Read Online Black Bread White Beer by Niven Govinden - Free Book Online
Authors: Niven Govinden
Tags: Fiction
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this crappy painting has sedated him. Each wonky piece needles him to the point where it feels like he is lying on a bed of nails. That she isclutching the canvas so tightly, the way he imagines a motherâs hand suctioned onto a toddlerâs makes him hate it even more.
âYou want to talk about this here?â
âWhy not? Youâve already told them that Iâm suffocating you, pretty much. I didnât realize that a man looking out for his wife could be so mortally offensive.â
âIt was a busy day for admissions. I told you.â
âIâm sorry. I just find it hard to believe that they would turf you out on the street before the agreed time, and before a family member arrived. Look at the state of you. Hardly in a fit state to be wandering the hospital left alone.â
âIâve had a miscarriage. Iâm not a mental patient.â
It is the first time sheâs said it. The word clangs around the pottery and metalwork, unclaimed, ringing uncomfortably to nosy ears. Still he is too caught up in his tirade to mark the event, see progress. He only wants to rip the canvas from her and bind her hands so that she is incapable of lifting anything else until she is better.
âThey shouldnât have let you go without seeing me first. They should have seen us together. It was out of order not to.â
She too speaks quickly, as if talking over him will erase the word, and bring about a collective amnesia. It was a slip of the tongue, not a breakthrough.
âThis is the NHS, âMal, where the world doesnât revolvearound our little problem. Weâre minnows compared to the disease around us. They did what they needed to do. Now itâs your turn.â
Because everything is about his job, his role in their marriage. He struggles to pinpoint what it is she actually does in theirs, what she brings to the table aside from the born-right of her gender to have the last word.
âYou have to take an interest all the time, not just when Iâm pregnant.â
Her accusatory tone forces him into this behaviour. Similar circumstances dictated the late nights at the office or elsewhere during those months when they were supposed to be conceiving. When she spoke and acted like that, unimpressed and dissatisfied with his effort, ready to take him apart with sarcasm, he wanted to be away from her. And for the most part he managed it, dutifully fucking her in the morning when she had reached her optimal internal temperature, necking his pro-biotic and then disappearing to work.
He knows how this will pan out. When she has recovered her strength, and her tongue, he will be blamed. Neglect of conjugal duties has lost their collection of cells. Staying out late has done this. Lying. He has not paid enough attention to her, has used the wrong detergent on the clothes, has kissed her with warm shellfish breath. If it does not come from her it will fire from Liz and Sam, or even Ma and Puppa. He is the husband. He is not there to be exonerated. It is in the contract.
She walks out of the shop with the tunnel-vision of a shoplifter. It is left to him to get his card out. The woman at the counter gives him the receipt, a roll of bubble-wrap, and a look of last rites.
Outside, catching her, a brisk few paces which makes him breathless, she refuses his offer of help, walking ahead of him all the way.
âLeave me alone.â
He does not even try to catch up. It hurt, how her words took physical shape in the air as they were spat out. Part of him hopes she will trip or drop the thing, just so he can be turned to for help, and proved right.
The BMW is a useless piece of tin crap, squeezing them together in a way that they do not wish to be squeezed. It is a car for couples hooked on contact, who would find roominess in a well or in certain styles of fucking. Common-laws in love, who only feel complete when skin is glued on skin, permeable and permanent.
Both his car and
âYou want to talk about this here?â
âWhy not? Youâve already told them that Iâm suffocating you, pretty much. I didnât realize that a man looking out for his wife could be so mortally offensive.â
âIt was a busy day for admissions. I told you.â
âIâm sorry. I just find it hard to believe that they would turf you out on the street before the agreed time, and before a family member arrived. Look at the state of you. Hardly in a fit state to be wandering the hospital left alone.â
âIâve had a miscarriage. Iâm not a mental patient.â
It is the first time sheâs said it. The word clangs around the pottery and metalwork, unclaimed, ringing uncomfortably to nosy ears. Still he is too caught up in his tirade to mark the event, see progress. He only wants to rip the canvas from her and bind her hands so that she is incapable of lifting anything else until she is better.
âThey shouldnât have let you go without seeing me first. They should have seen us together. It was out of order not to.â
She too speaks quickly, as if talking over him will erase the word, and bring about a collective amnesia. It was a slip of the tongue, not a breakthrough.
âThis is the NHS, âMal, where the world doesnât revolvearound our little problem. Weâre minnows compared to the disease around us. They did what they needed to do. Now itâs your turn.â
Because everything is about his job, his role in their marriage. He struggles to pinpoint what it is she actually does in theirs, what she brings to the table aside from the born-right of her gender to have the last word.
âYou have to take an interest all the time, not just when Iâm pregnant.â
Her accusatory tone forces him into this behaviour. Similar circumstances dictated the late nights at the office or elsewhere during those months when they were supposed to be conceiving. When she spoke and acted like that, unimpressed and dissatisfied with his effort, ready to take him apart with sarcasm, he wanted to be away from her. And for the most part he managed it, dutifully fucking her in the morning when she had reached her optimal internal temperature, necking his pro-biotic and then disappearing to work.
He knows how this will pan out. When she has recovered her strength, and her tongue, he will be blamed. Neglect of conjugal duties has lost their collection of cells. Staying out late has done this. Lying. He has not paid enough attention to her, has used the wrong detergent on the clothes, has kissed her with warm shellfish breath. If it does not come from her it will fire from Liz and Sam, or even Ma and Puppa. He is the husband. He is not there to be exonerated. It is in the contract.
She walks out of the shop with the tunnel-vision of a shoplifter. It is left to him to get his card out. The woman at the counter gives him the receipt, a roll of bubble-wrap, and a look of last rites.
Outside, catching her, a brisk few paces which makes him breathless, she refuses his offer of help, walking ahead of him all the way.
âLeave me alone.â
He does not even try to catch up. It hurt, how her words took physical shape in the air as they were spat out. Part of him hopes she will trip or drop the thing, just so he can be turned to for help, and proved right.
The BMW is a useless piece of tin crap, squeezing them together in a way that they do not wish to be squeezed. It is a car for couples hooked on contact, who would find roominess in a well or in certain styles of fucking. Common-laws in love, who only feel complete when skin is glued on skin, permeable and permanent.
Both his car and
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