At three in the morning, the time when human beings are apparently at their lowest, I float in a pleasantly drunken haze. The bathroom glows with the half-light of the flickering television screen as I squint at my reflection, trying to place the toothbrush between my lips. Sara will wake up if I switch the light on. And the lighting suits my mood.
I lean against the door frame and peer into the depths of the room beyond where I can almost persuade myself that Sara’s eyelids are twitching in agitation at my irregular nighttime hijinks. The clock radio on the bedside table has been turned to face the wall. Its tell-tale red glow against the beige paint reminds me that in three hours I will be fumbling at it, sorry and tired, to shut off the buzzing alarm.
My spit washes into the basin. As always, I jump when my gaze falls on the spidery design on Sara’s hand-embroidered towels. I fear the day I become accustomed to it and miss the real spider lurking in the cotton pile. I’ve never recovered from reading that we all apparently swallow spiders whilst sleeping. I am the household vigilante. I refuse to concede territory: if the bathroom slides, the bedroom will surely follow.
I lift a towel from the rack, shaking it out before bringing it to my face. The hint of rose tickling my nostrils tells me that it’s Sara’s towel. The distinction isn’t important to me, thought I know that when she detects that 3am dampness and hint of Bob, she will threaten to replace my towel with the dog’s.
In the bedroom, I remove said creature from the bed and onto said manchester, where it curls up with a resigned wheeze. I sit in the patch of residual warmth and contemplate the darkness. Before long, I’m sliding open Sara’s drawer and pilfering a tablet from her stash. I wash it down with the bottle of water she has placed carefully beside neatly-folded running gear. I lie back with the water sliding around uncomfortably, threatening to bubble back up my aesophagus. I wait, but the compulsion to close my eyes is offset by the niggle of the half-empty water bottle silently regarding me in the gloom.
The kitchen light explodes, fragments of glass clattering against the metal stove top. I swear.
“Bob?”
I hear a groan from the bedroom, followed by the angry rustle of bed linen.
“Don’t get up,” I call, “Just a light bulb, I’ll clean it up.”
“Well, you’ll have to vacuum. I don’t want to be treading in glass when I get up.”
“Sez, I can’t vacuum. What about next door?”
She emerges in a tousled passion and takes the dustpan from my hand.
“Well, just go and get the torch so I can make sure I get it all.”
When I return, she is wrapping the bulb’s brittle remains in yesterday’s paper.
“I haven’t finished the crossword in that,” I blurt.
She raises her eyebrows. I grin sheepishly, hoping to draw her into my silly-old-Bob routine, but she continues to regard me with her unique blend of scorn and disbelief. Her gaze lands on her water bottle – still empty – by the sink. Wordlessly, she stalks over to refill it.
“I filled it at work because our water tastes like shit. You know I hate it, I can’t fucking drink it, Bob. So thanks.”
She raises the bottle in a mock salute then gestures to the torch in my hand.
“Don’t miss anything, I’m going back to bed.”
6am is a miserable time, too. In retrospect. Everything is clearer in retrospect. Scientists like to explain their work’s deficiencies in retrospect because predicting fuckups isn’t exciting, even if that’s your job. In retrospect, 6 o’clock should have seen me getting out of bed to study. But being such a miserable time, my body wanted nothing to do with it apart from to slip back into the cocoon of unconsciousness. Awake three hours later, I reason that I did the sensible thing. Well rested, I can think clearly for my exam. I watch as Sara shimmies into a black skirt and pads around in stockinged feet putting on makeup. She makes pained faces into the mirror as she arranges her red curls.
“You’re gorgeous.”
She affords me a smile. I slither to the end of the bed and reach out to gather her to me, ignoring the rumblings of impatience. I know she is worrying about possible creasing and crumpling.
“What time is your exam?”
“Two.”
“I will never understand how you can be so calm when you’re about to fail something. I bet you didn’t do anything when I was at my mother’s yesterday.”
I grin, kissing the tip of her very straight nose. “Well, I promise I’ll be very good today.”
She rolls her eyes but the corner of her mouth betrays her. I like her in the morning.
“Christ, Bob, your breath!”
2pm. My version of stressing out is staring at the ceiling. Oprah is very concerned at the plight of drug-addicted housewives. I nod vaguely, sipping at my orange juice.
7am.
“Bob?”
I go to find her in the laundry.
“It drives me crazy, Bob! Why can’t you even tell me what you’re bloody doing carrying them around in your pockets all the time? I’ve fucking had it.”
She gestures for me to look inside the washing machine. Huddled in a pitiful group at the bottom are half a dozen peanuts.
“Sorry,” I mumble, gathering the bedraggled refugees into my hand.
“You’re allergic to them, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
That disgusted look again.
“What are we doing here?”
“In the laundry?”
“Well, living together isn’t working, is it.”
“Where the hell did this come from?”
“Oh, come on! It’s like I’m your mother now. I’m this nagging, picky bitch, trying to get you to do… fucking anything, say something, talk to me. I’m going slowly crazy. But of course you wouldn’t have noticed. Why should you? I doubt I ever make an appearance in that fabulous private world of Bob.”
“That’s ridiculous, I talk to you. Yes, sometimes I avoid you when you’re in a mood, but I still like being here with you. I want to be here.”
She looks away.
“We are a bit like an old married couple, but I thought you didn’t particularly mind that.”
“You think I like telling you what to do?”
“You don’t have to, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Don’t joke, Bob.”
“Who’s joking?”
“I’m sorry Bob but it’s like…I can’t even look at you without feeling irritated. Actually, that’s being too nice. I can hardly tolerate being round you. I just think we… we should agree on trying it apart for awhile.”
9am. Left to my own devices, I dawdle over a cup of tea and the morning paper – some of the finer things life has to offer. At the last possible minute, I throw on my uniform and head for the door. I hesitate as I flick the latch over. Giving in, I head to the pantry and select my lucky charm for the day. I briefly look down at it. The peanut adopts an accusatory posture.
I arrive at work and Hubert is out the back smoking before the rush of lunch hour. I hurry to set up the deli and wipe over the four small plastic tables; before long he will be back inside and glaring at me from the heat of the stainless steel of the kitchen. He has been in the business so long he can sense customers coming before I have a chance to see them. His Prussian efficiency won’t tolerate any delay in serving them. I thought I’d almost killed him once when I flooded the kitchen. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.
My trainee appears at a quarter past, a red-lipsticked, larger than life character who gets along with Hubert like a house on fire. She talks and he glares in silence. For a time now, I’ve had the uncomfortable feeling that she is being groomed to take my place, or rather, that I’m digging my own grave every time I show her how to make a latté free of coffee grounds. Since I began this job two months ago, I’ve been the lone waiter. All of a sudden I have a boisterous shadow I’m supposed to be showing the ropes.
I leave her in charge of serving one of the anal regulars (who always insists her cappuccino is too frothy) and head to the cool room. I shut the heavy door behind me, almost expecting to hear the hiss of all the air being sucked out. Seated on an upturned mixing bucket, I reach into my pocket, sighing with relief as I fingers brush against my good luck charm.
The day feels as thought it is shaping up to be a very bad one, though I refuse to believe Sara won’t be back at home at the end of it. I am so used to being prodded and hounded into living my life I’m not sure I won’t just lie staring at the ceiling until debt collectors break my door down or my sister wants to borrow my barbecue again. I can imagine telling my sister about Sara and me, all the sympathy my story will elicit. But, strangely, I’m not at all sad. Everything in my life feels so impermanent that any absence doesn’t strike very deep. Even the thought of being fired doesn’t cause me any alarm, only the slight resentment of having been used.
I check my watch. A five minute absence is pushing the boundaries of plausibility. I pile six meticulously packed quiches onto a tray and stride purposefully back out into the heat.
6pm. Sara has left a message on my phone. My pulse flutters in my throat as I brace myself for more recriminations. She writes that she is sorry for overreacting and she might come home later so we can talk.
10pm. As threatened, she does talk. More horribly, she expects me to talk. Not my usual brand of empty talk either.
“I just don’t understand how you’re a med student, Bob. I mean, you must have applied yourself at some point or you wouldn’t be here, but the guy I see now is just this lump. You don’t understand how frustrating it is for me when I’ve been out working all day and I get home and you’re just on another planet. I feel like you hardly notice I’m here.”
Expectant pause.
“You want to be a doctor, right? Get a job, a house? I certainly don’t plan on living in this flat forever. I don’t plan on being the working half of a couple, either. I need a partner with the same goals as me, Bob, and I thought that was you. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Aren’t you taking things a bit seriously here, Sez? We’re young. Why can’t we ease up on the ambition thing? I’ve still got to sort myself out, figure out what I want to do.”
“What makes you think that you won’t stay this way forever? You have to push yourself. I don’t like work, I’m sure no-one likes work, but mature people just get on with it.”
9.30am. My shirt clings to my wet torso as I hurry down King Street, brushing my hair into place as I go. I left showering as long as possible, not wanting to wash Sara from my skin. As I swing through the doorway, Hubert looks up from the cash register. His eyes are flat – he has had to serve a customer.
5pm. Hubert calls me out the back.
“I can’t keep you,” he grates in his thick accent, “I said I’d give you a trial and now I have decided.”
“My trial was over a month ago.”
“No, I never said how long the trial is.”
“I’m improving, though. You don’t think I’m trying?”
“Okay, perhaps you are trying and you just need experience, but I can’t afford to keep you now. To me, it is like you walk around with your eyes closed.”
3am. I lie like the great white starfish on top of the bedcovers, watching the blur of the ceiling fan, blinking as the rush of dry air assaults my eyeballs. I can’t sleep, and the handy little stash of pills has been removed. The room seems immense, the darkness more complete then usual. I roll around on the bed, stretching luxuriously and punching the pillows into pleasing shapes. Finally, I reach down to the crumpled, grease-stained trousers and retrieve my peanut. Its slick, salt-speckled surface resists the pincer hold of my fingers and it falls onto the carpet.
Squinting in the light of the lamp, I fumble around for it. It is sitting next to my shoe. I notice that it is broken; a little piece of it is stuck under my thumbnail. I lie back.
Constriction, dilation, pressure, nausea…blackness. I look at the fragment. All that is between me being here and not.
AnnieC, about 1 year ago
Pinkelephant, I really enjoyed this story. I like how you broke it up with different timelines and I thought the relationship and its tensions was beautifully depicted. Can’t believe it got a knock-back. I think it could be a much longer piece – a novella or a longer story perhaps. I was really curious to know more about the characters – why Bob is in the state he’s in, why Sarah has the pills in her bedside table etc. Great work!
pinkelephant, about 1 year ago
Thanks so much, Annie – as with all my ideas, this one started out grand and wound up short. Someday I might get around to finishing what I started : )
Ian Temby, about 1 year ago
Hi Pinkelephant
I found this really gripping – and I wanted to give Bob a kick up the backside. You created terrific tension around Bob. I agree with Annie Condon – this should be published. I look forward to reading your other pieces.
Damian, about 1 year ago
Hi P.E., that’s an interesting story. I actually got a surprise when Bob was a med student, rather than eternal slacker. My perception changed and I felt bad for him after that as everything kept spiraling down. Great ending.