by Kyra Wilder
When we left, when we threw the party, we left the door open all night. After the last of the last of the people had kissed us on the cheeks, when they had gone, M closed the door and turned to me. As he turned, loose and expansive and happy, happy to be alone with me, he knocked an open bottle of red wine off the grange ermitage table we had by the door. It fell tumbling, arcing almost absurdly, almost slowly, into the beautiful wool rug. The wool of the carpet was so thick that the bottle didn’t break, didn’t even make a sound, just swallowed it all up and M and me, we just watched all the wine glug out onto it. Sloshing, gurgling, glugging, extravagant and monstrous, and grotesque, spreading for, well, for what seemed like a long time, across the wool. I wanted to tell my mother that now, sometimes I felt like the carpet, drinking things up, and not choosing what, and sometimes I felt like the bottle, caught and not breaking. That sometimes I felt like these things, the carpet and the bottle, rather than the owner of the carpet and the bottle, like I had been before.
At last M came back, late one night, from his trip. I smiled so wide when he opened the door and practically ran over to him to take his bags. He’d surprised me and I wished I’d been wearing something a little fresher, had done my hair maybe, or had cleaned the grit out from underneath my nails.
How was your trip? I said. How was work? What did you see? I was speaking too quickly I knew, showing by how much I talked how little I’d gotten to while he was away. I wished stupidly, for just a moment, to be wearing the same outfit that he was wearing, we could talk then I thought, if I were wearing wool pants and a button-up shirt with a pressed collar. If I were, I would have had something to say.
In the end it didn’t matter. He was tired. He didn’t want to talk. He had a tan, a new haircut. Jesus he said, walking past me, walking over to open the windows in the living room. Look at this place. He was whispering, we both were. The children were asleep. Oh, I said, looking around.
We were only playing, I wanted to say to M. Or, really what I wanted to say was that I was having trouble sleeping here, in the apartment. Or, that I was having trouble being in this new place where I couldn’t talk to anyone. That if I were honest, this wasn’t what I’d been expecting. That sometimes my breath caught in my throat. But, in the end I only said, Oh, because I couldn’t really say anything else. Because really, seeing the apartment as M must have seen it then, well maybe it did look a bit terrible.
I’d left up the fort that E had built for her animals in the living room, made out of sheets from the bed that M wanted now, to sleep on. I hadn’t cleaned out the lemons from the day before and maybe there were flies. Really, I should have been prepared, should have been more ready to welcome him home. But I’d made some miscalculation. Wait, I said, cleaning up the fort, pulling the pillows off the kitchen floor without explaining why they were there, but wishing, really wishing that he would ask. I made the bed up while he sat down on the sofa. He seemed to really want to not talk and of course the kids were asleep. So I just got on with it and he started to get up to help me and I said, No, no really, sit down. You’ve been travelling all day, you must be exhausted.
After he went to sleep I wanted to fall into bed with him but I remembered the guest room and I didn’t want him to find it in the morning and think, well, I don’t know what. So I packed all the things I’d collected there into a garbage bag and took it all out to the bins and when the guest room was empty again I felt better about things. Better but also as if I were keeping secrets.
I sorted through M’s laundry, separating the things that I could wash at home from the things that would need to be taken to the dry cleaners. I shook some sand out of the bottom of his pockets and swept all the grains up into a little pile on the floor. I put my finger on it for a moment, on the pile of sand, and pretended like a part of me, a tiny part, was somewhere else, on a beach.
Afterwards, I found I couldn’t quite climb into bed with M, so I tried curling up beside B’s crib on the sofa, but I couldn’t sleep there either. Instead I took the broom and the rags and started to clean the kitchen, spraying and wiping all the surfaces. I cleaned out the drawer where I’d been stuffing the tram tickets. The salt and pepper shakers were shining now on the counter and the chairs were pushed into their places at the little kitchen table. I made it so it was as if no one lived in the apartment.
All the rental company’s things were restored to their rightful places, just like in the pictures that I had looked at in the rental agency office. We were all being called back from somewhere else. I was. I felt certain that with everything brought back to just the way it had been before we’d come, that I would begin to sleep soon. That I would be allowed to. That the world would return to its place under my feet.
I practised saying the new names of things as I cleaned. Robinet. Balai. Compteur. Enfant. I was surprised to find that the night passed easily this way, when usually it was so long. I got out the knives even, to sharpen them, and I got out too the little stone that the rental company had left for that purpose. Scritch. It made such a wonderful noise! The knife on the stone, getting sharper and sharper and sharper. Crickets in the apartment, chirping, keeping me company, well, it sounded a bit like that. Like music! Scritch, scritch, scritch.
In the early early morning, I ran to the little store on the corner. I was there right when it opened. I grabbed eggs and coffee, bacon, bread, croissants, wild strawberry jam. I cooked breakfast, arranged the table, cups, bowls, plates, paper napkins folded under forks. Sparkling glasses placed just so, ready for juice. I felt so happy just then, in that moment, I felt that I could have cooked a thousand perfect breakfasts all at once.
M woke up, showered, and came and ate with B and E. He smiled at the way E brought her animals to the table and set them up in a ring around her plate, ready to watch her eat. He ran his fingers through B’s silky puffs of hair. He also looked sometimes at me. We all smiled at each other.
Then M pushed away from the table. He put his plate and cutlery in the sink. I have to go to work, he said. Of course, I said. Have a good day, I said. I’ll be back tonight, he said. I’ll be back for dinner. OK, I said, that’s great, and I felt at once a desire to cook the most wonderful thing, boeuf bourguignon maybe where you open up a bottle of wine and let the whole thing just slide into the pot, something extravagant, and exceptional and surprising, and I also wanted to empty all the pots onto the kitchen floor and shout at him, who will cook the dinner you’re saying to me now that you’re going to eat. Who will cook that. He kissed me on the cheek. He picked up his briefcase. He went to work. My mother always told me that happiness is a choice, only sometimes we have to hold to it very tight and keep choosing it.
Part Two
January
Visiting hours are two to four. That’s what the sign says. The one that you’re spraying and wiping. You can’t see it now under the cloth but that’s what it says. In case you didn’t know. In case you sprayed and wiped without really looking. Which is quite understandable! But that’s what it says: two to four: visiting hours.
What I’m wondering is, why is it posted in here? In here with me I mean. I’m not a visitor. Is it also posted outside? Anywhere outside? Can people outside, I mean to say visitors, can they see that sign? If they can’t, how would they know when to come?
Could you pass me that cup of water? It’s just, it’s just that I’m very thirsty. And, I’d get it myself, but, well, I’m a bit tied up at the moment. Hah! Tied up, see?
In a minute? OK. Thank you.
It’s just that my mouth gets so dry.
They’re going to come and wash my hair today, cut it maybe. Good, I say. Good and great. Cut it all away. Shave it down to the skin.
They will be coming to my room to cut it. Makes me feel like a lady, you know? Having all these people come.
I hope you don’t mind me talking. They told me I should. Talk, I mean. And I said, Well, what about?
And they said, like they do: Well, what about?
I yelled at them then, and I know now that I shouldn’t have. That it’s wrong and unhelpful. Unproductive. I know that. And they were right! They were right to do what they did. It’s nothing that they shouldn’t have done. Or do again if it needs doing.
I see all that now. The helpfulness of remaining still and quiet and good I mean. I see it!
But, just between you and me, sometimes, it’s like I have a rock on my chest. A real one. An actual rock set right on top of the bone and it’s crushing me. One of those big boulder things that you see sometimes by the ocean. Have you seen those? The ones that are so big and grey and you know if you licked them you would taste salt? Anyway, what’s important is that it’s big, this salty rock. You’d never be able to move it. Or I won’t. Not ever.
And sometimes, also, the rock is inside me. There’s this grit in the back of my mouth. I can taste it, and I don’t know whether it’s the grit of the rock, the rock inside me, or my own teeth being ground into powder. It could be either one really. And I’m right here between them. I’m here and there are these two rocks pressing.
Yes. I’m sorry. No. I’m calm. You don’t need to call anyone. Really, you don’t need to. I’m calm. What I meant to say is, it just doesn’t seem possible really, to talk to them. But to you, well, I feel that I can. I hope that you don’t mind that. It seems better somehow, if we both have to be here together. It seems better to fill the air up with something. Could we smoke? Do you have a cigarette? I’m not particular, I’ll smoke anything at all.
No, I’m kidding. Yes, I understand. Who you are, who I am. I understand that. I’m not trying to cross any lines! There are boundaries, and boundaries are important! I understand that. It’s OK if you want to tell them what I tell you. I understand if you need to. I just don’t want to talk to them directly, you see? Can you see that?
We have so much time! Have you noticed that? There is so much time here! It’s like it grows in the walls. Spawning and blooming and spreading and spawning and spawning and spawning. Like mould. The minutes ooze like spores across the surface of the day, slick, and orange and I’ve got this weight. Right on my chest. It’s like a rock. Like an actual rock.
* * *
Do you like my hair? I can’t see it. Not really. Only if I look in the window with my eyes half closed like this and only if the light is just right. But really, it feels amazing. The lady who came to wash it did such a wonderful job.
You should take care of yourself, she said to me, while she was brushing it. My old hair. She said that to me!
You know they tell me sometimes at appointments, when they’re feeling kind, the doctors, I mean, they tell me, Slow down, breathe, imagine you are in the woods. Close your eyes, they say, and imagine you are walking in the woods. Imagine the ground you are walking on. Imagine that you are walking and you see two trees, the biggest ones, they say, that you have ever seen. Imagine that they are so big, these two trees, that you cannot see the tops of them, that their trunks disappear behind their branches. That they bury themselves, these two trees, deep into the chest of the sky. Like spears. Imagine the forest is a field of spears, spears that are tall enough and sharp enough to pierce absolutely all the things, all the things that you have ever . . .
No. I’m kidding. Of course it doesn’t go like that. They do tell me the bit about the trees though. The two big ones. Only, they only ever ask me what I see when I step between them, the two big trees in the forest. That’s what they want to know. But I never do, see it I mean. The forest. The two trees.
Only I did with her. With the lady who came to brush my hair. For a moment I could see them. The two big trees with a between between them, and a room there behind them.
I don’t mean to keep you. I’m trying not to I promise! It’s just that I’ve been thinking about something. She touched me, the lady who brushed my hair, after she was done. She touched me here, just behind my ear, with two of her fingers. What I mean to say is, well, it felt extra. Like she didn’t have to. Like she didn’t have to but she did. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about that.
6
With M back, the days were made into hours again, into minutes. There was just enough time in the morning to run to the store and do the shopping while M and E and B slept. Just enough, if I did everything right and didn’t take too long deciding.
If everything was done we could all sit for a moment together and smile at each other before M had to leave. Then cleaning. Washing, dusting, on my knees and pushing a damp rag into all the corners. Everything tidy and in its right place, even me.
I had to be quite severe with myself. To write rules and stick to them. To be firm so I wouldn’t slip. After all, when you’re falling who knows where you might end up. Things needed to always be done quickly and in the right order, laundry left in the dryer would wrinkle and become irretrievable, likewise groceries left out on the counter, likewise the dust, which if ever at all left to settle would invite in and collect more dust. I bought a bottle of linseed oil and began rubbing it into the wooden floor of the guest room, massaging the parquet with a little square of cloth, making it shine. The whole room seemed to glow when I was done. There were results, there was satisfaction. There was always more to do.
At night too, there was lying down next to M, right close up next to him, and there was the jumping up. Bam! Just like that, when B cried or E cried, and I was needed.
In the afternoon we still went to the park, but we had to leave early, packing up our things along with all the other busy mothers who had to get home to make dinner for their husbands. Who had to wash their children clean for bed. There was so much business and busyness. So much attending to. All the hours and hours and hours filled up by necessary things. Everyone was so purposeful. We were all so relieved to be occupied.
Nell didn’t hurry to leave the park though, with me, with the other mothers. She was never brisk and bustling, clicking her tongue and checking her watch, she was never in a hurry to go at all, and I envied the way she lay there, on her picnic blanket, twined up and in between her baby and her son. I was envious but also a bit miserly with my tasks, protective of them. Of course, I could have lain down in the park right beside her and played with B. Go play, I could have said to E. We can stay all day. Sorry, I could have said to M when he got home, there’s nothing to eat. Of course I could have. Fine, he would have said, that’s fine, but I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him to say it, and I knew that he would. So I kept rushing home to cook, to have dinner ready and nice-looking, even though M never ate much of what I made.
M began to leave early anyway for work. Too early to make breakfast for him. Too early for us all to sit together at the little table in the kitchen. Things were difficult at work, things weren’t going well. Or perhaps things were going very well. In either case, M was required earlier and earlier, and later and later too. More and more was needed of him. Or he felt he was needed. Or he told me he was. Everything was so unclear really and I felt too embarrassed to ask for clarification. I would lie down on his side of the bed after he left, my head where his head had been for just a moment.
I kept cooking dinner every night, even though I sometimes saw Nell in my head while I did it, while I cooked I mean, and wondered what she was getting up to, lying maybe in the sun all afternoon. I thought too sometimes of Aurelie, I thought of a kitchen filled with bouquets. A kitchen with no pots or dishes in it, only flowers.
I made sauces for pasta with tomatoes so ripe and heavy with juice that it seemed a mercy to slice them open, a relief to them. My knives were so sharp that they shivered through the skin of the tomatoes, or the eggplants or the berries or the grapes. I could have shaved my arm with them.
I made salads the way we liked with olive oil and large flakes of salt. We would wait for M in the apartment, sitting at the dinner table, ready and eager to see him. We would wait however long it took.
Well, Spanish people wouldn’t think of eating dinner before ten o’clock. We could be so cheerful t
hinking of ourselves like that, E and B and I. We’re becoming so European I would say to them and no one as the hours ticked past us. As the food became cold. It was always such a delight to have him home at night, to be the kind of family that ate dinner together, to be doing these important, these universally recommended things. I felt a lifting in my shoulders, somewhere just under the bones, a lightness, that carried me through the week. I didn’t mind washing dishes at midnight. I didn’t mind it a bit. I wondered if Nell washed dishes, if Aurelie did, I wondered how they felt if they did or if they didn’t.
I began going out at night. Only when M was home. Only when he was asleep. I would say to myself, we need this or that, a sponge, or dish soap, even though I knew the corner store was long closed for the night. I would say perhaps, tonight, perhaps right now, it will be open. Or I would say, I’ll take the garbage out. I would say it quietly, whispering, only talking I guess to myself, and to the apartment but still, I would say it, just to be saying something.
I would get dressed carefully when I left, put on a skirt maybe, or the heavy earrings that I had worn when I got married, something special, and instead of taking out the garbage or looking in the shop window at the sponges, I would go and sit in the cafe across the street and order a coffee and pretend that I smoked cigarettes.
Maybe I was going there because the old woman with the long purple coat was there too. I know you, I thought, and maybe I did. I could see the way she must pin her hair in front of the bathroom mirror in her apartment, the hook that she must hang her purple coat on, the drawer of rolled nylons in her dresser. Perhaps she knew me too, could see the rumpled pouch I kept my blush in, how all the powder was old and crumbly, how I wore it anyway, the blush, the skirt, the earrings, all of it, to sit alone in a cafe across the street from my apartment building, looking most of the time at the locked-up shutters of my living room.