The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII

Sponge And China Tea by D. F. LEWIS

John crept into my life when I was at my lowest ebb, with my fireguard missing and other defenses dropped. I had just spent the last two years or so caring for my sick mother, a rather messy affair ending in inevitable tears, men in tall hats and black suits and a convoy of dark limousines winding through the town. Don't get me wrong, I loved my mother dearly and still do of course. And, really, at that time, it was because of that love, I was pleased to watch her gradually depart this life for what she had in fact told me would be a better place, especially as a result of her arrival there. The body wherein she lived toward the end had been little better than a wrinkled sack of rattling bones, which sometimes spoke up for itself with a voice I no longer recognized.

I became a bag of nerves myself. I even slept on tenterhooks. My own spine felt like a giant rotting tooth, as I rocked her from side to side in desperate attempts to prevent bedsores forming. The anxiety became worse and worse, as unconfirmed reports of her state of death became more and more common from the various doctors I had got in to see her. In the end, I slept in the same bed so that I would be there if life returned, albeit momentarily. Finally, I determined that life would never show its face again in that swamp of flesh that the mattress had become.

That's when I called in the black suits and the limousines. My diagnosis was final.

I sat in the back of the hearse with the coffin (which I had asked specially should be made of steel), amid a flurry of meadow flowers and holly wreaths. I myself felt I was a demure bloom, done up in a black headscarf as I was. I wished I had chosen to wear the wild lace veil of which my mother had been so fond (and still is, no doubt), but I had burnt that with the rest of her clothes upon a huge bonfire in the backyard, in a fit of catharsis.

As the hearse horse-paced through those remnant streets of our old town that it had not yet toured, I was becoming tired of acknowledging all the gentlemen who stood in attention along the yellow lines, each wearing hats specifically for raising in respect as mother and I passed.

It was then I saw John smiling straight into my eyes. Large as life, he was. I recalled him from schooldays, when we had shared a double-desk: you know the sort, with the sloping lids. Odd moments of communication had rarely interrupted the studied mutual stand-offishness — but I know I had always liked the way he smiled, with even teeth more sparkling than a TV advert. And, again, it was the power of his smile that struck me that day, when I had no protection, least of all the knowing of my own mind.

He visited me soon afterward, leaving it a few days as a mark of patience. He came without appointment, interrupting my afternoon nap with a loud cannonade upon my knocker. I had been sleeping a lot since the day of the hearses, catching up on two years almost completely without it.

He said he had come to pay his respects to my mother. She had been his Godmother, as she had been with most new arrivals in the town of the male variety. Blinded by the smile, I invited him in to partake of sponge and china tea.

He took off his well-worn hat, bent his head under the top of the doorframe and lingered in the dark hallway for my direction-finding.

It was particularly gloomy at the foot of the stairs: not only was the air dour outside but the bulb in the hall had recently gone.

"What you doing now, John?"

We stood awkwardly — he not knowing which room to enter, me too bewildered to indicate. And, to my surprise, I had opened the conversation — small talk had never previously been my forte.

"I'm in rubber dipped goods."

"That sounds interesting."

"I sell them. You know — things like diaphragms, slimming trunks, valves, medical sheaths and probes, urinary rubbers, colostomy tubing, diagnostic fingerstalls, sphygmomanometer bulbs, ostomy bags, veterinary gloves, soil test membranes, gaiters, diving hoods, neck and cuff seals, pneumatic face masks, shot blast capes, helmet covers, incontinence stockings, specialized prophylactics…"

The list was mesmerizing, so much so I did not appreciate the imbecility of detailing such items as part of small talk. He had to lightly support my elbow to prevent me swaying in the darkness.

"If you tell me where the kitchen is, I'll make the tea. Sorry, I forget your name…"

"Dell. We sat together at school…"

"Yes, yes, Dell. I believe we did."

From that day on, he visited me often: he said he liked my class of afternoons. Quiet, contemplative, china tinkling. He spoke of my mother as if she were alive, which, of course, to me, she is. I would stay in the parlor, whilst he went up to her bedroom and paced about, much like she used to do in the old days. He thought it gave me great comfort. He even offered to dress up like my mother. But I said that would never do. In any event, I had burnt all the clothes. He could buy duplicates, he said. No, that would never do, I maintained.

Sometimes, he showed me his wares. He had a large soft suitcase in the boot of his old Bentley, which, on toting it inside, he would open with a creaking lid. Its elasticated lining and inner compartments contained neat rows of diverse rubber products, some as small as my fingernail, others big enough to skin a whole body. He handled them delicately, even lovingly, as he would expensive crockery: he stretched them slowly over his hands to show them off to the best advantage. I did not like, however, the way the tongue flopped from his mouth, as he concentrated on his mock sales demonstration.

Looking back at it, I find it hard to believe. My defenses were low, true. My heart was not in anything. But was that reason enough to allow him to use me the way he eventually did? I was little better than a tailor's dummy to him, I guess. He said he wanted to test out his goods on reliable property.

So, between the stirrings of the tea and of the smoldering coals in the parlor grate, I felt his eyes undressing me, sizing me up, though I did not then exactly think of it in that way. I felt honored, basking in his smile (which actually lit up the room with its glint) and, for the first time for many years, I felt a stirring in my loins as well.

I knew deep within me that it would only be a matter of time before he required more than just eyes to undress me. Massaging my toes before using them to stretch his rubber thimbles into shape would surely not be enough for him at the end of the day.

Finally, I told him not to come any more. My resources were back, I said, and I could see through him. He looked sad, rather than angry, as he left down the garden path, tail between his legs, toting his black suitcase. I nearly called him back. But I could still feel his probing fingers from the afternoon before… the last straw was when he lost one of his thingies. So, I just let him leave, with no further word nor future promise of meeting. His disappearing back looked so pitiful: his smile would no doubt be clamped behind his clenched teeth. But a double-desk, after all, does not warrant loyalty that far…

As it happened, I did not need to worry about loneliness. Mother's come back in body to share my bed, as I once shared hers in a moment of trial. Her print dress is identical to the one I burnt. And the wild lace veil is very fetching. Underneath, she's skinned anew, so fine and supple.