The Burn (4 page)

Och I know I know.

Well then.

Yeh. Yeh.

She was staring right into his eyes.

Different incisions seemed to have been cut into the wall and from inside one of them an insect was peering at him. The insect reminded him of a flea, the curved part of its
body, even down to its blood tan colour. The middle finger of his right hand began to drum on the edge of the table, he was frowning. What if for every incision one such insect was lodged? Mind
you, they were so minute, these insects, that he was not afraid. He could ignore them easily. Or else he could get a spray gun and blast them all to smithereens. But what was the use of
fantasising. He was not going to do anything. He couldnt do anything. He was stuck fast on this wooden chair, surrounded by everything hostile you could possibly conceive of in the universe. And as
well as that it was like he could hear a scraping noise coming from somewhere too so no wonder he couldnt concentrate. Or was it just his ears? The finger drumming stopped but he continued frowning
at the insect. Its toty brain would be working overtime. Who is this giant staring at me? Is he going to kill me? Somebody as big as him could squash me in a tick! Will he leave me alone? Forget
all about me? Because if he does then I can continue crawling up the wall. Or down the wall; maybe it was going down the wall. Or else burrowing deeper into the hole, the incision. Maybe it and its
relations, its ancestors – bearing in mind that each day is probably a lifetime and thus you have a state of affairs where four weeks ago is prehistoricity:

the world of the insect is of an eternity undreamt by man.

He shook his head to clear the brains into some sort of order, some sort of cohesion, so that he could think properly, he had to think properly. Life wasnt as good as all that just now. Not at
present. But he couldnt afford to get more panic stricken than he currently was. On top of all the studying he had to meet the girlfriend in next to no time and he had had sex with her sister less
than four hours ago. It was the sort of factual statement you had to present so coldly to yourself, so coldly. What was that bloody insect doing? Maybe burrowing deeper, trying to find a way of
escaping out through the damn wall. That reminded him of himself. He spoke aloud: Make it big enough for the both of us, me as well as you. He could imagine hearing the insect’s voice in
answer. It would of course be squeaky, in keeping with its size. Unless it was an ironic bass baritone. Why ironic? Because of its size obviously. And what was that scraping noise, was it the
actual burrowing sound? Surely no. But where was it coming from? He stared hard at the wall. It was just a wall. As walls go it was simply one of them. It was neither up nor down. Walls are walls,
the prison bars make them. That was a line from somewhere, a poem or a song. Prison bars make them. Prisons do not a prison make, walls and bars, cells. He had never been in a cell, a jail; it was
an experience he hadnt had. And didnt want. Not at all, why should he? Why should he want to end up in a cell? He had never done anything remotely worthy of such a crime, charge, jail, that sort of
castigation.

Nor do insects have heads wherein brains are tick-tocking thus they do not worry about minor tragedies, only the major ones such as food and sex, the impetus for survival.

He sighed so loudly he glanced immediately over his shoulder to see if he had been heard, sitting there alone, in his poky wee room, feeling oh so tired, drained and exhausted. It wasnt his
fault he had slept with Jeanette. He was up in her flat to give her some advice on something and she just more or less offered herself. She did. She offered herself to him. Probably the pair of
them had had a big fight or argument or something, her and Deborah. Mind you, as far as he had been given to understand they were always the best of pals. They seemed to get on fine the gether. He
gazed at the wall. It was actually covered in these incisions. Tiny toty wee holes. Oh Lord. Lordie Lordie. Lordie Lordie Lordie.

The A4 folders. Ah dear. All the A4 folders, and the trade brochures.

A4 folders and trade brochures. Life was a series of A4 folders and trade brochures. Cardboard and glossy paper. Pens and pencils. Stamped addressed envelopes and gummed labels, invoices.

His eyes had just about closed there. God. But he was knackered. He was. He was drained and exhausted, feeling like a quick forty winks. He needed it. Plus it was a good way out of a problem, to
sleep on it.

But this was a genuine tired feeling with a genuine real cause. There had been no time for rest and recuperation after the Jeanette performance because her own boyfriend was coming home and he
had had to get out fast, fast. Which was not as bad and decadent as it sounds. She was wanting to dump the bloke, she really was – she just didnt fancy him any more, but found it difficult
saying the magic words of release. He was hell of a clingy Benny – Benny being her boyfriend’s name. Poor old Benny. The two males had met on a couple of occasions, plus they had gone
out on a foursome once with the sisters, to a pub up the town. It hadnt been a great success because the two females had had an awful lot to speak about – family stuff and that kind of thing
– whereas the two men had had nothing at all, they had just sat there, not even any music to listen to, having to discuss football and general things about society. Except later on when the
women went off to the
Ladies
, Benny had confided. Insecurity and an inferiority complex with women. These were the guy’s problems. Imagine confiding in somebody who was a stranger to
you! My God. Even the insect was laughing at that one. He could see it poking its napper out the incision on the wall again. He put his thumb up and squashed it. It made him wince. It was awful.
His stomach felt queasy. It was just an insect and he had squashed it with his thumb. Why worry? But why do it why did he do it, why did he do it? Why did he do it, in the first place, take away
its life? The stain of it on his thumb, a brown brackeny coloured substance. Here he was having just had illicit sex with his girlfriend’s sister

fiancée’s sister. She was his fiancée’s sister. Deborah was his fiancée:

and now into the bargain he had squashed a living creature. And God would rightly be angry. Nobody likes their creations getting killed.

And what was that when you come to think about it but blasphemy, talking about God like that, in that tone of voice.

So here was now the third mark against him this day.

But he was a male and the sexual needs of the male are so horrendously hard to contain. Everybody knows that. And he had let himself fall into her web. Jeanette was a spider. She drew him in in
that willowy winsome way and then let him have it, her bending down like that in front of him etcetera etcetera, an old trick which he was delighted to have played on him let us be honest, let us
be good and damn honest about it he thought she was an extremely sexy lady and always had done since first they had been introduced. So what now what now. Killing a creature for no reason, just a
silly absentmindedness. But wanton all the same. He had killed one of God’s creatures through an act of wanton absentmindedness. Yes He would be angry with him and would make him fail
tomorrow’s test and he would then be forced into a life of continuous penury. He would have to go out working the road for a living instead of just training other folk to do it. That is what
happened when you crossed the Lord.

That was him blaspheming again. Upon this day he had committed what amounts to adultery, and murder, and blasphemy. There was no fun in the thought. In fact it demanded an honest appraisal of
himself, his entire life. If he couldnt manage an honest appraisal then the future was definitely bleak. He was doomed, he was doomed to become an ordinary salesman, a cynical salesman, somebody
who held no truck for half measures and had absolutely no compunction whatsoever in destroying people who were customers, they would destroy all the resources of the world if they could get away
with it, all on behalf of the selling racket. It was so bad. And yet it was the corollary of the downward spiral. It began with minor atrocities like the destruction of insects and the destruction
of love, both earthly love and spiritual love. And the mark of the beast was on his thumb. And he needed rid of it. He got up and went to the toilet and washed his hands thoroughly. If he had had a
bath he would have bathed. If he had had a shower he would have showered. He had neither of these facilities. Jeanette had both in her flat. It belonged to the two of them, her and her boyfriend,
and they were able to bathe together and play sexy games. He would have wanted the same sort of fun and nonsense. But he and Deborah didnt do it, they didnt play sexy games. There was something
that wasnt just right for it, something between them. Something that seemed to stop such an enjoyable interlude from happening. Plus his room was only big enough for what his grandpa used to call a
jawbox, a sink in the wall, and this was where the diverse functional uses for water were put to the test, from shaving the chin to washing the socks through the doing of the dishes, given that the
owners of the property were so totally greedy and so directly opposed to the whole concept of cooked food where tenants were concerned, so he didnt have that much crockery, and there was nary a pot
and nary a pan, and normally a rinse of cold water was ample for everything. There was a bathroom. But it was outside on the next landing, shared by folk upstairs and down, including wheezing old
McAllister who spat into the washhand basin there and never sluiced it out properly and you could always see the tell-tale signs. Plus there was always sticky things on the linoleum floor and even
if you were having a bath you felt like wearing shoes. The idea of Deborah and him getting up to anything in there was beyond imagination. Deborah!

Lord, oh Lord, Lord please help me, have mercy, I am a soul in need of succour.

Two other women shared Deborah’s flat with her and it was really short on privacy. Nice women, but they were never out the place if you were sitting watching television. So there was never
any.

But most of all it was his fault! The pair of them should have been married by now and then they would have had privacy and everything would be fine, fine: and none of this would have happened.
It wouldnt have. It wouldnt have happened if they had been married. But they werent married because she had said no to his first proposal and he hadnt made a second. That was six months ago. She
had said no the first time so that was that, he hadnt asked her again. And maybe he never would, they would just have to wait and see. Everybody. That included his parents and her parents and all
their acquaintances and everybody else they knew throughout the world, them all, they would all just have to wait. You cannot just go about refusing things and expect life to remain the same. If
and when he and Deborah were ever to share a flat together they would no doubt instal a proper bathing service. Of course they would. Once he got round to asking the question again and if things
worked out then that sort of pleasurable life facility could be taken for granted. But he was not going to ask the question just now, he was just not going to. And anyway, things were too
upside-down at the moment, he just didnt know where his head was with all this product study and memorising he was having to do. The job was driving him nuts.

And what would happen now with her sister oh Lord Lord what was now going to happen now, now, after that please God please God oh please God.

It was all so amazing. Life. Life was so amazing, it was just so incredibly amazing.

But for heaven’s sake he was so sick of this poky wee room where insects crawled out of the wall and stared at you as if you were an object of derision; or an object of contempt, of horror
even. As the killer of one’s fellows

bearing in mind that the insect he had murdered was probably about to copulate and be responsible for the birth of a million eggs, a hundred thousand of which would survive to become fully
fledged members of the beetle race. It was like committing genocide. He needed coffee. Coffee coffee coffee. The caffeine was good for him. His adrenalin. It would assist him in thought and he did
require assistance in just that direction, because he needed to think, to think to think to think, he needed to bloody think, he needed to think. These bloody test questions required consideration.
If he did not consider these bloody test questions with the utmost bloody care he would wind up failing tomorrow and therein lay his doom, to exist for all eternity as an ordinary guy on the road,
and he would grow into a tired and clapped-out old chap with ulcers and heart attacks. And God would be angry because he hadnt put his talents to good use.

The idea of sitting snugly in a toty wee cavity though, secure on three out of four sides, and then coming towards you is something in appearance similar to a meteorite, it getting huger and
huger as it rushes towards you. And you are mesmerised by it. All you can do is stay stuck fast in your cavity; and then glulp, you’re squashed. It doesnt bear thinking about. He didnt want
to think about it. He had no time to. He had to do his studying. All the A4 folders.

And in less than half an hour for heaven’s sake in would come Deborah.

And what would happen if she expected to stay the night he would not be able to have sex with her because of his condition, the way he was now, at this moment, at this moment in time. Because
Deborah would know! She would know! She would guess. She was too percipient! Percipient? That isnt even a word. Dictionaries dictionaries dictionaries. Plus the fact he wouldnt be clean, he would
have to go and have a wash. That is what he would do, he would go and have a wash.

He went to the sink and put on the kettle for a cup of coffee then cleared the dishes and made space for himself, taking the trousers down to his ankles and setting the towel over them between
his feet. Nor did he wish to think about Jeanette who was a very sexy lady and her thighs.

The water was freezing! My God!