Head, Heart And Hands

Head, heart and hands, it's like sometimes they move in different directions.

Matt came out of prison. It was all a bit of a rush in the end. They granted him parole, gave him two thirds of his sentence off. Within a matter of days they said he could have home leave.

I picked him up from the prison. I felt dirty. I had been sleeping with someone else. It is not possible to feel anything except dirty.

I watched his face in the car, framed by the window. His arse was sitting on a grey weave. He was happy. I could not tell him. “Hello dear, I've be completely and totally unfaithful.” I could not do that. He had 48 hours. It is not a 48 hour conversation. Well, it is, providing you do not want to do anything else. He had been locked up for eight months. This should not be his weekend.

We went home and fucked, every which way. I was shy. I hated my body. Before he got sent to prison I had not had the stretch marks. He seemed to not notice. I knew he saw. You can't miss foot long white stripes.

He liked being with his baby. She responded to him. She smiled. He played with her. He would not let her go. They talked to each other. He used words and she used noises. Against her body his hands seemed very big. But he was fair. A little bit for her. A little bit for me. He tried to share himself out.

On the way back to prison, while he was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, I told him. I do not remember his reaction. I cannot imagine it was good. We got to the car park. He did not kiss me. I was unsure of what to do with my lips, speaking out of them would only make things worse.

Over the next two months, waiting for his release, things went messy. He was my husband, and yet I had failed to fulfil the basic requirement of fidelity. I could not face him, so frequently did not. Visiting orders came and went. I was meant to go three times a month. I missed some. What do you say to a man who you have hurt in such a manner? 'Oh, I am sorry'?

Crawling and creeping, lacking dignity, I decided I was shit. If you love someone you do not do this to them. Surely, it is possible to keep your legs together? Apparently not. Not in my case. I was a hole, not a whole. All those promises, for nothing. I must have been lying, or deluded, or somehow lost. He had expected me to wait. I had not waited. I had sought the first cheap thrill.

Did I like it? Yes.

I cannot write this. The author is not meant to burst in. I am supposedly god, all omnipotent and powerful, silently in the background, directing the action. I am not meant to be on my knees, blowing someone else. Stories are to act in a linear fashion. Whatever is undesirable is to be edited. I cannot edit this. You have to know this in order to accept the future. If you can understand this then maybe what happens next will make sense.

He was, and is, my husband – but I should not skip forward. I did betray him. I made a series of promises that I did not abide by. I was weak. I could offer a million excuses. The baby cried. I suffered from body dismorphia. Pregnancy and birth had weakened by intellectual and moral defences. I had post natal depression. These are all excuses. Women go through war. They wait for their soldier husbands. I was required to commit to a matter of months. I did not do this. I failed. Essentially, this is what this is about. I did not achieve. I got it wrong. I punished him more than the state ever could. I took the one thing he thought he could believe in, and screwed it up, trampled all over it, took it away from him. I left him with nothing.

And why? Because I needed a distraction, something other than the screaming baby and the grinding poverty. That sounds like an excuse. I wanted a cuddle. I wanted to be wanted. But my husband wanted me already. I had that validation. I had the eyes, that were blinded by state organised non seeing. I had the arms, that were handcuffed by stated organised oppression. So what did I do? I joined in. I allied myself with it. I said “Yes, and you're not here, this is another way of not winning”.

Of course he came home. How could he not? And I made my choice. I chose him. He hated me and loved me for that. The first row, it was simple. He threw his wedding ring out of the bedroom window and packed his bags. He came back from the bus stop as I was searching on the grass. He joined me, he always joined me, and then our neighbours, one guy wearing headphones and carrying a mop, pretending, everyone was always pretending, that he had a metal detector. We laughed. It was resolved for a moment, or two, or three.

Every time we fought, he saw the betraying whore in front of him. At first it was evenly matched. I snatched the glasses from his face and screwed them into an incomprehensible heap in my heads. He lost his temper and shouted. Then I threw plates against the wall, from my vantage point of bed. Shattered glass was picked up, curry was wiped from the paintwork. Then it got more terrifying. He kicked me unconscious. I lay outside the bathroom, curled in a foetal ball. I saw yellow, and pale blue. I felt his boot in my belly. I felt his hands in my hair. He screamed my whoredom at me. He left me, spinning and surrendered, my head against rough carpet, my knees pulled into my chest.

On and on and on and on.

Every time I excused myself and him. I had no bruises, not to speak of. Occasionally, a pain, that resisted for a day, angry and insubordinate, but he knew, and I knew, and no-one else would understand.

Locked, because this was not how I was meant to be. Locked, because this was not how things were meant to be. You have to leave. Everything black and white. “Look, no grey,” but there is always grey. Violence is like paint. You mix the colours enough, and without consciousness, and you end up with brown. Life is not a matter of watercolours, draping drooping trees over glistening lakes. No. Life is about people kicked to death, with boots covered in blood.

“And violence brings more violence, and liars bring more lies.” The two are irrepressibly connected. Which is first? The chicken or the egg? Where is my responsibility? Do I bare any responsibility?

I lay on the floor. The carpet was rough against my cheek. I could not raise myself, standing would only conceive and receive more punishment. He was shouting, I forget what. The bathroom door was open. I could see the bottom of everything, The sink looked tall. The toilet looked curvaceous. I thought perhaps I could calm him. I tried to send words from my brain out of my lips. Everything I said, everything I did, served to further his temper. He was not fighting with me, prostrate in front of him, he was fighting with himself. What he was saying bore no relation to the actual situation at the actual time, rather it was anger, pure, unadulterated, vicious anger. I had done something. I had placed him a position where there was nothing except rage.

He stopped. I curled. Later there was silence. Always, afterwards, there was silence. I felt my bones. I ached inside. He was gone. He had removed himself. I did not think about leaving. There was nowhere to go. It was an aberration. We did not mention it. The next morning, over coffee and cereal, it seemed like a crocodile amongst lilies. I did not know whether to mention the flowers of the thrashing tale. He did not say he was sorry. I did not say anything. Life rattled on. Trains rattle on, as if they do not fit the rails. They sway backwards and forwards, on their endless journeys, to destinations they will arrive at, and then leave again There is no end point. They do not arrive. Each station is merely a stopping, and then they are off again, full trash, with their tired upholstery. I thought maybe our marriage was like that. A buffet car selling stale bacon sandwiches. A few drunkards urinating on the floor on the toilets. I did not know.

We moved house. A fresh start. It was as fresh as brie. Matt could not find work. He tried for college, writing an essay about the Chartist movement in the Black country. They were impressed. He was in.

I cleaned the kitchen floor every day. The cheap tiles never shone. I thought maybe the lack of dust would keep our feet clean. Our feet were never clean. We were up to our ankles in shit.

Every night we got stoned. It made the laughter come, as if there was not a tight belt around our chests and a vice around our heads. I thought it was funny that our lounge carpet did not fit properly. We hid the edges with the sofa. Perhaps it amused me that we could only afford cheap meat and never went out.

Friends came and friends went. I never told any of them what was going on. They did not know. I did not even talk to myself about it. I had no idea what to say or what to think. I understood the feminist approach, “All men are rapists”, but I did not see my husband like this. He held me. He brought me to orgasm, with kisses and fingers and tongues. I did not feel oppressed by him, rather I felt scared. His head seemed like a foreign place, such as Algeria or Madagascar. I imagined sandy surroundings, bartering traders and blue-black skin that shone under the sun. I realised this was probably escapism, but there is no place for a woman who chooses to stay with a violent man.

Violence, that which seeks to subject another. Violence, that which crushes/invalidates/raises/confirms the other. What is the other? When I looked at him I did not know him. That's a lie. I knew him. Those veins, that I had found so attractive, stood out on the side of his neck. Those nostrils, that flared as they sucked in air, terrified and excited me. Those eyes, that stared and hunted out the cold blood, fascinated me. I liked his blows. I wanted to be under him. My fear was just looking for a way not to be frightened. Always someone had hurted me, humiliated me, no-one had hit me in love. I wondered who the fear belonged to. Who was scared of who. Where did the power lie. I had the high ground. He behaved like an animal.

I cannot explain. I can never explain, how the rope around my neck does not mean I will hang. If I cannot scream, because the hand over my mouth prevents it, then the only one feeling it is him. He took me. He made me belong. No-one had ever done that before, owned me before. Father had his reasons, but they were different. Matt did not want to break me, he wanted to have me. I cannot explain. You will not understand. To belong to someone else you have to be in their power. Could I give this to Matt? Would I be willing to step outside the feminist rhetoric and provide my subservience? The decision was mine. I always knew where the door was, right in the hallway, with a big brass handle. I did not leave.

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