Read Online Precocious by Joanna Barnard - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joanna Barnard
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their lights on. Some as soon as the cloud starts to drop, cautious souls, not to be confused with the Volvo drivers whose sidelights are on permanently due to the car’s country of origin, country of no light. Some take much longer, maybe enjoying the gamble, having little bored bets with themselves, how near to home can they get before they have to switch on, every day they get a bit nearer, that means spring is coming. Maybe some are enjoying that fast, anonymous feeling of driving in the dark, like flying.
Metal boxes buzzing up and down tarmac, everyone in their little worlds. That slice of time you don’t have to account for, In The Car. People driving home from Sunday lunches with families. People talking on mobiles, reps like me in Mondeos and Vectras with handsfree, heartsfree. The Wife thinks you get up, go to work, come home, but when you’re In The Car, she doesn’t know where you are.
No one knows where I am.
But although a car covers you, it can also betray you.
I watch the trip counter wheels click forward, forward, forward, with the unsettling feeling that I’m being clocked.
This is how life works. You go to work, you get married. You pay the bills, do the shopping. It’s an endless cycle. Maybe you have babies. Some people do. But not me, not us.
I stand at the checkout, listening to the ‘beep, beep’, in a daze.
This is my life
, I think.
I’m on the conveyor belt.
But so is everyone else, says a smaller voice, and what’s so bad about it?
And in these endless arguments with myself, as I pack the bags and hand over my card, punch in my number, the overriding question is always:
What if I just jumped off?
There are secret ways I can have you near me when we are apart. I start taking your sugar in my tea. Run my shower colder because I know that is how you like it. Play music I have heard in your car, in your house. Drink your drink – rum and coke. Stop wearing a seatbelt.
You are everywhere.
HM. Your initials. I see them in car registrations and my heart skips a beat. I seek out the letters H and M in newspapers and draw them together with my eyes.
HM.
Him. Him, him, him. You, you, you. Parasite of my thoughts.
Hmm. A thought; a consideration.
Hum. Music. A throb, a buzzing, a beat.
Humbert. Humbug.
I take every opportunity to be alone – taking a bath, popping out to the shops – just so that I can have my thoughts of you without any interruption. So that if a faraway look passes across my face, I don’t have to explain it, won’t have to lie to that most intrusive of questions: ‘What are you thinking?’
Dave and I aren’t used to arguing; haven’t done it for years. It’s a foreign country to us; we can’t speak its language. We fumble for words and end up spewing out half-syllables and slamming exasperated doors.
When he asked me to marry him I cried and cried. He did everything you’re supposed to. He’d done it before, after all. Location: smart French restaurant. Candles … even a violinist! Champagne. Ring: solitaire, naturally. Just as I’d wanted. He always seemed to know what I would like. Never asked, though. Down on one knee. Expectant, hopeful eyes. The little tell-tale box. Subdued rounds of applause from the other diners. Streams and streams of tears and the promise he would always look after me. Then the ring was on my hand and hasn’t moved since, except to make way for its partner, the gold band.
Thinking about it – I never actually said yes.
This has been the anatomy of our marriage: he has made decisions, I’ve gone along with them. So it comes as a surprise to both of us that there is fight in us.
It seems those who love the hardest fight the hardest. And not just for each other but against.
And that ability we have to finish each other’s sentences – I use that as a hammer. Kill every word I don’t want to listen to, snuff it out. It goes like this:
‘I know what you’re going to say.’
‘Why do you always interrupt
Metal boxes buzzing up and down tarmac, everyone in their little worlds. That slice of time you don’t have to account for, In The Car. People driving home from Sunday lunches with families. People talking on mobiles, reps like me in Mondeos and Vectras with handsfree, heartsfree. The Wife thinks you get up, go to work, come home, but when you’re In The Car, she doesn’t know where you are.
No one knows where I am.
But although a car covers you, it can also betray you.
I watch the trip counter wheels click forward, forward, forward, with the unsettling feeling that I’m being clocked.
This is how life works. You go to work, you get married. You pay the bills, do the shopping. It’s an endless cycle. Maybe you have babies. Some people do. But not me, not us.
I stand at the checkout, listening to the ‘beep, beep’, in a daze.
This is my life
, I think.
I’m on the conveyor belt.
But so is everyone else, says a smaller voice, and what’s so bad about it?
And in these endless arguments with myself, as I pack the bags and hand over my card, punch in my number, the overriding question is always:
What if I just jumped off?
There are secret ways I can have you near me when we are apart. I start taking your sugar in my tea. Run my shower colder because I know that is how you like it. Play music I have heard in your car, in your house. Drink your drink – rum and coke. Stop wearing a seatbelt.
You are everywhere.
HM. Your initials. I see them in car registrations and my heart skips a beat. I seek out the letters H and M in newspapers and draw them together with my eyes.
HM.
Him. Him, him, him. You, you, you. Parasite of my thoughts.
Hmm. A thought; a consideration.
Hum. Music. A throb, a buzzing, a beat.
Humbert. Humbug.
I take every opportunity to be alone – taking a bath, popping out to the shops – just so that I can have my thoughts of you without any interruption. So that if a faraway look passes across my face, I don’t have to explain it, won’t have to lie to that most intrusive of questions: ‘What are you thinking?’
Dave and I aren’t used to arguing; haven’t done it for years. It’s a foreign country to us; we can’t speak its language. We fumble for words and end up spewing out half-syllables and slamming exasperated doors.
When he asked me to marry him I cried and cried. He did everything you’re supposed to. He’d done it before, after all. Location: smart French restaurant. Candles … even a violinist! Champagne. Ring: solitaire, naturally. Just as I’d wanted. He always seemed to know what I would like. Never asked, though. Down on one knee. Expectant, hopeful eyes. The little tell-tale box. Subdued rounds of applause from the other diners. Streams and streams of tears and the promise he would always look after me. Then the ring was on my hand and hasn’t moved since, except to make way for its partner, the gold band.
Thinking about it – I never actually said yes.
This has been the anatomy of our marriage: he has made decisions, I’ve gone along with them. So it comes as a surprise to both of us that there is fight in us.
It seems those who love the hardest fight the hardest. And not just for each other but against.
And that ability we have to finish each other’s sentences – I use that as a hammer. Kill every word I don’t want to listen to, snuff it out. It goes like this:
‘I know what you’re going to say.’
‘Why do you always interrupt
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