a return to the house of death (2)

Their friends relished the morbidity of the house, the kitchen’s ancient wood-effect units scarred with blu-tak, the rich almost sweet stench of raw meat that seemed trapped in the rooms, the grotty basement space that opened at the foot of the stairs from which the stained red carpet hung like loose jeans into just a small bare brick tunnel that stretched barely back into the depths of the cavity. They commented upon the impressive dimensions of the rooms and on the double fronted aspect but they found it difficult to distinguish these positives from what they termed the pervasive grimness of the house’s essential character. It felt, they said, wrong. Although not one of them had experienced any phenomena that might be considered supernatural in origin or design during their short time in the house, it felt, they said, as though the property were, must be, haunted in some way, at least as the term might be understood by a group of – as they were – educated, young, rational free-thinkers, which is to say not really understood at all. It was something about the energy, said one of the free thinkers. The vibes, said another. I just get the feeling, said a third, that something terrible has happened here.

The couple shrugged off these claims as horseshit, the ramblings of the very thick or damaged, thought that their friends were teasing them in some way for taking their first feeble steps onto the property ladder, and despite the bad and coincidental luck that had befallen the cats so soon after their move, they had no other reason to assume anything unusual was at work, and did not believe in “energy” or “vibes” anyway, and in truth despised it when their friends talked in such ambiguous and nonsensical ways. All houses felt strange when one first moved into them, they had said. it’s to be expected. We just need to put our stamp on it – decorating, personal effects, new kitchen units, whatnot. This is our home now and we would appreciate it if you could all at least try, they said, to be happy for us. Their friends relented eventually and the “vibes”, or things like it, were mentioned less frequently over time. They would still on occasion make simple horror sound effects at various points throughout evenings, or whistle a variety of the most memorable horror themes – Carpenter, Romero, Friedkin, Deodato, et al. – from the last half century or so with the kind of ironic, intertextually entwined, academic-deconstruction-of-the-defiantly-"pop"-cultural relish they had devoted the better part of their degrees to perfecting, both habits that struck the couple as almost unbearably irritating.

Gradually though the house did come together, the bay windows in the two main reception rooms flooding the house with the natural light the couple found so essential to good mental order and productivity, the yellow glass that filled the two panels of the back door casting a precious hue upon the carpet at their feet. When they pulled the carpets up – hallway, living room – they revealed what appeared to be immense blood stains sunk clean through the shag of the carpet, the coarse fabric backing and the mid-range underlay and into the wooden floorboards beneath. The stains seemed very old and sanded off easily with a hired tool, and they treated the wood and painted it white and it looked quite charming and the rooms so, so light, and the smell of meat seemed soon to dissipate as through their gradual colonisation of design choices the house really became theirs.

a return to the house of death

It was a house of death, they’d said, and laughed about it when they first moved in. They’d had a couple of cats then but both had died within a week or so of moving, one crushed flat by a falling bookcase – which, although empty of the books which had not yet been unpacked was still of notable weight due to the quality of the materials involved in its construction, especially compared to the soft bones and other associated viscera that made up a cat – and the other stabbed by a large kitchen knife, largest of a set of five, that it had managed to pull from a breadboard on the kitchen work surface whilst attempting to climb onto same, and that had fallen blade down to the linoleum floor and clean through the centre of the cat’s little body. They had found it like that, a strange kebab, having pulled itself out of the kitchen and part of the way down the hall with its two front paws before dying by the living room door, a smeared trail of blood drawn behind it. They buried the two cats in the garden, alongside what appeared to be some other minimally marked pet’s graves from previous residents, modest stone memorials that flanked a dormant if immense fire pit.

Although it was certainly sad they felt a certain relief regardless, for they had purchased the cats on a drunken whim when they were really too young to be burdened by the responsibility of pet custodianship, and so despite the shock and also the guilt of the situation they were quietly pleased that the cats were gone but had suffered little (if some), and the notion of the house of death was a good conversational gambit at the abundance of housewarming parties they all of a sudden found themselves expected to organise, and like the most meagrely qualified tour guides of the murderous places in all the big cities that feeds into the human hunger for pain they showed their morbid friends and partners the locations of the cats last moments, the chink in the lino where the knife hit, the dull stain beneath the now full bookcase, the still-identifiable blood streak that arced from kitchen to living room like a prophetic arrow of the doom that waited.

physical relations only

They had consented, mutually, to physical relations only – both were already involved in emotional relations with extant partners and were happy, in their way, or at least unwilling to lose the stability they offered. They felt a very serious if wordless attraction to one another that had always felt somehow inevitable, and it was pointless to try to resist it any longer. Though neither experienced any real sense of excitement at the prospect, and if anything were rather frustrated that their bodies were backing them – as it were – into this adulterous corner, they committed themselves to the task of allocating sufficient time out of their respective schedules for what they referred to as the necessary, which they then engaged in routinely and very regularly with the no-nonsense quality of a smooth online transaction.

After weeks had passed they had unsurprisingly developed some further affection for one another as often happens after repeat acts of a physical nature, and when reason dictated a necessary end to the physical relations some days after that – for guilt was a surprisingly debilitating condition that had engulfed the both of them – both had felt great sadness, and they shook hands warmly, but not excessively so, and kissed a final time, trying to communicate everything they had never said and now never would within the structure of the kiss and failing of course.

life no obstacle

Drunk they roamed maniac, my goodness, they were unstoppable, heavens what elegance and wit, stairs no obstacle, boyfriends no obstacle, underwear no obstacle, fuck, life no obstacle, they were immaculate – if only the dumb world could see! – and heroes, alive with drink and pleasure they felt the energy of the world through their meagre biceps and to their very heartbeats that wilted into near-coma like beached fish beneath their slightly stained vests, every cracked beer like a mighty defibrillator to their sobering confidences. Though the structure of the night and its outcome could be foreseen by each they at least tried and it was all they had.

trying to as it were love, or something like it, now, in the Britain of today

His heart was beating incredibly quickly while he waited for his computer to start up, ancient technology though less than three years old. He input his password and waited further. Four, even five minutes passed and he vomited into his mouth, just a little. Must have been the anticipation. Felt sick for days. Outlook was so slow to open; he would have to speak to the IT Helpdesk about it but didn’t dare, in case they had been monitoring the increasingly personal and occasionally profane content of his sent emails and would take the opportunity to remind him of the policies and terms and conditions surrounding computer usage within the workplace, and possibly even implement disciplinary action for his repeated breaches of same. More minutes passed. He became very aware of the stench of his own neck, like spoiled milk for some reason. Eventually his inbox popped up and and the varied folders updated at excruciating speed and he of course had no new emails. She was shit at responding to emails, really dreadful. Sometimes hours would go by if not whole days, the responses abrupt when finally they did come like great beacons of lustful notification slashed through the awful monotony of the working day. It had been a joke between them for a while, her fundamental tardiness, but as his obsession escalated harmfully it began to feel more and more like a deliberate insult.

nice out

“Nice out,” he said. She looked up from her coffee cup but only briefly. She could barely conceal her disgust at him, unspecified but incredible disgust. Their long relationship had amounted to this. Pleasantries, small talk, fucking weather. What a waste of – how long was it, six years? Seven? They’d become everything they’d sworn they wouldn’t. When she’d fallen for him he’d been excited and interesting and so smart they’d sit up all night talking about cinema. Where had all that gone?

He was moving things around in the kitchen in the way he did, the bottom of his mug scraping unbearably across the thick glass surface protector. She gripped her own cup until her knuckles were four white peaks. “I said,” he said.

“I know what you said,” she said. “It doesn’t need a response.”

“Fine,” he said. He poured slightly hot water – why wouldn’t he just re-boil the kettle? – onto a teabag and covered the surface in spillage, threw milk in carelessly. He was a poor tea maker, too anxious to let it brew.

“What are you doing?” he said, lowering himself heavily into the chair across from hers.

“Stop it,” she said.

“Fine,” he said, sipping his drink with absolutely no pleasure. He could always change.

a few pretty girls

A few pretty girls passed him and laughed. He heard them whisper something but not what it was they whispered, then they stopped walking and laughed again and turned around to look at him. He could feel his moustache coated thickly in the yellow mayonnaise from a coronation chicken sandwich, could smell curry powder quite clearly, and he tried to suck the hairs into his mouth to clean them but given his ongoing mouthful only made the mess all the worse. The girls approached him and said “my god” loud enough to hear, but nothing to him as such, not directly. They stood several feet away from him and simply stared, and he felt his face aflame and wished himself anywhere. “Small hands,” one of the girls said, and she was right. His hands were incredibly small. Eventually he continued to eat his sandwich, which until then had been at his side and drooping slightly between his fingers under the weight of its own wet filling, ignoring the girls as best he might, as though they were trees or shrubs or some other part of the landscape. They watched him with absolute disdain and laughed occasionally before leaving. Although it was a delicious sandwich he nonetheless found it to be quite lacking in garnish or adornment; his fridge had been quite quite bare at the point of creation.

what would the dream be

The elderflowers were wonderful in bloom around them, the air sodden with their blessed nose as heady as mouthfuls of scotch. He felt almost delirious and felt himself clenched for sugars. What would the dream be? It would end in apologetic kissing, scrabbling for each other’s hands as though they were bannisters of normalcy until their palms were scratched. Please, he said. Just kiss me quietly. They stared about for familiar faces and saw none, and he moved himself very close in towards her body and felt her breath, her chest rising, felt the fine hairs on her arms. He closed his eyes and let himself drift and hoped she would catch him. Her hair smelt alive over or with the elderflowers. His arms were incredibly heavy, and when after three minutes or perhaps even more he again opened his eyes she was gone, he could see her receding along the track with a small group of friends. He wiped the middle and fore-fingers of his left hand on the thighs of his chinos and stuck them to the back of his throat, felt the rasp of the air-dry skin on his soft palate, the depths of his mouth like obscure landscapes unplotted, the soft soaked guts of the world, and he prodded the two fingers gently then firmer until he could feel his luncheon churning for release, and he puked it up into the dry earth worn to sand at his feet, the coarse burping and the cruel sound of escaping gases as one with the birdsong. There were tears on his face and he wiped his mouth and felt strings of thick mucus drawn in webs across it. He stood and began to run after her but she was out of sight. He would keep on running regardless. No track is of endless distance.

SGSS(pmsc)AS(u)

As an enterprising youth I founded the Steyning Grammar School Satsuma (plus misc. small citrus) Appreciation Society (unofficial) with a handful or dumb peers. We sat in our form room at lunchtimes and consumed our respective fruits communally, exchanging segments for critique and – as the name would suggest – appreciation. Though our tastes varied slightly we mostly agreed on the importance of the key characteristics of: (moist) texture, (profound) juiciness, (pleasing) tartness and (appropriate) sweetness. As time progressed a cursory examination of the unopened fruit would yield impressively accurate results relating to the assumed quality of same, i.e. (and to generalise slightly, though not greatly) a loose and saggy skin was all-too-often synonymous with a dry and tasteless fruit; a firm taut skin requiring patient devotion and some effort to peel properly was, conversely, synonymous with a high quality fruit adhering to all the characteristics required (by consensus) for an exceptional citrus experience; an excess of pips present segment-for-segment was – despite the obvious frustrations associated therewith, especially in the smaller fruits – immediately suggestive of the sound flavours the Society actively sought. Fingers sticky and bellies full, the lunch hours passed in a reverie of social consumption, our record-keeping protocols and ever-increasingly sophisticated critiquing mechanisms wasted on the hostility of the classroom. The conclusions I drew were much the same as those I apply to my writing and to my general life today, namely: one must work for a taste of the good stuff.

My passion for fruit dates back to this time if not before.

We are none of us friends now.

a summery summary

The suited oafs sprawled horizontal on the grass like Romans, squinting through the sun into each other’s eyes. The grass was scorched dry beneath their solid flanks and submitted to the humid sagging cotton of their shirts. Their lust was manifest in each twitch of an eyebrow or swat of an insect. Despite the hordes of passing walkers from around the lake and meadows they were as if alone and deeply invigorated by their courtship. The fatter of the two carefully dropped pale red grapes into his partner’s mouth, the fruit hitting his pursed lips with a hollow guff. They tongued each other’s palms and nibbled each other’s sandwich crusts like little mammals. As the lunch hour drew to a close they were writhing like brawling beasts, astride first one and then the other, their shirts untucked and grassy, their trousers scuffed with dry soil on the knees and at other noted pressure points. In lieu of forceful kissing they began to claw at each other’s necks and chests, then to punch each other’s faces with increasing ferocity until they were busted and bloody, grunting and laughing and thrusting with each massive blow. Then they kissed regardless, cheered on by sun-drunk revellers, their spilt blood smeared between their cheeks like Rorschach tests of the very greatest lunacy. They helped each other up and slapped each other’s backs and returned to their offices, balls primed for later.

the anatomically correct penis

During the mathematics course that ran through the final two years of my secondary schooling I drew a remarkably lifelike penis in a state of erection upon the desk I used with some regularity. It began as a pencil etching cast in little but boredom but was soon emboldened with ballpoint ink. I then added further precise details to the penis over time, veins, hairs, a convincing hemispherical curvature about the base of the glans, until the representation was notable both for its authenticity and for its conspicuousness. Neither my fellow students nor the facilities staff made any attempt to remove the penis throughout those final two years and, despite its presence on one of the bank of desks that bordered the teachers own and its proximity to my own person, not to mention the lesson-based time commitment that my frequent addenda represented, no comment was ever passed in reference to the penis (in fact the teacher was, I am sure now, either a drunk or completely mad, leering about the desks with red cheeks and slapping a metre ruler against the flat surface of his briefcase at sporadic unannounced intervals throughout the lessons, his mood volatile and often fierce, his infrequent school reports a jumble of insult and random aphorism). It was amongst my finest work as an artist and the cause of much joy amongst my immediate mathematical circle (little Denis, tall Pete, fat Dan and others, the monikers of memory!), and we sniggered at the anatomical precision of its network of veins, the sole product of personal recollection of my own organs structural appearance.

In one particular lesson I came to my desk – with little enthusiasm for the lesson but some for the penis – to find text written beneath it in a precise and apparently feminine script. It simply, dully said “Hello?”. Like a shit Ouija board I wrote my response as follows: “This is 'Mr X'”. I know, it’s terrible, absolutely terrible, excruciating even to think about, but I was young and fundamentally pure, despite regular wanking into balled crusty t-shirts that I stuffed beneath my bed, and I had consulted with my circle on an appropriate nom-de-plume for my illicit extracurricular activities. With it there began a lengthy correspondence between me (and my immediate mathematical circle) and this writer of unknown specifics, who claimed to be of female origin and in the year below my own, though any details beyond that are forgotten to me now. The narrative spiralled immeasurably around the penis that bore it, the table smothered in this staccato exchange, great lags between responses as we awaited next lessons with baited breath. Eventually, inevitably, with only a precise sketch of a penis to bind us but bind us it did, an arrangement was made to meet in some courtyard one lunchtime, her and I, a rendezvous I had no intention of keeping (as I’m sure she didn’t herself) but which I had intended to view from afar, my curiosity piqued to levels equating to incredible sexual arousal. In fact I was too cowardly for even this lurking and detached observation, assuming that the (possible) girl and her hoard of giggling friends would be undertaking the exact same methods to identify their perverse seducer and do so on sight from little but the quite futile aura of a man who draws accurate penises (and not the crude bulbous ejaculating scrawls of most moronic graffiti) on school desks, the same aura that has haunted me to this day, perhaps with policemen or parents or senior faculty in tow to impart grave justice upon the pathetic groomer I had over the weeks and months inadvertently become. I stayed well away, leaving the penis and its surrounding narrative susceptible to the erosive wear-and-tear of so many notebooks, a fading monolith to be unearthed and excavated by some future twat like me.