Dial M for Monkey (6 page)

‘Hang on,’ he blurted. ‘What do you mean ‘it happens’? So someone came in when you were drunk and shot her? ’ He moved forward so he was eye to eye with the suspect and shot him his best intimidating glare.

I think about her as I dig in the sand outside. I wonder what sort of woman she had been as I bundle her into the wheelbarrow. As I drop her into the shallow grave half a mile from the house I wonder what it would have sounded like when she laughed.

He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, a mixture of adrenaline and sadness. He knew what was coming next.

I never cover the graves. Not until weeks afterward. It isn't like anyone would ever come out here and besides the seagulls will soon begin their pecking, the predators will visit tonight, the wildlife would do what they do. It’s easy enough to come back later time and bury what’s left of the evidence. Nature is very effective.

The sergeant glanced from the suspect to the tape recording the interview. Just to make sure. One time he had forgotten to record a confession. It happens.

At least the cat will be fed, I think to myself as I wander back home.

The following day the sergeant arrived at the suspect’s house. Other cars would be there soon but he wanted to be there first, to see. The car door clunked shut and his attention was caught by a cat scampering towards him. The tabby jumped onto the bonnet of his car, desperate for affection and probably for food. He stroked it for a second and noticed its healthy coat, its bright new collar.

He looked up at the house in front of him and took his notebook out of his shirt pocket, flipping it open as he did so. He read carefully and was about to make his way inside when he noticed the house stood alone.

No neighbour. No house next door. It complicated matters. It happens.

To Let : Ground Floor Flat

T
hey’ve been living in the upstairs flat for six months.

He: fashionable, hair by Toni & Guy, music taste the worst side of Radio 1’s playlist, king of take aways, would never be seen in a bar that served real ale.

She: heart shaped face, beautiful big eyes, dresses like an explosion on the catwalk, hair also by Toni & Guy, music taste unknown but certainly turns down the pop-crud of He, can almost certainly never touch his take aways judging by her hourglass figure and for God’s sake don’t get me started on her arse…

I see them coming and going, see She sweeping in and storming out. And I hear them. The music, as I may have mentioned was fucking appalling.

But what was really appalling was the fucking.

He was so bad at it. She seemed to make the best of it but, to be honest, He was the worst I had ever heard. And it has to be pointed out at this point that I was single so I was in no real position to criticise. However, single or no everyone knows bad fucking when you hear it.

The shared garden – that was my undoing.

He: out for the day, hadn’t seen him for hours.

She: outside in a bikini looking like a curtain twitcher’s wet dream.

Which was handy as that was exactly what this curtain twitcher was looking for.

Two hours of foreplay followed with She slowly marinating in the attention. I gazed from behind the veil of muslin struggling with the inner turmoil of whether or not it constituted an invasion of privacy if I only took photos of her on my phone.

By the time dusk came I was almost ready to do the same myself. She started to make moves towards going inside, putting her magazine to one side, stretching. When He arrived home and kissed She with a passion I thought only I had for her I felt almost voyeuristic.

I was all set to turn to my imagination to finish what she had started in my boxers when it started. Slowly at first. The thumping rhythm of love. Right from the moment they got inside.

It was as if he’d been out all day taking lessons. The pace steadily rising thump-thump-thumping in a way that I was sure She was enjoying but had to admit I wasn’t exactly finding it repulsive myself. As the thumping quickened upstairs so my own pace quickened downstairs until it was all too much and… well you can fill in the rest for yourself I’m sure.

The following day a parcel was delivered while they were out and He came to collect it.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing you yesterday evening,’ I said with a smirk, hoping to elicit embarrassment, to move myself up the playground hierarchy.

‘Ah yes,’ he replied without flinching. ‘Sorry if I disturbed you I was putting together an Ikea cupboard.’

My relationship with She was over and I moved out soon after but have since had strange yearnings towards aisle 16 in B&Q.

The Dangers of eBay

E
NTER YOUR WISH HERE.

PLEASE BE CONCISE AND SPECIFIC.

They were simple enough instructions, most people seemed to be able to follow them.

SALE OF YOUR SOUL IS ETERNALLY BINDING.

WARNING: WISHES MAY NOT BE HONOURED.

That wasn’t how it started of course, I had bought my first soul. On eBay. It satisfied me for a while, the novelty value of owning someone else’s immortal soul made me laugh. I felt like a better person, it was as if I was walking around draped in a spiritual blanket.

Soon after my actions became somewhat erratic and, believing that I would be immune from eternal damnation, got involved in something that not only tarnished the soul I had bought but also cast a pretty dark shadow over my own. I knew I needed more protection and so hit upon the idea of setting up my own website. It was a simple enough affair where people could come along, fill in their name, address, email address and check a box to say they wished to give me their immortal soul for perpetuity. So that they felt I offered a better deal than other sites of a similar nature I put in a clause by which they could retain their soul until their death, whereupon the soul would revert to me. What they got in return was whatever they wished for. In theory.

People came, of course. First tens, then hundreds, then thousands every day. Not all of them sold their soul but many did and I soon had more souls than I knew what to do with. I had become a soul broker.

I made sure I kept strict records, cataloguing and databasing every soul I bought and what their wish would be should I deign to grant it. Most were ridiculous; money, women, power. Occasionally they were worrying with deeply disturbing undertones. These were my favourites, I had a special section I would read often about what these crazies wanted. I felt close to them, fond of their unsettling tendencies, worried about them even.

There was one I had become particularly obsessed by, her name was Lynne and she had wished for her life to end. Quickly. I worried for her but mostly I worried that she may be tarnishing the soul that was meant for me. After all, if I had nothing to live for I can think of a few pretty depraved things I would get into before I threw in the towel.

Soon after the paranoia had set in over this I began waking in the night, my sheets soaked with sweat, even in the daytime I heard voices warning me I had been duped. Perhaps her soul was already so tainted and stained that I was actually in a worse position by owning it, it was conceivable she had palmed it off onto an unsuspecting broker.

My worries finally peaked when, passing a newsagent I noticed a bill proclaiming the attempted suicide of a woman. She had tried to jump off the suspension bridge and had broken most of the bones in her body. She was alive, but only just. In the newspaper she was identified as ‘a woman from Finch Avenue’.

I didn’t even need to check. I knew it was Lynne, I knew her address by heart.

Within the hour I was at the hospital, at her bedside. She was conscious, coherent but slightly groggy and didn’t recognise me. I couldn’t risk her behaviour any longer, I had to make sure that she didn’t do anything else to what was very nearly my property. After all, you wouldn’t buy a second hand car if you knew it didn’t start so why should I buy a soul that wasn’t properly looked after. It was time to grant her wish.

I stood for a second looking at her looking at me and then told her I was the one who owned her soul.

‘No, please!’ she shouted.  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Shhhh Lynne, it’s alright.’ I said, smiling.  ‘I’m here to grant your wish.’

The Things We Said Today

T
here were many things waltzing through Becky’s mind as she wandered alone through the woods beside her house but the main one was Sheila’s statement from ten minutes ago:

‘So we were at it and then it hit me, this gorgeous buttery orgasm.’

Becky had stared at Sheila in much the same way as she currently gazed at the way the trees gently undulated in front of her. It’s not so much of a walk as it is a swim through a thick gelatinous mass, Becky grasping her way through each step, the pressure almost, but not quite, too much.

It wasn’t that she was jealous. Becky had experienced some of the best sex that she imagined anyone would be able to experience. Most of it with Mark but some of it with Vince. Good sex with toe-blasting orgasms that she felt no need to share with Sheila. Sheila obviously did not share this and rarely took more than one glass of wine before she was waxing lyrical about Bob’s predilection for this, her fondness for that or their shared passion for the other.

Until now she had managed through the judicious consumption of copious amounts of red wine to blank out anything too bad but this – the buttery orgasm – this was revealed over brunch.

It was far too early to start drinking.

Wasn’t it?

‘And oral sex – how can you ever really be sure he’s enjoying it?’

The words reverberated around her as if Sheila was following.

She stumbled forward on a fallen branch and stepped in a patch of mud, her white trainer sinking in so that she had to pull it out with an awful sucking feeling that reminded her too much of the conversation she had just walked away from.

‘I’m never sure so I always keep my foot on his yoo-hoo. Just to make sure it’s still – you know… standing tall.’

Sheila still sat, she assumed, in Becky’s house, at Becky’s table with that odd confused look she sometimes got. Becky could picture it; Sheila would be staring at the door, nibbling lightly on a shortbread biscuit, waiting for Becky’s return to complete the story.

Becky turned around, facing the path home. She knew she had no choice and that she would have to tell her mother once and for all that she could not cope with stories of her parents screwing.

Noise Abatement

I
t was inevitable this would happen. It is, after all why I’m at the window isn’t it? Of course it is.

I wonder if they will ask the postman? Well, I suppose they will eventually. It’s interesting, like watching an Agatha Christie play unfold.

The gate creaks as it always does, I’ve asked the neighbours time and time again to oil it but they never listened, just agreed that it’s loud and something should definitely be done. It never was.

The noise jolts the postman but not nearly as much as what he sees as he looks up: Mr No. 49 lying face down in his conservatory.

Not that that in itself is out of the ordinary. Quite the opposite. I’ve seen Mr No. 49 drunk and asleep in that very place on an all too regular basis. Probably banished there by Mrs No. 49. The one thing that is out of the ordinary is that the conservatory is broken.

Into a million pieces.

And with one particular feature. The largest piece of the conservatory is slicing Mr No. 49’s head neatly in two. The postman looks up from his letters, is jolted to full consciousness and finally vomits violently into the conifers. I can’t help but smile.

I haven’t been sleeping. It’s starting to affect my work. When I’m in the office I can’t keep my eyes open, coffee keeps me awake but I can’t concentrate. It’s been a month now, in the house and I keep telling myself that they’ll be quiet.

Tonight I’m sitting in the corner of the kitchen because it’s the furthest point away from them. I’ve got a blanket over me, the radiator is at the far side of the room and it’s less than efficient. I’ve been sat on this wooden chair for two hours and I’ve been treated to Karaoke renditions of ‘Suspicious Minds’, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and ‘Hey Jude’ amongst others.

Mr No. 49 doesn’t have a good singing voice. Neither does Mrs No. 49 but they still belt it out. I sometimes feel that I’m caught in a trap, I can’t walk out because they keep me up nightly. It seems they have boundless enthusiasm for making noise.  After a week of no sleep I now hate Elvis almost as much as I hate my neighbours. My ears are on the verge of the audio equivalent of repetitive strain injury from ‘Suspicious Minds’. I think it’s got to the stage where I know the lyrics better than they do. In an attempt to salvage my sanity I did go around and ask them if they would mind keeping the noise down. They replied that they did mind and would I mind fucking off if it was all the same to me.

I keep thinking they might be testing me, seeing how far they can push me before I crack. I feel close.

The tap is dripping in the sink and there’s a faint creak upstairs as they stop. I know it’ll just be to change the CD but I try to take the opportunity and close my eyes. Colours throb and sleep takes me almost instantly for a few minutes before I bolt out of my chair to the over familiar
Uh huh huh
of Elvis once more.

I can’t take it anymore so I wrap my blanket around me and run to the front door, bursting out of the house and down the path before doubling back and heading towards their door through their gate. I hammer on the front door until it snaps open and Mrs No. 49 stands in front of me with a dark look in her eyes.

‘Please,’ I say. ‘Can you keep the noise down? It’s half three in the morning.’

She leans outside of the house, inspecting the world.

‘You’re right.’ She snaps. ‘And if you ever come banging on my door at this time again I’ll call the police.’

She slams the door in my face.

Later I’m sitting in my armchair dozing lightly in the temporary silence when, with a growl I’m thrown back into consciousness.