It
is almost as if he knows she is not there before he is even awake, her absence pernicious
as an unheard radio, bleeding in through his subconscious and colouring his
dreams.
He
finds her crouched at the toilet, collapsed around it, her pyjama top loose and
dark with Rorschach blots of sweat, her face damp too when she lifts her head, eyes
moist with exertion, hoping to temper his visible distress with her joke,
ache1:
I thought this was supposed to be morning sickness, it’s barely fucking
midnight.
She
appears to him exhausted, as if she has been in here for quite some time longer
than he had thought, and as if she has been emptied out from the ground on up, the
nausea rolling through her in waves, up and out, its sole requirement of her that
she hold her mouth open wide as possible to facilitate its exit.
Skunk:
Tell me what to do.
ache1:
You, you don’t have to do anything, just stay
Skunk:
What about a glass of water, or-
ache1:
You just stay right there, cowboy, and whatever else you do,
spitting
over into the toilet bowl
ache1:
don’t think about Elvis.
Her
mouth moves to moisten itself.
ache1:
In particular, don’t you be thinking about his ‘68 comeback special.
Skunk:
The what? Elvis
ache1
(raising her eyes to him in genuine surprise): The ‘68 comeback special? What, have
you, the black leather, the hair, the white suit, his name spelled out in
massive red lights?
Skunk:
Okay, right, I think I
ache1:
Jesus Skunk what the fuck, didn’t I just say DON’T!
raising
herself again in preparation.
He
opens the window, conscious too now of his own sweat, hoping to sluice off the
room’s smothering bitter odours to the fresh autumnal outside night. Her
flannel he soaks in cold water, and once wrung loosely out, presses the cool
cloth clump to her forehead and face.
Skunk:
Hey, lean forward. Can you lean forward, even just a little? If you can’t it’s
okay, but...
Supporting
herself with the toilet she manages to hold herself just so that he can reach around
her and gently scoop her damp pyjama top back inside the matching patterned
trousers, and in the midst of this, with her body heaving up nothing now but
air
ache1
(singing): “If you’re lookin’ for trouble...”
