Free Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson Page A

bubbles children blow.
    The figures assumed shapes I recognised; Inge, Catherine, Bathsheba, Jacqueline. Others of whom Louise knew nothing. They came too close, put their fingers in my mouth, in my nostrils, drew back the hoods of my eyes. They accused me of lies and betrayal. I opened my mouth to speak but I had no tongue only a gutted space. I must have cried out then because I was in Louise’s arms and she was bending over me, fingers on my forehead, soothing me, whispering to me. ‘I will never let you go.’
    How to get back into my flat? I telephoned the Zoo the following morning and asked to speak to Jacqueline. They said she hadn’t come in to work. I had a mild temperature and only a pair of shorts at my disposal but I thought it best to try and settle matters with her as soon as I could. No way out but through.
    Louise lent me her car. When I got to my flat the curtains were still drawn but the chain was off the door. Cautiously I pushed it open. I half expected Jacqueline to fly at me with the mincer. I stood in the hall and called her name. There was no answer. Strictly speaking Jacqueline didn’t live with me. She had her own room in a shared house. She kept certain things in my flat and as far as I could see they were gone. No coat behind the door. No hat or gloves shoved in the hall stand. I tried the bedroom.It was wrecked. Whatever Jacqueline had done the previous night she hadn’t had time to sleep. The room looked like a chicken shed. There were feathers everywhere. The pillows had been ripped, the duvet gutted and emptied. She had torn the drawers from their chests and tipped the contents about like any good burglar. I stood too stunned to make much of it, I bent and picked up a T-shirt then dropped it again. I would have to use it as a duster since she’d cut a hole in the middle. I backed out into the sitting room. That was better, no feathers, nothing broken, simply everything was gone. The table, the chairs, the stereo, the vases and pictures, the glasses, bottles, mirrors and lamps. It was blissfully zen. She had left a bunch of flowers in the middle of the floor. Presumably she couldn’t fit them into her car. Her car. Her car was locked up like an accessory after the fact. How had she got away with my things?
    I went to pee. It seemed like a sensible move providing that the toilet was still there. It was but she had taken the toilet seat. The bathroom looked like it had been the target of a depraved and sadistic plumber. The taps were twisted on their sides, there was a monkey wrench skewed under the hot water pipe where someone had done their best to disconnect me. The walls were covered in heavy felt-tip pen. It was Jacqueline’s handwriting. There was a long list of her attributes over the bath. A longer list of my disabilities over the sink. Pasted like an acid-house frieze around the ceiling was Jacqueline’s name over and over again. Jacqueline colliding with Jacqueline. An endless cloning of Jacquelines in black ink. I went and peed in the coffee pot. She didn’t like coffee. Staring bearily back at the bathroom door I saw it had SHIT daubed across it. The word and the matter. That explained the smell.
    The worm in the bud. That’s right, most buds do have worms but what about the ones that turn? I thought Jacqueline would have crept away as quietly as she had crept in.
    The wise old hands who advocate a sensible route, not too much passion, not too much sex, plenty of greens and an early night, don’t recognise this as a possible ending. In their world good manners and good sense prevail. They don’t imagine that to choose sensibly is to set a time-bomb under yourself. They don’t imagine you are ripe for the cutting, waiting for your chance at life. They don’t think of the wreckage an exploding life will cause. It’s not in their rule book even though it happens again and again. Settle down, feet under the table. She’s a nice girl, he’s a nice boy. It’s the clichés