Craving

*the craving*

I only caught him twice. He was mostly too quick for me. He hid in all
the places you could think of: behind stacks of corned beef in the
supermarket, in the magnolia bush in the garden, watching the house
from the bus stop across the road.

I never saw him in those places, but sometimes found shoelaces, bits of
old gum, or strands of hair different to mine, when I went to look
there after he had gone.

I was in Treasure Coffeeshop when I first saw him. Drinking some warm
milk and dipping a piece of toast and, from the corner of my eye, I saw
a movement outside the window. Then that same movement appeared inside,
like ripples in silk, he was disturbing the air and I felt it.

I could hear the women on the next table talking about the tornado in
North Wales last week: my Margaret was in Spar at the time, one said,
and the store manager gave Harry a Push Pop to stop him from crying.
And people ask me if I'd ever go to Florida, the lady in the saggy coat
sighed.

Then I tipped the last drops of milk down my throat and through the
rumpled glass bottom I saw his distorted face in front of my table.
Long neck and pea head, lips like slugs. He looked just like I had
imagined.

Quick as a flash I hurled the glass away from my mouth and towards his
pea head, to stun him until I could get some help to hold him down. It
bounced. He stepped backwards from the force of the cup, held his hand
to his head, and looked straight into my eyes. I thought he would have
been ashamed to look at me but there was no guilt, just fear, like a
child. He was plain looking: indistinct and average with brown limp
hair.

He looked at me with his limp eyes and then he walked away. How did you
know it was him Mum? Janet asked and I said oh, I just knew. Sometimes
you do.

The next day he pushed a note through my letterbox. 'I called today at
3.45,' it said untidily and one corner was damp, perhaps where he had
kissed it. 'I will call back soon,' and then, 'with compliments'; it
didn't say what the compliments were, but I suppose that it was shorter
not to list them. I felt sad that I had missed him, same as I often
feel about people who aren't here anymore, as if there's a gap between
my skin and the air where they should be. You know when you get a
craving, but you just can't work out what it's for, it's just that
something important is missing? A body touching me, is my craving, and
that's what it's been all my life. You get it more when you're older,
and it becomes like suffocation.

I thought he may come again the next day and the day after so I
crouched behind the door. Like a commando. My head bobbing beneath the
letterbox. I waited patiently for two days, but he didn't come. I think
that he likes to surprise me.

*

When I woke up this morning I felt as though a thundercloud had slid
under the door and was hovering inside the room. The four white walls
were greyer than usual. So I decided to pretend I was somewhere
exciting and sunshiney. I imagined a grass skirt and some Hawaiian
music, and I asked Doris to bring me a cocktail when she brought my
tray with lunch on it. She said what? and I said, a cocktail, Doris.
Haven't you been out recently? All the pubs do them, with cranberry
juice and things in. And lots of vodka. She just shook her head and
said I might get some orange squash with my tea if she could find some.
All afternoon I swung my hips in my grass skirt and then I was so
exhausted I fell asleep on my bed, in my clothes.

*

Eventually my knees started to hurt, crouching, and I thought I'd go to
the library for a change of scenery, so I rang Janet. She was always
telling me to change my scenery, but I was usually quite happy at the
house, and I sometimes went for a walk down the village past all the
shops and pubs and to Treasure Coffeeshop, but that's enough for
me.

She drove me to the library in her new car, and when we got there she
went off into the children's' section to see if there were any new
Harry Potter books in yet. I stayed in the comfy chair, because you
have to once you get it to yourself; there's any number of thieving
scoundrels in that library who are all too happy to snidle their
bottoms in if you so much as get up to look at the shelves. I was
reading an awful book about a girl called Anne with red hair. When
there he was. A gust of breathless air and my lungs contracted. And he
was standing in front of me, with his back to my face, but it was so
him. I threw my book to the floor and the pages slapped like fish on
the carpet.

He turned around and smiled, but before he had a chance to pick it up,
I kicked him in the shins. He fell over same way the book had gone,
bones slapping the worn carpet. He was much skinnier this time and he
had a different hairstyle, but the same lightning eyes like the ones
the boys in the book had. But I didn't catch him this time
either.

The world faded and was sucked away, and my eyes shut of their own
accord, and when I woke up again, Janet was pouring me a cup of water
from the tap and we were back at the house.
Oh Janet, I said, why didn't you catch him? I hope they throw him into
jail, he's so very ----- disturbing to me. I couldn't think of the word
that I wanted. He's always a different word: effects without a cause, a
kiss without lips.
Janet ignored me.

*

I don't know why they haven't decorated this room yet. It's terribly
white. Maybe because I'm in it. They couldn't throw a sheet over me
while they are painting could they? We have this room free, they told
Janet when I arrived, and we're about to decorate it, but it'll do for
a while.
What happens to me after a while, then? Will I sleep in the shed?

*

I noticed that my house began to smell. It was a Sunday morning and
weekends have always been cleaning days for me, so I had a look and a
sniff around to check. There was a new smell in the house, an uninvited
whoosh of a smell, imagine a hybrid of burnt fat and mothballs and
roses. A smell that I knew I remembered. But in the catalogue of smells
that I have stored in my memory over seventy three years, I couldn't
fit a label to this one. It was a weed in the garden that didn't have a
name.

I started to squirt Mr Muscle in the places where I found the smell had
concentrated, and rub it away. I even got a can of air freshener from
the shop and sprayed it around, some got into the back of the telly and
later I found I couldn't watch HTV anymore. I like Neighbours better
than Home &; Away though so it's not all bad news. Anyway, while I
was spraying the kitchen, some went up my nose a bit, and made my eyes
sting, so I opened the back door to let some out. Then I saw a noise. A
vivid, visible noise inches away from the back gate. I picked up the
can and held it in front of me, I can pretend it's chloroform gas, I
thought.

The noise carried on. It was coming from the baby magnolia bush. I
tiptoed towards it, but slowly, because it was getting messy, that
garden, and if I fell over I might faint again and never catch him.
Then it stopped. And so did I. I thought I could see something shining
in the bush now.

But suddenly there was Janet behind me, standing at the back door,
shouting at me. I squirted the can at the bush as hard as I could, and
Janet came out and put her arms on my shoulders and pulled me inside.
Quickly Janet! I said, He's out in the garden! You better get him this
time!
Janet stayed for a couple of nights after that, sleeping in an old
sleeping bag on the sofa with her feet hanging over the edge. I was
wild mad with her for not chasing him away. I don't think she believed
me. She wouldn't let me have the air freshener back, either.

*

I have just remembered what the smell was. It was the one that visits
old people's houses after they have died. I've been to funeral
receptions in dead people's houses. I don't know how anyone can ever
move into a house after that.

*

Janet started to say that I shouldn't be at home on my own anymore, and
wouldn't I like to move into her house? Where would I sleep, I said. I
can't go on your sofa you know. She said she'd think of
something.

*

Doris brought me a birthday present this morning, a real grass skirt.
She said she found it at a jumble sale last weekend. What someone would
do with a grass skirt, I don't know. I thanked her for it anyway. My
mother had always hammered my manners into me. Then some of the others
came in and we had birthday cake and tea and I got to choose the
channel this evening. Tonight my room is filled with seventy four
years' worth of whiteness. Sometimes I think I would be quite pleased
to see my stalker again.

*

Meanwhile he got worse and worse. Since the garden visit he started to
come at night, which is my least favourite time of day. He started to
wake me up tapping trees on my window and blowing under the doors after
I'd had my tea. I was quite brave up to then, but I just started to get
fed up of it all. I wouldn't let Janet sleep on the sofa and I didn't
want to move into her house, it's a horrible flat and it's six floors
high. I don't know how people live thirty storeys up in America, I
really don't. He started to seem as though he didn't really care about
me and the whole thing became a lot less romantic than it had been. I
mean, a stalker is quite a story, it's usually people like Madonna and
suchlike who get stalked, and here was little old me. But I wasn't
ready for him, I wouldn't let him scare me, so I wouldn't move out just
because there were footmarks on the front lawn.

*

There's a lot of waiting around here. I'd rather stare at these white
walls than wait, like some of them do. Aged patience and waiting. I am
curious about what happens next, but that doesn't mean that I'm waiting
for it. I think it'll just be playing, a lot of playing in the sky, and
someone to hold your hand anytime you want them to.

*

Janet sat me down after Neighbours, she'd cooked me a nice piece of
ham, and asked me what I thought about to myself when she wasn't
there.
What an odd question, I said to her.
Well, how do you fill the hours? she asked.
I try not to fill hours, I said. I like them to fill me. Whatever God
wants to put in my head can go there.
What does God put there then? she said.
And I shrugged my shoulders. I don't really know what God puts there, I
admitted. I know that I have fun days and I have frightened days. This
week I've had a few frightened days.
And Janet looked very upset and said that she wanted me to move out,
and not to be alone anymore.

*

I have learned much more about my imagination than I ever supposed
there was to know. You don't give yourself any time to find out, when
you're working, or housewifing or mothering. White is a surprisingly
potential colour. Although sometimes the white is an overbearing
colour, especially in the darkness, you can paint it with just anything
you like in the daytime. Sometimes now I paint my stalker, or I paint a
story with girls and boys and cranberry cocktails. Janet will find out
when she is alone.

This morning my stalker came to find me. I knew that he would catch me,
or I would catch him, sooner or later. He's been hiding around corners
for six months. He came to my room, stuck his head around the doorpost,
and said, It's a bit white, isn't it?
Yes, I said. Do you want to play a game?
I thought I wouldn't attack him, this time. I have forgiven him. I
asked him if he'd forgiven me for fighting him off for six
months.
Of course I do, he said in a bright white voice. He looked more
beautiful than I had ever seen him. The whiteness filled with courage
like an ocean spray. He held out his hand. A shot of lightning
staccatoed through the air between us. Smiling an ageless smile.
Shall we paint a picture? he asked.
I took it.

This room is free for while, they said. Well, now it's free again.