girl
story
I had pulled him across me in my sleep, thinking that he had malaria, and was dying; that we were in the jungle, and that a crowd of people were surrounding us, crying, begging me to let him go.
This hadn’t woken him—he was still sleeping, had slept through the night. And now he was living, kissing and lifting my neck to press into the back of me, so that I could feel him well enough. I could, but couldn’t say it, could only breathe in and out.
Being touched came before sun, before disappointment, before all the rest, I thought, as I watched a small, childlike hand extend out from under the bed. A stubby forearm followed, and a shoulder, and a head of tufted black hair.
I felt his touch roughen as the girl crawled out from under the bed and stood beside us, dressed in the linen of my sheets and curtains. I tried to hold him inside of me, to breathe or stare through the rising sun, and hoped that she would go back, or else stop smiling.
This smile was radiant and free; delighted that she had found me, and in such good company.
‘I want to talk to you,’ she said. I shook my head as he moved sweetly to bite my cheek.
‘I want to talk to you,’ she said, louder and more boldly. I shook my head again and took his hand into my mouth, glaring. My chest tightened and cracked, ack-ack-acked with anger. With my head still on the mattress, I beckoned to her; here, here. She moved closer, her eyes widening. Here, here. Closer and lower as she kneeled, her round cheek almost to mine.
‘Hand me my glasses,’ I said. She reached carefully towards the table and placed them in my hands.
‘Thank you,’ I said. Now seeing clearly, I grabbed her by the roots of her hair. She shrieked, but I held on tight.
‘You leave me alone,’ I hissed. ‘You leave me alone, you leave me alone, you leave me alone, you stop coming here stop hiding under my bed watching me watching me with him you leave me alone you’re nothing you’re done do you understand you need to leave me alone you’re just a stupid little girl.’
Rip rip rip, with every phrase I pulled again and she was wailing now. The sound of it woke him up. Sliding out of me, he cried, ‘What are you doing!’
I had clumps of bloody hair in my hands. He prised my fingers from her, one by one, until we could see the nail marks on each square of soft flesh. She, gaping and matted, tripped to the door like an animal, unable to look at us, then went banging and squealing down the stairs in her school shoes. Then, quiet. I breathed out and turned back to him for a kiss.
He looked at me, sick. ‘She’s just a girl,’ he said. ‘She’s just a girl; you didn’t have to pull her hair.’