There was movement in the living room below- a sigh of static followed by an inverted burst of sound, blaringly loud then turned down just as suddenly, as the television volume was tuned. It was eleven o’clock. The family of rats was crawling through the walls and ceilings, and Jimmy was watching his father watch pornography.
He’d applied make-up before he’d ventured downstairs, his mother’s mantra in mind and mascara and lurid colour on his eyes. Now he was sitting in the corner by the doorway, outside the room but inside a shadow; from here he could see both the TV and his father’s profile perfectly, illuminated as it was by the light reflected off oiled, jiggling figures.
There were not, as yet, any naked bodies on the screen, but Jimmy had seen this one before. He knew the lines by heart and sometimes at night he would catch himself having imaginary conversations with the characters, correcting them on their grammar and advising them to put more passion into their delivery. Or perhaps he’d re-write the entire script. It wasn’t a particularly good one, as far as he was concerned, and not at all plausible.
Jimmy’s dad stayed slack-jawed for some time, hands lying palm-up and open on the arms of his chair. Jimmy understood. The performance had only just begun: the figures on the screen were still scantily clad, playfully whipping each other with towels. The coach was yet to come in.
He licked at his teeth, carefully so as not to smudge his lipstick. The coral shade, he knew, did not stain so much, but he couldn’t help himself. The depth of the red and the sweet waxiness of it on the tip of his tongue was too hard to avoid: the sight of it was even more enticing. Suddenly his mouth seemed alive.
“I’ve just got to put my face on,” he remembered his mother would say when she still left the house, before she stopped leaving the farm and finally the house altogether. It was seen as pride by some, vanity by others- “her womanly duty to look good” said his grandfather, who Jimmy had once intercepted in the process of putting his hand forcefully inside his daughter-in-law’s blouse. The roast pork had been irreparably charred, sitting smoking in a dish of bubbling fat beside the sink; his mother’s hand was poised on the handle of the meat cleaver. It had clattered to the floor when Jimmy had walked in, and although the old man had quickly extricated his fingers from between lace and skin, and released the grip on her wrist, both mother and son followed him with their eyes out of the room. After that, Jimmy’s mother had become a vegetarian, and not long after she’d locked herself in her powder room for four days and had cried herself into a state of severe-dehydration.
There was such a difference between the woman who lay in bed all day and the one who glued delicate-spider’s legs to her eye-lids and painted herself into a perfect corner. They were like two sides of a coin; they were like sisters who were never in the room at the same time but were Siamese nonetheless. One would respond only to Imogen, whilst the other to Immy. In later years, she didn’t respond to either.
Jimmy divided his time between watching the screen and his father’s face. He took note of the fact that in the beginning, his father seemed barely interested- that much was clear, even from here. But as the breathing on the TV quickened, a cigarette was lit and his father inclined forward, further and further until he looked as if he might fall.
There they were now: swinging, squeezed and sweaty chests on the screen. They vaguely resembled the udders of the sows they kept and sold, or slaughtered instead for food. But there was something so different there- nothing natural about them, even though mouths were sucking at them like the piglets did. Jimmy didn’t particularly see the appeal of it, watching naked grinding and slapping and licking, howling like animals and guttural grunting. He just wanted to see what it was that his father did to occupy his time, other than feeding and killing pigs and avoiding his son.
He’d awoke to the sound of a pig’s screams that morning: it was Thursday, and thus pork day. Outside, he knew his father had chosen only one; he wondered which one it was, if it had, like his own mother, been thinking about piglets while she died. Jimmy sat thinking about his father walking into the house, drenched in pig blood. He touched his lips and looked at his fingertips covered in the same colour.
He turned his attention back to the living room; just in time, too, to see his father do something he never did. Leaning forward far enough, he stubbed his smoke out on the floorboards and with a quick arm flicked the switch and the screen faded to black.
“Get in here.”
Jimmy stood in the most recent exhalation of smoke and hoped that hsi makeup looked more like day-wear than night-wear. Apparently his father thought differently.
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Not again.”
“Why do you do it, Jim?” they’d asked, and he hadn’t answered that for the first few weeks that he’d been there. He’d sat there instead, gazing hard out the window and avoiding his reflection, studying instead anything outside. After a little while he knew the lines of the buildings so well that they became just that: lines and shapes, shifting with the position of the sun until it was time for him to go. But his reflection was still there, sitting in the glass of the cabinet opposite him. He knew it was staring at him, even when he wasn’t looking at it.
He told them why after his mother had died. It was the day of her funeral and when he had put the lipstick on, looking in his mother’s mirror, he felt for the first time that his face belonged to him. For the former thirteen years of his life there was surely a mask affixed to the front of his head, because it wasn’t anyone that he had ever recognised. The more he put on, the more he saw himself appear.
He know longer went to the doctor’s rooms; like his father, he no longer left the farm, except to take the pigs to market once a month. Up in his room, Jimmy heard the TV turn on again, and the sounds of sex resumed. He cried for a while, then swore. Then he cursed his father for making his mascara run.
He’d applied make-up before he’d ventured downstairs, his mother’s mantra in mind and mascara and lurid colour on his eyes. Now he was sitting in the corner by the doorway, outside the room but inside a shadow; from here he could see both the TV and his father’s profile perfectly, illuminated as it was by the light reflected off oiled, jiggling figures.
There were not, as yet, any naked bodies on the screen, but Jimmy had seen this one before. He knew the lines by heart and sometimes at night he would catch himself having imaginary conversations with the characters, correcting them on their grammar and advising them to put more passion into their delivery. Or perhaps he’d re-write the entire script. It wasn’t a particularly good one, as far as he was concerned, and not at all plausible.
Jimmy’s dad stayed slack-jawed for some time, hands lying palm-up and open on the arms of his chair. Jimmy understood. The performance had only just begun: the figures on the screen were still scantily clad, playfully whipping each other with towels. The coach was yet to come in.
He licked at his teeth, carefully so as not to smudge his lipstick. The coral shade, he knew, did not stain so much, but he couldn’t help himself. The depth of the red and the sweet waxiness of it on the tip of his tongue was too hard to avoid: the sight of it was even more enticing. Suddenly his mouth seemed alive.
“I’ve just got to put my face on,” he remembered his mother would say when she still left the house, before she stopped leaving the farm and finally the house altogether. It was seen as pride by some, vanity by others- “her womanly duty to look good” said his grandfather, who Jimmy had once intercepted in the process of putting his hand forcefully inside his daughter-in-law’s blouse. The roast pork had been irreparably charred, sitting smoking in a dish of bubbling fat beside the sink; his mother’s hand was poised on the handle of the meat cleaver. It had clattered to the floor when Jimmy had walked in, and although the old man had quickly extricated his fingers from between lace and skin, and released the grip on her wrist, both mother and son followed him with their eyes out of the room. After that, Jimmy’s mother had become a vegetarian, and not long after she’d locked herself in her powder room for four days and had cried herself into a state of severe-dehydration.
There was such a difference between the woman who lay in bed all day and the one who glued delicate-spider’s legs to her eye-lids and painted herself into a perfect corner. They were like two sides of a coin; they were like sisters who were never in the room at the same time but were Siamese nonetheless. One would respond only to Imogen, whilst the other to Immy. In later years, she didn’t respond to either.
Jimmy divided his time between watching the screen and his father’s face. He took note of the fact that in the beginning, his father seemed barely interested- that much was clear, even from here. But as the breathing on the TV quickened, a cigarette was lit and his father inclined forward, further and further until he looked as if he might fall.
There they were now: swinging, squeezed and sweaty chests on the screen. They vaguely resembled the udders of the sows they kept and sold, or slaughtered instead for food. But there was something so different there- nothing natural about them, even though mouths were sucking at them like the piglets did. Jimmy didn’t particularly see the appeal of it, watching naked grinding and slapping and licking, howling like animals and guttural grunting. He just wanted to see what it was that his father did to occupy his time, other than feeding and killing pigs and avoiding his son.
He’d awoke to the sound of a pig’s screams that morning: it was Thursday, and thus pork day. Outside, he knew his father had chosen only one; he wondered which one it was, if it had, like his own mother, been thinking about piglets while she died. Jimmy sat thinking about his father walking into the house, drenched in pig blood. He touched his lips and looked at his fingertips covered in the same colour.
He turned his attention back to the living room; just in time, too, to see his father do something he never did. Leaning forward far enough, he stubbed his smoke out on the floorboards and with a quick arm flicked the switch and the screen faded to black.
“Get in here.”
Jimmy stood in the most recent exhalation of smoke and hoped that hsi makeup looked more like day-wear than night-wear. Apparently his father thought differently.
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Not again.”
“Why do you do it, Jim?” they’d asked, and he hadn’t answered that for the first few weeks that he’d been there. He’d sat there instead, gazing hard out the window and avoiding his reflection, studying instead anything outside. After a little while he knew the lines of the buildings so well that they became just that: lines and shapes, shifting with the position of the sun until it was time for him to go. But his reflection was still there, sitting in the glass of the cabinet opposite him. He knew it was staring at him, even when he wasn’t looking at it.
He told them why after his mother had died. It was the day of her funeral and when he had put the lipstick on, looking in his mother’s mirror, he felt for the first time that his face belonged to him. For the former thirteen years of his life there was surely a mask affixed to the front of his head, because it wasn’t anyone that he had ever recognised. The more he put on, the more he saw himself appear.
He know longer went to the doctor’s rooms; like his father, he no longer left the farm, except to take the pigs to market once a month. Up in his room, Jimmy heard the TV turn on again, and the sounds of sex resumed. He cried for a while, then swore. Then he cursed his father for making his mascara run.
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