She would have laughed

The skin on her torso was soft beneath my fingers.

We had bought takeaway from the local Balti house. The saffron had stained the skin on her fingers and placed a ring around the washing up bowl.

The saffron painted an aura of yellow around the edges of her thumbnails that fascinated her. She had laughed to see it there and spent a lot of the evening wondering why she couldn’t wash it away.

And later, the skin on her torso and on her back was soft and firm; pliable beneath my fingers.

The dishes soaked in the yellow washing up bowl that was filled with suds and hot water, leaving the saffron ring at the top of the water, staining the plastic of the bowl that needed replacing anyway.

She lay face down on the bed and I ran my hands over the skin on her back, feeling its pliability beneath my fingers. I wanted to massage the life back into her tired bones.

We had eaten the takeaway sitting on the orange sofa in her orange living room. We drank wine and watched the tv. She made conversation about nothing, laughing at the tv show we were watching, filling the room with her voice.

There was nothing I could add; nothing I could say. I ate my curry and drank my wine and the sound of the tv and her voice washed over me. I didn’t want silence, but I had no way of breaking it, so I was grateful for her efforts.

There were things on my mind. I affected a certain air that let her know there were things on my mind and that led her to fill the awkward silence that threatened to grow between us.

The truth was that I was bored. I wanted a way to end this.

She cleared away the dishes and filled the yellow washing up bowl with water and bubbles. She wiped the kitchen work surfaces clean of the stains left by the saffron. She put the dishes to soak and poured more wine. I asked for water and she brought it; a tall glass filled with clear liquid and fizz; the bubbles stung the back of my nose and cleansed my jaded palate.

She sat back down beside me on the sofa. She sat with her back against the arm, her legs crossed like a genie, the better for her to look at me. I kept my profile towards her. I felt her eyes on me; I knew the way her face would look; I didn’t have to see it, so I didn’t turn my head.

When she spoke, her hands moving rapidly to emphasise her point, drawing symbols in the air that said more than the words coming from her mouth, it was her hands that I watched. I didn’t need to see her face.

She talked about nothing; her recent trip to New York; the tumult and stagnation of days she had spent at work; the frustrations of her life. She filled the air and left it empty. There was something on my mind, but I couldn’t speak it.

The bottle of wine was on the coffee table in front of me. I poured more into our glasses. I wanted to forget, but I couldn’t let this go.

A siren sounded in the distance. Police or ambulance; who knew? Who cared?

I looked at her and she was crying.

“Just let me have this,” she said.

I couldn’t move. There was nothing I could offer her. She wept, a silent shaking weeping, head bowed and hands folded in her lap. There was nothing I could do. The usual clichés had no meaning.

She stood and told me that she was going to bed.

I sat and drank more wine.

I listened to the sounds from upstairs. The way she moved from room to room. Running water and brushing teeth. Dropping the cotton wool pads stained with her redundant makeup into the metal bin in the bathroom. Her face being splashed with water, its coldness an attempt to calm the puffiness brought on by the tears. I heard the silence that I knew accompanied the removal of clothes. The click of light switches being flicked. The silence that meant she was regarding herself in the mirror.

I drank to try to forget, but I couldn’t let this go.

Her skin was soft and pliable beneath my fingers as I pushed my hands against her back and tried to massage the life back into her tired bones.

Face down on the bed she lay, still and quiet, allowing my hands to roam her back. I sat across the backs of her legs. I pushed the t-shirt she slept in up towards her neck and bared the skin of her back. She was not naked.

When the silence had stretched on, I left the wine on the table in the living room. I went up the stairs to where she lay face down on the bed. She had not even climbed under the covers. She lay in t-shirt and pyjama bottoms on top of the duvet, on top of the bed.

Her face was turned away from me, towards the window. Her arms were bent at the elbows, raised slightly at shoulder level. Her legs stretched out behind her, the toes pointed downwards.

I sat across the back of her legs and pushed her t-shirt up. I placed my hands against the small of her back, fingers out towards the waist. I pushed my thumb up the channel of her spine, counting the notches the closer I came to the neck. I pulled my fingers down across the skin from her shoulder blades to her waist. Her skin was soft.

Her breathing changed. I felt her body relax. I unstraddled her and pulled her body over. She opened her eyes and looked at me. All the tiredness in the world was in her eyes. I pushed her t-shirt up and ran my hands along the smooth skin of her torso. I pushed her t-shirt up over her head so that she lay there, topless on the bed before me.

She looked at me the whole time, the tiredness of death in her eyes. The stillness of death on her face.

I placed my hands around her neck and pressed my thumb against her windpipe until her lips went blue and her eyes slightly bulged and the pressure of my fingers against the softness of her skin left a necklace of rose petal bruises.

She struggled only once. She raised her hands to grip my upper arms. I thought of actors who fake strangulation by the one who strangles pulling away while the one strangled tries to pull them tighter. She did not seem to be pulling away, and I wondered if we had the trick of it wrong.

The skin on her torso was soft beneath my fingers. I lay beside her for a while, wanting to apologise, stroking the softness of her skin.

I wanted to let this go and eventually I left.

The dishes were still soaking in the washing up bowl; the saffron placing a yellow ring around the plastic.

She would have laughed to see it.

© J R Hargreaves January 2007