Broken
I know
you keep broken cups in the cupboard. Shards of china hidden behind
the Royal Albert dinner plates. I know you've tried to glue the pieces
back together. Dark stains on the edges of the ear-shaped cup handles.
I can't warn you. It wouldn't be right. I still have my broken ballerina
figurine. I've tried to glue her back together. Twice. It's that tiny
grey line fracturing her feet which ruins the illusion. She can never
dance again. Weakness. Physios, warm-ups and Pilates are useless. What
can they possibly do when your feet are detached from your body? So
I retired her to a cardboard box under my bed. Just like you have retired
your cups to the back of the cupboard.
I wonder
what you do with your girlfriends. Do you collect them too? Like that
guy in that John Fowles book. Do you have a secret chamber where you
hide broken girlfriends? I rotate my ankles just to check. I still have
a few months left. Maybe as much as six months. If I am careful.
I have
to be there in twelve minutes. You will be waiting with a glass of shiraz.
I will order a chicken salad with mango sauce and you will have the
whiting. I will tease you about needing brain food and you will lecture
me about my clothes. I will wear rhinestones in my hair because you
always choose an outside table. My rhinestones will shine across your
plate. Quivering rainbow. When I order the lemon meringue pie you will
cluck disapprovingly. Halfway through my third bite, or thereabouts,
you will ask me for a taste. I will reach across the table and you will
eat from the cream-smeared spoon. You say if I eat any more I will get
fat. But we both know that isn't true. You love my curvy body. You just
don't realise it takes six dance classes a week to keep it that way.
We always
have sex in the pink hotel. Sometimes we are Mr. and Mrs. de Winter.
Other times, Lord and Lady Lucan. You let me eat the toblerone from
the mini-bar. I love the hard, honeyed pieces of nougat speckled through
the chocolate. Sometimes your wife rings on your mobile phone. Sometimes
you answer. Left hand over my mouth. Pink ring of lipstick on your palm.
Sometimes you ignore the ringing and grind against me. My right leg
nudges you further into me. You close your eyes for a second. Your temple
throbs. Once. Everything is still. Except for our breathing. And my
heartbeat in my head.
You leave
when I run the bath. You mention something about work. Or your wife.
Or just life. I use the bubblegum bubble bath I carry in my fluffy backpack.
As the pink liquid curls into the bath I think of neopolitan icecream
with strawberry topping. I pin my hair on top of my head and sponge
your stickiness from my thighs. You leave your teeth marks across my
collarbone and smile at the double standard. I cannot mark you. You
are hers. I am careful. I reach for the handcream and knock the small
vase of violets teetering on the edge of the basin. It smashes. Purple
petals scatter across the tiles. I remember your broken cups and hide
the sharp fragments at the back of the drawer. For later. Just in case
they can be glued back together.
Copyright © 2001 Cassandra Atherton
