Message from the Shed

message from the shed

Rubbing a hole in the dust on the window I see it: there is: slotted
between the table and window - a grimy aged wooden box. The
record-player. Like God sent a little package of heaven down by
courier.

If only I could get out of this damned shed.

CheckedShirt slips a record out of a sleeve, sensuously, holding the
cardboard against his stomach. It's for the baby, he insists.

She casts a Look at the record as the needle finds the spot and begins
to spin, stroking vinyl, pronouncing sounds. Shostakovich, he adds,
deliciously. And belches.

The tin kettle on the stove whistles irreverently.

The record spins its soul in webs around me.

I shake the door, the padlock rattles mockingly. Surely somebody must
need to get in here sooner or later? I have work to do.

I tuck my thumbs in the frayed edges of my robes, rocking on my heels,
a pebble tippling on the very curl of a cliff, teasing itself, to and
fro. To and fro. Fall or stay?

She shrieks like a seagull, the boy must come for his tea. A steaming
cup on the table, smells like animals trying to escape, a plate of
stew. Home-made, not because she cares, but it's cheaper.

I got this reduced down the market, she waves an empty plastic wrapper
about, two pounds fifty. Last us a week.

CheckedShirt shakes his legs to the music sympathetically.

The shed is dark, spiderful, spiteful, makes me sneeze. Nobody has been
in here for twenty years and the ghosts like it that way. Ghosts that
see every pair of legs and waist and chest in that kitchen, ghosts who
have watched CheckedShirt and his wife for nigh on twenty years. The
window is only so high you see. Do you see? ... There, now, is the
woman. Shirt tied up around her ribby waist. Jeans. Lacquered movie
nails holding a cigarette. Walking from the table to the sink.

They can't see me either. CheckedShirt, motionless beside the record
player, folding and unfolding his hands over his stomach. Bulging. Full
of stew. Warm and civillised nonetheless.

With a passion for the classics.

I never heard them before and I doubt that I will ever hear them as
good again.
*
Been considering a night job, she told her sister terribly in the dark
early this morning.
They stir their spoons in grey tea.
CheckedShirt put on a record, on repeat, before he went off to work
half an hour ago. Violins gradually become birds and sunrise can't
compare, the music tightens around my throat like a sick joke as I
listen to her voice.
Wouldn't be all that bad, she adds timidly.
Her sister winces, hands tighten around her cup. Whitely afraid.
In a red confident voice - You can make a hundred quid a night.
More sometimes.
I talked to this receptionist, at - you know. That place on the High
Street. Blondes.

Blondes must be a place of unutterable terrors. Her sister recoils,
stands up in horror, starts to pace. She of the nervous disposition:
fingers tap, legs jitter, cup is juggled from one hand to the
other.

I am bewitched by this music. It isn't good at all. I have a job to
achieve. Work to do. I wasn't sent down here to piss about in
sheds.

But I am bewitched. My eyelids droop and I snap awake. Remembering.
There is a baby in that room too.
*
I fell like a rock from a cliff, to get a job done. No other reason.
Straight into this damned shed. Chained and padlocked by my own
foolishness.

I'll get rid of it, she threatened to CheckedShirt as he paced. He set
a circle of vinyl spinning, and seemed to calm like a kettle going past
its boiling point.

I'll just get rid of it, don't worry. Tenderness pierces the friction,
she touches him, frightened, softly, inching up his arm, then
stopping.
We won't get rid of it. It's my kid too.
It's my stomach. My decision. Her voice gleams fury, tenderness
dissolves, and her hands grip her stomach as if she wants to do it
harm.

We are not getting rid of it. Calmly he walks away, out of the kitchen,
she stays put. In the kitchen: centre of her soul, cups of tea and
sisters, confidentiality, the sound of platform heels on lino. She
stays put in her safe kitchen. Circles the record player, touches it
viciously, recoils, sits at the table. Buries her head in her pointed
fingers.
*
Be my, Be my Baby, she sings softly, humming the chorus, wiping dishes
like it's the best chore in the world, stroking with the towel and
stacking plates, cups, dishes, orderly and shining.

She comes to the table, facing the window, spitefully. Opens handbag,
removes a baby-blue leaflet. Small. Discreet. When she reads it I can
see the title. St Mary Abortion Clinic, Swansea. Spitefully chewing her
lip. She examines her fingernails.

I just need to find a way out, the padlock rattles heavily, so I feel
the door for any rotten patches of wood. I start to kick but it's not
easy with bare feet. My robes need a good scrub and there are spiders
crawling on my head. I just have to do my job; no shed is going to get
in my way now. It's urgent. Let me out, I pray. You got yourself there,
a voice comes back.

I just need to get out. I have to stop her. I can hear platform heels
clacking a path to the front door. A cat scrawls its paws against the
other side of the shed door. I have to get to her. I have to save that
baby. How would this look if I failed: I, Gabriel, the head and most
famous Archangel, failed?

I lift my head, gulping in air, filling my lungs with dusty shed
oxygen, lift my head, higher and higher, and I bellow. She has to hear
me.

MARY!!