Sawn-Off Tales (2 page)

Happy Place

H
E HATED GROCERY
shopping, hated the time it took. But he came up with a method. People bought the same things, more or less. So he would look for someone of his type, sneak up behind them and roll their fully-laden trolley off to the checkout.

It made life interesting. Often there were things he would never have bought; once there was a fat orange pumpkin.

But today he was in trouble. He had been stealing mostly from women because he liked the sense of order to their selections, but his victim had spied him and was stomping over. There were women's products in the cart, so it was going to be difficult. He decided to pretend he knew her.

‘Darling, I'll just get eggs.'

‘We've got eggs,' the woman chirped. ‘Listen, do you want to go out to the car? You look stressed. You can listen to your tape.'

 

 

Where We Left Off

A
T 12.30 EVERY
weekday he visited HMV and stood in the same place for exactly four minutes. Because that's where he last saw her, eleven years, three months and two days ago. The F section of rock and pop. Blue denim jacket, red jumper, red bag.

He hadn't seen her since. So today, when she appeared in different clothes and a much-altered hairstyle, he was at first unsure if it was her.

But it was. He knew exactly what he was going to say, had rehearsed it every day in front of a mirror, but suddenly his mouth was dry and the words tumbled out as an incoherent squawk. She just stared at him then stalked out of the shop.

He would continue his mission. The faint expression of disdain that had crossed her face all those years ago when she came across that CD by The Fall was unforgivable.

 

 

You Know, Quiet

T
HE ROOM HE
was given had seven wardrobes. Seven. At night the wardrobes oppressed him. Dark brooding figures shuffling closer to his bed, faces glowering out from the whorls of polished grain. The landlord wouldn't let him get rid of them. They were classic. Solid. So he had to think of a way to use them. The TV fitted into one, hi-fi in another, cooking equipment in a third, and various bits and bobs in the rest. But he couldn't think of anything to do with the last one. Then one night he dragged his duvet into it and had the best night's sleep ever.

He decided to stay in the wardrobe. He would move in a radio, and would eat there too. Eventually he would get six more people to live in the other wardrobes. Because he was the last person to keep himself to himself.

 

 

Uchafu

I
WATCHED HER
face, listening closely, just like it said in the book. But loud laughter from the kitchen made it difficult to concentrate.

‘Your bill,' the waiter said through a leery grin, ‘Mr Dirty Bastard.'

I looked at him.

‘The word on your T-shirt.'

The T-Shirt was from a trendy city centre shop — be casual, be modern, the book said. I'd assumed the inscription on the back was just a random collection of letters.

‘
Uchafu
. It's Swahili. Means “dirty bastard”,' the waiter chuckled, ‘or literally, “he who pimps for a slave owner”.'

On the way back I made light of it. ‘Somewhere in Africa, there's a T-shirt with “knobhead” on the back.' But she didn't laugh. Do not enter the next phase unless the mood is right, the book said, so I took her straight home. She would talk to the agency about me, I knew it.

 

 

What You Know is There

I
F HE WAS
serious about finding someone to share his life he should take up some pastime. ‘And one,' his therapist added sternly, ‘that a woman might share,' referring, unfairly he thought, to his collection of electric and manual drills.

The card was in Chorlton post-office. A new therapy for a new age. Registered practitioner.

‘It's a mixture of dance and acupuncture,' the lady on the phone told him. ‘We call it dance-upuncture. The tutor is very very intelligent, very very sensitive, very in the moment, very evolved; more than her linear years.'

‘Sounds like a laugh,' he said. ‘Book me in.'

The police made him draw a picture. The girl poised delicately in an arabesque, the trip on the stool, the collision, the fall, the blood. But he couldn't draw the needles. Always draw what you see, the police artist kept saying. Not what you know is there.

 

 

Pets

T
HEY HAD PICKED
up the guinea pigs from the Bitch-on-Wheels and were on their way back when the snow started to really hammer down. Ray's dad said that the road — a single tracker — would definitely get clogged-up, so he stopped and swung the car on to what turned out to be a frozen pond. There was a loud crack and they tilted forward. Water gushed in through the front and under the doors.

His dad shouted, ‘Get on to the roof! Climb out through the window — I'll go for help!'

The car lurched and swayed under him and Ray watched his dad's back running back to the Bitch-on-Wheels. He closed his eyes against the stabbing cold.

The icy water at his ears roused him and there was his dad and the Bitch-on-Wheels — kissing. Ray couldn't understand why they weren't running for help.

 

 

Killer Lines

I
F THAT'S A
triangle, my arse is a dodecahedron. Ray had lots of lines like that, killer lines, lines he appeared to have invented on the spot but had really spent ages preparing. That's why his friends considered him hilarious, going so far as to say he could make it as a stand-up. He would wait months for the right circumstances to use a killer line. On national Take-Your-Kids-To-Work-Day, a killer line came into his head involving a famous secure hospital for paedophiles. But the name of the institution wouldn't come, so he waited a year till the day came round again.

But today it fell apart. Marketing-Alison waved a tea bag saying what shape is this, and he was about to deliver when Sales-Mark burst in with a pyramid quip. Ray had a competitor. But worse, the undetonated killer line was still inside him — what damage could it do?

 

 

Click

P
HILLIP READ THE
note again. “Bang, bang you're dead”. The building was eerily silent. The other tenants never seemed to make any sounds. If they were seabirds, and their tiny rooms cliff ledges, they would shriek out to let each other know they were there. Even confined prisoners communicated by beating tattoos on the walls and pipes. In films, anyway. He imagined the outer wall stripped away, its miserable inhabitants exposed, crouched alone in the same positions, like waxworks.

He lit a fag, sucked it in and looked out of the window, down into a dark yard. Then he folded the note and went out into the hall. The doorknob, letterbox and spyhole on his neighbour's door formed an inscrutable face. He pushed the note inside. In a few moments the door would be flung open — it usually was — and when that happened Phillip would be ready.