Fall - A Collection of Short Stories (Almond Press Short Story Contest)

by Corrina Austin

  We together had been pregnant, we had read the books, attended the classes, the appointments; he had held my hand, timed the contractions, fed me ice cubes and rubbed my back. His strong body had supported mine as I fought to bring her into the world and we together had pulled her up when she whooshed out of me and together, we had both laid her gently on my chest and had cried together as she had rooted and moved slowly toward my breast. We had never since or before been so close, so in love and everything since, has been a fall.

  A fall out of love; a fall away from the closeness of that moment; now, I am tied to her and she drags me under. I am sinking into a new version of myself whilst he swims the same waters.

  He has his Thursdays.

  On Thursdays, he comes home late, he is a beautiful man, hard not to want him and on Thursday he has sex with girls he picks up in a bar near his office. He does not tell me this but I know. It is so easy for him, he hardly has to try and I don’t think it is the same girl. He will keep it free of emotion; he wants a free fuck, a little indulgence. He tells me snippets as we make love, he whispers what he likes to do to these girls, he gives me all the detail as I climax. It is thrilling but I am ashamed by it. I feel I have absolved him, he enters me and confesses and I cum and he is free. Afterwards, he says it is only fantasy but I have given it its proper name.

  I spend my days covered in her, in the milk, in the vomit, in the shit. I brush my hair and dress but I don’t look in the mirror. I have grown fond of my joggers and I hate to make a fuss. I eat too much and my tits hang in pinching nursing bras and despite my mother’s ‘wise words’ I don’t put on lipstick for when he gets home.

  I have fallen into motherhood and I am beached on its shores.

  When the health visitor decided I needed some drugs and baby groups I obliged. I have religiously attended the breastfeeding clinic, the baby and toddler groups, the library sing-alongs. I have taken my tablet every morning with my tea and have like a zombie kept a routine. I have done all that is required.

  I sit politely in the company of mothers but I don’t belong here with these women, these women so comfortable and open, so earthy and beautiful in their role. I am awkward and I dash away as the groups come to an end; terrified someone will try and befriend me, invite me into this circle of mummies. I go home to sit quietly at the window.

  She has got teeth, lots, so many people comment on them. I think it is the two at the bottom that dig into my nipple as she feeds. I have fed her longer than most but I hang on to this thing I can do and I have grown used to her teeth scraping and biting into me. I sit here as she falls into my flesh; falls into me in her muted yellow nursery, once so perfect. Now, so full; of piles of clothes, packets of nappies, boxes of wipes, cluttered with discarded baby gyms and outgrown elements of the travel system. I stare, determinedly, willfully, out of the window, at the trees. I watch the falling leaves.

  Forever, the expert, Lewis has had all the answers. He soon became the alpha parent but it didn’t help me when he left me alone with her in the morning. I found myself clock watching, waiting to be relieved.

  She had colic and then she had reflux and he had told me to give her gripe water, he told me to stop taking dairy, to wind her this way and not that, he had read somewhere and I should... and he had been talking to his sister and she did... and he thought I was doing this wrong and that I should... and it had been one of those relentless days of screaming and puke and something in me just snapped and then I was on the train, baby wailing in her pram, hair unbrushed, ‘wild looking’ he later said.

  I went to his office and it was of course, a Thursday, he called his mother and she came as I sat in the conference room; ‘wild looking’ and breast feeding. I was taken in hand, driven home; he came home early, furious.

  His mother left about nine, she had cleaned the house, put on a wash whilst I lay down, quietly despairing in the dark. The G.P was called and I was to be referred to a consultant. She told me to rest. His mother left about nine.

  He called me downstairs. The house was beautiful. He had lit candles. He sat me down and made me eat dinner, although, I told him I wasn’t hungry. I told him I was sorry he had missed his Thursday night. There was spite in my voice and I shook with rage.

  I am not sure how or how quickly after he took me, took control of me, pushing himself into me, forcing me face down over the kitchen table. He told me that he was going to show me I was his, that he was going fuck me until I knew I belonged to him and I thought, ‘How silly!’ but I told him I wanted him and that I wanted him to teach me, to show me. I decided to let him be ‘the man’ that he was so missing being but I thought him a fool and after he quickly came in me I stayed there, spread like evidence over the table; and I listened to him weep. I left him crying. I left him begging me to love him again. I went upstairs to feed my child; bleeding and leaking with him.

  Tom, phoned me a few weeks later, told me he would be passing by and would it be okay to see me, I said yes. I think, now, I was excited about the drama it would create or maybe, desperate for the destruction it would cause.

  I told Lewis that Tom was coming. I became vicious in the telling and he sat quietly, drinking his coffee. He drank it slowly and did not say a word. He carried on eating his toast; he carried on drinking his coffee. He left me alone, raging in the silence. I told him that I sometimes wondered if I had made the right choice. He continued to drink his coffee. I told him that Tom was most likely my soul mate. Nothing; I kept rushing around in my brain, seeking out new ways to hurt him, punish him for his competence, for his fucking distance, for his infidelities; and I knew as I taunted him with his Thursday sins that it was a lie, that I had conjured up this Lewis, that I had at some point in my madness, re-imagined him and I knew it was untrue as much as I had once known it to be true but I couldn’t stop myself from clawing at him, throwing my words, my venom, my hate at his silent hulk. When, I stopped, I was exhausted and disorientated. He finished his coffee. He looked at me for a long moment and I thought he would cry and then he said, “fine” and, “see you later” and he went to work.

  I spent all morning getting ready for Tom.

  Tom and I were university sweethearts, for a time, the golden couple. He was always the rising star and I had adored him. He had told me soon after we had left University, on a Sunday afternoon, that he was leaving me. I remember I hadn’t washed my hair. He told me as I was sorting his socks or was I cleaning the toilet? Or was I sitting on the floor? He told me quite calmly that he didn’t love me and that he didn’t think he had ever loved me and then that he had met someone; each statement was given with the force of blow to the head. He had met a Canadian girl, she had called him a prick at some seminar and now he wanted her, no, he burned for her! “Of course”, I had said and with that he had gone and I had cried rivers, I remember the pain of it left me writhing. I had dissolved into the grief. I had grieved for years, the best part of my twenties; and every time I felt I could survive him he would call me, pick at the scab that had started to form, initially, we would go for coffee, or a play and eventually, he no longer made any pretence and would call me late at night and turn up for sex. I would always hope that he would not leave after but he always did. Sometimes, whilst we were fucking he would remind me that he did not love me and that we would never get back together. He was cruel and he kept me broken but then I had met Lewis and was finally, free of him and then I let him back in. I invited disaster into my home whilst, wearing a pretty dress and a smile.

  He was late but I had made him a salad so it didn’t matter. We sat around my kitchen table and he told me of his life. He looked at Alice but was not interested in holding her. We put her in her car seat and we went for a drive in his car. We parked up at the edge of a walk and as she was still sleeping we decided to stay put. It wasn’t long before he reached for me. His kiss was too strong and I pulled away. He put his hand behind my ne
ck and with a smile said ‘You know what I have missed?’, and I wanted to slap him but maybe because it was familiar I opened up his fly and touched him until he was hard. I took him in my mouth, whilst my daughter slept on the backseat, I felt him lean back and I knew he was not eager for it to finish too soon and I remembered the time this would take. My jaw aching, my back in pain, I continued, the rhythm putting me in a trance, in a trance where there was only Lewis.

  As the salt taste, rushed into my mouth, Lewis and the moments of our life filled me. I thought of his tenderness; his strong arms holding me; his mouth; his beauty. I thought of his tears behind his stare at me that morning.

  We drove back not speaking and I had to get him to stop. I pulled up and I retched at the side of the road. I wanted to be home. I wanted none of this; none of this which I could no longer name. Tom dropped me at home and then he left.

  I sent Lewis a text telling him to come home. I took a long shower and spat out Tom and all the poison of the last months, under the too hot water I had a moment of clarity and a scream escaped me. I then cleaned the house whilst Alice played. I stopped about three, ten past three, and looked out at the almost bare Oak.

  I went to the bathroom mirror and stared at myself. I stood looking until I finally, saw myself looking back. I took the packet of drugs from inside the cabinet and ceremoniously, dropped each one down the pan. I named each one , each one a veil I had been hiding behind and as each one fell, I saw myself as he had seen me and I wanted to hold him close. I wanted to whisper my sorry into his ear. Her cries pulled me back into the moment and I did not remember to call him, he would be home soon anyway and I would show him my new self. We would together guide each back to ourselves.

  I was waiting for him. I was waiting for him, his tea was burning to crisp and I was tidy; the house, me, hair brushed, face scrubbed, table set. I was waiting for him; I was armed with my best smiles and full of apologies and new starts; this was going to be a good night. A night that would keep us going, a night that would heal us and make us strong. I was waiting for him.

  I carried on waiting, when it was past ridiculous to do so, when most would have called someone, when most would have been in a panic. I sat there. I didn’t down a glass of wine as you would expect, or let dark rivers of mascara stained tears stream down my cheeks. My wine glass stood defiant on the set table, the wine breathed and my face stayed made.

  The candles were still burning, the music on loop still played and I was sat upright, wide eyed…

  They must have rung the bell, or knocked. I can’t imagine they didn’t tentatively call out my name but the first I came aware of them was when a hand rested itself on my shoulder and lightly shook me.

  “Mrs. Dean? Can you hear me? Mrs. Dean?”

  The other one must have gone to the kitchen, I remember things being turned off, the oven, the music, he must have blown out the candles or more likely they had burned themselves to nothing.

  “Mrs. Dean, there has been an incident involving your husband, he was found... I am sorry we don’t yet know the circumstances… Mrs. Dean? “

  Did I speak? Did I nod? How did I end up here? Sitting on these hard plastic chairs, staring at these notices, my baby asleep in her pram; did they bring me here? Did I just appear here? Is there still part of me, still there, sitting there, in my best clean outfit, hair brushed, waiting for him and not here; not here with them and their sympathetic smiles, not here...

  The leaves have now all fallen and I look out again from her room and feel as stripped, as bare, as fragile, as the naked Oak and only an Oak because I named it so.

  Impenetrability – by Adam Ley-Lange

  ‘Goddamnit,’ I said, ‘it’s not as if he messed up being Jesus.’

  It cost me big, but it was worth it. They all reacted exactly as expected: my son looked up, eyes wide and impressed, shiningwith ‘you’re on my side’ pride; my wife (separated but not divorced) shot me a snarling beast glare (and not the good kind of snarling beast glarethat she used to shoot me, either); the Principal patronised me with this ‘apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ look, and that almost cracked me up given the nature of what we were here to discuss.

  I don’t know who was responsible for the arrangement of the chairs, but on my side of the Principal’s desk there was my son in a tiny kid’s chair, me in a neither-here-nor-there half size, and my wife in a full size which was twin to the Headmaster’s. It was like being in the middle of a row of Matryoshka dolls, except we didn’t fit inside each other anymore.I sneaked my hand behind the back of the diminutive chair that these fiends had trapped my son in, nestling it into the small of his back. He was shaking a little, his shirt was warm and damp, but my hand steadied him. I tapped out a secret message and hoped he’d understand.

  The Principal was making a steeple with his fingers. He looked like he was about to say ‘Now, how can I put this?’, but I didn’t give him the chance.

  ‘Look,’ I said ‘there’s no sense of proportion here. This looks like a goddamn tribunal, for a start.’

  My wife started to say something but I shot her this look that said ‘you don’t get to tell me what to say anymore’ and she shot me back with hard eyes that said ‘this concerns us both’. The Principal slid his conciliatory steeple across the desk.

  ‘Now, how can I put this,’ he said. I thought about where he could put it butsaid nothing.

  ‘As an isolated incident, Tom’s behaviour might not be much cause for alarm, but’ (here the finger steeple started rapidly tapping against itself like painfully reservedapplause) ‘after what happened last time, I’m afraid things might be getting a little out of hand.’

  Last time. I’d clutched at this stupid hope that ‘last time’ might have been forgotten, but it turns out that the permanent record really does exist. You make one mistake and it’s indelible. Some things change though; ‘last time’ me and Jennywere sitting on the same size chairs.

  ‘Last time...’ I began, and I paused because I didn’t know how to explain it any better than I had before. I must have looked like someone who’d lost his key cards during a speech.

  ‘Last time was a mistake’ Jenny said.

  Traitor, I thought, and Tom did an involuntary shudder under my hand. I looked at her with a ‘how could you?’ It had been a joint decision. We’d defended him. We both knew that we were good parents and we knew who the real enemy was. I started thinking about that poor kid who went to cello classes after school. I’d seen him a few times now, hunched double like Christ carrying the cross, burdened by the coffin on his back. ‘Father! Why have you forsaken me?’

  ‘If Tom wants to wear a goddamn dress, who the hell are we to stop him?’ I said.

  I was doing well: three profanities in as many minutes. I thanked the God I keptoffending that my son wasn’t in high school, where ‘goddam’ isn’t considered swearing. I didn’t have the energy for a more colourful defence.

  ‘We made a joint decision’ (I threw the word at Jenny and the Principal) ‘not to limit his self-expression’. Then I froze.Self-expression. Jesus. I might as well have named the poor kid ‘Cernunnos Star Heart’ and proclaimed him an Indigo Child. This approach wasn’t going to wash with the Principal. I liked the guy; he wasn’t old school enough to hostcheese and wine nights full of nostalgic conversations about the cane, but neither was he going to get excited about placenta art.

  Again, Jenny took up where I trailed off. ‘If this incident proves anything’ she said,‘it’s that we’ve given Tom too much room for self-expression’

  ‘How can a kid have too much room for self-expression?’ I asked, painfully aware that we were speaking about Tom as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘Well for starters,’ she said, crossing her legs in that judge’s chair, ‘in the way he speaks to Colin’.

  I felt a sudden wave of affection
towards my son, and I swore that I’d repay this allegiance. I was going to be fierce. I stared at his accusers like I would happily murder both of them, butthe Principal wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at Jenny and his eyebrows were raised like a question. My wife grudgingly answered.

  ‘Tom’s had a bit of a time of it trying to adjust. He said some things that Colin found pretty upsetting’.

  I couldn’t help it. I pictured this scene with Colin trying to buy my son’s affection with Lego or a Cars DVD or a PS3 and Tom holding his hands to his ears, shaking his head slowly from side to side, chanting this deranged mantra ‘yournotmyFatheryournotmyFather, yournotmyFather’. I gave Tom a squeeze so that I could feel his hip bone and he could feel how I felt.

  The Principal let out this sigh to state categorically that he was not going to be playing marriage councillor.

  ‘Let’s start from the beginning’ he said.

  * * * * * * *

  * * * * * *

  * * * * * * *

  Tom came into the kitchen and sat at the table.

  ‘The usual, Mr Brando?’ I said and Tom laughed but then went serious.

  ‘Dad, tonight has got to be my best’

  ‘Don’t worry’ I said. ‘Look what I made you’. I scooped the egg out of the boiling water with a teaspoon and it trembled and steamed as Itransferred it to an eggcup. I arranged the soldiers around it like petals, and in the middle I poured a small heap of dunking salt.

  ‘Very funny,’ said Tom, then took up his teaspoon and struck up a tattoo on the top of the egg, pounding out the insistent question: ‘Is anybody home?’