The Monster's Wife(59)

The man laid her arm in her lap and went back to his chair and picked up one of the things he’d been fixing. She was so tired. She let her head loll down, staring at her two bandaged arms. They didn’t seem like hers. The door was on the cusp of vision, almost invisible from where she sat. It was closed and locked. He made sure of that each time he slipped in and snicked the latch behind him.

When he found her crumpled by the fire, he wasn’t angry. He picked her up as if he had found one of his things tumbled onto the floor, turning the broken pieces over in his hands; then the salve and linen strips and pins and him dressing the cut wrists and ankles. Sometimes he said a few words she didn’t quite catch, murmuring to himself until she began to feel she wasn’t there anymore. She asked him who he was, more so that she could hear her voice speaking than anything. As usual, he said nothing.

He worked by the light of a lamp on the table beside him and his back hid whatever his hands were doing. The oil in the lamp smelled strange. She saw her own hands pouring fish fat into a lamp and felt the creeping embers singe her fingertips. A man’s voice spoke to her. Not this man. A different man who had been close to her. He wanted his breakfast. She could hear the familiar way he spoke to her, the tone of it, but not the words, not his voice speaking her name. Trying to remember her other name or the place she’d been in when she lit the lamp was like grabbing a trout - getting hold of its slimy skin only to feel it slip away.

With a sharp snap, the man set something down on the table. He said something weary in words she didn’t understand. Then he folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, yawned and stretched.

It was night and he was usually gone by this time, sleeping somewhere while she lay awake on the mattress. For some reason, he was still in the room tonight. He sat up, ran his fingers over his eyes, turned back towards the light, squinting down at the thing on the table. When he picked it up, she could see the shadow of it turning and turning between his hands. The flickering light showed interlocking circles and long thin wires. He pinched his fingers along a wire and smoothed out a bump, pulling it tight.

Beneath the wires was a coiled circle with something like teeth. In the lamplight it glinted yellow. When the man put his finger inside it and turned it, it clicked. The man picked up a key and twisted it in the circle and set the thing down. “How is your chest?” He spoke the words without turning to look at her. His words sounded strained, as if he had to think of each one before he said it.

“Good.” In truth, the skin burned there, as if someone had tried to cut her in two.

“And your wrists and ankles?”

“What’s that you’re making?”

He let out a small sigh that was half a laugh. “Not making. Fixing.” He picked the thing up again and held it at arm’s length, squinting, brought it to his face to look at up close. “Just as I fixed you. Are you strong enough to come over here and sit beside me?”

“I cannot say.” She pressed her swaddled hands into the arms of the chair, trembling with the effort of pushing herself up.

She began walking slowly, swaying from side to side. The man turned to watch her clumsy movements. It was like trying to move wooden blocks fixed to her legs. With each step, she sped up until she was out of control. The table loomed close. She was going to crash. Planting her hands on the wooden edge, she came to a clumsy halt. He pulled out a chair and she tumbled into it, panting. He turned back to the table and picked up a thin metal tool.

“What is truly remarkable about living things is that they work at all.” His hand was on the wire thing, but his eyes were watching her. There was a smooth, metal flap in the middle of it. He untwisted the pins that held it shut and stared inside at the metal circles, at their teeth, knitted tightly together.

“Now, let’s see...”

He sat hunched over the thing for a long time. As he worked he told her strange words. Engine. Coil. Screwdriver. Sometimes he took her hand in his and curled it around a part and she felt the shape through her wrappings. He oiled her fingertips and ran them along cogs and wires, over teeth and sharp edges. When the light guttered and choked in the lamp, he rose and stretched and told her to rest. Crossing the room, he slipped his key in the door. She glimpsed a sliver of the world outside - a hint of red wall, a gleam of polished floor. The panel of dark wood closed behind the man and the lock clicked. His footsteps faded.

She got up and went to the door and crouched down. Her knees creaked. She winced at the ache in them. Peering through the lock she saw the red wall outside the door. There were gold flowers and birds painted on it and they shone. She sat back on her heels, thinking about the key he kept in his breast pocket. It was the secret of how to get out.





52


Granny helped Oona into the chair by the fire, the round-backed one that Grandpa had carved from a big piece of driftwood before Oona knew driftwood or a chair. Granny tucked a rug around Oona’s knees and handed her a cup of ale.

“Drink that. It’ll bring you round.”

Oona nodded, breathing hoarsely, half in a daze. She’d never thought Stuart would do that to her. Her fingers moved to the back of her head where an egg-shaped lump felt tender to the touch. Looking down, she saw the necklace of plum bruises that adorned her throat. If he’d choked her any longer, she’d be dead.

She sipped the lukewarm ale. It stung her throat.