TheRapist (21 page)

She showered, scrubbing her entire body with a tube of mint exfoliator, which tingled as she rubbed hard at her skin. She splashed her face with icy water and gave herself three shampoos, scrubbing at her hair before combing thick conditioner through it. Slathering body lotion across her skin, she towel dried her hair and rubbed two kinds of serum and an old sample pot of moisturizer into her face and neck. A set of her best underwear: white lace, satin, ribbons. Old, worn jeans and a tight, bright, burnt orange tee. Lip gloss, the colour of the palest flesh. Mascara. Socks, flat boots with scuffed fronts, brown leather jacket. Ready to go, never to
be
violated again.

*

Jezzy
& Adrian

In a coffee shop, one of the ubiquitous that float free foaming across every city, every town, every country,
Jezzy
and Adrian sat at a small table by the window, too close to the hot radiator, but far enough away from the people at the next table to allow themselves a smidgen of privacy.

‘I’ve had enough Adrian.’

‘Coffee?’ He smiled without lifting his head from the depths of his mug.

‘No, you.’ She sighed. ‘We’re done.’

He looked up from his overly nursed
mocha
and she noticed, not for the first time, but the first time she openly admitted it to her mind, that his face was too long and narrow and that it was pointed and sharp, rather than lived in and comforting, having tried to convince herself of the latter impression for much too long.

‘What?!’ his voice too loud, even for one word.

She wiped her mouth. It was froth-free, despite the abundance of
half empty cups
adorning the table.

‘This isn’t working, I need to move on, I’ve outgrown you and other clichés. Whichever one works, I just don’t want this anymore. You’re not right for me. You never were. You really are not right for me at all.’

Adrian’s face fell towards the table. His jaw hung slack and the furrows in his cheeks deepened a little more.

‘You’re right for me though
Jez
,’ he muttered in despair.

As much as she thought she had felt for him, right now she felt nothing. Nothing within the realms of empathy anyway. He just got on her nerves and she wanted to get away. Why does one always have to explain things to the other person when they need to move on? She was tired. Too tired. He was tiring. Maybe she should
just
tell him that?

Wiping her mouth with her crumpled, beige paper serviette, she let the words flow unedited from her lips, ‘You make me tired and as much as things were vibrant and full on for a while, I feel as though I need a holiday from you. Make that more of a lifelong vacation.’

‘Well, the feeling’s mutual,’ seethed Adrian through his teeth.

What had just happened? One moment his heart seemed as though it might break and now his tone was slimy and cold.

He couldn’t look at her. He glared out of the window coated in condensation, at the dusty floor dotted with tiny triangular corners of sugar sachets, at the shiny bald head of a man to his left, but not at
Jezzy
. There was no contact for her.

‘If you really felt anything for me then you should understand the way I feel,’
Jezzy
spoke directly to him, trying to look into his eyes as he looked away.

‘Exactly what you should do for me,’ he bit into each word as he stared at the wall, snapping each
syllable
in two between his teeth.

Jezzy
felt anger welling up inside of her. ‘Can’t you look at me when I speak? What if I didn’t look at you either? We’d be talking and listening and both be looking in other directions! How stupid would that look?!’

He ignored her, more interested in the ninety degree angle where the wall met the ceiling.

‘You exhaust me Adrian.’

‘The feeling’s mutual.’ His mundane, copycat retorts had become so mind shattering, as he had withered into a shadow of his former self before her eyes. A pedantic parrot.

She scraped her chair away from the table and walked out.

*

Jezzy

Jezzy
stood in the heart of Piccadilly. She choked in the fumes, squinted up at the grey, soggy sky, got jostled by hurried commuters and felt as
though she was soaring,
free as a bird.

*

Frankie

Frankie gave her notice to Sam’s mother, who was on the phone to a nanny placement agency before Frankie had even left the
room
. Sam was desperately unhappy to see her go, but she knew that, as a nanny, she was replaceable and it wouldn’t be long before somebody else was waiting at the gates with a jam sandwich and a packet of Wotsits. Sam
’s
heartbreak was merely momentary. She wished she could say the same about herself. She had given notice at her rented bedsit in Camden Town and was going home to live in Devon. She touched her stomach, very gently, and it made her smile. Despite everything that had happened, she now had a responsibility to the tiny little thing that was growing inside of her. She was going to have a baby by a dead man that she had known much too briefly and she could never even to begin to fathom what had happened to him or why he had killed himself. She was just thankful that his attorney had
informed
all
of
the contacts on Manny’s Blackberry. So, that was it. A brief, wonderful affair, which had ended and begun all too quickly. Manny had died as Frankie had discovered the life within her. She had never in her life cried so much; for the love she had barely known; for the torment he must have gone through to do that to himself; for the pure joy she felt at being pregnant. Her situation was far from ideal, she knew that, but for the first time in her life she felt completely sure about something. Her certainty at what she must do was at the forefront of her mind, in fact her mind was filled with hope and positivity despite what had happened. She didn’t have much to take with her, all her trendy Camd
en gear had gone to Oxfam
and all the crockery and furniture had been included in the furnished bedsit. She had a case with a few pieces of clothing and a stack of her favourite old books. That was it. After living in the capital for years, she left it with barely anything to show
on the
outside and everything to live for inside. Frankie stepped onto a bright red bus to Victoria station and boarded a train that would take them home.

*

Jezzy

Standing
in profile at the bathroom mirror, slightly bending forwards
,
Jezzy
looked at her reflection. Why did her stomach stick out? It had a little ridge that wouldn’t budge and she was sure the ridge was getting bigger! A movie with Eddie Murphy came to mind, something from the eighties where there was a scene in a bathroom and the girl stood at the sink brushing her teeth or something, but anyway she was leaning over and her stomach was still flat. There was no skin overlapping, nothing. How did that happen? She bent further forwards until her back cracked, sounding like a bag of crisps being crushed within their packet, the salt and vinegar rubbing into the
emotional
wounds. As she hauled her body up to her full height, she tried to study her face in the mirror but it was too much of a blur, so she reached for her ‘times seven, magnified mirror. The sight of skin so magnified at such close range was disconcerting to say the least. Her che
eks were florid and flushed, the freckles and
pores seemed to be
expanding
. Her eyebrows looked as though they had been in a fight and she grabbed her tweezers to pluck and pick. Morning glory? No way. Real life. In about half an hour, when she had performed a feat of magic, she would look fabulous. But until that time, for want of a better expression,
Jezzy
looked bloody horrible.

*

Devon

Devon was slumped on a wooden bench overlooking the Pacific. The sun was pounding down on her with relentless, fiery force. Where were the warm, succulent rays that usually beat down on Los Angeles, the ones that creep beautifully into your blood, insidiously urging you to stay forever? Today, the ocean held
aloft
a narrow layer of persistent smog
, a dirty ribbon, emphaticall
y following the horizon. There really was no escaping this place. LA got you any way she could, trapping you eternally inside the wanton promise that spilled from her ruby red, smudged lips. Devon’s eyes burned into the horizon, her topaz irises glowing more golden in the dusty heat.

A bagman dragged by, his rusty cart overflowing with soiled clothing, wrecked take-out boxes and broken dreams, leaving a stench that palpably trailed him like the train of Miss Havisham’s wedding dress.

Devon’s nostrils twitched and then she felt a tremendous urge to let Adrian know that Birdman was gone, so that he too could release the ghosts of his past.

Lifting her Blackberry from the black Prada bag that was swung across her shoulder, she switched it on and tapped out an email to Adrian:

Birdman is dead. Now you can let go.

Watching the sun
reluctantly being pushed from its lofty throne into the awaiting smog, Devon thought that she should give Manny a call and they could go to a movie and grab a salad at Chin Chin. She smiled as she thought of his reaction. It was an unprecedented move on her part, as she never called him
nor made a date. She owed this
to him. Too much messing around, playing the field, running from her past. There and back, there and back. After decades spent inflicting pain on others due to her own torment, she felt as though she could relax at last, maybe even settle down. Maybe? The mere thought made her laugh out loud, as she lounged on the bench, in the yellow glow of the lost sun and called Manny’s office.

A snapping secretary answered the phone. ‘Yes, can I help you?’ a typing, filing daschund.

‘Manny please,’ smiled Devon into the phone.

‘What is this regarding?’ Snap. Snap.

‘It’s a personal call,’ Devon already didn’t like this mutt on the end of the line, or leash.

‘Are you a friend,’ growled the secretary.

‘Yes,’ sighed Devon.

‘Well then you should know, as all contacts were informed by email or SMS.’

‘Informed of what? My Blackberry was down and I’ve been out of town. Look, could you just tell me what’s going on?’

‘Mr. Kofsberg is dead.’

The sun
collapsed
behind the horizon
as
Devon’s lips fell apart.

‘What, what do you mean?’

‘Dead. As in no longer living. The opposite of alive.’ The secretary has morphed from a snappy dog to something more vicious. ‘Suicide. Apparently.’

Devon and her Blackberry lay side by side at the foot of the bench,
the
winking red light penetrating the darkness
that
closed in on Santa Monica, as the email to Adrian bounced back as ‘undeliverable’.

*