novella – three good words

A blank page can be an awful thing. It seems empty, but it isn’t. It’s filled with possibilities, words written, deleted, rewritten, crossed out, thought over, emphasised, loved, hated, wanted, reviled – and it never ends either.

I think the hardest part is to not listen. You know, those ‘Are you serious’ ‘Are you sure about this?’ ‘Is that good enough?’ and ‘Is that it?’ that whisper from the blankness of the page, sounding out the words in your head. And then it happens, the whispers grow louder and louder, talk, yell, shout and scream and suddenly you’re saying: ‘No no no no no no no no!’ It’s wrong! bad! awful! horrible! blergh!

Delete. Delete. Delete.

And then you’re back to square one, that blank page, that empty space that somehow is already filled with all the things you don’t want to say, all the things you wish to convey, and really need to get on the page. And the whispers just won’t go away.

So many times, too many times, listening has made me do something stupid – that is, I deleted everything in sudden horrified shame, which also meant all the words were gone, never to be retrieved, never to be seen again.

I stopped that.

I keep everything that makes me hesitate, sometimes even squirm, even the silliest scraps of words on paper. I keep them for one reason: between those words, hidden among the letters, there is usually something real, a thought, a word, a memory that I can use later when I know what it is that I’m after. It’s not always like that. Sometimes what I wrote is just really, really bad.

It’s sieving through the whispers and finding my inner compass that’s so difficult. The whispers like to override that gut-feeling that 9 times out of 10 is accurate, and even the tenth time it was right somehow. The whispers that seem to come out of the emptiness, they can get too loud, and the trick is not easy but possible: just don’t listen. Write it down. Write it all down. Even that sentence you know is silly. Even that word you just don’t want to use. Write it down. See it written out so that you know why it’s so horrible. It’s helped me countless times. In a way, when I see it written out, I finally know what’s so wrong with it. Until then it’s just words swirling in my head.

Then I let it rest for a while. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes a few weeks, it can go into months and years actually, but eventually I go back, and read everything one more time. It surprises me time and again how different the words look and sound just becomes some time passed. If I’m happy with it, I edit what needs editing, re-write, re-draft and re-do until it’s roughly where I wanted to be. Then I start over until I finally feel ‘Yeah… that’s about right.’ This takes time of course, and it can be (very) frustrating, but what really helps me is reading the books, poems and short stories I love best. They’re the proof that someone successfully managed to silence the whispers coming out of the (apparent) emptiness.

At one point I had something of a database of crap sentences, horrible plot twists, stupid little dialogues I wanted to turn into genuine conversations and failed, failed, failed. I keep them though, and go back to them when I can overcome the inner cringe, and sometimes – I can’t tell you how or why, there is a mystery to this craft of ours – I find that seed of thought, of feeling that I was aiming for and work from there.

Drip-drop, drip-drop, drip-drop – and I’m already tired. Can you imagine getting tired by simply watching a coffee machine do its work? I can. And not only can. I do. I’m currently leaning my head on the counter, watching the brown-black fluid dribble its way into the pot, from north to south, up to down, drip to drop, drip-drop, drip-drop, drip-

‘Yes dear.’

That’s Max. He thought I had said something, and so came into the kitchen, checking his cufflinks with an ever-ready, ‘Yes, dear’ on his lips.

There are times when I fear that I won’t have any thoughts anymore. But just when I think they’re gone for good – whoops, there they are again.

We have a dog. A bit of a Husky. Silver grey. I call him Wolf. He loves me, I love him, together we would make the perfect pair, me being so loud and all. At least Maxwell thinks so. Sometimes. If you’ve seen The Nanny, you’ll have a vague idea of how he looks like. He smiles less, and gets embarrassed more. Plus, I don’t have that voice – then again, I’m not half as sexy as Fran.

I’m me. Short, plump, dark-blond, brown-eyed, 38-year-old me.

Plump meaning, I’m nowhere near the Nicole Kidman league. She used to be very pretty, I don’t know what happened. I was never tall, never had that slim frame. When I was twenty I had curves, curves that filled out bras and bikinis, curves that got Maxwell T. Richardson – T. for Tennyson… his parents were, are and always will be, odd – into a rather interesting mood. pretty nook

Max has always been shy.

He was the tall, dark-haired, slightly lanky sort of man, who stood with his back to the wall at dances, nursing a cup of some unidentifiable drink with one foot flat against the wall, looking like the human twin of a black feathered flamingo.

He had a nice smile, Max. Still has, those even teeth under a straight nose, grey eyes – grey, not blue, no matter what his mother says – and dark hair. Not black though. Bit of a shame, but then again, look who’s talking.

As I said, I had curves, once. Yes, ‘had’. Now I have bends. Maybe it’s because I haven’t worn a skirt in a decade. But, how can you wear a skirt, when day-in, day-out, you are elbow deep in dirt and clay – making pots, filling pots, arranging pots, selling pots, buying pots – pots, pots, pots… It goes so far that my nieces and nephews call me Mrs. Pots.

Did I mention that we don’t have children?

We did, once. For ten days. Then she died. Isabelle.

I think, until today, Maxwell hasn’t forgiven the gods for that.

That was fifteen years ago… She would be a teenager now, harassing us with basketball and boyfriends. Maxwell played basketball for some reason, centuries ago, and I was certain she would have gotten my figure-eight frame.

Drip-drop. Drip-drop. Drip-drop. Drip-

‘I say, Rosemary-.’

I hate that name. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. And did I mention that I hate it? Why couldn’t Mother have named me June, or Diane, or Christine? No, it had to be Rosemary.

When Maxwell is irritated, he calls me Rose, which is, I know, rather ironic, but then, that flower does have thorns. Otherwise he calls me Rosemary, as if I were a herb in a glass, a picture on a wall, a cup of tea to toss in just before he goes off to work.

We live in London, fifteen minutes to the City.

Maxwell’s a banker. I’m his crazy artist wife. ceramics 2

I think he’s having an affair.

‘Yes, love?’ I answer, still with my right cheek on the kitchen counter, watching the coffee drip into its glass pot.

Drip-drop. Pit-pot. Tip-top. I-am. Mrs. Pots.

Miss Pots would fit better.

What would it be to be a Miss again?

But now, at 38?

With the faded memory of Isabelle, my love, my life, my baby?

When she was buried in her little chestnut coffin, I felt the priest had laid my love to rest as well.

We have separate beds, Maxwell and I. They are fitted together, slap up next to each other, but it is there, the great divide, and no one crosses it, not even an inch, not even once, not ever, no.

Drip-drop. Pit-pot. Tip-top. I am. Miss Pots. Miss Pots. Missed spots.

There’s a smudge on the coffee machine. It looks like crumbled icing. Or simply sugar? Who knows?

‘Are you tired, Rosemary?’

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Why can’t he call me something like Chantal? Why didn’t he pick out some lovely nickname, some pet cat-call, something, anything, everything but Rosemary?

‘A tad bit.’

‘You want something from the grill?’

Maxwell never says take-away. For an unexpected moment, I catch my breath.

Ravi Naveen. That’s the boy who always comes around to drop off the curry. Maxwell calls, Ravi takes it away from the Taj, and carries it on the long exodus down two stops on bus 9, two blocks and one corner, to our house, where I wait. Then the bell rings and I, or rather my hand, shakes slightly when I open the door. And then, when it swings back to me, there he stands, the two plastic bags in his hand – Maxwell likes to eat well; bother him with his metabolism – and then he says:

‘Evening Mrs. Richardson. All’s well?’

He never says, How are you? Or Phew! What a day! but always, All’s well? – with variations. And every time, honestly, every single time, I want to grab his hand, drag him to the kitchen, sit him down with a cup of tea, and tell him everything.

But as always, I just say, Thank you, yes, fine, hand him the money with somewhat of a smile, see him tap his red cap, turn, and jog down our front steps with those long, long legs.

‘Yes, why not.’

I hear Maxwell dial the phone, order the usual, laugh a little, exchange a word or two about the day, and then hang up with something of a sigh.

‘Sit down Rosemary, you’ll end up hurting your back’, he says before walking out of the kitchen, and for some reason, some unbearable urge forces me to stick out my tongue at him after he closes the door. Then I see my reflection the blackness of the coffee pot – drip-drop, drip-drop – and it makes me want to laugh and cry all at once.

Just then, for no reason at all, I realize that it’s raining.

Pling-pling. Pling. Pling-pling. Pling-pling-pling.

06:34.

In about five minutes, the doorbell will ring.

Will he carry an umbrella?

Or will he, like those young actors on TV – I know, it is my greatest shame, but I love them, those soap operas full of teenage agony and strife – will he be drenched to his very shirt, so that when he walks you can see every muscle? Will his hair – black, black, black! – be splattered all over his head like a glistening multi-armed octopus?

Will it in fact, be him?

Or his brother, Rajan, a boy, fifteen, sixteen perhaps.

It is hard for me to see him.

When he comes by, I remember that it should be Isabelle standing in my place, waiting with shaking fingers, wishing, hoping, praying, that he had been crazy enough to forget his umbrella.

Pling-pling. Pling-pling-pling. Pling.

I’m sitting on the window-seat, facing the street, holding a cup of coffee with a magazine on my lap, watching the rain drop like soft crystal onto the pane.

Pane. Pain.

Would rain now anything of pain? What does it feel like to be smashed against a window?

‘Do you mind getting the door, Rosemary?’ I hear from down the hall.

Maxwell lives in his office. Something of a library in fact. We went shopping for it together. He said that though it was his office, it was our house, and he didn’t want me screaming or fainting every time I entered that particular room.

It is all greens and browns.

There was a count somewhere in Maxwell’s family. He knows what it means to spend the summer in the country.

‘Yes, love.’

I hadn’t heard the ring. Funny, but the rain was suddenly as loud as church bells.

I get up, slowly.

And I walk, slowly, from the living room – it is large, with many a couch and a seatee, a fireplace (Wolf is lying in front of the crackling fire, curled up into a sleeping ball of fur), and a chaise-longue.

But I, I love the window seat. Simple, neat, full of light, day in, day out, even at night, as the street-lamp shines into it in odd orange rays, half sterile, half alive, never really gone, and never actually there.

I walk into the hall, over the checkerboard tiles, to the black front door with the golden handle.

I push down. Pull open. And wait.

‘Evening, Mrs. Richardson. All’s well, I hope. Sorry, but I forgot my umbrella.’

I put down my cup onto the small table under the hallway mirror.

It isn’t a warm evening, yet he is dressed in a light blue shirt and dark-blue jeans, his hair a colony of curls, so black, so wonderfully ebony, glossy black, I feel it’s the universe shining back at me. He has both plastic bags in one hand, while his other, young and strong, wipes the water out of his face.

It is then, when all I can see are two pairs of eyes over his fingers, fingers that look as if they knew things Maxwell wouldn’t even dream about, that I make a decision.

‘Please come in. We’ll get you dried up first.’

He looks at me surprised. And then, startlingly, he flashes a smile, so white, I feel as if struck, really, by a flash of something like lightning.

‘Rosemary?’

The heat rises into my cheeks in less than a second.

The last time I blushed like this, I believe I was staring down into Maxwell’s eyes, wondering why on earth he’d destroyed it all by asking me to marry him. We had been perfectly happy as friends. But no, he had to come with love, had to infect me with the disease, and now look what it got us into.

Ravi looks… expectant, waiting, like a young tiger on the prowl. On a second thought, that’s probably not all that right, but he really does, truly, look like that right now.

‘Yes, love.’

It is like an automatic. I hear ‘Rosemary’, and my whole vocal system collaborates to produce the air waves that compound to ‘Yes, love,’ without me even having to think a thought about it.

‘Oh – hello. I thought you hadn’t heard.’

I turn and see Maxwell in the hallway, surprised to see Ravi at the door. I feel as if Mother caught me nibbling at the Christmas Cake.

‘Good God, you’re wet through! Honestly, Rose, why don’t you ask him in?’

‘I was just about to.’

I cannot get myself to turn back to those eyes, those all-seeing eyes, and I am grateful that Maxwell walks up to the door, takes the plastic bags out of Ravi’s hands and escorts him into the kitchen. He even sits him down, pours him a cup of coffee and asks me, me, me! to fetch a towel. I do.

In the bathroom, the craziest thing crosses my mind, and I find myself spraying the towel with my perfume, softly, not too much.

When I return, I hand it to Ravi without looking at him, turn to the window where through the pane – pling-ping-splat-ping – I see him wipe his face with his eyes closed. For a moment I believe he holds it longer than necessary to his face before rubbing his hair dry – with the other side – after accepting a cup of coffee from Maxwell with a nod and a smile.

Maxwell talks to him about his day and I drink everything in, wishing to find a hint in his words, something to tell me that in between his hours at the Taj and those at the University (Engineering, he says. There’s something about building that fascinates him), his parties, his laughter, his one-night-stands – oh, he has to have them; I insist that he has to have them; he has to be at least that free, for I can see him in those fleeting moments, those nebulous hours between night and dawn where everything feels forbidden – he remembered, maybe only for a moment, maybe for the brief breadth of a flashing, passing smile, he remembered me.

Then, rather suddenly, the telephone rings, and Maxwell rushes out of the room, apologising.

The silence is slicing, and I cannot, for all the world, turn around, but keep looking out of the window, past the plants on the window sill, through the pane out into the small stretch of garden between the house and the fence of the one opposite. It is empty, up for sale, and so far, I think, a young couple is rather interested in buying it.

But then there is movement, the scraping of wood on stone-tiles, and something bursts in my middle, like a grape pinched between two fingers.

‘Thank you Mrs. Richardson’, he says, handing me the towel in due distance, that is three steps away from me.

There is something of a bow in how he does it, but then our fingers touch, I feel the brush of his hand, his eyes meet mine and I look to the floor like back then when I was seventeen.

‘Rosemary, do we have time on Thursday?’

I look up, a little too sharply, past Ravi to Maxwell who’s at the door, looking at a notepad, half in the doorway half in the hall. Quickly, I move away from the window.

‘No. Not that I know of.’

Maxwell nods, and leaves for his office while I open the door a bit wider. Next moment, I feel a shoulder brush my own and watch Ravi walk past me into the hall. He’s just about to reach the door when I hear myself say ‘Wait – ! Take this with you.’ I hand him my umbrella, black with my initials in silver, R.R., small and only visible to the one underneath.

He takes it with a smile, but neither our hands, nor our fingers touch.

He opens the door, and slips through. He opens the umbrella on the first front step, while I stand in the door, watching when suddenly, with the umbrella wide open, he turns, slides a hand around my neck, and kisses me, hidden under the black.

It is not very long, but warm, oh, so warm, so full of life and promise, and that extra splash of red that has long been missing in my life that I feel the bright, bursting sun fall through the towers of rainy clouds in the sky.

Next moment, he’s gone.