Kimberly's Capital Punishment Read online

  After the laughter, me and Polly slumped to sleep the rest of the way home, taking it in turns to open an eyelid to make sure we got off after Tesco but well before Tottenham McDonald’s.

  We awoke the following afternoon, like a pair of tasteless cushions, on the sofa. Stevie was in a foul mood but he still made us cups of tea, and Polly left around four, with a pale face and limbs. I had my tail between my legs all day, despite not quite getting a tail between my legs the night before. I felt genuinely sorry for Stevie all of a sudden, or perhaps it was just self-pity. Stevie seemed to have had a rubbish time at the athletics do, although he didn’t want to talk about it. He looked glum all day, like he could see I’d been unfaithful in his crystal-ball eyes. I couldn’t resist giving him a modest squeeze for a minute or two, but it seemed like he didn’t want to be touched. My hangover was cursing me for my terrible behaviour, and my heart was banging desperately, unsure what was happening to it. All I could think about was how much I was hurting Stevie, and the hurt was catching. I had so many bad thoughts, black holes and blinding aches racing through my skull, I completely forgot to take the Polaroid out of his parka.

  That evening, I decided I wanted to be nice to Stevie again, and stay with him. He obviously cared about me tremendous amounts, and I cared about him too. Unfaithfulness is overrated. I realised cheaters are just the sad, insecure bastards of the world; the ones always seeking validation from others; the ones who just aren’t sure if they’re good-looking, or funny, or interesting any more. The ones daft enough to risk infinite comfort for a fleeting flash of fresh flesh.

  And with singlehood, there’s always the risk you’ll find yourself in a no-man’s-land, desperately scouring the streets and nightspots for someone only vaguely comparable to the lovely lover you lost.

  The next morning, we woke up at opposite ends of the bed. Stevie still seemed down – I tried my best to cheer him up with smiles, soft drinks, and strokes to the arms and chest. It was selfish and pointless to treat him so badly – we obviously weren’t going to split up as easily as I thought, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted us to any more.

  After an afternoon breakfast of cheese footballs and Doritos, we headed down the common to kick some leaves and enjoy the grey weather. It was chilly out, so Stevie slung on the jade green parka. I didn’t want to overdo the niceness (and appear weird, or guilty), so I just linked arms with him and stared out the bus window as we slid along West Green Road. I smiled softly, sandwiched between Stevie and the translucent reflection of him in the bus window. I wondered how I’d feel if Stevie had locked lips with a random square-faced lady. I felt bloated with guilt. I felt like an idiot.

  It was nearing sunset when we got out onto the common. The two of us were practically mutes, wandering about aimlessly, flattening a path of grass between the elms. I shivered once or twice in the dotty cardigan. Stevie didn’t half look cosy in the parka. When we got to the public bogs, I went in to try and cough up a bit of leftover hangover, and I had a long wee in the porcelain cubicle, watching my breath. I washed my hands as best I could in three stingy blasts of hot water, then I smiled at the hand-towel dispenser. It looked back at me, open-mouthed.

  I felt better waltzing back out onto the common. I strode past an arrogant, swaggering magpie, indulging my lungs in the sweeping blasts of fresh air. When I got back onto the flattened grass track, I realised someone was missing. Stevie appeared to have gone off on one of his impromptu jogs, or else it was hide-and-seek. I sniffed and tottered off into the man-made wood, where the trees were all bent in aerobic poses. I took a tissue out of my Medicine Bag, and fired alcoholic snot at it. Posting the soggy Kleenex up my sleeve, I penetrated further into the wood, keeping an eye out for my boyfriend. I weighed up the possibility of us having an al fresco roll in the thicket.

  I broke out into a canter as I went up an incline, making twigs yelp and squeak underfoot. There was a bit of a clearing up ahead, with a few tree-stumps, scrawny bushes and piles of mud – the perfect spot for a private smooch. The perfect spot to repledge my allegiance to my boyfriend.

  I took a few deep breaths, with my hands on my knees, giggling at how unfit I was. Then I stiffened, and gasped, balancing one elbow on this knackered old three-wheeled pushchair.

  Something was winking at me from under one of the bushes.

  If you haven’t noticed already, I appear to have been named after a toilet-tissue dispenser. My dad, the late Barry Clark, was the caretaker at my old primary school for twenty-five years and twenty-five days, at which point his heart decided to stop working. As the story goes, he used to enjoy the sweet serenity working three hours a day at the school after lights out, with all the kids gone – just him, his mop, and his daft, dithering thoughts. He used to tell the mop disgusting jokes on his way round the corridors, making the wet mop screech, probably with laughter. It was my dad’s dream to be a stand-up comedian, but his comedy was awful – he used to be famous for his fat jokes, until he got older and fat himself, so the jokes fell flat. Barry probably would’ve died on stage, if he hadn’t died in the Year Three girls’ toilets with the mop clutched tightly in his rigor-mortised fist, like a microphone.

  At work, Barry was an obsessive cleaner. I think he saw himself as a Ramboesque vigilante, saving innocent kids from evil, malignant germs. He used to give me pencils he found down the backs of dusty drawers and desks, and leftover cleaning products. He also gave me the hypochondria, I think.

  Whenever I sign my name, I like to imagine my dad refilling the Kimberly-Clark containers in the toilets, smiling at that simple, satisfying name embossed in the plastic. Now I go to certain pubs and restaurants specifically to try out their Kimberly-Clarks. Now I have such dry hands, I think I’m getting eczema on them.

  But at least I’m not called Armitage Shanks.

  From an early age, I’ve had an unhealthy obsession with death. I blame it on growing up in a town full of ghosts, graveyards and old-age pensioners. Though I was born in a giant factory called Middlesbrough, my mam and dad took me home a couple of days later, to an obscure little place down the A171 called Guisborough.

  Guisborough is very old. The ‘ancient capital of Cleveland’ used to have a cattle market back in days of yore, and it’s hardly changed. In the daytime you still get a pleasant market selling veg, stinking fish and cheapo cassettes, then, at night, the mad cows start roaming about again; usually on a Friday or Saturday. The place is like a senile werewolf except, instead of fur and fleas, it’s covered in cobbles and dithering old ladies.

  There’s only one secondary school and, to walk there, you’ve got to tackle the haunted graveyard round the back of St Nick’s. You can hear the dead bodies groaning when it comes to home time; all the kids acting daft, disturbing the peace and rampaging round the headstones. Footballs roll about like severed heads. Crisp packets are laid down like cheese-and-onion-flavoured wreaths.

  Aside from the crispy condom me and O’Shea found in Year Nine, by far the scariest thing in the cemetery is the infamous Black Monk’s grave. There used to be a monastery out the back of the graveyard, which Henry VIII burned down for fun a long time ago. Rumour has it the Black Monk (I’m not sure if he’s got black skin – if so, he’s one of the only black people in Guisborough) comes out once a year to inspect the ruins.

  The Black Monk’s grave is in the centre of the graveyard, all sinister and overgrown, with an anti-dancing fence around it. I’ve had plenty of nightmares about it. As the story goes, if you’re brave and nifty enough to dance on top of the Black Monk’s grave, you’ll come to a swift, watery demise. In other words, watch your back at bathtime; don’t play on the banks of the beck; don’t jump in any puddles.

  I’ve seen many zany individuals dance on that grave over the years (including our science teacher, Mr Levington, who had a red nose, and did it for a bet on Red Nose Day), but all of them survived. All except for Daniel Brady, who treated the Black Monk to a fine bit of Saturday Night Fever on the last day of term in Yea
r Ten. Apparently he went missing a couple of years back, scuba-diving off the west coast of Australia. Despite the shark bites in his chest and his lopped-off leg, I blame the Black Monk.

  So, every school day for me was tinged with mild doom. That’s what spending a lot of time around corpses does to you. And, as if that wasn’t enough, as soon as you get onto the High Street, you come into contact with all the painfully slow old codgers moping about the market. I think they’re attracted to Guisborough for its Coronation Street-style houses and the view of the hills, rather than the nightmarish, orgiastic nightlife. It used to make me sad, seeing them all weary and lonely in the many pubs and bakeries, or fingering dog toys on the stalls, despite not having a dog with them. They’re practically corpses themselves. You can see the bones.

  For someone with such a morbid preoccupation with death, I’ve got surprisingly good posture. However, hanging around with people who are dead – or on the very edge of death – can be bad for the spirit, and I’m ashamed to say I went through a black-fingernailed Goth phase in my early teens. I used to haunt my mam and dad at mealtimes; this pale, sinister presence that wouldn’t speak, but would now and then throw plates around. However, by the time I grew up and met Stevie Wallace in the Southern Cross, I was wearing bright clothes again, and the world seemed to hum with all sorts of rose-tinted, romantic possibilities. Until lots of people around me died, that is.

  When Mag Clark died, me and my dad went through hell trying to convict the owner of a J-reg Volvo estate.

  When Barry Clark died, the primary school had a minute’s silence to honour him, but none of the kids knew who he was, and some of them made silly noises, and it all ended in laughter.

  When Stevie Wallace died, I decided I might as well go back to the flat and kill myself too. I finished the glass of orange and tears, and walked to the bus stop in silence. Inside the dotty cardigan, all my organs were just frozen meat. Momentarily, a little girl on a blinding pink bicycle caught my attention, but then the thought of Stevie being hung flung itself back into my head, and the beauty of the world collapsed again. The image was like a mouldy carrot on a rope, leading me onto the 41, constantly pulling at my heartstrings. My lips wobbled tragically. The bells kept going off on the bus, and they were funeral bells.

  I got off at the lane named after black boys. I fancied a walk before dying, and I moved at the pace of a snowman through Downhills Park, where Stevie first confronted me about being a horrible, cold-hearted person. As I walked, I rolled more tears, perhaps subliminally hoping some kind soul might take pity on me and talk me out of the suicide. However, everyone went out of their way to avoid the manic, miserable woman, crossing over the fields with their heads dipped. I slid onwards, down down down down down.

  It was dark by the time I got to the halal butcher’s. I did the trick with the door, to get it open. Winter was in full swing, and all the trees and doorways in the Capital had shrunk and warped. You had to yank the door firmly towards yourself before attempting to turn the key, and I grimaced at the strain. At least it was the last time I’d ever have to do it.

  When I got upstairs, I had to decide how I wanted to kill myself. Hanging looked a terribly painful way to go, and there was a chance I’d survive if I threw myself out of the third-storey window, and I definitely didn’t want to do the trick with the door again. I began the projectile crying. I wondered if the halal lads downstairs fancied ritually slashing my jugular.

  I was gradually filling the flat with tears; soon the carpet felt soggy underfoot. After five minutes, a tide was forming, with its own currents, waves and sealife, and before long I found myself paddling in saltwater, up to my ankles. I figured drowning was as good a way as any to kill yourself, and it felt appropriate, choking on my own sour rainfall. But then, just as the water level was creeping up towards my calves, the tears dried up. Humans are only capable of a certain amount of projectile crying, even in times of massive despair. So, I decided to go for a rummage in the fridge. There was one unopened Carlsberg in Stevie’s compartment, and five Smirnoff Ices in mine. I gathered up the Smirnoffs, then waded through to the bedroom, where various cushions, stockings and magazines were darting about like manta rays and octopuses. I changed into my nicest underwear – the satin pink affairs with dainty black bows. I was not going to die in disgusting, discoloured granny pants.

  Back in the living space, Lucifer’s cage was floating about like a space-age Noah’s Ark. I remembered to give him four or five days’ worth of pellets and coloured cornflakes, just in case it took a while for the Necropolitan Police to find my decomposing body. I figured he’d have ample water, though.

  I sat down on the sofa-raft and sighed. To inspire a suitable mindset for suicide, I recalled all the horrible things I’d done to Stevie over the last few months, gulping the Smirnoff Ice as quickly as I could. I wondered what happens to you after the last gasp. How long was Stevie in agony before all his pain receptors packed in? Was Stevie already up in Heaven shagging supermodels? Or is death just a big, black, rotten void? It was a scary prospect. In the olden days, they reckoned death was just like being asleep and dreaming – a break from that other bloody nightmare: life.

  But I’d need more than just Smirnoff Ice if I was going to top myself successfully. I paddled back through to the kitchen, where a sea cucumber was floating about – or was it just a normal cucumber? I fished it out of the tears and slung it back into the fridge. I started crying again, because I’d never eat another tuna and cucumber sandwich. They were mine and Stevie’s favourites.

  After slamming the fridge door shut, I went over to my Medicine Bag, which was full of vitamin supplements, tissues and lozenges, as well as many packs of Panadol. I gathered up the paracetamol, then sploshed back through to the bedroom and laid down on the blue gingham bedcover.

  I started unpopping the pills, and popping them one by one into my mouth, sending them down the hatch on a lemon-flavoured waterfall. After the fourth Smirnoff Ice and the ninth painkiller, sure enough the drowsiness took hold. My heart was racing while my head swam, and I curled myself round the bottom of the bedframe, like a limpet stuck to a burning Viking longboat. My skull hurt, despite the painkillers, but I treated it as punishment for me punishing my boyfriend. In fact, I punched myself in the temples a few times to encourage irreparable brain damage. More tears flowed.

  As soon as I felt sufficiently depressed and hateful, I swallowed four more Panadol and tried to carry on drinking the Ice, but after three more sips the bottle fell from my hand and into the ocean below. If there was a message to be found in that bottle, it consisted of only vodka, lemonade, and tears. I wasn’t one for writing suicide notes. Instead, I’d just created one final, saddest cocktail of all.

  My head sank into the soggy pillow and, though my heart was still beating, I felt my organs shutting down, killing me softly on the bedcovers. They say a heroin overdose is the most relaxing way to die – and I probably could’ve got my hands on some up the High Road, although I didn’t want to risk being stabbed or shot, of course – but, under the circumstances, Smirnoff and Panadol seemed a reasonable alternative.

  I think I coughed up some sick. I can’t remember. For the rest of the evening, a mysterious opaque curtain was drawn around my brain. I shifted to and fro on the blue gingham, struggling to keep my eyes open. Then, all of a sudden, there were red sparkles. Then, there were purple sparkles. Then, there were black sparkles.

  Unfortunately, I woke up the next morning. Obviously four Smirnoff Ices and thirteen Panadol isn’t enough to kill yourself, and I felt stupid. I had a hangover the size of Mount Everest growing on the side of my brain. I considered taking more Panadol to combat the pain, then decided against it.

  My eyes felt like I’d been crying shards of glass, and my bones felt soft. My belly groaned. I’d been asleep almost sixteen hours. There was still a veil of sadness, but it was much blurrier and nondescript compared to the previous night.

  The ocean of tears appeared to have e
vaporated, though it was still faintly damp underfoot. As I walked across the carpet, my legs kept getting tangled up and knotted. The rest of my body was twisted and creased as well, since I’d foolishly decided to die in my clothes. I had a long stretch and a yawn.

  Outside, the sky was like two pieces of slate rubbing against each other, conjuring up heaps of rain, lightning and pathetic fallacy. I moped into the kitchen with a dark cumulonimbus over my head, and rain streaming down my face. It took ages to make a tuna and cucumber sandwich, and in the end I couldn’t stomach eating it. Depression had shrunk my stomach to the size of a dormouse’s shower-cap.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to kill myself again, but the attempts were halfhearted. I used the sharp cucumber knife on my wrists, but I didn’t have the guts to cut deep enough into my radial artery: the M1 of the circulatory system. I pulled the shoelaces out of Stevie’s red Reeboks and twisted them round my neck, then stood precariously on the sofa arm and tied the other end round the curtain-rail. I was too scared to jump off, though. I stood there on the sofa arm for twenty-five minutes, before sighing and untying myself. Later on, I poured myself a mug of bleach, but then I quickly poured it back again.

  I wasn’t cut out for killing myself, I don’t think. It was more my style to just wallow in self-pity, so I spent the rest of the week in bed, grinding out the days unenthusiastically, pretending to be glad to be alive. I developed a severe case of lethargy – by Tuesday I couldn’t even be bothered walking to the toilet, so I weed in a saucepan under the bed. The flat soon began to smell, and I contracted bed sores from the musty mattress. The Guillotine quickly went rusty (not ginger), and the only exercise I got was rolling from one side of the bed to the other, which was actually quite a distance now Stevie was gone.