There is a certain kind of awake in the night when your heart beats fast and your eyes push against the confines of the darkness, you listen to the breathing beside you and it confirms that despite the body heat warming you – you are absolutely alone.
I lie there mulling the same thoughts over and over. I know what you told me and it irritates me, it rubs me up the wrong way, it makes me want to fight you and it makes me angry with you. I mull over your words, your declaration – the declaration that I (me, note, not you) must have only one cigarette today. It is a random decision that you made regardless of what I want or how I feel. I have heard of girls who get to live like that, who have people in charge of them, who are kept safe, who are loved.
I know that could not be for me, not that life. I have a fleeting image of myself cast as a grotty Victorian orphan with nose pressed against the glass on the toyshop, excluded from the warmth, from the joy. I push this mocking cliché aside by squeezing my eyes shut and with a small shake of my head. That life is not for me because it is not for girls like me. The word “pragmatic” says hello and settles in for the night. “Pragmatic” is better suited to me than words like … the words I dare not even think.
I know my place. I have always known my place. Not for me the playful, the safe, the secure.
.
Not for me the … but I will not write this list in my head. I will not settle into this unhappiness and gather it around me like a shawl. Instead I will do what I can to retrieve my independence. I will walk out on my own. I will find my own way, I will prove to myself how strong I am, how I can find joy and peace in my own liberation. It will make me smile and laugh. I want a cigarette. I will have a cigarette.
I will feel that old thrill, the thrill I used to feel as a child when I crept out in the night. I feel the thrill of silently turning the huge iron lock of the back door and slipping into the darkness that terrified me, the thrill of making myself walk out into the swirling skirts of the trees as they danced the night winds. I will feel the invincibility of the vulnerable.
That old thrill is better by far than the possibility of this hope which is sure to be a trick, a torture of hope, this hope that I could settle into and accept your control over me. I will throw myself out of this warmth. I will feel anger not peace. I will feel freedom not security. I will win. I will not settle into the sanctuary of this authority.
As silently as I can I slip forward and down, out from the covers. Still clutching a pillow I tread soft footed across the room. On the other side of the room I wait, holding the pillow to my front, wishing to be by your side so loudly I am surprised that my desire does not wake you. I want to nudge your elbow with my head and breathe into your arms. I let the cold wall cool my back instead of feeling the warmth of you. I will be strong. It is the only way. I will stop this silliness of wanting to be with you now. I will dismiss the ridiculous imagining of a happy ending, or a happy beginning even.
I remind myself of my place, of my role. I am not the girl who has that life. I must make that clear to the world and to myself. I put the pillow down. I find the familiar box, the cigarettes. I want a cigarette. I am thirty-five years old and I want a cigarette. There is no reason whatsoever that I should not have one. It would be perfectly acceptable if I turned the light on to help me find my clothes but I do not do this. I am showing consideration for you. I would not want to disturb your rest.
So I move in silence, laying my hands flat over clothes to detect them by touch, finding labels to help me put them on the right way. I shake as I dress, telling myself that this is only because I am in a strange place. I am unused to going outside on my own at night in this city and I am scared. I must toughen up and be brave.
But I am so sick of lying to myself. You make me feel utterly enveloped. I want to be in your arms, to feel the safety of you. All I want is to be held by you, to accept you, to stop fighting, to be home in you.
I steel myself. I make my eyes as wide as they can go to get the extra light I need to find my shoes on the dark floor. I touch my pocket and feel the smooth room key and the bulk of the cigarettes. I have all I need right here in my pocket. There is no need to loiter.
I rest my hand on the door handle as I let my head hang down. I am safer out there – I tell myself – safer where I know the risks, safer where I know the truth. As I push the handle down and pull the door towards me I feel a long forgotten thrill of rebellion. This is better than before though – there was nothing to rebel against before.
Will you forgive me for this? Before I even do wrong I want your forgiveness. I want so much to be with you in bed. I do not want to be out there alone.
I am out of the room now. I am committed. Head bowed I scuttle (the rebellious should not scuttle and yet this is how I move), my feet treading the repetitive pattern of the carpet with fast little geisha steps. My hand is empty without yours to hold so I touch the cardboard of the cigarette packet, but it offers little comfort. It is all that I have. I let my fingers trace the letters on the box.
I hear a door open behind me and consider nipping into a doorway to show an empty corridor, but this thought is too slow. I am too late. I hear you say my name.
You say it with such calm authority that we both know that within moments I will be standing in front of you, unable to meet your eyes, biting my lip, waiting for you. Because we both know this, you say my name without any hint of urgency, without emphasis. It is just my name, my full name, the name I do not hear except in the most formal of situations. The way you say it makes me stand still, like musical statues at a child’s party. The way you say it makes me squeeze my eyes shut as though that will make me invisible.
The way you say my name makes me turn around and glimpse you just for a moment before I drop my head. It is long enough to see you beckon me, a superfluous gesture but a kind one. It is kind because this is all new territory now. You are the only light in the dark; you have let me know you want me still.
I cannot tell you what I think as I walk towards you, other than the relief that I always feel when I approach you. I feel nothing but a blank.
Inside the room I tell you over and over again that I thought you were asleep. This is true. I really did think that. I can’t move for misery when you search for and find cigarettes. This is a new feeling, this misery at being caught, this lack of control. I cannot quite grasp that it is not up to me what happens next. I cannot grasp that you will not relent and let me get my own way. I cannot comprehend that you are stronger that I am and that your will is greater than mine. Your will is greater than my false will, my will that drags me around by my hair and hurts me. It occurs to me that you love me. It occurs to be that this is what love is.
I am loved by you. You are coming to save me and I am powerless to stop you.
When you put me in the corner I wish so much that I could cry. I hear you speak gently in my ear and I know for sure that yours is the only sound in the world that can drown out my own voice. I curl up on the sounds of your words and pull my feet in under me. I stay there, nestled in your tone but awkward and dismayed at where you place my body. All I know right now is what you tell me and that I am safe with you because you will only ever tell me the truth.
You move away from me and leave me there. I keep my eyes squeezed shut and my head bent against the vision of myself. I have chosen to pull away from you, I have chosen to defy you, and this act was a lie. It was a denial of what I am, it was an assault on my happiness, and ignorance of what we mean to one another. In the corner I am back in your control, with no chance to pretend otherwise. You are showing me how little effort it takes for you to control me utterly. You remain calm and composed; you will not be forced into action. You show me what control is.
I turn circles in my head while in my mind my arms reach for you, a little girl making herself dizzy. You show me how all I want is you. I realise all the lies I told myself, I am aware of all the other things I could have done rather than this. You would have taken me in your arms in an instant if I had asked. I was safe all along.
I need you to make this right. I know you will. I trust you so much that it dwarfs any other beliefs I have. I trust you more than I trust myself.
When you come to collect me it is such a relief that the arguments I offer for why I should not go over your knee are mere habit, part of some brat code of honour, too deeply ingrained to let go. I feel an unfamiliar relief when you ignore my words and soon every part of me is open to you as you talk to me while you scorch into me. You tell me what I have done wrong, you tell me what I am that led me to do it, and every stroke and every word is evidence that you love me. You see me, you see all of me and still you love me. I am safe at last.
I could spend the rest of my life pouring every element of my energy into doing all that I can to give you happiness and it would be nothing compared to what you have given me.
