Mouthing the Words (20 page)

“Molly, that’s not funny! OK! You’ve made your point.” She looks a little smug and I cannot get the image out of my mind.

We walk in silence along the street. Molly links her
arm
through mine after a while and says, “Only teasing.”

“Don’t give me that doe-eyed look,” I scoff. “I feel like hitting you.”

“Go on, big girl,” she prods. “Give me your butch best,” she says, jumping in front of me.

“Don’t, Molly. You know I could.”

“Oh, I know you’ve got it in you, darling. I’m ready for it,” she jokes, holding up her fists.

“I’m not a butch,” I sulk.

“OK, you’re a femme with a mean temper,” she says.

“When have you ever seen me with a temper?”

“Come on.”

“Come on what?”

“Hit me, call me a name or something, tell me to fuck off,” she says, hopping from one foot to the other.

“But I don’t want to.”

“Well, you did a minute ago.”

“The moment passed.”

“Practice for next time. So you’ll be ready.”

“Molly, stop it!” I shout. “This is getting annoying.”

“Right on, Thelma. What else?”

“Sometimes you’re just such a … a lesbian,” I say weakly.

“Ooh, now that’s fighting talk,” she coos.

“I didn’t mean to say that. I mean, you’re … just so aggressive sometimes,” I explain.

“I’m just street smart, Thelma. It’s just a question of knowing who your enemies are. I’ll show you street
smart
,” she says. “Come on, take my arm.” She takes a big step and says, “When you step on a crack, you break your mother’s back. When you step on a line—”

“I know, you break your father’s spine.” I reply. “Just a stupid kid’s rhyme.”

“But it’s powerful. I’ve killed a lot of people this way. I’ve killed my Uncle Harold at least a thousand times. It’s therapy, Thelma. And better that than a life sentence.”

“Do you teach Sadie this?” I ask her.

“No, darling. Only kids like you and me. And do you remember this one?” She picks up the pace. “We don’t stop for boy-eez,” she sings.

“And we don’t stop for nobody,” I refrain.

“Yeah, well we don’t stop for rapists and child molesters and Uncle Harry,” she says.

“Yuck,” I scowl.

Later, over dinner, I ask her, “Is that why you’re a lesbian?”

“Because of Uncle Harry?”

“I guess.”

“No. Uncle Harry is certainly part of who I am but he’s not the reason I fancy the pants off women.”

“Ugh, Molly. You’re so crude,” I say. “Please don’t say anything like that in front of Patrick. He’s … sensitive.”

“I don’t really care
why
I’m a lesbian, Thelma,” she says, ignoring my comment. “If you think people are
gay
because they were sexually abused, then you should be a prime candidate.”

I remember once telling Corinna that I wanted to be a lesbian when I grew up. What I wanted was to curl up like a cat on her lap, and nuzzle my face in the warmth of her armpit. That was all I wanted, but I had no words for it. I’m not sure I want anything more than that. I liked the feel of Patrick’s strong arm around me in a protective embrace. I liked the curious feeling in my stomach of inhaling the unfamiliar scent of a man’s skin.

Patrick. Tomorrow is Patrick. I am awake in the middle of the night feeling sick but instead of throwing up I decide to wash my hair. Four times. I don’t know what to do with myself. I cannot sit still. On the bus to Oxford I make it my project to pick threads out of the fabric of the seat back in front of me. We have just passed the Warneford Hospital and are coasting down Headington Hill into the city centre. I remember the buffed aluminum, the frozen peas and screams that made my hair stand on end. I feel sick with the memory of a world not quite far enough away, but far enough, to be another world.

“It’s the next stop,” I tell Molly.

“You OK?” she asks me.

“I’m fine. Just be there with me, OK?”

“Right beside you.”

Patrick opens the door and beams, “Thelma. Thelma of Distinction.”

The house is soft blues and greens and sunlight is streaming through the windows of the sitting room. I remember these colours but not the sunlight. Patrick makes coffee. Molly takes a sip when he is out of the room and pulls a face.

“Instant,” I explain. “I have no idea why. They are just obsessed with Nescafé.”

“Tastes like crap,” she says. “But he’s gorgeous.”

Yes. Long and lean and chiselled in the doorway. I see him looking at me lovingly and saying, “It’s so good to see you, Thelma.”

We drive to the White Horse in Abingdon for lunch. It is my favourite pub and although it is November, we sit outside. Patrick asks Molly about Sadie and Molly becomes very animated, telling Sadie stories.

“Patrick, she’s just this incredibly brave feisty little grown-up person,” I add.

“Thelma!” he says, surprised. “You were terrified of my sister’s kids.”

“I know,” I say apologetically.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry. They
are
mutants,” he laughs. “Philip is now obsessed with dog poo and Suzanne insists on frilly dresses.”

“Too bad it isn’t the reverse!” jokes Molly.

We take a drive through Oxford in the afternoon. It really is quite glorious. I am encouraged by Molly’s reaction as she catches sight of building after building. She makes me look up. I never used to. I saw only pavement before, grey pavement and people’s tired feet
trundling
home with Tesco’s bags full of pathetic overpriced vegetables in their arms. I used to imagine them boiling everything into tasteless mush and eating in sad silence in front of an electric heater.

Patrick and I try to outdo each other playing Oxford geography. Somerville and Indira Gandhi, Magdalen and Oscar Wilde, but the most compelling association of all is Lewis Carroll and Port Meadow. I remember sitting on the Walton Well Road bridge leading to the meadow, knowing it was a bridge not high enough. A different geography. “This is the bridge Clare the howler chucked herself off,” I point out to Molly.

“Oh, God. How awful,” Molly flinches. “But what
was
she thinking? It’s only about sixteen feet,” she marvels.

“You know, you can spend every waking hour thinking about killing yourself and still get your calculations wrong. Maybe we actually want to miscalculate,” I say aloud. “And why here? Look at the beauty of this meadow. It’s just haunting. In the morning a narrow band of mist hangs above it. Chops everybody off at the shoulders and puts their heads in the clouds. In the spring it’s covered in blue thistles. And the horses run wild here.” I remember lying here, ear to the ground, listening to Heroin gallop, the earth trembling with her intent.

“We can walk by the canal,” Patrick suggests. “See the barges.”

The canal is in the middle of a jungle of wet
vine-covered
trees. “You mean people live here all year round?” Molly asks, incredulous.

“Yeah. I know. I used to wonder how people could walk across the meadow in total darkness and find their way home. I knew of women who lived out here on their own.”

There are mailboxes on the bank, and cultivated gardens, and cats and dogs with owners who inscribe bowls with their affectionate names.

“Otherworldly,” Molly comments. “I thought
I
was courageous.”

It is courageous to make a different world. To make a home across a dark meadow. To live alone along the lonely banks of a canal and make your way home through bracken and wild things.

We walk past the first row of barges and take a path that cuts away from the canal. “Oh my God!” shrieks Molly. “An oasis! What a country!” she exclaims at the site of a pub. “I can’t resist,” she says.

“All roads lead to a pub. Even in a meadow,” Patrick says.

I laugh. Patrick puts his arm around me and pulls me into his shoulder. I close my eyes for a second and inhale the damp.

It is late afternoon and we drink whiskey by the fireplace, damp soles warming in the heat. It grows darker, wetter and more English outside.

“Goofball,” says Molly. “Who would give this up?”

“I know,” I sigh. “It didn’t quite look like this when I was last here. It can feel really oppressive.”

“It can,” agrees Patrick. Heavy skies narrow the distance to the ground. People shrink under the weight of clouds filled with lies and secrets.

We are all a little drunk. Molly links arms with us both and asks Patrick to teach us football chants as we make our way back across Port Meadow. We shout, “We are the Man U—haters!” over and over again into the walls of darkness.

“Thissaunbelievable place yuhknow?” Molly slurs when we get home.

“What, Molly?” I ask, laughing.

“Uuhdunknow. Cuhyuse a slizapizza.”

“You hungry?”

“Ohfuggit. Juss goddabed,” she mumbles, before crashing down on the sofa.

“I’ll get her a blanket,” says Patrick. He comes back and tucks her in under a duvet.

“She’s my best friend,” I whisper. “Sorry she’s a little sloshed.”

“She’s charming,” Patrick says. “Sit in the kitchen?”

I make tea. I know where the teapot is. It’s in exactly the same place, and this fact makes me cry.

“It’s OK,” says Patrick. “It’s just a teapot.”

“I know, but I gave you this teapot. I bought it at the Gloucester Green market from that blind guy who does pottery.”

“Oh, Thelma,” he sighs, pulling me into his arms.

His hard chest. His breastbone. His ribs. I am sure my forehead isn’t meant to rest against anything else. “I miss you,” I whimper.

“I miss you, too,” he whispers.

“Do you still love me?” I ask him.

“Of course. I never stopped.”

“Will you take me back then?” I ask, looking up at his clear eyes.

“Oh, baby,” he sighs. “How do you know that’s what you want?”

“I just know,” I say.

“But you’re still just figuring out what you want,” he says.

“Yeah, but I know.”

I am looking at him with open pleading. Asking him to destroy the dam that prevents the stream of me from running into a wide, flowing river.

“I don’t think I can,” he says slowly, shaking his head.

“You can’t?” I ask him, straightening up, pulling away to look at his face.

“I don’t think I can go through it again, Thelma. I mean the uncertainty. I don’t think I could ever handle your looking at me with loathing again. I don’t want to be anyone’s devil, not even for a second.”

Oh God. I get what I deserve. I have polluted, I am polluting. I have killed, I have destroyed. I deserve this for inflicting pain. I know why Molly steps on cracks. She is saving people. She is saving lives. I, on the other
hand
, am a murderer, and this is the delivery of my life sentence. I am wailing and Patrick is trying to comfort me but my heart is rushing from my chest into my head and beating against my skull. Beating: Let me out.

“Please Patrick,” I beg him. “I will be so good. I will do anything you want me to do.”

“No, Thelma,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t say that. I don’t need you to be good. I don’t need you to do anything for me. It makes me really uncomfortable when you say that. I just want you to be Thelma.”

“But I can’t be Thelma without you,” I plead.

“You are. You have to be, Thelma. Whether we’re together or not,” he says.

“But I can learn to make love,” I plead.

“That has nothing to do with it, Thelma. You know.”

“But if I could, then maybe you would know that I was committed to you.”

“I can know that you are committed as much as you are able, without making love.”

“Don’t you want to make love to me anymore?” I ask.

“Yes. I do. But I can’t.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid of you. But I can’t be with you. I told you why.”

“But can’t we just make love tonight and maybe you’ll change your mind?”

“It would only complicate things. If you ever looked at me again with fear in your eyes, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” He went on. “Thelma, I know you
won’t
be able to understand this, I know you won’t understand that I still love you, but I’ve started seeing someone else.”

Oh
.

Pardon?

What?

Is that what this is about?

Really?

Who?

When?

How could you?

“Oh my God, I deserve this,” I bleat.

“You don’t deserve this. It’s just timing. And it’s not the reason. I told you the reason. Don’t think it is because of someone else,” he pleads with me.

“But I thought you still loved me,” I wail.

“I do. Absolutely. My feelings about you haven’t changed.”

I think I could cry for the rest of my life. Or at least the next thirty-six hours. Wailing for hours is new for me. Before I would just leave the planet, and emotions are fewer and duller somehow in outer space. I feel like I am going to die. Is this what being alive feels like? Feeling like you are going to die? I blubber my way upstairs with Patrick’s arm around me all the way into his bed. I cry at the sight of the bedroom, I cry at the sight of the futon, I cry at the sight of the window, the clock radio, and his socks on the floor. I cry against his hard chest until I can cry no more. And then finally I
stop
. “Fuck,” I say. “I don’t mean to be so melodramatic.”

“Do you feel better?” he asks me.

“I feel completely wiped out,” I say. “This futon is lumpy.”

Sleep. Dream of heads that get stretched away from bodies and have conversations with each other in clouds. Long long necks and we are all bald. We all have dark eyebrows. We are all about thirty-something years old.

“Are you in love?” I ask Patrick, after staring at the back of his head for half an hour.

“Oh, you’re awake?” he says, turning toward me. “Thelma of Distinction is in my bed. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“But are you in love?” I repeat.

“Well, no,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Oh
.

No. No?

Then why are you there?

Why are you with her?