WHEN ALL IS LOST
By
Suzanne Readsmith
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Copyright © 2012 Suzanne Readsmith
Thank you for downloading this story. It follows a number of stories that I have uploaded for readers to enjoy which include:
‘Letting Him Stay’
‘Caught on the Hop’
‘The Girl with No Name’
‘Wistful Thinking’
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
I lift my head to scrutinise my surroundings and notice how battered my leather settee is. Strictly speaking it isn’t mine. By next week it will be hers and then it will become theirs. She is taking it away to be strategically placed in her new home; their new home and other bums will sit on it. The only bum that will not is mine. In Viv’s eyes I am a bum and therefore banished from her life. Some new dude whom Viv has stated is a real man has replaced me. This man writes jingles for an advertising and marketing company, which I consider befitting practice for someone who is under the witless illusion that somehow I will crawl away and die. I do feel as though I am dying though. My back hurts from sleeping awkwardly through the night on the rug curled into a foetal position hugging the fire with no cover over me. If Viv had been here she would have placed a blanket over me, perhaps.
I can see from this position that the artificial coals on the gas fire are covered with soot and the little brass owl on the hearth is staring back at me blankly as though to chastise me for my pathetic behaviour. I hate this metal-hearted wise guy but today he is my only friend. My forte at school was to hold the stare of the teacher and to charm my way out of most situations. From an early age I emulated my Irish bred mother whom when she was alive had been sharp in manner and often banshee-like when she had wanted to be. Cross that with a Scottish Brave Heart father often misguided and definitely disillusioned by life and what did you get? Me. A worthless, lost, unfulfilled piece of....!
“Shut the **** up!”
My therapist has told me to think in a more positive way to think of myself as being a beautiful person. Either way I feel neither beautiful nor desired. I feel rejected, abandoned and bereft and I am pining so acutely for Viv it is more appealing to fantasise about different ways to make myself a dead person. This would also satisfy my need to find a new address before becoming evicted, which could be ‘Number 1 Cemetery Way’. It would suit me just fine, and in fact it is just situated around the corner! If my mother were alive she would call upon all the Saints in Heaven to forgive me for these thoughts. If I believed in life after death, which I sometimes do and ought to having been brought up a Catholic, my mother would be despairing of me now.
I hoist my weary body up from the floor and settle onto the settee. This will do. From this position I can carry on purveying all that is mine which amounts to nothing really. Lamps, stupid wallpaper, a fireplace, CDs in broken cases, the rudiments of life I have felt compelled to surround myself with. I actually debate the point of wearing clothes. What’s the point? I feel so exposed and vulnerable I might as well be naked. On top of that I am hung over. I drank myself stupid last night. It’s an unhealthy pattern that has been going on for weeks now and I need to stop.
I can still see Viv in my mind’s eye positioning her tiny packages of perfumes and potions into designer luggage in a measured way. Treasuring her possessions because Viv likes to treat herself to nice things. She sees self bought '‘pressies’' as recompense for having to put up with my ways, my inconsiderate manner and my witticisms. I have suggested to her that she might like to wear garlic to ward off my festering evil spirit, which she has no trouble telling me I have. I am the devil himself apparently. I prefer seeing myself as a Vampire, at least then I could ravish her in a porn theme kind of way. It is the trend these days is it not? Viv’s intention is to take herself away from me and to leap into the comforting open arms of … what had she said his name was? ‘Guido!’ ‘Guido Giffard’. “What kind of God forsaken name is that?” He quickly became ‘Dweebo Piss-hard’ to me. Viv hadn’t liked that at all and in return she called me ‘Ranting Ralph.’ Pathetic!
At school they nicknamed me ‘Razor’, (Viv isn’t aware of this fact), which I liked, it gave me a bit of an edge! Those who didn’t know me well sometimes thought I was ‘hard’, which I wasn’t of course. The name came about because of the supposed sharpness of my wit. I was the ‘class fool’, which didn’t worry me too much at the time because by nature I have levels of intelligence. There was room for me to mess around at school and pass every exam I ever sat with ease. This is not grandiosity on my part, it is fact. I may fail at relationships but as an academic I do okay. This changed at college after mum died then both failed!
When Viv first told me that she had met someone else I was sad, in fact I was sad enough to look up the meaning of his surname, which is ‘Chubby cheeked, bloated.’ Seriously! It suits me knowing this fact. I asked Viv if she had found this guy on ‘findadickhead.com’. She told me that she hated me and flounced out of the apartment but not before telling me that Guido had a dick, which he used and that made a nice change for her. Touché!
Murdoch, my own surname is both Scottish and Gaelic meaning ‘Sea’, with no proof of origin. Nice! I do feel all at sea at the moment and awash with problems, certainly. I am sinking and I do feel overwhelmed. My life is stormy and by nature I am deep. Viv keeps telling me that. Also that I am manipulative, spoiled, arrogant and conniving. I could go on into murkier deeper depths here but what is the use? My mother died when I was aged 15. She often joked with my father that she wasn’t sure where I had come from - the inference being that either I was a ‘generational throw back’, or that my parentage was in question. They hadn’t seemed to care either way.
I stalked Viv’s new beau for a while. Viv found out and called me pathetic. He offered to meet up with me to talk man-to-man and all that! I declined the invitation of course having learned that my contender was a sharp dresser, an Audi owner (top of the range), and decent earner. He has an apartment in Chelsea and a cottage in Dorset. The list is endless. Oh, and he received his education at Cambridge. Good! All this is very nice for Viv. I have no chance of winning back her affections. According to her he has an excellent sense of humour. He makes her laugh! Quite the Oscar Wilde! A Noel Coward even, because believe it or not, in his spare time, when he isn’t splaying himself all over Viv, he writes plays. Now that hurts! Enough that he has taken my woman! Front line boundary crossing when he treads on my career path!
“He’s sensitive, and gentle, and he listens.” Said Viv. “He cares about my feelings.” “He buys me things and looks after me.”
These are the things that Viv wants supposedly. I am only as good as the last bottle of perfume I bought her, which I might add, was priced at £62. The fact that it had been reduced to £40 she didn’t need to know.
“He washes himself.” He’s groomed.” “He reads.” “He gets on well with my friends.”
“Does he know how much you whine yet?” I asked her.
The fact that Viv had been preparing to create a new life that didn’t include me hadn’t seemed to concern her.
“You hav
e been unfaithful!” I pronounced.
“Just the once.” She had replied. “Unlike you!”
This is a fallacy. I have never been unfaithful - to Viv at least. Rather I have fallen asleep at many a friend’s house and this translates to the fact that I have slept with each house owner concerned, or perhaps any of their living relatives or friends. That she attributes me with such prowess pleases me deep down. However it isn’t true. I don’t like Viv’s trait of jealousy. I did once ‘feel a girl up’ apparently in front of Viv at a party and she captured this scene on her phone, which she then played back to me in evidence having firstly plastered it all over the Web! I had been kissing the girl yes, and my elbow had moved in a way that looked suspiciously dubious, but it was ominous as to what I was actually doing with my left hand and as I couldn’t sufficiently remember I remain guilty as charged. I liked the clip it made me look quite the Adonis, however sadly Viv deleted it. Viv had kissed Ben on