Ever Dundas - Goblin

I gave him three of the cats and one of the dogs. I hadn’t been as close to them, so I didn’t mind as much as I would if he was to take my chicken crew. We rehomed the others no bother with more of Mad and James’ friends. I eventually gave in on giving away the chickens when they pooped and scratched all over the flat and started pecking at each other, both showing off ugly bare arses.

I got on with Colin. He didn’t say much, but he seemed interested in my stories and he was really good with all the animals, I could see that. He was only a few streets away so I visited all the time. I showed him the tricks I’d trained the chickens to do and he was impressed, saying I could help out when the circus started up again. I was proud as anything at that. He spoiled those chickens rotten and Dr Kemp lived to a ripe old age. But Billy Bones died in early ’44. I buried Billy in Colin’s garden and we had a funeral, just me, Colin and Dr Kemp.

It was just as well Billy Bones wasn’t around on 6 June ’44. He hated the sound of planes and would start plucking out his own feathers. ‘You stupid chicken,’ I’d say. ‘Nobody wants to see that pink skin of yours. You peck yourself anymore and I’ll put you straight in the oven.’ But he wasn’t there for me to tell off. I thought of him, though, as the planes roared overhead.

‘We’re going to destroy those Nazi bastards,’ said old Louise, who was curled up on the couch under her tattered fur coat. ‘Do you hear it? That’s the sound of victory.’ She sat up and swayed gently, humming along to the sound of the planes, humming along to the sound of victory and destruction.

There’d been a small party the night before and people had stayed behind; old Louise slept on the couch, Adeline and Ariadne shared Mad’s bed, an old man I didn’t know was on the floor in the sitting room, Betsy was in the bath using her coat as a blanket, and Adam had slept in my bed. LK was snoring away on his camp bed behind the couch; he’d moved in with me when James and Mad took me in and he never did much of anything other than drink and gossip with Potato Pete. He was oblivious to the roar of the planes, but everyone else had been woken by the noise and knew something was up. We had breakfast huddled round the wireless waiting for any news. When the news came that our troops had landed in Normandy, Mad sat nodding as everyone cheered and old Louise started up on the national anthem. LK’s head bobbed up from behind the couch, grumbling at us to shut the hell up and get out of his bedroom but we hushed him and turned up the wireless. We didn’t know if James was involved. He wasn’t able to tell us where he was going to be stationed last time he left. We’d had a few letters, but they were all brief and he wasn’t allowed to write much about the war.

Mad wandered off and came back with a bottle of sherry, doling it out to everyone. She gave me some too and I sipped it. She sat on James’ chair, still in her nightdress, everyone else crumpled in yesterday’s clothes, all of them bleary-eyed but with a glimmer of alert expectation.

People came and went throughout the day and by the evening the flat was packed with people, drinking and singing. I sat with a small group listening to the king on the wireless: ‘…none of us is too busy, too young, or too old, to play a part in the nation-wide vigil of prayer as the great crusade sets forth.’ I prayed. I prayed like mad. O lizards down below I beseech thee, may the German bastards be destroyed, Holy Holy Holy, Amen.

James came back poisoned. A wound had become infected.

‘He was lucky to survive,’ Mad said.

He was poisoned in other ways, I thought. He wouldn’t speak to me anymore. If I got under his feet, he’d snap at me. He was only on leave three days and him and Mad holed up in their room. I could hear them. LK would just look at me and roll his eyes and put a record on to drown them out. I listened at their door and got a clip round the ear from LK. ‘Ya dirty weecunt,’ he said, and dragged me away.

I was reading in the kitchen when Mad came out in her silk nightdress, her hair all a mess. I stared at her heavy breasts, the curve of her hips and her rippling muscles as she rummaged around the kitchen. She spent the mornings exercising to keep her pre-war circus fitness then spent the day hauling heavy equipment at the factory. Her thighs were solid muscle. Her body made me feel secure. I thought she was invincible. She rifled through the kitchen, a cigarette dangling from her lips, bouncing up and down as she mumbled to herself. She piled food onto plates, and shoved a beer under her arm, staggering back through with it all. The bottle slipped and rolled on the floor.

‘Hey, G, get that will you?’

I scurried after her. James was lying naked on the bed. I stared at him, putting the beer on the table. I stood, uncertain, just looking at his body. His penis was like a strange creature nestled amongst the dark hair that spread up to his belly button in a thin line. He was covered in fading bruises. The wound on his leg was still an angry red. I watched his muscles flex as he reached for the beer. He didn’t look at me. It was as if I wasn’t there. Mad dropped all the food in a heap on the table. He pulled her into bed and she half fell, half sat on top of him. She slid off him and curled up by his side, his arm around her. They shared the beer.

‘Alright, Goblin,’ she said, realising I was still there. ‘Thanks.’

She gestured to the door and I left.

There were sudden outbreaks of yelling, something I’d never witnessed between them before. They’d tease each other, but never fight. This was new. LK shrugged as we heard furniture being upturned. James came out and a beer bottle came after him, just missing his head and smashing on the wall. He didn’t even flinch. Groo scurried away, hiding under the table, and Captain Flint shrieked and didn’t stop. James threw his clothes on, lit a cigarette, grabbed his jacket and left, leaving me to calm Flint and comfort Groo. James came back in the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep for the noise of them making up. In the morning he was gone and the house was quiet again.

I used to miss him when he left. It was a horrible ache that brought back nightmares about Devil, but this time I didn’t have nightmares. I didn’t miss him at all. It was as if he’d never been.

‘He’s poisoned,’ I said.

‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ Mad said. ‘Everything’s going to be alright.’

When he came home next time, it was for good. He’d lost half of his left arm. He didn’t speak to me, Mad, or the Lizard King. Mad and James didn’t make love or fight. He was just silent. He drank his beer and smoked his cigarettes.

‘He’s going to be alright,’ Mad said.

There was a small gathering in the sitting room; Colin, LK, Potato Pete and a few others. I was playing poker in the kitchen with Adam and the brass band dwarves when we heard a V1 buzzbomb. The V1 rockets got under your skin, a creeping fear. That moment you heard the buzzbomb buzz, you’d feel sick and pray to the lizards below it wasn’t you it got. The V2s were different – they were silent and you didn’t hear them until they hit and I decided that was better than the V1 fear.

When we heard the buzz we all froze, gripping the cards in our hands, silent, waiting. The buzz stopped, we counted, and I prayed like crazy to the lizards. When it hit, we dropped our cards, running outside. Four doors up, a building had been obliterated, now existing only as rubble, dust and flames. Smoke rolled down the street in slow motion waves. We pressed ourselves into doorways, holding handkerchiefs to our mouths. It rolled on by, like a monster in search of prey.