Linda Robertson - What Rhymes with Bastard?

I confided in Jack: ‘It makes me so angry, Chief. I have you, and that’s just the most amazing thing, and I’m still sad. Why can’t I just be happy?’

‘That’s what you always say, and you never are. To be honest, I don’t think you ever will be.’

So I went to the doctor and told her I’d been feeling a bit blue. Without blinking, she wrote me repeat prescriptions for a thousand Prozac capsules. ‘You should be feeling better in about three weeks.’ I read that the side-effects included lower libido and increased homicidal urges.

As I made dinner, Tova would sidle in and tell me about her amazing life – the places she’d been, the people she’d met and the wild things she’d done. She could make anything dull, but next to this vigorously sprouting shrub, I felt like a limp, etiolated stem. To protect myself, I responded only to direct probes, such as ‘You’re from England, right?’

‘Yup.’

‘Hmm. Where else have you lived?’

‘Here.’

‘Just here? Well, where have you been, like long trips?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘Oh … Really?’

‘Really.’

She was all about the where, not the what. I couldn’t stand her, and boycotted the kitchen when she was around. Jack would come home from work to find me sitting on the bed with an open can of tuna and a bag of crisps.

‘Here’s dinner, Chief.’

‘Lins, can’t you at least make some pasta?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to talk to Tova while it boils.’

‘Well, you turn on the water, then I’ll go in a bit and sort it out.’

I agreed, but she caught me in the hall and pointed at my pink socks. ‘Look, Chico!’ she cried, laughing. ‘They match her sweater!’ I was a pink moth, writhing on a pin. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘I used to do that – match stuff. When I was much younger, of course.’

I reversed back into our room. ‘Jack,’ I hissed, ‘we have to get out of this place! I can’t stay indoors in the daytime because it’s like a dungeon and it makes me feel really sad and I can’t go outdoors because there’s nothing left to buy and I’m getting sunburned and I can’t stay indoors at night because I’m going to kill Tova and I can’t go out at night because there’s nowhere to go because I don’t have any friends.’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ said Jack. ‘We can get some food, too.’

We clambered to the top of Lombard Street, a giant game of crazy-golf, twisting and turning down towards the mass of the city. Beyond the clustered lights lay the black expanse of the bay, and beyond that more land, more lights, more people, doing more interesting things than I was. It was time to confront the truth: I was not a writer, because writers write stuff.

‘Chief,’ I wailed, sitting down, ‘I’m just, like – nothing! And my face is all bumpy.’

It was true: I’d got a weird sort of rash. He patted my head. ‘It’s OK, you’re still the best rabbit in the world!’

My tears blurred the city into a twinkling puddle. ‘I’ll never write anything except recruitment ads!’

Jack held me close. ‘That’s OK, Bun. I’ll still love you more than anything in the world and I’d love you if you couldn’t even write your own name.’ He cradled my head in his lap and wiped my tears on his shirtsleeve. ‘Poor Bun. You’ve got mascara all over your face.’

Comforted, I grew calmer. We had a few minutes of silence while he stroked my hair. ‘It’s OK.’ I sniffed. ‘You know, I feel kind of a sense of relief. Denying it all this time, when it’s fine not to write stuff. Who cares?’

‘Well, maybe you don’t need it to be my lovely Bun, but you might need it to be a happy, fulfilled rabbit.’

How annoying. Not just the herbivore references – he wouldn’t let me off the hook. All of a sudden I had an idea. I sat up, still sniffing. ‘I know! I could write about all the freaks I meet here!’

He squeezed my hand. ‘That’s a great idea. You’ve got all this time, Bun, and you’ve not had it for years. You deserve to put it to good use. If nothing else, it’ll make you feel better. You can write short stories.’

‘Can’t do anything that long.’

‘Poems, then.’

‘Nobody reads poems except other poets.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What if I stuck a tune on top? Then they’d be songs. And maybe a few people will listen.’ I’d written a song once, to promote the use of dustbins on school premises. I was back on track, so we got some dinner, and then returned to the house, where Jack immediately conducted a bottom inspection. It was a new habit of his, and it got on my nerves.

‘Hmm, let’s see. Turn round.’ He put his hands inside my knickers and started feeling around. ‘Oh, it’s been trimmer – it’s been trimmer! You’ll have to keep hopping up those hills, Bun!’ Soon his hands were round my waist, then inside my shirt, and he seemed to have forgotten about my below-par backside. ‘I love you, Bun.’

‘I love you too, Chief.’

Lips met and tongues coiled together as he began to unpeel my skirt; my clothes always seemed to be falling off when Jack was around. Suddenly he disengaged. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s do it standing up.’

‘What? No.’

‘Well, how about the other way, then? It feels nice, you know. I stuck that corn-on-the-cob up my arse and it was … you know … It felt good.’

I was sick of hearing about that damned thing, a plastic corn-onthe-cob vibrator we’d been given as a wedding present. I’d thrown it out after he’d claimed repeatedly to have stuck it up his butt. ‘Jack,’ I said, ‘I still don’t believe you did it. Or with the wine bottle.’

‘I did it! It was just the spout. Why don’t you believe me? Why would I lie?’

‘Look, Jack, I’m not having anal sex with you.’

‘So let’s do it standing up, then. Go on!’

‘No.’

‘Christ, Lins, you’re so boring.’ He went to bed in a huff, his face turned towards the wall. What was going on? He’d never asked for stuff like that when we were in London.

I spent much of the next day working out a song on my accordion. When Jack got home from work, he hugged me and the accordion, and asked if we could have sex standing up.

‘No.’

‘You can take the accordion off.’

‘No.’

‘Please, Lins. We always do it lying down.’

‘I like lying down. Why do something standing up when you can do it lying down?’

‘Go on.’

‘I want to play you my song.’

He stepped back and crossed his arms. ‘Go on, then.’

My landlord doesn’t live here, and that’s a piece of luck

Coz he isn’t very fussy about what he likes to fuck .

My landlord is a pervert, and that’s all right with me ,

He keeps the house in order, and sometimes stays for tea .

He keeps his books at our place – philosophical texts ,

Nietzsche, Kant and Hegel on the ins and outs of sex .

My landlord is a pervert, and that’s all right with me ,

He keeps the house in order, and sometimes stays for tea .

He is awfully fond of enemas and he does them in the park ,

Finds an unsuspecting vagrant and makes his muddy mark .6

My landlord is a pervert, and that’s all right with me ,

He keeps the house in order, and sometimes stays for tea .

He is best friends with a male prostitute and a Satanist called Steve ,

They hang out in hard-core nightclubs with sailors on shore leave .

My landlord is a pervert, and that’s all right with me ,