~
He’d promised to pick her up. So, she hadn’t brought her
runners today. She’s barefoot now, carrying her heels in her hand. She’d taken
them off as soon as she got on the train, the carpeted floor feeling luxuriant
under her sore feet. She doesn’t see a soul for the whole hour-long trip, not a
single solemn security guard or obnoxiously drunk teenager. Her stop is
second-to-last, so she is always alone when she gets off. She uses her phone as
a torch, a radar for the smashed bottles littering the station stairwells. The
bitumen is cold, and glitters also. She imagines it ripping into her soft
soles, cutting strips of her pale skin, imagines leaving a trail of bloody
footprints. She wonders what he would say, or if he would even notice.
The road doesn’t cut her feet, only her expensive stockings.
His car isn’t in the driveway. The house is dark, no windows
lit like eyes to greet her. She trips on the back stairs. It hurts, but she’s
too tired to swear. The small torch on her keychain is dim from overuse, but
eventually she finds the lock. She doesn’t turn on the lights. The shadows
spill from dark doorways into the hall, crowding her small light as she walks
through the house. She remembers when she was little, the summer storms that
would flash and crash and blow down powerlines. She’d chase her sister through
the dark and heat baked beans on their tiny camp stove, eating them with a
teaspoon straight from the can. They’d find all the tea-lights and tapers and
light them up, until candles blanketed every surface and the air was a shifting
sea of honey. They’d tell stories wrapped in blankets while the wicks were
drowned in wax, until dawn, until sleep.
But tonight is different. No squeals of laughter, no smiling faces suffused
with warm candlelight. Only dark. She tosses her shoes at the wall, the sound
isn’t as satisfying as she expected. In the kitchen, the Scrabble board is
still on the table – still a sprawling mess of used words. No sheet of paper,
not any more. Too many points scored, on both sides. They keep it all in their
heads. She sits down and puts her face in her hands.
She wakes to the purr of his car pulling into the curb, the
crunch of his feet on the gravel. The gate opens and shuts with a creak, and in
her mind she can see the paint flaking away from the rust like a scab. She
doesn’t get up to greet him. He fumbles with his key, he never used the torch
that she gave him, the one engraved with their names. The front door screams
into the silence, swollen wood wearing a groove in the floor that neither of
them had the time to smooth over. Clattering, briefcase to the floor, keys in
the bowl by the door. Running water splashed and smoothed over stubble. The
rooms he visits echo his presence, but he moves without the thud of heavy heels.
He has kicked off his shoes; she will pick them up later. His silhouette fills
the doorway – solid, but frayed around the edges. . Long fingers roll sleeves
to elbows. The light is actinic white, and it blinds her when he flicks it on.
He recoils at the sight of her.
“Fuck! – me. Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me.
Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
“You’re back.” She doesn’t look at him.
“Yeah.”
“You were going to pick me up. I had to take the train.” She
sweeps the words from the game board in front of her and mixes the tiles in the
bag, leaving the last word as a beginning. PROMISE
“Yeah, sorry. Meetings and stuff went a bit long. You know
how it is. Anyway, I texted you about it, so no harm done, right?”
“Long day, then.” She lines up the tiles on her rack. LATE.
She doesn’t play them.
She doesn’t play them.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Not a damn thing.” She places the letters on the board
slowly, deliberately – each one harshly delineating another portion of silence.
LIAR.
He looks around the kitchen – the cold stove, dishes in the
sink. He drops his pieces to the board, making a mess as he pushes them into
place. HUNGRY
“That Sally chick called again, asking about you.” MISTRESS
“Don’t talk like that.” COLLEAGUE
“Talk like what?” HUSSY
“You know.” NO
“Oh? Does it bother you? When I call her a chick?” SLUT
“Well, you know, it’s unbecoming.” STOP
“Really? Unbecoming. Well, I wouldn’t want to seem unbecoming, would I? I wouldn’t want to
be unseemly.” CHEATER
“Why are you doing this?”
“She asked what kind of massages you like.”
“Well, there’s a work retreat next weekend, at a resort.”
PARANOID
“Next weekend?
I thought we were going to see The
Merchant of Venice?” CHEATER
“Yeah, sorry. I was going to tell you sooner. Gonna to have
to cancel.” STUPID
“Again.” DICK
“I said I was sorry.”
BITCH
“Yeah.” FUCKER
CUNT
Clattering, the tiles spray across the room. She is
trembling, holding to the table with white knuckles. She doesn’t meet his eyes,
he doesn’t see the tears in hers. She stands up, starts gathering up the tiny
pieces.
“I’m sick of this game.” Her voice is a whisper.
“So am I.” He’s looking at her, but not seeing.
“Why do we keep playing?”
“Because it’s all that we have.”
~
He’s holding his jacket in his hand. The short walk to his
car doesn’t justify putting it on despite the cold. The turned key in the
ignition makes the heater blast to life – he flinches, sending a twinge of pain
through taut neck and shoulders. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel as
he drives, reaches the intersection. To get home, he has to take a right. It’s
the quickest way home from here. He turns left instead.
Twenty minutes further in the suburbs, twenty minutes more
alone. Her driveway is stone instead of his gravel, he can walk up it in
blessed silence. No dogs, no children, no traffic. He takes a deep breath
through his nose. She opens the door to his knock, dressed only in a surprised
smile. She doesn’t speak, just takes him in her arms, and in her bed. She
teases him at first, with fingernails and teeth – stroking and nibbling and
sighing into his ear. He is in no mood for foreplay. She has her back to him as
they fuck. Lost in her own rushing fantasies, she does not see him shaking. His
fingers dig into plush white hips, his anger is mistaken for urgency. Her
babble breaks to crescendo as she does – once, twice. A headache gnaws the base
of his skull. He groans, more out of politeness than any real satisfaction, and
flops to the bed in relief. She sighs, stretching luxuriantly, twining arms and
legs around him.
“I didn’t expect you.”
He says nothing.
“I mean, of course I hoped,
but I hope you know I didn’t want to pressure you or –”
He pulls on his clothes without meeting her eyes.
“You don’t have to go.”
A plea he doesn’t answer. His back is turned to her as he
leaves, so he doesn’t see her trembling.
His shoes crunch on the gravel drive. The house is dark, but
he’s used to that. She doesn’t turn the lights on anymore, just sits there in
the dark – waiting. He doesn’t understand it. The front door squeals open,
swollen wood digging a groove in the floor. He slips his shoes off in the hall,
and walks in bare feet. The cold water is a shock across his face, stubble
rough against his fingertips. When did he stop shaving? Coming home late every
day, when did that start? He can’t see himself in the mirror. He doesn’t turn
the light on. Rolling up his sleeves, he walks into the kitchen, with its cold
stove and dirty dishes. She’s not there. Nor in the bedroom, the lounge. He
looks for a note, for any sign of passage. Her shoes are gone, and that’s it.
He sits down at the table, puts his face in his hands.
He wakes to a dry mouth and a wet cheek, harsh tiles
pressing corners into his face. He staggers around the house, searching –
searching for a single sign of her. She doesn’t pick up her phone. Cold dawn
light washes through the windows, riming everything with ice. The board catches
his eyes as he storms through the kitchen. Only one word left, the last one she
used.
SORRY
