a nineteenth new story...'beyond saying'

Sandra worried about Joel. She worried he had never been at the centre of things – in life. Sandra felt she looked in a mirror and saw herself.  She blinked, put on her make up, got dressed and went to work.  She worried Joel saw someone else staring back at him – the great undiscovered artist, the alter ego, the latter day Van Gogh. Joel had once painted his left ear blue: Was this a sign?

Joel was big, clumsy, but with delicate hands; he played Spanish guitar, wrote flamenco protest songs about champagne socialism formed from bits and pieces he read online or in magazines left lying around in doctor’s and dentist’s waiting rooms – The Economist? National Geographic? He was capable of enormous generosity. And astonishing naïveity. He could be self-centred.

Recently when Sandra had come home early from work she heard Joel on the toilet talking to himself. Quietly she had slipped off her shoes, tip-toed up to the bathroom door, pressed her ear close.  Joel was conducting an interview with an imaginary music journo. The difficult third album? Yes … At an earlier point in their relationship Sandra would have laughed and banged on the door: Shut up you silly fool!! Instead she crept back down the hallway and started to make dinner.

In fairness Joel had a few gigs here and there. He played in pubs, clubs, wine bars – though not the trendy ones. He was a good player. One of the reasons I fell in love with him Sandra would tell girlfriends. What were the other reasons? They would respond. Can you imagine having his babies?

Sandra had imagined having Joel’s babies a thousand times.  She wanted babies. Her girlfriends now had babies, and for some reason Sandra was part of a Facebook group, but she had long since given up reading posts about morning sickness, or following links to articles about the pelvic floor.  When she held babies she came over all motherly, when she saw Joel holding them she worried about their soft little heads.

Joel had dropped a stack of six plates in front of dinner guests before. He could be pre-occupied.

‘What are you thinking?’, Sandra would try during their evenings on the sofa together in front of one sitcom or another. ‘Nothing’, Joel would reply. Sandra’s idle moments were filled with anything and everything. And worries about Joel. ‘You are distant today’, she would continue. And Joel would say ‘no’. The sitcoms they watched were invariably filled with broken lives, heads, broken people fighting with blind eyes in broken beds. The two of them: At least they could share a space beyond words.

Joel made love gently. And Sandra was thankful for this. Making love to Joel was not like exploding through the cosmos, nor was it like scratching an insect bite.  It was something in between, something almost serene – Zen? It was also when worries in all shapes and shades were left under the pile of clothes on the bedroom floor.