Craving Read online

  What’s going on with the roster, who’s replacing the child?

  She has hardly moved today, but she has heard much too much movement.

  ‘You’re incapable of empathising,’ Wilbert used to say. A lie. When Coco runs, she runs too. When Coco screams, she screams too. When Coco eats, she chews just as fast. By the end of the day she is shattered.

  Now when the doorbell rings and she waits for the wild child to escape through the door and the peace to return, the room is full of people all of a sudden: Wilbert, Coco, and Miriam.

  ‘Are you in the roster too?’ she asks Miriam.

  ‘It’s Martin’s turn, we’re just popping in,’ Wilbert says, ‘Miriam wanted to drop round.’ He can’t cope with her. Yesterday evening he’d become more and more silent and when Coco got home he’d practically run out of the house.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ Miriam asks. Nobody replies.

  Wilbert says, ‘I’m going to bleed the radiators, I don’t think it’s been done for years,’ and leaves the room.

  ‘He’s having a hard time of it,’ Miriam says.

  ‘It really is necessary actually,’ Coco says, ‘the radiators make a horrible racket,’ and she’s off again.

  Miriam comes closer. ‘He finds it really difficult, he doesn’t say so, but I can tell.’ She sits down on the sofa next to the bed.

  Elisabeth can’t take any more. She pants. She doesn’t want to feel sympathy for this woman. She wants to forget her.

  She says, ‘Yes, I know, he loves me,’ she is almost out of breath, ‘he can’t look at me without loving me. That’s why he doesn’t look at me.’

  Miriam’s face becomes more ugly than it already was. It’s because of the pity. Elisabeth gives Miriam a painful smile and waits. Then the pity disappears from Miriam’s face on its own. She gets it. Miriam gets it now—the fact that she’s right.

  ‘Of course … you have a place … in his heart.’

  ‘He’s a dog,’ Elisabeth says, ‘would you fetch me a glass of water?’

  ‘He’s not a dog.’

  ‘Yes, he likes that, you saying he’s not a dog, but we both know he is a dog. Would you fetch me some water?’ She sinks away. Everything goes black.

  She starts when she suddenly sees Coco, standing in front of her in that crackling coat.

  ‘I’m off.’

  There’s that girl again, the one who always fell out of her arms. The smile is back and she seems much thinner now. Faster. Like she used to be. She realises that you can’t hold onto that body—it will just slide away again. She feels that her arms are useless and cries.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ Wilbert asks, standing on the doorstep with a bucket in his hand and a towel over his shoulder.

  ‘My arms,’ she says, ‘my arms aren’t made for that, for holding a fish. I can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘Of course you can’t do anything about it,’ Wilbert says, slowly coming closer.

  ‘Fish?’ Miriam asks.

  ‘My arms,’ she says, because her arms are leaden and weak.

  ‘Fish?’

  ‘The fish is off,’ Coco says.

  ‘No!’ Miriam screams, standing up. ‘Coco is not a fish!’

  Elisabeth smiles. Coco does too. Wilbert glances quickly from Coco to Elisabeth—his eyes as light as back then—before going over to Miriam. For a brief moment, just before he went over to her, they were a family. So that’s how it feels. She would have been better off with an enemy.

  #

  ‘Something … that I’m … genuinely … interested in?’ Coco slowly repeats his question and tries to win time. She is in Hans’s kitchen and squeezes a silver-coloured plastic bag containing cheese fondue into a pan. She had called him and said, ‘I want to talk.’ She couldn’t think of a better reason to invite herself over, a reason that would be sufficient for him, this was the last one left.

  She thinks about the previous evening and the second pub she visited. There was a short man with very thin lips who kissed amazingly gently. She thinks about his hand on her buttocks, still in the pub, it kept venturing downwards. Fingering in an alleyway. All she could think with each new step was: aha, yes, that’s all right. Now this then. Yes, that’s all right too. Is he going to kneel? Yes, he’s going to kneel, I see it. She’d recorded the experience like an accountant. Too drunk to make more of it than that: keep a tally, record, name, know, and who knows: remember and that’s how it comes back now, like a list: hand, fingers, tongue.

  ‘Something that I’m … genuinely interested in, Yes, we were talking about that yesterday.’ Yes, she’s interested in that, in the things the accountant keeps track of.

  ‘It’s good that we’re talking,’ he says.

  ‘Why? You don’t believe in us.’

  ‘I like to understand things.’

  ‘I went to the Irish pub.’

  ‘When? Yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes … I kissed a stranger.’ She doesn’t look at him. The cheese fondue is lying in a large rectangular slab in the pan.

  ‘Oh sweetie, even kissing’s quite a thing for you.’

  ‘You’re not jealous?’

  ‘Not if it doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘It doesn’t … mean anything … Not in the way you meant.’

  ‘I’d prefer not to know that kind of thing.’

  ‘It wasn’t all that happened …’

  ‘I don’t need to know this.’

  She hacks at the slab of cheese with a wooden spoon and stirs the chunks in the increasingly hot pan. She is so keen to tell him about a strange man licking her out in the alleyway next to the good chippie, but she waits until he says, ‘Or it has to be very important for you.’ She misses the girl she was friends with in the local pub last year. She could have got through it with her, they would have sat there exactly like this. There would have been somebody in the middle to tell it all to.

  ‘It’s good that we’re talking.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, waiting for instructions, waiting for the conversation leader to tell her what she should talk about.

  ‘What you genuinely want now, that’s what we were talking about. What are you really interested in?’

  ‘Are you sleeping with Laura?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping with her.’

  ‘But you love her.’ There’s silence. She says it again. ‘You love her.’

  ‘I could love her.’

  ‘But you don’t?’

  ‘It would be possible to.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I want to talk about you, about us, not about Laura.’

  ‘Not about Laura, not about strange men, not about the broken glass.’

  ‘Men? Plural?’

  ‘We’re not talking about that, Hans. Or it has to be important for you. Is it important to you?’

  ‘Coco, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m making a cheese fondue.’

  ‘You think you love me.’

  ‘That’s all there is,’ she says. ‘Nothing has any flavour. Do you understand? I can say that this pre-packaged fondue tastes nice, but I can also say it’s disgusting. If I think about it, I don’t know.’

  ‘So you’d rather not think about it?’

  She looks at him and doesn’t want to talk but drink. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ The cheese fondue boils.

  ‘You need to stir it.’

  ‘Stir it yourself.’

  ‘Coco, it’s burning.’

  ‘Stir it then.’

  He grabs the wooden spoon from her and stirs.

  ‘Bastard,’ she says.

  ‘Coco, please.’

  She can’t breathe. She wants to swear at him, she wants to hit him, she wants to hurt him and for him to love her. No, she wants to kill him and for someone to console her. No, she wants …

  ‘I have to go,’ she says.

  ‘
Does it have to be like this?’

  ‘I really have to go,’ she says. ‘Sorry,’ she says, as she puts on her coat, ‘I really have to go, we’ll talk later. I have to go. I can’t do this.’ She practically runs out of the house.

  She takes a deep breath outside his door. Then she begins to walk. Fast, like a race-walker. She walks towards her mother’s house. It’s too far, but she doesn’t want to get in a tram, doesn’t want to sit, doesn’t want to be warm.

  Good, it’s dark, but the supermarkets are still open and there are still too many people on the street on their way home from work. Too many raincoats, too many shopping bags. She has to find a bar where it’s been dark all day, or where night begins at six.

  Halfway between Hans’s house and her mother’s, she finds a pub with Shrovetide decorations and Christmas lights in the windows. The glass is sufficiently grimy.

  The door jams and opens with a jerk. It is like walking into a stranger’s living room, but the smell of beer and washing up liquid makes it immediately appealing, welcomes her in. A single barkeeper and just one man at the bar. Good. More isn’t necessary. You have to keep an open mind.

  She sits down at the bar opposite the man—it’s a horseshoe shaped bar—and orders a beer. The men are talking about football. Coco looks at the man facing her. He isn’t ugly. She guesses he’s in his mid-forties. He’s wearing a necklace with his name on it. John. His body is strong and good.

  If she can make sure he doesn’t talk, it’ll be possible. Or if she can make sure she’s so drunk his words become beautiful. It’s a pity she doesn’t like spirits, a pity she needs all that time and litres of beer to get her where she needs to be.

  After the second beer, John says, ‘Give the young lady a beer from me.’

  She nods. Later holds up the pint. ‘Thanks.’

  It’s all so pathetic and ugly, like plasticky slabs of fondue in silver bags. But in an hour that will all be over. Just a matter of sitting and drinking.

  ‘What does it say?’ she asks after she’s bought him a pint in return. She points at his chain.

  ‘My name,’ John says.

  ‘Can’t read it from here,’ Coco says and she gets up and walks up to him. ‘John. Hi, John. John, like John Denver?’

  ‘Just John,’ John says. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Loretta,’ Coco says.

  ‘Do you like John Denver?’ John asks.

  ‘Country roads, take me home,’ Coco sings.

  ‘To a place, I belong,’ John sings.

  ‘West Virginia, mountain mama. Dance with me,’ Coco says, taking his hand and pulling him off his bar stool.

  ‘Got any John Denver?’ John asks the barman. The barman turns around slowly and looks at a small laptop. John and Coco shuffle round in a circle, his hands resting cautiously on her hips, her arms around his neck, her face close to his ear. He smells of shampoo and beer.

  ‘Almost heaven, West Virginia,’ Coco whispers.

  ‘Blue Ridge Mountain, shining dough a river,’ John sings.

  ‘What did you just sing?’ Coco asks.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Blue Ridge Mountain, and then?’

  ‘Shining dough a river.’ He takes her hand and tries to spin her around. Coco breaks free.

  ‘No, John, it’s Shenandoah River, That’s a river, that’s what it’s called. Shenandoah River. Do you know what you were singing? You were singing: shining dough a river. Like magic bread dough and a river.’

  Everything is ruined. Bloody hell, a man who sings John Denver lyrics phonetically. She feels almost sober.

  ‘Anal bitch.’ He says it quietly but aggressively.

  She feels it immediately in her stomach and the alcohol again in her head. Well done, John. John is evil. John is dangerous. That’s nice. Now John can say as many stupid things as he wants.

  ‘You might not be clever,’ Coco says, ‘but perhaps you’re really good at other things.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll have to teach you a lesson,’ John says.

  ‘I want to learn,’ Coco says, ‘I really want to learn, I’m a student.’

  ‘Give the lady something stronger,’ John says to the barman.

  ‘I don’t like spirits.’

  ‘You have to learn to drink them,’ John says, ‘you want to learn, don’t you?’

  That’s true, she wants to learn. He gives her jenever and it’s not long before her head is large and heavy and she complains about it and lays it on his shoulder.

  ‘I told you so, didn’t I.’

  ‘You don’t need your head,’ John says, ‘what’s your name again?’

  ‘I’m Loretta and I always stand by my man.’

  ‘Your man? Are you married?’

  She lifts her heavy head from his shoulder. ‘No, John, I’m quoting.’

  ‘You’re an odd one, you know that?’

  ‘I’m a beginner. I’m learning. You have to help me,’ and then she knows what she wants to say and she says it too: ‘I also want to know what it’s like to fuck a stranger, right in the middle of a pub, when someone might come in at any moment. I want to learn that,’ Coco says. John gets a crazed look. She sees it.

  ‘You’re messing with me, you’re taking the mickey,’ John says.

  ‘I’m as pissed as a newt, man, you can do anything you want to me.’

  John looks afraid now and she says, ‘Don’t tell me you’re a good guy after all.’

  ‘Hey,’ John says, ‘I might be a bit crude and I didn’t go to university, Miss Loretta, but I am a good guy.’

  ‘So you’re not going to fuck me?’

  ‘You should watch your mouth.’

  She feels tears coming. ‘Fucking hell, John. Hold me.’

  ‘How old are you?’ John asks. That age thing again. Now she feels calm. She has to be. Crying and begging never works.

  ‘Shall I give you a blow job?’ she asks in an even tone of voice. His eyes widen. More politely perhaps: ‘Please may I give you a blow job?’ She notices that the barman can hear everything and is practically frozen to the spot. John looks panicked now.

  Then the barman says, ‘You can give me a blow job.’

  Coco studies the barman. He is a little older than John. A bit fatter too, and a bit balder.

  ‘And how old are you?’ Coco asks.

  ‘Not going to start getting picky, are you?’

  ‘No. I’ll give you a blow job in here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘All right then,’ Coco says, ‘behind the bar.’

  ‘We could pop out back.’

  ‘No, only if I can do it behind the bar.’

  John and the barman look at the door of the pub. Coco too.

  ‘The door can’t be locked,’ Coco says. ‘I’ll only give you a blow job behind the bar if someone could walk in at any minute.’

  The barman slowly nods and puts down the glass he’s been polishing for much too long. Coco walks over to the bar and feels the exaltation inside and thinks: what a great story I’ll have to tell after this. If there was anyone I could tell a story like that to.

  She needs to concentrate to keep her heavy head upright as she sinks to her knees behind the bar. It has got so big and all kinds of unfortunate associations are coming to her. She thinks of the woman on Oprah Winfrey talking about a helicopter accident. The woman saw her husband who was horribly burned; he was alive but only just. His head had grown to twice the size and she wondered for a moment: Who is that man? the man with the strange big head, and then that head said: I love you, and she recognised him. I love you, Coco says to her own head now, but you have to stay upright for a bit longer on your thin neck, I need you.

  She undoes his belt, a cheap plastic belt in a pair of brown corduroy trousers. The trousers are already hanging low under his large belly. The big trousers fall down unassisted. Using both hands she tugs the white underpants down over his bottom, takes hold of his cock.

  ‘A pleasant cock you’ve got there,’ she says. And now
smells come to her, but it’s as though she can only name them, not smell them. As though the words have merely been written down: gingerbread—nutmeg—dishcloth—mushrooms.

  You can do it, she thinks as she takes the stranger’s cock in her mouth and looks at the buckets behind the man, under the sink cabinet.

  ‘Oh, oh, Loretta,’ he says. And Coco thinks: I can do anything. Everything is possible. I can make everything possible. Wherever I am, everything is possible. She hears John laugh, a nervous giggle.

  ‘You know,’ he begins, ‘it’s not the size of the boat but the motion on the ocean.’

  Coco stops sucking off the barman and says, ‘Of —the motion of the ocean.’ And then the jenever rises up, with painful jerks and jolts, with horrific sounds that hardly match the precision with which she vomits so neatly into the bucket behind the barman.

  ‘I told you so,’ she says, ‘I can’t handle spirits.’ She shakes. ‘I’m ill,’ she says, ‘I want to go home.’

  She stands up, wobbles over to her coat, grabs it, staggers out of the pub, and sinks back down onto her knees and vomits outside, just next to the door. She lies down for a while with her cheek on the rubber mat that consists of countless circles. A soft mat, she could stay here for a while. The supermarkets are probably closed now. It’s quieter on the street. She gets up. She has to relieve Martin, she has to be home on time. It’s nice to have to be home on time for someone. She looks at her telephone to see whether they have called her already, where she’s got to. No messages.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she says, ‘I’m on my way, I’m on my way already.’

  ‘You’re early,’ her mother says.

  ‘I’m a bit ill.’

  Martin gets up. Coco looks at the bottle of port on the stool next to her mother’s bed. It’s still almost full.

  ‘Do I need to put you to bed too?’ Martin asks.

  ‘I can look after myself,’ Coco says, ‘you go.’

  ‘Just a joke, Coco.’

  ‘We don’t have much of a sense of humour,’ Coco says, ‘do we, Mum?’

  Martin ignores her. He kisses her mother’s forehead. Coco stands next to him and watches, too ill to turn away her gaze. She lets her coat, which she hadn’t put on but had dragged along behind her, drop to the floor. Martin almost trips over it as he goes to leave.