The Rabbit Girls(73)

Miriam stands so still she thinks she may have forgotten to breathe. He kisses her lips softly. And for a millisecond she thinks about launching herself at him. Ripping that smile off his face with her broken fingernails and pressing her fingers into his eyeballs.

He must sense the wave and steps back, pulling an envelope from his back pocket. A white envelope, folded in two. The way he holds it means she knows exactly what is inside.

‘You promised,’ she says. ‘You promised you’d get rid of them for me.’

‘And you promised to love and obey me.’ He smiles and dangles the envelope just out of reach.

‘It was important, to know they were gone. You kept them? All this time?’

‘Can’t throw everything away that you used, now, can I?’

‘Those were . . .’ she stutters. ‘Different.’

‘Oh darling, have I disappointed you? I just thought, now you are healthy again you may want them back. A memento, if you like?’

‘I don’t want them, Axel. Leave.’

‘I wasn’t staying long. Evidently you’re not in the mood to play nice. Enjoy your evening, Mim.’

Her attention is on the envelope as it hovers above her head. Miriam feels disorientated, the envelope has the same effect on her as a hypnotist’s watch.

He looks at her and then back at the table. He places the envelope against the huge bouquet. It rests slanted on its crease against the black paper of the flowers. He taps two fingers on the table before turning.

‘Hmm?’ he says, as a question, an expectation. Long and slow he strides back to her. She waits. The smell of him conjures images she is unable to stop. The pain, the endurance, the fear. Just that smell and she’s back at the beginning. He bends and kisses the top of her head. And takes a deep breath.

‘You smell good,’ he says.

And then he is gone and she rocks on the spot, left in the bruise of the room. She hears the door open and shut, but doesn’t trust herself to turn around in case he is still there and his leaving was just an illusion, a trick. She doesn’t want to feel that relief, turn and then see him again, to think it’s over, but then it’s not.

She waits. Holding her breath, every sinew stretched taut to breaking point. Every sense crying out for some sign of him. He is still in the air. Stale. The lilies bold and strong.

When her legs begin to tremble, when her toes ache and her teeth groan from the pressure of being clamped shut, she turns, as ready as she’ll ever be to come face to face with him.

But the room is empty. She checks through the house, every single room, checks the windows are shut, the curtains drawn back. She feels the same rush as a child might checking for monsters under the bed.

Only this time the monster is real.

The envelope compels her back to the table. She circles it a number of times, straightening the curtains, removing the flowers and then circling back to gather the chocolates, putting both items in the bin, until all that is left at the end of the table is the envelope. She picks it up in both her hands. The weight of the small item feels heavy, and its heaviness is comforting. It is time, she thinks.

She walks to the bin and opens its lid. The faces of the lilies look up at her, she looks at them until they morph into open-mouthed snakes. She closes the lid with a bang.

In her bedroom, sitting on the end of the bed, she opens Axel’s gift. A rush of excitement floods her as they tinkle on to the bed sheets. She puts the envelope down. She licks her lips.

The scissors have landed open on the bed, their gold handle and the screw in the middle, faded gold, almost white. Their blade sharpened to a point. Scissors that were hers; never to cut paper or thread, but to cut away at her own pain. She only ever used these, something about their beauty and size and precision. These scissors were hers and hers alone.

She draws up her blouse and sees the scars along her inner arm, an eclectic design.

She takes the scissors and opens them into one long blade. The room becomes fuzzy around the edges, she feels held in time. The point, gold, presses into her pale skin.

Scratch. She flattens and then slides the blade, and everything oozes out.

Red.

She breathes fresh air, as if she is no longer drowning. She places the scissors back into the envelope and takes them to the dining-room table and puts them next to the letters from Frieda. It doesn’t take long for the pale skin of her arm to throb, for her to feel again, and as soon as that ache returns she wants to grab for the scissors and take them further, deeper, to allow the thoughts to disappear, maybe for longer this time.

She turns on the radio in her father’s room and the living room and his study. She switches on the TV and the nine o’clock news is in full swing with images of Brandenburg Gate and how East and West will celebrate the new year as a united country.

The apartment is full of noise as she sits, pulling out the scarf Eva gave her, weaving the fabric over and across her fingers, in and out. Over and over again. Her entire body exhausted, spent and sated. She feels heaviness in her limbs, as if part of the furniture itself. Her bones turning into the wood of the olive chairs. She guides the scarf over her forearm.

She thinks of Eva.

Eva caring for and bandaging her fingers. The fingers healing, scabs rising and not being picked apart. The fabric is kind on her skin, she misses her.

When sleep evades her, she gathers the feather from the hallway and places it in the envelope with her scissors. She tries to quell the discord within her. Apathy, yet the desire to place the beautiful gold metal against her skin again. Knowing the scissors exist, their exquisite point tucked away alongside her flightless feather . . . she gathers the next letter, content to be swallowed up in Frieda’s story, to forget the power of her own hand.