Too Ripe, or Rotting
We always have trouble with fruit flies in August. There must be food stuck in the drain or hidden under the fridge, festering in the dark. Thought Dean.
He littered the brown laminate counter-tops with plastic cups: red, yellow and blue.
Then half-filled them with merlot, wrapped them in cellophane, secured them with elastic bands and delicately poked holes in the top with a biro. He smiled at Lucy, who rolled her eyes – all of her weekend wine now gone.
The flies hovered, dancing in the harsh white light from the kitchen’s circular overheads. He couldn’t stop watching them. They dived and weaved between one another like children on a playground.
‘They’ll never go in if you stand there all night.’ Lucy said, leaning over the back of the sofa, arms folded. But he couldn’t help himself. It was compulsive. As always Dean spent the night sat next to Lucy in front of the TV, but he kept glancing into the kitchen, preoccupied with the traps and the drama that was unfolding. Eventually she went to bed, he followed soon after.
The next morning they were all in there. Trapped beneath the surface. Circling the edge of the cup, crawling closer to the thick red pool below. Until, exhausted, they succumbed and fell in.
Lucy wandered in from the bedroom, bleary-eyed and wearing his dressing gown.
‘Why haven’t you left yet? You’ll be late again.’ She said.
Her hand brushed the small of his back.
‘Huh? Oh right – yeah, I was just leaving.’
There were still some alive when he arrived home that evening. Dean closed the front door softly. The dusk crept in through the gap between the hallway and the lounge. It was getting dark earlier recently; he’d spent all his time at work and the summer was almost over. The sky was vibrant orange hung with pink clouds. Soon it’d fade to black. Lucy stood facing out of the open window, wearing shorts and one of his shirts, the top three buttons open. Dean had once found it cute, when she wore his clothes or used his phrases, now it felt like theft. He switched on the kitchen lights. Lucy grumbled at the intrusion but he couldn’t hear her properly. She hadn’t been thinking of much, just enjoying the silence. He’d never been comfortable with long silences. The flies were darting back and forth across the room. Lucy couldn’t see them until the lights were on. The dial on the oven clicked into place, silence replaced the low drone of the fan. Dean stood at the table, waiting for her – she didn’t look at him when she pulled her chair out.
Lucy was grateful that he’d continued making meals. Recently she didn’t have the energy. She thought about the first time he’d cooked for her. He’d come through to Sheffield on the train. She hadn’t long left home but Dean had been the only friend to bother coming through. They’d sat in her bedroom in the shared house in Rotherham. He was nice about her new place even though he seemed off put by the damp and upturned bins in the front garden. He’d made Bolognese, used a full packet of mince and barely any pasta. She’d found his oblivious smile adorable when he’d presented the red mound of ground beef and crunchy shells to her proudly. No meal had been prepared with the same amount of care since.
For a long time the only sound was the scrapping of cutlery on their plates, and the incessant buzzing of the flies hovering in the corner of the kitchen, edging closer. The two of them sat next to each other, facing forward, not talking.
‘How was your day?’ Dean said.
She shrugged and made a non-committal noise.
‘I didn’t really do much, just a few emails.’
‘Sounds fun.’ He nodded. ‘Maybe getting out for a little bit would be good?’
‘With who?’ She said. ‘You’re always busy; there’s no one else to do anything with really. I spend all my time here by myself.’
He shrugged and carried on eating, reading the labels on the spice rack opposite. He saw her look at him out of the corner of his eye. Amidst a mouthful of food she asked.
‘How was yours?’
‘Well Sam’s still off and Wayne said the KPI’s were an absolute shocker. It’s like well yeah we’ve got no staff and footfall’s twenty-five per-cent from last…’
‘Oh my god!’ She put her cutlery down and swatted at the side of her head where the fly had landed. It was long gone.
‘From last year.’ He flinched; she had a habit of cutting him off mid-sentence.
‘Huh?’
‘Footfall – it’s down from last year.’
She nodded absent-mindedly.
‘Yeah that’s not good.’ Lucy didn’t say anything else, just stared off into the kitchen, trying to focus on the food, on being here, having dinner, and not on the ever-present threat looming over everything.
Dean could feel anxious static in his shoulders, he tried to subdue himself but the rush wouldn’t dissipate. He wanted to make her as tense as he was. He knew he was being cruel in his silence, but he couldn’t help it. They ate slowly, on autopilot, trying to make it to the end.
Dean had almost finished when it happened again.
‘Why’d they always go for me?’ She said.
‘You need to calm down. It attracts them.’
She glared at him like he was a stranger in the pub who’d just invaded her conversation.
‘What?’
She stood up, put her plate in the sink and walked off into the other room. No matter how hard he tried every conversation they had seemed to end the same way. He was sat alone, looking at the dirty pans and crumbs littering the countertops. He thought she could be delicate as a newborn baby sometimes and that he had a tendency to drop her.
Blue light hugged the curves of Lucy’s face. She lay on her side, her wispy hairs floating in the glow of her phone like a prisoner bathing in moonlight. She guarded it close to her chest, hands cupped together in prayer. The bed shook with the small vibrations that told Dean she was talking to someone else. He was on top of the blankets. She radiated heat and in the hot summer months it was stifling to touch her. He felt a familiar pang in his stomach. The click of her keyboard reverberated around the bedroom, the sound piercing him. He sunk into the mattress and scrolled down his own phone.
‘Female fruit flies can lay up to five-hundred eggs y’know.’
‘Jesus’ She muttered. She seemed so preoccupied, so far away from him. He wondered if she felt it too. Dean scrunched up his face involuntarily and stifled a groan, his body anchored to the bed. He grasped for her attention.
‘Sexually rejected male flies are more attracted to alcoholic drinks, their reward circuit functions similarly to humans, apparently.’
She turned and raised an eyebrow.
‘Relatable.’ He said, and smiled.
They laughed and looking at each other for just a second, Lucy found it difficult to look at him properly these days. She turned back over. Her phone buzzed again.
‘We’ll be fine, I’ll put out some more traps tomorrow.’ He said.
A cool evening breeze rolled in. The outside world crawling through the cracks, like spiders in the walls of an old house that’s crumbling to dust. Dean fell asleep wishing she could love him like in the beginning, before he wore her down.
It catches him in the back of the throat, lemon and ammonia. For the last half hour Dean had been lay in bed listening to clanging pots and the roar of the hoover, trying to claw back the sleep he felt entitled to. The slamming of the cupboard doors finally convinced him to get up. The counters were slick and smooth.
Every single dish they own is stacked neatly on the draining board.
Every sign of life shelved or locked away in a cupboard.
Every surface scrubbed, every crack soaked in bleach.
She always cleaned before he’d registered that it was dirty. He was constantly playing catch up, trying not to piss her off. If he ever wondered what was bothering her, all he had to do was turn around and look at his mess strewn on the side, or the plates he’d left in the sink.
‘Don’t walk on that, I just mopped.’ He heard her say from behind him.
‘I would’ve done it.’
She flashed a laboured smile as she walked around him, threw some of the wrappers he’d left on the coffee table into the bin, and wandered into the hall.
Dean thought he’d better do something; so he bent down to pick up the overflowing bin liners that she’d tied up and leant against the wall.
‘It’s fine, I can take them.’ She said.
‘I’ll do it, I’m on my way out anyway.’
‘Well… Thank you.’
They both reached down and fumbled over the bags, some of the recycling fell to the floor.
‘Why’d you have to make everything so fucking difficult?’ She shouted, crouched on the floor scooping up cans and throwing them into the bag. The sentence drifted down slowly and settled everywhere like mists of disinfectant.
He thought about answering but she wasn’t looking at him.
It was cooler outside than in the flat. He put his hand out to catch the door, but the bags got in the way. It slammed shut. He thought about going back in but decided against it and walked towards the stairs.
Dean opened the bathroom door and saw his shadowy silhouette in the misted mirror. Candles underneath flickered and cast a soft glow over the dark wooden fixtures. A thin streak of light from the hallway intruded on the grey tiled floor. Lucy was in the bath, eyes closed, the tips of her hair floating on the surface of the water. She shivered; the draft from the hall gave her goosebumps. Lucy had been cocooned in there before she’d heard him slam the front door and tiptoe through the hall.
‘Smells great in here.’ He said. She didn’t acknowledge this.
He thought for a second how peaceful she looked. She reminded him of a painting they’d seen in the Tate. He pictured her lying next to the slanted willow, amongst the reeds, arms outstretched. When she leaves, he thought, I wonder if she’ll jump or if I’ll push her.
‘I’m going to make a start on food, I’ll try not to mess the kitchen up too much.’
She opened her eyes for a second; she was trying to make sense of the strange figure in the doorway. Then she closed them again and slid under the waterline.
Dean sighed and threw his canvas bag; it landed on the counter. He furrowed his brow and looked around the empty kitchen. The flat was immaculate. It looked like a show home, if not for the red plastic cup next by the kettle. He peeled back the cellophane; the smell was sweet and acidic. Little black dots lay on the red horizon. The wine swished back and forth like a pond in the wind, the flies stuck in stagnant water. They could be sleeping. Dean smoothed his forehead with his palm. He pictured two flies twirling in the air, moving around each other. He took a deep breath and poured them down the drain.
Scrawled 