True Things About Me A Novel (Deborah Kay Davies) (15 page)
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Authors: Deborah Kay Davies
He shouted for me to move away from the telly, so I stood in front of it. He said he was only going to tell me one more time. The TV remote was in his lap so I snatched it, and started flicking through the channels. I wanted something to happen, and this seemed like a good beginning. He looked funny, trying to catch me as I danced around, but I didn’t laugh. I could hear myself crying. He lost his balance and fell back into the chair. As I watched him breathing heavily I became afraid. He was sweating, his hands bunched into fists. Suddenly I couldn’t remember what we were fighting about. I felt as if someone had emptied me out, like the contents of an untidy bag.
HE LEAPED UP
, and knocked the candle over. Hot wax splashed across the coffee table. I’m so sorry, I said, putting it back on its holder. I’m drunk, I don’t know what I’m doing. He was breathing heavily. You’d better get out of my way, he said, pushing past me. Seriously, you’re very lucky I haven’t given you a good smack. He went to the kitchen, and dropped his uneaten curry into the washing-up water. I followed him. Curry sauce was splattered all over the dishes in the sink, bleeding into the water. Pieces of chicken bobbed around. For Christ’s sake, he said, squeezing my shoulder hard, stop following me. What are you, my fucking pet?
I tried to put my arms round him. I didn’t like him being angry with me. Get out of my fucking way before I do something you’ll regret, he shouted. What’s wrong with your curry? I said. Shall I make you something else? A bowl of soup? A sandwich? I wanted to be quiet, but I couldn’t. Some other
girl was staggering through the house, apologising, trying to embrace him. He put his face close to mine again. It was a thing he liked doing, getting in people’s faces. Piss off, can’t you? he said slowly, punctuating each word with a violent jab to my chest. Each jab drove me back until I was against the wall. Then he stomped upstairs.
I sat on the edge of the sofa, and looked at my untouched plate. I thought perhaps I should eat the naan bread, but I didn’t pick it up. My shoulder was aching. I felt the shape of his hand there.
Coronation Street
had just started. I could smell the extinguished candle. I listened hard for any sound from upstairs. The spots where he’d poked me were like deep, burning holes. I heard him flush the toilet, and walk to the bedroom. Then what sounded like drawers opening and closing. The wardrobe door creaked. Then thudding. I felt the strain of listening centre itself in the base of my neck.
The time was 7.43 p.m. when he opened the front door and slammed it behind him. I ran up to the bedroom. My clothes were slung over the bed and drooping out of drawers. He’d been looking for money. And then he’d left. No one else was with me. I knew that. No other imaginary girl was here, sobbing in another room. I lay on the bed, and gathered up the shirt he had thrown down. I sniffed the underarms. The bedroom was cold. I made a comfortable place in the pillow, and tried to shut my eyes. Each time they closed, something would yank them open again. Finally, though, I fell asleep.
When I woke the street lights were shining in. The room was striped and gloomy. I lay shivering, and remembered my dream. I had been in a cave strewn with straw. I was lying in the arms of a fully-grown lioness. She was purring, her face close to mine. Her breath smelled of old meat. I looked at her sleeping eyelids, her eyelashes. Her breaths were deep and long-drawn. We were warm and relaxed lying there together. Her back leg was over me, the paw resting behind my bent knees. I had my arms round her furry neck. Then slowly I realised the danger I was in. I slipped my arms free, and lifted her back leg off. I tried to inch out from underneath her. She reared up, and bared her teeth; her yellow eyes at once wide open. We looked at each other. Then I woke. I recalled staring out from behind the lioness’s eyes into my own face. I sat up. The house was silent. I remembered I was on my own.
In the bathroom I sat on the loo seat, and rested my head on the sink. The tap dripped. In the bath there was a spider, and some blond pubic hairs. I reached down and picked them up. The spider raced for the plughole. I don’t want you, I said. I opened the bathroom window, and let the hairs fly out into the night. The room filled with rain-laden air. I could hear cars swishing past. I wondered where he could be. Who he was with.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror, and pulled down the neck of my jumper. A dark love bite showed on my neck. And, further down, the shape of his hand. I turned on the
shower, and took my clothes off. Four fat, blue bruises like pansies bloomed, two near my collarbone, two on my right breast. My skin sprang into goose bumps. I turned the water to hot, and let the flow drum onto my shoulders. It was easy to cry in the downpour, but I didn’t. My back burned, but still I stood. Then I washed myself clean. I stepped out into the cold air, and put his towelling robe on. I took a box from the cabinet, and opened it. I sat on the toilet, and read the instructions. Then I peed on the stick. Urine gushed warmly onto my fingers. There it was. I watched as a perfect, bright, summer-blue line formed.
THEN I WAS
alone. I was alone for maybe three days, or four. About four, I think. During that time I sat at the bottom of the stairs, and dozed. I wasn’t really alone, in a way. I had the tiny comma inside me that was a baby, though I didn’t feel able to think about it much. Now and then I got up, and drifted round the house. In the kitchen the curry in the sink congealed. I nibbled on the hardened naan bread I’d left by the side of the sofa. I didn’t turn the TV off. I pretended this was an everyday sort of house.
I dragged down the duvet from my bed, and made a sleeping area at the foot of the stairs. I needed to stay by the front door. I had chocolate in my bag, and I rationed it out. I drank plenty of water. At eight thirty every morning the postman came. Each time I thought it was him, coming back to me. I had one letter, from the office. It said they were regretfully terminating my employment. I decided I’d think about that later.
I showered when I saw the sky getting light, and washed my hair. I let it dry naturally. My curls came back, and I didn’t stop them. I put on perfume. I changed my nightgown. Then there was an evening when he turned up and brought some friends with him. He ignored me sitting at the bottom of the stairs. They all walked into the lounge. One of the women went to the kitchen. I could hear her clearing up. They put on music. It sounded like a party.
I thought I should show myself so I went into the lounge. The two women were dancing close together, feeling each other. They were drinking from bottles, swigging lazily. One was laughing, and pushing her leg up into the crotch of the other. He was lying on the sofa, smoking something that created a thick smell, watching the women with his eyes half closed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. His feet were bare. I wondered if I was dreaming perhaps. No one seemed to notice me. I sat in a chair, and wrapped the duvet around me. With his free hand he rubbed his groin slowly.
Even inside the duvet I was cold. I felt I should go to bed. He got up, and they were all dancing together. The women were naked from the waist up. He was squeezing the blond woman’s breasts, making the other woman suck her nipples. I got up, and dragged the duvet round me. I stood in the doorway. He pulled off the blond woman’s skirt, she seemed drunk, floppy. Underneath she was naked. He bent her over the back of the easy chair. He and the other woman started stroking her buttocks. He eased her legs far apart.
They started running their fingers up and down the flesh between her buttocks where it was darker, like a bruise. They slapped her in turn, each time harder. She drooped over the chair back, and lay with her head in the seat cushion, her arms hanging forward. I heard her groan. I watched from the doorway. It looked as if she was asleep. He was holding an empty beer bottle. He gave it to the dark woman. She worked the bottle into the sleeping woman’s anus with both her hands, wiggling it slightly from side to side. She held it against herself, as if it were a penis. He was laughing. I saw the shining bottle inch into her. It stretched her as it went in. She didn’t seem to notice. I heard a tinkling sound. The sleeping woman was urinating down the back of my chair. They left her there with the bottle gaping out of her.
Up in the bedroom the music sounded like a heartbeat, strangely comforting. I lay down on the bed. I couldn’t stop shivering. My jaw was rigid, my teeth vibrated against each other. Then I felt myself drifting away, each pulse of the music pushing me further into a dark, safe place.
I woke up the instant the light was snapped on. Both the women were there. They seemed drunk and happy. He threw back the covers, and pulled me down the bed by my ankles. I screamed as I fell onto the floor. He shouted something I couldn’t understand into my face. I held onto his leg. I asked him to let me stay. He kicked me off. I crawled to the landing. He followed me. The woman was calling him, laughing throatily. I kneeled at his feet. Please let me stay, I said. I
kissed his foot. Now you’ve made me really mad, he said quietly. This is your own entire fucking fault. Then he kicked me with all his strength. I was like a sack of old shoes falling down the stairs. I thought about my tiny baby. I pictured her minuscule arm buds flapping, her rudimentary lips sounding, ouch, ouch, ouch. I hoped she was cushioned safely, deep inside.
ALISON SAID I
ought to eat. She went up to the counter, and ordered poached eggs. We were at a window booth. I took off my wet coat, and rubbed my damp shoulders. My face itched as it dried. Outside the rain fell in a Monday morning way, straight and never-ending. I watched the street. Nothing was happening. In the café they were playing pan pipe versions of songs from
The Sound of Music
. Alison came back to the table. You’ve got to laugh, she said. I mean, pan pipes. She sat, and undid her mac. Well, don’t hate me, I said, but I actually quite like the sound of pan-pipes. We sang along to ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?’ Appropriate, I said. Alison didn’t smile. Now this one I really love, I said, ‘Edelweiss’. I’m shocked, she said. I never had you down as an ‘Edelweiss’ person.
There was a pause while she took her coat half off. Alison, you don’t know me at all, I said. Come to think of it, I don’t know myself any more. I’m pregnant, I said, and I spelled it
out: P–R–E–G–G–E–R–S. Then, because she looked so blank, I said, With sprog, knocked up? You know, bunny in the oveny? I tried to hum ‘I Whistle a Happy Tune’. I could see Alison didn’t recognise it.
OK, she said. That’s it. I’m going to tell your parents. They should know what’s what. I got up to go. If you do that I will never speak to you again, I said. I will never forgive you. Promise me you won’t. But why? she asked. Why not let them care for you? They love you. I told her I knew they did. It’s complicated, I said. All this shit is something I need to sort out myself for once. Or I’ll never grow up. Say you understand? Well, yes, I can see that, she said slowly, and looked at me seriously. Say it, I said. Yes, I promise, she said. But only for the time being. And I’m getting you a doctor’s appointment. That’s not open to negotiation. I sat back down. I got into this, I told her, I know I can get out of it. Kindly, she said nothing.
A waitress brought my eggs. I stabbed each trembling egg yolk, and watched as the yellows poured out. Funny, isn’t it? I asked her. We always seem to eat eggs when we meet. She didn’t answer. She hadn’t said anything for a while. You should eat something, she finally said. Go on, please try to eat a few mouthfuls. Her eyes were blurry with tears. She asked if I needed money as she watched me put a bendy piece of egg white on my fork. Before it reached my mouth it slithered off. Saved, I said. More coffee then? she suggested, and got up. I’ll ask them to make it with milk. She looked at my
shaking hands, and bit her lip. Won’t be long, she said, and went back to the counter.
I watched her bustling up to the counter. She felt to me like someone I’d known in another dimension. Someone I had loved. When she came back with two mugs of coffee she said it was time I told her what was happening. She busied herself sugaring my drink and stirring it. Drink up first. I opened my mouth. I really wanted to spill the whole story, but somehow I didn’t have enough words. On one level it was all so pitifully predictable. If I laid it all out in front of Alison she would, with her clear blue eyes, evaporate it, sort it so easily that I’d never forgive her. Maybe I wanted to see it as a bit tragic and hugely unique, even though I knew really it wasn’t. Eventually I said, thanks for the offer of moolah, anyway. Money is not the problem.
I told her I had a headache. She found some tablets in her bag. Are these OK for you to have now? she asked, holding the pack away from me. For God’s sake, I said, just hand the stupid things over. After being kicked down the stairs two little tablets are not going to matter. I could probably take the whole box. I’m invincible. Don’t talk like that, she said. My brain was heavy. I felt my forehead was going to fall out. I rested my head in my hands. My God, Alison said, and leaned across to feel my head. Is that what he’s done? Her hand was cool. In the same instant that she touched my skin startlingly bright blood gushed from my nose, and plopped like flat coins onto my plate of messed-up eggs.
IT GAVE ME
time to think, that quiet week being alone in my house. I asked myself why I should care about being alone. It was what I wanted, after all. Perhaps he’d left for good. I made a few plans. Very simple ones. Then he came back, and I had to rethink them. I found it difficult; it was as if the section of my brain that knew about good moves for me was talking at cross purposes with the section of my heart that knew about him. Somehow I got things straight.
He behaved as if nothing had happened. Mostly he slept and watched TV. I phoned Alison. Have you got company? Alison asked. I told her I wanted to see her. We agreed to meet soon. Just before she rang off I told her I had a plan. Are you leaving him? she asked. Well, one of us is leaving, put it that way, I said. She asked me what that meant. Wait and see, I said.
