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- Herausgeber: Influx Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
'Smart and smarting, Banks's incisive stories reveal the sharp tensions and chaotic impassivities of modern life. A triumph.' – Eley Williams, author of Attrib. 'We do have a complaints procedure. You will find paper and a pen (chained) to the shelf by the bin. Write your concerns and then place them in the bin. PLEASE NOTE: We do not allow items to be placed in the bin. Please do not write on the paper.' A lonely woman invites danger between tedious dates; a station guard plays a bloody game of heads-or-tails; an office cleaner sneaks into a forbidden room hiding grim secrets. Compelling and provocative, Annabel Banks's debut short fiction collection draws deeply upon the human need to be in control — no matter how devastating the cost.
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To my beautiful mama, who gave me everything except green eyes.
CONTENTS
PAYMENT TO THE UNIVERSE
Margaret is the boss, so you suppose it’s okay that she leaves early. Actually, you’re glad. By five to six the offices are empty, quiet aired. The cupboard of cleaning supplies is just large enough for a chair to fit between the boxes of bleach and stinky rags, so you can sit and look at the list of jobs for that night. Margaret is always careful to mark up the set of instructions on the dry-wipe board. They are always the same, so you don’t know why she bothers. Sometimes it’s written in red, sometimes in blue, but closes with the same smiley-face whose smile is more pointed than a curve. It means business.
You drop your tabard over your head, screw in your earbuds – blue, blue, electric blue – and drag the vacuum cleaner from its corner. Atrium first, then the halls, sucking the day’s skin cells from the nylon pile. The first room is meant for visitors. Photographs of rural landscapes, oil wells, some school prize-giving where everyone is in 10animal masks, have been blown-up, poster size, and bolted to the wall. You rub a cloth over the fields and faces. Turn out the light when you leave.
The second is more of a kitchen, although there are no appliances. Thai food in plastic boxes, piles of fruit, apples and bananas arranged in balanced displays. On the far wall, rows of toothbrush holders have been fixed to cheap plastic shelving. You counted them once, when you were either curious or bored. Thirty across, five rows down. One hundred and fifty brushes, and never enough toothpaste. In the evening’s hush you can take a moment here. You bring out your own brush from the pocket of your tabard and have a cheeky scrub, give some minty spit to the bin you then tie up and lug downstairs to the skip.
Up some stairs, down some stairs. Blue, blue, in your ears, and you’re not allowed inside this room at all, but that’s why you come here. An accident of opportunity gave you pass, and you’re not about to give it up with any fake attempt at decency, of notions of ‘the right thing’ so carefully primed in your childhood. There is a water jug on the safe with three glasses, but you know better than to touch it. A pile of papers to shuffle, straighten, glance through. A fleshy lump in the corner, quivering, a bag on its head.
It’s this last you’ve come to stare at. You cough loudly, so it knows that you are here, so it will call out in that language you don’t understand. Doesn’t matter what the words mean. You know it wants to be touched, to be able to see. The twitching is less than yesterday, even less than the day before, but perhaps that’s acceptance rather than anything more final.
You think about touching it, as always. Consider uncovering its eyes, letting it take an unrestricted breath, 11to moisten its lips with water. Daydreaming these actions always makes you feel kinder. It’s a payment to the universe, so perhaps the cigarette you’ll have on your walk home won’t be the one to give you cancer. Perhaps the earlier bus has been delayed just enough that you can catch it and avoid waiting in the dark, singing pale blinds drawn all day.
You close the door and make it back to the cupboard. Your mouth is still too minty for smoking, so you’ll grab a coffee from the machine by the second floor toilets. The price has gone up, but you’re not about to complain. You like this job. It fits with the hours you keep.12
SUSAN FRANKIE MARLA ME
The next morning my guy is early into work, but I have to get home anyway, because I’m shopping with Susan. Big Asda, not the high street. We like it in here because the wide aisles can contain our conversations, and the ceiling is high enough to cope if she gets the giggles.
We put the baskets over our arms, rest the handles in the crooks of our elbows. This is not the best way to carry them but she makes it so sexy I have to copy her, to fake being gracefully awkward with the thoughtless space-taking and the – surely not deliberate – clack and connect with baskets of men who take her fancy, fancy her back. How can they not? She’s so cool in her small clothes, her loose-hipped flip-flop shuffle, peering at pomegranates, giving figs a friendly squeeze.
I’m a proper Susan-copier today. Just tactile and spacey enough to stroke a kiwi fruit, even though I feel like a tit. But I always get like this, my debilitating, just-fucked character drowsiness. Invasion, Germaine calls it. Probably, but an 14invited one, to distract from all the blood and drudgery. The way I see it, I’ll still have to negotiate terms, clear up the tank-crushed flowers. Might as well enjoy the parade first.
Have you tried these? Susan asks, picking up white bread rolls, all-butter shortbread biscuits, white-chocolate mice. They’re fabulous.
Why is it that pale things are always the worst for you?
You want Cad-burries? She runs her hand over the swell of my hip. You’re feeling different, huh? Set your sheet music on fire?
There might have been some smouldering. Too early to tell if it’ll catch.
Keep blowing and see what happens, she says. That’s the funnest way to find out.
We open a jar of gherkins and share them, with vinegar-fingered, loud-crunch laughter, then look for lube on the vitamin shelves. Take two bottles, one each.
The freezer section is cold, and our nipples stand proud beneath our thin cotton tops. She shifts her basket to the other arm, sticks a finger out and presses, hard, on my right tit. Ding-dong, she says, American voice resonating through this British version of a Walmart palace. Are you home? Boob inspector.
A bald man, trolley laden with paper towels, had caught the action out of the corner of his eye, and pauses, mid-step, to watch. The freezers are throwing out a low hum. I think it’s them, anyway, and then I’m pressing my lips to hers. She smiles into my kiss, knows what I am asking. We turn to stare him out – an invitation, a warning. I run my tongue 15over my lips to taste her tacky gloss, then choose Caramel Choo-Choo Ben and Jerry’s. We can open the carton as we drive home. We can lick each other’s fingers clean.
Come on, she says as we load the conveyor. What’s he really like?
Tricksy, in a good way, I say. Pretty playful. Big male body, slightly odd-eyed. Mad grin. Has a thing about religion.
Are we doing the same guy? Her hair is almost pink, moves over her shoulders, gets in her mouth.
We’re not. We check, comparing verified statistics, descriptions of cock-curve and coffee preference. I’m glad. If forced to choose between me and Susan, cello burner, ceiling toucher, I would choose her. She wears the basket in the crook of her arm. She eats gherkins she hasn’t paid for and doesn’t give a fuck.
Frankie picks me up in her convertible. It’s a huge machine, leathered, finned and roaring, not the type of car ever seen on British roads. She is stunning, as always. Her dark glasses, floral headscarf, are some sort of fifties thing I don’t get, but it’s the Jackie-O dresses I really enjoy. I wore them all the time when I was younger.
Are we going to make it? I ask.
Honey, she replies. I’m never late. Relax.
The car is so large I slip around in my seat, despite the belt. Don my scarf, my leopard-print shades. I have to, because the LA sunshine has followed her here.
She pulls up at the traffic lights, reaches into her bag, pulls out a leg-shaver and buzzes it over her calves. She 16is driving in bare feet, red toenails on the pedals. It’s the most feminine thing I have ever seen. We flip the mirrors, apply lipstick. The cars behind us toot – the lights have been green for a while now – but she is unflustered, blots with a tissue before driving on. I decide not to worry about the time. I am a Frankie-copier today, and it feels good.
So, what’s he like? She is picking at her eyelashes, the best that she can do under these circumstances – still better than hours of effort from me.
A bit fake, I say, but gentle enough. On a mission. Loses his head when stressed. I think back over the last two weeks. Oh, he takes instruction when it suits him but wanders away a lot. Think he’s built for loneliness.
Are we doing the same guy? she asks and pulls her scarf back to sit around her throat. Her hair is dark, fake red. It is sculpted into eighties glam. It doesn’t move, and I love that stiffness, because it is the only thing about her that is constrained.
We’re not. We check. The same statistics, the habits that won’t be faked. Come-faces and breakfast choice. The placing of hands when we’re kissed.
We pull into the car park and she presses a button, gets the hood to whirr over our heads, connect with a clunk. I unbuckle my belt, grab her legs and pull them over my lap. We have time for this.
So is he your Mister Right? she asks. My fingers can’t stop moving over her smooth calf, her tender knee, the softness at the back of her thigh. I’ll be putting my tongue there in a minute, if I can wriggle her out of her Jackie-O dress.17
I don’t know how to answer that question. I look for analogies, for previous inputs, but there’s nothing with enough positive valence to activate my mouth.
Marla and I are sneaking into the only group that’s running at this hour. We have been down the pub for a swift one, of course, so gargle mouthwash, chew the bubble-gum flavoured sugar-free gum I keep in my bag.
This shit is such a lie, she says, meaning the gum. I lurve it, baby. To me, her accent sounds false, but what do I know? I only spend time with pretend Americans.
There are about thirty people in the room. All of them turn to watch us come in, and smile, and nod. Marla is prettier than me. She gets all the winks.
I like to let them try to thirteen-step me, she whispers, spreading the word by spreading my legs. Love thy neighbour, fuck her ass.
Isn’t it ‘covet’?
You only covet things you’re not allowed to fuck. But shh.
We listen to the prayers, to the shares. We nod along, agree to keep it simple, fill up on coffee and handshakes.
Later, when we are in her filthy bed, orange-juice stains and sticky-rib boxes, she rolls over onto her knees and tells me to pray with her. I don’t recognise the words. She might be making them up, I think, but their fluidity suggests otherwise, especially the part about this numbersnake who counts the universe. Or something. I stumble, make mistakes. She says amen.
Those people kill me, she says, climbing back over my hips. Do you know what my higher power is?18
Haven’t a clue.
Lying. I surrender myself to the making up of shit, based on shit that I’ve done, or want to do. It’s the only way to work out what you want.
I’m not sure if I believe her, but I suppose that’s the point. She is very good at lying, but has lines that she won’t cut.
Is it a lie that her hair is dark, that it leaves greasy stains on our pillow? That she wants me? Her touch moves between false-clutching anger and the pilgrim-snail’s progress, a journey of redemption between spit-wet legs.
She talks about the man she is dating. Or not. She’s not sure. Called her a cunt. Sent her a text to say he’s sick of looking at her. Doesn’t sound all there.
Are we seeing the same guy? I ask, only half-playful, but we never get the chance to find out, because it’s time to dress, argue our way into that dark room, and get them to hit us, as hard as they can, for as long as we can take it. But I’m not supposed to talk about that.
