Snowstorm

Rain. Always fucking rain. The rain had lashed down since she got up that morning. The air was sticky and oppressive, making it a hot, miserable wet day. She pushed her sodden fringe out of her eyes and hefted the last box out of the car boot. That was it. The last of the things from her house.

She carried the box up the path to Steve’s house. Her house. He appeared in the doorway.

“Here, give me that,” he said, taking the box from her. Immediately her arms felt as light as air, as though they were rising away from her body. She followed him into the house. Boxes were stacked everywhere, from the front room to the dining room to the kitchen. She placed her hands at the back of her waist and stretched, looking through to the back garden. She loved these old semis and the way the ground floor seemed to stretch on forever.

Steve put the box down on top of another, causing the bottom one to crumple slightly from the accumulated weight.

“Oi! Watch it!” she said, scooping the top box up and looking round for somewhere else to put it. There was nowhere else, of course, so she put it back down where Steve had placed it. Steve laughed.

“Look at you,” he said, “you’re soaking.”

He took her hand.

“Come upstairs a minute,” he said, pulling her towards the hall. She pulled back against him.

“There isn’t time,” she said.

He pulled her again and reluctantly she began to follow him. His eyes were full of mischief and electricity.

“Come upstairs, I’ll find you a towel. We’ll dry you off,” he told her.

She sighed. They were climbing the stairs now, Steve still holding her hand. She looked at the back of his head. His hair was getting long, but she liked it. It softened him somehow. She wanted to stand up close to him and breathe in the scent of his cleanness.

At the top of the stairs they paused. Steve looked at her, trying not to smile.

“You go in the bedroom. Get your wet things off,” he said, turning to open the door to the airing cupboard. “I’ll bring you a towel.”

She walked to the bedroom and pushed open the door. Her whole body was weary from carrying boxes from house to car to house. The hot sticky day had left her drained of energy. The door swung open and she heard a faint click then a low whirring. The room was in darkness, the curtains drawn.

“What are you up to?” she asked, standing on the threshold of the room.

“Just go in,” Steve said from behind her, his voice muffled, his head inside the airing cupboard.

She stepped into the room. The lights on the central spot system clicked on. Suddenly she was standing inside one of those toy snowstorms, the ones with the plastic dome and the unnaturally blue skies. She stopped breathing for a moment. Sparkles of light danced against the walls and ceiling and played across her body like falling glitter. It was magical. Her eyes could not take in the dancing patches of light quickly enough, compelled to follow their scatter around the room.

Steve stood in the doorway behind her. “Well?” he said softly.

She could not speak. Her whole being was consumed with looking, trying to drink it in. She looked down to watch the light speckle and shimmer across her hands, her torso. She looked up to see where this space dust was coming from.

“Well?” said Steve again from the doorway.

They made love under the glitter of the snowstorm, her bones melting, her eyes leaking. Later, they sat among the half-unpacked boxes in the kitchen.

Steve sat to her left, his strong hands wrapped around his mug of tea, talking. She did not listen, replaying the snowstorm in her mind. She stretched out her hand and traced the pattern of veins and bones on the back of his hands with her forefinger.

Mentally, she listed the things she loved him for. The first time their eyes had met in that dingy club where he was the resident dj, how she had not wanted to look away, ever. The first time they held hands, walking down Wilbraham Road past Safeways. He had just taken her hand. No conversation, just a calm action. He had gripped her hand just right, his fingers locking naturally with hers as though they belonged. The way he seemed to complete her, without her knowing why.

Stupid little things like that signify, she thought, still tracing her forefinger over his veins. She looked up. He was gazing off into the distance, through to the front room. His eyes were wintry hard, almost flinty. Then he closed his eyes slowly, and opened them again to look at her, and the warmth returned.

He gazed at her, smiling. Suddenly, he stood up and turned on the radio. Turning to face her he said, “Let’s dance.”

She sat and looked at him. “I’m not dancing,” she laughed.

He held out a hand to her, palm up. “Dance with me. Please?”

She shook her head, still laughing. The music on the radio was some girl band, the rhythm angular. She couldn’t dance to this. She couldn’t really dance full stop. Steve began to jig about, singing along in a falsetto voice.

“I should maybe play this tomorrow night,” he said, as he stood with his back to her, shaking his bum. She grabbed it with both hands, squeezing it tightly.

”Oi, oi!” he said over his shoulder. “That’s a bit personal. I barely know you, missus.”

She put her hands on his waist and pulled him down onto her lap.

“I’ll crush you,” he warned.

She didn’t speak, just buried her face into his shirt, breathing in the smell of him. He tolerated it for 30 seconds, then stood up.

“Your legs have gone flat,” he said, casually. Then he drew a box towards him along the table. “Come on, let’s get cracking with these.”

There was so much stuff, she wasn’t sure what they were going to do with it. His stuff and her stuff, two households merging. She unwrapped a teapot. Her mind wandered. She unwrapped another teapot. She thought of how quickly this had happened. She unwrapped another teapot.

“How many teapots have you got?” Steve was looking at her incredulously.

She smiled guiltily. “Five,” she said.

Steve shook his head. “I won’t ask why,” he told her. “But you know you’re not right, don’t you?”

She reached across to him, lashing out with her outstretched arm. He danced away from her.

“Careful,” he laughed. “There’s crockery here. Teapots, you know.”

She grabbed a tea towel from the towel rail by the sink and chased him, trying to flick the towel against his legs. But his legs were longer than hers and he was able to stay out of her reach. He ran into the living room. She stood in the doorway, panting slightly from the exertion, the tea towel hanging from her hand. She let it drop to the floor, looking at him the whole time as he stood there, laughing at her and beautiful.

The telephone rang, making her jump. Neither of them moved.

“It’ll be your mother,” he said.

“I know,” she replied, maintaining eye contact.

“Don’t you think you should answer it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

The phone rang on. They stood staring at each other.

“So,” Steve said, eventually, not moving. “You’ve moved in then.”

She smiled. “Yes,” she whispered. “I have.”

There was a loud crack of thunder. Steve looked past her and through the kitchen window to the sky outside.

“Thank god for that,” he said. “Maybe the heat will lift a bit now.”

She yawned.

“You’re tired,” he said.

She looked at him sleepily, and he carried her up the stairs to bed.

The next day dawned bright and hot. She stretched luxuriously in the bed they now shared. She could see half mirror-balls dotted around the room, the source of last night’s snowstorm. Steve slumbered on beside her. The sun was leaking into the room round the edges of the curtains. The window had a halo of light. She lay with her arms above her head, her hands holding the bars of the headboard, remembering.

She looked at the clock. It was 9.30. She got up out of the bed. Steve stirred and muttered then settled back into sleep. She went slowly downstairs, savouring the silence.

In the kitchen, she lifted the blind and looked out at the back garden. One of the neighbours was already up, out in the garden, mowing the lawn. It was all so suburban.

She filled the kettle and set it to boil, then placed the coffee grounds in the cafetière. She loved coffee in the morning, its sharp bitterness, the sensation of it hitting her stomach, the wake-up buzz it gave her.

She unlocked and opened the back door to let some air circulate through the house. It was still hot. Even though she was naked, she went out into the garden. Sod whether the neighbours could see her. It would give them a suburban frisson to see her lardy arse on a Sunday morning.

The grass was cool beneath her feet. She didn’t know how Steve managed to keep his lawn so nice. At home (she smiled) – at her old house – the lawn was a nightmare. Full of weeds and moss, boggy and poorly drained. Every spring and autumn since she had lived there, she had thrown fivers, otherwise known as lawn feed, at it.

The morning sun was warm on her skin. She stood in the middle of the lawn, head thrown back to receive the full warmth of the sun on her face, worshipping. There was only the slightest breeze.

She heard Steve walk out of the house. She turned to face him. He was grinning at her, his face lit up by his mega-watt smile. He held out a cup of coffee to her.

“Morning, missus,” he said. She took the cup and grinned back at him. “Enjoying yourself?” he added.

She took a mouthful of coffee and looked at him over the top of the cup, before lowering it and smiling. She did not reply. He reached out a hand and brushed it against her body. Electricity shot through her.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked.

She thought for a moment, then replied, “Let’s go for a wander round, get some breakfast at Battery Park, or something.”

“Deal,” he said. “Think you’ll be able to manage clothes, you naturist?”

She laughed and looked down at her naked body.

“It’s very nice,” he told her, “but what must the neighbours think?”

While Steve showered, she got ready, dancing craply around the bedroom to the radio, pulling on pants, vest top and linen trousers. She ruffled her hair up, then regarded herself in the mirror. For her age, she wasn’t doing too badly.

Steve emerged from his shower, a towel round his waist.

“So coy, Mr Brenner,” she teased.

He grinned. “You look nice.”

“Thanks,” she replied, turning back to the mirror to apply some lip gloss. “I feel nice.”

He stood behind her and nuzzled his face into her neck. “Mmm. You smell nice, too. All outdoorsy. You should go naked into the garden more often.”

She laughed, then turned to face him. “Come on. Get dressed. I’m ready. I want my breakfast.”

“Can we go to Barbakan?” Steve started to get dressed. “I’m in the mood for a spicy sausage sizzler.”

She sat cross-legged on the bed, looking at his behind while he rummaged in the drawer for clean underwear.

“Sounds good to me,” she said languidly. Then she sighed. “I love your bum,” she told him.

The door bell rang.

“Jesus! On a Sunday?” Steve said, frowning. “Will you go?”

She went downstairs, could see the shape of a man through the glass in the front door.

She opened the door to see Sean, one of Steve’s friends from the club. He was looking down the road and turned to face her as the door opened.

“Hiya! You over for the weekend again?” he asked.

“Nah, Sean. Moved in last night. I’m a resident too, now.”

He nodded once. “Steve in?” He looked over her shoulder.

“Yeah, getting dressed.” She opened the door wider and stood back. “You coming in?”

“Cheers.” Sean stepped into the house and went through into the living room.

Steve came downstairs, pulling a t-shirt over his head.

“Who is it?” he asked her, seemingly reluctant to go into the living room.

“Sean,” she said.

“Ah.”

He went into the living room, holding out his hand and saying, “Seany-boy!”

“Alright, Stevo?” Sean replied.

She followed Steve into the living room and sat in the armchair. Sean had taken his rizlas and stash out of his pocket and was rolling.

“It was fucking rare last night, man. You should have been there. Errol surpassed himself. The floor was packed, you could just about move your arse out there. I stood up on the balcony with a couple of the lads most of the night, necking shit and just watching them all. Some really fit birds in, as well.” He lit up, took a couple of healthy drags, then offered round.

“Not for me, mate,” Steve said. “I’m trying to lay off for a bit.”

“Liar,” said Sean, holding the spliff in front of Steve’s face.

“Ah well, if you insist,” he said, taking it from his friend’s fingers and toking on it. He offered it to her, but she just shook her head, so he handed it back to Sean. She breathed in the sweet smoke, enjoying the dope vicariously.

Steve looked at her. “Will you make us a cup of coffee, love?” he asked. Sean was looking at the carpet, one leg bouncing, taking occasional tokes on his spliff.

She stood up and went through to the kitchen. She could hear them talking, voices lowered, the rhythm too urgent to be just a friendly chat. She went and stood in the doorway, intending to ask how Sean liked his coffee. As she reached the door, she saw Sean slip something to Steve. She coughed. They jumped guiltily.

“I won’t ask,” she said. “Sean, how do you like your coffee?”

“Oh, you know. Milk. Sugar. Ta,” he replied, not looking at her, leg still bouncing.

“Actually,” Steve said. “Sean was just about to go.” He turned to his friend. “Weren’t you mate?”

“Aye, yeah, I was,” Sean mumbled, standing up. He shook hands with Steve. “See you later then, mate.”

“Yeah, see you later. Let me see you to the door.”

She went back into the kitchen and turned off the kettle. She could hear them talking again at the door, low and urgent once more.

Steve came towards the kitchen from the front door, then leaned in the doorway.

“Are we nearly ready to go, then?” he asked.

She turned to him and smiled. “Yeah, we’re ready.”

He picked up the car keys from the side by the microwave.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

They looked at each other. She wondered briefly what he was thinking. He was smiling, but he seemed distant. Something about Sean’s visit had changed his demeanour. She smiled back, then he pushed himself away from the doorframe with his shoulder and walked down the hall to the front door.

He opened the door to two police officers. That stalled him. She stalled too, in the hallway behind him.

“Good morning sir. Could we come in a moment, please?”

Steve stood back from the door, frowning slightly. She smiled guiltily at the officers. Why did she feel guilty? It was probably something and nothing.

“Is there somewhere we can sit down and have a chat, sir?” one of the officers said to Steve.

“Yeah, through there,” Steve indicated the living room. “What’s all this about?”

“We’ve had a complaint from one of your neighbours, sir. Apparently a naked woman was seen in your back garden this morning, and they called to complain.”

Steve laughed. “But it’s our back garden. Surely my girlfriend can go out there naked if she wants to.”

The police officer smiled, but without any warmth. “Of course, sir. However, we have also had other complaints about people visiting your house at strange hours of the night, one of whom answers the description of a known drug-dealer operating in this area.”

Steve stayed quiet. She spoke from the doorway from the living room to the kitchen where she had gone to stand unobtrusively.

“Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”

The other police officer looked up. “Not for me, thanks, love,” she smiled.

The first officer continued. “As we were driving up, we saw the same man leaving your house. A Mr.,” he paused to check his notepad, “Sean Whelan?”

He looked up at Steve. “Do you know this man?”

Steve smiled.

“Yes, of course I do. We’re djs together at a club in town. I know him well. He’s a mate.”

“Did he come here to do a deal, sir?”

Steve laughed. “No, but if he did, do you really think I would tell you so?”

“Maybe not, sir, but if he did come here to do a deal with you, you are advised that informing us of the fact now may work in your favour later in proceedings.”

She stood in the doorway, coldness beginning to fill the pit of her stomach. She knew Sean and Steve were dope heads, few people in Manchester and in their circle weren’t, but this was more serious. The police wouldn’t be after Sean for a bit of dope dealing. She remembered the package that Sean had been passing to Steve when she came into the room to ask him about his coffee. She hoped to god it wasn’t what she suspected.

“So when Mr Whelan came to your house this morning, it was a purely social visit?” the officer asked Steve.

“That’s right. He’s a mate.”

“And the purpose of his visit was not to supply you with any illegal substances?”

“No.”

“Then you won’t mind if we have a look round, see what we can find?”

“Yes, I will mind, actually. Do you have a warrant?”

“No, sir. We don’t have a warrant, but we can easily come back with one. If you have nothing to hide, however, then there’s no harm in us looking now, is there? Unless there is anything you would like to inform us of now?”

She spoke up. “Steve?”

He looked at her, his eyes icy. “What?”

She lowered her gaze. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “I just wanted to remind you we’re going to be late.”

Steve stared at her. “Late?” He looked back to the police officer. “Oh yeah, we’re supposed to be meeting people for lunch in Chorlton. It’s not really convenient for you to look round now. But if you want to come back, that would be fine.”

The police officer looked at Steve with an inscrutable expression on his face. Looked at him for a long time. Steve looked right back at him, unflinching, smiling his mega-watt smile. The icy feeling in the pit of her stomach grew. This was bad.

Eventually the first officer stood up, followed by his colleague.

“Alright, Mr?”

“Brenner. Steve Brenner. I think you should have asked me that at the start of your questioning, shouldn’t you? To check you had the right man? Because I’m sure you know my name.” Steve was still smiling, but his voice was hard.

“Yes, Mr Brenner, I probably should. Thank you for your time, and please know that we will be back later today.”

Steve showed them to the door. When he returned, she had begun to shake.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she said, her heart beat slowing as she hardly dared to breathe. “What was that package Sean passed to you earlier? What’s in it?”

“Sparkle dust, darling. Coke. Charlie. A little bit of magic. A snowstorm more exciting than the one upstairs last night,” Steve replied, looking straight at her, into her eyes, deep into her eyes and menacing.

The ice in the pit of her stomach froze solid. She did not know how she would get out of this one. But she knew that she must. She knew it as she knew that her happiness was draining away before her eyes, as a third snowstorm danced before her eyes, as she fell to the floor in a faint of panic, as the blood rushed to her head.

© J R Hargreaves 2003

Pills

The woman took the kettle from its stand and filled it. The shiny chrome tap from IKEA, the shiny steel sink from B&Q, she gazed through the window at a world she could not feel. Her mind did not connect.

She lowered her eyes to the tap head and saw the water in the kettle rushing up, seemingly magnified, like a torrent. Calmly she turned off the flow of water, her hand stretching away from her.

She replaced the kettle on its stand and flicked the switch. The small brown plastic bottle stood next to the cup. She picked it up and unclicked the cap.

The pale green and turquoise capsules tumbled from the bottle mouth into her waiting palm, so slowly and gently and then so suddenly still. She tipped them into her mouth and held them carefully under her tongue, so as not to taste them.

Over by the fridge was a bottle of Evian. The kitchen was not huge but it seemed to take an age to reach it. She unscrewed the cap and took three or four slugs, washing the capsules down.

The water in the kettle began to simmer, making that hissing noise like static on the radio. She looked through the window again, at her car parked in the street.

Suddenly she was in the hall, putting her coat on, pulling her hat onto her head. She wrapped her scarf round her neck and pulled her car keys from the hook. They sat in her hand, where the pills had been moments before. She gazed down at them and tried to remember.

Something wasn’t right, but her thinking was too dull. Her mind had been sublet.

She must have stood there for some minutes. The kettle had boiled and begun to cool when the clatter of the free newspaper coming through the door woke her.

She looked at the keys in her hand, then moved her eyes around the periphery of her vision. She was in the hall with her coat and hat on, her scarf wound round her neck.

Slowly she placed the keys back on the hook and removed her coat, hat and scarf. She went back into the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle again.

She saw the brown plastic bottle with its cap removed on the side next to the cup. She touched the rim of the bottle mouth with one finger and tried to remember.

The kettle clicked off. Her face was wet. She poured the boiling water from the kettle into the cup, watching as the brownness of the tea bled into the water, gradually staining it completely. She looked at the bottle again. Her mind was too dull.

She pulled a teaspoon from the cutlery drainer (steel, cylindrical, from IKEA) and stirred the teabag around the cup. She brought milk from the fridge, noting that the Evian bottle did not have its cap on.

She made her tea, watching the open-mouthed pill bottle as she did so. She wished she could remember.

A banging on the window made her jump. It was her neighbour from across the way. She waved and smiled at her from the outside looking in, then pointed towards the front door.

She walked through to the hall and opened the door.

“Hello, love!” her neighbour said.

“Hello,” she replied, a little dully.

Her neighbour proffered a parcel.

“Here. The postman delivered this to ours, but it’s for you.”

She took the package and stared down at it.

“Thanks.”

“That’s all right, love. Anyway, I’d best be off.”

She looked up. Carole. That was the woman’s name. Carole.

“Thanks, Carole,” she said.

“Okay, love, bye!”

Her neighbour was already heading down the path as she spoke. Carole. She was glad that she had remembered her name.

She closed the door and placed the parcel on the arm of the settee just inside the living room.

She went back into the kitchen and saw the cup of tea, steaming on the side. The brown plastic pill bottle was open beside it. She picked it up and shook out two of the pale green and turquoise capsules. She swallowed them down with a mouthful of hot tea which burned her gullet. She turned round and saw the open Evian bottle. She took a few mouthfuls straight from the bottle to cool her angered throat, and felt better for it.

She looked through from the kitchen to the dining room and the french windows. A squirrel was sitting on the fence watching her, frozen. She looked away briefly, thinking of something else, trying to remember, and when she looked back, the squirrel had gone.

She picked up her cup of tea and saw that the pill bottle was uncapped. She put her cup down again, her hand stretching away from her. She took the pill bottle and replaced the cap, then looked at it, trying to remember. Her mind would not connect.

She took her cup of tea and went towards the living room. She saw the package on the arm of the settee and picked it up. It had a central Manchester postmark. She stared at it for a few moments, taking occasional drinks of her tea. There was something in her mind. Some memory. A slow blooming of red and orange and yellow. A blooming that was not flowers. A slow blooming and then blackness.

She took the parcel into the living room and placed it carefully on the coffee table. If John were here he would know what it meant. She drank some tea.

The pills were slowing her mind, she knew that. They were dulling something, some memory. The doctor asked her how she was feeling and then wrote out another prescription. More pills. More pale green and turquoise capsules to stop her feeling life. She felt like she had fallen into a deep hole. Nothing touched her, her mind would not connect. She wished she knew what mattered.

John was gone. She could not remember where. They had been shopping in Manchester. Only to Market Street, the Arndale, M&S. If John would come back, she knew things would make sense again. And she could stop taking those pills.

She looked at the package. It wasn’t very big. About 30 by 20 by 10 centimetres. Wrapped in brown paper, different coloured stamps across the top right corner, a central Manchester postmark.

She could not remember if she had ordered anything recently. At 32, she had the feeling, she ought to be able to do better than this.

She finished her tea. It was 3 o’clock. She put her empty cup in the kitchen and went into the hall. She took her coat from the rack and shrugged it on. Again she wrapped her scarf round her neck and pulled her hat on, then took her car keys from the hook.

She drove. She was on the A34, Kingsway. She passed the familiar turning at the lights onto School Lane, that led over to Northenden. She and John had lived in Northenden when they first married. She wished he would come home. They could go back there, it would all be all right again.

A car horn sounded and she swerved back onto her side of the road. Her mind was dull. She had the feeling that she should not really be driving. The houses, big semi-detached Didsbury houses, where she had always wanted to live, flashed by on either side of her.

The parcel was on the passenger seat. She did not remember bringing it out of the house with her. She tried not to think of the red and orange and yellow blooms that filled part of her memory.

She was at the lights near the multiplex. She turned right and into the Tesco car park. The pills weren’t doing her any good, she was sure, but she was scared to stop taking them. She didn’t want to remember.

She remembered that she and John had met in Dublin. Had slept together in a room that smelled of cigarettes. She had heard a car alarm going off in the street as he slept beside her, his hair curling into his neck, his fist curled against the pillow.

She remembered that he had come back to Manchester with her, and they had married soon after. They bought a terraced house on Chapel Road, hidden away at the back of Northenden. She remembered them driving round the area for a day, checking out every street until they found the house they wanted. She remembered John telling her it was important to live somewhere with good motorway access and not too far from the airport. He travelled a lot with his job.

She remembered these things because they were safe memories. Anything after that shopping trip into Manchester, though, she could not remember. Just that she had gone into the Corn Exchange, which John hated with its junkshop mentality, and he had gone back to the car. He was going to pick her up on Cross Street. But he never did. She had not seen him again.

She remembered the blooms of red and orange and yellow.

She was in the Tesco café now. Somehow she must have parked and made her way into the store. She had her hands round a cup of tea and was watching the shoppers through the window, collecting their trolleys and making their way to the store entrance. Thursday was obviously pensioner day at East Didsbury Tesco. She drank her tea.

She took a basket with her into the store and wandered up and down the aisles. She knew she must have come for something, but she could not remember what. She passed the fish counter twice, with its display of gaping mouths and glassy eyes. The shelf-stackers milled around, smart in their uniform of blue checked shirt and dark trousers.

Her basket was empty and she decided to leave. She drove calmly onto the M60 and home.

Her forgotten package lay unnoticed under the Tesco café table, where it detonated at 6.15 p.m. The café had closed for the evening, but the destruction of the store was complete.

She watched the story on the news. Her mind would not connect, but she knew that she had been there only hours earlier. She shook two pale green and turquoise capsules from the brown plastic bottle, to help submerge the memory of the red and orange and yellow blossoms.

She wished she could find what mattered.

© J R Hargreaves 2002

Conquest

“Why do you love that word so much?” she says to me.

I ask her exactly which one she means

“You know exactly which one. The one you can’t stop using.” She looks at me steadily. “Every other word you say, practically.”

Just now, the way she gazes at me, that strange hardness in her eyes that looks like indifference but is really a lie, I want to do it to her. That word she won’t allow herself to say. That word she hates me saying.

She is old, lately, and critical. When we first met she was majestic. They say that women bloom when they come into their thirties. She must be some exotic flower, then, because that bloom is fading.

She is still looking at me. Her face has lost its softness. It no longer invites the caress I used to want to bestow. She is harder now, in spite of the creams and lotions she pours onto her aging body.

I say the word. All credit to her, she does not blink. I say it again, there is no flicker in her gaze.

“I hate it,” she says softly.

I smile and get up from the table. I pick up my bowl, my spoon, my cup and take them to the dishwasher. I ignore hers. It’s all part of the petty war. I leave mine on the worktop by the sink. Later, it will make her sigh to see them there.

She looks tired. I don’t know why I love that word so much. For the same reasons I love to wear her down, I suppose. It suits me. I lean against the sink unit and watch her. Her shoulders have begun to sag. She was proud and straight when we met. Now she just looks weary.

I say the word again and laugh.

She stands up and collects he own lunch things, bringing them over to where I stand. She opens the dishwasher and places her things in, then mine. She does not sigh, not audibly, but her whole movement is a reproach. It gratifies me to see it.

I reach out a hand to touch the hardness of her face. She freezes, not expecting tenderness and I am tempted to change the intended caress to a blow. But I don’t. Instead the back of my hand comes to rest gently against the coolness of her cheek.

She remains motionless. I remove my hand. She continues to load the dishwasher. The pan that heated the soup, the spoon that stirred it, the cups, plates, dishes from breakfast. I watch her, knowing she is waiting for something to happen, for the casual blow to land.

Why do I love that word so much?

Then the telephone rings and the moment is lost. I move into the hall to answer it. I am speaking to my mate. He is in the pub. Am I coming, he asks. Maybe later, I tell him. There’s something I need to do first. The match is on the big screen, he tells me. Kick off at three. Two hours away. All the time I am listening to him, I am also listening to her, moving around the kitchen.

I place the handset back on its base. She is humming under her breath. I stand in the doorway. I tell her to shut up.

“Shut the fuck up,” I say.

Shut the fuck up. The word. The signal. I smile. She looks at me. She knows. But I calm the moment. I tell her that the match is on the big screen and my mate is waiting down the pub.

“What time?” she asks.

I tell her and watch her work it out for herself. Her body sags in resignation. She looks tired. She nods.

Later, she is limp and refuses to look at me. I am spent, the tension gone, released. I have left her raw. She lies with her face turned away from me, her arms still raised where I pinned them, her legs still apart. I stand by the bed and I want to do it again. The sight of her weary body invites it.

It takes longer this time, and her eyes are closed throughout. She looks as though she is trying not to be here, so I push harder. She flinches then. She flinches because, physically, I have hurt her. Emotionally she is already dead. That is my triumph.

She is crying this time, as I dress. I smile and tell her I’ll see her later, after the match, after a few pints. She is crying and I know that I have won this time.

As I leave the room, I hear her whisper it.

“Fuck you.”

That word that she hates. I’ll talk to her about that later.

© J R Hargreaves

Beauty

The boy did strange things to her.

He had made her his sister-confessor. The trouble was she did not know what she believed. So she heard his confession and didn't know what to say. And all the while, the boy did strange things to her.

He was in her dreams. She had only known him 6 weeks, and she could picture what he looked like - a picture image in her mind. All the people that she knew and loved, the man she'd lived with for 3 years, she could not picture what they looked like. They were just names, descriptions framed in words, and he was a bloody picture.

Because the boy did strange things to her.

He lay there now, asleep on his stomach, his dark hair curling into his neck, his fist curling into the pillow. She sat cross-legged, staring at the curtained window with its halo of late-morning light. He lay, the covers turned back, his naked body slender and long, his dark hair curly like a shock against the whiteness of the pillow. She sat, cross-legged like Buddha, looking round the edges of his body, unsettled by the strange things he did to her.

This room was not hers. She was glad about that. When she left it she would be able to leave the images of that night with it. She would not have to see them every day in his absence. Because, unless she made an effort to put herself in the places where she knew he would be, she was unlikely to see him again.

He had made her sore. Different size, different shape. She could feel the ghost of him still as she sat there cross-legged. The ghost of him and the hollowness simultaneous and symbiotic, the one feeding the other.

Where had this begun? How had she been cast in this rôle? Her skin smelled of cigarettes, though neither of them smoked. Her clothes lay crumpled in the middle of the floor. How far across the room and would he wake if she moved? She broke off a fingernail and stared at the ragged edges left behind. In the street beyond the window were sounds of people going about their lives. She was here in this Dublin bedroom with a boy she barely knew who moved her ways she had never been moved, who looked in her eyes and let her see the depths of the ocean. She shook her head. That was bullshit. She had to believe that that was bullshit otherwise she would end up as mad as him.

She reached for her bag. He stirred.

"I broke a nail," she said, but he was not awake.

An alarm was going off in the street. A car, she thought. She filed the nail she had broken, smoothed the ragged edges. He uncurled his fisted hand and laid it flat against her back, the thumb lying in the hollow of her spine. She did not look at him but continued filing her nails. She did not want to see the glint of his half opened eye; did not want to want him as she had wanted him last night. Because he had made her sore and the boy did strange things to her.

He turned onto his side and ran the back of his hand across her back. His index finger stroked the curve of her waist, the curve of her hip, the curve of her waist, up and down. The car alarm went silent and she could hear the sound of skin against skin. He leaned forward and kissed her on the hip, his hand gently lifting her arm away. His lips barely touched her skin, and he did strange things to her.

She put down the nail file and slowly lay down, letting him brush her body with his lips. Where he had made her sore he soothed her now with soundless words. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the strange things that happened with this boy.

"I am dying," he said, later, as they lay alongside each other staring at the ceiling and not smoking.

She did not reply. She tried to tell herself it made no difference to her.

She stared at the ceiling and a fat round tear trickled from the corner of her eye.

© J R Hargreaves 2002

Haiku

The cold clung to her as she walked along the frost-sparkled pavement, up to the post box. She and her friend were going through a phase of writing to each other every day in haiku. She had just completed a postcard that she needed to post before the day was out.

She had bundled herself up in coat, scarf, hat and gloves and let herself out of the house. It was only mid-afternoon and already the street lights were glowing. She walked up the street, peeping through the gap between the edge of her woolly hat and the top of her scarf, the postcard clutched in one gloved-hand, the other hand clenched inside her coat pocket. Her jaw ached from trying to stop her teeth chattering. It was so cold, she half wished that global warming would hurry up and happen.

Her thigh muscles ached from the way she was walking, trying not to slip on the frosty ground. She needed some new boots, the soles on these were losing their tread. Cleated soles. She smiled to herself. Why did she like that word so much? She said it three or four times in her head. Cleated, cleated, cleated, cleated. It made her want to laugh.

She and her friend used to play a game where they would choose a word and say it over and over until all the meaning fell out of it and it just became a sound they were making with their mouths.

She was halfway to the post box now. The top of her scarf was beginning to feel damp against her mouth and nose from the condensation of her breathing. She looked down at the two-line haiku she had written on the card. They had begun by sticking rigidly to the 5-7-5 formation, but now she was beginning to free herself from that constraint, trying to condense the essence of a moment into the least number of words and still retain its wholeness.

She had seen the sunset earlier and written:

pink sunkissed sky

hovers over ice-tipped trees

She felt satisfied with that description and hoped that her friend would like it too. She was almost at the post box now. She checked that she had fixed a stamp to the card. That would be no fun, trying to peel a stamp from its backing without taking her gloves off. She did not like the self-adhesive stamps. She felt cheated by them somehow.

She climbed the step up to the frontage of the Post Office and stopped in front of the post box. She held the postcard in her two gloved hands for a moment, wishing it luck on its journey over the hills to her friend. Then she raised her two hands to the mouth of the box and pushed the postcard in. She tipped her head back slightly, closing her eyes, and breathed in the frosty air. Then she started on her way back to the house.

It was harder to keep her balance on the icy pavement because of the slight downhill slope on the way back. She almost slipped a couple of times, and held onto the hedges and walls of the houses she was passing.

It was quiet, there was hardly any traffic. She supposed everyone was safely tucked up in their nice warm houses. Not like her, out in the cold, posting a haiku to a friend because of some silly challenge they had set themselves.

She stopped on the edge of the pavement and looked up and down the road to make sure there were no cars coming before she crossed.

The blow struck her on the back of her head and she fell forward into the road. She felt hands rummaging in her coat pockets, trying to find a purse or something valuable like a mobile phone, she supposed. Her face was cushioned by the wool of her hat and her scarf. She was glad she had them on. She felt a little frightened but she tried not to move, not to panic. Then a hand grabbed the top of her hat and yanked it off her head. The cold began pounding on her skull and then the hand (the same hand?) began pounding her skull against the ground. She thought she cried out, but she could not be sure, then her head smashed one last time to the ground as her attacker let go his grip (her grip?) and ran off.

The world was muffled and black and finally silent. The blood ran darkly from the broken skin against her skull. She lay at the edge of the road as though she were asleep, as though she had been overtaken by a sudden bout of narcolepsy.

She was in the newspapers and on the local tv bulletins for two days afterwards. The motorist who had eventually stopped and found her became a minor celebrity for less than his Warholian 15 minutes. Later, she was only remembered by those who had known her.

The postcard bearing the haiku to her friend went astray. She had somehow smudged the ink so that the postcode could not be read clearly. When it eventually reached her friend’s house, the postmarks (5 of them) ranged from Swansea to Glasgow.

© J R Hargreaves 2002

Waiting

Christmas. The season of goodwill and the town centre was busy. Shoppers were buying up goodwill, acquiring little bits of redemption from the wounds and hurts inflicted during the rest of the year. She huddled into her coat, hurrying along the crowded main street, dodging parcels and pushchairs, making her way to the parish church at the top of the hill.

Churches were always open at Christmas. As though the season of goodwill changed things; made the thieves that the doors were normally locked against trustworthy enough not to spoil the festive feeling. Even in the face of the arson attacks against churches across the town that autumn, vicars were opening their doors.

He was waiting at the foot of the steps in his black leather jacket and his jeans. He had his roll neck sweater on and she could imagine the curl of his hair into his neck. He was wearing his glasses. Something to hide behind. Something he always chose to wear when he knew he would be in close proximity to her. A barrier to stop her reading his eyes properly. He did not know that she had no need to read his eyes. The way he held his body in relation to her was enough to tell her what was going on.

They did not speak when she finally reached the steps, they did not touch; they simply looked at each other and walked up to the main door.

It was as cold inside the building as it was on the street. They stood in the central aisle of the church. It was the calmest, quietest place she had been able to think of for them to meet. She knew that he was holding himself carefully, the secret he was about to deliver like a glass orb liable to shatter with one false move. She knew because she could feel it.

She moved into one of the pews and sat down. He followed her. Neither of them spoke. Too many words had already been said, bringing them to this point in time. She could not think of any more words to give to him. What could she say? She did not want to hear the words she knew he had for her.

Had they been lovers, they might have sat closer together. As it was they took positions where they could not touch except by design. She looked across at him. He was staring straight ahead, lost in thought, anger his absolute expression. She looked across at him and wished she could touch him. Anger always reeled her in.

She couldn't shake off the cold, so she huddled further inside her coat. She looked at her knees, pressed against the back of the pew in front. How did people spend the hours they did in these places, listening to a man in a frock drone on? She kept her hands thrust into her coat pockets, wishing she had brought her gloves. She was always losing gloves. She closed her eyes and rocked slightly.

"It's cold, isn't it?" he said.

"You could say that," she replied.

"I'm not much company am I?"

"It's okay. I don't mind."

Silence fell again. She waited. Soon he would say it, say the thing that would make her decide. He would say it and she would smile bravely, knowing that the truth revealed would force her hand.

"So what are you going to do for the holidays?" She tried to sound bright.

"Oh, you know. You?"

"I'll probably go over to my parents' for a few days, then come back to town."

Please don’t say it, she wished. Please just let it be.

The church door opened behind them. They sat, heads bowed, waiting for whoever had come in to walk past. It was a woman in a blanket fabric coat, huddled and barrelled about with padding and scarves. She watched her walk to the front of the church and seat herself in a pew to pray. She wondered idly what her prayers were about, whether they were answerable prayers. She hoped they were. Someone had to be getting the answers they needed, otherwise life was just one big joke.

She had believed once that God or Jesus would answer her prayers. She had hung in there, hoping and believing, trusting this invisible force that others had faith in. She had allowed herself to believe that there was a point in it all, that there would be answers and reasons somewhere - a happy ending, even.

The woman at the front of the church presumably believed all that. She wanted to go to her and ask her what it was that kept her believing. But perhaps she didn't believe. Perhaps it was habit. Perhaps she was just seeking peace. You never knew with people, what motivated their actions.

Take him, for example, sitting there staring off into space, lost in the world of his thoughts. What motivated him to seek her out? And what motivated her to listen, knowing full well that there would be nothing in it for her at the end, except that forced decision?

She closed her eyes again, feeling the silence of the church around her. Feeling his silence, burdened with the unspoken words she knew were coming, the words she dreaded hearing. She was tired. She was so, so tired. Life was beginning to tire her. The daily grind, the futility, the solitude. At the end of this meeting, when he had finally said what she did not want him to say, she would go home, lift up the telephone and betray him.

The woman finished praying and got up. She kept her eyes fixed ahead, barely acknowledging their presence as she passed them in their pew. He had not moved an inch since they had got there. It was as though he knew that if he moved, the whole thing would explode - everything he was carrying so carefully inside him. He was probably wishing he was drunk. That would make it easier for him - anaesthetise him from what he needed to do, make the words flow more easily.

She spread her gloveless hands out on her knees and stared at her nails. They had grown again, a sure sign that soon she would be biting them. She was almost tempted to start chewing them now, but she didn't. She just stared at her hands and waited for him to say the words.

It didn't actually matter what he finally said, but she settled down to wait anyway, not wishing to hurry it.

She had lost track of time. She wove her fingers together, holding the interlacing loosely, then tighter, then loose again in her lap. She pushed her head back and looked up at the ceiling, at the blue and gold and cream. No angels. She thought there might at least have been angels.

She looked across at him sitting beside her in the pew, still staring into nothing, still yearning for oblivion and release from the guilt his actions had wrought in him. He didn't know that she was waiting for the words he had to speak. He probably didn't know that he had to say them. He would speak them without knowing what they were, those words she did not want to hear. Meanwhile, she would go on sitting there, waiting for those words to come.

His hands were flat against his knees. His knees were pressed even harder into the back of the pew in front. They were almost mirror images of each other. It was one small move to reach over and place one of her hands onto one of his, to touch him. Her hands felt like ice, though, and she did not dare. There was something of the sleep walker about the way he was sitting, and she did not want to cause him harm. His body was warming the air around him. She could feel it across the gap between them. She breathed it in, although it wasn't a smell. She breathed it in and felt like she was breathing him in, anger and all. Still he had not spoken the words, although they hung there in the cold air between them, mocking her with their potential existence.

In a heartbeat she could turn it all around. Give him a reason for saying those words. Get it over and done with. All she needed to do was give him the push to get him started. Then he could say the words she was waiting for and it would all be over. Instead she sat on.

She had set a load of washing going before she set out for town. She wondered now whether it was finished. How long had they been sitting there? She was not sure. Probably it was finished. It was her favourite duvet set. White with red stripes and embroidered horses from IKEA.

He spoke.

"What are you thinking about?"

"The washing. I was wondering if it was done yet."

"Oh."

They continued in silence. These are the conversations I should be having with someone, she thought, not waiting to have a conversation I don't want with a man whose anger I cannot end. I should be having conversations about the washing and what's for dinner and whether we should go to the pub.

But she also wanted to have conversations about sex and death and God and politics and music and love, and she wanted to have them with him because his anger moved her and he was unlike anybody else she had met in this town. And life was too short to be having conversations about the washing and what's for dinner and whether they should go to the pub.

"Do you want to go to the pub later?" she asked him.

"Oh. I'm already meeting friends in town tonight. Sorry."

"That's okay. It was just a thought."

They sat on in silence, like a pair of Staffordshire Dogs on a mantelpiece.

"Look, I'd better be going," she said, staring at her hands against her knees.

"Sorry, yes. I suppose I've got other things I could be doing as well."

"Have a good Christmas, though, eh?"

"Yes, I will. You too."

She stood up. He remained seated.

"Can I just...?"

"Oh, yes. Sorry."

He moved his legs to let her past. She brushed against him, holding the back of the pew in front. She paused in the aisle.

"I'll see you in the New Year, then?"

He looked up at her and smiled.

"Yes. See you in the New Year."

He was not going to say it, she knew that now. He couldn't say it. He needed his anger and his guilt too much to say it now. Perhaps he would never say it. Perhaps they would just drift along until they both woke up one day and realised they no longer needed the other's silence, that there was no redemption to be gained.

She turned at the door to the church before she set foot outside. She looked at the back of him, still in the pew, still staring into nothing.

"You’re forgiven," she mouthed.

Sitting in the pew he did not hear.

© J R Hargreaves 2002

Loss

He said he wasn’t a patriot, but he always covered his heart for The Star Spangled Banner. He left his native land years ago, yet still he covered his heart when the anthem played. Then he would snort, "Land of the Free? Home of the Brave?" and shake his head.

Daisy promised herself that she would never be a patriot either.

When Daisy was small, he towered over her. She was just the right height for him to cover her head with his hand when they stood side by side. And his legs were made of denim. She knew they were his jeans, really, but close up the jeans and his legs seemed to be all of a piece. If she hugged his legs and looked up he was a distant smile, like the sun in the sky, and his glasses flashed like sunspots.

Daisy loved him completely. She loved the smell of his denim legs when he came in from the cold outdoors to collect her from school. She loved the rise and fall of his breathing and the lub-dub of his heart when she curled up beside him on the sofa. She loved the smell of his minty-breath kiss when he dropped her off on the way to work. She loved everything about him unconditionally.

She loved it best when they went for long winter walks, along the old railway line, across the footbridge over the by-pass, to the back of the park and the cemetery. She loved to hold his hand, thick with glove, to feel his strong grip around her mittened fingers. She loved the sparkle of frost on the plants and bushes making them seem like they had come from the moon. She loved breathing out and seeing her breath condense in the frosty air. She loved the way, when they ran, the cold made her lungs hurt and they would both have to gasp.

When she was really small, but not too small, they would go into the cemetery and stand in front of a black marble gravestone that said it was in memory of Julie, wife of Mark and mother of Daisy, with two numbers at the bottom. The last number was the same as the year she was born.

When she was bigger, they stopped going into the cemetery. They would just walk straight past, as though it were not there. She would peek at the gravestones through the fence as they walked past, but she could not remember which was Julie's stone. She never questioned him about why they stopped. The barrier of sorrow was too dense.

By the time she was 15 they had stopped going for winter walks together. He started to bring students home - girls not much older than she was. At least, she believed at the time that he had started to bring them home. Later she wondered if he hadn't just become less discreet. Her childhood vow never to be a patriot hardened into a resolve. Loyalty to nothing and no-one but herself.

She knew he was lonely. She knew logically that her love for him could never be enough. But she did not wish to know how he tried to overcome his loneliness, or how he supplemented her love. Most of all she did not wish to know that he was washing away the memory of Julie, wife of Mark and mother of Daisy.

She was as tall as him now. "Product of your generation, Daisy," he would say. "All those nutrients. All that lack of disease." His glasses still flashed, but no longer like sunspots. Now they were blindspots that prevented her seeing into his soul. He still covered his heart for The Star Spangled Banner and denied his patriotism. Now she no longer vowed that she would never be a patriot. Now she wondered if the heart that he covered still beat lub-dub like her own.

When she left home for university he saw her off at the station. "Humans have feet of clay, Daisy," he told her. "They depend on forgiveness from the ones that they love." She had kissed him on the cheek and boarded the train. He stood on the platform in his tan suede jacket and his jeans, hands in his pockets, looking American. Looking like a middle-aged lecturer. Looking like himself. He did not wave and neither did she. As the train pulled out of the station she was sure her heart broke.

When Julie died, he had not known what to do. Daisy was so small and helpless. He loved her completely. He had been dependent on Julie's mother for help for the first couple of years. Then when Daisy had been old enough to go to a playgroup, he went back to his house, back to work, back to something like normality.

He noticed that the women students on his course, when they heard that his wife had died, gazed at him during lectures and tutorials as though he were an example of terrible courage. At first, when they offered to come over and cook him dinner, offer him comfort, he had accepted. When he saw their attempts to pretend that his daughter was a charming distraction he knew that he had to stop. He loved her unconditionally. He did not want to damage her like that.

He loved to take her out for walks in winter. It was almost like winter back home in Vermont. Crisp icy air. Silver frost like lace on the leaves of plants and bushes, making them look like something glimpsed through an electron microscope. When she was still small, he took her to the cemetery. He did not know if she understood who Julie was. He could not tell her without falling apart and he could not fall apart. It was enough for them to stand before the black marble gravestone, for him to remember her, for Daisy to read the words.

Later, as Daisy grew older and his students grew younger, his loneliness made him welcome the comforts these girls could bring him. He did not want to forget Julie, but he could not live his life as though he were dead too. The one concession he made to her memory was to make sure none of his students came to the house while Daisy was awake.

It was not love. He did not love any of them. He loved Daisy. He had loved Julie. This was sex, a way to lose himself, to cover over the hollow that Julie had left behind. He despised himself for it, but not enough to stop.

They were strangers when the time came for her to go away to university. He took her to the station. She had not asked for him to take her to the campus and he had not offered. Before she boarded the train he tried to apologise for how life had been. "Humans have feet of clay, Daisy," he had said. "They depend on forgiveness from the ones that they love." She had not answered. Without even looking at him she had simply kissed him on the cheek and got on board the train. He watched the train pull out from the station, hands in his pockets, hoping she would wave. Hoping she would acknowledge his existence. But she did not.

He rarely saw her during the vacations. Those were the worst times. He rattled around the house on his own, the campus where he taught as empty as the one she left at the end of each term. He was grateful that she at least came home for Christmas.

Her final year came quickly, Christmas even quicker. It was cold that winter. Colder than he could remember it being before. Daisy went back to university. He went back to work. The short winter days were still too long. He came home to his empty house and took out the old photograph albums.

A cold January night. He decided to go out to the cemetery. He had not been for so long, and that was unforgivable of him, even if only for Daisy's sake. He had no flowers to take, so he took a picture from the album, of him and Julie at a party, not long after they had met.

The ground was slippy under foot and it took him a while to get to the cemetery. It was deserted. He found Julie's black marble gravestone. Someone had been taking care of it. Her family, no doubt. He sat beside it on the frozen grass. It was so cold. He sat there a long time, thinking about his wife, thinking about their short time together, and all the mistakes he had made since. He sat there too long, for he slowly drifted to sleep, slowly drifted out of consciousness, slowly drifted away. He was not even aware of his own passing.

After the inquest, the police returned to Daisy the photograph they had prised from her father's hand. The corner had been torn, because his frozen grip had been so tight. It was a picture of her dad with a woman. She looked a little like Daisy did now. Julie. Her mother.

© J R Hargreaves 2001