Mrs s, p.22
Mrs S, page 22
She knows. Steps closer. Says it again. I love you. Looks towards the school. Reaches for my fingertips. I find her rings. I touch the gold band. The other is flashier, those sapphires, maybe his family heirloom. It is clichéd, to see it now, but it rescues me, as clichés can, that enormous swipe of inherited knowledge. I know you love me too. Her confidence is worn, this is not what she knows, she does not know how to be sure. Licks her lips. Waits for my confirmation. For me to submit. Heterosexuality, I remember her fingers moving around the word, making air quotes, like bird claws. She is and she isn’t, one self is for private and one is for public. Would you leave him? I’ve never asked before, I didn’t need to. I’ve learned to like our privacy. Maybe I relied on it. The safety of it, untested. That’s not fair, that’s not what we’re talking about. Aren’t you asking me to stay? My fingertips radiate. Of course, of course I want you to stay, it’s complicated, I know, but if you stay, there’d be more time.
Behind us a few parents begin to exit the main doors. Making their way to the cars hurriedly parked on the road, unable to find space in the car park. I swear under my breath. Go to move, away from the gate, away from the path. Wait, don’t, please wait. She dares to grab my arm. I have awakened something in her too. They walk towards us. A group of six. The Girls, their daughters, trail behind. All of them will have dinner together, drive to the best restaurant in the big town. The Girls looked at surreptitiously across the table, the concerned parents checking for new pouts, for new whispers, shocked by the play. We stand to one side. She greets them as they pass. One mother is thrilled to have caught her, they must catch up, it has been too long, how long has it been. Her eyes narrow, what an interesting evening it has been. The Girls recognize me. Hi Miss, they smile like cats. Do they already know? What do they know? A father hurries them along, the booking is soon, they’d best not be late. She watches the cars pull out, crawling down the thin road, honking their horns. Waves. Laughs as if they can hear her. Her expression only changing once they are out of sight.
Sorry, I’m sorry about that, horrible timing, I know, it’s not. The sentence has no ending. Unknots her hands. She can’t think of what to say. Her fingers back in her mouth. I saw you. What? I saw you, with the wasp’s nest. The strain of my binder. A dam. My body rises behind it, a wave about to break. She bunches her fingers in frustration. Almost a fist. What are you talking about, what wasps? You and him, getting rid of it, the nest. You came to the house? To find you. You shouldn’t have done that. I wanted to see you. I know, I understand, but you shouldn’t, you can’t, you can’t just show up. She misses the point. Does not think twice about what I saw. How the scene settled in my stomach. The way the world turns without me. Her heterosexuality, public-facing. Its cosy violence. Who does she want to be? If I ask her that, she might fall apart. If I ask her that, I must be willing to live through the answer. Ahead of me, in the thinning light, the church grows smaller. Oh, I enjoy cliché after cliché. The church, our church, grows smaller before my eyes. Without her, without clichés, there is not enough self to get me through. I rely on metaphor, I rely on signs. I forgive myself.
She waits for me to speak. To hear that I love her. I can’t say it. My body wants to, that residual heat, the wetness, the ache where her hand has been. It will not give up so easily, my body. For a second I am weak. She sees the crack appear, the line starting at my mouth, she says it again, her voice lowered to a whisper. I know you love me too. Reaches out as if to touch my chest. Palm floating. To put the feeling in my mind. Her hand back and forth, the river she has sent me down. But she can only work the air, to touch me now would give us away. Our inescapable audience, the cars that drive along the road, the voices that carry from the school. If she did, if right now she gave me her hand, placed it against me, she might change my mind. She can’t.
Our loneliness is not the same. It has been easier to pretend that it is. Fucking each other into being. She is trying to be two people, I am not. Maybe I was. Not anymore. Her ring flashing, her hand across her forehead. She cannot bear the silence. The waiting softens her, it always does. Listen to me, it’s going to be fine, just tell him you didn’t do it, he’d give you your job back, I know he would, I said I’d speak with you, that I didn’t believe that was the truth. You did? Yes, of course, what do you think of me? She thinks language is this easy. I allowed myself to think the same, didn’t it seem a nicer way to live, to believe in her language, the way she possesses it. When she is not around, I invent her. When she is around, I invent her. It is not her fault. Hasn’t she made me feel this deserving? Please. Her please, riding her breath, its power. Please. I love you. The ring, that dead eye. I take her hand, the hand with its ring, and kiss it gently. She will not change, it is not her fault. I am changing, I have always been changing. This is not a state she can understand. She moves only towards what she has already seen. I could hit my own chest. Not me, not me. I will have a different life. Yes. I will leave. Her eyes. Oh, I will leave and she does not know it yet.
About the Author
K PATRICK is a writer based in Scotland. In 2023, they were named an Observer Best Debut Novelist and were selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. They were runner-up for the Ivan Juritz Prize and the Laura Kinsella Fellowship and were shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize. Their poetry has appeared in Poetry Review and Five Dials and was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize in 2021. Mrs S is their debut novel.
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K Patrick, Mrs S
