But you still go to his little cottage in the country and eat
his scrambled eggs, gently folded, special recipe made with a squeeze of
fresh orange juice. And you do suffer his hard little body, receding
hairline, Neil Diamond and cigarettes that make you giggle, seducing a
poor girl from the country, her vowels drenched in cow piss and rotting
cider apples.
He has a wall-sized gilt mirror next to the bed and his sheets
are Harrods white. When he’s in the bathroom you sit up, side on, poke out
fashionable little breasts, swoosh hair down your back till it reaches your
arse and look at yourself, neck arched, like you’ve seen in pictures of a
pre-Raphaelite goddess and later, bad porn. Next time he brings a bottle of Scotch. You put it on a dressing
table where the afternoon sun turns it into liquid gold.
"I’ve been up north to get something sorted," you say.
"Why didn’t you tell me? I could have had it fixed for you
closer to home."
He’s taking out his cheque book and Parker pen, silver.
And how many other girls have looked in that mirror, something
worming its way right in. He said he’d call.
Julie Maclean
juliemacleanwriter.com
Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel