Chewed Blankets
There’s only one blanket in the cupboard; you bring it to your nose and catch a hint of the warm-biscuit smell of nesting rodents. The fleece is bobbled and you think there are teeth marks, but you suspect it will be needed anyway. A trail of small fleecy nubs fall behind you as you make your way to the kitchen, the material squeaks against your fingernails.
You’re putting the kettle on to re-boil for the third or fourth time when the doorbell goes, but her face tells you it will need to be wine instead.
“It’s really over,” she says.
“Oh,” you say as you step back to let her in. She covers her eyes and presses against you on the way past. You put your arms around her and she judders with each breath, you murmur to her, barely knowing what you’re saying. After a while, she sighs and pulls back. There are black smears below her eyes and her top lip shines with a layer of mucus.
“You’ll be ok,” you say and it sounds too much like a question. She shakes her head and clutches her jacket as though holding something in, you usher her towards the living room promising things that may as well be the moon and stars on sticks.
Finally, she’s sitting down and has reined in her sobs long enough for her to speak again. She says agrees that she probably could do with a drink. Alone in the kitchen, you twist your hair so it can be slipped under your collar then put both hands down flat on the counter for a moment, steadying yourself.
“Thank you so much,” she says, reaching out for a glass of wine. The tissue she’s clamped to her nose flutters with her breath.
“Of course,” you say. You swither for a moment, then settle on the sofa opposite.
“I feel like such a twat, such a stupid twat.”
“Don’t be silly, of course you’re not.”
“Just another stupid twat, no better than the next.”
You pass her some more tissues. She sniffs fiercely a few times, takes a couple of sips and starts to explain. There are several re-hashings and repetitions, but it’s only when she tells you for the third time that she read his text messages you feel ready to interrupt.
She lets you talk over her. In fact, she shuts up and looks at you as though she expects you to have some answers. She knows as well as you do that you won’t fix it for her, but it’s enough for you to string together a reassuring litany of platitudes. The way her chin trembles tugs at the bottom of your lungs and the crinkle of her eyes makes you dig your nails into your palms. You pour her more wine and tell her everything will be fine.
She wallows, smiles bravely and pretends to take an interest in your new flat. You follow her gaze as it skips from the bookshelves to hopscotch over your paintings and stop at your TV set, and you feel a little proud and a little ashamed. You wait, but all she does is reach for her mobile phone.
“I can’t face him. I’m so angry.” Her fingers stroke the buttons. “What if he’s angry at me too?”
“You haven’t done anything. It’s not you, you know what men are like.” You want to reach out and take her hand. The living room seems much smaller with her in it; you think you can hear the faint scrape of tooth on skin when she bites her lip.
There’s nothing you wouldn’t give her; another drink, something to eat, a long hug, more tissues. You offer them all and she accepts the first. Your hands are so strangely shaky it’s a miracle the wine ends up in her glass.
Leaning back, she tells you the story again; from the beginning, and again from the middle, and again from somewhere near where the end should be. And it’s only as the noise of passing revellers making their way home begins to die away that she starts to run out of things to say. She sighs; her eyes and her eyelids droop, mirroring the downturn of her mouth.
“Oh dear,” you say. “You’re exhausted. You need to sleep, of course you do.” You ignore her protests and pass her the blanket. She drapes it over her and leans to one side, opening a gap between the collar of her top and what’s beneath it. You think you could sit there until morning.
You pause at the door to whisper goodnight. She murmurs her thanks and says you are the best. You take it to bed with you; a little something that can be bundled up and held for warmth and you think of it as you lie looking out the jammed skylight. It’s dark outside but you can still make out the splatters of bird shit on the glass. They are the same as they were yesterday, and the day before: you’ve been waiting for it to rain.
A bang from the hall jerks you upright. It’s her; of course it’s her. She knocks on your door and you sit up to call her in. She hasn’t switched the light on but your eyes have adjusted to the dark. She’s clutching the blanket and shivering: there is a metallic taste in your mouth.
“What’s wrong?” you say and she edges closer.
“There were noises,” she whispers. You gesture for her to come closer still. She hesitates then collapses onto the bed, drawing her feet up sharply.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know, a… I think it could have been mice.”
“Oh right,” you say with a long exhale. “Yeah, that’s what it will have been. Nothing to worry about.”
“Oh god.”
“What? It’s nothing… sorry; all the old flats like this have them. All the tenements.” You watch her nodding, but the way her eyes are lowered makes it impossible for you to continue. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s me. I just hate them so much and, well, it’s not your fault. I just, I’ve never been able to stand the sound they make, the scratching.” Her hands have released her waist long enough for her palms to tug at her temples. You think she may start crying again. “Maybe I should go.”
“You can’t go. It’s the middle of the night, where would you go? No, stay here – this room is fine, it’s so far from the kitchen it’s safe. I never keep any food in here. We can switch places, you’ll be safe.”
“Are you sure?” She says and relief blooms, but then she shakes her head. “I can’t throw you out of our own bed, I just can’t,” she says. “I’ll get over it, give me a minute.”
You lie holding your breath.
“You must be freezing,” you finally say, holding the covers open. She hesitates a moment then comes under, blanket and all. You feel the cold air she’s wrapped up in rolling towards you.
“I’m sorry.”
“Shh, you should sleep,” you say.
“I’ll try,” she says doubtfully. But it seems to take no time at all for her to drop away from you into sleep.
You can nothing from the walls, no nibbling, no scratching. There’s nothing but the quivery sighs of her breath. For a couple of hurried heartbeats, you wonder whether she really did hear the mice. But you know she did.
The bed quickly becomes warm and the heat should make you drowsy but it doesn’t. You wonder if she’ll unwrap herself from the double layer of duvet and blanket.
If someone had said she would be in your bed this morning, you’d have laughed, but there she is; curled away from you, swollen with tears and thinking about her maybe-boyfriend, who would always deal with the mice so she wouldn’t have to. That’s what you would do too.
She snuffles again and it makes your chest feel tight, but it isn’t sympathy that’s crawling up inside you. You lie there not touching, feeling all kinds of things scrabbling at your throat. You want to wake her up and ask her to tell you everything, all of the other things you never knew she was scared of.
It’s almost morning. You don’t want it to be time to get up. You can picture her thanks and her apologies and the tentative hope in her voice when she says she’s going to try calling that bastard and see what he has to say for himself. Maybe they’ll be able to work something out. She twitches and your hand is millimetres from the ridge of her shoulder.
You hate the mice now, you hate them like you’ve never thought to before. Not for pissing all over your surfaces or chewing up your wires and nestling in your blankets, but for giving you this moment.
Lynsey May lives, loves and writes in Edinburgh, happily surrounded by cafes, bookshops and the mix of Scottish sweetness and inherent bleakness she’s always trying to commit to page. Some of these captives can be found in anthologies and journals such as New Writing Scotland, The Stinging Fly and Various Authors. Find her procrastinating at www.lynseymay.com.
