Kimberly's Capital Punishment Read online

  Kimberly’s Capital Punishment

  Richard Milward

  One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.

  Salvador Dalí

  Oh, outcast of all outcasts most abandoned!—to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its flowers, to its golden aspirations?—and a cloud, dense, dismal, and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and heavens?

  Edgar Allan Poe, ‘William Wilson’ (1839)

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Part 1) Kimberly Clark

  Part 1a) ‘Marilyn Monroe’

  Part 1b) ‘Clark Kent/Superman’ for a bit

  Part 1c) ‘George Best’

  Part 2) The Grim Reaper

  Part 3) Kimberly in Heaven

  Part 3) Karma Kimberly

  Part 3a) Kimberly the Snake

  Part 3b) Kimberly the Monkey, aka Nails, the Smallest Dogfighter in the South East

  Part 3c) Kimberly the Bacterium

  Part 3d) Kimberly the Common Seal

  Part 3e) Kimberly the Greyhound

  Part 3f) Kimberly the Magpie

  Part 3) Kimberly the Friendly-ish Ghost

  Part 3) Kimberly’s Second Coming

  Part 3) The Illustrious Shaun and Sean in … ‘All the Fun of the Funeral’

  Part 3a) A Gravestone in a Graveyard

  Part 3b) The Trouble with Maggots

  Part 3) Kimberly in Hell

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Part 1) Kimberly Clark

  I found the eyeball fifteen minutes before I found the rest of him. I stood there in shock for a while, wondering which poor soul had lost it, then I smirked, thinking they’d have quite a bit of trouble finding it again.

  The eyeball winked, I think. I bent down with my hands on my knees, to have a closer look. I staggered backwards. Eyeballs are miles bigger than you imagine, what with them being blocked off by the sockets most of the time, and I shivered at it. The stalk was disgusting, like a dog-eared umbilical cord. I wished Stevie was around to show him, although he wasn’t that keen on the eyeball in Demolition Man, and I doubted he’d be keen on this one either.

  You wouldn’t expect to find an eyeball in the middle of a clearing, in the middle of a common, in the middle of the Capital, but, then again, you wouldn’t expect to find a three-wheeled pushchair, an unopened bottle of Glen’s Vodka, a yo-yo with the string missing, or a purple carrot either. The common was a tip, especially the muddy bit me and the eyeball were standing in. I trod about on the spot, cracking twigs, then carried on looking for Stevie. I was growing thirsty. I think I was cultivating a sore throat too, and I dreamed of orange juice as I bounded through the trees. In fact, the sun reminded me of a giant orange, slowly being squeezed on the horizon as it began to set. I licked the air. It was getting a little chilly, and I felt a little silly having only come out in the dotty cardigan.

  Stevie loved running away from things. He loved it so much, he did it for a living. Me and him moved to the Capital so he could pursue a career in athletics or, more specifically, the 200m sprint, which is the ideal activity for fast-footed, impatient people who only like to participate in sports for twenty or thirty seconds at a time. Stevie’s legs were like a leopard’s, with freckles all over them. We used to shave them together at bathtime, causing tiny hairy rafts to set sail in the seafoam, and in the early days I took pride in treating his athlete’s foot for him, as well as all his other athlete’s body parts. He was an incredible sprinter, often coming home from his ‘meets’ with more gold, silver and bronze necklaces than I’ve got in my entire jewellery box. I was proud of him, but it could be annoying at times, the way he couldn’t stand five minutes in a park or recreation ground without running off. Stevie was a shy boy – I think he enjoyed the peace and quiet of jogging about, with only his thoughts for company. The loneliness of the short-distance runner.

  Or perhaps he’d already seen the eyeball, and got frightened.

  I started waddling like a penguin, going down a steep bit. I was incredibly thirsty by this point, and feeling less and less impressed with Stevie. It was about half past four: time for him to take me to the pub and buy me an orange juice, I thought. I grumbled as I stepped in some wet mud. The whole place was dead. Perhaps it was that time of day when no one goes to the common, or perhaps it’s just one of those commons no one ever goes to, no matter what time of day it is. I decided to suck on a Strepsil, dishing a lemon one out of my Medicine Bag.

  I could’ve given Stevie a ring but, unfortunately, like a lot of men, he’s a sufferer of a severe socially debilitating disorder known as telephonophobia: the irrational fear of speaking to people on the blower. He didn’t have a phone. He hated talking to people as it was, let alone when they weren’t even present. I’m not sure what came first – his hatred of social interaction, or his st-st-st-stutter.

  I sighed, accidentally spitting out the Strepsil. The trees were looking more like burned witches’ fingers, the further I went. A lot of the Capital is haunted, due to the oldness of the place and the many executions and murders that have gone on. Gulping, I decided to make my way back to the eyeball, just in case it had seen which way my boyfriend went. Tripping over roots and four-pack plastic rings, I followed the elms back up to the clearing where the eye lived. I scampered carefully round the three-wheeled pushchair and the vodka bottle on tip-toes, hoping not to tread on it accidentally.

  ‘Stevie?!’ I yelled at the wood. It made my tonsils hurt. I was about to give up on him and head back home in a huff when I spotted something winking at me from under the leaves, and I caught the eye of the eyeball again. Kneeling down, I saw the iris was glittery, like some kind of reflector you might put on your bike. The pupil had changed its focus – it seemed to be staring at something down the mound now, and I frog-hopped on the balls of my feet to get a better view. Lining my two eyes up with the one in the mud, I followed its gaze over the yo-yo; through the legs of the pushchair; underneath some fallen branches; then out across the children’s adventure playground, fifty-odd feet away. Squinting, I could just make out the empty swings, zip-line, bouncy hippos, and a man hanging from the top rung of the climbing frame. I jumped up with fright. Usually when you climb a climbing frame, you hang with your arms above your head, gripping the rungs like a monkey, but this young fellow somehow had the knack of hanging from it with his arms by his sides. He’d tied his shoelaces around his neck, attached himself to the top rung, and let himself drop. He was dead, by the look of it.

  My throat was so sore, I couldn’t get a scream out. I was paralysed – in fact, the whole area of woodland was suddenly still and quiet, except for my heart clattering in my ribcage. After ten seconds of shock, I coughed and wiped my face. All I wanted was for Stevie to be there, to have someone to hug, and cry on. I spun around, desperately calling his name. After about ten seconds of doing that, finally I clocked him, lingering some fifty-odd feet away. I sprinted towards him, with my arms outstretched. I burst into tears, grabbing him. He didn’t grab me back. He just swayed a bit, hanging there from the top rung of the climbing frame. With his arms by his sides. And one eye missing.

  I couldn’t save Stevie in time:

  When Stevie was alive, he had white-gold hair, two magnificent silver eyes, two ears slightly too big for his head, a little stubble, a button nose, muscly arms and legs, thin lips, freckles, one earring, a few popped spots, and a penchant for wearing Lycra cycling shorts.

  When Stevie was dead, he had a big blue face, white
-gold hair, one magnificent silver eye, one bloodied eye-socket, two grey ears slightly too big for his head, a little dribble, a button nose, dangly arms and legs, purple lips, freckles, one earring, a few popped blood vessels, and a penchant for wearing four pairs of shoelaces round his neck.

  And now for a short paragraph about Stevie’s famous silver eyes:

  When I first met Stevie in the Southern Cross pub in Marton-in-Middlesbrough, the first thing that drew me to him was his eyes. It’s a well-known fact that humans are naturally drawn to each other’s eyes, but Stevie’s were special. Like quite a few folk in Teesside, Stevie was of Scandinavian descent. And, while he shared many physical attributes with the Vikings (like height, and near-transparent hair), it was the low amounts of melanin in his iris stroma that made my legs go to jelly that evening in the Cross. His eyes were like crystal balls – as soon as I looked into them, I knew he was the one. They were beautiful; the irises speckled with various shades of grey, like moon maps. Stevie wasn’t conventionally good-looking (and, to be honest, it’s hard to fully trust a man who shaves his legs more often than you), but his eyes were the main attraction for me over the years. Unfortunately for Stevie, the low melanin count meant he couldn’t stare at bright objects (so we seldom went on summer holidays, and never went out on Bonfire Night, or New Year’s Eve), but at least he wasn’t albino. Red eyes would have been a turn-off.

  And now for a short lesson in ornithology:

  Unlike Stevie, the magpie, Pica pica, loves staring at (and collecting) bright objects. They’re a pest. Famously one of the most sinister birds around, magpies enjoy devouring helpless insects; swaggering about like tiny, tuxedoed gangsters; harassing cats and other birds; and stealing jewellery from your mam’s dressing-table. Apparently it’s the males that go mad for all your sparkly things, in an attempt to attract females during mating season (the bird equivalent of your boyfriend buying you a nice brooch in the hope of getting you into bed). However, despite all their glamour, magpies will always be associated with death and sorrow. According to folklore, they all go around with Satan’s blood in their beaks and, when Jesus was crucified, they didn’t cry, and couldn’t even be bothered wearing full black mourning gear. They didn’t mourn Stevie’s death either; in fact, I was convinced I could hear a group of them cackling in the woodland. And I couldn’t help feeling that, while Stevie was hanging there on the kids’ climbing frame, one of the little bastards (one for sorrow … surely not five for silver?) must’ve burst out of the sky and peck-peck-peck-peck-pecked his beautiful, bright right eye out. I just hope to God Stevie was already dead by the time they got to him.

  Ironically, Stevie always used to bang on about hating ‘the Magpies’, but I think he meant Newcastle United, not the birds.

  The Necropolitan Police agreed it was suicide, which was kind of them. I think it was Stevie’s Joy Division T-shirt that swayed it. It was the creamy Closer one – the one with the dead bloke on it, and the woman having a good old mourn.

  I was still in shock when the police turned up, after shakily tapping 999 into my Sony Ericsson. While it was my first ever first-hand experience of death, for them it must’ve been fairly routine, turning up to the scene of a suicide to find a person bawling their eyes out. I couldn’t watch when they untangled Stevie from the climbing frame. His body made a horrid thud as it hit the soft play bark. They hoisted him onto a trolley and wheeled him into the ambulance, covering his big blue face with a sheet because he was much too depressing to look at.

  I didn’t have a tissue, so my fingers were sadly synchronised-swimming in a pool of tears. One of the younger policemen wasn’t sure whether to put his arm around me, but he stayed with me as the ambulance trundled off the common. They didn’t even bother putting on the siren – Stevie was definitely, definitely dead, they said. I felt cold and hollow. The young policeman said I should go home and get some rest, and they’d be in touch in a few days when they knew some more. I sobbed and nodded. I wondered what more there was to know. Perhaps there was a chance he might come back to life, after a quick go on their defibrillators.

  My cardigan cuffs were drenched now in snot and saltwater, and I shivered all my little hairs on end as I slumped away from the disaster spot. I had that horrible, sudden sinking feeling of being completely and utterly alone on the planet.

  Skirting the clearing where the eyeball had been, I watched the clouds churn into gruesome faces, and all of them were Stevie’s. I hoped he’d made it into Heaven alright. I stumbled down the path, with the whole landscape swaying either side of me. The tears were easing now, leaving me with just an empty, panicky feeling, with blurred edges. Before long, I remembered how thirsty I’d been, so I pointed myself towards the shops, trudging zombie-fashion past brokeLads and the New Capital Kebab. The streets began to get peppered with not only raindrops, but people too, and seeing all those unfamiliar faces just made me feel even colder and more alone. I felt the tears brewing again in my skull, so I pressed on down Turnpike Lane with my head lowered, hoping not to spill them on anyone.

  The first pub I came to was a Wetherspoon’s. It was a typically vast affair, with football news on the telly, and a mute Polish person serving behind the bar. It appeared to be Unhappy Hour. I was in no mood to smile, but I managed to muster up a ‘Please’ and a ‘Thanks’ when I ordered my orange juice. I took it back to an empty table. I sat down with my back to everybody.

  As I stared at the grain in the tabletop, Stevie’s blue face kept fl-fl-flickering between the whites of my eyes and the black of the backs of my eyelids. I figured the image would haunt me for many years to come. I saw him hanging off the fancy lampshades, and hanging off the edge of the bar. I saw him hanging off the bowls of sauce sachets. I saw him hanging off an old patron’s nose. Sniffing, I couldn’t help hanging more tears off my eyelashes, and dropping them one by one into my orange juice, creating a sour, salty cocktail. I was glad I’d turned away from the folk in the pub – I didn’t want any attention from the loud, annoying bloke with the seal-like whiskers, or the fellow honk honk honking with laughter on his own in the corner, or the mute Pole.

  It didn’t feel right sitting in a pub without my Stevie, even though typically he’d be staring over my shoulder at the football news and not talking. It made my whole body convulse, to think I had to go home that night and wake up without him for the rest of my life, and do something about his dirty washing, and his CDs, and his MFC programmes, and Tuesday’s uneaten Margherita he was saving. I sipped more salty orange. I guessed I’d have to give all his clothes to a charity shop, but that made me feel even sicker, imagining someone else going round in his sweatshirts and cycling shorts, pretending to be Stevie. I wondered what the police would do with the Nike trainers, off-white socks, shellsuit bottoms, Calvin Classics boxers, creamy Closer T-shirt, and jade green parka he had on when he killed himself. I wondered if they’d bury him in them. Or burn them.

  I cried a bit more. I’d stopped wearing make-up around that time, so I wasn’t turning my face into a vast Expressionist painting, for example, The Scream. When I came to the end of the orange juice and tears, I carried on sitting there in silence, watching the last dregs of juice crawl back to the bottom of the glass. A lot of police cars were zooming around outside with their sirens on, puncturing the silence, and I wondered if they’d stuffed Stevie into the lockers yet at the morgue. It made me want to vomit, the idea that once someone dies, there’s nothing you can do to ever see or speak to them again. I wish I could’ve undone Stevie’s shoelaces and brought him back to life with them like a puppet but, sadly, he was irreversibly suffocated and brain-dead.

  I got up from the table. I took my glass back to the bar. I headed out onto Green Lanes. I watched a bird crashing into a cloud.

  Once I was back out in public, I did my best to suppress the rest of the tears. As I slumped towards the bus stop, every step made my heart and gut ache. In a way, I looked forward to getting back to the flat and flooding it with projectile crying
.

  Perhaps the saddest thing about Stevie dying was me having to spread even more sadness by letting everyone know about it; or perhaps the saddest thing was me having to sleep alone that night in the bed that was too big even for the two of us. I stood in the bus shelter, squashed next to some strangers. I hated myself, and I decided I might as well go back to the flat and kill myself too – because the saddest thing about Stevie dying was having to live with the knowledge it wasn’t Stevie’s fault.

  It was mine.

  While there was nothing particularly bad about Stevie per se, after four years of hardcore commitment I was desperate to get rid of him. Weirdly, it was all the things that made him a good boyfriend (like pampering me incessantly, or pledging his undying allegiance to me, or cuddling me non-stop in front of strangers) that drove me away from him.

  At least twice a day, Stevie would stutter: ‘I l-l-love you, I want want want to be with you for e-e-e-ever and ever.’

  And I would say back: ‘Ah yes, I feel the same, Stevie.’

  Meanwhile, my brain would be elsewhere, plotting our escape.

  I have a wicked old brain.

  I was born to the sound of cackling witches on the thirty-first of October. The year was 1984, or so I was told. I don’t remember the actual birth. I still feel about eighteen so, for all I know, the year might’ve been 1989. Technically, I’m twenty-three, though.

  On the sixteenth of June 2003, I accidentally walked into the cross-hairs of Stevie’s silver eyes in the Southern Cross pub, and we threw countless shots of tequila down our necks, and ended up jumping up and down on each other round his mam’s house on Captain Cook’s Crescent. An orgasm popped its head out from between my legs, for the first time in the company of someone else. Then, in the following months, orgasms were a regular fixture round Stevie’s mam’s house. Four strenuous years later there were precious little orgasms for Stevie or Kimberly in their poxy one-bedroom flat above a halal butcher’s, in the south of Tottenham, in the north of the Capital. Stevie joined a prestigious athletics club and went out running every other evening while I stayed at home joining up the dot-to-dots in my bumper puzzle book. I was beginning to lead the boring, soulless life of a half-dead housewife. During this period, I probably felt about sixty-five.