There’s a girl at the front door. I can see her out my bedroom window. She’s been knocking for a while now. I haul myself out of bed, limp downstairs. My right side is numb, my left side still hurts.
‘I’m fine,’ I call through the door.
There’s a muffled shout I can’t make out. I peer through the spyhole. She’s small, with curly, reddish hair. She’s waving at the door, at me, movements exaggerated by the fishbowl lens. Someone I know, then. Another friend? So many visitors since I got back. It’s hard to keep track, especially with the medication.
I put my ear to the door to make out her cries. ‘It’s Louise.’
I flick the latch, yank open the door. ‘Louise, sorry. I didn’t recognise. The drugs, you know. Apixaban, sertraline, morphine. I have a box that beeps to tell me what to take when.’. I show her a white plastic device like a smoke detector. I shake it. It rattles like a box of Tic Tacs.
‘It’s alright.’ She beams at me. ‘Long as you’re okay.’ She leans over and kisses me. Her lips are cold and strange. She holds my hand. ‘You’re okay.’ She strokes my forearm. Caresses it, almost.
I pull my arm free, nod and smile as best I can.
‘I’ve brought some things for you,’ she says. ‘Come on, sit yourself down. You need to rest. How long’s it been? A week? Feels like forever.’
I slump onto the sofa, stretch out my aching left leg. Louise comes and sits right next to me. I can feel our thighs touching, but I try not to move.
‘So, what have you been up to? You’ve hardly messaged. Don’t think I’ve even seen you on social media.’
I shrug. ‘The people. All those faces. I don’t know them. I don’t know why I should care.’
‘Finally, coming round to my way of thinking? I suppose it’s got to give you a new perspective on what’s important. Every cloud, eh? Maybe I can have some of that attention. When you’re better.’ She leans over, puts her hand on my stomach. Almost a cuddle. I flinch. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean.’
‘When I’m better.’
‘When you’re better.’
There’s a long pause. Perhaps she’s annoyed.
‘Oh, the stuff.’ She grabs her bag, starts pulling things out, like a magician with a trick hat. ‘I got some films. Good ones. Found them in a charity shop. DVDs. I know how much you like to have the real thing. There’s some ready meals in the Tesco bag – I wanted to cook something for you, but you know how busy it’s been. Oh, and you can use my Kindle. What sort of things do you like? Don’t think I’ve seen you read. Not really a two-person activity, is it? Anyway, download what you want. It’s fine.’
I nod along as she talks, not saying much, hearing less. I remember to look her in the eye, though. I don’t want to upset her again. It’s one hour and thirty-three minutes until she leaves.
Butterflies grew into great flapping bats as I stared up at a hundred feet of jagged grey granite. My stomach churned, acid and alcohol, bile and bourbon. I rummaged in my bag, pulling out climbing gear, scattering it on the sandy canyon floor. Nuts, hexes, quickdraws, cams. A cornucopia of coloured metal stacked in haphazard piles. Dylon starts laying them out into neat rows, picking up each one in turn to check it.
He shrugged. ‘Just to be sure, you know?’
Louise wandered over, pretended to check my harness, pulled me in close. ‘You don’t have to do this. Not for me.’
‘I’m fine.’ I tucked a ringlet of auburn hair behind her ear, kissed her freckled cheek, the side of her neck. She smelled wonderful, lemon and vanilla.
‘Let Dylon lead. We left early last night.’
I watched him running through the rope, checking it wasn’t tangled. Long blonde hair tied in a topknot, shirt off, muscles moving under tanned tattooed skin.
Louise watched him, too.
‘I’ll belay, you can follow on a top rope.’ She pulled me in closer, put her arms around me. ‘No shame in seconding a climb.’
‘I’m fine. I didn’t have much after you left.’ I wriggled free, snatched up the rope, tied it to my harness with a figure-eight knot.
‘Don’t…’
‘Honestly.’ I handed her the rope. ‘You’ve got me. I trust you.’
I was thirty feet up when I reached the ledge. Two feet flat on solid rock, almost impossible to leave. I took a deep breath, choked down a mouthful of sour saliva. The next safe space was a few feet above. A place to tie in. I unclipped a piece of gear, a purple cam, neatly clipped into an extended clip – perfect for the job. Thankfully, Dylon checked the gear, not me. I fumbled it into a gap in the rock, tugged on it with sweat-slicked hands. I reached for my chalk bag, but it wasn’t there.
My breathing came shallow and fast as I stepped up and off the ledge. My left foot scrabbled. Caught the rope. Kicked the gear in the rock.
My grip slipped.
For a second, I teetered, one fragile finger trapped in a crack of sharp, jagged rock. Skin peeled. White bone and red blood against dark grey granite.
Blue sky and space.
I felt a tug at my waist as the rope went taught. The purple cam pinged from the rock. Ground rushed up to meet me.
Copper-flavoured, scarlet pain bloomed across my body like a poppy in the dawn light. I pushed myself up, stood, stumbled. Firm hands grabbed me, held my shoulder, the back of my head.
‘Lie down, don’t move.’ A girl’s voice? I didn’t know whose.
Grit in my mouth. I tried to spit. ‘I don’t. Who are why?’ I blinked, tried to concentrate. ‘I mean, I mean, I mean. What am?’
When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded. Muffled voices chattered around me. I tried to move, but a burly paramedic with a blonde topknot was pinning me down, tattooed arms straining as I writhed to get free. Why had he stripped to the waist? I tried to claw him, but it was no use; his arms were like iron. I still squirmed but he was too strong, even as he held me with just one so he could cut off my teeshirt, check my wounds.
‘It’s okay. ‘Another nurse was holding my hand. ‘You’re okay.’ She stroked my forearm. Caressed it almost. I relaxed a little. She had a kind face. When she smiled, she had dimples in her freckled cheeks. ‘They’re going to take you to the hospital now.’
I tried to smile back, but I’d split the corner of my mouth. Dried blood in my beard, stiff and sticky as glue. ‘Will you be there?’ My voice sounded strange and slurred.
She nodded.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
She frowned, pushing a lock of auburn hair behind her ear. ‘It’s Louise.’
I smiled. What are the chances? ‘Easy to remember,’ I said. ‘Same name as my girlfriend.’
It’s not far to the shop. A couple of streets away. I’m running out of food. The world is so harsh, so bright. Stentorian cars roar like dinosaurs. Silver needle sharp light pierces the roiling grey clouds. It takes twenty-one minutes to get to the shop. That seems like a long time.
On the way back from the supermarket, a man shouts at me in the street. He’s tall, with blond hair tied up in a bun. Tattoos cover his muscular arms. I don’t want any trouble. I try to quicken my pace. My stiff left leg burns as I pace up the hill. In less than a minute, he catches me up.
‘Thought you weren’t going to stop.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know I should.’
‘Oh. That’s how it is. Look, I’m sorry. About what happened.’
‘Are you?’
‘Why would you say that? Do you think it was me?’
I look him over. There’s something familiar. Should I know him? Someone from university, or all those nights out? So many faces, they all roll into one. I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’
‘Unbelievable. What the hell do you think happened?’ His voice sounds harsh. Too loud.
I’ve tried not to think about accident. The shame gnaws at the pit of my stomach like a rat trying to escape. The drinking; the hangover. Climbing to prove a point. Couldn’t even place gear. Kicked the cam right out the wall. I picture the rope going slack as the cam ripped out the wall. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, avoiding looking at him. ‘Sometimes gear just fails, I guess.’
He doesn’t believe me. I can tell. He shakes his head as I wander off.
There are so many visitors. Doctors, nurses, family, friends. I can’t keep track. Everyone wants to know how I am. I tell them I’m fine, but nobody listens. Sometimes, if I don’t answer, the people go away. Sometimes, they don’t.
After I let her in, the girl clatters around the kitchen. She flicks on the kettle, pulls cups out of cupboards, teabags from the tin. She knows her way around. Another helper? A nurse?
‘I spoke to Dylon yesterday,’ she says.
A friend, then. ‘How is he? I’ve been meaning to get in touch, but with everything…’ I shrug. ‘It’d be great to see him.’
She watches me, frowning, stirring the cups of tea, the clink of metal on porcelain, counting out the long seconds. ‘He’s concerned,’ she says, at last. ‘We all are.’ She hands me tea in my favourite mug, blue and white, shaped like a cat’s head. Builders brown, the way I like it. I hold it in both hands, soaking in its warmth. ‘He told me about the argument. On the street the other day. What happened?’
Does everyone know about that? I tell her about the strange man who chased me down the street. How he asked me about the accident, but didn’t believe me.
‘You’re sure you didn’t know him?’
‘I don’t think so. Should I have? Was he upset?’
‘No, he was… He was probably confused. You get that, don’t you? It was a misunderstanding. Don’t worry about it.’ She wanders around the kitchen for a minute, checking cupboards, drawers, the fridge. ‘I’ll get your shopping sorted, okay. Until you get better.’
I’m about to tell her I’m fine when I remember the shop. Cold and bright, teeming with streams of chittering people, writhing like an ant’s nest. I can feel my heart pulse in my neck. I nod.
‘There. It’s not so hard to accept help, is it?’
I nod again. She doesn’t say anything, so it must be the right response.
After rummaging in her rucksack, she pulls out a small notebook and a glittery purple pen. On one side of the page, she writes Got on the other Buy. She opens cupboards, making notes of the few things she finds. Pot Noodles, pasta, tinned tomatoes. She picks up a half-used jar of faded, pinkish paprika that’s melded into one solid block, gives it a shake.
In the ‘Buy’ column, she scrawls one word: Everything.
For a long moment, she chews on the end of the pen. When she takes it out her mouth, it glistens with sticky saliva. ‘Notes,’ she says, at last. ‘You need to start taking notes.’
‘Why?’
‘For your memory.’
‘My memory’s fine,’ I say. I never forget things. Sometimes I wish I could.
She pulls out the page, hands me the pad and purple pen. I wipe the spit off the end with a threadbare tea towel.
‘Do it for me, okay? You’ve got to start letting people in.’ she says.
I nod. I don’t want to upset her.
‘Promise?’
‘I’ll make a note of it.’ I pick up the notebook, make a show of jotting it down. You have to start letting people in. She sticks it on the kitchen door with a lump of blue-tac from the creaky drawer in the side cabinet.
‘Now, write down what you see.’ She holds her arms wide, stands there like a scarecrow.
I make a list: Auburn hair, curly. Short. Blue eyes. Freckles. Normal height.
She ambles across the kitchen, and I hold out the list so she can inspect it. Instead, she puts her arms around my waist, pulls me into a hug, resting her head on my shoulder.
‘I. I have a girlfriend.’
She actually laughs at me. ‘I know,’ she says.
She kisses me on the lips.
I don’t know what to do.
A sign appears at the living room window.
It says: Read the note.
There’s an arrow pointing right.
There’s a piece of paper I keep on the door. It’s a list of features. I peer through the spyhole, compare the girl to the list, checking off features, one by one. Everything matches.
At the bottom of the note, it says: Let her in.
I let her in.
‘Food delivery!’ The girl lifts up the bags of shopping she’s carrying, though I can already see what they are. ‘Can’t stay long. Sorry. How are you doing today?’
‘Oh, you know.’
She nods, effusive. Everyone knows. I don’t know how.
‘The notes seem to be helping, then?’
I imagine all the people I would have had to talk to if I'd let them in. It’s been so quiet for the last few days. ‘Yeah. The notes are working.’
I offer to help her with the bags, but she just laughs. ‘Soon enough,’ she says.
‘You don’t have to. I’m sure I can…’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s my job to look after you.’ She squeezes my hand.
When she goes to the kitchen, I make more notes on the paper in a purple pen.
She’s here to help.
It’s her job.
After a few minutes of clattering she comes and joins me in the front room. ‘How are you feeling? Any better?’ she asks.
‘What? Oh. A little.’ I take a few steps to show her how well I’m walking now.
‘And the other thing. The confusion. Any improvement?’
‘Maybe. A little?’
‘How did you get on with the films?’
I shake my head. ‘Not for me.’ I don’t like films. Too many people running around. Everything feels like a muddle. ‘I’ve been reading a lot, though, so I can’t be doing too bad.’
‘And you recognised me, right? With the note.’
‘Sure,’ I said. I recall the note, reading it back in my head. She’s here to help. ‘The nurse. I. I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.’
‘It’s Louise,’ she says. Almost a whisper. I can hardly hear.
How could I forget the nurse is called Louise? Same as my girlfriend. Like the nurse at the accident. ‘Of course. Fuck. Sorry, I didn’t mean it.’
‘I know. I know. I just hoped.’
A knock. A note. A list.
The nurse.
I let her in.
‘I want to try something today. Some tests. See how your memory is, that kind of thing.’ She sits next to me on the sofa. I shuffle up, but we’re nearly touching. Her perfume catches the back of my throat, lemon and vanilla, like a cupcake.
‘My memory’s fine. I told you. Or the other girl. I don’t know.’
‘It’s okay, I know. We’ll start simple. You have a girlfriend, right?’
‘Yes. Louise.’
‘Why don’t you tell me how you met?
So, I tell her. About how things were when I finished university. About the depression. About meeting her. How my life changed. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without her,’ I finish.
‘Have you seen her? Since the accident.’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe. We message. I’m not very good with people right now. The medication.’
She takes a deep breath out before she says anything. ‘Okay. I want to try something. Is that okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘I want you to write down what you look like. Here –’ She tears a scrap of paper from her notebook.
I scribble down what I look like. Five ten. Brown hair, brown eyes. Beard. I pause for a minute to think. Touch of red, I add, wondering if that will help.
‘Good. Now write down how your girlfriend looks.’
Louise? It’s been so long I can hardly remember her face. But, of course, I know what she looks like. I jot it down on another yellowish scrap. Auburn hair, slightly curly. Blue eyes. I grin to myself, thinking of her. Freckles. I underline the word.
She takes pieces of paper, reads through the list, folds them into neat squares. She stares at me. Looks me right in the eye. I try not to squirm. Try to figure out what she wants.
‘How did I do?’ I ask.
‘How do you think you did?’
‘Good? I think good. My memory’s okay, isn’t it?’
Her lagoon blue eyes are shiny. Is it dusty in here? She rubs them with her sleeve. She doesn’t answer me. I must have failed the test. Perhaps better boyfriends would have started with beautiful or pretty.
‘Did I get it wrong?’
She breathes out again. Her eyes are still watering. ‘Look, I won’t be around for a while, okay? I’ll send someone else to look after you.’
‘I can do it again. The test. Do better.’
‘No, it’s… What’s that book you’re reading? Show me, will you?’
I head upstairs to grab the book, barely limping to show her how well I’m doing. I’m halfway up when the front door clicks.
When I get downstairs, there’s nobody there. I go to the note I keep by the door and scratch out the bottom two lines, scoring through the paper with my purple pen. She’s here to help. It’s her job.
I read through the list. It looks so stupid, Blu-tacked to the door. My memory’s fine. I go through the house, top to bottom, tearing down the paper notes the nurse made me put up. Tearing them into confetti. I throw the scraps in the bin.
Two, three days, maybe week later, I stumble downstairs. Eyes sleep-crusted, slippered feet scuffing on cold kitchen tiles. I shuffle through my routine. Kettle on, cut bread, tea and toast, butter and marmite melting, just a dash of milk. I’m about to start my breakfast, but there’s something on the table.
The photo is in a neat black frame. It shows three people. A man and woman hugging. A couple? Behind them looms a tall, muscular man with tattooed arms.
I don’t recognise them, but I see with a spreading horror that the man hugging the woman was wearing my tee shirt. I’d know that design anywhere. Someone has scrawled two words on the ivory mount with a purple pen.
‘To remember.’
I stare at the photo, turning over the possibilities in my head. I check the door. It’s locked. I live alone. I ransack the house looking for the tee shirt, but it’s gone. Why would they steal it? I try to pick up the photo. To snatch it off the table and hurl it away, but somehow, the image repulses me.
Next week, I find two small slips of paper in my bedside cabinet. Each one contains a list of features. I go downstairs and compare the lists to the photo on my kitchen table, checking off the features one by one. They all match. Then, I see that the writing matches too. Same purple pen.
To remember.
Remember what?
On Thursday, I find a stranger in my bathroom, peeping in through the window above the sink. How long has that window been there? I duck away so he won’t see me, but when I peek, I can see him peering back at me, trying not to be noticed. I shout and wave my arms, trying to frighten him away, but instead of fleeing, he mocks me, mimicking my actions, taunting me. Panicked, I hurl my electric toothbrush at the window, cracking the glass, scaring him away.
I call the landlord and they send round a man to fix the cracked window. When he comes, he tells me he can’t repair it. I ask if he can board it up, but he shakes his head.
‘You need help, mate.’
Why the hell does he think I called him?
I don’t go into my kitchen anymore. I got a cheap kettle from Amazon and a big box of pot noodles, which I keep in my room. I wash in the sink in the downstairs loo. There aren’t any windows there.
Sometimes, I take out the lists of features and read them. They seem so specific, yet at the same time, they could be anyone. I type the features into Google and look through the photos. The people all look the same.
As the kindly A&E doctor explains that they’re rushing you straight to intensive care, your first thought isn’t for your health but rather that you’re supposed to be moving out of your house tomorrow, so your parents will have to clean out your room. Doesn’t that say something interesting about your life?
‘Your amylase levels are five times higher than normal,’ she says.
There’s the weed you left on your bedside cabinet. The bong tucked under your desk. Used condoms in the unemptied bin…
‘We’re monitoring the situation in case you need an Emergency pancreaticoduodenectomy, which is the fancy way of saying we’ll need to remove your pancreas.’
Pancreaticduo-what? Oh shit, there’s your tin, too, on your desk. Baggies filled with a motley myriad of multicoloured pills or shades of whitish powders, from eggshell to snow.
Looking back from nineteen years in your future, I’m hardly surprised you’re in hospital. You deserve to be in hospital. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you pulled through. Glad the twenty-three-year-old you had the chance to become the forty-two-year-old me. But you are, and there’s no way to sugarcoat this, a total fucking mess. If I’d asked you yesterday if you were happy, you’d probably have said yes. We’ve always said we’re happy – but it hasn’t always been true. With hindsight, we weren’t back then. In a few days, once you’ve spent a week oscillating between opium heaven and agonising hell, you’ll have the first flicker of that notion, too.
I’m going to leave you here for a while. I’ve got to go and start the story – to begin at the beginning, as the King of Hearts would say. I’ll be back soon, though, to check up on you. Try to get some rest. You’ve got a long night ahead of you.
***
Your day began, as it so often did, with a hangover. I don’t remember where you woke, and if I’d asked you, I’m not sure you would have been sure either. So, instead, let’s jump forward an hour to the first place we can both agree upon; the Old Angel pub on Stoney Street. Nottingham, where you were getting breakfast and a pint to settle your stomach for the train ride back to Leeds.
Today, The Old Angel is a more trendy affair, with a wide range of craft beers and vegan options. You’d hardly recognise it. Although, as it happens, it’s owned by someone you were out with last night at the club night put on by Chris, now Christa. The guy with the dirty blonde hair who tried it on with Laura. Remember? Of course you do; I do. Back then, however, the Old Angel was a dirty punk pub where you could get blasted by the Dead Kennedys played at ear-splitting volume at ten in the morning and order a pint of Harvest Pale, chilli, chips and cheese all for under a fiver. The perfect place for a dirty punk kid with spikey purple hair and five pounds in their pocket.
By the time your sister, Eve, got there, the pint was already doing its job, and you were beginning to feel human and thinking about the next party later that evening. You’d flopped into the comfy embrace of a shabby red leather sofa when the chef sauntered up with your meal, a plate piled high with chips and chilli, a teetering tower of beige carbs slick with grease and oozing oil.
‘Wan’t enough left for two portion,’ the chef said with a nonchalant shrug. ‘May as well finish lot.’
Thinking about it now is enough to make my stomach churn, to reach for salad or a plate of roast veg with more colours than a Matisse. You weren’t me back then, though. It was Saturday morning, and you hadn’t eaten since Thursday lunch. You tore into it like a fresh kill. By halfway, you were full. By three-quarters, you were stuffed. When you finished the last morsel, stuffing the final cheddar-drenched fry down your gullet with a greasy finger, you sprawled across both seats like a basking crocodile. It was twenty minutes until you could move. You’d never felt so full. No more time to lounge, though – you had a train to catch and no money for another ticket. You hauled your swollen carcass up and lumbered down Fletcher Gate with all the grace of a golem.
You’d been on the train for half an hour when it began to dawn on you that something was wrong. Very wrong. Everyone knows that too-full post-Sunday roast squeeze where you loosen your belt and lounge, sated, content with the world, hands crossed on your bulging belly. This was not that. It’d been an hour and a quarter since you finished your meal, and you felt fuller than ever. How is that even possible? You gave your stomach a tentative poke. Granite hard. Apparently, crocodiles eat rocks to aid digestion. Had you gobbled down some gravel with your chips?
Forty-three minutes into the two-hour journey, as you pulled out of Chesterfield station, you wondered if you’d make it to Leeds. You stared back at the crooked spire, feeling like the devil’s arse had twisted you, too. Each sway of the train and track change wracked you with ripples of nausea. You could see the toilet from your seat. You watched it like a predatory beast, waiting for your moment to pounce, if pounce isn’t too sprightly a word for bloated, hulking form.
You emerged from the fetid squalor of the train toilet seventeen minutes later as the train was pulling into Sheffield under the oppressive glare of the brutalist Park Hill tower blocks. Now, the blocks have been clad in bright plastic squares, lime green, orange, and scarlet, to lure unwary hipster students. Even the tragic ‘I l LOVE YOU WILL U MARRY ME’ graffiti has been replaced with a replica in neon lights you can see from a mile away. Back then, however, they were painted in shades of peach or off-white, soiled in half a century of sordid soot, a reminder of Sheffield’s industrial past. We went up there, you, I, Tom. Twenty years ago - last summer from your perspective. We climbed onto the roof to smoke a joint and watch the city lights spread across the valley, clambering up the final story from the topmost bridge, stomachs turning at the drop below. Tom showed us the extent of the filth and how you could lick your finger and rub away the smog from the concrete slabs. As you emerged from the train toilets that day, you felt infinitely grubbier than forty-five years of collected filth on the side of an abandoned building. One hour left to go.
The rest of the journey to Leeds was an interminable blur. You should have emerged from the bathroom empty, cleansed. You were sure there was nothing left in you, yet your belly was bongo-taught. You curled into a ball on your seat or stretched out to take the strain off your stomach. Nothing worked. You watched the stops pass with glacial slowness. The gaudy lights of Meadowhall, the interchangeable rundown stations. Chapeltown, Elsecar, Barnsley, Darton. On the right day, you might have admired the verdant fields, waved at the cows and the sheep, feeling like you were somehow behind the scenes of the English countryside. On that afternoon, however, as you stared out the window, afraid to look away lest you add motion sickness to the bitter ordeal, it felt bleak and industrial, like you were being dragged through the bowels of a vast abandoned robot.
It took over an hour to get to Leeds from Sheffield, bouncing along uneven tracks, between your seat and the ever more sordid toilet. At last, you emerged into the neon-lit Leeds station, scurrying past the banks of police, remembering not to stroke the dog, as you had done several weeks before, only to be politely dragged into a side room and ‘searched’ – or more accurately very definitely not searched - by two too kind coppers, despite pulling a roached packet of king-sized silver rizla, when they got you to empty your pockets. Today, you had no time for such niceties, though you stupidly still had stuff on you.
Yet remarkably, brazenly repeating the action that nearly got you arrested just a fortnight ago wasn’t the stupidest decision of the day. As you stumbled out of the station, in abject agony, you were fully aware of where you were: a mere 10-minute walk from Leeds General Infirmary. But instead of heading to the safety of LGI, you decided to go home. Looking back at this day now, this is the part when I feel the most removed from you when I realise how I am (thankfully) not the person you were. Because I know why you made this decision. Not because you thought you were okay – it was apparent you weren’t. No, you opted to go back home because you knew you had weed back there, and you wanted a joint before you went to hospital.
To make matters worse, you even realised you were too ill to walk; home was a forty-minute march away via a route that took you through the hospital. What did you do instead? You went and brought a 30-gram packet of Amber Leaf tobacco from WHSmith, having discovered the previous month that if you spent over five pounds, you could get cashback, and if it was less than a tenner the system wouldn’t check your long ago maxed out bank balance before authorising the transition.
Quarter of an hour later, you were another twenty pounds over your overdraft, a mile and a bit further from the hospital and fifteen minutes closer to a catastrophic, potentially fatal and above all avoidable organ failure. That was when you discovered you couldn’t get into your house. Your key wouldn’t work in the lock. It didn’t even take the same type of key. It had changed from an old-style lock to a brand-new Yale latch. Frantic, you fumbled at your phone, trying to call your flatmates. No one answered. Eventually, you got a message saying that the house had been burgled, the locks changed.
I remember how angry you were at the time. Why hadn’t your flatmates told you? It was your house, wasn’t it? But now, as I look back on this incident, I find I can’t blame them for what they did, or rather didn’t, do. They didn’t know you were coming home; you didn’t tell them. You stopped hanging out with them over a year ago. You only returned home in the middle of the night to sleep off the party and smoke out the house with the scent of skunk weed. They were good students who worked hard and got their degrees. You were a dropout who barely spoke to them. I haven’t seen them since that day, and after recalling these events, I’m glad. Not because I resent them but because I couldn’t cope with the shame of seeing them.
Cursing your flatmates, you made the best decision of the day and headed to your friend Danjay’s house. Normally, just a ten-minute walk away, it took you nearly twenty agonising minutes to stagger across Hyde Park, lurch up the old stone steps to their house and feebly bang on their door. It took them less than a minute to come to the decision you should have made two hours ago – they called you an idiot, then an ambulance. They were right on both fronts. They probably saved your life that day. Blue lights flashing, they helped you down the steep steps, into the ambulance, and onto a stretcher. You were grateful to them, even back then, as they waved you off on your way to the infirmary.
So, here I am again, back at the hospital to check up on you. They’ve given you morphine now, and you’re dozing in a narrow bed, partly covered by a too-thin sheet. You’re looking a lot calmer, though not exactly peaceful. I’m going to leave you be. Best not to wake you; you’ve got a lot to go through tonight.
***
When does our story start? We can blame it on eating too much at the Old Angel – I know you’ll try to for another year or two – but when I tell your story, look back at you in 2005, there’s so much more going on. I think, deep down, you knew that too. This moment, these brief few days, are a chance for you to reassess. You won’t want to, of course. We’ve never been good at facing up to our failings. Even now, as a middle-aged man with a beautiful fiancée, a degree in a subject I love, and a more optimistic future than you could have hoped for back then, I still find it difficult to think about those times. How you dropped out of your degree, dropped out of life. Two years of parties, drink and drugs, spending money that wasn’t yours all to avoid the fact you were failing at university, and sooner or later, you’d have to admit that to the world. Two years of ignoring people trying to help you, blanking anyone you perceived as stopping you from living your life. Easier to go out and get wrecked than to face the abyss you felt every time you looked at your work and realised how little you’d learned, how impossible catching up had become.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on you. I remember our first-ever lecture. How doomed we were from the start. How we sat near the front of the lecture theatre for Doctor Kelvin’s first class, The Mechanics and Newtonian Physics. We were utterly lost in under five minutes.
The boy next to you held up his hand. ‘I didn’t quite follow that, Sir.’
The good doctor sighed and scrawled on the board, filling it with line after line of solutions to the equation. You gaped when he pulled down a second whiteboard and continued writing. ‘There,’ he finished. ‘Everybody got that? Can I carry on now?’
At the end of the lecture, the nervous boy turned to you. ‘Fuck. I need a pint.’
You’d never agreed with a statement more in your life.
Or perhaps we go further back? Psychoanalyse your desperate need to prove your cleverness, which made you take physics. That the dyslexic kid with mediocre grades could be as good as your clever clogs sister and her thirteen A* GCSEs. I wish I could go back and tell you that Mum and Dad don’t care what subject you do or if you do a degree at all; that in a few years, no one will notice or care; that, one day, you’ll go back and do something you love, and when you get a First, your sister will smile and say, ‘Told you you’re the clever one.’ Though you still won’t really believe her.
For now, though, perhaps you can just take a little time in those brief moments between the all-encompassing agony and the soporific effects of the morphine to think to yourself that possibly there’s a better way to live life.
***
It’s the middle of the night when you wake up. It’s dark outside, but the screens on the softly bleeping devices bathe the ward in a soft, twilight-like radiance. The world is still fuzzy at the edges, and the soporific effects of morphine still linger. You can’t work out where you are for a moment. Then, you see the oasis of light that illuminates the nurses' desk at the end of the ward. You try to roll over, but there’s a sharp scratching tugging at your arm – a cannula inserted in the crook of your elbow, attached to a drip that hangs from a skeletal steel stand. When you sit up, pain washes over you, like you’ve been stabbed in the stomach, though you can’t tell exactly where. Everything hurts, from sternum to pelvis.
For a moment, you wonder why you’ve woken up. Your head is heavy, your eyes struggle to stay open. Then you hear it. A murmuring from the bed next to you, from the homeless, alcoholic man they brought in just after you last night. A low drone, you can just make out. ‘Ohgodohgodohgodohgod…’
You pull the thin, threadbare hospital blanket around you.
‘…Ohgodohgodohgod…’
You search for the buzzer to call the nurse. There has to be one somewhere. You find it dangling by the side of your bed, scrabble at the chord, press the button over and over. A nurse wanders down the corridor.
‘…Ohgodohgodoh...’
When the smell hits, you wretch, though your stomach is empty, sides stuck together like two sheets of damp plastic. You’ve never smelled anything like it, but you know it’s the smell of death. Black, sticky, vile tar oozes under the curtain, separating your little bay from his. You scramble to pick up your bag before the filth irrevocably taints your belongings.
The trauma team is here now, crowding around him. You can hear them working, fighting to keep him alive.
‘Let me die. Please, don’t save me. I want to die. Please, please let me die.’
It takes over an hour to get his wish. He never stops begging.
You try not to listen. To ignore the inexorable assault on your senses.
You’ll try to forget this moment.
Don’t.
Hold onto it. Remember what happens when someone loses themselves completely. Remind yourself that this, lying in a hospital, on a drip, hoping your pancreas won’t burst, doesn’t have to be your life. Dying in a hospital, hoping the doctors won’t save you, won’t be your life.
There will still be parties and good times with friends, but now the drinking stops. The excess and the escapism. Perhaps it seemed easier to be someone else to avoid life’s problems for a while. But now, I need you to be us again.
There’s a perfectly manicured bonsai banyan tree on my desk, which I suppose I must have got to remind me of home. Over the years, its roots have grown entwined with the wire mesh of my in-tray. Now, its minuscule leaves cast a dappled shadow over the prodigious pile of files, each containing problems it’s my job to solve. My name, Lord Ganesha, is painted on the side of its pot in a slanting Sanskrit that matches the marks on my pale blue skin. Don’t let the Lord part fool you, though, for I am, in fact, Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, the four-armed, elephant-headed daughter of Shiva, God of Destruction. Perhaps it’s my tusks that confuse people.
I stare blankly at the interminable shadow-mottled, tree-entwined pile of papers. It never moves, you know? I’ve never seen them shift in all the however-many-years I’ve been in this office. Just take from the top, there’s more underneath; the height never changes. Once, I put a pink Post-it note on the bottommost folder, expecting to see it slowly move up the pile as I took new ones off the top. I swear, it never shifted an inch in what must have been a year and a day. Then, just like that, I’d completed the task. It was already halfway down my out-box, pink post-it note still stuck tight.
I count the cases in my in-tray, top two hands deftly finding the gaps between files, crawling up the piles like two blue spiders, while I scratch out the tally on a coarse yellow notepad. Eighty-three, same as before. I take my next case file off the top of the pile and count again. Eighty-three. Perhaps the others in the office have different numbers? Perhaps...
‘What the hell is this shit?’ Santa slams something down his grimy grey desk. The boom reverberates off bare white walls. The tawdry candy cane pens he insists on using scuttle across his cluttered desk, rattling like tiny bones. My heart pounds in my chest, an echo of that awful crash.
The Easter Bunny, who sits next to me, practically jumps out of her precious wheatish-brown fur. She scatters a stack of maps. They flutter about her like faux snow in a snow globe. She glares at Santa, long white whiskers quivering with indignation. Scrambling down from her too-high chair, she fumbles the papers into a pile with her two front paws.
‘Hey there, mister,’ I shout across the aisle to Santa. ‘What’s the problem here? Frightened poor EB half to death, you did.’
‘This is what’s wrong.’ He waves a pink scrap of paper at me. ‘I work my arse off for this place, and they say I’m not doing my job proper?’
‘Nobody’s saying that. Everyone knows you do a good job.’
‘Read it.’ Santa nods at my desk.
There, perched atop my in-tray, the very same one I just counted, is a faded slip of salmon-pink paper.
The Office of Non-Denominal Trivalisim
MEMORANDUM
Valued worker,
Moving forward, we're committed to optimising operational efficiencies and streamlining workflows to drive enhanced Personal productivity.
To facilitate this transformative journey, we will be deploying a dedicated task force to conduct an in-depth assessment of your current sensibilities. Your collaboration and support in this endeavour are greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Management.
‘Relax.’ I make calming, downward gestures with my trunk. ‘It’s probably nothing. Never is. Just some new stationery or something.’
Santa squints at the memo, holding it a hand’s width from his bulbous nose. ‘Management.’ He spits. A thin string of viscous saliva dribbles over his unkempt beard. ‘I suppose that means your lot then, does it?’
The question is aimed to his right, to a thin, swarthy man in a plain, stained beige robe leaning back in a black leather chair, decrepit leather sandals up on his desk.
‘Management?’ Jesus says, absolute contempt in his voice. ‘You know I don’t speak to... Not since the...’ He holds up his hands, arms outstretched, showing off the holes in the palms of his hand. Those wounds are still tacky with tangy, copper-scented blood, even after all these years.
I trace the necklace of too-smooth scar-skin that encircles my neck. The thin white border between the grey skin of my elephant head and my pale blue human body. I dig my fingers into my neck. The lumpy scar tissue squirms beneath my fingers like a many-segmented worm. How did you get there, little worm? What secrets do your segments hold?
***
I can remember a time before the office. Back when the world was new-fangled, and everything was as bright and brash as a Bollywood talkie. I remember how my mother, Parvati, snuggled up with me while we whiled away the hours watching the world go by as my brother marched about the yard, directing legions of ants in minuscule warfare. In the hot afternoons, we would make sweet spiced rice pudding, flavoured with aromatic green cardamom pods and gaudy saffron stems snatched straight from the crocus that dyed our fingers buttercup-yellow.
I remember Papa coming home in the evenings. He would manifest mangos from thin air, which I snaffled as fast as they appeared, stuffing them into pyjama pockets, saving them to remind me of him in his absent hours. I remember his sword – sharp, shiny and curved as the crescent moon.
***
The office door clicks. A quiet sound, yet so unique in our isolated white-walled world that it cuts through the office like a rifle shot. The Easter Bunny stands on her hind legs, bolt upright, ears forward, nose twitching. The door inches open, and a thin, prim woman sashays into the office. She wears a grey skirt suit and stern expression, her pitch black hair tied back in a tight braid. She’s armed with a red biro, and she wields a steel clipboard.
‘The Office for Non-Denominational Trivialism? So that’s what they call it.’ Her voice is strangely soft and lilting. She looks around the room and grins tigerishly. ‘Let’s see what we can do about this place then, shall we?’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Santa says
‘Sorry, did you not get the memo?’ She puts her hand to her forehead and glances about the office, a ship’s captain scanning the horizon. ‘Oh, wait. There it is. It’s right there in your hand, you silly goose.’
‘I didn’t mean —’
‘Did you not? Well, what a curious way to start a conversation, then. I’d have gone with “hello”. A little traditional, perhaps, but I’ve always found it gets the job done.’
‘You’re the administrator?’
‘If you like.’ She glides across the office to a patch of wall by Jesus’ desk. ‘Let’s get a little light in here, shall we?’ Her slender fingers pry at the pale plaster and a Venetian blind I swear I’ve never seen before slides open, revealing a wide wooden-framed window.
Bright copper-coloured light pierces the unnatural gloom cast by the florescent bulbs above. The once-white walls, so dull and drab, sparkle like snowy summer slopes. The post-it notes that litter my desk are fresh fallen petals in vibrant blue, yellow and pink. Even Santa’s stupid suit looks somehow regal in the newfound illumination.
‘There. Isn’t that better?’ says the Administrator. ‘So, you must be wondering what this is all about? Some busybody, come to tell you what’s what? Well, it’s not like that, I can assure you. I’m simply here for a lovely little chat. Doesn’t that sound nice?’
‘Sounds like bullshit to me.’ Santa puffs out his chest like a turkey parading for the hens. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been doing this job? Most successful festival of all time, you know? That’s down to me.’
Jesus rolls his eyes and mutters something.
‘So you’ll be Santa Claus, am I right?’ The Administrator says. She flicks through her notes, turning over more pages that it seems possible to fit on a small steel folder. ‘Christmas, eh? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it. Still, quite the life you’ve led. Says here you were an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Very commendable. Ran your own franchise for the Management. But what have we here? Abuse of staff. Intolerable working conditions. Dear, dear me, Mr Claus. You have been a naughty boy.’
‘You don’t know the first thing about my business. Intolerable conditions? I make presents for children, for fucksake. I bring joy into people’s lives.’
‘Some people’s lives, yes.’
‘I ran Christmas time for three hundred years without complaint.’
‘Times change, Mr Claus. The world’s a complicated place now. That’s why I’m here.’
‘I work as hard as anyone. Twice as hard as...’ He flicks his head back to indicate the rest of us. The tiny bell in the tip of his saggy red hat jingles its sombre denouncement of our fecklessness.
‘No one said...’ The Administrator sighs, closes her eyes, and counts to three, silently mouthing each number. ‘I am here to help you, Mr Claus. To help all of you. We all want the same thing. All I ask is a little cooperation.’
My mouth feels dry. My stomach roils like a spider’s nest. Why do I need help? I try so hard. What did I do wrong?
‘So. Who would like to go first?’ The Administrator asks.
Papers shuffle. Eyes avert. Ears flatten.
‘Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Well volunteered Mr Claus. Most brave. Now, tell me about yourself.’
The Administrator is saying something, but I’m not really listening to what she says. Something’s unnerving about her voice. I rest my heavy head on the heels of my hands and stare out our newfound window.
***
In those times before the office, when I was just a baby, Mama Parvati told me stories of how this became that and then became now. Once, while we sat on the veranda, she told me our story. How it was once just Shiva and her. How they built a home together. Our home. Paradise in the foothills of enormous snow-capped mountains, in a verdant meadow littered with vivid violet flowers, where the sticky, sweet scent of pine hung heavy in the air.
Then, one day, a threat to everything they had built. A great demon called Tarakasur terrorised the land. Even Shiva, the mighty destroyer, couldn’t defeat this ungodly creature. So they decided to become Papa Shiva and Mama Parvati. To bear a babe. A sometimes five-faced warrior child destined to save our little paradise. My big brother Kartikeya. The perfect son for Papa Shiva to shape into a wise and mighty hero.
Papa Shiva spent many hours with his new son, training him in the art of war so that he might fulfil his destiny and slay the marauding demon. But poor Mama Parvati was left all alone while the boys were away playing soldiers.
So, one day, when Papa was away, she went down to the river. There, she knelt by the muddy shore, formed the sticky grey clay into a little babbling four-armed baby, and baked it in the blazing afternoon sun. Mama Parvati washed the newbaked babe in the cool, turquoise river water, dying its skin cobalt blue.
Mama Parvati never had to be alone again.
***
“I was a wealthy man once,’ Santa is saying. ‘God only knows how long ago now. A merchant. A craftsman. Nobody better. Made toys for little lords and ladies, princes and princesses. Not that I came from that sort of crowd myself, mind. Dad was a carpenter, just like him,’ He gestures towards Jesus. ‘But of course, I never had his connections.
‘Dad did his best for me though. Made sure I learned to read and write, which is more than most got back then. Taught me the value of hard work too. So that’s what I did. Grafted. Got good at what I did. Started making good money, too. Never sat right with me that, though. I made all these fancy toys for the rich folk while the poor children around me had nothing. It was Ma that persuaded me to start giving away toys to them. Last thing she did before the consumption took her. So I did. Pretty good feeling, I can tell you, giving something back.
‘So I started doing more of it. Got so as I didn’t make any money at all. Just ploughed it right back into the community, back to the kids that needed it. Had to take on staff to help out. Just an apprentice at first. Then, more and more. Distribution became a problem, though. Wasn’t time to get all the toys out. So, I decided to hand them all out on one day. Mid-winter, when things were at their worst for the little ones. Of course, there was already a day when people got together; a day made the most sense. Some said it was sacrilege, but I reckoned he wouldn’t mind sharing his birthday.’
‘How do you feel about this?’ The Administrator turns to Jesus, who’s shifting about in his chair.
‘I never wanted people to celebrate it, you know. Never wanted to be famous. I just wanted to be a good man, like my real dad. He always used to say do the good in front of you. So yeah, if Santa wants Christmas, he can have it. I wasn’t going to stop him giving kids presents. I might be a disappointment, but I’m not a monster.’
The Administrator, jotting down notes on her pad as they speak, stops and raises an eyebrow. ‘Your real dad?’
Jesus shrugs. ‘Everyone always thinks that He’s my dad,’ he jerks his head towards the ceiling, ‘but he wasn’t the one there for me. Joseph was my dad. Takes more than a divine intervention to bring up a kid. What did the other fella do? Celestially banged my mum when she was already married, then ignored me for thirty years. So, yeah, my real fucking dad.’
‘I’m sensing a little hostility.’
‘Have you ever been crucified?’ Jesus holds up his hands, again displaying the gory holes in his hands. ‘It hurts. More than you can imagine.’
I nod, one hand on my collarbone, feeling the wormy scar tissue beneath my skin.
The Administrator taps on her red pen on her clipboard. Tap. Tap. Tap. ‘Do they still hurt? Your hands, I mean.’
Jesus walks around the desk to stand before her, proffering his bloody palms for inspection. ‘Look at them.’
‘Sorry,’ The Administrator says, almost in a whisper. ‘That was a stupid question.’
‘Every minute of every day, I’m reminded of what he did.’
‘I didn’t know they still hurt.’ says Santa. ‘Didn’t think. There’s a stack of things I don’t want to remember. Try not to think about them, mostly. Guess it’s a blessing to not be reminded.’
‘You never said how you ended up here, Mr Claus. Would you mind telling us? It’s okay if you don’t want to.’
Santa smooths his long white beard, running through his hands, one after another, as though he’s trying to wring it dry. There’s something softer about him now, somehow. When the world was dark, he was all bright red face and bluster. Now, you can see the deep grooves in his thin, pale pink skin. Make out each and every wrinkle. A frail, old man in a silly red suit.
‘Things were fantastic. For a while. The changes in technology were amazing. Great, steam-powered machines capable of doing the work of ten men. A hundred. I had factories worldwide making more toys than you could believe. I sold what I could to those that could afford it during the year, and everyone got something at Christmas. Didn’t seem to matter how many I had to deliver neither; I could always get round no problems. Mrs Claus even made me a costume. Said it made me look noble.’
‘Didn’t know you had a wife,’ says Jesus. Heads nod in agreement.
‘Aye. Kids too. I was late in life to the marriage game, but I bagged me a good one. Reckon I’d be about fifty, and her fifteen years younger than that. Happiest days of my life. Of course, that’s where things started to go wrong.
‘By the time I was sixty, I looked like this, more or less, and Mrs Claus was still a handsome woman, though not the spring chicken she was when I met her. You could tell something wasn’t right as the years went on. By the time she was seventy, she was an old woman. But I hadn’t changed a bit in twenty-five years. Kids was even harder. No father should have to watch his little ones grow old and die.
‘Never told me I’d been made a saint. Not so much as a letter. Deification, they call it. Made me a literal god. Only thing I ever wanted was to be a good man. To help people. Guess we’re not so different in that respect.’ He flashes Jesus a quick, genuine smile.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jesus says, brown eyes cast down.
‘Not your fault. Powers that be saw fit. Nothing can be done about it.’
Jesus wriggles in his chair like a grub on a rock. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again. ‘When you started delivering on my birthday.’
‘You?’ Santa stares with caustic contempt.
‘I didn’t think...’
‘You made me watch my daughter die,’ Santa says. ‘Of. Old. Age.’ He punctuates each word, tapping on his desk with two thick fingers.
Jesus pulls himself up in his chair. ‘I was just doing my job. You were part of the tradition. Said it yourself: “Most successful festival of all time,’” He says in mock imitation of Santa's stodgy accent. ‘Would you have stopped the kids getting presents? Taken that from them?’
‘You never said. How long have we sat next to each other? Half a century? More?’ Santa levels his gaze on The Administrator. ‘You want to know why I’m here? Because I’m not like this lot. Not born to it. Just an old man alive long past his time in a world that’s stopped making sense. All because of this fuc—’
‘He didn’t mean to,’ I interject.
‘What the hell do you know about it?’ Santa rounds on me.
‘Stay out of this Ganesha,’ Jesus says. ‘Not every problem’s yours to solve.’
‘Blue bitch is worse than you,’ Santa says.
An ear-splitting chattering squeak cuts through the row. The Easter Bunny is on her desk, thumping it with her hind leg. She launches a pot of black and yellow striped pencils at Santa. They clatter against his barrel chest. There’s a metallic ring as the wire mesh pot bounces off the steel desk leg.
The world spins. I hold my head in my hands.
‘Baby blue?’ Someone says. Why would they say that? Nobody calls me that anymore.
***
Mama Parvati and me. That’s how it always was. Mama and me first thing in the morning. Mama and me when the boys went out hunting. Mama and me when Papa and Kartikeya played war while the moon grew fat in the cold, clear sky.
We cooked together, talked together, learned together. Anything Mama asked, I did. That’s just how it was.
‘Ganesah, dear, be a darling and stir this for me, would you?’
And it was done.
‘Ganesha baby, go get mama some turmeric for the pot.’
And it was done.
‘Hey, Baby Blue, it’s Mama’s bath time. You guard the door. Nobody gets in, okay?’
And it was done.
Papa Shiva never came home before nightfall. He liked to meditate by the lake till late or walk with Kartikeya through the mountain trails. He shouldn’t have been there that afternoon. Not while Mama had her bath.
‘Hey there, little one. Where’s Mama Parvati?’
‘Having her bath, Sir.’ I said.
‘Perfect timing. I’ll go wash her back. Just like we used to do.’
I shook my head. ‘No one gets in.’
‘Come now, daughter. Don’t be foolish.’
I shook my head again.
‘It’s come to something when a man can’t see his wife.’
‘No one gets in,’ I repeated.
Papa Shiva tried to push past me. I sidestepped to block him.
‘You defy me, daughter?’
‘No one gets in, Sir.’ I said, voice quavering. ‘Mama said.’
‘Then you leave me no choice.’
There was a metallic ring as he drew his sword.
I stood defiant, two arms folded, two hands on hips. ‘Mama said.’
There was a sharp, searing scratch along my collarbone as the scimitar severed my neck. The shadows crept in on the edge of my vision as my head tumbled to the floor.
Mama said.
***
No one’s shouting anymore. The Administrator has her hand on my shoulder. Her palm is so soft against my bare skin. She smells like cardamom and saffron. The Easter Bunny nuzzles at my leg.
‘What’s all this fuss? I’m fine,’ I say. The scar around my neck itches and burns.
The Administrator looks concerned but leaves me be. ‘Well, that was quite the little chat we had there. Now, doesn’t everyone feel better for that?’
‘Now we hate each other?’Asks Jesus.
‘Oh, come now. Don’t say that. Santa, can you honestly blame Jesus for what happened? What would you have done if you were in his sandals?’
‘I wouldn’t have bloody —’
‘So you’d have stopped all those kids getting presents? Just like you did when those workers wanted time off? Can’t have people suffering, now can we?’
‘That’s not the same.’
‘Is it not?’ The Administrator flicks through her notes. ‘Ah yes, here it is. “Nothing I could do.” Isn’t that what you said, Mr Claus?’
‘Well, what could I do? What can I do?’ Santa slumps, red jacket pulled tight.
‘You’re not alone. None of you are. Remember when I asked what you’re here for? Well, you all told me. Every one of you. You just didn’t listen to your own answers.’
‘To help people,’ Jesus says.
‘We have a winner!’ The Administrator beams.
‘Will you help me then?’ Santa snaps.
‘Of course, Mr Claus. Of course.’
‘Do you know how many prayers I get per day? A hundred million? More? They don’t just want presents either.’ He pulls a file from his in-tray. ‘Here. Wants her mother cured of cancer.’ He snatches another. ‘Rescuing from an earthquake. Fuck me, why do these things even exist?’
The Administrator nods. ‘I do see your point. Perhaps you need to look at the big picture, though, eh? How about a cure? They’re good at that sort of thing, the wee folk. Your man helps those who help themselves, I hear.’
‘I tried,’ says Jesus, his tone desperate. ‘Set up charities, tried to guide funds. Too much red tape, too many obstacles.’
I perk up. My ears flap excitedly. ‘Obstacles? I can help with that. No problem. Speciality of mine.’
There’s just the hint of a smile from Jesus. Then he looks at files that fill my own in-tray to brimming. ‘Ganesha hardly has time...’
‘Ah, yes. About that. I couldn’t help but notice something. Tell me, Ganesha, is our furry friend here fluent in Sanskrit?’
The Easter Bunny shifts in her chair.
‘How’s she supposed to work?’ I ask. ‘She’s got paws. She can’t even talk. What’s she even doing here?’
‘I agree, Miss Ganesha. I agree. But how were we supposed to know there was a problem? According to this report, her performance is exemplary.’ The Administrator puts her hand back on my shoulder. ‘Not everything’s your responsibility, Baby Blue. Not everything’s your fault.’ She reaches into the pocket of her jacket suit and pulls out a small white envelope embossed with a lotus flower. ‘When was the last time you had a break?’ She hands me the letter. ‘Why don’t you pop outside for a bit. Enjoy the sunshine.’
***
When I woke, Papa Shiva was kneeling next to me. He pulled me up into a sitting position. My neck burned. There was something horribly wrong with my face.
‘There, little girl. Good as new.’
‘What happened?’ My voice is strange and nasal.
‘I’m sorry you made me do that.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’ve really upset Mama Parvati, you know?’
‘No, She said. She said. I....’ I could hear Mama crying somewhere nearby. I could hear so much. Smell so much. With a spreading horror, I realised I could see my head beside me on the floor. My beautiful human head.
I felt my face, running my fingers over thick, dry skin. The vast flaps where my ears should have been. Two tusks stuck out the side of my mouth. My nose squirmed when I touched it. Not a nose, I realise. Trunk. A great, grey elephant trunk.
‘See, little one. Fixed. Good as new. Just like I said.’ Papa Shiva’s smile evaporated. ‘Mama Parvati’s very upset with you. You’ve been getting in the way a lot. Always about. You’re going to have to go away for a while, okay? I need you to help Papa Shiva, okay?’
I nod.
‘Don’t worry, little one. You won’t remember a thing.’
***
Blinking, I step out of the office into a beautifully manicured garden. A white marble fountain babbles at one end. Purple-blooming jacaranda trees line the red brick wall. Their blossom twirls around me like snow. I amble through the garden, rest against a tree trunk, and unfold the lotus-sealed letter. It’s written in slanting Sanskrit.
Dearest Baby Blue,
I’m so sorry you’ve been here for so long. You know how tempers run hot among the gods. I swear I’ll get you out of this place. Just a few hundred more years. Until then, I hope I made things a little bit better.
All my love,
Mama Parvati.
I lie back and enjoy the breeze behind my ears. The Easter Bunny hops around the garden. She pauses to take a nibble of grass. She’s carrying a little wicker basket brim-filled with a whole rainbow’s worth of coloured eggs. She goes to one of the trees and tucks a bright orange egg under some leaves. When she sees me watching she gives a little wave. Then, like that, she disappears. No traces she was ever there except a shiny tangerine glint, just visible beneath the rough pile of leaves.
I take a deep breath of the fresh air. Five minutes, just for me. I lie back and close my eyes for the first time in two thousand years. I smile to myself. Just two hundred more years to go. Don’t worry, Mama Parvati. I’ll make you proud again. One day, I’ll make you proud.
Did you know there are places in the world so dangerous, so violent and vicious that savage women wander freely through the forests like ferocious beasts? A place women hold dominion and have, heaven forefend, domesticated man. They eat their enemies to gain their power, these barbarous beauties. They scoff the hearts of those they vanquish to gain their delectable courage. Greedily they slurp up brains to obtain what wisdom resides therein. They gnaw delicately on the fragile bones of their fallen foe’s feet, picking fresh flesh from each toe because they know how it makes them fleet of foot. There is no part of the body safe from this grizzly ritual. Each limb, each organ, each morsel of meat, contains its own heady potential, rife for devourment. Did you know? The king knows. That is why he lives in interminable terror.
Perhaps, that is why the king vowed to hold a grand contest to ascertain the boldest and most bodacious – he knows only the manliest man can save him from the machinations of the anthropophagite aphrodite that cannibalises him nightly in his dreams. And the prize? Why his daughter’s hand in marriage, of course. Oh, and what a prize! You can see why her beauty is renowned throughout the land. She has long, strong bones, a sure sign of her virility, and her skin, unblemished by the ravishes of time, is so soft it makes grown men weep. Yet, she is no wallflower. She is a wild rose. Look into her eyes, and you will see her fierce, feral nature. Men know what that means for the nuptial night. Many have waited long years for this majestic belle to come of age. Imagine the jubilation when, at long last, the king is finally presented with his daughter’s scarlet-smeared sheets – proof positive of her marriageability, and sends a proclamation across the land.
The autumn wind is piercing on the afternoon the hundred heroes cluster in the castle courtyard. Prodigious, hulking fellows, all mounted, all attired in oily armour, shimmering iridescent in the sharp sunlight, as though clad carapaces of monstrous beetles. Yet, even amongst this mass of masculinity, one man is conspicuous. There. You see? A simple blacksmith, paddling in puddles of horse piss at the feet of these mighty Caballeros. A lowly man, then. But see how three-score years at the anvil have forged him shoulders broader than any knight present. He stands tall, though he stands low. But note too that he stands alone. You can tell just by looking that he has never known a woman’s touch. He remains resolutely, deliciously pure. When the blacksmith sees the princess, he is instantly ensorceled. Only then does he finally understand his incessant virginity; he has undoubtedly been saving himself for this moment. He knows he must claim her for his own.
The king addresses the crowd in a high, reedy voice. ‘Gentlemen. Your task is simple. It is said that those ferocious femme fatale that torment our borders wear their hair matted with beads and bones. Return one lock from such a savage, and claim my daughter’s hand.’
A susurration of surprise ripples through the crowd, eerrie as the autumn breeze that blows the cadavers of fallen leaves. Every boy’s mother raises her son in fear of the man-eating beauties silently skulking in the shadows. Always waiting. Always hungry. They understand the king’s immeasurable dread. But the blacksmith had no mother. He was raised, though ‘raised’ may be too generous, by a boozy and bellicose father, who taught him only two things before the blacksmith’s hatchet cut short all classes. Lesson the first: Don’t ask questions. Lesson the second: Survival. The blacksmith was born of the forest, surely as any wolf or wolverine. He knows the secrets the trees hold. He knows where the monsters live, and he fears the wrath of no woman.
For days the blacksmith treks, forging paths through impenetrable undergrowth, surviving off the forest’s fecundity. Then, of a sudden, he comes across a stout pine shack. There, a hoary old woman sits, veiled in a dusty dark-blue shawl.
‘Come here,’ she says, in a voice as cracked as a pauper’s pot. ‘Help grandmama with a task. My bones are too taut to stack these logs. When you’re done, there’s bratwurst and stew. Soon, my granddaughter will come. She is young and will be glad to meet such a handsome fellow.’
Quite the proposal for the hungry hero. The blacksmith’s belly rumbles at the notion of sausage. His leggings stir at the thought of the granddaughter. Then, he remembers what his father said about ladies who live alone in the woods. He sees the woman for what she is.
He names her: ‘Crone.’
He pushes her, escapes her tricksy trap, grins at his extraordinary cunning. As he flees, he hears the witch cast her spell:
‘If you won’t heed my advice, hear my warning.
Acting on lust will do you no good,
When it comes to the girl with the scarlet hood.’
It is four more days before the blacksmith sees another soul. A girl. – Young. Pretty. Alone. He spies her by the river bank, preparing to perform her ablutions. He tiptoes around a well-placed cairn, hoping to gander or goose the poor damsel. A twig snaps beneath his feet. She pulls her fox-skin trimmed robe tight about her, the cowl falling down over her face. Still, he has no trouble assessing her beauty – he can see her shapely silhouette beneath her vulpine robe.
‘Traveller,’ she says. Her voice is smooth as ambrosia, her silky skin smoother. ‘What brings you so far into the forest?’
The blacksmith’s tongue trips as he tells the fair maiden.
‘Why claim a princess?’ she asks in honyed tones, ‘when I would give myself freely to such a handsome man? Stay. Drink some mead. Come lie with me a while.’
The blacksmith’s breeches stir once more. He smacks his dry lips greedily. Then he notices the hue of her hood; remembers the witch’s words. Sees her for what she is.
He names her: ‘Temptress.’
The spell breaks when he shoves her. She stumbles; falls; reels, splashing into the shallow water. He smiles at his remarkable shrewdness. As he flees, he hears her siren song:
‘If you won’t heed my advice, hear my warning.
To act without thinking is only for fools,
A surefire way to leave without jewels.’
The blacksmith penetrates deeper into the darkening forest. Five days after foiling the temptress, the blacksmith finally finds his quarry. An untamed Venus, dressed only in tattered animal hide, a grizzled, grizzly cloak, the great bear’s head covering her own. Beneath the hood, he spies the dreadlock of a dread-maiden, bedecked with baubles and bones. The blacksmith is sure he could overpower her, but he remembers the siren’s song. Takes his time. Considers. He thinks himself no fool. Sneaking behind her, he wraps a strong arm around her neck. He sniffs her musk. He smiles. His excitement is evident; it presses against the small of her back.
‘You don’t have to use force to get your way,’ she hisses through gritted teeth. ‘We can make a bargain. We both can win.’
But the blacksmith has everything he needs. He sees her for what she is.
He names her: ‘Savage.’
With his knife, he hacks the hair from her head. He kicks her legs from under her; drives her down with all his strength. As he flees, he hears her cannibal’s curse:
‘If you won’t heed my advice, hear my warning.
You’ll rue the day you take what’s not yours,
When a dismembered man walks through the door.’
The blacksmith snorts at her absurd, primitive curse. He remembers the day he hacked up his feckless father’s carcass. There was no walking after that.
The wedding takes place in less than a week but, no surprise, the blacksmith cares little for such ceremonies – only for that which follows. Soon, he drags her to their marital chambers.
‘Off,’ he commands. The wedding dress tumbles to the floor.
A single tear of ineffable rhapsody trickles down the blacksmith’s cheek. He holds her; his rough palmed fist rims her delicate arm. Black and blue marks bloom on pale, fragile flesh. Yet, she does not struggle. Even as he pulls down his breeches, his prick springing free like a jack-in-the-box. Calmly, she touches his enormous member, though her petite hand is too small to enclose it. She smiles. He peeps through heavy-lidded eyes, languorous in his ecstasy, eager to glimpse the impeccable splendour of her beauty. Then he sees the cloaks hanging on the wall.
One blue and dusty. One trimmed in red fox fur. One with the grizzled head of a great grey bear.
Too late, he feels cold, sharp steel on his hot, hard flesh.
‘You should have heeded my advice,’ she whispers.
A flick of the wrist,
She takes the hood, crimson with blood.
A twist of the blade,
Two precious stones in their own reticule.
A slit of the stiletto,
…And off with his tool!
The blacksmith sobs as the princess leads him through the doorway to the antechamber, where the king and queen await before casting him aside like so much spoiled meat. She has no taste for ‘umble pie today. Kneeling before her mother, she prefers her precious prizes one by one.
‘For protection.’ They split the prepuce. Barely a starter.
‘For fertility.’ They wolf down the sweetmeats, one apiece.
‘For virility.’ They gormandise his membrum virile with veracious appetite.
Yet, with each morsel masticated, the blacksmith’s dread and dander ebbs. Finally, transcendental with gratitude, the blacksmith stares, as, with the last irrevocably decisive chomp of meat, his wounds close over with an integument of immaculate skin.
Tenderly, the king strokes the blacksmith’s hair. ‘My prince,’ he coos in his piping soprano. ‘My newfound heir. My surrogate.’
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