Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped

64. Muddy Facts

2010-10-31T00:07:00.002+01:00

"The pictures of astronauts, Steph! They are real! Why would people in that house draw pictures of astronauts, only for you to stay here and see dead astronauts coming down out of the sky? Is that a coincidence? No"

[This is a scene from the film version of ‘Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped’, starring Nicole Kidman in a small ‘bit part’ as a parody of herself, and starring a Kidman ‘body double’ trying to climb the ladder of fame by impersonating Stephanie Fey, a hot little minx who, right now, is covered in mud and looking dirty in more ways than one – though, to be honest, performing in a licentious manner has never really been her bag. In short, everyone seems to be impersonating someone, but how many of them are actually being themselves? Or know what that might be? A question for every day that we’ll sadly have to try and answer another day!]

EXTERIOR – HOLE IN THE GROUND – DAY

The scene is a large hole in the ground, approximately six foot deep and 15 foot wide. On the outside of the hole is a cloudy sky and just-visible tree tops. At one end of the hole is a ladder. The hole is inhabited by three people: Stephanie Fey, Dizzie Lizzie and the Smelly God (referred to in this scene by the name given to him by Lizzie: Ooph). Dizzie Lizzie is blonde but covered from head to toe in mud. Stephanie Fey has clearly just fallen into the hole; she is sitting on the wet earth and has mud on her trousers and hands. Ooph, also covered in mud and with a spade in his hands, is tall, wide and with dark hair and features. He stands to one side and passively, inscrutably, looks on.)

Stephanie
(Angry)

I can’t believe this! I just can’t believe this. I could have died there, Lizzie, and it would have been your fault!

Lizzie
(Sarcastic and slightly annoyed)

My fault –? My –! Did you hear that, Ooph? Now, there’s gratitude for all we’ve done. Can you believe what you just heard? I can’t! Don’t take it personally, darling Ooph. I’m certainly trying hard not to!

Stephanie is trying to pick herself up off the ground and wipe the mud from herself. On hearing the name Ooph, she looks confused and looks back and forwards between the handyman and Lizzie.

Stephanie

(To Ooph)

Ooph? Is that you? I don’t think I’ve ever known your name.

Lizzie

Well, I’m sure he has one of those proper names: a Brian, or a Jeremy or a … Tavish, or something. But I call him Ooph and Ooph is how he will always be known to me.

(Turning to Ooph)

That’s right, isn’t it, darling Ooph?

(Back to Stephanie)

Well, you see, Steph, he’s so very smelly. The first time I met him my first reaction was ‘Ooph!’ And I’ve called him Ooph ever since. But now he's my darling Ooph!

Stephanie

(Still looking confused)

And … you two … are … an item?

(Lizzie nods her head once emphatically)

And you’ve changed your name to Mud Woman too? What the hell is this, this parade of absolute goddamn nonsense that is my life? What the hell is going on, Lizzie? You abandoned me in order to wander the countryside digging holes and burying cars with a handyman with poor personal hygiene? What the hell is all of this, Lizzie? I need answers. Now! God, look at you, Lizzie! What’s happened to you?

Lizzie

Well, first of all, what happened to me was that I wanted to help my friend. And, second of all, Ooph has been helping me like you just can't believe. He’s been a pillar of very smelly strength and I couldn’t have done any of this without him!

Stephanie

Any of what? Why are you burying Psusan’s car?

Lizzie

Because she’s missing and she was last seen with you. If the police show up at your door and ask you where she is and why her car's in your driveway, what are you going to say?

Stephanie sinks back to the ground again, looking defeated.

Stephanie
(Quietly and speaking to the ground)

I don’t know. That she was lifted out of the house in the blink of an eye by a ghost, I suppose.

(Stephanie shrugs her shoulders.)

The truth of my own imagination is all I know anymore. What else can I say?

(Stephanie suddenly remembers something and looks up at Lizzie quizzically)

Why are you digging holes all over town? Are you burying other things?

Lizzie

No, we’re looking for something. We’re looking for Josh. The boy who went missing? We think he’s dead, but we don’t know where he’s buried. We have some clues, but they haven’t led us to his discovery yet.

Stephanie

Oh. You said you were helping me? How does that help me?

Lizzie

Oh, it’s all related, Stephanie. All of it. Everything that’s been happening to you. Everything in that house. Everything about the history of that house too. It’s all connected in some way.

Stephanie

(Slightly distressed)

No, don’t say that! It’s not! It’s all in my head. It’s all just nonsense in my head. None of it is real. You can’t possibly believe all of this stuff I've written, Lizzie! Even I don’t believe it all!

Lizzie crouches down beside her.

Lizzie

You’re forgetting the drawings. The ones you found in the files. The pictures of so-called art therapy, drawn by the people who stayed here. The pictures of astronauts, Steph! They are real! Why would people in that house draw pictures of astronauts, only for you to stay here and see dead astronauts coming down out of the sky? Is that a coincidence? No.

Stephanie looks into Lizzie’s eyes, trying to gauge how much honesty is there and how much certainty.

Stephanie

There … might be some … truth … in all of this?

Lizzie just smiles and gives her a hug.

Lizzie
(To Ooph)

Ooph, get the Ooph Mobile! Let’s get back up to the house – we can finish all of this later.

Ooph puts down his spade and starts to climb the ladder.

Stephanie
(Nodding at Ooph and then looking at Lizzie incredulously)

I can’t … believe …

Lizzie
(Winks)

Well, Steph, I was always a dirty girl!

Stephanie

(Almost ignoring Lizzie's statement and suddenly looking deeply into her eyes)

It's not enough, Lizzie. Sketches in old files are not enough to make all of this suddenly real. You're looking for connections where they don't exist in the real world. In my head, yes. But not in the real world.

Lizzie

(Sighs)

There's lots more truth. Lots more, Steph. For a start, can you think what Josh's favourite song was?

(Stephanie looks away and tries to think)

Think. What else could it be?

Stephanie, with realisation, looks up at Lizzie and tears form in her eyes. Lizzie hugs her some more and Stephanie begins to cry quite quietly.

END SCENE.

Next instalment: 65. Cuddles

63. I Meet Mud Woman

2010-10-27T23:31:00.009+01:00

"I could no longer deny that the events that had taken place since I arrived at Mordan House were to me actual events, even though they crumbled to the touch. In ways, they were no less real than a chair or a table. Somehow a shift in my thinking had happened like an undertow gradually swelling to the surface and finally breaking though in a moment of sweet awareness and sweet relief"

I stood on a verge. But more than one verge.

Beneath my feet was the edge of the gravel driveway outside Mordan House; ever so slightly before me, one small step away, was the grass slope that contained the lines of trammelled grass clearly made by two tyre tracks that disappeared into undergrowth, bushes and trees further down the slope.

But I also stood on the edge of ignorance that appeared to verge on knowledge. Beneath my feet were natural stones broken up by man into equal sizes and scattered before a human home, each stone made somewhat unnatural and functional, and all grouped together for uniformity of colour and consistency. Yet where the tyre tracks went was more wild and mysterious, much more natural. Where I stood was characterised by events that had seemed to promise facts, but that had all turned into vapour; where I wanted to go was to the place beneath facts, yet a place no less real. I could no longer deny that the events that had taken place since I arrived at Mordan House were to me actual events, even though they crumbled to the touch. In ways, they were no less real than a chair or a table. Somehow a shift in my thinking had happened like an undertow gradually swelling to the surface and finally breaking though in a moment of sweet awareness and sweet relief. I now no longer seemed to be asking the world to reveal to me what was fact and what was fantasy. The definitions seemed arbitrary. The pursuit unsatisfactory.

These thoughts kept me company as I walked down the slope, in between the lines made by a car’s tyres. It helped to distract me, this considering of an idea – a philosophy almost – as I walked forwards through the dark greens and browns of autumnal foliage that crackled beneath my feet and rustled as I pushed my way through partially-trampled briars.

Yes, it seemed to me that sometimes, in order to move forward in life, the difference between dream and reality is unimportant. All forces are merely forces to be battled, so battle them all, regardless of what they are. Only when a battle is won is it a good time to ask: what the hell was that anyway?

Ahead of me, through a wall of trees stretching far ahead, I could see a flash of shiny, metallic redness.

What the hell was that? No. I pushed the question away. I would ask myself that another time. It was redness, that was all. Redness that I was moving towards, following the tracks of pressed-down leaves and broken branches and crushed weeds. Pressing and breaking and crushing in the wake of what had been this way sometime before me.

I stopped. There was a mixture of sounds coming from up ahead. From the direction of the metallic redness. A sound of moving, of upset. Perhaps digging. And mixed with human sounds. The sound of grunting and perhaps whispering. The sky above my head was a dull grey and I glanced up, then back where I had come, trying to get a sense of my bearings and how far I had walked. Slower than before, I started to edge forward again.

Was this a new verge, or the same one? Would these oncoming moments answer actual questions or raise more? Quell me or confound me further?

"There was a mixture of sounds coming from up ahead. From the direction of the metallic redness. A sound of moving, of upset. Perhaps digging. And mixed with human sounds. The sound of grunting and perhaps whispering. The sky above my head was a dull grey and I glanced up, then back where I had come, trying to get a sense of my bearings and how far I had walked. Slower than before, I started to edge forward again"

What the hell was that anyway? Definitely voices. One male and one female. Only one male? Only one female? No. I pushed the question away, even as I became utterly sure that the metallic red flash before me was Psychic Psusan’s car, just as I had suspected. Yet even as I tried to push away the related thought that it was Psusan herself that was before me, I saw that the car and the people were in a small clearing that I was only a few metres away from. A gap opened up in the trees and the daylight became brighter as my hand rested on the trunk of a tree and I saw before me a large hole dug into the earth –
nearly big enough for a car – and discerned that the voices were coming from inside the hole. Who the hell was she with? Why would Psusan take her car down here? Why was she digging an enormous hole? And who was her male companion? Or companions?

I wished momentarily that I was psychic – with or without the silent ‘P’. Oh yes, I thought, if I were psychic the last thing I would care about was whether my ‘P’ was silent or not!

I stood on a verge. But more than one verge. I felt the edge of the hole under my feet and peered down inside. There was a ladder at the far end to help the diggers get in and out of the hole. There were indeed two people. One male and one female. But all I could take in was how much they were caked in mud from the digging they were carrying out. Their legs, arms, the entirety of their clothing, their faces, their hair, a covering of thick mud.

It must have been the individual’s build, but all of a sudden I recognised one of the two people unmistakeably. But not due to any pungent odour. No, not this time. This time it was something else about the Smelly God, my local handyman, that caused me to recognise him.

"There were indeed two people. One male and one female. But all I could take in was how much they were caked in mud from the digging they were carrying out. Their legs, arms, the entirety of their clothing, their faces, their hair, a covering of thick mud"

With a start, he looked up and saw me. With a start, his female companion looked up too.

It had been a while since I’d last seen her. It had been a while since I thought she’d abandoned me while I was in hospital and since I thought it likely that I would never see her again.

She smiled and threw her spade down on the earth floor. “Oh look, it’s the silly moo-moo! Got yourself a new lung yet, Steph?”

I’d seen my best friend Dizzie Lizzie so many times. In so many designer outfits. In so many unpractical pairs of shoes. In so many circumstances where action was avoided due to the fact that it would compromise appearance. The cleanest, most pristine, most preened, most elegant and dainty person I had ever met was now before me wallowing in dirt.

There was no pushing the question away. “What the hell are you doing?”

Lizzie knitted her brow, shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “What? What am I doing?” she cried out in absolute indignation. Then she pointed at herself in a grand and defiant manner. “I’m Mud Woman and I’m burying that car so you don’t get nabbed by the cops, that's what I'm doing! You silly, silly, silly moo-moo!”

My eyebrows raised dramatically and immediately I found that I no longer stood on any verge at all. Shocked at Lizzie’s words, I'd slipped on the mud and fell into the hole.

Next instalment: 64: Muddy Facts

62. One Car in the Driveway: Mine

2010-10-25T23:28:00.003+01:00

"At Mordan House there would be one of two things waiting for me. My car alone in the driveway. Or two cars. Mine and Psychic Psusan’s red car. If her car was gone, then she’d left the place quite naturally and I would know that so much of all that was happening was just stuff going on in my head"

“Yes. Okay. Thank you,” I said.

What? Are you some kind of idiot? You said Yes? You said YES? I can’t believe what I’m reading here! Hush up, good reader, you don’t know what I’ve agreed to yet!

“A wise choice. Very wise indeed,” Mr McKay replied smiling.

Wise? Wise my eye! Wise right IN my frickin’ eye. Wise right in YOUR eye! If that’s wisdom, let wisdom hurt, especially when it’s fired into your eye! See how stupid wisdom feels? For cryin’ out loud, will you give it a frookin’ rest! It’s not what you think, okay!

“Under the circumstances, I have to agree with you,” I said to Mr McKay and tugged at my hair. Just one quick and strong yank. Then I gave a forced mock laugh and rolled my eyes as if dismayed at myself.

You wanna see eye-rollin’? Watch this, dumb fuck! See that? Rolled right the way round, then right out my frockin’ head and rolled across the carpet, so they did! Enough already, gentle reader! Enough. Already. Okay? Listen first; ‘go off on one’ later.

Huh. Later! Now. Listen. Here’s what happened.

We both got up from our sofas and went out to the hotel’s reception area. I stood away from Mr McKay as he made the necessary arrangements with the receptionist. The three envelopes were in my hand. One moment they felt like mine; the next moment I wanted to hand them back. At one point Mr McKay was signing something, I recall. Behind him and to one side of the reception, was another TV screen, the same news channel on show, the volume muted. On display was the selfsame rocket: New Prelude, readying itself for take-off. I knew the name instantly. I knew it as the name Philip had given to the spacecraft that had encountered the mysterious astronaut who had hammered on the side of the main airlock before it plunged into darkness. The spacecraft that was later found with three abandoned helmets inside. The spacecraft that I had looked up on the internet. The one that never existed. I couldn’t quite think straight. I couldn’t quite recall straight either.

A man walked into the reception at an angle. My head seemed to be slightly cocked to one side, so he seemed to me to be even more at an angle. He walked fast and with purpose.

Prelude. Man. Man at an angle. Writing stuff at reception. New Prelude. They’re all just distractions, Steph. Attempts to distract the readers from admitting that you agreed to go back to Mordan House for a month. Right? Wrong, you frunkin’ know-it-all, reader! I hadn’t agreed at all. You want to know what I’d actually agreed to? Let Mr McKay tell you.

Mr McKay came back over with a key and said to me: “There you go. Stay in the hotel tonight. Don’t think about Mordan House. Get a good night’s rest and decide in the morning.”

"I knew the name instantly. I knew it as the name Philip had given to the spacecraft that had encountered the mysterious astronaut who had hammered on the side of the main airlock before it plunged into darkness. The spacecraft that was later found with three abandoned helmets inside. The spacecraft that I had looked up on the internet. The one that never existed"

As he spoke, I found I was distracted and my hand didn’t instantly move to take the key.

Oh, sure. Man. Man at an angle. Prelude. New Prelude. No. By a hard hat. A what? And Sellotape. Now, you’ve lost us!

I recognised the man who had walked in at an angle to my vision. At first I was unsure. Then I recognised the hard hat and the spectacles held together by Sellotape. I had heard him talking to his friend about me and about Mud Woman in a café on the day I had returned to Mordan House after being in hospital. I recognised him completely by the time he got to the receptionist and I recognised the voice too as he spoke.

“Annie, have you seen Susan anywhere? Was she meeting you after you get off work?”

“She said she would. But she hasn’t shown yet. I’m off in ten minutes. She’d usually be here waiting for me by now. You not seen her, Wullie?” asked the receptionist.

“No,” said Wullie looking down at the floor and biting on his lip. “My ma’s still got the half-child. Susan would usually have picked her up by now. She said she had some psychic reading to do, but I don’t know where.”

“Well, she never mentioned it to me,” said the receptionist. “She’s not one for being late though, your Susan. Try her mobile.”

“Tried it. No answer. And she’s got the hands-free too. It’s not like her no tae answer neither.”

Somehow the key had got into my hand. Somehow Mr McKay had registered that I wasn’t listening and looked round at the two people I was watching and listening to. Somehow I realised he was watching me as I watched them, and I self-consciously fiddled with the key as I felt it warm in my hand.

“Well,” said Mr McKay, “shall I see you down here for breakfast in the morning?”

“Yes. Breakfast. Thanks again.”

Somehow he was gone. And somehow all that was in my head was the name of Wullie’s missing wife: Susan. Psychic Psusan. Somehow he was gone. Wullie, that is. Moved off out of the hotel at a slant. Or was it me that was at an odd angle still? Still lopsided. No matter how much I tried to straighten myself. Still wondering why the world wouldn’t get its kinks out of itself, only to realise that I was the misshapen one and the world was cocking its head at me as I stood here all twisted. Somehow I noticed the receptionist was looking at me, studying me. As if wondering …

Wondering why you’re so intent on distracting? Intent on sqiuntiness. Squinty men, no less. Intent on New Preludes. Old Preludes. You’re not exactly helping, reader. Not exactly helping at all, you know.

What did help was sleep. What also helped was breakfast and the car drive back to Mordan House. A quiet car drive with very little said and with three envelopes in my lap.

Mordan House? Three envelopes? Told you! Bloody well told you! But you wouldn’t listen. Intent on distractions, so you were!

I didn’t need distractions. The way seemed quite clear. At Mordan House there would be one of two things waiting for me. My car alone in the driveway. Or two cars. Mine and Psychic Psusan’s red car. If her car was gone, then she’d left the place quite naturally and I would know that so much of all that was happening was just stuff going on in my head. The driveway, and what was in it, would give me so much clarity.

Trees. A turn-off from the main road. The sound of gravel. A narrow driveway. An open space. An old dilapidated house. One car. A Punto.

And that was it. There was no other car in the driveway.

Yet somehow I saw them almost instantly, as I said goodbye to Mr McKay. Little marks.

But you’re staying, aren’t you? Why can’t you just say it?

And in that moment I made up my mind about whether I should stay or go. Those little marks on the ground made me realise what to do.

What? What did you decide to do?

I looked at Mr McKay and held the three envelopes close to my chest. He knew by this gesture what I had decided.

Told you. Totally told you. Told. You. In fact, told you yesterday! Told you even before you’d told yourself!

I got out of the car and watched as Mr McKay’s car drove away, leaving me in Mordan House for one month more. One final month.

Unbelievable! Even though you know that this is all in your head, the product of a stalker’s mind, of all its mental aberrations, you still decide to return to the place of illness, rather than seek out wellness, Un-be-lieve-able!

And I moved over to the little marks on the ground that lay where the gravel ended and the grass began. The grass that headed down into the trees. And I saw that I was correct in thinking that they were fresh tyre marks heading down the slope. Heading down where no car had any reason to go.

Oh.

Yes, dear reader. Oh.

Next instalment: 63. I Meet Mud Woman

61. Astronauts and Actresses - Prelude

2010-10-18T21:17:00.004+01:00

[This is a specially selected scene from the movie version of 'Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped'.]

INTERIOR - HOTEL BAR - EVENING

The scene is a bar in a hotel within the town that neighbours Mordan House. There is a warm log fire blazing and the decor is old fashioned, full of tartan, sumptous red and green velvet upholstery, candles and ornate lampstands and shades. There are only a few people in the bar. In front of the fire are two sofas separated by a low wooden table. Mr McKay sits on one sofa with a small leather pouch beside him; Stephanie Fey is on the other. Mr McKay is a thin man in his fifties. He is balding and his hair is slicked back from his long, thin face. He keeps looking at an unlit cigar, starts to put it to his lips, then gets annoyed and puts it down. He wears very casual, bland clothes: grey trousers, a beige V-neck jumper with a white shirt underneath that's open at the collar. He is clean-shaven. Stephanie Fey, a redhead of profound and striking beauty, is also in casual clothes: jeans, long and baggy jumper, training shoes. Her hair is tied back. She holds a glass of brandy with both hands. She looks exhausted, somewhat defeated. Her eyes keep darting to the corners of the room as if looking for a camera. At one point, she looks directly into the film camera's lens, but doesn't appear to notice that it's a camera she's looking at.

Mr McKay

Stilly Stephanie - why do they call you that?

Stephanie

They?

Mr McKay

People in this town. Did'nt you know?

Stephanie

(Shrugs and looks at her brandy)

Long story.

Mr McKay

Shorten it then.

Stephanie looks directly at him, trying to size him up. Then she again glances nervously into one of the corners of the room before contemplating her glass again.

Stephanie

It's no big deal. Just my mum. My interfering mum, I should add. She started to call me that years ago. As a way of being condescending. And I have the wonderful luxury of being protected by her from afar. She regularly calls random people in this town to ask about me and, it would appear, to talk about me - and to pass on old nicknames that damage my reputation in the eyes of people I barely know and complete strangers that I haven't even met yet.

Mr McKay

Sounds like you don't need much help damaging your reputation, from what I've heard.

Stephanie glances at him, but clearly doesn't want to hold his gaze.

Stephanie

I'm not sure there's a short answer to that.

Mr McKay

It's just an empty house, you know. You shouldn't let your imagination run away with you.

Stephanie

Don't underestimate emptiness.

Mr McKay

Ha! That I won't argue with. That's why I'm offering you a proposition, Stephanie. It's kind of a way for you to take control again. Fancy it?

Stephanie

Fancy what?

Mr McKay puts his cigar up to his mouth, stops himself from lighting it and throws it down on the table angrily.

Mr McKay

Okay. Shortened version. Seems of late I've become the friend of toffs. Fallen in with a lucrative crowd, haven't I. Well, one lady in particular. Due to her, I meet more ladies and I meet their gentlemen friends too. Before you know it, I have associates in high places. They're all pretty young, really. Young lifestyles and more money than sense. No funny business - not at my age - all above board, you understand.

Stephanie

I can't see how I fit into this. I can't see how Mordan House fits into this! Does she want to buy the place?

Mr McKay

Buy it? Over my dead body!

(He looks around to make sure no-one is listening, leans forward and whispers)

No, no, no. That place is coming down, for sure. The land's what's valuable there.

Stephanie

So ...

Mr McKay

No, what they want is quite simple. Very simple, in fact. A party.

Stephanie

A what?

Mr McKay

I know, it sounds odd. But it's not. They want to hold a big party. A kind of theme party. You see, they're into this weird music. Clicks and cuts, they call it. I don't understand it. It's like music made out of mistakes. Scratches, glitches on a CD, radio noise. Pure, unadulterated rubbish, if you ask me!

(Stephanie frowns at him and turns up her nose.)

Look, the kind of noise that floats their boats is neither here nor there. The fact is they want a huge kind of 'rave thing' where they're all dressed up, where their DJ can play their weird music and where they can go a bit mad in the house and in the grounds. They wanted a place with atmosphere. Somewhere miles from anywhere. That's part of the appeal: having to travel to the middle of nowhere to get there. They seem to think the event'll be written up in magazines! Huh. Magazines!

Stephanie

These people must be really young.

Mr McKay

Well, this hoity-toity woman that I've fallen in with, she thinks she's young, but she's at the age where she should be thinking about settling down and cutting out the wild stuff, if you ask me.

Stephanie

(Shrugs)

Well, that's easier said than done sometimes. But I still don't see what this has to do with me?

Mr McKay

I need the place cleaned up. And I need someone to have the place the way they want it when they turn up. Parties next month. All you have to do is get the place into shape - empty out some of the garbage that's in it. Be there to see they have what they need. And be there when they turn up. I've written out all the instructions. You just have to follow them. After the parties done ...

(He looks around again for eavesdroppers)

... the bulldozers move in. And you move out! No more Mordan House, for sure.

Stephanie

I still don't see how this benefits me.

Mr McKay

Come on, Stephanie! You're skint. Penniless. You've probably got a little bit more cash for grub and that's about it. I'll make it worth your while. I'll pay you a wage for the last month. When you move out, move back to civilisation, or wherever you go, then you'll have a little nest-egg to get you going. Look, these people are worth a fortune to me. A fortune! If I keep them sweet, all my property deals are going to pay off big time!

Stephanie

Sure, the money would be good, but it's the house ...

Mr McKay

What? You gonna let a daft old ruin get the better of you? How will you ever move on if you can't face up to something as daft as this? In one more month, you can walk away with your head held high!

(Knowingly)

Isn't it time, Stephanie, that you started to hold your head high again? Stop being so ... stilly, Stephanie? Here.

(Mr McKay takes two envelopes from the small leather pouch beside him and places them on the table.)

The instructions are in this envelope. Money for you in this one. Oh, almost forgot ...

(He takes out another envelope and puts it beside the other two.)

Invitations. You can go to the party too, if you like. Might be a nice way to end your time in Mordan House. My lady friend said it would be no problem, so long as you dress up and get into the spirit of things. Oof, rather you than me!

Stephanie

(Looking at the envelopes)

I need a moment to think.

(She drinks the last of her brandy)

Mr McKay

Have a moment. Have a few! I need a cigar. Trying to give up, but one won't kill me, will it? Oh, and they're allowed to smoke in the house, by the way! No blasted ban or anything! They love a good puff, that lot. As do I!

Mr McKay gets up and walks out with his unlit cigar in his mouth.

Stephanie looks at the envelopes, then looks up and around her, again appearing to look for cameras. Her gaze turns again to the three envelopes and she picks up the one with the invitations in it. She takes out an invitation. The card is bright, shining silver. On the front, in large lettters and in a highly futuristic font, are the words: Astronauts and Actresses.

Stephanie

(Whispered to herself)

That's the theme of the party? It can't be!

Mr McKay suddenly appears at the table again and throws the unlit cigar down on the table. Stephanie gets a fright.

Mr McKay

Can't believe you didn't try and stop me. I can't quit on my own, you know! Smokers need support to give up!

(He sits down on the sofa again)

So! Stephanie. What's it gonna be?

Stephanie breathes deeply and looks again at the words on the invitation, before suddenly looking up at a corner of the room behind her with a look of concern on her face. There's a TV there. The volume is turned down. The screen shows a news channel that's highlighting a space rocket on a launch pad. The wording beneath the moving image states: Launch of European space rocket New Prelude. Stephanie squint as if she's not sure that she's reading it correctly.

END SCENE.

Next instalment: 62. One Car in the Driveway: Mine

60. Three Cars in the Driveway

2010-10-17T18:46:00.003+01:00

"There was a shadowy movement of a door, a dark figure appearing in amongst the grey and brown banks of ill-lit night, at first hunched as it alighted from the car, then fully upright as it moved forward towards the glare of the car's headlights. Then a moment that shifted speedily: the figure's black silhouette moved into the white light that then washed it clean of its shadows and a vaguely familiar face moved towards me where I sat in my car, motionless and frail"

First car: mine.

Second car: Psychic Psusan's. I presumed. It was a red, prissy affair that caught my eye, and I think it registered with me as I ran towards my own car because of its brightness in the recently-fallen darkness, and because I hadn't noticed that she'd had a car when she first appeared at my front door. Yet with my mind so full of desperation to flee Mordan House, there was little more that I cared to acknowledge about the sight of this second car in my driveway.

And a third car. This one I had to acknowledge more than that of Psychic Psusan's, standing as it did between the driveway and the main road, blocking my only exit from Mordan House. When I saw it, I slammed on my breaks, a pulse throbbing and aching in my neck.

There is a certain point when bright headlights hit you unexpectedly, where you feel, in that moment of shock, that the glare has opened you up, piereced you and cleaved you open from surface to soul. Helpless and exposed, you are momentarily disarmed.

Lost in the vulnerability of that moment, all that was really in my mind was that the person I least wanted to see - and the person I trusted the least - was again in my driveway, and at a time when I least wanted to encounter her. She had been there when I'd fallen down the side of The Clansman and lay in a soaking wet heap; she'd been there when I'd been rummaging in a bin for a hat; when I slept in my car on a suburban street, it had been her house that I was infront of; and when I ran out of the trees, slightly drunk, and with a ghostly apparition in pursuit of me. Always there. Always when I was entirely exposed, when I was needy and showing my underlying damage. And here again, I thought, was that selfsame bitch, ready to survey me while at my weakest. Mrs Ormsley.

There was a shadowy movement of a door, a dark figure appearing in amongst the grey and brown banks of ill-lit night, at first hunched as it alighted from the car, then fully upright as it moved forward towards the glare of the car's headlights. Then a moment that shifted speedily: the figure's black silhouette moved into the white light that then washed it clean of its shadows and a vaguely familiar face moved towards me where I sat in my car, motionless and frail.

Not her. No. Someone else. But who? Familiar, yes. Somewhat. Then a moment of recognition came to me. A hand moved over to the switch for the electric window and the act of pressing it pained me in my weakened state.

"Still alive, eh?" said the male voice.

"I'm not staying anymore. I'm leaving. I've had enough. Move your car."

"But we have a deal. I need you to stay. At least for a little while longer. I've got a little job for you," said Mr McKay, the owner of Mordan House and, technically-speaking, my employer.

"Not her. No. Someone else. But who? Familiar, yes. Somewhat. Then a moment of recognition came to me. A hand moved over to the switch for the electric window and the act of pressing it pained me in my weakened state"

Before me, the intrusive glare of the headlights remained. Not once flinching as they surveyed every corner of me. Such are the locks and chains of this world and of every life, I thought. The apparatus of confinement hidden within circumstances, atmospheres, places. Every artefact of the world, every event, every commitment, every obsession, trapping us. From the moment I arrived in Mordan House I have been confined. I am not free and I have not been free for such a very long time. Why have I not before looked for the surveillance cameras that must be concealed somewhere, filming my every move in this prison? They must be somewhere. And no doubt somewhere there is a person watching the rushes as another edits 'The Astronaut Dropped', and another drafts the script, firing on scenes to an actress somewhere who imagines herself recreating me on a set somewhere, or on some location.

I was not free to say 'no' to Mr McKay. I was not free to move until someone told me to do so. The glare of the car's headlights saw all of me and I waited for the unknown director to call "Action!" from within the neverending, impenetrable shadows on the other side of the light.

Next instalment: 61. Astronauts and Actresses - Prelude

59. "I'll Gobble You Up, Stephanie Fey!"

2010-10-16T00:21:00.004+01:00

"This world that is just a metaphor for my own inner predicament. A code written in landscapes and events, in time and in the eyes of others. Breathe out a wrong idea and a demon visits your home. But love with an enchantment that stirs the angels of this world and flowers will tumble down out of the sky onto the lids of your eyes"

As I was to find out, in trying to decide what to do – in amongst the blurred lines between dream and reality, between subjective self and the physical world – I'd once again made the wrong choice.

The corridor between the front door of Mordan House and the door to my suite of rooms shimmered in my vision while Psychic Psusan walked along it, as if the shadows were drifting in from outside in a quivering form, light and dark shaken with some kind of agitation. Or was it every thought in my mind, every feeling and sensation darting like tremulous little puppies over the skirting boards, the cracks in the plaster, the cornicing, the slats of the wooden banister, the shadowy locks of Psusan’s hair, having first ricocheted off every surface behind my eyes?

Where, oh where, was the line between self and the world? Wasn’t there a time when I walked that line quite deftly? Oh, I was so far away from knowing the answer to any of these questions!

But what I do know is that Psychic Psusan spoke – yet even her words seemed to shake, the syllables appearing gnarled and frayed at the edges. Did she say something about using the bathroom before conducting the séance? She probably did, as that was where she disappeared. I half listened at the door; half looked around me at the half empty space, and half hoped for at least half an answer as to why I seemed entirely prepared to go through with this act so readily. No sound from the house; no sound from the bathroom. Not even half of one. I recall having the following thought in my head and some inner laughter vibrating just like the sound of another's laughter can do when you’re drunk: Psychic Psusan’s right: she is indeed the clairvoyant with the silent ‘P’ – in more ways than one!

“That’s me now!”

Exclamation marks seemed to collide as Psychic Psusan, refreshed, appeared at my shoulder. I saw a flash of feline eyes, words that appeared to rub against my leg insidiously as sharp nails dug into her bag to bring out the necessary esoteric paraphernalia to conduct the séance. The zip of her bag as it opened made a sound in my ears like a spitting hiss, and along my arms I felt a tickle of fur that caused my fingers to tighten instinctively.

There was some degree of chatter between us, but it was all mixed up with my own attempts to rationalise why I was so thoughtlessly going through with this, without any consideration of the pros and …

“Is this the best room? I mean, the room with the most pstrange goings-on – the most psychic disturbances?” I seem to recall her asking.

… cons? Was this whole experience just me, the occurrences of my own life spilled out into the world ..?

“Actually, no, I don’t think so. There’s a room with an old radio in it. It’s upstairs.” Me. My voice. Sort of.

She raised an eyebrow. Was she set to pounce? “A radio? That’s … hm … very …”

… This world that is just a metaphor for my own inner predicament. A code written in landscapes and events, in time and in the eyes of others. Breathe out a wrong idea and a demon visits your home. But love with an enchantment that stirs the angels of this world and flowers will tumble down out of the sky onto the lids of your eyes …

Ellipses collided. Legs became tangled in my vision too as we walked up the stairs in the steadily dimming light. Old sounds of living agedness and new sounds of living emotions both coiled around us. Cats. Yes, like cats. The room of the psychic occurrences opened before us and the atmosphere within it hummed. The very air in the room appeared to me to be moving, a living thing turning in its invisibility, with its sinuous, breathing presence all too apparent in every shadow and every surface. Even the old brown and cream radio had a sense about it of waiting to leap into life. What was this sensation? This one of poise? Of silent skulking?

"I saw a flash of feline eyes, words that appeared to rub against my leg insidiously as sharp nails dug into her bag to bring out the necessary esoteric paraphernalia to conduct the séance. The zip of her bag as it opened made a sound in my ears like a spitting hiss, and along my arms I felt a tickle of fur that caused my fingers to tighten instinctively"

“Well, this pshould be fine. Yes, I can psense the electricity in the air. I’m psure this will produce a pstirring and insightful pséance. Or maybe this will come to be more of an exorcism. We’ll psoon psee!”

Exorcism? But if Psychic Psusan found nothing, then would it turn out to be me that was exorcised? For then, all these events would surely be all products of me for sure. Me! Writ large and with terrifying vividness!

Italics slid into one another pell-mell. At some point, I recollect that we were all set to go. We were seated. There were candles. Shadowy objects on a table that we sat beside. The radio near by. Psusan's hands clasping mine. She began to mumble words that my mind could barely capture. Anyone? Presence? Call? Who? Who? Who? Speak? Answer? Answer? Were these the words? All disconnected though. Freely making up their own rights and logic as they saw fit.

Clauses became confused as so many words died within the atmosphere. And claws became mixed up on paws: mine clipped; Psusan's lengthened and sharpened. And with a tight grip on me. I wanted to pull away. To break the spell that was starting to exist within an already existing spell created by me.

I spoke: “Who invited you here? What was her name?” Psusan's fragmented words continued. I felt giddy and tired and I sat back trying now to establish some distance between me and her, but it was the growing fear in me that was demanding the distance. “Was it Lizzie? Was that her name? Can you remember what she looked like?”

"Anyone? Presence? Call? Who? Who? Who? Speak? Answer? Answer? Mud. Mud. She was covered in mud."

“What? Who? The woman who invited you here? She was covered in mud?”

"And she looked up at the sky. And she laughed as she looked. She laughed before she began to sing."

Why did it not seem like Psusan who was saying these words? Though I knew it wasn't me. And it wasn't the radio to one side of us either.

"Anyone? Presence? Call? Who? Who? Who? Speak? Answer? Answer? Mud. Mud. She was covered in mud"

“To sing? What did she sing? Tell me what song she sang.” But I knew what song it would be. Yet I needed it confirmed to me. My grip on her hands was all of a sudden tighter than her grip on mine. “Tell me the song.”

There was a crackle in the air. Did it come from Psusan? A crackle like radio static. The sound of a lost signal trying to connect through air and through space. But even this wasn't from the radio. It came instead from the psychic sitting before me in the half-light. And not her own voice. It was that same male voice that I had heard before in that very same room and reverberating through the house at times also.

Psusan's lips moved in time to the bursts of static, as well as to the sounding of the words. Static was to her facial expressions like coughing or throat-clearing, as if it was rising up from her stomach and finding a way out through her mouth. The sung words though were unmistakable and eerie and all too familiar: “Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, never let it fade away. Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day …”

This again. Back here. No matter how much I tried to climb away inside from all of this, it still refused to leave me or to leave Mordan House. Still my insanity continued to play itself out like a scratchy old record that repeats and repeats and repeats.

"There was a crackle in the air. Did it come from Psusan? A crackle like radio static. The sound of a lost signal trying to connect through air and through space. But even this wasn't from the radio. It came instead from the psychic sitting before me in the half-light. And not her own voice. It was that same male voice that I had heard before in that very same room"

But then it all changed. I saw Psusan suddenly transform, completely in the control of the messages coming through her as if on radio waves. It was clear that she was now being tuned by some unknown, unseeable presence inside her. Hiss. Crackle. Analogue noise and barbed aural confusion poured out of her mouth, before she stopped and her eyes arched, filled suddenly with a presence, a personality. Still monophonic, stripped of depth and clarity, I heard a female voice, as if on a radio station finally tuned in, say: “I can see you, Stephanie Fey. Oh, yes. I can see you and the dead heavens can see you too. And they are ready to gobble you up! You foul little stench, you‘re so ripe, you dirty, disgusting disease!”

“Who are you?” Did I say these words? They came from somewhere. It must have been me.

“I am the one who’s coming back. Back here to reclaim my home again. I am the creator of the dead and the conjurer of the dead. And the one who brings the dead heavens down to the ground. And we’re going to devour all the air inside of you, Stephanie Fey, and claim you for our own!”

Yes, yes, yes, as I was to find out, in trying to decide what to do – in amongst the blurred lines between dream and reality, between subjective self and the physical world – I'd once again made the wrong choice. So true. Yes, so true.

And Psychic Psusan had made the wrong choice too. She had sat close to the window. A light appeared so speedily that I had barely registered it before it collided with the glass and the frame of the window, and they both shattered, exploding sharp shards everywhere. The shards themselves were lightly touched with a firey reflection, a white and bright glow, quite beautiful as they flew by me and over me. White mingled with white, light dazzled light, and they fed each other, as the shape and aura of a dead astronaut clambered through the window, instantly gripping Psusan's shoulders and in a movement so speedy in its violence – so fantastic and horrific that I did nothing – it dragged her back out through the window in one clean, horrifyingly cold motion. I didn't move. I didn't scream. I made no sound, no gesture. All I was aware of was the newfound breeze on the palms of my hands where just before there was the warm, tight presence of another.

"Still monophonic, stripped of depth and clarity, I heard a female voice, as if on a radio station finally tuned in, say: 'I can see you, Stephanie Fey. Oh, yes. I can see you and the dead heavens can see you too. And they are ready to gobble you up! You foul little stench, you‘re so ripe, you dirty, disgusting disease!'”

Then the sound of silence like hands around a throat and I saw the empty chair close beside me, almost with its hands up to its face to prevent it seeing what had just taken place. It seemed that Psusan had been – quite simply and quite conclusively – plucked.

I remembered my own car sitting invitingly on the driveway. In my tense stillness, my shock, the thought of the waiting vehicle came to me like a rough jostle on my arm. It was as if it was calling to me, like an escape pod on another planet, or in a spaceship as its hull is hammered by an unseen force that has appeared within the ghastly void from out of nowhere. And I started to run. No other thought in my head but escape. It was so pure in its selfishness, in its lack of doubt, that I ran in its unconfused beauty and I could have ran within it forever.

If only it had lasted.

Next instalment: 60. Three Cars in the Driveway

58. Goodbye Mordan House, Hello Mud Woman

2010-09-25T22:10:00.000+01:00

"I would live with it. I had lived with so much over the last few years. I could live with returning to Mordan House for the last time, I could live with gathering up my possessions into the Punto, and I could live with doing it all alone and without Lizzie. After all, I could live with having no planned destination. I could live with having no plans for my future at all. But what I was unsure of was how I was to deal with the woman who appeared unexpectedly at my door"

Let me get one thing clear before we go any further: I am not Mud Woman.

And, when I first overheard those two men in the cafe, I had not heard of Mud Woman before, let alone had any idea who she was, or why she should be seen in various places around town and the surrounding hills, covered in mud and forever digging holes. Perhaps with a male partner. Perhaps not.

I’ve learned since then that she was the talk of the town and local newspapers were full of sightings of her and stories of her, but I had heard none of them as I recuperated.

No, not me. And not known by me either. And it wasn’t something I felt I had to care about. I had issues of my own to deal with. The issue, for example, of Dizzie Lizzie.

“I want you to read a blog I’ve been writing,” I said while sitting in my dressing gown in a chair in the hospital. I shouldn’t be doing this, I was thinking. “I want you to read about what’s been happening to me since I left Glasgow,” I clarified. I shouldn’t be telling anyone who actually knows me any of this stuff, my mind said as it barked and chased its tail in agitation. “Once you know everything, you can decide if you still want to know me,” I declared with a degree of finality. I don’t even want to know me, came a wave of thought crashing down over those words as soon as they had been uttered – not a new thought, of course, but more an underlying and unmistakeable impression.

Lizzie, chewing a bright red bottom lip with a visible gleaming white tooth, cocked her head at me. Two garishly varnished fingers slowly and carefully took the scrap of paper with the blog address written on it, handling it as if it were a snotty hanky or a shoe with poo. The next thing I remember was the sight of her blonde hair bobbing with a tremendous lustre, swaying to the musical sound of her heels clicking on the hospital floor as she left the room. Then I recall the length of hours, that turned into days, of wondering if she would return, gradually merging into the drawn out realisation that my only friend in the world would not return. Ever.

"Two garishly varnished fingers slowly and carefully took the scrap of paper with the blog address written on it, handling it as if it were a snotty hanky or a shoe with poo"

Why should she? Lizzie was a fragile thing in her own way. She possessed a mind within which only a few avenues were open. Those that were open were fully open, and she hurtled down them confidently and at top speed – but any dark streets off those avenues were ‘no go’ areas for Lizzie. And she would resist the lure of going down them without hesitation or remorse. She had endured my obsession with Kidman by refusing to deal with it; she had dealt with my court case by shrugging her shoulders and acting as if she was watching some tedious theatrical production. But now I had pointedly asked her to make a choice. Her choice – probably taken without a second thought – was to continue pacing the avenues that she knew best: those of fashion (Oh, yes, she bows and scrapes before that false God!), pampering, men (Yes, she does a lot of those!), playing the ukelele (Yes, she actually does that!) and avoiding any friends who fell pregnant, as if the condition was catching (Yes, I suspect she may actually believe that to be true!). That was Lizzie. And so Lizzie would stay. And so Lizzie would stay away. I couldn’t blame her. But I loved her and her silly head dearly. And I missed her. And there was a bruise that I felt, as if it were under blankets, deep down inside, beneath the subtle warmth of recuperation.

But I would live with it. I had lived with so much over the last few years. I could live with returning to Mordan House for the last time, I could live with gathering up my possessions into the Punto, and I could live with doing it all alone and without Lizzie. After all, I could live with having no planned destination. I could live with having no plans for my future at all. But what I was unsure of was how I was to deal with the woman who appeared unexpectedly at my door.

I didn't hear a knock at the door, instead I heard a shout. The front door was open at the time, so too was the main door to my suite of rooms. I was busy loading essential possessions into the car at the time, so the doors were open to make the ferrying of objects back and forth easier.

At first, the female voice shouting "Hello? He-llo!" filled me with terror and I froze on the spot with a box of cooking utensils in my arms. The voice of the Imaginary Kidman had seemed so real to me. It had depth and resonance and brightness and spontaneity in it, just like real voices, so the terror lay in the strong possibility that this was not a real person, but something conjured up by me. Within that frozen moment, my mind wondered what it should do: move towards it? acknowledge it? ignore it? run at it brandishing something heavy?

"The voice of the Imaginary Kidman had seemed so real to me. It had depth and resonance and brightness and spontaneity in it, just like real voices, so the terror lay in the strong possibility that this was not a real person, but something conjured up by me"

"Is there anyone there? It's me! It's 7 o'clock! I'm here for my appointment! He-llo?"

I moved. Ever so. Slowly. Into the corridor. And looked. Down. Towards the front door.

Shadows. Light. A silhouetted figure shuffling in the doorway. Browny autumn trees behind her. Gradually starting to drop their leaves. I walked. Ever so. Slowly. Still. Down. The corridor.

"Hello?" Her voice again. This time I knew it was a voice that I hadn't heard before. That, at least, was something of a relief. Then the sight of slightly greying short hair, colourful loose-fitting clothes, lots of accessories, a large bag of some wooly material. "Is that you?"

"Who are you?" I asked, as I came out of the shadows, at the same time as she became clearer to me.

"Oh," she exclaimed. "You're not her. Uh, where's the other woman? I have an appointment to see the other woman."

I felt the temptation to say that Kidman was gone and that both the Imaginary Lizzie and the real Dizzie Lizzie were gone too. And that, for my own part, I had been gone, but I was now somewhat on my way back. But I was trying not to be too nutty to myself as well as to others, so I said: "What other woman? Who did you say you are?"

She grunted as she turned her face down to her large cloth bag and started to fish around inside of it. At last she pulled out a card that I could just make out in the dimming light. "I met with another woman who was here a few days ago," she continued, keen that she should try and make sense to me. "She phoned me and asked me to come here tonight. Is she not here? Has there been a mix up of some sort?""

Three things then happened in very quick succession. I looked down at the card and saw the words:

Psychic Psusan – the clairvoyant with the silent 'P'. Fortune-telling, seances, exorcisms and healing. No supernatural case too big or too small for the woman with the silent 'P'.

Still trying to take in the words on the card and understand how they related to me and how the woman had come to be standing at the door of Mordan House, I looked up, sure that I was frowning and sure that my mouth had dropped open. At that moment, running through the trees in the background, just a little way from where the Punto was parked on the gravel, I saw what I can only describe as an apparition covered in mud from head to toe. A woman quite clearly with long hair. Clothed, but filthy, and running along the treeline in the hope of not being seen.

"I saw what I can only describe as an apparition covered in mud from head to toe. A woman quite clearly with long hair. Clothed, but filthy, and running along the treeline in the hope of not being seen"

And over the sight of this phenomenon, almost like a voice-over, I heard the woman before me say: "That's right. I'm Psychic Psusan. Just llike it says on the card. I'm here to perform a seance in your house. To connect with the spirits of the dead." And she grinned, a big phony, toothy grin that both disarmed and disconcerted me.

The third thing that happened – that wasn't really a thing or a happening at all, but rather a shift in sensibility – was that I saw the Punto get smaller and smaller in my mind's eye.

Weakly and with little awareness of what I was really saying, I said: "I suppose you'd better come in then, hadn't you." And my body moved to one side and Psychic Psusan walked into Mordan House. In the trees before me, there was nothing but trunks and leaves and grass, all shimmering slightly as the shifting day dappled the world with unknowable magic. Momentarily, the logic of cars and travel and leaving seemed tired and pedestrian and unreal. Yet, as I was to find out, in trying to decide what to do – in amongst the blurred lines between dream and reality, between subjective self and the physical world – I'd once again made the wrong choice.

Next instalment: 59. "I'll Gobble You Up, Stephanie Fey!"

57. Rumours of Mud

2010-09-21T23:08:00.003+01:00

[This is another choice scene from the screenplay of the movie version of ‘Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped’, with Nicole Kidman having a ‘bit part’ as herself, supporting Julianne Moore in her Academy award nominated role as the deep, complicated and somewhat tortured Stephanie Fey, a right royal redheaded stunner of indeterminate age.]

INTERIOR – CAFÉ IN NEIGHBOURING TOWN – DAY

A cosy little café in the town that lies a few miles from Mordan House. The café is busy. There are few available seats and there is a nice healthy din. A sumptuous redheaded woman sits on a stool at the bench that runs along the café window. She has her back to the café as she looks out of the window drinking a cup of coffee. The window is full of condensation. At a table nearby sit two men. One of the men is around 30 years of age. He has a gash on his nose, wears Wellington boots and is called Scott. He toys with a paper napkin. The other man, Wullie, is in his early 40s. He wears a casual zipper jacket and a bicycle helmet on his head. He has a pair of spectacles held together with sticking tape.

Scott

(Contemplates his friends spectacles and helmet with a wry smile)

Should’ve gone tae Specsavers.

Wullie

It’s not bloody funny!

(Looks at the gash on Scott’s nose)

Look at the state o’ you!

Scott

Ach, a wee bit o’ blood. I’ve tons more o’ the stuff.

Wullie

You’ll huv none o’ the stuff if a’ this continues. One o’ these days you’ll slip o’er and bloody well die, so you will! Then where will ye be?

Scott

(Stretches out his boots and wiggles them from side to side)

Deid in ma boots!

Wullie

Aye. Me alang wi’ ye tae, nae doubt. Me and this helmet’s a’ that’s keepin’ me fae the grave. Council’s tae blame, if you ask me! Shysters! Arse holes!

Scott

Maybe. Maybe.

Wullie

Maybe? Got tae be! Busted specs. Sore heid. Coccyx buggered tae. And all because of …

Scott

Mud.

Wullie

Aye! Mud! Everywhere! Bastards …

Scott

You know, when I slipped, my life flashed before ma eyes and ye know wit I saw, Wullie? Jerry Springer. Jerry soddin’ Springer! Whit’s that a’ aboot?

Wullie

Aye, ye know yer life’s jiggered if ye see Jerry bloody Springer in yer last moments.

Scott

I think it was an association. You know, mud-slinging …

Wullie

It’s cos yer a wee wuman at heart, Scott. An absolute wee wuman!

Scott

(Scott sits back and fold his arms)

Away you and yer rubbish patter go bugger off. Um no wearin’ a bike hat! Look at me, defyin’ death. Lookin’ it right in the eye! Um sayin’, come on ya bastard! Make me slip o’er again, why don’t ye! Wire intae me again, why don’t ye just!

Wullie

Easy for you. Uv got half a wife and half a kid tae support. Death’s nae option for me. Even half a death and um screwed. Hence the hard hat, Scottie boy! Pro-tec-tion!

Scott

Cannae be the council anyhoo. Nae wuman diggin’ the roads, Wullie. The council can account for the mud, but no’ Mud Wuman! She’s somethin’ else that wan!

Wullie

Aye. Mud Wuman. Part o’ folklore nearly. A strange wuman covered in mud, diggin’ holes all over town and all over the hills. Lookin’ for whit? That’s the question. Diggin' for what?

Scott

(Folds the paper napkin into a small ball distractedly)

Who knows, Wullie. Who knows. Lookin’ tae kill a’ the people who slip and die on the mud she leaves a’ ‘er the place, that’s whit! Uh heard that there's sometimes a man wi' 'er. Mud Man an' Mud Wuman, no less! It's him that wets the earth so they can dae a' that diggin' efter. That's why we're a' slippin'. It's no the mud. It's the wet mud!

Wullie

Aye. Heard that wan tae, Scotty. Rumour hus it tae that it’s the ginger lass. The wan fae up Mordan way. She’s a total nut-job, that wan apparently. Her heid’s looser than a hooker’s undies!

Scott becomes silently animated. He starts to nod his head in the direction of the woman sitting on the stool and he waves his arms to indicate to Wullie to stop talking. The woman in the stool glances round briefly and Scott immediately stops gesturing. Wullie realises that the redheaded woman is the ‘ginger lass’ that he has been referring to.

Scott

(Speaking so the woman will hear)

Aye, but … that’s … no ma thinkin’ … or your’s fae that matter, Wullie. Salt o’ the earth, that wuman, um sure a’ it. Pretty as a picture tae, uh hear.

Wullie

(Realising what Scott is indicating)

Eh, aye, Scott. That'll be a red picture, uh guess.

(Scott kicks Wullie under the table. Wullie winces)

Oh, ya ..!

(Grimaces at Scott and starts to speak nicely)

Um, aye … lovely bird, um sure. Lovely. Wiz it no you that telt me that horrible rumour anyhoo?

Scott

(Indignant)

Bloody wisnae!

The woman on the stool gets up to leave. Her stool makes a loud, angry scraping sound on the floor. We can see now that it is indeed the delectable Stephanie Fey, the warped and slightly ludicrous heroine of our tale. She moves towards the door without looking in the direction of the two men she has overheard speaking about her.

Wullie

(Watching her leave and raising his voice slightly so that she might hear)

No? Must’ve been on Jerry bloody Springer then …

(Wullie stifles a laugh)

Scott

(In a loud, admonishing whisper)

You shut up. Leave her be. Jeez! An' you wonder why yiv only got half a wife an' half a wean? Helmet heid!

(Scott screws up the napkin and bounces it off Wullie’s helmet.)

Stephanie Fey steps out into the street. Her eyebrows are knitted and she looks lost in thought. As she walks along the busy street, she glances across the road at a stationery figure who appears to be watching her. The woman looks remarkably like Nicole Kidman. Steph glances away, discounting the image.

END SCENE

Next instalment: 58. Goodbye Mordan House, Hello Mud Woman

56. I Hope and Allow

2010-07-21T23:11:00.001+01:00

"I told her about my website, my blog from a haunted house: Nicole Kidman stars in ‘The Astronaut Dropped’. I kept the details of it to myself and just told her where to find it and to read it. She bit her lip and fiddled with her hands"

Convalescing is a time of looking at flowers and their proud open faces, their tall stems, the way breezes shape and inspire them; while inside, the convalescent nurtures broken stems, frayed and closed petals, and worries at the wind damaging their already haggard, feeble face. So it has been for me. I look at the world around me, and I slowly, slowly endeavour to be more like the natural objects of this world.

No. Endeavour is too strong a word – there’s too much effort implied by it. I plan? No. I attempt? No, still effort involved in that. There’s no effort taking place in me that I’m aware of. I hope and I allow. Yes, I hope and allow. I mostly fail, of course. But, for humans, becoming natural is a life-long pursuit – not just something that you do for a month or so after an asthma attack that hospitalises you.

That night – the night of no gravity and the astronaut invasion of Mordan House – Lizzie did the right thing and used her mobile phone to call for an ambulance – “I did the right thing!” she exclaimed with girlish glee when she told me what she’d done. But it wasn't an ambulance that came to my rescue – it was a helicopter. Owned by the Scottish health service and able to to get to me and get me to a hospital quicker than an ambulance. None of which I remember at all. That night of my full-blown asthma attack, Lizzie also found my inhaler and tried to squeeze it into my mouth, pressing down on the trigger to try and get some of the chemical into my system – “I used the entire can!” she exclaimed and then chewed her bottom lip, partly wondering if that was the right word or the right thing to have done.

"Convalescing is a time of looking at flowers and their proud open faces, their tall stems, the way breezes shape and inspire them; while inside, the convalescent nurtures broken stems, frayed and closed petals, and worries at the wind damaging their already haggard, feeble face"

These words of Lizzie's are probably the first that I recall being said to me after I came round in the hospital. Although I had come round several times before then, I didn’t really remember doing so. Apparently I slept for a week and all I vaguely recall are the occasional blur of faces moving round my bed in my fitful states of consciousness. Who were they? Hospital staff? Lizzie? Both, I guess. That’s if they are real recollections at all. I mention them at the same time as roundly doubting them.

I had been exhausted for so long prior to the attack. I see that now. My brain had been bulging with thought, clamouring noises and congested feelings all colliding inside me, so much emotional and psychological pounding going on – for I don’t know how long! Since the time things started to go wrong with Philip? Certainly from the time when things did indeed go very wrong with Philip. And all growing through my obsession with Kidman – poor, poor Kidman! – and this house, this damned house that I’ve now returned to.

Now that I look back I see how much I was trying to climb over a wave of feeling that was desperately trying to drag me down. What a battle inside! Eventually, what a defeat for me, too! I thought I was holding it together, but something inside needed to delude me in that way – even in the face of the opposing forces rising up against me. What else could I do? The urge to survive was strong, but the damage inside was stronger. That’s all clear as crystal to me now.

The events of my last blog entry happened over a month ago and I wrote it up as soon as I left the hospital and returned to Mordan House. But I suppose I need to tell you what has happened over the last four weeks. Things have changed since the events of that last entry – spectacularly changed, I should say! – and I need to tell you how.

"I had been exhausted for so long. I see that now. My brain had been bulging with thought, clamouring noises and congested feelings all colliding inside me, so much emotional and psychological pounding going on – for I don’t know how long! Since the time things started to go wrong with Philip? Certainly from the time when things did indeed go very wrong with Philip. And all growing through my obsession with Kidman – poor, poor Kidman!"

One particular conversation between me and Lizzie will get the ball rolling, so let me wind back to a couple of days after I’d regained consciousness. I was starting to get a little bit of strength back and I could pull myself over to the chair in my hospital room with some ease, and I would sit there and start to imagine being normal again. A key part of recovery, I believe: imagining stages that are ahead of you and starting to move towards them, both inside and out. Lizzie came into the room and I was struck by the spleandour of her. How delicious she looked, but how out of place too! There was nothing and no-one in this part of the world that was like her. She was preened and coutured to a level that took your breath away. Like Monroe but with fire and bravura. Like Hepburn but with haunting, witch-like eyes. Every inch scented and buffed and polished to streamlined, blonde-haired, long-nailed perfection. On seeing her, my bottom lip dropped like an elevator. Beyond her looks, Lizzie sounded the way she looked with an accent of pristine, refined elegance, but had the sense of humour of a saloon-drinking whore, and she couldn't help but exercise it immediately.

“No, no, it can’t be true! Stephanie Fey dead? Why didn’t the nurse tell me, instead of letting me walk in here to find the bed empty? What have they done with my one and only friend? I need to see her rotting, stinking, stiff-arsed corpse in order to say goodbye to the faulty-breathing bitch! I really do! Until I smell her dead, old, rancid bod I’ll never feel that I’ve said farewell to the thick old tart! And she seemed to be getting better too! She seemed stronger. She seemed to be recovering. Oh, it’s oh so cruel! Cruel, I tell you!”

“Yes, Lizzie, alright. Ha ha, the world's laughing. Job done,” I drawled.

Then she looked over at me in the chair. “Ah, there you are! Not dead? Bummer!”

She sat on the edge of the bed, her face a picture of genuine warmth and concern, and we talked about how I was feeling and a number of forgettable, pleasant nothing-very-muches.

Then I said what had been on my mind since the moment I opened my eyes. I had wanted to ask her this for days, but I'd had no courage to confront it. Now, I did: “Before I passed out in Mordan House, Lizzie. You mentioned something to me. About something you saw above the trees. You remember?”

“Oh, yes. That. Stinky little brats! What pricks!”

“Brats? What do you mean? What exactly did you see? You said you saw a shining figure. Or something like that. How did you describe it?”

“It was late at night. I didn’t know what I was seeing, of course. I saw it though when I went back to Morbid House to get some things for you. Right there, it was. Waving in the breeze.” And she waved her arms around like children do when they pretend to be the wind in school plays.

"A balloon thing. It was a balloon. You remember those Michelin man things – those big inflatable white figures that advertised those tyres? One of them had been attached to a tree outside of your house. It was a prank. I’m sorry. I hated having to tell you"

“What?” I asked suspiciously, now dreading what it was she was going to say. “What did you see?”

“Of course, at the time it looked like an astronaut hanging in space or something. But I could see what it really was."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Lizzie looked away as if she knew what I was thinking. I wondered for a moment if she knew something of the events in Mordan House. I looked away too.

Then Lizzie said: “Some balloon thing, if you must know. It was a balloon. You remember those Michelin man things – those big inflatable white figures that advertised those car tyres? One of them had been attached to a tree outside of your house. It was a prank. I’m sorry, Steph. I hated having to tell you, but I wasn’t sure if you remembered what I said that night. I hoped you hadn’t.”

I said nothing. Had I survived only in order to get here? In the hope that it was actually all real? And not just a disturbed, damaged imagination? Only to find this? I felt sick. Totally and unforgettably sick. So sick that I almost did feel like throwing up. I must have changed colour because Lizzie put one hand upon my hand, while the other she played with the corners of the bed.

“Listen,” she said. “I’ve been to the local town out your way. What’s it called? Monck? Ponck?” I shook my head. “Anyway, I’ve spoken to a couple of people there. And I know a little bit about what’s been going on. It was a just a stupid prank. Some of the children had heard what was being said about that house and what you were seeing there. You must have said something to someone and word got round. Hell, it’s just what was being said – I mean, how important is that! Only you can know the truth. The local garage had one of those balloons left over from years back and they put it there as a laugh. Ha ha, huh!”

"I said nothing. Had I survived in order to get here? In the hope that it was actually all real? And not just a disturbed, damaged imagination? Only to find this. I felt sick. Totally and unforgettably sick. So sick that I almost did feel like throwing up. I must have changed colour because she put one hand on my hand and with the other she played with the corners of the bed"

Two things in my head as she spoke: that bitch Ormsley and my unguarded words to her the night I was drunk in the woods at Mordan House, and also some vague musings on truth. So, Lizzie thought I would know the truth about events at Mordan House better than others. Me? Huh! That’s a laugh! What a bleedin’ giggle! Funny girl, this Dizzie Lizzie, funny, funny girl!

Funny also that I suspect it was this thought of the astronaut being real and another person having seen it that had sustained my recovery to this point, that allowed me to get the rest, the internal healing, that I needed. And where had it got me to? I'd arrived at another point of pointlessness, that’s where! Another joke of life. The astronaut that Lizzie had seen had just been a shiny white balloon from an old advertising campaign from years ago!

She saw the look on my face – although I can only presume what it was: despair, blankness? In response to whatever that look was, she scowled at me and kicked one of the legs of my chair.

“Screw it! Screw the bleedin’ lot of it!” she said in a typically fiery and hardship-slugging way. That was Lizzie: she slugged hardship; hardship always doubled-up at one of her slugs. She knew where to hit hardship so that it hurt.

“I want you to read something,” I said. She cocked her head at me like a little bird in a tree that has just heard a curious sound. “Read?” Yes, it was the thought of reading that made her cock her head, much more than the thought of what it was I wanted her to take in. Reading was not quite Lizzie’s thing. So I told her about my website, my blog from a haunted house: Nicole Kidman stars in ‘The Astronaut Dropped’. I kept the details of it to myself and just told her where to find it and to read it. She bit her lip and fiddled with her hands. It was a challenge for her, I knew.

It was a challenge for me also. To let Lizzie read my innermost thoughts and delusions. But she had been there at the height of my traumas over Philip and over Kidman – surely she could handle it. Or would she think that I had gone so far that I was beyond saving? Was it different to think of everything that comprises me when you're on the outside? But to see it all from the inside, would that be too much for her?

My answer came slowly, but also rather quickly in a way.

Next instalment: 57. Rumours of Mud

55. My Turn Now

2010-07-19T00:06:00.005+01:00

"As I moved, I knew I was Kidman. Running from me, Stephanie Fey. This was how it felt to be pursued by me. To be pursued by an empty and desperate soul, caught up in the death of a dying planet that knows and believes nothing, yet must hold onto something, anything, just to keep death at bay. Poor bitches! Her and me!"

I couldn’t sleep.

“You can’t sleep, can you?”

“No, I can’t sleep. Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Sleeplessness.”

“Oh, great! That’s all I need: another imaginary pain in the ass. Oh, here’s an idea: sod off! Some of us are trying to sleep around here, you know!”

“Yep, I’m imaginary alright. No getting away from that one. So, what are you thinking about?”

“Stupid question! We won’t get on too well if you don’t get smart. After all, you’re the only person paying attention. Who else is listening around here, if not you?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“If you must know – although I know you already know and you’re just trying to make sure that I stay awake! – I’m thinking about being unable to sleep, about being alone, about being crazy and about seeing things, about having been a stalker, about that damned James and the fact that I slept with him, and about the fear I put in others and all because I was lost inside and tried to hold onto a myth of my own making, about my bloody interfering mother and the fact that I never call her 'mom', about being a little girl in Flagstaff and how simple life was, about my brother (wherever he is!), my best friend Dizzie Lizzie (wherever she is!), and about where I’m gonna go from here, and then I think about James again and why I feel nothing towards him right now, when for so long I was feeling such intensity. Oh, and about Kidman – and how much I thought I loved her when all I loved was who I desperately want me to be! And I’m thinking about the fact that I can’t sleep, when I feel so achingly tired! So desperately tired! Oh, did I mention that already? Anyway. That do for you?”

“Thanks. Listen. I’ll let go if you will.”

“Let go? Of what? Hey, you implying I’m being a tad indecent down below? Now, you listen: some girls do and some girls don’t – and this girl don’t!”

“All that stuff you’re thinking about, I’ll let go if you will.”

My head was reverberating. I had that momentary disjointed feeling when you think that your mind has just slipped slightly out of your head – it happens just before you fall asleep. That slight inner slide of different properties. I felt it and something inside said "Yes" to sleeplessness and we both let go together. Delicious and, because I was so tired, slightly painful too, as if burly hands were roughly dragging me down into sleep.

Then a new disjointed feeling.

At some point I woke up and looked around me at the dark shadows of the room. I was awake, and yet something made me feel that I wasn’t awake. There must have been a full moon outside as I could see the outline of things in the room, all milky white. But something was different. All the shadows looked different – something about the perspective was odd. Also, my body felt different. Light. Unbound. Severed in some way. Disjointed in some way too. My hand moved to pull myself up to look around me and I found that the bed wasn’t there. The quilt was draped over me but I wasn't lying on the surface of the bed. I shouted out, I'm sure. The shout was loud and fuelled by sudden panic. It was instantly clear to me – although how it had happened was beyond comprehension – that I was floating above my bed, unconnected to the ground, disconnected from the physical world.

As I panicked I found myself scrabbling in the air. But although I scrabbled, it didn’t change my position, I was still floating above the ground. Then it struck me what had happened around me: there was no gravity. I was hovering as if in space. I was on the ground, in an old and dilapidated house in Scotland, miles from anywhere, and yet I was off the ground as if in a space station or on a space walk. At that moment I also recognised the milky white light. It was not the light of the moon at all.

"The quilt was draped over me but I wasn't lying on the surface of the bed. I shouted out, I'm sure. The shout was loud and fuelled by sudden panic. It was instantly clear to me – although how it had happened was beyond comprehension – that I was floating above my bed, unconnected to the ground, disconnected from the physical world"

The curtains were closed over so I couldn’t see the shape of the ghost of the dead astronaut but there was no mistaking that it was him.

There was a brief moment where I thought I should move towards him, not resist him, let him come through, let him take me. Why not? What did I have to lose by not running, or to gain by running? It was all the same. Everything was the same. Walking away from society or walking back to it. Sleeping with a complete stranger and watching him walk away. And gradually feeling nothing towards it all, just a great emptiness. And this glowing, lifeless entity wanted me more than anything else did. More than I wanted myself, or more than I wanted to preserve myself. So, why shouldn’t he have me? Oh, you know you’re in trouble when the best the male sex can offer a girl is the ghost of a dead astronaut! Not only does he refuse to ever take his boots off in the house, but he won’t even remove his bloody helmet!

His light seemed to get fainter, as if he was moving away. But this was just temporary. I then saw the light dramatically increase in size before the room shook with a great thud and a crack of glass that seemed to slice through my ears. Maybe it wasn’t the room that shook, maybe it was just me, my eardrums reverberating, my senses jolting, my nerves suddenly painfully alert. Just like had happened before, the astronaut must have thrown himself against the glass to try and get through. Judging from the sound, this time he must have succeeded more than before. I found myself still floating, but upright now; I could move in any direction I wanted but just not down to the ground, it seemed.

I had to get away. What kicked in was a sense of self-preservation, from somewhere. Perhaps instinctive. Perhaps some deep-seated self-love that wanted expression - this seemed absurd to me, but who knows what exactly it is that kick-starts us to stay alive. As another great cracking and wrenching sound tore through the room and seemed to slice through my nerves in a long scything motion that made me feel both sick and sore, I found myself almost swimming through the air towards the main door to my suite of rooms. I grabbed things and pulled on them to give me leverage and direction, and kicked and waved my limbs to aid movement. I needed to get away. The astronaut was battering with so much force that it was clear that it wouldn’t be long before he finally smashed the window and its frame and found his way in.

I glided out of the main door and into the hallway, still amazed at being off the ground. If I looked outside, what would I see? Planets, stars at ground level, perhaps even the Earth in the distance, a space station moving slowly towards the house to dock with its front door? Maybe it wasn’t space that had fallen, maybe it was the house that had risen up into space, now orbiting the Earth like a satellite.
Now there was silence from my suite of rooms. No more sound of forceful banging. Down at the end of the hallway at the house’s front door, I could see a light moving around the door frame and surging like a short spike through the keyhole. He seemed to be following me. He seemed to know where I was. The door frame shook as a forceful thud bore down on it and I saw the handle judder.

I grabbed the banister and began to make my way up the stairs. For some reason, as I past different landmarks, I saw images of Kidman at different places where she’d been. First, sitting on the stairs as the Smelly God and his smelly assistant worked. Then the small upstairs room where she was when I told her I’d found the key to the room in the basement – as I glanced outside the window the astronaut’s glowing figure floated by. The room where she’d got me ready to go into the neighbouring town to meet James – the astronaut’s gloved hand was held in a fist and momentarily beat against the glass. The room where we’d dressed-up and role-played – the figure there again, grabbing the frame of the window and shaking it to see if it would budge. The notion of having had these internal experiences sickened me and added to the absolute nausea inside of me, but also I felt an aching loss for the fact that the Imaginary Kidman wasn’t there. If only somebody was there to help me! Why did I have to be alone all the time? Always in the dark. Always within my own darkness. Always haunted by myself! Always alone in it all. And always fighting to survive against terrors, when the greatest terror was the thought that I might suddenly decide I didn’t want to survive anymore. The greatest terror was myself, that my own deep-seated weakness would overwhelm me, and all strength, all obstinacy, all the grim determination within the gloom, would crumble and float off into space like dust. But not yet. It hadn’t happened yet. There was still hope. Small, oh so small, so very, very small. But still glowing a little. Thankfully glowing.

"Now there was silence from my suite of rooms. No more sound of forceful banging. Down at the end of the hallway at the house’s front door, I could see a light moving around the door frame and surging like a short spike through the keyhole. He seemed to be following me. He seemed to know where I was. The door frame shook as a forceful thud bore down on it and I saw the handle judder"

Or was this tiny stab of iridescent hope taunting me? Could the astronaut take me any time he wanted? Was he showing this little hot coal of hope to be pointless? Could he crush it under his heavy boot whenever he wanted, and was he just biding his time? And did this ember have no intention of growing? Would it always stay this dim, and was this dimness a sign of dying and not a sign of life?

How can I know? How can the present ever answer these questions? The incomplete, tottering, insubstantial, flighty, short-sighted, ignorant present. But it was all I had and I had to protect it as best I could. No matter what it turned out to be. So I held fast to the little glow somewhere inside and frantically thought how I could get away.

Frantic thoughts turned into frantic movements at some point. I looked around me and realised that I was on the upper floor of the house – the one with the doorway that I never wanted to enter, the one up a few steps that either led to a cupboard or another room that was higher than all the others. Across from it was a room that I had never looked at before and I hovered beside it, holding the doorframe and wondering at what lay inside. It was a large room with an enormous old brass bed inside. None of the other rooms had beds, they were all mostly empty. The bed itself seemed to glow. I wasn’t sure if it was with its own autonomous glow or if it was due to the figure of the astronaut that had appeared at the window to the room.

Somehow I could see him so clearly – clearer than ever before – this figure with the pitch-black visor, breathing slowly and painfully like a dying soul on a life-support machine, shining so strikingly. Almost beautifully, in some ways. And through the window, words came from him, muffled and almost like a whisper through the glass: "It's your turn. It's your turn now."

Bang! He threw his shape against the window, desperately trying to find a way in. Then, straight after, he again hurled himself against the window and an upper pane cracked with a sharp sizzle sound. As another thump rained down on it – from his hand, the front of his helmet, his knee, his shoulder – the frame buckled and the window caved in. Glass tumbled down on the floor and the sound was so stark that it was like a hundred harsh stings that made me wince. As the glass shattered on contact with the floor, there was another great thud. But this time not from the window. It was from somewhere else. Then I heard it again. Again not from the astronaut outside, but from the door to the mysterious upper room, or whatever it was. Then another thud, this time with another smash – this one was from the astronaut outside. As I glanced at him I saw the entire window disintegrate and his heavy, powerful presence floated through. Bang! Bang! More brutal thuds from the door at the top of the stairs. What was in there? And what was it that was trying to get out? Another astronaut?

I had to get away. No time to think. It had to be another journey back down the stairs. Grabbing hold of things as best I could, I moved back down the stairs, not sure where I was going, not sure where I could go. The occasional desperate look behind me told me that the astronaut was in pursuit. Again I heard the words, rasping in a staccato, transistorised manner – mechanical, and distant within the crackle and hiss that surrounded them: “It’s your turn. It’s your turn now.” Repeated over and over again, but with slightly more anxiety each time. My turn? Was it my turn to be stalked? Was this revenge for my stalking of Kidman? If so, I deserved it! And I deserved to flee with nowhere to go, and with nowhere to turn to!

"As the glass shattered on contact with the floor, there was another great thud. But this time not from the window. It was from somewhere else. Then I heard it again. Again not from the astronaut outside, but from the door to the mysterious upper room, or whatever it was. Then another thud, this time with another smash – this one was from the astronaut outside. As I glanced at him I saw the entire window disintegrate and his heavy, powerful presence floated through"

More mammoth thuds resounded through the house from above me, from behind where the astronaut glided towards me. Then I heard more battering coming from in front of me. From the front door again? I felt surrounded. Behind, above, in front. Perhaps there were more than two of them now. Everywhere, the presence of dead astronauts moved towards me.

Was it perhaps then that I realised that I was struggling to breathe? My old nemesis of acute asthma had returned, but fully-formed, fully-present, without me being the least bit aware of it growing. It was all caught up within a feeling of sickness and terror that had been with me since I had woken up. I could barely feel any air getting into my lungs. It was as if great hands were grappling for air, but there was nothing to get a hold of but tiny, barely usable pockets of the stuff.

Without warning, I found I was falling. So sharply and so quickly. Down to the ground I fell with a colossal and painful thump. My left knee and the side of my cheek hit off the hard wooden stairs beneath me. As I lay there, I expected to feel the astronaut’s hands on me. My muscles were tense like fists as I anticipated his grip. I could still hear his voice: “It’s your turn. It’s your turn now.” The intensity of the sound having increased to such a level that I wasn’t quite sure where he was. But also his proximity was masked by the banging sounds that seemed to surround me. Then I vomited. I think it was a mixture of unparalleled fear and the inability to breathe. I saw the sticky yellowy-grey flow of it dripping from one stair to the next before me. Gravity had returned and I tried to pull myself to my feet to continue my retreat.

Another glance behind me and there was the astronaut a mere flight of stairs above me. But he was also on the ground, no longer airborne. It was an unusual image. I almost wanted to stare at him to see what this meant. But there was no time, in a second he began to move towards me purposefully. I was exhausted. There was little energy, or even life, left in my body. I could smell and taste my own vomit. I could feel my body so heavy all about me. I could sense the contracting of my lungs and every dying muscle fighting to preserve them. Terror was indistinguishable, mixed as it was with illness and nausea. And there were tears in my eyes. Another thing I hadn’t noticed before. But the tears were making it hard for me to see. Everything was blurry and my feet stumbled down the stairs with terrible slowness. The sound of great thumps rocked my ears, the sound of the astronaut’s feet hard on the wooden stairs, the sound of his words, the sound of my own rasping, all ghosted in and out of me as if I was disintegrating. As I moved, I knew I was Kidman. Running from me, Stephanie Fey. This was how it felt to be pursued by me. To be pursued by an empty and desperate soul, caught up in the death of a dying planet that knows and believes nothing, yet must hold onto something, anything, just to keep death at bay. Poor bitches! Her and me!

"The intensity of the sound having increased to such a level that I wasn’t quite sure where he was. But also his proximity was masked by the banging sounds that seemed to surround me. Then I vomited. I think it was a mixture of unparalleled fear and the inability to breathe. I saw the sticky yellowy-grey flow of it dripping from one stair to the next before me"

Was that a handle? Was that the handle to my suite of rooms? I pushed down on it and moved through it and then I heard its familiar click behind me. The click of it locking. Securely locking. My hand gripped the lock tight, as if my hand would somehow re-enforce its steadfastness. But not for long. I sank to the ground. Darkness was complete around me, there in the corridor that leads to my three rooms. I still couldn't see, but I had security of sorts.

Bang! Again? So soon? Oh, not so soon! Would there be no respite? Not even a minute, not even a few seconds? Could he already be at the window of my living room again, finishing what he’d started? No. This time the sound was within my own rooms, right inside my safety zone. I’m sure I gasped, and my head turned round – finding the last pocket of energy – as if I could see the sound and focus on it in the blackness. Where did safety lie now? No, it didn’t lie anywhere. It had always been a lie.

Another noise. This time the sound of furniture moving – a chair or table, probably in my main living area. I suddenly felt the fingers of darkness squeeze round my lungs, ejecting more air, entirely constricting my ability to breathe.

Then it happened. The events of the last few minutes had been so shocking and they had consumed my attention to such a degree that I was unaware of a full asthma attack coming on. Like another intruder it grabbed me, its hands on me, violent and ruthless. I was helpless, my hands, my legs, my torso, my mouth and eyes and throat wrestled with it, right there on the floor beside the door. I couldn’t get to the lock of the door now, all hope of escape had been stifled irrevocably. The astronaut and his presence had me trapped. There was no escape. I had delayed this moment, but I couldn’t delay it anymore. As I gasped and grunted, as my whole system screeched for breath and my lungs rattled as they lashed out in every direction for dear, lovely wonderful air – oh, any air at all! – I vaguely heard other noises close beside me: fast-approaching footsteps, more furniture being rocked and struck, an approaching scent of some kind, a sound of fumbling, and the tangible feel of a physical frame closing in on me. A spark close to my face. A shadowy face looming close to me – cloaked more in the night than in flesh. Was I about to breathe for the last time as I saw this indistinct face? It felt that way. Somewhere inside I prepared myself for it. Then I heard the words:

“You silly moo-moo. You’ve really got to invest in a new lung!”

Perhaps more fatal than if it had been the astronaut before me by the light of that match, the realisation that it was my best friend Lizzie almost killed me with relief in an instant.

Then she said: “Hey, what’s that shiny 'man thing' hovering about in the trees outside? Is that some kind of prank?”

Man thing. An astronaut? Outside? Lizzie had seen it! It was real! Real?

I think that the last thing I felt just before I passed out was a warm tear easing its way down past the cold ones, relaxed, relieved, and tickling me with a hint of joy in its little stream.

Real! Real! What would Kidman say? Oh, what would she say?

Next instalmant: 56. I Hope and Allow

54. Breaking a Promise - Part Two

2010-05-23T22:14:00.002+01:00

"What was it the judge said to me in summing up? 'Stephanie Fey, you appear to have no ability to control your actions. It's as if you have no centre of gravity'"

I shouldn’t be communicating with anyone at all - that was the promise I made to myself when I moved into this house. And it was a promise I made for my own good, as well as the good of another.

No technology meant no temptations. No TV and DVD player meant I couldn’t watch old Kidman movies or hear news of her life. I couldn’t feed my obsession with information. I would remove the oxygen from it, cast it into the void. No telephone meant I couldn’t make unwanted calls to her agent. And being out in the Scottish wilderness was to keep me away from the mainstream media and the general gossiping conversations which are the staple diet of cities. All would play their part in ensuring that I didn’t infringe my court order. If I infringed then the stakes for me would be high. Next court appearance would see me end up in jail.  

Jail! Jail? I remember the word 'incarceration' being said to me in court and I was amazed at the sound of it. For such a word to be directed at me! The shock. The shame. How had it all come to this? What had I been thinking? What had I been doing? How could I have sunk so low? How could it all have gone so wrong, to the extent that I was on the verge of being locked away for the good of another? Who had I become?  

Putting in this internet connection in Mordan House was a gamble though. A security blanket of sorts, yes – like I said at the start of this blog, just in case I needed to find out what was going on in the outside world. But I was always worried about having it, lest I should exploit it by using it to try and contact her.  

I haven’t though! Really I haven’t! This blog has been everything, believe me!  

Wasn’t it Lotte Lakeside who asked me in one of her comments on this blog why I hadn’t let my best friend Dizzy Lizzie email me? Why Lizzie had to go through the rigmarole of sending physical letters when I could send her an email address? You see, I couldn’t let Lizzie know I was connected to the internet. She would have worried. I’m not sure she would have trusted me to refrain from contacting Kidman.  

Kidman? Well, Nicole. She had always been Nicole to me before Mordan House. Only the Imaginary Kidman was called Kidman. But, really, Nicole had never existed. There was a space inside of me, a vacuum, and her shape seemed to fit it. What a deception for us both! No, she never fitted that empty space. I cajoled and kneaded the properties and the idea of Kidman into a shape that seemed to fit. I jammed it into the space as best I could. And it was Nicole Kidman – the real Nicole Kidman! – who suffered as a consequence. She felt the physical and emotional pain of my attempts to make her fit the shape of my needs. What was it the judge said to me in summing up? "Stephanie Fey, you appear to have no ability to control your actions. It's as if you have no centre of gravity."

The real Nicole Kidman? Even as I type the words I wonder what I’m on about! I don’t know who the real Nicole Kidman is. She probably doesn’t know either! It’s not for any of us to know or even care. It’s all just illusions of identity, all just characters, all flat and at best colourful and dazzling, but still just images and all entirely meaningless. It’s like falling in love with a totem pole or an ancient statue of a mythological entity. It no more exists in our so-called real world as does the Cyclops, or Circe or the Sirens. In this myth of my own making that I’m perhaps living, I’m not Penelope waiting for her husband to return from the wars, I’m Odysseus, bound for home and charting a path through a world of illusions. Most of my own making! How many of us are exactly that in our own lives?

"There was a space inside of me, a vacuum, and her shape seemed to fit it. What a deception for us both! No, she never fitted that empty space. I cajoled and kneaded the properties and the idea of Kidman into a shape that seemed to fit. I jammed it into the space as best I could. And it was Nicole Kidman – the real Nicole Kidman! – who suffered as a consequence"

But I know I've been getting better. I know I have. My Imaginary Kidman was not quite my ideal. In therapy, I had to confront the hurt and damage and fear I'd caused. The voice of the Kidman that has possessed this house had contempt for me, mixed in with everything else. When I was pursuing her – following her, communicating with her – my idea of Nicole Kidman contained no contempt at all. So, although my fantasy was a fantasy, it was a contaminated fantasy, somehow contaminated with truth!

How dark the ideas in me! What words are these? Whose voice? I don't recognise any of this. I don't recognise me! I used to. Before Philip. But that’s what’s happened by degrees. Everything inside has steadily been chilled and darkness has grown in me like tight, clambering, unstoppable ivy, its leaves black and icy.

It’s not all over for me though. Now there’s no more Kidman to keep me company, and I’m left with the bitter feeling of what I’ve done and who I’ve been. Yet also with the bitter emptiness of self-realisation, and the hole inside seems greater than it has ever been before.  

There are times when the wind encircles this house, its dark teeth eat away at the stone façade, gnawing the wooden window frames and the slate roof, making holes for itself to push through. Looking for a cold companion to huddle together with. Looking for me.

Cold winds love personal history. Personal history is cold like itself. History is empty, as shallow as palimpsest, as fragile as a child’s cough. And this house is full of empty history more than most. What love has it ever known? What arms have welcomed it? What plans have been made with hope and joy within it? What kiss has ever warmed it? What new life has gladdened its walls, revitalised its shape and reminded it what it was like to be alive? None, none, none.  

"It’s like falling in love with a totem pole or an ancient statue of a mythological entity. It no more exists in our so-called real world as does the Cyclops, or Circe or the Sirens. In this myth of my own making that I’m perhaps living, I’m not Penelope waiting for her husband to return from the wars, I’m Odysseus, bound for home and charting a path through a world of illusions"

So here I am, waiting in the cold of this house. James drove off without taking me back to my car in the neighbouring town, leaving me stranded. I could walk for about four hours to get to the neighbouring town but I haven’t the energy. Or the inclination. I deserve to be here. Stuck. Land-locked. Waiting for life to visit me. Life never calls here though. That’s why the void of space dropped down and settled in and around this house where I am. There’s a funnel. Of emptiness. From space, all the way down to the ground where I am.  

The dead presences can smell me from up in the empty heavens. I know they will descend soon. I've started to pull at my hair again, to feel the delicious sting and to look at the clumps of hair round my fingers. I've never been so frightened. Yes, I know they will descend soon. And soon it will be my turn to be plucked.

Next instalment: 55. My Turn Now

53. Kidman's Gift - Part Four

2010-05-22T22:07:00.006+01:00

"I knew what was behind me as I walked to try and get away. Kidman, like some furious banshee. Fiery hair blowing in the wind and her dress billowing around her. Hair like snakes and eyes like dark pits. Breasts pushed forward, indomitable and untouchable. Face set like something permanently carved in marble and protected by curators. An idea pursuing me. An idea that didn’t exist. A sprite. A nymph, a brownie. A delusion. A myth, most certainly. But one of my own design"

I don’t know when, but at some point I’m sure that a white light ghosted by on the other side of the window behind me. 

Who does it seek out, this dead, dropped presence? And what does it want from what it seeks? Do other similar dead presences haunt this world, haunting the night skies above our heads? When we’re not fully aware of this world and when our senses are dulled? That sheen of light that we sense behind us as we walk in the dark – is it a streetlight, a headlight, a light from a window? Or is it a dead aura, a hanging presence in the sky above, just glimpsed between those buildings, momentarily glimpsed between those trees, vaguely detected far off in the distance just to one side of that church’s steeple? And there, on the opposite side of the sky from where the sun is setting, suspended above that roof? Or there, just above that hill? Could that be a human form, shining white, but with a black face that reveals no form, no detail, no soul? And why does it just hang there? Is it looking at you? Could it be looking at you? What does it want? Is it moving? Did it move just then?  

"Who does it seek out, this dead, dropped presence? And what does it want from what it seeks? Do other similar dead presences haunt this world, haunting the night skies above our heads? When we’re not fully aware of this world and when our senses are dulled? That sheen of light that we sense behind us as we walk in the dark – is it a streetlight, a headlight, a light from a window? Or is it a dead aura, a hanging presence in the sky above"

As I sat there on the floor, I could see such dead apparitions all across the world, everywhere drawn to emptiness. Smelling it out and hanging above it in the night, staring coldly and blankly, and drawing it all into itself. The cash machine mugging with its vicious threats and its drawn weapons. The gang consuming pills and booze on the street as they watch with avarice the women walking by. The man sitting in his flat, hands rung-out and brow tight, staring at the names of all the people who have wronged him. The bombers pulling their ingredients together in between prayers to the elevated image of their own reflected hatred. The one car speeding through its second red light, the one driver intent on suicide, empty of any thought for others: “My hurt is everything,” he thinks, “it is all that matters”. The woman thinking of all the moments in one day and wondering how to fill them up, how to enact something physical within them, while the future lies dead at her feet, and while everything inside echoes dull and hollow. The buying and selling and hoarding, the buying and selling and returning and exchanging, the buying and selling and throwing away and buying again. The knowledge of things, of bits, of stuff, of nonsense. The gun. The invasion. The rhetoric. The locked door. The overflowing bin. The acerbic lie. The empty fatness and the empty thinness. The empty muscle. The empty face. The dead hands. All of it. All of it the dead ghost-men hang over and feast on, ingesting ever more deadness.  Our empty world mirroring theirs. 

At some point it became morning. Morning! Delicious morning! The universe saw a spark and it blew on it. James lay asleep on my bed like an empty cave, and I lay there beside him. I felt the components of me scattered into pieces. But the pieces weren't there in the room – the dead, dropped presences would have eaten them up in the night. Somewhere up in space, in the bleak void, parts of my soul now floated in their natural, lifeless home.

I sneaked out of the bed and away from him. After all, who was he? What did I know of him? He was a stranger, lying large and heavy and heaving with unknown life, right there beside me, and I had to get away from him.

My mouth was horribly dry and distasteful, my stomach queasy, and my head felt bruised inside. How much exactly had I drunk the night before? I had absolutely no idea.

But that was not the question that I really needed an answer to. That was not why I had to get out of bed. Yes, I needed to get away from this ‘James’ person, but I also had something else to do. I threw a dressing gown on and a pair of slippers and went out of my suite of rooms and into the main hallway of Mordan House. I looked everywhere, it seemed. Everywhere logical, at least. No sign. Then I glanced out of a window to the front of the house. There she was: close to the trees on the other side of the driveway.

"I felt the components of me scattered into pieces. But the pieces weren't there in the room – the dead, dropped presences would have eaten them up in the night. Somewhere up in space, in the bleak void, parts of my soul now floated in their natural, lifeless home"

I went outside and walked over to her, my arms folded – not indignantly but self-consciously – only just holding together the great fragility I felt inside. Soon, I was standing behind her and she remained with her back to me.

“How could you do that? Why did I let you do that? That was my moment. My moment to be me. And it became your moment. It shouldn’t have been your moment. How could you do it to me?”

I said the words in a slow and measured manner. The emotion in my voice was restrained. The words were conceived and executed so as to get an answer, not a response.

But Kidman responded and answered in a way I had not anticipated. She spun round so quickly that I found myself stepping back. Her voice had that sing-song quality that it took on from time to time, jovial but laced with sparks that could ignite the world around it at any moment. In her eyes, something demonic smouldered.

“Well, what exactly could I do? When I entered the room, there it was, extended like a pirate’s plank – he wanted action, and action was what he needed from you. But you weren’t exactly going to give it to him, Steph, were you? No man wants to be screwed as if he’s a character in a Walt Disney movie! That's all you'd have given him ..."

I didn't know how to respond. Again I was on the back-foot, as I had been the previous night, and I felt my mind was racing to catch up with what she was saying.

“… and did I feel like a hungry shark as I circled below that plank, waiting for food! Here’s what we did in bed, Steph. Listen, you’ll like this. I started off by giving him a minky, but it went a bit wrong and he ended up with sneek all over his polty. Should have used the Hepelpfaft technique! Then we did the Auntie’s Hoover. Oh, oddly he likes a bit of General Lee on his face – never sure of that in a man! Also – now, this will interest you – he liked giving my schubin a right good dose of milp by using his linny-loo on the bossa-mobleys! You might want to remember that, but keep your bossa-mobleys pretty tight or the wenf goes everywhere! Jeez, show me a woman who doesn’t despise getting her face full of wenf! Then we finished up doing the Poor Man’s Tractor! One of my personal favourites! You should thank me for it. I gave him a good time ...”

To my mind, she just didn’t seem to stop – just endless descriptions of her sexual exploits with my man. I felt as if I was somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where. Birds flew overhead and the trees swayed behind Kidman, and I wasn’t sure where they ended and I began.

“… Oh, of course, you do understand that he’ll never date you, don’t you.”

I looked at her quizzically. No, I didn’t understand.

“Oh, Steph! You had sex with him straight away! Okay you were drunk, but he’ll not want anything to do with you. He shouldn’t have had sex with you, really. Not in your condition. But I didn’t see you complaining! But as a strategy to win a man over, it’s about as appealing as a face full of wenf!”

She was right. It was all ridiculous. What had I done? How was any of this a foundation for a relationship? And I felt love for him too. Actual love. But what would he feel for me now? Actual contempt and disgust.

"To my mind, she just didn’t seem to stop – just endless descriptions of her sexual exploits with my man. I felt as if I was somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where. Birds flew overhead and the trees swayed behind Kidman, and I wasn’t sure where they ended and I began"

I repeated the only question that was in my mind, this time though I wanted a reaction: “How could you do it to me?”

Yes, I felt it was all Kidman’s fault. All I could feel was my own position. My own shame and my own uncertainty, and her role in it all. I looked at her. I know my face was pathetic. Full of self-pity. Full of empty scratching, clawing for help from someone, anyone. No, not anyone! Clawing for help from Kidman. As, it seemed, I had been doing for so long. So long.

But Kidman’s face was different. Physically, she loomed larger and her face was piercing: her eyes, her nose, her eyebrows, they seemed to be leaning towards me with sharpness and a sense of intent.

“How could I do it to you?” she asked, her tone incredulous.

There was something she was intent on saying. I could feel it rising to the surface. What was it? Whatever it was, it was coming. And it had always been there. These words, just under the surface of her. What were they? I could vaguely remember something. Something about Kidman. What was it? What were the words? What did she want to know? What was it I had spent all of my time in this house trying not to think about? A bird swooped by and a branch dived down in the wind. Which was me? The bird? The branch? This empty thing standing here before the looming presence of Kidman?

Then she asked it: “How could you stand outside my house every day for months?”

House? House? Yes, there had been a house. Sometime. Somewhere. I seemed to remember a house. Whose house was it though?

"How could you stand there, day after day? How could you follow my car? How could you haunt every step I made? How could you send those letters? How could you send those emails? How could you terrify me? How could you terrify my family? Even when we travelled to another country, you'd still be there! How could you be so crazy? How could you let yourself get so damned crazy?”

"There was something she was intent on saying. I could feel it rising to the surface. What was it? Whatever it was, it was coming. And it had always been there. These words, just under the surface of her. What were they? I could vaguely remember something. Something about Kidman. What was it? What were the words? What did she want to know? What was it I had spent all of my time in this house trying not to think about?"

Yes, I was remembering some of this. I could see me standing outside of a house. Was that Kidman’s house? And flights. I remembered those. And I think I remembered the driving too. I felt sick. Disgust. Anxiety.

“How could you make my life a misery? You made me sick. I had sores on my face. My hair was limp and dry. I lost weight. I was depressed. I was scared to go out. I bit my nails - bit them! I'd rip off my false nails so that I could gnaw away at them for some relief from the fear of you! Why did I have to get lawyers involved? Why did I have to get a restraining order? Why did I have to stand up in court and tell them how you were destroying my peace of mind? Clawing your way into my world, my emotions, my fears, my family. Why did you scare me right down to the bone? Why would you do that?”

The answer came before I’d even thought if what I was saying was true. “I was sick. I was unhappy. I thought you could help. I got help eventually. From a doctor. I’m much better now. Much better. All of that is … not even a memory, quite, now.”

Yes, my words were all true. But the truth came from some deep place inside that I wasn’t aware of. Memories were speaking without me being able to quite see them. They were so small as they came out of me.

“Yes,” I said quietly, “I’m much better now.”

And I found myself starting to walk away, in the direction of the Clansman mountain, still hugging my sides, my face looking at the ground, my mind making great turns but turning as if on a pinhead. The last thing I saw though was Kidman’s face, the anger and venom in it, the indignation, the horror that she felt towards me. I could walk away, but that wasn’t the same as getting away.

“You feel better? Well, good for you! Good for you! Am I better? Will I ever be better? How do I recover from being stalked by someone like you? Yes, Stephanie Fey, stalked! You stalked someone who doesn’t exist! It was just a flattened image of a person – just an illusion – and you followed me and haunted me and demanded that I be what I can never be, what I don’t want to be! An idea of a person! I’m not responsible for that idea! It’s just bits of a person joined together. Because I sleep under a quilt, does that make me a quilt? Am I not still a complex, multi-faceted human being? The world doesn’t want me to be real! People can barely handle the idea of reality existing within the people they claim to know and love! They don’t want it from their stars, their celebrities! And then you pursue me demanding that I be what you’ve created! Because you, in your sickness, need me to be it! If you want an ideal, Stephanie Fey, then you be it! Accept responsibility for your own dreams and your own inadequacies! And leave me and my family alone! Leave my life alone! Accept you don’t know it, you’ll never know it, and you’ll never be a part of it! Because it only exists for me! Do you hear me, you sick, stalking, uncontrollable bitch? Do you? Get your own life and keep the hell out of mine, you sicko!”

Did I hear her? I certainly heard something. It was a car. James’s car. And it was leaving. Kidman was right. He wouldn't countenance a relationship of any kind. I stopped to watch him leave and then I turned away to continue walking, trying to get away from Kidman. Or perhaps from myself.

"The last thing I saw though was Kidman’s face, the anger and venom in it, the indignation, the horror that she felt towards me. I could walk away, but that wasn’t the same as getting away"

“I’m asking if you hear me? When will people like you ever hear?” she called.

I heard. And I saw. Yes, there had been a house and me standing outside of it. That was after Philip. I wasn’t quite myself then. I wasn’t right. I knew I wasn’t right. I needed a friend. I needed someone strong to help me through it. Someone who had herself been through so much and come out the other side. Someone who was like a goddess. Not me. I couldn’t be that for myself. But Kidman, I thought, could be it for me. Yes, there had been a house, and a car, and journeys overseas, letters, emails, endless following of her and her family, screaming in the street, ugly scenes, a court appearance and a restraint order. Publicity. Humiliation. Therapy. No, I hadn’t quite been myself. Had I really done all of that? Did I really plague her like that? Was that really me?

I knew what was behind me as I walked to try and get away. Kidman, like some furious banshee. Fiery hair blowing in the wind and her dress billowing around her. Hair like snakes and eyes like dark pits. Breasts pushed forward, indomitable and untouchable. Face set like something permanently carved in marble and protected by curators. An idea pursuing me. An idea that didn’t exist. A sprite. A nymph, a brownie. A delusion. A myth, most certainly. But one of my own design. Kidman’s haunting of me was just my own haunting of myself. Huh! Clever line! Clever notion! But it didn’t make it go away!

“Stop.”

Kidman again. But her voice was suddenly different. Not hollering and filled with frustration and rage. So I did stop. And I looked round at her. She was calm now. Still billowing, but the face was softer. I yearned for it, even as I knew it was just a mixture of a basic human template with make-up and graphics and marketing and technical wizardry and popular mythology, giving it that power and allure. Oh, and money-spinning entrepreneurialism, of course. Huh! Mustn’t forget that!

She said quite calmly: “Just remember this. When you finally come to face your demons – and maybe you will now – you don’t just do it inside, in a nebulous, vague way: one part of you questioning another part of you, like bits of cloud trying to interrogate and influence other bits of cloud. You do it with everything that you are. Changing yourself doesn’t just happen on the inside – it’s a real, physical act! Not ethereal. Not just some inner exercise carried out in the darkness of your own mind and emotions. Real! It takes place all around you, and with everything that you are!”

"She was calm now. Still billowing, but the face was softer. I yearned for it, even as I knew it was just a mixture of a basic human template with make-up and graphics and marketing and technical wizardry and popular mythology, giving it that power and allure. Oh, and money-spinning entrepreneurialism, of course. Huh! Mustn’t forget that!"

Was this to be my last glimpse of Kidman? And it was of her giving a little kindness. Some wisdom. Advice. Like a goddess. You know goddesses, those things that don’t exist but that we all crave for! And I turned away from the beautiful concept who was like a goddess but who wasn’t really a goddess at all. Just a concept.

"But I doubt you'll have the chance to change, Steph. The dead things are waiting to pluck you from the earth. Some day soon they will all descend to pluck you. And you'll be alone. Because I doubt you'll find the ability inside to change. Darkness will eat darkness."

The clouds seemed to roll ever so quickly and portentously above my head as I again turned away from this presence. I needed to hide and to think. The sky itself seemed to throb above me, as if the empty void was marshaling its forces, biding its time, its dead heaviness growing.

“Oh, Steph! Sorry, one last thing!” I turned back and looked once more at that face and that body of elegance and poise. For a second, there was that mischievous quality about her that I had come to know here at Mordan House.“I forgot to say that you’re mother asked me to say ‘hello’!” And she laughed, if not cackled, as she turned away. For my part, my face fell, my scowl returned and I looked after her suspiciously – in fact, long after the sound of her laughter had disappeared.

In the distance I could see Mordan House. Just me and it now – that was all there was. Yet it was so totally me, this house. Rooted to the earth. Stuck there. Empty of all ambition other than to feel differently about myself and my life. And these feelings were chilled by cold winds that found so many ways of getting inside. And all taking place within a home that had never ever been a home. And haunted by a dead presence that was intent on dragging the last embers of my life into extinguishing space. Yes, it had been a long time since I’d thought of killing myself. But, I suppose, deep inside, it had never really gone away. It had been hovering above me in dark rolling clouds all the time.

And that was Kidman’s gift to me: a beautiful delusion giving me the ugly truth of me. I knew now that she wasn’t anything that concurred with my mental image of her. And, for the first time since my life had started to go horribly wrong, I could see my life – including all the things I’d tried to hide. It ached. Every bit of it. It was horrible! What a horrible life! It was so horrible I couldn’t even arouse any tears for it! And it was all so lonely! Especially now without Kidman in it. How would I survive without the image of her? All I could do was imagine flying overhead and beating my wings, and rustling my leaves as another cold breeze moved me, and wonder who I am and where the hell I was.

Next instalment: 54. Breaking a Promise – Part Two

52. Kidman's Gift - Part Three

2010-05-22T11:01:00.007+01:00

"So many things flashed through my head, so many past hurts, so much damage and so much endless and congested aching that has never found a way out – all turning round and round like different coloured clothes in a washing machine, the groaning engine of its turning matching my own groans"

The ‘battle’ started with, of all things, a handshake.

Now, on the surface, this would seem so formal as to be irritating to any woman who was encountering the man who sends her pretty darn wild, as James did to me. But, under the circumstances – remembering my stupidity when he’d visited Mordan House, remembering how offended he’d been, remembering my own anguish at his failure to turn up at the cafe – a handshake was almost a romantic gesture. Certainly, to the outside viewer, it would definitely have appeared peacemaking.

As I stood outside the pub, the image of James was swimming slightly in my vision, floating on a gentle sea – so much so that I couldn’t quite focus on him. Alcohol was deadening every nerve-ending, making them all jarred and unsure of themselves. I could imagine them squabbling for ‘first rights’ on what reality actually meant and what it looked like. And there was me, in the middle of it all, just wanting some little thing that I could be sure of – and there were my senses and my intellect giving me nothing!

There were words spoken between us. I can’t remember any of them. The words didn’t seem important. It seemed more important that words were being exchanged and how they were being exchanged than what they said, and, at their heart, they were kind, sensitive, conciliatory words.

Although James was just a blur of darkness and light – darkly tumbling hair and white skin gently rocking before me – one thing that I couldn’t deny was the intuition that was beyond what my corrupted body was able to detect, and this inner sense told me that there was some warm feeling coming from him. It seemed right up against me, close and familiar, in both his words and presence.

I recall little droplets of words. Something about getting home. Something about my car. Something about alcohol. Then a look in his eye – the split-second of a particular look, and one of the few that my mind was able to capture, process and hold onto. I’m not sure what it said, but it was focused and complete like a ball. There was something in it that I liked, but at the same time made me shiver slightly.

Then I was walking and I think there was a flutter of hand on my arm as we walked towards his car. I was too drunk to drive so James was going to give me a lift back to Mordan House. I’d be in his car. I’d be in his company. He’d be in my house.

I’m sure that I glanced behind me at some point to see if I could see Kidman. Was there a hint of her pale dress somewhere in the distance, in the dark, ghosting our steps? I can’t be sure that this was the case. Did I feel her presence though? That unmistakable essence of Kidman, that fire, that bravura, that steeliness, that gentleness? Yes. Completely. All the time.

"I recall little droplets of words. Something about getting home. Something about my car. Something about alcohol. Then a look in his eye – the split-second of a particular look, and one of the few that my mind was able to capture, process and hold onto. I’m not sure what it said, but it was focused and complete like a ball. There was something in it that I liked, but at the same time made me shiver slightly"

But where exactly was she?   Where was she, in amongst the time it took to drive to Mordan House and during the endless beck and call of conversation between me and James, and the constant sweep of stuff and nonsense that moved so quickly past the car windows? Where was she as we arrived at the house and I found James walking me to the front door? Where was the sound of her feet under the crunch-crunch of our two pairs of feet on the gravel? What space and time did we leave around us that might allow her to enter the house before we closed the door behind us, and, if time and space enough were left there, then did she make use of them? And if she did indeed follow us in, then where was she as we moved into my suite of rooms? Where was she when he kissed me? Where was she when I let him? Where was she when I kissed him back? Where was she when every pore of my skin opened for the sunlight of another’s touch? Where was she when two forces, unique and separate, succumbed to the allure of dropping weapons, removing armour, and allowing all the particles of each other to get mixed up forever, never to form quite the same two individual people again once they had finally regrouped? Where was her red hair when my red hair so completely nourished the needs of a man’s mouth and governed the movements of his fingers? Yes, where was Kidman?

To each other we were both made of just water and mouths, drinking with amazement at each other’s generosity, all the while a hot desert lay around us, spurring us on with its threats of drought. But where was my own giver of liquid, my refreshment, my sustenance? Kidman. Where was her body when my body felt a lightning conductor of hardness electrifying it, a dichotomy in amongst all the subtleties and softness? Where was she when my muscles flinched, creating another hardness, but this one of resistance, and where was she when I realised that my sudden tension indicated that I needed a breather?

"But where exactly was she?   Where was she, in amongst the time it took to drive to Mordan House and within the endless beck and call of conversation between me and James, and the sweep of stuff and nonsense that moved so quickly by the car windows? Where was she as we arrived at the house and I found James walking me to the front door? Where was the sound of her feet under the crunch-crunch of our two pairs of feet on the gravel?"

I was aware of myself pulling away from James and the bed, and frivolously pressing down my hair as I stumbled for the door of the bathroom, but I don’t remember seeing Kidman. Yet I felt her to be somewhere, but I just couldn’t quite see her. Where was she?

I closed the bathroom door and gripped the wash hand basin tightly, breathing hard as I looked into the mirror above it and into my own face. At the very least, it bore some startling similarities to the face I held in my mind’s eye. But so markedly different in some respects too: my face looked so loose upon my bones, like an ill-fitting rubber mask containing great ghost-holes of eyes, haunted caverns with the most pathetic pools of dirty water way down there at the bottom and making the tiniest plash as pebbles from the outside world struck it. The adornments of hair and make-up, of preened eyebrows, of curled lashes, of purged pores, gave me a bandaged look, as if underneath there was some debilitating condition.  

Then there was another face beside mine in the reflection of the mirror. This one wasn’t bandaged for life. This one was perfect.

“You like my present, don't you?” she asked.

I hesitated to answer and I hesitated to look her in the eye. I didn’t know how to answer.

She reached out and stroked my hair gently and spoke ever so soothingly. I felt myself consoled by the touch and I relaxed, feeling all of a sudden secure.  

“What are you going to do when you get back in there? He’s waiting for you. Waiting to take you. To have you, Steph. Yes, that’s right, to have you! So what are you going to do?”

I didn’t know what answer she was looking for, but also I didn’t know what answer to give. I knew though what she was asking me. She knew why I’d stepped into the bathroom: to compose myself, to focus, to try and be sure of this, to know with what attitude I should approach it all.  

Still gentle, still caressing, she continued: “Are you going to remove your clothes or have them removed? Have you not even decided that yet? No? Tell me, you worthless piece of nothing. What are you going to do?"

On hearing those words, my eyes opened wide but I didn’t look at her. My senses were instantly sharpened to her presence. Worthless? Nothing? 

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, shall I? You’ll start to remove your clothes but you’ll be hesitant, you’ll go part of the way – maybe the top of your dress – but then you’ll go all hesitant again and you’ll stop and look down at the ground. You’ll be inert – just a little useless! – and you’ll need him to finish off removing them, as you sigh and shiver. And as he takes them off – feigning sensitivity, forcing himself to be slow! – you’ll still avoid his gaze, and your eyes will dart around, nibbling at the edges of his body, yet eating and tasting nothing. You won’t even sip at the experience, you’ll hold back and every taste will just be an imagined taste from very, very far away. At one point though, you’ll look up at him plaintively, looking for reassurance. He’ll smile and perhaps kiss you gently, but you’ll know what he’ll be thinking, don’t you? You useless piece of nothing!”  

I gasped. Flinched. Tightened. Kidman tugged sharply at my hair and I winced.

There was a knock on the bathroom door and an enquiry as to whether everything was alright.

“Yes, lover! Everything’s fine! I’ll be back out shortly. Go and make yourself comfortable.” Not my voice. Kidman’s. I stared into her face, my mouth wide open, and I saw her start to move towards the door. I should be the one moving towards the door. Me. But, no, it was her.

"You’ll start to remove your clothes but you’ll be hesitant, you’ll go part of the way – maybe the top of your dress – but then you’ll go all hesitant again and you’ll stop and look down at the ground. You’ll be inert – just a little useless! – and you’ll need him to finish off removing them, as you sigh and shiver"

She turned back to me and looked hard into my face. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were sharp and fierce – every muscle of her face was poised like the body of a tiger. I shrank back a little and felt myself diminishing, diminishing in her presence.

“No man wants what you have to offer, Steph. No man wants it. Not ever! He doesn’t want your insecure shivering, your doe-eyed flinching, your uncertainty, your insipid coy glances, your jagged and pathetic girlish touches, your unlearned ways, your disgusting hesitancy, your pathetic faltering little sounds – so cheap and sad and infantile – your fumbling, your should-I shouldn’t-I stop-and-start meekness! Your hiding away, your crouched, tucked-in, sheepish sexuality. It makes a man sick! Sick, I tell you! Your head all cocked and bashful, and your eyes all sad and timid and recoiling – cowering! - and your hands all loose and weak and insubstantial and without conviction. Useless hands, useless folded up body, and eyes that should be gouged out of any real woman. Men lie for you! They lie! Every glance, every movement, every word! All lies! And they despise you for your nature! They despise you for making their bodies and minds have to lie so. Let me say it again: no man wants what you have to offer, you useless piece of nothing!”  

Every word was spat at me, rapidly and venomously, and with every word she uttered something inside me lowered and contracted more and more. I folded up. I hid away.   Diminishing, diminishing.

Kidman surveyed her destruction, then walked purposefully out of the bathroom door and headed in the direction of my bed and James. Slowly, I followed her, watching as her shape swirled along the corridor, all fire and bluster and drama.

I passed an umbrella, all in shade and all idle on the floor of the corridor. There was a shadow above me that stretched across the ceiling, shaped something like a kitchen bin. At the end of the corridor was the main door to my suite of rooms, locked and bleak and with nothing to do. There was an old scented candle on a unit, round like a ball. It reminded me of Philip’s words telling me that I was just a ball, and I should just let other people bounce me!  

"Every word was spat at me, rapidly and venomously, and with every word she uttered something inside me lowered and contracted more and more. I folded up. I hid away.  Diminishing, diminishing"

As I entered the main room where my bed lay, and entered its subdued lighting, I saw shadows on the wall that moved like dying animals that were eating each other alive. It was all violence and purpose, and I heard their brutal cries, shamelessly gorging, and almost filled with anger and agony. My stomach knotted and I felt sick.  

I found myself sitting down on the floor underneath the window-sill. I folded my legs tightly into me, draughts descending on me from every direction, and I found myself starting to cry quietly to myself. So many things flashed through my head, so many past hurts, so much damage and so much endless and congested aching that has never found a way out – all turning round and round like different coloured clothes in a washing machine, the groaning engine of its turning matching my own groans.

All the while, Kidman fucked the man I loved. And all I could do was sit in the room, as their shadows and shouts taunted me, and cry over and over again, and without any sign of an end, in any moment or any day to come.  

I don’t know when, but at some point I’m sure that a white light ghosted by on the other side of the window behind me. It didn't need to enter. It didn't need to even try. Emptiness was already feasting on me.

Next instalment: 53. Kidman's Gift - Part Four

51. Kidman's Gift - Part Two

2010-05-21T21:41:00.004+01:00

"Then Kidman turned and looked at me: 'Hope, I think, is a little like going down on a man: once you see even the tiniest spark, you should blow on it gently!' I smiled, blushed slightly and turned away. Then I heard her say mischievously: 'I know I always do!'"

The noise of the bar bombarded me as soon as we entered the main door. After so much quiet and solitude living in Mordan House, after the silence of the town library, even the genteel rise and fall of voices in any of the town’s cafes, a bar full of people and music felt like being dropped from a plane into the centre of a cataclysmic war zone.

Voices scurried around as if for dear life, and all struggling with each other in noise-to-noise combat. It was a colossal onslaught of sound and I almost held my ears at every aural explosion sounding around me. Kidman though just smiled, wiggled as she walked and bounced on her heels slightly as we pushed our way through a crowd of people on our way to the bar. It was at some point on that short but brutal journey that I realised how terrified I was, how much I wanted to turn tail and run, taking the full consequences for desertion, willing to face the firing squad rather than endure this conflict.

So, what kept me there? Kidman’s hand.

It hand was holding mine and guiding me through the people. If not for this, I’d have been in a corner of the bar already, knees tucked up, body shaking, thumb in mouth, and with, probably, the distinct scent of urine emanating from a leak in the lady cupboard. Kidman, man, Kidman! She was getting me through this, as best she could. And I was holding on to her, as if she were a rifle or a shield, or a locket containing a lock of hair from a loved one.

We finally reached the bar and Kidman nudged me, telling me to try and get the barmaid’s attention. Kidman looked into my face and I saw her recognise the fear that was there. She grinned falsely, but as a different kind of nudge, one that said that she wanted me to smile, even if I didn’t feel a smile anywhere inside me. So I did. It felt horrible, like lobbing a grenade into a crowd of civilians.

Before I even had the chance to try and get the barmaid’s attention I heard the woman's voice and looked up with surprise. She was looking right at me! She saw me! I was curiously amazed at being noticed, at my absolute visibility in such a place of visual and aural violence, and I swallowed and tried to remember how to speak.

Kidman hollered at me: “Bourbon. And water. A stiff double too. Hit me.”

Nothing would have given me more pleasure, but instead I avoided physical violence and said instead: “Uh, one double bourbon and water, please.” Bourbon? Where did that word come from? When had I last been in the States and ordered bourbon? I corrected myself: “Or whiskey, I should say. And a glass of red wine.”

"Kidman looked into my face and I saw her recognise the fear that was there. She grinned falsely, but as a different kind of nudge, one that said that she wanted me to smile, even if I didn’t feel a smile anywhere inside me. So I did. It felt horrible, like lobbing a grenade into a crowd of civilians"

I did it! What a sigh came out of me, but what a jangle was still going on within my nerves at the same time. Shell-shock is a terrible, terrible thing: one minute you’re all laughter and confidence, then some totally thoughtless prick slams down a paperclip and you’re suddenly behind the sofa playing with your bottom lip!

Yes, the barmaid cocked her head slightly when I mentioned the bourbon, and there was some choosing of wine and whiskey to be done, but I rattled through it without much thought. Aside from that slight cock of the head, she treated me as if I was normal. Nor-mal! How the hell could I be normal? I was ordering two drinks when there was only one of me! What was I to say if challenged? “Oh, it’s for my Imaginary Kidman. Oh, don’t you have one? Everyone should have an Imaginary Kidman. Mine’s the latest model, complete with back-chat, ENP, lifelike hair and nails, and a lady cupboard to die for! You better get on eBay then, huh.”

But she was unlikely to ask; the bar was too busy for her to notice that there was only one me and two drinks. Strange, I know, but I felt I had to order this 'presence' a drink – I felt it was the only way I could get through the night. Without my idea of Kidman I couldn’t do any of this. Yes, I was a part of it all – all this Kidman stuff – enthralled by it, but I could see something of its absurd, frightening shape at the same time.

We found a table; two people leaving just as we walked by them. I sat down, feeling suddenly secure to have a chair beneath me. So many things in life take on the role of chairs, and yet, when it comes down to it, you can’t beat having a real chair to give you security and rest. In a sense, I sat on a chair as I sat beside my other chair, Kidman.  

The bar was typical of the drinking dens that you find in Scotland, especially outside of the cities: it was all old wood on the floor, ceiling and walls; low, beamed ceilings; lots of little corners where you can tuck yourself away; little lamps emitting yellowy light that cast warm shadows everywhere; candles here and there, and flickering in conversation with each other just like normal paying customers; and full of all different kinds of people in different kinds of dress, and all appearing unselfconscious and relaxed and boisterous. Funny kind of war zone, I realised. The chaos of war, but with the euphoria of a war just ended. Like VE Day. Intense celebration, but with the ghosts of the dead weaving in and out of the embraces, subverting every tear of happiness.

"Funny kind of war zone, I realised. The chaos of war, but with the euphoria of a war just ended. Like VE Day. Intense celebration, but with the ghosts of the dead weaving in and out of the embraces, subverting every tear of happiness"

Kidman, meanwhile, was still buzzing. Her head swayed from side to side as she tried to take everything in, smiling and laughing endlessly. Her euphoria began to give off an electrical glow, just as a group of musicians, huddled on small chairs in some corner of the bar, began to play traditional Scottish music. The giddy little notes skipped through the crowd, and bodies began to sway as the notes weaved all around them. Kidman began to tap her foot and shoogle little unnameable bits of herself rhythmically. Yes, my elemental creature was in her element!

After a while, I started to stop seeing things through my own eyes and my own disposition, and started to see through Kidman’s eyes. What she was looking at was all the little glimmers of hope that existed in the world, that people ordinarily don't notice when endlessly bombarded by the dark and destructive bombs of this world, those that explode around us and inside of us, in this midnight world of ours. She looked with glee through all the darknesses piled high and spread wide, as if seeing bits of humanity everywhere – admittedly small, but bright in themselves and filled with potential.

Across from us, through wall upon wall of hollering bodies, we could just make out a man and woman sitting close and looking at each other, then kissing tentatively but then with avarice, everything uncertain but guided by a great red helium balloon inside them that rose up and pushed to get out. Ordinarily such a display as this would disgust and annoy me, but through Kidman’s eyes it seemed like a spark of hope. Sure, it might turn out to be nothing but a one-off sexual act between them, but, for those moments, there was a chance to flower, the possibility that something might grow that would give this blistered world a chance.

Kidman watched them, then nudged me, saying: “Always remember that hope starts from the smallest glimmer of light, a spark even, and what you try to do in life is slowly but surely create a fire out of it. To hell with the darkness and to hell with how much of it there is!” Then Kidman turned and looked at me: “Hope, I think, is a little like going down on a man: once you see even the tiniest spark, you should blow on it gently!” I smiled, blushed slightly and turned away. Then I heard her say mischievously: “I know I always do!”

"What she was looking at was all the little glimmers of hope that existed in the world, that people ordinarily don't notice when endlessly bombarded by the dark and destructive bombs of this world, those that explode around us and inside of us, in this midnight world of ours. She looked with glee through all the darknesses piled high and spread wide, as if seeing bits of humanity everywhere – admittedly small, but bright in themselves and filled with potential"

What happened next happened incrementally, like a surfer being carried ever-faster and ever-higher by a swell that rises ever-so gradually as it moves towards the shore. On the surface, I seemed to be exactly the same, but as little events gathered themselves together around me, I felt them having an effect on me, lifting me up and carrying me along. I went from being in a place where I knew no-one, and where I was on the outside of things, to being gathered into the fold of all that was going on in that bar. People came over to talk to me. Those selfsame people then mentioned “the American girl from Mordan House” to other people, and they then came over too. Soon there were drinks being bought for me and I was paraded to different quarters of the bar to meet all manner of people. At what point I started to be up and dancing with complete strangers, as a fiddle played exuberantly, I don’t know. But it happened.
And, somewhere behind me, Kidman’s drink sat on a table untouched. In fact, I lost sight of her completely after a while, even though I occasionally craned my neck to see if I could still see her 'presence' in amongst all the people.

It was wonderful! A permanent smile was on my face and it eternally billowed into laughter. It was the most wonderful evening I’d spent in such a long time. Even before Mordan House and its dead presences, I found it hard to remember a night like this – especially since everything that had happened with Philip, my ex-boyfriend, back when I lived in Glasgow.

Not sure at all what time it was when I left the pub. Not sure what prompted me to leave either – although I’m pretty sure that it was round about time for the pub to close. Not sure how much I’d had to drink, but it was a considerable amount of wine and whiskey. Not sure of anything much that was said or done within that last hour either. But, what I do remember was the face of flawed perfection that I saw as I stumbled out of the bar.

He was talking to someone at the other side of the street and he saw me almost instantly, his eyes suddenly fixing on me with recognition. I think I whispered the name “James” out loud, and no sooner had I uttered it than he walked towards me.

I had thought that the war was over, and that there had been a glorious victory celebrated by me inside that bar and in amongst the downpour of sparks of hope contained within it. But perhaps it had all been a skirmish followed by a Pyrrhic victory, and the real battle was just about to begin.

Next instalment: 52. Kidman's Gift - Part Three

50. Kidman's Gift - Part One

2010-05-20T23:18:00.002+01:00

"It was to be an eventful night and an eventful morning, revealing hard and uncomfortable truths. Oh, too many truths. Truths about me that you, the reader, may not be able to forgive me for"

Just the other night I dreamt I was in a spacecraft, floating alone and with some distant world as my only company.

I looked out of the porthole for solace and in hope that I might see something that might distract me from my own sense of isolation, from my own numbing, reverberating presence. And there it was. Just hanging there, in the distance, and appearing to stare right at me and through me. The image of an astronaut.

I grew fearful. I felt my vulnerability and it made me feel instantly smaller and more frail, almost old and dying in my own body. Without warning, the craft began to shake violently from side to side. I held on to something as tightly as I could – it felt almost like some handle on the side of the craft. As I held on, I managed to look back out of the window to notice that the image of the astronaut was still there; eerily still, fixed in space while my craft was buffeted uncontrollably. Then I lost my grip and found myself suddenly weightless and unable to control my movements – I put my hands over my head to protect myself and I tucked my legs up to my body. Then, in amongst the shaking of the craft, there came the sound of hammering on the side of the spacecraft. All I could think was that it was the astronaut outside, now hammering a gloved fist on the metal exterior of the craft.

Then something caught my eye. Something close to me. A white human shape at the far end of the inside of the craft. A second astronaut, face hidden by the glass of its helmet, one hand banging slowly, repeatedly against the wall.

Unexpectedly, the violent shaking ceased but the hammering of the astronaut did not. Was I panting? Was I pleading? Was I moaning to myself in fear, or sobbing uncontrollably? I can't recall. But I can recall feeling that I was about to throw up as I watched the astronaut stop beating the wall and instead move his gloved hands up to the visor of his helmet and slowly begin to raise it. As it began to rise, right above me I heard the hammering begin again and I felt each pound inside of my temple, pounding, pounding, and the visor rising, rising.

As I recall that dream, I know that I have to tell you about Kidman's gift. The visor has to be lifted on that too. I have to peer inside and face that gurgling, pounding demon. The dream of the other night confirms it to me.

"I watched the astronaut stop beating the wall and instead move his gloved hands up to the visor of his helmet and slowly begin to raise it. As it began to rise, right above me I heard the hammering begin again and I felt each pound inside of my temple, pounding, pounding, and the visor rising, rising"

As I sit here, typing away on my laptop, I can hear a slow and insistent knocking on the door of my suite of rooms. Kidman. She’s demanding that I tell you about her gift. And, if she was paying attention to what I’m typing, she’d understand that that’s exactly what I’m starting to do. Just in my own way, that’s all.

It seems like Kidman believes me. The knocking has stopped.

*************************

“Darling, I’m home!” I called.

Okay, that was a lie. No way I said that when I got back from taking a stroll round the base of The Clansman, my local mountain, and my head still spinning with thoughts of James, Josh and the statement Mrs Ormsley had made about seeing astronauts in the neighbouring town. I’m pretty sure that what I actually said to Kidman was: “Ho! I’m back! Where the hell are you?”

“Is that you?” called Kidman in reply. “My best pal? My only true friend? The one I can’t do without? The one who knows me better than anyone? The one who will stand by me forever? Can it really be you?”

Okay, that too was a lie. There's no damn way Kidman greeted me like that. Not in this lifetime! I think what she actually said was: “Stephanie Small-Tits? Is that you? Are you home? Let me just put my glasses on. Ah, yes, it is you, Tiny-Tits, it really is you! Oh yes, I recognise your puny puppies now!”

I was dismissive. “My head is full of questions, so many questions –”

“Do you want your present now?”

“Present? Oh, yes, my present. Of course. I didn’t like to ask …”

That’s another lie, right there! I’d forgotten about Kidman's gift, to be honest. My head had been so filled with events and fragments of information about the dead presence in Mordan House, that I’d forgotten all about the fact that Kidman had said that she was going to give me a gift of some kind.

Kidman went on the offensive: “Didn’t like to ask? What does that mean? Always ask! ‘Where’s my freakin’ pressie?’ that’s what you say! Is that too tricky for you? Need a training course? Want a certificate at the end of it, do you?”

“That’s great advice, Kidman. Thank you so much for that.” I was doing dismissive exceptionally well. You know, I very nearly didn’t type that last line, I was going to throw it away almost as soon as I’d become aware of it in my head – you may, in fact, have heard the initial pre-throwing-out scrunch. Yes, that's how dismissive I was!

“It’s upstairs! I’ve got everything ready!”

“Upstairs? But it's starting to get dark! I don't go upstairs in this place when it's getting dark! You know that! And you want me to amble up there when the sun’s starting to set? Oh, yeah, let’s see how fast I can amble! Kidman? Thickman, if you ask me! You get a real poor grade for intelligence, so why don't you go flunk yourself!”

That’s right, reader, that last quote was a lie from beginning to end! Here’s what I really said: “Oh, okay.” Yep, both barrels, that’s what I gave her.

She took me upstairs to a room that she said had the best lighting. Inside there was a chair and a small table covered in make-up. There was an ironed and ready-to-wear dress, plus accessories, draped over the back of the chair, and another table to the side of it that had many of those modern tools of the trade that women use regularly to preen, prune and prissify.

Kidman declared: “We’re going to get you glammed-up! Then we’re going into town – in fact, going out on the town, I should say – to get your man! Or a different man. The days of women being picky about penises are long gone! There’s a storm, you’re a ship, and, hell, if we find a freakin’ port then we're gonna get you docked senseless!”

I could tell there was no persuading her to drop this plan. I said nothing and found myself being marshalled into the chair, before my body was pulled about and scraped and seasoned and varnished, and had various things applied to it in a variety of places – some conventional, some a tad more obscure.

“Like the way things are shaping up, do you? Like my little pressie to you?” she asked as she put the finishing touches to my make-up.

I grunted in the affirmative. That was all. Merely grunted.

But here’s what I was really thinking: “No, no, no! Don’t do this to me! I can’t possibly do this! No! Make like a sheep, Kidman, and get to flock! That’s a nice dress, but get naked and frock off! Make like dust and go fleck yourself!” I wasn't ready for this. I recalled a line from when I moved into Mordan House and it sounded like a timpani in my head: 'I shouldn't be communicating with anyone at all – that was the promise I made to myself when I moved into this house'. To myself? Was it only to myself that I made that promise?

"Here’s what I was really thinking: 'No, no, no! Don’t do this to me! I can’t possibly do this! No! Make like a sheep, Kidman, and get to flock! That’s a nice dress, but get naked and frock off! In fact, make like dust and go fleck yourself!'"

My feelings were oh so complicated. I experienced dreadful dread but with exciting excitement that was mixed with nervous nervousness, in amongst the most awfully awful fearful fear you could imagine imagining! And that was just the start of starters!

Soon we were ready to go and I thanked her for her such a thoughtful present, yet quietly and uncertainly. It was dark now. I could smell my own perfume swirling round my head as I moved towards my car.

But that was just the introduction to the gift that Kidman had in mind for me. Yes. It was to be an eventful night and an eventful morning, revealing hard, uncomfortable truths, too many truths. Truths that you, the reader, may not be able to forgive me for.

Next instalment: 51. Kidman's Gift – Part Two

49. Shit-Bugger-Fanny

2010-05-19T19:30:00.005+01:00

"Now my arms were folded. Now my eyebrows were arched. Now I was looking down on him from the doorway and sitting up on my toes a little. My nose was angled towards him. My nipple guns pushed up by the corset. Had I remembered to load them? I couldn’t quite remember"

I anticipated what his first words would be: I’m really, really sorry. I’ve been away for a few weeks. I’ve been longing to come and see you. I hope you’re not angry. I’ve never met a woman so generous before. I really couldn’t believe you would knit something so perfect. Can I come in? I’d love to apologise properly.

“With his love sausage?”

Hush, Kidman, not now! Of all times, not now! Go on, James. Say them. Say those words ...

“Is that a gas mask?” he asked.

Shit-bugger-fanny! I thought. It hadn't registered with me that I still had the shit-bugger-fanny gas mask on! No wonder James looked so far away. No wonder he looked as if he had a scratch right from his forehead down to the belt on his trousers. No wonder his nose blurred into his eye.

I moved with lightning-speed to remove it, forgetting about the hat on top of my head, which proceeded to get tangled-up with the gas mask straps. I started to get a bit anxious that I couldn’t remove it with ease. My heart was racing and my mouth was dry. Eventually I left the mask dangling round the front of my neck with the big straw hat tangled at the back of my head. In a feeble attempt to portray comfort and poise I leaned against the door-frame, but as I did so the strap burrowed into my throat and I gagged slightly. To ease the tight pressure on my oesophagus I yanked the strap hard and coughed a couple of times.

“Are you all right?” he said with a mixture of concern and incredulity.

“All right? She nearly freakin’ died there!”

I ignored the voice of Kidman as best I could and found my hand was up at my hair trying to flatten it. “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m quite at ease, thank you.”

“Quite at ease! What the hell century are you in all of a sudden?”

I still ignored her. I looked at James and waited for his apology to come – at worst, a heartfelt expression of gratitude. I was ready for it. My throat was ready for it. I was quite at ease.

"In a feeble attempt to portray comfort and poise I leaned against the door-frame, but as I did so the strap burrowed into my throat and I gagged slightly"

I noticed that James looked puzzled, lost for words. “Uh. My aunt,” he started. “She got it into her head that you’re a … detective. Some kind of spy, as she put it. From MI5 or something. That’s why she was looking at your … chest.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, softly and in a highly understanding tone of voice. "That was when I went to see her at the library. Yes, I remember that. I did think it ... unusual."

I was saying: Oh, I see. But I was actually thinking: Chest? She couldn’t see my chest, James! My tits were in the way!

“Oh, good thought, Steph. You can be proud of that thought. It’s just your words that are humiliating you!”

She was right. Kidman was absolutely right. I’d sat up all night knitting a shit-bugger-fanny scarf for his tit-loving aunt, he fails to even acknowledge the work I put in, comes nowhere near me for ages, then turns up, still says nothing about the hard work and the scarf, instead says some total claptrap about his aunt and shit-bugger-fanny MI5!

So I said: “Well, actually that just seems a bit plain silly. Of course, I never keep my nipple guns loaded when I’m off duty. And I always close one eye and cup a boob when I shoot, so that would have given her plenty of time to skedaddle.”

He blinked hard but then stared hard, slightly open-mouthed. He looked a little like a zombie staring into a shop window trying to decipher if a showroom dummy is a zombie too. All of a sudden I could see that he was taller but at the same time scrawnier than I remembered. Also, I was convinced that his teeth were less white and his feet were smaller than they had first struck me in the library that day.

He swallowed. It was a small sign of life. “She never thought you were a down-and-out,” he continued. “It was just that she couldn’t figure you out. She thought if she annoyed you enough that you would come clean about what you’re doing here. Then she started to think that you were a government agent. And, for some reason, she thought – that day in the library – that you had a microphone concealed …”

“In between my nipple guns?”

“I’m loving it, Steph! Loving it! This is pure Kidman! Kidman all the way up, Kidman all the way down!”

"He blinked hard but then stared hard, slightly open-mouthed. He looked a little like a zombie staring into a shop window trying to decipher if a showroom dummy is a zombie too"

“And why would a secret agent be in your town? Or even in this dilapidated old dump, for that matter?” I asked.

Now my arms were folded. Now my eyebrows were arched. Now I was looking down on him from the doorway and sitting up on my toes a little. My nose was angled towards him. My nipple guns pushed up by the corset. Had I remembered to load them? I couldn’t quite remember. I was dramatic. In control. I was myself. My own agenda. Putting my self and my thoughts first.

“Well, on account of Josh,” he said diffidently.

There was that name again. That blasted Josh.

“Josh tosh!” I exclaimed and pulled my folded arms up a little higher and felt myself lean back on the doorframe. The gas mask strap tightened again and I emitted a small splutter.

Kidman would be loving this, I knew. She’d be cheering me on. Punching the air. Doing karate chops along the hallway.

James turned to walk back to his car. His hands dug deeply into his pockets and his head fell. “Josh was loved by everyone in our town. It destroyed the heart of the place when he disappeared.”

His words were forlorn and destitute. Grieving and lost. I wasn’t sure what to think. As he got back to his car, he called back to me, his tone still sad and quiet: “Thank you for the scarf. I’ve been out of the country. I’ve wanted to come and see you for so long. It was beautiful and very generous of you.”

Then he drove away and I eventually – eventually – closed the door. I walked down the hall and saw Kidman in a light that had at some point turned in on itself, as if hiding some part of its nature, shame-faced, under a cloak.

"His words were forlorn and destitute. Grieving and lost. I wasn’t sure what to think. As he got back to his car, he called back to me, his tone still sad and quiet"

Kidman was looking at me with a scowl on her face. “Screwed up there, Steph! Should have asked about Josh. Don’t forget that this is still an on-going investigation into the ghosts of dead astronauts.”

I knew she was right. I knew also that I’d been hard and unkind. “Shit-bugger-fanny,” I mumbled.

“Quite! Well, no point going to visit him now! He’ll tell you nothing after that display! Hell, you might as well take your love and ram it up your shit-bugger-fanny! That's all the action you'll be seeing!”

I didn’t want to listen to her anymore. I looked away and walked passed her with a shrug and a grunt.

I went straight back into my rooms and my brain immediately started to piece together all the components of how James had looked. All the while there was a knot of nauseating anxiety in my stomach. He was taller than I remembered. He was thinner than I remembered too. His eyes were darker. His hair was browner. His fingers a little longer. His dress-sense a little less considered than I thought it would be. His chin was more pronounced and his cheekbones less pronounced. His neck moved more fluidly. He was more uncertain in his movements. He was more steely-gazed. His feet were smaller than I recalled. His teeth less white. His nose shorter. His eyebrows thicker. Was that a mole? And what did he think that shirt colour would do for him?

I lay down on my bed and held a pillow tightly to me and I thought about it all, and concluded that he was, in short, more perfect than I remembered.

But when I thought of his words about Josh, I felt more anxious and more sick, and all I could say over and over again was: “Shit-bugger-fanny, shit-bugger-fanny, shit-bugger-fanny ...”

Next instalment: 50. Kidman's Gift – Part One

48. Brimming with Girly Glee

2010-05-18T22:42:00.003+01:00

"I was in here alone, fending off the fallen dead as they tried to pluck me out of the world and drag me into the upper echelons of God-knows-where, while you exchanged pleasantries, sweet nothings, how-do-you-dos and oh-I-says with a woman carved from the wood of the bitch tree!"

It wasn't me that noticed the smashed window. It was Kidman.

"When the hell did that happen?" I looked at the star-shaped hole in the bathroom window, at the same time taking in the shards of glass littered everywhere across the floor.

"Last night," said Kidman in a matter-of-fact fashion, as she scrutinised an apparent flaw on a nail upon a sleek and elegant Kidmanian finger, "while you were busy hobnobbing with that hard-nosed, barb-wired bitch Ormsley."

"What?" I exclaimed."How is that possible?"

"Oh, yes, Steph. I was in here alone, fending off the fallen dead as they tried to pluck me out of the world and drag me into the upper echelons of God-knows-where, while you exchanged pleasantries, sweet nothings, how-do-you-dos and oh-I-says with a woman carved from the wood of the bitch tree! Feel guilty? Feel like shit?" All of a sudden she looked up and clapped her hands briskly, saying, "Yes? Oh, goody! Oh, goody goody!"

I looked around the floor of the bathroom, looking for whatever had been used to smash the glass. "What was it smashed with? There's no rock or anything."

"A helmet, Steph. One of them smashed it with a helmet. Pell-mell it pelted towards the glass, banging its head off it, over and over again. I tell you, I nearly soiled my lady cupboard! Eventually the window smashed. Glass went everywhere. You know what I did then? That's right, I ran like a bastard, I'm happy to relate. Puppies squealing and wriggling like nobody's business."

"You run away a lot, don't you?"

She looked me straight in the eye, her expression cool and entirely unselfconscious. "Yes," she answered. "A bloody lot, in fact."

All of a sudden, I clutched my nose and screwed up my face, suddenly realising the implications of a broken window. “Oh no! That means the Smelly God again!”

Kidman pursed her lips and nodded sagely. “Yes. Illuminous odour of unmitigated foulness, that's what I say to that!” she exclaimed, as if it was some kind of standard exclamation.

The only person I knew in the neighbouring town who could fix a window was a handy man with personal hygiene issues. The Smelly God.

“Oh, super-sensory murder by stenchy ponginess!” I uttered as I again looked helplessly at the broken window and the array of small bits of glass everywhere.

So back into the neighbouring town I went. I dreaded these journeys, but some feeling of expectancy made me think that I might meet James, the man from the neighbouring town that I had a crush on, and he would tell me that his absence was all a big misunderstanding – his failure to turn up for our 'date of sorts', his lack of thanks for the knitting of his that I corrected, his lack of anything, in fact! Yes, it was all the result of a silly misreading of events! And then we’d laugh – ha ha ha – at how silly I’d been and how much he’d worried about how I must have been feeling about it all – hee hee hee. And then I’d kick him in the leg and tell him never to do it again – ha ha ha. He'd rub his shin and look at me with a slightly worried look on his face – yeah alright, Jeez that flamin' hurt! But no matter how many times I entertained this fantasy on the way to the neighbouring town, it never came true. Yeah alright, Life, Jeez that flamin' hurt. Again!

When I got to his door, I found that Emperor Pong, General Odour, the King of Stink, wasn’t in. So I put a note through his grimy letter-box, wiping my hands on my skirt afterwards. The note explained, in very precise terms, the issue I was facing. It said: ‘Small window broken. Come soon please. Stephanie.’

When I got back to Mordan House, Kidman had been rummaging around in some of the old rooms upstairs. She was fearless in many ways, this Kidman thing. Yes, she always seemed to run away when the astronaut descended, but her running away always seemed so practical, so pragmatic. Aside from that regular display of abject terror, she appeared to be keen to investigate pretty much anything and everything with little hesitation. In this case, she was again looking for clues to the house’s recent past, but finding things that interested and amused her instead.

"Yes, it was all the result of a silly misreading of events! And then we’d laugh – ha ha ha – at how silly I’d been and how much he’d worried about how I must have been feeling about it all – hee hee hee. And then I’d kick him in the leg and tell him never to do it again – ha ha ha. He'd rub his shin and look at me with a slightly worried look on his face – yeah alright, Jeez that flamin' hurt!"

When I found her, she had her head in a wardrobe in a room on the first floor, and she was looking through a pile of old clothes.

“So,” she said emphatically. “Did you go to see James while you were in town?”

“Of course I bloody didn’t.”

“Or that bitch Ormsley?”

“No. I thought about dropping by the library, but after last night ... I’m not dressed appropriately anyway. I’ll get nowhere with her in this big old blousy jumper and raggedy skirt. With Ormsley, I have to dress to impress!”

“How about we dress you up to go see her?”

Kidman appeared instantly excited. Positively brimming with girly glee, in fact. She had already found a collection of silly things to wear and she delighted in showing them to me: she had a corset, a high frilly blouse, a long bright skirt covered in blotches of flowers, a gas mask, a battered blue cord cap, odd shoes, odd sandals, a waistcoat, a parasol and a large floppy straw hat. She was delighted at her finds. I looked at them with uncertainty. What was the point of them?

She clapped her hands and jumped a little off the ground. “Let’s find more! You look in the room next door!”

For some reason I found myself doing what she asked. After looking through a number of rooms, I found two high brown boots, a man’s white shirt with a big collar and cuffs, a dirty vest with stains from a variety of cleaning products on it, a dinky little belt and a very, very large white bra.

"Kidman appeared instantly excited. Positively brimming with girly glee, in fact. She had already found a collection of silly things to wear and she delighted in showing them to me: she had a corset, a high frilly blouse, a long bright skirt covered in blotches of flowers, a gas mask, a battered blue cord cap, odd shoes, odd sandals, a waistcoat, a parasol and a large floppy straw hat. She was delighted at her finds. I looked at them with uncertainty. What was the point of them?"

Kidman was jubilant at my discoveries. “Oh well done, Steph! Well done!”

I laughed, more at her childlike enthusiasm than anything. Kidman laughed too. I'd never encountered her like this. And then that was it for the afternoon. All we did was laugh and run about Mordan House, the sun streaming in from outside, as if playing alongside us and scampering in and out between our legs. We both dressed up and acted out ridiculous little scenes that mostly involved women being seduced by landlords for rent arrears, or poor, innocent landlords being seduced by predatory women who were ahead in their payments.

“What?” Kidman would say in corset and high boots, and in a twee, birdlike voice. “You can’t repay my deposit? Well, come here you stocky moustachioed hunk. I may have to take the payment out of your tight bahooky!” Then she’d chase me through the house, while I shouted out, in a deep-throated voice, something along the lines of: “You can’t have my manhood! I’m saving it for a lady who truly loves me!”

At one point we decided to re-enact a similar scene but in what we decided was a World War 2 air raid shelter. Yep, that’s how silly it was all becoming! I put on the gas mask Kidman had found – right over my eyes and my mouth and with this bulbous filter thing sticking right out – along with the floppy straw hat, the corset, with the man’s white shirt underneath and clumpish odd shoes on my feet, and brandishing the parasol above my head. Kidman wore the big bra over the dirty vest, with the blotchy dress and the blue cap on also.

Down the stairs I ran, shouting in a deep, raspy cockney accent: “Lawd luv us! You ain’t gunna git yer dirty mits on my love sausage not now not hever!”

And Kidman in a squeaky, ladylike voice, followed after, hollering: “Love sausage for my tea, please! Mama, he won’t give me love sausage and I’m damnably peckish for it too!”

I ran to the front door and threw it open to run out onto the gravel at the front of the house. The bright sunlight enveloped me, but it also enveloped the Smelly God who was standing with his smelly assistant right outside the door.

I stopped and stared. They looked even more grimy through the scratched and murky glass of the gas mask I was wearing. But one thing was clear and that was the look of consternation on their faces as they stood and stared back at me, tools in their hands.

I realised that there wasn’t much I could say to explain my look or behaviour, so all I said – and in quite an elegant manner too – was: “I'm so pleased you got my note. You’ll find it’s the window in the bathroom.”

At the sound of my own muffled voice, and the sudden self-image that I had of myself in gas mask, floppy hat, corset and odd shoes, I laughed a little, but not so much that they could see or hear me. But then I realised that I was standing before one of the smelliest men outside of the Democratic People's Republic of Stinky and wearing a gas mask, so I laughed some more, though still trying to conceal it. But then it exploded. It charged out. A great raucous laugh that I couldn't suppress. I bent over slightly and put my hand up to my face. As soon as my hand encountered the hard rubbery surface of the gas mask, my laughter doubled, so much so that I turned and ran back into Mordan House giggling all the way. I giggled down the hallway, into the suite of rooms and into the bathroom, where I closed the door, sat on the toilet and tried to compose myself.

The laughter was wonderful. It coursed through me like a new kind of blood, and seemed to gush out of the top of me and down over me, rich and warm and bright. I started to breathe deeply as I sat there on the toilet seat trying to control myself. Just then, the door to the bathroom opened, and Le Big Stink and Le Petit Stink were standing there, still silent and still looking bemused. I remembered that this was where the broken window was, but I also realised that I was in the toilet with a gas mask on. It suddenly struck me to wave my hand in the air and say out loud: “I wouldn’t come in here if I were you!” So I did.

"The laughter was wonderful. It coursed through me like a new kind of blood, and seemed to gush out of the top of me and down over me, rich and warm and bright. I started to breathe deeply as I sat there on the toilet seat trying to control myself. Just then, the door to the bathroom opened, and Le Big Stink and Le Petit Stink were standing there, still silent and still looking bemused"

And this started me off again. Worse than before. I got up and stumbled out of the bathroom door, leaving them to look at each other and listen to my laughter, twittering and screeching, as I went back out into the hallway. There was Kidman, sitting on the stairs and smiling at me.

I could of course have taken the gas mask off, but instead I decided to leave it on for as long as the workmen were in the house. From time to time I would wander into the bathroom where they were working and say something in a serious tone, like: “Good work, boys. That’s going very well.” Then I’d start chuckling away again and I’d soon fall out of the bathroom in fits of laughter. When the job was done, I scrutinised the window up close through the glass of the mask, and said in my muffled voice: “Good job. Oh, I so love frosted glass.” This started me off again. I'm pretty sure that both men were just looking down at their feet and making some uncertain throat-clearing sounds.

“Oh, let me pay you!” I exclaimed and went hunting for my purse. When I found it, my eyes were full of tears of laughter; I found I could open the purse but I couldn’t see the money. In response to the blurred contents before me, I started to laugh in one of those silent ways where your body starts to move involuntarily and eventually the laugh tries to choke you from the inside.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get it next time,” said the Smelly God in a resigned, somewhat defeated voice.

“Oh, are you sure?” I asked with a slight hint of concern. But my attempts at behaving normally were making me laugh all the more, and all I could see were little glimmers of him and his assistant walking out through the door as I sat down on the hall floor exhausted from laughing. “Come back soon!”

After a few moments, and as the silence of the house started to reassert itself, I could feel the giggles easing off, though I was still reluctant to remove the gas mask.

“Oh, dear,” I said to Kidman, who was sitting and smugly surveying me from a distance. “You know, I think I got a little fit of the giggles there.” And I almost started myself off again. But instead I was saved temporarily by a knock on the door. Oh, no! I thought. They must have forgotten something! And I wondered if seeing them again would start me off all over again. I wanted it to start all over again. I was reluctant to lose this feeling. Fearful of letting it slip away. So I couldn’t help smiling to myself expectantly as I clumped to the front door, opened it with grace and poise, and said to the whiffy workers in a charming sing-song fashion: “Good afternoon!”

But it wasn’t the Smelly God and his assistant standing at my front door and looking at me. No, it wasn't them. It was James, the man I'd fallen for from the neighbouring town.

Next instalment: 49. Shit-Bugger-Fanny

47. "Did You See Them? The Dead Spacemen? Did You?"

2010-05-13T22:12:00.002+01:00

(This is a third scene from the screenplay of the movie version of ‘Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped’, starring Nicole Kidman (as her delectable self) and Julianne Moore (a Kidman lookey-likey who opens supermarkets here and there and occasionally strips off at staggies) as the remarkable, indefatigable Stephanie Fey. This scene is dedicated to Mr Indigo Wrath at, uh, well, IndigoWrath. Why? Because he keeps bugging me to get off my lazy ass and keep writing! Grr!)

THREE. EXTERIOR - OUTSIDE MORDAN HOUSE. NIGHT.

It's cold and there's the lightest peppering of snow descending from the night sky above Mordan House. Stephanie Fey stands at the edge of the wood that surrounds the house. She is holding an open bottle of wine in her hand. She is unaware of this - it has been in her hand since she left Mordan House earlier that evening. Two bright headlights from a car situated on the gravel at the front of the house are trained on Stephanie. As she catches her breath from running through the wood, she also squints into the lights, trying to see Mrs Ormsley, the driver of the car, who is completely in shadow, standing at her car door.

Steph
What are you doing here?

Mrs Ormsley
(Only her voice heard)
What are you doing there?

Steph
(Looks confused)
What? Me? Hold on, I live here - I can be wherever I damn well like!

Mrs Ormsley
And you choose to be running out of the woods?

Steph
Yes, as it so happens! Today I decided to be in the woods!

Mrs Ormsley
And are the woods where you keep your wine cellar?

Steph
My -?

Steph slowly raises her arm and looks incredulously at the bottle of wine still in her hand.

     Steph
     (Looks confused and mutters to herself)
Running, falling, leaping about - and the damn bottle's still in my hand?
     (She slowly drops the bottle to the ground as if it's not there)
Did you see them? The dead spacemen? Did you?

There is no reply from Mrs Ormsley.

Steph
Goddamn it, will you come out from behind the headlights? I can't see you!

Mrs Ormsley steps forward into the light. She is wearing a long, dark coat and a woolen hat.

Steph
Did you? Did you see them?

Mrs Ormsley
No doubt if I'd consumed as much wine as you, then yes, I'd be seeing dead spacemen.

Steph
No, dammit, for real! Did you see them for real? In the woods. Glowing. Flying, for Christ's sake! Did you?

Mrs Ormsley
Not since the Seventies, dear. Look, maybe we should continue this conversation another time.

Steph
What conversation? I wasn't aware we'd started one yet. Why are you here anyway? At this time of night. That's the conversation I want to have.

Mrs Ormsley
(Glances at her watch)
It's 10.30. I'm sorry if it's too late. I just closed the library at 10.

Steph
10.30? Oh. I thought it was later.

Mrs Ormsley
I'm sorry I cut our conversation short the other day at the library. When I got back you were gone and I've been looking out for you ever since. I wondered if there was anything else that you wanted to ask about the history of the house, that was all.

Steph
(Rubs her forehead)
I can't think. I have too many questions. I don't know where to start. All I can think about is the dead spacement, you see. That's what I've got in my head. You know, it all seemed so real a moment ago. And now I'm not so sure.

Mrs Ormsley
You should go to bed. I'm sorry I disturbed you. Come back into the library or come over to the house. We can talk some more then.

Steph
I'm suspicious when you're nice. Why are you being nice? I much prefer you bitchy. Kidman prefers you bitchy too.

Mrs Ormsley walks back into shadow and begins to get back into her car.

Steph
Wait! Will you wait until I'm back in the house before you drive away? Please?

Mrs Ormsley
Uh. Yes, of course. On you go.

Steph walks back to the front door of Mordan House. Mrs Ormsley climbs into the car, starts the engine and rolls the window down.

Mrs Ormsley
Stop by the library again sometime soon. How does that sound?

Steph
Are you sure you didn't see the dead spacemen?

Mrs Ormsley
(Beginning to close the window)
I'm sure. Well, not tonight anyway.

Steph's expression changes and she stares at her, not sure if Mrs Ormsley's humouring her or not.

Mrs Ormsley
I've only ever seen them in town. Never out here.

Mrs Ormsley drives away. Steph remains standing at the front door and continues to stare after her.

Steph
(Mutters)
Did she say what I thought she just said? Did she really? Kidman! Kidman? Where the hell are you, Kidman?

We see Steph from a distance, standing at the door and calling into the darkness.

Steph
Kidman? Kidman!

END SCENE

Next instalment: 48. Brimming with Girly Glee

46. "Run, You Dozy Bitch, Run!"

2010-05-07T00:30:00.004+01:00

"Then I heard it again, quite clearly this time. A voice, yes, but singing gently and ever so quietly. And singing a tune that was very familiar to me. A tune that I felt at the back of my neck as the muscles tightened"

"Run, you dozy bitch, run!"

A hand, its fingers slender and pale, grasped my hand, its fingers dull and gnarled. I felt that hand tighten. Its touch was soft, yet also oddly insistent. The touch shot up my arm and there was a peculiar feeling that, all of a sudden, my arm was real – transformed from something lifeless or asleep into something flesh and bone and riddled with susceptibility to all manner of sensation. When had it last felt real? And if real now, what was it before? Is it only touch that makes us real?

I looked up, my sight still singed with the two opposing lights that I'd seen elevated above me and hovering with their throbbing menace. Now, I found myself looking between the two apparitions of the dead spacemen and into two profoundly unreal eyes.

"Don't you hear me, mad bitch? Run!"

Kidman hollered the words into my face – this time her pale, thin hand pulling at me hard. My body approved of the pull and accepted the momentum. I found myself getting to my feet, my direction guided by Kidman.

"Some sound in the woods around me made me stop and I spoke out loud before I had time to think about the words"

Then Kidman let go and again I found myself running, this time pursuing her image. It seemed like an endless endeavour of mine that had been taking place for oh so long. Me: pursuing the idea of Kidman, ever out of reach. Me: reaching out to her, forever breathless and failing. Uneven ground rose and fell beneath me, branches dived and swooped from above me. All the while, the surreal shape of Kidman danced ahead of me as I tried desperately to keep up. Gradually her image became almost like a bright handkerchief sailing on a breeze before me, while I breathed heavily, painfully in her wake. It was as if a weight was growing in density and mass inside me, while her incandescent image grew smaller and smaller. This great, ever-increasing burden, weighing on my stomach, on my legs, was slowing me down. I looked inside for energy and found my mind disconnecting from my body and unable to command any more movement.

But it was not tiredness that finally stopped me. "What? Who said that?"

Some sound in the woods around me made me stop and I spoke out loud before I had time to think about the words.

It was a human voice that I suddenly thought I'd heard close by and its words directed at me. All around, there were bushes and tall trees, and no sign of anyone. Ahead of me, there was still that dot of bright colour – Kidman dwindling, dwindling. The empty, living silence of the wood hummed all around. My hard, coarse breathing blasted into the silence with no ability inside capable of controlling it. My eyes flashed all around me, looking for some sign of movement, some sign of life. And above me there was no sign of the astronauts either, just blank, empty sky. All was just shadowy green and great solid walls of darkness quivering everywhere.

"It was a human voice that I suddenly thought I'd heard close by and its words directed at me. All around, there were bushes and tall trees, and no sign of anyone. Ahead of me, there was still that dot of bright colour – Kidman dwindling, dwindling"

Then I heard it again, quite clearly this time. A voice, yes, but singing gently and ever so quietly. And singing a tune that was very familiar to me. A tune that I felt at the back of my neck as the muscles tightened: "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day ..."

"Who's there? Who is that?"

The voice stopped. The silence winning through again. Again just my breathing and the light groan of different breezes in different locations around me.

But then, all of a sudden, behind me: "... Never let it fade away."

This time I gasped and my head jerked in the direction of the sound but I said nothing. I felt I couldn't say anything. Fear, full-grown, seemed to have its face right up against mine and it was proceeding to breathe an acrid staleness down inside of me, intimidating any possible response that might be there. Still I could see nothing but the swaying of branches and the shimmering of leaves in the breeze. And a meagre handkerchief of bright womanhood in the distance, now looking at me, staring and calling out to me.

"Keep running! No matter what you encounter. Never. Ever. Stop. Running. Bitch!"

And with that she was gone again. And so too was I. This time my feet moved without any consideration or decision-making from me, in the same way as I had spoken aloud without thinking earlier. Energy from nowhere. Propulsion out of nothing. Kidman drawing me on.

The ground crunched beneath my feet. Where was I going? Was this the right direction? Where exactly would this take me? I longed for touch. Is it only touch that makes us real?

Then. There it was. Mordan House. Big, solid, square, empty house that had never been a home. But then. Between me and the house. Twin lights. Bright. Right in front of me. Exploratory. Invasive. Prohibitive. And searing across the gravel that lay at the front of the house. My first thought: the dead astronauts had me and I was about to be plucked. My second thought: no, not yet; I wasn't to be plucked quite yet.

"Then. There it was. Mordan House. Big, solid, square, empty house that had never been a home. But then. Between me and the house. Twin lights. Bright. Right in front of me. Exploratory. Invasive. Prohibitive"

As I realised what I was seeing, and realised also that I had no idea whose car headlights were trained on me and whose car was parked on my gravel driveway. Shadows flexed in amongst the brightness before me and I was aware of a car door opening and a figure rising up out of it; it was just one shadow flexing itself in amongst all the other passive shadows around me and impossible to tell who was alighting from the car.

A voice quite quickly provided that missing piece of information: "Practising for the next Down-and-Out Olympiad, are we? Oh, good for you, Steph. Good for you!"

I tried to catch my breath. Tried to catch my senses as they frantically batted their wings in the air around me. What was she doing there? What was that bitch Ormsley doing outside my house?

Next instalment: 47. "Did You See Them? The Dead Spacemen? Did You?"

45. The Astronaut Stopped

2010-03-25T00:18:00.002Z

"There are moments that can make you instantly drop all the baggage of life that you’ve been holding onto for so long without ever getting a rest. Bang! They hit the ground. And when such a moment comes, a wash of recognition sweeps apart futility’s great doors as if they were just painted onto life’s landscape, just a watercolour picture of doors that you had long believed to be real"

And during this discussion, Kidman also told me that she was planning a gift for me. What she called a very special gift indeed. Hm, was my response to that too.

And as I somewhat dismissed her comment, I seem to recall picking up a bottle of wine that we had been consuming, while throwing on a heavy cardigan and making for the front door.

As I stepped outside, the cold hit me like a great shove and I let out a cry of indignation.

“Cold?” said Kidman, suddenly at my elbow. “Huh. I don’t feel it.” And she sauntered past me, sashaying her hips somewhat. “What are we doing out here, anyway?”

There was a light covering of fresh snow on the ground and the flecks were still falling, although snow clouds only partially filled the sky. The moon hesitated at times behind the muddy-looking snow clouds, before striding out confidently at other times as the sky above changed regularly from clear to overcast. Kidman glanced back at me, awaiting an answer to her question. I looked at the profile and shape of her amidst the swoop and flurry of so many deft little snow birds, and she seemed extraordinary. She was a bounty of subtle hues and dramatic little gestures that made the head whoozy. Briefly, I wondered what the real alcohol was here.

“We’re taking a breath of fresh air,” I finally answered, my lungs clenched, my words squeezed out through limited breath, before then turning back towards the front door.

“Where the hell are you going?” she called out.

“I said ‘a breath’,” and I continued walking.

“Come on!” Kidman called in a drawn out, jovial manner. “A little walk. To clear our heads. Come on. It’ll be fun. Who knows? We might die! How exciting would that be?” And she did a strange movement where she bit her bottom lip, ducked down and shoogled her knees from side to side. “Anyway, I want to talk to you about something,” she added.

I was standing on the step at the front door. One more step away from going back inside. I looked back at her, looking at the tiny white petals drifting one by one onto Kidman’s head and looking at the great performance of her in this theatre of slow-falling snow. I couldn’t speak. Instead I screwed up my face in such a way that asked what she meant. But she was still walking away, in the direction of the line of trees that encircled Mordan House. All I could do was follow her.

Light from the sitting-room window stretched on the ground before me, bringing a calmness and slight giddy confidence to me. Although my arms blistered with goosebumps, and muscles began to vibrate to some unknown rhythm not of my own body’s making, it felt good to be where I was: outside, at night, in a light snowfall, with an imaginary Kidman in my line of vision, a peek-a-boo moon toying with dark errors of cloud, and Kidman’s ebullient steps enticing me forward.

"I was standing on the step at the front door. One more step away from going back inside. I looked back at her, looking at the tiny white petals drifting one by one onto Kidman’s head and looking at the great performance of her in this theatre of slow-falling snow. I couldn’t speak"

There are moments that can make you instantly drop all the baggage of life that you’ve been holding onto for so long without ever getting a rest. Bang! They hit the ground. And when such a moment comes, a wash of recognition sweeps apart futility’s great doors as if they were just painted onto life’s landscape, just a watercolour picture of doors that you had long believed to be real. For me, this moment came with the sight of Kidman looking back at me and beckoning me with an upraised finger. In amongst this grand, mythical moment, I found myself stepping forward just as her beckoning finger requested.

And stepping forward and stepping forward. Along a path through the trees. The path and the trees lit then ill-lit. My pupils widening and shrinking to the rhythm of moonlight and cloud.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, seeing only the back of Kidman as she walked a few steps in front.

“James,” she answered. James? How strange to hear the name! The sound and shape of it had been retreating in my mind day by day, even though the sound and shape of him still reverberated from some distant corner within. The man from the neighbouring town that I had fallen for, based upon only one meeting and only seeing him twice – this was what Kidman wanted to talk about? I blinked and blinked, while still stepping forward and stepping forward. Where exactly was I? How far had I walked and in what direction from Mordan House? James? James!

“James! Why talk about him?”

“You should seek him out. Seek him out accidentally, purposefully by accident – you know, the way we women do.”

“And do what exactly when I see him?”

I felt Kidman smile, and then saw her stop and turn round to face me, that smile there on her face just as I had sensed. I stopped too. I saw a swathe of white light across one side of her face, illuminating that smile, creating little pockets of light brown shadow at various parts of her face. Then I saw her glance away and up into the trees behind me, at the same time seeing the smile fade away. I took a drink from the bottle of wine, then wordlessly presented it to Kidman.

“Well, If I were you,” she answered, her tone serious and her words pointed, “I’d show him your lady cupboard and then run like a mad-arsed whore!”

What? “What? James? When I go to see him? Are you crazy?” I said incredulously.

“No, idiot! When you see him!” And Kidman’s hand pointed in the direction of the moon that was casting that white light upon her face.

My head turned elegantly, as if my neck contained the same mechanism as in some fabulous Swiss watch. Smooth and unflinching, the look went from Kidman all the way round and up to the moon, in the sweetest, cleanest move imaginable.

I saw him through the trees, hanging in the air to one side of the moon’s distant, cloud-encompassed image. The moon itself seeming so passive, so wrapped in some insular sensibility that it seemed to care not what was happening to me. The astronaut, on the other hand, shone like a bit of carved-out moon that the winds of space and of emptiness had buffeted and eroded over billions of years into this dead spaceman shape. A lifeless bit of rock taking on a shape appropriate to the 21st century of the planet it haunted: the shape of a dead spaceman – desolate of hope, purpose, ambition, vision, life.

There was a rustle sound from Kidman. I glanced round and saw her hitching up her dress slightly and running further into the trees, without a single look in my direction. This was probably the same time as the astronaut started a rapid descent towards me and about the same time as I realised that I had no idea where I was, or where Mordan House was. Finally, it seemed, the astronaut had me on his territory. Right where he wanted me.

"I saw him through the trees, hanging in the air to one side of the moon’s distant, cloud-encompassed image. The moon itself seeming so passive, so wrapped in some insular sensibility that it seemed to care not what was happening to me"

It was also barely apparent to me that I had, at some point, decided to run and then started to run. The trees into which Kidman had vanished were also my own destination. I knew I mustn’t stay out in the open. In amongst the trees might slow the astronaut down. He was both ethereal and physical – he didn’t move through things, that much I had noticed over time and through events; he went round them or over them or in between them. If I was to survive then I had to try to use this to my advantage.

I ran with a ferocity and determination that I have never known before. Desperation is a sprightly little engine, seldom really used in life – but due to the fact that it so often lies dormant, it often appears to be in tip-top condition when called upon. That’s what I found as I ran in and out of trees, over verges, through bushes and thick undergrowth, running without destination, without thought. Desperation’s inner eye and survival’s goal were the only two elements that I seemed to need.

I only became aware of fear when I thought about glancing round to see if I could see the astronaut, and realised that I was too afraid to. Too afraid to look and too afraid to slow down. Ultimately, too afraid to die. It was as I became aware of this – this fear of death – that I started to cry. Even as I ran, using every droplet of fuel I could beg, borrow or steal to channel through this body of mine, the tears started to flow, and the sound of my sobs started to interrupt my breathing as I ran.

I looked up and behind me – I don’t know where I got the courage from! – and saw an entanglement of branches high above, black against a night-sky that looked a muddy bluey-grey. The branches moved as I ran, as if creeping overhead, creeping down and around. From all around me I could feel the silence of the night, heavy like an ocean, with only the crackling and rustling of feet on dense natural ground for company, only my breathing and sobbing for friendship. How bizarre! The slight sound of my rasping, sick, asthmatic breathing was now a comfort! Tears were an indicator of life and thus a bonus too! It was life, even if it was flawed and busted life. At least this life was not entirely characterised by staring into a black visor that only reflects back the shape and character of dead things. It was not absolutely owned by gloved hands that will only grip what will soon no longer require its life.

Then I realised why the sky had a murky blue tinge to it: it was due to the white glow of the astronaut overhead, following me above the treeline.

"Too afraid to look and too afraid to slow down. Ultimately, too afraid to die. It was as I became aware of this – this fear of death – that I started to cry. Even as I ran, using every droplet of fuel I could beg, borrow or steal to channel through this body of mine, the tears started to flow, and the sound of my sobs started to interrupt my breathing as I ran"

I tried to run faster, yet what more was there to give inside? Yes, what more was there inside to give? I continued to run, I continued to stumble, I continued to push on relentlessly, desperately. And I continued crying, tears blurring my vision, forming mythical twin objects all around me and confusing me in my progress. Maybe it was the alcohol that started to play a part in how I was feeling, but, all of a sudden, I felt I couldn’t progress anymore and I sank down to my knees. Not because my body was too exhausted, but because some enormous and clear emotion opened up inside me, within its own white light, and so much of my inner world turned inside out, illumination taking the place of subterfuge. It had a voice, and the voice said: Stephanie Fey, what more is there to give?

As I heard these words in my head – my own words, you understand, very clearly my words – I wondered when I had last heard such words inside of my head, so absolutely there, so precise and large? I couldn’t say. Certainly not since Philip, my ex-boyfriend from before arriving in Mordan House. Always other people’s words, always the words of the walls I had constructed inside to protect me. Not genuine and honest words. Oh, not for so long!

All I could hear was those words, reverberating: what more is there to give?

There was so much more. I hadn’t even begun. I had so much more inside to let out. I hadn’t even started. What would happen to it all if it didn’t find a way out? What would happen to me? I just needed someone to want it all, not someone who would kick it like a dog. Just someone who would want it all to come out, and to come out in straight lines, not in pockets, squashed packets, little warped, unrepresentative chunks. Love wasn’t made for that.

Because that’s what it was all about, of course, all this feeling. It was about love and about having so much more to give than this life had yet seen. And the awareness of it stopped me in my tracks, right there, right beside some grassy slope.

"It was life, even if it was flawed and busted life. At least this life was not entirely characterised by staring into a black visor that only reflects back the shape and character of dead things. It was not absolutely owned by gloved hands that will only grip what will soon no longer require its life"

I could now see the small clearing and the grassy slope around me very clearly, even through tears. I looked up, my movement slow, jagged. The astronaut was hovering in amongst the branches of a tree, head angled towards me, its light revealing everything that was around me. The only thing that was black was that rectangle upon his helmet, like a sunken coffin, so deathly dark. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to run anymore either. I just wanted to be, and to feel what it was like to be me, with all its yearning and sadness. And then, as I knew he would, he began to move towards me.

Yet no sooner did the astronaut drop than the astronaut stopped. I stared at him, mystified. Why was he no longer moving? I wiped the tears from my eyes to see better, but it was unmistakeable, he had stopped for a reason I couldn’t understand.

The wood was so still, so silent. The air, however, was charged with some powerful and dreadful sensibility. I hadn’t really noticed it before. Yet, also, there was a scent, something putrid and foul, that only seemed to exist where I lay. This spot, this particular area of the wood, had a character to it that was menacing and consuming. Was it this that was stopping the astronaut? Was this repulsive location somehow charmed to protect me? Yes, perhaps it was. From behind me, I became aware of a second white light. I don’t know why, but I instantly thought it was the headlights of a car. A charmed location had worked its charm and produced something to save me also.

But I was wrong. Looking up and round, I saw the one thing – above all others – that I did not expect to see. Throughout all the events of Mordan House, I had never expected to see the apparition that presented itself before me in that moment. It was a second astronaut. Hovering, still, poised, empty, looming in amongst the black and snow-speckled branches, its darkened visor focused on me, just like the visor of its partner.

It was my turn. Now, it was definitely my turn. And I would accept it.

Next instalment: 46. "Run, You Dozy Bitch, Run"

44. That Bitch Ormsley

2010-02-19T23:44:00.005Z

“It seemed almost as if listening to Kidman, rather than fighting against her, had allowed purpose to take the lead when dancing with trepidation, and it allowed uncertainty to sit it out, realising it had had its spell on the dancefloor and should now just let others get up and do their thing”

When I think of Mrs Ormsley, I think first and foremost of her eyes. Those eyes designed to perturb and flummox, to unsettle and bewilder. One eyebrow raised, startled and yet strangely accepting; the other lowered, piercing and suspicious. I also, if I’m an honest kinda girl, think about her stomach nice and full with lots of food and fluids, her stomach muscles all relaxed and comfortable, and me delivering an incisive punch right in her bitching old gut! As well as being an honest girl, I’m also at times that kinda girl.

But here I was being a totally different kinda girl. The one who seeks out the company of such a woman. And all I can think of to call this kinda girl is a fool.

It took me forever to decide what to wear, although I concluded that it didn’t really matter. Mrs Ormsley, readers may recall, had concluded long ago, and on scanty circumstantial evidence, that I was little more than a vagrant who was living in Mordan House illegally. Not that she’d ever asked me about how I came to live there! No, she wasn’t interested in truth. Only opinion.

If I 'dressed down' to go and visit her then Mrs Ormsley’s opinion would be that I warranted pity, visibly concluding that I was a poor, ghastly little thing (one brow raised in commiseration), but also concluding at the same time that it wasn’t possible for me to be anything other than a tad ghastly when I was downtrodden and generally alienated from society (the other brow lowered in contempt).

But if I 'dressed up', yes there would be one brow raised in admiration, but it would be the other one that would do all the damage. It would conclude that my cleanliness would be down to a swift half-hour using the mirror and wash basin in a public lavatory, before the janitor decided to move me on after I’d declined his gracious offer of a couple of lost property hair-grips and a skoosh of his Lynx in exchange for a BJ. Alternatively, she would think that my neat and tidy attire would be at the expense of some poor cow who would currently be sitting in the back of a police car on a country road, her nakedness now reduced somewhat by a blanket, and with a cold compress held against a nasty gash at the back of her head, as she explained that she hadn’t seen her assailant as she had been too busy inspecting the dead sheep that was mysteriously blocking the road.

“She would think that my neat and tidy attire would be at the expense of some poor cow who would currently be sitting in the back of a police car on a country road, her nakedness now reduced somewhat by a blanket, and with a cold compress held against a nasty gash at the back of her head”

No. Whatever I wore I would be the loser. So I dressed tastefully, smartly. Jeans for a bit of daytime casualness and black leather shoes with a small heel. I wore a navy blue wrapover top that set my puppies barking and snarling slightly – but not too much that people would worry that they might get out at any moment and cause some damage to property. Earrings with a slight drop. A funky silver necklace with ickle, dainty beads. Hair tied back. Make up. Black waist-length coat with large lapels, but unbuttoned to show off my top. As I said before: tasteful, smart.

Before I left, Kidman had mentioned that I should align my eyebrows, nose and puppies (the ENP of Kidman) if I got into any difficulty – it was to her mind the display of the peacock, the act of defiance, the unfurled stance of unequivocal female pride that kept all evil forces at bay. But there was no need for such a reminder. I was a convert. If in trouble, ENP would get me out of it, and I aimed to use it as much as I needed to.

Another thing that I found myself to be doing was not thinking about this thing that I’d made up my mind to do. Ordinarily I’d let my mind twist in all manner of ways until I was exhausted – yet, for all the deliberation, the outcome would be the same. So, today, as I drove towards the neighbouring town, I let my made-up mind get on with what it had made up. It seemed almost as if listening to Kidman, rather than fighting against her, had allowed purpose to take the lead when dancing with trepidation, and it allowed uncertainty to sit it out, realising it had had its spell on the dancefloor and should now just let others get up and do their thing. Sure, my idea of Kidman was opposed to me going to see Mrs Ormsley to ask for answers to questions about the history of Mordan House, but the philosophy of Kidman as I understood it – the attitude, the soft and genial fire, the keenness of purpose, the resilience – was undeniably true of my idea of her also. I was, it seemed, taking this idea and using it for my own purpose.

Of course this purpose became harder to realise as I walked up the steps to the library where Mrs Ormsley worked. Oh, much, much harder! It was not that I was having second thoughts about going through with it, it was that I was still unsure about smacking her a hard one at gut-level if she said anything that I objected to! And yet, at the back of my mind was the fact that she had let me stay over at her place the night after I’d ventured down to the basement, and that had been a kind thing to do. But surely that was just one momentary flash of a solitary kind brow – and, due to my frazzled state, I had merely missed the workings of the other brow.

When she turned round and saw me, Mrs Ormsley suddenly had the look of someone who’s just banged her face against an invisible wall.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. Ouch, I thought would have been more appropriate.

I garbled some kind of hello and some kind of request as to the state of her health. From where she stood behind the enquiries desk she made some kind of reply, but I can’t remember what it was – I was looking around me and thinking about my face and my appearance and the positioning of my body, and only just taking in the sound of her voice. I then found myself resting on her face and seeing that it was eyeing me quizzically, as if waiting, and I realised that she had asked me if she could help me with anything.

“Sure, my idea of Kidman was opposed to me going to see Mrs Ormsley to ask for answers to questions about the history of Mordan House, but the philosophy of Kidman as I understood it – the attitude, the soft and genial fire, the keenness of purpose, the resilience – was undeniably true of my idea of her also. I was, it seemed, taking this idea and using it for my own purpose”

“No,” I uttered without the smallest trace of emotion. “Well, yes, actually. I’m looking for some information and I thought you might be able to help.”

In reply, her face did something I had never seen before: both eyebrows rose and arched dramatically. The symmetrical act transformed the entirety of her face. She looked, in fact, like a different person. Moreover, she was looking at me as if I was a different person too.

“Oh,” she repeated, this time as if the wall had just spoken to her. And walls, of course, aren’t supposed to do that. I felt a moment of achievement and flexed my brickwork slightly.

Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, imbalance quickly returned: her eyebrows again opposed each other, one tumbling as the other rose, like the arms of a set of scales.

“Information,” she said coldly, not entirely as a question or a statement. “On what? Emphysema? Bronchitis? STDs? Goodness, I’m trying to think of other conditions associated with vagrancy. Perhaps hepatitis?”

Hepatitis? Hepatitis! The compulsion rose in me like indigestion, or like some ever so small man trying to box his way out of my belly. I felt a tingling in my fingers and my tongue cleaved to the top of my mouth. I poked her in the eye with a sharp look, but, dammit, I didn’t see them flinch or water. Composure, composure, I told myself. I tried to breathe deeply, aligned my nose like a tiny dagger, arched my brows into two tightly-strung peashooters, and pushed my breasts up and out like a tray of delicious cakes.

But then …

Hold on a sec. Now wait a min.

What the devil was she ..?

It was hard to believe – and hard to digest even once I’d started to believe – but Mrs Ormsley appeared to be looking directly at my cleavage. Looking? No, too faint a word. Staring! And staring like some right dirty minx too!

“I tried to breathe deeply, aligned my nose like a tiny dagger, arched my brows into two tightly-strung peashooters, and pushed my breasts up and out like a tray of delicious cakes”

It was my turn to frown. My turn to pull some awkward, garish, twisted facial display. “No. Information on the house. Mordan House,” I said in a weak, slightly staccato fashion.

At the name of Mordan House, her eyes glanced at mine, but then dropped stone-like back to my haughty, tail-wagging, sprightly, conceited little pups. What was going on?

Could this be the effect of the Eyebrows plus Nose plus Puppies equation? The ENP of Kidman? If so, then what were so many mathematicians doing wasting their time on lengthy formulas with brackets, and little numbers sitting on the shoulders of big numbers, when a simple ENP obviously unlocked so many secrets to the universe! Eureka, I exclaimed within. Voila! Ole! Take that, testicle-face!

Eureka? Voila? Ole? No! I wasn’t sure I liked this, this looking. No, this staring! Moreover, I felt exposed and uncomfortable standing on one side of the enquiries desk of a library, while a middle-aged woman scrutinised my chest as if they were a couple of full bowls ready to be handed over to hungry orphans, or two long-awaited invitations on a butler’s silver salver. Like wriggly bait on a fisherman’s hook. Like a couple of tempting water coolers on a scorching hot day. Oh, please tell me, dear reader, if a vivid picture of the scene is still alluding you!

Reflex kicked in, before I was even aware that it wanted to kick, and I found that I’d grabbed the big lapels of my coat and brought them tightly together to hide my little Dalmatians from the naughty Cruella Deville. Another reflex – of sorts, anyway – kicked in and I found myself taking some kind of control of proceedings.

“I was wondering why the owners of the refuge left? Were they forced out?” I asked.

The library was quiet, but it was a small town and it had been quiet every time I’d been in it. The lighting was subdued around the entrance and the enquiries desk, but brighter at many of the book shelves where light was allowed in by large, old windows.

Mr Ormsley, her eyes disengaged from my puppy pouch, looked away into the shadows and contorted her lips before replying. “I don’t think it ever really closed. We never referred to it as a refuge – it was just the people up at Mordan House. It’s only since it’s been empty that people here refer to the time when it was a refuge. But you could as well have called it a commune. Although it was nearly all women there – and women who had been physically abused. But they were into all manner of things. Living off the land. A return to basics. Trying to build a new idea of society. And, to my mind, it accidentally became a fact that the majority of people there had been abused. Maybe through word of mouth, I don’t know. And because of the problem they were escaping, those in charge tried to cater for them. To help them, I guess. I’m not sure that they did help them though.”

It was only then that Mrs Ormsley looked at me. “I only ever really spoke to one woman from the house," she said. "She would come here and read. I actually think that she used to walk here and then walk back. I can’t think how long that would take her! She was a scraggly-haired girl. Bitten nails. Pretty face. But clothes like yours. Attempting to be tasteful, but dying a death, you know.”

I glanced down at myself and frowned. Within my coat, my two little puppies wriggled uncomfortably.

“I think eventually everyone just left the place, one by one,” she continued, again looking away. “And eventually it was just common knowledge that there was no-one living there anymore.”

As she spoke I was thinking about the house, about these women and the character of the place with them all living inside of it. What would it have been like? How would it have felt? What would have been its atmosphere? I was busy thinking along these lines, as well as formulating a next question, when Mrs Ormsley added to her statement.

“Oh, that girl who came here said something very odd to me once! Maybe it’s a clue to why the women eventually all left. She said that her husband had abused her body and her mind, but that Mordan House abused her soul. She said that they made her eat darkness. And she said that once you get that stuff inside of you then you never get it out. Such a strange thing to say! But, there again, she was a bit like you in other ways too: there was a circus going on in her head but you wouldn’t want to buy a ticket to see it or anything!”

I heard two puppies yelp and felt their little paws try to dig a hole to bury themselves in it.

“Catherine! Catherine!” An old woman’s voice came booming out of the library’s silence. Mrs Ormsley looked up and said, “Oh, dear.”

“She said that her husband had abused her body and her mind, but that Mordan House abused her soul. She said that they made her eat darkness. And she said that once you get that stuff inside of you then you never get it out. Such a strange thing to say!”

“Oh. Someone’s lost a companion, I think,” I said, trying to sound light-hearted and friendly.

“Catherine Cookson! Where the hell are the Catherine Cookson books in this place?” the voice shouted. Then I saw the old woman who had been with Mrs Ormsley that day when I’d waited for James in the café. She was, it seemed, wandering about, frustrated, and trying desperately to find the books of her favourite author.

Mrs Ormsley muttered something, but I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or herself. Then she got out from the enquiries desk to go to the old woman, and before I had a chance to ask more, she was gone.

There was no point staying. I felt I had a huge amount of information to digest. More than plenty. As I left the library, a middle-aged man with a hold-all and wearing a duffle coat passed me. “Nothing yet,” he said and winked.

“No, not yet,” I mumbled indifferently, my head full of thoughts and impressions. But then, all of a sudden, I stopped and turned back to him. “Actually, no. I’m sorry but I don’t know what you mean by that. What hasn’t happened yet?”

“Oh,” he uttered. Someone else confronted by an invisible wall, I thought. I must have been attracting the damned things! “Josh,” he said. “He hasn’t been found yet. Or come home. That’s all. That’s all I meant.”

I tried to formulate a response, but by the time I’d thought of one the man was several steps away from me. Josh? It was a name I’d never heard mentioned to me before. So that was why they said “Not yet” all the time. Someone called Josh was missing from the town and hadn’t reappeared or been found. But who was Josh?

When I told Kidman how nice to me Mrs Ormsley had been, but at the same time so unusual, all she had to say was: “Nice to you? Unusual to you? How dare she! Testicle-faced whore!”

“Yes, Kidman,” I said in full agreement, “you’re bloody right! How dare she! The dangleberry-faced bitch!”

And we both laughed. Yes, reader, we laughed! Later on, we sat and had a bottle of wine together and we discussed long into the night what I’d discovered that day.

And during that discussion I told her that my ENP had collapsed while talking to Mrs Ormsley, due to my puppies getting scared. She said they needed to be trained. Hm, was my response.

And during this discussion Kidman also told me that she was planning a gift for me. What she called a very special gift indeed. Hm, was my response to that too.

Next instalment: 45. The Astronaut Stopped

43. Kidman Ruins It

2010-02-09T22:16:00.003Z

(This is a second scene from the screenplay of the movie version of ‘Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped’, starring Nicole Kidman (as herself) and Julianne Moore (Kidman on a budget) as the remarkable Stephanie Fey. This scene is dedicated to Nevine Sultan of ‘Dreams, Deliriums, and Other Mind Talk’, who specifically asked for another blog post of this kind.)

TWO. INTERIOR – STEPH’S LIVING ROOM IN MORDAN HOUSE. DAY

The living room of Stephanie Fey in Mordan House is tidy but shabby. All different kinds of furniture and different kinds of ornaments can be seen; the wallpaper also contains different styles on different walls. The carpet is a bizarre dark floral affair and the ceiling is cracked and with flaking paint. There is one large window in the room that looks onto the gravel driveway at the front of the house. There is a closed door that leads to Stephanie's bedroom and, at the other side of the room, a square archway opening onto a short corridor. Stephanie is taking her time in getting dressed, considering her appearance more than usual. She is also wearing make up. Nicole Kidman is present in the room. Her face wears an expression of incredulity.

Kidman
No, no, no! Absolutely no way! There’s just no possible, conceivable way you can do that! What are you? Crazy?

Steph
(Momentarily stops buttoning her blouse)
Uh, yes, actually. You telling me you hadn’t noticed?

     Kidman
     (Looks down at her feet and lowers her voice)
Good point.
     (Regains her sense of irritation)
But, still, of all the crazy things to do!

Steph
I’ve done crazier things.

     Kidman
     (Looks towards the window)
Granted. You have.
     (Looks back at Steph)
But, sweet buggery, this? This!

Steph
Calm down. You’re scaring your puppies.
(Kidman looks down at her breasts, then looks up, confused)
Not to mention your eyebrows. Your nose, even!

     Kidman
     (Puts her hand up to her nose defensively)
Don’t criticise my ENP. My eyebrows, nose and puppies are most perfectly aligned, thank you very much.
     (Points her finger at Steph)
And don’t you try to change the subject!

     Steph
     (Stops putting on a pair of shoes to look at Kidman purposefully but calmly)
There’s no subject to be changed. The subject is set. It’s not for being changed.
     (Continues putting her shoes on)
Anyway, what other choice do I have?

     Kidman
     (Sits down on a chair and leans towards Steph)
Well, that’s a given! Indeed you are a woman who has very limited choices in life, Steph. Yes, looking at you and your circumstance, you do seem rather lacking in fruitful possibilities. Let's face it, shit does have a tendency to choose you. Bad dress sense chooses you also!
     (Steph looks up, perplexed)
Solitude chooses you certainly. God, even the ghosts of the dead choose you! Yes, admittedly, good choices would appear to be pretty thin on the ground for Stephanie Fey. But, that said, you can't possibly do that!

Steph
(Turning angry)
Don’t ruin this for me!

Steph tries to calm herself and finishes putting on her shoes.

Kidman
Look, I think it’s laudable that you want to go out and speak to people. Even if it is contrary to what you promised yourself when you entered this house. But surely this is too much! Too much even for you, Steph!

Steph takes her coat from where it lies on a sofa and starts to put it on.

     Steph
     (While not looking at Kidman)
Yes, it is laudable. Absolutely it is. And, surely, that’s all that matters.
     (Steph looks over at Kidman who is looking out of the window)
Are you listening?
     (Kidman doesn’t reply)
No, you’re not. All the more reason to go out and speak to someone else.
     (Raises her voice in Kidman’s direction)
Someone who will listen!
     (Kidman puts her fingers in her ears)
Jeez, Kidman! You’re imaginary! You don’t need ears to listen – you could listen with your ass if you wanted to!

Steph looks away, looking instead for a handbag. She finds it, and as she moves towards the archway and the short hallway on the other side she glances back at Kidman. Kidman is crouched over a chair, her face pushed down into a pillow on the seat and her bum raised high in the air towards Steph.

Steph
(Sighs)
What are you doing now?

Kidman
(Voice muffled by the pillow)
Listening.

Steph
(Sighs again)
Right, I’m going.

     Kidman
     (Springing up from the chair)
Fine! Go and speak to Janey Ormsley about the history of this house, and be generally insulted by her without learning anything at all!
     (Steph moves into the hallway and towards the door to her suite of rooms)
While you’re there, at least ask her why she has a dog's testicle on her face!

Steph
(Steph moves towards the front door of Mordan House)
It's called a goiter.

Kidman
(Following her)
And ask her when she's going to do something about that great sagging hernia that jangles when she moves. Oh, I loathe how it jangles!

Steph
(Now walking across the gravel towards her car)
It's a bum bag.

Kidman
(Stands still at the front door)
And don’t forget your ENP. You’re going to need it. Eyebrows. Nose. Pebbles!

Steph
(Doesn't look round, instead simply mutters acerbically)
Bitch.

END SCENE

Next instalment: 44. That Bitch Ormsley

42. Remember, Whispers of Cold Can’t Hurt You

2010-02-03T23:43:00.004Z

"At night I imagine the cold breeze swirling in this house’s cold gut, and the breeze growing plump as it feasts on the coldness of the house and its cold history. I imagine it pushing against the walls, forcing them to bulge as the house relents to this frozen force that growls and whimpers within it"

There are times, usually at night, when the cold of this winter encircles Mordan House, its teeth eating away at the stone façade, gnawing the wooden window frames and the slate roof, making holes for itself to push through. Once inside, it scurries through the passageways, charges into empty rooms, tumbles noiselessly down the stairs in search of the history of the house that was never actually a home. Looking also for a cold companion to cuddle up to.

Cold winds love history; history is cold like itself. History is as shallow as palimpsest, as fragile as a child’s cough. And this house's history is colder than most. What love has it ever known? What arms have welcomed it? What plans have been made with hope and joy? What kisses has it witnessed to warm it through and through? What hurt has it seen to make it knowledgeable, so it can learn how love stretches in and out of all feelings, no matter the colour? What new life has gladdened its walls and revitalised its shape? None, none, none.

The bitter cold is drawn to Mordan House, I think. Why would it not be? What is colder, more lifeless, greater in pointlessness, sadder, deader than here? At night I imagine the cold breeze swirling in this house’s cold gut, and the breeze growing plump as it feasts on the coldness of the house and its cold history. I imagine it pushing against the walls, forcing them to bulge as the house relents to this frozen force that growls and whimpers within it.

Of course the cold pushes against my door, that icy muzzle trying to force its way in. But these days I barricade my door with cushions to keep the cold at bay. So all that gets through are little whispers of cold. And I remind myself, whispers of cold can't hurt me. Nor can its whiskers. Nor can its whimperings and its growls.

My rooms. My rooms. In here, I work to kill my own history, and the only thing that destroys history is newness: the grand scheme that's begun with an arm raised ready to put it into action; or the innovation of love as its charmed and magical mechanism just begins to turn; or the energy of an expectant moment, like that instant just before lips connect in a kiss. Just so. Just so.

"Of course the cold pushes against my door, that icy muzzle trying to force its way in. But these days I barricade my door with cushions to keep the cold at bay. So all that's gets through are little whispers of cold. And I remind myself, whispers of cold can't hurt me. Nor can its whiskers. Nor can its whimperings and its growls"

I know the meaning of the cold and I know what it wants from me. As I sleep, I hear its whimpers of frustration and its whispers that ask to be let in. And I do everything I can to dream warm dreams of James, because I know that it’s that or death.

There is, I know, so much pointlessness in dreaming about a man I've only seen twice and spoken to once. And a man who knits, for Christ's sake. But women, I've found, have the ability to love the way God must love. To appear to be eternally non-present from the lover - even through the entirety of that person's lifetime - but still to cloak the lover with love through every moment of every day of every year. The only question is: does God feel the frustration, the inner conflict, the sickness of the absence that we have from Him, the way women do with men? The way I do now? Love, it seems, is like alcohol. Drinking it is easy; it's keeping it in your stomach that can often be difficult.

What's changing in me? Something is.

"Love, it seems, is like alcohol. Drinking it is easy; it's keeping it in your stomach that can often be difficult"

I feel the need to speak to a person. To look, to listen, to respond, to be heard. To feel the tension of conversation - the coming together, the pulling apart, the mystery, the revelation of it all. Just for the beauty of it too. It doesn't have to be James that I speak to. No, just someone. After all, there are so many questions to the mystery of Mordan House that are potentially just a conversation away, and they won't be solved in libraries and basements and through soul-searching, or online. I've felt so distant from people and so reluctant to present myself before them in anything more than a perfunctory and accidental way. It's all part of the promise I made to myself whan I moved into this ramshackle, windswept wreck of a place. But that promise has been unravelling from the moment I arrived at the door of this house, it seems.

Yet if I speak to someone, who should I speak to? A stranger? Or someone I know?

I tell myself that I don't need to have any fear. What does it matter what people say to me? To my face or whispered behind my back.

I must remember at all times that whispers of cold can't hurt me. No, they cannot hurt me.

41. The House that Was Never a Home

2010-02-02T16:36:00.003Z

[This is a scene from the screenplay of the movie version of ‘Nicole Kidman stars in: The Astronaut Dropped’, starring Nicole Kidman (as herself) and Julianne Moore (a poor man’s Kidman) as Stephanie Fey. Okay, the movie hasn't been made yet, but this is how this scene would most probably play out.]

INTERIOR – LIBRARY IN NEIGHBOURING TOWN – DAY

A small library in a small town. It's also almost empty, save for Nicole Kidman, a Hollywood actress with red hair of diminishing lustre, and Stephanie Fey, a quite stunning redhead. Steph sits at a table with a number of old books before her. She is reading and taking notes. Kidman sits across from her, her feet up on the table and rocking backwards and forwards on the back legs of the chair. The lighting is sombre. Shadows abound. During the scene, Kidman speaks loudly and her voice echoes through the library; by contrast, Steph whispers. But that's as you would expect. After all, Steph's so much more polite and charming than Kidman. Don't you agree, dear reader?

Kidman
Pebbles.

Steph
(Annoyed)
Do you mind? I’m trying to read!

Kidman
(Pretends to be offended)
Huh. It’s not me that’s distracting you, Stephanie. It’s your own thoughts.

Steph
I beg your pardon? I’m quite happily reading here, I’ll have you know.

Kidman
Pebbles!

     Steph
Oh, be quiet! You’re so rude.

     Kidman
You really should stop thinking about all that stuff. It won’t help you. It’s baggage. Drop it. Drop it and let security come along with a sniffer dog and detonate it in a controlled explosion. That’s what you do with the baggage of the past!

     Steph
It’s the past of Mordan House that I’m focused on! Not my own past. Not my own baggage.

     Kidman
     (Leans across the table and wags a finger at Steph, slowly and deliberately)
Then stop being distracted!

     Steph
     (Sighs)
I so hate it when you do that.

Kidman
I can always hover above you and do it. That any better?

Steph
No, not really.
(Reading from a book)
This is so interesting. Apparently Mordan House was never actually a home. According to this book, a wealthy industrialist in the 19th century built it for his wife. It was to be their family home. It says that she died in childbirth and he never came to live in it. It stayed in the family possession, yet stayed empty.

     Kidman
     (Kidman isn't listening. She looks around at the library, distracted)
Men. Bunch of stinky bums. Big old bunch of botty burps. That's what they are.
     (She looks at Steph)
Pebbles.

     Steph
     (Looks up sternly)
I'm not talking about it. Stop saying that, will you?

     Kidman
     (Shrugs and changes the subject)
What book is that anyway? Mordan House - The Early Years?

     Steph
There's no such book, of course. It's a book about the local history of this area.

     Kidman
I'm thinking about Jonathan Mido. Aren't you? Your first love in High School. He was smaller than you. You stopped dating him when you realised you'd never seen his nostrils. Aren't you thinking about him?

     Steph
Well, you have to see a guy's nostrils, at least once in a while. But it wasn't really the nostrils that was the problem.
     (Looks off into space)
Imagine being a house that was made to be a home, but that purpose is never, ever realised.

     Kidman
No, it wasn't the nostrils. It was the fact that he was always looking down. Never looking you in the eye.

     Steph
I don't think anyone who took refuge from people who were violent towards them could ever have regarded Mordan House as their home. Just imagine. Never knowing the sound of love cries in the night. Never knowing a baby's screams and the sleepy padding of bare-footed parents across a hallway.

     Kidman
You knew that he never looked you in the eye because he didn't love you.

     Steph
I'm the first person to ever call it home. And it isn't even really my home! I'm really just a caretaker.

     Kidman
A janitor.

     Steph
     (Steph snaps back to reality and raises her voice in replying)
No! I'm not a janitor!
     (She looks around, embarrassed to have raised her voice)

     Kidman
What about Thomas Quip before him. I know he's on your mind too. Stubby-nosed, black finger-nailed Tommy Quip. He was the first boy to feel your breasts.

     Steph
     (Looks away on purpose and stares into space)
To never know a dinner party. To never know the first tipsy embrace of two lovers whose feet touched under the table. To never know a child running onto the gravel at the sound of a father's car coming up the driveway. To never know happy silence, full to the brim with saying nothing.
     (Looks at Kidman)
Yes. I knew he didn't love me. That was the real reason I had never seen his nostrils.

     Kidman
Tommy felt your breast and was shocked that it was so firm. I mean, really shocked! He thought it would be softer. He told all the other boys in school that your breasts were hard as rocks.

     Steph
Alright, Kidman, alright. Just leave it, will you.

     Kidman
And what did they call you after that? Pebbles!

     Steph
     (Folds her arms self-consciously)
That's right. You happy now?

     Steph
And ever since then you've tried to find some way to ask every man you're with if your breasts feel normal. Or do they feel like -

Kidman stops talking as she notices that Steph is not listening. Instead Steph is looking down a library aisle at a shadowy figure walking towards her.

Kidman
Pebbles? Pebbles! You don't seem to be able to hear me, although you're only a STONE'S throw away, Pebbles!

Steph's face grows fearful, but then the figure is revealled and it is a woman in her 40s with a shopping bag and wearing a large coat. She walks by the table that Steph's sitting at.

     Woman
Not yet, ma dear.

     Steph
     (Automatically)
No, not yet.

Steph looks down at the book she's been reading. The open page has a black and white picture of Mordan House on it. Steph gently strokes the image of the house.

Steph
There, there, little house. There, there.

Suddenly Steph grabs the top of her head, obviously thinking that she has felt something touch her there. She looks behind her but there is nothing and no-one to be seen. Looking across the table at the seat where Kidman had been sitting, she notices also that the seat is empty.

END SCENE

40. An Illustrated History of Dead Astronauts

2010-01-30T23:18:00.008Z

"Is it possible that the mysterious astronaut outside of the spacecraft Prelude is the same astronaut who haunts Mordan House? Some astronaut who died in space and whose ghost has somehow descended to the ground? Is this the link with fact that I'm looking for?"

Eighteen astronauts, either American or from the old Soviet Union, have died in-flight during space missions. Other astronauts have died while training for space flights or on the launchpad in their space-suits, and many personnel have died on the ground as a result of accidents – but only eighteen were airborne in spacecrafts at the time that they died.

But how many of them died in space?

This question is extremely relevant to me, it seems. If I'm being haunted by a dead astronaut, and if Philip's story about the spacecraft Prelude is somehow true, then there appears to be a link between what's happening to me in Mordan House and what's happened before in space. I'm looking for some link that exists in fact, yet I'm not sure what fact I'm looking for. Moreover, I'm not entirely sure what a fact is in this story! In Philip's version of the story of the spacecraft Prelude, the astronauts heard a scratching sound on the outside of their spacecraft, a sound made by the mysterious astronaut seen outside floating in space, the astronaut who shouldn't have been there; I heard the sound of scratching in the basement of this house. Fact? Possibly. But it's hard to trust anything that my imagination throws up these days, yet I find it hard to doubt that this is an important connection. Is it possible that the mysterious astronaut outside of the spacecraft Prelude is the same astronaut who haunts Mordan House? Some astronaut who died in space and whose ghost has somehow descended to the ground? Is this the link with fact that I'm looking for?

Yet what of the words spoken outside my door regarding the helmets that were made at the request of some woman who once lived here in Mordan House? The helmets that eat people. And how is it possible that a helmet can eat a person? At the same time, one aspect of this line of questioning cannot be avoided: how can I be sure that there was actually a voice outside of my door, telling me these things? I'm searching for facts, it seems, in a world fundamentally corrupted by my own delusions, and ultimately subverting any notion of fact.

Online, I've been looking at the faces of dead astronauts. I've been looking at their proud, expectant smiles. Smiles with no hint of fear, only of bravery and adventure and possibility. The chances of death were probably exceptionally high for them all, yet it was nowhere to be seen in their faces. I myself can still remember the sense of loss at the deaths of the astronauts on board both Challenger and Columbia.

The seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger died in the midst of their expectancy, with the spacecraft having only just taken off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

"The seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger died in the midst of their expectancy"

By contrast, the seven astronauts of the shuttle Columbia died in the midst of their pride. They had been in space for sixteen days, carrying out a number of scientific experiments. On re-entering the Earth's orbit, one of the wings overheated and became detached due to a displaced tile and the spacecraft lost control.

Yes, you might well haunt land and sky if this was your fate – your frustration, your need to return to loved ones, the horror of your demise, all creating a conflict of emotions that might well leave your impression in the air. An impression intent on dropping down to the land.

"By contrast, the seven astronauts of the shuttle Columbia died in the midst of their pride"

Perhaps these feelings could be said to be true of all who have died as a result of space missions. Perhaps they were true of Vladimir Komarov who died aboard the Soyuz 1. Again, his was a fatality on returning to Earth, but this time crashing to the ground due to a number of mechanical problems. It's possible that the mixture of emotions experienced by this particular astronaut (or cosmonaut, if you wish to use the term of the Soviet Union which was responsible for putting him in space) were different. Rumours circulated after Vladimir's death that his last radio message damned those who had designed and engineered such a shoddy craft. What could he have cried out? "One day it will be your turn!" Who knows.

"Rumours circulated after Vladimir's death that his last radio message damned those who had designed and engineered such a shoddy craft"

But none of these astronauts died in space. So, exactly how many astronauts have actually died in space? Only three, it would appear. Those on board Soyuz 11 in 1971.

The sense of expectancy must have been with those on the ground who ventured to recover the capsule containing the returning Soviet heroes of Soyuz 11 after their successful space mission. The astronauts were the first to dock with a space station, Salyut 1, they had set a new space endurance record, and were returning as the new heroes of the Cold War, as the Soviets warred with the US to dominate the race to the stars. The ground crew had little idea that anything had gone wrong with the return flight, although radio contact had been lost before re-entry, and they opened the capsule only to find all three dead inside.

It had all gone wrong for Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev as soon as they started the procedures to return to Earth. Cabin pressure was accidentally released and the three astronauts asphyxiated within 40 seconds.

"It had all gone wrong for Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev as soon as they started the procedures to return to Earth. Cabin pressure was accidentally released and the three astronauts asphyxiated within 40 seconds"

After I learned this online the other day, this fact stayed with me. All three asphyxiated. And whenever I thought about it, I would hear that gurgling sound in my head again. The sound I'd heard from Kidman. Yet surely this gurgling sound is imaginary! It's just something dreamed up by me! It has no foundation in Philip's story. No foundation in fact.

I looked again and again at their three faces and found it impossible to think that any one of them could be haunting me. For a start, their capsule landed in Kazakhstan – not Scotland! The idea of any connection is preposterous!

But what other options do I have? None.

Or so I thought.

It was then, yesterday, that I learned about the lost cosmonauts.

There have been, I’ve discovered, countless rumours over the years of other Soviet space travellers who underwent secret missions into space, and some have been rumoured to have died – their deaths hushed-up as America and the Soviet Union competed for the kudos of gaining particular milestones in space exploration.

Could that be the clue I’m looking for to discover my astronaut’s identity? Am I looking for information on the nineteenth astronaut? Is it the nineteenth who is haunting me? And could one of those spacecrafts have been called Prelude? Most importantly for me, which death has a connection with this old house in Scotland?

When I first had this idea and felt it searing through me, I also heard and felt an insistent and slow scratching down the back of my head. Quickly I realised that it was my own hand on the back of my head and realised also that I had been reading and daydreaming for hours.

Yet I wonder also for how much longer might that scratching be my own fingers? Can I solve this mystery and do something to resolve it before the astronaut's scratching resounds as a prelude to plucking me from this planet? Can I solve it before the woman responsible for creating the helmets that eat people returns to Mordan House?

The questions are enormous, conflicting, and they seem insurmountable. And I seem so small and pointless in the face of it all. Just another dim, weak star, easily looked over and ignored in a night-sky tremendous with extraordinary features, mysteries and mysterious apparitions.