I have no proof but I know that someone out there wants me dead. Sometimes I want to just offer myself to them, resign myself to their forces. They watch me. They are just waiting for the right moment before they reach out and snap me up. I am treading in someone’s crosshairs. I’d rather just give up. Like a refugee who walks, unarmed and unprotected, arms lifted above his head. Let them just take my life now instead of this cat-and-mouse game, this sport. I’d rather give them a clear shot.
Sometimes I see them in the house. A head at the foot of my bed, or behind me in the mirror. Sometimes they are perched in the tree outside. When the claustrophobia gets the better of me I go for a run and I see them running, too. Or walking, or grey-bearded, rooting through rubbish bins. Denise doesn’t want to leave me alone and so she stays cooped up with me. Sometimes we don’t go out for days and she doesn’t complain. She says she likes it. We order in groceries and I cook elaborate meals for us. I have to do something. She hardly eats a thing. I’m surprised she can actually exist on so little food. I am working my way through Ferran Adria’s El Bulli cookbook. It takes my mind off the attack and means that I won’t slowly die of scurvy, the way they want me to. It feels good to open the fridge and see that it’s not empty. It’s been a long time, and it makes me feel better. Sometimes I open it to make sure the food is still there. Sometimes I just open it to feel safe. Sometimes I imagine that Denise is one of Them and I hyperventilate. She knows how to calm me down. It usually involves heavy petting. She tells me that no one is after me, no one wants to kill me, but she doesn’t see the faces.
I have acquired the habit of looking through the peephole to try to catch sight of whoever it is I feel is watching me. They are clever. They always look different. One day it’s a black man in chinos with a rolling walk, next it’s a huge Indian woman in turquoise Lycra, stopping outside my house, ostensibly to look at my roses. They’ve only sent the same person twice. He is tall, shinypale and always wears dark clothes: a black hoodie. He looks at me without even looking at me. When I saw him the second time I felt a cold flame zinging down my spine. I know that he has been sent to kill me. I have named him Edgar.
On a rare occasion we go out together, we find ourselves at a restaurant down the road called The Attic. It’s a kind of sham-chic eatery with old-school brocade wallpaper, kitsch on the walls, and a giant pink jellyfish of a chandelier. The menu recommends a specific wine per course and they offer you amuse-bouches before you order. Their roast chicken is deboned, stuffed with onion and sage, and the texture of the gravy alone deserves a medal. The roast potatoes taste of lemon oil and rosemary. I have two glasses of Stormhoek Barrel 72 Semillon. Denise doesn’t order a main meal but we share the hot chocolate pudding with homemade vanilla bean ice cream.
As we stand to leave, a man on the opposite side of the restaurant laughs loudly and I glance over without meaning to. He is telling a funny story. Something about him is familiar; I can’t think of who he is or how I know him but I am drawn to him. I tell Denise I will meet her outside and I cross the room. He is sitting with a group of young, modish people who could be writers or artists. As soon as he sees me he shuts up and shields his face. His friends look at me, then him, then at me again, puzzled. As I realise who he is I stop in my tracks. Take off his trendy glasses, comb over his fauxhawk and swap his Mingo Lamberti shirt for tweed: it’s Eve’s deaf/mute relative. Except that he is clearly not deaf, or mute, nor does he have terrible fashion sense.
“Hi,” I say, attempting a non-threatening smile.
He barely nods at me, hand-shield still in place.
“We met a few days ago, at Eve’s funeral.”
His eyes dart around, possibly for an escape route. His friends look about nervously.
“Eve’s funeral,” I say more firmly, “remember?”
When he realises that I won’t give up, he says, very softly, “Yes.”
“You gave me the whisky,” I smile.
“Yes,” he says in barely a whisper. Everyone else at the table just stares.
I am so confused that I can’t think of anything else to say. I turn and leave.
During the walk home I am quiet so Denise teases me. I grab her hips and push her gently against the closest wall. I kiss her to stop her from laughing. Leaves in our hair. She smells like Eve. A crisp breeze makes her shiver. I feel myself getting hard against the inside of her thigh and if I could, I would fuck her right here but common decency, for once, gets the better of me. I can sense pedestrians slowing as they pass us and I don’t care. Let them look. Let them trip over the uneven walkway and shake their heads and cluck. Let them see what fire is and to hell with them if they have a problem with it. The world needs more amorous zeal, for Christ’s sake. A car coasts past us and hoots, but my longing pushes everything else that isn’t Denise into the soft-focus background. I don’t remember the rest of the walk home but later, as soon as we’re in the front door and the alarm code is punched in I’m tearing Denise’s panties. God, I love her panties. Every pair she owns is the perfect balance of femininity and business. I’ve never known a woman who has more lingerie. Tonight: a lace-trim leopard-print bikini, low-rise, with a little bow in the front. Usually I like taking them off with my teeth, but now there is no time. I throw her onto the bed and without warning I force myself into her. She calls out and throws her head back. I hike her legs up so that they rest on my shoulders, and rub her clit with my slippery hand as I fill her with deep, rhythmical thrusts. I watch her swollen lips around my cock. I lift her further off the bed so that I can go deeper. I want to penetrate her whole body. I want to fill her up, fill every crevice, satisfy every nerve ending. I look at how her tits move as I thrust, firm bronze nipples swaying to my rhythm. I want her so much at this moment that I want to be part of her. Want to climb inside her. Slit her open from throat to triangle and crawl inside. Lay my hands on the elastic of her lungs, the smooth ivory of her ribs, the red restlessness of her heart. Then zip her up again and smooth away the evidence, leaving nothing but my scent. I am, in the words of Henry Miller, cunt-struck.
Quote: William Shakespeare
“These violent delights have violent ends.”
25
THE COURAGE TO CRINGE
One of the messages on my phone is a man saying he is the executor of Eve’s will and he wants to make an appointment to see me. I don’t return his call for days until Denise makes me. She says it might help pay off my debt and then I can keep the house. She has already received a not-insubstantial lump sum. I am obviously farther down the list of beneficiaries; I’m almost surprised that I’m on the list at all. I call the man and we set up a time. I worry that it’s a trap and ask Denise to come with me but she says I have to start doing these things on my own. I need to get better, she says. I need to function. I don’t see the point in anything nowadays, but I go see the man anyway.
The Jaguar is dirty again. It’s covered in dust and watermarks. Even the interior is starting to look grubby. I walk around it for a while, inspecting the scrapes, dimples and bald tyres. It used to be the love of my life. I could have invaded a small country for the amount of money I spent on her. I open the door and get in, then hesitate for a second before I turn the key in the ignition. I am certain it will explode and send my internal organs flying in all directions: a spleen splashing against the wall; an eyeball bouncing a few times on the driveway before rolling to a stop; a liver plopping onto the pavement. Fine needles of sweat break out all over my body. I psyche myself up. I think: if it does explode I won’t even know it. My body will be in tiny pieces and nothing will matter anymore. And that gives me the courage to cringe and turn the key.