Speak Gigantular Read online

  A bank holiday Monday arrived, bright and breezy. In the morning, I found you beside my wardrobe, clutching the leg of a navy pair of men’s trousers; tears ran down your cheeks.

  I was emptying the bins when you rushed through the half open front door. Horrified, I watched you duck beneath the small, arched gate, past a smattering of cars lining the street and over to the other side. The bins dropped with a thud. My heartbeat quickened. The purple, flannel dressing gown I wore came undone. I was barefoot but there was no time. No time to run back in and grab shoes. I scrambled after you. The warm concrete was hard and unforgiving beneath my feet. You were surprisingly quick. I could just about spot your tiny figure in an ill-fitting tracksuit I’d made, darting into a side path towards the main road. My mouth felt dry and grainy, as though coated in sand.

  I ignored the puzzled glances of passersby. I was too busy trying to breathe, to produce a survivor’s stroke for an indoor sea that had slipped outside. The smell of carpet pine clung to my nostrils. I stepped on a flattened ginger beer can fleetingly acting as a single shoe. Then, we were both in the wide, slanting road, wild-haired and wild-eyed. I dove to grab you, into the sounds of tires screeching and engines humming like bees. Car horns screamed. The sting from falling on my knees was sharp. I lost my breath to the gaps between the trees. And a big red bus was flying. No. 58. The driver had a blue shirt on. All I could think as you struggled in my hands was The driver is wearing a sky.

  Inside the kitchen we trembled. I held you beneath a chair leg, hovered it close to your Adam’s apple, then grabbed a fork and stabbed it into your thigh.

  “Aargh! Please, stop,” you yelped, speaking English again.

  The piano man played in the distance, on a spiraling, silver staircase. His clothes began to come off, until he was naked. Piano keys uprooted like large teeth as the melancholic tune became more and more haphazard. I started to cry then, because heartbreak smelled like half-eaten rum cake at a breakfast table. I remembered that morning always, you see? The morning you went out for a white and gold packet of Marlboro Lights and never came back. I remembered the agonising wait, months after, knocking our wedding photos face down on shelves and wailing in the musty wardrobe between your clothes.

  I turned over my sacrifices as if they were coins. Bits of myself I’d lost in gloves, doorway cracks and printer ink heads. How I’d travelled through echoes, silences, curved fingers over piano keys. All the routes home I’d built for you in the static.

  “I’m sorry! Pardonnez-moi! Kite m’esplike!” you pleaded, mixing languages as your bottom half began crumbling into bloody soil.

  I told you I’d chased your laughter through tunnels and pathways, that I’d been following. And holding the chair leg pressed against your throat, I whispered all the things I’d done to resurrect you.

  Mammoth

  When the pig’s head hit the top of the scale, she threw her arms up in celebration, brown ponytail catching bits of light.

  “Can we get ice cream now?”

  Perry dropped the mallet, accepted their gift of a slightly dog-eared Daffy Duck from a portly male attendant wearing a red shirt one size too small. His rounded features bore such a distracting sheen, Perry thought they might melt, right into the half-empty bottle of Evian water resting on the prize stand.

  “In a minute, Abbie, tie your laces, otherwise you’ll injure yourself,” he said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses around the pink patch they’d cause, that was spreading across the bridge of his nose.

  Abbie knelt down, neatly tying her laces, her ten-year-old gangly limbs momentarily curtailed. Already, her blue Wonder Woman t-shirt bore marks. She swiped Daffy from his clutches.

  “Will you show me now?” she asked, fidgeting with her gift.

  “Soon,” he offered, taking her hand. “One thing at a time, honey.”

  It was a punishingly hot day. The kind of day in which people were advised to stay constantly hydrated, where moments after stepping outside your clothes stuck to your skin.

  Seemingly overnight, the sprawling park had been transformed into a fair. Brightly coloured tents were hives of activity, music boomed from large main stages and the scents of hamburgers and hot dogs filled the air. Fairground rides in the distance were God’s toys temporarily on loan. It was so busy, at times you turned and could be swept along the path by a clown on stilts distributing flyers, or a soldier out of uniform eating fire.

  Perry spotted the carousel ride seductively glowing in the distance behind a swaying orange tent.

  He imagined standing in the middle of the tent as the artificial horses spun around him, above him the sky opening through the orange canvas, multi-coloured scarves falling, weightless, like half-formed wings gently grazing his skin.

  As a child he’d loved coming to the fair, which was why he’d brought Abbie there. He recalled his first experience all those years ago at Brockley Park. Standing in awe at the enormous bright tents dotted all over the green, swelling with excitement, threatening to break out onto concrete paths acting as passageways to paradise, people in rides spinning in the volatile sky, ready to become shrunken shrieking things caught by men on stilts if they fell, revelers emerging from the magician’s tent as characters they could leave in the gaps of their bedrooms’ doors that evening, feeding when necessary. Falling off the carousel ride, looking up at the kaleidoscopic lights in the horses’ eyes, watching the sky and their hooves as if they’d come to life stamping on his moist, excitable tongue. He’d wanted to devour it all, experience everything at the same time if he could. He had promised Abbie that feeling. She had told him she needed it.

  At the ice cream van, he took the bored-looking owner reading a copy of the Daily Mail by surprise when he asked, “No music?”

  The man set his paper aside. Standing, he was almost too tall for the van. He had one blackened half front tooth. His white apron was stained.

  He smiled warmly, “Ahh, you mean the jingle. That universal calling card all ice cream vans have.”

  Perry nodded. “Yes, I’ve always liked it. It’s magical, like a modern day Pied Piper. It’s so innocent.”

  The man chuckled, flipped the freezer behind him open. From the flap, you could catch glimpses of the interior; portable silver compartments, a grey fan, a silent radio bearing flickering red numbers. Perry imagined scenes from the man’s life infiltrating the van; a hormonal pregnant wife crying into the ice cream cones, a prepubescent son injuring himself, maybe at football practice, climbing into the freezer to find old injuries stored away. A handful of raucous friends rain dancing around it, the imprint of the steering wheel on a lover’s back.

  “What will it be for you and your daughter?” The man asked, jarring Perry from his reverie.

  “Oh!” He felt his cheeks flushing, embarrassed by his fascination with the lives of others. “Two medium-sized vanilla and uh… flakes too.”

  Perry caught the man’s slightly pitying look at his pockmarked face. It was familiar terrain for Perry, first sympathy then dismissal. The man’s gaze flicked to Abbie several feet away. She had shoved her hand inside the duck and was talking to it rapidly, pulling dramatic faces as she orchestrated its responses. Then she rested it on her stomach as though giving it time to breathe, to take in the rumblings of organs raising a quiet alarm.

  *

  When Perry was sixteen, he volunteered at an old people’s home during the summer. It was called Malvern House and sat atop a steep hill, as if the owners not only deliberately made it isolated, but hard to access. A large red bricked building, it boasted a spacious driveway, green grounds, an herb garden and a lake. It sparked the feeling of stumbling into the unknown.

  The manager, Mabel, a chubby woman with a permanently cynical sneer, barely peeled her eyes off the paperwork on her desk when he enquired about their voluteering. Indoors, the air was thick and musty. Walls were decorated in dated, flowery green wallpaper. Down the hall, he heard a television blaring from what he assumed to be some sort of co
mmon room.

  “Shouldn’t you be away on holiday somewhere hotter and frankly a lot more interesting?” she closed the file she’d been scribbling in, giving him her full attention. She took in his skinny frame, dank hair and spotty face.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “This would be a sort of holiday.”

  “Well, can you do any magic tricks?” She leaned into her chair, studying him carefully.

  Perry mostly kept people company. He listened to stories that became grains of sand covering clocks around the building. He took his sketchbook along and captured residents in thoughtful, revealing depictions; Patricia watering her cactus wearing a cowboy hat, Gwendolyn stitching her violet wedding dress, Robert whose Alzheimer’s meant he kept scribbled memories in a portable, red phone box, salty from tears.

  He directed their proudly OAP production of Grease, getting pink and black jackets from local charity shops. Perry felt good inserting himself into their lives, providing some relief. In the beginning, he’d been curious to discover whether life was worth living that long. These people had memories floating within. He kept close, catching them using a discreet, third hand. For two weeks, Robert forgot his goldfish were dead, repeatedly sprinkling food in the glass bowl.

  Finally, the ceiling of brown specks shifted, revealing their still, small frames sunk against artificial surroundings. Perry helped groups bake shortbread, sweet buns, soda bread and ginger nut biscuits until he woke at nights unable to get sweet, suffocating smells from his nostrils, violently vomiting in the toilet.

  He became friends with a wily character named Monty. Monty was seventy, had haunted, knowing blue eyes and thin, pale skin. He kept a bottle of Appleton State Jamaican rum beneath his mattress; snuck in by a vivacious Jamaican nurse he’d had a crush on who’d long left the care home.

  Monty abhorred the staple Sunday dinner of cheap ham, cauliflower, roast potatoes and cold gravy, often declaring, “No imagination! I’d rather eat dog food. Boy, you want to try the steak in Buenos Aires, best ever! And the women… Ah, they’ll keep you on your toes.” He would stare into the distance, as if the beautiful women had appeared, dancing with his younger self.

  Monty never had visitors. He had a son, but their estrangement had lasted years, with no sign of reconciliation.

  Perry took to him without knowing why. They played a game of chess that lasted two months, argued over blackjack, raided the contents of the money jar in Mabel’s office, leaving Monopoly notes behind instead and bought alcohol with the real money. Sometimes they took long walks on the green, acres the eye drank. Monty would play the blues on his harmonica. He’d get lost in the sound, reaching depths that could only be achieved by playing. He travelled through the instrument, re-emerging bearing John Lee Hooker’s right hand.

  Once in the herb garden, he showed Perry the spot by the coriander patch where he claimed two members of staff “kicked the shit out of a resident.”

  “Bastards,” he muttered. “I should have taken pictures.”

  Towards the end of summer, illustrations of Monty in his sketchbook began to fade. His skin became thinner, even on paper. Damp leaves from the winter to come formed small, dull suns in the corners of white pages.

  Sitting in the break room one muggy afternoon, watching the generation game, Perry was taken aback when Monty gripped his arm so tightly, red marks appeared. “Will you help me, please?” His eyes glistened. That evening, Monty gave him a shiny, silver watch. “You can sell it, it’s worth a bit or keep it if you like.”

  He did not struggle beneath the weight of the pillow.

  For months, Perry thought of Monty playing his harmonica in the garden, where the ducks lost grains of food in shallow unmarked graves. He imagined Monty crossing the shimmering lake beneath a fractured moonlight, before stumbling into the traffic. When he left Malvern House, objects from there followed him; stones, half a photograph, bits of a chintz cushion, like a Frankenstein-formed bird, intermittently swallowing the directions of others.

  With a half-smile, he watched Abbie eating pink candy floss by the fortune teller’s tent. Out here she projected a pure innocence, a bottomless curiosity, as if life was a series of adventures to be had. They threaded their way through the crowds, catching whiffs of barbecued meat, spicy noodles and an array of other smells. On a park map of scenes seeping into each other they were two small specks.

  By the time they left the park that night, sounds from the fair were louder. People could hear it all the way down Pinter Street. Perry had consumed nearly a whole bottle of water to soothe the burning in his throat, to little effect. His forehead glistened. As they crossed the street, Abbie clutched a bag of tangy cola bottles and lollipops in one hand, Daffy Duck in the other. Slightly flushed, she popped one cola bottle into her mouth.

  The nondescript white van was tucked away on a quiet side street. They hopped in. As the engine roared to life and The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” filled the van, Perry whistled along. “You know this song? I love it.” He drummed his fingers against the wheel, looking over at Abbie who had a bored expression.

  “Can I see it now?” she asked, displaying an impatient pout.

  “In a bit.”

  They drove on the motorway for roughly half an hour before Perry took an exit into an area with gravelly stones that whispered against the tires. He switched off the engine, Perry and Abbie got out and they headed round the back of the van. In the side mirrors, earlier scenes rolled; she and Perry standing outside the park gates, Perry listening attentively as she fretted over handling the blue kite that by now had slotted itself into scenarios with better outcomes.

  “Let me see it.” Her voice trembled in anticipation.

  “Shhh.” He placed a finger over his mouth. “I’m showing you.”

  He opened the back doors. Abbie peeked, but before she could catch her breath he shoved her in, following behind and firmly shutting the doors.

  It the dim light of the interior she could just about see the red lacy slip on the floor of the van and the matching lipstick beside it.

  Her sweets dropped. The rolling sounds filled Perry’s pockets. She picked up the slip, ran a finger over the silky material appreciatively. Slowly she undressed, all the while holding Perry’s gaze and the desire she saw in his sad, grey eyes. The Beach Boys’ song continued to play on loop. It was the only track on the CD. She untied her ponytail, the loosened hair softly brushed her shoulders. She put the slip on, followed by a slash of red lipstick over her mouth. She placed her hand over Perry’s erection with intent.

  “Do it,” she ordered.

  Perry threw her using such force she smacked her head against a stack of windows. Blood dribbled from her forehead.

  Perry’s artificial moustache came unstuck.

  She darted from left to right, dodging Perry’s hands, laughing. “Softly, softly catchy monkey,” she sang, inching the slip up scrawny thighs.

  This was what Abbie enjoyed. She and Perry driving all over the country, taking their private games public, fooling people. For now, she was happy in this ten-year-old body for as long as she needed to see the world through new eyes but when she was done with it, she’d dump it and borrow someone else’s body for new adventures.

  White noise in Perry’s head gathered, separated, indicating the mammoth was coming. Abbie heard it, reaching blindly for Perry, embracing their use of young bodies to deepen their life experiences. There was nothing like it.

  Each time that mammoth came, when they had called it with their limbs, it was carnal, necessary and ritualistic. Abbie steadied her breathing, this girl had asthma and the asthma pump she’d kept in her pocket was long gone, borrowed by the marauding baby at the park who was puffing on it earnestly, anchoring itself on her orders. Ahead, illuminated horses from the carousel ride had escaped, eating white road markings. Perry undid his belt buckle and inched forward.

  Abbie began to instruct him the way she had the others, across the hollowed silences of indefinable t
hings shrinking into the night.

  Vegas

  There’s a distance in the woman’s grey eyes he can’t quite identify, that makes a gnawing feeling spread in the pit of his stomach. Officer Philippe aims the torch at her hollow face, which threatens to swallow the light. “Ma’am, you do realise your left taillight is broken? You need to get that fixed ASAP.”

  The blisteringly hot Nevada desert is only slightly cooler at night; its parched cactuses imitate the silhouettes of men beneath the moon’s cracked eye. A tall, strapping figure patrolling the roads, Philippe is almost done for the night. He already tastes a cold Budweiser when he spots the banged-up cream Buick stuttering along and the woman asleep on the driver’s side, tawny head bobbing against the wheel.

  “Shit,” he mutters, before parking his motorcycle beside the now stalled Buick. For some reason, the image of her head bobbing gently made him think of a doll he once found in the river as a boy. And the way ripples ebbed away from its red mouth as if it had been talking to the water’s creatures. The woman also has a red mouth which matches her painted toenails. She is barefoot. A gap in her front teeth stirs something in him, making him think of rubbing the slit in his penis there, against another night beyond that gap.

  When she finally speaks, she trembles as if her thin frame has already handled too much. “I was robbed earlier, Officer.” The voice is paper thin; accent could be from Mississippi, maybe North Carolina; a southern belle. A southern belle vulnerable at the wheel, ready to shimmer away for somebody else to encounter.