Read Online The Barter by Siobhan Adcock - Free Book Online Page A

not altogether warm. He does not sound altogether happy to hear from her. Once, he told her (and was promptly forced to acknowledge that it had been a mistake to do so) that sometimes at work he forgets that she and Julie exist, and that it doesn’t even have to be a particularly busy day for this forgetting to happen, although most of his days are busy. Sometimes he’ll just be putting out fires over email and drinking his coffee from his travel mug and thinking about whatever project he’s going to do next, and it’ll be an hour or so before he’ll even remember who he is, much less that he has a family, a rosy little baby girl and a fine, strong, lawyerly wife. He’d meant to sound amazed at himself, Bridget thinks. He’d meant for it to sound like he couldn’t believe the way his mind worked. But it had just sounded cruel, at the time, and she wept, and then a few days later she told her mother.
    â€œYeah. Thank God you’re there.” Bridget closes her eyes and puts her head on the steering wheel. Julie screams again, once, without much conviction.
    â€œWhat’s going on?”
    â€œNothing,” Bridget lies, light-headed, heart pounding.
    She’d wept at the thought of Mark forgetting them partly because she needed so much to be remembered, to leave a part of herself in the world outside of her car, her errands, her playdates, her daughter, her daughter’s naps, even if that part was just the figment that Mark carried around with him through his day. But she’d also wept, she thinks, because she remembers that feeling herself, that absorption into the hours. She remembers feeling that way, of course she does. She can’t say it’s the best feeling or the healthiest—how good for anyone can it be, after all, to tether blank-brainedly to a corporation that runs on her time, her talents, her precious life’s minutes and hours. Losing oneself in one’s work is a pathology, not a badge of honor. But so is losing oneself, period, and there are plenty of ways to do that. Plenty.
    She remembers being absorbed in something important but small. Work never felt like an enlargement of herself, exactly. But she misses how the hours would pass, quickly, and she misses being able to lose them.
And now there are two women lurking around the house, looking for something. Maybe I should just tell her to get out because
I’m
supposed to be the ghost around here.
    Mark says, “Where are you guys? You sound echoey.”
    â€œI’m in the car. In the driveway.”
Now, why didn’t I think to lie about that, I wonder.
    â€œIn the driveway? It’s like ninety degrees out. You guys should get inside. Do you want me to call you back?”
    â€œI want you to call me back. Yes. Please. Do that little thing.”
    â€œI will. I promise. I will. Twenty minutes.”
    â€œTwenty minutes.”
    â€œAre you all right? Bridget?”
    â€œOh . . . Oh, I’m fine.” Bridget rubs her eyes. This isn’t going theway she thought it would. She realizes what she wants is a little bit of bickering or bantering, something to remind her what it feels like to be a normal married couple whose house isn’t haunted. She must sound awful. She must sound frightened out of her mind. Or maybe Mark is just overcompensating to prove he’s a sensitive guy. Men do that oftener than they like to admit. “I’ll talk to you later. Sorry to bug you at work. Are you having a good day?”
    â€œMired. I’m mired. I feel like a stubbed-out cigarette.”
    â€œThat’s quite a metaphor.”
    â€œI don’t think it’s really what I’m trying to say, which I guess is what makes it a metaphor.” She understands what he means. They think alike, the two of them. And now he sounds tired, too.
    â€œDon’t think about it too much. It’s just games. No one will be hurt if you don’t give two