Curran says nothing, but Barnaby will not be deterred. Barnaby sits at the nurses station, feet up. Curran is trying to ignore Barnaby by pretending to examine a set of lab results.
"When the paramedics got to him, he had this rubber monkey mask on his head, right? Only the chap had it on backwards so he couldn't breathe and then there was a rather fetching woman came in with him, clearly not his wife."
He leans toward Curran, smile suddenly lewd, "And they said when they got there he had a massive cob-on. They couldn't get him out from under the desk at first, it had him trapped there, like a gate latch."
He sits back again, satisfied.
"The best bit was when his wife came in."
Curran doesn't want to play this game. Barnaby, however, loves hospital gossip and will not be satisfied until Curran reciprocates. So he tells Barnaby about the yoghurt woman from the day before, to Barnaby's clear delight.
"So what did you do?"
"I told her to take a few weeks off work and do her grocery shopping on-line instead." Barnaby finds this amusing and suggests they go to the roof, where they can spy on the nurses smoking out by the industrial waste disposal unit.
The roof is off-limits to everyone, but Barnaby discovered the alarm could be disabled with a tongue depressor and Curran had to admit it was a good place to hide. But today when they get to the roof, the door is wide open. Curran stops, half on the top step, so that Barnaby collides with his back, swearing softly in the half-light of the access stairwell. With theatrical care, they creep up to the doorway and peer out onto the open flat roof. The muted sounds of the hospital atrium and the car park drift up to them above the whirr of the big air conditioning stacks.
Curran wants to go back, but Barnaby won't let him.
"Fuck this." says Barnaby, pushing past and out onto the roof.
The door swings shut, fast, slamming Curran in the forehead and sending him tumbling down the stairs and into unconsciousness. When he comes round two days later he is in a hospital bed in a ward he shares with a comatose truck driver, one of several victims of a recent, terrible road traffic accident out on the bypass. The juicy hospital gossip is that after the roof alarm was tripped, security sauntered up the access stairwell to find junior doctor Curran bleeding and concussed. Barnaby was found some time later. He had been dragged behind the air conditioning stacks, dead from a precise stab wound to the left eye. Carved into his naked back were the words 'NEVER FORGIVE'. His clothes were never found.
Curran thinks it is probably something Barnaby would have found very entertaining indeed.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Abigail has been to Pascal's mid-terrace house on two occasions already.
The second time he had left the back door unlocked and she slipped inside. On his laptop she discovered evidence of the webcam from an order reciept in his emails, as well as a short sequence copied to the hard drive of a woman struggling to open a locker. Knowing where he worked, it wan't hard to work out where the webcam was.
Pascal does not know who she is, she is fairly certain, although there was a close call during the interview. Her baseball cap was hanging on her office door throughout the meeting she contrived on the basis of a minor discrepancy with his tax status. She suspects her line manager, Keith, knows something is amiss, but has nothing concrete that would land Abigail in trouble.
She watches through a gap in the curtains as Pascal pleasures himself at his desk. He is watching the footage. She is simultaneously repulsed and aroused by this new revelation; at home she has asked her boyfriend to wear the mask during sex, so far he has refused. The mask is in her pocket, right now. She grips it tightly through the lining of her coat.
Pascal has finished and closes the laptop, getting up from the desk. With a start, she ducks back against the wall, heart suddenly thumping hard in her chest. She hears his heavy footfalls upstairs and then shortly afterwards the shower can be heard. Abigail slips away down the yard, pausing to scrawl a crude image on the back yard gate. Pascal is singing something in French, the sound abstracted by bathroom echoes. Then she steps as casually as she can manage into the alley and walks back to the main road where her car is parked.
It is a pool car from the office, booked out against a mundane errand she has already accomplished. The interior smells alien, the surfaces stained with the patina of other hands. Once she drove to head office in this car wearing no underwear, skirt hitched, the feel of the coarse artificial fabric against her bottom an illicit, private thrill. Not today; she is dressed in slacks and a blue top beneath a coat that is too warm for the weather, within which she can carry the mask undetected.
An hour later she walks into the office to find manager Keith waiting for her with a carefully neutral speech about good work practice. The main office is empty apart from Keith and Ray, who is over in the corner studiously playing Spider Solitaire and making desk monsters out of bulldog clips.
She heads for her own office and removes her coat, hanging it on the door, checking the mask remains concealed. Keith has followed her in, still going on about best practice and team briefings and following codes of conduct. She is just about to politely tell him to fuck off when he stops and sits down.
"Carol left me this morning." he says quietly.
They sit looking at each other in silence. After a moment, she gets up and closes the window blinds, then goes to the office door. She can see Ray in the far corner watching a wildlife documentary about mountain lions. He has earphones in. She closes her office door and locks it.
She slips off her top revealing an elaborate cream silk bra with black lace trim her boyfriend bought her last valentines day. Then she reaches into the coat hanging on the back of the door.
"Abigail?" says Keith, his big face a mixture of shock, arousal and confusion. He starts to get up but she stops him.
"Shhhhh."she holds out the gorilla mask.
"Put this on."
Pascal does not know who she is, she is fairly certain, although there was a close call during the interview. Her baseball cap was hanging on her office door throughout the meeting she contrived on the basis of a minor discrepancy with his tax status. She suspects her line manager, Keith, knows something is amiss, but has nothing concrete that would land Abigail in trouble.
She watches through a gap in the curtains as Pascal pleasures himself at his desk. He is watching the footage. She is simultaneously repulsed and aroused by this new revelation; at home she has asked her boyfriend to wear the mask during sex, so far he has refused. The mask is in her pocket, right now. She grips it tightly through the lining of her coat.
Pascal has finished and closes the laptop, getting up from the desk. With a start, she ducks back against the wall, heart suddenly thumping hard in her chest. She hears his heavy footfalls upstairs and then shortly afterwards the shower can be heard. Abigail slips away down the yard, pausing to scrawl a crude image on the back yard gate. Pascal is singing something in French, the sound abstracted by bathroom echoes. Then she steps as casually as she can manage into the alley and walks back to the main road where her car is parked.
It is a pool car from the office, booked out against a mundane errand she has already accomplished. The interior smells alien, the surfaces stained with the patina of other hands. Once she drove to head office in this car wearing no underwear, skirt hitched, the feel of the coarse artificial fabric against her bottom an illicit, private thrill. Not today; she is dressed in slacks and a blue top beneath a coat that is too warm for the weather, within which she can carry the mask undetected.
An hour later she walks into the office to find manager Keith waiting for her with a carefully neutral speech about good work practice. The main office is empty apart from Keith and Ray, who is over in the corner studiously playing Spider Solitaire and making desk monsters out of bulldog clips.
She heads for her own office and removes her coat, hanging it on the door, checking the mask remains concealed. Keith has followed her in, still going on about best practice and team briefings and following codes of conduct. She is just about to politely tell him to fuck off when he stops and sits down.
"Carol left me this morning." he says quietly.
They sit looking at each other in silence. After a moment, she gets up and closes the window blinds, then goes to the office door. She can see Ray in the far corner watching a wildlife documentary about mountain lions. He has earphones in. She closes her office door and locks it.
She slips off her top revealing an elaborate cream silk bra with black lace trim her boyfriend bought her last valentines day. Then she reaches into the coat hanging on the back of the door.
"Abigail?" says Keith, his big face a mixture of shock, arousal and confusion. He starts to get up but she stops him.
"Shhhhh."she holds out the gorilla mask.
"Put this on."
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Pascal does not go into work the next day.
Instead, he sits on a steel frame office chair in the back yard of his mid-terraced house and smokes his unfiltered cigarettes and alternates between sips of brandy and cups of coffee until the early afternoon.
He watches a pair of birds picking at seeds on his neighbour's bird-table, before picking up the ash tray and moving inside. From his track-suit he retrieves a USB stick, which he slots into his laptop. When he was initially employed at the out of town gymnasium he took the opportunity afforded by two consecutive weeks of late shifts to surreptitiously install a webcam in the women's changing rooms. Most of it is a catalogue of the mundane, women standing around, getting changed, gossiping and wandering around semi-clothed. He finds none of this particularly arousing. There is a sequence where two women fight briefly (about what he has never discovered) before being removed by a couple of staff. He watches this sequence more than once.
Eventually he finds the segment he was looking for and settles back to watch. A woman enters the changing room, her face hidden under a baseball cap and begins to get undressed. Momentarily she disappears from view as she bends down, presumably to remove her pants. When she stands up, however, she is wearing a gorilla mask. She proceeds to dance around the changing room in her underwear to music Pascal cannot hear and then steps up close to the webcam and makes obscene gestures, before getting dressed once more and leaving. The Frenchman watches this short sequence repeatedly for over an hour, masturbating twice.
When he is spent for the second time, he turns off the laptop and replaces the USB stick in his track-suit before showering and making an omelette. Afterwards he steps out into the yard once more. Someone has scrawled a crude stick drawing woman on the back of the yard gate. The figure is clearly depicted wearing a gorilla mask. Pascal regards the drawing thoughtfully, whilst smoking another unfiltered cigarette as the sun dips below the rooftops of the houses opposite. In the bathroom of one house he can see a naked figure, though the glass makes it impossible to determine gender. Finally he goes inside, closing the door behind him.
He watches a pair of birds picking at seeds on his neighbour's bird-table, before picking up the ash tray and moving inside. From his track-suit he retrieves a USB stick, which he slots into his laptop. When he was initially employed at the out of town gymnasium he took the opportunity afforded by two consecutive weeks of late shifts to surreptitiously install a webcam in the women's changing rooms. Most of it is a catalogue of the mundane, women standing around, getting changed, gossiping and wandering around semi-clothed. He finds none of this particularly arousing. There is a sequence where two women fight briefly (about what he has never discovered) before being removed by a couple of staff. He watches this sequence more than once.
Eventually he finds the segment he was looking for and settles back to watch. A woman enters the changing room, her face hidden under a baseball cap and begins to get undressed. Momentarily she disappears from view as she bends down, presumably to remove her pants. When she stands up, however, she is wearing a gorilla mask. She proceeds to dance around the changing room in her underwear to music Pascal cannot hear and then steps up close to the webcam and makes obscene gestures, before getting dressed once more and leaving. The Frenchman watches this short sequence repeatedly for over an hour, masturbating twice.
When he is spent for the second time, he turns off the laptop and replaces the USB stick in his track-suit before showering and making an omelette. Afterwards he steps out into the yard once more. Someone has scrawled a crude stick drawing woman on the back of the yard gate. The figure is clearly depicted wearing a gorilla mask. Pascal regards the drawing thoughtfully, whilst smoking another unfiltered cigarette as the sun dips below the rooftops of the houses opposite. In the bathroom of one house he can see a naked figure, though the glass makes it impossible to determine gender. Finally he goes inside, closing the door behind him.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
A man walks across a dark, rainy car-park to his small family hatchback and settles into the nondescript interior with a sigh.
It has been a long day. A woman went insane in the dairy aisle and the smell of fermented dairy produce has somehow followed him to the car. He leans forward to start the engine and with a grimace realises his shoes are still coated in stinking fruit yoghurt. He opens the window a little and then puts the blowers on to try and keep condensation off the windscreen. As the car pulls away into the rain, he thinks he sees a Japanese schoolgirl standing beside the hedgerow, but as the car headlights round on the space it turns out to be nothing more than a collection of plastic bags, dumped beside an already full recycling bin.
The deputy manager is late to collect his wife from the gymnasium where she works on the other side of the out of town retail park. He drives diagonally across the empty car park spaces, taking a short cut the wrong way across a roundabout to reach the gym quicker. Approaching the imposing grey composite and neon frontage, he is shocked to see his wife, sharing a cigarette with one of the other gym instructors. Pascal, the Frenchman, he sees with a mixture of anger and despair. They lean in toward each other and the deputy manager grips the steering wheel tightly, anticipating intimacy which doesn't come. He pulls the car round in a tight arc in front of the gym and brakes hard, surprising them. The deputy manager's wife slides into the passenger seat and wrinkles her nose at the smell. The deputy manager stares into the rear-view mirror in trembling fury as Pascal gets into the back. The smell of yoghurt mixes with the smell of high tar unfiltered French tobacco.
"We're giving Pascal a lift home.” says his wife, latching her seatbelt.
The deputy manager says nothing, but lets his gaze linger over her toned thighs as he thumps the car clumsily into first gear and pulls away, the rhythm of the windscreen wipers slowly dulling his anger, pulling him back into a coma-like driving trance where he can ignore his wife flirting and the sleazy replies of the Frenchman still looming in the rear view mirror.
As they roll onto the bypass, he notices distantly the Frenchman's hand, rubbing his wife's buttock, massaging slowly, murmuring strongly accented words amid the wanton laughter of his wife. The deputy manager is suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of rotting dairy produce and French tobacco. He slews the car onto the hard shoulder and stumbles out of the car into blasting spray and honking horns. He staggers to the hard shoulder and across the barrier, vomiting hard, hot sick fountains into the unkempt grass. The effort makes him sink to his knees, where he vomits again, the puke pouring out across his knees. He no longer cares. He has lost his wife to the Frenchman. He begins to sob.
A hand is laid on his shoulder. Through the rain and hot tears he sees it is the Frenchman, his face a knot of genuine concern. Beyond him, he can see his wife, still in the car, texting.
The deputy manager stares at this tableau as an articulated lorry carrying stainless steel pilings meant for a new out of town development jack-knifes in the rain. The truck envelopes the small family hatchback containing his wife like a wave taking a sandcastle, shearing the top of the car away before it is lost in screaming, sparking metal and a spray of oily rain. The screeching of brakes and sound of more collisions reaches the deputy manager as he slowly curls up in the grass. Guiltily, he notes with satisfaction that the Frenchman has a high pitched, almost female scream.
The deputy manager is late to collect his wife from the gymnasium where she works on the other side of the out of town retail park. He drives diagonally across the empty car park spaces, taking a short cut the wrong way across a roundabout to reach the gym quicker. Approaching the imposing grey composite and neon frontage, he is shocked to see his wife, sharing a cigarette with one of the other gym instructors. Pascal, the Frenchman, he sees with a mixture of anger and despair. They lean in toward each other and the deputy manager grips the steering wheel tightly, anticipating intimacy which doesn't come. He pulls the car round in a tight arc in front of the gym and brakes hard, surprising them. The deputy manager's wife slides into the passenger seat and wrinkles her nose at the smell. The deputy manager stares into the rear-view mirror in trembling fury as Pascal gets into the back. The smell of yoghurt mixes with the smell of high tar unfiltered French tobacco.
"We're giving Pascal a lift home.” says his wife, latching her seatbelt.
The deputy manager says nothing, but lets his gaze linger over her toned thighs as he thumps the car clumsily into first gear and pulls away, the rhythm of the windscreen wipers slowly dulling his anger, pulling him back into a coma-like driving trance where he can ignore his wife flirting and the sleazy replies of the Frenchman still looming in the rear view mirror.
As they roll onto the bypass, he notices distantly the Frenchman's hand, rubbing his wife's buttock, massaging slowly, murmuring strongly accented words amid the wanton laughter of his wife. The deputy manager is suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of rotting dairy produce and French tobacco. He slews the car onto the hard shoulder and stumbles out of the car into blasting spray and honking horns. He staggers to the hard shoulder and across the barrier, vomiting hard, hot sick fountains into the unkempt grass. The effort makes him sink to his knees, where he vomits again, the puke pouring out across his knees. He no longer cares. He has lost his wife to the Frenchman. He begins to sob.
A hand is laid on his shoulder. Through the rain and hot tears he sees it is the Frenchman, his face a knot of genuine concern. Beyond him, he can see his wife, still in the car, texting.
The deputy manager stares at this tableau as an articulated lorry carrying stainless steel pilings meant for a new out of town development jack-knifes in the rain. The truck envelopes the small family hatchback containing his wife like a wave taking a sandcastle, shearing the top of the car away before it is lost in screaming, sparking metal and a spray of oily rain. The screeching of brakes and sound of more collisions reaches the deputy manager as he slowly curls up in the grass. Guiltily, he notes with satisfaction that the Frenchman has a high pitched, almost female scream.
Monday, 5 March 2012
A woman is standing before the euphemistically titled functional yoghurts section in the cool, well-lit dairy aisle of a large out of town supermarket.
She is dressed for the office perhaps, a blue-grey single-breasted jacket over a simple white cotton blouse and a slightly too long to be fashionable black pencil skirt. A smudged rectangle of pinkish-white dust on the left hip of her skirt suggests she is in fact a school-teacher. Her face, unadorned with make-up, would be considered by most men as pretty, though dark rings under her grey-green eyes are indicative of a lack of sleep. Unkempt strands in her bob of dark brown hair waft in the blast of refrigerated air from the large open cabinet in front of her.
She bites her lip as if in deep thought, staring intently at the rows of pots ranged before her on their refrigerated shelves. Above the susurration of a thousand mundane purchases and clash of trolleys, the drone of an announcement over the in-store speaker system requests a cleaner by till number seventeen.
Suddenly, the woman drives her arm into the shelves of yoghurt, two fingers of her right hand precisely spearing the lid of a pot of supermarket brand fruits of the forest. The woman withdraws her fingers from the pot and puts them in her mouth, sucking the lavender-coloured yoghurt with a look of deep, almost sensual pleasure. A single spot of pinkish-purple yoghurt drops onto her blouse.
After another moment, the woman repeatedly jabs her fingers into the shelf, spearing pot after pot. The aisle echoes to a regular wet popping sound as she stabs into the display, over and over, sucking the contents of each pot from her fingers with ecstatic reverence. Her right arm is soon slathered with a pastel mix of creamy splashes; as much again runs down her chin and onto her heaving chest.
A small, nervous crowd of customers and junior staff members has formed, huddled at each end of the dairy aisle. The spectators watch the woman with a mixture of expressions, ranging from amusement to shock to horrified fascination.
Finally, the deputy manager is called and he cautiously approaches the woman from the end of the aisle closest to the cheeses. He notes distractedly that besides the store-brand mature farmhouse cheddar, someone has deposited a tin of minestrone soup. Two security guards flank the deputy manager, attempting to look nonchalant, though this fools no-one present.
By now, the woman is covered in yoghurt across most of her chest and face, nearly all the yoghurt pots are ruined, their contents running into each other and spreading to the natural and set yoghurt on the shelf below. Two fans of glistening splashes spread across the floor to either side of the panting woman.
"Miss?" says the deputy manager. He is close enough now to smell the miasma of fruit flavours, making him slightly nauseous. He has never liked yoghurt.
The woman wipes her chin with her sleeve and the action causes a gout of runny mess to spatter over the deputy manager's shoes and the turn-up of his right trouser leg, causing him to take an involuntary step back.
"No," she replies, slightly hoarse.
"I think I got them all".
She bites her lip as if in deep thought, staring intently at the rows of pots ranged before her on their refrigerated shelves. Above the susurration of a thousand mundane purchases and clash of trolleys, the drone of an announcement over the in-store speaker system requests a cleaner by till number seventeen.
Suddenly, the woman drives her arm into the shelves of yoghurt, two fingers of her right hand precisely spearing the lid of a pot of supermarket brand fruits of the forest. The woman withdraws her fingers from the pot and puts them in her mouth, sucking the lavender-coloured yoghurt with a look of deep, almost sensual pleasure. A single spot of pinkish-purple yoghurt drops onto her blouse.
After another moment, the woman repeatedly jabs her fingers into the shelf, spearing pot after pot. The aisle echoes to a regular wet popping sound as she stabs into the display, over and over, sucking the contents of each pot from her fingers with ecstatic reverence. Her right arm is soon slathered with a pastel mix of creamy splashes; as much again runs down her chin and onto her heaving chest.
A small, nervous crowd of customers and junior staff members has formed, huddled at each end of the dairy aisle. The spectators watch the woman with a mixture of expressions, ranging from amusement to shock to horrified fascination.
Finally, the deputy manager is called and he cautiously approaches the woman from the end of the aisle closest to the cheeses. He notes distractedly that besides the store-brand mature farmhouse cheddar, someone has deposited a tin of minestrone soup. Two security guards flank the deputy manager, attempting to look nonchalant, though this fools no-one present.
By now, the woman is covered in yoghurt across most of her chest and face, nearly all the yoghurt pots are ruined, their contents running into each other and spreading to the natural and set yoghurt on the shelf below. Two fans of glistening splashes spread across the floor to either side of the panting woman.
"Miss?" says the deputy manager. He is close enough now to smell the miasma of fruit flavours, making him slightly nauseous. He has never liked yoghurt.
The woman wipes her chin with her sleeve and the action causes a gout of runny mess to spatter over the deputy manager's shoes and the turn-up of his right trouser leg, causing him to take an involuntary step back.
"No," she replies, slightly hoarse.
"I think I got them all".
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