Craving Page 14

  #

  Coco calls the landline, sitting with her back to the closed door. The telephone rings, once, twice, three times, four times, only at the fifth ring does Coco realise that she has failed again, she has managed once again not to ask her mother anything. She gets up and stomps her way back to her bed.

  #

  The phone in the sitting room rings. The body on the bed in front of the window doesn’t react. Elisabeth sees it.

  From up on the left. Death is in the top left-hand corner of every room. She has stared there often, but never seen anything. Now the corner has swallowed her up and offers her new perspectives.

  The world is changing fast. The sitting room fills up with every object from her life that has ever been broken or lost. The plastic inflatable Barbapapa set she gave Coco for her third birthday is on the wooden table, which doesn’t have any scratches anymore. All nine of them fully inflated. It is as though the toys she once gave Coco are back in her possession. She smells the new plastic. The little rubber boat is lying next to the bed. The inflatable seal is upright at the foot of the bed. The floor fills up with all the beach balls she ever owned as child and mother, and now they won’t be carried off by the wind. The room expands as only happens in dreams, making space for everything. So now it’s complete.

  The only thing missing is a longing to tell someone about the beauty of all these objects.

  Only the body on the bed is not lovely and new. It contrasts sharply with the shiny, blue, blow-up animal at the foot of the bed. Elisabeth observes it with discomfort, as though it’s one of her daughter’s toys she has accidentally dropped and broken. The daughter’s warm big body she once brought into life is not far from the broken corpse.

  Elisabeth can see into Coco’s room too, she can see everything.

  Coco sits on her bed, telephoning.

  She says, ‘It’s me. I don’t want to bother you, but Mum has locked me up. I can’t get out.’

  ‘Yes, she still can. Apparently.’

  ‘I can’t reach anyone, you only have to open the door for me. I’ll throw down the keys. Sorry.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the morphine, it can make people go weird.’

  Then Coco lets herself fall back on the bed, the telephone still in her hand.

  When she was two, she would sleep holding a book. When she was four, it was an old flannel. When she was six, she sat on the back of the bike clutching a naked Barbie to her chest.

  Elisabeth sees everything that ever existed. From Coco’s first wooden cot to the black metal teenager’s bed on which she semi-reclines so awkwardly now, tapping her phone rhythmically against the headboard. She sees the flowery fitted sheet on which Coco was born, but also the stiff white cotton of the hospital bed where she herself arrived in the world —to her deathbed, which is still warm.

  Her new world is filled only with things, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know about everything that happened to those thing: who owned them, who carried them, who loved them, and who broke them. Nothing escapes her or has ever escaped her, as her daughter and her father prove, with their hands and their mouths and their jitteriness.

  The girl just keeps on tapping her phone and doesn’t notice the scratches appearing on the metal headboard. It doesn’t matter anymore: in Elisabeth’s world everything she broke and spoiled will rise up again, spotless. Everything is whole and pretty and new in the showroom of her life, every mattress un-slept on.

  She sees everything. She sees the tram rails, wet from the rain on the day she visited her daughter in hospital. They cut diagonal stripes across her body and coloured them in with rust. When she talked about that day to Wilbert later, she had to stop herself from mentioning the rails.

  They wanted to call her a number of sickly names, but she refused them. Ugly names she never wants to say out loud, but the tram rails remain.

  She can arrange the things by function or size. First she is tempted to group them by material: wood with wood, plastic with plastic. She suspects there are infinite ways of ordering them, but, before she gets lost in the game, her daughter taps her back into time. Her little Nokia is getting damaged by the tapping too. Coco doesn’t notice.

  Her daughter sits up. She gets up and stamps across the floor. She knows that the chandelier is hanging right underneath her. She stamps harder. The chandelier shakes, the glass droplets sway gently, projecting tiny sparkles onto the dead body.

  #

  I’ll stamp until I fall through, everything is possible. Coco thinks she hears the bell, but doesn’t feel like being quiet now. Hans can’t have got here that fast. She jumps up and down with both feet, she knows she’s exactly above the old chandelier. The bell again. Yes, the bell. So Mum isn’t opening the door, she’s feigning ignorance.

  Coco goes over to the window, opens it, leans out and sees the hairdresser. She’s never seen the hairdresser outside of the hair salon. Too intimate, she thinks, the hairdresser on the loose like that. The hairdresser rings the bell again.

  ‘Hello,’ she calls.

  ‘Hi, Coco, we had an appointment at half past eleven, didn’t we?’

  ‘Was that today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. I think she’s asleep.’

  ‘Doesn’t she know I’m coming?’

  ‘A surprise.’

  ‘I’ve only got half an hour.’

  ‘Oh, right, I’m coming—oh—wait—she’s locked me in.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Elisabeth.’

  ‘Locked you in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘She really has.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘I think she’s hallucinating, because of her head and that.’

  ‘Has it already got to her head?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said,’ the hairdresser is almost shouting now, ‘has—it—got—to—her—head—already?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘Christ, Coco.’

  ‘Ye-ah.’

  ‘I don’t have much time.’

  ‘Oh yeah, sorry, I’ll throw down the front door key.’

  #

  ‘Liz?’ The hairdresser is the only person who abbreviates her name. He opens the door cautiously. When he sees her lying on the bed in front of the window, he sees at once that everything that could happen to this body has already happened.

  ‘Jesus,’ the hairdresser says. ‘Oh, Liz.’

  She spotted him a while ago, in front of the door in his leather jacket. She’d never seen her hairdresser wearing a coat before. He doesn’t come closer. He turns around and leaves the room. He’ll fetch Coco.

  Now she’s alone for an instant. No, that’s not right. She’s everywhere. The body on the bed is alone.

  Something’s wrong.

  NO.

  It comes from the belly to the breast, the wave. NO. She doesn’t have a body anymore, why still the sensations in it? The things, she has to go back to the things, but she’s trapped in a wave. They, the others, would call it fear, they’d call it anger, Elisabeth is sure of it. They would give it the names of unidentifiable matters and forget that it’s a wave that is filling her body and pounding against the walls. Call it fear, she’d wish she wasn’t afraid; call it anger, she’d wish she wasn’t angry. She calls it a wave and wishes the sea didn’t exist, not in her, but the water pounds and wants to get out. The hairdresser is already walking up the stairs as her body sighs one last time.

  #

  ‘Coco?’ the hairdresser calls out on the landing.

  ‘Here! The room at the front.’ The hairdresser turns the key, which is still in the lock, and opens the door to her bedroom.

  The hairdresser wearing a jacket. He is carrying a small leather bag.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How is she?’

  The hairdresser gulps and says, ‘I’m afraid I was too late.’

  ‘Too late?’

 
‘Dead … I’m afraid.’

  Coco realises straight away that the hairdresser is right. ‘Fucking hell,’ she takes an enormous step towards the hairdresser, who is blocking the doorway. The hairdresser jumps and hops to the left, but Coco wants to go that way too.

  ‘Oh,’ the hairdresser says as he steps to the right. Coco runs across the landing and rushes down the stairs as fast as she can, as though she wants to catch up with her mother. The hairdresser follows her. The doorbell rings.

  ‘Mum!’ Coco shouts in the hall.

  #

  As the sounds of the hairdresser’s footsteps on the stairs slowly fade away, Elisabeth vanishes into the things.

  The veneer on the dresser is immaculate. The linen cupboard no longer has an old Donald Duck sticker on it. The side table no longer wobbles. This is it.

  There’s a green wine glass on the side table. Elisabeth waits for the memory. Her memory is flawless. It’s a goblet from a bygone age. A fat foot under a small, round glass.

  No.

  She would have known this.

  She looks around and sees: glass fruit bowl, no longer a chip out of it, yes, hers. Bredemeijer teapot, immaculate shine, yes, her teapot. Suede slippers, absolutely hers, this is her heaven. Green goblet, no. No, not hers.

  Is there always something wrong, even in heaven? Perhaps she isn’t dead yet? Perhaps she has to share it, the heaven. No, that can’t be true. That telephone on the bedside cabinet, that’s not hers. Coco?

  She’s not dead yet. That must be it. First her death has to be established, that’ll be it.

  ‘Nothing happens without paperwork,’ she hears Martin cry out. She has to call Martin, he arranges everything.

  Coco isn’t fast with those things, of course. The news still has to be passed on. What a business. Coco, hurry up. The eyes are still open, of course, the mouth too. Get packing, tidy it away. Come on now.

  And then, when she thought she didn’t have a body anymore, when she hoped to be so much further on than she is, Elisabeth feels her own hands very lightly on her stomach. She hasn’t lost her body yet.

  Her daughter is moving in her, she’s never left her belly.

  The movements soon become fainter. A little while, and then Elisabeth won’t have a body anymore, no belly left, no child, and now she knows that she’s afraid.

  #

  In her final steps towards her mother, she just manages to think: yes, it’s quite clear, even though it’s the first dead person she’s seen. She shakes her head indignantly and automatically takes the arm that is hanging out of the bed and lays it on her mother’s stomach, the other hand on top. The body is clammy and heavy. She can’t remember the last time she touched this body, but it’s never been easier than now.

  She closes her mother’s eyes and speaks in the voice of a doll’s mother: ‘Oh, dear Mummy,’ again she shakes her head. She pushes her mother’s chin down. The mouth falls open again. She takes the sheet and pulls it up to under her mother’s chin, forcing the mouth shut with it. She tucks in the sides tightly.

  ‘There, that’s better.’ She hears the contented tone in her voice, as though she’s been waiting for this, this manageable mother.

  ‘Shall I leave you alone?’ Coco looks around. The hairdresser is standing behind her, next to him is Hans.

  ‘I let him in.’

  ‘Yes, the hairdresser was there already,’ she says, ‘I’d forgotten, sorry.’

  ‘Or can I do anything for you?’ the hairdresser asks.

  ‘You’ll stay for a cup of coffee though, won’t you?’ Coco asks him.

  ‘I’ve got half an hour.’

  Her mother’s mouth stays nicely shut. Her hands are dry. Coco gently rubs a finger over a hand.

  ‘Have you got her doctor’s number?’ Hans asks.

  ‘Shall I call the doctor?’ the hairdresser asks. ‘I know her doctor.’

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘The doctor has to certify it,’ Hans says.

  ‘Well, this is something a hairdresser can certify too. I’ll make coffee.’ Coco goes to the kitchen. Hans follows her.

  He says, ‘Just call,’ to the hairdresser.

  ‘Do we have to right away? Get the doctor?’ Coco asks in the kitchen.

  ‘Have you called your father already?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your mother is dead.’

  ‘Yes, that’s quite obvious.’

  ‘Sit down for a moment.’

  ‘Thank you for coming, but the hairdresser had got here already, I’d forgotten about that.’

  ‘So you said, yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘Laura seems really nice, by the way.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I saw you, in the Coffee Company.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m starting to feel very light-headed.’

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘I’ll make the coffee,’ Hans says.

  ‘Top left cupboard, tin with the blue windmills, coffee filters are next to it.’

  Hans fills the kettle.

  ‘Six level scoopfuls for a whole pot. Or aren’t you having coffee?’

  Hans gets a filter, two of them, one falls on the floor. He doesn’t notice.

  ‘You’ve dropped one.’

  He looks at the floor, bends down, and picks it up. ‘I think you’d better go and sit down now.’

  ‘It’s fine, Hans.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  Coco laughs, ‘Next you’ll be saying I must have been in deep shock.’

  The hairdresser enters the kitchen. ‘The doctor’s on his way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Hans says.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone.’

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Coco says, ‘I need to make an appointment.’

  ‘Haven’t decided to grow it back then?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have it so short … could trim the ends, though.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll call you … perhaps a different colour?’

  The hairdresser holds out his hand. She takes it in both of hers.

  ‘Condolences.’

  ‘Yes,’ Coco says, ‘condolences. You too. Mum always liked going to the salon.’

  The hairdresser shakes Hans’s hand. ‘Condolences to you too.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The hairdresser leaves. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  She watches him go. ‘That poor hairdresser,’ Coco says.

  ‘Poor hairdresser?’

  ‘Finding that dead woman.’

  ‘Your mother, you mean.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘You feel sorry for the hairdresser.’

  ‘You go out in the morning to give someone a quick cut … and get this.’

  ‘You don’t have to think about the hairdresser.’

  ‘But I am thinking about the hairdresser! Fucking hell, I am thinking about the hairdresser!’ Coco is crying.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart.’ He puts his arms around her.

  She pushes him away. ‘I’m crying because I’m not allowed to think about the hairdresser, Hans. Because you won’t let me think about the hairdresser, because I can never do things right.’

  ‘Sorry.’ The coffee percolates. ‘What are thinking about now?’

  She hesitates. ‘The hairdresser didn’t have any coffee.’

  #

  Elisabeth is dead.

  #

  The doctor speaks in a hushed voice. ‘Time of death.’ He pushes up his sleeve and looks at his watch: ‘Eleven fifty-five.’ Hans and her father look at their watches now too. Coco doesn’t have a watch and looks at the kitchen clock. The doctor writes.

  ‘Her Christian names?’

  ‘Elisabeth Johanna,’ her father says. He is sitting next to the doctor at the kitchen table. Hans pours the cof
fee.

  While Hans was letting her father in, Coco had filled a large coffee mug with port. She clutches the mug in both hands as though letting the coffee warm them and drinks it calmly.

  The doctor had just been through to her mother when her father arrived. He had cast a hasty glance around the room and followed the doctor immediately into the kitchen.

  Hans leans on the counter and looks at his feet.

  He’s bored, Coco thinks, he’s waiting. You don’t walk away right after fucking someone, you wait a couple of days—so what about a dead mother?

  ‘Oh Hans,’ she says. He looks up. He doesn’t look happy. She’ll have to help him to leave her. He isn’t good at it.

  ‘Can I do anything for you?’ Hans asks, ‘Sort out anything?’

  ‘Martin is arranging everything.’

  ‘Has anyone called him yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Should I call him?’

  ‘If you’re happy to, you should do it.’

  She puts the empty coffee mug down on the counter and opens the smallest kitchen drawer. Between the sandwich bags, elastic bands, kitchen and aluminium foil, there’s a pot of Nivea. It’s been there for as long as she can remember.

  She takes her mother’s hand as though for a manicure. The hand is damp and heavy. Taking extra care, she spreads the cream, rubs it into the fingers, kneads gently. She hums.

  When she has finished the second hand, she notices how greasy the hands now look and wonders whether you can put cream on a dead body. Can the skin absorb the cream? Or—she smiles at the thought—this would be typical of her mother, is she made of something different from other mothers? She can’t get the smile off her face.

  The sun is at its meridian and no longer enters through the sunroom windows. I can go through there, Coco thinks, I’ve already proved it. She rubs the scar on her neck. Glass in the carotid artery. Rubbish, it’s not that quick. Anyone can go through a window. But who does it deliberately? Happily? On purpose? She wasn’t clumsy, not as a child and not now, either; she knew what she was doing. It was autumn.