A Cash Machine
“J-Crew? Me and Liv are ready to go out now.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Do you like having your own bedroom, J-Crew?”
“It’s beautiful.”
It was: a double bed with fresh sheets and a high mattress and diaphanous curtains covering the window to the narrow garden at the back. Children were jumping on a trampoline in the garden next door.
Down on the pier she said to herself, I can see a pink rock out there that looks like a whale.
“Are you enjoying your ice-cream, J-Crew?”
“It’s delicious.”
“Am I a good host?”
“You’re the best.”
On the street, she said to herself, there was a jewelled turd covered with flies shining blue and green which unclenched like a fist and showed itself when we stepped over it, not unlike London.
***
There was a mirror in the bedroom. Standing on a chair, so she could start with her legs, I wish I had a mask, she told herself. Like a venetian mask, like an animal’s head, and I’d just look at my body.
“- so I asked if she wanted to buy one, cos everyone else was, and she said no and she was kind of a dick about it. Obviously nobody has to buy my stuff, I don’t want anyone to feel obliged, but she could have looked at it properly and told me whether she liked it or not, or shown some kind of interest - like, follow on instagram or something. Are you going to get one, J-Crew?”
“Yeah, but probably not today, I might just get it off the website.”
“It’ll work out cheaper if you buy it now, you won’t have to pay postage.”
“Yeah. But I don’t really want to carry it back because my bag’s already really full.”
“I designed this one for you, with the sparrows because I know they’re your favourite. If you don’t want to carry it back, I’ll post it tomorrow. You don’t have to use the website.”
“Maybe. I don’t have any money on me right now.”
“There’s a cash machine down the road, J-Crew.”
I’m trapped with a monster, she told herself. An egotist’s lair, glistening with trinkets and reflective surfaces. All the photos on the walls were of the same person. All those beady eyes, all looking at each other. She counted seven pictures on the wall of the spare bedroom (and only one had Liv in it). I’m going to count the rest tomorrow morning, she decided, when I have the house to myself. Then I’ll text and tell him about it.
***
“Was she always this much of a dick?”
“You know she was.”
“I know, but I just mind it more now.”
“You keep inviting her, and she’s the same every time. Just don’t invite her.”
“Have you noticed that she keeps texting, the whole time she’s been here? Sometimes I just want to be like, say it to my face.”
***
“Liv, have you made coffee?”
“There’s none left. Sorry Cords.”
I had three cups before they came down, she said to herself. But it’s the least they could do, to provide me with a few cups of coffee. When I come all this way, and spend all that money, it’s the least they could do.
***
“- and she kept - she kept showing me the mirror, like I was a dog having its face shoved into its own faeces so it won’t poo in the house any more! I had to just close my eyes!”
“I think it looks nice, it suits you. You look great, I like your shorts, Cordy.”
“You’re always full of flattery for me.”
***
In the afternoon they sat in the garden.
“Liv’s been gone ages - she must be doing her poo. I thought women weren’t meant to take as long! Maybe we should just go without her.”
“Does she love it when you tell me these things?”
“Liv, we were just talking about you doing a poo.”
“Fucks sake, Cordy,” said Liv, sitting down.
“She always does this! You always do this! Every time someone goes to the toilet: are they doing a poo? Are they doing a poo?”
“Oh no! I’m a terrible host! Am I a bad host, J-Crew?” A pause. “Shall we go to the beach?”
“Just a minute.”
She went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The closer to me you get, she thought, the uglier I am. I’m getting very close. From downstairs she heard Cordy’s voice say:
“Maybe J-Crew is doing a poo.”
And Liv said,
“Maybe we should go without her.”
***
The sky was misty blue and peach, and a fat white sun like a moon put a bloated light on the water. It intensified to a fierce, lucid spot which they looked at from the cliff, sitting on matted clumps of cut grass, loose and grey. A man was looking for some keys that he had dropped in the grass.
“- she said it would be two weeks till it worked and she gave me this bag of condoms - there were 26 condoms in the bag, and she was like, is this going to be enough? And when she put the scalpel in I could feel it wriggling around in my arm, even though it didn't hurt, and there was this millipede writhing across the wall right by my head, I had, like, synaesthesia -”
“Ew, can I see? Can I touch it? I’m glad I don’t have to modify my hormones, but I guess you just love dick. I hope you enjoyed your 26 condoms, J-Crew.”
A baby and its family were sitting near them. Liv had gone to play with the baby. They leaned back with their weight on their hands and watched.
“Do you think the baby’s doing a poo?”
“It probably is.”
On the horizon line the sky was a pale citric orange, a glass of orange juice held up against the night’s blues.