Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

She was wearing a blue dress, a very pale blue, as though it had been washed too often, cut low and hanging from her bare round shoulders on straps as thin as parcel string. Her feet were bare. She caught him looking at her and smiled.

They sat in the front room with their drinks. They sat next to each other, and she turned towards him, folding her legs beneath her and stretching one arm out along the back of the sofa. And she talked a lot, quickly, she laughed and the way she laughed made him feel uncomfortable and good at the same time. And when she didn't talk she took a long slow sip of her drink, looking at him over the top of her glass, a long slow look which he wanted to turn away from but couldn't. He had no idea what he was doing, now that he was there, and he wanted to leave, and he didn't want to leave. She asked him how things were with Eleanor, and he said the same, that she wasn't spending so long in bed but that she still wouldn't leave the house and she still looked puffy-eyed when he came in from work. He told her the doctor had been talking about a different medication and that he wasn't sure it was really the answer. It was almost a routine conversation by then.

How long has it been now? she asked. He had to think for a moment.

He said, she's not always like it, you know, it comes and goes. She was fine when she was pregnant, and fine for a while afterwards. But it just comes on sometimes, he said. It doesn't seem like there's anything either of us can do to stop it. I'm not even sure the pills make much difference, he said; they just make it easier to deal with, they're only damping things down. She wras watching him while he told her this, nodding, leaning towards him slightly.

She said, it's good, you know, what you do for her, it's impressive.

He said, well no, not really, I mean, she's my wife, what else would I do?

She was wearing a long bead necklace, she was twisting it between two fingers and when she let it go it fell against her bare skin and again he couldn't help looking.

She said, I'm glad you're here, it's good to have you here.

Well, it's good to be here, he said, trying to be mock-polite but actually meaning it. It was good to be there, on her sofa, with a cold drink on a hot afternoon, and her sitting there in that dress, blowing curls of dark hair out of her eyes, and talking, and laughing, and touching her fingers to her lips.

She said, is it? suddenly, demandingly. Is it good to be here, are you glad you're here?

Yes, he said, yes it is, yes I am, and he was confused and she was quiet.

He finished his drink. He went to the toilet. He washed his face and his hands, and when he came out of the bathroom at the top of the stairs she was there.

She was standing in the open doorway of the room next to the bathroom, leaning against the door frame slightly, one ankle curled round behind the other. The blue dress hung down to her knees, but with one leg lifted like that it rode up higher, almost halfway up her thigh. He looked at her. That was all. He just looked at her. She lifted a hand to adjust the knot of hair at the back of her head, and she smiled. That was enough. That moment, standing there looking at her, and her smile, her smile for him, that hot day with the windows open and the sleepy sounds of summer drifting through the house, a lawnmower somewhere, children shouting, that was enough.

How do I look? she said.

She told me David, she fucking told me, Chris said. He lit a cigarette, breathing heavily, and told David to stand up, half helping and half pulling him up by the collar of his jacket. David lifted his hand to his face, checking his swollen lips, his cheeks, the bruises around his eyes, looking at the blood on his fingers as he pulled his hand away. Hecoughed, and spat blood on to the ground, and wondered if that was it over already.

He said, Chris, look, it wasn't like that, it wasn't, we didn't. Chris lifted his hand, already starting to turn away.

Fuck it, he said. Forget it, he said. He turned back towards David, and for a moment David thought he was reaching out to shake his hand, that this was the end of it after all; but instead he reached for the collar of David's jacket, yanking him towards the ground, leaning over to spit the words into his ear. He said, you and Eleanor, that's your problem. He said, I don't care if she's not giving you any or if she makes you sleep in the spare room or if she won't even undress in front of you ever again mate. He said, it don't bother me, it's not my problem, it's nothing to do with me, but you fucking keep your eyes off mine, alright? He said these things quietly, with a smile in his voice as though he was trying not to laugh, and he gripped David's jacket tighter, so that the collar squeezed and cut into his neck. And all David could think about, as he felt the veins on his neck starting to pulse, was that there was only one way Chris would have known about those things. There was only one person he'd ever discussed them with.

Alright? Chris said again, and David nodded, making a noise which was supposed to be yes, okay, I understand. Chris stood up straight, and as he did so he pushed David away. David felt his feet slip from under him, felt his face smack against the warm hard ground again, felt small stones and grit grinding against the skin of his cheek. There was something sharp underneath him, jutting into his stomach, and just as he was arching his back away from it, he felt the weight of Chris's feet stamping on his back, a sudden gasp of pain as the something sharp broke through his skin, gouging and twisting and tearing into his muscles and his flesh.

Chris backed off, and he rolled over to look down at the pain. For a moment, there was nothing; a rip in his shirt, a glimpse of something hard and rust-coloured. But as he looked, and as Chris began to turn and walk away, the blood suddenly poured out, seeping through the fabric of his shirt, sliding thickly across his skin. He looked at the blood, and he looked at Chris, still only a few yards off but moving further, and he looked up at the empty pale blue sky.

He washed his face and his hands, he came out of the bathroom, and there she was, standing there in that dress, looking at him. How do I look? she said, and it seemed as if she really wanted to know, as if she wasn't sure, when every inch of her was breathtaking and desirable, her elegant bare feet and the smooth straight rise of her legs, the way her dress pulled against the curve of her hips and the press of her breasts, her shoulders, her neck, her eyes. Her eyes looked strange for a moment, when he looked, anxious almost.

He said, you look good, and she said, do I? really? as if she genuinely didn't think so, as if she thought he might be humouring her somehow. As if there was no one who told her each day how very good she looked.

He said, softly, yes Anna, you do, you look very good. She smiled again, looking away for a moment, looking over her shoulder into the room. He still hadn't moved. When she turned back her eyes looked different and she wasn't smiling.

She said, quietly, looking straight at him, alright then, come on, and she turned quickly in the doorway, stepping into the room, out of sight.

He didn't even breathe.

That movement, the turn of her hips, the swing and lift of her dress around the backs of her legs.

He found it difficult to remember, later, how long she had waited, how long he had stood there looking at the open door.

He didn't move. He couldn't.

She reappeared, and when she spoke this time her eyes spilled clearly over into tears, her voice cracking. She said don't be shy. She said I thought you wanted to.

He said, I do.

She said well come on then, and she opened her mouth slightly, and there were tears down both her cheeks, shining.