The Bouncer's Wife

Mid-saturday morning at the bedroom window, and Vern downstairs with
Mark still. Mark who is my husband, in this our house. Yet it's Vern I
can hear. Not his words but his voice. His tone. Or the depth of his
voice. Reverberating, up the stairs and through into our bedroom. Mine
and Mark's. And what I've just said to him, that is so utterly
unforgiveable, he is making light of. Everything is Hey, man . . .!
Cool. Are we cool here, Mark . . . my man? My main man? But for Mark
it's not that easy. Mark hasn't spoken a word since I left the room.
He's sat there in his corner still, seething, more embarrassed than
Vern could ever be.
Because Vern is such a decent, chilled out kind of a guy, Jean! He's
not like the others. Would he bring the others home? You can't respect
those guys, he says. They're not family oriented. Vern you can talk to,
Jean . . . man. He has values, a moral outlook, if you will. And he's
down just now, this last two months. His wife left him, took everything
- their three year old son, man . . . It's bad, Mark says. She is bad.
Everything is bad these days. She has dissed him. Of course, Mark's
never actually met Vern's wife. He just knows. Because Vern has said
so. Vern in return, his main man.
Doormen, the pair of them. One is not to call them bouncers these days.
It is not - what? Politically correct? But bounce is what they do,
because I've heard them. They slip up when they've been drinking. There
are punks all around this town they've bounced. Meaning white kids,
because it's always punks they bounce, and black kids are just that,
kids, to hear Vern talk. He does differentiate. And they laugh about
it. It's only therapeutic after a hard night's work to laugh. But in
what way is it moral, then? I'm intrigued, really. How can it be moral
to bounce anybody - punks or anybody? Where is the morality in that?
Though I've never asked. I daren't.
For Vern will sit so far forward in his seat to talk to me, and speak
so slowly, so deliberately, you'd think any other way I wouldn't
understand. He is so earnest; and his rotating of each gold ring around
each fat finger, both hands, while he speaks. I asked him one time -
interrupted some ten-fifteen minute long eulogy to fidelity, which is
quite his favourite subject, of course - did he wear his rings to the
club, any of them? But he only fell about laughing. I'd meant to be
ironic, and he found it - what? Cute? No, sugar, I don't wear my rings
to work. Then Mark had recollected, as if quoting something terribly
profound, some point Muhammad Ali made about the role of women on
Parkinson one time - the Moslim way. Mark loves it that Vern's black,
that most of the guys at the club are. I know he does. Yo this, yo
that. He never used to speak that way. It wasn't so long ago it was me
pulling him up for the things he'd say - if you remember, Mark! We're
not hearing many black jokes these days, are we, now.
What I said has nothing to do with racism. Can't he see that's not the
issue any more? He's a bricklayer. He used to use his hands to build
things with. Homes! For people to live in! But Seven years in one job,
he said, that's enough, isn't it. I didn't know what to say, our
anniversary coming up, too, I was dreading enough as it was.
And then he was asked.
A quiet evening out with his brother, and a couple of young guys
started getting out of order, with the barmaid - how many times have I
heard this story? - then threatened the barman when he tried to
intervene, a little guy. He's told everyone - he's told the bloody
neighbours, he's told my mother! You'd think he was on Parkinson
himself. Nothing happened, it didn't need to. He only made his presence
felt, he says, tactfully imposed himself. That was enough. They'd left.
And shortly after, the landlord coming over with a round on the house,
they got talking, and one thing led to another - how would he feel
about doing the door? Just once a week when they had a band in,
collecting the entry-fee was all, but with the understanding . . . Just
incase, he said, Cash in hand. It would be a privilege. And Vern -
enter Vern! - happening to stop by the pub on his own night off from
the club one night, said he'd never seen him around; was he in the
union?
They've laughed about that since, how Mark thought that spelled
trouble. But no, Vern really is just that decent, chilled out kind of a
guy. Only looking out for a fellow professional, he said. So now, of
course Mark is in the union, too. A full-time club doorman with Vern.
Vern . . . have our sofa, man. It's yours. You're welcome.

Oh, I know the way Mark sees it I had no right to say what I did. And I
shouldn't have. I know that.
But it's like I have no right even to be upset is how he sees it - last
night the first in a couple of weeks or more Vern's come back, and once
in a while I said is fine, Just not every night. So, What's the
problem? he's thinking. They kept the noise down, didn't drink too much
- until this morning I didn't even know Vern was here. And Mark needed
him last night. I know that now.
But I'd needed him, couldn't he see that? What happened to Daniel and
me yesterday. I so needed to speak to someone myself.
I picked him up from school, and we went into town. And from the outset
I was in one, I know that. I shouldn't have taken Daniel. He told me in
the morning he didn't want to go, I should have gone in on my own
before I picked him up. Just that it was for him. His clothes. And
queuing to pay I pulled him by the arm harder than I should have. He
wouldn't stop tugging at me, though. And the crowds there in the
department store. It was raining, so everybody taking shelter, whether
they were shopping earnestly or not. The skies had opened, everyone
soaked and tetchy.
Then that shove, hard in my back as we were leaving, and I stumbled
into Daniel. I sent him sprawling. This kid, a black kid. Though I know
his colour's not important. And with him anyway, a white girl, OK?
Running, too. A punkette. Fifteen, sixteen years old? I don't know. No
more than seventeen, though - either of them. Neither stopping. This
little old lady in the doorway they knocked into as well as me, and
still they didn't stop. Though just out in the street, the girl slipped
and fell. The ground still wet, it seemed to steal one foot away from
her, and the boy stopped to help her. The security-guard then, brushing
past me, and catching up with them in the street.
I should have kept on walking. I keep on thinking that. Daniel was
fine, and once out in the street with everybody else, we should have
just gone. I was holding his hand. He would have followed. That crowd,
though, gathered already and swelling, the kid and this guard
facing-off now.
Though it wasn't the guard who made the first move on them. That's the
ridiculous thing about it. It was a woman - who hadn't even been in the
shop herself. She was just passing. Stepped out of the crowd and
approached the girl, who was just standing there nursing her elbow now,
watching the kid and the guard along with everybody else. She tried to
undo the girl's jacket zipper, as if what, though? She was a five year
old? Younger than Daniel? Of course she wasn't going to let her,
especially if she had something in there she'd stolen! She swore at her
- but viciously, I mean, really.
So the guard told her to calm down. He laid his hand lightly on her
arm, and she snatched it away and swore at him. The kid took hold of
the guard's arm then. He didn't hit him, he just grabbed at him and
thrust him away.
But he was old the guard, he was so old, and so smaller than the kid.
What are they thinking giving an ld man like him a job like that? He
probably has grandchildren. It's little things like that I keep on
thinking.
But anyway, I don't think anybody even then thought the kid would do
anything more than that really. It was just posturing. I guess the old
man thought it was. Because the kid went to walk away, and he followed,
at a trot almost, trying to keep up. Had to, right? His job. He started
laughing, though, took his hat off and humbled himself. Called the kid
matey - like what? He thought by being matey he would soften, turn
around and just give himself up, just walk back into the shop without
any fuss? It was pathetic.
He laid a hand on his shoulder, and then the kid punched him. Wheeled
around and punched him, full in the face. And I must have done exactly
what everybody else did, wince and turn away, say Oooh . . .! but look
straight back again. We couldn't not look. And again then. When the old
man wasn't even looking, though. In the side of his head this time, on
his ear, so that he staggered, then would have fallen sideways if it
hadn't been for someone catching him. I think it was that same woman as
before, who'd first approached the girl. She pushed him away from her
as if she thought he might burn her, too, back toward the kid, this
look of utter revulsion on her face.
He looked insane now, the kid. And all I did, I drew Daniel closer
when he turned his eyes on me. There was nobody there would meet his
eye. But everybody just waiting. If we had all just walked away then,
presumed it to be all over. But he had an audience, and what? He felt
he couldn't let us down? That is just what it was like.
He kicked him, a kung fu kick, and everybody making space for him to do
it. I thought of the water-weighted punch-bag Vern gave Daniel for his
birthday - only he didn't spring back up, the old man. He hit the
pavement and couldn't break his own fall even. And really kicking then
- not just his body. His head. Stamping on it. And the girl shouting.
Do him, Milton! Do him! And the way he looked at her while he was doing
it. That expression on his face . . . I had to turn away.
It was her, though, who stopped him, knowing there was only so long
before he'd have to. I don't know, though. And I can't stop thinking
this either, there was nobody would have stopped him. He could have
killed him if he'd wanted to. He could have rifled through his pockets,
tried his hat on, jumping on his chest - there was no one going to stop
him. And there were men present, too, I'm sure of that. I can't see
their faces, but there must have been. Someone could at least have
said, Stop!
But it's not just that. Is it. I wish it was. It's not even that I
didn't stop to help after the two of them had run off, finally. There
were others doing that. If anything there were too many willing to help
after they'd gone, even more milling around not helping. I didn't speak
a word to Daniel all the way home. And him not speaking either, just
holding my hand. Not even, Why are we walking? Why not the bus? I don't
know why myself. And when we did get home, my carrying on as usual,
like nothing had happened. But things weren't as they usually are. I
didn't have to tell him to get changed out of his school uniform even.
He didn't put the t.v. on, but stayed in his room. Even at dinner I
didn't mention it. And he went to bed early, of his own choice.
If Mark could just have been home. But all day at his mother's, though,
decorating - all week - and, OK, he told me on Tuesday he'd eat with
her on Friday. And I could have called him there before he left for the
club. But to say what? Tell him what happened, and then what? It would
have been ridiculous, calling him. He sees worse every night, he'd say.
Bottles - they're the worst. They should be banned. And chairs. There
was this girl one time, he told me, had a chair broken over her head,
who hadn't even been involved. She was trying to get out at the time.
Not as bloody as you'd think, he said, but there was white stuff. He
shook his head, and laughed at that, like he coudn't quite get his own
head around that but not to worry.
I don't think about what he does. I don't want to. I won't. Nod at the
stories he tells, and just wish sometimes he didn't have to tell them
when Daniel's around. Though I've never said as much. I should have, I
know that. Just listening to him and Vern sometimes, all I can think is
how like children they themselves are. When Vern's talking, even just
to Mark and I only happen to be there, it's for my benefit sometimes,
I'm sure of that. He's trying to impress me, he wants me to be shocked
- but wowed too, and by what? His indifference? His equilibrium, he's
called it. It's what Mark needs to work on, apparently. But Mark's just
the same, in his own way. He's more of a child than Vern even. He
idolizes him, and Vern knows that, he plays on it. I hate it. I don't
want to encourage either of them. I don't want to hear about what they
get up to. I don't care how morally they do what they do.
He'll bore of it eventually. Eventually, he will. I know he will. When
all this is out of his system, he will return to what he's best at.
Come a time, he must remember what his hands are for.
So anyway, I didn't make that call. And did I say a word to Daniel? No.
I tucked him in. He let me kiss him even. So I sat with him. I felt his
forehead, as if kidding myself he were only sickening for something. I
even told him that today if he was good I'd take him to the cinema. But
I didn't say a word about what we had both witnessed.

Vern is still talking. Occasionally now he laughs. Not his head back
and raise-the-roof laugh, but one meant to chivvy Mark along. Buck up,
he'll be saying, man . . .! But even Vern'll be having difficulty
bucking Mark up with this one. I've never been so embarrassed in my
life, he'll say later, and who's to say he hasn't been? He's said it
himself - he's proud of it - he has skin like a rhino's. But this now,
what I just said to Vern . . . Never! That is what he'll say, hands on
hips in the doorway, in his tracky-bottoms, as if there's nothing else
to say, but all puffed up, imposing himself.
Never mind the times Mark's embarrassed me. He doesn't have to be
drunk. He's better when he is drunk. And what'll we do, scream at each
other? I'll scream. Maybe. He'll just stand there, huge, not knowing
how to respond, finally. So then he'll sulk, for days maybe.
He should know I didn't mean it, though.
All morning when he's here, Vern sleeps. It's a small house. There's
only the sofa we've got to offer, but he sleeps regardless of Daniel,
who will watch the telly. I won't have him not when that's what he'd
usually do on a Saturday. Mark's told him to keep it down when Vern's
around, but why should he? And anyway Vern's said himself, I can sleep
through anything. So, Daniel, have the telly up as loud as you want,
son. But he can't sleep through vacuum-cleaning.
And that was mean straight off. It could have waited. I know. Just the
sight of him there . . . He's too big for the sofa. Wherever you're
standing, you can't not be aware of him. Looking out of the window into
the street, you can hear him breathing, unsticking his lips, and
swallowing. He farted once. He nearly blew Daniel's head off, not that
Daniel minded - he thought that the best thing ever. So I did it. I
vacuumed. Only the hall, but I left the living-room door open. And when
I finished, and went back in, he was sitting up.
He didn't look up immediately, though, or even have his eyes open. It
takes him a while to come to however he's woken. Head down, not quite
between his knees, he was massaging the back of his neck using both
hands. Running them down either side of his spine as far as he could
reach, and drawing the flesh up back toward his neck. It's huge, his
neck, bigger than Mark's even. Like a bull's, or a buffalo's. His
shoulders then, at the front, arms folded across his chest. He had to
sit up again, arching his spine, chest out, elbows high, in order to do
that. So when he did open his eyes, there I was standing watching. He
filled his lungs, and straightened the neck of his T-shirt.
"Man . . .!" he said. "Oh, man . . ." Then he reached out to Daniel,
who was sitting with his back to him on the floor watching telly, took
him by the shoulders and crushed them for him.
So Daniel adores Vern. Why shouldn't he, the attention he gives
him?
Then Mark appeared - the vacuuming having woken him, too, evidently -
and judging by the expression on his face, he would have said something
about it regardless of Daniel's being there. But this thick welt on his
face, stretching from the corner of his left eye right the way down to
the tip of his chin. And it is livid, as blue-grey as his eyes are. A
gash above his left ear that had been bleeding in the night and caked
in his hair that's blond and cropped so short now you can see his scalp
anyway - it was only my reaction to that that stopped him from saying
anything.
He stood there, just nodding, not at me exactly, but at the situation,
the rest of the room. Anything but look at me directly. Daniel, though
- now Daniel's eye he could meet, because he'd noticed the cuts, too,
and was just staring also. Mark moving around me then, toward Daniel,
he picked him up and held him, as he might have done a couple of years
or so ago, before Daniel started objecting. He didn't now. He was
eyeing Mark warily like he wasn't even sure it was him. The whole of
that side of his face misshapen. It was as if it wasn't Mark.
"Your daddy meet with some bad, bad boys last night," said Vern.
And we - none of us - said a thing. Just the t.v., which Mark turned
down now. Sat down in his usual corner, with Daniel on his lap.
"Yeah . . .!" Vern drawled. "Some bad, bad boys."
"What happened?" I said.
I thought he wouldn't answer, but eventually,
"Just some trouble. It was nothing."
"It doesn't look like nothing," I said. I could hear the edge in my
voice. I didn't want to be sounding as if I were telling him off.
"I said, it's nothing." Then very softly, to Daniel,
"Is it?" twisting his fist under his chin, to hold his head up.
I couldn't see Daniel's face. He was sitting facing Mark.
"You know . . ." said Vern. The sofa creaked as he shifted forward on
it, "Man, we going to have to take some serious action here . . . Punks
with belts. You know? From decent families, too, be my guess. Students
from the university there. But no respect. What choice we got but get
them dancing with their trousers round their ankles? Man . . . See them
act so tough then doing their moshing . . ."
And he started laughing, wiping the sleep out of his eyes, and
laughing. Mark, too - more gently, but still, just the same, laughing -
and looking at Daniel.
So I left. I didn't slam the door, but I made more noise than I need
have - unplugging the vacuum and winding in the lead, bundling it into
the cupboard so the pipes clattered. I couldn't help myself. I went
through to the kitchen, and slammed that door shut behind me. I put the
kettle on, and held on to the edge of the draining-board. Just stood
there. Clenching it.
I didn't want to be angry. I wanted to know he was fine, there was no
more damage than I'd seen. Had he had it X-rayed? His eye wasn't
damaged? But I wanted to hit him myself, I couldn't help it. Haven't I,
before now? In the chest, pounding . . . It doesn't mean a thing. How
could it? He's that big. He just wrapped his arms around me and
wouldn't let me go, rocking me, and, Shhh . . .ing, Shhh . . .ing until
I was done. But how long ago was that? He wouldn't do that now. I know
he wouldn't. Even if Vern wasn't in the house, he wouldn't.
I went back in, and asked did he want tea. And that surprised him, as
if it were a trick question he'd better consider carefully before
answering.
"That would be very nice," he said. "Thank you."
But this nod then, Vern's way, as much to say, What about Vern,
Jean?
I don't know why I've so had it in for Vern. I should have thought
then. He only came back last night because of what happened, right?
Mark needed someone to talk to, and he didn't want to wake me. Well
fine, but he should have is the thing. He should have been able to. So
it's me, right? Me. How can I give him what he needs? He needs a man.
He needed Vern.
When I returned with the tea, Daniel - still on Mark's lap - was
talking. But he stopped when he heard me enter, and Mark said,
sniffing,
"What's this about yesterday, in town?" wiping his nose on the back of
his hand as he does.
The question took me by surprise. I wasn't thinking about that.
"It was nothing," I said, and I caught Daniel lowering his head when
Mark glanced back at him, as if he thought he'd done something wrong in
my eyes, and was abashed now.
I handed Mark his tea, and put Vern's cup down by his feet. He was
curling his toes into the carpet. A hole in one sock I noticed, his big
nailed big toe peeping through.
"Some kid with a security guard," I said. "That's all. Trying it on. It
was nothing."
"How?" Mark asked - Daniel, not me. "How trying it on?"
And Daniel climbed down off his lap then. He glanced at Vern. Then he
took a deep breath, made himself big in the middle of the room, and
started kicking at the air in front of him, stamping. And that look on
his face.
"Doing him like that was how!" he said.
And Vern just cracked up - his raise-the-roof laugh - clapped his hands
together, and,
"Man . . .!" he said. "Man . . . You know you look just like your daddy
when you pull that face! Do it again for me."
He did. And Mark laughing, too, now, loud in his own way.
"Daniel!" I said. "Go to your room!"
He stopped, and stared at me, as shocked as if I'd slapped him. All
three of them were staring at me.
"Go to your room!" I said.
He looked at Mark, who wouldn't take his eyes off me but nodded, so he
did - eyeing me as he passed, though, angrily, hatefully.
I shut the door behind him.
"Thank you," I said, "I do not want my son thinking it's a funny thing
to kick an old man half to death, thank you!"
I wasn't looking at Vern - I was looking at Mark - but,
"Jean," he said, "Sugar. From the bottom of my heart."
And then I did look at him, his left hand on his chest, head cocked to
one side, eyes imploring.
"I don't think it's funny!" I said.
"Nobody's laughing, Jean," Mark said - and the way he was looking at
me.
"Sugar," said Vern. "You all cut up. I understand. But ease, you know.
Don't be taking it out on the boy."
"Thank you, Vern, I don't need that kind of advice from you."
Mark sucked his teeth then. He actually sucked his teeth! He's never
done that before, and lurched forward in his chair some, as if going to
go for me.
"Man . . .! Easy, you know? Cool now . . ." Vern said.
"No, things are not cool," I said. "Things are far from cool, Vern.
Your laughing at my son impersonating some thug is not cool. And
neither by the way is getting your head belted for a living!"
He was gripping both arms of his chair now, Mark.
"Jean," Vern said, "Chill. Your man been through some serious
tribulation here. He in need of sympathy, you know? Understanding - not
a scolding for what he been through. He not a child no more."
"No, Vern," I said. "That's it. My point exactly. He's not a
child."
If only Mark had spoken then. If only something, anything - yes gone
for me, anything - but taken the initiative, somehow. He wouldn't
though. Leaving it to Vern again.
"Listen, love," he said, "Mark has a mother of a night. You know what
I'm saying here. And you a bad day, right? You seen this punk - "
"He wasn't," I said. "OK? He wasn't."
"Say what?" he said.
"A punk," I said, "He wasn't a punk, he was a kid."
He was looking at me now like I was the one speaking another language.
Looking from me to Mark and back again, What the . . .?
"Well, that's right, isn't it?" I said. "That's what you say, us
whiteys the punks, and your lot the kids? Well, he was a kid, Vern -
black. Like you. A man."

Vern didn't say a thing. Just stared at me as he never has before. And
Mark staring. The pair of them stunned. I was. I have never used that
word before. Not even jokily. It's a word that can't be used jokily. I
have told Mark that. He used to insist that it could.
So I left the room.
And now, why doesn't he just leave? Why doesn't he? You'd think he
couldn't wait to get out, and never want to see me again, a thing like
that said. But no, there he is not budging, his voice still rumbling
away - and laughing even. How can he be? Mark's not said a word. Just
Vern, bucking him up, It`s cool, man . . . No worries. No worries . .
.
No worries.
I should go in to see Daniel, apologise to him. Explain. I should have
said this yesterday, say, I'm sorry I didn't. I could just so do with a
hug right now. He let me last night. But now, why should he, right?
He's done nothing wrong that he can see. He hasn't done anything
wrong.
And then there's this knock at the bedroom-door. It's all gone quiet
downstairs, I realise. But, Why would Daniel be knocking? I wonder. Or
Mark?
And of course. It's neither of them.
"Yo," he says. "I cleared it with the man to say no hard feelings, you
know? No hard feelings."
He's come right in and pushed the door to behind him - not closed it,
but nearly. As good as.
"I know you be feeling bad," he says. "But no need, yeah? Really. Heat
of the moment say."
He's come right round, and is standing behind me, between the bed and
myself. I'm leaning on the windowsill. He's cleared it with the man?
But I say nothing. I've said enough already. Surely.
"So this incident in town," he's saying, "it's got to you. Right under
your skin, yeah? Mmm, well, now . . ." And he's sitting now, on my bed.
Mine and Mark's. If I turn my head I can see him in the dressing-table
mirror, smoothing the bedspread with his huge flat hand. "These things,
you know . . .? Vi-o-lence. A woman shouldn't have to witness such a
thing," he says. "No woman. But you? You a good mother, you know? I
know. Caring, loving. Then some upstart man boy beating on one of
your own right there in front of you - "
"Vern," I say.
"Your little boy there and all . . ."
"Vern! I'm sorry. You know I'm sorry. You know I'd never've said such a
thing only - don't you? You know that."
"Sure!" he says. "Sure. I know . . . This what I'm saying. I
hunderstand. It's cool, you know? Everything's cool."
But it's not. He shouldn't be in here. I want him to go, but how can I
tell him so? He's forgiving me, right. The least I can do is be
gracious?
"Mark . . ." he's saying. "You know?" I still have my back to him,
although I'm seeing nothing out of the window. I'm not looking at
anything, I'm listening. "We talk, man. And he's a good guy. You should
be proud of such a man. But we talk, yeah . . .? Guys do, you be
surprised. I know things ain't right between the two of you. And it's
killing him, it's killing him, Jean. You want to talk more, you know?
You want to share more. He loves you, and Danny. So why be so vexed all
the time? There ain't no reason for it. Who in the world don't need
loving? I'm asking you now."
And I'm nodding. Standing here, still wanting him out of here, but
nodding just the same, and saying,
"You're right. I know it Vern. You're right."
"Of course I am," he says, as if I was foolish to have doubted, and
he's getting up again now.
It's not to leave, though. He's drawn that little bit closer. I can
feel him without his having to touch. There's not that much room
between myself and the bed anyway. And then he is touching. He's taken
hold of me by the shoulders, squeezing, digging in his thumbs.
"Man . . .! Feel that," he's saying. "Deep breaths now."
I don't like this. I don't. But he's digging his thumbs right into
those knots around my shoulders. He is crushing them so it hurts, and
the deep breaths when he says just come.
"Ain't that good?" he's saying. "Ain't that better already? How you
like that now?"
I don't trust my voice, but,
"Vern," I say.
His thumbs might pass right through me, my head way back almost
touching his chest. But he's right what he's saying. Because he lets go
then, and somebody's cut my strings it's like. I need him there behind
me if only for support. He's rubbing my shoulders gently, all over my
back, one hand, the other I don't know where is, I'm not thinking where
any more. But in the small of my back, beneath my T-shirt, and then the
other, too, and he's holding me now around the waist, folding me into
him as if.
"You ever had a black man?" he says, and I can't get my breath to
answer. He's whispered it. I'm not even sure I've heard him right. Up
close into my ear, "Jean, you ever had a black man? I'm asking."
I don't know what to say. What does he want me to say?
"No."
He pushes me away then. I'm turning to face him. He's stepping aside,
though, withdrawing around the bed, and heading for the door. He's
going to shut it, I'm thinking. He can't.
But no. He's stuck his hands into his trouser-pocket, and is pulling
out his rings and putting them on. Smiling at me, slowly. And with the
door wide open,
"Sweet," he's saying. "Sweet," in a voice so loud that Mark can hear
downstairs. "I'm glad we got that sorted."
He pulls the door to, and I can hear him laughing - can feel its
reverberations running through me - all the way down to the bottom of
the stairs.
I'm falling, backwards on to the bed, and once I've started I really do
want just to keep on falling. With my eyes shut tight. Like I'm never
going to stop. But I'm bouncing when I hit. I'm bouncing is what I'm
doing.