Frances Wheatgrass could be seen dancing in a circle with children, her woolen stockings slowly sagging into wrinkles around her ankles. She was clearly an adult, however, her age could not be reasonably determined. She could transform her ways to fit her current companions. She became a child amongst children, a grandmother amongst grandmothers. And everyone felt comfortable in her company.
On the outside looking in however, Francis Finkfinger was suspicious. He thought her actions merely deceitful, but not malevolent. He watched her constantly, wondering why she enthusiastically participated in all manner of mundane things, as if she had never done them before. What could possibly be so exciting about going to the chemist’s or the green grocer’s?
“I say, Dolly, how many bananas shall we buy today?” Francis overheard her ask. She would ask the chemist about everything from hair dye to quinine tablets. He went to the butcher’s one day, only to see Frances behind the counter wielding a knife above her head, staring at a pig carcass, intently listening to Mr. Midge as he explained the best way to carve a roast.
Francis had long ago relinquished the joys of living. A lifelong bachelor, he inherited a modest sum in his late thirties. After the reading of the will, Francis immediately, and gleefully, sat in his father’s chair by the fireplace, perusing the Evening Standard and mindlessly settling into old age before his time. The capitulation of his timeless soul to the complaints of his finite body caused Francis to be irascible when not in control of his environment. Thus, he preferred to be alone. Consequently, seeing Frances Wheatgrass flit about the streets and parks of the city like a tireless hummingbird ignited a dangerous mix of emotions within Francis Finkfinger. He wanted to embrace her, marry her, and kill her all at once. He was simultaneously attracted to and repelled by her. He wanted to hold her captive as one keeps a selkie’s skin locked in a trunk. Utterly confused, he began spying on her.
At first, it was merely leaning against lampposts and trees, watching from afar on shopping days. Then it became languishing in parks and gardens, catching glimpses of her with groups of laughing children. His obsession grew, and his mind became entirely preoccupied with thoughts of her. She had even dared to invade his inner sanctum; he could no longer sit and read the newspaper without imagining her sitting in an adjacent chair of pink velvet, reading or embroidering, or simply gazing into the fire.
Francis threw his paper to the floor, rising indignantly from his chair, exclaiming, “Enough!” to an empty house. Frances Wheatgrass had crossed a line. She must be possessed, punished, and eliminated for disturbing his perfectly humdrum existence. For rousing his jealousy and desire.
Francis began to creep ever closer. He went to a cheese shop, a bakery, a milliner’s, the fishmonger, and of course, the butcher, green grocer, and the chemist. As his proximity to Frances narrowed from yards to mere inches, his terrifying mix of love and enraged confusion grew into an obsessive derangement. He could do nothing else. He could be nowhere else but near her. Francis came home hours later, dumping out his satchel of consolation prizes on the kitchen counter: a hunk of Wensleydale, a loaf of rye bread, a silk rose hat pin, three mackerel, half a pound of stew meat, a few thin carrots, and a nerve tonic. He sat at the table and wept.