MR SHANKS AND MRS CLARK
(A LOVE STORY)
IT WASN’T LOVE at first sight – his angle of vision, bolted as he was to the wall beside the sink, afforded him only an oblique view of her more private setting – but Mr Shanks wasn’t sure this mattered much in the grand scheme of things. Certainly, when Mrs Clark replaced the previous post-holder (a crabby, sharp-toothed monstrosity who dispensed paper with all the finesse of a new lycanthrope tearing lustily into its prey) there came into the small staff facility a delicacy absent from the rest of the run-down shopping centre. She was beautiful, her moulded lines ergonomically designed to facilitate discrete and efficient dispensation, and stocked with the finest soft papers, each carefully interlarded so as to slip into the hand like a whisper of autumn leaves. He himself was fashioned along classical lines, and robust enough that not even the crudest and most incontinent of horse-pissers could stain his clean white porcelain.
When the installation was complete, and the last of the mid-morning clutch of guests had departed, he thought it appropriate to introduce himself.
‘Armitage Shanks, ma’am, at your service.’
There was a pause, then a small papery laugh.
‘Oh my. I’m Mrs Clark – Kimberly,’ she said. ‘Very nice to meet you.’
They had much to talk about, though of necessity fell silent when a guest needed to attend to his business, and by six each day the facility was quiet for a few hours until the night crew came by with their buckets and mops. Mrs Clark revealed she didn’t see a great deal of her husband, who strove discreetly to dispense men’s other necessities nearby, and worked mostly at the weekends. Mr Shanks was secretly thrilled by the information. He had no significant other, though had once been in love – a long time ago, in his native Yorkshire – but it had ended badly.
‘A broken heart?’ she asked.
‘No, a cracked basin. But I’ve never been the same since. At least until you appeared, my dear.’
Mrs Clark rustled her papers softly in appreciation.
As the days passed, there seemed to be a subtle but noticeable lessening of custom. Now a guest happened by only once or twice in the morning. Often the only people they saw were the cleaners with their bottles of pink solvent. Once Mr Shanks chuckled at the ticklish ministrations of a squeegee-mop, and the cleaner looked up in puzzlement at the fat pipes running the length of the ceiling. They were dusty, and had acquired the flaky patina of something found at the rear of a bus-station. But in general it was a quiet life, and one that suited both their natures.
‘Do you know, Mr Shanks,’ said Mrs Clark one morning, as the automated flush swept over his chest and hissed through the orange honeycomb of his P-Wave, ‘I do believe there hasn’t been a single gentleman in here all week.’
‘Call me Armitage, my dear.’
‘Armitage, then. But do you think I’m right?’
‘I believe you are, Kimberly. Let’s listen – perhaps we’ll hear someone coming along.’
They sat in companionable silence for half an hour, but the silence lay undisturbed.
‘My paper-stock hasn’t been refilled for some time. Listen; I’m barely quarter-full.’
Her voice did appear to have taken on a slightly hollow aspect. Between the hinge and the stone effect particle-board panels of the toilet door he strove to catch a glimpse of her, but all he could see was a brief sparkle of afternoon sun.
The next day both their hearts leapt up – a handle, rattling! But it was only a tug from the outside pulling the door more firmly closed, then the deep thwock of a bolt sliding home. For a moment came the promising crinkle of laminated paper, like the one the rugby club used to pin above Armitage’s head, before even that crinkling dwindled away to nothing.
‘Oh, Armitage,’ said Kimberly.
‘Keep a stiff upper lip, my dear,’ he replied.
Morning turned to afternoon, and afternoon to evening. From beyond the high, semi-opaque chickenwire glass of their shared window they heard a mysterious series of shouts, the heavy rumble of chains and metal wheels crunching over concrete. Mr Shanks strained for a view beyond the three small squares, longing to deliver good tidings from windows dulled with greasy soot, puffed in dust with each percussive boom.
‘Any news, Armitage?’
She couldn’t see above the lip of the built-in toilet tank, even with her shapely eyes raised to their full extent.
‘Nothing – ! No, nothing.’
Then, at last, there was no more need of intelligence. On the final day they were awoken by a blast of gargantuan proportions. The noise slammed into the window, blowing out the chickenwire, and a crack the size of a gentleman’s forearm raced up the plaster, biting into the windowsill and snapping it in two.
‘Armitage!’ said Kimberly.
‘Kimberly!’ said Armitage. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know, my love, but Armitage – ?’
‘Yes dear?’
Another boom. Ceiling plaster sprayed about them like giant confetti. The main pipe burst and a gush of water, thickened with clots of dirty concrete, sluiced down the wall.
‘I just wanted to say – oh, Armitage! I wish there had been – ’
‘What!’
‘I wish – ’
But the word hung forever on the cusp of utterance, and was lost.
A wrecking ball smashed in and drove both cubicles upwards. On the backward swing it took out the sink, and on the next trajectory clouted Armitage clean off his moorings, shearing his bowl in two and sending him up, semi-detached, into the air. At the height of his arc he met Kimberly’s pearl-grey mount, its rise shortened by lessening momentum, and they crashed together face to face, the lips of her housing kissing his temple, till their weight and a wall of choking dust consumed them, and they fell to earth as one.
A year later the new mall was selling cookie-pops and pink lemonade, and a tramp had taken up residence under the air vent in the basement.
First published in Taj Mahal Review; subsequently collected in To Say Nothing of the Dog: Flash Fiction (Cyberwit, 2023)
Next: The Rat Jacket Attraction