Wildlife (11 page)

The man with the trowel has followed Anka inside and begun tugging on her shirt. ‘Leave,' he's saying. ‘Everyone is praying.'

Anka walks the aisles of Tesco Metro, Market Street. She takes a ploughman's sandwich from the shelf and examines its calorie content. She puts it back.

Was it arty? she asks herself, staring with a delicate throat at fifty different types of cheese. Was it arty to strip and to dance? Am I an artist again? Maybe I am. Maybe I should tell the
Sunday Times
.

Anka buys a ham sandwich and some monkey nuts. She gives the sandwich to a tramp, slumped on the pavement outside a sports shop. The tramp seems unimpressed.

Anka nibbles on a monkey nut, walking home down Corporation Street. She becomes certain she is being followed. Anka is running. She is hurrying the key into the door of her building and running up the stairs. She is cursing herself. She is thinking, I made a big mistake. I agreed to strip for money and I tried to make it arty. I stood
in front of a camera and lost myself in my performance. My art. My arse. No flesh. Just bone.

Who the fuck is following me?

She shuts the door of her flat, leans back on it and sighs. She goes into her kitchen and looks into the yellow of her fridge. It's empty. Virtually. There's a carton of soya milk, a punnet of brown cress and a black carrot.

She checks her emails, nibbling on another nut.

Anka drifts away from her computer, to the bathroom and its mirror.

‘I'm Anka,' she says, staring at her eyes. ‘Anka as in wanker.'

I have felt this feeling before, she thinks. I have stood in front of mirrors, brain spinning like a copper coin on a steel surface. Eyes glazing. Face greying. She splashes cold water onto her cheeks. It runs off her face and she is quickly dry and just staring. It's back, she thinks. She's back. My brain is calling me on an unknown number and breathing deeply down the phone. ‘Anka,' it's whispering, putting on a spooky voice. ‘Anka, where are you?' Oh shit. My brain is
arranging to meet me for lunch in a nice little cafe where they only serve organic food. But my brain is standing me up. My brain is suggesting we go paintballing with my womb and my liver. We could be on the same team and really fuck them up. My brain is laying me down.

Anka thinks about the self-help mantras trapped in the picture frame in the other room.
Love yourself. Feed yourself
. I'm beyond those, she thinks. For a while, they worked, I did love myself. But Anka is suddenly aware that her life, of late, may well have been confused.

Tomorrow, Anka will be surprised to receive a text from the director, informing her that her video has been uploaded and is already receiving a great deal of attention. She will be surprised when she uses her mobile phone to access the video, surprised to discover that her striptease has been listed in the ‘Bony Screw' genre. A genre she has never heard of.

She will be so surprised. She will lie on her bed to watch and listen to her performance. She will not recognise herself. Are those my limbs? Are those my tits?

Anka will recline onto her bed in underwear she does not remember choosing. She will lie with one hand round her mobile and one hand in her knickers. Another set of knickers moistened. How ridiculous, she will think. Real-Anka will watch and wank as screen-Anka removes her bra in four sexy stages.

She's rubbing her bits with her fingertips, lying on the bed, surrounded by sucked monkey nuts, thinking about how we are all of us out of control, about how there is no control. And deep down we all know what we should be doing. Sure, Anka will think. Humans: WE ALL KNOW
WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING. We all know we should be leading clothed lives of washed bollocks, shaved legs and opinions, served on big white plates on tables with tablecloths. We all know we should be unmurderous, light-hearted and familiar with certain trends. We should be out there, making friends. We all know that others lead wank lives so that we can lead absolute crackers. We all know that we've got to mostly pretend. We're fine with it. We all know that cash is one thing, and that we need to work or get lucky to have it. We all know that love is the other thing, and that we need to get pretty or get lucky to get it. We're fairly obsessed with fucking. On balance, this is fine.

The rhythm of Anka's finger will be suddenly shot to shit. Her emotions will be suddenly muddled up. She'll be close to orgasm, tense and concentrated, but then she'll watch in horror as, on the screen of her mobile, she starts doing things she doesn't remember doing. This must be when I fainted, she will reason. But her orgasm will be suddenly out of reach, like a chased train in a Western that has gathered speed. Anka's finger will slow and come to a stop as, on the screen, her naked self steps out of shot, then returns a moment later with a mobile phone in her hand. Real-Anka will watch with separating features and bending knees as screen-Anka appears to dial a number into the mobile. Seconds later the video will cease to stream and the screen of Anka's phone will flash with the words
Anka Kudolski . . . calling . . .
Anka will sigh at the sight of her own name. How can I be calling myself? Yes, she will sigh and wonder why. Why is reality so trendy, so changeable, just another fashion victim?

The air will be full of ringtone. Anka's finger will hover above the ‘Answer' button. Should I? She will think. How can this be? Should I? Course I should. Life is a hop, a skip and a jump. Anka will answer the phone to herself.

‘Hello,' says Anka, from the bedroom.

‘Hello,' says Anka, from inside the phone.

‘Why are you calling me?'

‘We need to talk.'

‘I don't think we do.'

Anka will go to the window, where the trains will be accelerating and decelerating in and out of Victoria Station. ‘I've got nothing to say to you,' Anka will say, hand flat against the glass. ‘Where are you, anyway?'

‘I'm nearby,' says the voice inside the phone, in precisely the same tone. ‘We need to talk about your eating.'

‘We certainly don't. I've been eating,' says Anka, defensively.

‘You haven't. I'm coming round.'

‘Don't come round.'

‘I'm coming round.'

Anka will take the phone from her ear and look at the screen. According to the timer, she's been talking to herself for nearly a minute. She will return the phone to her face.

‘Why now? Why now, after all this time?'

‘Because I love you.'

‘And you think I feel the same?'

‘I know you do,' snaps the voice, doubled now, coming from inside the phone and, more loudly, from beyond the front door of the flat. Anka will drop the phone onto
the bed. She will walk to the door and place her ear next to the letter box.

‘Open the door, Anka,' will come the whisper. ‘Admit it. We're obsessed with ourselves. Open the door.'

THE GHOST OF
Janek's mum is yet to swoop into his ear and start flying round the off-white tunnels of his skull. She died only yesterday, of useless lungs, and she's clearly yet to negotiate the customs and bureaucracy that dying entails. God is yet to tap the A4 evidence of her life into a neat stack and grant her ghost status with a grin. He will though, thinks Janek, walking up Bannerman Road in Bristol towards the crematorium. Mother will be haunting me soon. She'll be whispering opinions that tickle the backs of my eyes. That's all I need. A haunting.

It'll make pulling Life a lot harder, thinks Janek. To Life, I will seem even more distant and distracted with a dead mum grumbling inside me, disapprovingly. I've dreaded this moment, thinks Janek, nearing the entrance of the grey, domed crematorium.

For the first time in a long time, Janek has removed his beanie. What would Snoop say if he saw me like this? he wonders. Stupid brown curls and a black yarmulke embroidered with white cotton.

Janek sees his relatives loitering by the entrance to the crematorium, cloaking their faces from the nose down with handkerchiefs, hands drooping from smart sleeves, getting held and kissed.

‘Oh, Janek,' cries Aunt Sophie. A tall ex-model with heavily hairsprayed hair. ‘Give me a hug. Janek! Give me a hug.'

Janek gives his auntie a hug. In darker days, he used to fantasise about making love to this woman. But it failed. The fantasy proved weak and feeble. And a penis gripped is a problem halved. Now Aunt Sophie's hands scuttle round his back like blind animals. Trapped in her arms, Janek breathes her crisp, chemical hair. Strands scrape his cheeks and he winces inside the family embrace. Somewhere there are Fuck Festivals. Little matters. Only nothing. That will do.

‘Your mother lived to see you succeed! Thank God she lived to see you become such a huge success!' Aunt Sophie holds Janek in front of her with straight arms, tears shining in her eyes, a sombre smile turning around her face.

‘Little Janek,' she cries. ‘We all had such low hopes for you. So quiet and so shy. You were always just staring, sat silently on the floor like a little grey stone . . . now you're a musician for the stars.' Sophie sniffs snot up towards her two eyes, adding, in a guttural voice, ‘You're even more successful than me!'

Janek smiles and nods. He watches his other relatives congregate behind Sophie. His uncle Danny with the voice like a synthesiser and creepy cartoon eyes. His mute grandfather, a white quiff of hair curling round his forehead like a funeral salute. The clump of young cousins,
gathered round a mobile phone, heads pressed together, watching music videos. Nothing matters, thinks Janek. But nothing is better than nothing. I'll tell Mum when she's finally paddling in the puddles of my skull, rolling up her cream trousers to the knees and dipping those shocking white calves in my brain slush. I'll tell her all about Life.

The congregation is moving into the hall. Janek nods at the rabbi at the entrance, an overweight old man with panda eyes and a beard like a scribbled storm cloud. Janek sighs at the building's interior. Bright light. Very still air. The smell of yellow polished floors. He puts the N-Prang into his ears, presses Play and waits for the rumble of bass.

The rumble of bass doesn't come. What does come is the sound of stamping feet and clapping hands. The crematorium is a third full. About forty people occupy the front three or four rows. They are making noises in unison. Two loud stamps on the floor followed by one clap, over and over again. Janek walks the central aisle, red wires leading from his ears to his pocket where his fist grips the N-Prang. In front of him Aunt Sophie single-handedly pushes his mother's coffin, which is raised on a trolley with multidirectional wheels. Sophie is slumped over it, cheek against the lid, moving dramatically to the beat of the crowd. Jesus, thinks Janek. People love themselves at funerals. The ex-model is back on the runway, dressed in nothing but her sister's death. I wish Life was here. Funerals make the grieving seem exceptionally sexy. The more the corpse loved you, the sexier you are.

The beat of the crowd does not stop. Janek's never heard a congregation be so loud and percussive before. When his aunt has pushed the coffin to the front of the
crematorium, she turns to the audience and starts performing wide overhead claps. Nodding her head. Her face all serious and cool.

‘Come on,' shouts Sophie, over the claps and the stamps. Janek watches as, beside Sophie, the rabbi cups an ear with one hand and sends out a bouncing Nazi salute with the other, his eyes edited to cool, enjoyable squints. ‘Bring it,' shouts Aunt Sophie, prompting the rabbi to start yelling along to the beat of the crowd: ‘Word. Word. Word. C'mon on. Bounce. Bounce. C'mon. Bounce.'

Janek watches, as his aunt Sophie climbs onto his mother's coffin and tears off her long black chiffon skirt, revealing red silk hot pants and violet fishnet stockings. He's reminded of why, as a kid, he'd wanted to shag her. She continues to direct the crowd from the light brown coffin lid, encouraging them to keep the beat. She turns away from them and bends over, polishing her silk red booty in a successfully sexy fashion. Meanwhile the congregation begins to strip. Men remove their black mourning blazers and then their shirts and ties to reveal very muscular bodies. Ripped six-packs. Meaty, nippled pectorals. Oiled up and shining. They tug their trousers down till they're hanging really low. Janek notes that each wears fancy underwear, waistbands embroidered with gold lettering.
Calvin Klein. Armani. Wild World. Fuck Death.
The N-Prang has become red hot in Janek's fist. Women shed their mourning costumes and find that their tits and crotches are covered in outlandish knickers and bras. Purples. Reds. Yellows. They fondle their bodies with shock and joy, as if they've never really stripped before. They bend over and begin jiggling their backsides really quickly till each buttock is just a quivering blur. No one's stamping or clapping any
more, but the beat goes on. Backs get arched and boobs protrude. Nipples dance inside expensive bras. The near-naked men and the near-naked women begin to dance in twos, elbows raised, hands in loose fists; they bring their crotches together, staring down at them, smiling. Janek watches as, from on top of the coffin, Aunt Sophie begins to sing.

Aunt Sophie's melody is simple. She rhymed ‘over' with ‘over'. Bit shit. But it's pop music. Catchy. Rammed with basic resolution. Janek has no time to ponder the lyrics. He's holding his yarmulke in his hand. He contemplates blocking his mouth with it. I feel a bit horny, he thinks. In fact, I'm going to get an erection. These elderly Jewish ladies all have fantastic bodies. And so this is me: getting an erection at Mum's funeral. This is fate. Sophie begins to rap.