She
kissed me through a tangle of her hair to wake me up.
After I could speak: ‘What was that for?’
After I could speak: ‘What was that for?’
‘Stuff.’ Her mouth twitched up a corner. ‘Fixing my car. And for this holiday. And I want to get in to this day.’
‘Ever
my pleasure, my love.’ I rolled on to my side, sat up, plonked my
feet on the floor, gave a jaw-wrenching yawn and summoned the will to stand and
walk to the window. I pulled back the
curtain and flinched a little at the day’s impact on my hung-over head. ‘Awfully bright out there. We could just stay in for a bit.’
‘So
we came to Melbourne to shag and sleep?
I want to get out there and shop and have breakfast and if you’ve got a
sore head that’ll teach you to try and keep up with me. Self-inflicted injury: no sympathy.’ She swung her feet out of bed and stretched
upward to where I could hear her joints crack.
‘The fucking and sleeping can come after the shopping.’ As she stood her blue pyjamas bunched and
she fixed a wedgie with a one legged wriggle and a snap of the waistband.
‘After
the shopping. Right. So just remind me where the last 30 years of
feminism went.’ I ducked to avoid the
pillow she threw at me. It went on to
sweep the table lamp to the floor with a crash that was very loud in the
morning quiet. We looked at each other,
wide eyed and couldn't not laugh. I was
still snorting as I went over to salvage the lamp. It was in one piece but the shade now had a
good ding and sat at a jaunty angle.
‘Oh
shit. Gimme that.’ Her blunt fingers gently
pressed the shade back into symmetry with a pop. ‘All good.’
She put the lamp back on the table with exaggerated care.
Her
hands fascinated me. Their muscular
kneading of bread; the secure scooping up the kids; their coolness on my head
when I felt sick and the way they clamped to me and grooved my flesh in the
sweaty night. I loved her worker’s
hands; her motherly hands and my lover’s hands, their smooth skin puckered by a
couple of old scars and her left index finger with that strange kink from being
broken. In a candid moment I had told
her about my fixation and she had laughed and then realized I was serious and
had started painting her normally plain, short nails a violent scarlet chosen –
at least partly - for its effect on me.
She
saw me looking at her. ‘What are you
gawkin' at?’ and twitched that asymmetric smile.
‘You
know. Those hot hands.’ I was grinning
too. ‘Race you to the loo.’
‘Shit
no! I’m going first. I want to live.’ And she was through the bathroom door before
I could move or protest.
I
sat on the end of the bed and in morning abstraction yawned and bounced gently
on the mattress. My joints protested a
little as I stretched and I wondered how many times I'd waited for her to use
the bathroom over the last 25 years - I'd still never seen her pee and for that
I'm so very grateful: we all need a little bit of mystery and privacy.
The
door popped open with a: ‘Done!’ I wandered in, undressed quickly and hopped
into the shower. I like the better
class of hotel showers: new, lots of volume and best of all you didn't have to
clean them afterwards. The steam began
to cut through my head’s fog, but the vigorous water was hot enough to make me
yelp.
‘Wimp!’
she said.
‘Oh
really?’ I put my hand on the tap. ‘Really,
really?.’
‘You
wouldn't dare!’
I
like a challenge, so I smiled sweetly, relaxed my hand on the tap, then flicked
the mixer to maximum cold and wrenched it straight back to hot. The frigid dousing made us both dance around
like we were having ECT, but at least I was braced for it.
‘You
fucker!’
‘So
who's a wimp?’
‘Bastard.' A statement. 'Wash my hair.’ Affronted command.
I
took a generous handful of the shampoo and began to massage it into her
scalp. ‘Oy. Your hair.
That red curly forest still makes my pupils dilate.’
‘I
remember you told me that when we were dating.’ She sighed and made a face. 'Bit more white
in it these days.’
‘It
wasn’t the only thing I told you.
Turned out to be a catalogue of things I liked. My youth; your red hair
and uniform.’
‘You
always were a wordy man. To be
expected, I s’pose, it is what you do.'
The compliment had straightened her back but as I worked up a lather she
dropped her head dropped forward as I gave her neck a firm massage.
‘Oh
God. I knew I married you for a
reason. Keep doing that and if you play
your cards right...’ The sentence
tailed off into a little growl and a continuing roll of her shoulders.
I
smiled, working at releasing the tension in her scalp; enjoying the feel of her
relaxing under my touch and the astringent scent of the shampoo. 'A lot more hair to wash these days - used
to be one step up from peach fuzz.'
'Practical
then, and got used to it now, and it covers some of the damage.'
I
moved my hands to the nape of her neck and felt one of the old scars – the big
one that runs right down and bisects her shoulder tattoo. 'I like your hair longer. And not that much
damage, now. Gives you character. Huh.
Like you need more character!
How is it today?’
‘Good.
No stiffness even. Forgot to tell you -
the quack, uh, Major, who did my last medical was the one who dug the shrapnel
out of me and said he was very happy with seeing his handiwork again. Cheeky bugger. But at least I outrank him now.' I could feel her grin at that one.
A
memory came unbidden of nearly passing out the first time I helped a nurse
change her dressings: you don’t know intimacy until your beloved sneezes and
you have to use a towel to stanch a flow of blood from torn stitches. She didn't notice me clench.
'That
massage therapist you sent me off to has worked wonders. Now if she could just be a guy who looks
like Daniel Day Lewis.’
‘Really? You like tall, dark and Saturnine? I never knew.’ The old and oft-told joke was as frequently
used and as comforting as an old pair of
jeans; plenty of life left.
She
turned and looked at me. ‘Saturnine!?’ and gave me a laughing kiss
that blended with the falling water and dissolved my heart and allayed my fears
as it always does. ‘Keep washing,
you’re not done yet.’
I
resumed work on her hair and the tips of my fingers again found the scar of
their own accord. ‘looks better as
well.’ I kissed the shiny skin and began to work on her scalp and loved the
feel of my hands in the slippery hair and how firm I could be with her
physically – truth be known she was three quarters my size and twice as tough – and so unlike the angry fragile
bear she became when she was injured.
I
kept washing and then began to rinse, her hair flattening under the shower’s
torrent she said: ‘Hey, attention to task! Drowning here.’
I
blinked and a rush of feeling made me wrap my arms around her sides and cup her
belly. 'Sorry, just thinking.' I could just feel the caesarean scar and a
pair of my tears were lost in the thinning foam and shower spray as I bowed my
head and spoke in to the shampoo's remnants in her hair. ‘I cannot imagine what my life would have
been would be like if I hadn't met you.’
She
turned to face me and cupped my cheek in her palm; a gesture fleeting and
infinitely tender. ‘Don't you go all
sentimental on me, my love’, and she grinned. ‘Does that make me your knight in
shining armour?’ She paused, frowning
‘Princess in shining armour?’
The
intense moment faded into simple happiness of being right here, right now. ‘So long as there isn’t an armoured chastity
belt involved I'll be quite happy.’
She
stood on tiptoe and kissed me, hand still at my cheek. ‘Okay, you need to shave. I'm not getting sandpapered.’
‘Yes
mam. Anything else I could do for
you? Pierce my Willy? ‘
‘No,
shaving will do, and don’t call me mam.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Get more
than enough of that at work.’
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t
push your fucking luck.’
‘It’s
holidays, I wanna’ I whined, channelling our daughter at about age 15. I reached for my shaving things, squirted
out some shaving gel and felt my whiskers rasp and move under my hand as I
worked it in. She was reading the
tube. ‘Trying something new. Pete put me onto it and it should stop my
shaving rash. And stop sniggering. Men can share grooming tips!’ I put both my hands on my hips and struck a
masculine, heroic pose: not easy stark naked and dripping with water, but I
like to think I could pull it off.
‘You
ponce. Married for all these years and
I never knew. Well then Mr bloody good
grooming, I'll shave you if it’s too much like hard work.’ She took my razor and began to neatly scrape
my face of a night’s worth of whiskers.
This was an old game for us and we stayed quiet as she smoothed my
face. Her from concentration and me
because I value my skin and didn’t want to present a moving target, no matter
how practised the barber.
I
couldn't help grinning.
'Hold
still, dammit.' She paused. 'And
what's so funny?'
'How
much we play. Uh..."Mummy, what is
Action Man doing to Ken?"
The
asymmetric grin surfaced. 'Christ,
maybe we shouldn't have arranged them so it looked like they were shagging, but
it was worth it for the looks we got. And
I hate stupid war toys.
'Ken's
a civilian.'
'OK. And Ken dolls. And bloody Barbie for that matter.'
'And
we didn't get thrown out, either.'
She
laughed aloud. 'At least the
supermarket staff have stopped being so weird around us.
My
turn to laugh. 'Do you think it was the
feeding each other the product samples or the long toss with the bread?'
Her
mouth twisted a little. 'Maybe both? Hold still. For a second. There.’
She wiped a hand under my chin ‘All smooth and reasonably clean.’ She knew how to play me and I loved it.
She
rinsed the conditioner out of her hair with a messy flourish that left me
spluttering; I finished and we clambered out of the tub. Good hotel towels: fluffy, soft and
magically renewed. Money well spent.
‘Let's
do this bloody day. I want breakfast.’
‘What,
no shopping first!?’
‘I
need to nosh before I do a march, and so do you. I don’t need a grumpy my-blood-sugar-is-low
bag boy.’
‘Well
my love, nice to know my place in the order of things.’
‘Make
it up to you later.’
‘Yes,
you’d better.’ I flicked at her with my
towel and got the finger in return as she launched herself out the bathroom
door.
I
heard the hair drier start up in the next room, so I took my time. Big and mechanical it was a souvenir of a posting to Canada and the damn thing made only marginally less
noise than a jet engine. She loved it, but the cat
did tend to bolt when it was running and I just kept clear. I finished drying myself, used the toilet
and as the apocalypse ended next door, I wiped a clear space in the mirror and
did a check for errant nose hairs. She
came back in to see me, eyes watering, attempting to pluck out a tenacious
hair.
'Uh,
I do have a pair of little scissors with me.
Here.'
She
watched me pick up the little weapon and cautiously approach my right
nostril. It made me look carefully at
my nose's slight bend and then, from the corner of my eye, I caught her
watching me.
'Your
nose. Christ. I still feel that.'
'My
love, you broke it by accident and I think it gives my face a needed
asymmetry. And this damn mirror is very
unforgiving!'
'I
ended up putting pillows between us.
God, why didn't I go to another bed?'
'Because
I wouldn't let you. Your night terrors
after...' I couldn't finish '...so let's take today day by the scruff of the
neck my lover, because those pillows are the only thing that you have ever put
between us.'
She
put her hand gently on my shoulder, gave me a soft look I didn't really need to
interpret, and left the room without a word.
I
went back to pruning my nose hairs.
Almost by accident I looked myself in the eye and appraising what I saw
in the mirror all I could think was: ‘You fortunate fellow’. I wandered out to get dressed.
She
looked over my shoulder as I rummaged in my bag for clothes. ‘How the hell do you find anything in that
mess?’ My packing and organisation had always appalled her. Some years ago she
had stuck a biohazard sign to my office door.
‘Braille
and sense of smell.’
‘Idiot.’ A kiss on my neck.
I
hooked up her bra for her – an old courtesy – and we talked about the nothings
that meant everything. What we wanted
to do, where lunch might be good and if our livers would stand another wine
tasting.
‘Pass
me my ring, will you?’ I picked it up
and began to laugh. ‘What?’ she said,
perplexity writ large, 'is that!'
‘Toothpaste,
I think. Likely mine.’ I sniffed.
‘Yep, toothpaste.’
‘You
bugger. How?’
‘Not
sure.’ I took the ring and wiped it on
my towel ‘it’s clean now!’
‘Ewww,
you grub.’
She
might have had a point and to deflect her outrage: ‘I remember giving you this
so keenly. I wondered why you were so serious and quiet and then you actually
went down on one knee and proposed. That kiss is still one of the sweetest
memories in my life. That and watching you laugh like a madwoman when I pulled
out this', I waved the ring, 'from my sock drawer for what I was planning
myself. And then you said “next time”!’
She
gave a theatrical groan. ‘And I
remember you said what the hell did I mean by “next time”. What’s worse is that you’re still dining out
on that old story. C’mon, let's get out
there to something new.’ She started to
laugh. ‘Christ. Look at us.
We look like Japanese Tourists.’
‘Eh?
Oh. Perhaps we have been round each
other too long.’ We’d both grabbed jeans, boots and leather jackets. She shrugged her jacket off and pulled on a
dark green wool coat that really did suit her better. ‘Nice: very Vogue’ I said.
As
we went to the door I stopped to pull the room key out of it’s slot to shut off
the lights, and as we crossed the dark threshold, she put her arms
around me. ‘Not a day too many’, and her kiss was a sunburst in my head.
Wow nothing 'mundane' about this ,very good ,enjoyed the read thank you, look forward to the next chapter!
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