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Artwork: Drowning in Bugs by Will Jacques

Spiders Dancing
Andrew Hart

“Several species of spider show a most curious preference for living in association with human beings; presumably because we provide a suitable environment for them or more fancifully it is possible that spiders are attracted to the rhythms and movement of human life.” (Dr J. S. Griffiths, letter to The Journal of Nature, October 1971)

At night I picture his house: old newspapers crackling and glowing in the fireplace, Simon sitting at his piano playing those endless hypnotic rhythms, and hidden in the flickering shadows, the spiders listening and watching, drawing closer and closer.

I squashed one, as we walked back into the house, after our first date.

“Why did you kill it?” Simon asked, appearing distressed for the first time since I had met him, “it wasn’t doing any harm.”

I shuddered, “They are horrible, and serves it right for being a spider.”

Looking cross, he picked up the tiny corpse, wrapped it up in a tissue and reverently put it in the kitchen bin.

I laughed callously, “It might have wanted to die; perhaps they hate being spiders, I would.”

“They always seem happy to me.”

Simon and I worked together in the University of Manchester’s Biology Department. I had got the job of head of administration after leaving London a couple of months earlier, desperate to leave the capital and find a job as far away as possible, but still be somewhere civilised, whilst Simon was one of three typists in the office, alongside Alison and Tracey. The two young women were not exactly rude, but I found their beauty intimidating, and they showed no interest in me, other than as someone who gave them to work to do and let them go early on a Friday, so it was Simon I was naturally drawn to.

Even Simon was not particularly easy to get to know. He was a reserved character, who – perhaps because he was the only man in the office and was handsome in a dishevelled sort of way – we all rather flirted with or mothered, making sure he had enough to drink and enquiring after his health if he looked a little pale in the morning. Alison, in particular (the more human of the two women), would often bring him a pastry or a croissant in the morning, “because you look thin.” However Simon rarely seemed to acknowledge our kindness, taking it as if it were his due and he certainly did not reciprocate, but for some reason I found such arrogance attractive or at least interesting.

Simon seemed in a world of his own where rhythm predominated. He was forever tapping – pen on the desk; fingers on his mug; feet on the floor; a complex series of beats and pauses, staccato and legato, adagio and allegro, with the occasional crescendo or diminuendo. Even when he typed letters or reports, he managed to type in time to whatever music was going through his head, and I found myself tapping along as I tried to plan and reorganise, or was on the telephone to one of the lecturers downstairs, as if he were drawing me into his rhythm.

I had just broken off an engagement with someone I had met at university (my reason for fleeing London) after realising that just because Carl was my first serious romance, it did not mean that I had to stick with him forever, and that there were other men out there who would be more exciting and exotic. And Simon cultivated an air of mystery, which was intriguing, and I wanted to get to know him beyond his mysterious work persona, and if that meant getting him into bed, well, so be it.

He had smiled when I suggested we go to the cinema, as if he had been expecting the invitation, and so two nights later we ended up watching a horror film “Something Wicked This Way Comes” (his choice) in a cinema on Oxford Road, with lots of over-excited students, and when the film became scary I held his hand, which was cold and dry. Afterwards we continued to hold hands, on the bus home and then sitting together in the dark of his sitting room, listening to a recording of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The room had a real fire that blazed intermittently and smelt of something fragrant. At our feet there was a large faded carpet, which might once have contained a pattern of green and red. Where most people would have a television, there was an expensive-looking record player with a large collection of records, and in the centre of the room, his pride and joy, a piano.

“Shall I open more wine?”

“Just wait. Wait until the end of the second movement.”

I lay back and closed my eyes.

“Listen to the rhythm,” he said, “it is like a dance.”

“I could not imagine anyone dancing to that.”

“Let it take you over, just concentrate on it.”

And, yes, the rhythm drove forward irresistibly, and even though I do not particularly like classical music, I could feel its power, at least for a few minutes.

Later in bed, when he was inside me, I realised he was still in tune with the Beethoven he had played earlier, I tried to slow him down.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I laughed, drunk and confused, and in the end I let him have his way, surrendering to his will for those few moments. Afterwards I wandered into his bathroom to clean myself up, I drowsily sat down on the toilet and there were three spiders on the wooden bathroom floor, motionless, watching me, I froze for a moment and then threw a can of air freshener at them, but they were unimpressed by my attack and refused to retreat, so I hurried through my ablutions to return to the relative safety of the bed.

“What was that noise?”

“Just more of your eight-legged friends.”

“Copulation lasts from a few seconds to many hours; in some of the araneids courtship is greatly extended but the mating is very short.” (“The Habits of Spiders” by Laura Jones)

I woke early one morning, with Simon naked next to me, he was completely still with only the faintest movement of his chest and the slight sound of his breathing, he could almost have been dead, or in a coma. Cautiously I explored his body; his limbs were long, almost elongated and they were surprisingly hairy, as were his chest and stomach, covered with dark brown hair that was thick and dry, whilst his skin was cool, almost cold, despite his bedroom being warm and the blanket heavy on our bodies. I stroked his body lightly with my fingertips; he felt tense, no softness anywhere, no fat, just bone and muscle, no wonder Alison fed him pastries. And then I realised that his eyes were open and he was watching me.

“Morning,” I said, slightly unnerved, and then he smiled.

“How about something to eat,” he suggested, and he kissed me ravenously.

With Simon there was endless music. As soon as we got to his house, he would put a record on or sit at the piano and start to play, as if he could not bear silence, or was using it to woo me. Now that we are no longer together, now that I have escaped him, it is the harmonies and rhythms that I remember most. Presumably we must have talked but I cannot recall what we talked about or even the sound of his voice. Even when we were together in bed, our limbs entwined together, he didn’t say anything, as if talking would interfere with his intense concentration.

He gave me a key to his house, a large one, which looked as if it belonged to a church rather than a house.

“If you ever want to pop in and I am out, I don’t mind.”

But something about his house gave me the creeps – the lack of light, and my fear of treading on something nasty. But I kept the key because it pleased him, and who knew, one day I might need to use it.

He seemed to be expecting me to return the favour, to give him a copy of my key, but I did not want him to take over my flat, the one place which I felt was mine. He did visit there once, we had been passing on the way to an exhibition, and as it was even colder than usual, I decided to grab my winter coat (the only kind of coat that you need in Manchester). Simon sniffed as we walked in and then sat in the corner of my main room as I went to find my coat and a scarf. When I returned he was looking through my record collection.

“Nothing classical I am afraid, I usually just listen to the radio.”

He hummed as he continued to look and I felt as though he was judging me. Eventually he found something of which he seemed to approve and put on a David Bowie album, and he listened to it carefully as if trying to understand a strange language. Once the first side had come to an end I said we should go.

“We have that exhibition to go to.” But more to the point I felt uncomfortable with him being there, as if he would invade and take over. With a sigh he got up and we headed towards the gallery, his hand slowly caressing my lower back as we walked, as if soothing me.

I fell asleep on Simon’s sofa. We had been listening to music as usual, a ballet by Roussel, and I had been watching the flames, feeling drowsy, and then I realised that I was on my own, lying full-length, covered by his dressing-gown, which smelt of tobacco. My mouth was dry and I felt confused. And then I heard him, playing softly in the corner. There was no light apart from the fire, so he must have been playing from memory, or perhaps improvising. More rhythm than melody, the music was certainly nothing I recognised.

“What are you playing?”

“Oh, I didn’t realise that you were awake. Just something I have made up. Do you like it?”

“It is a bit creepy to be honest.” And I could feel the hair on my neck itch, as if there was something crawling up it. He continued to play – a light staccato as if the notes were tiny legs dancing as part of a strange ritual, and as I looked over at him, I could see a shadow on his white shirt. I wanted to call out, but felt too drowsy and I must have fallen back asleep, as if I were drugged.

Eventually I broke the spell and got up.

“I need to go.”

“Aren’t you staying?”

“No I need to go home.”

“Are you sure? My bed is lovely and warm, and it is dark and wet outside.”

“Please I just want to go back home.”

Reluctantly he let me go, standing in the doorway watching me hurry off, he looked disappointed as if he would drag me back inside to devour me if he could.

I wandered the streets of Manchester, trying to clear my head from the fog that was poisoning my brain, and after a while I found myself heading towards the road where I live, and realised I had not been home for almost a week. Once inside I noticed how stale my flat smelled, and I caught the odd whiff of something rotten, which proved to be a couple of bananas hidden away in a cupboard, almost liquid under the skin and very black. As I gingerly threw them into the kitchen bin, a small spider fell off them and landed on the linoleum floor. It appeared to be dead, but when I next looked it had disappeared.

After checking my post I collapsed onto my bed, still fully dressed, and for a moment the room span and I thought that I would be sick, but I managed to slow it down and then I presumably fell asleep. I woke briefly in the early hours, and to my horror there were spiders frolicking on the duvet, surrounding me. I lay still, paralysed with fear, soundlessly shrieking, as they crawled over me, reaching for my face….

But next thing it was light and I was late for work and the spiders were gone. Despite the time, I vacuumed the whole flat, particularly under my bed, and afterwards I felt much better as if I had cleansed it, although throughout the day I would kept remembering the horror of the night before, and wondered if it had really happened. Surely not, but it felt so real, whilst in the corner, Simon sat as usual, tapping away, as if sending me a coded message.

“All spiders are carnivorous and most are stimulated only by living and moving prey.” (“A Guide to Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe” by Richard Dodd)

There was no formal break-up, no hysterical scenes; I just stopped inviting myself round to his house and made excuses when he suggested we go out together, and after a couple of attempts to tempt me back Simon appeared to realise that I had escaped his spell, and gave up. I only intended it to have been a casual relationship after all, but it had been hard, harder than it had been with Carl, who at least I could talk with and share a joke, as if we were the same species, with the same tastes and needs.

At work our relationship carried on as usual, we had kept our affair a secret, anyway, as I did not want the scrutiny, and thought one of us might have been moved if it became public knowledge. Perhaps Tracey, or more likely Alison, had guessed, but I doubted it, and they certainly hadn’t said anything. Simon remained the same, sat in the corner on the typewriter, polite but reserved, drinking endless cups of Earl Grey tea, tapping out his rhythms on the typewriter and receiving his offerings from Alison, whilst I concentrated on appearing calm and professional.

As he sat there one morning, several weeks since I had escaped from his house, I brought him over a drink, Alison and Tracey were both typing away, seemingly preoccupied.

“How are you Simon?”

He smiled, and carried on typing, a slower rhythm, but definitely a rhythm of some sort. Alison, whose desk was close by, stopped typing and smiled at us in a proprietorial way. I noticed she was wearing a new perfume, something exotic smelling and rather beautiful, and I wondered if she had a new boyfriend.

“He is thinking of music”, she said sympathetically, full of the joys of new love, before patting him on the shoulder. He smiled faintly at this gesture but I wasn’t fooled. I could see that he was sad, and I realised that he was putting on weight, perhaps eating to compensate for his melancholy.

Two nights later I went round to his house, it was a whim, but after all we were colleagues and had been lovers, and that surely gave me the right to check up on him. And in truth I was feeling lonely. It had been a mistake coming to Manchester, away from my family and friends. The people I had met since moving here were not interested in me; I was just someone to buy a round when we were at the pub, or a possible conquest for the men. What had I done? Leaving the city I loved for this Northern outpost where people only cared about football and it was always cold and damp.

There was no music coming from the front room, but I was sure I could hear the sound of tiny feet in the garden, I cringed and almost went back home, but after a moment I took a deep breath and gingerly made my way through the overgrown grass to the front door. I knocked loudly, but there was no response, and I wondered if Simon was out, or perhaps he was sick and lying on the floor being devoured by his tiny lodgers. I still had the key, which he had given me early on in our relationship, and which for some reason I had not returned to him. I unlocked the door and went in, cautiously making my way through the dark. The front room was almost black, with just a faint glow coming from the fire. There was the smell of burning newspaper, and there was another smell that seemed familiar, but which I could not place.

I found them upstairs, naked on the bed. Alison had a tear of sweat dripping down between her breasts, her eyes closed. I noticed that her body, lit up a little by a street lamp outside the window, looked paler than I had imagined and somehow vulnerable. His arm around her, Simon was staring straight at me as I stood just inside the bedroom, like someone who has just enjoyed a satisfying meal and did not wish to be disturbed. I realised that he had no idea who I was.

And then I noticed them, the tiny black figures appearing from every direction. At first I thought that they were reflections from the bedroom window, but then, as I saw them hurriedly crawling up onto the bed and onto Alison’s waiting body, I realised what they were. There were more and more of them, coming from under the bed and from the window. And as I watched them, they appeared to dance with joy on the skin of their prey, and from somewhere below I could hear the sound of Simon’s music, calling to them, to satisfy their lust and their hunger.

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