James came back poisoned. A wound had become infected.
‘He was lucky to survive,’ Mad said.
He was poisoned in other ways, I thought. He wouldn’t speak to me anymore. If I got under his feet, he’d snap at me. He was only on leave three days and him and Mad holed up in their room. I could hear them. LK would just look at me and roll his eyes and put a record on to drown them out. I listened at their door and got a clip round the ear from LK. ‘Ya dirty weecunt,’ he said, and dragged me away.
I was reading in the kitchen when Mad came out in her silk nightdress, her hair all a mess. I stared at her heavy breasts, the curve of her hips and her rippling muscles as she rummaged around the kitchen. She spent the mornings exercising to keep her pre-war circus fitness then spent the day hauling heavy equipment at the factory. Her thighs were solid muscle. Her body made me feel secure. I thought she was invincible. She rifled through the kitchen, a cigarette dangling from her lips, bouncing up and down as she mumbled to herself. She piled food onto plates, and shoved a beer under her arm, staggering back through with it all. The bottle slipped and rolled on the floor.
‘Hey, G, get that will you?’
I scurried after her. James was lying naked on the bed. I stared at him, putting the beer on the table. I stood, uncertain, just looking at his body. His penis was like a strange creature nestled amongst the dark hair that spread up to his belly button in a thin line. He was covered in fading bruises. The wound on his leg was still an angry red. I watched his muscles flex as he reached for the beer. He didn’t look at me. It was as if I wasn’t there. Mad dropped all the food in a heap on the table. He pulled her into bed and she half fell, half sat on top of him. She slid off him and curled up by his side, his arm around her. They shared the beer.
‘Alright, Goblin,’ she said, realising I was still there. ‘Thanks.’
She gestured to the door and I left.
There were sudden outbreaks of yelling, something I’d never witnessed between them before. They’d tease each other, but never fight. This was new. LK shrugged as we heard furniture being upturned. James came out and a beer bottle came after him, just missing his head and smashing on the wall. He didn’t even flinch. Groo scurried away, hiding under the table, and Captain Flint shrieked and didn’t stop. James threw his clothes on, lit a cigarette, grabbed his jacket and left, leaving me to calm Flint and comfort Groo. James came back in the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep for the noise of them making up. In the morning he was gone and the house was quiet again.
I used to miss him when he left. It was a horrible ache that brought back nightmares about Devil, but this time I didn’t have nightmares. I didn’t miss him at all. It was as if he’d never been.
‘He’s poisoned,’ I said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ Mad said. ‘Everything’s going to be alright.’
When he came home next time, it was for good. He’d lost half of his left arm. He didn’t speak to me, Mad, or the Lizard King. Mad and James didn’t make love or fight. He was just silent. He drank his beer and smoked his cigarettes.
‘He’s going to be alright,’ Mad said.
There was a small gathering in the sitting room; Colin, LK, Potato Pete and a few others. I was playing poker in the kitchen with Adam and the brass band dwarves when we heard a V1 buzzbomb. The V1 rockets got under your skin, a creeping fear. That moment you heard the buzzbomb buzz, you’d feel sick and pray to the lizards below it wasn’t you it got. The V2s were different – they were silent and you didn’t hear them until they hit and I decided that was better than the V1 fear.
When we heard the buzz we all froze, gripping the cards in our hands, silent, waiting. The buzz stopped, we counted, and I prayed like crazy to the lizards. When it hit, we dropped our cards, running outside. Four doors up, a building had been obliterated, now existing only as rubble, dust and flames. Smoke rolled down the street in slow motion waves. We pressed ourselves into doorways, holding handkerchiefs to our mouths. It rolled on by, like a monster in search of prey.
We formed a line, dousing the flames with the water from the tanks. Neighbours scrambled amongst the rubble, looking for survivors and pulling out bodies, parts of bodies, some crushed or charred, others looking like they were sleeping. We laid them out in the street and put sheets over them. As I stared down at the sheets, Mad grabbed me.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said, ‘Get back to the flat.’
‘I’m helping.’
‘You don’t need to see this. Get back home.’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
She looked at me for a moment and said, ‘Goblin, you go home. Now.’
I didn’t argue. I went back to the flat to wait for them and found James sitting in the dark. All I saw was the light from his cigarette and my stomach tightened. When I turned the light on he said, ‘Turn it off.’
I turned it off and said, ‘I thought you were a demon.’
He didn’t say anything.
I made my way to him in the dark and curled up next to him on the couch, my feet touching his thigh. I lay there, staring at the crackling light of the cigarette, drifting off to sleep.
When they returned to the flat it was close to dawn and everyone was blackened with dirt and dust and blood, stinking of smoke. James was gone, probably back in his room. He spent most of the day in there when Mad was at work.
A few people gathered in the sitting room, listening to a record, nursing a beer. I heard squealing and swearing coming from the bathroom so I went to see what was going on. The brass band dwarves, Adam, Adeline and Ariadne were all piled into the bath, yelling and splashing. Maisie looked on, disgusted. She reminded them of water rationing and poured her beer over them. There was more swearing and a scramble to get out of the bath, bodies falling to the floor, a scrummage for the towel. I helped Adam out of the bath and took him to my room, giving him some fresh clothes. I turned my back when he took off his wet clothes and he asked me, ‘Why so shy?’
I turned and saw he was lying naked on my bed, as beautiful as I’d imagined. I went over to him and traced my finger over his body as if I was painting him. I ran my finger across his chest, down his stomach, down down down. I stopped and curled his hair around my finger. I watched his cock harden.
‘Kiss me,’ he said, sitting up, reaching for me, but I backed off and just looked at him. I stood up and left.
‘Goblin?’
I went to Mad and James’ room. I rummaged in their drawer, found what I was after and came back, closing the door behind me, pushing a chair up against it.
‘Goblin, I’m sorry if—’
I threw the condom on the bed and I took off my clothes, dropping my cardigan on the floor, pulling my dress over my head, standing there for a moment in my knickers. I walked over to him, peeling my knickers off, and sat next to him on the bed. I ran my fingers across him again, then I stroked his cock. I straddled him, rubbing myself against him as we kissed. I reached over for the condom.
As I opened the packet he said, ‘Where’d you get that?’
‘Mad and James. Mad showed me how to use them.’
I rolled the condom over his cock and I climbed on top of him, my fingers in his. Lowering my hips slowly, I gasped and stopped. A moment, a glance, my hand pressed on his chest and I moved down, down, down, not stopping this time; feeling the pain and the pleasure and the liquid warmth. I kissed him and breathed him in, his smell of smoke, beer and sweat. He wrapped his legs around me. I wanted to open him up and feel under his skin, I wanted to disappear inside him. I sucked on his tongue as my cunt closed around his cock. I pressed his head against my chest. He licked my breast, biting my nipple, the gentle pain accentuating the heat spreading inside me, up, up, up, like golden bubbles. We heard a scream and we came together as Maisie walked past my door, yelling curses at the dwarves. We collapsed on the bed, laughing, still entangled in each other.