Nikki Gemmell - The Bride Stripped Bare

Alfred Hitchcock and Thornton Wilder,

Shadow of a Doubt

honesty is of the utmost importance

Your husband doesn’t know you’re writing this. It’s quite easy to write it under his nose. Just as easy, perhaps, as sleeping with other people. But no one will ever know who you are, or what you’ve done, for you’ve always been seen as the good wife.

cold water stimulates, strengthens and braces the nerves

A honeymoon. A foreign land.

There you are, succumbing to the sexual ritual and remembering the day as a seven-year-old when you discovered water. You’d never been in a swimming pool before; there were none where you were growing up. You’re remembering a summer holiday and a swimming pool with the water inching up your belly as you stepped forward gingerly and the slow creep of the cold and the breath collected in the knot of your stomach and your mother always there ahead of you, smiling and coaxing and holding out her hands and stepping back and back. Then suddenly, pop, you’re floating and the water’s holding your belly and legs like sinews of rope, it’s muscular and balming and silky and the memory’s as potent as a first kiss.

As for the first time you fucked, well, you remember the sound, as his fingers readied you between your legs, not much else. Not even a name now.

making a comfortable bed is a very important part of household work

In the night air of Marrakech, on your belated honeymoon, the first scrum of morning birds sounds like fat spitting and crackling in a kitchen. It’s still dark but the birds have taken over from the frogs as crisply as if a conductor’s lowered his baton. The call to prayers has pulled you awake and you can’t fall back into sleep, you want to fling the french doors wide, as wide as they’ll go, and inhale the strange desert dawn. But your husband, Cole, will wake and complain if you do.

So. You lay your hand on the jut of his hip and breathe in his sleeping, the sour, sweet smell of it, and smile softly in the dark. The tip of your nose nuzzles his scent on the back of his neck.

You’ve never loved anyone more in your life.

You slip on to the balcony. It’s hot, twenty-eight degrees at least. A wondrous child-smile greets a great spill of stars, for the vast orange glow from London’s lights means you never see stars at home, scarcely know when there’s a full moon. The night flowers exhale their bloom, bougainvillaea and hibiscus and magnolia are still and shadowy in the night. You feel fat with content. Cole calls out, plaintive, and you slip back inside and his arm wings your body and clamps you tight.

Your feet manoeuvre free of the sheet’s smother and dangle off the edge of the bed, as they always do, finding the coolness and the air.

very few people have many friends; as the word is generally used, it has no meaning at all

On the day before you leave for Marrakech Mrs Theodora White tells you she has no passion in her life, for anything. It’s such a shock to hear, but she dismisses your concern with a smile and a flick of her hand. She picks a sliver of tobacco off her tongue and throws back her head to gulp the last of her flat white. She was born thirty-five whereas you haven’t gained definition yet, haven’t hardened into adulthood. You’re also in your thirties but still stamp through puddles and sing off-key too much, as if tucked inside you is a little girl who refuses to die.

The only thing I’ve ever had a passion for was Jesus, Theo tells you. When I was eleven. It was something to do with the hips.

She was expelled from your convent school because the Mother Superior decided she had more influence over the students than the nuns did. She has many stories like this. You do not. She’s called Diz by the people closest to her. She’s always rolling her cigarettes from a battered silver case and this only adds to her charm, as does her air of being constantly in heat. Your friend is lush, ripe, her body a peachy size fourteen. She’s one of those women who look like they enjoy an abundance of everything, food, fresh air, sex, laughter, love. When alongside Theo you feel pale, like a leaf left too long in the water, bleached of colour and life.

But you don’t envy her for you know too much about her. She’s your oldest friend in the world, you’ve loved her since you were thirteen. You’re not sure why it’s so disturbing to hear she has no passion in her; perhaps it’s because your life, in contrast, on the cusp of your honeymoon, seems bathed in love. As you walk home from the cafe you smile out loud at that thought, you can’t help it, you smile widely as you walk down the street.

it is absolutely necessary to wash the armpits and hips every day

You’ve laughed with Theo that your husband always sleeps with his T-shirt and boxer shorts on, even when it’s hot. That he doesn’t appreciate the sweetness of skin to skin, the softness of it and the smell, the warmth. Just the sight of a man’s chest can make you wet. You’d never say an expression like that to him, makes me wet. You would to Theo. Cole would be horrified at how much she knows.

You love placing your palm on Cole’s chest when you’re lying in bed, curving your torso around the crescent of his back, the jigsaw fit of it. You love the smell of him when he hasn’t washed, especially the softness under his arms. If he knew, he’d describe it as unseemly. Sometimes in bed Cole doesn’t allow your hand to stay on his chest, he brusques it away. Sometimes he lets your hand rest there. Sometimes he clamps your hand like it’s caught in a trap and when you drag it away he clutches it tight and it becomes a game to disentangle yourself.

But only you’re giggling, in the close dark.

girls can never be too thoughtful

Why are you putting on your socks, you ask.

Because I’m going back to the room, Lovely.

But we’ve just got here, Donkey. Your swimmers are still wet.

I know, but there’s a very important meeting in front of the telly. Are you coming?

No, I’ll stay a bit longer.

You feel guilty saying no for Cole needs you a lot and he’s loud with his want, it’s almost a petulance, like a boy’s. But you can feel your skin absorbing this hard Moroccan light like the desert does rain, can feel it uncurling something within you. Here the light bashes you; in England, it licks you. Cole’s skin and eyes recoil from it; his skin is very pale, almost translucent; he’s away, inside, a lot. Not only on holidays but in London too. He sequesters himself by habit. At work, until late, or in front of the television, or in the bathroom. He can stay on the toilet for three-quarters of an hour or more, if you sit next to him on the couch he’ll make his way to the armchair without even realising what he’s doing, if you put your hand on his groin in bed he’ll shrug it away. He sleeps with the curve of his back to you more often than not.

Yet even when he’s away he needs you nearby: he’s told you that you’re his life. You love the ferocity in his need, to be wanted so much. Cole is the only man you’re attracted to whom you can talk to without a fear of silence, like an empty highway, right through the middle of the conversation. Or of saying something ridiculous and telling, or of your lip trembling, or of blushing. Your body stays obedient around Cole, you’re in control, you can relax. It’s one of the reasons why you married him. That you’re comfortable with him, that you don’t have to act too much, you can be, almost, yourself. No one else is allowed so close.