the warm patch…
KRYSTLE: When the alarm goes off he jumps up and leaves a backdraft of cold air behind him. And I roll over into where he was and it’s warm and then… And then I wait for him to tuck me in the way Dad used to tuck me in when I was girl. But he’s gone. I hear a tinny radio down the stairs and I know he’s kidding himself he’s working. He’ll be on Facebook. Or Twittering. I want him to come back with a cup of tea or coffee but he won’t… But then the door opens…
dream lover
TONY: I vaguely remember, biology in school, and staining a slide and looking at something cellular under a microscope. I also remember a twat of a biology teacher pinching the side-burn hairs on each side of my head and leading me out for doing something like laughing when he stuck a scalpel into a bull’s eye. I remember that eye - all flesh hanging from the back, black vitreous squirting. I had a dream once that when I came it was black, vitreous squirting, very pleasurable. And voila a wet dream. I had a wet dream sleeping with Krys one of the first times and she called me dirty bastard or something profoundly dismissive and obscene like that. I laughed. And got a hard-on…
the thing about the sun is…
TONY: As a lad, a young man, I hated the heat of the summer. Where I lived it was a hellish concrete jungle-oven full of scalls in shorts and open doors belching out dance music at ear threatening decibels. The insects would come out to play. Well, that’s what I thought back then, being the isolated obstreperous sod I was. Anyway, a few years on my back, some time spent under an Australian sun and I’m more sanguine. I see the horror but don’t wear it like a badge of pain and disgust… It’s hot now and no thunderstorms to break the monotony. In this little isolated spot in the big city no rain has fallen while down the road the deluge has come and gone and promises to come again. To stand out in the rain, letting it cool the forehead and eyes - I’d love that now. And don’t get me started about trying to sleep in this weather. Krys dislikes all of this. I understand. But it won’t go away. It’s in my genes…
ibuprofen redux
KRYSTLE: Wherever I turn there’s people popping pills for one thing or another. There’s headaches, joint ache, acne, vitamin deficiency, erectile dysfunction… The whole world’s rattling. And if I hear some air-brushed finishing school graduate say the word ‘penta-peptides’ once more I’ll scream. Why can’t people just leave alone, eh? Well alone. Unless your really ill, or crippled or disfigured there’s just no need. We’re creating a world of charmless, featureless clones, engines of consumption and waste - more worried about the lines on their faces than a real problem. Like fertility or the lack of. Or depression. Or the way people just walk past the unhomed and disenfranchised in the street. I look in the mirror and think ‘Krys, where’s it all going wrong then eh?’ Then Tony reappears and there’s some hope. At least in his smile…
The Wine Glass Home-Page →
Tony and Krystle wander down the wine glass aisle in a cut-price department store.
KRYSTLE: It’s a false economy…
TONY: They’re only wine glasses.
KRYSTLE: That’ll break as soon as you try washing them…
She turns and leaves him.
KRYSTLE: I’ll wait upstairs…
He picks up a wine flute and makes to throw it, realises where he is, puts it back.
fanciful and boiled eggs
Tony and Krystle sit on the sofa, cuddling. Early morning sunshine irradiates the room.
TONY: That was terribly nice.
KRYSTLE: As good at that, eh?
TONY: As good as that.
KRYSTLE: I fancy boiled eggs. For brekky.
TONY: Any bacon?
KRYSTLE: Maybe. Don’t you want eggs?
TONY: Fine…
She kisses him and stands, ruffles his hair.
KRYSTLE: I’m very patient.
TONY: Are you?
KRYSTLE: I can wait. You’ll say it…
She leaves before he can say anything.
dark green enough to be blue
Krystle and Tony are walking down a long park path, under a long leaf parade, holding hands. They stop and kiss.
KRYSTLE: So, I want to say-
TONY: Never been to this park before…
KRYSTLE: I want-
TONY: Only a short bus ride away…
He kisses her, she turns her cheek.
TONY: You’re lovely.
KRYSTLE: And you… You’re different.
TONY: How so?
KRYSTLE: You don’t listen but look as if you are.
TONY: I…
She takes his hand and walks him away to the foot of a tall black poplar. She holds his head in her hands and kisses him long and hard.
all the time
TONY: I remember, I ate too much fruit—strawberries, bananas, oranges—for no particular reason. Maybe it was the weather. Anyway, that disturbance—my guts turned inside out, a headache, visiting the toilet too much… That’s me. That’s me now. She didn’t have to do it. After all we’d been through. She could have shagged on the carpet, right in front of me, with my best friend, and I wouldn’t have felt so sick. Fundamentally, that’s me gone. As a trusting human being. As a kind man. I can’t feel after what she did. Can’t… Just fucking can’t! Christ I hate her…
one single bed
Tony stands at the bottom of the stairs, on edge, about to climb them in the dark. TONY: I once thought, stupidly, that I could live alone… KRYSTLE: (from upstairs) Are you coming? TONY: In my own space, a single divan with draws… KRYSTLE: Bed’s nice and toasty! TONY: A selection of duvet covers, a regular change… KRYSTLE: Come on! TONY: Not bad for a singleton. All alone… He sighs and climbs the stairs.
that moment when
Tony approaches the curtains surrounding her bed, Krystle’s bed, and composes himself. He pulls the curtains slowly aside and enters with his head. She is muttering…
KRYSTLE: You see… You see… Long gone—long gone… Who cares?…
She looks like Linda Blair without the scary eyes. He shudders. It reminds him of…
TONY: I’m sorry, love…
He enters the little curtained room and leans over to kiss her on the forehead. She opens her eyes.
