WOUNDING Read online

  ‘Thanks. I’m fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. You?’

  The children rush in, their dark heads shiny, hair smoothed flat as if wet, just like him, their little bodies, only six and four years old, flexing and soft, never still, they wind themselves around their mother. She looks into the flat gape of their upturned faces, recognising him, his eyelashes, the compact ball of his nose, his thin lips: his children. She cannot see herself, yet they are hers. She knows they are: how can she forget the bloody processes that delivered them? Her blood thins, she thins, becomes less distinct, a silence erasing her, the hand that holds the glass, that pats the bodies of the children, is erased, removed from her mind, a mind swathed in a silence. She feels sick.

  ‘I picked the kids up early so thought I’d get dinner on. I’m making cottage pie, OK?’ He looks at her, his eyes wide and damp as if wanting to be petted for performing such a difficult task, wanting her approval like a large dog.

  ‘Yes, sounds lovely.’ The children continue their eel-like squirming around her feet. ‘Have the kids eaten?’ She forces herself to look him in the eye and smiles. He nods, efficient as always.

  ‘I gave them beans on toast for supper.’

  ‘I’ll put them to bed, shall I?’

  ‘Alright, Cora. Why not? They’d like that. Wouldn’t you, kids?’ He stretches his hand to her and hooks his little finger around hers, his thumb stroking her palm, tracing the life line, head line, her life supposedly mapped in the space of her hand. Standing, connected to him like that, she counts a polite beat of two before loosening herself from the children and stepping back, her husband’s hand falling to his side. Looking at them—a matching trio framed by the duck-egg blue walls of the kitchen, the pale oak cupboards, ceramic sink, dark slate-tiled floor, childish splodges of poster paint on rough sugar paper taped to the fridge—they merge together with their environment. Belonging here and to each other.

  ‘Right. Come on then. Let’s get you ready.’

  The children groan, ‘I don’t want to go to bed, Mummy. Daddy! Please let us stay up. Please!’

  Cora turns and walks away, moving through the hall and up the stairs as if moving not through space but with space, as if behind her she trails a void, a vast blank nothing. The two children follow, giving up their protests. In the bathroom she squeezes toothpaste onto their brushes for them. The children silently work at their teeth, up and down strokes, up and down, the repetition of movements delaying the inevitable decay. She watches them, supervising the task as she is required to do, her arms crossed over her chest. She breathes slowly, in and out. Stay calm, staying calm. Breathe. She must at the very least keep watch over them, it shouldn’t be too much to ask. The deep pile of the bathroom rug cushioning her feet, the children buried to their ankles in twisted wool. The back and forth of the plastic rod in their fresh mouths, delicate skin stretched over sharp little milk teeth… teeth that gnaw rather than tear or rip, like rodents rather than something carnivorous. They aren’t dangerous. When they finish she automatically rinses the spat froth from the sink, wiping with her hand. Cleaning away every last trace. ‘Go to your room, Patrick, and put your pyjamas on. I’ll be through in a minute to tuck you in.’ She takes the four-year-old girl by the hand and leads her through to her room. The little girl follows, looking up at her mother, her small tired eyes lingering on her mother’s face but Cora doesn’t look down, only looks ahead to the next task, and the next, and the next. Click clack click. She strips the child’s clothes carefully, trying not to pull her long dark hair as she removes her t-shirt or catch her nails on the smooth flesh of the child’s stomach. She is utterly careful, full of care and lacking love. Pulling off the girl’s underwear, the naked little girl, unsexed, pristine, stands in front of her, her sturdy little legs pressed together. ‘I don’t want nappy. I want to go bed with no nappy.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jessica. You know you can’t. You aren’t clean at night yet. You have to wear a nappy.’ She pulls one from a drawer under the child’s small bed.

  ‘Millie doesn’t wear nappies ever.’

  ‘Yes, well then Millie is a clever girl isn’t she?’

  ‘Only babies wear nappies.’

  ‘Yes, I know, only babies wear nappies.’

  ‘I’m not a baby.’

  ‘Aren’t you? Why behave like one then?’ Cora tugs a clean nightgown over her daughter’s head, covering the still-perfect female body, and placing her hand on the unguarded space between the girl’s shoulder blades pushes her – gently – towards her child-sized white bed with its consolation of soft peach-coloured quilt and pillows. ‘Time to sleep now, Jessica.’ She smoothes the sheets, pulling back the covers, plumping pillows, her actions complete in themselves, unthinking. Instinctive, animal. The child climbs into her bed on top of the just-smoothed sheets, wrinkling them, pushing her small feet into the warmth of the feathered bed, a grubby toy rabbit clamped under her arm. ‘Read me a story, Mummy. Please?’

  Cora stands, her knees clicking, a sound as large as the small room, clicking like a doll’s plastic limbs. ‘Not tonight, Jessica. It’s too late.’

  ‘But Daddy...’

  ‘It’s too late, Jessica.’

  ‘Daddy always reads me a story.’

  ‘Well, I said no. Go to sleep.’

  The child begins to whine, a strange non-cry that reminds Cora of the noises a nest of new kittens would make, still blind and fumbling, mewling incessantly. Cora folds her hands behind her back, and a bleak pulse seems to urge her – to reach out and pinch the flesh of the child’s arm, or press her hand against its mouth and shut off the sound or to slap, and scratch and stop it, stop it in its plaintive individuality, its thoughts and words. Its endless needs. But she doesn’t. She turns to leave the room.

  ‘Don’t turn off the light, Mummy.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’ She switches off the light and pulls the door shut behind her.

  The boy, her son, untouchable in his maleness, his mystery, recognisable but always unreachable, has changed into his Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’

  ‘Hello, Patch. Ready for bed?’

  ‘S’pose, Can I have a story?’

  ‘No, it’s late.’ She moves towards him. ‘Get into bed, please.’

  ‘I’m going to say my prayers first.’ The boy kneels, the soles of his feet soft in the lamplight.

  ‘I beg your pardon? What do you mean? Say your prayers! Who taught you to do that? I’ve never heard you say prayers before. Patrick, who taught you this?’

  She reaches into the blue confines of his bed and begins smoothing the sheets. This repetition, a constant repetition of actions, her body a thought that thinks itself, frightens her, her mind not necessary to her body’s maternal endeavours; her throat constricts as if compressed by hands.

  ‘Miss Ingrams at school taught us. She said God listens to everything we say. She smells nice and she gives me a sweetie when I read to her.’

  Cora is dead, a zombie, fleshy and visible, but constructed only of thoughtless, repetitive actions. Of angers and impulses, old gestures. The small boy kneeling next to her presses his hands together, his bitten nails ugly against his flesh.

  ‘Dear God, please bless all the animals, and Daddy, and Jessica, and Mummy, and Grandma and Grandad, and all my friends and Miss Ingrams. Amen.’

  ‘Don’t pray, Patrick. It’s silly, there is no one to hear you, trust me. Miss Ingrams is wrong. Completely wrong.’

  ‘You’re here, Mummy, and I can hear myself and God can hear me, Miss Ingrams said so.’ His eyes unblinking, like a reptile.

  ‘Yes, I’m here, but there is no God to listen to prayers. You understand? It’s important you understand there is no God to help you or bless us all. It’s a silly nonsense. You know that, don’t you? It’s a lie, like fairies and ghosts and goblins. Just a story.’


  The boy shrugs. He will forget about saying his prayers in just a few days, they’re just a newly acquired fad that will go the way of others, like skateboarding and collecting football game-cards. He slides into his bed. She presses her cheek against his, against the head that forced its way out of her, the head that thinks for itself, the head that contains thoughts of a benevolent god and she wonders just what he sees when he looks at her, and who she is in his thoughts. When will he learn to see her clearly? He will hate her. She can’t bear to kiss him.

  ‘Goodnight, Patch. Sleep tight.’

  She leaves the room, walks down the stairs, each step repeating, the repetition, the stairs, her feet, her steps; and digs her nails deep into the flesh of her wrist, semi-circles of discomfort pulling her back into the solidity of her body.

  I’m watching you sleep. I know every inch of your body and face but you’re completely mysterious, lost in dreams. Your hair curls over the pillow. You’re breathing slowly, quietly, your lips soft and slightly open. I wish I could say this to you now. Wish I could find a way to bring you back to me.

  I came to pick you up from the flat you shared with Sandra. The flat was over a Chinese takeaway and the smell of cooking fat and chow mein was overpowering as I climbed up the narrow stairs to your door. Sandra let me in and I sat waiting for you in the small sitting room while she nattered about how lucky she was to have found such a great flat mate from an ad she’d placed in the paper. I was surprised by that, I imagined you lived with an old friend from Uni or school, not a stranger you’d met via a free ad. Seemed like a lonely thing to do, a loser’s thing to do, if I’m honest. I remember thinking, ‘Who does that? Who lives with nutters they know nothing about?’ I wondered if you were a psycho with no mates. What a tool I was. But I’ve learnt a lot from you, most especially just how differently we all live our lives. I’d always been confident that there was one way to live and it was our way, the way my family did things. I just couldn’t imagine anything else. All my friends, our circle, were the same too. There was school, holidays and university, learning to drive and a gap year, work and buying a house, all those things.

  Walks in the country on a Sunday, tennis in the summer, a close circle of friends that connect you back to your family and then comes marriage, children, success. We all had the same expectations, I suppose, and things worked out the way we’d thought they would, bar the odd glitch here and there. But you were from somewhere different: you were exotic, with a different way of life. You seemed free, rootless.

  I scanned the room looking for traces of you, something that would give me a clue – CDs or books, paintings, anything. I soon realised you had nothing to do with the cheap sofa, or the huge TV, or the Take That poster or the pile of celebrity gossip magazines on the coffee table. But at the time, I sat there in my too-tight new shoes, still clutching my jacket in nervous hands, wondering if I’d totally misjudged you. Perhaps you weren’t so mysterious and sexy; perhaps you were the type of girl my mother and sister had taught me to despise. Frivolous and empty headed and a psycho to boot… Rightly or wrongly. Wrongly, it turned out because Sandra was a good friend and has been a good friend to both of us. See, I needed you to bring out the best in me.

  Anyway, she chattered on about her job, the TV blared away, my shoes pinched and then you finally came in. Looking so completely different to the way you looked at work that I felt almost embarrassed: embarrassed that I’d intruded on an intimate moment, almost as if I’d walked in on you changing or something; or maybe it was just simple shyness. But it was like you were another person. An even more beautiful person, I hasten to add. You were wearing jeans, with a t-shirt and jacket. Hardly any make-up and your hair was still damp. You looked softer; you looked like you of course, but a different version. This was our first meeting outside of work with its suits and ties and expense accounts. If I’m honest, I was even more crazy about you. Sandra carried on chattering as we stood there looking at each other, all shy.

  We walked to a little French restaurant just around the corner from your place. Past the dark Common and the pretentious little bistros all painted beige and gold with elaborate wine glasses, past the pubs and the fast food joints and the cinema. All the while I tried to think of what to say, how to dazzle you with my style and panache. You were quiet, but smiling, watching. Not shy or rude, you seemed happy not to have to fill the space with your voice. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever experienced, this quiet confidence. You watched and you listened. It gave me a hard-on. I wanted you. God, I wanted you so badly. So we went into this little old place with its gingham tablecloths and squat wine glasses and authentically rude waiters. I did my best to impress you with my schoolboy French. You didn’t seem to notice. You looked around and smiled and listened. You tucked your hair behind your ear as you ate your scallop starter, revealing a thin gold hoop. I wanted to kiss you where it touched your neck. I didn’t of course. You ate your steak and I messed around with a fish thing, unable to eat I was so entranced. I pushed it around and around my plate, in a way that would’ve infuriated my mother. I told you about my school and my parents and my sister. I told you about Uni and travelling to India and Australia. I wanted you to know everything about me. I wanted you to want me as much as I wanted you.

  You ordered vanilla ice cream and an espresso coffee, and then you asked for an amaretto with two ice-cubes and a twist of lemon. So precise and efficient. I loved it. I wondered why you were so specific about the ice cubes, but didn’t dare ask in case I looked like a gauche idiot. Stupid, the little things that one remembers, that one falls for. I asked for a Latte. The ice cream and coffees arrived and I watched as you poured the espresso over the dollop of yellow melting sludge and began to scoop up the slowly combining mixture. I’d never met anyone like you. All the girls I’d ever known fitted into a pattern, a mould. They did just what was expected of them. Just like all the blokes I’ve known I suppose. But you were different somehow, more immediate and present. And then you took a swallow of your amaretto and sucked in an ice cube. It sat on your tongue and you left it there whilst you listened to me drone on about work and numbers and the latest projections because I couldn’t think of anything else to say and behind the flesh of your cheeks I could see the workings of your tongue and jaw as you massaged the ice cube around your mouth. It was so completely sexy, and odd at the same time. I wondered whether my mother would like you.

  I asked you if you played tennis and you laughed out loud, not quite tipping your head back and howling with laughter, but almost. It seemed such an innocent question at the time. You shook your head. Golf? More laughter. Skiing? Even more laughter. You took out your cigarettes and asked if I minded. I did of course, but I wasn’t about to say so. I tried to be smooth and reached to light it for you, but you laughed again and moved back in your seat out of reach. You lit it yourself of course. Then blew out long streams of smoke that clouded around us both. I inhaled it, thinking to myself that this smoke had been inside your body. It was part of you. None of this I would’ve dreamt of telling you before. But I want to find a way to reach you. And the truth seems to be the only reliable thing. My mother always said one will avoid trouble with the truth. Would you listen if I woke you?

  I walked you home. I still hadn’t touched you, not even a brush of fingers. My whole body vibrated with the intensity of being near you. I felt like we weren’t just two individuals walking along, but like some kind of energy connected us, that we were set apart from everyone and everything around us. I asked you where you grew up and went to school. You looked up at me and said ‘Nowhere special’ like that was enough of an answer. And you just stood there, looking up at me. My fingers played with the weight of my keys, wondering if now was the time to kiss you. Like comedy, timing is everything for the first kiss. I didn’t want to mess it up. I wanted to impress you, to impress myself on you. A car crawled past us, its music blaring out. I let it pass. You cleared your throat and looked do
wn at your feet. I stepped forwards, took my hands from my pockets and put them around your waist; I pulled you towards me. You were perfect. You tipped up your face and waited as I bent to your lips.

  Cora sits at her desk, typing a report. Rows of hygienic numbers, infallible, logical and neat, pulse imperceptibly on her screen. She leans forward, her eyes narrowed, frowning. She types quickly, completely in control. The office is modern and new, with that chemical smell of plastic furniture and air conditioning. A wall of windows to her right reveals the Thames and Southwark beyond. She can see the tops of smaller, older buildings and the spires of churches. Below, people flow along the tributaries of the streets. Identical cubicles house her colleagues in long, pseudo-private rows. All the furniture is identical, though some of her colleagues have brought in photos from home, postcards of exotic places and inspirational sayings to personalise their space. Her cubicle is at the back of the department, to afford her the privacy necessary for someone in her position. Someone who takes and makes confidential calls, someone who is privy to high-level decisions and results. Cora’s desk has one framed photo of her husband and children. She doesn’t like clutter or mess. She’d prefer nothing but her computer and phone.

  She is the manager of a small team who sit around her in various poses of industry. They talk on the phone, they type, they stare at their computer screens, they chew their nails.

  A woman approaches Cora, smiling. Her teeth are too large for her mouth and her lips too thin to cover them. She is always smiling. Cora looks up and smiles back, it’s impossible not to. The woman hands Cora a mug of coffee. Her nails are long and immaculately polished a deep red colour. Her hair is a shiny blonde helmet, expensively cut and coloured. She isn’t married, or at least wears no rings and has never mentioned a husband to Cora. A burgundy wrap-around dress shows off her freckled bosom.