Matt Whyman - The Savages

Titus turned to peer into the hall. By then, the man was gone. He faced back at the three girls in his life, and dismissed their concerns with a chuckle.

‘So the gas man is a nice guy. That doesn’t make him dodgy. Though I have to say it seems like only yesterday that I paid the last bill.’ Titus sighed, and then smiled fondly at the little one straining to escape from her high chair so that she could reach her father. Carefully, he lifted her out and held her up. ‘And how are you, my little beauty !’

‘Never better,’ said Angelica, and began to bring the plates across to the table. ‘She bit Sasha’s finger just now. Almost drew blood.’

‘Did she?’ Titus looked around, still holding the little girl aloft, and then brought her down for a cuddle. ‘Then, you know what this means?’

‘I do indeed,’ said Angelica.

‘Who would have thought?’ said Titus. ‘The last of my children is set to join us in the family way.’

‘It’s quite an achievement,’ Angelica agreed, as Sasha took her empty plate to the dishwasher. ‘Have you had enough to eat?’ she asked her.

‘I’m good thanks.’ Sasha headed for the door, and willed herself not to look at the plates on the table. No matter how she tried to sell it to herself, mash, peas and nuts just didn’t feel like a complete meal. ‘I’ll be in my room,’ she said, and glanced at her mother. ‘Got to revise this month.’

‘Can you tell Grandpa that I’ll blend his supper as soon as it’s cooled. And send Ivan down now. You know how those two like their pork. There’s even extra in the pan.’

Sasha reminded herself not to react. Despite the dig from her mother, there was no way that her dad could find out about her pledge. Heading out of the kitchen, she caught his eye, and saw only pride in his expression.

‘I admire your commitment,’ said Titus, and jiggled his youngest daughter in his arms. ‘It’s a shame you won’t be eating with us, but all the more reason to look forward to a feast. One that none of us will ever forget!’

Angelica had never imagined that she would marry a man like Titus. As a young woman, she was fiercely independent, while Titus was clearly looking to settle down and start a family. What seduced Angelica was his sense of chivalry and sensitivity towards her. Looking back, it could be said that Titus waited for her to fall in love with him, before striking with his secret. By then, it was too late. Angelica was smitten. She would do anything for him, knowing that he would do likewise for her.

‘We are what we eat,’ he once told her. ‘That makes you and me so very special as a couple.’

With a baby on the way, while Titus forged his career in the city, Angelica quickly found her feet as a homemaker. She surprised herself at how much pride she took in making things look as perfect as possible. The house was run down when they bought it, which presented Angelica with a much-needed challenge.

Back then, the renovation, decoration and furnishing of each room served as a means for her to forget about the one aspect of their lives that should’ve disgusted her. Having found a way to cope with the horror, Angelica even discovered that she enjoyed the preparation and consumption of human flesh, as well as all the cuts that your average cannibal might discard. It was a waste, they both agreed, and a lost opportunity. Through their eyes, the carcass of a once healthy human being was a banquet waiting to happen. Drawing upon the skills handed down to Titus by his father, she learned to extract the thymus gland from the chest cavity, just below the neck. Raw, it was just a spongy lump. Soaked in vinegar and then flash fried, it became the most glorious of sweetmeats, and the perfect appetiser before the serious business of eating began. And unlike any other food she had tasted in her life, Angelica found that often it was perfectly possible to finish off an entire body between two. At times, in fact, the feasting could transform into a frenzy. It would begin soon after the starters, with the central dishes stuffed away at an unnatural rate, before things finally slowed with dessert, when a profound sense of peace and satisfaction set in.

‘It’s like a drug,’ Titus once explained. ‘If everyone knew that feasting on human flesh sent such signals to the brain, we would eat ourselves out of existence!’

It took a decade of married life for Angelica to come to terms with what she had become. In that time, she tried to reason with herself that it wasn’t something they did frequently. It was Titus who decided when the time felt right, and that amounted to no more than half a dozen times a year. They weren’t like addicts or anything. Everything was under control.

Everything, that was, except for Angelica’s other consumer habit. At times of self-loathing, she would hit the high street with her credit card. As well as her passion for fashion, she continued to style and dress the house. In her mind, the creation of the perfect family living environment helped to hide the truth about what really bonded them. As for concealing her debts, the situation was fine until the credit crunch. With interest rates rising, Angelica could no longer afford the repayments from the joint account without arousing the suspicions of her husband. It left her with no choice. Following a showdown with Titus, whose offer to write off the debt she refused, Angelica proposed a repayment plan that left him speechless.

‘It’s time the house paid for itself,’ she had told him. ‘I’ve already spoken to an agency.’

‘But this isn’t just any house,’ Titus had reminded her. ‘It’s the one place where we can be ourselves. The only time we invite strangers inside, they never leave.’

‘I need to do this,’ Angelica had insisted.

‘But what if someone finds evidence?’

‘They won’t,’ she had said, and patted his stomach fondly. ‘As you well know, my love.’

Now three years into the arrangement, the Savages had become used to occasionally having large numbers of media people occupy the ground floor. Angelica was happy, having taken responsibility for her spending, while the kids took great delight in spotting their home on billboards and in magazines. As much as he grumbled, she knew that even Titus had come to accept it. Angelica even suspected he got a kick out of the fact that the house was on show to the public, and yet in private hosted scenes that could attract attention for all the wrong reasons. She figured it gave him a sense of control, as it did for her. The incident with the model was regrettable, but Marsha from the agency had assured her that business would come back to the house in time. Angelica hadn’t liked the sound of this one bit. Her credit card debt repayment depended on the income it brought her. Then again, she couldn’t risk kicking up a fuss because that would just be heartless. A suicide is a tragedy at any time, Marsha had reminded Angelica over the phone later that week. There was nothing anyone could’ve done. Apart from not stringing up a booby trap in our bathroom , Angelica had thought, but kept it to herself. Instead, all she could do was go into denial about the financial implications. She’d done it for years, after all. As for Ivan, he was doing his best to atone for his mistake. He hadn’t attempted a single joke that silenced the family, and was spending a great deal of time with his grandfather. It was good to see. He could learn a lot from Oleg, she decided, while Titus had talked of giving his son the chance to prepare the next feast. Combined with what he’d learned from the accident in the bathroom, Angelica hoped that Ivan would come out of this a stronger and more rounded young man. It made the debt issue just that little bit more bearable for her.