Idioglossia

Her eyes scanned the fridge. Hesitantly she took out an unopened box of Black Magic. A gift from one of her clients, she had meant to pass it on. With a sudden thrill of violence, she slammed the fridge door behind her so the whole white box shook. She nearly walked clean away but on a second thought she opened the door again and took out a dish of cooked dark green cabbage. Couldn't let it go to waste. She had never eaten cabbage and chocolate for tea before and she found the combination strangely exhilarating. The good and the bad together. All the while she ate, she watched the envelope on the glass table in front of her. It didn't move but the letters may have wobbled slightly, in her direction. "For Maggie Lockyer, daughter of Grace Lockyer. By hand." When she lost touch with a person, the memory reduced to one prevailing emotion. The impression was shaken through a sieve, the variety drained away and she was left with a solid whole. Her mind understood that person in a single way hatred, love or boredom. So that, after they had gone, whenever she thought of them, she would feel that way. Eventually she thought that was all they had ever been. The living, breathing, panoramic person was gone. Only when there was a tangible reminder, some fresh evidence of their physical reality, did the rich ambivalence that she felt towards people return. For more than thirty years Maggie had felt not hatred, not bitterness, but just despairing numbness when she thought about him; now she began to remember other things. She finished the cabbage and was sick of the chocolates. She carefully folded the lid of the box back down and thought to return them to their place in the fridge but for once she didn't, she just left them on the glass table. Profligacy. The letter. She picked it up. Played with it between her fingers, stroking the surface across her mouth. Then put it down on the table again to give her distance. Space to think. And the letter looked so small. Opening it was one thing, bringing its own problems. But what if she didn't? What would that do to her? She was almost cross with him for the first time in thirty years. He had placed her in a terrible dilemma. And that made her laugh inside. Trust him to do that. For the first time since he left she remembered how he had made her laugh. She didn't really want to. So say she didn't open the letter. What then? Could she return to where she was two days ago? Hardly. She was not that strong. She had shut him away for this long only because he was gone. Really gone, disappeared with no word, no information, no contact. That she dealt with. But now there was a change. He was back even in this small way. Even the folded piece of paper inside the envelope, which she held to the light, squinting. She could see it inside. It was him. She had forgotten what it was to be tempted. She was tempted now. Tempted to open this letter and tempted to toss it away as an ultimate act of defiance. She stood up and went to the kitchen to pour more wine. On the way back, she hesitated and turned slowly into the bathroom, pulling the light cord. Obviously some previous occupant had been a head or so taller than her and had fixed the bathroom cabinet accordingly. Maggie had never got around to changing it though she had lived there five years. It wasn't so bad. She could see most of her face if she stood on tiptoe. The whole of it, temporarily, if she jumped. Sarah, of course, got cross that the only mirror in her mother's flat reflected the top of people's heads. But Maggie didn't feel the lack of it. She wasn't very interested in looking at herself. Tonight she took a chair from the bedroom and wedged it against the bathroom wall. While she wasn't a vain woman, there was a thought in her mind. Should she open the letter and, presuming that act led to meetingBailey, Eleanor is the author of 'Idioglossia', published 2001 under ISBN 9780679311256 and ISBN 0679311254.