Black Milk

By Philip Hemplow

Bill's wife has a terminal illness, but is taking an inconveniently long time to die. He just needs to speed things along a bit, so he can safely pursue an affair with her nurse. But the dying woman is becoming obsessed with a mysterious guru and her pagan religion, and has ambitions of her own -- ambitions to which death is not necessarily an impediment...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Hemplow
• Release date: Oct 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005976989

Book preview

Black Milk

Philip Hemplow

edited by Toni Rakestraw

cover art by Jordan Saia

with thanks to David, Tim, and Wilfred

Copyright © 2020 Philip Hemplow

All rights reserved.

BLACK MILK

Eva rolled off me with a sigh that was, at best, ambiguous, taking most of the duvet with her. I was left staring at the bare, yellow plaster of the ceiling, counting down to the inevitable snick of her lighter.

Patches of damp flecked with mould formed strange constellations above her bed: concentric water stains shaped like horseheads and lopsided butterflies, mildew spots clustered like stars in a dank and jaundiced sky. A vast, dusty cobweb sagged from the cheap hessian shade around the room’s single bulb. I felt the worn springs of her mattress pressing into my back, and wondered again how she managed to sleep on such a thing, in such a room.

Snick.

The scent of tobacco smoke wafting from her side of the bed provoked an immediate pang of longing. I’d quit cigarettes as an act of solidarity when Jocelyn was diagnosed more than a year before, secretly promising myself I would take them up again once she finally succumbed. Eva said she admired me for doing it, and envied me my freedom from addiction; I envied her the freedom to smoke, but kept quiet about it. Clenching my teeth, I waited for the pang to pass, determined to remain virtuous—as virtuous as one could be whilst committing adultery.

You still did not answer my question.

I groaned inwardly and let my head fall to the left so I could see her. It seemed our earlier conversation had not been abandoned after all.

I played for time.

What question?

Eva pushed her chin forward and blew a small smoke ring. We both watched it reel towards the ceiling until a stray draught tore it to shreds. Before taking another drag, Eva looked across to make sure I was paying attention.

You know what question!

My groan, this time, was audible. I’ve told you: since she started seeing this stupid spiritualist, she’s stopped talking about it.

You said ‘before winter.’ It is winter already! Look how dark it is! Soon it will be Christmas!

I know what I said, but what can I do? If I keep bringing it up, she’ll get suspicious. Trust me, I know her. She’s not stupid.

It was true. Jocelyn was far smarter than I was. Most of the time, she was the cleverest person in any room she entered. Sometimes though—just sometimes—she could be too clever for her own good. We had been together more than ten years, and she had a blind spot where I was concerned. She would never believe me capable, morally or intellectually, of deceiving her. It was in this convenient lacuna that Eva and I conducted our affair.

So, where am I left, Bill? Eva waved her cigarette in the air, spilling ash on the faded seersucker duvet cover. They will send me home! Soon, they stop sending letters and they come to get me. Or perhaps this is your plan, yes? Fuck the nurse, then send her away—is this how it is?

She sat up, stubbed the cigarette out, half-smoked, and began getting dressed. I shuffled across to her side of the bed and attempted to placate her.

Come on, Eva, you know that’s not it. You don’t need to worry. They can’t send you away. You work here!

That doesn’t matter to these people, Bill! Job, no job…they don’t care about job—only fucking visa!

She scowled and pulled a cream-coloured sweater over her head, muttering in Spanish. That was always a bad sign. When she reverted to her native tongue, I knew I was in trouble. Helping her free her long, black hair from the jumper’s collar, I stroked it in what I hoped was a reassuring way.

Look, the situation hasn’t really changed, okay? She just isn’t talking about it as much. She’s still going to die sooner or later. It might just take a little longer. We have to be patient.

Eva batted my hand away and held up her own in a warning gesture, without turning to face me.

You are patient. I am patient. The Home Office, okay, they are not patient! You said, ‘before winter,’ Bill: before the fucking winter!

We were interrupted by a squawk from Eva’s walkie-talkie, and froze like burglars caught under a spotlight. She picked it up, shooting me a warning look as she pushed the ‘transmit’ button, her voice suddenly serene.

Hello, Jocelyn. Are you all right?

My wife’s voice crackled from the handset, rendered flat and clipped by the small, mono speaker. Yes, thank you, Eva. Have you seen my husband anywhere? He’s not picking up.

I rolled stealthily out of bed and, moving with exaggerated care, started picking up my clothes. Eva watched me, shaking her head while she replied to Jocelyn.

I think I heard him going to the shower when he got back from his run, Jocelyn. Probably that is where he is. Would you like me to knock on the door?

I waited, holding my breath, for the verdict on yet another of our tiny, daily deceptions.

No, that’s okay. When he gets out, can you ask him to pop downstairs?

Yes, Jocelyn, I will do that. No problem, okay?

Thank you, Eva.

Eva tossed the handset onto the bed with a shrug. I realised I was still holding my breath and let it out.

Wow. Well covered.

You can’t keep forgetting the walk-a-talkie, Bill.

"Walkie-talkie, I corrected her snippily. I can’t carry it everywhere. Anyway, she doesn’t. Every time I try to call her, she’s not there."

The walkie-talkies were an innovation introduced to alleviate some of the problems attendant on life in the Aerie. There was no mobile phone reception there and, now that Jocelyn’s cancer prevented her from climbing the stairs, it was the most reliable way for her to get hold of Eva or myself when we were on one of the tower’s upper storeys.

You need to get in the shower, chided Eva, pushing me towards the door. "She will smell me on you. Go! Quick, Casanova, get clean for your wife!"

She closed the door on me, leaving me naked on the landing with my clothes in my hand, every bit the stereotypical love rat. Already rehearsing my excuses for Jocelyn, I headed for the bathroom to take a sketchy, targeted shower.

The Aerie’s water supply was tiresomely idiosyncratic. Twice a day, during the hours when electricity was on its cheapest tariff, a massive pump in the courtyard rumbled to life and forced water from an artesian well beneath the tower to two large storage tanks under the sundeck we had improvised on the roof. From there, gravity fed the plumbing on each floor as needed. As a result, the water pressure on the top floor was never better than feeble, yet it was impossible to turn on a tap in the kitchen without getting drenched—just one of the many quirks of life in the place.

When we’d moved in, Jocelyn and I had declared ambitious plans to transform the tower’s interior. Very few of them had come to fruition before her diagnosis cast its black shadow over everything else. We did at least manage to convert the ground floor bathroom into a tiled wet room, which became invaluable once the cancer confined her to a wheelchair. The other bathrooms and most of the rest of the tower remained unchanged.

Many rooms, like Eva’s bedroom on the topmost floor, were barely decorated at all. Others reflected the eclectic tastes of the Aerie’s many previous tenants, dating back to its restoration and refurbishment in the early 1980s. There was a shower on Eva’s floor, but it was never used, being cold, cramped, and full of spiders. I headed, instead, for the master bedroom one floor below, and its commodious en suite.

The huge semi-circular bedroom took up nearly half of that floor, and had been one of the deciding factors when we debated whether to buy the Aerie in the first place. With its uneven, rug-strewn teak floor, its shuttered windows, and a magnificent view south across a dozen miles of bleak Borders landscape, it was the room that still felt most authentic: one which wouldn’t work anywhere other than just such a place. All it was missing was a four-poster bed, but as we had discovered, the practicalities of transporting furniture up the tower’s spiral staircase rather limited our ambitions in that regard.

The adjoining bathroom was my favourite room in the place, decorated in a mock-Victorian style I found oddly reassuring, all square corners and fluted porcelain. Brass-finish taps, a water-stained, claw-footed bathtub, and a green and white tiled floor lent it an institutional, art nouveau ambience. The only anachronism was the smell: lingering traces of my anti-perspirant and cologne rather than tar soap and carbolic.

I gargled some mouthwash and sluiced the residue of sex from my body while rehearsing answers to any inconvenient questions Jocelyn might ask. Where had I been? What had I been doing? Had I seen Eva? What was she doing? I practiced my lies until they felt like the truth.

I wasn’t a habitual cheat but I was getting good at it. It didn’t make me feel great about myself, but it was becoming easier to ignore the self-reproach. Men who betray their dying wives elicit sympathy from no one. Whatever other circumstances might apply, the unspoken question in people’s minds will always be ‘why couldn’t you just wait until she was dead?’—as if the only issue is one of self-control.

Jocelyn and I met at university. I was an undergraduate, she was a lecturer in Gender Studies and something of a rising star, having just published the book that made her name. The Teraglypt was her one and only novel, a sly piece of allegorical science fiction published at just the right moment for a sudden gale of third-wave feminism to propel it to the top of the bestseller lists. A few members of credible young bands namedropped it in interviews, looking to sound clever, and Jocelyn found herself thrust into the limelight. The media began to call on her as a spokeswoman for the Riot Grrrl movement and ‘ladette’ culture, demanding she explain everything from the Spice Girls to The Vagina Monologues. She underwent media coaching, and for a while was scarcely off the television and radio, even making it as far as Have I Got News For You. It was almost too easy.

She was near the start of that trajectory when I signed up for the elective module she taught. I was a slightly mature student, temporally speaking at least, my intended gap year in South East Asia having elongated to span several. Someone pointed Jocelyn out to me as ‘that postgrad who’s always on the telly,’ and I subsequently bought and read The Teraglypt. What I read made me feel callow and under-educated, so, startled by my own ignorance, I decided to take her class.

Somewhat to my surprise, I managed to excel, certainly by the standard set by my contemporaries. Most of