The Lodger

THE LODGER

by Don Flockhart

Victor was sitting at the kitchen table cleaning his light bulbs like a
nurse cleaning wounds. For each bulb, he opened fresh surgical gloves
and a sterilised dressing pack, then caressed it with cotton wool balls
held in forceps.

'Sorry about your cornflakes, Elizabeth,' he said.

'You have of course left some milk for a coffee.'

He continued with his work. I picked up my umbrella from the hall table
on my way out.

'I wouldn't take that if I was you,' he called out, 'you'll regret it,
I can assure you.' I put the umbrella back. 'Don't worry,' he said,
'you'll be all right now.'

My cat was hiding from the rain under a car.

At work on the day he arrived, I had been unpacking a box of a new
bestseller. Right at the bottom was...

... I looked away quickly. I closed my eyes. The lighthouse was clear
in my mind.

Still blind, I felt for the book.

'What have you got there?' It was the manager.

I opened my eyes. Now there was no lighthouse on the cover but I knew
those cliffs. I handed him the book.

'Bruno Kravit? Never heard of him. Some dickhead must have ordered it.'
He took Kravit to the computer. 'We can't sell it. It stinks. Where do
these jokers keep their books? A garden shed? ... Yes, here it is.
Kravit, Bruno,"Der ...somethingorother. I think it's in Greek. Ordered
by the Bride of Frankenstein.'

'Der Leuchtturmw?chter. The Lighthouse Keeper,' I said.

These stupid people. At the end of the day, I want to kill them.
Sometimes I want to march through London with an assault rifle and kill
everyone. Slaughter every last one of them.

The day after I left school, Mum took me on a day out as a 'treat.' But
the treat was all hers - it was an excuse to get away from Dad. Early
in the morning, Dad staggered coughing into the street and I sensed
that like the off licence he was walking to, doom was just around the
corner.

Mum was a happy stupid person. She loved driving but Dad didn't let her
use his car. He returned from the shop and handed her the keys with a
look that said I don't care anymore. I gave him a hug. He hugged me
back tight. We both knew we were more likely to crash than reach our
destination.

But we made it.

The day was dreak. It was dark. On the beach we had to brace ourselves
against the wind to avoid falling over. But mum slipped over on the wet
pebbles anyway. She giggled. 'I think I've broken my leg.' She had
gashed her knee badly.
When she stopped laughing, she pointed at the roller coaster that
looked like a mangled spring, saying, 'Let's go on that - if you dare!'
But I felt no fear. No, it was like the first week of weirdness on
Prozac. I expected, even wanted, the train to derail.

There was something wrong with the whole affair - a ramshackle job on a
pier called Pleasureland.

I got on the roller coaster behind the only other passengers - two
laughing girls in the front. They were the sort of girls who would
rather be disembowelled than be seen with their mothers but I thought I
should be near them because we were victims together.

'No,' Mum said, 'let's go to the back. The back goes faster than the
front!'
The train edged upwards and the girls shouted and waved to friends
below. The front of the train dipped over the precipice.

Then it stopped.

The whole horrible apparatus creaked and swayed in the wind and the
twist of tight loops ahead shivered and strained as though it might
tear itself from its moorings. Despite the girls screaming I could hear
us disintegrating - bolts working themselves loose and sections of
superstructure crashing to the ground.
Mum said, 'They do this on purpose...' Judging by the smell, the poor
woman had shit herself. '...to make it more exciting.'

We swapped feeble smiles. Now I was scared.

I looked down. We were very, very high up. Much higher than anyone in
the crowd that had formed below could imagine.

Dad's drinking was out of control. He couldn't help it. It was my
fault.
The train shot forward. It whipped over the summit then rocketed
downwards.
We smashed into the dip fast enough to make time go backwards.

I tried to turn my head to see Mum. My neck muscles were barely strong
enough. She wasn't there. Then she was. We hurtled under the top of the
loop. I weighed as much as an elephant. The pain was terrible. My skull
shattered like eggshell.
Another dive. Crack! My spine split in two. The force against the
safety bar broke both my thighbones.

When we got back a thousand years earlier, someone gave us cups of tea
and wrapped us in foil like turkeys. What is it about tea? I'd rather
have an intravenous shot of diesel.

The girls were crying. They wanted their mummies.

We leaned against the pier railings. The sea was wild and the wind
skimmed off the tops of our drinks.

Mum said, 'Actually, I quite enjoyed that ride. It's good to get away
for a day.'

'Lovely.' I passed her my tea. 'Hold this. I'll take a photo.'

The camera flashed.

A vicious blast of wind forced me against the railings. I fell to the
ground and held on but Mum toppled into the sea. Immediately, a
lifebelt followed by a brown man flashed above me.

He returned smiling, vaulted the railings and landed with a showy
display like a gymnast. He might have been trying to retrieve a beach
ball.

He stared at me, eyes luminous in the dark like a cat. I waited. At any
moment, laser beams would shoot from his eyes and vaporise me on the
spot.

Soon after, I got a job babysitting a chubby smiling baby called
Roger.
Roger smiled too much. He was a fat smug baby.

I slapped him across the face. His fat face squashed up. Its face was
red and puffy and repulsive. I smacked it again. Hard. I really caught
it smartly
The noises tortured me - horrible shrieks of fear and hatred like a
cageful of pigs awaiting slaughter.

It kicked and thrashed its puffy little arms. It was a spoilt brat. It
was burning red. Its clothes were wet. The smell appalled me.

At last it became quiet.

He looked at me. He looked like he was thinking.

I stripped him, cleaned him and tossed him naked out into the snow. He
sat up, looking around. Then he started crawling. He padded at the snow
and gurgled like a chicken and he turned his head to show me the smile
had come back to his face. Soon, he would turn blue and freeze to
death.

Roger was happy. He liked me after all.

A good hot bath was just the thing. The water was hot enough to make
tea but the little devil loved it - he cried with sheer
happiness!

I was learning for myself - not what people had told me. Babies
appreciate punishment when they are inconsiderate. They learn that
excessive smiling leads to mistrust and fear. They are surprisingly
resilient - you can beat them, freeze them, toss them in boiling water
and they just laugh at you.

At home later, while Dad drank and drank and I sat on my bed stubbing
cigarettes out on my feet, I decided babysitting was not my cup of tea.
The urge I had to drown the baby concerned me. Even worse, I knew I
would have enjoyed it. My dad was worried about me. He thought I was
going mad.

I went downstairs. He was asleep in an armchair, snoring with his mouth
open. How would I have felt if he was a baby? I imagined gripping him
hard by the throat until his eyes popped out

His open mouth just asked for something to be poured into it. I held a
bottle of bleach over his mouth, close to his nose and tipped it ready
to pour.

The shop is in a narrow chasm off Oxford Street. It was very hot and
dank and I was overcome with torpor. I sat at a bus shelter and closed
my eyes. Funny about the lighthouse.

I had got into a habit of buying two cans of Special Brew after work;
one for me and one for the beggar who sits against the wall of a bank.
Women don't drink in the street - except prostitutes and girls under
sixteen. They don't give money to beggars because, after all, they'll
only spend it on drink. Well, as far as I was concerned, he deserved a
bloody drink. The beer cleared my mind. It almost raised my spirits
enough to kill myself.

The city air hung still and heavy. Hundreds of us funnelled into the
oven of the Underground. It occurred to me that if someone deliberately
pitched herself to the ground, me for instance, people would tumble
like dominoes and be trampled to death.

I sat on the grass - not the springy lawn my husband used to admire
from his shed but withered grass, crisp and leeched of colour. Year by
year, the tree that wept tears of malodorous sap, extended its canopy
and cast the garden further into gloom.

The novel had an attractive cover: an inferno, a burning car on a beach
- it must have shot over the cliffs. No doubt people were trapped
inside. The back cover comments reassured me: Brutal beyond belief...so
harrowing, it is impossible to read. It was impossible to do
anything.

My husband was right. As he said before I killed him, 'you are
personally responsible for your disease...you radiate misery...you are
not a member of humanity.'

We had walked to the top of the cliff, a bit close to the edge really.
'Don't go mad,' he went on, 'but I've been thinking about an
exorcist...'

'And?'

But he was silent. He edged even closer to the precipice. Black-backed
gulls as huge as vultures sailed on the breeze.

'The bloody light's on!' He pointed at the old lighthouse. 'It's
practically a ruin! I don't believe it!'

I was happy beyond imagination.

The shed rots at the end of the garden. Gradually, it drew my
attention. It appeared slightly luminous in the dusk, as if made of
aluminium rather than wood. I tried to get up but my legs were too weak
and the air was thick - more like water than air.

My mother stared at me from the shed window.

The garden filled with the aura of a lunar eclipse. A low hissing like
leaking gas surrounded me. Quickly, it strengthened, finally attaining
a crescendo like waves crashing on pebbles. A lighted cigarette
materialised in my fingers. I took a timid puff - the smoke was hot and
stinging and tasted bad, like celery.
The air became so dense it flattened me to the ground. It sparkled and
squeaked like ice. In time, I was to be entombed in solid air.

It took some time to recognise the sound as my doorbell. 'You have a
room,' he said.

'Yes - did you see the ad in the paper?'

'No.'

He was spare and sun raddled. His wild hair rippled in the wind to
reveal a missing ear. His nose came from a joke shop. 'Move in tomorrow
evening if you like'. He nodded in reply and hobbled away
bibbety-bobbety.

I went to clean his room. There were some old photos on the wall. One
looked brighter and less dusty than the others. It was funny but I
couldn't remember it: mother and me on a pier, clothes flapping,
holding on to railings. The deck is awash with foaming seawater. I
looked closer. In the background, there's a fairground stall ringed
with coloured lights. One bulb is missing. A man appears to have just
removed it. He's holding it aloft. It is clearly still alight, bright
orange in the gloom.

The next evening Victor was waiting for me. I took him to his room. He
said, 'Are you interested in light bulbs?'

'It's funny you should say that.'

'These are extremely rare specimens.' He took a case - like a box for
jewellery -from his rucksack. Inside, three bulbs nestled like sleeping
cats in their cubicles. He smiled. 'I gave the rest of them to museums
- I had hundreds in my collection before they made me leave. This
one...be very careful...is an original Edison. This is a 1920s bulb
from the Paris Metro. And this little devil is a headlamp from Hitler's
Mercedes.'

I turned into my street on the way home. I hate the smell of the chip
shop on the corner, but today it was oddly attractive. Maybe I would
get fish and chips later.

Victor was in the kitchen. I moved towards him saying, 'I'm sure I
mentioned this is a non-smoking house...Christ!' - I smacked against
thin air and bounced off it.

'It's alright. It's only the force field from the bulb case.'
I sat down gasping.

His voice was that of a much younger man with a foreign accent. His
face was even redder and his eyes glowered red as if he had a light
source in his head. He held his case on his lap. 'Look at this,' he
whispered. The ancient Edison glowed softly and as I looked, the air
crackled and thrummed and stank of onions. 'There's going to be trouble
at the chip shop. If I was you I, wouldn't go near the place. In
fact...'

When the house stopped shaking he said, 'Just as I thought.'

Like everyone else in the area except Victor, I ran into the street. A
swelling pall of smoke and dust masked the carnage.

The crowd edged forward. Then stopped dead.

We shrieked and gasped.

Someone laughed. Some ran for their lives. A blazing car shot from the
cloud. Bricks, wood, assorted debris, a human leg, a cat - all rained
from the sky.

At lunchtime, I walked in the sunshine to Leicester Square, where,
automatically, as though it was a daily ritual, I boarded an open
topped bus.
Despite the now cloudless sky, a cruel wind scoured London and there
were only three of us on top - me at the back and two laughing women at
the front. As we skirted Hyde Park, a black anvil of cloud appeared
from nowhere and trees whipped their branches against the bus.

There was no warning - one moment it was a lovely day; a second later
the anvil discharged a storm of ice. The women struggled to raise their
umbrellas, whooping and hollering with the fun of it all - until the
thunderbolt struck.
In the afternoon, unpacking boxes again, I imagined Victor
chain-smoking while listening to the radio for news of the stricken
bus. He had to go.

I slit open another box.

That was it.

I took a book from the box and left the shop.

An advert for the evening paper shouted, "Two beheaded in thunderstorm
horror."
I picked up a copy from the kiosk. The paper underneath... no, hang on
a minute. I turned away, then looked back as a man snatched up the
bogus copy and was away in a hurry. I shot after him, span him around,
and panted out, 'Let me look at that paper.'

'What?'

'Give me the paper!'

He shrugged. 'Here - what's wrong?'

'Sorry.' I handed it back.

Back at the kiosk, I went through the whole pile of papers. I asked the
man, 'Have you got any more of these?'

'No, no, no. What you doing?'

'Was there an earlier edition?' He served someone some cigarettes. He
wasn't listening. 'The front page was about a disaster at a fun
fair.'

'No, no fair fun. Please now you go away please.'

I bought a copy anyway. Two 'headless torsos' were on the bus. Inside
there was a report about missing victims of the chip shop horror: "The
forensic team discovered mere traces of humanity. They concluded the
blast, inexplicably, vaporised the students."

He was pacing around the kitchen, his things packed, ready to
leave.

'You'll regret it. I can assure you,' I said and handed him the book.
'You wrote this, didn't you? And the burning car book... God! Sit down
will you...who was in the car?'

'You'll be pleased to know Hitler lit up today,' he said. 'I have a
good feeling about him.'

'So that's why you're so keen to get away. What's he going to do? Blow
the house up?'

'You have a very interesting shed. I wonder what's inside.'