Nikki Gemmell’s Threesome: The Bride Stripped Bare, With the Body, I Take You (20 page)

flowers speak to the kindly heart in most miraculous tongue

On the fourth day a letter arrives from Cole’s studio. He’s in Rome, working on a commission he’d been putting off. He’d mentioned it a couple of months back, a minor
Descent from the Cross
the Jesuits own. There’s not much money in it and it’s not a great work. Cole had shown you the photos and you remember being struck by the peculiar twist of the torso as gentle hands lifted the body down. Something about it wasn’t right, the artist got the physique wrong, as if he was working from his head and not from life.

The letter tells you that Cole is, for the moment, uncontactable and there’s no indication of when he’ll be back. His assistant has sent it. There’s no mark of your husband upon it. You can’t imagine him dictating it to
someone else, something so cruel and impersonal and blunt. Your mouth is dry and your fingers feel light and detached as you hold it. He’s never done anything like this.

You don’t know anything now, what comes next.

You ring his parents and leave a message on their machine, asking him to call, hating having to turn to them for help. You roam the apartment and realise how lightly Cole touches it. You were always hounding him to clean up his mess: clear away his magazines, sort through his letters and bills. All that’s left of him are little heaps of loose change and a pile of receipts and now, suddenly, it’s not enough, it seems nagging and wilful to have reined him in so much. You wash his fugitive smell from the pillowcases and sheets, and instantly regret the impulse, once again, to scrub him out.

You want Cole back. Very much.

Your mother rings. I’m just checking up on you, she says, and at this unaccustomed tenderness the tears come and come, great gulps of them, your mouth is webbed by wet.

I’m coming to you, she says, just give me some time to organise a flight.

For two weeks your mother’s at your side, ensuring there are always fresh flowers and making batches of home-made soup and filling the freezer with tubs of it just like her own. Making you cups of tea without waiting to be asked and exactly how you like them, milky, very weak;
Cole has never, in all the years you’ve known him, perfected that.

For two weeks you curl up with her in her bed in the spare room; you haven’t done this since you were ten. Your mother doesn’t know the extent of what’s gone wrong, just that Cole’s stormed out and it’s unknown when he’ll be back. Her focus is getting you on your feet. You know, now, that she’s at her best when you’re vulnerable, spent, when things are falling apart. The relationship has been simplified to the fundamental need of a child for its mother, and with that, something vicious between you is gone, the fury is blown out. You don’t know how long this ceasefire will last but you want to bask in its calm while you can.

She has to leave after a fortnight, it’s all the time she could get off from the dig. She doesn’t want to go but you tell her she must. You should try and work again, she says, as she waits for the minicab to pick her up. Get some focus back in your life.

You retract.

No, not teaching, she laughs. But you have to find something else to love in your life besides a child, and a man, because they’ll always break your heart.

Ha! But what?

She can’t tell you that. The minicab driver buzzes up.

I’ve started to write something, you tell her, I haven’t got very far. It’s a modern version of grandpa’s old book.
A warts and all look at a marriage – what a wife might think, but would never say.

Does Cole know, she asks.

No, not exactly. He knows I’m working on a book, but he has no idea what it’s really about. I don’t want to hurt him. I think…I think he’d be devastated. I don’t know what he’d do.

Write it anonymously then, she says, as the minicab driver buzzes again. That way no one’ll get hurt.

bank notes are paper money

No word from Cole.

No phone calls from Gabriel, after the one that exploded your world.

But there’s a new life force within you, competing with the men. Your stomach is public now, hands reach to it often and amid all the mess you’re falling in love with a body not your own. It’s beautiful and terrible what the baby is doing to you, there’s a great violence to the beauty, it’s fascinating, erotic, obscene.

How can skin stretch that far? Will it ever shrink back to what it was, or will it be rumpled and slack like a pouch?

You haven’t taken your wedding ring off; you don’t want the complication of that, it’s too final, too abrupt, it closes off, in your head, the possibility of everything being sorted
out. At least the money’s still coming into your account but your mother’s right, you have to find something to do that you love, to fill up your life.

Make the book work, if you can. It feels like your last shot, before motherhood closes over you and your own life recedes as another gathers force. And the money, perhaps, stops. For all that’s happened to you, financial independence is the biggest thing you’ve given up. It feels too uncomfortable, now, being so beholden to someone else; it could sneak all the confidence from your life.

But Gabriel.

He whispers unceasingly through this newfound sense of purpose. You’re seven months pregnant and you know it’s wrong to want him, to plunge him back into your life. You want to call him. Time has wearied the intensity of those afternoons in his flat, but not enough. For the vividness of him is back, often now, like waves at a shore he’s back and back.

the worth of fresh air

A weekend away, in the Cotswolds, a girly indulgence in a spa hotel. Martha’s driving, she’s speeding down the narrow roads, she wants to arrive before the light completely drops. The sky’s blood-red and gold in great bands of brightness; in London it’s never like that. Or perhaps you don’t remember to look.

How’s the gang, you ask.

Oh fine, fine. Julian’s just about to deliver, way before deadline, of course. Tim’s had to give up for a while and go back to the building site; his advance has run out. Natalie, poor love, is on her seventh rewrite, she’s at that horrible stage where she’s convinced it’ll never work.

What about Gabriel, you ask, trying to smooth the rise in your voice.

Haven’t heard a peep, she says, but he’ll be back. He’s so good at disappearing and then suddenly popping up, you know that. I think he’s in Spain, I’m not sure why.

You prop your bare feet on the dashboard, your knees cradling your belly, and think of the times in your life when you’ve been most free, invariably alone, when you’ve been vivid and alive and aware. Can you ever have that life again? Martha butts the steering wheel with her hand and says of course, just take the baby with you; women are always doing that.

Look at your mother, she says, traipsing around the world with her little bundle strapped to her front.

Yes, I suppose.

But you’re not your mother. You feel an anchoring now. You can’t explain it to her, a woman who’s resolutely childless, who declares that she can’t get her own life in order let alone anyone else’s. In a couple of months you’ll never again control your life with the tightness you’ve been used to, you’ll have to surrender to the will of someone else. A child will drag you into life, you’ll have to participate as a parent.

The sky is shutting down, the colour is almost gone. You tell Martha you haven’t had the energy or the confidence to make proper inroads with your book and you fear you’ll never, now, for you’ve left it too late.

You’ll find a way, Martha laughs, if you want it enough. Write as if you’re dying, I’ve heard that’s a great way to motivate yourself.

You look out the car window. The sunset peeps through the black like a rip in a curtain. Cole still hasn’t called. You’ve rung his parents, told their answering machine it’s urgent, three times. You’ve asked them to pass on that you love him. No one rang back. You didn’t think they would. You’re old enough now, and have been through enough, not to expect anything you wish for to happen. Unless you make it.

in rainy weather we may be able to take only indoor exercise

You’re cow-slow, now, huge and waddling. Your breasts have swelled from a D to a G cup and there’s no bra that’s sexy or even black in that size. You’re becoming less you, more generic pregnant woman. It’s sharp, suddenly, the loss of esteem. Will you be diminished as a mother? Made invisible?

But amid all the uncertainty there’s a knuckling of creativity. You go back to the Library. Sit at your laptop, jot notes. The baby doesn’t like you working, it squirms and kicks when you sit as if it’s saying hey, swing your focus back to
me.
But you can’t, not just yet. You muse over the question of anonymity: it has such a bad name, it’s the way of kidnappers, murderers, blackmailers and
women who want to reveal something of their secret lives; lay themselves bare. Your decision not to put your name to the book gives you an exhilarating, audacious freedom: you could never write what you wanted to with your name attached, the personal consequences would be too great. You’re so accomplished at suppressing the truth in your everyday life; of how you really feel, of what you really want. Your Elizabethan author, you’re sure, felt a similar kind of constraint. Otherwise she would have put her name to her book.

He calls.

He’s on the answering machine, you can’t bear to pick it up, fearful of what he might say, needing to collect your thoughts.

He’ll be home in a week.

No love in his voice, businesslike, abrupt.

The night sours around you.

So, no apology, no explanation, no hope that you, and his child, are all right.

You have one week, just that. One week to refresh yourself, so you can slip back into the wifely life, because isn’t that what he expects? As do you. One week to spoil yourself, to act completely selfishly, wilfully, indulgently: it’s the last chance you’ll have for a very long time. How many times in your past have lovers, who’d never returned your calls, suddenly phoned up out of the blue and pulled you
back for a quick fuck. And you’d always, always said yes. You want to live like those men, just once.

I have no sooner spoken of power and authority than methinks I hear some man begin to interrupt me, and goe about to stop my mouth with that punishment laid upon woman: Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

how to treat ailments as they arise

The next night, a Saturday. Desultory in front of a documentary about Edward and Mrs Simpson. A chocolate bar is unfinished beside you; it’s brittle, not soft enough. Your mood, country-dark. You flick the television off.

The piracy of Cole’s indifference.

You pick up your book; you’re reading Martha Gellhorn—
I was only ever lonely when I was married
—and you snap it shut and head for the phone and your fingers trip over the numbers still too much in your head, and almost immediately he answers. As you hear his familiar hello again you feel as if your insides are being pulled to the floor.

It’s me, you say.

Hey, he says, how are you, and the lightness in his voice
tells you all you need to know. His tone is unscarred. He’s cured, he’s moved on; your heart sinks.

I need to see you, you say, wanting to pull him down too.

He laughs. I’d love to, but I’m flying to Spain early tomorrow.

Oh.

The screenplay’s really come together. I’m going to a fight on Monday night, for a last bit of research.

Good, good: barely knowing what you’re saying, just wanting him with you, on the phone, not wanting him gone, not wanting this night alone.

So where is it, the fight?

Chiclana, this little place near Seville. It’s where my father began.

Oh. Great.

Another time, perhaps?

Yes. Of course.

Your voice retreats.

So, he feels, now, that he doesn’t have to try.

And you want him more than you ever have before.

how do people hasten death?

An hour or so from Seville.

The last week of the pregnancy that you’re allowed to fly.

You’re not sure why you’re here but it feels magnificent to be doing something so foolish and impetuous and reckless and rash, to stop all the censoring of yourself. You know it’s wrong to trap him again but the thought’s not enough to hold you back.

What valley of need is within you? To want to do this right now, with your husband almost returned and a baby, soon, in your life.

You know the answer, but you’re not sure if you can follow it through: you’re allowing yourself one blast of pure selfishness, before you surrender yourself to the needs of everyone else.

The bullring’s ridiculously small, dusty, temporary, in the middle of a funfair’s glary din. It’s not like anything you expected. There’s the boom and jangle of a sideshow alley on one side and a roller coaster hurtling its cargo of screaming faces on the other. Your thumbnail worries a line down your ticket. It’s hot, the air’s baked dry. It’s seven thirty in the evening but the sun still has bite in it. The baby squirms; you hope it’s all right. Within the ring there’s an atmosphere with the grubbiness and sleaziness of a cockfight. Around you, on the rough wooden benches, are clusters of middle-aged men out with their mates for a night. You peer at them, looking for Gabriel in every unlikely shape. You’re flushed, heavily pregnant, an obvious foreigner, you’re not sure what comes next. You shouldn’t be here.

Wanting him, just that. It’s worth everything, to have such desire singing through your blood.

A tinpot band on the benches beside you strikes up a fanfare. You sit forward like a child, so curious about all this; Gabriel’s told you so much. A bull trots into the arena, reluctantly. You’d always imagined the tournament beast as massive, black and glistening, hurtling its forehead at its enemy like a locomotive, but this one’s small, brown, rangy, lost. You glance around the tiered seats.

In the ring, four young men dart about, goading and taunting and running for their lives behind four wooden screens. No one seems to be in control, not the men, not the bull, it’s farcical, a pantomime, you weren’t expecting that.

Your eyes settle on a shape that could only be him, that sharp angle of the shoulders. He’s on the other side of the ring. Late, with a knot of men that look like family. Your heart pounds, the blood swishes in your head, you can feel its pump.

One last lesson, one last hit, that’s all you want, before Cole comes back.

An older man enters the arena. He holds two long sticks festooned with coloured paper ribbons, they’re comically festive. He holds the sticks high in both hands and, on tiptoe, jabs them swiftly into the bull’s shoulders, as if he’s a conductor finishing an aria with a flourish. The animal’s enraged. Its blood is thick, red, it glistens in the heat like spilled paint, it shines against his sweat. Gabriel roars with the rest of them. You’re hot. You imagine him sweating, you want to run your tongue on him. There are little lightning flashes in your belly, it’s like a sky playing host to a faraway storm. The atmosphere’s no longer farcical. The baby tumbles a slow loop within you, as gentle as a whale. You place your hand on your belly, stilling it: Gabriel doesn’t know about this yet. Foam plumes at the bull’s mouth, it’s tiring, you can hear its panting, see its blood, its bewilderment. The matador enters. He’s small, ridiculously so. Dressed in austere grey, like a theatrical undertaker. His penis has been taped to his thigh, the trousers so tight so there’s no loose clothing for a horn to snag, Gabriel told you that once and you’d fluttered, inside, as he spoke.

You want to stand and make your way to him, to break into his tight little group, but there are too many knees to climb over. You keep looking across to him as he drinks the fight up. You’ve seen his intentness before: in his London flat, as you pushed up your shirtsleeve for his mouth, as you unbuckled his belt.

The matador lures the animal, forcing it to turn closer to him, to almost brush him. They’re communing with each other, he speaks to the bull and you lean forward to catch it, God knows why, you won’t understand. The band on the benches beside you strikes up an intermittent commentary like a lazy pianist at a silent film. The bull wheels, slower, and you can see starkly now its age. Gabriel told you the animals are never more than four years old but this one looks older, tireder than that; maybe they’ve cheated a little for this country event. The bull can sense defeat, it’s worn out. The matador hides a small pointed sword behind his back and swirls, beautifully, and the animal stands and charges again and Gabriel roars with the rest. It seems so one-sided; you feel sick. You rub your belly and think of the life brewing inside you and imagine it panicky, defenceless, the odds stacked against it. You’re not enjoying this. Gabriel had conveyed to you another world entirely when he spoke of the corridas: a world of discipline and daring and beauty, but what’s here before you just seems desperately sad and you’re stunned by that. It’s cowardly. Tedious. There’s so much stillness, watching, waiting, sizing up, panting.

The matador sights down the sword and plunges it into the bull’s broad neck and then he arches his body, as bold as a calligrapher’s brushstroke. The bull’s enraged, it struggles, its big heart is bursting. It crumples to its knees. Flops to its side. Raises its head with the agony.

You’ve seen enough.

The animal’s flank still heaves, its eyes roll, it has a look of utter astonishment: who are these barbarians? A dagger’s plunged behind the crown, severing the spinal cord and finally, finally the straining head drops. The kill has been difficult, there’s been such a big, fighting spirit to stop.

You look across to Gabriel. You stand, tall, you crane behind the nuggety men, you will not sit. He does not see you at first, he does not see you, he’s talking and laughing and his arm is loose round another man’s shoulder, an uncle or cousin perhaps, he does not see you. And then he does.

His talking stops.

He blushes, deeply.

A quiet, gentle nod of acknowledgement. Unbearable in its intimacy, as if you and he are the only people there. It tells you all you need to know: you won’t have to work hard, he’ll say yes.

He’s holding the moment too long, the people he’s with are looking at him and trying to see what he’s focusing on.

Slowly, slowly, you sit.

Trembling. Wet.