Forget Yourself (31 page)

I listened, patiently and silently. I might have fallen asleep. At some point he left.

I had to hurry, and these legs were too short. Everything was empty, the shops all shuttered, and most of them hadn’t even bothered to put up notices explaining. They didn’t need to.

A young man sporting a heavy tan knocked me, the both of us stumbling.

“Sorry,” he called, scurrying off. For a moment I felt my skin tickle with anger, but I couldn’t blame him. He had somewhere to be. Everyone had somewhere to be. I caught a glimpse of my face and blonde hair in the dark glass of a closed store. I looked so scared. It made me laugh.

The city centre was depressing. I had thought of gathering some more supplies, but I couldn’t see much point. Thorgeir, my husband, he had sorted most of that out, but I had wanted to help. I had left it too late as usual.

I would go to the park. The trees and bushes wouldn’t have left, they’d still be there to enjoy. It wasn’t too far away, and I was glad to be leaving the quiet dark streets of empty offices and shuttered shops. All the cafés were closed. A bakery had a bin through its window, an alarm screaming to no-one. Even the police were hidden away. What the hell do they do at a time like this? Some war zone. It was like everyone was already dead.

I knew even as I reached the iron railings of the park that it was a no-go. There were raised voices and shouting, rage-filled roars and barks. Barks from large dogs. They were somewhere to the other side of the trees and bushes and I could see them without looking, our pointless thuggish defence. Perhaps they were sympathisers, for the other side, ready to keep order for them. That made more sense. Some of them were already here.

So I would head home. The rows of houses were quiet, and some had the same grey metal shutters as the shops. There were fewer cars than usual cluttering the street. They must have been gathered into garages. Then it was raining paper, paper from the sky. One white square was carried in the air into my face. I clutched it away from my lips and nose and pressed it into my pocket. Home first. I’d get home first.

Home was quiet as everywhere else, our poky little house as silent and still as if it were abandoned. I took off my coat and remembered the sheet of sky paper. I took it from the pocket, smoothed it against my palm and read.

They were letting us know they were coming. I giggled at it. The giggle grew. I laughed, heavy, gasping gulps of laughter. How could we not know? How could we not know? I laughed until I was dizzy.

When I was calm I called his name. I called it again as I headed up the stairs.

“Thorgeir.”

He was in the middle of the room, with the yellow wallpaper I always hated, doing some cleaning. He had a bowl of water by his knees and was cleaning my statue, the one of Artemis.

I know why he was cleaning—why he was cleaning in the middle of a war zone. He wanted to be ready. If they burst in with guns aloft, the house would be spotless for them. They could never say we weren’t clean.

But he was scrubbing her too hard, my Artemis figurine. He was scrubbing her like he wanted to remove her colour, he was scrubbing her like he wanted to make her pale as a ghost.

Stop! I cried.

He looked up at me with his gentle smile, the same he had given me when he’d decided we wouldn’t run. It made me feel safe. It made me feel as though I were being patronised.

He handed me my stone woman and I clutched her to my chest, a wet patch spreading across my blouse.

She was the only protection we had.

I stepped out from the triangle hut. No-one was there.

This was it. This was it. This was it.

I walked along beside the wall until I found something I could use: a steel bar.

I picked it up and walked back to the triangle hut. The one Tie had built.

I struck it.

The window shattered.

Where I had lived when Ketamine arrived with the rations, a carrier bag over her arm.

I struck it again.

The frame splintered.

Then Frederick and Burberry. Here Burberry had lost herself, spilling to the floor.

I struck it and struck it.

Where I was waiting, the last piece of me.

It collapsed, a rubble. A pile of litter.

You could never have guessed it had been a triangle hut. Not now.

“This is it, Tie.”

“What do you mean, dear Blondee?”

“You know what it means.”

He was so close I could almost see him. His belly, his blotch-puffed cheeks, the squint about his eyes. I could smell him, even over the urine and the tang of my body, there was him, the odour of stale sweat caught in folds. I would miss him, but he was gone and soon I would be too.

“What’re you thinking, Blondee?”

“Many things, Tie.”

“The world isn’t as empty as it looks out there, you know. You know that.”

“Perhaps, Tie. You used to say things that made more sense.”

“I ramble these days.”

“You do. Yes, yes you do.”

“So what are you thinking, Blondee?”

“I was thinking about you.”

“I’m touched.”

“I was thinking about the severes.”

“They won’t come.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they’ll stay where they are. They won’t come—they won’t change a thing. If I were still around I’d talk to Pilsner about it. When he’s figured out that they’re not even coming, they’ll come and do what they’ll do with you.”

“Should I be scared or something?”

“Do you feel scared, my dear?”

“Not really.”

My limbs kept jolting, painful shudders like they were forcing themselves awake. My clothes stuck to me. There was no more water. My tongue stuck to the sides of my mouth.

“Blondee?”

“Yes, Tie?” I missed the next word.

“… me Blondee, what do you mean, this is it?”

“I’m saying goodbye.”

“You’re taking a long time about it. This isn’t how to go about it.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re sounding like her.”

“Thank you.”

It hadn’t been light or dark for what must have been days. The sky was caught, in between, unwilling to move one way or the other. I couldn’t remember if it had even last been night or day.

“What did it feel like, Tie, when you left?”

There was a sharp silence before he spoke. I could hear the smack of his jowls. “I can’t give you any answer you don’t already know.”

“Did you feel the same things as her?”

“I’d imagine so. The thrilling rush of blood, that sort of thing.”

“I can’t help having to leave you, Tie.”

“I know that. I know that.”

“Though you left me first.”

“I know that.”

“Well then, I’ll say it, though you never gave me chance that first time. Goodbye, Tie. I hope if you’ve been reborn you’re happy. I mostly hope you haven’t though. I wish I’d known you better, and that you’d stopped all this somehow. I kind of wish I’d felt enough to fuck you. To fuck you and treat you decently. But it never should have mattered, and maybe it wouldn’t have helped anything. Do you think you need to fuck someone to love them? You’d still have left, sooner or later, you wouldn’t have been able to help it. I missed you, I really did, but who could I have told? You’ve gone again, I can feel it, but I’ll carry on if it’s all the same to you. I wish you’d had the guts to tell me what was going on, or tell me their name. I wish you’d told me more about the start of the world, or why you thought we were here. As long as I’m Blondee I’ll hate you for leaving.

“He’s here, Pilsner’s here and I have to go, but once again you’ve left first. Bye then, Tie.”

Pilsner looked at the rubble I had created. He said nothing. Sunlight streaked his face. He seemed pleased, more pleased than when I had last seen him. Slivers of rusty razors shot from the music player he had brought with him.

“This is it,” he told me.

“Did they come, Pilsner?”

He asked me who I meant. He grinned. He knew who I meant. I wasn’t in the mood to play, I had equally important places to be. He continued. He feigned surprise, “Oh, oh,” he said, “The severes, you mean the severes.” He said they weren’t coming after all, his grin growing, growing over his face like a plague.

“They might. They might be waiting.” I didn’t believe it but I wanted to scare him.

For a split of a second it worked, his face flickering into worry before his teeth returned. They were crooked, the ones at the front, and a bit yellow. Mine were better. He started talking again, about how they hadn’t come, how they never would, how they, unlike some, knew what was right, how we should live.

I wanted to shock him again.

I started stroking my chest, small motions at first, and he glanced for a moment, just a moment, until I pressed both palms into my breasts and caressed them, careful and slow. He glanced again, a second longer this time. It was working, he had stopped talking. I wanted to laugh. I had shut him up. So easy, so easy. I played with my left nipple, teasing it, even rubbing my thigh with my free hand, slowly bringing it to my crotch. I groaned a little, just for effect.

He asked me what I was doing.

I ignored the question and leaned back a nudge, undoing a button on my shirt.

He asked me if I wanted sex.

Then I laughed, right at him. “No, no, no. No I don’t want to fuck. Why would you ask that?”

His face flushed with blood, his eyes white and small in the centre of his purpled face. It made me laugh more.

He told me I was in trouble. He told me I had no idea how to act. He told me I had no sense of order, of what was right, or wrong, for that matter. He told me I used other people for my amusement and he had no idea who Blondee was, not really.

I was tired of listening. I added words to the notes from his player. I sang his words back at him: Blondee you’re weak, Blondee you’re corrupt, Blondee Blondee Blondee. And Blondee it’s your fault, and Blondee you prove us right, Blondee the thief. The worst one. Stop that, stop that, sto-o-o-o-o-op it, stop, you fucking fucking freak. That’s it, there’s no point, no point, no point in talking any more. No point. This is it, Blondee, this is it. It it it. Time to go. Time to go-o-o-o-o, oh.

I drifted in the dark space between worlds, falling through each, choking on stories.

He kisses me and we lie down on the grass, a chicken clucking near my ankle. I can’t stand the waiting, the post-woman always brings bad news. Rebels on a farm. And now I’m fucking, him, I’m fucking him, I’m fucking him so hard it feels like my cock it going to explode. What did she say? That I was young? Why need to tell me that, I know I am. I know I am. And I’m close, I’m so close, and I’m gonna—

The bag is heavy, so heavy today. I don’t want to bring them bad news. It’s not my fault, it’s just how things are. I’m even going to get myself into trouble, talking to his brother like that. He’ll be on some kind of list, they’ll be watching him, that’s for sure—for certain even. Don’t shoot the postwoman, I used to say that to people and they’d laugh. Too much bad news is delivered these days, and the bags are so heavy—there must be a better job but what am I to do?

I need my brother. He’s the only one I ever needed. He looked after me, and now I’d look after him. Those fascist fucking pigs won’t get at him, I won’t let them. They could round me up and stick me in a prison camp somewhere for all I care. As long as I was with him it wouldn’t matter. Then we could always look after each other. We’d remind each other who we were, who we really were, like we did when we were teenagers. Smoking spliffs and ignoring bad news. Now he’s in the countryside, a place I daren’t go.

I’ve lost the connection again. Fuck it. Perhaps I’ll go outside. No, no Norna will wonder where I am. She might be stupid, quite stupid, but she’ll wonder where I’ve gone. Besides, the neighbour will be back soon, that one who’s always on the phone. She might be able to guess what they’re actually on about. But, but it’s doing my back no good sitting in this chair all day, no good at all. I’ve never noticed the window is so dirty. Perhaps I can suggest another activity, one which involves less sitting and spying. Perhaps we can go somewhere together, somewhere where we can actually leave all the busy world behind and be alone, just the two of us. Do I really feel like that?

The connection is gone again, but who has been keeping it going anyway? Who’s keeping the electricity running? They must have finished putting the turbines on the roof before the plague peaked. They’d better come for us, take us somewhere where it’s safe, where there’s no disease and plenty of food. I’m wasting away. Where has she gone? I need to talk to her. It might be through a fake face, through a woman’s lips but it’s better than nothing. With her I know I could be more. More than some sad old man in a shirt and tie who sells drugs to neighbourhood teens. Neighbourhood teens who’d eventually vomited their lives away, along with their brothers, sisters, along with their parents. We might be the last two left on Earth.