The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson Page B

here. I can do anything I want to you, Miss High-and-Mighty Princess Eliza.
    H ER BIRTHDAY. F ORTY-TWO YEARS OLD. A COOL GRAY DAY; HER heart so small and dry and tight she can barely feel it beating inside her. She wakes and tries not to think of other birthdays. Triesnot to think of anything. She stays very steady. She does not cry.
    Graham brings her breakfast in bed. Coffee and croissants and damson jam with a little gingham cloth on the lid. She expresses surprise. And pleasure. Tells him he didn’t have to do it. He tells her of course he did. Adding that she needs to hurry up and get dressed because they’ve got to go and pick up her present.
    â€œWhat?” she says. “What do you mean, pick it up? Pick it up from where?”
    She goes into the bathroom and washes herself. In the mirror these days, what is it? Her face, slowly disintegrating. Lines where there never were lines, shadows where once there was nothing but light.
    â€œWhat are you doing in there?” he calls. She can tell from his voice that he is on edge, excited. “We’ve got to get a move on, hurry up!”
    He looks almost nervous as they drive out of the village, up the main road to the crossing where he turns left. After fifteen or perhaps twenty minutes on the fast road, trucks thundering in front and behind, he turns off, following a small country lane until it narrows and then peters out and becomes a track.
    â€œI thought about getting it without you,” he says as they bump along the dusty track, birdsong loud in the air around them. “Having it all ready to surprise you when I came home. But then I thought that would be no fun. And anyway, the truth is, I think I might need your help bringing it back.”
    Fun? Help? She looks at him, suddenly afraid of what the present might be.
    They park outside a low, squalid-looking bungalow. Empty plant pots and broken plastic chairs piled outside. He tells her to stay in the car and he goes across the white crazy paving and knocks. After a few moments he bends and looks through the letterbox. A lot of dogs start barking.
    A fat, elderly gray-haired woman in a tracksuit comes out. Mary watches from the car as Graham talks to the woman for a moment and then they disappear together through another metal gate around the back.
    She does what she is told. She sits in the car, her hands in her lap, and she does not move. Sun spills from between the clouds and for a moment she is blinded. Then it slides away and she can see again. She thinks she sees someone at one of the windows, lifting a net curtain. Still she does not move. Her eyes straight ahead, her limbs like water. She wonders what would happen if Graham never reappeared, if he never came back at all. Would she just sit here, melting into the car seat, dissolving to dust as the years passed?
    But a few minutes later, he does appear, followed by the woman, who turns back briefly to secure the gate. Mary sees that in his hand is a lead and at the end of the lead is a small black-and-white dog. Jesus, she thinks, oh God, oh no. He approaches the car, smiling in a careful, bunched-up way as if he is about to introduce himself to her for the first time. He pulls open her door.
    â€œHappy birthday,” he says.
    She stares at his face and then at the dog’s white whiskery muzzle.
    â€œWe can’t have a dog,” she says.
    He seems ready for this.
    â€œIt’s all right.” He holds the lead out to her. “That’s fine. I knew you’d say that. It’s on approval anyway.”
    â€œIt?”
    She looks at the lead but she does not take it.
    â€œShe. Little collie. Four months old.”
    Four months. The dog looks frightened. Graham pushes the lead into her hand.
    â€œI don’t want a dog,” she says. “You’re not listening to me,” sheadds when he just smiles. “I mean it, Graham. I don’t want a dog.”
    He hesitates, still smiling, his eyes on