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Evening Mood
(This was published under a pseudonym, 'Nicola Horton', in To Her Naked Eye: Short Writing by Women, edited by Rachel Lever, with an introduction by Sara Maitland (Pyramid Press, December 1996).
Just before publication, Rachel Lever phoned our house and asked to speak to the writer of the story. She liked it so much that she wanted the author to help her publicize the collection. My wife, Nicola Horton, reluctantly pretended that she wrote it, but that she was too shy to do any publicity work. Afterwards, Nicola told me that if I ever again used her name as a pseudonym she would divorce me. I have not done so.)
Early yet, I'm awake. The vase of daffodils on the windowsill is growing stale, but I won't replace them until I have fresh ones. Robin is snoring, move your legs, no children calling yet, ten more minutes, not growing younger, in spring the world is young, but you no longer are. Toby, Amy, and Ben, the eldest - he's such hard work, now he's at special school we get more help - God forgive me for not loving him more, Toby and Amy I love to death, I do my best. And Lord Darnley is waiting for the oak dining-table that Robin is making, such a special commission, why won't he get on, he's so bloody slow, and this old creaky house, I'll sort it out he said, make it lovely, all the space. We have the space, it's true.
I'm not young, but men look, and the Lawrentian postman undresses me with his gull's eyes, on the doorstep, I smiled a bit, and I know he was fucking me, on the doorstep as he got me to sign for the registered letter, and I fucked him back, he knew I think, lucky girlfriend, I've seen her, all legs and blonde hair, no wonder she's always smiling. Is that Amy coughing, my little poppet, too early, not yet darling.
I'm not depressed this year, I imagine bulbs popping up the hill on either side of the high valley, I see so far from here, flowers on the hillside, a world of colour - last year, so low, black shadows creeping up the hill like tar, and the sun was black....why, why? Robin said see a shrink, but someone gave me daffodils, my spirit turned, was well again, I thanked God. When I did bell-ringing I was the sound of all things and all joy for weeks, never again so low, please God. Robin, now! All right, you're so hard, won't last long in the morning, yes, I'm ready, yes, yes, those thrusts too soon spent, there, there, I wish he'd gone on, I'm hot now.
Amy's clothes over the bathroom, but it's home, it's mine, Amy get your clothes on, no you can't have a bath now, Ben, stop dreaming, clean your teeth, get your homework, Ben, get dressed! I'm not being impatient Robin, then you bloody well dress him, Ben pull your trousers up, now hold hands tightly on the way to school, no Ben, the special bus is coming for you. Yes, thank you Robin, more tea please, and work hard on that table today, we need the money.
The sky is blue against the dark valley sides, in the spring I am the yoke of an egg, in our big mill house, and the valley is the egg's white, spreading up the sides, lillies of the valley, part of us, of me, life, the cold new sun. Hoover, clean, feed the chickens, pick parsley for the sauce tonight, Robin is cooking fish, he's good like that, I hope he gets on today, at university I loved the spring, the students in my year, together, sitting around, talking, you never felt there was anything you couldn't do. Now I live in a green valley, must get out more.
Lovely coffee, reading in the afternoon, with the window open, Robin working, I wonder how Amy's art lesson went, she loves art, and Toby knows so much about nature, such bright children, Ben is our cross, I'm sorry God, I must bear it better, poor boy. I'm reading Jane Austen again, Emma, so clear in judgement, delicate but firm, my body is touching my dress, going hot, my nipples hard, perhaps tonight, Robin, slowly, long and slow, sometimes you get it right.
Toby and Amy are home, playing together, I love them together, a different family when Ben isn't here, how horrible, what a thing to say, poor Ben, but Toby and Amy playing together, lovely, yes fish fingers, yes chips, yes beans, what a lovely painting Amy, and you wrote a story about a tree, Toby, and Ben don't spit out your food, don't grab, wretched boy, I'm not being unfair Robin.
Robin and I sit with drinks, in the little sitting-room which we try to keep clear, the children in bed, the brook bubbles through the weir, we listen, not hearing, pebbles, as the brook funnels through the little weir, pools in the little lake above it, and we are pebbles listening, ghosts of the village listen as the brook bubbles forever, and we shall listen till we hear no more. No, I'll have wine with my supper Robin, no more now thank you.
I'll go for a short walk if you don't mind, a short walk before dark, and already the night is flapping down the valley like a giant gull's wing. I walk up the darkening wooded slope of the West hill, towards the last light, so much life in me, slowly up, my heart pounds with the steps, with the life in me, with my dress that touches all the curves of me. He's there!
'Take me, take me now,' I say.
Deep shaft of sun, as the light dies, inside me, slow, the rhythm of the sun's shaft, his gull's eyes and big, fresh face, looking into me, fucking me more and more, the sun in me, forever, as he pounds my thighs to earth, leaves and mulch, his eyes fucking me, until I die as the sun dies, no shadows on us, in the early dark, clear.
My legs tremble as I climb down the hill, past the church my spirit trembles, God should understand. I rattle the catch, won't be a moment, Robin, and tomorrow I will be kind to Ben and I place fresh daffodils in the vase on the bedroom window.
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