In the city, high up, a couple are arguing. The noise spills out of the window and tumbles to the ground. Inside, the floor is littered with debris: plates cracked, glasses thrown, wine drunk, clothes pulled off. It was a big argument.
The man’s hair is ruffled in the light of a fallen lamp, while she grips a cigarette in her teeth.
“How many times do I have to say it, you are the only woman in my life”.
“You don’t even sound convinced yourself anymore”, she said, smoke falling off her like dry-ice.
“Oh, come on!”
Weeks ago he sits by a low coffee table elsewhere in the city, reminiscing with some friends over times gone by; high as a chimney sweep, boasting about youthful conquests.
“I’m telling you. We are talking about some dangerously good sex here”, he says. “The kind you know there’s no coming back from”.
He reaches out to take the joint.
“And that was the first time as well, I was younger then. If I took the things I’d learnt with Grace and went back, a few years older, a few years wiser…”
He takes a very long, broad toke from the joint, savouring every word.
“… the results could be magnificent. I’m talking about – maybe – the best sex ever had by two people. The kind they write songs about”.
And exhales deeply, passing the joint across.
“Now that gentlemen… is a very tempting prospect indeed”.
In the present the argument is in full flow once more.
“I’m telling you she’s just a friend!”
“A friend!?” The word screeches out of her, in huge inverted commas.
“A friend”.
“So that girl, whose hair courses like a river of wild ink over her perfect body. Whose pale-dark eyes could bewitch the moon, who looks like she could bring a city to its knees with a single glance… that girl is your ‘friend’”.
“Yes”.
“I see”. All her might couldn’t stop her voice from shaking now. And when your ‘friend’ came to stay last night, she just happened to be in trouble in your neighbourhood while you were alone in the flat and – alas – you were the ‘only person she could trust to keep her safe that night’?”
“Yes”.
“And even though you’d slept together before you thought that sounded like a good idea”.
That morning she climbs the stairs. There is a noise from within the apartment. She doesn’t expect there to be as her boyfriend is supposed to be out for the day, working the morning shift. Maybe he’s fallen ill or something.
Inside the flat the floor is littered with debris. Some kind of something happened here last night: plates smashed, glass thrown, wine drunk… it didn’t make a lot of sense. She pokes the door aside.
“Henry?”
His response comes from the other room, “Grace?”
“Are you alright, what’s going on?”
He emerges from the bedroom, “hey, I didn’t expect you back so early”.
“You didn’t expect me back at all”.
“Come here”, he reaches out to kiss her but she pulls away. “Hey”, he says, “what’s going on?”
“What happened here?”
He looks around, “bit of a nightmare last night, I’m afraid”.
“Go on…”
“Do you remember Celine? Cel?”
“Celine”.
“Yeah”
“Cel…”
“From the-”.
“Oh I remember Celine. Yeah, sorry, it just slipped my mind for a second there. We met at that work function last year, old friend you used to bang when you were younger. I think that’s how you described her wasn’t it, ‘just some girl you used to bang’”.
There was silence.
“Sorry, did I break your concentration? Please, continue”.
It was almost over now.
“So when your ‘friend’” – in gigantic inverted commas this time, so big they encircled the sun – “came to stay last night, you were too polite to turn her away – even though you had work in the morning and there’d be no one to let her out and you knew how terrible it would look if you brought one of your previous fucks back to the flat while I was gone. So you decided to sack off work in the morning, then when you saw my car parked outside you thought you’d better ‘get a move on and tidy the place up’”.
“That’s what I told you Grace-”
“-an act which looks suspiciously like – to me at least – you making it look like she slept on the sofa when you actually fucked in our bed”.
“Nothing happened Grace, that’s the truth”.
A little laugh burst out of her. “Ah, yes, the truth. How silly of me for thinking it might be – oh, I don’t know – a lie”.
“I told you, we chatted, I sobered her up, put her to bed on the sofa and went to bed myself. That’s what happened”.
Another laugh tinkled out of her. “Really”, she said. “That is an amazing story. Forgive me but I’m having a bit of trouble swallowing that much bullshit”.
His arm shook gently as he composed himself.
“You know what’s amazing, Grace, is that for all the times you’ve complained about guys fucking you over, when there’s someone stood in front of you who genuinely loves you and wants the best for you, you can’t see it”. He was pleading now although he wouldn’t admit it. Perhaps there was a way out of this. “I’d have thought all of that experience would at least teach you how to spot someone who means you harm. But I guess you’ll never learn”.
“Woah woah woah! I’ll never learn?! That’s fucking bold you know, that’s fucking rich”. Her face ached into a smile, while her laugh turned to tears. “You know how I know you’re lying Henry? Because what kind of a person lets a drunk, disorientated, enfeebled woman – sorry, ‘friend’ – into their house to stay the night, and then lets them sleep on the fucking sofa. I mean what kind of an animal does that?”.
This would be the last chance he’d have to say anything to her. In another world they might have limped through this, just. After all, maybe he wasn’t lying or maybe she was laying it on a little too thick. There could have been something said to coax her into a hug or a kiss or to lay some of her troubles on him. But the time hung gracelessly in the air as he struggled for even a single word. In that moment her troubles her laughter and her tears became hers for good.
“Not even you, Henry, could be that much of a cunt”. She turned and left, the slam of the door echoing through him days afterwards. It was over.
thirstybirdpoems 