She was lithe, lean
exceptionally so
and to be fair, it fascinated me
and she kissed like she was on a curfew
and that gave me the toots
so we necked on a park bench
as the dawn came in by the river
and I think both of us would have took it further
but I was drunk
and she was worse
and nobody wants to see drunks fucking
as they walk their dog before breakfast.
Maybe it was the booze, maybe just my weary mind
already too old in my twenties
but I was making ready to leave for jury duty
two months later,
when the phone rang in the hall
as I scrabbled into the cheap jacket
I’d bought in a supermarket
“Hey! It’s me!” –
and I chewed on dry toast and couldn’t place the voice –
“I’m at the station. Are you coming to meet me?”
And I grunted in the affirmative
and something new was occurring.
Well, I met her on the platform, and she’d shaved her head
so that my stubble was longer than her hair
I gave her some cab fare, the keys and the address,
told her not to steal the flatmate’s food
then got on a loco in my cheap blue suit
and spent the day in a waiting room twenty miles away
and when I got back to the house in the freezing February evening
she had the bourbon out
and was in bed
and there were books – my books –
strewn everywhere across the floor
the house was big, and cold
so I just got into bed alongside her
and helped myself to the bottle too.
and so it went on, all week
I’d hop onto a train in the morning
all polish and combed hair
trying to create an air of authority and responsibility
then come home to a wrecked room
and a drunken woman
that I didn’t know, and had no desire to screw.
she didn’t talk much, and when she did
it was of politics, and wars, and injustice
things I had no clue about
and no desire to learn
and I figured she’d be happiest in someone else’s bed
so I could go on being sensible
and respectable
but every night she was in mine
taking up the room.
on the Thursday night
I was beginning to go insane
I liked my headspace, some quiet
in which to drink wine by the window
or watch the moon roll
across the empty winter sky
and I liked to write
and could get nothing done
(and on at least one of the intervening mornings,
I’d woken up in the wardrobe)
so when she drew up close in the bed
so I could smell her sweat, and view the hairs under her arms
(which she hadn’t shaved)
I didn’t pull away to the other side of the bed as usual
and instead took her on, full throttle.
I thrust my tongue into her mouth
which threw her eyes wide open with excitement
and as we got down to the scrabbling around
there was nothing in it, no art, no finesse
just two bodies going at it, out of boredom,
of desperation
and surprisingly, when I was working my hardest
she was hardly moving, hardly registering.
eventually I finished, and climbed off
and she turned away and was immediately asleep
as I lay staring up imagining the stars beyond the ceiling
feeling the warm body alongside me
suddenly turning ice cold.
next night, when I got back for the last time,
the wreckage was still there
but she was gone
and there was a note in the folds of the bed
that said simply THANKS
with no number, no details.
Sitting here now, the unfashionable side of 40,
late into the wee small hours
when the cold begins to bite
and not even the drunks are wandering the pavements
often, I find myself thinking of that note
and wondering if I should have tried a little harder.
