Day 15

Miffy

"What do you mean, cut off?
"I did warn you Mif.
"But I should have been paid. The money would have been in my account! The direct transfer should have gone through as normal, fuckdammit.
Fetz sighed. "How much?
"Ten grand. Should have covered me for at least a month's worth.
"And what did I tell you about their prices?
I stopped pacing, the stiff frills on my dress bobbing to a halt. It had been a long fucking day in every sense of the word and I was in no mood to play twenty questions with my bum of an agent.
"Spit it out. How much? They gone up ten percent? Twenty?

Fetz handed me a final demand paper. It was perfumed with Feral Moan ' a mixture of lilac, moss and donkey dung by the scent of it. Clipped to it was a joyous foldover notice in pink.

"Times are changing and so are we! It proclaimed, above a shy admittance: "Necessary alterations to your price plan. Opening up the missive displayed a table of figures. I nearly hurled up breakfast.

"One hundred thousand? One fucking hund ' that's illegal. That's got to be illegal. Bloodsucking bastards! That's a nine hundred percent increase! How am I supposed to afford that?

Fetz was unusually quiet for once, and had absorbed himself in the task of linking brightly coloured paperclips together. I stood in front of him and slammed my little fists onto the desk, scattering the tiny bendings of metal onto the floor.

"How am I supposed to afford one hundred grand a pissing month, Fetzeroo? Come on, this affects you too, you know!

He grinned weakly. "Dunno, Mitzeroo. Dunno. I guess you don't.
"Not an option. I began pacing again. "Think, you! Can I take them to court?
"On what grounds?
"On the grounds that I've been a valued customer for thirty fucking years, which apparently counts for nothing with these mercenary frigging vultures, and I shouldn't be treated like a piece of ' aww, shit Fetz. What am I going to do?

He took the paper off me and examined it. "Well on the bright side, at least it looks like you got a bit of time in lieu, darling.

"What do you mean?

"They're giving you what they're calling a goodwill adjustment period in the event of you not being able to pay.

I stared blankly at him. "Is that good?

"It means ' well I suppose it means a recovery period. So's you can get your mind used to things being different before they actually change.
"Fetz, what does this entail? In English, please.
"All right, so worst case scenario, you can't pay up and Grays cancel your account with them. If that happens, you will get a brief grace spell before the effects of your subscription cancellation, er, kick in.
"Kick in.
"Think of it like this. Have you ever heard the story of the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dyke?
"Sounds like a job I took last week.
"Miffy, my dear, I'm a very busy man. If you're going to be flippant -
"Sorry, just get on with it.
"Well this little boy saw a leak in the wall that stopped the water flooding his home town or something, and he knew that if the water kept trickling through it, the hole would expand and the dam would burst. With me? So he stuck his finger in the hole. He was there all day and night until anybody found him, and you can bet he was cold, but he'd saved everybody's lives. Right hero, he was.
"And after that?
"Well presumably they filled in the hole where the leak had sprung from, and went about their business. My point is this: these Grays fellows, they have had their finger ' pardon the expression ' in your dyke all this time, and you have become somewhat reliant upon them as a result, taking it for granted that they will be there to plug the leak, which is something they have realised, and this is how they can get away with this kind of extortion. Si?

I nodded, sullen.

"So basically what they're saying is that they're going to give you time to draw breath before they pull their finger out properly. After that -

"I drown.

Fetz made his what-can-you-do face, and in that instant, I knew that I had a month before he would close his door to me for good, cross me off the books for some other hot young thing. A hot young thing, that's all I am, I thought. Like he said, Fetz was a very busy man, and I held no illusions that he could unbusy himself for such a poor investment as me.

I got my coat, a fur-trimmed aubergine dream, and left in a daze. Things had been explained to me in excruciating idiot-friendly detail, and yet I sill had no idea what was going to happen to me. How did it happen? Slowly, gradually, at normal aging pace ' breasts within five years, cellulite within fifteen? Or did it rush upon you like a vengeful ghoul, stretching at your skin, your bones, pulling you outwards, downwards, snapping the elastic on your pert bum, your single chin?

Fuck, and then there were the fags. It suddenly occurred to me that somewhere out there, a hunched over figure was coughing its leathery cheeks off because of me, hands pre-wrinkled, pallor mustardy, and that their plight would suddenly, in some act of umbrella karma, transfer itself to me and stick fast. We don't like to think about these things. It is much nicer to picture the smooth white cylinder with its immaculate tan collar than the scrappy stub in the ashtray afterwards.

I crossed over Pellar Junction onto Fendellam Way, ignorant of the colour of the glowing man attempting to guide me from his black box. Honks, beeps, as my version of 'go' clashed with that of the four wheeled urban Mafia they call commuters. Not a good way to off yourself quietly. For starters, drivers in the city are so damn caffeine-tweaky aware of everything around them, but then consider this: if a van did actually hit me and I lay gasping my last by the kerb, there would still be impotent pips and BRARRRRs because the driver in question hadn't gone on amber. The city is too busy to perform a simple favour like this.

My legs felt like two hams, schlopping in and out of my hip joints and held together in halves by giving rubber straps. It was placebo of course, but I could have sworn the skin on my cheeks felt tighter than before, then looser, then hardly there at all.

More than the physical ageing, I realised I would have to remember why it was I had reached this state in the first place. Who put me up at the age of eight for such a weird and gruesome experiment? When did I stop thinking it was just that and start thinking it was normal? Did I ever think it was anything else?

I felt like a character in a story I'd read. Not Fetz's folk tale, but one from a cheap collection I'd found in a charity shop at the age of eleven. In it, the young protagonist, a boy fond of telling lies, makes a deal with the devil that the devil may claim his soul at the end of a week in which every lie that leaves his mouth will be believed unquestioningly. And it comes true.

It seemed unfair that fiction treated its inmates so well. I had paid my dues. I wanted a sweet deal for my final month in the body to which I had become accustomed, dammit. But what would I wish for? Absolution? Oblivion? A hymen? Maybe something stupid, something a real eight year old would want, like my body weight in ice cream. My new body weight of course. A flying pony. A troupe of vindictive pixies to prod anyone I disliked. Everything I touched to turn to gold. Oh, I could think up some wishes all right.

Still, where's the devil when you need him, eh?