I Just Died
.
He said this was the part I needed to pay attention to – jerking his thumb at me like I’d just snatched a bag. This was the coup de grace, he explained. On TV, a man blew his brains out.
‘Came out of nowhere, right?’
I had been distracted; I rolled the dice. He tapped his temple with unnecessary force. Only later I realised this was where the character had shot himself. A happy coincidence? Or was he smarter than I gave him credit for? ‘Incorrect. It was planted. Do you know what that’s called?’
This I did know. But sometimes the obligation to answer an easy question feels worse than being ignorant.
‘Well?’
I closed my eyes. I was overdue for his lecture on how television was the present-day analogue to the Russian novel. I don’t know if he’d read a Russian novel yet. When I moved in with him, his bookshelf consisted of driving theory material (he hadn’t passed after five attempts), a volume by an attractively stern female playwright, and self-censoring self-help books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
In fairness, I’d seen him swiping through Notes from Underground on his Kindle, but it came up when you searched ‘shortest Dostoevsky book’. I hoped it gave him the help he needed. He still didn’t have his licence. He said, ‘I know how to drive.’ I took us everywhere. He selected the music – usually a pre-Covid Lana Del Rey album – and procured esoteric snacks from Marks & Spencer in the petrol station: spicy pulled pork tacos and chargrilled calamari rings, unsettlingly oily. But he had a nice flat. The rooms were well-proportioned, walls all in the right places. Crucially, there were walls. He was shady about how he acquired it. The London property game. Someone had to die. I just hoped it was a grandparent and not a teenage prostitute. That was from all the TV I’d watched with him. He would watch anything. You had to give him that. He did not discriminate. ‘The formula of CSI is, in essence, avant-garde,’ he told me. ‘The structure is meta. We have pre-defined arcs and live inside boxes. This denial of spontaneity is actually hyper-realistic.’
It was a bit. It had to be a bit. My mind wandered. I was between jobs. I needed agency, and if that didn’t work out, I would at least have some money. As I daydreamed, my boyfriend’s commentary on police procedurals seemed more relevant to me, as if he was narrating my life. It was a bit like falling asleep in a lightning storm and thinking someone is pointing a torch in your window. I had a breakthrough. I imagined killing him for his flat. This lasted a few seconds. I was back in the room. He had a tendency to imitate whatever he watched. On our first date we went to see Drive, then at dinner he took lengthy, philosophical pauses before answering my polite questions. He came back from the bathroom chewing a toothpick. He must have asked a waiter for it. That was hot. Now he was being forensic, in keeping with the cop show. Sometimes he saw himself as a film star doing a prestigious turn in Hamlet. But it was more like the Royal Shakespeare Company trying to be accessible to groups of schoolchildren. My sister thought I couldn’t do any better. She was happy. She made the mistake happy people make where they think anyone can do it. Her husband converted to Judaism for her. She didn’t even ask him to. He just read her mind. They had two beautiful girls, child models, walking advertisements for the nuclear family. Piercing blue eyes on the both of them, his. He managed artists. One time there was a rapper at their house who got famous from a video filmed outside a branch of Greggs. He was drinking an espresso through a metal straw because he had diamonds in his teeth. My brother-in-law handed him a Flannery O’Connor book and apologised in advance for the racism. The rapper slid it in his Gucci man-bag and said, ’Say less.’
‘I can’t decide between two stars or four stars,’ my boyfriend said later in bed. He ran a blog. I turned out the light. I’d been staring at the same page of my book for fifteen minutes. My phone was outside, charging.
‘What about three?’ I suggested in the dark.
‘No!’ he shouted in my ear. He was closer than I’d thought. ‘It’s two or four; three or five. Those are the binaries.’
‘Alright.’
‘Three’s something ambitious that didn’t come off. Hence why it could be five also. Four is just generic execution. Two is the same but not well-executed. Just generic. Do you understand?’
I nodded in the dark, which was as good as saying nothing. I tried to picture him as a father. He would give feedback on our children’s nativity play: ‘The tone was too grounded for me to buy the miracle.’
Money gave intent to disorder.
Then the next door neighbour started to have sex again. I had still never seen her, but felt I knew her intimately. It happened a couple of times a week. We never spoke about it. She shrieked and keened and once even kind of yodelled. It was intense. I heard my boyfriend opening his AirPods case. I didn’t have AirPods. So I just lay there. She was going for it. That was the only way I could describe her: she gave it her all.
*
We went to my sister’s for Passover. This was after another sleepless night. My face felt like a thin veneer, a neutral but transparent mask that defeated its own purpose. I wondered about the woman. She had someone new every night. I knew this because no one man was complex enough to inspire such a variety of responses. He wasn’t out there. I’d tried. The stuff of fan fiction. I imagined her: she was about thirty, smoking hot. She was probably an artist, like the woman in the Scorsese film After Hours who makes papier-mâché cream cheese bagels in her bra. Linda someone.
After he’d spent the day watching a highbrow comedy, my boyfriend was all of a sudden a wit. ‘What do you think we’re having for dinner, jerk latkes?’ he asked as we were leaving.
My brother-in-law said prayers in Hebrew with his head bowed. My boyfriend wore a kippah, but removed it for the photos. I told him it would be fine, nobody cared about Jewish appropriation. Then it was time to hide the matzo. I wanted to give the children a real challenge and opted for my sister’s underwear drawer. The stillness of her bedroom was remarkable. Even with clothes on the floor and the bed unmade, it felt deliberate, as if I was in an art installation. Money gave intent to disorder. It made you feel ridiculous for ever questioning it. I draped a silk thong over my face and breathed in. It smelled of nothing but felt enjoyable, almost like a face massage. When I came back my boyfriend was talking about cop shows. My sister and her husband had glazed expressions. My nieces were ten but could have been older than me, if that makes sense. If you went by their table manners. They cut their salt beef into elegant little squares. Elegance. I was still mastering that. Maybe you were born with it.
‘Twice a week is fine. It’s normal, no?’ my sister said after dinner. This was supposed to make me feel better. I felt I owed her an explanation for the matzo, my nieces wearing her lingerie over their clothes. My brother-in-law was playing my boyfriend some music in the next room; my nieces were upstairs recording a dance routine for their many thousands of followers.
My sister poured me a cup of tea. ‘Twice means we’ve had a row.’ Then she fell into a trance and I had to steady the spout of the teapot with the lip of my cup so it didn’t spill. ‘Actually no, because then we’d make up.’
‘You’re just rich,’ I said. ‘You don’t have any problems.’
‘That’s not true. Poor people have more sex, statistically.’
‘How have you worked that out?’
‘The higher birth rate in third world countries. Can you deny that?’
She was a lawyer so I didn’t feel embarrassed when she outsmarted me, if you could call it that. This was simply nature taking its course. ‘It’ll work out,’ my sister said with a sort of formal pat on my shoulder. ‘I’m keeping the faith.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been busy applying for jobs. I was thinking about the charity sector. Maybe something in mental health? I mean, I have experience for my CV.’
‘Because of your breakdown?’
‘No. Not because of… I didn’t have a breakdown.’
She tilted her head.
‘I’m talking about when I worked in housing. People didn’t have houses. Therefore, they had mental problems.’
‘Oh, right. Yes. That could be interesting.’
But she was somewhere else again, a long stare. She reminded me of a famous painting that tourists crowd around at the expense of everything else in the gallery. She couldn’t help being the centre of attention. Then I had a weird vision. My sister, who looked a bit like Joan Cusack, that is to say attractively neurotic, was wearing a business suit, but only the top half. She took a call while getting head from a broad-shouldered Spanish man in a gold chain. The image was all the more confusing for how high-definition it was. What was happening? I closed my eyes.
Sometimes he would sit on the sofa in his dressing gown and mumble something about the emotional labour of the commute.
Then it occurred to me: I’d superimposed my sister’s face onto my neighbour’s body. That explained it. But my relief was short-lived. The piece of matzo in my hand was reduced to crumbs. My sister watched on in alarm.
‘This year we are slaves but next year we will be free,’ I said, quoting the prayer of Moses and releasing the matzo shards.
‘Yes,’ my sister said, slowly nodding. ‘Absolutely.’
‘It is what it is, man,’ my boyfriend said later, an urban inflection in his voice.
*
When he could get out of the house, he taught media literacy at a former polytechnic university. Sometimes he would sit on the sofa in his dressing gown and mumble something about the emotional labour of the commute. The college knew he had difficulties and made special dispensations for him. He supplemented this income with the occasional freelance newspaper review and the paid subscriptions to his blog. He called himself a ‘multi-hyphenate’, although I’m not sure this was accurate. He definitely had just the one skill. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
I appreciated when he went to work. It gave me precious time to myself. I would start the day by looking at listings on the Guardian Jobs site, then apply for nothing. If the laundry basket wasn’t too empty, I’d put on a wash. Then I would start to hoover, then remember I had done it the day before. The dust in the flat was a mere dusting.
That day, I thought about her again. In my head, her name was Cheryl. I was detecting a 1980s theme; not so much in her but my own fantasies. I tried to not interrogate it too much. I was generously spraying Red Door at the time. Wearing a puffed sleeve. Then on top of it I would wear a cropped leather jacket that the sleeve bunched underneath, making me look like I had cartoon muscles. It was all very inconsistent.
As I said, Cheryl had a man for every occasion. There was a guy who read Baudelaire to her in French. Someone else fixed her washing machine. Another guy could cook the best omelettes, no excess ingredients, just eggs and gravity. There was probably even a woman. I pictured her as an estate agent. The same estate agent my boyfriend told me about, who had shown him around the place before he bought it. ‘She tried to flirt with me. Looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out as we entered each room. Trying to associate the ownership of property with sexual gratification. Did it work? Maybe. Was it true? That’s another question.’
So, yes, it could have been her. The girl boss. It didn’t matter who it was: they would do whatever it took to have sex with Cheryl, the most thrilling experience of anyone’s life. As if to keep up – to put myself in the running – I tried to get in shape. I did sit-ups on a yoga mat, nearly three hundred of them. My stomach felt really hard, but that could have been the butterbeans I’d eaten for lunch, seasoned with paprika and parsley and mixed with raw shallots; a recipe to punish the guts. Then, as if on cue, I heard her, Cheryl. This time she sounded like she was getting hurt. Even for her it was a little much, visceral. The line of consent was indistinct and not in an edgy, interesting way. At least not for me, the spectator. Then there was silence. I wondered: maybe she was dead. I should do something. In a great deal of pain, I stood up. I hesitated because I hadn’t showered. In her moment of need, I was still vain. That was just the effect Cheryl had on a person. Intimidating even when you were saving her life.
I went outside. Down the front steps and up to the next door. My finger hovered over what I worked out was Cheryl’s buzzer. But I didn’t press it. Nobody hurt Cheryl except Cheryl herself. It was just what I wanted to think; a convenient excuse not to intervene. A deus ex machina, I think my boyfriend once said. Surely. When I went back into the flat, it was eerily silent. I almost missed her pain.
*
‘I’ve come up with this great strategy,’ my boyfriend said. The night before, we had watched a raunchy show about teens. Later, when Cheryl was up to her old tricks again, my boyfriend got out of bed and shouted at the wall, ‘Show me where it hurts, baby!’ The first time either of us had acknowledged it. And the last. He came back to bed with a jittery energy, like he’d just come up with something brilliant. A zinger. But this feeling quickly dissipated and he rattled with self-loathing. I could tell. I just died when he said that. It was one of those moments you play over for the rest of your life.
‘I have high blood sugar. Why won’t you take my blood sugar seriously?’
In the restaurant, coffee was being ground in the background, drowning out his voice. I rubbed my eyes until I could see spots. He had to speak up and sounded croaky, unprepared.
‘It’s a new – a means. Of going forward. What do you think?’
‘What do you mean what do I think? You haven’t said anything yet.’
‘About this. Okay. You don’t want to hear. Do you?’
‘I can’t say unless I know what it is.’
He nodded soberly. ‘I’m not going to get angry anymore.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you see?’
‘Very noble of you.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not going to get angry anymore…’
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘No and.’
‘No and?’
‘No and.’
‘No and. Right.’
‘Just that. I won’t get angry.’
‘So. Okay.’
‘Don’t you think. Don’t you think that’s perfect?’
‘Perfect.’
He laid his hand on the table. It was bandaged. Matrylike. He quickly withdrew it, almost prudishly, as though I had just found him bathing in the woods.
‘That programme. That’s the thing. It’s not good for me. Good for me to be exposed to anything that’s, you know…’
‘Yeah, I know. Like a child.’
He opened his mouth and left it open. He waved his large sandwich around, a single toothy bite taken out of it. Sauce seeped into the bandage as though he was bleeding in reverse. I nibbled on a slice of blood orange from my salad. A child ducked under tables then popped up like a miniature scuba diver. Outside a bus sagged into the traffic, blocking our view of the street.
‘Herein lies the problem. I’m watching this programme about children. But it’s adults as children. No. Children as… a vehicle? I see them suffering and clearly – what is it – what do you call that again?’
‘A surrogate?’
‘That’s a good word there. A damn good word. That’s it: a surrogate for the suffering of adults. It’s confusing, you know. But it sort of works at the same time, I don’t…’
He held his head in his hands, covering his eyes, then abruptly looked between his fingers and said, ‘I mean, we watch a lot of things, don’t we? We watch good things and after that it’s all fine between us. No?’
‘We never watch anything I want to watch.’
‘That’s not true. Occasionally…’
‘You fall asleep.’
‘No—’
‘You fall asleep in them.’
‘I have high blood sugar. Why won’t you take my blood sugar seriously?’
The waiter laughed with a big table at something clever their child had done. He leant back, holding his belly as if to stop his guts from falling out. The bus was still in our view, jammed.
‘When you’ve had a drink or watched one of those bad episodes of TV that makes you act like you’re on the show or had a bad morning you—’
‘I don’t have bad mornings.’
‘Don’t you?’
He was looking around the restaurant at the waiter, the child, the shiny coffee machine, anyone to distract him.
‘Nice place, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’ I sighed. ‘I saw it on Instagram.’
‘Is that right?’
The bus moved at last, clearing the air but leaving the sensation of a hole that needed to be filled.
‘It’s cool. I mean, the prices are high.’
‘The prices are always high.’
‘That’s true. No, that is true. That is well put.’
He finally took another bite of his baguette. ‘You’re always moving around in bed,’ he said through a mouthful. ‘That’s why I get annoyed; you’re never still.’
‘I have a lot going on.’
‘Like what?’
He looked around for the waiter. He was still holding court at the big table. Now he had a serious, perplexed look on his face – clearly the conversation had moved on. The child had left.
‘Well, her.’
His eyes widened and for a moment I thought he was going to spit out his food. Then, anticlimactically, he swallowed.
‘She doesn’t bother me.’
‘No?’
‘Never has.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I’m mentally strong enough to block it out.’
‘Then why can’t you leave the house in the morning?’
I should have said something cute like: you can’t do the days and I can’t do the nights, we should fuse together. A gift card message.
His face turned red. This usually meant he was going to punch something or cry about his childhood. But neither of us said anything for a while. Then he leapt up, his hand over his heart in a way I thought was charmingly old-fashioned, ladylike. I looked down. The child was under the table, grinning up at us like a maniac.
*
I couldn’t sleep again and couldn’t blame Cheryl. I had my own demons. All I could hear was my boyfriend’s gentle, melodious snoring. Not a worry in his head. Cheryl only existed when she was having loud sex, so when she wasn’t I presumed she was also unconscious. I would have done anything to hear her come at that moment. Just to feel less alone. I went into the kitchen, but the only thing in the fridge was the butter beans. I instinctively clutched my stomach. I remembered a packet of cigarettes in my jacket pocket. My sister brought them back from her holiday in Greece. She’d forgotten I had quit smoking, or didn’t believe me. I took a packet of matches and sat out on the front step. It was unseasonably warm for this stage of spring. I realised why I couldn’t see into the house across the street anymore. The tree swayed gently, its leaves making a soft clatter, like washing-up heard in another room. The air was pleasantly fragrant. The street lamp set the moths alight, turning them into flying sparks. The cigarette had a bright blue filter. I finished it almost instantly, so I lit another. It was like I’d never left.
The next door opened and a woman stepped out. The lines around her mouth were the scratchings of a dry pen, or a nib – with all the frustration of being unable to write – and her throat jiggled like a pocket full of loose change when someone is running for the bus. She was a haggard fifty five or a good sixty. There’s a big difference. She was nothing like my sister.
She took a vape out of her pocket and only after slowly exhaling, vapour escaping her lips like an empty promise, did she look across at me.
‘No good book?’
‘Stomach trouble.’
She bit the electronic device, eyes darting at me warily. ‘What kind?’
‘Muscular. I did hundreds and hundreds of sit-ups.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘I also ate weirdly.’
‘You’re covering all the bases. You know what you missed out?’
I stared dumbly at her.
‘I’m joking. You smoke like you don’t normally smoke.’
‘So do you.’
She laughed. ‘What’s with the fitness?’
‘I’m following a programme.’
‘What programme is it?’
‘Israeli military,’ I lied, stubbing my cigarette out on the top step.
‘Wow. Sounds… intense.’
‘No pain no gain!’
‘They’re meant to be the best in the world, the Israelis.’
‘I’m Jewish,’ I said. ‘Not that that makes it any better.’
‘Makes what better?’ she asked.
‘How do you do it?’ I asked.
She sat down on her step and spoke to me through the narrow gap between the wall and hand railing, giving a candid snapshot of her face. ‘Do what?’
‘Have a great time, all the time.’ I kept my eyes on the street, as though I was expecting someone to arrive at any moment.
‘Oh.’ She was silent. A muted siren sounded. She burst out laughing. ‘That’s my work.’
Cheryl explained: she was a voice actress. She had a studio that shared a wall with our room. She recorded sound effects for anime films but it wasn’t all fun and games for her characters; sometimes they died. She ran the full gamut, from pure pleasure to extreme tragedy. It was what she loved; but it was also acting. ‘And you have to know the difference,’ she added. ‘It’s easy to get lost in fantasy.’
‘How come you record at night?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry. It’s the only time I can work. It’s when I’m at my most creative. Does it disturb you?’
She seemed like it had never occurred to her that moaning and screaming in the night could be an inconvenience for other people. I was jealous of this self-absorption. I shook my head no.
‘I’ll stop.’
‘Please don’t.’
Her security light flicked on and turned her grey hair platinum. The lines in her face deepened. The light of her vape twinkled. I held my breath. Then a horrible shriek cut through the air, I’m guessing a fox. It sounded like it was next to us, in our vicinity, but it was probably several gardens away.
Cheryl said, ‘That’s not on me.’
I got back into bed with my boyfriend, taking pains not to wake him. He’d stopped snoring and I had to concentrate to hear his breaths. I put my arm over him. I imagined I was a heavy blanket, keeping him warm and safe. That is how I would have wanted to feel, anyway. If I was him. I saw a light flashing, a memory of the moths or, more likely, Cheryl’s vape. The light beckoned me. To where, I couldn’t tell you. But it felt good knowing there was some kind of guidance out there, a route, and Cheryl was next door switching between modes of trauma and ecstasy, mapping it out. Now that was a woman. Everything could change, and would. I shed a tear for our young love. I wondered who he would be tomorrow. I turned over and faced the wall.
.
.
Theo Macdonald is a writer from London.
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