‘THE FALLS’ AND ‘PEANUT BUTTER FOR THE WORKING CLASS’ — short stories

The Falls

I move quietly around the rooms of our home so as not to wake him. It is seven fifteen and forecast to rain. In the half light of morning I slip into the other room.

My clothes are folded over a kitchen chair. I’ve started getting them ready the night before; a new routine and one really quite unlike me. It’s the habit of someone far more organised than I am. Suffice to say, in most areas of my life I don’t know what I’m doing. But this new nightly practise implies a reassuring orderliness on my part. Where my days used to begin with procrastination and uncertainty, there is now decisiveness. And it reduces the time I need in the mornings; I was pleased to learn I could push back my time of waking by a full fifteen minutes.

But these preparations aren’t really about saving time, or getting my life in order. When I dress in the bedroom, the coat hangers invariably chime together, or I send something clattering to the floor by mistake. Months ago, when everything changed, I realised that it is preferable for both of us that I just get out of the room and let him sleep.

As I button my shirt I inspect the kitchen counter. A glass with irregular tidelines of filmy white residue. An unwashed cereal bowl. The abandoned black shell of a ready meal. I occasionally wake in the night to the faint crackling sound of plastic packaging, or cutlery scraping against ceramic. 

I used to pull myself out of bed and urge him to come back and lie down. But I don’t anymore. It disrupted my sleep so much that the following day I struggled, barely able to respond to the agitated voices coming through my headset. 

A ridge of leftover hardened cheese lines the plastic container. I toss it into the rubbish. It’s a little unnerving to dress here, beside the bin, in a place where food is prepared. On the upside I am right by the toaster, so I hardly need move to get started on breakfast.

After eating I wash up my plate, open the curtains. The sea is just visible from our apartment, a sliver of greyish blue glinting between two houses. It’s a small place, three rooms including the bathroom. And as with most newly-built flats, the kitchen and living room are one and the same. They market this setup as modern, open plan living. It’s one room less than you used to get, in other words.

A puddle of beer on the laminate flooring, where a bottle has liberated itself from the recycling. I step over it on my way out the room. 

I pass through the hallway and pull a string and the bathroom appears in a fluorescent blaze. The full-length mirror is in the bedroom, so I make do with the awkward circular one which cuts me off at the waist. To see an outfit in its entirety I must stand on the closed lid of the toilet and crane over. Not that my appearance is particularly important; I work in a call centre where the customers won’t see me anyway.

I push products into my skin and purge my eyes of sleep. I brush my teeth and put on makeup. It occurs to me that I’ve left my earphones in the bedroom. I ought to retrieve them, or else the train journey will feel unbearably long.

I quieten my breathing before pushing down the door handle. The trick is to be swift, and exit before words pass between us.

There is the dimly lit space and his sleeping form, appearing like the outline of a low mountain range, viewed through mist. He is featureless, his back to me.

I slide a hand under my pillow. In the gloom, he shifts slightly. I press the earphones into my palm then edge out of the room and close the door.

These days he comes to bed so late that it’s in fact early, the sun already lighting the sky. It’s funny to think we used to wake up at the same time and prepare breakfast together. It wasn’t all that long ago. He was still working as a lifeguard then, and things were fine. Looking back, he was someone else entirely. 

-

In the hallway I pull on my coat. The front door poses a potential problem as it’s stiff and often creaks. There is a knack to getting out quietly. This morning I manage, and once outside, breathing the new day’s air, I am flooded with relief. I no longer need to be quiet, creeping around like I’m haunting the place. Not until tomorrow morning.

-

But surely if anything is haunting our flat, it must be him. Drifting around at all hours of the night. Wordlessly moving objects from one place to another. For all the life in him nowadays, he might as well be transparent. 

-

On weekends he gets out of bed around two pm. Weekdays, maybe earlier. I get the feeling that when I am home he flattens himself to the sheets and stays put as long as he can. We avoid one another, although we’d never outwardly say so. 

I avoid him, at least. I know that much.

A string of bad things happened in his life last year. We’d recently moved here, our first flat together, and I felt so optimistic. Before that I’d lived in some terrible apartments, dated people I wasn’t compatible with. At last, I’d thought. Things are working out.

Then one day he received some minor bad news; I can’t even recall what it was. A parking fine? Something small like that. But I remember it marking a definite starting point. For the following month or so, a day hardly seemed to pass without some setback befalling him. His car was rear-ended. He left his grandfather’s watch in a locker room. Some things he brought on himself, like the watch; by the time he realised and went back, it had already been stolen. But many of his misfortunes were far beyond his control. 

A family friend, someone he’d grown up with, jumped under a train. The same week, his adoptive mother needed an emergency operation. His luck worsened as time went on, with the pitfalls becoming more serious. Each one dragged him a little further away from me. 

It’s hard to believe so many catastrophes could arise in such a short amount of time. It culminated one afternoon when someone drowned in the ocean while he was on duty. An investigation was launched and he and a colleague were dismissed. There were no witnesses, but it was suspected that neither had been properly positioned at their posts. 

Since then, he’s barely recognisable from the person I knew. 

It’s almost impressive, the speed at which everything fell apart. Like someone had pulled one loose thread in his life, and the whole thing came unravelled. 

Is he predisposed to these feelings? Would he have ended up this way regardless? I hadn’t noticed anything to suggest so. But I suppose you don’t ever really know what is going on inside a person.

I try to avoid bringing him up in conversation. It’s hard to know what to say to people. He’s not himself, is one. He’s under the weather, is another. It’s really as simple, and complex, as this: there’s some kind of unreachable sadness in him now. 

I’ve tried to talk with him about it. At first I would feel the urge to approach his sadness and witness it close up. But I realised that no matter how close I was, there would be nothing I could do. I would merely be a visitor, like a tourist at Niagara Falls.

Even if I climbed into a boat and went right up to it, my actions wouldn’t affect the falling water. I’d simply be witnessing its force and power from a different viewpoint. 

The way he is now has this same overpowering quality to it. Something that can’t be controlled. And by drifting too close you only risk being dragged under. 

I often wonder if his mindset might pass on to me. Some mornings our winter bed covers, too heavy now, seem to weigh down on me. It’s easier for both of us that I climb out of bed and get on with my life. And so I do.

-

I go for drinks with colleagues more often, or friends I haven’t seen for a while. If no one’s free I sometimes sit in the bar on my own. He doesn’t drink at all, even after everything, which still astounds me. 

I can find it frustrating to be in the apartment for too long. I feel my sympathy thinning out, like diluting a watercolour until there’s barely colour left. Between phone calls at work I imagine an alternative universe, in which I’m living with a flatmate, or I meet somebody else. Someone present; a presence that isn’t merely physical.

His physical form is another concern. His skin has grown waxy and acne-ridden. And he has amassed in recent months. He no longer seems to care what he puts in his body. 

Where he used to buy protein powder in bulk, or pay attention to nutritional information, he instead orders wholesale quantities of things that are bad for him, with no thought given to the ingredients.

His internet browsing is another form of mindless consumption, which inevitably revolves around food. He image searches his favourite fchildhood sweets, cakes his mother used to make. Last week I watched over his shoulder as he read page after page of mundane supermarket product reviews; nothing we even buy. An hour later he was still scrolling through, with no apparent purpose or thought behind the action. When I asked what he was doing he looked around, startled, and closed the tab. As if he’d forgotten I live here.

He rarely walks further than the closest supermarket. From what I see, he stares at a screen or else the ceiling all day. I try not to get angry with him. Often I fail.

We had an argument the night before he lost his job. I picked a fight with him over nothing when I got home from a work party. I felt a little ignored around that time, though I knew he was preoccupied, and that his suffering eclipsed mine.

I could’ve made amends straight away, but I let the argument hang there overnight. I thought it might serve as a reminder, that I couldn’t just be taken for granted.

When I awoke he’d already left for work. I was intensely hungover and had slept through my alarm, so I phoned in sick and lay around the house ignoring his texts. That was the day the woman drowned. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to have his phone on him at work. But he’s never mentioned anything to me about whether our argument, or those texts, had anything to do with what transpired. 

We made up again that evening. He went to take a bath and a couple of hours later I checked on him. A half-empty box of baked goods was perched on the sink. I still remember the cloudy bathwater and his nonstop crying. I stood and wiped the mist from the awkward circular mirror. I didn’t like seeing him that way. In all honesty, I found it repellent.

-

By the time I arrive at the office a steady rain is falling. My floor is near-empty, since the majority of my colleagues are working from home. An email comes around from management to notify us that the office is closing for the foreseeable future. All staff must work remotely. Adequate hardware will be provided. At three pm we pack up our laptops and scripts and headsets and leave the office.

I sit on the promenade for a while on a slightly damp bench, then stop at the off licence. He used to apologise for his sadness. Now he no longer does. Though it’s no less there.

As I approach the apartment I hear a sound coming from inside. A relentless, churning white noise, a sort of amplified tape hiss. There’s an unstoppable quality to it, as if it might go on forever. I hold my key up to the front door, and listen as water - thousands of gallons of it per second - cascades into the two-room apartment from somewhere high above.

Peanut Butter for the Working Class

I have been buying this product for some time now. However the last one I bought looked like you ran out of the jam and nobody could be bothered to replenish the supply. Vile stuff. It tastes hard and dry like the corn used in animal feed. I fed the remainder of the tin to the local fox. And even he turned it down. 

This is a very poor product. It’s intended as an imitation of an excellent own-label equivalent, but it isn’t a patch on that. It’s weak and wishy-washy, I’d barely call it a ‘yogurt’. Really disappointed. It’s not bad for a tinned curry but by not bad I mean bland and inoffensive. Shrink-flation. 

far to sweet. I’ve bought two of these in error. Idiocy 1 star. 

mushy peas instead of carrots ????????? will these mushy peas taste like carrots don’t know what idiot thinks these up . I suggest they go back to sleep and dream again. 

Plasticine that saw chocolate through the window. Used to be good. Ordered chicken thighs and what I got bearded no resemblance. I have this for my working lunch most days and it was always a solid packed curry. Fast forward to 2020 and surprise surprise, a few pence more, and consistency of a runny soup. Very tasty! Not that I got a look in as my son drank both cartons in 2 days. 

It reminds me altogether of sadness, and there is no richness or velvety feel when you drink it. Great value, on my permanent shopping list from now on. This is effectively ready made squash. Disappointed, quality has gone down and price up. they look alright just dont taste it.

This is the best apple juice. The fact that its the price it is is an added bonus and just goes to show that expensive doesn’t mean better. Believe me I have spent money and time finding my perfect apple juice. 

DON’T BOTHER. I regret to say this - but this sweetcorn must be the WORST tinned sweetcorn I have ever had. It is tasteless - it is hard - it is simply INEDIBLE. Its stuffed full of palm oil and sugar. This penny butter has a very thin consistency and lacks flavour. It may be cheap but its marginally peanut butter. Should have a warning...may contain nuts. 

Tasted disgusting and looked even worse. Someone at the taste lab should be made redundant. These peas are as tough as old boots. Not at all sweet and tender as peas should be. Not a pleasure to eat at all. Shan’t be buying these again. Nasty, sickly colour, running with oil & tasteless.

NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. Absolutely horrible tasteless bullets, only bought as the well known brand was not available and it will not be happening again. This product has been watered down to such an extent it’s more like coloured water.

Small, round and green: these are the three most important qualities that I look for when purchasing peas. I pressure cook these in stews every week and I have no idea what people are complaining about. They look wet and unappetising. I have been buying these oats and the previous ‘Value’ branded ones for a good few years, and have noticed that the quality can vary quite considerably between batches. But never have I found them to be bad enough to justify complaining about. 

Pale colour, tasteless, pointless. I used to love my peanut butter n ketchup on toast like a comfort meal. If I could give it no stars I would. Awful product, hard tasteless small pineapple chunks and no flavour in syrup. Life-changing. Peanut butter for the working class. Taste great. 

Rubbish sweet-con! They were delivered on 18th June, with a best before date of 19th June. A quick stir if you don’t like an oily top. 

love porridge for breakfast and this make is as good as the more expensive makes. I have tried a certain german discounters oats which cost the same price and they are much much better. 

It was awful didn’t have a rind, had no actual bacon structure.

This is super filling, very tasty, economical, and it’s a breakfast which promotes a more relaxed feeling in me- for some reason I just feel steady and ready to cope with the day after eating this. The red ones are much nicer but they mostly send me the green. But nobody’s perfect.

Appears to have been sliced with a wooden spoon. Thick, misshapen, sandwich-proof lumps of soapy-smelling meat. I HAVE TO SAY THIS PRODUCT CERTAINLY LACKS, TOP SLICE WAS NICE, HIDING ALL THE DISGUST BELOW LURKED THICK FAT SLICES 3 OF THEM YES THE PACK HAD 4 SLICES OF BACON ONLY IN FACT THERE WAS MORE FAT THAN BACON... HAD TO THROW AWAY. Had two packets of these ‘ripen at home’. Unfortunately they don’t ! 

not particularly sweet and quite firm but biggest disappoinment was their size. Great to have either on their own, in a fruit salad or with some yoghurt. I wouldn’t bother with any big brands now, as they all seem so overpriced in comparison. Rotten! Half of them were rotten! Not eatable, waste of money

Bought these instead of my usual thighs. Full of bones and it had a funny smell, I throw them in the bin. These are excellent for my chicken loving dog, would never eat them myself. As others have stated appeared to made of various parts of a Chicago, some of which should have been discarded. No meat, full of shards and hairy.

We always get these and the are always fresh and lovely. Could knock someone out with them. These are lovely flavours I’m pregnant and can’t get enough will keep buying. 

Kids, this isn’t how tomatoes should ‘taste’; the toms of old had flavour, unlike these forced impostors! Rock hard and never seem to ripen. Vile totally fat joint. Had these two weeks and they’re still so hard you could use them to play cricket.

We have a rule in this house that we never waste meat. But 10 minutes into dinner - all of us with jaw-ache - we admitted defeat and binned it. Worst piece of beef I've brought. If I wasn't shielding I’d return it. 

Lovely joint, sliced with electric knife. Not tough at all. Totally ruined New Years Day dinner. I don’t see what everyone else is moaning about. I cooked this joint for around 2 hours at 150 degrees and it’s lovely! This meat was like eating a piece of rope. 

I have to say that when these arrived I laughed out loud. Luckily I need new soles on my shoes. 

I did not like the look of these carrots and found it uncomfortable to cook them. Not what you’d expect in June at the height of the British season. Had no problems and all were whole, including a comedy one, which kept my kids amused. Dirty strawberries. tiny berries. If it hadn’t been for the lockdown, I’d have taken them back… not British, not good. So my son wanted a carvery meal for his birthday. This joint ruined the meal. We only buy these for our parrots.

Bought these apples to feed to my hens , keeps them occupied pecking and chasing. Might stop them hunting and eating mice ! I have never seen foamy avacados until now. Beyond bland. Tastes like sick. Included a live slug. THESE ARE HIT AND MISS, BUT MOST OFTEN MISS. Have blackbirds nesting in garden , noticed both birds pecking away at chickens leftovers. No. Just no. Legitimately the worst ones I have ever purchased. The blackbirds love these, as do the local birds that rhyme with bits.