The Boatmaker by John Benditt

It is always the same time, whether they are on the floor or on the bed or he is bending her over the desk. Money mixes with clothes, bodies, blood, seed, streamers of nightgown, sheets. They stop briefly, then begin again as if they had never stopped. She sleeps from time to time, while he leans over, watching. He does not allow himself sleep. He is sure that if he falls asleep, she will kill him.
    The whole time they are together he is in a rage, convinced that she is laughing at him, peasant of Small Island. And she is fighting to keep him away from her heart. To keep the coating of ice intact, deep and thick as in the deadest time of winter.
    On the fourth day, when he stands naked and looks down at the tangle of clothes on the floor, her body at the center like a bird in its nest, she knows she has lost. She knows what he will say before he opens his mouth, then feels it rip her open just as he ripped her nightgown from neckline to hem.
    â€œI’m going,” he says, looking straight at her, his face and arms red-brown, the rest of him white, framing a bush of brown, red and gold. “The money’s gone. That’swhat you wanted, isn’t it? Money. It’s yours. All of it.” He gestures to the tangle on the floor.
    She wants to open her mouth and tell him it’s not about money. It never was about the money. He can stay as long as he wants. She won’t ask him to leave. She will take care of her customers elsewhere and then come to him in this little room, and they will be together in their disorder, where they have everything they need. She wants to tell him this. But her mouth will not open.
    She sees the welts on his sides from her nails. She has written on his body. She didn’t know she had it in her to write anything, but she has written a story on him, a story that will fade slowly from view. She wonders whether another woman will read it before it fades away completely. She sees purple marks from her teeth on his neck, shoulders and arms. His body rivets her. The words he has just spoken have made him even more vivid, powerful. There is a light around him: the aura of farewell. She knows this time he won’t be back. And now, having lost, she wants him, deeply.
    He bends over and paws the layers. He moves carefully, not touching her, as he finds the pieces he needs to reassemble a version of himself.
    When everything is on, he stands dressed, his clothes askew. The drooping mustache. The dark eyes. The stubble.She isn’t sure whether she is laughing or crying but her eyes are doing something, something is flowing from her into the world.
    He doesn’t seem to notice. He walks across the wreckage as if walking on waves, his Small Island boots lifted over flying foam. Then he is out of the room and gone, not bothering to close the door behind him. She hears the sound of his boots, fading on the stairs.
    She throws things this way and that until she finds a robe, wraps it around her and hurries down the stairs, pulling the belt and taking a pin from her mouth to keep tawny hair from her face. She reaches the bottom of the stairs in time to see him from the back, receding in the dust: a slight figure in a corduroy jacket, with a round bald spot. He walks stiffly, like a man getting out of bed and walking for the first time after a bad accident. She feels the ice pack around her heart give a huge crack and give way. In its place is a rush of warmth. She is surprised to find her eyes are not wet.
    Behind her, the door to the office opens, and the innkeeper stands in the doorway, watching his wife at the foot of the stairs. Beyond her, the figure of the boatmaker is growing smaller. The innkeeper knows the boatmaker’s money is gone. Counting the days on his fingers, he can guess very accurately how much the boatmaker had whenhe came in the front door and walked up the stairs trying not to be heard. Within a few hours every bill and coin will be in the box under his bed,