Craving Page 13

  Of course, that’s what isn’t right. It’s been there in front of her nose for years, but she hasn’t seen it. She has never seen her mother in panic. Her mother doesn’t do panic. That’s the lie. She wasn’t panicking. She thought that her daughter was dying and she wasn’t panicking. That’s the whole story. That’s all it is.

  Does it matter? Am I someone else now? If my lover isn’t happy with me, if my mother can do without me, am I someone else? You are free. You are free. I’m relieving you. You are free.

  Coco walks through the city in the morning. Her footsteps are light. She is alone. She knows it. She doesn’t find it disturbing.

  It’s a great relief to know that you are alone and that it’s not a disturbing thought.

  She looks at the black water in the canals. She is water and she mustn’t stand still. Still water is unhealthy.

  She fetches beer from the supermarket, six cans in plastic, and looks for a bench next to the canal.

  She should be studying, yes, yet she doesn’t really know why. She smiles because it’s all right to think this—I don’t know.

  ‘Have you seen how many ribbons I have?’ she says softly. That’s all that will be left of her studies one day, a single sentence.

  One can of beer leads the way to the next can of beer, like the way eating just makes her more hungry, sex makes her want more sex. Why even begin wanting anything?

  ‘A lot of something. I don’t like anything in particular but I do like a lot of something,’ she says to a seagull above the canal. The beer makes her feel horny. The pubs are still closed. She wants to fuck.

  #

  ‘What are you doing?’ Martin asks.

  ‘Maybe you should do it, I’ve so little strength left in my hands.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘The pain is pushing out from the inside, but if I press hard on my head, it gets less.’

  ‘Shall I call someone?’

  ‘Would you press?’ She hears him get up. She doesn’t open her eyes. She takes her hands away from her head. Then she feels his hands, two warm shells enclosing her skull.

  ‘Press.’ He presses.

  ‘Harder.’ He presses harder. Her body goes limp.

  ‘Like that, yes.’ Then he lets go. She opens her eyes. He has sat back down again.

  ‘Should I call someone?’

  ‘Who do you want to call then?’

  ‘Is it getting worse—in your head?’

  ‘OK now.’

  ‘Should I call Coco?’

  ‘Leave Coco for a bit.’

  ‘How’s she doing at uni?’

  Elisabeth doesn’t know the answer. She thinks. ‘Her desk is here.’

  ‘She was pretty tanked last time.’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiles, ‘I didn’t give her a hard time about it. You were there. You saw it.’

  ‘Yes, I saw it.’

  ‘Wasn’t difficult, you know. I’m good at that. I can give people space. Wilbert too. I was very good at that, giving him space.’

  ‘Your lips are dry, drink something.’

  ‘I’ve never got in her way.’ Martin doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t he believe her?

  ‘You need to drink.’

  ‘When she was three, she’d sleep really soundly, and sometimes I’d comb her hair then. And one time, I rubbed Nivea into her cheeks when she sleeping.’

  ‘You’re not too scared to ask me to do things.’ Martin smiles. ‘I mean, why do you always dare to ask me for help?’

  ‘You needed me. You couldn’t do without me. I can work seven days a week if need be. I can do that.’

  ‘You can do that.’

  ‘You need me. The shop’s nothing without me there.’

  ‘Don’t you think your daughter needs you?’

  ‘If I work seven days a week, I can’t very well look after a child, can I …? You were lucky with me.’

  ‘You … you could have worked less.’

  ‘You liked the fact I was always available.’

  ‘… yes.’

  ‘Yes, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Martin looks pained.

  ‘Only once when I tried to put socks on her in her sleep, then she woke up.’

  ‘Why were you putting socks on her?’

  ‘She kept kicking her covers off. I always have cold feet myself. I managed one foot, but the socks were too small. They grow fast. She began to kick and I thought: I’m almost there, it was almost on, I just need to grip that leg a little tighter.’

  ‘And then?’ Martin’s eyes widen.

  ‘You look worried.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Nothing, she woke up. Began to cry at once. Don’t do that, she cried. With such a contorted face. And so, hup, in one fell swoop that sleeping child was gone. HUP. Gone.’

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘I got angry … But I didn’t let it show at all. I know that she couldn’t do anything about it, me being angry. I walked away quickly, because she couldn’t do anything about it. I did understand. Now you have to press.’

  ‘Aren’t those pills for this?’

  ‘I just have to lie down for a bit.’

  ‘You’re already lying down. I’m going to call someone now,’ Martin says.

  ‘Yes.’

  #

  There’s a handsome man in the glass booth at the front of the casino. Next to him is a ficus tree.

  ‘Do you want to fuck me?’ Coco asks.

  He frowns, says, ‘I’ve got a break at twelve,’ and then Coco’s panic sets in. It’s because of that very definite future moment in time. Then she knows that this lightness won’t last. She doesn’t even know whether the lightness will last twelve hours. She has to keep moving, things have to keep on happening.

  ‘Twelve is too late,’ she says, ‘it has to be now, I don’t know how things will be at twelve. That’s quite a while …’ She tries to count the hours. He smiles.

  ‘Sorry, pussycat, work comes before the ladies.’

  ‘Work? You like your work?’

  ‘What do you think, pussycat?’

  ‘You find your work satisfying?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Coco looks around her, in search of other men. ‘I want satisfying too,’ she says. She spins on her heels. She sees boys, children practically.

  She walks up and down past the slot machines. She has to keep on moving until she finds something to follow.

  A man, an idea, a book, it doesn’t matter what. But she can’t go and lie down now there’s nothing, now she doesn’t have a new reason to get up again. Her phone rings, it’s Martin. She goes outside.

  ‘Your mother’s not doing too well,’ he says, ‘perhaps you’d better come home.’ She smiles. Her prayers were soon answered.

  She goes back into the casino.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says to the man next to the ficus, ‘I have to go, my mother is ill. She’s dying. I have to hurry.’

  Coco runs. She runs along the canals, she runs across the Overtoom, she runs past trams and taxis. She knows it’s too far to run, but she runs. She has to get to her mother. How can Hans think that she doesn’t want anything? How she could think that herself? She finds it so easy to want something. She wants to go to her mother and when she trips on the Rokin in front of the Maison de Bonneterie and her trousers stain red from the blood on her knees, she can only do a better job of showing how much she wants to run. The more wounded, the better; those who aren’t afraid of falling run faster.

  #

  Half of her vision is black. Elisabeth tilts her head, as though she’ll be able to see the other half then, but one half remains black. She sees Coco. She turns her head. Only Coco.

  Should I call someone, Martin had asked. She is sure she said ‘Wilbert,’ but now there’s only Coco there.

  Martin said, ‘I’ll leave the two of you alone.’

  It’s difficult to keep her eyes open, but she’s afraid of closing them. She doesn’t want to die while Coco is
watching. She doesn’t want to leave as a strange woman. No clients waiting in the salon. No witnesses. No drama.

  She opens her eyes as wide as she can, the other half of the image is moving now. She tries to sit up.

  ‘I’m feeling much better now,’ she says, ‘I just need to sleep a bit. Will you tell Martin that I’m going to have a short nap. OK?’

  ‘Oh,’ Coco says, as though she’s disappointed.

  How can she get the child to leave without offending her? She really does want Coco to be happy, naturally, she wants nothing else, but not here.

  ‘I love you,’ she says. It’s a gift she’s happy to give. Something she still had left over and didn’t need any more herself.

  ‘I love you too,’ Coco replies smoothly. She sounds just like the hairdresser now. Then Coco laughs loudly. Elisabeth laughs too. Just going along with things is always the best.

  ‘Sleep tight, fishwife.’

  ‘Night-night, fish.’

  Coco walks away. Voices in the hall. Front door. Coco’s footsteps on the stairs.

  A good ending to her own life, Elisabeth thinks, the same as she had once thought about her daughter’s life, which had then just carried on. We need to leave it at this. Maybe she’s right this time.

  #

  Coco is sitting on her bed and rocking her upper body back and forth. Keep moving.

  For a very brief moment, Coco had thought: there she goes, these are my mother’s last words: ‘I love you.’ It couldn’t have been better. But when her mother said it, she hadn’t looked at her. Her gaze was on the door, focussed not fleeting.

  So Coco had nodded warmly to the dresser and said, ‘I love you too.’ Again it makes her laugh and think: if this wasn’t so funny, you’d cry.

  She mustn’t lie down. This delirium can’t bear sleep: all fat and heavy, hiding the lightness and pulling it down. She shouldn’t have sent Martin away, now she’s tied to this house and to waiting. Holding vigil is nothing for her. Something has to happen. Something with ambulances and doctors in the house and panic and pain, anything is better than this silence.

  ‘I’m fed up with it,’ she says and laughs at her own adolescent tone. When is she going to give up on this pretence of caring? No one asked for it. Someone has to do it. No one asked for it. Someone has to do it. She rocks along with the words. Someone has to do it, someone has to do it.

  ‘You’re incapable of saying no,’ Hans had once said. Now she knows that she is capable of saying no, maybe she even wants to say no, but that something has to be asked of her before she can say no to it. No one wants anything from her, there’s nothing she has to refuse, or can refuse. Maybe she should walk away, leave her mother to her fate. Forget the roster. Of course. She created it herself, what a wonderful creation. She has made herself indispensable here so that she can refuse now. She can go now and be missed. She exists. They’ll have to look for her, they’ll bring her back and then she’ll cry out: I’m not doing it anymore. She realises at once though that they’ll understand her, no one will try to contradict her, and she sits back down again.

  Wait a minute, a moment will come when her mother asks her for something. Be alert now. It won’t be much, pay attention.

  #

  Elisabeth lets her legs slip out of bed one last time. She hoists herself up on the rollator and stands. Her body wants to sink. She remains standing.

  Elisabeth takes a step and tries not to think about how many more steps are needed. One step, she thinks, because that’s all that needs to happen, and again, a single step. One single step. Only with the left foot. Only with the right foot. A single step. Time is nothing. Distance is nothing. Only with the left foot. Only with the right foot. A single step.

  Oh, look, there’s the threshold, there it is already. It’s a friendly hairdresser’s shop melody inside her head. Need any help? No, thank you. Can you manage? Oh, fine, you know. Whoops-a-daisy. There’s the hall. Look at that. Whoops-a-daisy. One step.

  It’s like shaving wood. One sweep is nothing. Patience. She smells the sawdust, the shavings, she shaves and shaves and the natural wood comes to the surface by itself, the stairs appear by themselves.

  Just a little sit down, wait a while, just a little.

  Only breath. Only air. Some more air please, some more air please … Please!

  Thank you. You’re welcome. Anything else? One step up, there, up you go.

  ‘What are you thinking about? What are you thinking about, Mum?’

  Another step, I’m thinking: one more step.

  ‘Darling, what are you thinking about? What’s on your mind?’

  One step is on my mind, one step, darling.

  ‘But there must be more than…’

  That’s not how the song goes. That’s not how it goes. Look. Stair rod. Copper. Just one more.

  Landing.

  Her cheek to the soft carpet, she inches herself slowly forwards like a worm. The head is too heavy to lift and she pushes it forwards and lets the body follow. There must be an easier way, to move forwards, but she doesn’t know what it is.

  #

  Coco hears the stairs creak and stops rocking. It’s an old house. She rocks again, but again there’s a noise. Unmistakeable. Now there a sound that’s getting louder, something is coming closer.

  ‘Mum?’

  Of course not, her mother can’t get up the stairs. It takes her twenty minutes just to get to the toilet. Coco rocks again and knows she has to leave this room, this house. There isn’t enough space. Everything that can’t really happen, because there isn’t enough space for it, no oxygen, is happening now inside her head. She gets up, but before she’s even taken a step she stops short.

  It is real. It is slithering this way. Coco freezes and feels her heart beating. Something is happening. It’s getting closer. She hears breathing now, it’s not hers. Mum. No doubt about it.

  Mum is coming to get her. She’s coming to ask her. Now it’s going to happen. Her mother needs her. Coco realises at once that all her thoughts just now were just boasting. She sinks slowly back down onto the bed, holds her breath, as though hers might chase away her mother’s, her eyes peeled on the door. She doesn’t blink.

  I will be there, she says to herself. She senses that it’s possible, she will be there for her mother.

  Yes, she says.

  You can’t just decide to love someone.

  Oh yes, I can. She decides.

  #

  Coco’s door. Gently now, Liz. She rests her head against it. A mug’s game. She could be discovered at any moment. Then the drama she’s trying to avoid would ensue. Questions. Tears. Hugs, for Christ’s sake.

  Sit up now.

  The key is still hanging on a hook on the doorframe. It’s hanging there nicely. She’s never hidden it. Never been difficult about it.

  She nestles against the doorframe, raises herself up, takes the key from the hook, puts it in the lock, turns it, and sinks back down.

  It feels like a hug. Her arms do what they can.

  You’re safe her, girl, be there, my little monster, be safe.

  She hears love songs inside her head.

  ‘How can something so wrong feel so right?’

  #

  She heard her mother’s body against her door. Coco hasn’t dared to move. This time she won’t be too much. Her mother will have to come herself, she will have to ask.

  I won’t move. I can be silent.

  She’ll do it well. Move with her, like a shadow. She won’t feel anything, she promises that.

  The slithering seems to be going away.

  ‘Mama?’ she whispers and then slaps herself in the face. Don’t ask for anything.

  Silence.

  ‘Stupid bitch,’ she says to herself, loudly and clearly. Your mother on the stairs. Your mother on a wooden raft. Christ, this room is too small for you. She gets up. It’s almost twelve. The man next to the ficus is about to take his break. Very short black hair, he had. Shaved, but not because he
was balding. Good hair. She goes over to the door. It’s stuck. She pushes. The door doesn’t open. She sinks to her knees, peers at the chink between the door and the post to see what’s wrong with the lock.

  Mum was here.

  She stares at the lock for a long time, her mouth gaping. Her astonishment is great and leaves no room for thought. As the astonishment slowly wears off, she gets her phone out of her trouser pocket and looks at the thing, as though she can do as little about it as the locked door. Then she cries. Not because her mother has locked her up but because she so wants to tell someone her mother has done it and she doesn’t know who. Of course she thinks of Hans, but Hans wants her to be angry with her mother and Coco doesn’t feel any anger. She wants to tell it to someone who will become angry with her and who she can then look at and say, ‘Calm down, it’s not that bad.’ Someone who cares about her, someone she can comfort.

  #

  Elisabeth lies down to die. She has to do it before midday. She breathes heavily towards it. Her breath gains a sound. A heavy, deep groaning sound she’s never heard herself make before. It’s the bass line of the hairdresser’s shop melody. Aa-ooh. Aa-ooh. Aa-ooh. Whoops-a-daisy. How does it go. Off you go. Aa-ooh. Go his own way. You know it. Look at that. Aa-ooh. Up you go, up you go. Aa-ooh. Words like coins and the bass sawing through it.

  She is still clinging onto life when the sun reaches the top of the houses on the other side of the street and pours in. She opens her eyes.

  The wooden table in the middle of the room is surrounded by light. She wants to touch the warm wood, she can already feel it in her right hand, though it doesn’t move. Wanting to stroke the table top is enough. She doesn’t do anything. She can’t do anything. Only her eyes follow the light as it designates objects and embraces them. There’s an old Duralex glass on the stool next to her bed. The sun lights up every minute scratch, exposing years and years with a single touch. She sees this as her blood slowly comes to a standstill.

  Without moving her lips, she says, Now I no longer have a heart. She breathes air out one more time. She has managed it. She has gone alone.