The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - episode 49

Once locked in I gripped the wash-hand basin and slumped back on the toilet seat. I hadn’t done a pee sitting down since I was about three or whatever but I thought Why not? if I do it standing up half of it will probably end up on the floor so I may as well do it where I am. It stung a bit at the start but when I was part way through I was thinking Christ, this is as good as sex nearly, this is like a bloody orgasm so it is, and when I got near the end I fixed my eyes on a particular spot on the wall hoping the focus would help me to get the best I could out of it.

And that was the moment I saw him doing the same old tricks. I don’t exactly know what class of an insect he is but he’s been there for years. If it wasn’t the same boy then it had to be one of his offspring though if that was the case it was very strange indeed because there’s never been more than a day between his death and the appearance of his fully grown replica.

But there he was anyway, swinging his way down the wall, for all the world as if he was abseiling only without the props, enjoying I would say stunning aerial views of the wash-hand basin and bath and scuffed lino and me on the toilet seat, swinging with gay abandon and what do you call it, consummate skill. The thing is, he’s always there, day in day out, no winter break, he’s not one of these ones that disappear into a hairline in the wall to hibernate, no, this boy’s at it all seasons, abseiling away there on that part to my right above the bath, always the same place too.

I watch him a lot of times I’m doing my number two when I’ve forgotten to bring in the newspaper. It used to be nearly like a bit of entertainment watching him till he started this other trick he has of jumping about like a bed bug and then disappearing so you haven’t a clue where he’s got to, if he’s maybe in your hair or somewhere worse.

Those times I felt like waiting for him to reappear so I could kill him with the toilet brush but he never did and anyway his patch is just that bit out of reach when you’re sitting down and you wouldn’t know what would happen if you came off the toilet seat in the middle of it all to clock him one. It’s as if he knows you’re at a disadvantage and he’s teasing you. And then when you’ve got your business finished and the toilet flushed and your trousers back on he’s gone of course. He just goes. It’s as if he only comes out when certain smells are there.