not giving a shit.
Twenty minutes later, dressed and numb, she finds Gordon seated at the table, eating toast and reading the paper. Their eyes meet, and for a split second he looks about to say something but thinks better of it. The radio plays classical music and she waits for the kettle to boil, the air charged with something she can’t name. This waiting, this limbo… how many more years does she have to do it?
As she heads outside with her cup of tea, Gordon starts again. ‘Grace, I really think –’
‘I’m not seeing a doctor and that’s the end of it. You can’t make me.’
Up on deck, she listens to the radio presenter introduce the next piece of music, trying to remember what normality feels like. The sky is a uniform anaemic grey. It feels too close, too closed. Gordon appears at the door. ‘Grace, what are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re rocking. You’re making the whole boat sway. Stop it.’
She stops, unaware she had been doing it. Tries not to look as scared as she feels. Gordon’s eyes fill with unease.
‘Listen, I’m going to cancel this fishing trip with Jerry.’
‘What fishing trip?’ she says, suddenly alert.
‘I wanted to remind you yesterday, but you were so…’ He leaves the statement unfinished.
‘When do you leave?’ she says, trying not to look or sound too elated.
‘This morning. Jerry’s coming here to pick me up, but I’m going to tell him I can’t go.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘I told you, I’m not going.’
‘When were you
planning
to get back?’
‘Sunday.’
She counts them in her head like ripe fruit: six juicy days on her own. ‘It’ll do you good to have a break,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Honestly, I am.’
He hadn’t really wanted to cancel it at all and so he doesn’t insist. ‘Only if you’re sure you’ll be OK on your own.’
‘Of course I will. Why wouldn’t I be?’ she says, anticipating his absence and feeling only slightly guilty for how happy it makes her feel. He too is looking more than a little relieved, she’s pleased to see. He whistles as he goes back inside to start packing. And the thought occurs to her that she won’t have to listen to that for almost a week.
Jerry arrives as she is drying the last of the breakfast dishes, and the two men say goodbye and leave. Once alone, she scans the empty boat, feeling like an actorblindfolded and spun on to a stage without knowing their lines. She decides to hunt down the two photographs of Pete she knows are stashed away somewhere, though she can’t remember where exactly; she pulls the place apart in her search for them. On a mission. She panics at one point, thinking perhaps she had burned them along with the letters and forgotten, or binned them accidentally. They’d had to get rid of so much stuff when they’d moved on to the boat. It had felt cleansing at the time, but in the years since she’s found herself regretting the loss of some things. She locates them in her Hannah shrine, inside the copy of
The Water Babies
that Pete had given to Hannah when she was born: the copy he’d had as a child.
She lays the two snapshots out on the table like a winning hand. Or a losing one. And she stares into these portals to her past with a growing sense of vertigo. Pete stares back at her in all his handsome glamour. The first was taken in Aden, on the beach. He’s in a pair of trunks that leave nothing to the imagination, a Cheshire cat grin on his tanned face. When she’d shown it to the girls at work, one of them had said, ‘I can see why you’re marrying him!’ Looking at it brings back the day when there he was at last, after those two lonely years, there in her arms with his hot nutbrown flesh and sunlight hair, making himself real again with his mouth and his hands.
The second photograph was taken on their honeymoon. It shows the two of them outside a pub on the seafront. She flips it over and reads Pete’s
Twenty minutes later, dressed and numb, she finds Gordon seated at the table, eating toast and reading the paper. Their eyes meet, and for a split second he looks about to say something but thinks better of it. The radio plays classical music and she waits for the kettle to boil, the air charged with something she can’t name. This waiting, this limbo… how many more years does she have to do it?
As she heads outside with her cup of tea, Gordon starts again. ‘Grace, I really think –’
‘I’m not seeing a doctor and that’s the end of it. You can’t make me.’
Up on deck, she listens to the radio presenter introduce the next piece of music, trying to remember what normality feels like. The sky is a uniform anaemic grey. It feels too close, too closed. Gordon appears at the door. ‘Grace, what are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re rocking. You’re making the whole boat sway. Stop it.’
She stops, unaware she had been doing it. Tries not to look as scared as she feels. Gordon’s eyes fill with unease.
‘Listen, I’m going to cancel this fishing trip with Jerry.’
‘What fishing trip?’ she says, suddenly alert.
‘I wanted to remind you yesterday, but you were so…’ He leaves the statement unfinished.
‘When do you leave?’ she says, trying not to look or sound too elated.
‘This morning. Jerry’s coming here to pick me up, but I’m going to tell him I can’t go.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘I told you, I’m not going.’
‘When were you
planning
to get back?’
‘Sunday.’
She counts them in her head like ripe fruit: six juicy days on her own. ‘It’ll do you good to have a break,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Honestly, I am.’
He hadn’t really wanted to cancel it at all and so he doesn’t insist. ‘Only if you’re sure you’ll be OK on your own.’
‘Of course I will. Why wouldn’t I be?’ she says, anticipating his absence and feeling only slightly guilty for how happy it makes her feel. He too is looking more than a little relieved, she’s pleased to see. He whistles as he goes back inside to start packing. And the thought occurs to her that she won’t have to listen to that for almost a week.
Jerry arrives as she is drying the last of the breakfast dishes, and the two men say goodbye and leave. Once alone, she scans the empty boat, feeling like an actorblindfolded and spun on to a stage without knowing their lines. She decides to hunt down the two photographs of Pete she knows are stashed away somewhere, though she can’t remember where exactly; she pulls the place apart in her search for them. On a mission. She panics at one point, thinking perhaps she had burned them along with the letters and forgotten, or binned them accidentally. They’d had to get rid of so much stuff when they’d moved on to the boat. It had felt cleansing at the time, but in the years since she’s found herself regretting the loss of some things. She locates them in her Hannah shrine, inside the copy of
The Water Babies
that Pete had given to Hannah when she was born: the copy he’d had as a child.
She lays the two snapshots out on the table like a winning hand. Or a losing one. And she stares into these portals to her past with a growing sense of vertigo. Pete stares back at her in all his handsome glamour. The first was taken in Aden, on the beach. He’s in a pair of trunks that leave nothing to the imagination, a Cheshire cat grin on his tanned face. When she’d shown it to the girls at work, one of them had said, ‘I can see why you’re marrying him!’ Looking at it brings back the day when there he was at last, after those two lonely years, there in her arms with his hot nutbrown flesh and sunlight hair, making himself real again with his mouth and his hands.
The second photograph was taken on their honeymoon. It shows the two of them outside a pub on the seafront. She flips it over and reads Pete’s
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