Pollution

270403

Every time she moved she could feel him there, with her.  He wriggled in her bloodstream, ever-present, sucking her nutrients, leaving her exhausted beyond anything she'd thought possible.

She had a strategy for ignoring his squirmings, however: she lay on the sofa and wouldn't move.

Her sister came over with the kids and told her to get a grip.  "For God's sake, Sasha, you're not the only woman in the world to have gone through this!  In Africa they squat down, get it over with and then go back to tending the goats!"

"Whatever."

"You've got to pull yourself together."  Little Palma, indistinguishable from Little Octavia, began choking with an unbearable phlegmy noise.  Sasha covered her ears.  "Christ! You're so melodramatic!  Get over it!  -And go and see your doctor."

"My doctor wants to send me up the hospital."  Sasha let her hands drop back to her sides, and contemplated the stippled cream ceiling.  "'You're going up the hospital, young lady,' he said to me.  'You're suffering from depression, you are.'"

Even her sister had to laugh.  "He did not say that!"

"You'll never know if he did or didn't."  Sasha closed her eyes as the tickling set in again.  "But I'm not going to see any specialist, so forget about that."

Later, on her own, she got up to make what she hoped would be a nice cup of tea.  And then it started up – he didn't want tea, he couldn't stand the stuff, he was a coffee man, always had been, give him a decent Colombian blend over Tetley's finest any day….

Deliberately Sasha opened the mug cupboard, took out a pre-graduation mug with chipped rim and roadmap glaze, and banged it down on the work surface.  "I'm having tea," she pronounced.  "Tea with sugar, the way I was brung up.  All right?  You satisfied with that?  Or is that a little too proletariat for your cappuccino tastes?"

There was no reply, but the prickles subsided a little.

Sipping at the tea, she made a tour of her house.  He hated that for a start – a house, with three bedrooms, a melamine kitchen and a corrugated plastic carport, surrounded on two sides with trampled communal grass.  Her porch had a concrete step, concrete roof and was supported by two iron poles – real classy.  "Any burning Fiestas out there today?  Go on, give us a treat."  He writhed, but there was nothing for him to see.

Upstairs she inspected her bedrooms.  "This is mine, complete with shag pile carpet and mushroom stool, of which I realise you're very proud.  This is also mine, which I call the study and is where I do my marking.  You'll like this, it contains the last remnants of my intellectual life, although I imagine you'll change all that.

"Spare room.  Or, as no doubt as you call it, your room."

It was a dismal space: twee floral wallpaper, no curtains, a stack of cardboard boxes from when she'd moved in, and a defunct fridge. 

"Good Lord, how ghastly.  I don't know how you can stand it here Sasha.  Your little flat was a charmer, what made you give it up for this dump?"

"I couldn't refuse the job opportunity," she replied automatically, then pressed her lips together.  "-Not that I need to justify my decisions to you."

"Mmn.  How's that inner city paradise working out for you?  Been mugged and raped by Year Seven yet?"

"It beats being patronised by rich kids promising to set their daddy on me."

She backed out of the room, closed the door, drank some tea in big mouthfuls.  "Take a bit of this."  Milk and sugar lightly laced with tannin.  "And shut up!"

No such luck.  "You had promise, Sasha – why did you throw it all away to come down here?  You know London's where it's at."

She would not answer.  She needed to be still, to control this.  The empty mug dangling from her little finger, she gripped the double-plank landing rail. 

"I'll always be here, you know.  Whenever you look at me, this is what you'll hear.  A reminder of how your life ought to have panned out.  And then you'll look up and see the nappies and the sink estate and come back to reality with an unpleasant bump."

She ran to the bathroom and heaved.

*

The bowl offered cool and quiet sympathy.  "I don’t know why I let this happen," Sasha whispered.  "Why have I let myself get infected?  It's too late for a cure…why did I think that an alien organism would be happy in me?"

The white bowl gleamed silently.

"It's not happy.  It's sarcastic and miserable.  It's actively mean to me!  What kind of life form is this?"

Still no reply.  Sasha leant her forehead ion the porcelain.  Her skin was wet withy sweat, and she was shivering.  Still, she felt better.  Better than when the poison had been in her blood.  Now it was flowing away towards some unlucky outfall, to surprise fishes and fishermen alike…maybe toddlers paddling by the shore….  Toxin levels were rising in Britain's springs, she'd taught Year Ten, and now she was contributing with the essential matter of Mr Urquhart from the posh school, spewn up into the water cycle.

"Spewed up."

"What!"

"The word you want is spewed.  To spew, past tense.  For pity's sake, Sasha, no wonder literacy levels are falling."

"Don't sneer!  You never sneered before."

"Before you made a very stupid decision?  No, possibly not."

It wasn't stupid.  She was certain of it. 

She flushed the loo with a defiant motion, and got to her feet.  So much for comfort and peace.


*


Jesus: the doorbell.  How long had it been jangling?  On this one point she had to admit Craig was right: the taped chimes were tacky and annoying in the extreme.  She'd get the thing changed.

"Avon, love.  Special spring issue!"

On the front was a gummy baby dressed in a yellow fleece bunny suit.  Sasha blinked at it.  The Avon lady spoke.  "-Sorry, what?"

"Just think - you could be decking me out in this tasteless get up six months from now."

"You all right, love?"

"Yes, thanks."

The woman wouldn't let her shut the door – wedging her stack of brochures in the way.  "Are you on your own?  You look a bit pale."

"I'm fine.  Sorry, I'm…"

"Polluted!"

"…Not well."

"Oh dear.  Well, so long as you're sure."

The door closed, and the catalogue flapped to the floor.

*


It couldn't last, of course.  She knew that.  For one thing, she wouldn't be able to keep her job – not an unbearable thought in itself, because it wasn't really coming together the way she'd imagined – but that meant she'd lose the house.  Within the year she'd be back at her parents', with her sister still coming to visit and giving her lectures about independence and maturity. 

*



No more of this.  She'd tried stillness, she'd tried argument, she'd tried expulsion.  Now there was only one option left: fight poison with poison.  She'd taken General Studies: she knew what mother's ruin was.

"Inability to say no to pleas for a Nintendo?"

"Shut up and take this."

"Oh, yes.  Very council estate."

She swigged again.

"Isn't St. Emilion a little upmarket for this area?  I'd have expected you to be on the Special Brew by now."

"With a carton of JPS?  Don't tempt me."  That was better.  He was fading, becoming fainter, making her feel more normal….

Keys in the front door.  "Oh no."

He knelt beside the settee.  "Not again, love.  Are you all right?"

"No…"

He stroked her hair.  "You will be.  –This stuff isn’t good for the baby, you know."

"I know."

Pause.

"D'you want a cup of…tea?"

She bit her lip.  "I feel stupid."

"You're not.  You just … made a mistake."

Suddenly the room went bright and sharp, as if everything had leapt a foot nearer.  "What?"  She struggled to sit up.  "What are you saying?"

He ducked back.  "Steady on!  I mean, the job.  You've given so much to it that you're completely worn out.  No wonder you're not feeling your best."

"I'm going insane."

"No, you're not."  He rubbed her knees.  "It's just a shock to be on your own all day after the hectic pace of working for the ridiculously strenuous public sector.  Stay there, I'll make you some tea."

"Your work's not exactly cushy either," she allowed.  "How was the fourth form?"

"Hellish, naturally.  They've learned how to sabotage the experiments, the little devils.  Come on, up with you and let's have that tea."

The feeling of invasion was sliding away.  Sasha stood up and looked around the room.  "I'm okay now.  I'll have coffee, thanks."