The beak is so slick and beautiful you’d forget it’s about to bore into a virgin. Dig right through her for £12.50 a night. Peck her up, munch her hard, inflict the horror of a writer’s preoccupations. They must’ve choreographed it by now. Haven’t you heard them? Up there with thumps, cries, neck pulls, piano like Trent Reznor in a bucket. Rehearsal Room Four. I hear them even when they’re not there, at least twice, three times a week, phantom floorboard storm and a cough for luck. Walking past the doors I hear the play grow unbirthed, the dust of an empty evening moulting from the skirting and sideboards and stage divans, a kind of mushroom light from the street in a strip on my slow body. Yes, you’re there too. I’ve felt you, a lump in my head.
But this beak was worth staying late, so what if I’m hanging around after seven? Who cares? Not Caretaker Mike. He admires my work the only way he can, by getting too close. Remember I let him in? Straight up spoke to him when he puttered by with a mop. Said, Hey Mike, wanna see a monster? He flopped his gloves on the table, stepped right in under this bare light and whistled. The bird’s wings were almost done with a few twigs of wire mesh clawing the crescents and feathers atrophied from glue. I held them up. And someone’s gonna wear that for real? he asked. Oh, Mike, poor Mike, with your feet on the same earth every day. They will live it. Here, I said, and fixed the head on him, screwed it like a bulb. Without the beak, he was too smooth and stark, a black bowling pin on little shoulders, and the eyes weren’t tested so he kind of banged about doing Actor Things, holding a hand to his chest and reaching with the other in a silent aria to the rafters of my prop world. He sweated underneath. I smelled it when he left grinning, sniffed the dark neck, his simple vinegar, thinking even weak men – the grateful ones – are shameless in what they leave me with.
You weren’t there though, and I’d like to talk about that. Even as you steady my fingers on this brush, even as the beak’s seventh coating dries, we’re here, a little less solid than we used to be. Do I have to keep filling you in? Just look at what we’ve made: the tip, the nasal cavities, layered simulacra of grazing and ground-nests. A creature from the earth. Fuck the script: the bird is ours and no wonder people left us to it in the bleak hours. Even when Anwar went to study ravens in squalling curious afterlives (Google and real) he knew enough to dash right back to those plasterboard houses with a coffee sloshing. And I can build a house! A neighbourhood! They know it. Give me the set for a whole parish. I can whip up a doorstep or ivy trellis, gutter mould, roof slate, assuring floor glow, GP’s office railing, the crooks and letterboxes of the human heart. But they said, No, leave her the bird. The star attraction. The bird that will rise rustling from aeons to murder a girl while the village that summoned it splits under the shadow of what it has done. Yeah, give the bird to her. Robert agreed. And now he’s gone. Always knew what I can handle. The crew listened and agreed: two worlds suffocating, sure, that’ll do her. Robert’s gone. Left me the bird. And thanks to us, the costume’s a treat, a week till dress rehearsal – deeper, more organic, a fluttering victory of organza. That’s you, baby. It’s what you help me do, narrow the coatings of oil-dark life, the black basics on a creature we’ve all been waiting for. Just keep coming. Where do you go, though? Where else?
Remember Robert’s hands the soft slab of them, their sucked knuckles, how he grabbed you with his mouth on my neck, whispering, Step to me sweet, step like this…and the music was dark. And we danced looking at the tiny couples in other windows to grey rooms. You felt it. A hand on your whole world. The three of us rocking, hot, a body…though we almost fell over a futon in my bastard flat then, no place for a mother was it.
Tack of gum under desk and fuck me the teeth marks. Tramp. No reason to spit on the room, confuse dirt with a personality. Fair, like anyone could walk in here and accuse us of rewilding a chic studio: the shivering papers on the shelf under air con; hats, wigs and bald caps wilting like zoo bears; a scatter of pencils as if thoughts and colours are waiting to be picked up anytime. This is the chaos you earn a BA for. A room like is meant to smell of glue and combustion and pizza paste. Don’t ever, ever talk down that trace scent of tube or cracked charcoal, varnish or spooged acrylic. It’s play. We’re playing. We’re serious about it. Just fucking gum, that’s dirty, sneaking spit under my elbows…I bet it was Alice with the sausage hair. She comes in popping and snapping her mouth, wearing that dumpy lime denim, flicking her eyes everywhere, still taking things in – for how long left, what’s an internship these days? Do these girls ever stop looking like they’re counting conversations? – using the gum as her own prop, mmmm, makes her talk different, everything sounds sideways. Yeah love, we’ve all been there. Those games crumble. Go on. Make it to thirty-three. See where casual can’t live. Other plans turn up in envelopes. Old smells rebel. Wine turns mean.
Wait, sorry – Jesus, sorry, I don’t want to brag. Don’t cry about it. Please. I know you’ll never get to know or feel or…What’s wrong with me? Just give me a kick. A tit zap. I wish you could tell me where I mess up more often.
You’d be good with a speech. Recently I’ve imagined you arriving with the bird in Act Two, at the whip of thunder, smoke churning the aisle seats, the part where the priest is going ballistic, screaming, Now riiiiisssseeee and drop your shadow! as the girl twists on the stake in fake rain; my dreams paint you in the crook of a wing, not even pink, pinker, burning; and the shrieks of our heroine should be cutting into you but no they’re sliding right off, you could be on your own, anywhere, kind of saintly like a Sakharov or difficult Brando, and the audience are on their feet, right on their toes. You emerge with a bright lick of sweat but that’s fine, you’ve been underground, the bird’s midnight feathers are cool and shaped for you. Women get up and men follow and they have never seen anything so small with your gravity and fire it reminds them of births they don’t pay to see. The rain hardens. The priest bulges. And the bird prepares for duty but first puts you down, leaves the pit, spread itself to the villagers and their light, to all the Mr Volkswagens in the stalls, inclines this beak, strokes it ever so gentle across your warm belly, looks at the villagers like, So now you must give something to me, you must provide for the child – and I’ll work for the tourist board or whatever’s next for pastoral retribution.
Daft, right? And what if I’m in the audience. What if Robert’s there. He will be stage-side. He may not cope when I pin his eyes open, turn his head to the hijack, to everything he should know about you at last.
Oh the lobby was dark, the trapped light of a stairwell, yeah he’s – well not in, must’ve missed him, second apartments, neighbour’s looking at me all wrong, Have you seen him? There’s something we have to – No, no, little luck with that fella always darting out, theatre bloke isn’t he – But when do you reckon he’s back or around much at – Well I see him first half of the week usually, Tuesdays – Right, Tuesdays – Could be, but too many days feel the same here, memory stopped serving long before I noticed – Thanks just…please don’t tell him I was here, I mean, it doesn’t matter, so don’t say, it’s fine, we work together. And the neighbour, crusty heron, smiled down at his keys like I haven’t been the only girl waiting next door, waiting for an hour. Called again. Fingered Robert’s letterbox. Wrote my name on the back of a tram ticket and almost fed it through. Crushed my own name up.
So fuck it, he should be there in the mystic salute of your rebirth, what am I, weak? No wonder my mind’s wishing. Three years. Christ that’s fast. Three years of you. New words. Paint the beak, blacken, shade the maxilla. Now we need brush C3 for that under-gape grey. Maybe I’ll go for a walk after. We must have twenty minutes at least. That’s it, enter my bones. Pinch the tip just there, careful, dab and stroke…Just spend a while in me and I promise we’ll pass the rehearsal room yeah, give it a rehearsal of our own, maybe find another room or rest on the street window, listen to tyres hiss and vanish, and voices work hard beyond the pane; watch dirt cling to the brick of the bottle shop despite the broken gutter weeping down its fractured face across the dark glass towards the customers who weave around the stream to a shop with three types of seed bread. They won’t see us. And maybe we’ll stick around, stay ahead of Caretaker Mike’s boots, drifting. Walk the back ends, the passages, the storeroom, lights yellow and sudden like a school’s. We’ll flick them and make Mike believe he’s haunted. Ha! Attention. Men should be so grateful. And if you want, come home. There isn’t much going on really. Mum rang. I should call her back. Liz is depressed about her promotion. Might leave that for tonight and all the realms of giving a shit. We have enough vegetables for the Lotus Grill, sizzling Soy and shaped leaves, a step away from gardening –
Wait, a knock…
Did you hear that too?
Like that tap on the door on The Day, as I lay bedbound in ruins, half-awake, wishing for cramps, for a remnant of the life I’d prayed for – shy tap, Bad time? And there was no time in that bed or the ward unless you counted the flowers, the petals browning in the sun’s glaucoma. He found me and replaced them. Watered them. Asked for time. Perched bedside with a mutter, stroked my leg, let the kiss on my wrist say enough, before he said, I’ll pay for anything you need, just don’t hate me, we can’t do this.
Got to swivel just keep the brush in my hand, in ours.
Another.
Hello, what’s up?
Door opens like tomb rock…
Hi, sorry, you okay in here? Alice with the sausage hair, apology curled on her lips, headfirst, rest of her slips through. She says, Think I left my bag this morning.
Oh right, right, the hamper thing. I’ve seen it. A headless rainbow armadillo. Back chair.
She rushes off the door, letting it slam, edges around the table and a box of oils. Her jumper is so frayed, wool spooling off the arms, worse than balls, ratty pigtails like a farming accident. It’ll snag if she’s not careful. Could mention the desk gum too. But she’s thought ahead and left her mouth free.
How’s the bird person coming?
Too big for a deadline, in all honesty.
Ah-hah.
Shading bouts on the scleral ring, the arch of the neck, doozy you might say…And I show her. Alice leans over the table.
Would you shit yourself if this came into your yard?
Try not to, she says.
Nice.
It’ll look mad on the poster.
She returns my smile, hangs in a few seconds of loose air, then resumes her journey to the back of the room. Where were we?
There, she coos, finding the strap and pulling the bag up, rooting for signs of invasion. Okay, no brush then. Not while she’s here.
Need to be careful with that thing. Somebody might think it’s a prototype, some new dream coat.
She says, Yeah, probably why I lose it so much.
Wherever you go next, maybe, there’ll be legit pegs, not nails in the wall.
She looks up from the innards.
Wherever I go, sure.
Eyes of a kicked animal. A shade in them, greyer. She stuffs the bag and zips. We should be polite. Let’s say: What does that look like to you?
What?
What’s next.
Oh, well, there’s what my dad calls the Real World. Which I think means aprons.
Christ. And hairnets. Fight with tooth and chisel.
That’s the plan.
You’ve been to the Real World, I say, and it’s here, it’s wherever you feel good. It’ll follow you out the door somewhere that takes people out of theirs. People pay for us, don’t they? They bear their crap for any evening we can throw together. That’s real. And that sounds about right, but she’s left me suddenly, there, staring at the bobby pin board. This girl…A day ago, she was yammering about pumpkin spice and pressing pictures into my palm, videos of Centaur Joe Rogan. And now she’s like this. Sort of tighter. Half-gone. She straightens the strap and clings to it.
Rob’s back next week, isn’t he?
Yeah, believe so.
Sweet, I…It’ll be good to sit down.
He’ll be here on your last day. Wouldn’t miss that. Final words and some digs at the Arts Council.
Nothing else?
Well, depends. Could ask you back for another production. Don’t bet on it. More newbies down the road, same itch, all ready to run over bodies.
Probably meet years later behind a coffee machine won’t we.
At least you’ll smell great.
And we’ll swap notes and talk about the locks in here, she says, and her lips squirm.
Okay, let’s say. Are you actually alright?
And she nods without meaning to, takes a breath that shudders out of her.
Alice, you’re good at this. At being here.
Is that why he chose me?
Don’t be daft – of course.
I don’t think that’s true, I…
Then she’s crying in a wet blurt, a tumble, are you seeing this, she’s hugging herself. God c’mon, say to her. C’mere a sec.
Sorry, she manages, falling into the seat by ours, I never meant to…Ohhh for fucksake.
That hair of hers, so thick and arranged, feels like dead tails. Shoulder shapeless. Wool scribbles my cheek.
We say, What’s wrong.
She wipes her face. Leaks more. Says, I can’t, I can’t.
You can’t what?
Do – this – alone.
Can’t leave us?
A horrid, dismissive, choking laugh. He’ll leave me, she’s saying. Pulling at herself. He won’t do what he says.
What do you mean…
And then the clearest eyes. Stare. Hold her. Scene blurs, beak grazes elbow.
She says, Something happened.
No no no no no.
She says, I was stupid.
(But you’re special, she can’t.)
His wife doesn’t know. And now – now it hurts.
She touches her belly without thinking or maybe thinking just enough for me. How far is she? I feel sick. Low. Jesus. The girl’s face pleads for me. But you are meant to be the only one like this. In the night you become more than a shadow. Corners stretch into feet, that bulb there a bald fist, legs dangling from calathea. You’re just mine. What will it be like for her, clawing for his time in the distance, a mangled version of you speaking maybe in her but sick, bloody, unformed. Unnamed. He’s done it again. Bastard. Made what he can’t handle, slipped a bad hand south, another to her lips. And where are you going? Oh God don’t. Not now. Please. I was full of you. Her tears are burning. I was full of you once. I glowed.
Joshua Potts is a 30-year-old copywriter and sometime journalist. He lives in Manchester, UK. As a member of the Underline Writing Group, he’s found a way to make Sundays holy again. He enjoys walks anywhere but the beach unless there’s a margarita. Bands, boxing and bright colours keep him occupied while he waits to be invited to George Saunders’ BBQ. He’s also been published in Orton and Bandit Fiction.
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