before, Ava? Maybe you have one now – it’s fine, it
works, but no one tells you that it hurts when it’s put in –
Christ! I nearly blacked-out!
I’d been spotting for about two weeks, but had been
careful not to let him see.
One night though, I forgot to slip a tampon
in post-sex and woke up with a little spot of blood there
on the mattress.
He was fast asleep.
The shame! It’s not like I could strip the bed and wash
the sheets!
Can you imagine?
I thought – my only option is to cut my thigh and say,
Oh, look! I must have scratched myself while sleeping.
I didn’t do it, Ava, of course not – my nails were
far too bitten back.
I woke him up, and in a nervous little voice
explained the situation.
He rolled over and went back to sleep.
The stain was there for weeks.
His apathy felt tender, Ava, sweet.
I got to know his housemates slowly –
in the room next-door to his
there was this fisherman – scallops I think – with silver
hair.
He’d gone grey at sixteen – it made him look
distinguished. Otherworldly.
He hardly spoke.
He had this haunted quality. Misty-eyed. Seemed
elsewhere often. Someone told me that he had found a
body in his net, hauled it from the sea.
Not that he mentioned it to anyone – but someone
saw it in the local paper, showed the others. They never
told him that they knew.
Sometimes coming home from partying,
the light about to break,
I’d see him, in his work clothes
heading out, he’d nod, but all he’d say was,
dawn.
And then there was a tree surgeon they called ‘the sex
