The Bride Stripped Bare Set: The Bride Stripped Bare / With My Body

Lesson 59

some use pillows stuffed with hops, but the best preparation for sleep is honest hard work and a good conscience

Cole’s bags and coat crowd the hallway on your return from a late morning trip to Tesco. He’s home from Athens a day early, without warning. Another letter’s arrived but he hasn’t had a chance to sort through the mail and you push the envelope deep into a pocket, listening but not listening to his travel chat.

The bathroom, as soon as you can. You sit on the toilet seat, tear at the flap.

Some days apart from you I’m in pain, my yearning is so strong. At times you settle over me like a great warmth. I catch myself smiling into space. I dream of us running away, getting out.

The fierce pull as you read, like a hand inside your stomach. The words so close you feel you could almost put out a hand. You touch the letter against your belly, feeling the smooth, cold paper against your skin. You get up, you’ve been too long, you kiss Cole absently on the crown of his head as he unpacks his bag and it plunges you back to a time when the love glowed, for a moment, and then it’s gone. You sit at the kitchen table with the day’s paper unread before you, your hands cradling your forehead.

Perhaps Gabriel is like Ruskin who, it’s rumoured, idolised women so much he was incapable of consummating his marriage when he discovered to his horror that his wife had pubic hair. Perhaps he’s happily married in Spain, has seven kids; perhaps Martha’s made it all up to throw you off the scent. Perhaps he’s having an affair, is gay, caught by fear, can’t bear to let anyone see who he really is. Perhaps he’s one of those men who fell through the cracks – you know several, brothers and uncles of friends, lost men who’ve never found a sure footing with life, who are crushed by the challenge of living in this world and opt out and become loners or drunks. And put their parents, and lovers, through hell.

And then it hits.

What if he’s never been with a woman.

What if he doesn’t know how. A virgin, perhaps, and it all makes sense. The shyness. The pulling back at your touch. The ear tips blushing at a farewell kiss. Is it so implausible? You have an ex-colleague who’s a virgin at thirty-two and you’ve never been sure about Rupert, your cousin. And he, like Gabriel, is a tall, virile, masculine-looking man, and he, like Gabriel, never seems to be attached.

Would Gabriel be diminished in your eyes, if that were it?

No. It’s oddly endearing. And exciting.

An idea, beautiful in its simplicity. To initiate Gabriel, to teach him exactly what you want. To create a pleasure man, purely that, the lover every woman dreams of. You’ll be in control, for the very first time, you’ll be able to dictate exactly what you want. And there’ll be no expectation of how you should act.

That night Cole slips into your bed and curves his body in a question mark around your back.

An idea beautiful in its simplicity. And impossible.

For you don’t do that type of thing. It’s in the quietness of your clothes, your wholesome face, your ready blush. It’s in your horror at hearing of affairs, your stock response: but I could never do that to another woman.

Or Cole. You don’t think.

Lesson 60

some people are terribly afraid of draughts and would rather be poisoned slowly than feel the breath of fresh air. this is grossly unwise and leads to many diseases

A gift box is delivered. It’s beautifully wrapped.

A vibrator.

You gasp. There’s no note. It’s obscene, fascinating, ridiculous, you’ve never seen one up close. You don’t touch it for a long time and then you turn it round, sink back on the bed, turn it on. You can control it, make it go exactly where you want, for as long as you want, or as short.

It’s small enough to keep in your handbag and your fingers brush it often, imagining exotic trips and Customs officers searching your luggage, having to explain it, stammering. You’ve never been searched, you’ve always been too innocent-looking and respectable for that.

There’s no note with the package but the address label is typed. Your fingertips run over the letters, the heavy imprint of them.

Anonymous, of course. How long has he been back? Did he ever go? Is this another game? You ring, leave messages on his machine, he will not return your calls.

Another letter.

I want to be the hand in the small of your back pushing you forward.

Trembling, wet, slumping back against the wall.

Snared.

Lesson 61

it is mostly easier to do wrong than right

Another letter, until there are four. All typed, all short, and their words are etched like acid upon you.

Just to hold you, I ache for it, just to put my lips to the valley of your neck and slide down your body. I don’t like being apart from you, not hearing your voice, not having you close.

The phone rings, five minutes after you’ve opened the last.

Heeeey. He draws out the word, he’s always so playful with his greeting, as if it’s such a lovely surprise to hear your voice.

Hey stranger, you respond.

I’m back, he says in a gleeful sing-song.

Since when?

Since right this second. When can we meet? Are you free?

Yes, yes, hang on, give me an hour, no two.

It’s beginning to feel like infidelity as you get ready all stumbly and distracted, and the shower’s too hard and too hot and you force your body into stillness with the slow warm ooze of red wine and then you close your eyes to some music, the Jeff Buckley CD Cole can’t stand, she tied you to her kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the hallelujah, and you smile at the gathering wet, the expectation.

You walk tall out the door, alive, greedy, knowing. Possibility is wide open before you, as vast as a lake and you want to plunge in, dive deep.

No underpants.

Lesson 62

the cold plunge: nothing can be more invigorating and delightful to a robust girl

He’s already seated and you feel a tremor deep inside you at the sight of him, you’re aching with tenderness as he sits in the café, across the street. He looks up and blooms a grin; your heart is filled up.

You run across to that greasy cafe with its beans on toast and stewed tea that’s never hot enough, to where it all began eight months ago with a water splash. The letters are in your handbag and you’re bold now, sure, and so thoroughly sick of all the uncertainty and tension, the games, the teasing, the waiting. You need to get this said, there are two red patches on your cheeks and you ask him straight out: why do we go on like this, we could, you know, just get a hotel room, or perhaps go back to your flat, or, I don’t know, and you stop, you smile, so confident of his response.

His face.

Pardon, he asks.

His bewilderment.

Um, you hear yourself laughing, off-key, too much, OK, I’m sorry, and your face is stinging with embarrassment. But the letters you begin to say and then you stop and you snap: it doesn’t matter. You excuse yourself, you have to go, you have to get out. You grab your bag, it’s caught round the chair leg and you stumble out and walk down the street, bashing into shoulders and almost walking into posts and wait…wait…you hear behind you, but you don’t turn back and at last there’s the mouth of the tube station in which to disappear, to sink.

What have you done, what have you done?

Your head is in your hands on the tube hurtling home, knuckling your temples, trying to press it all out.

Fool, fool.

To think you knew him.

Lesson 63

never remain in wet clothes or boots

There’s a light from under your front door. Your face is rearranged. Cole’s cooked dinner, it’s a mess, the water that was steaming the vegetables has boiled dry and the apartment’s filled with the sour smell of a saucepan caked black. But he’s tried.

A tight smile.

You haven’t been writing me any letters, have you, the jittery blurt.

Letters, no. Why would I do that? What letters?

Oh nothing, nothing. I got a couple of letters. They were a bit strange. It might be this kid down the street.

What’s going on? Is someone harassing you? Should we call the police?

God no, forget it. It’s silly, harmless. What’s to eat?

There’s a Pandora’s box of questions flying open in Cole’s head, it is all in his face. You excuse yourself, can’t force food down, feel sick. You’ve blundered from Gabriel, he’s slipped from your life.

Fool, fool.

Is there something you want to tell me? Cole’s voice is at the locked bathroom door.

No, no, forget it.

Let me see the letters. Who is this kid? There’s concern in his voice, he will not let up.

I lent him some money for the bus and he’s been on at me ever since. It’s nothing, really, I can handle it. You manage a laugh. It’s OK. All right? Your fingers twist your hair until it hurts.

OK, OK. A pause. Want a cuppa?

You wilt, you slam your eyes shut, you smile with your lips pressed tight.

Yes. Yes, thanks; your voice all choked. And then in the gap under the bathroom door a slim bar of Lindt chocolate appears. You can hardly voice your thank you. For at moments like these the charge in your marriage is suddenly, beautifully, back.

You succumb.

Lesson 64

sweeping and dusting

But not for long.

For the next day there’s no call from Gabriel, or the next. Through late winter and early spring there’s no contact, just an answering machine to receive your carefully rehearsed messages and he never returns your calls. The wind of agitation blows through all your nights, blowing away sleep until you fall, finally, into fitful technicolor dreams at dawn. Involving him, more often than not. He’s wended his way into every corner of your life, he’s a plasterer’s fine residue, dust under a bed, a white film on a shower screen that keeps coming back and back no matter how furiously you wipe. You will him to surprise you, knowing in your heart he won’t.

Just to hear his voice, so you can have your strength back.

You never imagined you had the capacity for such annihilation, never dreamt you could be reduced to something like this. The days stretch on, and the silence in the flat, and your nails are gnawed to the ragged quick and you draw blood chewing on your inner lips. You replay his bewilderment over and over in your head and exclaim out loud at the horror of it. It’s like when your faculty boss years ago told you that his wife had just had a baby and how sad you’d replied, God knows why, how sad, and your strange, stupid words have haunted you ever since.

Why won’t he call, to put your mind at rest? Did he never want to fuck you? Did he just want a friendship, do heterosexual male friends ever just want that? Was he stricken with embarrassment? Did he find himself falling for you and think it could never work? Your Elizabethan author’s no help, she just ignites more questions, more doubt:

Witness the man who loved a woman so wretchedly and dishonestly that he could not be at rest until he defiled her; he forced her to lie with him, and afterwards, to make up the measure of his wickedness, he hated her more than he loved her before.

Is it easier to just disappear?

The questions, the questions and the wind blows through all your nights, rattling the panes and whining to be let in. You toss and turn, as if you’re vomiting sleep.

Lesson 65

poisons act in a way which are injurious to life

But then another letter, more beautiful, more urgent than all the rest.

…You help me to live. You soak through the skin of my days, it’s wonderful, torturous, transcendent all at once.

Rubbing and rubbing at the line between your brow. Why won’t he just ring, why is he so opaque, does he always retreat? You’re singed by the uncertainty, can’t be strong in it by yourself, you’ll run from the mess of your world if you have to and be alone, maddened, if you must.

There’s no one to talk to, to ask advice. You want Theo’s blunt opinion, miss the small pop when the cigarette is taken from her mouth and the talking begins, well, this is what you must do, girl. How many times has she said that in your past? She told you early in your relationship with Cole that she wasn’t sure he was good enough for you; she said remember the Madonna song, don’t settle for second-best, baby. But then she changed her tune when she saw over the years his kindness to you; she stopped her doubt after you told her that his capacity for tenderness always floored you and she was very still as you spoke: she had no answer to that. You wonder where she is now and what she’s doing, as curious as an ex-lover and unhinged, hating yourself, lost.

You crawl on your knees in the kitchen, cramming your mouth with chocolate, block-sized bars of it and then biscuits, whole packets of sweetness, and ice cream and peanut butter from the jar, slurping it and sucking it from your fingers in great dollops of crunch, wanting to hurt hurt hurt and forgetting for an instant the power of slim. Unable to think, read, shop, write, to concentrate on anything very much for Gabriel invades all your actions and thoughts. All the efficiency and control of your professional self has been lost, and you’re sleeping until all hours and then lying on the couch and staring into space, trashy gossip magazines unread on your lap. You can’t bring yourself to ring any of your girlfriends, to see them for coffee or lunch, you’re not ready to explain anything, can’t. You don’t want them judging your lank hair and spots, don’t want their rallying or pity or fuss. You’re phoning Gabriel and hanging up after two rings, you’re phoning Theo and doing the same. You can hardly remember the woman you once were, the sensible university lecturer promptly awake, every morning, at six fifty-six.

Is it love, obsession, infatuation? You don’t know. You think of a strange and beautiful word you read about once, Limerance, a psychological term, meaning an obsessive love, a state that’s almost like a drug. Need like a wolf paces the perimeter of your world, back and forth, back and forth, never letting up. You’re in a state that’s focused entirely on the prey, and your fingers, often, are between your legs, stroking, teasing, stirring as Cole sleeps. You’re appalled by the new appetites within you, kicking their feet and clawing to get out.

You find a calming, over the days, within the pages of your little book. The author’s strong, singular voice never wavers, there’s such a rigour to the text and its exquisite borders of red and black. Was she ever crawling on the floor over a man? You can’t see it.

Maybe she never had a lover, maybe it was all in her head.

You wonder, suddenly, if she was unmarried, in a convent, perhaps; celibate, and so much stronger because of that.

Maybe her isolation was something she revelled in, for it enabled her to work.

Was the author contemptuous of the married state? Wanting to shake it up? Perhaps the book is even more subversive than you thought. You suspect she was writing it for any woman but herself.

Not woemen be in subjection to men but men to woemen.

How had she been released?

Lesson 66

happiness and virtue alike lie in action

May. The weather is unclenching, there’s a lightness in the air.

The library stacks. The light’s buoyant outside but gloomy inside. It’s been a long time since you’ve come here. Each narrow passageway is illuminated by tugging a string at the end of it and your footsteps ring out on the cast-iron grates with the deadening clang of a jailer. A librarian returning books glances up from a floor below and you remember, too late, that you shouldn’t be wearing a skirt in this place, it’s an old Library lore: the wide spaces in the grates allow people to look up. To give you a shot of erotic courage you’ve not worn underpants but it feels suddenly wrong, you being here, in this state; trying to work but wondering if you’ll see Gabriel by chance, trying to erase one obsession with another and in a place so soaked with them both.

He’s not here. You just want to talk, to put your mind at rest. As you walk from the grills some of the grates shift slightly underfoot and the effect’s dizzying and unpleasant and you’re hating this ragged need in you that doesn’t sit at all comfortably with your public face.

You sit at a desk. Grip its edge. Breathe deep. You have to concentrate on your own book, you must make it work: you need a spine to your life.

And then it comes to you, as beautifully and obediently as a tangle of necklaces that you’ve spent so long trying to unpick, and with the simple looping of one set of beads through another the knot of them magically comes apart.

You will respond to your mysterious seventeenth-century author.

You will write a book in secret, just like her. Why not? All writing is revenge, is it not. Yes, yes. You lick your lips. Reach for your notebook. And in an afternoon lost within the deep, deep peace of solid, consuming work, you produce three lists:

Men you have slept with, what you remember most.

How they seduced.

And on what.

Lesson 67

feather beds are a greater luxury than mattresses but are said to be less healthy

Beds, of course:

A stained futon on the floor. A sister’s bed that smelt of grass. An attic eyrie mattress. A caravan bed that was vaguely damp. Your parents-in-laws’ stern spare bed with sheets so slippery you fell off. A deliciously broad hotel bed in Hong Kong, wider than its length. Two single mattresses zipped together and you felt they’d break apart at any moment, they’d swallow you up.

And the non-beds:

A car bonnet. Shag-pile carpet that burned. A field of curious cows. A swimming pool at three in the morning, with the water buoying you under a circus tent of stars. There was the quiet as you fucked, you remember that so clearly, just the water’s soft trickle and swish as you clung to each other and didn’t speak, not a word, focusing on the intensity of the touch and the water’s caress.

A hire car. Sand. A kitchen table at a maiden aunt’s.

All the cliches. It’s remarkable how similar most of the men’s techniques were and yet how distinct each one is in your memory even if the name is not. You remember the unpleasant experiences more vividly than the pleasant ones; you remember why they didn’t work. And your let-down. That it wasn’t better than what you’d hoped, at the start, as your clothes were coming off. You always masked it.

It’s a shame, that.

Lesson 68

April is the hopeful month for gardening

You visit the Library again and again. You walk the bold iron skeleton of the beautiful building, your building as much as his. Just because he comes here doesn’t mean you can’t, and you slip off your shoes and arch your soles and your stockinged feet thrum on the iron. Strips of fluorescent tubing cast baubles of brightness here and there; above and below you readers sit or squat, isolated in their little circles of light. Old wooden desks wait at the ends of the passages like rest bays on a highway and there’s the intoxicating smell of paper and leather, of words, waiting. You begin, finally, to tackle the book. To ask questions:

Why are women so constrained about pleasing themselves, why are they so focused on everyone else’s pleasure at the expense of their own?

What happens if they try to live selfishly?

But then a pool of light, philology, one vaulting spring day.

Your heart somersaults.

He is sitting on the ground with his back to a wall, reading and jotting on a notebook by his side. You do not go to him, you just look: his nape, his hair flopping into his eyes, his hand curled round the pen that clicks as agreeably as a lipstick, his watch from the forties with its broad, age-spotted face.

Something makes him glance up. He catches your eye.

His smile, like an umbrella whooshed inside out.

Yours back.

You’re both trapped in this, you can see that. It’s in his face.

Lesson 69

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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