The Bad Sister by Emma Tennant

eating with satisfaction. He put a blob of redcurrant jelly on the edge of his plate. He unscrewed a jar of mint sauce. He beamed down at his food. At last, as a recompense for having to wait for it, he was getting his Sunday lunch.
    I glanced towards the window. It had grown darker after all. We were tilting away from the sun, we were spinning just as we always had done. The moon had grown stronger and more assured. I thought of Gala’s face, pale on the cushions in her sudden sleep.
    â€˜It’s time men were prepared to become more psychic,’ I said wilfully. ‘Then we’d be able to talk about the really interesting things – you know.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, I’m sure!’
    The lamb had put Tony in a benign state of mind. He cut himself another slice. The gravy was wrinkling already in the pan. The clock was ticking. She was standing out there, trying to jam the world into reverse. But it raced on without her, she stood under the moon like a sore finger. Would she be there when it was day? Day was waiting somewhere for her, a grey dawn standing in the swirling lino hall of my block of flats.
    â€˜Some things are too important to say,’ Tony said. ‘I wouldn’t say them for anything.’
    TV. Coffee. I wouldn’t wash up, in case I was tempted to look out at her again. Tony felt that by peeling the potatoes he had done enough. I felt his surprise when I sat beside him in front of the TV: he had unconsciously allowed himself a space on his own while I cleaned the kitchen. I was smiling at him, I was holding his hand, I felt his unease.
    â€˜Why haven’t there been any great women composers?’ I said. ‘Why wasn’t James Joyce a woman? Why are we so narrow in our minds and wide in our hips?’
    The documentary was on Thailand. How did they manage to flatten the place like that? The people smiled despairingly at the camera, as the Americans had taught them to do. They knew they were revealing nothing, they glanced round uncomfortably, feeling the packaging coming down round them once more.
    â€˜Shall we catch some of Film Night? ’ Tony said.
    The Thai vanished. I went into the kitchen after all. The night was still dragging. I poured out a glass of wine. I toasted my reflection, and the figure beyond, in the dark street. Idly, I opened the drawer of the kitchen table. The moon was shining right in at me now, and in Paradise Island they were dancing to revamped Elvis. Everything comes round twice, there’s nothing new under the moon. I rummaged in the drawer, beyond the string and a worn ovencloth: my fingers were searching for something now.
    It was so slow. After I found the photo I went back in to Tony with it. So there she was. The dark hair, the pale face. I recognized her straight away. The programme showed a clip from a Spanish movie – a woman was slaughtering a fox in a deep green stream by a millhouse. The green celluloid waves spurted jets of red.
    â€˜I’ve no idea how it got there,’ Tony said.
    â€˜But it’s the one who was your girlfriend, isn’t it?’
    He sighed wearily. We were in a motor station in the States. There were two funny guys in the car. It was a comic film. Tony’s stern mouth lifted in a smile.
    â€˜She’s outside, waiting for you now. You never stopped seeing her, did you?’
    â€˜What on earth do you mean?’
    â€˜She’s standing under the streetlamp. I recognized her at once.’
    Tony got to his feet. It was all so slow. He went to the kitchen, he opened the window and leaned out. Later he chewed the back of my neck as we lay in bed. He came intome, but his body was dead. Had he really not seen her there at all? As in slow-motion films, his cock moved in and out, paused, shuddered in an exaggeration of slowness, and released spray. The night was right over us now. Day was unimaginable. We lay breathing self-consciously, as if trying to catch each other out