He had said: "Just leave me alone."
And then smashed some more of
her plates and cups and ornaments, hastening their ultimate end in
entropy. Afterwards, dustpan and brush in hand, he'd had to sweep up
the shattered china. Now the room looked tidy again. Everything in the
right place. Order. Negentropy. The information was there.
Order.
Calm.
Balance.
If only the sensation of
endless twilight around him would stop, a feeling that promised
emotional and physical entropy. Smashing the crockery had not helped.
It had been pointless. Or – perhaps not. It was a primal scream,
screamed in the only way his civilized veneer would allow. (Otherwise,
imagine the neighbours talking: "There goes Jones again, sounding off
like a wolf. What's wrong with the man?") So – he smashed crockery
instead. He thought this sounded less manic than the occasional scream.
He thought that a scream would burst through every door and window in
the street, causing neighbours to turn their heads and exclaim: "Jones
again! Is he going mad?"
But.
First it had been a pencil.
Then that plate. The whole dinner service now had noticeably fewer
pieces. A scream came into his head, but quieter now. He looked at the
phone. And looked away again.
The cat slinked in through the
cat-flap, mewing plaintively. Jones shouted at it: "More food, I
suppose, you obese old glutton." That felt good, he noticed. A nice
feeling of release. He might shout at the cat more often, especially
when it walked over his head, dribbling and purring, at six o'clock in
the morning, sharpening its claws on the bedclothes, the pillows, his
lips, his face. As Jones scraped the cat's food from the tin into the
bowl, the cat wheedled and rubbed its way about and between his legs.
"Do piss off, flea-bag," Jones moaned. The cat continued its rubbing
and wheedling. Jones put the bowl on the floor. The cat darted across
to it, and chewed and purred simultaneously, ignoring Jones, as Jones
knew it would for the rest of the evening. Self sufficient
little bastard. He grinned spitefully at the cat. He walked
across and gave it a quick rub on the back of the head. The cat turned
and glared at him. Jones glared back: the little fat fish-eater was
becoming too neurotic.
The phone rang.
Slowly Jones made his way
toward it, every muscle tense. Time slowed. Could he reach the phone
before becoming a fossil? His hand reached out, lifted the receiver. He
mumbled the number. It was that voice again: the wife. Or more
precisely, the soon-to-be-ex-wife.
"Hello," said Jones tartly.
"You again."
"I'm coming to pick up some
more of my stuff. Now that we're finished I thought..." She sighed
vaguely. "I thought..."
"Oh yeh, sure go on, take the
bloody wallpaper while you're here. Never did like it."
"No need for sarcasm. We agreed
all this the last time I phoned. Amicably." She emphasised the last
word.
"Yeh. I know. Sure. Fair
enough." Jones remembered the crockery that control
had afterwards cost.
"You sound bitter. Are you
alright?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Why
shouldn't I be? Don't worry. When are you coming?" Jones immediately
repressed the image of his wife in bed with another man that the last
phrase brought automatically to mind.
"Tomorrow. Will you be in?"
"Yes. All day."
"And can I take the cat?"
The cat. The little mewling
whingebag. That he had tended for the last three
months.
"Yeh. Bye. See you tomorrow,"
Jones said abruptly, crashing the receiver clumsily back into the
cradle. He began to breathe heavily, felt momentairly light-headed. He
tightly gripped the arms of the chair to prevent him toppling into the
twilight. What had six years been reduced to? A petty haggle over bed
linen, teapots, cutlery, crockery (what there was left of it) and all
the rest of the paraphernalia collected while they were together. And
now the bloody cat. Of course she could take it. It was hers. Take
everything, if it removed the constant small reminders of her presence
– or rather, absence.
If the rooms were completely
bare, he could stamp his presence on the house. Colour the walls as he
wanted. Furnish it as he wanted. No half measures brought about by
compromise. Ah fuck it. He'd never keep the house
anyway. Half of it was hers. She'd need the money to buy again. He'd
forgotten that. He was going to be homeless in whatever length of time
it took to sort these things out. Everything would change. How long did
it take to get divorced?
Change.
He never could handle change.
Never could handle anything more than a simple yes or no answer and now
pressures were building and ... abruptly, he smashed his hand through
the glass door of the cabinet next to him. Glass fell about his feet.
He pulled his hand out and looked at it. Blood poured from his knuckles
and fingers, the back of his hand, his wrist; the sharp edges had
barely missed the artery. "I wasn't meant for all this change," Jones
said to himself. I wanted an easy life. I'm not one for
playing fast and loose. Just simple security. Peace and quiet. That's
all I want. He stood up, began to wander from room to room,
noting this and that, sitting down, standing again, walking to another
room, back again, the same refrain dully echoing: peace
... security ... happiness.
After half an hour he sat down,
sat still, stared at his feet.
Time passed.
Then he started. Shook his
head. Looked about him with wide eyes. He rubbed his hands over his
face, trying to squeeze out the tiredness and tension. His face felt
wet. Wet? He looked at his hands. The right hand
was almost completely red with blood. His shirt cuff was red. He
unbuttoned the cuff, looked at his arm. Dry and wet blood tattooed his
wrist and arm. He looked at the floor. A trail of blood looped and
circled around the room, ravelling tight, then loose, then trailed out
of the door. When did I thought Jones, when
... what? He looked at his arm again. He felt faint. He stood
up slowly, went to the toilet, and was sick. A few minutes later, pale
and bloody, he returned, following a trail of blood back into the
lounge. There was the shattered glass cabinet. When?
He looked at the shattered, daggered glass, then his arm.
?
He felt dizzy. He looked at his
watch. That was the time? I've lost an hour?
Strength flowed in weak waves through his body.
Suddenly: I could run
into the street run to the junction take any road run and run.
I could get into the car start the engine drive and
drive ... He took half a pace to the door. Stopped. Moaned
quietly, gripped the lacerated arm from which blood still dripped,
still traced paths along his arms and across the floors. He leaned
against the wall, his forehead and arms pressing against the cool
wallpaper. The pain. He looked at his arm, and
could see a new line of blood coursing towards his elbow. A part of his
mind spat out Hospital! But that involved volition,
a decision. And he felt that decisions were pointless, the outcome
unprepared for, meaningless. He remembered once saying:
I can't stop you. I love you. I love you dearly. But I don't possess you. I get jealous sexually sometimes. But not over the possession of you. And he might be better for you than me, might be better than me. So I can't stop you, even though I'm scared; I would be aware that I had perhaps ruined the rest of your life. It's all up to you. You've got to work out whether this is what you want, whether he is nicer than me or not, whether this - is just a fling, whether there's something wrong with us that we need to sort out. So I can't stop you.
I can't
stop you… he thought, his head against the cool, cool wall.
And look where that had got him. He had been so cool, so liberal, not
realising how weak, how dependent, how tied to her he was. Now she had
decided, he was better for her, not that there was
anything wrong with Jones, oh no. She'd said, "you're probably the
nicest person I ever met, it's not your fault, its just me really. I
still care for you, but... but we should separate, you know, not for
me, for you ..." Later came the pain and the grief. Remembering the
body language, hearing her words, realising then how truly far apart
they had become. It's all very well being liberal, and nice,
and human, but afterwards you still feel spurned.
Spurned. Rejected. Unwanted.
Three words from his vocabulary he had never expected to use to
describe himself.
I feel so fucking
lonely.
He stopped moaning. The babble
inside his head stopped. He listened to the sounds of the house. There
were none. Not a sound, anywhere. Even the blood dripped softly,
noiselessly, onto the carpet. The twilight, his constant companion, had
the consistency of cotton wool. Through it came nothing. No sounds, no
sights, no smells. Only he and his pain existed. Everything inside him
was being pulled apart and squeezed together simultaneously. He was
frightened at the thought of living alone, in all this silence. A black
hole opened up in his side, out of which flowed: nothing. I'm
an emotional mess. Then he thought: all these
feelings in my body – anger, grief, fright – were just physiological
reactions to a mental state. He could control them, couldn't
he? Even love, which seemed to involve the whole being, was just
chemicals, neurones, muscles and skin reacting to an abstract concept
(and abstract concepts were only ordered chemicals and electrical
reactions, and order, chemistry and electricity were only abstract
concepts ... ) Why talk about love only in stereotypes? Why
didn't anybody talk about the neurones, or the chemicals? Love, let's
talk about it. Talk to me about it. Can't. Best to keep all these
abstract entirely personal feelings to oneself.
Small confused insights could
not help Jones. How do you come to terms with something so
abstract? So rooted in primal responses?
Yet.
Yet - it was all brain stuff.
And so.
And so.
Jones, dizzy, slid down the
wall a little, but his strength held. Things are changing.
Things change. How best to make the most of
all this change? Here was where things must begin to change. In him. In
his surroundings.
His chest still felt tight. I'm
so tense. Still his arm bled and burned with pain. Sighing,
he pushed himself away from the wall. A big brown mark stained the
wallpaper where his arm had been. He liked the pattern. "Not bad," he
thought, noting its colour and shape. He pushed his bloody arm against
the wall in another place. It looked good. He tried again. Yes
- interesting. Redesign his surroundings. That was a good
place to start. Personalise the house. His knees buckled slightly, but
with grim resolve he continued marking the walls, until there was a
dark brown pattern zigzagging its way around the room. He stood back,
admired his work. Then, exhausted, his legs gave way, and he gently
began to fall; first onto his knees, and then face forward. His mind
blanked for a while. Then he lifted his head. Looked at the wall. Yes.
Much better. Weakly he stood up. What else could he redesign?
He looked about him. All that furniture. All that pine bloody
furniture. He had never wanted it, never, compromise again,
always the middle path with two and one was always weaker
and it was him when they furnished the house and now it appeared to be
him again why don't I just go and slap her about a bit tell
her to stop being so fucking stupid I need her and he saw the
pattern on the wall the zigzagging brown pattern and thought I
made that my own creation and he staggered and fell forward
onto his face felt the nose bruise felt it break saw the blackness
spiralling into
When Jones came round he first noticed the soft cool
feel of the carpet beneath his cheek. He felt dizzy and nauseous. He
moved his head and felt the sticky wetness. He lifted himself slightly.
Saw the brown stain where his head had been. Felt the dull pain in his
nose. He forced himself upright; the stiff pile of the carpet peeled
scabs from his arm where blood had congealed. Standing, he wobbled,
staggered into the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water, drank
it swiftly. He shook his head, trying to shake the dull pain away. Where
was she when you needed her? The memory of her nagged at him,
stabbed at him, sharp little pricks to his gut. He smashed the glass
against the wall. Damn damned woman. Leaving him
with the pain, the house, these constant reminders of what had been.
Suddenly, he began to cry. Huge
sobs shook him. The sound terrified him. He put his hands to his face
and sobbed and moaned and shook. From somewhere deep within, sounds
were wrenched out, and at that deep place existed someone whom Jones
had never heard before, someone who emitted strange animal mewlings and
cries. He trembled, and cried, and cried out. Could a human
being really sound like this? Tear blind he staggered to the
hall.
His eyes ran. Snot filled his
nostrils and throat. His body shook uncontrollably. Barely able to move
his right arm, he pulled a hanky from his pocket, squeezed it over his
streaming nose. Then yelled in pain and nearly fainted as nerves,
squeezed against shattered bone, sent messages of complaint across
synapses, back to his whirling brain. He opened his eyes. Saw himself
in the hall mirror. An awkward nose. One bloody bruised cheek. The
upper lip, chin and the other cheek caked in dried blood. Abruptly he
screamed, smashed his already ruined hand into the glass. The image
shattered and fell from the frame. He returned to the lounge. Looked at
the walls. Heard something say go on go on redecorate the
place that's what you were going to do. He looked around.
More of that bloody pine furniture. The pine table. The circular pine
table. Resolve, and a sense of purpose, straightened his sagging body,
drove his muscles out into the garden shed. He came back with the power
saw, plugged it in and started it.
Curled up on the sofa, the cat
opened one eye, looked at him circumspectly, pricked his ears to the
noise, but sat otherwise unconcerned. The table fell in half and Jones,
who had been leaning heavily upon it, sprawled and staggered. Even the
sawdust made the carpet look better. I always was a spit and
sawdust man.
He looked at the rest of the
furniture. Sawing all the furniture in half was the neatest, easiest
and most childish way of resolving all property disputes. Finally the
sofa was sawn through and the cat realised it was time to move. As the
sofa collapsed, Jones fell, saw in hand, to the floor, onto his face.
His nose crushed again, and he screamed and sobbed. He could feel blood
and snot welling in his nose.
The cat sidled up to the
bruised and bloody Jones, wheedled and rubbed itself against his head.
"Fuck off." The cat responded to the sound of Jones' voice by rubbing
itself harder, and purring. Jones wanted to push the cat away. But the
saw was in his left hand (... my left?) and the
right was numb, felt useless. Piss off. You're hers. I don't
want anything to do with you. "Go feed yourself," he managed
to say.
She smiled in his mind.
What a lovely cat...
Who's my lovely?
Her hands stroked the soft fur.
The cat still purred and rubbed itself against Jones' head. Fuck
off. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. Finally Jones reached out
with the nearly stiff and lifeless right hand and by an effort of will
grabbed its scruff. Still it purred. In the way that only cats can, it
reached out and licked Jones face. Its tongue scratched and abraded his
skin; its whiskers tickled. "You really are fucking annoying me. Will
you stop it please," he asked, gently, through tears. Her voice came
through the noises in his head.
Leave my cat alone
You're always getting at me
through my cat
And can I take the cat?
Of course. But he would miss
it. She wouldn't. She'd have him. The cat sighed,
then began to purr and lick Jones' face again. Jones still had a tight
grip on its scruff. Before the cat had time to move, the saw was
switched on again, the first teeth cutting through its skull. Blood
spurted; brain and bone were flung tangentially from the spinning
blade. There was only time for one frightened squeal from the cat, a
second in which to dig its claws into Jones' arm, trying to find
purchase for flight.