differently.
I said, But he’s hardly in the video at all, you can’t go by that. There’s a close-up of everyone playing pool. I tried to make it like John Cassevetes, swaying the camera around them, close-ups on laughing mouths, sultry eyes, chalking the poolcue. The high-pitched scrudge of chalk and cue. The camera swings around the bar and when it passes the open doorway a blast of sunshine casts a trail over the last half of the shot. A flame of blue light, an afterimage, swims briefly over the bartender and leaves a halo on Antoine’s white shirt.
She’s sitting on the sill of the kitchen window, a cheek and a half hefted out, so she can smoke. She turns and blows into the garden and turns back.
She says, What do you think of that? He wants to sleep with other women.
She jumps down.
Maybe I could enjoy it, she says. She holds her cigarette under the tap. I can see a tremor in her hand. Freedom, she says.
Once when we were fighting Maureen grabbed my face and kissed me on the cheek. I told her never to touch my face when I’m angry. I ran up the stairs two at a time and she was at the bottom. I leaned over the rail to shout at her, Don’t touch me.
She grabbed the banister. I’ll kiss you if I want, she said. Normally we never touch, we aren’t touchy-feely.
I’ll kiss you if I want, she screamed, the spiteful squeak of her hand on the banister. It was true, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.
She slammed the kitchen door. Then she opened it and said, I’m sorry, that was over the top.
Antoine tells me that if he kissed me it would be very different.
From what, I say.
From the way other men have kissed you all your life.
I say, Yes, I know. French-kissing. We have that here, too. No big deal.
He says he isn’t talking about just the tongues. He says speaking French uses a whole different set of muscles in the lips, the tongue, the mouth. A kiss is different.
But you’re speaking English now, I say, you probably have your technique all fucked up.
At night he comes to Maureen with something on a fork, his hand cupped underneath. The yacht is rocking gently and the fog is already settling. He says, Ferme les yeux, ouvre la bouche.
She giggles.
What is it, she says.
You must trust me, he says.
She closes her eyes and opens her mouth. She chews once, twice. And he says, a snail.
Then she screams and spits it into her hand.
Maureen says of the woman with the blonde hair like mashed banana, A life defined solely by pleasure.
I say, Yuck.
Once Maureen held a big light for Antoine when they were trying to dock at night and he said, Get it out of my fucking eyes. It was their only fight in two months of sailing.
But he was proving himself, she says, and I could have blinded him.
She looks far away, her eyes so full of the dock and him reaching for the boat, him in the brilliant blast of light and a dark, uninhabited coastline behind him.
She says, That light. And she shakes her head in amazement. Get it out of my fucking eyes, she says.
It was so heavy. It was all I could do to hold it.
After she left for France I found a diary of hers on a high cupboard shelf where we kept linen. I was alone in the house, standing on a chair gripping the dusty book. I let the diary fall open and read just one paragraph. She described a gold dress.
I snapped it shut. It was as if she were in the room, but I could feel the longing for her too — how much I missed her. The dress was a metallic orange, shiny, formfitting to just above the knee, and she wore it dancing. We went out and got drunk, walked home in a windstorm when the bars closed. There was a sluice of yellow leaves in the centre of Cathedral Street. We walked up the steep hill with our calves aching and the wet leaves clinging to our boots like spurs.
Azalea
T he doorbell rings and Bethany lets herself in. She’s wearing a red blazer and navy skirt. Coming from early morning mass.
Leaves fly in behind her, scrabbling sideways
I said, But he’s hardly in the video at all, you can’t go by that. There’s a close-up of everyone playing pool. I tried to make it like John Cassevetes, swaying the camera around them, close-ups on laughing mouths, sultry eyes, chalking the poolcue. The high-pitched scrudge of chalk and cue. The camera swings around the bar and when it passes the open doorway a blast of sunshine casts a trail over the last half of the shot. A flame of blue light, an afterimage, swims briefly over the bartender and leaves a halo on Antoine’s white shirt.
She’s sitting on the sill of the kitchen window, a cheek and a half hefted out, so she can smoke. She turns and blows into the garden and turns back.
She says, What do you think of that? He wants to sleep with other women.
She jumps down.
Maybe I could enjoy it, she says. She holds her cigarette under the tap. I can see a tremor in her hand. Freedom, she says.
Once when we were fighting Maureen grabbed my face and kissed me on the cheek. I told her never to touch my face when I’m angry. I ran up the stairs two at a time and she was at the bottom. I leaned over the rail to shout at her, Don’t touch me.
She grabbed the banister. I’ll kiss you if I want, she said. Normally we never touch, we aren’t touchy-feely.
I’ll kiss you if I want, she screamed, the spiteful squeak of her hand on the banister. It was true, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.
She slammed the kitchen door. Then she opened it and said, I’m sorry, that was over the top.
Antoine tells me that if he kissed me it would be very different.
From what, I say.
From the way other men have kissed you all your life.
I say, Yes, I know. French-kissing. We have that here, too. No big deal.
He says he isn’t talking about just the tongues. He says speaking French uses a whole different set of muscles in the lips, the tongue, the mouth. A kiss is different.
But you’re speaking English now, I say, you probably have your technique all fucked up.
At night he comes to Maureen with something on a fork, his hand cupped underneath. The yacht is rocking gently and the fog is already settling. He says, Ferme les yeux, ouvre la bouche.
She giggles.
What is it, she says.
You must trust me, he says.
She closes her eyes and opens her mouth. She chews once, twice. And he says, a snail.
Then she screams and spits it into her hand.
Maureen says of the woman with the blonde hair like mashed banana, A life defined solely by pleasure.
I say, Yuck.
Once Maureen held a big light for Antoine when they were trying to dock at night and he said, Get it out of my fucking eyes. It was their only fight in two months of sailing.
But he was proving himself, she says, and I could have blinded him.
She looks far away, her eyes so full of the dock and him reaching for the boat, him in the brilliant blast of light and a dark, uninhabited coastline behind him.
She says, That light. And she shakes her head in amazement. Get it out of my fucking eyes, she says.
It was so heavy. It was all I could do to hold it.
After she left for France I found a diary of hers on a high cupboard shelf where we kept linen. I was alone in the house, standing on a chair gripping the dusty book. I let the diary fall open and read just one paragraph. She described a gold dress.
I snapped it shut. It was as if she were in the room, but I could feel the longing for her too — how much I missed her. The dress was a metallic orange, shiny, formfitting to just above the knee, and she wore it dancing. We went out and got drunk, walked home in a windstorm when the bars closed. There was a sluice of yellow leaves in the centre of Cathedral Street. We walked up the steep hill with our calves aching and the wet leaves clinging to our boots like spurs.
Azalea
T he doorbell rings and Bethany lets herself in. She’s wearing a red blazer and navy skirt. Coming from early morning mass.
Leaves fly in behind her, scrabbling sideways
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