Stephen Busby

The Cold Room


The first time he went there, she showed him into the room and he noticed it was cold.  She said, "This would be your room"
and "It hasn't been heated for a while" and "When the sun shines, it gets very hot" and "You can open the window though if
the children are playing next door you won't want to."  She wore loose running pants and a tee-shirt that had Havana written
across her breasts.  She was small, as the other women in his life had been, and she had a way of standing on one foot while
she listened and watched him, and of trying to anticipate what he was going to say, then agreeing with it before he'd finished
saying it.  She showed him the kitchen and the shower room and the sitting room and said, "All of this is shared space."

The next time he went there, she opened the door smiling and helped him bring in all his boxes.  She was wearing jeans and
a loose light-blue blouse and some beads.  He said, "I like your beads" and she touched them with one hand while standing
on one foot and said, "Yes, they're from Havana."  She showed him the shelf she had cleared for him in the fridge and the
place in the shower room where he could keep all his towels.  She didn't show him much of anything else so he assumed that
the place was his to fit into as he thought best and that she would not be much concerned about the details of how they
were going to share all the space.

The next time he went there, after he'd finished work, it felt strange: going 'home' to her place and he wondered what they
would talk about if she also stayed in for the evening.  He used the key she had given him to open the door and went into the
kitchen where she was cooking.  She said, "Do you like curry? I've made lots."  They ate the curry sitting on her large floor
cushions and he opened the bottle of wine he'd brought with him.  She asked him lots of questions about his life and leaned
forward towards him whenever he served her more wine.  When she laughed she threw her head back and sometimes shook
her hair.  She wore an orange blouse and the beads were still there.  He leaned forward once when they were talking about
Cuba and touched them around her neck and there was a stillness between them, the strong scent of her hair, and she
placed one of her hands on his knee because it was close to her now.  He said, "I still like your beads" and then, "Very much".
 She said nothing and continued to look at him and he could feel the heat of her hand on his knee.  He leaned further
forwards towards her - one hand still on the beads, but his spine felt stretched and he knew that he would soon have to shift
his position.  "These beads are very precious," she said slowly.  He opened her blouse and kissed her neck, then her breasts,
each in turn and her skin tasted salty and her body was light brown and burning.  He tried to move the wine glasses further
away but she pulled him down on top of her.  Later the wine stain on the carpet never quite went away.

The next time he went there after work, she opened the door just as he was turning the key and pulled him into his room
which was not so cold now since the sun was still out, so they stayed there all evening.  She said, "Did you know when you
first came here?" and he said, "Well no, but it felt like a distinct possibility."  And she kept repeating, "A distinct possibility" as
she explored different parts of his body: "Does this feel like a distinct possibility?  And this, even this?  And this feels quite
possible too," and she tried to imitate his accent a little until he felt annoyed and stopped her hands and her mouth and
pulled her a little roughly on top of him and fucked her, his flatmate, in a way that he knew he had never allowed himself to do
so freely before.  She liked this and wanted him to be even rougher than he had been and when he wouldn't she teased him
again until he felt hurt and resentful.

Sometimes when he went there after work she didn't say very much and he knew that she would sleep then by herself in her
own room but sometimes come to his room, which even though it was heated never seemed to get very warm.

More often now when he came home she was out, and he didn't see her in the evenings and there were never any notes or
sign of her and he began to sleep in her bed, hoping she would come.  Once he woke in the morning just as she was trying
to open the flat door with her key but she was too incoherent or uncoordinated to manage it and he brought her to his bed
and she stank of smoke and of sick and couldn't speak or wouldn't -- though he tried to make her; she just wanted to sleep.

The next evening she'd gone out again but came in much later, unable to speak or barely stand, and he still couldn't make
her say where she had been and why and who with and would they not go together next time, and when and why not, and
"Why don't you want me to speak about us to my friends?" and "Why not just speak now and share something for Christ's
sake?"  Now when he touched her she said, "You're too gentle with me" and "I don't deserve it" and "Look, I have bruises"
and she wanted him to treat her badly in bed in ways that he would not or had never learned how.

Now whenever he came home he found that he was living alone there for she was almost always out, and if he was asleep in
her bed then she would go to his later in the cold room and refuse to be touched in the morning unless he was very rough
with her and hit her a little.  He knew that he would not go on much longer like this for he wanted her brown arms to hold him
with tenderness and she would not.  Nor would she speak to him about herself or about what they would do or why things
had become so desperate and mean.

The next time he went there, he left soon afterwards with all his boxes and wrote a short note on the kitchen table which
said, "Sorry" and "I wish you well" and "One day I hope you will allow some love in your life".

The last time he went there it was with the police.  They wanted him to look at her body in the cold room and to come with
them and to tell them everything that he could about her.  But there wasn't much about the small cold brown body in the
dirty blue blouse with the Cuban beads that he could or would tell them: nothing about the way she had first held him and
murmured that he was hers now and teased him and clung to him sometimes and asked him to save her and then told him
that he should not.