She floats face down. The world can do anything to her. Under here she is fingers and the weight of water piled up over her head. Under here with the empty torch of her breath she opens an eye and a quick fish I
Open mine to the bright, bright day. And the land and the life comes in.
Letters too, from her. Exclamation mark mazed! Did you see your man’s in a film next week Oh My God Channel 4!!!
Smoke cigarettes round the gable then. Eat many Minstrels, in honour of him. Read some books. Try to see that film and wait for January.
TERM TWO
Monday 9 January — Sunday 2 April 1995
By the crushed tin bin. At the 5 on his door. He must be there. His light is, so press the bell. Press again. All afloat with the. Clang keys. Then him just filling my eye. Barefoot. Shiver. Bathrobe slack tied. Hello there, he says. Hello, I light, tip-toeing up to How come you’re back? he asks. I’m supposed to be, it’s the sixth. Oh right, he crosses the threshold to kiss my cheek making everything in me go but Look it’s lovely to see you but I’m sorry I can’t ask you in. Oh God, I Sorry, are you working? I’m not, he says, going quiet-eyed. Oh. I stare at the step and the phlegm there, spat. That’s disgusting, I say. Well I didn’t do it listen if I’d known you were back tonight You’d have done it yesterday? Sorry, bad timing that’s all but I’m really glad to see you. So tell her to go. I can’t do that, he says Not now. Fuck you, I say backing down the path. Wait — him quick checking up behind — How about tomorrow? We could meet in the morning and have the day. I turn sharp though and hurt his gate by the looks of rust crumbs fly. Come back, he loud whispers Wait, hang on! But when I don’t the front door shuts and from across his street I look up. There. His room. The lowliest bulb. Skewed curtain light streaming and what beyond? Then even it goes out. You bollocks! I scream I feel like screaming but mostly that I’m such a child as the rain comes roaring down.
So happy home to London. Rain-haired unpack my case. Hailstone-eyed smoke cigarettes, despising these last thirty nights spent liking the thought of his body on mine. There for you now with your worthless wiles. Singed myself already when my landlady shouts Phone, and you can tell your friend it’s too late to call, I’m half an hour in bed.
Hello? You’re Falkland Road, aren’t you? he says Which number? You can’t come here. Come on, just tell me? No way. Please? he says. So I tell him it. For what? For trouble again.
Stooped against the drizzle he comes then. Neat though. Clean. Hair wet from showering, now from rain. Stands on my step with my front door barely opened What? is all I say. He tosses his fag Can I come in? No. I won’t stay long. No. But it’s raining. I’m not allowed men in. I’ll be so quiet, he says Please let me in — raising a look that runs over the wound — I’m sorry about before. I. So. Relent. Alright. You fool.
Blink noughts from her oven. Almost all the rest dark. Can I smoke? No. There’s an ashtray there. So? And put the kettle on, for something. Come here, he says. I ignore that. Will you look at me? I don’t but Did you get my postcard? I did, yes, thanks. And when I meet his eyes now he knows. But those weeks of waiting, for them I hold out. Let him flex his long fingers until they Alright I did know you were back tonight. And still did it? Yes. On purpose? No for no good reason I just I’m sorry it was a shitty thing to do. The kettle rises to the boil. Will you forgive me? I won’t. I’m so sorry. I see he means it but You better go before someone comes. Instead he reaches for me but I won’t let him touch. Just turn my face and, when he kisses it, relive Lights Out on his street so that’s where all the feeling goes. And when he kisses to my lips I stay close-mouthed. Cross. Immune to his every practised pass, even to the most of myself that wants. Stop doing that, he maddens at last Let me kiss you properly. You’ve been having it off with someone else! There. At last it crosses his face, a sign he is ashamed. I know, he says — stepping back — I know I have and that was poor and I’m a piece of shit, which is historically pretty accurate, but I really am sorry and you’re quite right I should go so I’ll go. And I give him an eye. Taste of smile. His turn to calculate me now Well, bye bye. But as he turns I think fuck all those other things and close my hand around his wet wrist. And even that, just that touch swings both bodies to.
He kisses me in the best way then. Back banged to the sideboard and Watch the kettle! God and a month is too long to wait for being kissed this way. From here, so quick us, to badly behaved. My pyjamas unbuttoned. His long coat the same. Eye on the door. Ear to the ceiling. If we’re quiet, can we manage a quick one here? he says. Is she not waiting for you? No, once you left I told her I had an early start. Jesus Christ! Well you asked. Have you no shame? That cup over-runneth believe me, he laughs But I’ve been thinking about you for a month.
Slow suffering eek then up the creep-proof stairs. Pointing my landlady’s room out with Shush. Slapping at him for his hand up my leg and wanting it to all the more.
Fuck your room’s tiny. And the walls are thin. Wet coat shed and quick caught me. Osip Mandelstam digging in the back of my knees as the kissing gets me pinned. But laugh we in the struggle to strip and not bump. Stilling into statues at the landlady’s coughs. I trample too on his new-pressed shirt, just a little just. Just for her. Worse though the mattress when he inches me there. Shush, I shush. Shush yourself. I am so for him now and yet What traces has she left? What did they do? How did they kiss? Did she do this to you? He considers — I see it — telling a lie. Did she? Yes, he says. What do I say to that? Like a stone on his back. Like a stone on mine. Have you protection with you? Of course I have. And, for all my want, I could kick myself for so easily giving in to his charms. When he’s ready though, I lift to him. Kiss him as he’s about to, then it’s just us two again, finding how we creaklessly can and we mostly do — mostly he finds — while I hold to him, shaking in the silence. He makes me and waits. Lets himself once I have and and The weight of him on me. Christ. But all things between us made new.
In the after, I listen to the rain. His breath on my shoulder That was great. And this is how I’d like the night to be — hours of lying here with him — but Don’t sleep, I say You have to leave. Don’t send me back out there. Consider it punishment for your sins! But I’ll get up so early. No. An hour? No. Half? No. Five minutes more? Those five he gets but after them Up. You’re a hard woman, he says getting off, all reluctant. And so I am, watching him dress now in the dark. We kiss a good while though before my door shuts and I listen to no sound on the stairs. Practice makes perfect. But I go to my window. Heavy rain beyond and him coming out into that. Tugging up his collar. Lighting a cigarette. Look up look up. He looks up. I show a hand. In turn, he bows then goes out to the footpath. I follow him to the end of the street where he disappears round Our Lady Help of Christians. Then slip back into the smell of him on my sheet. Search out the last of his taste on my lips. Imagine that I’d kept him here. Then think of him, in the rain, out there. That could — if I wanted — make my heart a little break. But I don’t want it to, so it does not.
Drift steam in the bath. Early morning. Thread his name through the bubbles and pop. Counting last night that’s six times I’ve had sex. If he was still here he’d make it seven. If he was still here if he was still here what would we not do?