The Little Death

by Sarah Till

  I nod. She’s right. She doesn’t know what the consequences of that admission would be, so I continue to omit the information.

  ‘I could confront him with the texts, but then he could just delete them. Until he admits it, how can I do anything?’

  She’s nodding in her sympathetic counsellor way, and I think she’s going to come out with some inspirational quotation.

  ‘I was thinking, though, and there’s no easy way to say this, but if he is sleeping with someone else and spending so much time with them, why doesn’t he leave? I mean, if he’s truly in love with another woman, wouldn’t he just be with her?’

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘It’s hard to explain, Sarah. On one hand we’re trying for a baby, on the other he’s with someone else. I’m stuck in the middle. I know I need to do something but...’

  ‘But what, Patti? But what?’

  ‘There are things you don’t know about us. Me and David.’

  ‘What things?’

  She’s talking to me, but only half listening, her eyes following Gabriel. He returns with the dinner and the bread and begins to serve. I’ve had a large glass of wine already and I pour another. I almost tell them both that I’m scared, scared he’s going to kill me, but the response will be the same as whenever I’ve told anyone else. It’s a figure of speech. David’s just not like that. He doesn’t mean it. But they haven’t been in that moment when his face is close to mine, his hissing breath on my cheek, his fingers digging into my flesh, or his fists and feet colliding with my bones. And of course, the eternal question of ‘why don’t you leave, then?’ to which I mutter the eternal answer ‘because he’ll find me’. I’ve nowhere to go.

  ‘It’s this place. It’s worth about half a million. Of course, we’ve got a mortgage, but we both put money into it.’

  Sarah grimaces.

  ‘But surely you could sell it? And you get the money back that you put in. Both of you? Didn’t you pay for most of it, and you’re not married, are you? Surely you could get a solicitor to verify?’

  Gabriel is cutting deep into the lamb and listening. I’ve noticed that every time I mention David his eyes drift onto me, so I do it some more.

  ‘Well, I could, but David would have to agree. And where would I go?’

  The plates are loaded and Gabriel rips the loaf into rough pieces. He sits down and takes up his own glass. ‘You could leave this bleak hole for a start. Not the house, it’s beautiful, but up here. It’s desperate. You could start a new life with someone else.’

  I snigger. ‘Desperate? Maybe I like desperate. I love this place. I love the peace and quiet, the daily routine. The birds and the bees. I can’t leave them, can I? That’s why I chose to live here. If anyone’s going it’s David. I don’t want to leave.’

  ‘Evidently.’

  We all start to eat and Sarah interrupts.

  ‘She’s scattered her parents’ ashes out the back. Maybe that’s why she’s so attached to this place.’

  I sigh. ‘I am still here you know.’

  Gabriel smiles. He’s eating with his fingers, cutting up his meat with a sharp carving knife. ‘I must admit, I’ve only been here a few days and I’m starting to get very attached to it. It’s surprised me really. I’m used to the city, late nights, crowded bars...’

  Sarah laughs loudly. ‘Snorting coke of women’s backs? Not my idea of fun. I don’t need any synthetic stimulants to get me through the day. Or night.’

  He stabs a piece of lamb. ‘Anti-drugs, then?’

  Sarah smirks. ‘Pretty much, yeah. We can all see what it does to people. Starts off as a quick joint and then, before you know it, you’re off your head in a club, coke to come up, bluies to come down. Next thing, you’ve sold your granny for an ounce. Curse of the city, if you ask me.’

  I look from her to Gabriel. He’s weighing her up. He shakes his head. ‘Yeah, I guess. Curse of the City. But what about the suburban curse? Is that any different? Middle class housewives queuing up for codeine-based medication, spending their grocery budget on co-codamol? Dosed up with Prozac and St John’s Wort? How’s that different?’

  Sarah reddens. ‘That’s a different set of problems.’

  ‘Everyone’s got a different set of problems, and a different way to cope with them. Everyone’s vulnerable. Everyone’s got their Achilles Heel.’ He’s pointing the knife at Sarah now. ‘Don’t you think?’

  I expect her to be angry with him, to argue the point, but she doesn’t. She’s silent, chewing her food twenty times as she always does, and thinking. Eventually she breaks the uncomfortable silence and speaks.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. I can see what you mean. But what happens when it goes too far? When the drugs make you ill or make you steal, or you’re too spaced out to work, what then? Same result. That’s what I’m saying. Out here, there isn’t anything. Nothing at all, and that’s the secret to it. That’s the secret to happiness.’

  I’m feeling a little bit tipsy now.

  ‘What is? What’s the secret to happiness?’

  My words are too loud, like I’m making an appeal, like I seriously expect her to tell me the secret to being happy. Sarah doesn’t look at me, and neither does Gabriel. Sarah sniggers.

  ‘Not getting attached to anything. In some ways, you have to be ruthless, but in the end it’s better. Much better. That’s why I live alone.’

  Even I, in my semi-drunken state, could see that this was a signal to him. I live alone. I decide to intervene.

  ‘But you do all those rituals. Aren’t those like attachments, something you have to do every day?’

  She’s still looking at Gabriel, who’s eating our bread, our creation. My blurry mind tells me again that she’s stealing him away from me, even though he isn’t mine.

  ‘No. I choose to greet the sun. Every morning when the sun comes up, I greet the new day. It’s like a rebirth.’ She’s told me all this before and I roll my eyes exaggeratedly. They don’t see me. ‘Then in the evening, I have my own way of watching the sun go down. I get everything I want up here, everything I need. Anything else is, well, extra.’

  They’ve finished eating now and Gabriel refills her glass.

  ‘That’s lovely, Sarah, a lovely thought, but hardly authentic. Is it?’

  She frowns. This should wind her up, I think. But no.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because the sun doesn’t ever rise. Or go down. Until you realise that, you’re fooling yourself. Seeing the world how you want to see it, not how it really is. Because the sun stays where it is, it’s the earth that’s moving.’ He leans over the table, closer and closer, and she’s breathing him in. ‘When you’re out there, in the morning, the earth tips over so that you are facing the sun. It’s only because you think you’re at the centre of the universe that you think it’s all revolving around you. But you’re right, Sarah, being attached to those thoughts stops you from being happy.’

  Sarah is riveted. I think that she might actually climb over the table and straddle him there and then.

  ‘Yeah. Absolutely. Look, Gabriel, I’ve got some books across at mine you might be interested in. Would you like to...’

  ‘Yeah. If our host will excuse us?’

  Gabriel is looking straight at me. I know he’s searching my face for any trace of emotion that might mean ‘stay’. I can see myself reflected in his eyes, and hear my voice earlier telling him I’m not interested. I know that this is my chance, and in that moment I feel real emotion. As if I will burst into tears and throw myself into his arms, like some romantic film where everything turns out all right in the end. But Sarah is heading for the door, looking at him seductively from under her blonde fringe, her arm outstretched. I dredge up my blank expression from my late-night fucking with strangers, my only defence against their fantasy that I actually wanted to sleep with them and donned it now.

  ‘No, you two go ahead. Have fun. I’ll just clear up here.’

  They’re out of the door before I get
to the kitchen. I put the bread board on the kitchen counter and walk upstairs to our bedroom, where, if I open the blind slightly, I can see them walk across the open moorland back to Sarah’s house. Of course, he was never mine. I’d had my chance and declined. I watch them go inside, and sit until the bedroom lamp is lit. It might have been an hour or two, but when I look at the bedside clock, it’s still only ten thirty.

  I clear the table and wash the dishes, then go to bed. David slips in beside me at two, smelling sweet and of sherbet lemons, and I wait until his breathing is even. I get out of bed and go to the conservatory. This time I don’t check the phone. What’s the point? I’m only torturing myself; I know full well what I will read. Instead I make myself a cup of tea to re-hydrate and stare out past the moon into the canopy of stars, to distant galaxies. I think about what Gabriel said at dinner, that the earth was moving and not the sun. I remember that he told me that he used to believe the islands had floated away from the mainland. I secretly admitted that I had believed that too, until he pointed out about the sea covering the bit in between. I gaze at the still-lit lamp in Sarah’s bedroom window, and the shadows moving against the curtains, and wondered what else there was in this fucked-up world that kept me a prisoner in my own mind. I thought I had perhaps found someone on the same wavelength as me, but maybe he was just interested in sex after all? I had to admit he did seem keen on physical pursuits; he’d pushed himself at me in the kitchen and I’d only known him a day. He was continuously suggestive, but beautiful with it. Now he was gone.

  I fall asleep on the window seat, and wake curled up in my housecoat when Vera’s car door slams. Moments later, there’s a tap on the front door. I rush to open it and there she is, a small old woman, her eyes violet behind her gold rimmed glasses, someone I had watched every day for years but never spoken to.

  ‘Hello,’ she chirps, ‘You must be Gabriel Smythe’s partner.’

  ‘Oh, no, Gabriel’s just staying with us.’

  She looks at my nightdress and then at my face.

  ‘Sorry to bother you so early, lovey, only he asked me to do this. For this book he’s wanting to do. About me and my Jimmy. I’ve put me number in there, will you tell him to give me a ring if he wants anything and I’ll have the next bit soon.’

  I blink at her through the early morning mist and take the brown unsealed envelope. She looks very tired and pale. It contains about thirty sheets of handwritten paper.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’

  She smiles.

  ‘Thanks, but no. I’ve been up all night fussing over it.’ She points to the envelope. ‘I’ll just take my walk and then I’m going home to me bed. Thank you, pet, and sorry if I disturbed you.’

  She turns and walks away, over the wall and onto the moor. I shut the door and rush to the side window. Gabriel is nowhere to be seen and Sarah’s bedroom light is off. This is the first time I’ve ever known her to miss the sunrise. Or earth move. I smile at this, the earth moving for Sarah. Lucky girl. Then I settle down to read Vera’s story.

  Jimmy Jones and Me

  Well lovey, I don’t really know how to start. But one thing I will tell you is that there won’t be any technical details. About the plane and that. No. Because I don’t think about those sort of things. Someone else will have worried about them and made a report and made a load of excuses. All I can tell you is what I know.

  Which is about me and Jim and everything that happened. He’s only here for part of the story but if you can bear with me, lovey, I think you will see that I’m not a mad old bat and that I have got a story to tell. I’m just a bit picky about who I tell it to. But you seem like a nice boy, and, after all, I’m getting on a bit and if that’s all I leave behind I’ll have done a good job.

  Anyway, about Jimmy. You see, he was a real charmer. I met him when I was fourteen at school. Neither of us were rich enough to go to the Grammar. Both of us were clever enough, but there were the uniforms. Me mam told me not to even sit the exams even though my teacher wanted me too. Same with Jimmy. But that’s where the similarities ended.

  I was an only child. Me mam had a terrible time having me and she couldn’t have any more children. Which was just as well in a way because she wasn’t that good at looking after me. She had a hard-enough time chasing after me dad. He was a drunk. I realise that now, but back then he just seemed like someone who was either very happy or very angry with no real in between. They both died young within a year of each other. Hardly surprising really because all they lived for was each other, and not in a good way.

  So I was left to my own devices. From being about five I played outside in the dirty back alleys from early in the morning to late at night. I was in with the older kids. I think they were looking after me really, giving me bits of their butty’s and cake when she didn’t call me in for dinner. Taking me down the shops and always buying me a lolly as well. So I didn’t miss out. Not on food, anyway, but I was always scruffy.

  When I went to senior school it got worse. They were both drinking by then. I think it was a case of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ for her. I was used to being alone by then so the fact that they were either laughing, sleeping or fighting made no difference. I’d just go out. I started to realise that they wouldn’t even notice if I came back. I tried this out on my friends. Suggesting I could go and live at their houses with their lovely mums who cooked and cleaned and made them clothes. I had no idea that clothes were bought until I was fifteen, because I’d never had anything new.

  By the time I was fourteen I’d started me monthly’s and managed to find out from Anna Kirby’s mum, who was a nurse, if I was dying or not. She gently explained it all to me and told me that boys made babies and I shouldn’t be buggering about with any boys. Or men. Not until I was married. Or serious by the very least. I nodded solemnly. I couldn’t imagine any of the goings on she had told me about as I listened wide eyed. And boys. Yuk. I didn’t have any of the feelings she told me about.

  Until I saw Jimmy. He’d been there all along, but I’d never really seen him before. Not really seen him. I was good at art back then and they let me be in the drawing class for the next year up. It was the only time I was really happy. Messing with the pencils and the chalk and making pictures of things I would love but never have.

  He was exactly a year older than me almost to the day. He was fifteen and tall. The first time I saw him he looked tired and unhappy. But still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was his eyes. They were dark and filled with the depths of pain that only teenagers can have. Almost immediately he began to tell the boy next to him. How he’d been thrown out of the woodwork class and how unfair it was.

  I stared and stared and eventually he caught me. I quickly looked away, worried that he would twist my ear or call me a cruel name. Polly Put the Kettle On. That was the favourite, or some variation.

  I knew I was plain. Mousey hairs hanging down my back, I washed it, of course, but it never had that shine other girls got. I used soap when we had it, but it was a constant battle between covering myself and hiding tidemarks. So I expected the same. A snort and a snigger. Maybe a rude name. But when I turned back he was standing behind me.

  ‘It’s good, that. You should get it framed.’

  I felt the warmth travel up my neck to my face. I could almost see my blush reflected on the white canvas.

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was all I could manage. But he was smiling.

  ‘Comin’ out later? Where do you go?’

  We all hung about on the spare land back then. In groups. There was a lot of bomb sites where no one had rebuilt yet and the nooks and crannies were perfect for us to sit and chat and smoke and wish our lives away. I looked down at my scuffed shoes. He was almost toe to toe now and his shoes were as scuffed as mine. His trousers were threadbare and his skin a little sallow from ingrained neglect.

  ‘Barrow Street. With Connie Edwards and Julie Anderson.’

  He nodded at me and went b
ack to his easel. I didn’t stare at him for the rest of the lesson, but I kept him in the corner of my vision, like I did for the rest of my life.

  After school I ran all the way home and boiled the kettle over and over again. Mum and dad were screaming at each other upstairs but I didn’t care. I scrubbed and rubbed and used far too much soap on my hair but it worked.

  By half six I was leaning against the bare brick ends and watching as he walked towards me, there was no shyness now. We both knew. We saw each other. He came from a family of seven and, although our circumstances were wildly different, our experiences were almost identical. Not enough food, clothes or love.

  But the love bit was about to change because we filled each other up. After that night and our first kiss we were inseparable. He understood about my parents drinking and I understood about his overcrowded house where three boys slept in one single bed. We were a couple of urchins making the most of it.

  No funny business. None at all, except for long kisses and hugs. It was enough for our love starved hearts. But we talked. Boy did we talk. In the three years we talked about everything. We would be married. We would have children, but just two and we would look after them. And each other.

  The older he got, the more beautiful he became. The girls around us blossomed and noticed him, but his gaze never strayed from me. Polly. I can hear him say it from between almost closed lips, his eyes lazy and his hand in mine. I would look at them, all hair rolls and cigarettes. New fashions and the evening walk along the high street, girls arm in arm looking slim and tall and grown up.

  In comparison I was make-upless and unfashionable with my cotton skirts and second-hand shoes, hand me downs from Jimmy’s sisters’ already second hand. He didn’t seem to mind. We had a routine – I’d meet him and we’d walk with everyone else. The he’d go and smoke with his mates while I took a turn with Connie and Julie. I would glance back over my shoulder and he was always looking. Always. Until his eighteenth birthday.