Written on the Body (19 page)

I barged my way through a herd of cattle, hooves braceleted with mud. My own feet were clod-fettered. I hadn’t anticipated the run-off, the slow slopes of the hill served as a drain bath for engorged springs. The rain on the dry land from a dry summer hadn’t penetrated through the soil to the aquifers, only as far as the springs that fed them. They burst out in froth torrents to end in paddy pools where the cattle waded for long grass. I was lucky that the moon reflected in these waters, picking a path for me, mud-laden but not sodden. My town shoes and flimsy socks put up no resistance. My long coat was soon spattered. The cows reserved for me the incredulous looks that animals give humans in the country. We seem so silly, not a part of nature at all. The interlopers upsetting the rigid economy of hunter and hunted. Animals know what’s what until they meet us. Well, tonight the cows have the last laugh. Their peaceful ruminations, their easy bodies, black against the slope of the hill, mock the flapping figure with a heavy bag who stumbles against them. Woa there! Bring that rump back. As a vegetarian I can’t even contemplate revenge. Could you kill a cow? It’s a game I play with myself sometimes. What could I kill? I get as far as a duck and then I see one on the pond,
daft quacking, bum up diving, webbers yellow slashing the brown water. Scoop it out and wring its neck? I’ve brought them down with a gun and that’s easier because it’s remote. I won’t eat what I can’t kill. It seems shoddy, hypocritical. You cows have nothing to fear from me. As a body, the cows raise their heads. Like men in johns, cows and sheep do things in unison. I’ve always found it disturbing. What have gazing, grazing and micturating got in common?

I went to pee behind a bush. Why in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, one still seeks out a bush is another of life’s mysteries.

At the top of the hill, on dry ground, a whistling wind and a view. The lights of the village were like war-time coordinates, a secret council of houses and tracks muffled by darkness. I sat down to finish an egg and cress sandwich. A rabbit ran by and gave me that look of incredulity before flashing its scut down a hole.

Lights in ribbons where the road runs. Hard flares far away at the industrial estate. In the sky the red and green landing lights of an aircraft full of sleepy people. Straight below the softer village lights, and in the distance a single light hung above the others like a guiding lantern in a window. A land lighthouse making certain the route. I wished that it was my house. That having climbed to the top I could see where I was going. My way lay through gloomy thicket and a sharp plunge before the long lane home.

I miss you Louise. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the
road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call.

Why didn’t I hear you when you told me you wouldn’t go back to Elgin? Why didn’t I see your serious face? I did think I was doing the right thing and I thought it was for the right reasons. Time has exposed to me a certain stickiness at the centre. What were my heroics and sacrifices really about? Your pig-headedness or my own?

A friend of mine said before I left London, ‘At least your relationship with Louise didn’t fail. It was the perfect romance.’

Was it? Is that what perfection costs? Operatic heroics and a tragic end? What about a wasteful end? Most opera ends wastefully. The happy endings are compromises. Is that the choice?

Louise, stars in your eyes, my own constellation. I was following you faithfully but I looked down. You took me out beyond the house, over the roofs, way past commonsense and good behaviour. No compromise. I should have trusted you but I lost my nerve.

I scrambled up and judged or guessed my way through the scrubland down to the lane. It was slow going, an hour and a half before I threw my bag over the final ditch and leapt across. Now the moon was high and casting long shadows on the rough road. Silence but for the sudden fox-dart in the trees. Silence but for the early owl. Silence but for my feet scuffing the gravel.

About half a mile away from my cottage I saw it was lit up. Gail Right knew I was coming back, I had telephoned her at the bar. She’d been looking after the cat and had promised to lay me a fire and leave some food. I wanted the food and fire but not Gail Right. She would be too big, too present, and I felt I was becoming less present every day. I was tired from walking. My body had a satisfying numbness to it. I wanted my bed, oblivion for a while. I resolved to be firm with Gail.

The moon made the ground look frosty. The ground was silver under my shoes. Where the river ran in a thick line through the trees a low mist hung over the water. The rush of the water was bass and hard, solid deep. I bent and swilled my face, let the cold drops run down my scarf to my thorax. I shook myself and cleaved lungs with air, a hammer of cold that hit from pit to throat. Very cold now and above me a hang of metal stars.

I went into the cottage, the door was unlocked, and there was Gail Right half asleep in the chair. The fire burned like a spell and there were fresh flowers on the table. Fresh flowers and a table-cloth. New curtains in the ragged window. My heart sank. Gail must be moving in.

She woke up and checked her face in the mirror, then she gave me a little kiss and unwound my scarf.

‘You’re wet through.’

‘I stopped at the river.’

‘Not thinking of ending it all I hope?’

I shook my head and took off my coat that seemed too big for me.

‘Sit down honey. I’ve got the tea.’

I sat down in the saggy armchair. Is this the proper ending? If not the proper then the inevitable?

Gail returned with a pot steaming like a genie. It was a new pot, not the cracked old thing that had festered on the shelf. New pots for old.

‘I couldn’t find her Gail.’

She patted me. ‘Where did you look?’

‘All the places there were to look. She’s gone.’

‘People don’t vanish.’

‘Of course they do. She came out of the air and now she’s returned to it. Wherever she is I can’t go there.’

‘And if you could?’

‘I would. If I believed in the after-life I’d throw myself in the trout-marked river tonight.’

‘Don’t do that,’ said Gail. ‘I can’t swim.’

‘Do you think she’s dead?’

‘Do you?’

‘I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t even get near finding her. It’s as if Louise never existed, like a character in a book. Did I invent her?’

‘No, but you tried to,’ said Gail. ‘She wasn’t yours for the making.’

‘Don’t you think it’s strange that life, described as so rich and full, a camel-trail of adventure, should shrink to this coin-sized world? A head on one side, a story on the other. Someone you loved and what happened. That’s all there is when you dig in your pockets. The most significant thing is someone else’s face. What else is embossed on your hands but her?’

‘You still love her then?’

‘With all my heart.’

‘What will you do?’

‘What can I do? Louise once said, “It’s the clichés that cause the trouble.” What do you want me to say? That I’ll get over it? That’s right, isn’t it? Time is a great deadener.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gail.

‘So am I. I’d like to be able to tell her the truth.’

From the kitchen door Louise’s face. Paler, thinner, but her hair still mane-wide and the colour of blood. I put out my hand and felt her fingers, she took my fingers and put them to her mouth. The scar under the lip burned me. Am I stark mad? She’s warm.

This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it’s getting late. I don’t know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Jeanette Winterson lives in London and the Cotswolds.

Books by Jeanette Winterson

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

The Passion

Sexing the Cherry

Written on the Body

Art & Lies

Art Objects
(essays)

Gut Symmetries

The World and Other Places

The PowerBook

Lighthousekeeping

Tanglewreck

The Stone Gods

The Battle of the Sun