PAUL FAIRBAIRN

“For God’s sake,” Kramer said and stared out at the little garden.

​

“I told you,” Ruth said.

 

Kramer frowned at her and turned from the window. He stalked to the kitchen door, threw it open and stepped into the chill November air. He hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

 

The garden was strewn with rubbish. Last night, as usual, he’d put a neatly-tied refuse sack with the others that were already piled up at the bottom of the garden. The garbage collectors had been on strike for nearly six weeks, causing streets and gardens to become clogged with rubbish; but nobody had messed with the Kramers’ waste before now.

 

The little garden at the rear of the house was covered with detritus. The heavy-duty garbage sacks had not only been opened, but ripped to shreds: flags of black plastic hung in the bush next to the rear gate, and the contents of the sacks – the cans and bottles, the remains of meals, the newspapers and soiled diapers – had been liberally dispersed.

 

“Fucking foxes,” Kramer muttered, and set about picking the debris from the frost-stiff lawn.

 

Later, he sat in the living-room with Ruth and Denise. An Australian soap opera played on the TV. Ruth was breastfeeding the baby, her shirt pulled up, her full, swollen breasts hanging to the waistband of her skirt.

 

“How’s the writing going?” she asked, in that sleepy voice she always had when feeding Denise.

 

“It’s not,” he said, and frowned at the inadequacies of the acting on the television. “It’s a stupid subject for a stupid article. I can’t take it seriously enough to even try to make a case for it.”

 

Ruth frowned, momentarily. “Tommy went well out of his way to get you this commission,” she said. “The least you can do is be professional. You’re freelance now, remember. You have to write what you’re paid to write. Anyway, somebody must believe in all that stuff.”

​

Kramer shrugged. “Yeah. Whatever.” 

 

“And when are you going to get rid of the garbage?”

 

“I’ll get round to it.”

 

“Jesus Steve. It’s not like I’m asking you to collect the town’s garbage. It’s starting to rot. It smells.” She glanced down at the baby. “It’s a health hazard.”

 

“Later,” he said, and bit down his temper as it rose in his mouth. “I’ll do it later.”

 

“No, Steve. Do it now.”

 

“Why now? Why does everything have to be now?”

​

Denise was becoming restless. She gurgled and squirmed at Ruth’s breast.

​

“Now look what you’ve done,” Ruth said, looking down at the baby, who’d detached herself from Ruth’s nipple and was drooling milk.

 

“Fine,” he said, and stood. “Okay. You win again. I’ll do it now.”

 

He left the room, and Ruth said something that he didn’t catch. He didn’t go back to find out what it was.

 

Outside it was bright and clear, but very cold. The sky was the hard blue of diamonds, and there was ice around the waste-water pipe under the kitchen window. The black bags – the new black bags – lay against the fence, already dusted with a layer of frost. Kramer picked one of them up. It did smell, faintly, and its contents were soft and mushy, despite the cold.

 

Like a corpse, he thought, and shivered. How would he know what a corpse felt like?

 

He loaded the bags into the back of his Audi, and set off for the dump. He drove too fast, as he always did when he was annoyed with Ruth, though it wasn’t really her fault. Where the blame lay, he wasn’t sure. With himself, most likely. That’s what Ruth would say. She’d also say that he was jealous of the baby, that he felt Denise had taken Ruth’s affection from him. More rubbish of course, though when the baby cried in the night, he couldn’t help but feel resentful.

 

The dump, when he arrived, was vast. Thousands of plastic bags were strewn as far as he could see; the landfill itself was like a meteorite crater, filled with unimaginable depths of debris. Kramer stood on the edge of the pit and looked down at the stuff below, at the discarded washing machines and fridges and bikes and furniture and tyres beyond counting.  Seagulls wheeled overhead while crows, as big as lost children stumbled among the rubbish.

 

One by one, he unloaded the bags from the car and threw them over the edge of the slope, down into the landfill. He felt obscurely guilty, as if he were a gangland killer disposing of bodies. Maybe he should try writing fiction; he’d been thinking about writing a novel for years, for almost as long as he’d been a journalist. Perhaps it was time, now.

He stood there for a long time after he’d thrown the bags away, looking out across the acres of garbage, listening to the cries of the gulls and crows. Eventually, he turned away, and as he did so, glimpsed one of his bags moving listlessly, as if something inside it was trying to get out.

 

He turned back and stared at it for a long time, but it didn’t move again.

 

*

 

Much later, after darkness had pressed its face to the window of his study, he sat in his high-backed chair and contemplated the computer screen. Something from Nothing, the heading announced, and beneath this, Creatures of the Mind?

 

This was his first commission since going freelance, and he couldn’t think of anything to write. God bless his old drinking buddy Tommy, and Tommy’s many and various connections, but this piece was never going to make sense.

 

“Monsters, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered, and tried to imagine how to take the appearance – and rapid disappearance – of mythical beasts seriously.

 

He continued to stare at the mostly blank screen. How could he even begin to write? Most of the alleged evidence was anecdotal – statements by country bumpkins and drunk truck drivers. Hardly the kind of investigative stuff he’d worked on at The Courier.

He looked aimlessly around the study, though it wouldn’t be a study for much longer. The wallpaper had sprouted fluffy clouds and rabbits; the paintwork had become pastel pink. He wondered how much longer it would be before Ruth decided that Denise needed a room of her own. Obviously the baby couldn’t share their room forever, but he also wondered if he would be able to write anywhere else. This was the only place he’d ever written. Losing his job at The Courier and being forced into freelancing had been trying enough; losing his study might be more than he could take.

 

It makes no difference, his inner voice mocked. You can’t write in here either. Not now.

 

Kramer scowled and began trying to bash words into the computer.

 

*

 

“Not tonight,” Ruth said, and turned over. The mattress squeaked briefly.

 

Kramer stared up at the dark ceiling, his erection tenting the quilt. In the corner of the room, Denise gurgled in her sleep, and his arousal dwindled. He wanted to say, But it’s always “Not tonight,” isn’t it Ruth? There’s never a right night, is there?

 

He said nothing.

 

It was two months since the birth; shouldn’t she be healed by now? Before she’d become pregnant, it was often Kramer who couldn’t keep up with Ruth’s demands. But since she’d conceived, her interest in sex had waned, inversely proportional to her waxing waistline. In the eleven months – Jesus, eleven months! – since then, they’d made love perhaps six times, and not at all in the last five months.

If masturbation really did make you go blind, Kramer would’ve been unable to see his computer screen by now, let alone write anything on it.

 

*

 

“Christ, Steven. I thought you got rid of the garbage yesterday.”

 

Kramer looked at Ruth as he entered the kitchen. She was standing at the sink looking out of the window. Her blonde hair was tied back into a loose ponytail, and her breasts were enormous beneath her sweater.

 

“What?” he said.

 

She had a cup of coffee in her hand, and motioned at the window with it. “You said you’d taken it to the dump.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“Oh Steven,” she said and shook her head.

 

He crossed to the sink and peered out. “What the hell,” he said.

 

The small lawn was strewn with garbage. Empty cans, torn paper bags, old magazines. A piece of black plastic was caught in the bush in the corner, fluttering fitfully. The grass was stiff with white frost, but the garbage was untouched by it.

 

“I took it to the dump,” he said. “Ruth, I took it to the dump. You saw me take it!”

 

She blinked at him, and said, “Well it seems to be back, doesn’t it?”

 

He glared at her and stalked out of the back door.

 

It took him an hour to pick up all the rubbish and throw it into fresh plastic bags. When he was done, he was sweating, despite the cold.

 

He piled the bags up against the fence before going back into the house.

 

“I’m going for a beer,” he said to Ruth.

 

She looked up from the puzzle book on her lap. “Is that wise?”

 

“I need to get out,” he said.

 

“But to a bar? Steven, is that wise?”

 

“It’s very wise,” he said, and went into the hall for his coat.

 

As he was putting it on, Ruth appeared at the door. “Steve,” she said simply.

 

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to have a couple of beers to see if it’ll loosen my writing muscle. I’m not going to disappear for two days. I’m not going to turn up with a black eye and no money. I’ll be back by seven. Things are different, now. I’m different, now.”

 

She stared at him.

 

“You know that, don’t you?”

 

She nodded, eventually. “Just…you know. Be careful.”

 

“Sure,” he said, and shouldered out of the door. It was only when he was a hundred yards from home that he realised they hadn’t kissed goodbye. How long had it been like that?

 

The Ox was half a mile from home, and had a compact restaurant on one side of the building, and a small bar on the other. The barroom had a low ceiling and heavy wooden beams. There were hunting prints on the walls and dully-reflective metal ornaments. It seemed to always contain the same three or four regulars, all old men of indeterminate age with nicotine-yellowed fingers and raspy voices. Kramer ordered a beer, and took it to a quiet corner.

 

He hadn’t been alone in a bar in at least three years. He’d never classed himself as an alcoholic, but then, many alcoholics never do. He hadn’t given up drinking three years ago, but he had given up the two and three day binges. As he sipped his beer, he wondered how Ruth had put up with it for so long. And yet, now that he was sober, they seemed to be fighting more than ever. What the hell did he have to do to get things working?

 

He finished his drink and ordered another one, before getting his notebook out of his pocket. He’d bought the notebook three months ago, when he’d gone freelance, figuring that if he was going to write a novel, it would be a good idea to keep a notebook. Its pages were all blank.

 

He put it on the table beside the beer and took out his pen. Go on, his inner voice said sarcastically. Write something. Go on.

 

But nothing came, except more beer.

 

By seven o’clock, his face felt hot and his head too light. All those years of peering into empty bottles had done nothing for his tolerance; there had been a time when he could drink all day and not really get drunk. He supposed it was a good thing that he couldn’t do it now.

Outside, it was dark, and as cold as brittle metal. Rain fell, spare and miserable. The streets were deserted. Only rubbish bags braved the weather, standing guard outside back gates and on street corners.

 

No doubt recriminations would follow when he got home. He knew something had to be done soon, because they were driving each other further and further apart, but now was not the time. He didn’t know when the time would be, but now was not it.

 

He turned into the back lane of his street, and passed between the tall fences of the gardens, and the cars at the kerbs, still as patiently waiting dogs. Wind raced along the road at him, bringing stinging drops of rain with it. His breath plumed out of him expansively.

When he reached the gate to his garden, he bowed his head against the wind and unlatched it. He stepped into the garden and looked up as he headed for the door.

 

Everywhere, gently stirred by the wind, there was garbage.

 

*

 

“I wish I knew who the hell was doing it,” he said to Ruth’s shadow on the other side of the bed.

 

“Well it wasn’t me,” she said, without turning to face him.

 

“I know it wasn’t you,” he said, ignoring her sarcasm. “But you must have heard something. I mean, they did fill the yard with rubbish.”

 

“I didn’t hear anything. I told you, I was in the living room, feeding Denise.”

 

Kramer said nothing. His afternoon of drinking had left him with a headache, and the hour it had taken him to clean up the debris had taken all the fun out of his insobriety. He’d asked the neighbours, of course, but they claimed to have seen and heard nothing. Even if they had, Kramer doubted if they’d tell him. There’d been poor relations from that side of the fence since he’d complained about their noisy dog. He’d even suspected them of the vandalism, but surely even they wouldn’t stoop so low.

 

“Look,” he said to Ruth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just that –”

 

But she was already asleep, and snoring almost as loudly as the baby. He rolled over onto his side, his back to Ruth, and listened to the quiet sounds of the night.

 

Evidently, he slept, for Ruth’s voice startled him awake.

 

“What was that?”

 

He opened his eyes to darkness, not sure if he’d heard her at all.

 

“Steven. What was that?”

 

He rolled over, and Ruth was sitting up in bed, her head cocked to one side. Her breasts spilled over the quilt and he felt an unfocussed urge to grab one and give it a squeeze.

 

“What was what?” he said, his voice thick with sleep.

 

“Sshh!”

 

She was listening again, and this time, Kramer heard something too. Something moving behind the house in the garden. Something being dragged across the lawn.

 

He sat up. “It’s them,” he whispered, meaning the vandals who’d been spreading garbage in his yard.

 

He clambered out of bed and ignored the chill as he pulled on his jeans. He peered through a gap in the curtains. Something was moving in the shadows. The moon was almost full, but it didn’t illuminate enough for him to see clearly. Whoever was out there must be crouched in the long shadows thrown by the corner of the fence. All he could make out were vague shapes, which moved as if unconnected. The ambiguity of it disturbed him. He turned from the window and crossed the room. He glanced at Denise as he opened the bedroom door. She was sleeping quietly in the wooden cage of her cot. He left the room and crept down the stairs.

 

The noises had stopped by the time he’d gone through the dining room to the kitchen, and he feared the vandals had heard him and made their escape. He hoped not, because he was itching to get his hands on them; just five minutes was all he needed, five minutes to vent the all the frustrations and anger and worry. But there was still something rustling out there. Without turning on the lights, he fumbled the keys from their hook beside the door, and unlocked it. His hands were trembling. It was only cold and adrenaline causing that, but perhaps it would be better to let whoever was out there finish what they were doing; he’d read just weeks ago about a young father who was stabbed to death when he’d confronted a gang of teenagers outside his home.

 

But he already had the door open. Before stepping barefoot into the garden, he saw Ruth behind him in the kitchen, ghost-like, her face pale as the moonlight upon the window.

 

There was no one in the garden. Kramer simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and a hiss of rage. But something did move in the shadows. In the corner of the fence, beside the holly bush something rustled and flapped.

 

“Ruth!” he hissed. “Turn on the lights.”

 

As she silently did so, he felt the meagre warmth seep out of his body. The two floodlights above the garden blinked into life, washing the garden in an even colder light than the moon’s. Of course, the garden was filled with rubbish; that much he had expected. It was piled randomly all over the grass, the familiar half-empty cans and forgotten lunches, the soaked, flesh-coloured pages of magazines. There was even an old mattress, split and stained, propped up against the gate.

 

But there was something else, something that Kramer didn’t quite take in until he heard Ruth cry out behind him.

 

Beneath the bush, a dog lay. Its legs still moved; blood still coiled from any number of its wounds. It was panting rapidly, its eyes roving, and the harsh light made its lolling tongue look like pink plastic. It saw Kramer and its tail flapped spasmodically.

 

It lay amid piles of refuse, and where its wounds gaped, the garbage had intruded. Like an unstuffed toy, it lay in its own contents, though it did not bleed foam. Among other things, it looked as if it bled garbage.

 

*

 

Kramer spent the next day in a state of pent-up, though impotent, anger. Ruth had insisted that he call the police, though he’d resisted the idea for as long as he could; he’d had too many drunken clashes with the police to make him comfortable with the idea, but she was right, and in the end – as usual – she got her own way. Two young policemen had dutifully turned up to survey the scene and take statements, but had left without comment.

​

As he’d told the police, he had no idea who the perpetrators might be. He had no enemies that he knew of, and he’d even confronted the neighbours with the dog’s remains; they’d been as genuinely outraged as he.

 

Much later, after he’d disposed of the rubbish – the police had taken the dog’s carcass – he said to Ruth, “Maybe you should go to your mother’s tonight. You and Denise. To sleep, I mean.”

 

She regarded him levelly; in her arms, the baby mimicked her mother’s expression. “Why?”

 

“I think it would be better.” He didn’t want to say safer. “Look, somebody’s out to get us. You saw what they did last night. Who knows what they might do next? Whatever it is, I can deal with it on my own. I don’t want you or the baby here.”

 

“I’m not going to my mother’s,” she said evenly. “Not tonight or any other night. Christ Steven, I’m not going to let a couple of brain-dead pricks drive me out of my own home.” Denise began to whimper. “Now look what you’ve done. Just stop arguing, for once.”

 

The rest of the day dragged, and Kramer wandered aimlessly from room to room. Ruth went shopping with Denise, leaving him alone, but he was unable to turn his solitude to writing. He sat at his desk, and pictured ill-defined shadows moving garbage silently into the garden. The image of the butchered dog intruded, and he thrust the thoughts away; in his mind, it wasn’t a dog that was spilling itself into the muck, but Denise.

 

Ruth returned later, and Kramer heard her throwing provisions into cupboards and shouting at Denise. He didn’t go down to greet her. Beyond the study’s window, it had started to snow. Huge flakes of it were defined like flags upon the glass. Kramer stared at the window, and felt as if he’d been staring at it all day.

 

Perhaps he should sleep at his mother’s tonight, and let Ruth confront the vandals on her own. Then she’d see who needed who, and what his place was in this relationship. Even as he was thinking it, he knew he would never do such a thing. But if there was more trouble tonight, by God, someone would pay.

 

He sat back at his desk, in front of the computer, and typed, Fuck this article at the end of the last paragraph on the screen, before closing the file. He didn’t delete it, much as he was tempted; he never deleted anything, never threw anything away. He opened a new document, and typed: The man faced his assailants, the blade of his knife dripping in the darkness. He wondered where the sentence would lead him.

 

It was later – much later – after several prolonged and graphic deaths, that Kramer heard the sound of smashing glass. He jumped up and ran to the window, where snow had drifted into the corners of the ledge, and the sky looked as dark as dirt. The sound had come from downstairs, directly below him.

 

He heard a short cry, that was cut off almost before it had begun, then shambling movement. He heard things being knocked over in the dining room. His heart lurched.

 

“Ruth!” he called, and made for the stairs.

 

He was down them in half a dozen leaps, stumbling at the bottom and crashing into the wall. He almost fell as he turned.

There seemed to be too much in the dining room to take in at once: snow intruding in flurries though the smashed window; the dining table overturned, with one of its legs snapped off; a ragged trail of garbage across the floor, covered in snow; the living room door off its hinges, the frame burst; Ruth, face down upon the floor, covered in filth.

 

“Ruth!” he cried again, but already he could see blood amid the muck that was in her hair. He crouched beside her; the smell was almost overpowering. He heard a movement in the living room, too shambolic to be stealthy, and he jumped to his feet.

 

“Denise!”

​

But at the living room doorway, he stopped. The door hung drunkenly at an angle, all but one of its small glass panes smashed. In the one intact piece, he caught a reflection of the interior of the room. What he saw defied his ability to comprehend, and instead presented his mind with a series of fragments: spindly pieces of rotted wood, scrabbling crab-like upon the floor; slimy black bags, within which something moved fitfully; lats of wood, mostly covered with a skin of mould and muck; refuse sacks that inflated like bellows and deflated and inflated again, exuding a stench; greasy flanks ribbed with corrugated metal, within which things were squirming; atop it all, rusted cans, filled with filth and inset with pale orbs that roved, glinting in the gloom.

 

Kramer took a breath. His mind emptied itself of its contents and he stepped into the stench of the room. He heard Denise’s cries, the sound garbled as if her mouth were filled with garbage. He looked into the eyes of the thing, into the orbs that roved wildly. What may have been jaws or simply strips of sharp, torn metal hung open, dripping. The thing breathed, exhaling gas. Kramer stepped forward as it limped toward him, snorting.

 

“I want my baby,” was all he said, before striking out.

 

No one heard his cry, but in the dump, things dragged themselves into the moonlight.