Wrapped in soiled sheets and feeling as hung-over and strung-out as ever, Bernice listened to the discreetly muffled grunts and coughs he made during bathroom duties. The little noises of intimacy. In her mind they acquired maddening cadence, the blood-beat resounding from cave wall to cave wall of her skull like a bass drum.
He is so damned self-absorbed. If only he knew or cared that I exist!
With mixed emotions, nausea and despair, she turned her head to the bedroom wall. Before she knew it her thoughts had slipped into neutral gear and she was interpretting the scallops of paster as if they were tea leaves.
*
McEwan showered and buffed dry with terrycloth that smelled wonderfully of her vanilla soap, and he thought, what a chimerical person his wife had become. Before going out he checked in on her. Fetus-like beneath the sheet, hiding, so it seemed, from the world. He even grieved a little.
*
Up the cobblestone avenue of flaming bougainvillea and croton, McEwan ambled to the crest of a hill. Through the pine and seagrape and migrating dune he could see tiny mangrove islets. Beyond, the broad Caribbean rippled in the sun all the way to the far horizon, where clouds, pink and mother-of-pearl, sailed like Spanish galleons.
He felt splendidly free of care.
Sans souci.
A perfect title for his nearly completed play.
No comments:
Post a Comment