MARLA Guest fic tion by Daisy Johnson Illu stration by Natka Klimowicz
And of course, there is the year where she thinks: I cannot do this. And she remembers the awful boyfriend she had when she was twenty-one who she both loved and hated with equal measure; the awful boyfriend who started turning up with skin like split peaches and weeping, mucus filled wounds on his face. How proud he was. He dripped blood avariciously onto the bed sheets, spat loose teeth onto her belly, pressed her fingers into his sores. It is meaningful to think of him now because her body is beginning to feel less and less like her own and she understands that if she were ever to fight for the joy of it, it would not be for the reasons that he had but rather to bring her body back to herself, to call it whistling back from the edge of her thirties and the imaginary babies she may or may not have. That year there are four baby showers and double the number of weddings. Marla goes to an enormous shop and buys six of the same overpriced stuffed giraffes. For the weddings she gives money towards honeymoons and mortgages and new cars and wears the same blue suit with a bow tie which Simone got her for her twentyfifth birthday. Afterwards they stay in travel lodges or tents or, once, a communal yurt and Marla, arms wrapped around Simone’s shoulders, dream about babies. In the dreams the babies bubble from the ground like hot springs, their faces broken into wails, their fat hands clasping at her as she tries to hold all of them at the same time. On the phone her twin sister, Imogen, says that by the time their mother was their age she already had three children and no wonder Marla is panic dreaming about pregnancy. Imogen says that sometimes she dreams there is a tiny creature living inside her, somewhere between a child and a tape worm and that it will never come
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out and eventually she will start thinking tape-worm like thoughts of borrowing and consuming. Marla says Imogen is no help and they fight but when Imogen says they might come to stay for a long weekend Marla is pleased. Simone says they should invite Genie and Harry, some old school friends of hers. They clean the house, make up the spare bedrooms, open all the windows and buy in meat and wine and beer. They have sex for the first time in a while, toe to head on the freshly swept floor by the fire, Marla’s orgasm seeming almost warning like in its intensity. And afterwards, lying sleepily with “You will never her head on Simone’s bird like breast bone she thinks understand this once more of that boyfriend and the beatings he had worn proudly and the way he had looked at her violence.” whenever she asked as if to say, you are not a man, you will never understand this violence we feel the need for. The cat scritches at the back door and when she goes to let it in she sees that it is has a small bird in its mouth, still alive, thrumming between the teeth. Imogen and her partner Louis arrive on the train. Simone goes to get them and Marla roams around and around the house, looking for things to pick up, searching for dust with the edges of her hands. There is the gurning sound of the tractors working at the harvest and the distant cough cough of the muntjac deer who hide in the trees and sometimes can be seen in the garden in the early mornings. There is a pain in her belly, there and then gone. She presses down hard into her stomach with her fists and then the sound of the car on the steep track, the noise of the doors and of Imogen’s voice calling her name. Calling her name she goes downstairs and opens the door. Later, when Genie and Harry have arrived, they take a rug and go down to the bottom of the garden, the ground spiky with thistles and with tiny bones from the cat’s hunting parties. They drink red wine and look up through the trees to the crust of sky, just beginning to darken. The tractors are still going, their lights flung across the road and into the garden so that their faces appear othered, the sharp shadow of familiar nose and eye, the flicker from the whites of their eyes. They talk about their families and ancient pets with kidney or liver or heart problems and Imogen’s latest book which is nearly finished and the holiday Genie and Harry might go on in the winter and Simone’s upcoming tour to Amsterdam with the orchestra she has been conducting with for five years. Genie’s face is soft and smooth like a child’s and her hands are the same, as if she has never been burnt reaching for a pizza in the oven or spent too many long days swimming in the local pool near her house. Imogen looks like Marla but better, not overworked like bread dough; even the premature grey in her hair suits her. Simone runs twenty-five miles a week and when they go to supermarkets together Marla will look out for the open, unbraced looks that men give her as she reaches for spaghetti or into the freezer for sorbet. It has been decide— many conversations from nearly as far back as the month they met—that if they have a child Marla will be the one to carry it. Harry and Louis have bodies too. But there —on the soft blanket with the thistles poking up through into their bare feet—their bodies do not matter so much. And, as if aware of this, they are quiet, letting the women gabble and dive and duck conversationally around them, only now and again nodding or agreeing with a hmm or yes well or mm maybe. It is later now. What? Perhaps seven or eight. At times the bats seem close enough
to tangle in their hair, land in their laps with their clawed wings and their shocked face. Marla keeps waiting for the tractors to give in, head home, but their rumble keeps on, over the short, sharp fields. There is meat in the fridge and potatoes but they are a little drunk now and, anyway, it is so good to sit out here talking quietly and turning their chins up to watch the bats, Simone clicking her tongue at every shadow that might be the cat. Harry and Louis laugh at nothing and then go inside to order a takeaway. Where, Marla thinks, will they be able to find a takeaway to deliver all the way out here? But she does not call them back or go to help. The conversation pools, grows stagnant for a second. A sense, as there sometimes is as she gets older, of: what are they doing here? Why are they hanging out together? Do they even still have anything in common? Even Imogen, more part of her than a sister, looks shifty and turns away, swigs straight from the bottle like the teenagers they once were, learning to fuck and smoke and drink straight from bottles. Lying there, red-wine mouthed, Marla wants to ask if Imogen remembers that boyfriend she’d had when she was younger, wants to ask if she ever told Imogen about the fights he came home wearing on his skin. But Imogen is talking, saying: Oh, I know what I had to tell you. What? She rolls and looks at her. Oh god what is it? Genie says. No nothing like that, Imogen then. What then? Marla says. What is it? Debbie from school is pregnant. Debbie? You know. Debbie Barker. We used to go to her house and feed the chickens while her parents fought in the kitchen. Right. Well she is. Pregnant. I saw it online. A scan photo? Simone says. Of course. Awful. They lie in silence for a moment. Genie takes the bottle from Imogen and refills the glasses. They can hear the men talking through the open windows of the house, but only just and not the words they are saying. They are far into the garden and the trees are spread around them, blocking sound, almost forest like. My Grandmother keeps sending me photos of herself from when she had my mum, Genie says. She was twenty. Like a kidnapped bride. Women are supposed to have babies when they’re young, she says every time I see her. And she looks at my body. Genie sits upright and shows them the look using Simone’s body as a mannequin. Up and down, like this. As if to say she can see my tits are already falling and what am I waiting for? What are you waiting for? Imogen says. What are any of us waiting for? A life, Simone says. A better job, more job security. The time, Genie says. The fucking maturity. I barely remember to brush my teeth in the morning. Sometimes I don’t remember and have to buy gum on the way to work. I’m that person. I chew gum rather than brush my teeth. Marla balls her hands and presses them against her thighs, down in the dark where
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no one can see. What are they waiting for? Sometimes she just wants to breast feed. Not all the time but when she sees another woman doing it or observes a child sleeping peacefully in a buggy. Who did this to her body? Who made it possible for her to feel this way? At the start of their relationship Simone had been obsessed with her breasts, used to wake her by slipping the nipples in and out of her mouth. It is obscene to think of that at the same time as considering how sometimes she cannot stand it that she is not breastfeeding their imaginary child. The others are talking around her, easier now, laughing up into the dark, refilling their glasses. They are talking about baby names: Adaline, Barley, Gregor, Leonardo. They are talking about not wanting them at all, travelling, having more money, having more sex. They are talking about the politics of selective caesarean and how not to fulfil gender roles with children’s toys. Above them something is wheeling and pattering through the air, the sound of air on wings, the grand haunting shape of the tree they are underneath. Finally, there on the road beyond the treeline, the tractors trundling past like enormous, milk-heavy bodies, their headlight-eyes and enormous roars of effort as they work at the hill, the sway of their metal thighs and hips, the invisible men riding in the tiny carriages, working at the gears with ceaseless hands. And god she feels a sort of panicked dread coming on fast and unstoppable, making her hands numb and her mouth slacken. She remembers the power of that awfully loved boyfriend’s violence, his grim, blood-streaked smile and how he seemed, for the first time, successful within his own body. She reaches out in the dim towards their laughter and grips with finger and thumb the soft skin on Imogen’s arm and squeezes until Imogen yells, ow, fuck, and bats her away, wailing but also laughing. The takeaway comes and they go inside to eat. Their bodies are not their own. They have swollen mosquito bites on their arms and bare legs, teeth stained from the red wine, hair filled with the smell of the night and the engine smoke from the passing tractors. The spring rolls are almost too hot to hold. Imogen has a bruise on her arm and keeps trying to catch Marla’s eye. Marla puts on music and gets out another bottle of wine. They shimmy around the living room, teeth crunching on food, toes cracking into the backs of one another’s heels. They flop down and talk about other things though surely those maybe/maybe not babies are there in the room with them, sleeping and shitting and just about living. They talk about friends of friends who’ve had good times and bad times and awful people at jobs and whether or not they’ll spend New Year together and whether or not they’ll spend it in another country. They talk about what they might do tomorrow, whether they’ll just lounge around or go for a long walk to the pub ten miles away or perhaps go to the cinema. They eat noodles and drink more wine and Simone wraps her arms around Marla’s neck and kisses her and Marla thinks maybe nothing will happen, nothing will happen and they will be happy. Not just that evening but on and on. It is late, past midnight. Simone falls asleep on Marla’s lap and then gets up and goes around kissing them all before going to bed. When Marla goes to find some whisky Harry holds his hands in the air and says how beautiful it’s been and goes up too. They listen to a recent recording of one of Simone’s concerts and then put on Nick Cave. Imogen comes and sits close to Marla and holds her hand. She seems anxious, buzzing, like a small lost animal. She presses her face against Marla’s the way she used to do when they were children and both suddenly overwhelmed by
the ferocity of being together. Genie comes and sits next to them and they tangle their hands together and wrap their arms around one another and Marla knows that they are thinking also about the conversation they had out in the dark garden. She looks at their reflection in the black TV screen, their bodies almost indistinguishable from one another, “Overwhelmed their arms a snaky mess. Louis swings his legs off the by the ferocity of arm of the chair and says he’s going to have a shower being together.” if that’s okay? And then he’s gone. We scared them all away, Genie says and then laughs widely, baring her teeth. She takes hold of Marla’s hair and starts plaiting it into tiny tight plaits which tug—not without a sense of pleasure—at the roots. Imogen sighs and pats her belly and says she might go too. Not yet, Marla says. We’ve got that expensive bottle of desert wine mum gave us for our anniversary somewhere. You twisted my leg, Imogen says but the look she gives Marla is wary, as if she is someone Imogen doesn’t really know and is a little afraid of. Shall we drink it outside? Marla says. They open the back door and let the light from the kitchen fall in a square onto the grass just beyond. The wine is almost unbearably sweet with a sharp aftertaste that lingers deep at the back of the throat. Emperor's clothes wine, Imogen says but drinks it anyway. I don’t understand expensive wine. You’re a heathen, Genie says, then quietly: if we do have children let’s do it together. What? Marla says. If we do accidentally do it let’s have them at the same time and then they can grow up wild and we can drink while they run around the garden. Like women in a tribe. Agreed, Imogen says. Marla remembers—out of nowhere, bringing with it a pain behind her temples— when Imogen and she were young enough not to understand that their bodies were separate. The moment of realisation was strange, exploratory. They used to touch nettles or suck ice cubes and look to the other to see if they felt it too and, seeing they did not, feel a great fear, or something more than fear, awful and exciting at the same time. Their bodies did not belong to one another. She moves without thinking, almost without feeling the motion in her own arm. In the dim light her hand is almost invisible though the sound of it striking the side of Imogen’s face is audible as is the sound Imogen makes afterwards. Genie shrieks. Imogen holds her cheek, staring at Marla. What the hell. Marla. What the fuck? Marla can feel her hand singing—or perhaps stinging—and the blood filling her face and the thudding fumble of her pulse all along her arms and belly. Hit me, she says. In the darkness she can barely see Imogen’s face but she moves forwards so she can just make out her eyes, so she can look into her and show her that she means it. Hit me. What? Do it. Hit me in the face. Genie is watching, her hands cupped at her mouth, her knees drawn to her chest.
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Stop it, Imogen says but she doesn’t get up. Just do it. I want you to. I hit you, now you hit me. Imogen turns her head away and hits out blindly, one hand and then the other connecting barely with Marla’s face which is upturned ready. Come on, Marla says, impatient and nearly out of breath. Come on. You idiot. And this time Imogen’s fist curled, knocking out into her nose so that Marla nearly falls backwards, the pain bright and scalding, the feeling of the blood rushing up though it does not break out only pulses at the point of contact. Oh god, Imogen says but does not apologise. Genie sitting stunned with her hands on either side of her face and her mouth open. The thrum of moths against the light kitchen window, the chitter of late-night birds in the high trees, the noise of the dishwasher turning through its cycle. And then Imogen has turned to Genie and struck her too, not across the face but over the breasts with both fists to that Genie lets out a bovine groan and clutches at herself but does not get up or rush away. Then they are on their feet, shifting around one another, moving in and out of the square of light from the house, bodies bent low towards the ground, hands balled into fists. Marla goes for Imogen’s face, swinging upwards silently and connecting, wildly, with her chin and neck. Genie barrels forwards towards Marla and brings her down, fists pumping in at her belly and thighs, eyes squeezed closed. Imogen pulls Genie’s hair to bring her face up and then hits her on the cheekbone, hard and fast. Genie strikes back, cracking Imogen across the nose and then kicking out at Marla to wind her. Marla knocks Imogen to the ground. Genie smashes both hands across Marla’s abdomen. Imogen claws her fingernails down Genie’s face. They tussle and bleed. The pain are star-explosions, only good for a second before fading to a dull pulse. They fight silently, half aware of the sleeping people in the rooms above them, the thin glass. And then, from everything to nothing, they are done. In the kitchen they reconvene beneath the bright lights, huddle around the sink to gurgle and spit red onto the white porcelain, prod tenderly one another’s shaping bruises, grin wild and wonderfully into each other’s scarring faces. They do not speak only clasp hands and hold on so tight that too is painful, broken knuckles, fingernails filled with each other’s skin. The pain is otherworldly. Being in it they realise they have never felt that before, have never really known what it feels like. Gripping hand to hand, staring around at one another, eyes already swelling closed, ribs aching. Is it enough? Marla thinks wildly, clinging onto them. A noise in the rooms above breaks the moment. Imogen breathes out between her bloody gums, says, shit. Genie giggles then bends towards the sink to spit again. Marla worries what Simone will think when she sees her, her beautiful worried face, her confusion. She goes to get the whisky bottle and they swill the burn through their mouths and talk about what to tell the others, about fake intruders or breaking up a fight between the farmer’s boys down the road. They will tell them nothing, Marla thinks. She thinks of the breakfast the next day: the pancakes she will get up early to make with bacon and maple syrup, fresh coffee on the hob, the orange juice and their puss filled sores and purpling bruises and how they will sit there and smile and shake their heads ruefully but not speak about it. How they will eat and wince and catch one another’s eyes but make no excuses, give no reasons only smile and shake their heads as if to say: you wouldn’t understand, you could not possibly understand.
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THE HERE , NOT HERE Poem by Alan Semerdjian
She described it as the greatest story of our time, this idea of being present but not, occupying space but the mind scrolling through another screen, and I immediately began to cry, not cry. Or maybe it was the fact that leaving is never leaving for me, that I and, perhaps, everyone else could not understand gone because we’re still trying to get to that elusive spot right here, here, but some of us have figured out how not to hurt so much or send the package so that it actually gets there and not drive for hours in the car looking (not looking) for where was it again?
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