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Jenn AshworthFLEA CHICI bought new sheets, white, because I thought it would help, and I was lying on them and listening to a man with a West Indian accent tell a woman with a Radio 4 accent that he had two children who were both twenty-seven, but they weren’t twins. "Forgive me," she says, "if this is an impertinent question, but why do you think that some people have children with less thought than they would give to getting a pet? I don’t even need a king-sized bed , but I got it ages ago. It was buy one, get one free "Listen," he says easily, faintly amused, I think, although I am noticing the bed sheets aren’t, as I had hoped, sotlessly white, but shadowed with smears of mascara and a row of star shaped brown drops. Coffee. It looks like bullet holes. "Listen sweetheart," he says, "I did not have my children with less thought than some people give to getting a pet." "But surely," she says, and I wonder if this is a drama, a phone in, a documentary or what, "you must have heard of contraception?" I can hear him puffing out air. I imagine him. Shiny forehead, plough lines over his eyes, a bit of a beard. "I don’t believe in those things sweetheart," he says, "and these things happen." She doesn’t say anything. I twitch at my hair, and sink into the pillows. "These things happen," he says again. "Well nothing like that has ever happened to me," she says. I imagine her. Blouse, pencil skirt, nice shoes. Neat earrings, something like that. Crossing her legs. -o0o- I plan on writing, but spend forty-five minutes on the tinterweb looking at pictures of real writers’ desks. Lots of books. Post its. Fireplaces dotted with post-cards. ergonomic chairs and souvenirs from research trips. Hanif Kureshi has got flock wall paper like a real live specimen of the working classes, just because it makes him feel like he’s in an Indian restaurant. It’s kitsch when he does it. That’s it. I need a desk. Not Ikea, (my friend pronounces it to rhyme with ‘stickier’ which lets me know these come-in-pieces clean-looking desks are undesirable, or worse, not to be desired). Something that comes in one piece. No, a table. An old table. Something from the flea market. I’ll distress it. I’ll stick my postcards and photographs to the top of it. It will inspire me. It will, at the very least, look inspiring and not distress me. I’ll wipe the fudge of dust from the tea-set and drink tea with slices of lemon and sit at the table. How to get it up the stairs?  I’ll move house. Somewhere small, so I can keep it clean. There will be two bedrooms, one each. It will have a yard, and a twirly thing to put the washing on. I’ll paint everything in white, so that the quirky possessions and characterful art prints that I will acquire can stand out. Flea market style. Junk shop chic. (These are the titles of books). I don’t want much really. I’ll need a better job though. Best download those application forms. I could work (it would be work, if I was sitting bolt upright, sipping tea at a desk. I know it would) at a table, a real table, in a real house. Not get felt tip on the bed sheets. There is a blue smear on the pillow. Biro. I say this in my head: note to self, dab with bleach (or toilet cleaner, if there’s no bleach: it’s the same thing) before inserting into washing machine. Bed sheets. Fifty pounds on new bed sheets. King-size are more expensive, and I don’t even need a king-sized bed, but I got it ages ago, when I did, and I’m stuck with it now. It was buy one, get one free. I’m not in debt. I don’t share a bank account. I don’t claim benefits. I say that, like this: I DON’T CLAIM BENEFITS. But I still lied about how much they cost. And it wasn’t even buy one get one free. It was buy one, and might as well buy an extra one because if one might help, two might help twice as much. Fifty pounds. No wonder I can’t afford to move house, and there is a black patch in the shape of a continent on the living room ceiling. One day, I might go mad and point it out to someone. That, I will say, pointing like an estate agent, is mildew, one of the five types of your common or garden household mould. In our case, it’s very special, and caused by a little leak in the toilet, which, as you will correctly assume, it situated just above. Water, pissy water, to be exact, and I will twirl my wrists, gesture, and feel like I am wearing a tie. If I go really mad, I might elaborate, and start speaking in upper case. ALL MY OWN PISS, I will say, DRIPPING INTO THE JOISTS! OVER OUR HEADS! IKEA! TAX CREDITS! FLEA CHIC! -o0o- I should have turned the radio off. The man is sounding a bit panicky now. "Well," he says, "all I can say is that you must have been very fortunate, because there are lots of people who it does happen to. Very fortunate." That bitch is still sitting there with her legs crossed, doesn’t know there’s a run in her tights, and a splash of dirty water drying grey on the back of her calf. She’s puckering, sucking her teeth, clamping her white nylon coated thighs together. "But didn’t you ever think about the children? About what kind of life you could give to them? Tell me, what job were you doing at the time?" He’s sounding like a victim now, saying: "When that girl who I was seeing said she wanted to have a baby I thought this woman loves me, she loves me, and it is only natural she should be having feelings like this." I lean over into the smoke and coffee smelling sheets and turn the radio off. I can hear myself breathing, the crackle of a crisp packet under the duvet, the metronomic drip of the toilet. Writer Jenn Ashworth is a frequent contributor to UnMadeUp. Since her last story for this site, Frogstools, she has completed her first novel. Photographer MockneyRebel's sheets are much cleaner than Jenn's. Apparently. 9:17 AM - 27/5/2007 - post comment
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