The Still Point. Amy Sackville

      Simon, too, carefully mopping his plate with a last piece of toast reserved for the purpose, is thinking of the drive home from dinner. He had driven because he’d wanted to be at work early in the morning and had decided not to drink. Julia had no such qualms; and James has very good taste in wine, as Simon knows. Had he not known it, then Julia’s enthusiasm for every sip would soon have impressed it upon him. James is the kind of man who is allowed, encouraged even, to dominate social gatherings. Simon is willing to concede that he is witty, clever, attractive perhaps, although he is growing louder as the years go on and all that good wine might just be going to his paunch.

      Michelle still works in arts heritage, as Julia did before she took up her inheritance. She is reasonably successful, somewhat rounded, wears high heels, the swell of her calves showing off very fine ankles, an alluring firmness to her buttocks. He dwells again upon these plump charms, as he did while driving, Julia beside him in a wine-red snooze. He appears so prim, so lacking in ardour as he sits at the table; it seems we have some things to learn about Simon.

      The last trace of yellow is gone, and he lays his knife and then his fork across the plate, at a perfect right angle to himself, and rises. Julia has her elbows on the table on either side of her mug, resting her face in her hands and staring down into it, so that her cheeks are pulled back and her lips are stretched long. She looks up, slightly out of focus, and he places a kiss on the top of her head and thanks her for breakfast before glancing at his watch and pulling on his jacket. Julia wonders, watching him, whether he will be too hot but decides not to say anything. Perhaps she is a little annoyed by him, a man who puts a suit jacket on to drive to the station on a summer’s day, perhaps this is her little revenge in turn; but she is rarely so calculating or malicious, certainly not before breakfast. It is more a drift across the surface:

       Warm, to wear a suit, won’t you be too… too hot for eggs. I don’t want that cloy. Back of the throat. Yellow yolk yellowyolkyellow. I’ll just have toast.

      When she hears the door slam — it has to be slammed to properly close — she stands and wanders to the kitchen counter. It is only a few steps but Julia can incorporate a wander into any journey when the mood takes her. She boils the kettle for more tea, puts a slice of bread in the toaster. While she’s waiting for the toast she peers into the pan again, now cold and grimed with greyish albumen, and briefly enjoys the word albumen, and decides to wash it up later. She spreads her toast thickly, with real butter, and then with real plum jam that she’s still amazed she made herself, and thinks that indolence will make the perfect housewife of her yet.

      The night before: Simon, impatient, driving a little too fast. The roads between their home and the Watsons’ — it’s catching — have no lines down the centre as there is room for only one car comfortably. In the rear-view mirror his eyes are shadowed, glancing at the dark behind and the empty back seat, the cat’s eyes as they flare and stretch out to dimness, the same, the same, the same in soporific rhythm all down the road. Julia in the morning, over her slice of toast and second mug of tea, lulled by the wet rumble of the washing machine, is remembering:

      Slash of bright before the sound, light is faster than sound; travelling too fast. Out of black, smack against the glass. Sound without a word for it, not bang or crunch, Simon shouting, ‘Fuck’ half asleep himself (she smiles) otherwise he wouldn’t swear, not while I was there, maybe when I’m not too I don’t know I’m not there. Thud two thuds off the bonnet. Please not the pheasant fact, don’t say it don’t or I’ll hate you…

      ‘Pheasant. Sorry, darling.’

       Don’t say it

      ‘Whoever’s behind us can pick it up for dinner.’

       Don’t

      ‘If someone finds it, they can pick it up. It’s illegal to pick up a pheasant you’ve hit yourself, you know. There’s a law, to stop people trying to hit them on purpose.’

      She thinks of saying: ‘Hunting with cars,’ but doesn’t because it’s not very funny and it’s what she said last time, or ‘Yum, roadkill,’ but she’s sure she’s used that at least twice.

      Simon likes to impart this information upon passing any poor corpse in the road — not just pheasants, but foxes, pigeons, even moles if he spots them, however smeared, mangled or crushed, however sad and tiny. But this is, in fact, the first time their own car has hit a pheasant or any other bright streak in the night, and when it really happened, she so much wanted him to not say it. She can’t think of anything to say in response, can’t bring herself to respond, and realizes when minutes have passed that it’s too late to say anything at all, and says anyway, ‘Maybe it isn’t…’ but can’t manage the word ‘dead’ and then notices that she feels sick, is trembling. Hearing again the crack of the beak against the glass, imagining she caught for an instant its frightened black eye before the impact. A terrible empty hollow where moments before she felt well fed and full. He almost but doesn’t say, ‘If not, it soon will be.’ She opens the window and faces away from him, eyes dry and wide; he looks across and sees her pale face quite without colour, quite bloodless. He begins to reach for her, finds that his hand, too, is unsteady, and returns it to the wheel. She shakes, all the way home, in a small way she hopes he won’t notice. He doesn’t speak as he opens the door, as he turns to take her coat from her he doesn’t speak. And she hands him her coat and bursts into rare tears, and he folds his arms around her then, and she remembers how tall he is, remembers the place for her head beside his breastbone, which has been there ten years, was there always, waiting for her, and he still doesn’t speak, but places his mouth against her hair gently. He knows how close she is always to mourning and wishes he could make this count for all of it. But she is grateful to him, for his silence; she could not begin to find words for grief.

      When he gets into bed ten minutes later, he finds her limbs cold and still trembling a little… and there it is again, that little ellipsis, and we’ve caught up with ourselves. On a Wednesday, of all nights of the week, and almost midnight, is his last thought before sleeping. But he is glad that she is warm now, and had need of him.