Come Not When I Am Dead

by R. A. England

  I dreamt that I had a dead quail for the hawks, I plucked it and skinned it, I cut it’s wings off with my dress making scissors, and then for some reason, I opened up it’s chest cavity with a scalpel, I was sitting, all this time, cramped, in a cage. I looked through it’s insides, through blood and organs, when suddenly I found a precious ring that I’d lost three years ago in the tortoises pen. I carried on rummaging around in dark purple blood and guts and found some other really precious oddities. My great great grandma’s red cross badge and other thing that had been missing for years. I put them all on my finger for safe keeping and then I sewed the quail back together again. When I had done the last stitch and put it down, suddenly it was alive, it had feathers and wings and skin, it stood up and walked off, looking perfectly healthy and fat. Then in the dream I was looking through photos of me looking after the sheep, me shearing, carding and trimming, lambing, feeding, all those things I used to do and in all of the photos Coningsby was there. She was sitting on top of a fence, or slipping in at the bottom of sheep hurdles, or sitting on the roof of my truck, and what I saw was that she is always there, even when I thought she was in the house or somewhere else. I woke up and sat up and there was Coningsby stretched out on my bed, between my feet, a slim shaft of sunlight straying across her body. “You are the only thing that is real” I say to her.

  We have most definitely settled back in to our forms Charlie and I, like two tawny coloured leverets hiding from the harsh sunshine, hiding from the feet of people walking by. Waiting for quiet and emptiness and then we will pop our heads up and leap into the long dry grass, chase each other around, seed heads dusting about our faces and then settle down curled up together and sleep. Secret and silent and unseen. It does seems to be like it was before, but of course it’s not because there are so many barriers up, so many things we can’t talk about, my unfaithfulness, his divorce, his wife, his children, the progression of our relationship. But if I studiously avoid all those things and only talk about other things, then I can pretend that it’s all lovely, and 60% of it would be. I know that we have an expiry date, but I don’t think that Charlie knows it. We are in the desert, all ways are open to us, but he is struggling through open sand and wide horizons where everything looks the same. He is crippled by sun and thirst and weariness. But I have sat down and I am saving my energy and waiting for someone to save me.

  Today is bitty. I’m sitting in the kitchen listening to ‘Gang Warfare’ by ‘The Strike’ “Turn that fucking crap off” says Jo and turning it off herself.

  “Put it back ON. And don’t throw food away, I’ve found loads of stuff in the bin, give it to the chickens”

  “you shouldn’t go rummaging around in the bin like a fucking tramp” she says “what do you reckon? Gold or Amazon?”

  “silver”

  “Oh, OK” she says she’s made £320 this morning so far and she’s buying us a curry tonight. Mind you, yesterday she lost £783.

  At 11am I had a sitting for a little girl, little girls can be awkward because they feel they need to pose all the time, and what I want is something natural. Little boys feel they can pose none of the time and sometimes it takes ages getting them to put their hands down and straighten their faces out, but still, they’re easier than the girls. Adults, especially women ask me to get rid of their double chins, smooth their skin and make them better looking and that sort of thing fills me with despair. The sitting today was made by email for a little girl who is 7 years old. I like people to be punctual. I hate people being late, every minute I have to wait for them seems like half an hour, it puts me in a very bad frame of mind. So I wasn’t very pleased when at 5 past the hour a very shiny, show-off range rover came up the drive. I watched it slink up in all it’s flashy glory, I was the spectre at the window, waiting with furrowed brow and tapping foot. After about 2 minutes the door opened and a man got out, pinky looking shirt, denim coloured trousers, but not jeans, from where I was standing he looked immaculate and pressed and expensive, and repulsive. His hair was blonde and there was a lot of it on top of his head, a bit bouffy, and he had on soft tan, expensive looking shoes. He looked like he loved himself. I watched him run his finger around the inside of his collar, shook his legs in his trousers as if he was putting on a bit of weight and his trousers weren’t quite as comfortable as they were last week. He put his hand through his hair and he looked up at the house as if he was thinking about buying it. He looked out towards the sea and over towards the garden, he was speculating. “Yuk” I said and made a sick noise in the empty room as if I were vomiting. Then he sidled around and opened up the right hand side back passenger door and out came a little girl, all frills and slides and red and white polka dots “blimey” I said and instantly felt sorry for her. There’s no hope for a girl like that. She’ll never be real. Then in this ridiculous social ballet, it was my turn, I looked in the mirror and took off my glasses. My hair is looking lovely, my eye liner is nicely slicked with no smudges, my dress is pretty and elegant, and I smiled at myself, a sophisticated smile (I think), then swung down the stairs, confident and scary and waited by the front door for a split second before it knocked.

  When I opened the door, bouffy pink shirt looked pleasantly surprised. He beamed at me and held out a hairy hand “Giles”

  “Gussie” I said and offered my hand for him to kiss. It disturbs people that does, they don’t know what to do and people who are strong-charactered and intelligent will ignore it and people who are stupid will kiss it, and instantly put themselves at a disadvantage. I only offer my hand like that to people I don’t like the look of. He kissed my hand of course, I knew he would and I wiped his kiss off on the back of my dress. “well, hello Gussie, and you’re the artist?”

  “yes”

  “how lovely, how lovely” he smarmed and a thousand slugs slimed all over me.

  “And what’s your name?” I asked the little girl

  “this is Clara” Giles said as the child stared at my shoes and not at my face. Giles stared at me all over, he has the sophistication of a 12 year old boy, I thought. He would kiss me like Adders poisoning me if I let him “would you like a drink? Or would you like to go straight to the studio?” Unfortunately for Giles he’d arranged a meeting nearby and had to do and dash. We headed for the studio where I photographed Clara, with the father watching me and looking through my things. ‘He’d be a pushover’ I thought ‘if I wanted to seduce him’, why do people leave themselves so open? Some people are so revoltingly transparent, they’re asking, crying out to be manipulated. But I don’t do manipulation. But I like to understand. After the photo session Giles held my hand for far too long in his, it was brie flopping, plopping out of shape on a too hot day, it was disgusting. “I should like you to paint me Gussie, I should like you to come to the house and put me in whatever position you choose” he thinks he is being charming “Are you married Gussie?” he asks me, and I know that it is just so he can tell me

  “I’m divorced.” He is a first class slag.

  “S.L.A.G.” I said to Jo when they were leaving

  “who?”

  “him, going to his car now, there” and I gesticulated with my left hand whilst I scrubbed at the memory of his touch on my right hand with a tea towel “bloody great arse of a man, look.”

  “Oh my God, that’s him, the man the vet’s wife was with in the pub, that’s the one she’s going off with.” I could have thought many things, but what I first thought was what sort of man has a wife that would leave him for that sort of man?

  I’ve just eaten some sausages. Every bite I took of them made me think about sex. I’ll buy those sausages again. I went upstairs to the quiet of my bedroom, I closed my door and ran across my carpet and dived on to my bed, lay on my back and phoned Edward “what are you doing tomorrow?”

  “nothing if it means I can see you”

  “would you like to come down and stay for a few days?”

  “I would love nothing better.” I told you I was
bad.

  Chapter 13

  Edward is here. I waited at the window for the second time in two days and saw him arrive in a flurry of goose down and white fluffy clouds in a very pretty car, all pale blue and cream. It is a work of art, not a car, an Austin Healey 3000 he tells me, I shall remember that, because, one day, when I make absolutely heaps of money I would like an Austin Healey 3000 and a big black and chrome chopper trike. “You have to have a big fat belly if you ride one of those” Charlie once said to me

  “I shall be the exception” I said to him and I will have one of those with my legs stretched out far in front of me and the grumble of the engine rumbling through my crotch, rising up my throat to my mouth, oh God, how exciting. I’m sitting in the warmth of my sitting room writing this now with man sounds around me in this little house. Edward is very attentive and careful of me. And for such an incredible looking man, it is funny to see him behaving as if he can’t believe his luck. He arrived with flowers and chocolates and a really good bird identification book for me. I like that, I like it that it was a thoughtful present. He bought chocolates for Jo too. He is a flourish on a page. He knows how to do things well. He is gracious. He could make a lame dog chase rabbits. He makes time fast but so that you still appreciate it. He is slowed pictures from train windows, and an open mouth, lost for words. Grandma would have adored him. He filled me with a big rushing, gushing excitement, all dark and lovely and crisp. He filled the house with smiles and fragrant loveliness. I look at him and imagine myself gliding all over him in my nakedness, like a sprite, floating and drifting all over him. Jo looked as if she couldn’t believe the gloriousness of the man and I think, somehow mistrusted it. She followed me in to the kitchen “make sure you use protection”

  “shut up.”

  “No Gussie, you make sure you do, it’s serious”

  “Fuck off Jo. Now, go and ask him if he’d like anything to eat with his tea. Go” I kept my back to her so she didn’t see my face

  “Gussie. Protection.”

  “Fuck off.” I don’t like to have to answer to anyone, I don’t like advice unless I ask for it, I didn’t like her insisting on having the last word. But I laughed under my breath and got two laxatives from my handbag, I crushed them up under a teaspoon and put them into a raspberry that I put on top of a meringue for her, then I added tiny bits of meringue pieces inside the raspberry too, just in case she ate it separately and crunched a bit of laxative so she wouldn’t be surprised by the texture. And then she bloody well came back into the kitchen and almost caught me. “If you marry him and he comes to live here with you, will I have to leave?”

  “Yes, right away, with no notice” but then I think she is going to cry so I tell her the truth “but I think he’s a boyfriend, not a husband. I DON’T KNOW WHY, BEFORE YOU ASK, I DON’T KNOW WHY.” Maybe he’s not real because he does seem perfect. Maybe if someone doesn’t see something it’s because I’m invisible and my head goes off on cotton clouds to far off places and people. And I don’t think I’m used to things lasting or always being there for me. And Jo wandered lonely as another cloud back to the sitting room to chat to Edward and bask in his musky warmth. The house is full of beige and cream cape feathers, floating down from the skies, softening our hearts and making us believe things that aren’t really true, sending us to sleep and keeping us warm. I haven’t told Charlie that Edward was coming and I am hoping he won’t find out. But, if he did, if he did find out, I could just say “you’re married, I want a boyfriend” but what I’d really planned to say was “he’s Jo’s cousin” and then change the subject really quickly. I was spinning around madly, wildly on a roundabout and Charlie was watching me from the edge of park. I felt guilty, I wish I didn’t, but I did. And the stupid thing was that seeing Edward and sleeping with Edward made me love Charlie all the more and miss Charlie all the more.

  “There is a sense of loneliness and isolation around you” someone once said to me. I know there is I’m thinking to myself and in my bad head I’m planning on what to do with Edward in a couple of days when I see Charlie. It is a dangerous game.

  When I couldn’t wait any longer I took Edward to bed “come on” I said, holding out my hand, when he was playing chess with Jo “you’re being boring, let’s go to bed.” I am a whisper in his ear, a caress to his neck, syrup down his throat. I am all that is soft and seductive. All the way up the stairs, all the way to my bedroom I was shivering and shaking with excitement. I thought I was cold and then I knew it was outrageous, physical excitement. But I said to myself “this isn’t purely a physical relationship, there may be more.” But then, what does that matter? My bedroom is large and softly shadowed, it is dirty old blood-coloured, soft and muted and kept in safe secrecy. It is a room to make love in, a room to conceive in, a room to become in, a room to sleep a hundred years in.

  In the glorious shadows I lay Edward down, naked in my bed. And I stood facing him and started to undress, slowly, as he lay there, on his back looking at me in steady quiet, in serious anticipation. I feel a river of breathlessness flooding through me. I love my body, I’ve told you that before, every single bit of it, and I love who I’m having sex with to love it too, see it all and take it all in. As soon as I see my own flesh I get turned on. I am the cat who makes friends with the mouse. I am the mouse that eats the cat’s food in front of the cat. I am the frog who doesn’t mind being cornered by four Burmese cats. I opened up my dress. I am all honey coloured smooth skin. I am firm and lean but I have beautiful curves and I am very much a woman. I kept my eyes on his eyes. I made no sound, and I walked towards him, naked, watching him watch me. I pulled the covers slowly off him, watching more and more of his hard body being revealed to me. He is so very beautiful. He is lying there, quiet and erect and ready, waiting to spring into action. A poem not spoken. I put both his hands on my hips, I love to see them there and then I lift my left leg and get astride him in beautiful, deep, smooth silence. And when I am entered I have no idea what’s going on. I lose myself in my senses. Colours and shapes and harmonies and softness. He is beautiful. I held on to him and he was my raft, he was my inflatable dolphin, he was waves and calm and lightning struck seas. He was the low, low sky and I looked at him and wondered what would come next. But there is something in my funny brain that won’t let me see that.

  We were quiet in our love making, as quiet as we could be, and I hope no noise leaked through the walls and floors to Jo. We ate in the middle of the night, we were so hungry, tiptoeing down to the kitchen, hand in hand, putting on the light and shocking our tired eyes at 3am and I hope I’m not playing a part, I would like all this to be real. He holds my hand without me holding his first. He asks me questions without me asking first. He looks at me and I know what he is thinking. His gaze lingers on me and goes right through me. It doesn’t flitter on me as if by accident and then flit off somewhere else. I do understand this. We ate warm toast and butter, golden syrup flowing all over it, falling off it and down our necks, he licks it off me. Cold beef burger and after eight mints. Our hands cupped around warm mugs of Ovaltine and then he shares a cigar with me “In celebration. I don’t normally smoke”

  “In celebration of what?”

  “In celebration of you and me and thank God I found you.” He steals the breath from my lungs and fills my heart with applause. ‘Oh, bravo, bravo’ imagined crowds shout.

  And the kitchen smells the same now as it did when grandma and I would creep down and have midnight feasts together. And the soundtrack is still the same old buzzing fridge. It smelt the same as when grandma and I would get our macs, put them on over our night clothes and go for a walk down the hill to the sea. It is just the same. And I think I see Edward as a bit of an education, educating myself from potential solitude and distancing myself from abandonment, that’s what I think will happen with Charlie, that he’ll just abandon me. So, I give myself to Edward, but my anchor is Charlie, because he is still there. But if he abandons me, my heart will abandon him. I will
not be a victim. I will tell myself that I hate and I will believe that. I am thinking too much of Charlie and not enough of myself. I am not giving Edward a chance.

  He has been here for two nights and days of closeness and loveliness. Of picnics and pub lunches, of neatly folded travel rugs, of grandma’s starched napkins and wild drives on lonely roads. Of ice cold diet coke and lime and orange and of cheese straws and strawberry’s dipped, rolled, smothered in castor sugar, of cadbury’s caramels and pick and mix. “Why do you want to marry me?” I am happy, there is no denying this surging feeling of well-being galloping through my veins and tickling the inside of my body. It is a beautiful indulgence. Gussie of last week is, I don’t know where and this is a person I don’t know. I feel I can just touch him and magic and shininess will spark off him all over me. “Because you are the most incredible person I’ve ever met. You are beautiful. In all ways.”

  “What else?” I was sitting on his knee, on the cliff over-looking the sea.

  “Because you are like no other woman I’ve ever met, you are lovely and wild and weird and wonderful. And other things like you’re intelligent and you can cook and you don’t worry about things and you don’t get pmt (or so you tell me)” and I laughed, he does make me laugh a lot, I like that. “Are you really rather perfect?” I look puzzled at him “are you? I am serious. Or am I being fooled?”

  “I don’t think so, but I hope I would be perfect for you anyway. I want to be perfect for you”

  “and you’re very good at saying the right thing. Is that because it’s what you feel or what you think I want to hear? Are you real? Or are you a great big, tanned fantasy?” I am feeling his hard strong arms through his shirt “when are you going to Afghanistan Mr Handsome?”

  “Next week, not long now. Will you keep in contact?”