A. Kennedy - All the Rage

And always in the kitchen.

Domestic servant, knows her place.

Oh.

Shouldn’t think of that, either. Anything hierarchical gets too horny.

He’d felt quite peculiar afterwards, on that initial afternoon — chilled and thirsty and curious, possibly affronted, but also sinking a touch into a kind of softness, a gratitude — it had been a while, after all. He’d briefly considered taking her to bed and starting again, pretending they had some meaning for each other. But Carmen had only released him, dressed herself, cleared the tea things, left.

He did wonder if she’d be back, but the following Wednesday she appeared at nine, the same as usual — only now the extra half-hour added for the shag.

It had been difficult to know if he should pay her more — he was, clearly, increasing her workload, in a sense, but he’d guessed any offers of extra cash would be distasteful. For a while, he’d left small gifts beside her tea mug. She ignored them. He’d begun conversations she either wouldn’t or couldn’t finish, had reached out to pat her arm when she was passing, had aimed to create an atmosphere of, if not affection, then positive regard, but she seemed to dislike this and as a result he had taken to rushing a roll of notes at her when the month ended and being vague about how much he genuinely owed, overestimating as if by accident.

I can afford it. Afford her.

Oh.

Not yet, though.

Oh.

One day she’ll make me think of additional vowels.

Meanwhile, divert myself.

Affording.

Comforts.

Luxuries.

Pleasant situations.

Yes. Right up to the walls I am most pleasantly situated and living well within my means, living well completely.

When he’d viewed it, the flat was already exhaustively furnished and equipped — carpets, bed sheets, towels, ornaments, pictures, cutlery, pans, reading glasses, candles, lampshades, soap — as if the owners had left on holiday and had asked him to stay and take care of their belongings. Generously vacant for him — sign the inventory and he was home.

Mine.

My floor, my wall, my window, my view.

Outside it’s easing into spring. Blossom shivers in the tall, haphazard trees and young light is being kind to the buildings opposite, the thin lane that runs beside them.

Foxes in that lane at night. I can hear them. Foxes in the city, and rabbits and hawks — the countryside’s cleaned, it’s shriven — but here there’s hunting day and night. There are screams — exactly like women. In the morning I see traces.

He can feel heat running at the backs of his legs, the strain of the end on its way and he studies the shop fronts, clings to them for a beat and a beat and a beat.

Flower shop — no one goes in it, except for funerals, not properly an area for flowers, not yet. Refurbished café — one of those chains. Twenty-four-hour grocer’s and off-licence. Tobacconist. Chemist. Somewhere that’s still empty — whitewashed windows, dust.

He can see from the broad, slanted outlines left on the sandstone that the business was called Zumzum — silly name — typical.

No way of knowing what they sold, probably fancy cloth, or gold jewellery, maybe weird little cubic sweets, the kinds of stuff those people liked.

Butcher’s still here from the old days. New management, naturally. Sausages, pork pies, nice bit of steak for the weekend — have to support your local butcher. Funny lettering over the door from when it was different, stocked different meat. Cheap paint, it’ll fade.

Transitional areas. Reclamations. They start off unsteady, blanks where you wouldn’t expect them, oddities, reminders, and then in the end, everything fades. You get a new community. Peace.

And, before the disruptions settle and the fresh life grows, you can roll in and get a cheap flat with all the trimmings.

My street, this is — in my neighbourhood — my house in my street in my neighbourhood.

And my view, my window, my wall, my floor, my chair, my shag.

My shag.

Oh.

My shag.

Oh.

Possession.

Oh.

Does the trick.

Oh.

Quite.

Phil draws himself away from her, removes the condom.

Can’t be too careful.

He’s pressed her forward and her blouse has ridden up. For a moment he has to stare at the scarring on her back — purplish/red and swollen. Then she straightens, hides it. He’s never been able to see the whole of it.

Burning.

Beating.

Some wrongness.

Some wrong act.

He bins his little parcel of semen, the tepid crush of what he’s left, and adjusts himself, clears his throat. He’s sticky, needs a shower and maybe an aspirin, but he can’t enjoy either until Carmen’s gone, in case he gives offence. This means he can only loiter and wait for his pulse to dim, keep his hands from rising to his face, because they will smell of activities and people, needs, heats.

By the far table leg he notices there are crumbs — he must have dropped a sizeable piece of biscuit and then trampled it into a mess while he was busied.

Dirty old man.

He inspects the bottom of his shoe — more biscuit.

Tsk.

That being the noise of crushed biscuit.

When she turns, respectable again, he points to the mess and notices what could be a mild warmth in her expression, a certain friendliness towards the idea of sweeping. Before she goes for the pan and brush, she upends both the shagging chair and Philip’s ordinary chair and rests them on the table.

He’s seen it before, of course — Carmen, too. Someone with a clear, dark hand has inked a surname and a date on the underside of each seat. There is a liquid, foreign taste about the script, not unattractive. Philip knows — having, late one night, eventually checked all his furniture — that the same date and name have been written on the back of his dresser, the headboard of his bed, under his sofa, somewhere on every chair, beneath lamp stands, inside cupboards where the door frames make a shadow. He is almost, almost, almost surrounded by a multiplicity of records, marks.

In the spring of last year.

Before they left.

Some morning, probably morning — early hours most suitable for clearing out.

Blossoms through the window and closed shops.

Making a good order better for everyone.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Didn’t even take their nail clippers, or the Thermos flask.

How strange it must have been to be so unimpeded. Like falling.

Carmen tidies round him, then quietly empties the tea leaves out of the pot and — as it happens — probably on to the condom.

She rights the chairs and he sits, a little light-headed. She washes the crockery which was here when he arrived and dries it with the tea towel which was rolled neatly with some others in a drawer — scenes of village life, British sea birds, common knots, blue-and-white checks, red-and-white checks, plain blue.

Once she’s done, Carmen walks to stand close at his side, eases her scrubbed and tidy fingers inside his jacket, finds his pocket and takes out his comb, his own personal comb.

He exhales, with the intention that she will feel it.

And then he lets her.

He lets her comb his hair — run the little teeth back from his forehead, over his temples, smooth him from his hairline to his nape, and he drops his face forward and nods, indicating that she should continue and sometimes they do this for twenty minutes, for half an hour, or until he forgets, until he fades, until he’s clarified.