Anthropology - Dan Rhodes

ANTHROPOLOGY and a hundred other stories

QWEGTHIT DAN RHODES

ANTHROPOLOGY and a hundred other stories

QWEGTHIT DAN RHODES CANON

GATE

Edinburgh 路 London 路 New York 路 Melbourne

Thanks to: Tibor Fischer, Lawrence Norfolk, Sheenagh Pugh, Tony Curtis, Stephen Knight, Christopher Meredith and, particularly, W. B. & V. C. Rhodes.

This edition published in 2005 by Canongate Books Ltd 14 High Street Edinburgh EH1 1TE This paperback edition published in 2010

By Canongate Books First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Fourth Estate A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Copyright Š Dan Rhodes 2000 The moral right of the author has been asserted

1 All rights reserved A catalogue record for this book is available From the British Library ISBN 978 1 84767 550 7 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc www.meetatthegate.com

BOOK MAP

22. Well 32. Crying

23. Indifference 1. Anthropology 24. Trouble 25. Naked 33. Lost 2. Lesbian 11.Video 34. Pneumonia

12. Glass

91. Charging 92. Drinking 93. Sleeping

26. Tractor 3. Lipstick

5. Nature

4. Madrid 68. Chemicals 13. Rehearsing

67. Memories 14. Endless

36. Flowers 37. Milestones

94. Horsebox

27. Shipwreck

35. Kangaroo

77. Plain

66. Honest

76. Club

65. Friends

74. Fuji

69. Lilac

79. Expecting 78. Salesman 15. Straight 75. Together 40. Face

39. Bulletin 38.Volcano 56. Tagged

57. Special

55. Kiss

58. Paint

50. Pil

51. Support

9. Pum

54. Knife 52. Proust

10

53. Travel

ANTHROPOLOGY and a hundred other stories

DAN RHODES

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21. History 82. Taxidermy

43. Drawing

42. Groping 83. Laughing

45. Precious

41. Beauty 84. Kissing 48. Toys

c

70. Trick

46. Schnauzer

18. Faithful

85. Binding

81. Jam

59. Dust

99. Spirit

60. Baby 96. Snakes

95. Innocence

88. Pieces

0. Squeals

89.Violins

90. Fight

G

64. Me 101. Ouija

61. Shivers

31. Mould 87. Money

mpkins

62. Museum 100. Eggs

30. Ashes

8. Normal

lot

73. Sailing

63. Coping

6. Sushi

16. Fun 80. Open 7. Noises

17. Truncheon 72. Words

29. Plan 86. Real

49. Stuff

19. Herself

47. Exploring

71. Features

28. Ashes

20. Clever

44. Leaving

Ironic Insensible Apathetic Yperbolic Sad Obsessed Caring Afraid Macabre Strange

97. Hobbies

98. Saving

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1. ANTHROPOLOGY I loved an anthropologist. She went to Mongolia to study the gays. At first she kept their culture at arm’s length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from assimilation. She worked hard to become as much like them as possible, and gradually she was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar moustache to keep her top lip warm.

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LESBIAN .2 My girlfriend and I couldn’t decide on a name for our little baby girl. Eventually she took her to the registrar, and said she would think of something on the way. When she returned, I was frantic with anticipation. ‘So what’s she called?’

‘I called her Lesbian,’ she said, smiling at the bundle in her arms. ‘It’s such a pretty name.’ I asked her what on earth had possessed her.

‘Don’t you know what it means?’ She didn’t, so I explained. The poor thing burst into tears. ‘I didn’t know there were ladies who did that to each other,’ she sobbed.

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3. LIPSTICK The police caught my girlfriend stealing money from a blind beggar. She kept silent, but they tortured her until she admitted that she needed it for lipstick. ‘You have a job,’ they barked. ‘You can afford lipstick.’

‘I can afford cheap lipstick, but it’s horrible.

It’s soapy, and it never lasts.’

Fortunately, one of her interrogators was a woman. ‘She’s right. A girl needs to feel confident about her cosmetics.’ They gave her a caution. As they released her the female officer, overcome with pity, slipped something into my girlfriend’s pocket. A stick of Lancôme. Volcanique. It suits her very well.

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MADRID .4 I was delighted to find a Spanish girlfriend, and celebrated our first anniversary with a surprise trip to her home city. I landed our helicopter in front of the Palacio Real, and took off her blindfold. ‘Where is this?’ she asked, in her lilting Iberian accent. I was surprised that she didn’t recognise such a famous landmark, and suggested she ask a passer-by. She started crying. In a voice I didn’t recognise, she told me she was sorry, that there had been a special offer on sunbeds, and it had seemed like the right think to say at the time.

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5. NATURE Amber suddenly discovered naturism. We went to the supermarket, and people couldn’t help staring at her. She’s very pretty, and the security guards were tooshy to ask her to cover herself up. ‘Darling,’ I whispered, ‘people are looking.’

‘Let them,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’ She told me she would leave me there and then if I didn’t join her and stop wearing clothes. ‘It goes againt nature,’ she explained. I took off my trousers, and the shoppers jeered at my skinny legs. When, at last, I took off my underpants they waggled their little fingers.

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SUSHI .6 My town has a university, so for nine months of the year there are pretty Japanese girls everywhere. I like to watch them as they walk around. With their little smiling faces and shiny black hair, they seem like such nice people. There's one that's my favourite, and every time I see her I approach her and ask for a quick language lesson, or ask her whether she knows a good place to eat sushi. So far I have learned all the numbers up to twenty- three, and been told several times that the nearest Japanese restaurant is some way away.

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7. NOISES My girlfriend had been employed for ages, but eventually she found some work in an office. Although I couldn't find the courage to say anything, I was worried that her new role in life would come between us. She's been there some time now, and although, she spends most of her working day furtively ringing me up to make kissing noises, I can't help feeling as through she's slipping away from me. The slurps from the other end of the line don't seem as passionate as they could be. It's almost as if her lips had other things on their mind.

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NORMAL .8 After a blazing row, Harmony joined the nuns. 'That's it,' she said. 'I'm joining the nuns.' I was lonely and could hardly sleep, but three days later she escaped and came home. 'It was awful,' she said. 'We had to get up really early, and they made us wear horrible long black dress things and no make-up, and sing all these boring songs.'

Thankfully things quickly returned to normal, and now she's back to spending her free time joining in with the adverts on TV, and making me get up from the sofa so she can look for her lighter.

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9. PUMPKINS I told Sapphire I'd always wanted to grow pumpkins; that my dream was to grow one so big that I could hollow it out and sit in it.

Then, if it was watertight, I would climb in and float down the river on the carnival day, waving to the children on the shore. She broke off from painting her long nails to tell me I'd be lucky to grow a pumpkin big enough for a dog, let alone a person, and then even if I could there would be no point.

I decided she was right. I don't want to grow pumpkins.

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OUIJA .101 Aurelia’s experiment with herbal contraception failed, and we started expecting a baby.

We were bpth very excited, and she was so impatient to meet the future member of our family that she decided to make contact through a ouija board. Wary of such things, I stayed out of the way, but when she had finished I was consumed with curiosity. ‘So did the baby spell anything?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘He said he was going to be a boy.’ ‘That’s wonderful. Anything else?’

‘Yes.’ Overcome with joy she sighed, smiled and patted her bump. ‘He said, “Mummy I love you.”’

Alphabetical Index Anthropology Ashes Baby Beauty Binding Binding Blind Bulletin Bulletin Charging Chemicals Clever Club Coping Crying Drawing Drawing Drinking Dust Eggs Endless Expecting Exploring Face Lipstick Lost Madrid

Me Memories Money Mould Museum Naked Nature Noises Normal Open Ouija Paint Pieces Pilot Plain Plan Pneumonia Precious Proust Pumpkins Real Rehearsing Sailing Salesman Saving Schnauzer Shipwreck

Shipwreck Shipwreck Shivers Sleeping Snakes Special Spirit Squeals Straight Stuff Support Sushi Tagged Taxidermy Together Toys Tractor Travel Trick Trouble Truncheon Video Violins Volcano Well Words

REVIEWS ‘Rhodes articulates everyone’s worst intimacy nightmares… he should be commended for his economy of words and his outrageous humour.’

New York Times ‘Dan Rhodes’s exquisitely crafted stories set up a tiny and fully functioning universe, and then deflate it in a moment. I cannot express to you how much this book delighted me.

Go and read it.’

Big Issue ‘Rhodes’s stories have all the punch of a good one-panel cartoon’ Washington Post

REVIEWS ‘Anybody who liked There’s Something About Mary will love Rhodes’s book, and that’s a strange thing to be able to say about a piece of conceptual art.’

LA Weekly ‘Misanthropic, macabre and mordant tales of doomed couplings herald the arrival of Dan Rhodes.’ i-D Magazine ‘Effortless to read, amusing and yet coloured with a deep sadness about the passing of things. In Rhodes’s eccentric emotional world, girlfriends with the improbable names of Azure, Xanthe and Hummingbird hold all the cards.’

Indipendent

BIOGRAPHY Dan Rhodes was born in 1972. Published in 2002, Anthropology was his debut collection.

He is the author of Don't Tell Me the Truth About Love, Timoleon Vieta Come Home, The Little White Car (writing as Danuta de Rhodes), Gold and most recently Little Hands Clapping. In 2003 he was named by Granta as one of their twenty Best of Young British Novelists. 'A hilarious exploration of the challenges faced by the faired sex.

Despite being written from a male perspective, it will entertain any woman who can laugh at her own foibles. 'The Times 'A great collection, by turns funny, dark and touching.'

DAVE GORMAN '101 Stories, all about girlfriends. They cheat, they die, they leave, frequently . . . The funny stories are all the funnier for being brief; the sad ones all the sadder for being sparse. Every one a 20-second gem.' Maxim 'A book you want to hurl from rooftops at passers-by to spread the word.' Uncut

Published in 2013 by

CANON

GATE

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101 STORIES 101 STOPS

www.danrhodes.co.uk CANON GATE Design and illustrations: Laura Musso