Short Story
[Uploaded 12/05]
Wild Flower (2003)
Silence descends, as the last of the night’s revelers make their way from the now closing burger bar. One young girl doubles-up suddenly and empties her stomach into the gutter. Her friend stumbles forward and pulls back vomit soaked locks in a show of camaraderie that can no longer prevent the girl from smelling of sick for most of tomorrow. A pre-pubescent looking, greasy haired youth locks the front doors, turns off the faulty neon sign sending out a pool of darkness and dims the front lights. The final clearing up yet to do. Bins to put out, griddle and counters to clean and lastly; cigarette burns to wipe from the tiled walls, put there by the drunken pets of young women who do not care or even know, that this is as good as it gets. The same young women who, in years to come, will wear dark glasses on dull days to hide the bruises of frustrated arrogance. Who will continue to love the pets that have turned on them and yet still dream of princes and fairy tale endings. Because they know no better, because they cannot see the truth.
Suzi sits and waits for all the lights to go out below so that she can see the blue glow of the Insecticutor on the wall above the chip fryer. Something always fascinates her about the way flies would commit suicide on it taking some sort of insane pleasure from crashing against the fiery elements. Besides the buzz always reminds her of the sparks given off by the tracks in the tube and of summer days spent on the Dodgems at the traveling fair. Sometimes, if she concentrates, she thinks she can hear the crackle and buzz or maybe it’s a trick of the mind and memory? She lets the dirty curtain fall back to shut out this world for now, but no mere fabric can shut out the blaring glow of the street lamp without, or the pain within. She collapses into bed with a cheap romance novel and even cheaper wine waiting for her prince to come in his white limo, blaring opera down the High Street. If it’s good enough for the likes of Charlene in the book and Julia Roberts in the film, then why not?
Suzi wakes with a start, not knowing who or where she is, and sits trying to recall. As the memory returns she wishes for that first moment of wakefulness, when nothing exists and you have no memories or being. For a split second none of this life exists and she could have been five years old again, making daisy chains, for all the world cared. She can hear the road sweeper dragging cans, bottles, burger boxes and vomit from the street below. The mystery of the sudden awaking is solved.
Rising to put the kettle on, she stubs her toes on the wine bottle, which spills a pattern of blood red liquid across the floor boards spreading like petals wrenched from a rose presented as a token of love. No doubt another stain on the ceiling below. There will be hell to pay when it shows through in a couple of days. She leaves it to lie. Outside the window there is the familiar clinking of the milk float as it trundles down the High Street on it’s way to the council estate at the top of the hill, the tires squeaking over nearly new tarmac. A sound heard more and more often recently. A quick glance to the sofa on the way to the kitchen, realises the fear that he failed to return home again last night. She knew he hadn’t, even before she looked, but then surprises do happen because that is the nature of surprises. The milk’s off. That’s what happens when you don’t give a toss and when the place you live is no longer and maybe never was; home. The thoughts spitting from her like the taste of earwax, she places the carton back in the door of the fridge. Clutching a black coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other she sits at the window thinking of the red wine dripping between the floorboards and the mark it would make. She writes “FUCK HIM” in the condensation and grime on the pane with a nicotine-stained finger and casually doodles dahlias over the ghosts of marks made on other nights, while waiting for the world to happen.
Ten past seven sees C.M.GREEN Quality Butcher’s Est. 1928 unlock the front doors to his little shop, next door to the burger bar. A double row of bricks and an entire world separating the two establishments, such a difference that they were never open at the same time. Mr. C.M.GREEN, assuming that was his name and not the original owner’s, as always looks both up and down the empty street before backing through the open door with keys in hand. A white carnation clearly visible in the buttonhole of his dark woolen coat. His rattling of the door and keys in the dark interior of the store are clearly audible to Suzi, even through the glass of the window painted closed. All sounds appear exaggerated at this time of day, even the distant hum of the motorway can be heard if there are no nearer sounds to drown it out. As he moves through to the back of the shop, she sees the faint glow of the light in the back room appear as he flicks the switch, reflected from the aluminium counters and she wonders.
She wonders if it really is the same man who started the business seventy-six years previously. Which would make him at least ninety-two if he had begun at sixteen. No, she decides, it couldn’t happen; besides he was too bloody miserable. She knew if she lived that long, she would spend her days laughing and spending money on credit cards.
She wonders how the old bugger would react, when taking his customary glance up and down the street, to find a naked 23 year old waving down from a lighted window. And a pretty, trimmed, blond 23 year old at that. He would never be able to see the serpent tattoo on her inner thigh from there, but the overall effect would probably kill him anyway. She also wonders if Sweeney Todd was ever caught, what with the butcher and the burgers and all. He must have been, otherwise how would we know his name.
Eight ‘o’clock and the traffic starts to build with real people, leading real lives and all heading for their dreary eight hours in their real jobs. So much money drives past the window, so many nameless grey suits all aiming to buy or sell the most today, to earn that one elusive bonus that allows them to retire to Provence or where-ever it is they all go now. Growing olives and ostriches and oriental sand gardens, making wine and driving vintage tractors, whilst writing their grand adventure and life changing experience as some sort of quasi novel come self-help book for all the other suits to read and dream about.
Quarter to nine and the other shop lights begin to flicker on, one by one. The newsagents would have opened at half seven, but it is on this side of the street so she couldn’t see it from here. They sold milk but she couldn’t be bothered, quite liking coffee black in the mornings. It helped to clear her head. First the little Asian woman fidgeting about in the chemists, the poor thing looked nervous just having a cup of herbal tea or reading the paper, the Lord alone knows what would happen if she encountered one of the addicts that get their Methadone from the pharmacy in the supermarket. She is closely follow by the little old woman who smells of cat piss, trying to get herself into the Sally Army charity shop on the corner. Nice woman, poor hygiene or bladder control. Mr. and Mr. Coffee Shop, if you know what I mean, are next. They must enter round the back, she sniggers at her own pun, because she has never seen them come or go. The first she sees of them each morning is when the lights go on and they come through to the front of house to re-wipe the tables that they cleaned yesterday before the lights went off. They spruce up the posy bottles on each table, adding the occasional fresh bloom as they go. Non-descript alpine-like flowers and gentle fronds of fern. And then the faltering noise of a key in the lock downstairs. The launderette below wouldn’t open for another hour yet and only then if Theopodopolus or whatever he was called was sober enough to drive his Merc; meaning only one thing. He’s come home.
All the muscles in her stomach knot up and she holds back a wretch as she wonders what state he is in this time. It’s probably safer to stay here by the window and chance to luck, she thinks. Has she made a mistake about it being him? The time roars by on the old brass alarm clock by the bed, each tick like a thunderous clash of cymbals accentuating the thudding inside her ears. There is no noise from the stairs; maybe he’s fallen asleep in the doorway. It wouldn’t be the first time. She stands and creeps towards the bedroom door desperate not to make any sound herself, listening at the crack for any evidence that he’s on his way up.
Suzi’s heart leaps into her throat and makes her gag as the front door to the flat crashes open and hits the wall. She catches her breath to stem any noise that may escape, any reason for him to come looking for her. It slams closed behind him but bounces back a little as the latch doesn’t take and she can hear him stagger into the kitchen. He crashes into the far worktop and knocks a mug to the floor. “Fuck”. She hears the fridge shlup open as the sticky rubber seal breaks contact with the enameled body. He fumbles, rattling the ketchup bottles on the middle shelf. Silence for a moment and she crouches behind the door thinking happy thoughts of chrysanthemums rippling in sunshine. “Fuck! Bitch!” and the splat of a milk carton hitting the wall in the living room, above the fire. A dent in one wall from the door handle and cheese growing from another, she allows herself a little smirk. The TV clicks on with a tiny, almost imperceptible crackle as the static rearranges itself on the screen. He changes channels a few times, running through the sports, but all the premium ones are dead until noon. She lights another cigarette, burning patterns of White Weed in the back of the door with the glowing ember. She smokes very little of it and nods slightly as if she has a nervous tick. She waits. She nods.
Nearly twenty minutes later she sneaks out into the living room and peers over the back of the sofa. Face down and out cold with one arm and one leg draped over the edge like a sunflower collapsed in on itself as autumn approaches. Perfect. Suzi steals back into the bedroom careful not to move the door beyond it’s creak-free zone and slowly drags a battered, blue cardboard suitcase out from under the bed. It was her grandmothers. She yanks clothes on over her night shirt and slips on some pumps. Tiptoeing past the prone beast she places the suitcase outside the flat at the top of the stairs, returns to the bedroom, picks up the clock and winds the alarm key.
She sets it for ten minutes time and takes it through to the kitchen while she prepares. Another thought takes her back to the stairs where she descends with the case, balancing it on the bottom step. Back in the kitchen to retrieve the clock, she takes it to the sofa being careful not to disturb, placing it by his face where he’s looking down into the back of the cushions. She goes to the cupboard next to the stove and pulls out the heavy cast iron pan that had never been used since her mother had brought it round last Easter. It had always been too heavy, a pain to clean and no use for pancakes or omelettes which would burn too easily. And even if she went to the trouble of dusting it off to use, it would only go rusty, glowing orange like the Nasturtiums in the park. Standing over him, listening as the snores begin to rumble in his sinuses and seize in his throat, she waits with the pan held aloft for the alarm to go off. The ticking seems endless as her arms sag slightly and she peers down at the yellowy face to see how far the minute hand has left to travel. It already covers the short red alarm hand and yet it only ticks. The blood continues to pound, the nodding takes up again and Suzi feels faint.
The brass bells ring like a siren in his head making them both jump. He reaches up, grabs the clock and throws it across the room, where it shatters in the dark corner by the stereo. Shards of glass fly back as far as his Playstation where he abandoned it yesterday in the middle of the floor. Then nothing for a moment as his brain obviously tries to catch up. He twists around very cautiously, looks up her nose and into her eyes. It takes another moment for recognition to cross his face, to see the iron disc above her head and Suzi brings the pan crashing down. She feels as it contacts and carries on down. Momentum forcing it through and towards the filthy, peony patterned cover of the suite. The breaking and cracking and crushing is felt through the wooden handle. The slow motion sight of flesh and innards splaying out in all directions, soft and red. Hair wet and matted by the single blow. His hands rise too late to stop his face being covered by the watermelon she’d placed on the armrest above his head. He cowers slightly, unsure of himself, not knowing how to react. He looks into her eyes, she sees his fear, smiles and turns away dropping the pan. She almost skips out the flat door and down the stairs. She picks up the case on her way out and leaves the keys in the front door lock. Suzi looks up and down the street once, smiling as her glance takes in all the characters she has come to know. She breathes deep taking in the car fumes, but tasting a hint of fresh coffee, new bread and soap powder. She whispers “Goodbye” to it all, stoops to pluck a buttercup from between the cracks in the pavement, then heads for the tube station and never looks back.
