Loose Corner

Kurt and I were in the bath together. His long fair hair was slicked down and the ends curled up on his slender shoulders. I made him take the tap end; sometimes, no matter how beautiful someone is, you have to put yourself in front of them. He sat slightly forward as a result, his feet nestling up near my armpits. Really, there wasn’t enough room for two grown men in that bath, but it was still something we liked to do together.

Kurt and I reached for our glasses of red wine and took a sip simultaneously; both giggling as though we both read into the synchronicity then dismissed our own silly conclusions. He looked so lovely then, lightly steaming up the inside of his wine glass as his sniggered through his nose. I thought: Kurt, I will love you forever. Let us grow old together. I gently niggled at his ribs with my big toes, making him squirm like a child dodging a hug.

‘Stop,’ he said, but cutely, like he didn’t mean it. I did stop anyway. Just in case.

‘I think we should buy some chickens. Keep them in the back garden,’ I said; just making conversation really. Kurt screwed up his face a little.

‘Ew. It would just keep reminding me that eating eggs is like eating a chicken period.’

‘Ok, how about a cat?’ I said, trying to make my eyes twinkle like Father Christmas. I’m not sure how a person can do that, maybe it’s involuntary, but I tried, for effect.

‘Hmm. You’d have to clean out the litter tray. I couldn’t do that.’

‘Sure, if we could have a cat. We’d call her Geraldine.’

‘Geraldine? Bit of a silly name.’

‘Kurt… that was my grandmother’s name.’

He eyed me, suspicious I was joking.

‘I told you that.’ I added, making sure I didn’t sound hurt. Hurt by Kurt – I didn’t think that would, or should, happen again. There was a time when it was almost a mantra: I said it to myself until it felt trivial; the phrase, I mean, and hopefully the hurt too.

‘I doubt we realistically could look after a cat.’ He closed down the exchange.

He pulled a towel from the hook on the wall beside the bath, rolled it up and wedged it between his back and the tap. I tried not to stare at the loose corner, which trailed in the displaced water. Kurt noticed my look.

‘Relax, Joshie, it’s just a towel. Don’t be such a paranoid Polly.’ He called me Joshie when he was ribbing me – knowing I didn’t like it. I didn’t mention that though, I said:

‘Where did that paranoid Polly thing come from? It sounds daft.’

‘My favourite teacher said it all the time.’ He paused, winced. ‘That’s not true. When I was a kid, I had to go to a psychiatrist for a while. She babied me a bit, saying things like paranoid Polly, worrying Wally.’

I tried my best to sound tender, understanding, not shocked. ‘I didn’t know that. Why?’

‘Why did I need a psychiatrist?’

‘Yes.’

‘I beat up another kid in school.’ Kurt looked mildly surprised at his own sudden sharing.

‘That… happens quite a lot in schools doesn’t it?’

‘It was serious. The boy went to hospital.’ Kurt’s face dimmed; his eyes narrowed as they did when he was remembering something. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he for a while. I sloshed a bit of water over the rim of the bathtub while adjusting my position.

Kurt said: ‘I don’t want to talk about that anymore,’ and reached for his wine.

I thought: I only know a tiny loose corner of this man. We’ve lived together for seven years but his history is opaque to me. He dangles a kernel of his inner life for me; my misconception is that it is more than just a seed, a seed that holds the full blossoming tree of his mind and story; for me, a seed that is dormant and mostly silent.