– the risks of catching AIDS from the tattooist’s needle, the slutty
hairlessness of my pussy. She switched her gaze to the mirror, wiping a circle for her face in the mist. As she checked her frosted lips, her head shook like she was fighting some inner demon. For
a few seconds it looked as though she was going to speak but she just gave a little restrained sigh and exited the bathroom.
Naked, I surveyed the pile of clothes on my bed. Should I wear what I used to wear? Denim minis and tiny tees. Or my latest look? Long hippy skirts and muslin tops. Underwear
was easy – the black g-string he’d sent me from Harrods and a push-up, Grand Canyon setting. My body buzzed as if I’d been mildly electrocuted. Of course he still loved me.
He’d called me babe, and why else would he invite me to his party? And what about the postcards he’d kept sending, even after we’d officially split up. Brief and chatty but always
signed ‘love Scott’, with three kisses and three ‘R’s for roots. That was his little sign to me –
wait for me, babe, I’m coming home for you
. On the
walls around my bed, I’d Blu-tacked each one of his postcards (seven in total) with the writing facing out. Over the past two years, his handwriting had changed a lot, from neat upright
letters, to a broader freer hand. I lay down on the bed, my head on the pillow, and re-read for the zillionth time the last postcard he’d sent me. It was from Paris, dated July that year:
Yo babe!
Bonjour from Paris! Today we went up the Eiffel Tower and visited Notre Dame. Yesterday was Bastille Day and we stayed up till late partying and letting off
hand-grenade firecrackers with these black dudes in the street outside our hotel. Like everyone says, the Frenchies are rude wankers but I still reckon you’d love it here, especially
shopping on the Chumps-Elysées.
Love Scott xxxRRR
P.S. Hope uni is OK and you’re keeping out of trouble.
I’d become expert at decoding Scott’s hidden meanings, buried deep within his deceptively shallow prose. ‘Keeping out of trouble’ was his way of saying,
‘I hope you’re not with anyone else’, and ‘you‘d love it here’ meant ‘in the future, we can go back here together’. He didn’t know about me
dropping out of uni to save money to go and see him, but with him back I figured none of that mattered. The only thing I worried about was that little ‘we’. I hated that
‘we’. Why couldn’t he just say ‘I’? ‘We’ made me edgy, that and the fact that he was in Paris, my number one overseas destination. I was pissed he’d
gone without me. I mean, what a waste going to the most romantic city in the world with his mates.
I opted for the sexy look: a black, pleated mini with a gold sparkly halter-neck, which showed off my summer shoulders, and my new black strappies with wedge heels. Mum was in the shower when I
left so I wrote her a quick post-it and stuck it to the fridge:
Mum,
Good luck on your date with Randy Andy. Hope you find true love. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!
Love R xxxooo
P.S. Sorry about before.
Outside the shadows were creeping in. There was not the tiniest breeze, the heat clinging to every inch of my skin. Across the street, I could see Mrs Leyland from number ten,
silhouetted in the bright fluoro of the kitchen, her head bent over the sink. I took off my shoes and tossed them onto the passenger seat. The driveway was warm beneath my feet.
So, this was it. After all the waiting.
I got in my car and reversed out. A quick glance back at the house and there was Mum standing in the illuminated doorway dressed in a canary-yellow suit with square, black buttons. She looked
like the Queen but she didn’t wave so I honked the horn and she gave me a little smile. I felt sad for her, all lonely and timid in the doorway. She’d had a rough time of it with Dad.
As soon as he started hitting her she should have left. She said she’d stayed because she got
hairlessness of my pussy. She switched her gaze to the mirror, wiping a circle for her face in the mist. As she checked her frosted lips, her head shook like she was fighting some inner demon. For
a few seconds it looked as though she was going to speak but she just gave a little restrained sigh and exited the bathroom.
Naked, I surveyed the pile of clothes on my bed. Should I wear what I used to wear? Denim minis and tiny tees. Or my latest look? Long hippy skirts and muslin tops. Underwear
was easy – the black g-string he’d sent me from Harrods and a push-up, Grand Canyon setting. My body buzzed as if I’d been mildly electrocuted. Of course he still loved me.
He’d called me babe, and why else would he invite me to his party? And what about the postcards he’d kept sending, even after we’d officially split up. Brief and chatty but always
signed ‘love Scott’, with three kisses and three ‘R’s for roots. That was his little sign to me –
wait for me, babe, I’m coming home for you
. On the
walls around my bed, I’d Blu-tacked each one of his postcards (seven in total) with the writing facing out. Over the past two years, his handwriting had changed a lot, from neat upright
letters, to a broader freer hand. I lay down on the bed, my head on the pillow, and re-read for the zillionth time the last postcard he’d sent me. It was from Paris, dated July that year:
Yo babe!
Bonjour from Paris! Today we went up the Eiffel Tower and visited Notre Dame. Yesterday was Bastille Day and we stayed up till late partying and letting off
hand-grenade firecrackers with these black dudes in the street outside our hotel. Like everyone says, the Frenchies are rude wankers but I still reckon you’d love it here, especially
shopping on the Chumps-Elysées.
Love Scott xxxRRR
P.S. Hope uni is OK and you’re keeping out of trouble.
I’d become expert at decoding Scott’s hidden meanings, buried deep within his deceptively shallow prose. ‘Keeping out of trouble’ was his way of saying,
‘I hope you’re not with anyone else’, and ‘you‘d love it here’ meant ‘in the future, we can go back here together’. He didn’t know about me
dropping out of uni to save money to go and see him, but with him back I figured none of that mattered. The only thing I worried about was that little ‘we’. I hated that
‘we’. Why couldn’t he just say ‘I’? ‘We’ made me edgy, that and the fact that he was in Paris, my number one overseas destination. I was pissed he’d
gone without me. I mean, what a waste going to the most romantic city in the world with his mates.
I opted for the sexy look: a black, pleated mini with a gold sparkly halter-neck, which showed off my summer shoulders, and my new black strappies with wedge heels. Mum was in the shower when I
left so I wrote her a quick post-it and stuck it to the fridge:
Mum,
Good luck on your date with Randy Andy. Hope you find true love. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!
Love R xxxooo
P.S. Sorry about before.
Outside the shadows were creeping in. There was not the tiniest breeze, the heat clinging to every inch of my skin. Across the street, I could see Mrs Leyland from number ten,
silhouetted in the bright fluoro of the kitchen, her head bent over the sink. I took off my shoes and tossed them onto the passenger seat. The driveway was warm beneath my feet.
So, this was it. After all the waiting.
I got in my car and reversed out. A quick glance back at the house and there was Mum standing in the illuminated doorway dressed in a canary-yellow suit with square, black buttons. She looked
like the Queen but she didn’t wave so I honked the horn and she gave me a little smile. I felt sad for her, all lonely and timid in the doorway. She’d had a rough time of it with Dad.
As soon as he started hitting her she should have left. She said she’d stayed because she got
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