David and Suzannah

Included in MY SWIMMING DAYS and Twelve Other Stories

Suzannah used to buzz in from London, all frizzed-up, boyfriend in tow

He would put a hand on the green wire fence, the other

On the rust new-brick, presenting a casual barrier

That she could duck under, grinning as of old

And stand next-to and behind him

Chin-on-shoulder, slap-arse intimate, little sister still, adoring

He for a second holds the cards, were he not so busy

Holding the fence. He should hold out a hand

Instead the new man does, like the many

Who came before. He shakes the hand

You must be Dave, boyfriend says. His head stays still but the gaze drops

David please, she responds, sternly and not in fun

One day there will be one, she notes, that I won’t

Have to tell, but until then, big-necked, slow

David is her litmus test for men

So it remained for years. Cotton-polyester under short flared skirts became

Briefly, jeans artfully slashed and ripped, bare knees displayed

Then just jeans and tops of pink or grey. Hair no longer

Sprayed and bouncing as she walked, but tied back

Prettily, with glasses, brown then black

The boyfriends became a husband - who’d failed the David test, but still

They had a baby whom David loved, just as he had Suzannah

Suzannah wouldn’t let him bath the child or sit with her alone

Too vulnerable. Too what? I mean too little, she said kindly

But firmly. I was big enough for you, he thought

When Dad was gone and Mum stayed in her room day after day and all night

When you cried and the only thing I knew was to hold you tight

And give you milk like Mum said - warm the bottle up and

Squirt it on your hand. If you can’t feel it then it’s warm

Now give it to her, Mum said, so I did

The former family home hunkers down in the lee of full-grown poplars

Whose roots dig viciously, but which divert the east wind

Overhead, until you reach the top road, when it hits you

Straight off the sea. A smaller man might not

Keep his feet. Proudly he walks to work

In Deliveries, behind the supermarket’s waggon-sized green doors

The handtruck cowboy rides a western plain of dust and lint

Through sagebrush of plastic sheeting unwinding from pallets

Of whisky and cigarettes, bacon and beans

No, David wouldn’t get the joke

You make your own theatre when you’re pallet-pulling in the warehouse

The drivers are the stars back there, breezing in, undoing liner buckles

Like slick lovers and pulling back curtains like magicians

Performing the grand reveal. They have the chat

And utilise it mercilessly

David agrees to make the tea. It’s a break, after all. The hierarchies

Of the shop floor go right over his head. He has work while

Many don’t; he has a place to be in daytime hours

And at night therefore, an excuse for a drink

So why not make the tea? he thinks

The Linewalkers at the Odeon Friday night - first half Johnny Cash, then

Line-dancing till late. Stella on tap and a shoot-out in the break

Fiona from the office goes for the dancing. Mum went once

Or twice. David irons a check shirt and polishes his boots

It’s only Monday, but best be prepared

You can come if you like, David says to his sister. No, I’ll pass thanks old chap

I’m not cut out to be a cowgirl, and littl’un here needs looking after

That’s all right, he replies, I like the Johnny Cash half best

He sings Ring Of Fire as he did when she as little.

She joins in but only remembers the chorus.

With accidental clarity he mutters, I taught you nothing that you know

The husband grins, whispers, out of the mouths of babes and fools

And one of those is suckling at your tit. She kisses the child

And hisses to the husband, this is not your house, it’s his

The husband sniffs and changes channel

Before the husband and the child, before the return - to town, to the house

These moments of mammalian idleness on the settee would’ve seemed

More suited to a zoo. Normality was the lion’s den of an interview

The shout and hup-to of an open-plan panopticon, the fizzing

Caffeine energy of London in the nineties

Office-hopping - seven jobs in as many years, every move an advance

Getting in on the ground floor, putting the work in, making the cash

And getting out with pride and reputation intact, contacts safely

Stored in Filofax and Mac. Home was distant, a guilty pang

A Saturday arrival, a Sunday lunch then go

Mum was watching David’s back, and he watched hers in his own clumsy way

Morning tea, a paper in bed that he could barely read, but he knew

Enough to know it got her up. That and twenty Bensons - ten each

Suzannah watched the pair of them together and wondered

Why am I not like that?

Then she would see herself, a girl of five-foot-three from the sort of house

That had a green plastic fence next to the wall, from the sort of family

That had a father who would leave a depressed wife and

Vulnerable son. She had left them too, of course

She would hear Dad’s contemptuous snort

The following outburst, the husband will later blame on hormones - something

Doubtless to do with birth and feeding, which will make her skin crawl

Even more, at the thought that she married him. She says, me

And you between us are no better than my Dad. I’ve behaved

Like him, but worse than that, you think like him

The husband has nothing to gain by responding, but does anyway

He says, blokes marry their mothers, girls marry their dads

It’s the way of the world. She covers herself and the baby

Then makes her way into the kitchen where David

Is cooking spaghetti bolognese

She was slowing down when Mum died. Her head was still full of

Lead times and deadlines, but she was losing the taste for

Champagne at seven, dinner at eight, music blaring and

A new man whenever one was going spare

She decided she was ready for a change

I heard you, David says, you don’t have to fight over me. For you, she corrects

He could do with a woman, she thinks, but that would be just

The sort of thing the husband would be thinking - find

Some poor girl special enough and they can move

Into a warden-sheltered flat for two

Whether or not he understands, she says, you’re not holding me back, brother

Me and this ’ere sproglet are taking a couple of years, together

She knows she doesn’t sound like herself, but to hell with it

She can play this rôle as well as she played ‘amoral

Metropolitan’. London isn’t going anywhere

In vain hope of making up lost ground, husband stays at home with the child

Suzannah and David hit the Black Swan together, as they did when

She was sixteen. Old faces, eyebrows raised. She counts down

For him at the dartboard. He buys her dry white wine from

His own wages. Then home arm-in-arm, drunk

Turn the page. Tomorrow: David wheels truck and brews tea unappreciated

Suzannah touches the walls of this tiny town she once longed to escape

Christian mother-toddlers, swim-babes and fit-play, girls from school

Aged by marriage, birth and all of the above. And what of love?

Don’t start, she laughs, as the wind blows off the sea.

Included in MY SWIMMING DAYS and Twelve Other Stories Originally published by Writerlot, November 2014