The Fungus Read online

  “Me, of course!” answered Barbara, letting just a little irritation creep in.

  “Who’s me?”

  Barbara took a deep breath and forced herself to keep her tone light. “Come on, Shirl, stop playing games and let me in.”

  Shirley came to the door and peered at her through the gap with an expression of mock surprise. “It is you. I could have sworn you were in bed. It’s where you should be.”

  “Open the bloody door, Shirley.”

  “You can’t imagine how concerned I was when I got back late and found you weren’t here. I almost called the police.” She gave a laugh that was brittle around the edges. Then she unchained the door.

  “I’m sorry, Shirl,” said Barbara as she stepped inside. “I went to the movies . . .”

  “When you go to the movies you always go to the late afternoon shows. It’s past nine o’clock—so where have you been?”

  “It was a good movie so I sat through it again,” said Barbara, walking into the living room. She could feel herself blushing as she thought of the blonde woman. She could never hide anything from Shirley.

  “That’s very unlike you, darling,” said Shirley sweetly. “And why are you blushing all of a sudden? I can’t see where my blouse ends and your neck begins.”

  Barbara’s hand flew to her mouth as she remembered the blouse. “Oh, Shirl, I borrowed your . . .”

  “Yes, I can see that, darling.” Shirley gave a light laugh. “Now are you going to tell me where you’ve been all this time? And who with? Before I get very angry with you, Barbara darling.”

  “I wasn’t with anyone, I swear it!” protested Barbara anxiously. “I did sit through the movie again. It’s the new one with Richard Pryor and you know what a big fan I am of his. It’s the truth—you’ve got to believe me!”

  Shirley regarded her thoughtfully for a while, then seemed to accept her story because she smiled and said, “Oh let’s just forget all about it. Give us a kiss.”

  Their lips touched, Barbara’s hesitantly but Shirley pressed hard with hers and then thrust her tongue fiercely into Barbara’s mouth. Barbara relaxed into the strength of Shirley’s passion, and thought that maybe she wasn’t so angry after all.

  They parted. Barbara grinned, feeling a little foolish. “How was your day then?”

  “So-so. I went to the doctors. Some good news, some bad.”

  “Oh.” Barbara paused. She never knew how to handle bad news from doctors. “The good news?”

  “I’m not pregnant.”

  Barbara laughed. Whatever the bad news was it couldn’t be serious. “And the bad?”

  “I’ve got an oral fungus infection.”

  “Oh, you poor . . .” began Barbara and then her face curled up with disgust. She spat on the floor, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of Barbara’s blouse. “You bitch! What a dirty trick to play on me!”

  Shirley grinned maliciously. “Serves you right. Teach you not to play around behind my back, and take my clothes without asking.”

  Furious, Barbara cried, “Here’s what I think of your goddamn precious blouse . . . !” She grabbed the front of it with both hands and yanked hard. There was a ripping sound.

  Barbara regretted the action as soon as she’d done it. “Oh, Shirl, I’m sorry . . .”

  “You little bitch,” breathed Shirley hoarsely, her eyes bright with anger. Then suddenly she lunged at Barbara.

  Barbara shrieked and tried to dodge out of her way but Shirley was too fast for her. The impact of their bodies knocked Barbara off-balance and she fell backward onto the floor. Shirley landed on top of her, forcing the air out of her lungs. Barbara struggled hard but Shirley had at least 15 pounds advantage over her and as usual Barbara was quickly reduced to complete helplessness.

  Shirley sat straddling Barbara’s hips and succeeded in pinning both her arms to the floor, then she reached down and ripped open the red blouse the rest of the way. Barbara struggled even harder, bucking and twisting in a vain attempt to dislodge Shirley. She saw Shirley bend her head down towards her exposed breasts then screamed shrilly as she felt Shirley’s teeth bite into her left nipple.

  “Oh, you bitch!” she yelled, drumming her heels on the floor as Shirley continued to bite hard into her nipple. “Stop it! Stop it!”

  There came a loud thumping from the ceiling above them. It was so violent it made the lamp shade jiggle. Shirley immediately stopped biting her and sat up. In unison they shouted: “Go fuck yourself, you sexist scumbag!”

  The thumping increased in volume then abruptly ceased. Their upstairs neighbor, a retired civil servant called Mr. Pickersgill, had made his point for the evening, as usual.

  Barbara looked up into Shirley’s face which was flushed and damp with sweat. She was breathing hard and her eyes glittered with both excitement and the familiar look of desire. Barbara was feeling very aroused herself and once again she realized why she would find it hard ever to leave Shirley no matter what the provocation. The simple truth was that Shirley was one hell of a lover. No one could ever excite her as much as Shirley did. Certainly no one ever had in the past.

  Shirley stood up and then pulled Barbara to her feet. Docilely, Barbara allowed herself to be led into the bedroom. She fell limply onto the bed, rolled onto her back and let Shirley finish undressing her. She enjoyed the roughness of her lover’s actions as first her jeans were yanked off and then the rest of her clothes. There was the sound of another rip while the red blouse was coming off but neither of them could have cared less.

  When she was finally naked she spread her legs wide in eager anticipation. Shirley stood there for a time looking down at her and Barbara savored the thrill of being so completely exposed to Shirley’s hungry, cruel gaze.

  Then Shirley was quickly getting out of her own clothes, revealing the long, white, muscular body that Barbara knew almost as well as her own. Of course, in some ways she knew it better than her own. . . .

  Barbara closed her eyes as Shirley knelt on the bed between her splayed legs. Then she gasped with pleasure as she felt the warm wetness of Shirley’s tongue probing the lips of her vagina. The tip of the tongue then moved up to her clitoris and she gave a low, shuddering moan, arching her back as the first pulse of pure ecstasy throbbed through her body.

  All thought of the attractive blonde woman in the movie theater had fled from her mind.

  Much later, sated and exhausted, they fell asleep in each other’s arms. But during the night Barbara had a horrible dream that she was choking. She struggled into semiconsciousness but the choking sensation was still there. Her mouth and throat seemed to be filled with a soft, furry substance. She tried to come fully awake, to cry out, but found herself falling back into unconscious again—an unconsciousness that led to a much deeper oblivion than mere sleep.

  When dawn arrived she was still lying there in Shirley’s arms. They were joined at their mouths by a pale yellow pulpy mass.

  Neither of them was breathing. The venereal fungus which had grown at an accelerated rate throughout both their bodies during the night, and killing them in the process, was visible at their other orifices too. It grew between their legs to form furry yellow diapers and covered their ears like huge, fluffy ear muffs. And though they were both dead, the fungus grew on.

  3

  Tuesday, 9.45 p.m.

  The tall attractive woman with the long blonde hair paid her bill and left the small Indian restaurant in Goodge Street. Naseem the waiter had taken the dishes out into the kitchen and scraped the remains of her meal into a small bin which would later be emptied into the large, round container that sat out in the alley behind the restaurant. The big container would be collected by the pig feed company that had the edible waste franchise for the Goodge Street area.

  Naseem was just re-covering the table with another paper table cloth when Derrick Lang and Philip Bell entered. They were laughing loudly and Naseem flinched inwardly. He knew this type of customer only too well.

  “Hi, Panjit, o
ld pal,” said Derrick Lang, a grossly overweight man of about 30, as he sat down at the table. Lang always called waiters in Indian restaurants Panjit. It was one of his favorite jokes.

  “I don’t know how you get away with it,” said Philip Bell, after Naseem had handed them each a menu and retreated to the small bar at the end of the restaurant.

  “They don’t mind. Shows them you’re not racially prejudiced.”

  Bell nodded in agreement though he hadn’t quite grasped the logic of Lang’s theory.

  “Watcha’avin?” asked Lang, frowning over the menu.

  “Lager, to start with,” said Bell, “then I might have a lager and maybe after that a lager.”

  Lang shook with laughter. Then he called out to Naseem, “Two lagers pronto, Panjit!” He paused for effect then said, “And my friend here’ll have two as well!”

  They both laughed some more.

  “Only kiddin’ Panjie boy. A pint each.”

  Naseem, who was already on his way to their table with two pints, deposited the glasses in front of them and left without a word.

  Lang said, “I’m having a vegetable biriani.”

  “Vegetable!” Bell made it sound as if Lang had made a homosexual pass at him. “You’ll be telling me you eat nut cutlets next.”

  “I read where vegetables help you lose weight,” said Lang, a shade defensively. “And because I’m large-boned, meat makes me put on weight quicker than most people.”

  Bell looked at him. Rolls of fat creased his shirt as if he had a dozen salamis strapped around his body. His buttons were straining to keep the fabric together and several chins sat on top of his neck like a series of miniature stomachs. “Well, yeah, you do have large bones, Dekker,” he said tactfully.

  “Yeah, and the fact is if you eat a lot of vegetables you can also eat as much meat as you like and still lose weight.”

  “Gerroff.”

  “No, straight up. I read it in The Sun, I think. Or maybe The Daily Mail. It’s something to do with the vitamins in the vegetables. They make the meat fat burn up without you having to do any exercise.”

  “How about that.”

  “You should try it yourself, Phil. You could do with losing a few pounds too.”

  “Well, maybe,” said Bell, even though he knew he wasn’t over-weight in the slightest.

  “You don’t have to go all the way at once. You can have, say, a meat madras with a cauliflower bhajee. Cauliflower must have lots of those vitamins.”

  Bell nodded thoughtfully. Lang took it for agreement and called Naseem over. He ordered food for both of them and another pint of lager each. “You’ll thank me for this,” he said.

  “I will if you pay,” said Bell and laughed uproariously.

  The evening went quickly as they swapped jokes and solved the various social and political issues of the day. Bell even enjoyed his cauliflower bhajee, but Lang hadn’t been so keen on his vegetable biriani this time and consoled himself with the thought of having a doner kebab on the way home.

  When they finally lurched, belching and laughing, out of the restaurant it was after 11 p.m. They had each consumed seven pints of lager by then and had reached the stage when everything they said was even more devastatingly funny than usual.

  Naseem bore their lengthy farewell routine with the stoicism that any Indian waiter working in Britain must quickly acquire and breathed a silent prayer of thanks when, after a final volley of “Panjits,” the two men staggered away.

  They walked up to Warren Street station where they went their separate ways, Lang catching the Victoria Line and Bell the Northern.

  Lang changed onto the Piccadilly Line at Kings Cross. He got out at Bounds Green and went straight to his studio flat, having decided he was too full of lager for a kebab after all. And anyway there was something he had to take care of rather urgently. All the walking had made his feet noticeably sweaty, and he was worried about his athlete’s foot.

  He’d suffered from it badly on a few occasions—toes cracking apart, pain like his flesh was being split with a knife—so now he always kept his socks filled with Preparation AF and every morning and night carefully smeared the powder and cream between his toes.

  It had always been a matter of some pride to him that he suffered from athlete’s foot. It confirmed his belief that within his bulky frame a potential athlete was waiting to get out. And when he succeeded in finally getting his weight down he fully intended taking up some athletic activity. Like squash or badminton. Or maybe sky-diving. Sky-diving didn’t involve much running about.

  After the nightly foot ritual Lang crawled into bed and switched off the lamp. He was too tired to see if there was anything on TV. He fell asleep almost immediately but slept badly. He tossed and turned in the grip of horrific dreams for several hours and then came fully awake to discover he was suffering an appalling attack of indigestion. “Goddam vegetable biriani!” he muttered. “Never again!”

  And on top of that he was itchy all over, his feet especially. Had the Indian food aggravated his athlete’s foot? It never had before.

  He lay there for a time hoping the itching would fade, but if anything it got worse. He had no choice but to apply more Preparation AF.

  With a sigh he sat up and switched on the light. He pushed back the covers and frowned. Then he laughed. No wonder his feet were itching—he was still wearing his socks.

  Then he frowned again. He had taken them off. He distinctly remembered doing so. In fact he didn’t even recognize these socks. He was positive he didn’t own a pair this color—gray with a red pattern.

  He reached down to take them off and his fingers sank into the fluffy pulp that was now his right foot.

  His heart gave a massive thump, paused and carried on. His flesh crawled with revulsion and his insides seemed to shrink. His fingers, shaking now, fumbled at the other foot. It felt the same—soft and yielding as if it was boneless.

  His scream came out as a croak. Then, as he became more aware of the general itchiness all over his body, he tore furiously at his pajama jacket.

  “Oh God,” he whimpered.

  His lower belly was covered in the same gray, red-streaked substance. He managed to undo his pajama pants and, terrified at what he expected to see, looked at his groin and thighs. It was as he feared—from his waist down it was as if he’d been coated in some kind of furry paint that had started to crack. He reached tentatively to touch the mound that now concealed his genitals. It felt like velvet-pattern wallpaper.

  “Christ,” he moaned, “I’ve been poisoned . . . that bloody Indian restaurant . . .”

  He had to get help, he decided. He got quickly out of bed and took two steps towards the phone before his left leg, riddled with the athlete’s foot fungus, snapped at the shin with a sound like a piece of celery being broken.

  He fell on his face with a crash that shook the floor and lay there in a state of shock for over a minute. Then, with painful slowness, he started to drag himself toward the phone. His lower left leg remained on the floor beside the bed. And as he crawled he left a trail of crumbling gray powder behind him on the carpet.

  4

  Tuesday, 10.55 p.m.

  The landlord of the One Tun, Eric Gifford, decided to check the Lounge Bar on his way back up from the men’s room in the basement. It was, he saw, almost empty except for a few of the regulars. No matter, he’d had a good night’s take in the Public Bar, he told himself.

  It was then he noticed the tall, blonde woman drinking a red wine by herself at a table near the door. Odd to see a woman drinking alone in this pub, but she looked too well bred to be a whore. Then again, he reflected, you got some unusual types of women on the game these days. He blamed the recession. . . .

  He looked at her more closely and then decided he’d seen her before. She wasn’t a regular but she was definitely familiar. Maybe she’d only been in the pub once before, but he remembered her face. It wasn’t the sort of face a man was likely to forget. She was a looker,
all right, and from what he could see of her body it made a good match with her face.

  He whistled as he headed back to the Public Bar. Looking at beautiful women always cheered him up. Even at times like this when his bowels were playing up.

  It was all the fault of the Yard of Ale competition he’d organized earlier in the evening. He hadn’t actually taken part in it, because he was too good, but as usual he’d given a demonstration of how it should be done just to impress the young’uns. Oh, he knew they wouldn’t be impressed to begin with but later when they were pouring beer all over themselves or choking or giving up halfway it would dawn on them they’d seen a master of the art in action. And then he’d really rub it in when it was all over by casually downing a second yard of ale, which is what he’d done tonight as usual. He’d managed it okay but it had been a struggle at the end, he had to admit. His guts had been giving him hell all day and this had been his fifth trip to the toilet, without success. He was so constipated he felt like a pregnant elephant. Perhaps he’d better do what his damned doctor kept advising and cut down on the drink. One of these days. . . .

  Despite his acute discomfort he pulled himself together as he entered the public bar and began the task of getting people to drink up with his customary diplomacy:

  “Come on, you drunken buggers! Haven’t you got homes to go to?” he bellowed.

  He loved to play the tough landlord and, although the regulars knew it was all a game, the tourists and other drop-ins always looked satisfyingly alarmed when his red-faced, pot-bellied form appeared suddenly in their midst breathing fumes and yelling insults at them. It was always a great way to end the day.

  And as a point of principle, when everyone was gone he always helped to clean up. He knew he was often more of a hindrance than a help by that stage of the night but the staff didn’t mind. He was quite a good employer as landlords go. Even the girls didn’t get too upset when he rubbed his belly against them “accidentally on purpose-like,” as he told his friends. They knew he was just having some harmless fun, that there was nothing more to it.