Peanut Butter

Maahnoor, on her way from Wellington to New York, stayed with Gerard only for a few days – she had sort of asked, sort of demanded. It was an unreasonable thing to ask and she behaved in her usual unreasonable manner: she complained about the cold; she complained that he did not have a clothes rack; she criticised the art on the wall and the colour of its frames; she bought a lamp and put it on the coffee table; she stalked in one evening and snapped off, with an imperious flick of her fingers, the BBC news he had been listening to.

She hadn’t changed a bit.

There was no way that she would put up with drinking whatever tea he had in the cupboard, and so, when she departed, she left behind a half-empty box of her Himalayan Ayurveda Ashwagandha tea.

*

What had the questions in the census been?

14: Is your dwelling damp?
A damp dwelling may feel or smell damp or have damp patches on the walls, ceiling, floor or window frames.

15: Can you see mould in any part of this dwelling that, in total, is larger than an A4 sheet of paper?
mould (mildew) may grow on the walls, ceiling, floor, doors, window frames, curtains or blinds..
Yes – always
Yes – sometimes
No
Don’t know.

Gerard had spent a long time cleaning the house before Maahnoor arrived.

*

It seemed to Gerard that the left-over tea would keep better in a jar than in its exquisite blue box. He washed the empty peanut butter jar: ‘Pic’s really good Peanut Butter – no salt – Crunchy – Aussie’s legendary Kingaroy nuts fresh roasted and lovingly squashed in Sunny Nelson, NZ’

Did life get weird even at that point? Did the light change imperceptibly, did time begin to fluctuate and slow, did his stomach start to spin even then?

He picked the corner of the label – it seemed to be one of those labels that would peel in one piece if you were careful. Ashwagandha should not be kept in a jar with a peanut butter label on it.

Gerard slowly peeled the label and things definitely got weird. On the back of the label, visible before only from inside the jar, were words:

Right down the end of Lonely Street

You’ll find the Stone Hotel

One punter watching rugby on TV

No one to hear you crying

No one to call your name

Out loud, falling down, out loud

No room here called Self-pity
No room called Desire

And no name to be mentioned in your grief

Your love affair is dead and gone

Your deal has been done

Your tears are falling fast and falling free

You took a walk down Lonely Street

You booked yourself a room

And now it’s loss you’re keeping company

No one to hear you crying

No one to call your name
Out loud, falling down, out loud.

Dhiraja