Phil has no patience for the expression. He feels it suggests that love can be fabricated like scaffolding or a hull, or that it might be forced inside a collaborator, injected, sweated into life. He does not believe this to be the case.
Philip and Carmen shag.
A dogword, dogged — something comfy and tousled, sturdy, reliable, warm-muzzled, panting. You can meet its eyes and know just what you’ll get. Uncomplicated.
She’s bent over one of his kitchen chairs — the knickers and tights rumpled down to her shins, skirt rolled — lately she has let him do this, has allowed him to partly roll and partly fold it out of their way. He imagines this is to save unnecessary creasing. There’s a mild blush spreading on her buttocks.
Mustn’t think of that, though, or I’ll come too fast.
Philip is picturing railway lines and sidings, cuttings, the approach to his current city’s largest terminus: overheard wires and power ducts, channels, signals, warning signs, tracks shining down to disappearing points — the naked workings of transportation, their clarity — it calms him.
He crouches against and beneath her, up her, paces himself to a steady digdigdig.
Dogdogdog.
Shagshagshag.
Although he needn’t, he is being courteous. There absolutely is no point in holding back — she never seems to come herself, never attempts an explanation of why they do this, or what she might want. Even so, he does very often try to please her, to break a noise from her beyond the loudish rhythm of her breath. He has called her by name on a few occasions — Carmen — but she hasn’t answered, hasn’t turned her head.
Although he guesses this is not what she prefers, he tends to shag her from behind, purely because when he faces her he can’t avoid being aware that she doesn’t smile, avoids kissing, looks beyond his shoulder throughout as if she were puzzled by some detail, or attempting to recall an itinerant fact.
And always in the kitchen.
Domestic servant, knows her place.
Oh.
Shouldn’t think of that, either. Anything hierarchical gets too horny.
He’d felt quite peculiar afterwards, on that initial afternoon — chilled and thirsty and curious, possibly affronted, but also sinking a touch into a kind of softness, a gratitude — it had been a while, after all. He’d briefly considered taking her to bed and starting again, pretending they had some meaning for each other. But Carmen had only released him, dressed herself, cleared the tea things, left.
He did wonder if she’d be back, but the following Wednesday she appeared at nine, the same as usual — only now the extra half-hour added for the shag.
It had been difficult to know if he should pay her more — he was, clearly, increasing her workload, in a sense, but he’d guessed any offers of extra cash would be distasteful. For a while, he’d left small gifts beside her tea mug. She ignored them. He’d begun conversations she either wouldn’t or couldn’t finish, had reached out to pat her arm when she was passing, had aimed to create an atmosphere of, if not affection, then positive regard, but she seemed to dislike this and as a result he had taken to rushing a roll of notes at her when the month ended and being vague about how much he genuinely owed, overestimating as if by accident.
I can afford it. Afford her.
Oh.
Not yet, though.
Oh.
One day she’ll make me think of additional vowels.
Meanwhile, divert myself.
Affording.
Comforts.
Luxuries.
Pleasant situations.
Yes. Right up to the walls I am most pleasantly situated and living well within my means, living well completely.
When he’d viewed it, the flat was already exhaustively furnished and equipped — carpets, bed sheets, towels, ornaments, pictures, cutlery, pans, reading glasses, candles, lampshades, soap — as if the owners had left on holiday and had asked him to stay and take care of their belongings. Generously vacant for him — sign the inventory and he was home.
Mine.
My floor, my wall, my window, my view.
Outside it’s easing into spring. Blossom shivers in the tall, haphazard trees and young light is being kind to the buildings opposite, the thin lane that runs beside them.
Foxes in that lane at night. I can hear them. Foxes in the city, and rabbits and hawks — the countryside’s cleaned, it’s shriven — but here there’s hunting day and night. There are screams — exactly like women. In the morning I see traces.
He can feel heat running at the backs of his legs, the strain of the end on its way and he studies the shop fronts, clings to them for a beat and a beat and a beat.
Flower shop — no one goes in it, except for funerals, not properly an area for flowers, not yet. Refurbished café — one of those chains. Twenty-four-hour grocer’s and off-licence. Tobacconist. Chemist. Somewhere that’s still empty — whitewashed windows, dust.
He can see from the broad, slanted outlines left on the sandstone that the business was called Zumzum — silly name — typical.
No way of knowing what they sold, probably fancy cloth, or gold jewellery, maybe weird little cubic sweets, the kinds of stuff those people liked.
Butcher’s still here from the old days. New management, naturally. Sausages, pork pies, nice bit of steak for the weekend — have to support your local butcher. Funny lettering over the door from when it was different, stocked different meat. Cheap paint, it’ll fade.
Transitional areas. Reclamations. They start off unsteady, blanks where you wouldn’t expect them, oddities, reminders, and then in the end, everything fades. You get a new community. Peace.
And, before the disruptions settle and the fresh life grows, you can roll in and get a cheap flat with all the trimmings.
My street, this is — in my neighbourhood — my house in my street in my neighbourhood.
And my view, my window, my wall, my floor, my chair, my shag.
My shag.
Oh.
My shag.
Oh.
Possession.
Oh.
Does the trick.
Oh.
Quite.
Phil draws himself away from her, removes the condom.
Can’t be too careful.
He’s pressed her forward and her blouse has ridden up. For a moment he has to stare at the scarring on her back — purplish/red and swollen. Then she straightens, hides it. He’s never been able to see the whole of it.
Burning.
Beating.
Some wrongness.
Some wrong act.
He bins his little parcel of semen, the tepid crush of what he’s left, and adjusts himself, clears his throat. He’s sticky, needs a shower and maybe an aspirin, but he can’t enjoy either until Carmen’s gone, in case he gives offence. This means he can only loiter and wait for his pulse to dim, keep his hands from rising to his face, because they will smell of activities and people, needs, heats.