Fragments of a relationship by Jon Asby

Are they ever going to get married? Amanda was pregnant last year from David, a long term boyfriend who came and went. She had the kid while Mark and his group of friends still living here talked to her as friends. Full and hormonally pregnant she kept smiling while he rolled another spliff, she stroked his arm and kissed him after he put down the Carling can. He ended up in her pants without really meaning it, but did not regret it even with her bulging belly that kicked out. He felt a lot better about it after she gave birth, her having returned to a female figure he could understand. It all seemed a lot more acceptable. He helped with the kid, named Alex, while he saw Amanda. Amanda liked it, liked Mark, liked her kid. The rent without David had been crippling, but when Mark moved in it was okay. Better than okay, it was soon stable. With him every day she couldn’t approve of the weed any more, but let it continue because he shouted at her. He smoked less now anyway. They were, they sometimes said, in love with each other, and I began to wonder when they would sit down and talk about the future; to each other or to me. I wanted to push it on them; give them little suggestions and hints and so on, reminding them how much better a proper Christian family would be. I told her that Mark was not going to leave, that marriage is not a pressure but daily a reminder of how great It all is. She looked anxious all through my little lecture in the park where years before we had all run around and kissed. In the pub Mark laughed it off. Too far away in the future, all that stuff. I told him it was the present, but it was no use.

He told me all this was to make up for what I did to him before, but I did nothing. Sam left him and travelled away. Now his luck was turning. He told me so, left sticky circles under his beer glass and smiled. This was working, he said, it helped him recover his sense of being a man. I saw it then, enjoyed his company because he was no longer reaching out on every drunk night.

When Alex died of pneumonia...

A sliver against the light, barely visible in the room, caught the wind, or the wind caught it. The sliver tumbled helplessly over and over, drowning in air. It floated down, flinched upwards again, turning end over end. Soon it lost its height and was more visible as it slipped out of the light. It floated down calmly. The breeze stopped. Calmly it glided; across the room, settling on the desk. A new gust lifted the curtains behind and then the sliver and threw it once more across the room. It floated down again until it hit the carpet, where it stayed.

She watched all hairs flutter down. Her hair was falling out. She compared each of them to tears, but understood that it was more difficult to run out of tears than of hair. Red top, brown shoes and jeans for work, but she sat in the sofa wrapped in a blanket against the cold wind coming through the window. Occasionally her patterned Ikea curtains tossed around. Another sliver came apart but this time her eyes did not follow, she stared now at the ceiling, let her head roll and wander. She had been walking to and fro, hair and all, since the death, without thinking. Mark’s hat on the coffee table, beanie. New packet of rizlas next to it, forgotten. He would buy another pack of Marlboro reds instead of making rollies today. She wanted to cut down on the reds, so she thought maybe she should go out and buy another pack of baccy so she wouldn’t have to smoke the reds this evening. The would save money. But there she was in the chair, and what was the point? Cravings subside, jobs come and go.

...Mark stayed.

A year later she was pregnant, a planned baby this time, in a house, with mortgage. A baby with a mother and a father. I was so pleased I brought up marriage again, tentatively. This time Mark was anxious and Amanda just sighed at me, told me I was too young to understand. Maybe one day.

There were patterns on the walls, paint brushes in tins, the work on the bedroom started badly and left unfinished; the brushes went solid and he had to buy new ones to do it properly. The designs were poor, but the thoughts count. The car packed up on the way to the hospital. Amanda screamed and tried to remember her breathing. Mark tried to guess what the engine needed, then phoned for a taxi. It took them the rest of the way. Georgie was smaller than Alex, but cuter and eventually, healthier.

They shopped for clothes every few months, updated the stock of toys and they talked enough to say they thought about having another child. Amanda wanted a daughter to even up the score a bit, even though it meant another nine months of only second hand smoke, shouting and waving her arms towards the window while savouring the smell. Mark said he would think a child, then stared when she took the pill to see that she did not spit it out. He made sure too often to keep his secrets safe. But he gave in and smiled about it all. Another baby was what he wanted. She was delighted.

Sam came back to town from Australia. After three years across the East Coast and Perth she decided she had had enough and would come on home to this old English town where family ties were strong. Mark went to see her for a drink or two. He saw her again just once or twice. Amanda's voice was on a high to shout out some jealousy. Mark left to buy weed. Amanda’s voice rose in volume to match Mark’s silence, the door clicking closed on the night. I told them both to calm down and look forward to the new child. I told Mark to stop smoking, and not see Sam. He started to talk about their old times before he moved in with Amanda. He told me that he could remember things now that he had forgotten for years, those tiny scars – happy memories with the wrong person – that heal perfectly. He told me she was his first love. He told me she had forgiven him for what happened – all those dreary evenings of blame! – and that she had wanted him all the time she had been away. He told me he was in love with her. He said Georgie was not his choice of name, his baby hair was not his colour. I could not laugh though I wanted to. When I had no words of encouragement or methods of escape he started crying. It was embarrassing.

Glassware on the table, knitwear at home. A tiny defect in the glass, an air bubble no bigger than a freckle, one of Sam’s freckles, he said, sadder than the grey-black mulch of collecting ash and beer in the tray. Knitwear, one mis-sewn stitch, designed to clothe a new baby. Pink, in expectation and hope, pre-empting the knowledge. Oh dear, I said.

When Mark moved out of Amanda’s house...

Children can scream; Georgie screamed for his daddy. Amanda couldn’t provide his daddy until the weekend unless she phoned him up every night of the week. From the questionable comfort of her Ikea couch she dialled the first few digits then paused, took some time to decide how to continue, absently watched the cop chase TV while trying to think of anything else besides the grasping hands of short blonde Sam on her Mark. She finished the number a different way and found a friend to answer. The house was hot; the thermostat was still set high long after winter. She didn’t know to turn it down, blamed the radiators. She threw the ashtrays away and let the hot summer air take away the smell and level out the heat. Eventually it went away. It was Mark’s only smell, she realised. She had to clean out behind each settee and table and bookshelf to get rid of the tiny pieces of weed that made the carpet smell like some drug emporium. She found she could sit down on an evening and admire her house, her child, her simple job that paid enough. Her hair stood strong, not a solitary sliver came loose, fell and drifted.

...he moved in to Sam’s.

There were fifty two weekends of awkward hellos at the doorstep where Amanda stood at the threshold of her manless home, regularly renewing her hates in order to enjoy driving down into work, by car and mind. Sometimes presents, and they seemed always larger with each occasion. Heavier, like Georgie and his father's eyes. Amanda stroked his hair, gave him a kiss, saw in him a difficult mixture to bear. But bear it she would, taking the hot smoke deep into her lungs to feel its sweet hurt. Mark asked Sam to marry him. She obliged. I said congratulations. Congratulations Mark, I said.