She didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want her to be there. She
was trying to ‘improve things’. He wasn’t bothered. She’d
made an effort when she arrived, a couple of weeks ago. He had ignored her.
She wanted to find out why so many people were concerned about him. He wanted
her out. She felt guilty about despising him. He didn’t see what having
his older sister around would achieve.
Friday evening
Every Friday, Watts and Bang went drinking.
Watts explained why his sister lived with him and how it was only ‘for the time being’. He had explained how he wasn’t currently ‘engaging’ at work, or ‘properly alleviating his stresses”. How it was nice to be considered important enough to warrant all the attention, but how it was a pain, all the same.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Bang said.
“Of course I’ve got a bloody sister. Big bones. Flat chest. Female version of me.”
“I thought that was your mother,” Bang shrugged.
“My what?!” Watts screamed. “Jesus Christ, Chris is only seven years older than me.” Watts described his mother. “Kindly eyes. Built like a tea chest.”
He thought of something and un-knitted his brows. “All those years ago, who do you suppose answered the door when we first started going out drinking?”
“I don’t know,” Bang replied. He shuffled awkwardly and decided to change the subject. “The Witch coming down later?”
Watts looked at his watch. “Might do,” he muttered. “Bit early though.”
Bang had him. Where he had a doting, loving family, Watts had a mother whose shape resembled a tea chest and a flat chested sister. As families went, Watts’ sounded pretty ugly. As far as the ‘significant other’ was concerned, Bang didn’t have a girlfriend at the moment, but overall, he did okay. Watts was dangled by a bitch everyone hated and who picked him up at last orders, or whenever she ‘fancied a shag’, or whenever she got bored with her other crowd. Everyone, Watts included, referred to her as ‘the Witch’.
“And anyway,” Watts said. “I don’t know about the Witch tonight. With Chris in the house, it doesn’t seem right. Would you do it with your sister listening in the next room? Eh?”
Watts always bought sex into it. Now, at least, he only did so when he felt he was being cornered. He didn’t come out with it like he used to, before he the shine started to fade. ‘There are downsides to dating the company Goff,’ he had conceded about a month after he started seeing the Witch. ‘Goblins and Satan and all that devil shit. Still, the Witch is a real eye opener. And it’s non-stop,” he’d added, unconvincingly. “I still hurt from an afternoon pop in the cleaners’ cupboard.’
Back in the present, the bell for drinking up time rang. To everyone’s relief, including Watts’, the Witch hadn’t appeared.
When he got home, Watts took care not to make much noise. He decided against going down to the shed, and instantly felt a pang of guilt. He stealthily dumped the remains of a kebab in the big dustbin and froze as something leapt up at him. Some bastard tabby had it in for him.
Inside the house, Chris, his big-boned, flat-chested older sister, woke with a start, levered herself up on the settee and peered out the window. Through the gloom, she saw the fleeing cat and heard someone curse. It sounded like Watts, although he’d mentioned coming in late, and it wasn’t, particularly.
Next Friday
“Weeks go by so fucking fast,” Bang observed.
“Not if every day feels like endless torture. I get these pains in my knees, all the fucking time. It’s driving me mad,” Watts scathingly retorted.
Bang looked over his pint of beer. He sneered when Watts turned away. The bastard wasn’t even twenty-five but still lived the life of a mummy’s boy.
Bang’s attention was caught by a huge, expansive arrival and he nodded towards the door. “Best stop moaning you cunt. Your shag’s walked in.”
Before he had time to turn his pre-composed smile towards the entrance, the Witch’s voice came booming into the back of his head.
“Fucking hell!” the Witch exclaimed. “Can’t you dress for a change, rather than come out looking like some fucking steward from the fucking aeroplane?!”
The Witch stood six foot three in stiletto sex boots and enormously endowed. She had dressed all in black, with black Celtic make up and beaten silver accessories. Watts stood up to receive her jabbing, violent tongue in his mouth. Bang and the regulars winced in pity.
“Hello Bling,” the Witch said to Bang, throwing back her mane of black hair and silver streaks. “You coming back with me and Romeo later?”
“It’s Bang,” Bang reminded her.
“Sure Bang, sure. I’ll call you Bling. And if you’re hung like you dress – like an ass - we three should be in for right good fucky fucky.”
“Snakebite?” Watts interrupted.
The Witch pushed him down with her barely contained cleavage. “I’m not drinking in here. This place is dead.” She threw her head back, ran a hand through her hair and dropped her voice. “I’ve come in to do a deal.”
She discreetly, significantly nodded to a prunefaced ex-Beatnik who always wore a disgusting beret, drank in the corner and ran a ridiculous trade in amyl nitrate, more to keep contact with the ‘hipsters’ than for any real financial gain.
“I’ll be back,” the Witch promised. She sidled, elaborately, up to the ex-Beatnik’s table, crouched down and snooped up from a little brown bottle. Her eyes blinked furiously. Her parting clutch winded Watts, and left his face full of Celtic smudges.
Once she left, Watts didn’t look too thrilled.
Bang gleefully nodded towards the door. “She’s on fire tonight. I dread to think what she’ll do to you later.”
“I told you,” Watts said woodenly. He’d recently started modelling himself on Richard Attenborough’s Pinky from Brighton Rock. “I can’t do anything with Chris around. And besides, I’ve got to get going with the project.”
“That thing in the shed?” Bang asked.
Watts had a couple more but didn’t wait for the Witch. She’d find someone else. They were more or less through. She was destroying him. She inflicted the sexual act on him and he’d become littered with unsightly welts, pustules and compresses. When they were ‘doing it’, he was never sure if it was a physical act or some cabalistic ritual.
When he got back home and rushed through into the auxiliary room at the back of the house.
“Early tonight,” Chris called unenthusiastically.
Watts sighed and re-emerged to join her in the sitting room. Thousands of pounds’ worth of hi-fi and electrical equipment glinted back at him. He hardly ever touched any of it, especially now she was around.
“You’re back early,” Chris repeated. “Are you off anywhere else?” Her brother’s appearance had interrupted a huge bag of tortillas and selection of dips she’d bought in.
Normally, Watts would look at her and think ‘that sour, flat-chested, long-nosed hawk can’t be related to me’ but his less-than-normal alcohol intake his lucky, early escape from the Witch made him feel uncharacteristically charitable.
“Yeh well. I reckon going out
with Bang’s got its good points, but it can be dull.”
Chris nodded at him. His genuine sounding, if rather brief attempt at conversation
made her feel nervous.
“Don’t worry about me spoiling your night in. I’m going back out. The lads from the office called on the mobile. I’m going out with them. Just to please me old sis’”.
Chris nodded again and felt even nervier. He had never referred to her as ‘sis’ before. It struck her dumb. With wholly uncharacteristic cheeriness, her brother went on to bid her a ‘good night’ and swept back out.
“Don’t wait up,” he shouted from the front door.
She missed the beginning of the film. She made herself a cup of tea and carried on watching the other side. She dozed until being woken by the telephone at about 10.45. She picked up the receiver but didn’t get a chance to say anything, before a sluttish voice started shrieking on the other end.
“Watts! Where the fuck are you, you shitbag?!” Chris held the receiver away from her ear before asking, as calmly as she could, ‘to whom she might be speaking’.
“Oh. La-di-fucken-da! You must be the evil sister! Well listen Griselda. Tell him it’s over and tell him I’ve taken his friend Bling instead and to go fuck himself. And tell him……. tell him I’ll come round some time to pick up the charts and the crystals.”
The sluttish voice slammed the phone down, so Chris replaced the receiver and walked through to the room at the back of the house. Outside, a light came from the shed.
It was Watts. He’d snuck around after saying ‘good night’ to Chris. Things were reaching a critical stage in his project. An angle poise lamp lit up a sheet of ‘troubleshooting’ instructions he’d downloaded from www.buildamonster.com and he ‘shushed”, trying to pacify the stirring beast, who had been roused by the interruption.
“Well this is something of a surprise,” the monster said. “I can smell booze,” it said disdainfully. “Are you drunk? I wish you’d give me eyes so I can see whether you are drunk or not.”
“Sorry. Still haven’t come,” Watts lied, wishing he’d followed the instructions more carefully. He dropped the Pinky impression. The monster had been imbued with a certain level of culture, but Brighton Rock was lost on him.
“It’s not fair,” the monster wailed.
“Okay,” Watts said, putting the instructions down. He turned to face his creation and was newly appalled at the ill fitting, suppurating mess of fur, claws, teeth and cartilage. The heart, which he’d not covered very well, beat irregularly and looked hideous and purple.
“I’m ugly aren’t I?” the monster wailed.
“I’ll read you some poetry. You’ll like that.”
The monster seemed appeased.
“‘Do not go gentle into…’” Watts started.
“No no no!” the monster wailed. “You know I don’t want that one.”
“Well which one do you want?” Watts asked.
“You know which one,” the monster replied.
Watts sighed and put the book down.
“Alright then. ‘Let us go then, you and I; when the evening is spread out against the sky…’”
“No good fucking son of a bitch,” the Witch moaned at the prunefaced
amyl-nitrate ex-Beatnik. They were the only people left in the pub. There had
been a lock in, so the curtains were drawn. It had turned uncomfortably late
and although the three members of the bar staff shot each other encouraging,
accusing expressions, none dared ask the Witch to leave. The prunefaced ex-Beatnik
had immunity too, by association.
“He’s a no good fucking son of a bitch,” the Witch repeated, slamming the table then wiping away a tear of frustration.
Next day, Chris waited until Watts went to work before venturing down to the bottom of the garden. The dew felt chilly on her ankles. When she got to the shed she hesitated. She peered through a thin, cardboard-dirty windowpane set to one side of the door. She could make out the shadows of a workbench, a vice and some boxes at the far end. She craned up on her tiptoes but couldn’t make anything out.
Suddenly, she thought she saw something move. She stifled a gasp and stepped back. There had been something there, she could’ve sworn. As she turned to flee, she crashed into a wall of industrially fused blue tonic and red braiding which had snuck up on her, unawares.
She gasped again and stood back, panting, slamming her back against the shed door and faced……… the postman.
“Sorry miss. Saw the gate open and thought I’d bring this down. Save you coming to collect it later,” the lasciviously suburban voice of the postman intoned.
Chris closed her eyes and tried to regulate her grabbing breaths.
“Sign here please. Must be for your husband. Didn’t know Mr. Watts was married,” the postman said disinterestedly, handing the package over.
Chris felt the latch on the door pushing in to the small of her back. She watched the disappearing postman, and reached slowly behind her. The latch had been secured and she didn’t have a clue where the padlock key might be. She turned her attention to the package. It was the size as a small shoebox and looked innocuous enough until she noticed it had been posted by www.buildamonster.com.
On the Wednesday morning, Watts went to work in something actually resembling a ‘good mood’.
Tuesday had gone well. For a long time he had a doomed feeling, as if he was carrying a contagious disease. Recently, people he didn’t know actively tracked him down with the sole purpose of not ‘catching’ his eye. People he suspected didn’t even work at the company appeared to gain entry with the explicit purpose of avoiding him in the corridor.
Yesterday bought definite improvements though. The Witch had spent the last few days avoiding him, but yesterday, had tried patching things up. She had tried to appeal to his better nature, conceding all sorts of principles and behaviours. It was unprecedented.
Then his boss had called him in. Watts feared the worst, especially when his boss didn’t sit down straightaway, but pushed the door shut behind him. Watts furiously tried to think which peccadillo or misinterpreted act would be picked and thrown back in his face this time.
“You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you in,” his boss said.
Watts knew not to reply, and was subsequently taken aback at receiving thanks and praise for his recent contributions.
The surprise geed him up. Maybe, he thought, he should try talking to Chris; maybe even get her out to the pub. Life didn’t hold much for her, after all. Perhaps, he thought, he might even try going out with the ‘lot’ from the office on the Saturday.
Next Friday
He didn’t know what the hell had come over him and why, or rather how
or from where he had taken any recent hope. The day had limped along caustically.
Rumours of redundancies were rife, particularly in his department.
He’d crawled off after work for a few drinks with the Witch, but she wouldn’t say whether she would see him later. He would rather have kept the brazen headed bitch who came out straight out and let you know exactly when and how she was dropping you in the shit.
And Chris wasn’t helping. She had curled herself into a ball on the corner of his bachelor sofa and sipped from an earthenware mug he was sure he would have smashed up and thrown away had he seen it before. He’d mentioned; just mentioned, that he hadn’t had such a good day.
“You’ll be out later with Bang,” she sneered at him, disgusted anew at his slouchy appearance and his stink of pubs.
“I might do that,” he snarled back.
“How are things?” Chris asked, looking at her nails and not looking even remotely interested.
“You don’t really care, do you?” Watts answered back.
“I care about as much as you do. As long as Bang can stand your company while you get drunk, and as long as you can get your end away with that shrieking woman, I really don’t think you care either.”
Watts didn’t stop to ask how she knew about the Witch. He stormed off to the shed.
“Don’t start,” he snapped, waking the monster and feeling guilty.
“Where the hell have you been?” the creature asked, trying, fighting against sounding pitiful.
Watts started to reply, but his voice vanished among the scattered debris. The pitiful condition of the monster shook him and dispelled his anger. It was divesting itself in chunks; there were untidy piles of fur and claws in the box and all over the bench. In the middle of one such heap rested a tooth.
“Let’s get you patched up.” Watts turned the light off and opened the door to let in some air. He started tidying up, looking for the printout so he could start fixing things and installing the eyes which had arrived in the week. He’d left them longer than he ought and hoped they would still be okay.
“Eh? You what?!” Bang asked, an hour later, abruptly coming to attention. He’d been surprised how drunk Watts was and completely taken aback at his rotting, fetid odour. Watts, he knew, would often pop for a couple after work with the Witch, but even his eyes were far blearier than usual.
The upside was that he talked quite openly about his monster, or rather, about his problems with it.
“I said,” Watts repeated with exaggerated laissez-faire, “I can’t even think about installing the eye until the surrounding area heals up enough to support it.
Bang had heard correctly. “How’s the Witch?” he asked, rapidly changing the conversation.
“Dunno. Acting up.”
“She down later?”
“Dunno.”
The Witch arrived on last orders. It was hard for Bang to tell who was in a
worse state and what the hell the Witch had been pumping into herself. He decided
he was best off out of it. His farewells were returned with glazy confusion.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” the Witch said. She looked all over the place and ready to fly apart at any moment, but she sounded coherent. In comparison to her normal bursting attire, she was almost dourly dressed.
“Whyssat?” Watts asked.
“Because we need to talk, Romeo.”
“Talked in the week,” Watts slurred. His body slouched and his eyes rolled up at her as his head bowed and bobbled and his chin whacked against the table. “Ow!” he wailed.
“Look, I don’t think we should see each other for a while,” the Witch said.
Chris had bought in nachos, tinned pears, chocolate flute biscuits and artichokes.
She held the pears up to her face and slurped at them, freeing one from the
rim and the syrup and letting it slither into her mouth as she dumbly stared
in dull aching comprehension, letting the scenes of one of her favourite films
wash over her.
“One last time. Round mine, ah cahm on…..,” Watts slurched
across the pavement.
“Alright. We get a cab. One last time,” the Witch agreed.
They – Watts especially – had made the most of the lock-in. When they got back, he didn’t bother keeping the noise down and didn’t notice Chris who had fallen asleep in front of the television.
The rest of the weekend was hung over. Chris went to meet a man from the internet,
about a gun.
On Monday, after lunch, the boss called Watts in.
“Ah. Watts. Sit down. Are you alright?”
“Fairly major weekend actually. Would you like me to elaborate?” Watts smiled but felt sick.
“I don’t know,” the boss replied. “Should I?”
“No.”
“Well then, no.” The boss put his hands down on the table in front of him, displaying an admirable degree of transparency. “Watts,” he said, “I imagine you’re thinking ‘is he going to let me go?’”
“Well, kind of, boss.”
Chris fumbled and loaded. She fired and the gun leapt back the way she’d
been told, but the bullet hit its target anyway. True, Watts’ top of the
range television presented a big target especially when at only around four
feet away, but as the crash and tinkle of the glass carried on for what seemed
an eternity, she felt an intoxicating feeling of power.
“Well I’m not firing you, you oaf! I’m not pretending we haven’t
been worried about you, but we’re not in the habit of letting our best
people go. Especially at times like these.”
Chris loaded the chamber. Outside, she expected mayhem in reaction to her shooting
her brother’s television, but everything around her was still. It wouldn’t
be long though, before the police turned up. She’d called them herself.
There’d been an unnerving pause.
“Err, is that all sir?” Watts asked.
“Oh no. The Witch. We’re concerned about her. The black magic nonsense. Is it really serious?”
Watts told him.
The boss frowned. “Shame. Still, it’s not exactly cuckoo or dangerous and it would be sad to see her waste herself. Word is she’s stuck on you. Go and sort it out.”
Watts flapped out of the office. Again, he had expected to get the sack; it had, after all, been on the cards for a long time. He hadn’t been, and felt relieved to be back on the treadmill. The Witch was in the kitchen. She turned as he approached and he cursed her for being so visible and obvious and not hiding her raw eyes and streaky make-up.
“Witch,” he said loudly, “can I see you a moment?”
“Fuck off,” she replied, but she put the cup she was drying back on the draining board and followed him out.
They walked, in silence, and with mounting expectation, through the offices, to the loading bay.
At the same moment, Chris decided there was no time left for niceties. A well-aimed
shot disintegrated the padlock on the shed door. Somewhere behind her, voices
had arrived and were shouting ‘Police!’ and ‘Put the gun down!’
She gave herself a little more time by turning and firing wildly in their direction
before ducking into the gloom of the shed.
“Please,” the monster cried. Chris involuntarily flinched and felt a maternal relief as she emptied the gun into his patchy, gloamy fur.
Next Friday
Every Friday, Watts and Bang went drinking.
Watts explained, but played down what had happened earlier in the week. He still wasn’t correctly engaging at work, or properly alleviating his stresses.
“I don’t know,” Bang said when Watts finished. When all was said and done, he guessed Chris must have hated Watts as much as he said he hated her. He shuffled awkwardly, not wanting to admit, let alone comprehend such gross perversion and decided to change the subject. If he carried on like this, he would go home drunk and morose.
“The Witch coming down later?” he asked.
Watts looked at his watch. “Might do,” he muttered flatly. “Bit early for her though.”
“And anyway,” he said. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right. Somehow…..” his voice trailed off.