Rocco had seen them by now, but he didn’t look up. He stood by the fire flinging balls of paper into the flames.
Wearing her black dress and straw hat Lisa stood in the doorway smiling. In a strange, abstract motion, she raised her flat hand and waved to all of them. Vance turned and walked away up the lane, lowering his head and shoulders into the wind. Lisa went back into the house. Without moving, the others stood in a line watching Rocco until it began to drizzle and the fire went out. At last they went away, wondering what they would do now. It was raining hard.
The Flies
‘We hadn’t the pleasure now of feeling we were starting a new life,
only a sense of dragging on into a future full of new troubles.’
One morning after a disturbed night, a year after they moved into the flat, and with their son only a few months old, Baxter goes into the box-room where he and his wife have put their wardrobes, opens the door to his, and picks up a pile of sweaters. Unfolding them one by one, he discovers that they all appear to have been crocheted. Not only that, the remaining threads are smeared with a viscous yellow deposit, like egg yolk, which has stiffened the remains of the ruined garments.
He shakes out the moths or flies that have gorged on his clothes, and stamps on the tiny crisp corpses. Other flies, only stupefied, dart out past him and position themselves on the curtains, where they appear threateningly settled, just out of reach.
Baxter hurriedly rolls up the clothes in plastic bags, and, retching, thrusts them into the bottom of a dustbin on the street. He goes to the shops and packs his wardrobe with fly killer; he sprays the curtains; he disinfects the rugs. He stands in the shower a long time. With water streaming down him nothing can adhere to his skin.
He doesn’t tell his wife about the incident, thinking, at first, that he won’t bother her with such an unimportant matter. He has, though, spotted flies all over the flat, which his wife, it seems, has not noticed. If he puts mothballs in his pockets, and has to mask this odour with scents, and goes about imagining that people are sniffing as he passes them, he doesn’t care, since the attack has troubled him.
He wants to keep it from himself as much as from her. But at different times of the day he needs to check the wardrobe, and suddenly rips open the door as if to surprise an intruder. At night he begins to dream of ragged bullet-shaped holes chewed in fetid fabric, and of creamy white eggs hatching in darkness. In his mind he hears the amplified rustle of gnawing, chewing, devouring. When this wakes him he rushes into the box-room to shake his clothes or stab at them with an umbrella. On his knees he scours the dusty corners of the flat for the nest or bed where the contamination must be incubating. He is convinced, though, that while he is doing this, flies are striking at the bedsheets and pillows.
When one night his wife catches him with his nose against the skirting board, and he explains to her what has happened, she isn’t much concerned, particularly as he has thrown away the evidence. Telling her about it makes him realise what a slight matter it is.
He and his wife acquired the small flat in a hurry and consider themselves fortunate to have it. For what they can afford, the three rooms, with kitchen and bathroom, are acceptable for a youngish couple starting out. Yet when Baxter rings the landlord to enquire whether there have been any ‘outbreaks’ before, he is not sympathetic but maintains they carried the flies with them. If it continues he will review their contract. Baxter, vexed by the accusation, counters that he will suspend his rent payments if the contagion doesn’t clear up. Indeed, that morning he noticed one of his child’s cardigans smeared and half-devoured, and only just managed to conceal it from his wife.
Still, he does need to discuss it with her. He asks an acquaintance to babysit. They will go out to dinner. There was a time when they would have long discussions about anything — they particularly enjoyed talking over their first impressions of one another — so happy were they just to be together. As he shaves, Baxter reflects that since the birth of their child they have rarely been to the theatre or cinema, or even to coffee shops. It has been months since they ate out. He is unemployed and most of their money has been spent on rent, bills, debts, and the child. If he were to put it plainly, he’d say that they can hardly taste their food; they can’t even watch TV for long. They rarely see their friends or think of making new ones. They never make love; or, if one of them wants to, the other doesn’t. Never does their desire coincide — except once, when, at the climax, the screams of their child interrupted. Anyhow, they feel ugly and their bodies ache. They sleep with their eyes open; occasionally, while awake, they are actually asleep. While asleep they dream of sleep.
Before the birth, they’d been together for a few months, and then serious lovers for a year. Since the child their arguments have increased, which Baxter imagines is natural as so much has happened to them. But their disagreements have taken on a new tone. There was a moment recently when they looked at one another and said, simultaneously, that they wished they had never met.
He had wanted a baby because it was something to want; other people had them. She agreed because she was thirty-five. Perhaps they no longer believed they’d find the one person who would change everything.
Wanting to feel tidy, Baxter extracts a suit from his wardrobe. He holds it up to the light on its hanger. It seems complete, as it did the last time he looked, a couple of hours before. In the bathroom his wife is taking longer than ever to apply her make-up and curl her hair.
While removing his shoes, Baxter turns his back. When he looks again, only the hanger remains. Surely a thief has rushed into the room and filched his jacket and trousers? No; the suit is on the floor, a small pyramid of charred ash. His other suits disintegrate at one touch. Flies hurl themselves at his face before chasing into the air.
He collects the ash in his hands and piles it on the desk he’s arranged in the box-room, where he has intended to study something to broaden his understanding of life now that he goes out less. He has placed on the desk several sharpened but unused pencils. Now he sniffs the dirt and sifts it with the pencils. He even puts a little on his tongue. In it are several creamy ridged eggs. Within them something is alive, hoping for light. He crushes them. Soot and cocoon soup sticks to his fingers and gets under his nails.
Over dinner they drink wine, eat good food and look around, surprised to see so many people out and about, some of whom are smiling. He tells her about the flies. However, like him, she has become sarcastic and says she’s long thought it time he acquired a new wardrobe. She hopes the involuntary clear-out will lead to sartorial improvement. Her own clothes are invariably protected by various guaranteed ladies’ potions, like lavender, which he should try.
That night, tired by pettiness and their inability to amuse one another, she sits in the box-room and he walks the child up and down in the kitchen. He hears a cry and runs to her. She has unlocked her wardrobe to discover that her coats, dresses and knitwear have been replaced by a row of yellowish tatters. On the floor are piles of dead flies.
She starts to weep, saying she has nothing of her own left. She implies that it is his fault. He feels this too, and is ready to be blamed.
He helps her to bed, where the child sleeps between them. Just as they barely kiss now when they attempt love, he rarely looks into her eyes; but as he takes her arm, he notices a black fly emerge from her cornea and hop onto her eyelash.