short story (unfinished)
WRITTEN:
1992, 25 years
CONTENT WARNING: This piece contains crude language and sexual references. If you are going to be offended, please do not proceed.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This was written as a vehicle to express my ever-growing irritation with/at the one of the losers I was hanging out with at the time, this being an exercise intended to get my mind off the Second Great Love of My Life, with whom I had split very late in 91 or very early in 92 and with whom I wanted to reunite but was afraid he would laugh at me, so I tried avoiding him in the hope I would get over him. I had too much free time and I spent way too much of it with a couple of freaking nutters. They get a more detailed mention in the notes to Hokee so I won't rehash that here. The title just came to me and I worked around that. Repetition, cadence and general style influenced by Pepworth's Early Marks
She has to tell him sometime. She keeps putting it off. Doesn't know how to put it. Not sure how he'll react. Not sure how she'll react to his reaction.
She has to tell him sometime. This just can't go on. But it does. It keeps going on and going on and going on. Each time she sees him she means to tell him, but there's always a reason why she can't; he's just lost his promotion, or they're not alone, or he's in a good mood, or he's in an bad mood, or, or, or. Or.
She has to tell him sometime. Sometime soon. She tries to recall what she saw in him in the first place. She can do it, just. He's changed since then, oh, how he's changed! Not personality-wise, really, but his appearance... while she wouldn't say it's gone downhill exactly, it just doesn't have the same appeal. She doesn't get excited about seeing him any more. Actually, she gets excited about not seeing him. She knows that's a sign of a fizzled relationship, but she doesn't know how to tell him.
It's not as though he'll have nowhere to go when she dumps him. Hector always has women beating down his door. Sometimes literally.
|
Her name was Ginny. She was a classic dippy blonde. She decided Hector was her one-and-only, and squeezed him in, three times a week, between Graeme (who bought her all those things she couldn't go without, so she couldn't dump Graeme), Alan (who drove her to work when her car wouldn't start, so she had to hold on to him), Richard (who was a 'status apparatus', and she just had to be seen out with him every Friday, or else who knows who wouldn't take any notice of her) and Billy (who kept promising to get her a cabaret act in a classy club). To her, Hector was a 'status apparatus supreme', because not only was he a prime catch, but he could actually turn her on, and he didn't call her Virginia.
After about three months, Hector got tired of Ginny. He hated the way she wore pink with orange, blue with orange, and purple with orange. He abhored the way she called him 'darlink' in public. He detested having to suck her toes for exactly 12 minutes before he could fuck her. He told her it was over. She cried, she wailed, she sniffled. She saw him to the door. He went home. He tried to remember what he had seen in her in the first place. He couldn't. He had a bath. He went to bed. At a quarter to four in the morning, Ginny woke him up. She had tied him to the bedposts. He asked how she had got in. She smiled. Then she left. When his mother arrived for her bi-annual visit, eight hours later, Hector was still tied to the bedposts. His mother smiled understandingly and untied him. Hector then made a startling discovery. Every door in his house, apart from the bedroom door, had been torn from its hinges. Hector called the police. His mother smiled understandingly and made a pot of tea. Hector went to the police station. Hector made a statement. The police brought Ginny to the police station. Hector wanted her charged with malicious damage. Ginny claimed she was pregnant. She was charged with malicious damage anyway. The pregnancy test came up lime green. She wasn't. Hector moved house. The inconvenience annoyed him no end. He never heard from Ginny again. |
She has to tell him sometime. She keeps putting it off. Doesn't know how to put it. Not sure how he'll react. Not sure how she'll react to his reaction.
She has to tell him sometime. This just can't go on. But it does. It keeps going on and going on and going on. Each time she sees him she means to tell him, but there's always a reason why she can't; he's had a bad day, or they're not alone, or he's in a good mood, or he's in an bad mood, or, or, or. Or.
She has to tell him sometime. Sometime soon.
She tries to recall what she saw in him in the first place. She can do it, just. He's changed since then, oh, how he's changed! Not personality-wise, really, but his appearance... while she wouldn't say it's gone downhill exactly, it just doesn't have the same appeal. She doesn't get excited about seeing him any more. Actually, she gets excited about not seeing him. She knows that's a sign of a fizzled relationship, but she doesn't know how to tell him.
It's not as though he'll have nowhere to go when she dumps him. Hector always has women beating down his door.
She has to tell him sometime. She picks up the phone and dials. No answer. Doesn't even have the answering machine on. Means he's at work. She dials his work number. His secretary informs her in an indistinct drawl punctuated with chewing gum that he is out to lunch with a client. She leaves no message.
It is a sunny Thursday afternoon. She's bored. She rings a few people. No-one's in. It's always the way.
She goes up to the shops, browsing. She sees several things she almost buys, for Hector, but manages to remember that she doesn't like him much any more, in case he gets the hint and makes it easier for her to tell him. She buys a book for her mother and a biro refill for the pen by the phone. She goes to the bank. Her royalty payments still aren't in. She goes to her other bank. Those royalty payments aren't in yet, either. She finds a payphone, sticking one finger in her ear against the peak-hour traffic. Her agent isn't in. Her agent's secretary informs her in a fake British accent punctuated by tapping fake manicured nails that Miz Walthorpe is (still) out to lunch with a client. She leaves the same old message, "Sue's usual problem".
She goes home. She rings her mother. No answer.
She takes out the old biro refill and puts in the new. She scribbles for a while to get it working. She puts the old refill in the bottom drawer in the kitchen cabinet, where it is kept company by 67 of its predecessors.
It is a balmy Thursday evening. She's bored.
Hector hates filling out forms. He's a great spokesperson for the 'paperless office'. Unfortuately he's alone in this. Everyone is always writing something on scraps of paper, handing them out, passing them round, accumulating them on filing spikes or leaving towers of them to flutter and fall when someone hurries past. There's a perfectly good electronic mail system in the office, but it seems that only Hector uses it. He's forever saying to executive X or secretary Y "Did you get my memo?", and they always say no, and he always growls and shakes his head, but he just can't bring himself to scribble on bits of paper like they do.
Hector hates filling out forms. He's filling out one now. A requisition form for, ironically, more paper for the section's computer room. He growls and shakes his head, but the form must be filled out all the same. Seems he's the only staff member in the section who can understand it.
Hector hates filling out forms. Not only does it involve hated paper, but it also requires him to think. Hector prefers activities where he can proceed on automatic, while considering possibilities. Not thinking, considering. Hector hates thinking.
In breezes Valerie, his secretary. She virtually throws a handful of phone messages at him. The top two slither off the pile and flutter down to the floor. She picks them up, throws them back on the desk, flounces off towards the outer office.
"Valerie,"
"Yes, Mr Parker?"
"Valerie, next time, staple them together."
"Yes Mr Parker."
It's not the first time he's told her. Possibly the third time this week. Or the fourth. When she was first hired he used to keep track of how many times he told her things. After a few months he gave up, wiped the notes out of the memo system on his terminal. Freed up almost a Meg of space.
The usual. Mr Branton from Widderly & Branton cancelling his appointment; Mrs Walker from Hastings cancelling her appointment; Mr London from Hastings cancelling his appointment; Mr London's secretary calling to see if he'd cancelled his appointment; Hector's mother wanting to know if he needed new socks; Mr Branton rescheduling his appointment; Mr London's secretary calling to see if he had turned up anyway; Hector's mother wanting to know if he needed new shirts; three "no message"s - two male and one female. The female would be Susan. The males he had no idea. More thinking! Hector tore up all the messages in disgust, then rang Susan. No answer. He tried her agent's office. Her agent's secretary informed him that "client particulars are confidential", then cut him off in the middle of his next question.
Poor Susan, thought Hector. He'd have to tell her sometime. He just couldn't find the right moment. No, he just couldn't find Susan at the right moment. No, Susan didn't seem to be able to find time to see him. No, well, something was wrong somewhere. Hector was annoyed. Susan was just another woman, after all. Women were not a problem for Hector, except when they refused to let go. Susan was the first woman who seemed to want to let go. He was going to have to tell her sometime. Sometime. But when?