Fruit Flies Like A Banana - post 1

I know something’s wrong the moment I wake up. Bang, there it is, a real brain-crusher of a headache. Which is all bad enough, but then I do the groan-and-turn-over-on-your-side routine and as my feet brush against each other alarm bells go off. They’re so damn soft. The feet, that is.

I tense up. Tentatively rub them together again. No, definitely. Preternaturally smooth. Moisturised. You don’t get that kind of in-depth hydration to the feet without considerable rubbing efforts.

So why the hell can’t I remember anything about … the rubbing?

I turn round to view the bed behind me, trying to make no noise whatsoever. Thank fuck. No-one else in there.  On second thoughts, I eyeball the rumples in the sheets and poke them with a (far-too-smooth) toe. No, not even a very thin person. I sniff in satisfaction.

 Then tense again.  There’s an unfamiliar scent about the place. I can almost feel my pupils contracting. It’s an ambiguous scent, neither male nor female, vaguely… vaguely… holistic.

I lie staring at the ceiling for a while and consider options.

1)      I do not have any current partners or even potential partners - that I know of.

2)      Someone else was in this bed recently.

3)      Strange things have happened to some parts of my anatomy, and I don’t know why.

 At this point I have a horrid thought and lift the bedsheets gingerly, looking down. Phew.. Naked, but intact and unscathed. I contemplate the ceiling again. No use staying here.

Showers have wonderful healing qualities. You can almost feel the pain washing off your head and trickling down the plughole. I love my shower. It’s huge, and powerful, and gloriously wasteful of water. It has a head bigger than a dinner plate. I chose it specially.

What I really want to do is go next door and see if Raj can tell me anything about the strange state of my extremities. For all his space-out weirdness, he’s pretty clued in to things sometimes.

But it’s 6:03 a.m. and I know there isn’t a chance in hell he’ll be up. So. I get myself a protein shake, I go down to my gym and train (dammit I even got a personal best on one set, those soft tootsies must rock), find out I’ve gained a pound since yesterday (I swear I’m going to lay off the chocolate today, just completely ignore it). It’s still too early so I clean the pool, trim the hedge, put on two washes, walk the dog, and finally it’s gone 9 so I pad over next door and knock. It takes three attempts, at which I’m glad there are no visible signs of damage to the structure of the door through excessive pounding.  Raj’s face appears at that alarming solar-plexus height and his mini-dreads are sticking up at an even zanier angle than usual.

“What you up so early for, man?” There’s nothing quite like the disgruntledness of a computer programmer from Tamil Nadu with Rastafarian tendencies at nine on a Saturday morning. I decide I’d better cut to the chase while I have the advantage of surprise.

“Did you hear anything at my place last night, Raj?” He raises a thick eyebrow at me, and I consider that perhaps this is a confrontational stance. “I mean, did you see anything? Hear any… thing? Like screams? Or moans?” He’s still giving me the burnt-caramel stare. I can’t help a note of pleading entering my voice. “I mean, did anyone come round my place last night?”

“Why you askin’ me, man? It’s your house, ain’t it? You sort yourself out. You gonna ask me to piss for you, too? Man, the craziness of you guys.”

He turns a tie-died back on me and shuffles back inside.  I follow, despite the distinct lack of an invitation.

“It’s a bad day, man, bad day.” He picks up a packet of rice crispies en route to the sitting room and disintegrates into the sofa with them.

“What’s up?” I duck to avoid the low-slung fairy-lights over the entrance. I can’t quite bring myself to sit down.

“Skype.”

He announces this with apocalyptic finality. I wait. He crams rice crispies into his mouth.

“My mother got me on Skype last night,” he elaborates.

“Ah,” I offer.

“She’s….” He appears unable to continue. He contemplates the cereal packet. He looks up at me with the romantic desperation of a fully-fledged Bollywood actor. “She’s coming here."

“Oh.” I’m still thinking about how to get information about last night out of him. Then I add, “That’s nice.”

“Nice?” Rice crispies project over the 1970’s swirling carpet.  “Nice? Why do you think I moved over here? How many marriages do you think she’ll have arranged for me? This is a disaster beyond Windows XP. I think I’ll have to emigrate.”

“You’ve already emigrated,” I point out.

“Can I stay in your gym?” I lurch forward in an automatic bid to catch the falling cereal packet as it tumbles face-down from a slackened grip. I miss, of course.

“My what?”

“Your gym. There’s plenty of room in there. She knows where I live but she’d never think to look in there. I could stay under the bench press, no problem. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“How long is she visiting for?” I’m not sure why I’m having this conversation, but that’s how it goes with Raj.

“Two months.”

“Raj.” I put on my best getting-to-business work voice. He gives me a stare to out-plead a basset hound, and I forget what I was going to say. I look out of his back window, and notice something worth a diversionary tactic.

“Hey,” I say.  Actually it’s not even entirely diversionary, they are pretty impressive. “Your chilies are doing well. Look at that beauty!” I open the back door and step out to admire the row of bushy Habaneros tumbling out from the mess of lantana and bird-of-paradise that is most of Raj’s garden.

“Yah,” he intones. He’s looking far-off again. “They’re good. Good chillies. Hot.” He drifts around the clear patch in front of the plants, then back into the house, as there’s no more space to move in. “Come over later. I’ll do a Goan fish curry today.” He’s already inside, and I can barely hear him. “I feel like fish…”

I’m following, but he’s wafted like a brown-and-rainbow haze into the side-shoot of his bedroom, and the door’s shut on me.

I let myself out.

There may have been no information gained, but at least I can retreat to the sanity of my own house. I move barefoot and comfortable to my kitchen. Perhaps a banana milkshake. Maybe just a little chocolate on the side. Just a square.

The scream that follows is comically girlish even to my ears. Even if I’m making it myself. But then who wouldn’t, if they found an intruder sitting at their kitchen table, filing their nails.

It’s my mother.

***