And for the first time tonight, he doesn’t look ashamed. He just looks away.
Quiet we go, studying it. He stares at his own hand on the sheet. I watch his eyelashes blink to the twitch of his cheek. That’s horrible, I say. I know, he agrees. Quiet again. Then he gets off the bed. Walks around like ridding himself. Lights another cigarette while someone from the night beyond comes lumping up the stairs. Smoke hid, we wait as they find their key, go in and switch on their TV but, once they’re settled, he says If you want to leave I’ll sort you out a room in a hotel. And I imagine myself falling asleep on some clean white bed, safe from this but Still? I ask. Still? he says. Prostitutes? No! Jesus! Not for years. It was a short-lived thing, a year in the worst and if I could take it back I would here – he passes his cigarette but shuts his eyes to the light while I smoke. It scares me, I say. I know, I can see. It was a terrible way to behave and way to be in. But looking down on me now, he also looks young and frightened. Together at least in the fear of it. Hedging round the light. Can I touch you? he says then and I cannot think of anything I want more. So go put myself against him. Feel him all round me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, he says I can’t imagine what it’s like for you to hear these things. And what it’s like is I’ve pushed my fingers right through his skin, caught hold of his ribs and must now fall with him. Down through the world while he grasps at everything. But we make the same rattling sound I think. And so keep close together until we are calm. Can let go, finger by finger. Then sit back down. Person looking at person. Like shy and new again.
Did your friends know? The drinking, he says Not really the sex. They tried helping, feeding, sobering me up but he eventually said One day she’ll be back and what use will you be to her dead? Your body can’t take this drinking, love, knock it on the head. So I gave it up, for the next few years. Instead I tried to focus on work and the other thing occupied me a great deal.
Then one day an envelope arrived for me at their house. Three photos and an address. No explanation or news of her but it was my first gasp of air in years. I nearly collapsed. It changed everything because now I knew she was still there, somewhere, and I would see her again and I didn’t want her to know what I’d become. So I said to them I have to tell you something. Then I told them what I’d done. They both sat and listened. I kept nothing back. They were upset. Really upset. He yelled I was too old to be at that stupid shit and didn’t I know there were consequences to that kind of carry-on? Once he’d calmed down though he said Well, this is what you’ve been but you don’t have to be it any more, you know what you need to do next.
So I got myself back to the shrink. Threw out all the porn. Stopped answering calls from people I shouldn’t. Had a good going over at the clap clinic. And cancelled the Saturday hotel.
She was probably the hardest to face. I was so broken open by getting those pictures I didn’t know if I could handle a scene but she was owed.
I was waiting when she came in. Usually it was the other way round. Soon as she saw me she said Is this the last time? When I nodded she came sat by me on the bed and took my hand. We sat for a bit. What happened? she said. I said I lost my little girl. My ex took her away two years ago and didn’t tell me where until this week. Then I started to cry and she put my head on her knee. My poor boy, she said Why didn’t you say? But I could only keep repeating that I was sorry. You know I love you, she said Despite how this has been, I’ve never stopped and, if you ask me I’ll leave my husband, even now and we could start again. But I already knew how it would have to be for me so I said Don’t do that. She stood up then saying Well, I’d better go home. Take care of yourself my love. She kissed me goodbye with more feeling than I deserved. Then she left. And I left. And that was the last semblance of a relationship I’ve had. Once she was gone that chapter closed and I didn’t have sex again for two years.
Life without was difficult – all that energy and time. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I went back to walking and I spent hours walking, all over London, every night. I liked it. I still do – the time to think and how it wears me out. I can’t tell you how much better it was to be clean of all that, to feel sane again. I’ll always be inclined to be promiscuous I suppose but I pretty much keep it under control. I’ve had a few lapses over the years but I usually manage to sort it out before it gets out of hand – which is why the video gets intermittently packed away, you know, things like that. Nowadays it’s not so bad. Not a daily struggle at all.
And writing to my daughter helped. They never let me speak to her so that’s how I kept contact. Every Sunday night. It was something to look forward to. Occasionally I’d get a note from her mother saying how she was. Then, at Christmas and her birthday two, three photographs. I’d study them for hours to work out how she’d changed so that I’d always know her, so she’d never seem strange and I’d send her passport pictures of me. A few years later her own letters began. Great scrawly things with crayon drawings on or paintings she’d made, telling me all about her school, her toys, her friends. At first only once or twice a year then more than that, then asking Did I have other little girls? About my job? Did I have a wife?
Didn’t you go to see her? I ask. I tried to, he says Right away, right from the start.
I’d ask to visit or for her to come here but there was never a good time for it. Either her mother was pregnant and didn’t need the stress or someone was recovering from whooping cough, chicken pox. There was always something and I soon realised there always would be. So the summer she turned eight, I just went ahead and bought a ticket. When I arrived in Vancouver I went straight to the house. Her mother answered the door and immediately slammed it. I just kept banging on it, shouting I’m not leaving until I see her. I’m her fucking father and this is not what we agreed. After about ten minutes, she showed me in. I kept looking to see if I could see her in the yard behind but got shown into the sitting room. I heard her called down and Jesus, the nerves. My chest. Then the door opened. She was ushered in and my ex said Two hours, no more.
And suddenly there I was again, trying not to cry. Just the sight of her. The first sight of her after all that time. She’d grown so tall. My solemn-eyed eight-year-old. New front teeth all uneven and so beautiful. I just wanted to grab hold of her but I knew not to touch by the way she stood there, watching me. Taking it all in. So I fished about in my bag until I was together enough to get out the presents I’d brought – some books and one of those Sylvanian animal things Hamleys swore all the little girls loved. Do you like them? I asked, holding them out. She nodded and took them and was very polite. They’re from England, I said. She said Me too. I know that, I said I used to take care of you. She doesn’t know me, I thought and my heart started to break but then she just said it Are you my English Dad? I am, I said Any chance of a hug? And she did, came over, sat herself on my knee, wrapped her arms around and squeezed the life out of me, like she always had. I can’t describe how it was, after those four years, to suddenly have her there in my arms. I just kept saying I loved her and missed her, and fucking crying of course. Eventually she said Dad, can I open these now? Oh right, I said Of course, and put her down. Then she got on with the serious business of ripping the boxes apart. Getting me to assemble the various structures. Soon enough, she was all talk. Her school. Her ballet class. Her dog. How she was going to camp and when did I think nail varnish was allowed? Would I like her to dance? Of course I would but I couldn’t sing the tune right so that was no good and, Jesus Christ, that laugh! I kept inventing knock-knock jokes just to hear it again. But two hours doesn’t last very long. Bang to the second her stepfather walked in and told her to say goodbye, then go upstairs and wash her hands. So she hugged me and off she went. I remember promising See you soon, as she went on up. Then standing there, with his son in his arms, he said You are never to come here again. My wife and I will not tolerate your being around our children. I only want to see her, I said I don’t want to interfere. You made your choice, he said You have to live with it. No, I said I never chose this and I’m still her father, whatever you think. I’m her father, he said I’m the one she cries for at night. I’m the one who picks her up from school. I’m the one who buys her shoes and. Please, I said I’m not asking much. Her mother promised me and for years there was nothing. If you were me could you give up on your son? How dare you, he said We are not the same. I would never have put my child’s mother through what you did and if you ever come here again we’ll call the police. If you even phone this house there’ll be no more letters, or anything else.
So I went home and relapsed over every woman I could. It was a bad one. Went on for months. Then I got someone pregnant and that snapped me back to myself pretty quick. She didn’t want to have it. Just wanted me to help. Drive her there. Pick her up. Which I did. And I know she probably made the right choice – what other choice could she have made? – but I left that clinic knowing it was time to get hold of myself because I really didn’t want to do that again. Which meant facing that my daughter was going to grow up without me and I was going to have to learn how to live without her.
I’ve had more than a few furious phone calls with my ex over the years. They always end with contact threatened or how she’ll tell her The Stories. I couldn’t bear for her to hear those and I can’t lose her again so I’ve tried to be satisfied with what I have and it’s become easier with time. I write my letters and wait for hers. They’ve only become more frequent over the years. Twice a month without fail now. I love seeing them on the mat, even when they’re hard to read. In her early teens she got so angry with me and wanted to know why I gave her up? Didn’t I love her? Didn’t I want her? Said she didn’t care if my letters stopped. But I never stopped writing. Sometimes she’d ignore me for weeks then, out of the blue, reply and I’d be so relieved. She doesn’t seem to be angry any more. I think we get on well. It’s hard though, knowing how much to say about what happened between her mother and me. What’s too much? How do I know when she’s ready? I mostly just answer what she asks. But this last while she’s been asking about her grandparents a lot and I don’t know about that. How could I tell her those things? And, really, why would I? Besides, I prefer hearing about her life. She wants to be an actress now. I don’t think that’s such a great idea but anyway. When she’s old enough she can do whatever she wants and I’ve enough money put by for her to be independent. She could go travelling. Buy a flat. Spend it on a PhD or dresses or whatever she’d like. It’s depressing how money’s turned out to be what I can most easily give but I hope it will be useful and that it won’t be all. In the meantime I just stare at the photographs she sends – those same grey eyes looking out at me though she’s almost grown up these days. They keep me going while I wait until she can choose for herself. I’m hopeful though. She always writes Dear Daddy or Dad, and that’s what I’ve always signed. No one can take that away. That word is mine alone.
And that’s how it was for her and me until she phoned that day. Her mother didn’t know, she said and I didn’t recognise her voice. I thought it was you taking the piss, putting an accent on. No Dad it’s really me, she said. I nearly dropped the phone. Just knowing she wanted to speak to me, that she knew I’d want to hear. I kept saying It’s so lovely to hear your voice. But she was straight into When can I visit? Any day, I said. I’d book her a ticket and, whenever she was ready, just to say. I said I’d show her all London, that I couldn’t wait. Me neither Dad, she said and it sounded so nice and for me. She had to go but then she just slipped in I know why she doesn’t let me see you Dad and I just want to tell you that it doesn’t matter to me. I started saying What? But she’d already hung up. I can’t tell you how long I held onto that receiver, just willing the portal to open again. Of course I couldn’t have her here but when she’s coming I’ll get a flat or buy a house in case she wants anyway anyway she’s not coming yet. I was euphoric standing out there with her actual voice ringing in my ears. Soon as I came back in here though, that past started screaming in. All that feeling that had been put away for so long. The sheer desperation of the years after she was taken. I couldn’t get it under control. I just wanted her to be coming here right away, fast forwarding into it then remembering she wasn’t. Couldn’t. For years yet. Go for a drink, I thought To settle yourself, and you know what happened after that. I should never have called. I should have known. I just didn’t want to be alone. I could see myself telling you about her too, about how it had been and then I couldn’t and it all got so fucked up instead. I’m sorry for that night, he says – resting his forehead to mine – And for everything. For taking so long to tell you so many things. It’s just, that past is so unclean. So much of it lived without thinking I’d ever be different or survive long enough to want to be changed. I decided, years ago, not to inflict it on anyone again so I closed the door on the idea of being with someone and never thought about what it might mean or how I’d ever explain. And then you came and being with you’s been like having a light shone into the back of my eye. All these months I’ve stumbling around half-blind and I still don’t know what to say. So whatever you want, to stay or go, I’ll understand but it’s up to you now.
Then he sits down on the rug, looking up at me. Cigarette smoke rising, falling between. All this time gone by. The hours we’ve spent. Sleepy Song on the record player and his life run right through the room. And I am surprised I didn’t know before. It’s written all over him. All down his legs scars that must have been burns. I never asked but now I recognise them. Places discoloured that only show in the cold, where something hit him and hurt him long ago. Silvered nicks on his back that reflect the light. Were they cuts? And so many. I kneel down behind. Bless the place with my lips. His body all battle. Too thin, often sore. What he’s done to himself and what he’s had done. But this is the finish. The race is run. Lay my cheek on his shoulder and wrap my arms round. Just the soft of his breath then and weight of his life. We are long nights from the beginning. Come light years from the start. Now he waits, set for pain while I, it seems, hold the sword but I say All I want is you.
Really? Really. After everything you’ve heard? Even then. Are you sure? I’m sure. Then there’s one last thing. No, no more, I say for we are in such fragile skin, so close to getting lost in the in-between. But out of darkness and into what’s left of the night, he says I love you Eily and I’ve been wanting to tell you for nights, for weeks. I’m so in love with you I can’t think of anything else. And those words shift through my body as he pulls me round. I love you too, I say What took you so long? Then I watch it shift through him. See him know I love him then. He smiles at me. I smile at him. And the fall that was coming has come here now. We welcome it. Leap down into it. Cannot wait to see how far.
*
Could I grow up in a night? Grow up in this day? Curled here with him on his small bed, in the cradle of our arms and wrap of our legs watching him deep in his deep dream, far the threat of what he’s been while I lie here, in love. So much and sooner than I thought I’d be. Years off, I’d thought and not like this. But I have come into my kingdom where only pens and pencils were. Abrupt and all abrupt. No longer minnow in the darkness and the deep. Through the portholes and currents I’ve been. Going to the surface. Up into the sun. Touch my own throat. His long arm. Shining like a body come fresh into the light. And she is in the centre of life. I am. I am her. Not unspun either, for what can it mean, more than how a life was lived? His breath gone peaceful in the tight and warm. Twin mine to his. Indifferent dreams, I hope. And list in their pooling through the dark, across books and wine glasses, over my bags, contenting us while across the world she lies, his girl, who is not me. Does she love him like I would if he were mine, that way? That other way I do not want? Tie up your long hair that the salt drops have wet. Being young you have not known the fool’s triumph nor yet nor yet love lost as soon as won. No. That’s wrong. Only won here. Not lost at all. And dread? Won’t any more. For bound to him is what’s to bind and as for crying? For the wind.
*
Light falling all over, my legs ache awake. Kiss lips to his crepe lids and think Birthday cake! then cross his sleeping to do.
Outside this day is just as you’d want for the day when you are in love. Head up in clouds that aren’t in the sky and clouds where my head should be now. In Sainsbury’s I choose chocolate cake – Smarties and icing. Ridiculous perfect. Singing like a magpie all the way home, across the gutters, over the drains. But Where’ve you been? he says when I get in. To the shop, are you alright? I am I just I thought you’d gone. Why would I? I say. Because because. I went to get you a birthday cake. Oh God, he says Sorry, and taking my face. It’s alright. It’s alright. And kiss him and we sit on the bed and I touch and I really want to, he says But I don’t think I can yet, do you mind if we leave it a while? It’s fine, I say I’ll make some tea. Shall we have your cake for breakfast? Yeah, that’d be lovely. Then he sits watching me and we are fine. We are fine, I think.
What do you want to do today then? I ask, over the cup. Don’t know, he says What do you think? Well, maybe today’s the day to lie on the Heath and drink cold beers and read books whose spines we will not spoil, remember? Good idea, he says Sandwiches as well.
So get the sandwiches at M&S. A few cold beers from the corner shop. In my bag, a book of his. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Are you fucking kidding? You’ll be as old as me by the time you finish that and I only got it for research then barely read half. I like a challenge, I shrug. Yeah, I’ve noticed, he says and laughs and takes my hand.
Then we are revolting on the tube. Kiss all the way up to Belsize Park. Utmostly oblivious to ladies with their dog. Not really what you want to be in the proximity of, they loudly agree. Oh, but what you want to be at, I sigh. Him laughing Shhh you, hussy! and kissing me all the more.
Then lace we through backstreets down by the Royal Free. Holding hands. Being silly. Stopping to kiss, and touch, when others can’t see. On into the parkland. Up Parliament Hill.
In the white wrenching view I ask How do you feel? Relieved, he says But I can’t quite believe you’re still here. I am though, I say. And even if I feel spaces opening between that neither seem to know how to fill, I know we will. I know I will once I’ve worked out the right distance again.
So on we go until we find a tree unoccupied by students busily out-clevering or pop stars playing pop stars or lonely people alone. He spreads his jacket on the roots and we lie on it. Kiss on it. Open our beers. Get out books. Do you ever see your brothers? From Sheffield? Sometimes, he says Mostly the younger one, John. The first time I saw him again, he just showed up at the door. I had Grace that night – so early eighties, probably. He stayed on my floor, drank a lot, got an ear-bashing from me for being drunk around her, then borrowed some money and disappeared. I think Gracie picked up a few choice words that weekend, which meant I got an ear-bashing from her mother about swearing. I didn’t see him again for another five years when he just as suddenly reappeared. He’d been off to India, sorted himself out, become a psychotherapist – which made me laugh a bit – and he paid me back too. We get on pretty well now. I see him once or twice a year. We don’t talk much about back then. I did once ask what happened, after I left. She went mental, he said but their father pulled her up pretty smart and I wasn’t mentioned any more. When I asked if he was surprised I’d gone he said There were bite marks all down your arm, no one was surprised. He knew more than I’d realised about what had gone on as well, which means the other two must’ve had some idea also maybe who can say? He agrees with my theory though, that she starved herself to death. I doubt we’ll ever know the truth but we both think there’s something there. The other one, Peter, I don’t know much. Lives in Sheffield with his second wife. Big Christian apparently. Found his faith when Jesus forgave him for gambling his house away. Last saw him at his father’s funeral five or six years back, a real pious piece of work. Trying to convert me, complaining about John being gay. If he knew the fucking half of it he’d curl up and die of shame. Then he cracks open a beer, has a good long sup and stretches his lanky limbs out in the sun. And we roast a while, taking it on closed eyes. His at least. Mine are wide, tacking tales to his silhouette. His starved-feeling stomach breathing under my hand. Funny, after all my fancying, to find that I am loved and how much I love too. Come here. Sleepy kissed til there’s leaves in my hair. Then mud-thumbed and grass-kneed we find fits together but drowsy. Absolving. Estranging ourselves from the residue of last night’s rendered hell. Asking Tonight then? I trace his face Should I call him Mister? Just Rafi, he says, snapping at my fingertips And you don’t need to worry, you don’t have to impress, you’re already the most hoped-for woman in the world. Why’s that then? They never believed it when I said I was better off alone, kept telling me it was time to take a chance and never believed when I said that I was happy as I was. So humble pie for you tonight? True, he laughs But oh it tastes so sweet.
And the day weights to dozing. I read as he sleeps, feeling as though I got shook in the night and somehow forgot. It’s not me it all happened to and yet. Now that I see how he wears it I cannot forget or be back to before. This must be a getting used to thing. Soon enough it’ll probably lie down. For him too. I know because here in the skin, where no strand seems strange, this love insists upon itself. And we will be ourselves again. It’s only odd today. So watch the sun go right across the sky, then nudge him. Wakey wakey, rise and shine, time to go home and change.
What’re you wearing? I ask back at his. This? he tugs. You can’t, it’s filthy. Who cares, Raf won’t be looking at me. Oh don’t, I say I’m so nervous already. Why? Because it’s like meeting your dad. It’s really not, he’d be chasing you round the table in five minutes flat and I promise Rafi won’t do that the dad was more David anyway. You miss him. I do. How long is he dead? Two years. It happened pretty quick. Sore leg turned out to be cancer of the pancreas but we were both with him at the end. You know my dad died from that? I remember, it’s a bad way to go but his wasn’t a bad death, if you know what I mean and when I go You’re not though. No. How’s your heart? It’s fine. Is it? Yes, I have a yearly check and Eily really it’s okay. Promise me promise me. Hey love hey I promise, it’s fine so what do you want me to wear? Have you a suit? Mmmm, might have, he says. Well, I’ve never seen you in one, will you wear it? Raf’ll know I’ve lost my mind for sure but, for you, anything. Okay then go get in the shower while I blow-dry my hair.
I draw the line at a tie, he says buttoning his shirt and sitting to light a fag while I attempt make-up. Kneeling with my hand mirror by the bed. Blue dress, old, but nicest I have. I like having you here, he says Cluttering the place up with your hairbrushes and that, all those little weird bottles and woman’s stuff. I roll my eyes. Fine, laugh, but it’s nice watching you get ready to go out for the night, with me, to my friend’s, like any couple might, anywhere in London on a Saturday night. I’m just sitting here, watching you and I can’t believe my luck – and his face goes full of feeling suddenly – I’m thirty-nine today and, you know, I can’t remember the last time I felt so normal. That’s you Eil, you’ve done that. You make me feel like I’m a normal man with normal things going on and that’s all I’ve wanted, as far back as I can recall. I go sit by him then. Kiss his crown, put my arms round his neck and be with him, just for a bit, not for long. Until a clock somewhere downstairs clangs time. Alright, he says putting his glasses on We should be on our way.
Hand in hand we walk. Turning heads, I think. I’m so proud to be with him. Look at us, he nods, into a shop window You’re so lovely and I clean up alright. And surveying ourselves now we try to believe it. That we have come through that night, out into these days. That we are in love and anyone can see, for isn’t it burning off us? Hey! Taxi! Come on Eily, get in.
*
Jesus, this is where he lives? Yeah, he gets the gate but I insist You go first, as the great door swings and whirl comes pouring through. Music. Booming Hello Hellos and that man from months ago, in knee-length shirt, grabbing hold and kissing him. Then back at arm’s length Let me look at you! Tugging at his hair Rapunzel! and My God, a suit! Ah, he shrugs and Nice dress Raf, who laughs Especially for you, now introduce us. He steps aside and I I am under eyes and suddenly palmed forward into yet more of his life Eily, this is Raf. Nice to meet you, I say, hand out but find myself crushed against exotic scents instead. Wonderful to meet you, darling girl, you’re very welcome. Now come in! Come in! fussing my jacket off while I stare at the ceiling that closes miles above. And all the rest, just as he said. Books. Paintings. Beautiful universe that he is crossing into obliviously, already halfway down the hall saying Smells good Raf, and Where do you want this wine? In the fridge, champagne first, open it for me, would you? And the so much space takes him away, leaving me to finicket beneath my surveyal. Kindly meant though, I think. Glasses passed and Is it short for Eileen? No, I. I’m sorry, Irish names are It’s alright, I say Everyone asks that, it’s actually short for. Pop. Fuck! he says quick to the imprecise pour, laughing, licking it from his fingers. Clink it and Happy Birthday, Rafi says And to finally meeting you – then more quietly – David would’ve been so pleased. Well cheers, he says as I take his hand. Drink and hope it loosens my tongue. What’s dinner? he asks, lighting up. Roast beef, just how you like – although really, why you English do is a mystery to me – and Eily you’re a good influence, I see. Usually he arrives like he’s been through the hedge. Well, there was some protesting, I say. Changed man Raf! Now if you can work on his smoking. No, there are limits, he laughs and amid it Rafi’s eyes move over us and I feel seen as better than I can possibly be but then, maybe, he’s only noticing that little hole in my dress. Lay the table, will you both? Dining room? But of course! Come on Eil, and I’m led in through beautiful rooms. Alright so far, love? I nod, but marvel at him at home in such realms and their photographs Look, it’s you! Glass Menagerie, he says David directed, Rafi designed. And this? – him asleep on a crate, sword under his head. End of the tech, he says Henry V. And this one is David? Rafi, at the door, says It is. I put it down Sorry. No, no need, no need. Him – draping me – saying He’d have loved her, don’t you think? Rafi pats my cheek I think he would. Where am I now? What is this world? I remember you from the National, Rafi continues He came back during that awful play. When I suggested a drink though he said he had a girl waiting. Oh, I said Unlucky for her. Not this one, he said. So, another long-lost sister? But no, apparently not. My goodness, I said Really? What’s going on? I don’t know, he said. But something is? Something, he said. I couldn’t believe it. Would you really let yourself? I asked and he just smiled. That’s why I came outside, to see if you were real. He kept warning me Not too close, like you were some exotic bird he didn’t want to scare away. Sure enough though, there you were and now you’re here, well well.
Off into the eating then. My manners, and Rafi’s, are good but his attentive though at every turn. Peas, love? Another yorkshire? More wine? while Rafi sporadically invokes David’s view of this blessed night being long overdue. And I try to give smiles because they’re all I have. Yet what remedy are they? Plain they both feel his loss but happy tonight, happy too. And after eating Now, go open more wine and cut up that cheese, it’s out on the counter, while I escort Eily into the sitting room.
It bleeds its description. Big and cold. Pasts slide by side as Rafi steers to a piano laid out with more photos in frames. Lots of him, with them, by himself. Some from productions. One with David, obviously ill, attempting to trap a last moment of normal but the smiles are too happy and the exhaustion plain. I have a few of those photos at home. Rafi offers another Ten years ago, France. Himself and David sat on a bench. Him, down front, smoking a cigarette. Younger and smiling but not happy in himself. And this one I like, from later that same day. Him sat alone, cigarette again, apparently staring into the sun. So handsome, I say, then cringe. Rafi only laughs His blessing and curse. He has a good heart though. I’m sure you know that but do you know about the nights he spent here? Well I know he and David were together. No no, I don’t mean that. Sorry, I crucify. I meant, he smiles David was the saving kind, used to allow all sorts to stay here. God knows where he found them. It used to drive me crazy – although I must say I miss it now. But if it was drugs or problems like that David would ask him to come over, whatever the time, even three a.m. I’d say He’s rehearsing in the morning, but David still called and he always came. Sometimes spend hours talking them down. He’s good at that. Very calm. Not afraid of what people might do to him. And I am surprised and not surprised to hear these things. So many worlds swim beneath his skin. I think David hoped it would help him forgive himself because that’s all he really Ah now Raf, he interrupts Stop putting the weight of the world on her, I already have. Ignore his forgiveness spiel Eil, I’m fine as I am, and I get a quick kiss. Rafi raises his palms Not another word.
Sprung from then, we go into the late, drinking wine and eating cheese – so much there’ll be weird sleep. Talking about theatre. Talking about his script. His excitement detectable underneath the complaints of not knowing what he’s at or how to write the end. And in their weft I lull, tracing his nails, lighting on every new lit bit of him until Time for bed, he yawns Alright to stay over Eil? Oh yes okay. Rafi kisses us Goodnight, once we’ve accompanied him to his door. Then I am led on up through this house in the dark.
At the very top, a room, white linen-laid. Bathroom through there, he points New toothbrushes under the sink. I’ve never stayed in a hotel but it must be like this. Little of everything. And brushing my teeth I watch him, in the mirror, undress. He folds his clothes. Hangs up his jacket and I know what I see is the routine of this room. Different, and who else has seen it I wonder? But before that thought has even moved, he says I don’t think I’ve ever shared this room – maybe once, years ago – with anyone but Grace. Is it weird? No, nice, he says. And comes, stands behind. Kisses my neck. Then reaches over to start the brushing himself as I wander into the room. Undress. Get in the bed. Skylight above. Night and look into it. Black ways to heaven. He turns out the light and slides his long self in beside. It’s a beautiful room, I say But it’s like I don’t know where we are. Somewhere else, he says, putting his mouth on mine. And. I lift to him. All of my body and inside the same. I love you. I love you. Play at just kissing until, soft, his fingers start to bring. Almost the whole way there but I want him. Tell him. And he is ready at last. So, in the quiet, don’t we make love half the night – for surely now we must call it that? But make as though there’s not enough time in the world to fill up with our pleasure and our delight. Bodies knowing the other’s well from before but everything else running through now, making it rare. Keeping quiet, for discretion, more. For hearing the secret of our secret thoughts falling between. And the desire that follows, no matter what we do, cannot be spent up and does not let go.
In the morning I wake much before. Still tired though, and good way sore. But sit up, to look at him, lying there on his front. Pale-skinned. Brown hair sleep-pressed forward. And his life like a book lying open on my knee. I can reach down into it, put my hand in it. Read everything. Even my own name is written there now. But instead, stroke the hair back off his forehead. That’s nice, he says Do it some more. For he loves a little tenderness, I’ve come to know. And after a while he asks What are you thinking about Eil? That you make me so happy. He looks up. Smiles. That’s a lovely thing to hear, and drapes an arm over, itches his nose on me. You make me happy too. Then closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.
Make tea! he says two hours later and once we’re done. I don’t know this house, be a gentleman. Raf will be up, he’s an early bird, go on, I’ll run a bath. So creep to the kitchen. Did you sleep alright? Yes, and under the bathrobe feel so naked Yes thank you you? Very well, he says smiling as if he knows what we just did. Is he running a bath? Yes. So he’s sent you for tea? Yes. Then the tradition continues – between them the bathrooms were always full of dirty cups and covered in rings. His voice gone all soft though for the man I’ll never know, for David. And his smile at the memory barely covering his grief. You must miss him, I say. Rafi touches his heart He’s still very alive in here for me but last night, I must say, has done me good. And now that I know what love is, how is it possible to be left behind? I’d like to show you something Eily, may I? and he passes a small case. When I open, a photo. Seventies, I’d guess. Him. Mine. Looking so young. Looking younger than me and Is that Grace he’s holding? It is. And he seems just a boy really. Thin like he could snap. Skin barely covering the bones in his face and the vein in his forehead plain to see but the smile, for the child on his knee, is filled with happiness. He is completely absorbed. She is all there is in the world. Their long and small fingers curled round the other’s. I can hardly bear to look because I know what’s coming and that smile doesn’t yet. You can see it, can’t you? How much he loved her? I nod. That’s important to know because it explains a great deal of what happened. And he watches to see if I know what that means. He told me, I say. Good, I’m glad he did but I imagine it was hard to hear. First time I heard it came as a shock, not something I expected of him but I understood even then – and better now – what that loss did to him inside. Eily, if you had seen him when she first took her we didn’t know for a week he’d just been lying in that room in the dark and he was so thin we thought he would die. It was terrible those first years especially watching him try to hide from the pain and being unable to help. David was so afraid. We begged him to move back here with us but you know how he is goes quiet and destroys himself. When those photos finally arrived he just broke apart, then told us. It was a very hard time, and thank God he survived, but all he’s done these past twelve years is wait for her to come back. And maybe he’ll always wait – I can’t tell you how many times David said Why does that boy still not realise how lonely he is? I’m not lonely, he always says but he is the loneliest person I know and there’s no need for it – but if there’s you, there’s life and I’m not upsetting you, am I? No no, I say. I only mean, Rafi explains on There’s something very wonderful about him and despite everything that’s happened, and all the years alone, nothing has ever changed that. But now, before I cause you to run out the door, here’s your tea. Please tell Blanche DuBois we’ll have breakfast in half an hour!
*
Wide high London. Finchley Road. Once we’ve kissed Rafi goodbye, walk to Swiss Cottage. He showed you, didn’t he? The picture? He did. It’s a beautiful picture. It breaks my heart so I keep it there and only look every couple of months, what did he say? That you’re brilliant. Ah, gave you the sell. Not knowing I was already, and put my arm round his waist and think of his body, how it’s so near. What you want to do today Eil? I don’t know, cinema? We stand, look at the board. What do you think? I look up. Will I get that taxi? he says.
Then must remember we’re still in one by Adelaide Road. Past the school, with Sunday rehearsers outside and on. Camden. His. Go get the door open Eil while I pay for this. And I’m jumping over dandelions all up his path. Opening up quick as I can. Him slamming the front door then behind me two stairs at a time – making me scream with thrill like a child. Making keys fumble. His mouth in my neck. Dress halfway to paradise and his hand in my God I could let him, almost, here in the hall. Come on key. Come on. Turn. Falling in. Falling over. Stumbling onto the rug. Me tugging his pants down and he my dress up and. Door kicked closed. Knickers pushed to the side he That’s better, Christ! No, I say Stop. Stop to what? Doing it like this. Let’s do it the way you once said you wouldn’t, remember that? I remember, he says And do you remember the reason I gave? Because you didn’t want to with a teenage girl. And how old are you now? Is that still how you see me? You know I don’t. Well then, show me or wouldn’t you like to with me? Jesus, I want to do everything with you Eily. So? Okay let me get you ready first.
He does it then, when he thinks I am. Just reaching into every next we can and everything he has to teach, I know I want to learn. So even though it hurts me, though it even makes me cry, I say Don’t stop, when he asks if he should? For there’s pleasure in hearing how much he has. More in the knowledge we transgress, and that he has done this himself only serves to heighten it. And after, he nurses me with his kisses and care. Wipes off my tears. Then whispers in through my hair I’ve never been closer to anyone than you and I’ve never loved anyone more.
Shower. Cheese on toast after that. Cups of tea. Marlboro Red. The still of his flat and both slightly scared at the weave we are utterly in. On the floor, in the shell of his arms, I shake. Alright love? I think so, did you like that? I did. And when you were me? Not as much. Does it always hurt? Not always and there’re things you can do. Like what? Doesn’t matter, that was a once-off. You mean Last Tango-ish? Oh God! he laughs That’s all I’d need how about a pint instead? Okay, I’ll bring my lines along, you can be on the book.
So to the Prince Albert. There sit out in the sun. In an hour I’ve most of Juliet down. He says That RP’s really coming along. But useless distracted by all this love I think of the mess we’ve both made of each other under our clothes. Scratches and bruises. Even the tenderness of mouths and look at him and Let’s go home again.
And this night is a hot one. We must leave the windows wide. Fall asleep and stick with sweat and wake and laugh and Show me? What? Mmmmm. Have a think. How you do it by yourself. Kinky! Watch and. Give us a hand? So lazy! but do it with my tongue. Okay, no, that’s going to make me come. And I let him tonight, wherever he wants. Breasts or inside but Not my mouth. I know that Eil, I never would. I don’t want to be that man to you. Do you miss it? No and I’ve news for you, a lot of women don’t anyway. I know but I might’ve, if I’d got to choose. Well if it’s any consolation, I never liked the taste much. Oh of course, what haven’t you done? Until Friday night told anyone half of what I told you. God, you’re good. That’s what they say! Mouths elsewhere then and hands all ways, going further rounds until he complains I don’t think I can again. So lie in together and kiss instead. Telling the stories of ourselves. Do you remember I cried the first night in this bed? And you’d been so brassy back in the pub Remember that girl after Christmas? I certainly do. She was because I’d spent that month just dying for you so I thought I’d run a mile instead. Aren’t you lucky then I’m the forgiving kind! Yeah, you’ve made me a lucky man. Kiss for luck, and me. All this between and still more to say. I love you. I want you. I want you every day. Searching for some, any, words to explain but left following each other around this foreign place until we go under to a deeper sleep and let this day slip from what we live out into memory.
Morning.
I’m so relaxed but completely fucked, he says clicking and stretching. Too old now for all this sex? So much for empathy, he complains. It’s the youth makes me callous. Yeah, among other things, now, go make us a tea. And he does look tired but so well to me. Lying there, smoking, watching me dress. Saying when I’m leaving Peace at last! I’m going to get at least five hours’ sleep. And I sark – to evade any tears as I leave – Yeah well, lucky old you!
Then I am back in the world and must understand again how to cover my bones with my skin. Just London and traffic, with no night to hide in, and what I leave or bring with me from there. Walk. Know your way. See the here. Recall the place. Turn the corner. Make and make. But those histories related, settled like stun, open their eyes now. Unfurl their tongues. Begin to exhibit in different lights. They beat in me. Hammer at. Declaim Have your love but remember this All our houses are the same and there is no place now without us in. Off. Get off. What do I care what he did when I was two or four? Six. Eight. In that room you are the closest to life, the nearest you have ever been. He for you and you for him. Know you should know you might never feel this again and let it in. What it is. Let it be.
Well, who’s been making the beast with two backs? What? You and, I’m guessing here, Montgomery Clift? What’re you on about? So innocent, Flatmate laughs Yet carpet-burned to fuck. What? Elbows and knees. Oh those mind your business! Trying, he says Anyway, I changed the locks yesterday so here’s your new key. We reckon, a month before they shut off everything. Might get to the end of the term, if we’re lucky. Ta, I say But I’m staying at his. Well, if you need it, it’s there.
And on. My other life, first life swinging relentlessly back. So we’ll start the Emotion Memory exercises next week. Everyone clear what these are about? Recreating a memory from the inside out. Every detail. Sound. Every smell. As though you were back there again. You never know what you’ll find useful. It’s a big one though. Sometimes people get upset so nothing that’s happened less than two years ago, alright?
Can of soup and note on his desk. Sorry, got a call about a meeting last minute. Tell you all about it when I get in. Shouldn’t be back too late. Love
And. Behind the soup. A photo, like I’m meant to look. Lots of black eyeliner. Tall and thin. On my birthday, written on it. Looking so pretty. Looking so like him. That’s her then. I’ve seen. Behind that again, a birthday card. PS on the left saying Thanks for the programmes. It’ll be an A for me now thanks to you. Signed with Hope you have a lovely day and don’t feel too old now Dad, Grace x
In the dark I wait for him. Long for him to come home.
Still up? Thought you’d be fast asleep – such a late one last night, and kissing, he sniffs of wine and hums with good feeling. Tea? Yeah, good meeting? Great, he’s pleased with the draft and making headway on the budget. Couple of grants came through too so looks like we’re on. Brilliant, I say I saw the photo. Oh right she’s beautiful, don’t you think? She is. I just wanted you to see her I didn’t mean to freak you out. You didn’t do you love me? Of course I do, what’s wrong? Nothing, she’s just lucky to have you, is all. Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. You’re alive aren’t you? Ah Eily, love. You’ll always choose her, won’t you? No, no more choosing for me. You will though, won’t you? Hey, listen, all my fucking choosing is done. But I choose you, I say. Eily, he says Just miss him and come over here to me.
So time runs off with us. Days first. Then weeks. Happier, almost, than we know how to be in this overcrowded room. In the never quiet house. Gnawing Hula Hoops from fingertips. Sharing fags. Eating toast. And he helps me with Shakespeare for he knows his way right through. Now and then reads me bits of his script to check the dialogue’s human. Some nights we walk to the end of legs and on the night bus home he shows me an older London, round the City, to the east. We are both, we are not from here but still it is for us. Whether luminous or its fathomless spans or its work to be a place. Then on his road another house sold. Not long now, he suspects. But cramped as we are, with my stuff everywhere, it’s a wonderful life.
Then
Wait, he says Wait, I’m expecting a call. Don’t make me wait, it’s Saturday morning! That’s it now, he hops up Don’t move a muscle, I mean it, I’ll be right back. But roll on my front to watch him go. Hear him in the hall pick up the phone half laughing Be quick Nick I Oh, and the door goes bang. Muscles itching, I sit and wait. Five minutes later there’s a door scrabble. Kick. When I open he’s saying Ah ha, and I see, but indicating Cigarette, to me. I get, give and go back in.
Who was that? for he’s white as I’ve ever seen a man. That was mmmm. Bring again of the phone. Fuck! He turns back round Hello? Yeah Nick, it’s me. Five minutes of odds flow through my brain but those silent eyes are history meaning. Who was it? I ask, as he comes back in. Ahhh Nick you know he’s producing the film we’ve got a meeting in ah Dublin. And the first call? That was, he says That was Gracie’s mother. That was Marianne.
Oh God what did she want? Is Grace okay? His body sits down, lank over itself and hair hanging down. I kneel beside to touch it but I am nowhere in this room. She’s not sick she definitely said that there’s nothing wrong with her but that’s the first time she’s called me since they left that’s twelve years and she wants to meet whatever it is has to be done in person apparently so ‘in principle’ would I agree? Did you? Yes, of course I did but she’ll call with a date once she’s booked her flight. You never know, it might be something good? No no, whenever I’ve called that house every conversation has finished with I wish you were dead, so whatever it is it won’t be good. Are you alright? You look terrible. Yeah I’m it’s just a shock His face a picture of I don’t know what, shifting into Ah fuck her, of course she’d do it like that. Like what? Not just fucking saying what it’s about so now I’m left just Left what? Just fucking wondering about what she’s going to make me live without next. What can I do? I say. Nothing nothing, love. Cup of tea? Breakfast? Actually What? Anything. I could really I could really use that fuck now.
So take him down into me on the bed. Give and offer what shelter I have. At first we are only people in love, reducing all life to the measure between us. But others pass into. Lives break through, making him go elsewhere and I become. For allaying. My body is. Made the most of. Worked into and twisted. And he says no funny or filthy things, just imitates himself like I’m a lesson well learned – Remember, she likes this, and this – so I might best facilitate his shutting off the view. Not on purpose, I know. This is the day. But it lasts until it hurts and I miss him and say Please come now, you’re making me sore. And. He is irritated. Then he is Sorry sorry Eily love. Then does. Then lies down on top of me.
Strange day. And weather. And we are estranged. Standing on the Heath. Him looking away. Off to the left. I know his face but not what he’s looking at or the expedient body, calming itself, that somehow appears to be mine.
Hey.
His eyes close.
Hey.
Open again.
Sorry what were you saying?
Nothing, just, it’s raining.
So it is we should get in.
A pub. Pint me. Him soft drink. Why? Spot of Know Thyself probably won’t go amiss. But at least he takes my hand.
While the shower clatters, I read. He smokes and looks at the paper and looks out the window and time and then I see something I’ve not seen before. Him. With a wandering eye. Tiny. Really. Very small but we are electrical so I get every volt. First, minute reactions to women walking by. The eyes lifting, barely. Soon though more. Soon every time. Then catching theirs and I go so quick inside
I wish you’d stop doing that. What?
You know. No, I don’t.
I’m eighteen, not blind. I don’t know what you’re on about.
Yes you do. Eily, honestly, I’m not looking at anyone else.
So I ask about borrowing a book, to distract. Your copy of Doctor Faustus but there’s a fine arse passing and Thomas Mann can’t hold a candle to that. When I stop mid though he looks up swift Doctor Faustus Eil? Forget it, and I head to the toilet instead. Day, why are you being? Can you not just let us slide?
Of course, back there, the arse’s owner’s in my seat, pawing my pint glass, moulting in it.
Hello? Oh hi, just talking to your mate. He’s not my mate, actually. We recognised each other Eil but can’t quite place from where. Oh really? It’s true, sorry, is this your chair? Don’t worry, he says as I say Yes. Just grab that one over there Eily, this is going to annoy us. Oh yeah, I bet it is.
So I grab the chair and sit by him and tune for this next hour into The Tron? Don’t think so. Bristol Old Vic? Well that depends on. Apparently many things. Cue hilarious anecdotes of drink-sodden stints where paths surely must have crossed until they’re so bedecked in actor banter I can’t gauge what’s afoot. But tire of him falling for every flash of her tits and not holding my eye when I catch him at it. Then how she makes me a paragon to cut me out Oh I’m sure you wouldn’t be caught dead in a dive like that! You’re clearly made of finer stuff than us. Play-slapping his arm, which I know he hates but does nothing to shift from. I look at her nails. Her talented claws. Would he like them in his back? Does he think I don’t notice his ambiguity about what we are? Not holding my hand now. Not calling me love. Am I the unwanted hanger-on? Maybe. I know if I can smell the want off her he can smell it too. I still hurt from this morning, how he was. Has he already forgotten? But I’d let him do anything now, if only he’d send her away. So I look at him with all my love. Will him to see it and he does not. Just plays with her like he’s someone else, who hardly knows my name. Not until, camel though she is, she finally gets up to the Ladies, I say Please stop, I don’t like this game. What game? Please, you know what I mean. So you keep saying but, honestly, I’m getting a bit bored of your jealousy now. Won’t look at me though, still won’t look. Do you love me? Ah don’t start that, it’s been a long day. Do you? Come on, what am I supposed to say? That you love me and, hopefully, remember it yourself. Stop being so fucking childish, I haven’t the energy for this. Fine, then I’ll leave you and your fucking friend to be grown-ups! I get up and. Eily don’t, he says. Don’t what? Don’t go please stay. Why? To compete? No, please Eily don’t leave me alone not with her. But choking now in the weirdness and temper I go anyway. Eily, I’ll see you later, alright? Eily? Eily? Back at the flat? I keep going though and don’t turn around for fear of what I’d shout.
And I don’t go back to the flat. I go to Kentish Town instead. Flatmate lying on the sofa like he’s never left. Football on the telly. Wasn’t expecting you tonight, paradise on the fritz? Yeah, something like that. Well, go grab yourself a beer, I’m expecting a couple of mates.
By midnight, langered. Wound up and hot. Chucking chips at the ceiling because Fuck the bank! And I’m laughing all over but when the phone rings insist I am not here. Hello? Oh mate, you’re in the shit. No she doesn’t want to talk. No, if I were you mate, I’d leave your grovelling until the a.m.
Knock knock.
She says go away, it’s late. Tell her I want to see her and I won’t leave without.
Go on, go out to him, Flatmate says But keep it down, the neighbours are dying to call the cops.
Like glint webs his grey eyes lift up to the light. Every part of him. Every part of him I What did you do? Eily I. Did you come here from her? Can I come in? No and did you? I walked her home. And? Something interesting in his face. Did you fuck her? No, can I come in, please? I go back to my room with no stuff in. Black Kentish Town where curtains should be and
Eily.
Did you?
I did.
And then?
She asked me up.
And you went?
I went.
And then?
She Eily
She what?
Eily
Tell me
She offered she started to
Oh god oh god oh God
Eily Eily I’m sorry and he reaches and his hands look so thin and
Oh God how could you?
But Eily I didn’t after a few minutes I told her stop then I left Eily
Get out.
Get out.
I didn’t do it Eily. I stopped and
You’re a bastard.
I know but I didn’t come I promise I didn’t even get close
Too late for late manners. My body falls out of light. Slips from its traces. Repeats
Get out!
Eily
Leave me alone!
Eily – grabbing hold of me – I didn’t do it, do you understand?
But you kissed her and you put your dick in her mouth
It was nothing Eily, she was nothing to me
Is that what you used to say to Marianne?
Oh God it is but Eily I mean it now.
Get off me! Get off!
Eily, I could’ve and in the past I always have but this time I didn’t. Eily isn’t that love? Eily?
But I slip him. Lie on the bed. Find what parts hate to cry and nail them to my front. As if every vein though has come undone the pain makes me anyway. Makes and forces. Almost scream into the wall. Oh God don’t cry, don’t cry like that Eil don’t don’t it’s not worth that I won’t do it again it was an accident Eily Eily? But I do not respond. I look into the paint and its world beyond doing where all is white. Where all is nothing and wish I was that. So it’s a cold bed we make tonight and lie awake hours upon.
In sleep too, damage. Dreams of dreams. Animals fighting in my body. His, being obscene. Nightmare across to the early waking and remembering what he’s done.
Turn. His body lies half-naked and pearled. Inclining in towards mine. And further down, site of an old thrashing catching the sun. There is so much love. The eyelids flutter up and he smiles before remembering. Then just looks at me. Somewhere below though he finds my hand. Works his fingers in through mine. But the hurt is so fine I must torture it for more. I look at his mouth and imagine how he kissed her. She must’ve been pleased. How he is when wants you. How that makes you feel. Enough to get down in front of a stranger on her knees and how hard was he then for her? I hate you, I say. You love me, he says And I love you, and I did something bad but I swear I won’t do it again and I’m so fucking sorry. Get out of my bed. Eily. Out of my room. Get out of my flat. Alright, and he stands into the six o’clock. Puts on his shoes. Shirt. Coat. He says Eily, later, please come to the flat. I’ll be waiting for you Eily. I say Then wait, and curl in on myself, leaving him only to leave.
Like rot it wrecks but, makes me ashamed. What he has spoiled. I wish her dead, or never been, with her well-done talents and creping cleavage. Warm bath moving round my head. Parts breaking surfaces by themselves as I play him between my legs. I wish we were back to that. And jog. And jog. And say his name. Wound and salve in the falling steam. Whatever my body wrings is for him, pitiless in its love.
Pointless. Pointless. The miss of him runs over everything else.
When I go into his room he is at his desk. Head on his hand. Smoking. At work. The sun making shapes, as he turns to look, all around what angles he is. I step into its castings. He unfolds himself and looks terrible, waiting for me. Are you staying? he says, and the pain shifts itself, even as I nod. I’m so sorry, he says. I know you are. Will you forgive me? I will. Don’t cry Eily, don’t. So I sit on his knee with my arms around his neck. I won’t do that again Eily, do you believe me? I do. Oh God Eily, this has been a fucking awful day. I agree. And with no more to say put my mouth to his. There now. There it is. We kiss then til she is gone and we’re turned back into lovers, freed from the monster. Saved from the abyss. Nunneries. Churchyards. Freezing lakes. Close shave. Day zero – we are at this, or it is what we choose.
And we are good to each other the rest of the night. Cautious around talk of her, or what happened. Trying just to be alright. To settle. Purge of the shock. Going to bed helps and, by the dark, we are almost as we were. But this is the start of the strange for us, of that long night’s story doing its work in ways I now can see.
In the days after, we go calm and kind. Careful of each other around the mines of past, sex and To Be. It is the day’s not awful price. But I wake often by myself. Him sitting, staring into space. And cigarette. And cold. Afraid of what’s coming? Afraid how he was? That part of him caught us both off guard and maybe I’m not alone in the fear of his return – that man I didn’t believe in, who now I sort of see. Although I can’t quite fit him to the man I love, I still find myself at odd times panicking. That past he’s had, what does it mean? Just passing an eye over frightens me. Not what his mother did, though her shape’s right through his life. Not the drugs or the scars. Those are clear and sealed in time. It’s the after. The losing her. All the women stripped back to their secret flesh and ate. Since my love’s now proved such scant impediment paranoia picks up pace. Most evenings he’s out now with his producer mate, revising dialogue or preparing their pitch and if I am not rehearsing late then I’m on my own at his. Now is the first I’ve felt young in this. Too young to know if his eyes are keeping secrets. And these hours away from each other, the conversations we do not have – was Marianne so minutely set aside? – makes hard work of life. So when he comes in I am all for him and he is always pleased but often Tired Eily. By weeks we’re finding silences we didn’t know we had. Stuttering into. Hiding behind. The safety of London getting very thin, hollow with what’s going wrong and heavy, as it drags us down, like it were every truth. But nothing can put out all that light. The right joke or kiss and we’re off for the night. Yet even in those lax-limbed darks the canker is my doubt.
Twentieth she says. What? That’s the date. She called while you were out. So why he is pale. Are you alright? He nods. Did she do any more explaining? She did not. Well, two weeks and you’ll find out. Yeah, can’t fucking wait. Sorry, I. It’s not you, he says Anyway anyway Dublin on Thursday. You and Nick? Ah ha. Why Ireland? Tax breaks or something and as we only need a roof I wish you didn’t have to go. Two nights, that’s it and if we get them on board it’ll solve a lot. So what’ll you do with your evenings, you and Nick? Well neither of us have been before so I imagine, the pub why? No reason. Eily? No, nothing just. Nothing what? Nothing funny when you’re away alright? Why’re you saying that? No reason just her calling and you know. Yeah okay well I’ve got to be somewhere so I’ll see you later on.
What unquiet imaginings do that? Make blame before thought? Then thoughts to back up? Until I said it I had not and now it swarms everywhere. But. In this regard, out on the tiles with the sea between, anything might He might be anything and would I ever know? Back again at his I reread his note. Sorry, I’m going to be late. Now almost every night. Working at Nick’s. Or. Choke strings tight. No. Why wouldn’t he be? But if Tired Eily, is that also of me? Why not? I inhabit such ordinary skin while he is something more.
Smoke. Sit on his desk. Watch him turn the corner and look up for the light. Then, because it isn’t, check of his watch. Drop the fag. Front door. Stairs. Unlock. Hey, why’re you sat here in the dark? Where were you tonight? Revising the draft, the end’s still not right. Where though? Nick’s, where else would I be? And I long for us lying on Hampstead Heath. Even as I turn aside from his kiss. Eily what’s going on? Press my face to his shirt. Cigarettes. Nothing. Eily? Undo his cuff. Then unbutton the rest and taste his skin. I see, he smiles, lifting my chin but I can’t kiss him now. What is it? he says. Just fuck me. Okay if that’s what you want. And he takes off my clothes. Backs me onto the bed. Gets in me and fucks me and I climb myself despite his skin. All the past now collating instead of forgotten. I suddenly misplace the best of myself, allowing a far worse in. And there goes reason. There goes sense. Decency, and with it, tenderness. So for everything that’s happened and what its mystery means I say You fuck really well. He doesn’t respond so I repeat it. Okay why are you saying that? Because it’s true. Thanks I suppose you do too. Probably because you have so much. What? Been with a lot of women and men. And there’s the one goes under his skin. Don’t say that to me Eil. It comes now though, writhing, banging off my tongue It’s only the truth, you have fucked a lot of women. Jesus! Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter to me and all the prostitutes too, do you even know how many? That’s enough, what’s wrong with you? Nothing at all, I’m just saying you can tell me anything anything you’ve done it won’t matter it turns me on. Well it doesn’t turn me on, he says getting off the bed. Putting his clothes on. I bet it does a bit. You’re just being disgusting. I am? Yeah and I don’t like it. Well poor you! Eily you know how I feel about my past. Do you want me to say I’m ashamed? I am. I’d do anything to take it back but you know I can’t. Then how could you? What? Go with that girl. For fuck’s sake, she was a slip on a bad day, let it go. Did you fuck her? Eily I told you everything, I tell you everything, why would I lie? Just tell me the truth, you came in her mouth. I didn’t. You’re lying. Well, believe what you want, I’m going out, and he slams through the door. But down from the window I shout To what? Go fuck yourself Eily, he says nearly taking the gate from its hinge.
And I, inside, don’t know what to do, tangling mishandled arguments he can’t even hear now. Trying to what? Just. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell. Fucking bastard. Fuck your stupid self and scream into his duvet until I am numb. I don’t understand. How could you say those things to him? And now? And what? Turning so fucking scared. What if? Everything you’ve just done makes him and then and what what if he says I hate you, get out. Then that’s you and what you deserve and. Go have a cigarette. Do and do. Until the room’s all it. And my body hurts everywhere like kicked. I watch from his window. Into his street. Please come home. But he doesn’t appear and that lasts so long eventually I must go down to sleep on my own.
Ride through dreams of falling and. Slamming and. Catch. Slipping and clawing. Shout. Stagger back into nothing through falling again Slit. Awake. Key in the door. 4.47 o’clock.
I lie like the dead. Watch him take off his coat. He does not look at the bed. Just strips off his clothes and gets a sleeping bag out of the wardrobe. Please don’t do that, I say. He unrolls it, lays it anyway then sits in the armchair to smoke – hard, for no tomorrows. Where were you? No answer. Please tell me? King’s Cross. Is that really true? No Eily, it’s really not. Sorry. Silence. Stay put in the bed. For God’s sake leave him to himself. But with his smell on the bedclothes driving me mad I get up and go kneel beside. Look up at him. He looks at me. Glitter of old marks near his knee that I lean down to kiss. Even the thought of them breaking me. The loneness of that life. What pain there must have been and now me saying stupid cruel things. I’m sorry, I say and am so ashamed. I hope he sees, but he makes no sign. Just watches as I start to cry. So I lay my head down on his knee. Feel his blood going under my skin. And neither say a thing into the deep silence we make.
In a while though he touches my hair. I’m sorry, I say For all that stuff I said. I didn’t mean any of it. Please come to bed. He hesitates a little, but does. Then, God, the way we lie. Safe together just before the light and when I kiss him he agrees to that. But we are so careful with each other now, like passing glass between our mouths, and gentlest way to be with hands. Bringing the other all the pleasure we can in this tiny breach of air. And he lets me say I love him. Says he loves me too. Fall asleep in that but when I wake he’s on the floor and I’m alone.
There’s a ceiling beyond my fingers. What have I what have I done? Why have I made him choose his own company over mine? Once I thought a man looking like him could never want someone like me. Now I’m hurting him all I can for being what he is. Dangle a finger. Stroke down his long back. He opens his eyes. Watch each other, then What’s going on Eil? he says I know something is but I’m not sure what and I’m really shit at this so It’s nothing, I say Just me being a bitch. He sits up, rubbing his face Look I know what I did has fucked things between us and there’s a lot going on but if we talked about it maybe? Isn’t that what they say? Talking is good? But I’m far too ashamed to revisit last night. I’m really sorry for what I said, can we just leave it at that? All that stuff about my past though, what was that about? I don’t know, I say Nothing, please, can we forget it now? Come on Eily, there’s obviously something going on, can’t we just have it out and be done. I said I was sorry, isn’t that enough? Fine! he says getting up I’m having a shower then. And once he’s out of the room, I get up too, but leave.
*
All day I am like smacked in the mouth. Even Flatmate says What the fuck’s up? Nothing, and cannot face saying more. Cannot face anything. Him most of all. So that evening I go to Kentish Town. Spend it by the telly with the flatmate but wishing he’d ring. Persuade me back. He doesn’t. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday but Thursday lunchtime there’s a note on the board saying Some guy says to call, he’s going away and you have his number.
Hey, he says I’m off tonight so you can stay at the flat if you like and I’m not going to be back until Sunday morning now. How come? Couple of possible locations to check and the evening flights were all booked up. So what time are you getting the Stansted Express? Probably seven. Will I come wave you off? That would be nice. Okay, I’ll see you then.
Plats shatter down as he waits for his to show. I call across the concourse. He swivels round. Looks to the clock, then to me. Cutting it fine. Got stuck on the Circle line, sorry, and I am – for this as well as all these days without him. Why did you leave like that Eily? Why haven’t you been home? Sorry. Don’t be sorry, just explain. I don’t know, no good reason. Then why are we wasting our time? I don’t know I. Oh fuck, he says That’s me, platform nine. Don’t go, I grab hold. I have to Eil, come on, let go. Do you still love me? Jesus fucking Christ, I do but Eily do you still love me? I do I love you more than anything. Good okay then give me a kiss and look we’ll sort it all out when I’m back, alright? But I can’t let him go. Not yet. Kiss me again? So he does. A little. Not as much as I want, then slips me. Got to go love, I’ll call you later, alright? I’ll be waiting, I say Back at your flat. And break a bit as he walks away.
Silt air on the stair. Key in his door. Like aeons since I was here but it is days only. Nights, since I was last with him. Weeks, since that night and we became inside he’s tidied. Bed made but not clean. Fit myself in the sag worn by lovers and him, and me, and Grace. And the smell of him, as always, turning everything simple, back to the rushing want. Before him I thought that when love came it would come perfectly. Not in a dingy room on dirty sheets and not caring at all about those things. It is the spell of him. Unconscious gift that if I told would make him laugh. I wish you were here with me now. Not the back-up note on your desk saying Eily, if not before, I’ll see you Sunday night. This is the number of the hotel. Take care of yourself. And yet. Here it is. But you, alive in me. What’re you at, this moment? Asleep, flying over the sea? Fancying a cigarette? Some lucky girl? Me? Don’t. Inspect the fridge instead. One slice of ham and it could do with a scrub. Sink with my back to your boxes onto the rug. All your life in there. Turn on low. Transfigured Night. Remember then. And close my eyes. Stay awake. Below’s music thumping up. But falling in I hear your voice and bring and bring. Wake up! Get up. Run into the hall. Hello? Did I wake you? I was just dozing, how was your flight? Okay. The hotel? It’s fine. Well, good luck for tomorrow. Thanks, I’ll try to call but. Don’t worry, if you can’t, you’ll be busy I know and I’ll see you Sunday night. Okay Eil sleep tight. You too. Bye then. Bye. Dead line. Dead. Deadening.
Up early. Today’s the day. Wash dream from my eye. Sleep off my face. And my hair can dry in the sunshine that throws all around Prince of Wales Road. Second Years out on the steps in Jacobean rig. Jonson project or. Coming to the party tonight? Pub, upstairs? Might do, depends. Go on in, to the board. Double-check. It’s me for the Emotion Memory later. And all morning it sits there. Then two. Three. Four o’clock. Now.
Nervous? A little, yes. Well, that’s alright. Take a moment to settle yourself – could everyone else please settle themselves too. No going in and out during the exercise. Ready? I think so. Then, in your own time, tell us where you are.
I’m standing in the bath. How old are you? Five. Describe it. Big. Enamel. White. Cold even with water in. One tap’s dot’s red. The other’s gone. What do you see beyond the bath? Dun-coloured lino with an arc scoured in by the door. And a pink bathroom sink with a mirror above with those silver rings for glasses to put your toothbrush in. And are there glasses? No or there are but not there. Be precise. There are two on the shelf to the left with toothpaste and a nail scissors in as well. And a hairbrush that needs a clean. Is that what you think in the moment, or what you’re thinking now? Now. Don’t do that, recreate only what was. There’s a hairbrush with a lot of hair stuck in it. Whose? Mine. How do you know? Because it’s long and blonde and my mother’s hair is short and my father uses a comb so What else do you see? A toilet. The old type, with a chain and a fluffy peach cover that matches the mat under the sink. And what can you smell? Coal tar shampoo. Why does that make you smile? It smells like my father. Is he with you now? No I. Is anyone there? My mother is. She’s washing me in the bath and singing The Spinning Wheel, but swapping Eileen for Eily. Is she a good singer? She is. Describe the walls. Green Anaglypta I think with a plasticky feel, peeling off under the window. Can you see through the window? Yes. So looking through, what do you see? Mountains, in the distance. They’re heathery. Purple and rocks. And closer? A barn. Made of corrugated that’s red with rust. What else? The farmhouse where my friends live. Then a blue car on the road and all the fields between. And closer? Horse chestnuts out our back. Blossoming. Can you get closer again? Fingerprints in Sadolin on the glass my father’s prints. He painted them and he wasn’t very handy at stuff. Present tense. He isn’t very handy at things and a bit messy. Do you know why that thought affects your voice? Yes. Why? The future. No, keep out of that. What time is it? Morning. How can you tell? The radio’s talking, that’s morning. Why does that make you smile? I don’t know. Yes you do. It’s Gay Byrne it’s just so Irish. Make a sound and let that feeling go into it. Ahhhhhhhh. To a hundred people. Ahhhhhh. Now what else do you hear? Still my mother singing The Spinning Wheel. And what’s she doing? Drying me off now. Describe the towel. Pink with roses in white thread rough. Eily relax the tension round your mouth. Go on. I want out but she’s doing the talc. I pretend it’s snow sprinkling on my back. I can hear it make the bubbles hiss. Do you speak? Yes, I ask What does it do? She says It helps you to dry. What’s affecting you? I don’t know. Say the first thing that comes into your mind. I want my father. Why? Because I know what’s next. No, stay in the moment, recreate the smell of talc and the sound of her voice, and once you’ve done that go on. I she asks Have I missed anywhere? And I point down. Point down where? Between my legs. Why? Because I’m still damp there. And what does she do? She looks cross. Why? Because I don’t know yet. Alright, what does she say? She says she I I can’t. Eily, describe what she’s wearing. A blouse. What colour? Reddy brown browny slacks with a crooked crease because she’s kneeling down and I see a thumbtack stuck in the sole of her shoe. Make a sound. Ahhhhhh. To a hundred people. Ahhhhhhh. Now – and remembering precisely – tell us what she says. She says Don’t you ever let anyone touch you there. Make a sound. Ahhhhhhh. To a thousand people, Eily, trying not to hurt your voice. Ahhhhhhhh. Again. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. What’s affecting you? I’m I’m ashamed. Why? Because someone already has. Make a sound. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh and it goes through the Church, to the balcony, beyond, back to the girl in nineteen-eighty who, for the first time, knows she is alone with something she should not know at all. Describe a physical sensation. I Eily, do it now. I Burning. My stomach is. Why? I’m afraid. And what are you looking at? My towel dangling in the suds. And what do you hear? Her asking Do you understand? And do you answer? I say I do. You don’t tell her? I don’t. Why not? Because I’m. Because you’re what? Scared. Because? Because if she knew she would think I’m disgusting and not love me any more.
Alright Eily, that was good work. What are you doing this evening? Rehearsing til eight. Well, make sure you go straight home afterwards, get some dinner, then some rest. The Emotion Memory opens doors it’s important to shut again properly, do you understand? I do.
But there are two shades of light. First, the strip above my head. Second, the flashing Tell Tell. All these years of hiding in case she’d be upset when it’s only what happened to you. Good. Good decision.
Wait until eight.
Phone in the canteen, now it’s quiet. Go dial the O O Three Five Three Sevenone Eightfivefoureightone.
Hi Mammy. Yes. Yes I’m good. How are you? That’s great but listen, I want to tell you something about, remember at Easter? Who we met in the street? Yeah. Him. Look, the reason I was offish was No I didn’t notice that. Really? You seemed fine with him I Really? I always thought you two got along. You were always so friendly when he dropped me off or whenever we went over to the farm. Okay yes I sort of remember that, you always keeping me on your knee when he was around. No, sure I was only five or six, how could I know it was to protect yourself? Really? Every time? Then that was a good idea alright no I suppose that makes sense He’d never try it on in front of a child.
*
Step back. Step back from the phone and fall into somewhere else. No. Stick pences in. Try. Dial again. Wait. The So and So hotel and can I have this room and please and thanks. Ring and ring. Please pick up. Ring and ring. Please be there. Ring and ring. Ring and ring. Ring and ring. No answer. Ring and Ring. Ring off
Hey, you alright? Looking a bit peaky. I’m fine I just Coming down to this party? I did an Emotion Memory earlier, I’m supposed to go home. Nah, fuck that, no one ever does, besides our phone’s cut off so you won’t be able to speak to loverboy anyway, come on, come on! We’ll have a laugh! And look take that. I couldn’t. You could, a little bit of something fast’ll cheer you right up, you’ll see. So rub my mascara and take the wrap. Thanks. No worries, go powder your nose and I’ll see you down there, okay?
Look at her look at her look at you. What a fucking mess. All these years and little did you know, you were always by yourself. Snuff it then in the changing room. Tiptoe back out through Room One. Down the road, then giddy-up. Rubbed to the gums and, barely seconds along, I am running crystal clear.
I’ll get them in, I say, heading up the stairs. Where music bangs full. Moving the bodies. Greetings Earthlings. Hang over the bar. Vodka. Double. Please. Going for it tonight? And I give the barman my best granule beam. Knock it back, hardly rasping. Another? Yes please. Another? Flatmate waving at me, dancing like a dick. So I get him a pint just as the blood lifts. And the eyes laugh. See you later. I hope so, he says. Then make through the crowd with today’s poison hue getting killed off. Pulled there, says the flatmate as I get beside. Look back to a smile from. Maybe I might have. But pushing with music. Bodies going around. Skirt life and flirt life. We are common enough now. Then steal forward to knowing what I’ve wondered in the past. She knew. Not exactly. But. She knew what he was like and gave you to him and slip. Vodka quick licking in the midst of going up. Footing almost to the top. Waiting to. Waiting. To. And. Hear. The voice going Once a shagger. What? Loose every string. Go out in the smoke. Owl-eyed in this. In the junkyards and fuckyards of pick over prey. For some. For him, not me. Yet. Rest in their many arms. Twist my skin. Being young here because I am. Because all these days I have felt enough. And all this living hurts me so much. Get in behind my eyes. Colours of dark. In out of reason. Pull forward til I. Crave for him but the switch switches until, stretched and weepy, I see through my skin to the turquoise best of. A body overcome. I understand what he did. Magnificent, somehow. To give in. Wreck yourself so completely. The beauty of it. I can see past. Put my head in my noose. I want to kill myself or I want to go home. Enough of that! Flatmate steers gentswardly. Little Noseful. So, in my leeway, grant myself this. Then fall speckle-beaked down in through the night. My dominion. Reaching up through myself. Alight in this darkness. The lure of distress. I see it. I see. Him, standing somewhere with a stranger on her knees and. What part left person and what machine? I understand better now, amid this journey into what I am. Just the body of a woman looked at by the body of a man. And I catch the eyes. And I go over there. He’d sleep with me. This much I’ve learned. Forget that cunt, whispers the flatmate Come clubbing with us instead. But I stub out my cigarette and open myself to all that.
Alright Bright Eyes? Yeah, finished your shift at the bar? Sure. Fox-brown eyes nip up me, and down. Join me, one on the house? Alright then. T-shirt riding as he reaches across. A line of hair to his navel that I touch. Not shy then? Not any more. So we play at talking about how he talks. His American accent. How long he’s been here. Where he’s going tomorrow. Amsterdam. To do? Whatever, everything I can. I understand. And that I could fuck him. If I wanted. I might. For who’s to say what really happened with that girl that night? And today’s lesson is all pasts are adrift. So freckly and Irish, he says, dotting my dots, right the way down to where I could still stop. Anyway, I say I should go. No, you should definitely stay. Why’s that? Because, I think, he says It’s shagging time now, don’t you?
Somewhere above we walk in the black. Below the pub, shutting itself. All the sirens of north London going off this Friday night. Up here they weep in through the brick. Good to know life still goes on without me in it. And so it is, in the dark I get kissed. For that is the point. Until the mouth aches. Until the eyes roll back in my head and I won’t know it’s not him or care who it is. There is no preferring. Shoes off. Falling over his bags. Pulling up my. Pulling down my. Tattoo I can’t read and touch him and know how. Get on the bed. In by the nets and. Knickers right off and. Suffer his fingers. Breasts get what they get. All this familiar, already breeding contempt. Turn the eye elsewhere to make the body work right. Yet he pins me and in any man I wanted that. Is he thinking of me? Not of me doing this. Keep back from that. Make clean breaks. She knows how, at least. But the thought of him still gets me up towards off. You really are disgusting but you’ve come this far so Go on through. Find the shape of the fuck. Put on the past if you have to. Who cares what happens? He can dig in me all he wants. Proper and large. Until he is not. Then kneeling up Give me your mouth. Which I don’t but then why not? It’s the same all of it, when not with him. Why should I not be that again? Why did you even pretend to survive? Become yourself and hate yourself in the act. Gives what he wants for as long as he asks. When even that is not enough, watch him, above you, do it himself. Swearing things that make you laugh. Making ridiculous faces but strange to know though if this was him what would I not do to help, to bring him further on? This man I have no interest in. There’ll be no investigating the pleasure of this one. Leave him to investigate it himself – which he does to between my breasts. Then comes, like someone spat. Rubbing it in – he likes that. Smears my face. Fuck’s sake, get off. You love it, he says. Wipe my face on his blanket and know this cannot ever not be. Roll over. Watch his dirty feet. Hear the sound of piss and That was pretty good, wasn’t it? I close my eyes. I wish I was home but I’m so wrecked. Then. From nowhere. Crash down or. Pass out. You might die, if you’re lucky. Reviscerate, if you’re not. Stay as far as you can though from waking up. It is all you have left of free.
And the night shifts through me. All the gears of sleep. Us lying together between the roots on the Heath, as though we have always been together under the sun. And touch a smear of butter off your lip. That smile you give me for it. Kissing my fingers. Inside my wrists and laughing. Reach through the dream of us. Going up, going just beyond the eye I breathe into your body. Run my hand down your side. And the smell of your neck which is not right. Is. Fuck is not you at all.
Back in the bright light and. Pull away. Well now, good morning. Slipping his hands onto my. Stop that. Come on, one for the road? No. Play fair, you’ve just got me hard. Take your hands off. Hey, don’t be like that. Stop! You liked it enough last night. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was wrecked. Gee thanks, he says letting me go. I get up Where’re my clothes? What do I care? Knickers. Him lighting up. Too much I’ve had. Bra. Way too much of everything and I have done what I have done His legs swinging out now Hurry up and fuck off, I got to pack. Fuck you, I say. Yeah, you already did. And don’t I regret it. Feeling filthy. On my T-shirt. Through my hair. Guilt and pull the skirt he’s standing on now. Get off that. Why are you being such a fucking bitch? Oh poor you and your soft little dick. Hey, and I am pushed against the wall I can show you a hard dick if that’s what you want. Get off me, I push back. No, him kissing at my neck and Clink through the byre floor, right through my head. Shift spit ert and push from and Get the fuck off! Don’t you fucking claw me, and cigarette Jesus right on my arm. You’re burning you’re fucking burning me! Stop it or I’ll scream and. He steps away I wasn’t doing anything. You burned me. You fucking burned me! Did I? Must’ve been an accident. Keep my eyes steady on him. Feel around for my bag and, getting, back out spewing Fuck you’s! Get out. Think Get out. Then
Air.
I see the hedge. And wall. It holds a roof up. There is litter. Life shows itself and my brain consterns with fright. Behind me. What he just and what I did. Blow ash from blister. Camden in front. Walk into it. Evaporate and I go to go, but. Where do you think you are going now? Kentish Town’s to the left. And as for his well you can never go home again.
He did what? Fucking what? Repeat that? Flatmate says as he and the Missus and her boyfriend wait. Burned me with a cigarette. He did. Fucking cunt! I warned you not to, didn’t I? Yes. And now he’s got to have his head kicked in. What? All because you couldn’t keep your knickers up. We go? the Missus’s boyfriend interrupts. Too fucking right, Flatmate says No fucker puts out fags on my mate.
The Missus brings me tea and toast. Thanks, I say I’m fine, so she resumes her packing, depressed, I think, by who I am. And I. Am much the same. Cannot bear to think of him. Or sit amid the lost teeth look of my room. Or consider last night. Or be anyone. So go sit out on the flat roof behind.
And the sun is its worst self, making a lovely day. Burning into my scalp. I should be washing myself. Cleaning him off. But I am too pointless for so much. Just turn aside. Turn aside. The awful shame. I might never move. Never rise from this spot again. Just eat bits of toast I wish would choke. And him. Where is he? What gifts I’ve prepared. Thanks for your love and here’s your reward for the twelve years of waiting. It does not sit. And he does not even know our new obstacle yet. That in such short time I have gone so far. And it meant nothing to me. He meant nothing to me. At last I understand. This little. But lot. Too late.
What the fuck happened? Flatmate leant against the sitting-room door. Lilac-eyed. Missus’s fella, having a smoke. We’re barred. Was he still there? Oh yeah. What happened? I ask. I said to him I want a word. He said Make it quick. I hit him a slap and said You burned my mate. At which point he gets back behind the bar, going Not that bitch. So I says Yeah, her, and why should she get scarred because some little cunt like you has to take it too far. I didn’t do anything, he says Not on purpose anyway. Well, I said Just in case, we’re going to teach you a lesson about not hurting girls. Get out, he says Or I’m calling the cops. So I punched him in the head. He kinda fell forward at first but came back with this. Then the fucking golem here drags him over the bar and gives him a couple of stamps. That’s when the barmaid started screaming Get out! You’re barred! so we left. But he’s off on his travels with a black eye and a few cracked ribs. Thanks, I say. No worries, Flatmate says But you wouldn’t get us some ice would you please?
Into the bath once the Missus leaves and scrub myself to pain. No matter though, I’m still myself and probably not his long road home. Leave the water in, would you? It’s the last. Okay. Go lie on my mattress. White nightie. Passersby. My Walkman. The view. Go into the music and as the songs spool let them be me instead. There’s not much respite so, as sleep comes, sink into it until the world goes blank and blind.
Banging. What? Banging glass. Eily! Wake up! Open my eyes. Wake up love. And he is right outside. What? Hey there, sleepy head, will you let me in? I’ve been knocking for ages. Come up I, chaotic, to life then. It’s him and all I see is that.
Locks and pull and there he is. Offering a six-pack of Taytos For the Irish contingent. And I leap him. Fling both arms around his neck. Now that’s the welcome I was hoping for, he laughs, squeezing me almost to feet off the floor. How come you’re here? I didn’t like how we left things so – already backing me back to the room – I hung around at Dublin airport for a return. Crisps crunching now as I’m slung on the bed. I missed you, and kiss him. I missed you, he says. Guilt flooding up but that feeling between. I hide in it. Go to it. Tell him I love him and I want him inside. One minute, he says And I’ll be happy to oblige, then nips to toilet while I scrabble my knickers off but Contrary to what you might think mate, I really don’t want to see your knob. Sorry, didn’t know you were in here, he laughs What’re you doing lying here in the dark anyway, having a little cry? Think I nodded off, Flatmate says Pass me that towel? This one? Ta. Then flush and bathroom light and Fuck, what happened to your eye? Not the bailiffs again? Nah, fucking chivalry that. What happened? Nothing, bit of a scrap is all, anyway I’m freezing my bollocks off so see you in the matin mate.
Did he get in a fight? Sort of, I say as he lies back down. What happened? Who cares? I try but the morning falling in on me like slate. Eily what is it? I hide my face. Did something happen while I was away? I I do not reply. Look at me love. I do not. Eil did something happen to you? And I Sort of, then. Did someone hurt you? Sort of. Eily what does Sort of mean? If I look at him now though I know he’ll see and I Keep this second. Hold in this place where he loves me. Then. Eily please tell me. And I raise my head. Oh, he says No it isn’t that tell me anything else Eil and I’ll believe you, alright? But I can’t lie or speak so he is left to ask Did you sleep with someone while I was away? Pulse and Pulse. He can already see. I’m sorry. Oh God, through his teeth, getting right off the bed. Who? Who was it? Was it him? and grabs me up. Catching the burn though so I scream Let go! Was it him again? It wasn’t. Was it? No I swear. Then who? You don’t know him. What the fuck? he says Two fucking days and you couldn’t wait? Let go of me, you’re hurting me. Who the fuck was he, tell me? Just a barman! A what? Barman from a pub. You just picked some fucking barman up? Yes. Why? I I was off my head and What the fuck? shaking me so hard the pain in my arm haywires everything else. Please let go I was upset you didn’t answer the phone So you fucked someone else? You’re hurting me. Hey in there! Flatmate banging the door then opens it Take it easy on her. Mind your own fucking business, he shouts. Mate, I know what she did but Get out, or do you think I don’t know it’s you filling her up with that shit? Just calm down mate. Don’t fucking tell me to calm down. Flatmate turns on the light Look at her arm mate. He did that. He did what? Fucking burned her with a cigarette. What the fuck? and the silence coming down. Slow then, him pulling up my sleeve. Slow turning my elbow to see. His eyes then slow travelling up me He did this to you? I nod. Jesus, he says dropping his head like not knowing what to do. Don’t worry, Flatmate says We sorted him out, me and the Missus’s bloke. So where is he now? A & E or Amsterdam. Right, he says Right thanks for that I I’ll take it from here. Already closing the door. But go easy on her, okay? Yeah, he says Yeah of course.
Alone beneath the bulb, I am all seen and I have done this, made his eyes full of disbelief. When did it happen? This morning. So did you spend the night with him? I did. Did he make you Eil? Shake my head. That’s good, he nods relieved but killed. I’m so sorry, I say It was a mistake, I didn’t even enjoy it. Well that’s a relief! I mean it I was wasted and you were away. What’s that supposed to mean? Nothing I just I didn’t know if No! I didn’t do anything Eily, you did! I know please forgive me? and wind my arms around his waist. Let go of me. But I will not. So for a half-blasted moment we half-blasted stand. Close together yet ghosts by our reflections back. And everything passes over. Everything passes through. Then his body decides to leave. Don’t leave me! No I’m going home and – unlocking my arms – you should probably lie down. Don’t go, you can’t go, please, I’m scared. Of what? That I’ll never see you again, and the tears come down. Jesus Christ! he says, still the anger, though conflicting, across his face. You know how it is to do something terrible, I say Please don’t leave me alone with it. Like balancing the many then, his eyes take mine. I cannot see into what he thinks but he says Alright. He doesn’t want to be here though, rebels at the hurt. And as we strip off I can tell he has already left. He is halfway home in his mind.
Put out the light and, in its absence, lie side by side. Where miracles were, prayers only now. When I touch his hand though, he lets me. Shifts an arm to take me in. But the memory of myself here against him slowly gets to agony. Then because neither of us know what to do with any feeling, except be together in it, we do. Him taking me under. Letting me hide. The sadness making want but, that it might be the last time, has me cry almost the whole way through. Please stop, he says I hate hearing you cry. I can’t though, and when we kiss, the pain crosses our mouths so he stops that and won’t try again. Wipes off my tears instead. Puts his lips to the burn. And he is so quiet, like sound might break whatever he’s brokered inside to spend this night with me. At odd moments the anger takes him though, has him pin me down. I’d like him to hurt me but he doesn’t, much. He mostly holds onto it, as I hold onto him. And after, lying in his arms, I dream this is another time. That first night when I also cried. The night he told me he loved me. The Rafi white night. So many nights and days we’ve had. Those things we have done. All we have said. But he lets go of me then, turns to face the wall, reminding my heart that it’s breaking down. And there’ll be no sleep. There’ll be no rest. Just dread of the morning to come.
Slow the awful dawn pursues the night above my bed. Tongues of it on the ceiling glow in from far off but I have him still. Still I clutch. Only after hours he is asleep. I watch though because I know when I close my eyes he will get up and leave. What I have done, does it have to mean this? Is there no way back?
Blasted by daylight come to torture me. I think of the long veins in his arms and know, before turning, there’ll be no one there. Did I just dream him stepping over? Putting on trousers. Putting on his shirt. Sitting near me to do his laces up? Running his hand down my cheek saying Don’t wake up love, I’m off. So was I not asleep? Where was I? All I know is he was here beside me and isn’t any more.
Flatmate looks up. Where is he? Gone. When? Just now, just a moment ago. I fling open the window to hang myself out. And see him. The back of him. Tall and straight. Come back, I shout Please don’t leave. I can see him hear me. Know he almost turns his head but chooses not to and keeps walking away. Don’t do that, Flatmate says Get in. You’ll fall. But still I’m calling Don’t go! although he already has. Please turn round! Please come back! Flatmate’s pulling me in Calm down. If I run I could catch him. Don’t, he’s gone and he doesn’t want to talk to you. But I’m kicking and pulling until we’re both on the lino. Calm down. Christ. You’re going to hurt yourself. But the grief is wild. I cannot tolerate it. To have lost him. To have lost him. There is no worse than this. I can’t contain the panic so Flatmate pins me until I exhaust it. But the will is strong and it takes some time. Come on, let’s go into the sitting room. Christ, I’ve never seen anything like that. He left me. I gathered as much. He left, I say again, to test for truth. I know, he says, and so it is. If it’s any consolation, he looked a right fucking state. And it is, I think it is.
And lie long on the sofa. Flatmate in and out. But I am there forever. Why have I done this to myself? Couldn’t have timed a betrayal better. Could scarcely have hurt him more. I attempt his silence but get wrecked by my own. I think I’m going to lie down.
Destruction only though in my room. Traces of sex with the man who is gone. And the big bag of crisps. I lift, open them. Tongue swelling to the salt. Cheese and onion comfort and pangs innocent. I eat the packet. Another one too. Then another. Nother to long past full. But I’m not running across schoolyards. Their magic’s outgrown. Go so, adult, and puke them again then come hide in your dirty sheets. Under there I have so many dreams but none of them of anything. Just all the doors in London. Going through. Into blank. One more. One after. No faces behind and I’m not even lost. I am futility. I am nothing at all.
Wake later, but don’t think to get up. Lie in the lack of air and discomfort. Instead return to the crisps. Eat more. Many as I can fit to wall myself behind full, but useless body will not collude. It wants to throw up and forces me to. Choking over the toilet to bile and cramp. Then’s when tears. Shivering and slime. And the flatmate says Let’s watch a film and don’t worry, he’ll be back. He’s mad about you. Anyone can see that. Just give him a few days, then a call.
The night’s all race with that, the thought. And because I do sleep, then feel better for it, hope begins to show. Perhaps it’s not all as bad as I think. He still loves me I know so might remember the things I have forgiven him. I did try to forgive him things.
*
Monday. Early. I almost run in. Only zealous other First Years about at this time. Ma May Me May Ma Mo Moo-ing and, more essentially, not queuing for the phone.
Ring.
Rings for a bit.
Normal.
Like we are in bed and he leaves it for next door to get. Only when next door won’t, he does. Bathrobe in winter. Summer not. Goes out to but always barefoot. Getting at last to Hello? And I am sprung open by hearing his voice. The miss of him Jesus. Hello? he repeats. It’s me I just. I’m busy, he says and hangs up.
Alright love? says the cook. Can I have a tea? I go outside. Have a fag and watch the day with an enemy’s eye. The cup burning a hole in my palm. Alright? she says, coming up the steps You look like shit. Thanks, I say. What’s wrong? I tell her everything. At the end of it, she says Shouldn’t have taken that stuff off that dick. I know but. Anyway, let’s go to Voice.
And today drags the more for owing nothing to me. Store the pain in some switched-off place, which is becoming everywhere it seems. Only later on do I get back my brain and by rehearsal I am on the knife. I understand everything I need to do. Excused of myself by the in out of words. Such a small space between me and her – girl about to lose her love. But we are not the same. She loves truly, doesn’t she? Was pure and steadfast in ways I could not be. She was intact though and I cannot help thinking he was always knocking on a broken door so when the gale came there I was, useless and letting it in. But I understand something of her strangle at the light so bring it along for her now. Much better, the Director says at the end You’ve not wasted your weekend. No, I suppose I’ve not.
On the tread back though I try him again. Breathing hot phone box piss and getting his neighbour who shouts in Phone for you mate, yet again! He opens up. I know that creak. Cheers for that, and because of tiredness his accent’s gone all strong Hello? It’s me, please don’t hang up. Eily, he says. Yes. And silence and You didn’t say goodbye. You were asleep thought it was as well to leave you be. Right so have you had a busy day? Yeah bit of follow-up and that. Well that sounds like Listen Eily, I want you to come and get your stuff. Oh no I Or I can bring it over if you want? Wait I. And I’ve been thinking, he says If you need money for a deposit or anything, you know you only have to say. And I and I cannot. He has organised this thought. He has been considering this today. I don’t need money. Well, think about it anyway, I don’t want you to be struggling on top of so how will we do this then? Do what? Move your things I’ve packed them up. Do you want me to throw them in a cab or No I’ll come. Already arranged and done. Shall I come down now? No it’s late. Well I’m not rehearsing tomorrow? No I’m not here how does Thursday suit? That’s fine are you going away? No just dubbing on that stupid film and it always puts me in such a foul mood. I say I know you hate dubbing, as indication of I know you, but he does not pick up on it. Right, Thursday then, around six? Fine, I say and and and It’s nice to hear your voice. Yours too, he says Are you alright, Eily? Not really, are you? No, not really either. So at least there are two of us in it. Night then, he says. Night, I say.
Switch the kettle on when I get in but the Flatmate says I wouldn’t bother, the electricity’s gone.
The next two evenings I hang around the school. Might as well do extra work with the lads on my scene. But the fucking around in the canteen does my head in now. I can’t find it in me to care about the Agents’ Showing and the bitching Third Years because some slippery fucker’s wedged herself into three scenes. Even Second Years foaming over their end-of-term purge elicit no pity, for all the world’s an empty stage if he’s not standing in it. And even to sleep, no fucking perchance to dream. Just nightmares of leavings to be.
*
The Camden Road at five to six, dusty with summer and leavings of itself. Litter in hedges. Sweet wrappers and chips. Roadwork gravel filled with neighbourly dog shit as cyclists and buses go by. And his street, more under the reach of trees, much the same as it was. Front door though splintered and broken-locked. TVs from everywhere giving out chat, or rolls of News music, as I go up. Hesitate but knock. Hang on a sec, he opens then Come in.
Walks well away though, before I am. The beginnings of Transfigured Night but switched off then. I’m not too early? No no. But he won’t show his face and fake sorts at papers on his desk – his tidying belied by the state of the place, worse than I’ve seen for months. Sit down if you want – vague wave to behind. I shift books from the bed Where’ll I? Anywhere, anywhere, dump them on the floor. So how was the dubbing? Oh you know, and rubs behind his glasses. Tired? A bit. What happened your front door? Someone kicked it in, we’ll be waiting years now to get it fixed. Yeah I know how useless your landlord is. Trip back to silence. Then. Cigarette? No thanks. He tries lighting his but Fucking thing! Shakes away at it until, sparks later, it does. Then smokes and examines a hole in his jeans and, only once he’s organised, looks right at me So how are things? Not great, and you? He shrugs, surveying me but with eyes gone quiet. Eating much? for he’s gotten thin. Enough, he smiles Your burn’s calming down. I touch my arm but, mercifully he moves on to End of term next week, is that right? Yes. Well good luck with the showing. Thanks you still meeting Marianne that Thursday? Yes. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m sure it will, he agrees, re-attempting a smile but the weird decorum cracking it. I’m sorry, I rush out. Don’t worry, he says – up on his feet though – Anyway, you’re here for your stuff. I just I stuck it all in your bags. Oh right. And everything suddenly manics. He’s hauling them out. Shedding fag ash. Knocking over books There were quite a few bits and pieces, you might want to have a quick look Wait, I say. He does not Your purple case has a rip so I used some gaffer tape and Please, I say. No, let’s just get this done. Will I carry these bags down to the station or All the flurry making panic. Far too quick to keep up. Five minutes of tidy to clear out of our life. Does it really have to be over? It really does. Really? as though disbelief might alter it somehow. Yes, he says. But why? Why do you fucking think? Please, I’m so sorry, I really am. I know you are, now get up. Won’t you forgive me? I do Eily, but that doesn’t change anything. Why? He drops the bags What do you mean? You know yourself why we’re here. But I love you, I say, pulling at every seal. And what did that matter last Friday night? Don’t be cruel, I made a mistake. I know, he says – more gently – Far better than most. God knows I’ve done enough fucking around to have no right to judge or ask for anything as far as fidelity’s concerned – least of all from an eighteen-year-old girl. But that’s the problem, you’re eighteen and you shouldn’t have to feel bad about wanting your freedom. No, I say Don’t do that. It wasn’t about wanting freedom. It was just being fucked up, all those things we’ve said, I meant them and I know you did. I did, he agrees But I should never have said them to a girl your age. And I hate this voice he’s suddenly made for her. Pat on the head. Now run along. It was just a stupid fucking mistake, I shout I was upset and with everything else going on with us. And what the fuck was going on with us? his own voice shouts back You wouldn’t say what the fucking problem was and I couldn’t work it out and You went after someone else right in front of me, I say You went home with her and whatever you did or didn’t do it frightened me you were so unlike yourself then. He covers his face and sits down beside I’m sorry, he says That was very bad and, you know what’s worse? I was so proud of not having gone through with it. The fucking life I’ve had Eily, the way I’ve lived, I’ve no reason to expect you to be alright with it or recognise some stupid fucking difference that no woman would, or could, never mind a girl your age. All those things I told you would’ve been best kept to myself I just thought never mind what does it matter anyway. Don’t be sorry, I say I’m the one who really fucked up. No, these things happen Eily, don’t feel bad about it and besides if you were with someone else, someone better than me, that stuff would probably get easier for you. And so quickly he is closing me out. A logic working far beyond where I thought. His life arranging itself around the idea I’d be better off without. But I don’t see that and I don’t agree. For Friday night has also shown me how he works, under the skin, and I want to say Come up from your dead life again, retell me your secrets my love, and this time I will be more. Too late though. He won’t believe me now and just strokes my back like I am a child. But I’m not and I feel the pain in him – bad in this moment as it’s ever been – so put my arms around him. At least we can have that. You just came into my life so unexpectedly, he says I never thought this would happen to me but, right from the start, I knew I could love you. I tried not to but I did anyway and then there was no more calm. You just brought me to life in ways I haven’t been in years. I’ve fucking loved it Eily, you and me together, but it was a mistake. How could it not be when you’re so young and I’m so fucking incapable? It wasn’t, I say It’s how things should be. He doesn’t object, but he doesn’t agree. Come on, I say resting against his cheek. And he seems so fragile. Does not protest even when I kiss him then. Allows me to and gets tempted into kissing back. Lips parting just enough to kiss how we’ve always liked. Secretly. Intimately. Bitter and fine. Touch his face and his Stop, he says We’re not doing that any more. I want to, I say And so do you. I know, he stands up I’d fucking love to but I’m not going to Eil. Why not? Because, he says All those years before we met were mostly quiet inside for me. Long as I kept things in order I’ve been almost fine. Do a job. Smoke. Go for a pint. Lie here and read a book of a night or bring someone back, should the opportunity arise. Then write my letters and think of Grace. Dream about her being old enough to visit. And it got to suit me Eily. It’s kept me very calm. This is how I’ve learned to fix my life. I don’t have to touch the walls. I can rattle around inside. It’s like looking down through water and seeing to when I’m old. I know exactly how I’ll get there if I stay on course. And that would be an alright life Eily. It would do for me and I was resigned to it, content with it even but then you came along and I loved you much more than I wanted, far more than I thought I could. But with you all this other stuff began to return. The life I wanted when I still had the right to want anything. It was there inside me all this time, asleep, but it’s wide awake now. And the problem is after all the people I’ve slept with and the things I’ve done, I’m so ready to try to be with someone but you’re eighteen and that’s not right. You don’t want to get married or have children and why should you either? I certainly didn’t at your age. And, much as I could wait, by the time you’re ready you won’t want to with someone like me because as you’ve seen nothing comes easy to me. So I have to stop this now and get rid of all these things that you never meant to bring. But at least with what’s happened, I’m thinking straight. And I know to come up out of that old life, to this, to you, isn’t what I want. Please, I say Can’t we try? Can’t we just see what happens? He shakes his head. But why? Because this isn’t how normal people are when they’re in love. They know how to be happy, and you need someone who knows that, who can do that for you. I thought, for a while there, maybe I could but I don’t think I can and that’s hardly a surprise. But you love me, I say. I do, he agrees I really fucking love you and right now it feels like I always will but I don’t want to any more so we’re going to have to let this go. And I can tell he means it. This is what we won’t come through. The implacable logic of a well-built wall that I cannot see around or get through and he will not help. You’re a liar, I say And that’s all bullshit. I slept with someone and hurt you, just admit it, just shout at me and then forgive me and then let’s get on with our life. I’m not hurt, he says. Yes you are, I can see it, that’s why you won’t even give me a chance, you fucking hypocrite, how many things have I forgiven you? All the anger stretching out between as I stand up to start pulling my bags free. Let me help you, he says. No, get off, I don’t want anything from you any more. Eily, let me help. No! I shout. He steps back Alright, if that’s how you want it. It’s not how I fucking want it but apparently this is how it is. Then bang open his door and toss out my bags. Eily, he says Let’s not part like this. But I’m crying with frustration and don’t care for polite. I don’t care how he’s planned his formaldehyde life and hope he feels every bit as bad as I do now. Please love, he says, trying to take my hand. Get off me, I’m going, just like you wanted. And as I’m about to Eily, he says. What now? Fucking flesh as well? No, he stretches his hand out Keys. Jesus, I say How can you bear to do this? But his face’s gone back to December. And before. Impassive grey eyes content to wait while I rummage. There! I slap them into his palm. Thank you, he says long fingers closing. Then I just go. Before the door shuts though, hear them thumped across the room. A little satisfaction. Where did they land? Behind the desk? On his armchair? Stop. You are not going back there any more. And the great abyss of the loss of him opens up inside.
Out into seven. Quarter past at most. The dandelions turned to clocks as I straggle down his path. Bundle through the old gate. Wretchedness making its meal of me. But if I look back I know I’ll see him and, because I won’t spare myself one hurt, I do. And there he is. Cigarette smoke and light rebounding all across his pane as he looks down at me. So I wipe my nose on my wrist and turn away. But I know he’ll watch until the end, until I am completely gone. Then all on his own, in that room without me, begin his life again.
*
God tortures me with morning, scourging eyelids red. Flatmate nerring Imagine in the bathroom. Fuck him anyway. And me. My brain drilled through. How much did we even drink? Stomach sore from? Oh. Puking. Pink like blood but just vermouth. Bags. Still out in the hall. Arms. Still in their sockets. What have I to do today? Get up and be alive.
Better find somewhere, Flatmate says wet at the door. Won’t be long until the water’s off then it’ll be rank in here. Have you somewhere? Yeah, going to bunk with a mate, suppose you thought you’d I did but fuck that. Maybe I’ll leave my stuff at school and after the summer have a look. Now I have it. I’ve a plan. See, my brain still works.
But a hard day to night
Draw the blankets round but that’s not him. That’s cigarettes and burning skin. And under it? No. Don’t look for him. Put your head down to sleep. But when it starts, the brain sets off. Going with the thought of so many much before what I did. Straightened out on his bed, naked and laughing with him. One of the two in that good oxygen, taking it hard down into the lung and so glad of each other then. Think of It’s alright to be shy with me. Everything was alright with him. I could do no wrong until Now I’d like to wake up but the dream keeps going. In through the red and onto cutting off my fingertips. Shearing to the bone. Laughing too. Presenting as My gift to you, my love. Who’d not want me? And when I do wake I’m still all aberrant eyes. So sure he was just here. No. Fingers still attached, more’s the pity. Some stranger at the glass and hide under the duvet because these nights will be too long.
Go instead to the rich imperfect days. One week to the end of term. Cold water showers jagging my back. See the sun shine and walk my way in it through the bowers of Kentish Town. Intent in each moment. Do not think. And in my Juliet bed gown let the words do the work. Come, gentle night, come loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my no it makes me sick. Now only stand and forget the text. His keeping still, the very best paralysis. Okay stop, the Director says What the fuck’s wrong with you tonight? But I am another girl and beyond caring about fucking my own self up. This is a stupid play, I say then walk out. And I don’t even care if they make me stay that way. Chalk Farm is poisoned for and to me. Go sit out on the bench and watch little boys from the estate behind making cheek with some Third Year lads I could fucking have you, and you, and maybe you. Then roaring as they’re chased off down the road. I would laugh if I cared. I don’t though. Or want to be here. Or see the point. Go to get my things. Hey, the Director appears I want a fucking word with you, what was that in aid of? Nothing, leave me alone. Oh no, and I’m shoved into the study room. You don’t behave like that in my rehearsal room so you better make this good. With no will to lie then, or for disaster more, I dwindle a sullen I split up with my boyfriend. What trite that sounds, for it contains no trace of what he was to me or how it is to lose someone again. Well you’re a fucking disgrace, the Director says. Don’t ever bring your personal life to rehearsal again, do you hear me? Work. That’s what this life means. If your leg’s amputated halfway down Wherefore art thou fucking Romeo, you keep going, do you understand? And there is a thread. Pull it. Pull. If he knew what you’d done he’d kick you up the arse as well. But further beyond. Remember yourself. All you came here for. So I go back inside. And some sense starts up again.
Moving out tomorrow, Flatmate says You shouldn’t stay here by yourself, it might get weird. Why don’t you bed down at a mate’s? No, I’ll stay. It’s not much longer now.
A candle is mine in this vigil of night. Smoke and now can’t be burns enough. Even not alone, yet too quiet. City creepy below. Passers on the walkway. Faces at the window. Just sit inside in the electric-less dark and try at keep trying to breathe. Touch the places where he slept. Who is he thinking of tonight? Marianne, I suppose, and that’s right. She was first anyway. She’s probably also somewhere in London tonight thinking of him or that misbegotten life. The idea of it going suddenly square in my brain, like seeing into them. All the years gone since they spent that week in bed. Since they made their daughter and became he the devil, and her, for years, only what she stole. Bone picked and bleached clean of what they once felt. And now will that become me as well? Remembered, lying on his bed with some new girl, as too young to be serious about? I missed her of course but now I know she only blew off the dust for you. Am I already gone to the past? Gotten off his body by someone else? So many years to be apart ahead. But maybe one day we’ll cross paths in a Safeway’s. This is my wife, he’ll say And this is our son. And I’ll look at the little boy whose hand he holds tight and see him in there but none of myself. Hear him telling his wife Eily and I went out for a bit, way back when. Then it’ll be off with them, back to the life I’m not in. How have I so easily gotten so much wrong? But whistling down from the blue night it comes: I had not grasped that the sun still rose after I love you. Maybe he missed that also. So neither of us was careful enough and broke it before we’d understood. But as he thinks of her tonight I hope he also does of me. Sees beyond the hames, the screaming and the keys to my imperfect love that was meant utterly. And he was right, that was the wrong way to finish. Tomorrow I will be myself again.
Kwik Save boxes. I help pack. Bit sad to leave, Flatmate offering his spliff. No thanks, how’s your eye? Nearly healed, shame too, it would’ve looked great for the Agents’ Showing. I was all prepared. ‘I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am.’ Not a bad Brando as Brandos go but there’s a horn blowing down on Patshull Road. That’s me, he says, slinging his hook. The next few minutes in and out. Lugging his telly and what he’ll nick. His mate helps with the sofa – That’s for the fucking bailiffs, you’ll be alright without it, won’t you? And when he’s done gives me a hug. It was a good laugh living here, here’s my mate’s number if there’s trouble. His mate shouting Come on man. I’m double parked! Better go. See you Friday. Okay then. I go back to the kitchen and watch them pull around. Salute to his and watch until he is gone. His future Tufnell Park. Turn the tap. Water runs. Good. So turn it off again.
Pleasant after sunshine, Camden getting towards night. Carrier bag sweat on me and his front door still broke. Quieter than usual. No telly blares. I go on in but, top of the stairs, sounds trickle out from his room. Voices. A man’s. A girl’s? Listen but too low to company or something else? You have come this far. But if it is? Just knock anyway. Quiet. What? he shouts and when I don’t respond What do you want? I knock again. Who the fuck is it? I it’s Hi it’s me. And the silence it goes into. Has he heard? It’s me, I say again. Then hear him cross but he only opens a crack. Look, not tonight. Just for a minute, I say I haven’t come for a fight. A struggling moment of Please? Fine, he says Come in, but you can’t stay long.
Already going when he opens my heart stops with shock. Thinner I’d thought of but not starving almost. Worse than I knew you could get in a week. His grey eyes gone black back. Skin dry and white. The shirt hanging off him. Jesus you look awful. Why did I say that? Thanks, he smiles at the floor. I close the door behind and the next awful is the state of in here. All the boxes open or turned out on the bed. Desk. Armchair. Ripped and emptied. Everywhere. Everything. Curl-cornered scripts. Tapes and clothes I’ve never seen. Even the video that’s always packed. Records. Postcards. New old photographs. Frittered with fag ash and blanched in splashed tea. Dirty cups all about. Only his suit, freshly cleaned, looms in its plastic on the back of the door. Oh my God what happened in here? He looks around dully and lights a cigarette. Ah, just wanted to go through some stuff. His eyes, behind his glasses surveying the wrack, sodden with tiredness So what can I do for you? Did you leave something here? Might be difficult to locate right now but if you tell me No I didn’t come for that Jesus you look terrible, how long since you ate? Eily, he says What do you want? Sorry, sorry, the reason I’m here was just to bring you these, and offer the carrier bag. What’s in there? Minstrels and some bread and some eggs. He smiles a little then sits on the bed, starts unpacking it Thank you – just looking at them – That’s very thoughtful of you. Well, I know Marianne’s tomorrow and I know what you’re like and I thought you might want some company tonight, actually, when I was outside, I thought I heard someone in here. What, some girl? No I don’t know. Well there’s no one but me. Then we look at each other through the misery of the place. Hard to believe a month ago this was where we were happiest. Thanks for the offer Eily but really, I’m fine. The state of him though Please, I don’t like the thought of you being alone, or what about Rafi? He’s away look, I’m fine. Thank you for bringing these and taking the time but if you could just go – and standing again – Maybe we can have a drink later in the summer once everything’s calmed down. But his slowness is so unnerving I don’t want to leave. Let me make you some toast? Put the kettle on at least. Ah no Eily, come on I’m busy and I’d rather be by myself. So for it. Go for it. Nothing left but to say Are you having a relapse? Having a what? I look at the video player A relapse with you know. He looks from me to it, understands, then starts to laugh. What’s funny? He keeps going. Getting it all out. The anger in it. So much, until he’s laughed himself still. Why were you laughing? Because I’ve only now realised there’s not one thing I’ve managed to accomplish in my life with dignity. What do you mean? He laughs some more. It’s just embarrassing, disgusting really, to think you know that about me feel you have to ask but fuck it is funny. Don’t say that, I didn’t mean it that way. No, I know, he says Apparently I’m just clinically incapable of not humiliating myself. He stops then and gives a strange sort of smile Don’t worry though I’m not having a relapse but thank you for asking anyway. What are you doing then? And the smile wipes off. He leans over a cassette player then presses. Hiss pours, with nothing until a man says Gracie, give us a song? I say That’s you? He nods. Sing for Daddy. That’s it. Into the mic. Into there. Good girl, and a little voice Baa baa black sheeps. Sometimes he joins in. Very good Gracie. Can you sing another song? No! Not one more? No! she shouts. Jack and Jill? Do you know that one, Grace? No! laughing at her own boldness with him. Some laa-ing close to the mic, then further off. No Gracie, give me that. Give that to Daddy love. That’s Daddy’s work. Squealing now like she’s running. And the look on his face. There’s an Ooop! He turns to me She slipped on a cassette. Then crying and Did you hurt your hand? Wiggle it love. Like this. That’s it. I think it’s alright chick. And the tape clicks off.
I’m sorry, I say. Don’t worry, he shrugs It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion, this place is a mess, then drops himself back on the bed. Did you just come across them? I was looking them out, hence the crap everywhere. I sit down beside Why? In case to remind myself if there’s any funny business tomorrow if she wants the letters to stop I need to remember what I’ve already lost and not give in. Covering his face then, he suddenly goes down. What’s wrong? He sinks further so I stroke his arm. I’m just a bit down tonight, he says Tomorrow I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine again but tonight is pretty hard. And I can’t bear this. I hate it. The desolation in him, spread out across this filthy room. My part in it. His own. Let me stay with you, I say. He shakes his head I couldn’t do that. Just as your friend, just for tonight and we won’t talk about what happened. I won’t try to change your mind. I’ll leave first thing and if you let me stay with you Stephen I promise I will let you go. But if you stay Eil, how will I ever get rid of this? he says. Rid of what? I ask. All this fucking love, and at this his voice goes out from under and tears start falling down. Quick he heels them off but there’s only more so he hides behind his hands to damp their noise. Then tries to sit himself up and be right. But he cannot yet. And I’ve never seen him cry. He looks so young in it. I can almost see the child he was with the busted lip and not knowing there would be worse. Or that half-destroyed boy, two years younger than me. Or the young man with his daughter on his knee not realising how short that time would be. All here in this man who tried to offer me the very best he had. I climb onto the bed and wrap my arms around him. Oh Stephen, oh my love, and he lets me take him. Awkwardly we hold onto each other then, tight. His skin and bones showing the other side of love we’ve arrived at. Not hate. I see it now, and so clearly tonight, that the opposite of love is despair.
In a while he sits up. Wipes his face on his sleeve Sorry about that. You alright? He nods, blows his nose, embarrassed I think, but says Listen Eily, if you really don’t mind, some company would be good. Great – I get up – Something to eat? Yeah, I’m fucking ravenous, you wouldn’t make scrambled eggs, would you? I would. And already he’s closing himself up neat but that’s fine now he won’t be alone.
You shouldn’t say that, you know. What? he asks opening the Minstrels and vaguely tidying up. All that stuff about yourself. But he’s busy shovelling the sweets in and just shrugs. What about work? Plenty of actors would be delighted with half of what you’ve achieved. Fucking work, he says – chewing a massive amount of chocolate – I’m so sick of it Eil. What do you mean? Sometimes I think it’s just bled me dry. You know, I started rehearsing ’Tis Pity the week after David died. Someone dropped out and the director was a mate and I needed to be doing something so I agreed. But after David it was like someone had taken a hammer to me. For months I felt like that. Sometimes still. But I went straight into it and worked like a dog. It gave me somewhere to hide, I suppose, but that play every night what it’s about by the time the run was over I was at the end of myself. And I realised all those years of trying to keep myself still, keep myself well, I’d just been ripping out of my insides which was fine except there’d been nothing going back in. I knew something needed to change or I’d just stop and then what would I do with myself? So I decided maybe it was time for the script. I’d been thinking about it, on and off, for months. Nick said he was interested so I started it and within a week there you were. Apparently I thought I’d let love in. He laughs a little now and picks chocolate shell from his teeth. But anyway. Anyway. Well, the eggs are ready and when I serve up he eats away like a wolf. These are great Eil. There’s more in the pan. Aren’t you having? I already ate and you clearly need it Stephen. I know, it’s ridiculous, he says I can’t believe I still do it myself. Christ, when I was a child I’d have done anything not to go hungry but now food’s the first thing that goes.
I pick about his room while he eats more. Put that tape on, would you Eily? You don’t mind me hearing them? No, what difference does it make now? Look at each other then but blank it out for the only way we will get through this night is to forget we are apart.
This time he reads to her. Questions and chat. But why did he blow down the house? Him doing the voices. Tickling, I think, when he huffs and puffs because she screams with excitement. He just sits, fork mid-air, listening like they’re both in here. Amazing, it feels like no time’s passed. You sound different though. Your accent. Your voice. That’ll be the forty a day, he says. You shouldn’t smoke so much. Oh well, all the shagging keeps me fit. I catch his eye. Sorry Eil – like he’s just heard himself – I didn’t mean that. Oh yes you did! And then, broke as we are, we both laugh.
Later, when it’s black and I’ve drawn the curtains tight, he liberates some photos from an ancient Keats. These are some pictures for Grace. I asked John for them a while back then couldn’t face sending them on so that’s her my mother, I mean if you want to see. And I do.
Black and white. Tattered tan. By a low brick wall a young woman stands. Slight. Long dark hair. Serious-eyed but in such a pretty dress and I am surprised She really looks I know, like me and Grace. I didn’t look like my father. I never did. Look at this one. A younger. Her family. Two little girls, bows in their hair. Looking so Irish from back then. Parents stern and the family resemblance goes their father’s way. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know what happened there, he says But I could probably guess, if I tried.
Sit together then, slowly finding the other’s hand. Silence coming in on us but right it should now. No more to tell. Nothing to explain. For the rest of the night we scarcely say a thing. Sometimes he smokes. Sometimes I make tea but, anywhere we are in this room, he keeps touch with me. Long fingers through my fingers, or his head on my knee, or letting me doze on his chest. All night I wait and watch with him. Sleep, and don’t, but we see the dawn come. And morning. By half six I’m awake, stretching and looking at him, looking better already. Just sitting, staring out at the sun. Palming my ankle. Thumbing my new burns. I’m fine now, he says I’m fine again. So I break the tie and get up. Good luck today, and kiss his cheek. You too, he says With your Juliet, then as I get my coat on. Eily? Yes? Thank you. You’re welcome, I say and keep my promise to go.
Out into the cold sun of morning. I am tired but I am still. That shake of losing him settling itself, becoming what it is. I do not rebel. I have given love its due. Put kindness where it should be. Now we may part in this good memory. I hope he will be happy, that today will not be bad. But now my own clock ticks and turns inside. Go on. Get on. Let your own Juliet in.
Walk round the College of North London to the Prince of Wales Road. Anglers Lane. The Church of Christ. Grafton Road. Under the bridge at Kentish Town West. Harmwood studios up on the right. Talacre Gardens. Dalby Street. Malden Road. Across to the Fiddler’s Elbow. Up by the Crown. In there, St Silas. Wide blue skies as I go on up the stone steps. Earlier even than pigeons at infernal coo. Second last day of term now. Second last of this year. Touch the grey door. Tap the code in. Open. Strange in its stillness and. Some new thing in me which, if followed, who knows where will lead? When I first came here I wanted the world to look at me and now I might prefer to be the eye instead.
But fall back in. Romeo and Juliet. All other life switched off. Get her going in myself and feel that life of hers inside. Her precious heart and all things of her moving round, readying themselves, until their time. How she walks and how she speaks. What she does. The way she thinks. Making her particular. Setting her free. Just the right way. Find the right way to show her through me. All that tuning. No more today. Time to be ready. Time to turn on the light.
Afterwards, cross-legged, in the Church. The Principal drums deep into us all we’re not worth. I get one nice nod though so am reprieved. Interviews later for the less fortunate. But for the first year, that’s it. See you all in here early for the Agents’ Showing run-through, he says Watch and learn boys and girls. Off you go.
*
Hello? I say. But no one’s in. Try the taps in the bathroom sink. Nothing. So we’ve reached that final stage. I have reached and I accept it. Calm too in here now, though cool. All bare in the Missus’s room. In Danny’s, an empty can of Coke. Crumbs on the sideboard, I won’t bother to wipe. Pizza boxes crammed in the bin – I’ll never empty it – and white bread run to mould on the fridge. Sitting room then. Carpet all stain and nicked-sofa imprinted. On the window sill still an ashtray. I think I’ll leave it as memorial to the laughs we had. Make my way back to the toilet. Empty a bottle into the tank. So this is how it will be, last night in our flat. Tomorrow there’ll be a party. I’ll sleep on someone’s couch. Later I’ll take the Stansted Express. Get a plane to Ireland. Waves come over as I sit on my mattress. Quiet and deserted. Summer’s come. The absent men. Desolation in this moment and where the future is, blind. But after I have cried, lie back and close my eyes. Stick my Walkman on. Batteries clinging to life. Perhaps I’ll sleep right through this night. I’m tired enough. Try. I try. And soon I am rolling on through it. Dreamless, mercifully, and whenever I almost wake, seem to persuade myself to go back down again. All the distant sounds of city though still managing to get in so Wake!
Hours is it, I’ve been asleep? Maybe. No. Barely after six. Twelve to go. How shall I cross this? Will I be scared in the dark? Bang a loud knock. Up I sit. Bailiffs? Killers? Flashers? Oh fuck, oh fuck it. Knock again. Peer round the bedroom door. Yes? and gruffer, like I am of the world Who’s there? Eily, it’s Stephen, he says Any chance I can come in? And such a surprise I hardly know what to do. Just go and open. All tall there in his suit, shirt tails hanging out. Little dishevelled but lovely. Am I disturbing you? No, I say Come in.
My blood makes terrible noises as he follows me in. No furniture left so let’s go to my room. Where’s everyone else? Already moved, this is my last night here. I see isn’t that a bit creepy for you? A bit, and I lean back on the wall So Actually, he interrupts I couldn’t have a glass of water, could I? Sorry, the water’s off. Already? Fuck that’s rough then do you mind if I sit? No no, go ahead. He takes the end of the mattress and evening sun on his face. And he is different somehow although I can’t quite Well look, he says – looking himself like not knowing where to start. So he lights up before trying again – So look, I saw Marianne well you know that anyway I thought I’d come over because after all the drama it caused I thought you might want to know but I mean, if not, just say I do, I say Of course I want to know.
Okay – his fingers making churches that press to his lips – So I went to the restaurant for one, as agreed. I could already see her in the window from Bow Street, swirling a glass of wine. I wasn’t expecting that – I thought it’d be more of a strong coffee and sharp knives sort of thing. There she was though, looking much the same. Maybe a little older, though no signs of grey, touching by the temple for his own. But nervous as I was Eil, I could see she was worse, which helped me get over the doorstep. Anyway, she stood up when I came in. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette but she shook my hand, thanked me for coming, offered a seat and was – naturally – too well-bred to get straight to the point. So there was summoning a bottle of whatever she had and hoping I didn’t mind she’d chosen a red. Should we order first? Then during that carry-on, all the How’s your health? And Is Rafi well? and I hear you’re working on a script? In the end I just said Mari, what’s all this about? – and I was surprised I called her that but there you go. And what did she say Stephen? She said It’s about Grace, and would I please hear her out first? She was pretty hesitant to start with but then it all came out. The general gist being that, apparently, Grace has been running riot. Skipping school, difficult at home, disappearing off without saying where’s she’s going then arriving in late reeking of drink. She got suspended from school for smoking a joint and, soon as she came back, did it again. So it was in the balance for a while about being expelled. It’s sorted now but this was all news to me and, to be honest, I didn’t know what to say. Then Marianne said, you know, I don’t want her going down that road. I couldn’t bear to watch that happen to her too. I’m sure you’re concerned Marianne, I said But a couple of rebellious spliffs doesn’t make an addict, I had a lot of other contributing factors. She only said I know, but I could tell there was more and, sure enough That’s the other subject we need to talk about. She wouldn’t look at me then and I got this wave of dread. Mari, I said Has something happened to Grace? She just looked at her nails so I pressed Marianne, has someone hurt her? I mean Eily, you know what was on my mind. No, I said something to her, she said Something I shouldn’t have, about you, and I very much regret. About when I was using? I asked – I couldn’t think of anything else. He gets up and. I told her about your mother, she said. I knew she couldn’t know so I asked what she meant? She said I guessed there’d been violence from flippant comments you’d make but, later on, I discovered there was something else something sexual, is that right? I was pretty taken aback. Fucking horrified actually. I said How could you possibly know that? Even wasted I would never have told. So it is true? It is, I said But how do you know? When you were in Intensive Care, she said I went through your things and found a letter from your mother in an old notebook. She sounded eager to hear from you so I wrote asking her to contact me. A few days later, your stepfather did – that’s when he told me she was dead. I explained who I was and why I had gotten in touch. I was diplomatic about the details but he understood and seemed concerned so I invited him to visit – I thought seeing family might help – but he refused so adamantly I was shocked. I promised his mother I’d leave that boy be, he said And, truth be told the sight of me would probably do more harm than good. He wouldn’t expand but asked me to keep in touch. After that I had a few thoughts of my own. He, obviously, sounded quite rough on the phone and, presumably, there were valid reasons you weren’t in contact any more but he did seem sincere so once a week I called. He was always pleased to hear you were improving and I began to ask about the rift. He was evasive but gave me to understand that more than I’d previously realised had gone on. We kept it relatively formal though, until the nursing staff caught you picking your leg open. That’s when I finally broke down. Told him everything. What you’d done. That I was pregnant and couldn’t understand why you were doing this to me. There’s a lot in that boy’s past, he said And it’s not the kind of thing I like telling a girl like yourself but, perhaps, if it would help, he probably owed you that.
When my wife was dying I wanted to contact Stephen, he said They hadn’t seen each other for a few years by then. I thought he’d want to know and have a chance to put things right. He’d always been a gentle sort of lad and what son wouldn’t want to do that before his mother died? But when I brought it up, she was completely against it, wouldn’t have me even mention his name. I thought it was because he’d run off and she couldn’t forgive him, which seemed hard but then she was a strong-willed woman. So that’s how it stayed, right up until it was clear to everyone, including herself, that the end wasn’t far off. That’s when she started to talk about him. Just a little at first but, soon enough, all the time. And not rambling, it was clear she was in her own mind. They were things I’d never really heard her say. About his father leaving her high and dry. Her family expecting her to give the baby up because that was the way. But, when she first held him, she said she knew she never could. I met her a few months later, on a bus. She said she was a widow, that her husband had been killed in a car accident. If I’m honest, I didn’t believe her even then and over the years that story changed many times but she was so young and pretty I didn’t really mind, or about the boy.
She seemed to remember him most fondly as a little boy, running round the yard, picking dandelions for her. How he’d spend hours on his stomach playing with his car. Or when he couldn’t stop kicking his ball against the back door – I remembered that myself, three times I changed that glass. And once she’d started all these memories came flowing out. The holiday when she was pregnant with our first and Stephen was just above her knee. The two of them in the rock pools, eating ice creams. She said While I was watching him I realised I didn’t love his father any more and that he was a fool for not caring about his son. But I understood how lucky I was, she said And that Stephen would always be who I loved most. She repeated that story frequently, like it was her last good memory. A few months later our son arrived and she had a very bad collapse. She was never really well again. But we all found it hard to hear her remember Stephen because of how long it had been.
So one night You’ve been talking a lot about Stephen, I said Let me contact that school of his, maybe they have an address. She refused and when I asked why she said Because I made life hard for him. I said It wasn’t that bad. No, she said You don’t understand. Something was broken, then once I got sick, it just opened up and I stopped being able to keep it inside. But I know now and I have to leave Stephen be. He’s a good boy, despite what I did. I knew she’d always been rough on him so I said He won’t hold the odd thrashing against you now. No, she said It wasn’t that. It was worse than I could think and she wished she’d cut her own throat before she’d done it. I was shocked to hear her talk that way. But she went on and what she told me then I’ll never get over for as long as I live.
From the start she knew she could never be without him and the fear of him being taken never left. People told her once she’d had more that would die down but our sons came and made no difference, didn’t even feel like her own. All the feeling she had was for him and they understood each other in ways no one else ever did. Even when she had to beat him he knew it was for his own sake. As he got older though, the worse the fear of losing him became. It grew out of proportion. It went over the edge. It ran everywhere. He was a young man by then and starting, she knew, to think of things that might take him away. She dreamt it first, only that. And it shocked her, the idea, but held onto her too. Then climbed into her and followed her, laid itself on the fear. Showed her how to find itself in the ways he looked at her. Like whispering and screaming it was with her all the time, convincing that, although unnatural, it would be natural for them. So one night, as a kindness, she took the step and afterwards knew he had also wanted it. She said I was careful to not hurt him that way, that was the difference, I thought. But sometimes she could see he wasn’t happy, as though he didn’t understand, then she’d have to beat him for tempting her. She’d swear it was the last time, they’d go back to a life without it in but she could never contain anything around Stephen so it always began again. Building up until she didn’t know how to not. Then she’d let herself and tell herself it was alright because he was just a part of her really, another part of her own body. He belonged to her, after all.
He takes his glasses off, sets them down on the bed and sits rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. I say nothing to break the silence but watch a tear run down his cheek. Are you alright? He just nods and I know to leave him to calm himself. Tic and tic and he sniffs it up, then wipes off his face.
I couldn’t speak Eily, hearing all that, coming from Marianne but up out of that different world. Like going back in time. Still being there. Feeling what was happening but looking at my mother and then off into the patch of fucking damp on the wall. And the dread of it, Eily you know like you’ll never escape.
Anyway Marianne said my stepfather became very upset but said he was glad to be rid of the burden at last. He said your mother told him you were right to get away. That you deserved a life of your own but when you left the fear went everywhere. She tried to kill herself. She wanted to die but kept vomiting the pills and only in time understood why. Staying alive was the first part of the penance, she said. Years of rising to the surface, into the realisation of what she’d done. Years of living with the guilt but still hoping you’d return. She’d have forgone even forgiveness just to see your face again. But it crept into her, the knowledge that neither would happen and all life had become without you. Acceptance, and its attendant despair, was the second part of the penance for her. Its merciful third was her absence from the world, it could be her only amends. She finally understood how to encourage death to come. Let the years of starving take their toll. And she hoped, wherever you were now, you had made your life your own. He said she never spoke again after that. He thought she may have been waiting to confess because she deteriorated so rapidly afterwards and died the following night, alone. And he decided to leave you be. He thought she’d been right about that at least and didn’t think he could face you anyway.
He stops again and takes a breath. Lights another cigarette. Apparently he’d never told anyone before Marianne – I can’t imagine he ever told anyone after. He said after she died he got rid of every trace because he couldn’t bear to think of what she’d done, on his watch. That he should have known and, when he thought about it, wondered if perhaps he had but it was easier to hang it on my difficult age and her just being a bit mad.
When I heard that story I was appalled, Marianne said And all I could think of was the night in the hospital when I told you your mother was dead. I don’t remember, what about it? I said. She said Stephen, as soon as I told you, you started to cry and you cried a long time for her. Of course I saw nothing strange in it then but later, when I knew I wondered what it meant. Because I still wanted to be with you though, I chose to forget. I never called your stepfather again. I didn’t tell you or even remember until I began needing excuses for doing what I did. And I let what happened to you get so twisted in me. It’s suited me to consider it one more awful thing. Another example of what I was protecting Grace from and I’ve never had cause to revise that opinion until I told her.
Christ, Eily, when she said that I felt sick. What did you tell her for? I said You had no right. I never wanted Gracie to know. I hadn’t planned to, she said But she arrived home one night very drunk and very late. When I confronted her, she just kept asking why you weren’t allowed to visit? She said she knew it wasn’t your choice, she could tell it was me. How she was going to move to London to get to know you properly and what was wrong with that? I had to say something Stephen. I couldn’t just concede. I thought if she knew how it had been she’d realise she was being unfair. So I told her the worst of how you were back then. I didn’t even have to embellish Stephen, the truth was bad enough. I told her about all the arguing and the sleepless nights. The brawling and the passing out. Junkies dossing around the flat. Picking my way through their sick, even when I was pregnant. People kicking in the door looking for you. Waking up alone and not knowing what you were up to. Every penny we had thrown away on it and all we had to do without. Food. Heat. Rent. Freezing in the winter because we couldn’t afford coats. And what it was like, at four months pregnant, to get the call you’d collapsed. I’d been trying so hard to persuade myself that you were staying clean. You wouldn’t jeopardise this because you’d waited so long for the break but, all the same, there it was: We don’t know if he’ll pull through so you should get here fast. It was a miracle I didn’t miscarry then and there. And the shame of it Stephen, in front of the doctors. Then days of watching you in that bed. Not knowing, even if you came out of it, what would be left? Those weeks of waiting when you finally did. Having to leave the room because you’d get so upset and not knowing what I’d done. I didn’t know anything except you were a mess and I was alone. My parents were awful – they enjoyed not being surprised – and by the time I got you home I was so angry. I know that probably wasn’t very helpful but I still loved you and I hoped. All I wanted was a normal life Stephen. I wasn’t asking very much. And you were so apologetic, so remorseful that I believed you would change. Then the money began to go missing again. I kept explaining it away because the truth just made no sense. You knew your body wasn’t able, that it couldn’t. Then the day I had my check-up, I’d arranged to visit a friend but I couldn’t wait to tell you that the baby was well. It was the first good news in months so I came home instead. She was really kicking and I wanted you to feel it. But when I came in there you were, passed out on our bed. You and that asshole and a needle half pushed down the side like you thought I was stupid and might think you were asleep. But I thought you were dead and as I checked for a pulse, I finally realised that you didn’t care. Not only about me or the baby but whether you were alive or dead. That’s when I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t take the fear of it any more, and the endless lies. So there was the humiliation of asking my parents if I could move back. Then the rest of the pregnancy I just waited for the call. I was actually relieved when you wound up in Friern. At least you were safe there even if everything else was destroyed.
God Eily, the things she said. I think I’d just blanked out what it was like inside. In my memory it’s always heading off somewhere, nodding out on someone else’s stairs or fucking about off my head. But I suddenly remembered what she was talking about. And it only got worse from there. She told Grace about the sleeping around. How I’d cheated on her every chance I had. Fucked her best friend in the toilet when we were on a night out. Given her the clap then accused her of giving it to me. About walking in on me with some girl in our bed and so wasted I didn’t notice until she hit me with a record. More often knowing I had been, smelling it off me, but I’d just lie right to her face. I did that all the time, I know I did. Everything she said was true Eily and horrible to hear, to really remember how I’d treated her and then think of Grace knowing too. She said she asked her, what kind of man does that Grace? I’ve given you the best of everything in life, how can you choose him over me? But Grace just kept asking why she had to choose between? That you’d been clean so long, how could you not be different? Your letters proved you were. I couldn’t have it Stephen, she said You being defended by her. I told her she knew nothing and I was sick of this childish romance about you she’d invented. You don’t know what that man’s capable of, I said. He’s not fit to be your father. He isn’t safe. You said what? I said and she said, I said Grace, I’ve gone out of my way to protect you from this but that man he and his mother they were far more than mother and son and if you think I’d ever risk him doing the same to you, you are very much mistaken.
Jesus Eily, to hear her say that. To know she’d said it to Grace. I just got up saying Oh God, how could you? I know, she said But But Eily, I thought I was going to fucking kill her. I started shouting How dare you? How dare you say that about me? Whatever fucked-up things I’ve done I could never hurt Gracie. Marianne just kept saying Please Stephen, please sit down. But I couldn’t and it just All these years, I shouted When will you have enough? All these years of punishing me and now this. To try to frighten her your own fucking child, for fuck’s sake, how could you do that to her? Everyone in the restaurant was staring and I just couldn’t believe it. It’s the worst thing I could imagine being said about me and then said to my little girl. Eventually the waiter said If you don’t sit down you’ll have to leave. I nearly hit him and Marianne kept going Please Stephen, please. I wanted to walk out but I couldn’t. I had to know what Grace said. Marianne was crying I think, by this stage and I was beside myself but I did sit back down. And we sat. I was so fucking stunned it took a few minutes to ask What happened then, Marianne? She said I know that was awful, a terrible thing to say, and not true, I know you would never have hurt Grace. Marianne, I said I don’t really fucking care what you know, what does Gracie think? She said Grace asked what I meant? And you said? When he was growing up there was some kind of sexual activity with his mother. Even as I said it I realised what I’d done but it was too late by then. She wanted to know everything I knew and how I did. I tried to back-pedal but she was insistent, so I told her what I’ve just told you and How did she react? I said. Stephen, she said She saw right through. She understood immediately and better than I ever had. I know he left home at sixteen, she said So what you’re saying is that when my father was a child his mother did something molested him? He was younger than I am now so isn’t that what that means? Grace, I said. No, she said You’re telling me my father was reared by a woman who did that to him? His own mother, the same way you’re mine? My grandmother. Grace, I said. And you’ve known this all my life? Every time I’ve asked about him and you’ve said what a liar he was, what a strung-out mess, you knew that had happened but you kept it to yourself? You didn’t think it would help to explain? I didn’t want to upset you Grace. But now you’re telling me, she said So I’ll be afraid of him. That’s the only reason you’re telling me, isn’t it? Jesus Christ Mum he’s my father and something awful happened what’s the matter with you? And she was right Stephen, I saw it so clearly then, what the anger’s done to me and how I’ve excused myself. All because I somehow had to win and seeing Grace see it made me very ashamed.
I know she called you the next day. I suppose that must have been a surprise. I don’t know what she said but obviously not what I had. To be frank, we’ve hardly spoken since. The only reason she hasn’t appeared on your doorstep is that I have her passport. I’ve tried to talk to her, to explain. She won’t have it. All she’ll say is that there has to be a change. So that’s why I called you. That’s why we’re here. I know you’ll find it rich of me to start asking for your help but I’m not asking entirely for myself. I’m asking because this is what Grace wants, even needs, and I’ve lost all right to refuse. So what exactly are you asking Marianne? I said. And she said If you would be willing to come to Vancouver, Stephen, to start spending some time with her?
Oh Stephen! I say. He just nods. What did you say to her? Well, I’d sort of calmed down once I’d heard what Grace’s reaction was and it’s not as if I was ever going to refuse, so I said Yes of course I will, and Marianne said Thank you.
We just sat there then. It was a lot to take in. Realising your worst secret isn’t a secret is a very odd sensation. I didn’t really know what to think. I couldn’t decide whether it was a relief or I still wanted to kill Marianne. But far beyond all of those things, those locked doors between Gracie and me were suddenly open. After so many years of waiting and wishing for only that. I had to keep turning away to wipe my eyes. I felt a bit useless actually Eil. And then the fucking food arrived.
He sits himself up and starts to smile. Oh bollocks, I thought and, like she read my mind, Marianne said Well, we might as well eat. Turned out I was hungry though, so I began wolfing it. We each had another glass of wine. Talked a little more about Grace and what had been going on. When would be a good time for me to come. Then we ordered another bottle of wine – I suppose we weren’t feeling so civilised any more. But, in spite of everything that had just been said, I felt suddenly pleased to be sat in that restaurant with Grace’s name passing back and forth between us. After so many years, and all that went wrong, it was right to sit with Marianne and talk about our girl. And, I don’t know if it was the wine or what, but I realised now was my chance to ask what I never thought I’d have the opportunity to. Can I ask you something Marianne? I said. Just as we’re getting along so swimmingly! she groaned Go on. Why did you take her the way you did? Just after she was born it would have made sense but we’d been getting on pretty well for years – at least that’s how it seemed to me – and the way you left it was such a shock. Why did you do it like that? I can’t believe you don’t know, she said. No, I said I don’t. I did it because I was still in love with you, she said And after everything we’d been through, when you finally cleaned up, you never asked me to come back. Not once Stephen and I would have too, right up to the moment when I got on that plane with her. Maybe you just didn’t love me any more, or maybe you were ashamed, but I loved you so much my only option was to hurt you in the end. I thought it was so obvious, especially to you. I’m surprised you didn’t realise. That never crossed my mind, I said No.
Remember those visits at David’s? she said When I started to show you how to do little things for Grace and we’d laugh together like we were just normal new parents? Yeah, I said Of course I do. Well on one of those days I looked at you – being hopeless, I think, with her babygro – and I suddenly knew all that love was still there, which was ridiculous, frankly, after everything, but true nonetheless. Too proud to show it, of course. I had to keep punishing you. I wanted you to come grovelling and chase me around like when we first met. I’d get my chance to recriminate but still take you back. So I waited for you to give me that look which would mean The Start. And I waited. And waited. And then realised you were with David. He and I were in the kitchen, having a chat. I mentioned something about us reconciling. You should talk to Stephen, he said but the look on his face. I just knew. And after The Seagull, everyone did. That was so bloody typical of you. Real salt in the wound. But even when you and he finished I think I still hoped. Then one night, collecting Grace, I asked what had caused it and you said you’d had a fling with Eleanor what’s-her-name. That’s when I knew I was wasting my time because you didn’t see me as anything other than Grace’s mother now. And you were always friendly, even warm, but you didn’t notice me any more. Not when I wore short skirts, or low tops, or told you I’d slept with someone else. Good for you, was all you said and never got that look in your eye again. God that look made me put up with so much. It made me feel like the most beautiful woman in London, but it was gone and only Grace mattered to you. All that struggle, trying to help, trying to persuade you to clean up and the moment Grace arrived, it all just vanished. I think I was jealous of how you felt about her, what you were willing to do for her, that’s terrible, isn’t it? Marianne, it wasn’t as straightforward as that, I said It’s not like I hadn’t given myself a good run for my money after you left. I know, she said But that’s how it seemed to me then. So when I met Phil, and we decided to move away, I saw a chance to make you think about me again. I pretended, even to myself, that it was about protecting Grace but I waited to tell you until the very last minute so it would be as bad as it could possibly be. I never doubted I’d shame you into agreeing. I could still read you pretty well and you were always so sorry, so ashamed. I knew what it would do to you, losing Grace. I did it so it would. But you looked at me, Stephen, really looked at me that night and I’d finally done something to you.
By the time you showed up in Vancouver though, you weren’t looking again. It was stupid of me to be upset, for God’s sake, I was a happily married woman but some things never go away. I might have been more amenable if you’d made a pass and I’d gotten to refuse. Except I probably wouldn’t have, even then. If you’d only just left it Stephen, I might’ve come around on my own. It was your desperation for her that drove me mad so, every time you’d ask, you were just tightening the noose around your own neck. When we left England I’d decided I’d never make contact again. For those two years I worked constantly to make her forget. Never mentioned you. Called Phil her dad and tried so hard to make him that. But she’d never say it, even at four. She remembered you and asked for you. I never thought she would then, out of the blue, she’d ask When’s Daddy coming round? Or run, calling for you, after some tall man in the street and I’d know I shouldn’t be putting her through it but I couldn’t help myself. The bitterness was so bad. Her first memory though, is of you. Of you showing her the sea. I hate it when she tells that story. Why do you get to have that with her? Anyway, what does it matter. Daddy’s who you’ve always been to Grace and, you probably won’t believe this, but it was my parents insisting ‘This isn’t right. You have to tell that boy where his daughter is’ that finally persuaded me to contact you again.
Eily, when I heard all that, he says I wanted to fucking kill her again. For the first time in over sixteen years I stopped feeling guilty and not because I thought she’d deserved it but because I realised I hadn’t, not all of it anyway.
Jesus Marianne, I said All that rancour over all these years and I never knew that’s how you felt about me. I used to wish there was some way you’d forgive me, I would have done anything for that. But I never asked you back because you said you never would. And by the time I got out of Friern Barnet there was nothing left of me for playing games. I could barely cope with getting out of bed and I’m sure it was humiliating, what happened with David, but he was all I had. At least until you let me see Grace and she gave me a reason to live, something to work towards and I did get there with her. I made a new life and I know it didn’t look like much but it was a lot for me. It was everything. And when you took her away I nearly died. Losing her is by far the worst thing I’ve ever had to survive. And now you’re telling me, when it’s years too late, that it all could have been different? I could have been part of my daughter’s life and got to watch her growing up, if I’d made you feel pretty, if I’d chased you around? If I’d only realised there was still a fucking game going on? Jesus Christ. I would rather believe it was because you hated my guts than this stupid, vain, completely fucking ridiculous bullshit. At least hate has some blood in it. At least there’s some human feeling in that, but to have done this to me because I didn’t guess you shagging someone was supposed to make me jealous? Because I loved my daughter more than you? Then try to make her think I’m some kind of fucking pervert so you’d feel you’d somehow won? When did you not fucking win Marianne? You and your lovely life and your big fucking mansion that contains all the memories of my daughter I’ll never have. I don’t know what you thought the prize was but, whatever it was, you fucking won it. Well done! Jesus, if it wasn’t for Gracie, I’d wish I’d never laid eyes on you.
So that was that and we just sat there in the aftermath. I didn’t know what else to say. I was completely fucking blind with rage. She was crying at first, then Stephen, she said I’ve behaved so badly, but I didn’t have the energy for it. Leave it Marianne, I said There’s nothing else to say. But No, she said Everything you’ve said is true and I’ve thought about it many times in recent months. And what, Marianne, I said Did you think? She said I think, how could I not have forgiven you by now, Stephen? I should have long ago because, the truth is, I’ve never been sorry I laid eyes on you. You gave her to me and I love her and, God, she looks so like you too. I sometimes think that’s my punishment for taking her away, having to look at you in her every day. I think I should have gotten over myself years ago. On balance the time with you was difficult, yes, but you didn’t ruin my life. As it turns out, those few years were a rough patch in what’s been a fairly calm sea. By and large my parents took care of me. Expensive education. I never wanted materially, and when everything went to pieces with you I still had a home to run to. Soon after you I met Philip and I’ve been happy with him. I have three children I love – even if one is intent on driving me insane. I’ve had all those things I wanted in life. Big house. Nice car. A career which, if not stellar, is enough. And even though I know it’s not for me, here you are after all I did, still willing to help with Grace. I think I’ve been pretty lucky in life, very, in comparison to you. Stephen, I feel terrible about what I said to Grace and I know it’s far too late but I am very ashamed of having cut you out of her life. I can never make that up to you but I do apologise, sincerely apologise, and hope you’ll forgive me one day.
I just looked at her Eily. That was pretty fucking unexpected, you know? I wanted to give her an earful then I thought Oh God, I’m so tired of all this and what it’s done to every part of my life. I’m going to see Grace again, that’s what counts, and if nothing else I understand the weight of a past you deeply regret. So I said I will forgive you Marianne but only if you’ll finally do the same? I can’t very well not now, she said Shall we try again, for Grace? Yes, I said I think we should. It got a bit quiet again so, to help finish off, I asked after her boys. She talked a little about them, which eased things up – that and the wine. We drifted on to people we’d known, who I was still in touch with and who was still working? I made some daft remark about being the last man standing and she started to laugh, which then set me off. We were both pretty hysterical I think, as well as a little drunk. But all that primness sliding off her was kind of irresistible. I began to see her again, what had made me so wild about her back then. You look exactly like you did at twenty-one, I said. I wish that was true, she laughed I’ve often wondered how it would be to see you again, if you’d feel like a stranger? And do I? Not really, more solemn perhaps – and whose fault is that? – but mostly the same. Not too much I hope, I said. It was a compliment Stephen, take it! The first year we had together was pretty wonderful don’t you think? It was, I said and, you know Eily, the way she looked at me, I suddenly stopped being angry. I suppose I never thought I’d see her smile at me again. We should do this more often, I said Although, perhaps, without the yelling first. I’m sure we will, she said Now Miss Grace has had her way. We finished up about then. I got the bill and paid – I owed her for her grandmother’s wedding ring, if nothing else.
When we came out she said Walk me as far as Charing Cross? So we strolled across Covent Garden. She scabbed a fag and I said I do remember I got you a coat Marianne, that time you were talking about. You stole me a coat Stephen, she said Which is not the same and a few months later one of your cronies stole it again. Then I got stuck in a bus queue in the rain and caught a cold and that’s how Grace came to be. Really? Oh yes, I was quite sick and you were very sweet, kept bringing me bowls of soup and tea. You were always very attentive when I was ill, quite endearing actually. So I was just getting better, and you were in my good books for a change, and we ended up having a go. You kept saying how warm I was and should have a temperature more often, do you remember? And, funnily enough, I actually did but I said I never realised that was the moment. Soon as I woke up the next morning, she said I had the feeling something had changed. I remember looking over at you, fast asleep beside, just starting to run a temperature yourself, and I thought Well Stephen, nothing will ever be the same again. For some reason I put an arm round her then. And she let me. We were both so wrecked. It was like the walking fucking wounded. But nice to be there, in that moment and sunlight, walking down the Strand.
When we got to Charing Cross, I hailed her a cab. Before she got in, we said our goodbyes and I went to kiss her cheek but she kissed me on the mouth, properly, you know? I was kind of off guard so I kissed her back. He looks over at me, but how can I react? Just pretend to nod calmly until he looks away. It was strange to kiss her, he says Because it was the same and, naturally, the old troublesome part of me started thinking Well, that might be fun. Old times’ sake et cetera and then I thought of you and it was a pretty tired kiss after that, between two people who are really done. When we stopped she said That was nice. I thought Shit! and said Look Marianne. Only checking, she laughed Mind still on other things, eh Stephen? I didn’t answer but, as she got in, she said So there is someone? I just shrugged. That was not a conversation I wanted to have with her. Never mind, I’m married, she said And I already know you shouldn’t be my type, so I’ll see you in Canada. See you soon, I said, shutting the door. Then they pulled out into the traffic and that was that.
Fuck Stephen, I say looking at him, only realising now what’s different. His whole body. It’s filled with light. He just doesn’t know it yet and holds himself, because it’s strange, very tightly down. So we look at each other with quiet eyes until he, too overcome even to smile, lights another cigarette. Stephen, you’re going to see Grace. I’m so happy for you. I can’t really believe it, he says I went into the first travel agent I passed and booked my ticket, second week of August, just over two weeks. Then I called her. Not for long – I’d only two pound coins – but she picked up and said Dad I knew it would be you. So I told her I was coming, that I’d see her soon. That things would be better with her mother from now on. That I loved her. She said it too. I asked if I could call for longer tomorrow? She said Yes, as my money ran out. And he covers his face because, maybe, he’ll cry? Then shakes his head, to be rid instead, and looks up outside. I can see he thinks of something so far off from here. The purpling sky of Kentish Town isn’t it. Who am I in the middle of this? Thank you for coming here to tell me, I say, expecting him to get up now and start making to leave but when he does how will I keep the promise I made? He doesn’t move though. He says I decided I’d walk back, to clear my head, but the further I did the harder it became. Because, despite everything that had just occurred, I started dreading the hours ahead of sitting in that empty room. And I kept remembering last night, how it was before you came. Then how pointless it felt to kiss Marianne. How I know – and I do – that’ll be the same with any woman who isn’t you. And we are suddenly in the ocean. It is almost over our heads. But he stands up then, quick then, chucks out his cigarette. So I thought I better come see you, he says. Why? I ask, with the heart going awful in my chest. Because I am a fucking hypocrite, he says But I’m so tired of it and I don’t want to make myself learn to live without you. So what do you think about getting on with our life together, whatever that will be like? Stephen, do you mean it? He pulls me up to my feet. I do, he says Will you have me back? I will, I say. Come on then, he smiles Let’s you and me go home.
We stand outside a moment and be the faces beyond the glass surveying our old world. Empty flat. Goodbye that life, then pass on down the steps and drop my key in a drain. And so we go down through Kentish Town. Warmer out than in. Battered and happy. Quiet though, because soon enough the night will come. On into Camden. Up the Camden Road. Right onto his much For Sale street – not his though. Just dandelion leaves trod all down his path with this going away and the coming back. Some great ending it feels like. For now though, just go through his broke door.
His room a bit tidier. Boxes pushed a bit back. Warm from the day and cigarettes smoked. And all in through, the smell of him. Drop the duvet. Close the door behind while he shoulders off my heavy bag, turning in the dusty light. Pulling up his window to let the evening in. Some car then roaring down to Camden and after it, in waves, the Thursday traffic reams by. Soothes like balm. Calms the mind, and we, in here, are very calm, knowing now for the first time precisely where we are.
And he comes to me across the room to put his long arms around. Leaning down to be held and hold so well. Moving until we find the right place, where I fit with him. Sealing together. Closing every gap. Breathing each other like an ocean we have thought a long time of, and missed. I push his jacket off first. Shirt then. Tugging down where he must help, smiling at me, shaking cuffs from his wrists. Laughing when I kiss his warm armpit and, as he slides his glasses off, I touch his smooth shoulders with my mouth. There where they curve into collarbone. There, in the deep, as they round to his arms. Long and lean and strong I think. Just starting to turn brown. And kiss his chest in amongst the dark hairs. Smiling up to, arms around his waist. Opening, slipping off trousers and belt. He, obedient, stepping out, only stopping to kiss. Pulling now at his underwear, touching just a little and careful. Smiling to the grey eyes smiling at me. Catching me up to stroke my cheek. Then stepping back to watch me undress. Slipping clothes off and showing him myself. His warm hand laid on my breast. Thumb moving my nipple a touch. Happy together but so silent we are that a clock two floors up is more, that pigeons in the tree beyond make more noise than we two need to. And my turn to lead him back across the room. Sitting him on his armchair. Kneeling down between but up to kiss. To take his long fingers through my hair. Find his mouth with mine. His tongue with my tongue. His hands running my body but I’m sliding down. All his old scars. Each country of him. I know them like the world. The good smell of his chest, the lean stomach as well. Hold where he is hard, then bend to press against my lips. Shiver through him as I let it in. Past my teeth and onto my tongue. Deep into my mouth and he goes smooth in. Like warm stone. Soft skin. Moving him. Feeling all the filling veins fill until it must be almost sore. But the more I do, the more it goes. Down his legs. Up his torso. Travelling into the balls grown tight in my palm. Of all his body, the tenderest part, so I put my mouth there too. In through the folds and tickling beneath until he laughs and catches at my hand to stop, but taking all the pleasure that I have to give. Loving to. Rising up a little against when he goes back into my mouth. Tasting all of him there. Taking in far as I can. Going quicker until lips bruise. Then the long of my tongue does the work instead. Holding gently to keep him straight. Licking the little wet off the tip. Sticky of it on my lips. Going down again. And the excitement roams over. Up his back. Across his chest. In the bob of his throat, and as he puts his head back, I see where it’s begun hazing out sight. His whole long body giving to each movement I make. The only sound is my mouth creasing with wet and his deep increasing breath until he’s brought – in case I don’t know – to saying Eily I’m really close. But I ignore this, because I can. Just keep him there, hard as he’s ever been. But in a moment he says again Eily, I’m really close now. So I take him out, to say So come then. He just looks at me, tortured with want and full of feeling. I can’t do that to you, he says. I want you to, I say Let’s just be us today. Then take him back into my mouth, on the very verge of go. So he grips my hand. So he strokes my hair. So and then, he lets himself. And I can feel the pleasure roll across him, to and from my mouth. The swell of his body as it goes through. Then the first drops from the first wave spring to the back of my tongue, coming up from inside him and out into me. And I able for it, the warmth and taste of him. For the more of it and more. Him hardly controlling, even pushing a bit. His whole body alive and hot in my mouth. I shift back just enough to make more room, then swallow, swallow it down. Swallowing until he is done and. Breathes as if he can’t quite catch the air while I, to complete, lick him clean. Still hard though he’s finished, but fragile in it. Kiss the gentle head and rest myself in the crease, down by the dark pubic hair and breathe him in. Open as I have ever been. The wind could rush right through without touching my skin so at peace with it, and in love with him, that I could stay here for years. But he leans himself forward and says Come up here to me. I reach my arms round his neck to be pulled onto his knee. Two months Eily, he says Or two years or twenty, whatever you’ll give me, I’ll take.
In the close night I wake alone in bed but, across the dark, he is at his desk. Streetlight filleting the bones in his back. Cigarette, of course. So I get up and go put my arms around him. What are you doing, my love? Just thinking, he says And looking at this picture of my mother again. I can just about remember her looking like this. Who could’ve imagined what would come next? Or guessed the girl in this photograph would starve herself to death? Or that on hearing it all I’d be able to think of was how much I loved her when I was a little boy. In our quiet warm world we think on that. Then he drops the photo. Stubs out his cigarette. Says Come on, and takes me back to bed. We make ourselves comfortable in each other’s arms there, then go to sleep.