/ Nipple /
The house was large and untidy, battered in the way that a growing family will batter a house.
She was large and untidy, battered in the way that a growing family will batter you. She was sitting in a large fabric armchair, the seams had stopped fraying and were now parting ways. There was a thick plastic ring of long ago spilt coffee on the right arm of the chair. She was typing away, her face puckered and scowled as she typed, as if each word was a pulled tooth. She paused, “Darling, darling.”
An open copy of the Times stood vertical, commendably so, eight fingers visible, four at each side. “Mmmm,” emanated from the newspaper.
“Darling, darling, another way of describing an erect nipple, quickly, now,”
The Times offered. “Another erect nipple.”
“No no that won’t do, I’ve already said that, something else,”
The Times counter-offered. “What about one half of a matching pair of two erect nipples, you haven’t said that.”
“I haven’t said that because it is shit, come on,”
The Times made its final offer. “His nipple stood to attention like the bearskin hat on a guardsman’s head, like the well chewed end of an old biro, like a pleasure missile aimed at her cardiac muscle, like…”
“I’m not Fay Weldon, I’ll just stick in a load of ‘x’s and come back to it later. I’ve still got seven hundred words to do today so I would appreciate a little bit of help.”
The Times quivered slightly and asked. “What is this one, Lucky Lucy and the Dolphin who can’t say No?”
“I only wrote that one book about dolphin sex, and it hardly sold any copies at all. This is still the sequel. The first one was three hundred thousand words long, and sold by the shedload, so the agent says that the sequel has to be bloody enormous.”
The Times responded. “Didn’t you say we earned a million pounds on the first one last week, why bother with the sequel, do what you like. I thought the dolphin sex book was good, what about tuna sex.”
“You never read it. Anyway tuna sex would be stupid, dolphins are intelligent mammals, who would want to read about having sex with a tuna.”
Not unreasonably the Times responded. “Who would want to read about having sex with a dolphin?”
“That creature porn is selling by the shed load, and you can get away with knocking out a word count of fifty kay, stick it on Amazon and the money comes rolling in. Anyway, this is real writing, this is hard work.”
The Times displayed its literary aspirations. “It is hardly Dombey and Son.”
“It pays the mortgage, better than your teaching ever did.”
Silence descended once again in the house of that week’s Times best selling author.
/ Award /
The mighty face of the newspaper glowered across the well worn kitchen table, had you not known that the paper was flimsy and insubstantial it would have seemed like a mountainous region beset by very neat graffiti. Like the diaphanous robes painted by Poussin it had a monumentality totally out of keeping with its reality.
That week’s Times best selling author was trying on dresses.
“Is it those awards tonight?” boomed out from behind the newspaper.
“Yes darling, I told you yesterday, and the day before,”
“Do I have to go?” echoed from the Thunderer.
“Yes darling you have to go.”
Silence, from the Thunderer.
“I am sure that your favourite author will be there, that one that you like, Beachum, Stovepipe Beachum.”
“Oh,” the Thunderer had regained interest.
The Thunderer continued “I like him, that one where the hero has a biscuit and all the memories of his childhood come flooding back, or the one with the one sided coin, or the one with the man and his last cigarette, just incredible.”
“Hmmm, just how does he come up with all those ideas?” his wife replied. “So, we have managed to agree on one thing, you are coming then.”
“I suppose so, what about you, what are you going to fit your pert little breasts into, fresh like dewy apples newly picked from the tree.”
“Hmmm, I was thinking about this, the outfit I have been trying to show you for the past ten minutes.”
The Thunderer offered its fashion advice. “Oh that, it makes you look like Darth Vader, you can’t wear that.”
“What about the floral one,”
The Thunderer offered a supplement of fashion advice. “You do know that I love you dearly but that one just makes you look like someone from the Laura Ashley Regiment of Long Range Snipers.”
“What does that even mean?”
The Thunderer continued. “Okay then. Wear that one you always wear, I like that.”
“I am a best selling author, I cannot wear a dress you bought in Primark to everything. People will think that I am mad.”
The Thunderer had exhausted its interest in fashion. “I suppose you have to wear something, wear that Laura Ashley thing then, I quite like that.”
A moody silence descended once again on the home of the Times best selling author.
Some time later the Thunderer piped up again “Darling, have you done something to your hair, it looks like that character from Harry Potter, you know.”
His wife sighed wearily, “I don’t know if you don’t tell me.”
“I haven’t really seen all the films, you know, you know, that one.”
His wife loved the Harry Potter films, she started to wax eloquent on her favourite topic “You mean like Hermione Grainger, she has the most lovely thick hair, or Bellatrix Lestrange she has hair like something out of a dark moody Pre-Raphaelite painting?”
“No, I’ve got it now, I remember, it was Hagrid.”
/ Room /
Lucy pulled her woollen hat down, it seemed colder here than it had at university. She looked round nervously, but her over stuffed case was still sitting there, there was no one else about, no thieves loitering waiting to swoop. There was a small taxi office, the door was open and she could hear the local radio station playing. The same old disk jockeys that she had grown up with, still making the same old jokes.
Her father would be coming soon, she pulled out her mobile phone and started browsing through text messages and Twitter and Pinterest, and the whole great time sink of insubstantial distractions. In seconds she was immersed, deep down the rabbit hole that is any teenager with a mobile device and a live connection to the internet. A car horn woke her from her reveries.
Her father shouted across “Hi sweetheart, you been waiting long?”
She shouted back “No just got here, thanks for coming to pick me up.” Now that she was no longer at home, and she normally had to pay for taxi fares, or bus fares, or indeed everything, these small kindnesses were marginally more noticed and marginally more appreciated.
He grabbed the suitcase by the handle, wincing as he lifted it. “Oh, no worries, we really miss doing your laundry, jump in.”
She replied, bubbling with the undefined excitement of at last being a grown up, in a grown up world. “You’ll never guess who I was speaking to on the train?”
He looked at her, considering whether to guess that it was Jesus Christ or something similarly ridiculous, but could think of nothing that would have made her laugh. He just nodded and said “Go on then, who was it?”
She carried on, “That composer, the really famous one.”
He replied, “You mean Beethoven?”
She was getting exasperated. “No, the one at our university, what’s his name, the Scottish one.”
He replied. “Oh, the Scottish one, the famous one, that is really impressive.”
He continued “I should probably say, there have been a few changes at home,”
She shouted back over the car roof as they got in. “You mean in addition to mum earning about a million pounds a week with THAT book.’
He did his best to sound indignant. “That is no way to speak about what your mum does, anyway, seeing as you don't live at home anymore, we thought it might be time to make some changes.”
It was her turn to sound indignant. “But I do live at home, that is still my room.”
He attempted to adopt a reasonable tone, as if speaking to a child. “We are paying a small fortune for you to stay at university, so no you don't still live at home, anyway you are never there.”
She was getting annoyed. “I am so too, I will be back during the summer, and Christmas.”
He was still patiently trying to explain. “Well maybe, but you hardly live there anymore, so we thought that we would make a few changes to your room.”
She was getting worried. “What sort of changes?”
He was really trying to sound reasonable. “Well now that we have the house to ourselves, your mother and I, we thought a few changes were in order, you have read the book haven't you?”
She was getting exasperated. “No I have not read the book, and what sort of changes?”
He replied. “Well, your mother always rather wanted some space, just for us.”
She was clutching at straws. “What like crafting and sewing?”
He was Mr Reasonable. “Not exactly.”
She sought to clutch at some more straws. “An exercise bike, that sort of thing?”
He was driving smoothly, along a road that he had driven along a thousand times. “Closer.”
Her mind was starting to spin. “Well what then?”
He was not reassuring her. “Are you sure you haven't read the book?”
Her mind was spinning out of control. “Ewww. No I have not.”
His driving was entirely controlled. “Well now we have the house to ourselves, and the privacy and all that, your mother thought it would be nice to have a sex dungeon.”
She did not think that her life could get any worse. “You what!”
“It is very tasteful, that lube is so much cheaper if you can buy in bulk, and then there are all the chains and sex toys and things.”
After that it was a long silent drive home. On arrival, she ran from the car, ran to the door, ran to the foot of the stairs.
She almost shouted at her mother. “Mum, what have you done to my room, that room is my whole life, you can't go changing it, my posters, my books, my whole childhood is in that room.”
Her mother replied calmly. “We only made a small change or two, I really did not think you would mind.”
The student Lucy ran up the stairs, her mother puffing gently trying to keep up with her.
Lucy was close to hysterics, frantically looking round her room, the One Direction posters, the Snoopy bedspread, it was all almost exactly as she remembered it. “Mum, you have changed the curtains!”
Her mother replied. “Sorry don't you like them, I thought the gymkhana pony curtains were a bit age inappropriate but they are still about if you want them back.”
Lucy muttered quietly. “But, but, dad said, …..”
Downstairs, her father was smiling as he dragged the heavy suitcase into the hall way, and hung up the car keys.
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