A Line of Blood

So began our marriage of convenience.

For a time nothing changed. We ate, we smoked, we drank as lovers do. I would lick her to orgasm, slowly, timing the strokes of my tongue to her breathing. She would sit astride me until long after I had come, kissing and caressing me until I grew hard inside her again. We revelled in the carpet burns, the subtle bruisings, the twists and the strains that we casually inflicted upon each other. Edge of worktop, rim of bath, tiled floor and wood-chipped wall – all left their imprint upon her, upon me.

In cafés we compared our wounds: the grazes on her left wrist; on my right knee. In dark-lit restaurants she would draw my hand to her inner thigh, ask me if I could feel what she felt, that she was tender and abraded. In the aftermath of sex we found the precursor to sex. I liked her as I’d never liked anyone else.

‘You like me? You like me?’

‘I really, really like you.’

At this she became serious, almost formal. She took my hand and placed it in my lap.

‘No, no, I think it’s more than that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You love me, Alex. I actually think you love me.’

Her words lay heavy in the air: an accusation. I looked at her, made to speak, stopped myself.

‘What, Alex?’

‘Isn’t it for me to say that I love you?’

‘Well, by convention, yes, but you haven’t so far. And I really think you do. You can tell me you don’t, and then, of course, I won’t have to tell you that I love you, which would probably be easier for both of us. But you’re really very sweet to me, and although that doesn’t in itself mean anything, we kind of established that being sweet to women is really not in your nature.’

‘Therefore I love you.’

‘Would you please drop the word therefore?’

I lit a cigarette. Tried to think. Offered her the cigarette. She snatched it from me, angry now, dropped it into the ashtray.

‘You are so uptight. What’s so hard about saying it?’

‘Wait, please. Wait. Wait. Yes. You’re right. I am uptight.’

‘That’s it?’

‘And I do. I really do.’

‘Then say it.’

‘I thought I just did.’

She gave a little shake of the head. ‘No. You didn’t.’

‘You said something just now about having to say that you loved me. Do you?’

‘Love you? Yes. Yes, Alex, I really do love you. And it kind of scares me. Because I’m in your country, in your apartment – sorry, your flat – living on your terms, and pretty much on your money. The only friends I have here are your friends. I know no one my own age. I have nowhere to go if this screws up. Which of your friends is going to want me sleeping on their floors? Can you name just one person who’d want that? And I know you’ll think I’m being unfair but I kind of wish you’d said it first, because I’m in the weaker position here.’

‘I love you.’

‘Say it again.’

‘I love you, Millicent.’

She reached for my hand. ‘And now I feel stupid again. I should not have made you say it.’

‘Millicent. I love you.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Stop apologising.’

‘Kind of English, right? I fit right in …’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you. Are we good?’

‘We’re good.’

At first I saw no change in Millicent, nor in myself, but other people must have seen something shift. They began to invite us out as a couple, to the pub at first, but then to parties and to weekends away.

Those friends I hadn’t dropped seemed genuinely delighted when we celebrated our first anniversary with no sign of a break-up. My female friends began to make room for Millicent, to invite her to bars or to the cinema, to seek out her opinion of books. Slowly, over time, Millicent eased up. There were small changes to her wardrobe. Her breasts jutted a little less, her heels dropped slightly. She was still sharp, but the brittle quality she had had at the start was gone. I no longer had to carry her through London life, to police conversations for slurs on her age or her nationality. I didn’t have to defend her against a hostile world. Millicent got life in London, and it suited her.

I loved her all the more.

Millicent handed me a cup of coffee as I entered the kitchen. I put it down by the sink, and held her in my arms. She wrapped herself around me and we clung to each other, rocking gently back and forth.

‘I know you have more to tell me, Millicent.’

‘I need for you to believe that I would never betray you, Alex.’

‘I’m trying. I’m not finding it easy.’

‘I know. And I did a bad thing. But I hope when I’ve finished you will see that the worst thing I have done is not to tell you about that bad thing, and that I didn’t betray you. Can you let me get to the end of this?’

I took a half-step back, took her head in my hands, my palms on her cheeks, my fingers in her hair. I stared into her eyes, trying to find a sign of something – what? But she just looked strung out, a little sad.

I opened the back door and went out into the garden, sat on the patchy grass. Millicent came out with the coffee cups and sat down beside me. We drank our coffee, saying nothing, not daring to look at each other.

In the grass beside me a line of ants was dismembering a ladybird. The workers streamed back and forwards along a bare patch in the turf, carrying body parts to an unseen nest. I looked at the cigarette in my hand. My teenage self would have intervened, bringing death by fire. I flicked the ash from the cigarette, and brought the tip close to the stream of ants. It stopped. Ants stood, antennae and forelegs waving in the air, poised as if to attack. Then, perfectly synchronised, the flow of ants began again, making a small detour around the cigarette tip, paying it no mind.

My telephone rang. Work. I switched it off and put it back in my pocket.

‘What are you thinking, Alex?’

‘That we really should stop smoking.’

‘Really? That’s it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, so the day I lost the bracelet was about six weeks ago when you were away. Bryce came round and said he’d been expecting company and been let down, and he had an open bottle of wine, and some cold cuts that needed to be eaten. And I told him that I already ate, and that Max was in bed, and that I had to be there in the house.

‘And he said the wine was too good to waste, that he paid £65 for it, and he could bring the meat over, and we could eat it here in our garden, and that way I wouldn’t have to leave Max; and I said sure; I mean, why not? Guy got stood up, I thought. He’s lonely. He doesn’t do women. He bought a $100 bottle of wine. Where’s the harm?’

I turned over and lay on my back, looked up at our bedroom window. Even from here you could see the paint was peeling from the frame. Other people – my father – would notice that window and do something about it. Me, I noticed it and forgot it again. We would do nothing about it, and in five years we would have to replace the whole thing.

‘So,’ said Millicent, ‘so we drank the wine and ate the food, and then he said he had a heater in his garden, and it was getting a little cold, so why didn’t we go there and drink some more wine. And I said no, but he was really persistent. And I guess I kind of thought maybe he wanted more than company, but I was just a little drunk and I was missing you and he was kind of funny and sharp, and I still pretty much thought he was gay. And I figured if I left Max’s door open, and opened the bathroom window that I would pretty much hear if anything was wrong.’

‘You left Max on his own?’

‘Please, Alex. Let me get to the end, and then if you want to hate me you can.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Deal.’

‘So I was sitting there in his garden, and he starts to say some nice things to me, about how he thinks I’m pretty and kind, and about the way I dress, and how he’s always liked Americans more than English people, and how I seem like so much more to him than just a wife and mother; and I still haven’t figured out that he’s interested, which makes me a klutz, I know. Because as soon as I say it out loud I can see it’s a pretty obvious come-on.

‘And then he goes indoors and comes out with a bottle of Calvados and I ask him why he hasn’t brought glasses and he says we can drink it from the bottle, and I know then that it’s really time to leave. And I get up, and he tries to kiss me, and I step back, and I trip over, and he puts his hand out and grabs my wrist, and pulls me back to my feet. And then he tries to kiss me again, and I let him.’

I turned to look at her. She uprooted a small handful of grass. She didn’t want to look at me, but I could tell she expected me to say something. I watched her pull up another handful of grass, then I turned away.

‘I kissed him. Not for long. But I kissed him. That’s the bad thing that I did, and for that I’m so very sorry, Alex. But I did no more. I did nothing more than kiss him. And then he touched me and I broke away from him.’

‘So what sort of signal was he getting from you before this happened?’

‘Alex, I don’t know what sort of signal he was getting from me. I was drunk, and confused, and he was drunk too. If I told you nothing happened, I’d be lying to you.’

I went upstairs and peed. Washed and dried my hands very precisely, trying to still the thoughts that arced across my mind. I looked out through the open bathroom window.

Bryce’s bedroom and bathroom faced the back too. If he’d wanted to, he could have seen a lot of Millicent from his freshly painted windows. I wondered darkly if he had coveted his neighbour’s wife, or more specifically his neighbour’s wife’s ass.

When I came down Millicent was sitting in exactly the same position. It looked for all the world as if nothing was wrong. She was telling me the truth: I saw that now. I wanted to take her in my arms, hold her and tell her just how much I loved her. We could get through this. A drunken kiss and a flash of flesh on flesh were tiny pricks of light in the cosmic chart of infidelity.

After some time, I said, ‘You have an alibi.’

‘I mean, I was at the radio station. Is that an alibi? Why would they even be thinking that way, Alex? They never once used the word alibi.’

‘They asked me not to leave the country.’

‘You’re not serious.’

I took out the police photograph of the bracelet.

‘Right there. Look. A little tag with a number on it. Looks to me like an evidence tag. I’m guessing the reason they gave you the picture and not the bracelet itself is that the bracelet is evidence in case they decide that they want to bring someone to trial. And given that they’ve asked me not to leave the country, I suspect the person they would be thinking of bringing to trial would be me.’

‘Oh Jesus, Alex.’

‘Isn’t that what they call reasonable suspicion or just cause in American TV series? What do they call it here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘No, neither do I. So, what are you thinking right now, Millicent? Because right now I’m thinking things aren’t good. Because I seem to be implicated in our next-door neighbour’s suicide. How did your bracelet get there?’

She shook her head. That same sad look again.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I need to get a lawyer, don’t I?’

‘Seems weird that you can’t leave the country. I guess a lawyer would be a good idea.’

I searched the bare patch in the grass. The ladybird had disappeared, and a few ants could be seen ambling around.

She moved towards me, took my hand and placed it on her thigh. I let it rest there. ‘The truth is,’ she said, ‘the truth is I get lonely when you go away, Alex.’ I let her put her head on my shoulder, reached up and rubbed the nape of her neck. ‘It’s like since Sarah you sublimated something,’ she said, ‘like your energy’s all in your work.’

We went inside, climbed the stairs, failed to fuck. Millicent fell asleep nestled against my chest. I lay on my back and cradled her to me like a child, but knew that I would not find sleep.

Sarah, the little girl we almost had; Millicent, the wife who would not discuss losing Sarah.

At three fifteen someone rang the doorbell and knocked on the door. I stayed where I was; I didn’t want to disturb Millicent.

We love each other: of that there is no doubt. It isn’t love that’s the problem here.

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