Starling Days
Page 20
“No, nothing to do with you.” And it wasn’t, not really. Phoebe was so new to her life.
“Why then?”
“I changed.”
Phoebe laughed, her arm reached out and grabbed Mina’s shoulder to steady herself. Mina savored each digit. She had not horrified Phoebe entirely.
“That’s what my husband said too. You aren’t the person I married. Have you ever heard such complete and utter rubbish? The person I married came home on time and didn’t have to be nagged about dishes and gave me foot massages. But so it goes . . . You get married, you change. Or maybe you don’t change. Maybe he was always a liar and a cheat.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Mina said. She twirled her wedding ring. “Though maybe, I don’t know, maybe I did change.” She felt like a different person, a person whose contours had cracked and chipped.
“I should show you my favorite thing in this place,” Phoebe said. She ground the cigarette out with her boot and left it there. They walked in under a great green glass chandelier. They ducked past the dead heads of Roman senators into a courtyard. A truck was selling refreshments. Kids crumbled muffins onto the tables. Phoebe turned a corner and pointed to the wall. Two glazed plaques were sealed into the bricks. Each was only the size of a piece of printer paper. One was green and the other brown-black.
TO
TYCHO
A FAITHFVL DOG
WHO DIED·V·IAN·
MDCCCLXXXV·
And on the right:
In Memory of
Jim
Died 1879
Aged 15 Years.
Faithful Dog of
Sir Henry Cole,
of this
Museum.
“I’ve loved these ever since I was little. Was always a dog person. I used to say I’d name my dog Tycho. But somehow I forgot, and then Benson was already Benson.” Phoebe smiled, her crooked tooth showing.
“Why not Jim?”
“What?”
“Why Tycho and not Jim?”
“Tycho’s a better name. Obviously.”
“Poor Jim,” Mina said. And she turned away from the panels, only to realize that Phoebe was just behind her. Their noses were nearly touching.
“Oh,” Phoebe said. “Fuck it.”
Why Phoebe chose that minute to kiss her Mina would never know. In the moment, it was not the first question that came to mind. Phoebe’s mouth was warm and the kiss dissolved, like a marshmallow. There was only the slightest hint of ash.
“There are children here,” Mina said, but did not step away. Her hand had found the curve of Phoebe’s back.
“So let’s go where they aren’t.”
After they made it back to the apartment, Phoebe and Mina kissed. Under the bead-eyed birds, they rolled around on the bed, measuring the length and breadth of it with their bodies. Their feet twisted the sheets. Mina was sure she’d remember this. But as soon as she thought it, she wasn’t sure what this moment was. Was it Phoebe’s hands finding their way under Mina’s shirt? Was it Phoebe’s lashes and the red that shone through the mascara like the heat within a coal? Or was it the simple sense of body plus body?
She had half expected that Phoebe’s form would be familiar. Two women were surely similar. But Phoebe was as foreign as a body could be. The cherry-pit nipples felt new. The swerve of the hips felt new. The long flat buttocks felt new. They looked like two pillows recently slept on. Her mouth fitted exactly into the dip below Phoebe’s hipbone. It was as if her own body had known exactly what it needed.
“Stop,” Phoebe said.
Mina stopped. Every muscle in her body tensed.
“Your nails.” Phoebe sat up in the bed.
Her nails. They weren’t pretty. They weren’t polished or filed. The pink oblongs extended to a white ridge. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Girls who liked girls kept their nails short. Everyone knew that. Everyone. But no girl had ever let Mina close enough for nails to matter.
“I can cut them,” she said. “I’ll cut them. Wait here.”
The plastic bag of toiletries lay on the bathroom floor. She’d never quite bothered unpacking it. Her hand fumbled through sample packets of moisturizer, disposable razors, tweezers. No clippers. She poured them onto the floor in a tinkling, clanking rush. No clippers were immediately visible. What about the kitchen scissors? She could use those. Would the sliced nails be too rough? Sharp angles were unacceptable. Maybe the clippers were hidden in the rainbow scatter on the tiles. There were no windows in the bathroom and the bulb gave a sallow tallow light. She dropped to the floor, running her hands through the bottles of nail polish, the hotel shampoos, everything that was not a pair of nail clippers. A lip balm rolled under the sink. She noticed then the spider of hair gathered in the corner. Her bleached hair and Oscar’s black had balled into this disgusting tangle of marriage. She’d deal with that later.
What about the bathroom cabinet? She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and saw the strange soft body, the lace of her bra faded to grey. Mina gripped the edge of the sink. Phoebe would be getting bored. She had to look faster. There was Oscar’s toothbrush. He must’ve forgotten it. The bristles were bent from months between his molars. Oscar’s toothbrush. Poor abandoned thing. No, she was losing track. There—camouflaged behind the taps, clippers. Long and silver, with a steely mouth open. Mina picked them up. They were hefty, for toes and not fingers. But they’d do.
Phoebe rapped on the frame of the open door.
“I found them,” Mina said.
“Give me.” Phoebe held out an open palm. “Sit.” Phoebe gestured to the closed toilet lid. Mina stepped over the chaos and sat. Phoebe balanced on the edge of the bath. The shower curtain billowed around her, gowning her. Phoebe’s bare feet rested on the tiles, and if Mina had been feeling less ridiculous, less foolish, she would have reached down and stroked their copper-stippled curves.
“Hand,” Phoebe said. Mina put out her right hand. Phoebe took it. Her touch was careful. She eased the clippers’ steel mouth over Mina’s thumbnail. One by one, she stripped each finger.
“I’m sorry,” Mina said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be silly.” Phoebe petted the hand she was holding.
“I just didn’t think you’d . . . I wasn’t prepared.”
“It’s fine.”
Mina wanted to ask, Am I doing this right? How many other people have you done this with? Mina felt ridiculous to have reached her thirties and failed to touch a female body.
Phoebe tilted her head to one side and asked, “What’s the worst sex you ever had?”
Mina boggled at her, but Phoebe tilted her head to the side, pale brows rising. Perhaps because they were in the bathroom Mina thought of Mr. Dereham, the drama teacher’s husband. They’d never even touched and certainly never had sex. Mina had put her email address on a list for everyone involved in the school play. It was her first email address, ridiculous-nickname@yahoo.com. A week into rehearsal she’d started getting the photographs. They were taken in a bathroom mirror. You could see his wife’s Frizz Ease shampoo in the background. His naked body was too awkward to be frightening. Later Dr. Helene had wanted to make something of it. Somehow, though, Mina had never been scared of Mr. Dereham. She was only anxious that her grandma might glance over at the computer screen to see the crisscross trail of hair under Mr. Dereham’s belly. Her grandma often came to where Mina sat at the beige desktop. She’d be carrying a plate of washed grapes or a mug of jasmine tea or a single chocolate to keep Mina’s strength up through her homework. She did not need to see the sad pouch of that belly.
When Mina finished describing Mr. Dereham, Phoebe laughed. “So stop looking so stressed. This can’t be worse than that, can it?” She kissed the back of Mina’s now declawed right hand. Mina marveled. What had she done to deserve such gentleness? She would have to find a way to thank her.
“Other one,” Phoebe said.
Mina put her left hand out and hoped for the best.
Phoebe told of a mortgage and how the bank manager held himself like a headmaster. But he’d signed the papers for the flat in Peckham. She’d loved the word Peckham, and the punch of the p. Her husband lived there now, because he was better able to fulfill the mortgage. He’d paid off her stake. It was better this way. There were smaller shames. Strange ones that lasted despite their insignificance. Phoebe had been in a school play and she’d fallen center stage, but everyone had thought it was part of the show. She said how her brother’s friends had found ways to touch her in the garden or the children’s playroom or the pantry. Phoebe had grown up in a house with a pantry: how absurd, how lovely.
“Shit. It’s my shift.” Phoebe kicked the sheets to the floor where they fell like a surrendered flag. She ran to the bathroom dressing as she went, shirt over her head. Then she was out again. She flourished a makeup brush and eyeshadow artillery. The brush moved double-time over the lids, painting them peach, not that used-Band-Aid pink-beige that people meant when they said peach. Phoebe’s lids were gold and fuchsia and glossy, as lush as the sun-ripe fruit. They said to the world, Eat me! Then she was gone.
Mina made the bed. She scooped the spider of hair from under the sink. She bustled. A message appeared on her phone.
Hired decorators. Starting week from now. Please let in on Mon. Paying by bank transfer.
Should she reply? Apologize again? Tell him about fucking Phoebe? Ask, “Is Theo your big worry now?” But what right did she have to be angry? None. She thought of Oscar’s poor cut hand. Had the scab healed? It must have. Her cuts had always transformed into thin white lines after about a week. Ridiculously, she wished Phoebe were here. Around Phoebe she felt calm.
She didn’t notice walking to the kitchen. But it wasn’t like it was a vast journey. It was a natural place to pace. She looked at the knife that had cut him. It was a good knife, not too flimsy. It had weight. In the old days, she’d cut her left wrist when it was her fault and the right when it was someone else’s. She was left-handed. In both cases it was always along the rail—i.e. along the grain of her veins. And never across the tracks—i.e. across the wrist. Where had she learnt the little maxim for the best way to hurt yourself? Faint scars remained, many more on the left than right. She combed the skin with the blunt side of the knife, not pressing, just running it along.
There were things she had to repent. Things she’d once have tallied on that left wrist. The bridge. Cutting Oscar. Cheating on Oscar?
No. This was ridiculous. Self-indulgent. She placed the knife on the countertop, so carefully that it made no sound. Her brain said, I want to die. Her first feeling was, Oh, you again. In an apartment that had only just held the lovely twisting body of Phoebe, her brain said, I want to die again. The air of this room had embraced Phoebe’s arms, legs, back, breasts. She told that hunk of an organ to shut up. But that was like telling tea not to cool or mold not to grow.
Mina tried it out loud: “I want to die.”
Oscar heard the door and the sound of steps on the wooden floorboards. His legs carried him down the stairs and to the hall. Ami looked worse than his father, flecks of drool stuck just below her mouth. Her cardigan was buttoned wrong and hung in odd loops. His father looked just fine. No different than he’d ever been. He was even wearing his watch.
Ami yawned.
“I need a drink,” his father said.
“No, you don’t,” Ami said. “Oscar, your father is not to drink anything.”
“Oh, you’re no fun.” His father hung up his coat.
“Shall I make tea?” Oscar asked.
“Something herbal,” Ami said.
Oscar made fresh mint tea. He didn’t like mint, but it was there. The boiling kettle was as loud as a car starting.
“This is the second time it’s happened,” Ami said.
“Don’t scare the kid,” his father said.
Framed by the window, Ichiro ambled across his field, the most useless brother a man could ask for.
“Ken . . .” Ami said. “We agreed.”
And so his father began to explain how angina isn’t fatal. How it’s nothing to be worried about. How he could take an aspirin. Oscar dropped leaves into the hot water and waited as the smell of toothpaste filled his nose.
“I’m retiring,” his father said, “at the end of this year. Well, that was the plan. That’s what I needed to tell you. It’s why I’m selling the flats. Ami and I . . . we don’t have a lot of needs. There’s Ichiro, of course. But if I’m right about the market they should see us through.”
“You’re retiring?” The mint leaves floated in the hot water.
“What about . . .” He stopped, because what sort of son finds out his father is ill and asks about his job? Was that what Ami had been going on about? Work elsewhere? Stop stressing out your dad? “Do you need to eat?” Oscar asked. And then thought that it wasn’t his kitchen to offer.
“I’m fine,” his father said, sounding exactly like Mina when the opposite was true.
The deer’s walk was stilted. It looked like a robot hiding beneath fawn-skin. Did all deer walk like that? Mina wasn’t sure. Come to think of it, she’d probably seen more robots than deer. When she’d seen the animals, they’d been on the side of the road at night, their eyes burning headlamp bright. But she hadn’t absorbed the size. This creature was as large as a man. Larger. She thought of the hunter who Artemis transformed into a deer after he spotted the goddess naked. Never had Mina realized that he must’ve stretched to fill this form.
Benson growled, low and hungry. It was incongruous coming from an animal that looked as if it could’ve been stitched from a shag rug.
“No, sweetheart, not dinner.” Phoebe said to the dog, and tightened her grip on the leash. Her white knuckles looked almost green.
The deer turned its wet eyes towards them.
It had been Phoebe’s idea to go to Richmond Park. Mina had imagined a park like Central Park, full of children and tourists and college students on first dates. In Richmond Park, the trees’ imperious stance implied they were older even than the idea of New York. The leaves had turned, and Mina trod over brown, red and marigold. The sound of the city had retreated. She tried to describe the way space seemed to be marshaling around them.
“Just wait, someone will come along. The best time of year is the empty season. Late January, early Feb,” Phoebe said. “Then, if you’re lucky, it feels like this whole place is yours.”
They followed the path away from the deer, through a clearing in the trees, and beyond to a patch of long grass.
The leash was the kind with a big plastic handle that concealed more cord. Phoebe clicked a button that allowed the dog to roam further. Benson seemed to have forgotten the deer and was content to sniff tree roots. They sat on their coats. Mina unwrapped the sandwiches she’d made that morning—tomato and Swiss cheese. Phoebe got out her phone, frowning at the lack of signal. She held it up to the sky, leaning back so her shoulder nudged Mina’s. Mina stroked Phoebe’s hair. The strands were slightly coarse, coarser than Benson’s, as if Phoebe were a tougher breed. Mina wreathed her fingers in the red strands.
“Do you think I’m a narcissist?” Phoebe asked.
“Obviously not.”
“Theo says I’m a narcissist.”
“You must know the story of Narcissus?”
“We learnt it in primary school,” Phoebe said, and smiled as she described how she’d been given a silver star for her drawing of the boy who fell in love with his own reflection. She’d penciled him daffodil-gold hair. Mina tried to imagine a tiny Phoebe; each finger, toe, eyelid would have to shrink. How odd that this woman once had to learn how to tie her shoelaces and how to count.
Mina said, “Well, Ovid describes Narcissus looking at his reflection this way . . .” She shut her eyes, spooling forth those long hours of thesis work. “Spem sine corpore amat, corpus putat esse, quod umbra est.” Phoebe looked blank. Mina translated, “Ovid is saying that Narcissus, looking at his reflection, loves a hope or a shadow. His life ends because he’s so caught up in his own reflection. You’re his opposite. You’re trying to build a life.”
“Nerd,” Phoebe said.
Mina headbutted Phoebe’s shoulder and Phoebe gave in to the fall, tipping back to the ground. It was a little cold to be lying in the browning grass. Phoebe’s lips, like the leaves, had reddened in the frost. Her cheeks had turned a darker pink as though the wind had blown two poppy petals there. Mina kissed each one, half expecting them to crumple underlip.
“Why the Greeks and Romans?” Phoebe asked.
“As opposed to?” Mina frowned. People were always asking her this. She did not match their idea of the person who would command the myths. She was guilty of the same thought. When she imagined a classicist, she found herself thinking of a man in a tweed suit with a knitted tie and wire-framed glasses. She did not think of herself.
“I don’t know. As opposed to something in English. As opposed to something you don’t need a whole other language for.”
The answer she gave to Oscar’s friends was something about the joy of translation or the elegance of Roman poetry.
Mina said, “I’ve always loved the myths. I had this huge book of Greek and Roman myths. It had an orange sun on the cover and Apollo driving white horses. I used to read them aloud to my grandma, again and again. I don’t know how the poor woman put up with me. I was obsessed with Persephone getting taken down to Hades. We’d already learnt about the earth rotating. I knew it wasn’t literally true that her kidnapping caused the seasons. But it felt essentially true. It felt like it explained something about what it meant to be alive.”