Midnight Blues by Angela young

‘No,' I say, ‘I don't want to go to bed with you. It's over,' but he is already in my bedroom.

I say, ‘I can't do this any more.'

But he unlaces his desert boots, relentlessly and methodically, just as if I had said, ‘Yes.' He laces up his boots while I slice green peppers. He pours red wine and kisses me. A scene of domestic bliss, you might think, until you heard the soundtrack.

‘When she hears about this one,' he says, ‘it will damage her more than all the others put together. This one will cut her into tiny little pieces.' His voice is icy. The green peppers are in ribbons.

It's late and he's drunk. He can't mean what he's just said. He looks at me and I know he means precisely what he's just said. He wants his affair with me, his secretary, to hurt his wife horribly. I say, ‘We must end it. Now,' but I might as well not have spoken for all the listening he does. I vow to leave him. And I shall do it without words.

‘Verity, Verity, Verity,' someone calls to me. ‘Verity, Verity, Verity,' knocking on my front door. It's my next-door neighbours, Magda and Ackie, asking me to supper. They often do that. They're New Yorkers, Jewish. They think I don't eat enough. She has dark brown owl eyes and he has an eagle's nose. I like them because they hear what I say. But I have taken a vow. I am not speaking any more. So there's no point in opening the door, even to them.

On the way to work I write down my request for a badge, in the stationery shop. One small round badge. White. Black outline. Black words: ‘I've got nothing to say.' Centred. I wear the badge to work and he tries everything he knows to get me to speak, but I will not. I write my resignation on my shorthand pad. My contract says I must give my resignation in writing, but he just tosses it into the wastepaper basket. ‘Amalie,' he says, ‘give me a name. This character needs a name. You're good at names.' I suppose he thinks he'll wear me down. My name's not Amalie.

‘Say something,' he says. ‘Give me a name. Help me with this. You always do. You're so good at this.'

No.

‘I'll see you tomorrow,' he says, as I get up to leave. ‘You'll be back. You know you will.'

And I was.

We go to a meeting together where he and two other men discuss angles for shots of female genitalia: how best to expose the vulva and the clitoris on screen. I don't know why he brought me to this meeting. I want to leave, but I can't move. My cheeks burn and I am glued to my seat.

‘She doesn't speak,' he says, ‘but she does take notes.'

‘Well, take a note of this,' says the fat one, the director, and he holds his hands out. He cups them and their swollen sides touch. He licks his fat lips and suggests I make a note of the shape the sides of his fat hands describe.

My cheeks, my neck and my whole body burn. My pencil stabs into the pad, my hand shakes, my heart pounds, my breathing falters.

The fat man's secretary works behind a wooden screen in a corner of the room and I envy her. At least she can't see the men, nor they her. I can't leave the room because I don't know how to leave a room without anyone noticing, and I mustn't be noticed. The shorthand pad on my knees remains blank except for the stab wounds.

I make a supreme effort to stand. But I can't. I can't move. I am stuck in the hell that is this room. For ever.

The sound is the sound of waves. They are black and three times as high as me. I can taste their salt. I can hear their roar. And then I see my wave. It heads for me and I for it. I keep my eyes fixed on its concave oily- black centre. Suddenly the roar of the sea cuts out and a plaintive sound sings in my ear.

‘Who-whooooo? Who-whooooo?'

And there is a quick movement beside me. I feel warm breath in my ear and on my neck, and the warmth wraps itself round my whole body. I am back on the dry beach and the broken black wave eddies and swirls round my feet and then it is gone.

A car swishes along a wet street. My car? Am I driving?
The car slides through water. Halts.
Long, long wait.
For ever.

Then there's a policeman walking towards the car. Stopping at each car on the way. Talking.

I can't talk. I can't say anything. I don't speak. I've got nothing to say.
Someone is screaming inside my head.

The policeman is at my car. The street is running with water. The policeman stares at me and makes unwind-the-window movements.
I look away so that he won't see me.

He taps on the window.

I scrabble in the bag on the seat beside me for the shorthand pad someone has told me is in there. I scribble a note, wind down the window and shove the note into his hand.

I can't stay here. I must get away. It's URGENT.

‘You and the rest of the world,' says the policeman. ‘But the situation at this moment in time is that the traffic in Whitehall is stationary until further notice.'

My eyes sting and I try to swallow the lump in my throat. I stare through the windscreen. I try to breathe out but I can only gasp.

The policeman hands me back my note.
I scribble new words over the old words which make all the words indecipherable. But I know what they say.
I can't wait. I've got to get away. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING YOU CAN DO.

‘The situation at this moment in time,' says the policeman, ‘is that the traffic in Whitehall, in both directions, is stationary until further notice.'
The policeman walks on towards the car behind me, but then he stops. I can see him in the mirror. He is stock still and his shoulders are raised up. He turns and comes back and I scream when I see his frightened face.
And the person inside my head is screaming too.

‘I could, er, I could watch your car miss, er ... while you make a telephone call,' he says, and points. ‘There's a - '
I stab into the pad. The screaming is deafening me.
I DON'T SPEAK. HOW CAN I MAKE A TELEPHONE CALL?

The policeman's mouth moves but I cannot hear what he says. Then very, very loudly I hear him say that he doesn't know what my problem is. He says he's just doing his job and he starts writing something on his pad. Then he puts his pad away. I thought he was writing me a note but he wasn't. He just turns and leaves and there is an ache in my throat so large that I think it will burst open and my whole self will spill out through the hole.

I wait, crouching in my seat below the windows.
When the meeting ended he ran after me. He must not find me.
When it's dark the traffic moves. At last.

Milano salami please, a quarter.
I hand my note over the delicatessen counter.
But there is no Milano salami. They've run out.
I leave the shop without buying anything else and I drive home, crying. I tell myself that it's not the end of the world that there's no Milano salami. But it is.

My next-door neighbours' front door is open and I avoid the creaky places on the stairs, but her hearing is acute, like an owl's.

‘Chicken soup tonight, Verity,' she says. She stands in her doorway. ‘You don't eat properly.'

I walk by with my head down, that way I know she won't see me.

Chrome-metal head. Smoke-sealed lungs. Breathing difficult. Body aching. Run a warm bath but it doesn't help. Warm water doesn't love. Warm water won't keep him away.

My name's NOT Amalie.

The electric fire's hot and the carpet's soft. Breathe. Just breathe and think of the sea. A friend once told me my breathing was like the sea. Think of the sea. Then I'll know who I am. Then I'll be able to leave him.

When I walk by the sea I walk barefoot, whatever the weather. When I turn, I put my heels in the sand where my toes have left their mark, and I walk back inside my own footprints. That way I know I am safe.
I turn to put my feet inside my footprints, but there aren't any footprints. My heart thuds. I can't breathe. No impression. I've made no impression. I can't breathe out.

The sea is churning and chalky-grey and there is no moon and no sun. Sea spray stings my face.

‘It's all right,' says a man's voice beside me, and his body is warm next to mine. ‘We're here,' he says.

I recognise the voice. It isn't his voice. Thank God.

The cold grey sea streams in and when it recedes I see the foam it leaves on our feet. And I see the man's toenails: they are a deep, dark blue and they shimmer.

I look up and catch a glimpse of the man and his nose is an eagle's nose and he has a feathered face. His eyes are kind and he is holding me and he says it's all right for me to speak.

I want to speak to this man but no words come, only strangled screams. I look down and his luminous dark blue toenails mesmerise me.

The eagle-man takes off his long overcoat and wraps it around me. He wears a sort of shift thing underneath. And there is a woman with him. She has brownish-red feathers for fingers and her voice says a word that penetrates the screams.

‘Who-whooooo? Who-whooooo?'

She lifts my chin with her feathered finger and she looks at me from the depths of her dark owl eyes, but I shake and shiver when I hear her speak because I can't answer the question.

I pulled books off the shelves looking for my Bible because I knew I would find the answer in my Bible. And I did: an inscription in black ink on the inside page with a name that I recognise. My name. ‘Verity Clare, on the occasion of her baptism, 17 March 1978.' Verity. Verity. Verity. I read it over and over again.

Owl-woman's voice whispers in my ear. ‘That's right, Verity. That's right.'
The moon shows herself now. She trails a silver ribbon across the sea towards us and eagle-man and owl-woman walk on either side of me along the beach. But when we turn there is just clean flat sand running between their footprints where my footprints should be.

Eagle-man says, ‘It's too soon, Verity, too soon,' and he squeezes my hand. ‘But they'll return, all in good time. You'll see.'

Owl-woman whispers, ‘We'll carry you now,' and they lift me up between them and I close my eyes and sink into their strong feathered arms.

A man is holding me, and I am wrapped in a blanket, on a strange bed.
‘We were worried, so we let ourselves in,' says a woman's voice. ‘It's not like you to ignore us.'

‘You screamed terrible screams. Your tub was overflowing, your electric fire was overheating. Your shelves were off the wall,' says a man's voice.
‘We carried you here,' says the woman leaning over me. Her eyes are dark brown owl eyes.

‘You cried in your sleep,' says the man holding me. He has an eagle's nose. ‘You must have been through something real bad.'
I can smell chicken soup.

‘Anyway, you never eat. But we took good care of you, didn't we Ackie?'
Magda, my neighbour, is looking at me. ‘Here,' she says, ‘I've made some chicken soup.'

‘Thank you,' I say. My voice is croaky but it is my voice. I have managed not to scream. I am speaking.

‘Who-who,' says Magda, her owl-eyes twinkling, ‘who-who doesn't like chicken soup?'

‘A man came here, looking for Amalie,' says Ackie.
Magda shushes him, but he carries on. ‘He said Amalie lived in the flat next door, he said she worked for him. I said no one called Amalie lived there. He said if we saw Amalie, we should tell him, but I said we wouldn't see her because she didn't live there.' Ackie spreads his arms and shrugs. ‘He went away. But if he comes back, I'll tell him the same story all over again, until he stops coming.'

Then Ackie helps me sit up.
Magda hands me a steaming bowl of chicken soup.
I start to drink it and a wave of relief sets my whole body shuddering.
‘Stay with us for a while,' says Magda.
‘We'd like that,' says Ackie.
‘Thank you,' I say and my voice is less croaky, but I can't say anything else because if I do I know I won't be able to stop the tears.

Ackie pulls the blanket tightly round my shoulders and when Magda takes the empty soup bowl from me, I see Ackie's bare feet sticking out from underneath the sort of shift thing he's wearing and my heart leaps because I see his toenails shimmer. I see that they are a glorious, luminous, deep dark midnight blue.

THE END