Fen (6 page)

When she got up to wee she found sheets of frost in the shower, mould climbing further and further up the corners, slugs gathering everywhere in silent conference.

Some days that winter they could barely stand the sight of one another. Stalking round till one or the other gave cause for beginning and then it could be dark before they stopped. She did it with her hands, breaking bowls and cups, tearing pages from books. He said words quiet enough she couldn't hear until she grew still and then he said them again, repeating them syllable for syllable, slow enough she saw the awful ends of the sentences progressing towards her.

By night they were both sorry. She on the sofa, glueing crockery back together. He could not say it to her, only told the foetus he would never say anything like that again. They both knew she would break the plates along their glued lines the next week and he would say the same lines over, word for word.

And it was that winter she realised the danger of the imaginings, but let them come anyway. Said nothing to dissuade him when he first spoke of the children they
would have to keep the fox child company. Human children that would come with the tides and have gills as well as lungs, webs between their toes and fingers. The fox child was the clever one but the babies they had together were water from birth, happier swimming alongside than driving the boat, happiest looking up at the sun through the surface. They would spend most of their time missing them.

Sometimes she woke believing it. The cold hard enough to imagine it sea-sung, the smell of them in the same bed like salt, the feel of him well known. Sometimes she woke thinking she had just missed the sound of a fox barking; an easy step from that to believing them older and the sounds of river water really one of their water babies, touching wet pads down on wood. He must, she thought, feel the sudden belief sleep-strung through her. His hands knew anyway.

He picked up a pattern like they were old and still good at it, used his tongue on her like it knew its way.

What's the problem? he said, skidding away across the bed when she stopped him, his back to the wall, not looking at her. What's the problem? You can't get pregnant right now, can you?

Later, outside, there was snow on the fields and on the towpath and the river was iced into concrete lines. He flapped the deckchairs to unstiffen them and they sat looking out over the grey and eating their burnt scrambled eggs.

Looking at him Isabel imagined him older, waking up ten years later on his sofa and knowing how many children he had and the shape of his wife when she slept. This was what he would become. How much coffee did he drink at the weekends, how many glasses of wine did he allow himself? He ran, sometimes, through the park. He made a good carbonara and did not burn eggs.

She could not stop thinking of the traffic lights, of riding a bike tall enough for your legs to trail, of riding a hill too fast to stop even if you wanted to. At the base of the hill you see the lights turning red.

NINE.

It has been a month since you broke up with Lou. You buy a car so you can drive to and from your parents' house. They have moved from the fens. The room that might have been yours is only a tidy spare. Your mother does not ask you to empty the dishwasher any more because you are only a guest.

Those late-night, early-morning drives after and before work are filled with the sound of the shipping news: that broad, flat voice narrating wind direction and speed. You are happy to know what will come, what to prepare for. Sometimes you are so busy listening to warnings of storms at sea you miss the weather reports that should really matter to you; get caught in those flash floods that kill cars and cattle, spend hours sat in traffic.

When you get there, tired enough to sleep on your feet like a horse, your mother sits you down, tells you that everybody does Internet dating these days, that she understands you are happy alone but you are too nice for it. You never told her about Lou and now, after the event, it is too late to do so. You wish you'd texted her when you first slept with him; told her it was all right, you were having sex and you thought she'd want to know.

Eight.

When you meet someone else you tell yourself it was inevitable, that what you do now is beyond you.

You meet the new one in the pub that you have taken to going to on your own. You enjoy being there, reading and drinking until it gets too busy and you look odd: in your work clothes, a little drunk, red with embarrassment. You see the pregnant girl behind the bar watching you. You wonder if she remembers you meeting Lou there. She must, you think, see people like you all the time.

You used to catch the train, go dancing with your friends. In the city there are clubs where groups of men are not allowed in until women arrive and where the women get in free. You danced in the middle of crowds with your eyes closed, someone else's hands on your hips and back, fingers tangled tight in your hair. Sometimes you'd see their mouths moving; spelling out the digits of phone numbers or wording compliments you pick only stray letters from in the noise.

This is different. His name is Scott. He says he is an actor. He stands at your elbow and starts talking about Iraq and the Booker shortlist. At the time you think this makes him knowing and intellectual. He reads the newspaper, anyway, or listens to Radio 4.

The first time it happens is in the toilet of the pub. When you are done he cleans himself with wet wipes; offers to drive you home though he is drunk enough his eyes focus on spaces beyond your head. He says he is staying in the Travelodge out on the A10; makes a joke about pushing twin beds together. You thank him, give him your number, wait until he is gone and then walk home.

You imagine the drunken crash he is causing on the A-road. It is dark and no one will notice now, but in the morning the road will be strewn with broken bottles of milk, cars burnt to their ribcages, a rotting tractor.

When you go down to the kitchen the next day Lou is listening to the radio in his boxers. You make him tea, toast and scrambled eggs. Arrange to go out for dinner that night to the seafood restaurant you cannot afford but like. Dress nice, put on make-up, carry condoms in your bag. When you feel your phone vibrating between the starter and main you go to the toilet and read the text message from the other one. It feels good in a way you dissect that night, not sleeping. Sort of like masturbating in public or breaking wine glasses.

*  *  *

Seven.

You are too guilty to say it but it is true. You are bored of Lou, of easy sex; cigarettes, innuendoes, snuggling, spooning, blow jobs, homemade spaghetti bolognese, hangovers, obligatory texting.

You understand now you will have to leave him though you think you are too tired to do it. Again and again you tell yourself you are selfish beyond belief, that if only you left he would find a woman with space enough inside her for a couple of babies, a Land Rover and a golden retriever.

You remind yourself of the night you met, when you held your breath for such a long time he thought you'd drowned. You have been practising in the bath and each time you hold your breath for less time. This in itself seems to mean something awful.

Somehow it has become that you are not the woman for him when all along it was supposed to be the other way around.

Six.

Watch out for the affection. It comes at odd, awful moments, mainly when he is not there: brushing your teeth, opening the door for a parcel, at the photocopying machine. There is nothing much about him you can see which would do this to you. Affection, you tell your housemates, is a sort of sickness. They roll their eyes and tell you they can hear you at night.

That's not affection, you say. That's sex.

You lose conviction in this statement fast. You worry about what is happening to you but it happens anyway. At the cinema you look over the curve of his arm and see other girls looking over other arms back at you. In restaurants he has an uncanny trick of holding your wrist while eating with the other hand. You want to tell him it's very clever but you can't eat that way.

He texts you song lyrics while you're at work and often there are books he has bought you on the bed. You want to tell him you can buy your own books; that you do not want something everybody else is reading, that you are a snob without any taste but that your taste is better than that. You don't.

He sets to trying to make you orgasm as if this is what he was made for. You think his jaw must ache in the mornings; you think his fingers must move involuntarily when he's trying to do other things. You do not tell him the harder he tries the more you feel your orgasm is a conquest, something grey-eyed and eel-shaped with thoughts and digressions all its own.

You see how you irk him. Sometimes you see how you do it on purpose. Catch him wincing at the sound of metal spoons on his Teflon pans; watching his face as you comment on radio shows, television programmes, people on the street. He does not like it when you piss with the door open.

He sees how he irks you and you know he never means to. The way he falls asleep fast as an animal, in the middle
of films or on public transport or at night when you can barely sleep two hours through to their end. The way he reads out lines from books, voice cocked up an ironic octave.

You go running and find yourself making long, angry, screaming lists of everything that annoys you about him. The way he eats standing up; the way he forgets people's names; the way he ends texts with his initials.

When you get back you are calm. When you get back you want him again, quick and quiet, his face pillowed into your neck as he finishes. You want him in the mornings, mouth sour on his. You ask him to meet you on your lunch break, find quiet places in cold fields. On the weekends you want nothing more than to stay in bed with him until it gets dark.

There are days you welcome it. Affection is not something which is happening to you; affection is not AIDS or hay fever or a tetanus shot. This is something you have let in of your own volition and it lengthens days into summers. He says you are funny, grasps you round the waist and says you are softening like butter. Listen, you want to tell him. Listen to me.

When he asks you to move in with him you say yes without thinking.

Five.

You try not to let yourself be lulled by the thought of easy sex with someone who's already got past the hurdle
of seeing you naked. You understand that easy sex is one of those lies married people tell their single friends.

You have your phone with you at times you shouldn't – half asleep, drinking whilst sad – and text him. You realise you have started something you were not supposed to start. You know only that this is the beginning of the end and that you called it on; you whistled this up. There will be no storm warning; there will be no shipping forecast to pre-empt what will come.

You wait in the Fox and Hound for him. It feels like days have passed. You say his name over and over to make sure you don't forget it: Lou, Lou, Lou. You do not think you will recognise him from the other night but you do. He buys you both a drink. There is no clear moment when you decide it is too late and you like him. Perhaps when he bends his face low over the Guess Who board or when he talks, excited as a child, about the structure of Radiohead songs.

You take him home with you again. When you wake his hands are working already over your hips and chest. You are angry for a moment, as if he were a cat belonging to someone else, snuck in. You want to tell him that he is the one you don't know; he is the one you do not want to know.

Four.

You decide it is the first and only time you will do this and keep all the lights on.

As you take your clothes off, watching him do the same, you think about all the others. If they were older they would always go down on you as soon as you got into the bedroom. They pride themselves on respecting the female orgasm and want you to have one before you fuck. You never did but that's all right.

If they were younger, you wouldn't make it to the bedroom. It's always uncomfortable against the kitchen counter and worse on the carpet, where you get burns on your elbows before you've even done much moving. When they are younger you lose your pants in the hall, their fingers curved like fish hooks, flicking the elastic loose. If they are younger than you they pant with the condom wrapper ripping between their teeth on the pavement outside the front door. You always wanted to tell them they were like dogs at the racetracks, faces rubbed furless in a muzzle and so excited they couldn't even see the rabbit.

It is different from the other times. He knows things they have not known before. He seems to be able to tell when you are bored with a position or when your toes are cramping. He holds your hands above your head at the wrist. You enjoy his tongue in your ear.

After you've done it once he says he wants to sleep. You tell him he can sleep when he's dead, laughing like it's a joke, and, because you feel the urge, take him in your mouth. This is not a promise; this is not a relationship. When he starts to move his hips up and down and holds onto the back of your head you stop.

It is better the second time. His hands on your back, yours round his neck, the edge of the bed shifting you into that position you like; the bolt of his bottom lip between your teeth. He is thinner than you, his hip bones cutting in so you find their marks in the shower the next day.

You are careful not to let the words he says do anything to what you've started. When he says he likes your boobs or that your bottom is tight or that you're pretty fun aren't you, you tell him words are cheap enough to spit and push his face the place you want it to go.

When you find yourself thinking about the slight burr he places on the word legs or the way he pronounces your name a little off-key, you remind yourself he used the word pussy as a pun and move on.

You wake in the night, half asleep, and ask for his number.