Read by Peter Kenny
Uhtceara: lying awake in the period before dawn and worrying
I lie in the dark and consider the issue of a list. Not a Christmas list, unfortunately – or at least, not that kind. On this list, you would be losing. You would be surprised by that, I think, and that would probably be another entry into the ‘con’ column; your lack of awareness. But I haven’t officially started list-making yet and I shouldn’t admit half-considered entries. Not on a subject of such importance. That would be unfair.
I wonder if, post-list, I would get to keep the fridge. I did buy it after all. I don’t think you even like it – I’ve never heard you say anything about its ice function, for example. Not even last Friday when I made us silly Christmas cocktails at five o’clock and put yours next to your laptop, saying ice! You didn’t seem to think that was a strange thing to say, when really it was quite strange. Especially as it was the first word we’d exchanged since lunch. I’m not well-versed in Inuit culture, or in the culture of anywhere beyond the south coast really, but I’d be surprised if “ice!” was an accepted conversation starter anywhere. You didn’t remark upon it, though. Perhaps because you didn’t try your drink until the ice was gone and the glacé cherry was floating in a lime green bath with a salted rim. Like some sort of alcoholic, volcanic vent. When you did try it, you made a bit of a face, and I thought, really? and that’s not very grateful, but I didn’t say anything because although you had your headphones on, and although they were the noise reduction ones I got you last Christmas, I could still hear how unhappy Tim was with your team.
I wonder what Tim would say when you told him. Perhaps you wouldn’t tell him? You’re all home-based since they closed the office so it might not come up until you had your quarterly sales meeting in Hastings. And you might have found someone new by then. Or be happily single. You might give in to Tim’s requests to join the team on a night out rather than telling him that you have plans and then coming back to me and to Margate, to our battered sofa and tiny TV. That should probably be a pro, that you always choose to be at home rather than elsewhere, but I need to give it some proper thought.
Because the other side of that, of course, is that we don’t ever go anywhere. There might not be many places to go in Margate, but they say it might snow this year and it’d be nice to think we might do things. Coastal things. Walks, even. Nothing that costs. None of the winter kayaking and paddle boarding and kite surfing that seems to have popped up overnight, with 5% body fat and year-round tans, all clad in neoprene and with such certainty about its place in the world. None of that, no. A walk and some talking, that would do me. Maybe stopping at one of the huts if it’s cold and sharing a hot chocolate or some chips. Although the gulls might come for those and I really don’t like them, so I’d probably rather just have some McCains on the sofa. That’d be fine. Nice, even. But we need to do something, some things – you always choosing to be here feels less like a pro when you never want to be anywhere else.
You’re stirring now and so I’m lying still, holding a breath. I hope I haven’t been thinking out loud again. I think you’re just having a fidget. Yes, here comes your arm across me, and with it your scent. Thick, heavy, masculine, and fine, I’ll admit it, sexy. It shouldn’t be. When we lived on Clifton Street, on the ground floor and with our bedroom facing the road, we couldn’t have the window open. I slept a little better back then and when I came back to bed after my morning pee, I would get the accumulated smells of the night and you should know that it was beyond ripe. That should’ve ruined your scent for me, but it hasn’t.
I’ve always liked the heat of you, the way you radiate throughout the night, a six-foot furnace simmering beneath the sheets. And now we have a bedroom on the third floor, with a window that faces onto the communal paving, the context of your scent has changed. The window can only open a fraction, 10cm or so, but that’s more than enough in winter, and keeps the room a little fresher, so when you move in the night, especially if you lift an arm, I get a whiff of you and I am undone. I can smell what you haven’t been able to or haven’t wanted to tell me about your day, or at least the emotional signature of it, the emotional impact. I feel so close to you then, so intimate, as though you’re finally sharing yourself with me. If I do make a list, your night scent will be my first pro and I’m not even going to apologise for that.
The motor on the fridge-freezer has whirred into action again. You turn away from the noise, your back to me, and sleep on. The old fridge-freezer was much louder. You made me close the kitchen door because of its ‘whining’ – that’s what you called it. This one’s too quiet to intrude on your sleep, so I get to listen to the hum and I like that because I can use the sound however I like. Sometimes I use it as white noise, drowning out specificity and just allowing myself to be a person, no, less specific than even that, a body, a weight, a weight in a bed, suspended, with no thinking to be done or decisions to be made. I am just here and that is all I owe to myself. To you.
At other times, I use the fridge’s hum as a reminder of what it is to be certain about something; that change is needed sometimes and that I can make it happen. The hum also reminds me what a good return on investment looks like. Even if it didn’t have double the storage, or the retro 1950s looks, the fridge is double A-rated. Our old one was a D. You didn’t care when I said that that was embarrassing. We all need to do our bit for the environment, I said, where is the point of recycling when we have Mr. CFC chugging away right next to the council’s colour-coded bags? We even had that guide stuck to the door for a while, but once I realised you were never going to sort the rubbish, I peeled off the white-tack, put that back in its packet, and the guide went into the blue bag (cardboard and paper).
Where is the motor’s hum taking me tonight? Or is it Christmas morning already? It must be about seven, I think. Or maybe even later. The sky is certainly lightening and normally I would check my watch, flash the backlight on with a quick press, but you’ve pinned my left arm with your shoulder and I don’t want to risk waking you. Instead, I’ll watch the sky; the BBC said the sun was due at 8:05 today.
Before you came to bed last night, I read the instruction manual for the fridge-freezer again. I understand most of it now; as you said, it’s not complicated, but I want to be prepared in case she should break. Some of the reviews said that this model broke all the time, and that one man seemed to have had an awful run – you remember, you spent a Sunday morning reading his Amazon reviews to me in bed, doing your best Larry Grayson impression until I had to beg you to stop before my laughter triggered an asthma attack – but ours has been as good as gold so far. If she did go though, I’d want to fix her. Not just because of the cost of an engineer, although that doesn’t help, but also because her nighttime hum is such a comfort for me and I’d like to return the favour.
Hence reading the manual. That’s also why I cooked all the party food the other night – we’d crammed too much into the freezer and the door would barely shut. I felt bad for her, and then I felt bad when I threw those pigs in blankets away but you said you were stuffed and I’m trying to lose a bit of weight. New Year’s resolutions and all that.
That might be another con, I think. That you don’t seem to care about how I look. Obviously, that’s my responsibility really, not yours, but it would be nice to have some support, or even some criticism. Some engagement. I’m never going to look like those neoprene men, even if they invented a wet suit which was shaping somehow, contouring, but I could look better than this if you wanted me to. If you helped me to. And if we stopped getting takeaways.
But the morning is here now, so I’m going to stop thinking about the list. I’ve reached three possible cons before dawn, and they again outnumber the probable pluses. To be fair, one of the pluses, your smell, is a definite plus, but it was also yesterday’s plus, and last Tuesday’s too. Your Larry Grayson impression would also be a definite plus, but somehow that was almost a year ago now, that morning. That laughter. So I don’t know if I could count it, which leaves me at three new cons and no new pluses.
They’re all still maybe cons, of course, and not just today’s, all of them; I haven’t given any of it enough thought yet and I might feel differently if I was writing the list for real. Which I think I should. Not today, not on Christmas, but perhaps this weekend? I could do it while you watch the festive specials. I could sit in here and if you agree to put your headphones on, I could listen to her hum and that would help my thinking. Then I could make the list, followed by a decision, and we could move on with our lives, one way or another.
You’ve left the curtains open again (con, and I’m not sure that needs much further consideration, but I will put it through due process, I promise – I won’t be rash) so the morning’s light is on your skin, in your hair, turning your stubble golden. And you are beautiful.
You must have felt my eyes on you because you’ve turned over, and now you’re putting your hand out to my face, putting your fingers in my hair. You’re smiling at me. You ask if I’ve been awake for long and your thumb strokes my cheek as you say that I look tired. Your eyes are soft and kind and clear.
I wonder what goes on in that head of yours, Steve Murray, you say.
Oh, I start to reply, not much.
But you’re already on your way to the bathroom and so I lie here, listless.
(c) E. J. Fry, 2021
E.J. Fry lives, works and writes in London.
Peter Kenny has worked for: A&BC, The Royal Shakespeare Co. and The BBC Radio Drama Co. An award winning recorder of audio-books, he’s read over 200 titles: everything from Iain M. Banks, Neil Gaiman, and Andrzej Sapkowski to Jonas Jonasson and Paul O'Grady “... from the sublime to the cor blimey!” Most recently he has been working on sci-fi and fantasy novels by indie authors, Toby Weston, Stephen Kelliher and Michael Miller. Visit peterkenny.com
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