We were gulls on a sunken bed, chasing wounds disguised as bread. Flapping our stained grey wings beneath a curved, wet ceiling, waiting for paint to fall on us; for its strong fresh scent to fill our noses while we fucked, for the sheet that hung off the bed to become white water carrying our old scenes, wet and ready to fill the doorways of their birth. I knew the gulls would go blind from the artificial light, mouths lined with tobacco when they broke their necks against the ceiling, tricked into thinking it was a sky line. Mauve paint crumbled into the whites of our eyes, a train rumbling in the distance inadvertently became a burial ground for half-formed things. Our previous wet scenes found their way into the dead gulls, waiting for the sound of the next train to warn them of their travelling funeral ground. The 60-watt bulb flickered.
We were mannequins that had abandoned the window display filling up with stones, trickling in from every angle. As the sound of roughly shaped stones rose, panic in our chests deepened. We communicated using expressions from the human versions of ourselves. We mimicked their body movements mirrored in glass. Panic in the mannequins waned. A sunken bed stained with come in the distance beckoned. Stones falling rang in their chests. Then their injuries came from climbing fences, stumbling in the dark, from wear and tear. The light flickered again. I felt my body being lifted from the tub, vaguely registering the squeaky sound the bath made as he hauled up my wet frame, hands beneath my armpits. My eyes stung from opening them in soapy water. Blood between my legs left a trail on the aqua coloured linoleum floor. He sat me up gingerly, the scent of period blood lingered in the air. He patted my cheek firmly. I blinked. His face swam.
He inched closer, voice deep and full of wry humour he said, “How was it?”
“Fucking great,” I murmured, spent, as if having a near death sexual escapade was ticked of my to do list. He was striking in the light, tall and wiry. Locks grazed his shoulders; the deep, golden skin he’d inherited from his Maori father glowed. Slightly slanted dark brown eyes crinkled easily and seemed to watch you even when he wasn’t looking in your direction.
We sat on the balcony in our underwear, smoking spliffs to quieten the roar inside, listening to dog howls ricocheting through the night air. I didn’t ask about the wispy lock of brown hair in the bathroom cabinet that didn’t belong to me, or the blue false nail studded with blinking white stones breathing beneath the bed. I didn’t ask about why his tongue tasted of alcohol in the morning sometimes. He closed his bloodshot eyes, took a pull from the spliff, as if he was silently communicating with the red dog snapping in the distance, making it’s way towards us. He turned towards me, New Zealand accent thick. “Do you know what happened to the gold lady’s ring in my bottom drawer?” I held my hand out, he passed the spliff. I took a draw, watching smoke curling in the sudden tension. “Never seen it.” My silent fury had escaped from the confines of the false nail. The red dog bearing bloodshot eyes paused to eat it. The bed sheet wrapped around me slipped beneath my inverted breast, already turning in the carnage of items on the bedroom floor.
In that weird, smoggy state between being half asleep and awake, I watched Anon from my comfortable position on the double bed. Rangi lay curled in the opposite direction, lilac sheet tangled between us and one leg half-flung over the duvet. He breathed rhythmically, chest rising and falling, making small sounds that were an odd combination of snoring and whistling. Anon stood by the stash of record sleeves, old albums of Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and The Shangri-Las and began rummaging through clothes strewn on the floor, lifting empty glasses of wine and the small atlas on the drawer to collect a torn, wrinkled piece of paper she stashed in my bag.
Rangi adjusted himself, making the mattress groan. Her hand stilled over his black smartphone, eyes daring me to make a sound. Sweat began to pop on my brow and the room became hazy. Rangi turned again, back muscles exposed. How could he sleep through this? She stood then in the light angling from the balcony, arms outstretched. I sat up, my heart beats loud, her accented voice in the space between them. Something in the air changed. Outside, two cats mating screamed. The water pipes whistled.
I stood up, hypnotised, longing for my rough stones and the reassuring swell in my throat from swallowing. Maybe she hadn’t been looking for something. Maybe she’d been leaving something behind. We swapped mouths. Then she was holding the baby from the road, its yellow Skittles packet dropped to the floor silently. She began to feed it Rangi’s missing ring. It smiled happily. The ribbons from the tub became bloody baby footprints on the hardwood floor. I listened for Rangi through the din threatening to swallow me. I knew the day after; he’d wear his animal mask to prowl after me in the dark. I stumbled around, longing for his sly-eyed penis to split me in two, for his semen to be a rushing river chasing oddly shaped stones.
Incision
A mouse’s red head spun the day I met Rangi. Coincidentally, on my way out, the dead mouse lay just beyond my thick, brown welcome mat. It was mid movement, body arched, fearful final expression frozen. I swept it up quickly; holding my nose, already mummifying, a chalky residue coated its frame. I imagined its tiny head spinning in the afterlife, sneering at its previous attempts at living. I wondered about the versions of me doing the same thing, raising their heads above margins and shaking in disappointment, changing their expressions in slanted, translucent ceilings, watching small men made of debris limp away into the distance.
All morning I’d had a sick feeling of dread in my stomach and a bitter taste in my mouth I’d tried to wash down with two cups of peppermint tea and an out-of-date croissant. I’d padded around the flat, shutting windows against whistling that snuck in, then opening the windows again to release them. I’d have to talk to the centre about these medications they had me on that made me feel like a stranger in my own body, made me forget things.
I was sure of it. No, I wasn’t sure of it, it wasn’t the medications. It was me. I was the problem. Medications were there to help. Why couldn’t I see that? Why couldn’t I see it was for my own good? Why did I always have to ruin things with negativity?
Six o’clock that morning I’d sat up in bed listening to a scuttling in the ceiling, t-shirt damp from cold sweat, I shivered, willing myself to change. The scuttling continued. Maybe it had been the mouse trying to escape the death that awaited it in muted afternoon light. As my doppelgangers angled their bodies over a darkening skyline, the mouse’s last expression reassembled in their stomachs.
Each borough had a local paper or magazine. Since my mother died, now and again, I’d scan the births, deaths and marriages sections, pen in hand jotting down names that caught my interest. Photography work was slow and it was another risky income stream. Suitably dressed in a black, knee length dress, green-eyed lizard brooch pinned to my breast, low kitten heels and twists curbed into a neat bun, netted navy hat perched on my head, I arrived at the service at St Mathew’s church in Bow fifteen minutes late.
The wrought iron gates creaked loudly. Amongst the crackling, golden leaves on the short grey flight of steps, a crumpled twenty pound note jumped. A red line drawn over the queen’s mouth was the inky ripple leaves curled into before shooting off in different directions. I grabbed the twenty, stuffing it inside the sleek leather bag on my shoulder. Tall, dark wooden doors were flung open and the hymn being sung was loud enough to muffle the sound of my heels clicking. A statue of Mary in the hallway stood before a painting of the last supper. Mary had no tongue. In the painting, her moist, pink tongue was on a platter, darting with the weight of things it had to say. I kissed Mary on her cold forehead, watched her hands change colour from grey to brown. Suddenly it was my mother standing before a last supper, arms outstretched, past scenes crumbling on her fingers into dust trying to communicate with no tongue.