15

Nobody has ever done this to me before! R exclaimed in the restaurant where I broke the news to him. It had been over a fortnight since we had seen each other. I chewed my steak neatly and didn’t respond right away. I was craving heavy foods, iron-rich, things that bled.

You always wanted to do it, didn’t you, he accused me. You wanted to see what it felt like.

What it felt like: cold electricity. A dragging in my body. I felt like a bird that had been pulled, inexplicably, to the ground. A white one with soft plumage, something more beautiful than I can give myself credit for.

Don’t make a scene, I said. That’s why I brought you here.

Why had I even told him? I could not remember my reasoning. Things kept getting away from me. A golden parrot in a cage shrieked from the corner. A black piano. A waitress in a long navy apron hovered nearby. Everything all right? she asked, and R waved her away with his fork. His face was hard and mean.

Why? he asked. That’s all I want to know. Why?

But I could not speak my want aloud—could not send it out into the world and see it bruised, shot down, like it was a debate topic. It wasn’t something theoretical, it was a tender wordless part of me, and I had no language for it.

So you’re just going to sit there, he said. You’re not even going to try to explain yourself.

You wouldn’t understand, I said.

You have an emotional disease, he said.

If you like, I said. I could see by the way he was looking at me that any reason would sound wrong coming from my blue-ticket mouth anyway.

I don’t know why anyone has a child at all, blue or white ticket, he said, lowering his voice so nobody would hear what we were talking about.

Perhaps nobody really knows, I said. It’s a thing you have to feel.

But how do you know that’s what you’re feeling? Try out some other feelings. Something that you can come back from. He tried to pour me more wine but I’d had too much anyway, I put my hand over the glass. Too late. The wine went everywhere.

I just know, I said. How to explain the dark feeling without opening my whole self up? How to ask whether he had ever felt it too? He was staring at me. I felt pathetic. I licked the wine from the back of my hand.

You know you’ll either have to have it sorted out, or you’ll be sent away, he said, turning his attention back to his food.

It’s too late for that, I said, mopping at the wine with my napkin. I told him about the pack. It’s at my house right now. You can come and see it for yourself.

Two pistachio custards were placed before us. I ate them both as R watched. My appetite was enormous. I felt no shame about it, for once.

At my house we laid out everything the pack contained. He lifted the gun in his hand. He pointed it at me. I put my hand to the barrel and moved it away. No, I said, like you would to a misbehaving dog, though I knew it was not loaded. I lifted up my arms to take off my top, but he turned away from me.

I can’t even look at you, he said.

I’m starting to show. You can see it now, I said. If you want to.

I was hardly showing at all, really, but I breathed out to exaggerate any bump that was there. I wanted to make it real to him. Something he could see and touch.

I don’t want to, he said, still facing away. That’s the last thing I want.

He didn’t turn around when I slipped off my skirt and then unhooked my bra and rolled my stockings down, slowly, though he could hear me doing it. I said nothing to him, just folded the clothes up neatly and put them on the bed, cupped the very slight curve of my stomach, nothing noticeable, nothing you would see if you weren’t looking for it. He kept his arms crossed and his body angled away from me.

Then he left the house. I heard him walk down the stairs one by one, and I did not run after him or make any move at all. I just waited, naked, as the darkness fell and my neighbours returned to their homes. The sounds of their televisions and cooking and doors opening as they went out into their gardens to look at the sky or take the washing in, the small and rhythmic elements of life happening all around me, not-inconsequential life, all of it going on and on.