True Things About Me A Novel (Deborah Kay Davies) (7 page)

I felt as if I were disintegrating. I struggled to dress but I was shaking too much to do it properly. My bare bottom squeaked like a frightened mouse against the car seat. I shoved my bra in my bag. I put my pants on back to front. My clothes had lost their magical properties. The lake was blank, its surface corrugated with little waves. No stars. Rain started to thump against the windshield. Then he drove me home. Once or twice he tried to make conversation. The windscreen wipers grated against the window. A snake of laughter kept wriggling in my throat, but I swallowed it down. When he stopped I slammed the door and ran into the house. On the hall floor I screamed with laughter until I was paralysed.

I am a one-trick pony

I KNEW THAT
weeks went by. The calendar said so, but I didn’t feel them as days and hours, minutes and seconds. I felt them in my blood maybe, or my bones. I longed to see him. When I woke up in the morning the longing woke up too, like a strange cat on my bed. The feeling moved up from inside my pelvis and settled in my throat. That’s where it stayed all day. I found it difficult to eat, even if I’d wanted to, with this thing in my throat. Then I began to worry it might go away. It was as if I carried him around with me somehow; his springy blond hair and beautiful feet. The soft fuzz in his groin. His neck with its jumping pulse. The flavour of his spit. And the smell of his cool, even-coloured skin like some buttery, crushed herb.

At the same time if I closed my eyes I played out another, idiotic blind-date version of myself in a moonlit car, waving her empty tits around in circles. And another lay motionless on the hall floor, dribbling onto the carpet. I even saw myself out on the ruffled waters of a lake, surrounded by silent,
hovering white birds, raising a glass of red wine to the rain. Why had I been there? Whom had I been with? I found it hard to recall how long ago it had been. Everything was blurred, leaching into something else, painfully punctuated by encounters I didn’t understand. I know I managed to get to work almost every day. But I didn’t know much else.

Repeatedly I relived the early summer meal by the river. The way he had gripped my breasts with his hands, the electric current that forked downwards into my belly when he had pinched my nipples and pulled them hard. I remembered the giant hogweed craning in on us. I cringed when I thought about how my cheek had scraped against the rough wall of the pub, the sounds I’d made in the hot afternoon. The two women, motionless under a faded parasol, poised with bread rolls, holding cutlery. Listening, listening.

Alison started bringing sandwiches into work for me; I didn’t have anything in the fridge. The supermarket seemed like such a complicated place. Instead of going out and sitting in the park for lunch we decided to use the staff canteen. Everywhere I looked people were cramming chips into their mouths. What’s with all this manic chip-eating today? I asked her. Is it just me, or is there some sort of contest going on that we don’t know about? No idea, ducks, she said. Who cares anyway? Let them all choke. I want to know about your blind date. It’s been a while, and you haven’t even mentioned Rob’s name. Rob who? I said. Has he been in touch with you or Tom? I asked. She shook her head.

My throat contracted, or something inside it expanded. Alison gave me a look. Oh, it was all right, I suppose, I said. Alison stopped chewing her celery stick. Do you know that thing has negative calories in it? I told her. Mmmm, OK, she said, we’ll talk about him some other time. Who? I said. Rob, you dreamy twit, she said. And for God’s sake, eat something.

The afternoon stretched ahead like one of those sick-making family car journeys. Are we nearly there yet? I mouthed across the office to Alison. She just stared at me and went back to her computer. I sat at my desk and tried to look busy. I couldn’t do much anyway. All the paperwork looked like new, more difficult versions of the stuff I usually worked with. Our boss left early, and we all relaxed.

Alison and I sloped off to get a coffee. Some women from another section were in the kitchen, and Alison seemed to know them all. They were talking about a television programme. Everyone was really into it. Alison was the most knowledgeable. God, Alison, I said, when did you start to care about stuff like this? Everyone stopped talking and started to listen to us. Believe it or not, Alison said, this is the real world. She was smiling at me. TV, magazines, stuff like that. It’s how we bond in the workplace, love. Over trivialities. It’s known as communication. Comprondayvoo? I do watch TV, you know, and films, she told me. I even listen to music when I’m not with you, believe it or not.

There was some giggling. Then someone I didn’t even recognise, a woman with open pores all round her nose, said if
you asked her I’d always been on another planet. I stared at her. She was wearing a smiling silver dolphin on a silver chain round her neck. Its eye was picked out with a tiny green stone. I thought how creepy that was, when you really analysed it. She’s just a little dark horse, that’s all, someone else said, and leaned over to mess up my hair.

I looked at Alison. She was holding her cup to her lips, but I could see she was smiling at me. A little dark pony, maybe, she said. I couldn’t think of an answer. They all looked so together, there, making drinks, chatting about stuff, giving their opinions. Suddenly I felt them all shoot away until there was a huge empty space all round where I stood. Then, faintly, I heard someone start talking about how much weight they’d put on, and they all turned their backs and joined in. Alison was in the thick of it.

I went off to the loo, but really I was bored with the whole loo thing. It was like I was spending all my life in there. Still, I felt it was my space. There was someone in a cubicle, so I had to wait until they had done everything they had to do, which took ages. To pass the time I swished my hands around in a basin of cold water. Eventually the slow woman came out, adjusting her skirt, which is always so irritating. As she washed her hands, she looked at my bluish fingers floating in the water, and then at me in the mirror. Are you all right? she asked. Why? I said. Are you? What were you doing in there? Writing a love letter?

Finally the loo was empty. I made sure all the taps were
shut off, and then I wiped the surfaces with a wad of paper towels. I was thinking of being a dark horse, or pony maybe. I remembered a time when I was little and my mother and I tried to call some horses over to talk to us. She sat me on a stone wall, and waved a droopy clump of especially succulent grass. They may come, she said, smiling at them as they stood in a self-contained, leggy group in the middle of the field. Suddenly, as if they’d agreed amongst themselves, they broke apart, wheeled round and thundered towards us.

As I sat on the sun-warmed wall I thought they would soar over my head and gallop up into the sky. I thought they might take my mother with them, and leave me alone on the edge of the field. It felt like magic, the way they slowed and stopped in front of us. They stood and kindly ate the grass my mother offered, although I knew they didn’t need it. I sat with a horse either side of me, and breathed in the smell of bruised grass, muscles and hair. I imagined each huge heart with its maroon tubes and valves. I patted each solid, springy flank as it moved against me and felt its warmth, its horsiness. As I gazed into a tender, blackly brown, wise eye, I could see myself floating on its liquid surface. I ran my hands over each silky, quivering nose, and breathed in the sweet breath from inside. And then they were gone. They were dark horses.

I dried my hands. They were so cold it felt as if I was touching another person’s hands. I looked at my reflection and thought my eyes looked more like the eyes of some small domestic creature. Perhaps a hamster’s or a rabbit’s. Or the
eyes of the last unsold kitten in a cage at the market. A kitten that understands the truth about the waiting, brimful bucket and the stallholder’s strong, competent fists.

When I got home I dug out his phone number. I tried to keep it simple and low key. I tried not to sound needy or tearful. I put a CD on so that he would hear it in the background and think I was a normal girl. Someone who had decided, on impulse, to ring a guy she thought was nice. I left a voicemail asking him to call. I suggested we meet for a chat or something.

I gather at the river

IT WAS THE
end of the third week after I’d left my message. Just as I thought I would have to ring again he got in touch. He didn’t say much. If you want, he said, when I suggested we meet. I spent a long time getting ready; it was important to strike the right note. I wanted to look gorgeous, irresistible, eatable even, and not as if I’d tried too hard. It was a tough one. But after messing about in front of the dreaded mirror for half an hour I was unhappy with my make-up. My eyebrows looked like two wrong words someone had tried to scribble over with a black felt-tip pen. One was higher than the other, which made me look like a joke chef in a cartoon. My cheeks were way too pink, and my eyes were starey; haunted somehow. I washed it all off and started again. It was safer to go down the ‘no make-up’ make-up route that all the magazines were talking about. When I’d finished it looked as if I wasn’t wearing any. But not in a good way. My blank canvas was still blank. I wasn’t sure if I’d failed spectacularly, or it was a
startling success. I told myself if you had to ask, then you knew the answer.

I drove to the pub in town he’d said he’d be in and waited outside for him to appear. As I sat in the car I listened to a whole episode of
The Archers
. I watched the pub door repeatedly open and close. Each time it opened I thought it was him, but it wasn’t. On the radio two old, posh agricultural people were making love.
The Archers
had changed since I used to listen to it in the kitchen with my mother. The sound effects were so real I felt embarrassed, and all the love action seemed to be occurring on horseback. It was difficult to decide who was huffing and puffing, the lovers or their mounts.

Just as the closing music came on he got in beside me. I couldn’t say a word. He filled the car with the smell of beer and cigarette smoke. I revved the engine madly and shot off. He asked me if I was OK. I nodded. I couldn’t look at him. It was as if my eyes were locked on the road. He put his hand on the back of my neck and massaged it. He asked where I was taking him but didn’t sound at all curious. I told him to wait and see. Fine, he said. I don’t care where I go. I had planned a walk by the river. I wanted to make things more ordinary; more like other people’s relationships. It seemed like a good idea to take him to one of my favourite haunts.

We parked the car under some pines and started off. I began to explain to him how I felt about the river, and he listened, smiling. He said he had places he felt like that about. I stopped and looked at him. We were holding hands. The
river was behind him, the evening air leaf-sweet and cool under the trees. He gazed steadily back at me. It felt like a miracle, as if I’d caught something everyone had warned me was dangerous, which instead was gentle; as if something wild had calmed down. You are beautiful, I love you, I said. I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken the words out loud or if my heart had blurted them silently.

He didn’t react, so I repeated them loud and clear. He smiled and put his arms round me. I could feel his gorgeous, strong heart thumping. I burrowed my head into his neck. I felt as if my spine were turning into a rippling, honeyed liquid and I was about to slide down his body into a pool at his feet.

We walked again, holding onto each other. Along the riverbank we passed people with their dogs, parents helping their children learn to ride bikes. He was quiet and relaxed. I kept my arm round his waist, and he rested his arm round my shoulders. Everything was so lovely. I could see how we looked together. After a while I asked him if he was having a good time; I’d begun to think he might be getting bored. But he didn’t answer me. I don’t think he heard. I started to feel jumpy and nervous. I had that feeling you get when something is slipping away, and you can’t stop it. Like the light on a short winter afternoon. I needed something to happen. I thought probably he was being nice because he was going to dump me. His arm on my shoulders felt dead. I started to think he didn’t want me any more.

It was getting dark, and the little bats that live by the river began to flit about like animated leaves. It was always a sad time when that happened. We stopped by the bridge and looked down at the water flowing fast and smooth, the same colour as the sky, but full of sparkling streaks. We watched the sky turn a creamy cerise that slowly leached into the water. As we stared at the river it began to look weird: solid and slow moving, silent and muscular, more like dry sand than liquid. I pushed my hands into my pockets and found a sweet. It must have been there a long time. He turned away from the water and looked at me.

In the half-light he looked unfamiliar. The sunset made his skin glow and his hair paler. He still looked like his other, good, gentle self. The one I didn’t know. What have you found? he said. I held up the squashed sweet in its ragged paper wrapping, and he took it from me. These used to be called Opal Fruits when I was kid, he said, do you remember? Then he put it in his mouth. We stood on the bridge together and he held me tightly. Here, he said, kissing me, open up, and pushed the warm gooey sweet into my mouth with his tongue. Strawberry! I said, but really I felt as if it was a little chunk of him, and I could eat it. He hugged me to him. I wanted to stay on the bridge, out there, suspended, but I knew that was stupid. It was dark now, and the river beneath us held onto the last glow of the sky.

Gradually I realised I was gripping him so tightly my arms were trembling. I told myself to chill out, it was obvious the
moment had passed. He wasn’t responding to me any more. I let my arms drop. I wasn’t surprised when his phone shrilled, the little screen shining bluely. Yeh, he said, yeh, yeh, OK. Then he listened for a moment. Nothing important, he said, looking at me without recognition, concentrating on his conversation. Yeh, mate, you fuck yourself, he said, and laughed. Pick me up in, say, ten minutes at the usual place. No probs. The blue light died. Without it the evening felt pitch black, the trees along the sides of the river bent over.