The Biggerers Read online

  THE BIGGERERS

  In memory of Graham Lilwall

  CHAPTER 1

  Bonbon was the first to sit up and look out of the basket. Something pulled at her arm.

  ‘Get off, Jinx.’

  ‘Come back down for a while.’

  ‘No. It’s time to get up.’

  ‘Please, Bonbon.’ Jinx’s voice wobbled and her teeth made a noise like stones being dropped on the tiles on stone day.

  Bonbon swung one leg over the edge of the basket and got out to look at the bowls. Both bowls were full. She took three mouthfuls from Jinx’s bowl, then began to eat from her own.

  They spent the morning gathering dropped thread. Then at lunch they waited for her to come and refill their bowls.

  She didn’t come.

  They crawled through the vacuum hatch to go to Outside. The courtyard was AstroTurf that grew into grey concrete walls that grew into grey bars that Jinx and Bonbon couldn’t see the top of anywhere in the garden; except for one spot. Only one of them could stand there at a time and she had to press herself against the far right of the sliding doors where she could hold on to the sticky-out bit while standing on the very ends of her toes. Jinx went straight over to this spot.

  Bonbon collected dropped thread from the AstroTurf.

  Chips arrived.

  ‘Are you going to get it tonight then?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, only if they’re in the mood.’

  ‘When have they not been in the mood, Jinx?’

  ‘Occasionally, Bonbon, they are not in the mood.’

  ‘What does that stupid word mean, Jinx? What does it mean? Chips! Do you know what it means?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It means sometimes.’

  Bonbon slit her eyes at Jinx before turning her back to her so that she was looking at Chips.

  Jinx turned and walked back to the vacuum hatch.

  ‘Yes, we are going to get it tonight.’

  ‘What’s it like, Bonbon? Is it good?’

  ‘Chips, I wish you could just try it.’

  Bonbon spent the rest of the afternoon putting the thread around their basket. ‘Jinx, you’re not doing it right; why can’t you do it right?’

  Jinx went and sat in the toilet box until she heard the front door open. Then she crawled to the edge and stuck her head out.

  Bonbon was running across the tiles towards the kitchen door. She stopped at the open side and stood, fluttering her eyelashes. Jinx shuffled along after, kicking at the edges of the tiles. Bonbon was so nasty sometimes, why did she have to be so nasty? And she never said sorry.

  She stood next to Bonbon, looked up and fluttered her eyelashes.

  The She-one was making noises at them. She bent down and stroked Bonbon on the head, then Jinx, and it was then that they could almost hear what she was saying.

  ‘Little chilly-billies…’ And her head went back up in the air.

  She filled their bowls, then stayed in the kitchen making the smells that she made until he came home. Then the two of them sat and ate the smells. Then they went into the big room.

  They were in the mood.

  Bonbon went and got it.

  Then Jinx.

  Then they went to the basket.

  The next morning, they collected paper and AstroTurf and put it around the basket. Jinx helped. She did not point out that it was paper day not AstroTurf day. When they had finished they settled down for a nap.

  The front door zjwoomed open. Bonbon woke up and scrambled out of the basket.

  Jinx got up and followed.

  They waited at the kitchen door, fluttering their eyelashes. She came in, made noises at them, bent down and patted them on the head before filling up their bowls.

  When he arrived, they ate the kitchen smells and went into the big room.

  They were in the mood.

  Bonbon got it.

  Then Jinx.

  Then they went to the basket.

  Bonbon was the first to wake up. She sat up and looked out of the basket.

  ‘Come back for a few minutes, Bonbon.’

  ‘No, Jinx,’ said Bonbon, and she got out of the basket to look at the bowls. Both bowls were empty. She went back to the basket and climbed inside. ‘It’s Saturday,’ she said. The bowls were always empty on Saturday, whatever Saturday was… They would be full again after a bit more sleep. She closed her eyes and pressed herself against Jinx.

  Jinx smiled, closed her eyes, wriggled into the curve of Bonbon then twitched.

  ‘Bonbon?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can we take the AstroTurf out of the basket?’

  Bonbon huffed. Not this again. ‘No.’

  ‘But it’s prickly.’

  ‘What is that word, Jinx?’ Bonbon sat up. ‘What does that even mean?’

  ‘Bonbon, I explained to you last time. Why don’t you ever listen to me?’

  ‘Because it’s a stupid word, Jinx; it doesn’t mean anything.’ Bonbon got out of the basket and went over to the bowls.

  ‘You’re so nasty to me, Bonbon,’ Jinx called after her.

  Stupid Jinx. She never thought about anything except for her stupid self.

  Selfish rat.

  The bowls were empty. Bonbon kicked one of them and ran back to the basket.

  She listened.

  Nothing.

  ‘Do it again, Bonbon.’

  ‘Shut up, Jinx!’

  Bonbon ran over to her bowl, kicked it hard, then ran back to the basket and listened.

  She heard a thump above her.

  ‘Quick, Jinx!’ She jumped back into the basket, pressed herself against Jinx’s back, then closed her eyes.

  Time: 11:57. Oh dear, he was going to be late. He had told Susan he would be back in the morning, but, in fact, it would be early afternoon. But then again, it was Sunday. Early afternoon could still be considered morning because, well, everything was a bit later really. It was funny how even though religion had been scrapped since ages, Sunday had maintained its Sundayness. Maybe it was because the clocks changed twice a year on a Sunday, leaving it forever tarnished with the panic of being late for something, like, well, work, on Monday morning, yet mixed with the pleasure of realizing that it didn’t matter, because it was only Sunday. The clocks could never go forward quickly enough to take away a whole Sunday.

  Good point actually; when did the clocks go forward?

  A photo of his uncle Monty pinned itself to the back of his mind. He was locked into a mock arm-wrestle with a HelpaBot that had been designed to recognize blighted potatoes on an organic potato farm. The HelpaBot even wore a painted uniform, parliament green with the image on the left breast of two leaves rising out of a golden potato. The uniform matched that of Uncle Monty. The article caption read: ‘Winning back the working week: employment levels rise as machines banished to Sunday.’ From then on, Sundays always felt a bit anarchic. They were rebellious, almost carnival-like: a once-weekly reminder of how the people had beaten the state. ‘But we are fools,’ Uncle Monty would say. ‘If the state granted it, then we haven’t really won anything.’

  The car stopped at traffic lights and a young man pushed one of those old shopping trolleys across the road, while another young man sat inside the trolley. They lifted half-full beer bottles to Hamish.

  He nodded back at them then looked at the time displayed on the WayToGo. 12:01. That whole ‘Sunday’ thought had taken him from morning to afternoon. Good. The pressure was off; he was into the afternoon and there was nothing he could do about it. It was like talking to someone while a plane takes off.

  He cleared his throat. ‘When do the clocks change?’

  ‘The time will go back by one hour at one a.m. on Sunday the twenty-fifth of October.
In two weeks’ time.’

  A little panic moth flapped its wings in his stomach: he was almost right to be almost panicked about the clocks going forward – it was, after all, almost time.

  The traffic lights changed and the car advanced.

  Oh, no, wait! The WayToGo had said that the clocks would go back! Ha! Of course they would! Oh well, in that case, no need to panic at all. One extra hour in bed. At home.

  Home… Home would be nice. It had been a whole week since he’d seen her. He was sure that she was preparing something to win his approval. She really shouldn’t do that… She didn’t need to win anything from him; their themness was just there; it didn’t need gingerbread and chocolate fondant and what-not… Speaking of which, should he go to Shepherd’s? He could pick up some chèvre and French bread to make her trip last right to the end of Sunday. 12:04. No. Better just get home. After all, he’d have to faff about with emptying the car before he could relax.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘You’re here?’

  She gaped her eyes and looked around ‘here’. ‘Yes. I am,’ she said slowly.

  Bugger. He’d been too excited. He’d been too pleased to see her. And this place was all weird with her in it, and she was all weird in this place. An out-of-work reaction; that was completely appropriate given that he was out of work. But now he’d have to keep up this ‘out-of-work Hamish’ so that she wouldn’t guess that she was the cause of his breathy, high-pitched, full-of-eyebrows response to her ‘hello’.

  ‘No, it’s just…’ He grinned, he actually grinned, and he only knew he had grinned because of her not quite mirror-grin and her eyes that flicked down at his exposed teeth as if they were an open wound. ‘There are lots of shops in London!’ he told her, lilting upwards at the end and slightly shrugging his shoulders. So why should I have to bump into my patients here? it said. Is there no rest for the wicked? it said. Oh dear, he’d fucked that one up. Or had he? She scratched her chin and rocked back on a foot that she’d already placed behind her; when had she done that? Oh no, she wanted to flee… Not good, Hamish, not good.

  ‘I mean…’

  ‘I’m out of context, aren’t I?’ She said it so kindly that his mouth fell open. Talk about hitting the nail on the head…

  A rushing breath puffed out his chest. He put on his normal face. ‘A little, I admit…’

  ‘It’s okay. I must go anyway.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I have someone waiting for me at home.’

  ‘Ah.’ A boyfriend? A date? He glanced down at her shopping bag.

  ‘It’ll be like I was never here!’ she said, turning away.

  ‘No, that’s not…’ That’s not what he’d wanted at all.

  ‘See you next week?’ she called back.

  ‘Yes.’ He started to follow her. ‘Next week.’ Bugger. He stopped. He turned back to the shop, then back so he was watching her again. Following her? Following her? Really Hamish…

  Her head ducked down into a little white car; something dangled from the rear-view mirror inside but no head leaned across from the passenger seat to kiss her. The car started. He swung his shoulders towards the shop entrance. His legs followed.

  * * *

  ‘In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf…’ Drew inhaled and turned the page, and went on to tell the whole story to the child, at the same time flicking glances at his noodle-curls. One little hand rested on the corner of the page and lifted automatically each time it was turned. Skin podged around the knuckles, exactly the same smoothness along the tips, around the fingernails, across the back…

  ‘Ha! How nice; that tiny, baby caterpillar… And then all it had to do was eat cherry pie, and red-and-pink stripy salami, one piece of chocolate cake, an ice cream, a lollipop… And then it built a little house called a…’

  ‘A cocoon.’

  ‘A cocoon, pushed its way out… And…’

  ‘It was a beau-ti-ful butterfly!’ they said together.

  ‘Does that really happen?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Drew. ‘That’s where butterflies come from.’

  The boy opened his mouth and stared up to the right as he thought about this. ‘That was exactly what he needed, that nice-green-leaf, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was,’ nodding.

  ‘After that he really felt like building, didn’t he?’

  Drew laughed. ‘He must have done.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late!’ A woman strode in with a book bag and a lunch box all hooked around the same finger. ‘I was late out of work.’

  Drew stood up. ‘That’s alright. We read a book together.’

  The woman tilted her head and mouthed ‘thanks’ at Drew. ‘Lomax, have you been good? What did Drew teach you today?’

  ‘Umm…’ Lomax put his finger on his chin and thought.

  ‘Come on… Show me.’

  Lomax pushed himself up and walked to the other side of the studio before turning his feet outwards. Then he ran and counted, ‘One, two, three…’ which was out of time with his four long strides. He jumped, separating his legs as much as he could before landing and striding again. ‘One, two, three,’ he said. ‘Got to keep the back leg straight,’ he said.

  ‘Well done, Lomax,’ said Drew.

  ‘Who’s Mummy’s dancing-star then?’

  ‘Me,’ said Lomax.

  ‘Same time next week?’ the woman asked Drew.

  ‘Actually, next week will be the last one,’ said Drew.

  ‘Before the holidays? Yes, of course…’

  ‘No, for good, unfortunately for me…’

  The woman frowned at Lomax’s ballet shoes.

  ‘I’m being replaced, don’t worry, it’s just that I have my day job and, well, it’s all a bit much.’

  The woman’s head snapped back up. ‘Oh dear, what a shame! You’re not giving up dancing for good, are you?’

  Drew nodded. ‘Hanging up my shoes.’

  The woman pulled a sad face and scanned the studio. ‘Well, Lomax, we’ll have to get Drew a goodbye present. Huh? What do you think?’

  Lomax pulled at his elastic ballet-shoe strap and didn’t answer.

  ‘No, no! Don’t bother… My other half’s going to make a cake so that I can say goodbye to all of the children properly at the end of the class – Lomax isn’t allergic to anything, is he?’

  Drew ran across the car park through the rain, a box-file hugged into folded arms, a sausage-shaped kit bag bouncing on one hip. Watty leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door. Drew landed inside, shiny and pink with fogged-up glasses.

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘For what?’ Watty replied, feeding the sausage backwards through the gap in the front seats.

  ‘The door.’

  ‘Oh.’ Watty leaned across and kissed Drew. ‘Not for picking you up?’

  ‘Well.’ Drew dragged a finger under each eye and looked around for somewhere to wipe the raindrops. ‘For picking me up and for running me to the lab so that I can check on one weeny thing.’

  ‘Oh God, really?’

  ‘I’ll be super quick, honestly; but I must check on this one thing.’

  * * *

  Susan sat on the arm of the sofa that could be seen from the front door. He would be back soon. What time was it? Midday. He had said in the morning; he would be back in the morning…

  Or was he leaving in the morning?

  It didn’t really matter; the saddest thing about all of this was that he wasn’t going to be pleased to see her… Ha! Not one bit. That was the saddest most tragic part of this situation; spending hours, if not days, looking forward to being with someone when, actually, they couldn’t give a shit about you being there. Or not being there…

  But then again… how could he not be excited to see her after a whole week apart? That would not be normal; in fact, would that count as a deal-breaker? Yeah… It would. And she could break that deal; in fact, now would be a good time to break that deal. After a whole week apart
, she could manage that. She’d done a week without him – how could a whole lifetime be that much different? Plus, it wouldn’t seem so weird to just put it out there: I’m leaving you. I’m leaving you. It would seem like she’d had space; one whole week of… space.

  She drummed the part of the sofa that stuck out from between her legs, folded her lips between her teeth and stared at the frosted window that margined the front door.

  She would be in front of her wardrobe, on her knees, stuffing clothes into a bag; no! Folding them carefully, controlling the situation, like, like it had been thought about. Plopping breakable stuff, lamps and bits of china, into a box of bubble wrap that she’d prepared. She had some bubble wrap in the understairs cupboard… ‘What are you doing there?’ he would ask. ‘I’m leaving you,’ she would say. ‘I’m packing my things and I’m leaving.’ He would glance at the box of bubble wrap and think: Oh… bubble wrap. She’s not kidding; she’s actually going to do this. She couldn’t be going to a hotel for the night, oh no! She was leaving the house for good, with all her little breakable things; that nobody would ever take to a hotel… And their whole five years together would fold into themselves, again and again until they became an oyster shell at the bottom of his mind; and he would kneel next to it, pulling at it, scratching at it. ‘It doesn’t matter – it’s empty,’ she would say. And his only pearl would about-turn and stride right out of his life.

  She stared at the door. She’d liked that last bit about the pearl.

  A shape pixelled into fullness as it got closer to the frosted window and she stopped drumming the sofa. The shape shrank backwards again and it was gone. Of course it was gone. It wouldn’t be Hamish… Why would he be acceptably late when he could be really bloody late?

  Oh… She was doing this to herself again. It was all her. Her, her, her. It had to be! Normal people weren’t like this. She was much too imbalanced for such a reasonable man.

  No, it was him. It was definitely him.

  But maybe it was her. She’d spend hours being miserable, traipsing through the back alleys of her rainy London estate, looking towards the big pink flowers that peeped over the massive surrounding wall and fantasizing about climbing over it. Knowing that the next day she’d find herself at home again.