my husband noticed and when he did I said we don’t need them. I decided we didn’t need the pictures, the plants, most of the kitchen equipment and the gardening stuff. It was only when I took the TV and video away that he got angry. When I told him we didn’t need them he said there was more to life than need. He was a salesman, of course, like you. He said I was ill. That was a bad day. It wasn’t as if I gave the electrical stuff away for nothing. It got easier after that. I managed to get rid of his records and his comics. I thought he was going to kill me then, although there wasn’t much left in the house to do it with. What are you so upset for? I said to him. You didn’t need any of that stuff. You’ve still got me.
He left that night, after calling me a Jesuit, communist, Big Brother, fanatic, hermit, freak, nun, prude, evangelist, sanctimonious killjoy, Calvinist and bore. I said I loved him and asked if he really needed that other wristwatch? He said is there anything you need? I said I need you, and I took his hand and put it down inside my pants. He said I was a sex-mad Puritan who ought to be put away. He took what he could load into his car and left. It took me weeks to empty the house and sell up to get enough to buy this place and live on. The last thing I got rid of was that ornament I put on the mantelpiece. Then I was ready to open the Museum of Doubt.
Jack had stopped crying. He was sitting with his shoulders still bowed, looking up at her, listening. He looked younger. His eyes were full of wonder and attention, like a child at the theatre, and his face had a cast of wisdom without experience. You’re right, he said.
Adela smiled out of one corner of her mouth. I’ve convinced you, have I, she said, looking out of the window.
I was always convinced, said Jack. It only needed someone to say it. I don’t have to ask how you live without music. You listen to yourself instead. You read the same five books over and over again. The world in daylight is your television.
You’re making me sound like a mad hermit. I am a hermit. I’m not mad, though.
Jack frowned and stood up. I’m wondering whether we really need this stool, he said. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall.
The floor’s cold, said Adela. I don’t like to be uncomfortable. I thought you were a salesman?
I was until today.
What happened?
I met you.
Adela sat down on the stool, leaned her elbow on the table and looked down at Jack. Not so funny, she said.
When I began to sell, it was good. It was paradise. It was my calling. I never thought of it as making money. The money thing was an obstacle in the way of me handing out gifts to people. I’ve walked and ridden and driven the roads for a time. For a long time. I’ve seen the clients’ homes get bigger to make space for the things I gave them. The homes are brighter now, especially the kitchens. I brought those small, dark homes so much light, space and music. I brought them so many cameras, so many motors, so much food. Why did it take so long for me to understand they didn’t really need it? Nobody turned me away before you did.
First you make me out to be a hermit, now you’re turning me into some kind of preacher, said Adela. I just live this way. I don’t care who else does.
A second sun put its head above the ground and ducked back. Yellow light splashed Adela’s skin, cycling to orange and red. A hammer of air cracked the glass of the window in half with a single vertical line and the Museum of Doubt trembled.
You car’s just exploded, said Adela.
They went to the doorway. There wasn’t much left. There were no flames. The frame smoked for a few moments and then the smoke blew away, like a blown-out candle. The frame and the wheels collapsed inwards into a neat pile.
Propane gas canisters and that line of self-igniting chemical heaters, said Jack, shaking his head.
It began to snow, rubbing white into the black star burned in the night’s fall. Jack walked to the nest of entwined metal, reached his hand into its oil-roasted depths and pulled out a new toothbrush in a cardboard and cellophane box. It was all he could save. By the time they went back inside, there was a snowstorm.
Adela lit the fire in the bedroom and they sat on the sofabed, watching it.
I could walk down the hill tonight, said Jack.
Best not to, said Adela.
I was wondering what I’d need to open a branch of your museum.
What you wouldn’t need.
Yes. But after I got rid of everything I wasn’t sure I needed, what would be left.
Adela looked away from the fire and turned to him. What would be?
Jack reached into his pocket and held out the toothbrush.
Adela smiled. Is that it? I think maybe you must be planning to stop in someone else’s museum.
Jack raised his eyebrows. Look, he said, beckoning Adela to move closer and examine the toothbrush. It had a blue plastic handle and white plastic filaments. The word Colgate was written on it.
Look, he said again, when she was next to him, looking down at the toothbrush, held in his two outspread hands like an offering. When you eat, you use the brush to spear the food – he gripped it brush-end up and made a downward stabbing motion – spindle it, or brush it towards your mouth. When you sit down, you use it to brush the ground clean. When you want something to read, you use the word Colgate as an index for the things you know by heart. C is the Code Napoleon, O is Orlando Furioso, L is for Little Lord Fauntleroy. That’s the way it goes.
You can’t sleep under your toothbrush when it’s snowing, said Adela. What do you do then?
You hold it up in front of you like this, said Jack, go and knock on the door of somebody you know, and ask for help.
Adela laughed, looked away and looked back into his face, still smiling. She stayed where she was, close to him.
You didn’t have to call it a museum, said Jack. You must have been wanting people to come. You don’t doubt you need visitors, do you?
No, said Adela, shaking her head. Her eyes were deep and bright and looking into his, where she was falling from altitude towards an unlit continent, self-eclipsed, falling and knowing nothing of the forest canopy about to catch her, only certain it was warm and filled with prey.
D’you know what I need?
Maybe I do. I don’t know what I need but I know what I feel like.
Jack reached out an index finger and placed it between her lips. Adela opened her mouth a little and stroked the finger moist in a pout. A message of salt travelled into her and the answer was raw hunger. She closed her eyes, the moon rose and she was high with longing to wound a creature. She opened and closed her jaws and pressed her teeth into the finger, wanting to meet bone, wanting the knuckle to break. She felt blood run down her chin and the hunger stopped. She opened her eyes and saw Jack’s head hung back, his finger unharmed and unmarked. There was no blood.
Oh, your finger, she said. She took it in one warm fist and squeezed it, kissed the tip. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I wanted to bite your finger off but I didn’t want to hurt you.
Jack raised his
