The Blue Book by A. L Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

the cabby who drove you in as a handy witness – I mean, why not? – it could happen – it genuinely, horrifyingly might – when, Jesus Christ, you don’t want to get married, not you – marriage , that’s an institution – since when did you want to spend life in an institution? – this whole thing is unpicking you, reworking you into someone else – which means he will, in actuality, be marrying someone else and how could you possibly cope with that? – the jealousy alone would kill you – and the invading burdens, responsibilities, the claustrophobia, the shock, they are in the room with you like sump oil, they are rising to your chest – and this isn’t how it should be, how you should be, because you love him, he is the closest you will get, the dearest, and surely this should not have to guarantee that being with him terrifies you more than dying – more than if you might die before him and end up making him upset.
    He mustn’t be the man you’ll never have, purely because he seems to be so meant, has perfections, ends your waiting, because he opens you up to your spine and doesn’t hurt.
    So, although you might beg to, you don’t run.
    You stay and can stand with the back of your hand near enough to the back of his for you to feel him, read him, the magnificent argument of his blood, and you tremble and do nothing and this is fine.
    Except.
    Then your lungs fill with having to dress so you’ll please someone else and vice versa – and this doesn’t choke you, but is unfamiliar, is odd – and then there’s going to the pictures together, which you’re bound to try eventually, it is something you see all the time and completely normal, yet somehow a threat – and there’s wanting to buy a sofa, because that’s what lovers do – and you are lovers – you do , there is no saving you from it, love – and undoubtedly you’ll end up going with him to buy the sofa and looking in lots of places and not being able to see the perfect one – when only perfection can represent your love – or, indeed, be the decor and furnishings of your love – and eventually it’s not improbable that you’ll get tired – you don’t want to imagine this, wouldn’t wish it to be the case – but if you are both exhausted and perhaps your blood sugar is low then it’s almost inevitable that you’ll fight – perhaps not badly but then maybe worse, and this free-floating resentment and discontent will follow after – and maybe in the final furniture shop there’s also a table lamp that you don’t like – you despise it and you can’t help your opinions, they are yours and your personal expression is protected under international law – but your lover does like the lamp, that is his opinion of it – he adores it, insists that it’s superb, and this reignites your disagreement, kicks it into bitterness and rage and additionally looses the welling of commitment and undertakings and regulations and sameness and exposure, hideous risk, and the awful heap of this is insurmountable and sweeps hard down at you and before you can scream or prevent this, you’ve picked up the lamp – the tragic, frustrating, adorable, loathsome lamp – and you’ve hit him, you’ve knocked him right on his wonderful head and he’s bleeding – he’s crying and you’re hitting him again – you’re causing him pain and making him afraid and it’s a nightmare, you would rather shoot yourself – although, of course, you don’t have a gun, you’re dangerous enough without one – and, Christ knows, you haven’t a clue how this came about, but you are still hitting him, your darling, because this way you won’t have the new wait for the failure of everything sweet in your life, its most beautiful thing, you have