Who mourns Fat Penny&;#063;

Penny sits on the rocking tube, licking her hand to clean the dirty
black marks off her fingers, which, if isolated, might look as if she
had got them stuck in the tube door. But, when you let your eye wander
down her frame, you realise her fingers are just dirty.

She carries the forlorn look of a little girl, recently betrayed. Her
father, a large man prone to excess with a reputation for womanising,
died five weeks ago. He had taken the first drag of his final cigarette
when he stopped, freshly cracked beer still frothing. At times she
remembers that last homecoming, the bad news greeting as she stepped
through international arrivals, and a sad, dejected look spreads across
her features, extruding her bottom lip and deepening her sunken eyes.
No more daddy's little girl.

Penny's therapist is Freudian .The need for psychological intervention
became obvious to the staff of the Wellington one year ago, following
the death of an unrelated Pakistinian man. Abdul Jhareed Sharif arrived
in ICU, yellow and incoherent, with his genetically compatible donor,
Mohammed, for an extremely risky and not often practised procedure
sponsored by the hospital. Mohammed could not speak a word of English,
but he signed the release forms and was waiting for what he hoped would
be their speedy recovery and joyous return home. Penny, an ICU staff
nurse, had worked at the Wellington for four years, and until the death
of the yellow man and the survival of his one kidney'ed brother, her
colleagues had thought her cold. More detached than professionally
required. A little bit malicious in the care of the critically ill.
Penny reacted as if the news, delivered to Mohammed Jhareed Sharif was
directed at her, and she locked herself in the sluice cupboard with the
hospitals dirty linen and other disposables.

The doors slide closed on another stop, bringing Penny closer to
Tooting Bec than she's ever been before. Penny lives in a dingy nurse's
res in the upper class St. Johns Wood, and considers everything South
of the Thames as dangerous, populated by black drug dealers and other
unsavoury characters. Nervously she digs in the big denim bag with
'Born to Shop' embroidered in red on the front, and hauls out a
cylindrical pill container. She tips the container carefully and one
small blue pill nestles into her meaty palm.
'M&;M?' she offers the surprised woman next to her with
uncharacteristic generosity.
Penny spent last night sorting out the extra large bag of M&;M's
she'd bought at Waitrose by colour. It's one of her favourite pastimes,
sweetie apartheid, and she has several pill containers sneakily
acquired from the Wellington for that purpose alone. Penny rarely, if
ever, travels on the tube. Not even the colour division describing the
lines inspires her. She finds it tedious, the long descent, and having
to walk through the hot airless passages, crowded with swift moving
people, all bumping and pushing, it makes her sweat. She much prefers
the bus. A short walk down the road, and the steel pole in the doorway
to hoist herself onto the low step, the wide seats, made for two and
therefore, big enough for her. Luxury travel. Cheaper too.

Today is different though. Even if Penny had found a quick bus route to
Tooting Bec without a change, she would still take the tube. Even had
the directions to the rendezvous not been so explicit; (turn right when
leaving the station, left at the Chinese take-away, cross the first
road, right at the second, and take a seat at the first table on her
right as she entered the side door of the Three Kings); she would still
not risk the chance that some yardie might notice her, and squash
himself into the seat next to her. Then she would have to endure the
long bus journey with that scumbags eyes wandering over her. She knows
that black men have a thing for woman like her.

Penny is nervous. If she's late, he might leave, thinking she's backed
out. If she's too early, he may see her first. The best plan of action
is to arrive after him, and dazzle him with her irresistible
personality. For this purpose she's chosen to wear her slimming black
dress with small grey dots, thirty quid from Evans. She pouts her lips
for a waxy application of bright red lipstick which she knows would
look tarty on anyone who didn't have her complexion (yellowish) and
dark hair, (cropped short), which she has clipped back with
tortoiseshell clips from Boots. - In the few months since Penny cut her
hair, her regret at the hasty chop has grown faster than her
disobedient follicles. She'd had long hair since high school when she'd
noticed that the only difference between her and Nadine, the most
popular girl in school, was long hair and glasses. - On the whole, the
combined effect makes her look like and oversized cupie doll.

Penny adjusts the tortoiseshell clip as Clapham Common slides away. A
thought flicks across her mind and she blushes. It's one of his
thoughts, not her own, but the hot flush of memory takes her back to
the exact moment when those words flashed up on screen, and Angry
Andrew entered her life. Penny giggles. It's been exactly six days,
thirteen hours and four minutes since that first meeting. Penny, logged
on at the internet cafe, waiting for her Prince Charming, her Richard
Gere in Pretty Woman, her soul mate to answer her primal call. All her
life, Penny's known this day would come. How could it not? Hours of
videotape, (Pretty Woman, My Best Friends Wedding, Notting Hill,)
consumed by Penny's spongy mind culminated in what Penny had always
known her destiny to be. Angry Andrew. It didn't matter to Angry Andrew
(six foot four inches of gymned up muscle, dark and poetic) when she
eventually plucked up the courage to tell him that her profile was
doctored a little. That she wasn't blond, didn't look anything like Eve
Herzegovina, or even that she didn't own any red underwear since size
thirty knickers only came in granny style beige with elasticised
support panels, but the Wonderbra cleavage, Penny definitely had.

Angry Andrew hadn't cared, he still found Penny attractive, still
thought her smart, laughed at her jokes. She had such a great time
telling her work colleagues and emailing everyone she had met at the
self-help course, that she, Penny, was in love. She had a boyfriend,
and what's more, he was tall, dark and handsome. Penny didn't tell
anyone that she had never physically met Andrew. She told them about
the great sex they had, carefully copying and pasting from the chat
site. She told them of the dozen red roses she received, but not that
they had been scanned and delivered via email. She stole her patients
flowers, they were too weak to object, and pretended they were hers.
Penny became merciless in her love. She stood daydreaming while bedpans
overflowed. Sang Celine Dion in her ear piercing pitch while the
critically ill were trying to sleep. If anyone complained, she
delivered and withdrew their meals at the exact same moment, commenting
"Not hungry, Mrs Wheeler? You really must try and eat something or
you'll never get well."

Tooting Bec. Penny, lost in her dream world, almost misses the stop.
Sweat trickles down her brow and she wipes it away with a white tissue
she has tucked into her sleeve. Slowly and deliberately, she trundles
towards the exit, following the yellow 'Way Out' signs. Her heart beats
a little faster, from nervousness or exertion, as she lifts her
delicate punished foot onto the moving black escalator. Penny leans her
weight against the black rubber railing. Her elbow hangs over the side,
narrowly missing the "Stand on the Right" signs. Her arm pushes against
her breast distorting her best feature, and you might look twice to see
if she had three breasts. Her buttocks, reigned in by Playtex secret
panels, juts out to the left. Behind her Penny hears the metal clang of
rapid footsteps, a breathless voice is addressing her.
"Excuse me Sir."
Penny, with a look of purple hatred, turns to him replying, "Who are
you talking to, do I look like a fucking man?"
The black haired stranger, pale with shock, pushes past with the
words,
"Actually you do, you fat bitch".
Penny's cheeks flush red from the heat of the confrontation, and dizzy
and dazed, she inserts her ticket into the machine and finds herself on
the pavement staring at the back of the dark stranger. She smiles,
noticing his club footed limp, his dirty clothes, matted black hair,
grey in places, the little brown dog. "Get a job selling Big Issue" she
shouts after him. Andrew would laugh at her joke, he always does.

Penny looks up at the green sign, The Three Kings, so worn she can
barely make out the words. Her heart races, breath sharpening into
quick pants. A droplet of sweat trickles down her brow and she clutches
a limp white tissue in her palm. Darkness spreads from her armpits like
a wet disease, infecting the fabric of her dress. She clicks open the
silver fob watch that belonged to a rich Arab patient who died on her
shift. She's late. Only ten minutes, but she won't have time to freshen
up before her date. Her breasts jiggle as a shiver of excitement
travels through her - her date. She tries the door, it won't open. A
rusty padlock bars her way. Fear prickles her skin but disappointment
quickly floods it out. Then she remembers, the side door, and she
giggles. "How romantic". She can't wait to tell the girls tomorrow,
especially Janet, recently divorced. She pushes the side door of the
pub open. Day light squeezes past her illuminating the worn wooden
floor, making the dust motes dance. A broken table lies in the corner,
dreaming of polish and spilt lager and cigarette ash. Penny blinks,
adjusting her brown eyes to the twilight interior. She can barely make
out the bar at the end. The fine dark hairs which usually sleep
unnoticed against her neck, call out the messages sent up her spinal
cord. Penny shakes them off and closes the door.

With the daylight gone, Penny notices a small flame table dancing to
her right. Smiling now, she should have known. She lowers herself
gently into the seat and picks the brown envelope she finds next to a
black silk scarf. The words "Fat Penny" fade in and out, like its been
written with a dry marker and licked to ink. Her brow creases as she
considers her name. Gingerly she opens the envelope and soon her
girlish giggle echoes in the silent pub. She places the letter back in
the envelope and picks up the scarf, it smells faintly of perfume, a
little musty. She shrugs and wraps it around her eyes, blocking out the
light. Penny sits and waits. Blind and alert.

Something clicks and taps quickly against the wooden floor. A warm,
wet, furry sensation tickles her ankles and a small hiccough of a laugh
escapes her throat. Then footsteps. Penny, caught up in the excitement
of destiny realised, doesn't notice the subtle drag of the second step.
She notices only the fingers stroking her hair, the bony coldness of
her lovers hands as they move gently down her cheek, to stroke her pale
neck.

Fat Penny lies on the pavement, blue white and waxy. Rain drops roll
down her hills and form puddles in her valleys. Her shape, at first
glance, may seem to passers by to be the wax drippings of a giant
candle, scraped from the tablecloth of lovers. A red lipstick smear,
like that left on a wine glass in a dimly lit bar, is the only colour
left on Penny's face. Her brown eyes stare, as the final images of her
life are washed away by the rain. The grey afternoon turns to night,
and an electric bulb springs to life, illuminating. Its yellow
highlights play with the nights black shadows, teasing her form into
liquid dream shapes. A stray mans dog wanders by, and stops to lick her
face, whining in sympathy. His owner, white and cold, runs thin,
arthritic fingers around her, probing for earthly belongings. All he
finds is a sodden white tissue. Blue flashing lights interrupt the game
of yellow and black. The voices come and intermingle with the sound of
tape unrolling, like naked flesh peeling of a plastic chair in summer.
The onlookers stand, craning their necks to get a look at the spectacle
of nudity, and shake their heads in horror, muttering about the waste
of life. A stranger, his shadow falling over her sighs his questions to
no one in particular. No one knows and Fat Penny won't tell.