Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  And then I thought of my shirt, crisply ironed. If all was not forgive and forget, would she have ironed my shirt? If there was hate she would have found some means to express it through the shirt: she would have ironed a rubber snake into the top pocket or removed a paunch-revealing button. But it was clean and smelt good and fitted me like a glove, or, indeed, a shirt. She would be there to greet me. We would fall into each other's arms, swop apologies and declare undying love. We would make love and neither of us would think of our dead, fleeting partners, or if we did, it wouldn't show. They would be consigned to memory with all the other horrors of the previous days. We would begin to live again.

  I did not think of politics or the state. Of Brinn and the lionization that was already roaring into place. I did not think of the book I was to write that would make the propagators of his false martyrdom an endangered species. I did not think of the senseless deaths and the needless cruelties. I thought of Patricia. I thought of Margaret saying, 'The best part of breaking up is when you're having your nose broken.' Of telling her, no matter what, that I loved my wife. I'd always been honest about that. I thought of Margaret again in her cold grave in a field of death, a gentle slope on the outskirts of Belfast, and of the day I would go to see her, to say farewell, to say sorry - sorry for something. But only when things were right with Patricia. She came first. She had always come first, even if I hadn't always known it.

  The Belle brought the taxi to a halt. She was a couple of doors short but I didn't have the gumption to tell her.

  'It's taken care of, by the hospital, I take it?' I asked.

  She looked back. There was at least an inch of ash on her cigarette; as she spoke the fag shot up and down in her mouth, but the ash stayed in place, as if it was scared of falling off. 'Aye,' she said, 'the fare is.'

  I nodded and opened the door. I got out, then leant back in. 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'I've no money on me at all.'

  Her yellowy eyes bore into me, miniature, distant suns that were too close for comfort. I wrenched myself free of their hold and slammed the door. I heard her words clearly through the window: 'Big fuckin' head, tight fuckin' arse.'

  She was gone in a flash, her taxi belching one last insult back at me.

  I had no key. I stood and looked at the door. I thought briefly about how to knock it - three quick, urgent thumps to summon her quickly; or a tune - turn, tumtumtum, turn turn, turn - to let her know it was me, back from the wars, all in one piece? As I stood there, the door opened, and she looked out. 'I heard the taxi,' she said. They told me you were coming.'

  I nodded and tried to read her eyes. I had forgotten how to read them. Emotionally dyslexic. She wore jeans, blue, faded, housework jeans. A black jersey with a white T-shirt underneath. Her face was pink: a mixture of make-up and embarrassment, an odd concoction that reminded me of an animated marshmallow. Patricia all over: sweet, soft, full of calories and bad for your health but absolutely loveable. 'Are you going to come in?'

  I nodded again and she stood aside. I crossed the threshold. The house was cool. A nice breeze blew through the kitchen window, into the hall and round the house. It smelt of polish.

  I went into the living room. Tidy. Records neatly stacked. Elvis Costello was singing 'Good Year for the Roses'.

  'Is that for me?' I asked.

  ‘I couldn't find "Eve of Destruction",' she said. No smile. I nodded again. I sat on the settee. She sat beside me. We leant back.

  'Anything much on the TV later?' I asked.

  'No,' she said.