Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Rain slapped the window again.

     Kay stared through the wet glass at the town below.  Slate tiles gleamed, squat chimneys puffed vapour, factories and shops crouched grey and dank.  Always the howl of traffic, night and day, like forest beasts, but quieter now.  She traced a water drip with her finger down the pane.

     Why didn’t he ring?

     Because he didn’t want to, that’s why.  Garth had better things to do, more important things.

     Kay sighed and looked up at the silver balloon shivering high in a cobwebbed corner, then down at his photo in her hand.  It showed his smiling, bony face and bleached hair in full sunlight.

     That first weekend by the sea sizzled as a sort of beacon over the dreary morass of time before she met him.  Now it was Garth, Garth,  all her days and all her nights.  She thought of his strong hands and long fingers, his hairy forearms, the curve of his shoulders and his determined chin.  She must be with him all the time, every minute.  These separations were wounds and punishments.

     Why didn’t he ring?

     The clock ticked on, the rain went on tapping down the window.  She cast a spell on the silent phone on the table.  Willing it to come to life.

     Perhaps the line was down.  She picked up the receiver to hear the tone.  Yes.  She listened, imagining his deep voice coming to her along the wires, making her heart jump, her voice breathless, her hands tremble.  Nothing.  Nothing.  She put the receiver back in its cradle next to an empty vase.  Garth wasn’t a man to buy flowers.

     That didn’t mean anything.  Lots of men never gave flowers, never took a girl to a public restaurant, didn’t believe in rings or that sort of stuff.  It was difficult for him, after all.  It was hard for him to find time or opportunity to call her when he wasn’t at work.

     Kay liked being in her office:  the routine of it, the quiet, the piles of paperwork, the way she could order her day and have things as she liked them.  She watered her ferns on the filing cabinets first, then arranged her dark hair in a neat pleat before drinking her filtered coffee from a green bone china mug.  At work she was in charge of herself.

     At home in the flat it was different.  There she was powerless, a nobody, someone who waited around for Garth’s calls, his infrequent presence and huge absence.

     She opened the third cigarette packet of the day, enjoying the familiar crackle of paper, the comforting round feel of the cigarette between her lips, then that initial totally satisfying inhalation.  She held the smoke in her lungs and let it out very slowly, prolonging its effect.

     How could she give up the habit when she was so stressed?  Those frequent nicotine fixes were a necessary part  of her waiting life.

     She remembered, it seemed so long ago, meeting Garth in a bar in Calais where they sat under a decorative sign on the wall which read Fumee et vin tuent le chagrin.  They’d worked it out.  Smoking and wine kill grief.

     ‘I don’t suffer grief’, mocked the non-smoking, disapproving Garth.  And he wasn’t a wine drinker either, but a beer man.

     Soon after meeting him Kay had started smoking again.

     She made a face at the nicotine stains on her fingers and moved over to the mirror to see if she could discover the beginnings of a yellow moustache.  The old woman at the corner newsagents had a pronounced one, but she invariably had a fag dangling from the corner of her loose mouth.  Kay shuddered, no moustache yet for her.

     But she wheezed, no doubt about it.  Garth had mentioned it more than once.  She didn’t smoke in front of him any more, just lit up when he wasn’t around, or on the rare occasions when they went out she escaped to the cloakroom for a few puffs.  She was forever using breath fresheners or sucking mints, and when she expected him at the flat she rushed around opening windows and spraying scent.

     There was a good fug in the flat, smoke drifting, the gas fire full on and overflowing ashtrays scattered about.  Kay kicked the empty sherry bottle under the sofa.  He wasn’t coming, she might as well make a start on the brandy.  It was so comforting when she was on her own.

     She fumbled through a pile of cassettes searching for their favourites.  Music that she listened to with him, modern jazz about which he was knowledgeable.  She didn’t understand it, but because he liked it, she must too, and came to associate the tracks with times of making love.

     Listening to the customary melodies that made her eyes fill with tears.  Where was he?  What was he doing?  She could guess.  It was hard to love a man so much, alone like this.  It was as though he lived in another country, rather than the same city.  A country where there were no phones or mail service.

     She groaned with the pain of it.  Drank another tumblerful.  Sobbed and rolled over the sofa.  Punched cushions.  Swept a small box off a side table.  It was a wrapped present for Garth.

     She’d spent a month’s salary and chosen the cufflinks with care.  They were fine gold ovals with his initials engraved in interlocking, swirly letters.  Would he like them?  He must, he must.  Would his wife see them?  What would she say?  Who cared what she said?

     After a few attempts, Kay managed to put the box back on the table.

     What was the time?  The day was over and she hadn’t eaten, wasn’t hungry.  Rain still beat on the window.  It was dark outside but she couldn’t be bothered to pull the curtains.

     Everything slowed down, each moment felt like an hour.  She was so tired, exhausted with waiting.  She lay on the floor.

     He would remember.  He would ring.  He would come.  She finished the bottle.  All would be well.  All would be fine.

     The helium-filled balloon still trembled in its corner.  Down below lay Kay, limp and crumpled, her face flushed, dark stains under her eyes, her heavy breathing like shudders.

     Her lit cigarette fell off the ashtray beside her on to a newspaper. A tiny spark ignited.  The paper smouldered for a while, then burst into flames.

     The burning paper flared up and set light to the sofa cover.  Yellowish smoke seeped out underneath.

     It was the anniversary of their first meeting.  She’d decorated the flat with silver paper bows and flowers.  It had taken hours to perfect.

     Whoosh!  went the flames, flaring in different directions.

     The hanging ribbons melted.

     But Kay was still unconscious to everything, even to the phone which at last began to ring, on and on, its shrill, clear notes lost in the roaring of the fire.