Sometimes she wanted to beat her fists against it. But how could one beat one’s fists against life? She threw the puzzle across the room and it splintered against the wall, sending shards of transparent plastic flying and minute silver balls skittering across the floorboards. Her stomach was cramped and it agitated her. She picked up her digital pen and drew another few lines, almost haphazardly. The window went blank. Frozen again. Need a new computer. She growled and hit the keyboard. Processor’s fault really, or the graphics card. Maybe just a new graphics card would do, cheaper. Birthday at the end of the month, could ask Daddy, or Mother.

She spun round idly in her computer chair. Cloudy, through the skylight, day for staying inside. I like days like this: cloudy, I like, but I don’t like. Her stomach seemed to throb and she felt like punching it. Wouldn’t do any good, make it worse probably, like hitting the keyboard, not the keyboard’s fault. She reached for her mug that had previously contained tea (camomile and spearmint). It was an elegant bone china mug, the lower portion shaped and painted like a tiger. Tiger, tiger, burning. Faded now though: too many times through the dishwasher. The tiger’s tail curled up to form the handle. Where had it come from? Present? Perhaps Mother had bought it, or it had been Nan’s and found in her cupboard after she died.

She put the mug to her lips, tipped it. Nothing came. Hate it when that happens, think there’s something left and there isn’t. Such a disappointment. Still, always make another. She spun again, the other way. Her knee collided with the desk. A small stack of coins fell over with a little jangle.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said, louder than John Williams, who conducted his orchestra through her computer speakers.

She stroked her knee, which was bare because of a hole worn into the jeans, and, as she did so, heard a rapping from downstairs, that came thrice irregularly. Who? Too early for Daddy or Mother to be home from work, and they would have a key. Jack didn’t say. Don’t feel like people today. The knocking came again, four times this time, and louder. Best go see, get some more tea while I’m down there. She hooked her finger through the tiger’s tail, stood up. Through her bedroom door, down two flights of stairs, one spiral, one straight. Halfway down the stairs is the stair where I. What was his name, Kermit’s nephew?

She reached the front door, put her hand on the once-gold, now-tarnished handle, hesitated a moment. The chain hung limp against the frame. Should she. No, if someone tried to push their way in, well, she was ready for a fight. She pushed down the handle and pulled back. The door scraped against the frame and came free with a grunt. It caught up the cellophane-wrapped magazines with its motion, causing the plastic to bunch and wrinkle. Now open, she saw outside Matt standing in the arched porch, grey clouds above him, red-brick Victorian terraced houses across the road, below the clouds, behind him. He was standing on the welcome mat on the red, red, black tiles of the arched porch. The Matt stood on the. She furrowed her brow. Robert, was that it?

“Hey,” Matt said, “are you up to much?”

She shook her head, said nothing. He said nothing.

“What was the name of…”

Robin! That was it.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter.”

There was a weight in her hand. What? Oh: Tiger Mug. She looped a second finger through the tail. Don’t want to drop it. Favourite mug, I think, as far as one has favourites.

“Can I come in?”

He looked at her cesious eyes, which had dropped down to an empty mug she was holding, but now looked back up at him. Really quite enchanting, eyes like that, made you want to get lost in them, like in a wide ocean. She shrugged. Slight shoulders, bony, like the ribs in a horse-chestnut leaf. Was that a bad simile? They weren’t really like that, he thought, but there was something about her shoulders that reminded him of horse-chestnut leaves, after they have fallen and curled and gone hard, though she was young and willowy.

“Sure.”

She stepped back, he stepped forward. She turned round, walked up the corridor and spoke over her shoulder.

“Do you want some tea?”

I was just about to make some, she was just about to add, but she cut herself short. She liked Matt well enough, but today was not a people day, and it would take some time to warm to him. Hopefully he wasn’t having one of his crisises. Crises? She couldn’t put up with that today and might snap at him. She felt snappish.

“Um, yes, please,” he said.

They went into the kitchen. The Tiger Mug clinked as it was put down on the counter. Sounded a bit like the coins falling over. Usually she would have stacked them back up straight away, put them all in line so that they formed a tapering cylinder, a cone almost, the five-pennies at the top, the fifties at the bottom, she was particular like that, but not today. She tried not to think of it. The kettle was still warm, slightly, but without enough water. She removed it from its stand, feeling the slight warmth against her palm, and poured the water down the sink. With a click the lid popped open and she filled the kettle from the tap, noticing first the thin layer of limescale that had formed around the elements at the bottom of the white plastic jug, and then her bladder, inside her somewhere behind those hot waves of stabbing, aching discomfort.

“I’m going to the toilet,” she said, pushing the kettle down onto its stand and pressing the button that lit up orange.

A short passage, barely more than a cupboard, and used as one for storing the mop and the bucket and a few other miscellaneous items, led off the kitchen to a toilet room. She stepped in, closed the door behind her, pulled down her jeans. Love these jeans, she thought, as they slid down to her ankles, wouldn’t go out in them, too shabby, but they’re comfy around the house, and fit just right so I don’t need a belt. Boxer-shorts next down, love the feel of them, especially now, pretty too, with rainbow stripes and stars for buttons. She sat. Cold seat. Ought to shave. Tomorrow maybe, no one’s going to see until at least then. A few seconds passed. Grey-white light filtered in through the irregularly-ridged window that looked as if it was made of glassy paint, all dripping down.

She squeezed a little inside, or relaxed. Hard to describe what goes on inside, no point of reference really: can’t compare it directly to anyone else. It was about to. There. She felt the pleasing trickle, heard it ring against the porcelain. Glancing down she saw a red taint to the yellow-clear water. Better change it. Remember the first time. This very room. Blood in my knickers, then the drop in the bowl. Couldn’t go for a minute, put it on hold while I examined the dark red stain, still wet, smelling quite strongly of iron, even though the window was open and there was a fresh breeze. Must have been terrifying in the old days, before the teacher sent all the boys out in the last year of primary school and told you about it; growing up a bit and suddenly bleeding. Poor girls.

She unrolled a couple of sheets of toilet paper, doubled them over and wiped, then pulled at the dangling strand of cotton until the crimson-stained mass came out and swung wildly once, twice, before she closed a couple of white paper sheets around it. Has a weight to it, she thought as she lifted it out from beneath her and held it over the bin by the side of the toilet, and a warmth, like something recently dead. She lowered it into the bin. She liked the feeling of removing it, despite the pain and the soreness, it was satisfying, like peeling off a scab.

Poor girls, she thought again, reaching for the cardboard Tampax box from the top of the cistern. How frightened they must have been in those days, and what did they do? Stuff a bit of dirty old rag in their knickers? And did their mothers tell them it was going to happen when they reached a certain age, did anyone, or were they just left to find out for themselves? Must have been awful, and we complain about a few days of.

“For fuck’s sake!”

She threw the empty cardboard box to the floor and hitched up her shorts, her jeans, buttoned them aggressively. Some more upstairs, she remembered, catching sight of herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. No, wait, will I make it upstairs without. Better make sure. She unbuttoned her jeans again, unrolled and doubled over another few sheets of toilet paper and stuffed it down the front. Don’t want to stain them. Bad enough on the bedsheets.

She left the toilet room, went through the passage into the kitchen. Matt was leaning in the door frame, looking troubled. She barely noticed. The kettle had boiled, but still her Tiger Mug stood apart from it, and no second mug had been brought down from the cupboard, and no teabags and no milk gotten out and nothing had been done with anything.

“You make the tea,” she said, striding past him, “I’m just going to – I’ll be back in a minute.”

She had nearly reached the far living room door, and Matt had nearly reached the counter when she turned back and said:

“I want the spearmint and camomile one, you get whichever one you want.”

She went through the door, ascended the first flight of stairs. There’s no other stair quite like. The song in her head was lost in a snatch of the Indiana Jones theme that drifted down from her room. She entered the bathroom, locked the door behind her. There were five left in the box in here. Have to tell Mother to pick some up later, or tomorrow. Enough for another day or two at least. She unwrapped the white tampon from its crinkly green plastic. Want a sweet now. Some Yorkshire Mix, like Daddy used to buy. What do they taste of? Hard to say. Always seem to be different.

She pushed the cotton up inside her, feeling her finger follow it in a short way. Wish I could, she thought, not naming her desire; with Jack.

She withdrew, sure it was firmly lodged, and pulled her shorts and jeans back up. Better wash my hands again. Funny how one never reads about it in the old days. One knows all about the dirt and the disease and the squalor, about the sewage systems and the workhouses and all that, but never about what young girls knew of puberty and menstruation. Suppose that’s what comes with history being written by men. I can’t be dealing with one of Matt’s problems today. I wish Jack was here and I wasn’t. But I am. Maybe there’s a special degree in women’s history. Too late for that now though. Didn’t do it at A-level either. She dried her hands and went back down to the kitchen. Matt was stirring his milk-and-sugar tea.

“I didn’t know how strong you wanted it,” he said, pointing to the Tiger Mug where a dark green teabag floated in a dark green liquid.

Too strong.

She opened the drawer and extracted a teaspoon with which to remove the teabag. She removed the teabag and let it fall off the teaspoon into the bin. Matt then disposed of his teabag in the same manner and she realised that it had still been in the mug when he had been stirring. Something wrong about that, she thought; putting the milk and sugar in before the teabag is out. She sighed into her hot tea, then inhaled and took in its smell. Sort of like new-mown grass and summer gardens and countryside fields all rolled into one. Peter Rabbit used to drink camomile tea. Or, no, it was the Flopsy Bunnies, after they nearly got eaten by, what was his name? The fox. Mr. Todd. Mother Bunny made it for them. I remember Nan reading me the story sometime, when I slept over at hers, or else she stayed at the old house and saw me to bed. I remember the cotton of the duvet pressed up against my chin and the smell of the fabric conditioner that Mother used to buy (she must have switched brands at some point) and that blind I used to have in my room with the brown silhouettes of trees and the dark brown silhouettes of trees and the light brown silhouettes of trees against a white background.

Read Part Two

Tags: distancing, James Joyce, modernist style, red, Relationships, rose, stream-of-conciousness, Ulysses, Virginia Woolf

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