Bedfellows
I’ve been wedged upside down between the bed frame and the wall since she left. She turned the heating off so it’s been a pretty bleak Christmas all in all. On the plus side, I’m facing away from the wall so at least there’s stuff to look at. It’s quite a treasure trove under the bed – half a jar of peanut butter, toenails, a dead mouse, a fossilised black banana, congealed condoms, a Swiss army knife, pills, tobacco shreds - even the bag of white stuff she’s been trying to find since May. I hope she’s alright wherever she is.
The flatmates have been coming and going. The boss-eyed German girl tried to get in again last night. She likes to snoop when Zadie’s out, tries on her clothes and shits in the loo. She even used her vibrator once. If I’d been able to move I’d have rammed it down her filthy little throat. But I can only move when Zadie’s here – though obviously not if she’s looking at me. It works best when she’s asleep but that’s rare, given the insomnia.
She’s on these new yellow pills. They make her sweat like butter in the sun. She has to change her pyjamas in the night – twice usually, sometimes more. I read the leaflet in the packet - the side effects aren’t great: comas, nausea, night terrors. Explains all the duvet-wrestling. Sometimes she sleep talks - names mostly, of the people who’ve hurt her. Occasionally she’s calm and I look at her, the black pouches under her eyes, the livid thread veins from all the drink and self-induced vomiting. It’s hard to pinpoint when it all went downhill. She was such a happy little thing, so sparky, so bright. Every now and again she’ll pat about for me in her sleep so I crawl over to her searching hand - red and scarred where the teeth have scraped the skin. She folds me up into her chest, both arms crossed over me, like a vampire in a coffin.
These are the moments.
It’s a funny old life really. Knowing everything about someone when they literally don't know you’re alive. But I know she loves me. I remember the time she put me on her lamp to dim it and went downstairs. By the time she got back, the bulb had burnt through my dress and my tummy was a hardened mass of matted black fur. She couldn’t stop crying. I didn't mind. A life without scars can't mean much.
❦ ❦ ❦
She’s back. I can hear her crashing about in the kitchen. I hope it’s not a binge night. I hate watching her cramming all that cheap, plasticky food into her mouth like some kind of malfunctioning robot. Always so fast, so desperate, like she’s trying to fill a never-ending void. Shovelling, chewing, swallowing - her belly swelling as she watches mindless reality shows on iPlayer. Listening to the aftermath is the worst part. The heaving followed by the heavy smack of slop hitting water. Over and over again. 93 times is her record. Then she comes back, puffy-eyed, lips poppy-red, and drinks milk. It dilutes the acid and helps prevent tooth decay apparently. Not that it's worked – she's lost three back teeth and counting.
She sleeps soundly afterwards but the self-flagellation the next day is hard to watch. She'll weigh herself and drink a cup of black coffee. She lies in bed staring at the ceiling, tears sliding sideways. Sometimes she masturbates three or four times. I've never really understood why. After about an hour, she gets the laptop going and endures a couple of hours of high intensity interval training. Always the same botoxed American trainer screaming things like ‘transformation is not a future event, it is a present-day activity.’ 'HIIT' they call it. How you're supposed to pronounce it I've no idea. She’s so thin now, her limbs are sinewy and tough like chicken wings. She talks to her counsellor once a week via Zoom - tells her what she wants to hear and makes her feel good about her job while she sinks further into the abyss.
❦ ❦ ❦
She's not alone. There’s a man's voice I don’t recognise in the corridor – a deep, Northern accent. She's trying to find her keys and giggling. The door opens. Two sets of feet and a suitcase stumble inside. ‘Told you it was a dive' she says. He's got enormous boots on. ‘What the fuck have you got in here?’ he asks. ‘Rocks’ she slurs. She can barely stand up, ricocheting between the wall and the bedside table. ‘I'm desperate for a piss - you open this’ she says and crashes to the bathroom. He moves the suitcase to the side of the bed, nearly obscuring my view but not quite. He sits down. The impact shifts the bed frame slightly and dislodges my head. The cheap slats underneath bulge. I can smell the pale ale pouring out of him. It mingles with his stench of washing left too long in the machine – damp, urine-ish. A cork pops. She's not supposed to drink on the medication. Perhaps he doesn't know. It's not something she bandies about I suppose.
The toilet flushes and she lurches back in. ‘Cheers’ she says, ‘cheers’ he says and the glasses clink. ‘Music’ she says, ‘we need music.’ ‘Come here’ he says. The kissing sounds sloppy, like a dog chewing meat. I hear a zip. ‘Hang on’ she says. ‘You ok?’ he says. ‘I just feel a bit…' she says and slumps back on the bed. Her head hits my feet and releases me. I hit the floor head first.
‘Sorry’ she says ‘I just feel a bit -’ ‘Ssh’ he says and lies next to her. ‘I’m not usually -’ she mumbles. ‘It's ok’ he says and I hear another zip. ‘I think I'm going to be -’ she says then the wet slap of liquid hitting the wall. The unmistakable stench of vomit. He launches himself backwards off the bed – surprisingly agile for a man of his size. ‘I'm so sorry’ she says and I know she's about to disappear. He walks into the bathroom. The tap runs. I crawl to the foot of the bed and peer over the top. She's out for the count in her tights and bra. The carefully applied foundation has long-gone and the acne scars have come out to play. Her lipstick is smeared and a trail of vomit sweeps her cheek like a comet. The rest has settled in her hair.
The lumberjack returns. He’s 6'3 at least, with a big bushy beard the colour of mealworms. He’s holding a flannel. He looks at her with small, podgy eyes. ‘Daisy?’ he says. I don't know why - it's not her name. ‘Daisy?’ he says again and touches her splayed leg. He won't have any luck, not tonight - she's AWOL for the next 10 hours at least. He kneels next to her and mops up the mess as best he can. I'm surprised by his gentleness. He chucks the flannel in the waste paper bin and looks around the room. ‘Daisy?’ he says again and shakes her softly. Then a bit harder. And harder still. He pauses. He starts to undress her. Tights first then the bra. He flips over, stands up and takes off his boots. He waits for a moment to see if she will stir. Standing over her, he smiles, taking her in. He unzips his jeans and pulls them off, along with his boxer shorts. He starts to touch himself, breath ragged. I crawl back under the bed and scrabble about in the dark. He gets on the bed, the springs squeak.
I find it.
Her flimsy black knickers hit the floor next to my leg. I use my teeth to release the biggest blade and crawl out. I am confronted by his vast spotty arse. The sheer mass of his pale body repulses me. I hoist myself up onto the bed, grasp the knife with both paws and plunge it deep into his ribcage, where I hope his lung might be. He catapults sideways, letting out a shout-bark and clutches his ribs, eyes darting, manhood dwindling. He checks his hand and finds blood. I'm gratified by how much there is. He stands up, grabs the bottle and brandishes it at nobody in the dim light. He clambers off the bed, semi-circling the bottle through the air. He looks ridiculous in just his socks. I stand up on the edge of the bed, knife poised. He stops and stares. I look into his nasty little eyes and grin. He drops the bottle and holds onto the wall behind him, disbelief flooding his pasty face. ‘Home time’ I say and his mouth fish-flops open. ‘I'm sorry I didn't mean -’ he says and makes a move towards his jeans. ‘Now’ I say. ‘Can I just get my -’ he says. ‘No, you can’t.' He feels his way to the door, backed up against the wall, never taking his eyes off me. He feels for the handle. ‘What the fuck’ he says before he twists it and leaves.
I spend the next two hours dragging his clothes and boots to the kitchen, where I hide them at the bottom of the stinking bin. I take pleasure in covering them back up with all the rotting scraps and bits of grime from the plughole. When there's no trace of him left, I set to work on her. It takes me a while to shift her into place - head on pillow, recovery position, duvet pulled up to her chin. I remove the pungent bedspread, roll it into a ball and place it by the door. I mop up the blood spots, clean the knife and throw the bag of white stuff out of the window. At about 6am, I switch the lamp off and tuck myself under her slender arm. She sniffs and pulls me in tight.
These are the moments.
Letty Butler is an actress by profession and has written extensively for stage and screen, with plays workshopped at The Young Vic and short films selected for Aesthetica & LOCO. She has an MA in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, and has since been shortlisted for a Northern Writers Award, Cranked Anvil and The International Reflex Flash Fiction Competition. In 2019, she was long listed for the Myslexia Novel Competition and won The OTS Novel Slam.
She lives alone in Sheffield with shitloads of plants but no cats. Yet. You can find her on Twitter at @lettybutler.
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