One day / Leaving Ruth

'One day you'll leave me,' said Ruth's reflection from the other
side of the mirror. She wobbled the flesh that bulged over the elastic
of her black knickers. Ruth moved her hands together around her belly
and slid them up to lift and separate her breasts. As she checked for
lumps, her reflection starred at the curves distorted by last night's
dinner.
'One day you'll see I'm fat and ugly and leave me.'
In the half-light of the bedroom on a grey Sunday morning Benny could
not see the purple threads wrapped around her ankles, or the dry skin
on the back of her legs or the orange peel at the top of her thighs. He
could only just make out the words in his book and that took all his
concentration.
'Please don't leave me, Benny.' Ruth turned her head so it was her
talking and not her reflection. 'Benny?' Benny signed without making a
sound. He took off his glasses and folded them away. He smoothed an
invisible tuft of hair and placed his book upside down on the
bedspread. He looked up and watched her. Ruth stepped away from the
mirror and, turning to face him, dropped her hands by her sides. He
examined her near-nakedness, eyes running up and down, watching anxiety
spreading across her face. Instead of replying, he raised his right
hand, indicated with his finger that she should turn and she started to
shuffle round. When she had turned completely his hand changed to stop,
then the finger beckoned her.

The grey Sunday morning turned into an overcast Sunday lunchtime.
Neither of them had an appetite so Benny suggested they go for a walk.
From the living roof, behind the net curtain Ruth watched the mass of
sky frowning back at her.
'It might rain.'
'It might not.'
'It's quite cold.'
'We'll wrap up warm. Come on love, you know you should.' He placed his
arm across her shoulder and rubbed a knot on her neck.
'OK. I'll put some make-up on.'

Half an hour later Benny pushed against the front door to reassure it
was locked and they walked arm-in-arm down past the leafless bushes in
the tiny front garden and onto the street. They followed the map that
engineers had sprayed on the pavement in blue, red and green. The day
had sucked all other colour from the terrace and Ruth though how hard
it was hard to tell the monochrome houses apart. She wondered if they
would ever find their own house again. Ruth spotted a heap of dog dirt,
a chip paper caught around the roots of a tree and a bottle rolling
towards them.
'Are you OK?'
Benny pulled her back together and she corrected her breathing. She
focused on the tufts of grass that grew on the wrong side of a garden
wall. 'Yes, I'm OK. I was just thinking how the house look the same.'
As they walked on Benny could only see the differences between them.
This one had neat a garden with freshly trimmed hedges, the next the
door and windows had been replaced with white plastic, the next had
almost decayed away its curtains permanently closed.
'I've got to repaint our window frames,' he remembered.

The terrace ended abruptly. When they first moved into their house a
clothes factory had occupied the land. When the work moved abroad, the
factory was bulldozed for redevelopment but the site remained 'For
Sale' ever since. The fence surrounding the wasteland had been
repeatedly torn and trampled down so Ruth and Benny could short cut to
the shops. Neither of them could remember what the factory was like
anymore.

'They want me to work an extra shift next week,' Benny said carefully
as they navigated a concrete slab that had split in half. Small birches
pushed up through the crack. 'Frank's on holiday and Mark got a bad
back.'
Ruth didn't say anything. She had made her feelings clear before and
she choose to say nothing. The silence filled the space between them as
they crossed from concrete to tarmac and back to concrete.
'I said,' he repeated 'I'm going to work an extra shift. We could do
with the extra money this month.'
'OK' said Ruth quietly. 'I want to sit down now.'
They sat on a brick bunker, legs dangling like children. Ruth leaned
back and tried to ignore the tightness in her chest. She played with a
stand of hair. The colour was starting to grow out and she decided to
book an appointment with some of the money from Benny's extra
shift.
'They found a body last week.'
'Who did, where?'
'The found a body here, last week.' He points at the trees that
surround the old factory perimeter. 'It was in the paper. Some kids
playing in the trees. Found a body. Last week.'
'I didn't read that.'
'It wasn't in the free paper. I read it at the shop while I was in the
queue. It was a girl, taken an overdose.'
'How could she do that to her parents?' A fine drizzle started to fall
over the wasteland. Ruth pulled the zipper on her coat up to he neck
and stood up. She looked down at Benny who was watching the trees,
hands stuffed in pockets, shoulders shrugged. 'Come on' she said and
pulled at his arm.
'It wasn't deliberate,' he said. She tried to read the lines across his
face but he just watched the trees. 'The paper said it was an accident.
What was she thinking?' He let Ruth pull him up. They walked the
remainder of the field in silence, backs turned to the tree line.

Benny always found it difficult to make decisions without Ruth. At some
point in all the years together, they fused into one and now he
couldn't fully function on his own. He hoped Ruth felt the same, but he
never asked her. In the shop, the copies of the local paper had sold
out so he tried to guess what she wanted instead. While he was in the
queue, he changed his mind twice, each time reaching across the short
girl behind him. Each time the girl remained rigid in her headphones,
eyes widening fractionally her only expression of their encounters.
When he got to the till Benny fumbled through each empty pocket before
reaching inside his jacket to break into a note and he left the shop
flustered.

Ruth was doing her breathing exercises on the bench outside the clump
of shops. A corner shop, laundrette, off-licence and video store,
splashed with graffiti, covered with wire mesh and shutters. Ruth
counted to ten and exhaled slowly, following the consultant's advice to
the letter. A woman in a checked coat walked by, terrier following at
an obedient distance from her heels. She stopped and looked at Ruth,
considered saying something but continuing on her way without a
word.

Benny crept up behind Ruth, meaning to surprise her but startling her
instead.
'God, Benny, don't do that!' She's clutched her chest again. 'You know
you shouldn't do that.' She took a moment to compose herself, then and
picked the newspaper from his hand.
'No, I wanted a Bugle.'
'They didn't have any left.'
'I only wanted a Bugle.'
Benny sat down beside her. Fine rain flecked his glasses and he pulled
his hood up. The woman with the dog walked back, carrier in hand. She
had put a coat on the dog that matched her own. The dog walked ahead in
quick steps, pulling at the lead.
'I won't leave you, love.'

She left the paper on the bench when they started back and they walked
the long way back despite the drizzle. The long way took them by a bus
shelter and Ruth told Benny about a man she had seen lying there on the
plastic seat, pissing into the air like a fountain. Benny couldn't stop
laughing. Ruth hoped her tramp would find her abandoned newspaper to
shelter under. They detoured through the shelter and sniffed the air
but the smell had been washed away.

'Why didn't you tell me that before?' asked Benny 'I'll never wait
there again.'

The way back went through a new estate that used to be a field.

Benny tried to imagine what the estate would look like if it were
abandoned like the factory. The ornamental trees would grow into
monsters

Benny made cheese on toast when they got back to the house while Ruth
dried her hair, calling through to the kitchen. She studied the towel
for dye residue and found a handful of hair. She looked in the mirror
to see if she could tell where they came from. Her reflection said,
'What do you think those children thought?'

--This is work in progress. If you would like me to finish it, please
email or vote. Thank you --