Iphigenia in Splott Read online

  Falls out my skirt, clatters on the floor, between my feet.

  Leanne says Effie, love: did you just shit a vodka bottle?

  Manager git goes, out, now! – and security’s closing in,

  I pick up the pitcher

  Git says – you throw that at me…

  I bring the two pint jug, brim-full, to my lips

  I see, in the git’s eyes, the thought: you can’t.

  He has no fucking idea.

  I start to drink and people nearby fall quiet

  I get halfway down the jug there’s clapping and cheers

  I hit the bottom – the whole room goes up, people whooping, whistling

  Even the git is giving me this grudging smile, like he’s in on it?

  I shove the empty jug at him, he grabs it, both mits

  So he’s got nothing left to fend me off when I clamp my hands to his cheeks,

  Pull him in like to give him a great big smacker of a kiss and then –

  Burp right in his fucking face.

  I grab Kev, I get Leanne by the other hand

  March them off towards St Mary’s Street,

  And the first place we can get into is

  The Great Western.

  I know. It’s shite.

  From the outside seems empty but once you’re in packed four deep to get a drink.

  I dive into the crush – buttoned-up undercut at the front is handing Jaeger shots back

  Over the heads and shoulders, I grab one – boom, that’s gone

  I push in further, scuse me, scuse me, I slink in, right to the front

  Get my elbows to the bar, prop myself up, cast my gaze round and

  There.

  Oh God.

  There.

  At the back.

  Little gang of guys.

  All of them pretty fit – not gym fit, not primped and preened

  Not muscles like boulders, just, you can see

  Their arms and legs and bodies are solid.

  And not one of them with – that desperation

  The eagerness to please, that screams off every guy

  Trying his luck on every rainy Cardiff night.

  And in the heart of them,

  There he is.

  Looking at me.

  And he’s –

  Kev finds my side snakes his arm round my waist and

  I’m expecting the guy to look away but

  He doesn’t.

  And he’s nice looking, yeah, that’s a face

  I’d grind myself all over but still:

  Staring straight at me,

  When he can see I’m with another man?

  So fucking arrogant.

  Now if Kev sees that, it’s gonna fuckin kick off

  Course Kev doesn’t see that, cos he’s a dull twat

  So I say,

  Kev.

  Kev.

  He’s angling for the barmaid’s eye, jussasec love.

  I say no, Kev

  I’ve gotta tell you right now.

  He goes ’ssup bitch?

  I say, Kev, look over b’there yeah.

  And I point.

  And he looks where I’m pointing I say

  What can you see?

  And he says

  Uhhhh…

  I can see…

  Sign says toilets?

  I go, yeah. That’s right. I want you to go down,

  Find the cubicle furthest from the door.

  And wait.

  Because I am up for it. Right here right now.

  Fuck yeah! he says. Ladies or gents?

  And I go – well am I a fucking lady or am I fucking not.

  And off the prick trots

  And what?

  You think I should put up with whatever wanders down my street

  Dodging the dog shits, and be grateful? Fuck that.

  I turn round, to face this guy

  No shy little look, no flirty glance

  The full on stare,

  Lips parted to show some tooth,

  But a snarl not a smile.

  Nine out of ten guys, can’t take it. Will look away.

  This guy – stares me right back.

  And so I walk. Straight at him.

  The crush parts before me – course it fucking does.

  I cut a path right through the dance floor

  And no one touches me. None of them could.

  I close on him like a fucking cruise missile and he’s staring back

  Trying to hold his nerve but then –

  There it is.

  Just a split second.

  Little flicker of fear in his eyes.

  He packs it away quick as he can, but I’ve got him now.

  I stop.

  Turn my back and –

  – up till then music has been shit

  But the second I start to move to it,

  It becomes fucking sick because I am like

  A multi-million dollar video that distracts from the shitness of the track

  Except I’m in real life.

  I’ve come half way to this guy, now I’ll make him come

  The rest of the way to me. And he’ll think he’s doing it

  Of his own free will but, not really: I’m drawing him from over there

  To over here, where I want him to be.

  I shut my eyes,

  And still the lights pulsing through my lids

  Or maybe it’s the blood in the tiny little veins

  And every time I breathe in, I feel like I’m floating up

  Off the floor, I kick off my shoes

  I dance like I don’t know how,

  I spin, and I don’t know what my body’s doing

  I’m just watching it, except

  I’m not me

  I am me

  But I’m someone else as well and then

  And then

  And then

  The song ends.

  And I look

  To where this guy should be –

  Right next to me.

  But next to me there’s no one.

  Fucker hasn’t moved.

  He’s propped up, just where he was

  Have I lost my powers? What is going on?

  No man resists me: literally no one.

  And I’m looking at him now,

  Not seductive, or hopeful, just actually

  Actually quite angry at

  Who the fuck this idiot thinks he is

  And that second

  The crowd shifts,

  And the gang he’s got surrounding him move

  And I can see the guy

  Head to foot.

  And what I see is –

  – the fucker’s on crutches.

  And he sees me see.

  He sees me, laugh.

  At him, and, at me,

  Trying to lure him to the dance floor,

  When the poor fucker can’t walk.

  So I walk, for him.

  All the posturing and posing gone.

  I put my arms round his neck.

  I say,

  Hello, you.

  And I snog his fucking face off.

  1Find some cute way to give the audience the finger.

  2

  I’m Effie, I say, and he nods like, yeah, he already knew.

  He says, I’m Lee. And I feel like I knew that too.

  I say Lee we might wanna make a swift exit. There’s a boy,

  Gonna be coming up those stairs any sec not pleased

  To see me with you.

  Worried what he’ll do to me, are you? says Lee.

  And I say, no. Other way round, I think.

  We grab a couple of taxis from the road-blocked top of St Mary’s

  And I realise what it is, Lee and his mates.

  Why they look like a gang. I say, you’re soldiers, aren’t you.

  Lee’s chucking his crutches in the boot. He swings round the side of the car,

  Leaning on it the whole time, little frown like
not pain but

  Really concentrating when his weight’s on his right foot.

  He opens the door, holds it open, for me. Says,

  They, are soldiers. I was.

  Till this.

  And he means –

  Whatever hideous event put him on those crutches.

  We’re in the car, heading to his mate Tom’s. Tom’s got a flat,

  Far side of Tremorfa. We kiss, me and Lee, I

  Press my hand down his belly, not going there yet,

  Sliding past to his thigh,

  I knead the heavy muscle, and –

  – he snatches my hand. Holds it tight.

  I say, what?

  He says – wait, alright?

  I can wait. That’s fine.

  We get to the flat. New estate creeping out from the railway line.

  And you’d think – me on my own, and these five strange guys

  You’d think I’d be a bit fist clenched round my keys,

  Ready to kick off, but no. Nothing like.

  They’re all polite, without being creepy.

  Funny, without being pricks.

  It feels – never like I’m in danger, more like

  I’m this maid of honour and

  They’re my personal body guard.

  We sit in the lounge, few drinks, chat.

  I slip my hand into Lee’s. Give it a squeeze.

  And he looks at me…

  And when we head off, there’s no

  Fuss and nonsense from the boys, like you’d expect when their mate

  Takes the girl he’s pulled upstairs.

  They’re just all – g’night, nice to meet you.

  Like me coming home with Lee is… fate.

  He dawdles a little while following me up,

  I head into a bathroom, quick swipe of Colgate

  Over the teeth, scrape the moss off my tongue, and then –

  He’s leaning against a futon, uncurled into a bed

  That takes up most of the floor of the spare room.

  And for a second I’m scared. Not scared of him, fuck no,

  Scared of –

  And to fight it, I grab his belt, like, fuck it,

  Let’s get stuck in but

  He stops me. Holds me back. Says

  I’ve got something to show you.

  He pulls off his top, and – it’s nice, lots of muscle but

  A little bit of slack around the belly and to be honest

  I like that more, there’s something weird about boys who are

  That obsessive they’re not carrying an ounce of fat.

  He goes for his belt, says

  Okay. Don’t freak out.

  I say, mate

  Anything up to a foot, I can take,

  But more than that, and certain positions are gonna be no go, okay?

  And he smiles at me.

  A smile that’s a bit sad.

  And though I just meant to lighten the mood his smile makes me wish

  I hadn’t said anything like that.

  And he pulls his jeans down. And his legs

  Are lovely

  But one of them

  Stops.

  At the knee.

  And there’s straps and plastic.

  He sits back kicks off his jeans and

  His right leg. It’s plastic from the knee down.

  He gets to work on the buckles.

  Pulls the plastic free

  And something comes out.

  A stump of flesh, that just ends.

  The skin folds over

  To a red, angry ridge,

  Black stitch marks where they stuck

  The flaps of skin together.

  How’d it happen?

  He says, d’you know what an improvised explosive device is?

  I say not really. He says well I do.

  He tells me

  He’s not been able to show,

  Himself, to anyone

  Since.

  So I kiss him. I kiss him and kiss him

  And kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him

  And then I’m on him. And he’s in me.

  And the first time it’s so fast. Like almost instantly.

  And he’s embarrassed, he’s sorry, and I’m

  It’s alright. We’ve got that over with. And now

  We can do it properly.

  And I kiss him again. I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him

  I slide my lips down his side, down his thigh, he says

  Please don’t,

  But I won’t stop, I kiss everywhere, I kiss

  And he’s pulling away, says please don’t, but

  I kiss the cut, I kiss the stitches, and it feels

  Like nothing I’ve ever kissed,

  And I say, there. You see?

  He says, it’s so fucking ugly.

  And I say well actually

  I think it’s beautiful.

  And something goes wrong then.

  He turns away from me.

  But I can see, from the shivers of his shoulders –

  I say –

  Look I’m sorry. That was just fucking bullshit. I don’t know why I said that. I wanted to say something to make it better. You’re right, it’s fucking ugly, actually. It’s ugly and it’s scary and looking at it puts the shits up me cos I think, look at us, we are these little soft creatures and it’s so easy to hurt us, anything could happen any time and ruin us. So it’s not beautiful. It’s as far from beautiful as anything can be. But it’s part of you. And if it’s part of you, I can take it.

  And Lee turns back.

  He grabs my face. And he kisses me, and kisses me, and kisses me.

  And we make love again and it’s hours.

  Hours pressing our skin, pushing into each other,

  Flipping and rolling over the bed cos the bits of us that aren’t touching are jealous of the bits that are: tangling our limbs,

  Licking and sucking and breathing each other in,

  Getting as much as we can of him into me and me into him, just being, being together and alive.

  And after, he tells me.

  It went off right under the guy next to him.

  This guy caught the worst of it.

  Both his legs gone, one of his hands.

  On the helicopter, medics trying to keep the guy going

  Talking him up

  But he knew.

  And he was sobbing and shaking

  But not cos of the pain.

  Cos of his kids. All the years they’d have to live

  Without a dad.

  All the nights they’d cry themselves to sleep

  For the want of him.

  Knowing he was breaking the hearts

  Of the ones he loved most.

  And that was his life.

  His last seconds

  Terror and pain and guilt and defeat

  And Lee flips round to me

  Sinks his face in my neck, howls like a hurt child.

  I wrap my arms around him, squeeze him all I can, and –

  – and I take it.

  I take it, and –

  And that was the end of my life.

  3

  Lying there wrapped up in Lee I’m feeling something new.

  That something new is – not alone.

  I’m not alone.

  And it feels like I’m gonna feel not alone, always.

  But I want to see.

  I want to see if that’s how I am now.

  So I get up. Lee’s mostly sleeping.

  I scribble my number, he reaches up, pulls my face down

  For a last kiss.

  I say, we’re not gonna do that, wait three days to call shit, right?

  He says course not.

  I say no I know. So I’ll speak to you later.

  He says what you doing tonight.

  I say you, if you’ve got your strength back.

  And he smiles at that.

  I pad down the stairs.r />
  His mate Tom says, shall I call you a cab.

  I say no and I don’t know why.

  But I just go with it.

  I walk down busy roads that have gone quiet for the night.

  Not down Tremorfa. On and out.

  Past the big Tescos, past David Lloyd

  To all the massive factories like

  Crashed spaceships, the metal mountains,

  Train tracks from nowhere, cranes and pipes and chimney stacks

  And it’s scary, but a couple of gypsy ponies find me,

  Wander up the verge, bump their big heads against mine, telling me,

  Keep going, you’ll be fine.

  A helicopter swoops low

  Like it’s gonna scoop me up – or crash.

  I follow its path, come off a roundabout

  Find a landing pad. I see three figures climb out the ’copter’s cabin,

  All in black, like stormtroopers of death,

  Then they pull off masks and helmets,

  And they’re just these guys, laughing.

  And as the whine of the blades fades,

  I hear something else.

  Something huge.

  Something breathing.

  Or something roaring.

  I carry on down the road.

  Find a hole in a fence.

  And there, right in front of me,

  Is – the sea.

  And a beach.

  A beach a mile from where I grew up,

  When the fuck did that happen?

  It is the worst beach in the world, mind.

  Strips of metal, car wheels, half a toilet,

  Whole walls crumpled onto the sand,

  Concrete slabs cracked, smoothed into soft shapes,

  Glass glittering back the moon.

  I sit there. Can’t see anyone. Can’t hear anyone.

  Ahead of me a broken brick road, leading into the sea.

  I’m as on my own as I can be.

  And…

  It’s still there!

  That feeling

  Of being not alone any more. Even though I am, I’m not.

  Because I’ve found what I am for.

  I am – for making Lee better.

  That’s what I’ll do.

  That’s what I’ll be.

  His better half.

  And being his better half I’ll be so much better than I’ve ever been.

  That’s it now.

  That’s me.

  4

  So next day.

  If I was Lee I’d text first thing, but I’m not.

  And he doesn’t.

  Typical fucking bloke playing it cool, but

  I’ve still got that feeling of not alone anymore

  And I trust it.

  I’m really calm and quiet, and I just

  Stay in the flat. Me. In the flat. Sober.

  Not exactly waiting but…

  Happy and chilled and thinking about