Craig Sherborne - The Amateur Science of Love

The weight in her face got heavier. ‘It’s Donna Wilkins, isn’t it?’

Here it was—the smithereens. I filled my lungs for more courage. ‘Yes,’ I said. A pitiful whimpered yes. I was so scared. Scared of life itself for being so different with that yes—so wild and shattered and free.

Tilda locked her two fists into one and threw her head back and made an awful vomiting sound. ‘I am such a fool,’ she said to the sky. She took one lunging stride towards me, eyes and nose teeming. ‘Get out. Get out of this house. Get out of my home.’

I attempted a consolation sorry but she covered her ears to keep sweet-talk out of her mind. ‘Get out!’

Plenty of windows would have heard her. I headed to the back door to get out of sight of neighbours.

I ran up the stairs, stood in the bedroom, thinking: What do I need? What do I need? I need clothes, of course. My cheque book—it was a joint cheque account with Tilda—I had the right to keep my half of our money. My typewriter, I needed that. Toiletries—razor, toothbrush. Take a flannel, some soap, a towel. All would fit easily into the Commodore boot. If I needed to I could sleep on the back seat overnight.

Then panic hit me. I could go to Tilda and undo the yes. I could lie that I was joking. Or I could beg with many apologies and congress with her until she wilted and changed her get out to please stay . Oh, I was scared of life all right. So scared I slowed my packing hoping she’d come and save me with kisses of tender absolution. I piled belongings on our bed and folded and shoved and slowed.

Eventually fearlessness straightened me. Donna’s face, her two breasts were restored to my brain; her voice, her I feel love like you do too to my ears. I was in such a penduluming madness—packing, slowing down, terrified, ecstatic, Come save me, Tilda one minute, I’m on my way to you, Donna the next—I did not smell smoke until the air was faintly foggy with it. Even then I sniffed my fingers to check it wasn’t cigarette stink.

It wasn’t. It was fire. The fog was denser the further around the hallway I investigated. It was coming from the bathroom. Smoke was blacker there and petrolly in its stench. It burst up out of the bathtub, curled off the top of rearing flames with chunks of half-burnt newspaper. Tilda was feeding the tub with splashes from a turps bottle. The invisible weight was still in her face but she had a sneery smile now, as if achieving something.

A paper chunk broke up and blew my way. I stomped it to ash on a patch of threadbare carpet. Another chunk smoked and crumbled onto the lino at Tilda’s feet. She yelled for me to ‘fuck off’ when I tried to stomp it. She held the turpentine out like a liquid threat, gave it a shake to warn me off. I saw my Donna underpants, every pair, burning in the tub.

Tilda let me stand and look at them. She smiled wider and said, ‘Every drop of the bitch’s cunt juice is going to burn. Fucking burn. Every rancid trace of her. It’s like burning her, that’s what it’s like. Wouldn’t that be justice and beautiful to burn her to fucking bits? Tell me you want that. Tell me she deserves it.’

At which point the smoke got into her breathing and she gagged and threw the bottle into the tub and coughed her way past me to gulp fresh air. Flames flicked faster; half the shower curtain was melted. I turned on the shower head by dabbing the taps open with my thumbs—the steel was stinging hot. My arms had to bear a few seconds among flames before the taps were open enough and water ran. I yanked the window up as high as it would go and used a towel to fan away smoke.

Surely neighbours would have called the fire brigade by now. How was I going to explain a burnt bath? I fanned and thought up excuses: an art experiment with burnt clothing as a medium. I kept the water running to rinse the tub down into a minor-looking incident. I didn’t know where Tilda had gone. I concentrated on fanning and throwing my sodden, flame-chewed undies out the window. I scooped ashy newspaper into the toilet and flushed.

The neighbours were not a worry. I had put the fire out in time. If they were spying from their curtains they must have thought we’d taken to having barbecues indoors. Tilda was the problem. She was downstairs dialling the phone with a stabbing finger. She kept getting the number wrong she was stabbing so hard and furiously. She must have reached innocent people more than once because when I arrived she swore ‘Fuck, not again!’ into the receiver. She poked her fingernail into the back of the phone book where we jotted numbers. She recited Donna’s number with seething slowness.

I ran up to her, snatched the receiver. ‘What are you doing? Give it to me! Give it here!’ She snatched it back and hissed and elbowed my jaw to keep possession. Donna had answered. I could hear her saying ‘Hello. Donna speaking’ down the line.

Tilda let fly: ‘Slut. You fucking slut whore. You betraying slutty bitch. How could you? How could you touch my husband, you fucking lowest form of life?’

I made another snatching attempt. Tilda grunted and gave me a shove, shouting, ‘Watch my arm! Don’t you dare hurt my arm.’

I wasn’t hurting her arm. I had my hand on hard phone plastic, not her, but I retreated anyway to stop her accusing me. I tucked my chin to my chest to beg a truce but she jabbed the receiver into my cheek. I hunched to deflect another hit but bang came one on the bone behind my left ear. Ding on bone higher on my head. White wires of electric water fizzed across my vision. My skull went numb, then seared. Ding again between my shoulder blades. The cord had pulled out from the wall. Tilda followed, swinging the phone like she was batting.

I took each blow, resigned to deserving them. What else could I do? I couldn’t retaliate—my size against hers? I would break her in half. So I took the hiding. Walked up the stairs more proud than defeated. The white wires and the searing were punishments I accepted. I withstood them. They were worth it to be able to be with Donna. They helped drive me towards Donna. I would be with her tonight. I was getting my belongings and leaving.

I came back down the stairs, backpack on shoulder and reached for the Commodore keys on the hook beside the back door. They weren’t there. They should have been my priority, the first belongings I packed. Instead they were in Tilda’s fingers and she wasn’t about to let them go.

‘You are not going anywhere.’

‘Oh yes I am.’

‘Oh no you’re not.’

‘Give me the keys.’

‘No.’

I reminded her that the keys were the property of the Wimmera Wheatman .

‘So?’

I put my hand on the doorknob to keep my leaving flowing. I turned the knob. The door was locked. I had no way to open it—my house key was on the Commodore ring. ‘Hand it over, Tilda.’

‘You are not leaving me.’

‘I am.’

‘You are not leaving me and going to that fucking slut.’

‘Give me the keys.’

‘This is where you live. You are my husband. You are to take me upstairs and congress with me like my husband.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘Take me upstairs, Colin. Show me that you are my husband. Because that is exactly who you are. You are not leaving me. You are not going to that filthy piece of shit. Take me upstairs. I said upstairs . Now .’

‘What would that prove?’

‘It will remind you that I am the only woman in your life. By law .’

If she had locked me in a tiny cell she could not have suffocated me more. Not being allowed to go here or there. Not being able to seize a key because of the grabbing and tearing and hitting I might have to do. I shouldered my backpack and said, ‘Okay. Okay. Let’s go upstairs.’