Starling Days

by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

  Could there be something actually wrong with her? She hadn’t wanted to come to this appointment. She didn’t miss the Rorschach prints of blood on her underwear. She didn’t miss the way her head ached and her body swelled. Tests. What were they testing for?

  Anna Wintour was standing up and leading Mina to the door. She was telling Mina that the woman at the desk downstairs would help her make the appointment.

  Above the elevator, a panel displayed a lazy scroll of floors. A nurse was waiting. Her scrubs were printed with itty-bitty shapes. Were they supposed to be confetti? Who thought of celebrating in a hospital? Mina checked her phone.

  Tea with me and Benson tomorrow? Phoebe’s message hung above the home screen. Phoebe. She couldn’t say the word without smiling.

  Oscar had agreed to meet Theo during his lunch break. Oscar was early. He opened Nudge. It was the only book he’d brought with him to England. The battered yellow paperback had enough dog-eared corners that it was easier to find those that had been left pristine. The book’s premise was beautifully simple: what if you made it easier for people to do good things than bad? What if, rather than opting into organ donation, everyone was automatically made an organ donor? It would be easier to share your heart and liver and brain than not. People usually did the easiest thing. Those passionately against it could opt out.

  How could he nudge his wife into happiness?

  He thought of the list she’d made—sharpening pencils, hexagonal tiles, black jeans. He pictured Mina sharpening pencils, wearing black jeans, against a backdrop of hexagonal tiles. Even thought-experiment Mina didn’t look happy. Couldn’t she have said sunset walks on the beach? Or puppies? This shouldn’t be so hard. He knew his wife. What did she like? What made her mouth slope upwards?

  Flowers, maybe flowers. He’d been shocked when she first came home inked with peonies. But she’d said she wanted to see something beautiful when she looked at herself. And who was he to disagree? Sometimes when they fucked, she gripped the bedhead and the blossoms seemed to swell. Oscar didn’t notice Theo until his old friend was looking down at him. They exchanged the usual greetings.

  “I’ll have to be fast. I’m needed back in chambers,” Theo said. “I was thinking we could get a sandwich and eat it outside.”

  Theo’s rugby-player bulk was there under the suit, but softer now. Oscar thought if it came to a tackle he could force his friend over. Oscar had got in shape.

  “How’s work?” Oscar asked.

  “Trial prep is dragging out. The usual.” Theo rolled his eyes.

  The sandwich place was nearby. Theo ordered without looking at the board. Oscar said, “I’ll have the same.”

  “We can sit on the lawns in Lincoln’s Inn,” Theo said.

  They cut into a narrow street. The alley opened onto an ornate brick building. Theo sat on his document case and Oscar dropped to the ground. The grass was rough under his palms.

  “Did you see the match?” Oscar asked. Above Theo’s head a piece of brickwork broke from the wall and cast itself into the air. It morphed into crooked wings and a hooked beak. Oscar watched it aim for the sky.

  “Hawks to catch the pigeons,” Theo explained.

  Theo hadn’t had a chance to watch the game. So Oscar caught him up on the disputed last minute penalty. “How’s Pheeb?” Oscar asked.

  “Driving me crazy. She needs to get her own place. It’s been six months since she and Brendan split. When I offered her the sofa, I assumed it’d be temporary. Figured they’d patch things up.”

  “Couldn’t she go to your parents’?”

  “They had to downsize a few years back so it’s really their sofa versus mine and mine’s in London.”

  Oscar had a vague memory that something unfortunate had happened to Theo’s family in the financial crisis. By then they’d gone off to their separate universities and Theo wasn’t the kind to talk about that stuff. It was so many years ago. They’d both had spots and iPod Minis.

  “If you need another sofa to offload her onto, the orange monstrosity in our flat is free,” Oscar offered. 5B was a wreck, but if Phoebe stayed in 4B . . . It would be nice to have someone else around. Someone who could keep an eye on Mina.

  “Ah, it’s fine. I mean, family is family. You take care of your own.”

  “I suppose,” Oscar said.

  “How’s the missus?” Theo asked.

  “Good. Good. We’re going to Mum’s this weekend.”

  As they stood, they crumpled their sandwich wrappers. Theo tossed his towards a bin. He missed, ball tumbling to the side. Oscar underarmed his. As soon as it left his hand, he knew the angle was off, but a gust saved him, and the ball slid in.

  “Let’s do this again soon.” Theo clapped him on the shoulder.

  As Oscar passed Waitrose, a flash of petals caught his eye. He stopped. Right at the entrance, flowers gazed up at him. He scooped up pink roses. Interspersed between them were those flowers that look like bits of popcorn. “Roses and baby’s breath,” said the sticker. That must be some unhealthy baby. He stopped, uncertain. Tonight they’d be taking the train to his mother’s. These flowers would sit alone. Flowers today were an impractical choice. The bunch was heavy. But that morning Mina had seemed sad, her attention scattered. It would be good to surprise her with a treat. He decided he would bring his wife flowers.

  Oscar could see Mina as he opened the door of the flat. She was stretched out on the sofa. Her shirt rode up and her pale belly was exposed. Her eyes were shut. A window was open, and the sounds of traffic and shoppers spooled into the flat. He placed the roses by the door, giving the faintest rustle. He walked quietly towards her. His socked feet were silent on the varnished wood.

  As he got closer, he saw that her trousers were unzipped. Her hand was slipped underneath her underwear. Pink stripes contoured her fingers as they moved carefully under the cotton. Oscar smiled. “Honey, I’m home,” he said, in his best American drawl.

  Her eyelids flicked open. Her pupils shrank against the light. Her hand darted into the air.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” he said.

  Her hair was flung out into a blonde jellyfish. The roots were growing out seabed-dark. He ran a finger from smooth to rough. She squirmed, laughing. He did it again. Her feet kicked against the soft arm of the sofa. Oscar leaned down and kissed the roots. When they’d met, all her hair had been black, and if he tried to catch a strand it slipped away like water. This dyed fluff tickled his nose.

  They fucked like teenagers on study leave or new parents on date night or like any people speaking in the language of tooth-graze and finger-grip.

  Afterwards, Mina laid her head on his bare thigh. He stroked the edge of her ear.

  “Sex in the middle of the day. I feel so decadent,” she said, dragging out the last word, stretching her legs and arms.

  “I’m glad,” he said. “How was the doctor’s visit?”

  Mina wrinkled her nose. “They said I need more tests.”

  “I bought you flowers. They’re by the door.”

  Mina rolled her head to look at the distant pink blob. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s really sweet.”

  “They’re roses,” he added, when she didn’t move.

  Mina sighed. Clearly, roses were an ineffective nudge. Oscar wanted to sigh too. But you didn’t get to sigh when you were the healthy one.

  “Mina.”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Just feeling kind of bleurgh.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, I don’t know.” She stared at the ceiling.

  “What can I do?”

  “I’m okay. It’s not a big deal. I’ll get over it.”

  “You’re really okay?”

  “I am! I’m going for tea with Theo’s sister tomorrow,” she said.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “So?”

  “So, we’re going to visit Mum, remember? We’re booked onto the sleeper t
rain out of Euston tonight.”

  Mina looked at the flowers, her face turned away from him. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. He licked his thumb and wiped it away.

  She said, “Wouldn’t your mother rather see you alone? One-on-one time, that sort of thing?”

  “I told her we were both coming. The tickets have been bought.”

  Mina sat up, her face tight, and carried the bouquet to the kitchen. She laid out the breadboard and began to hack at the flowers with the knife. The knife was cheap. The stems only dented under her blade. She slammed down harder and two stems snapped to reveal white insides.

  “What are you doing?” He tried to sound reasonable.

  “Cutting off the ends. Flowers last longer if you do that.”

  “Let me do it.” She was doing it wrong. She should use scissors. Why was she trying to do so many at once?

  “I’m fine,” Mina said, smacking the cutting board so hard that it shook. “Just let me do this, okay? I don’t need to be supervised all the time.”

  He went for the knife. She stepped back, and somehow his hand clenched around the triangle of the blade. The steel pressed into his palm. The edge was too thin to be cold or hot. It was only sharp. He’d caught the blade at a bad angle, but everything would be fine if she just gave him the knife.

  “Let go,” Mina said. “I’m almost done.” The roses lay crooked-stemmed on the board.

  He looked down at his fist on the blade, and her hand around the black handle. Mina was bloodless at the knuckles. The point of the knife was directed straight at his stomach.

  “No, you let go,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself if you do it like that.”

  “I’m just trying to cut the pretty flowers my husband gave me.” Each word was flat and too calm, like a subway announcer’s voice.

  “Mina, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s going on. This’ll only take a minute.”

  Her hand jerked, pulling the knife towards her.

  The moment was short and bright with pain. Blood opened in his palm. It looked like he was holding the gleaming drops. His nostrils felt hot.

  There was a clatter as the knife hit tiles.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorrysorrysorrysorry.” The words flowed into a river of noise. Mina’s eyes were wide and panicked. Her hands were shaking. She stepped towards him. He let her wrap his hand in paper towels. They hadn’t bought plasters. The flowers lay half amputated on the kitchen counter. She kissed the back and side of his hand, again and again, as if she thought enough kisses might close the wound. Blood expanded on the paper towels. “Sorry,” she repeated. His hand felt heavy as if the pain were an object with a weight of its own. His neck hurt, and he rubbed it with the hand not swaddled in paper towels.

  “You cut me,” he said. Not knowing what else to say.

  And, absurdly, Mina began to cry. His wife cried wet and messy. Her mouth made a wide-open curve, like those tragedy theatre masks.

  He needed to punch something. His other hand was hot. His face was hot. He forced himself to breathe from his diaphragm to stay calm.

  “You didn’t tear any vital tendons,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry.” She slid down until she was sitting on the floor in the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to. I was just, I don’t know, just upset. And I don’t know. I needed to do something useful. I just wanted to cut the flowers. I thought if I cut the flowers . . . I don’t know. If I just focused on that I’d have space to think. Your mother is always looking at me. I know that’s what people do—look, I mean. But she stares like she thinks I’m hiding something. And I used not to care, you know? Like I figured she’d come around. But I can’t right now.” Mina kept talking. “I just don’t think I can spend the weekend with her. Not a whole weekend. Not right now.”

  His wife’s voice jumped like a video clip with a file error, some crucial sentence wiped out.

  “Fine, then. I won’t go,” he said.

  “No, you should. You haven’t seen her since Christmas. It’s you she wants to see anyway. Not me. I can stay here.” And, as if seeing a flicker in his expression, she added, “You’ll have to trust me eventually.”

  “Mina, how will I know you’re safe? I can’t leave you here all by yourself.”

  Being alone in an apartment high enough to induce fatality was definitely a nudge in the wrong direction.

  “You’re tracking me, remember? Anyway, I don’t have a gun or a car,” Mina said. “The only pills we have are your multivitamins. I’m not a marine. I can’t kill myself with a knife.”

  But she was clearly capable of damage, if not death. The pain had spread all the way to his fingertips and up his wrist. “Mina, I want to trust you. I do—” Oscar didn’t mean to look at the door, but his eyes must have slid, because Mina interrupted.

  “I’m not going to jump. Women don’t jump onto solid ground. You can google suicide statistics.”

  Was searching for statistics a good or a bad sign? A symptom of obsession or a desire to understand her condition? This life of second-guessing was exhausting.

  Mina continued, “Women don’t choose methods of suicide that damage their faces. It’s men who shoot themselves in the head and jump onto concrete. Women take pills and try to drown. Men think women aren’t serious or aren’t brave enough to die like a man. My theory is that women don’t do it because even if you want to die, even if every day hurts, you know that, as a woman, having a messed-up face will make your life worse. And so, in case you survive, in case somehow you fail, you have to keep your skin looking good.” She was out of breath when she finished. That precious face was flushed and screwed up.

  “Mina, it doesn’t matter. If you’re dead you’re dead.” The skin on his hand felt too tight. The blood was flaking.

  Mina pinched the inner elbow of her right arm. She lifted the soft flesh into a tent of skin.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “Oscar, please.”

  He thought of the end of his to-do list. Mum, Mina. What good would it do to drag his wife to the north of Scotland? The scenarios flicked across his brain. Mina screaming at his mother. Mina weeping in his mother’s kitchen, snot bubbling from her nose. The sound of sheep crying outside and his wife thumping the walls inside. He couldn’t ditch his mother. She’d already have done the big food shop. She’d have meals planned.

  “You’re going to see Phoebe tomorrow?”

  She nodded, in exaggerated swoops.

  “And you’ll call me if anything goes wrong? Anything?”

  She flung her arms around him, as if he’d proposed. The blood-blotted paper towels drifted to the floor.

  The ceiling was sun-marbled. When had she last woken up alone? The hospital didn’t count. There had been doctors and nurses, other bodies breathing in other beds. Urine had glistered from her neighbor’s plastic tubing. It was impossible to be alone in the hospital. Oscar had come to visit her every day. He’d brought grapes and books. For the whole visiting hour, his face was twisted with confusion. “Why did you do this?” he’d asked. But she couldn’t point and go, There, that. That’s what’s wrong with me.

  Sure, she had issues. Her mom was dead. Stupid death too—slipped, hit her head, and drowned in their bath. All the while the secondhand Fisher-Price mobile had spun over baby Mina’s head. Her grandma had died after a series of strokes. Mina was seventeen. The kids at school had laughed at Mina’s cutting and slid needles and razor blades in through the gaps in her locker. Strangers shouted neeeeee-howwww at her. But she had a father who’d worked hard for his family, multiple degrees, a good husband, 20:20 vision. People made it through far worse with kindness intact. Those people didn’t betray their husbands by trying to die on their wedding night. Those people didn’t slice open their husband’s hands.

  Be happy, Mina thought. Be happy.

  She sat up. The birds stared out from the wallpaper. The parrots’ beaks gaped. Their blue eyes goggled at her. Other birds
. . . magpies? thrushes? . . . pinched fat strawberries in their beaks. Birds in every room of the flat. She stretched out an arm towards the wall and ran a finger along a smooth wing. The birds’ eyes looked knowing, like the eyes of strangers on the subway. Phoebe. She was seeing Phoebe today.

  Oscar ran his tongue over his lips. They were dry. His hand throbbed. It felt crusty. He sat up and his head brushed the top bunk. Flakes of blood salted the sheets. The overnight cabin smelled musty. The top berth had been reserved for Mina. In her absence, it was empty.

  The train had stopped rocking. He eased out of the bunk and went to the window to see what station they were at. When he opened the blind, he saw fields. In the dim light, they were the soft blue-green of bread mold. It was a color he remembered well from college. None of his roommates could ever be bothered to clear out the fridge.

  There was a knock on the door. He opened it and a croissant in plastic wrap was shoved towards him.

  “Tea, coffee?” asked the attendant.

  “Coffee,” he said. He tossed the squashed croissant onto the top bunk.

  An announcement came through a concealed speaker system. “Apologies for the delay. There is a cow on the track.” Wasn’t this sheep country? Oscar supposed he’d be stuck there for a while. He dropped into plank position, his elbows folded, weight on his forearms and toes. His face was close to the blue carpet. The color was blotched and he wondered if it was the same carpet that had lined these carriages fifteen years ago when he’d taken the train back up from school.

  Before he’d gone away to school, they’d lived in a cramped north London flat. His mother worked from home, transcribing cassettes of boring adults talking about difficult things. She sat at the large beige desktop. The flat was loud with the sound of the keys, and Oscar had to be silent, always silent, so that his mother could spell out the words of strangers. In the evenings her friends would come over. The women would smoke tobacco and pot, filling the house with a double stink. One of them always wanted to sniff the top of his head.