hair. I wrapped my fingers around her calf and planted her foot down. She trembled, her hairs prickling.

More scrapes of metal and stone. I looked up. Some at the back had stood to see better.

I whispered, remembering to soften my speech whilst hoping I could still be heard, telling her to hang her other leg over it.

I placed both hands over the quiver of her thigh and lifted it, placing it over the other. A soft scuffle of words scattered about me.

Right, I moved behind the woman, my nose nearly nestling in her hair. I took each of her arms and placed one hand in the other, both into her lap, my head balanced on her shoulder.

I stood up. The two women next to her copied, then the two next to them, then the next and then next, outwards and onwards until each was sat the same, on stools and deckchairs and crates which once held cans of cucumber.

That was that. I began to pick my way through the perfectly-folded legs perched on ramshackle seats. I had done enough. I wanted to go straight back home, but instead I waited at the front for each to come and thank me.

It was dark when Frederick returned.

Frederick had terrible news.

Terrible news and I had to prepare myself.

I was sewing. Whatever could be so important?

He told me Burberry was dead.

I didn’t miss a stitch.

“Oh,” I said.

Thread under, thread over.

He asked me how I was. He asked me what I was thinking.

I told him I was thinking about sewing, so we left it at that.

There was no sex. That night I lay in bed, eyes closed, watching her naked body spread before me, tasting the salt of her skin, tasting sugar on her mouth. I watched her lying next to me, sleeping peacefully and without dreams. Somewhere far from me came the dull clunking thud thud thud, at first in its usual near-nothingness, but growing stronger, reaching nearer and nearer until it was almost in the hut with me, almost until I could touch it or taste its dull earthy flavour. It entered my skull and curled around my brain, pounding the back of my eyes, working its way into the depths of my ears. I almost expected to hear her voice. Instead I heard Tie’s.

“It wasn’t just you.”

And I wasn’t surprised to hear him. His voice was there: he had burst from past to present, soft in my ear.

THE BULK OF MY HUSBAND HEAVED OVER ME
, blocking the light, him a heavy mass, cloud-like, dripping sweatlets of rain. He was inside me—I had to remind myself that he was inside me.

I groaned and shifted and did all my usual positions and patterns, in order, running through the process in my head. Reminding myself to enjoy it. I placed myself several steps away; there, that was better, now I could see clearly—husband and wife, one atop the other. The wife performed with grace.

“What’re you doing, Blondee?”

“You know what I’m doing, Tie. You told me you did it yourself.”

“Not like this.”

“I’ve done it many times.”

“Not like this.”

I gripped the sheets and tugged them to my ears, to muffle his voice, but I kept hearing it, dull and fuzzy through thick fabric.

“Go, go, go,” I moaned, stretching out the final ‘go’, long and orgasmic. Frederick humped with more hurry, over, over, over.

“Are you enjoying it, my dear?” Tie’s voice was sure enough, caring, cooing and soft. Full of judgement. I wanted it to go away.

“I enjoyed it before.”

Had I said those words out loud? Frederick hadn’t noticed, his face scrunched in ecstasy.

“Are you enjoying it, my dear?”

I wasn’t enjoying it, but it wasn’t so bad now, now that I was used to it. It was true, I had enjoyed it before, before magazines and gowns and total-world celebrity. But it was just once, a one-off, a fluke.

“That was the only time you had sex with Frederick.”

“What?”

“That was the only time you had sex with Frederick. That’s your husband inside you right now.”

“Shut up, Tie.”

“Mmmnaaargh,” my husband groaned, his face crumpled, his cock exploding inside me. I smiled and brought my lips to his.

He fell asleep before long. I lay on my side, facing the rest of our home. Luxury, luxury, luxury. The best furniture in all the world. Tie had no comment. He had other things to say.

“Go there, Blondee.”

“Go where, Tie?”

“You know where, my dear.”

So I quietly slipped on my so-smooth clothes and slipped out. I made my way to the land of the minors: to the triangle hut. I made sure Frederick didn’t hear a thing. He wouldn’t approve.

Don’t look at it, don’t look at it, don’t look at it.

I couldn’t help myself.

There it was: a window propped against a wall. A piece of damp foam inside.

She died in there.

I pulled back the fabric of the door. The dirty lino—which covered the worst of the dirt floor—was crusty with old blood. She was here, and she would never leave. I wondered if I could touch her. Running my finger over the brown scabs of clotted pools didn’t feel much like touching her, but I did it anyway.

Burberry had dropped dead. It wasn’t that uncommon a thing to happen. Could it have been foretold?

The lino was cold. I wiped the gunk off my hand and onto the foam. She’d had so much blood, coursing through her, coursing from her.

Burberry was dead, Tie was dead. But it was Tie who had come back.

I had never seen Tie’s blood. He’d died alone, and it was all cleaned up. Pilsner had made sure of it.

Tie had had a new lover, and I never even knew their name, or what they did together. But I saw this new person when he’d smile or laugh. He’d talk about them endlessly, being careful not to give away too many details, not even saying why. He declared himself in love, his face bright red. I even saw this new person in his bright red face. Then I’d see them when he cried, and I hated to see him cry, as though everything was ever-ending. I said that it wasn’t so bad, and he’d said he’d never been loved at all. I told him that wasn’t true, that they do love him—haven’t they said so? I always stopped the tears and got him to smile. I could do that.