Read Online The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride - Free Book Online Page A

be tied? Twenty years I been living here, paying my tax. The toilet door opens so she swaps the man sliding out. Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’s my advice. Thanks, I say and let it dander my brain as she pukes away, suffocatingly.
    Back from the world in the stuff of his room, I strip down to knickers and no bra. Slip off his glasses too. Him waking just enough to help me back into the warm space of his sleep. But maybe later, passing three, I wake to, in the long deep, him. Sat at his window. Smoking like breath. Staring off into the street.
    *
    Morning. Light. Him asleep on my hair, legs patterned to mine. I search hurts out and where, new laying his print on his print from before. Each pass brings clearer. Turned out more right. Is that sex or him? Which would I like? Be glad for the night and the what next I. It’s not everyone you’re not lonely with.
    Hair caught under Ow, as he sucks the air Morning are you awake? Yes, did you sleep alright? I did, you’re like having a hot water bottle in the bed. Stretch and click. Are you wiping your nose on me? Itching only itching, he laughs And you smell so good fancy making it the best of three?
    Last relics of old pain work down to his up. Sparse though, palled by his damp on my back. Thigh pinned. Reached. He has me every which way but still it circles just beyond my body. Where I see and want. Where it’s certainly him. Where his long fingers perform while I long to give in, way, gratify. But the skin and what’s in it can’t let yet. When I tell him so Fuckit, he says Really? What can I do? Nothing, I like it, bit sore, that’s all. He goes Mmm, in the grip of his qualmless own, making its way to the well-traversed close. Even where and how he touches me in the moment seems re- and re-rehearsed. Many times I’d say. All but the bite. Back of my neck. Sorry, don’t know what that was about – he says after – Luckily I didn’t break the skin. War wound, I say. Now that’s more like it! as he lets himself slip out of me.
    And he opens the curtains in the spiral of day. Body white in the light with his cigarette. Have you work to do? he asks as I blind in the dazzle. A scene to learn from Richard III. ‘Was ever woman in this humour woo’d’? Yes, I shade my eyes. Shall I be on the book for you? he offers. Oh, okay.
    Stare up for concentration instead of at him. He knows it already better than I do. Makes tea and prompts from all round the room while I stumble and untether text. What about your RP? I can’t do that. Have to learn, he warns Might as well from the start. So I hide in the pillow but the words make blocks, hard, with no movement in them. Despair-ING, he corrects Not Despair-EEN. I think it sounds exactly the same. He repeats in my accent ‘And by despaireen shalt thou stand excused’ Great accent, I say. Irish mother, he mumbles. From where? No, you can’t distract me – but consoles with his own student tales of Mercutios sounding like Hepburn Doolittles and the slaggings he got for that. Eventually though I am saved by the Toast? And hang over the bed, over his shoulder as he passes back triangles to chew.
    I love that play, he yawns into Time Out. You love lots of plays. Don’t you? I suppose, dot dotting my crumbs from his shoulder and neck. So fancy a film or are you in a rush? No I’d love to, if it doesn’t interrupt? Interrupt what? he asks. I don’tknow, your writing? Family stuff     are you seeing your daughter this weekend? No I’m not. Will you next weekend then? No, she doesn’t live here. In London? In England    she’s in Canada with her mother. Oh     you must miss her, I Fuck! he gets up I can’t believe I nearly forgot, Nostalgia’s on in Belsize Park we’ll make it if we run.
    Coffee smelt cinema no kissing here . Long limbs crooked to fit. Balled coats kicked under. Darkening.