The Story of My Face by Kathy Page Page B

far as I know,’ he says.
    â€˜If you don’t mind, I’ll just make sure.’
    Stepping over stray lengths of bramble, she makes her way up onto the shallow porch. The windows of the house are opaque with dust. On a wire shelf beneath the panel of grimy frosted glass next to the door is a row of milk bottles, rimmed with algae. There’s neither bell nor knocker, so she bangs on the door with her hand. Then she pushes her letter through the slot in the door.
    â€˜Thank you,’ she says. The man watches her all the way back to the gate.
    â€˜Thank you ,’ he repeats softly as she closes it.
    She feels him looking at her still as she retraces her steps, back across the road, up the slight incline, out of his sight, past more pairs of the same kind of house, finally, out of the estate. . . .
    The Barons, she tells herself, must have quite recently moved to the house from elsewhere. They’re obviously struggling. Mrs Baron works peculiar hours, and her mother, or one of their mothers at any rate, is ill. But they are doing their best, trying to tackle the place. . . . It’ll help them out to have the child off their hands for a week or so.
    At the far side of the crossroads is a patch of grass and a wooden bench with a plaque on it. She sits down, eases the backs of her shoes from her heels, closes her eyes and begins on her prayers, which she missed earlier. ‘Lord,’ she asks, ‘let me complete well what I have begun.’ Next, she prays for John. In seventeen years of marriage she has certainly come to know the strength of his will. Sometimes she thinks it’s too strong. Likewise, his loyalty to her. ‘But,’ she tells God, ‘I do know these are things which will not change. As we grow older, they’ll get stronger, squeeze out other, smaller traits. I’m prepared for that. I give thanks for my marriage,’ she tells Him, turning her face, eyes shut, up to the sun, but doesn’t mention to God that she feels especially thankful for the physical union between them: for being able, even at this age, even against his will, to lead this difficult man she chose for herself to a point of agreement where other differences don’t matter one bit. . . . She smiles, her eyes still tight shut, her hands neatly on top of each other in her lap, one arm threaded through the strap of the bag next to her.
    â€˜Let him not take things too hard,’ she prays. ‘And as for my son – please forgive him. He never normally complains,’ she reminds God. ‘He’s pleased to do your will in all ways. He works hard –’ She thinks of all those sports days and football and cricket matches she has attended, the sight of Mark diving for a catch or folding himself over the high-jump, the smell of cut grass, of sitting on the slatted wooden chairs or on a rug in the sun, the fragile paper cups of tepid lemon squash, the little twists of ribbon on their tiny brass pins, the almost smoked smell of his skin at the end of summer days. . . . She sighs, shifts the position of her feet, and remembers the look he gave her this morning before he set off for school on his bike. ‘Help him through whatever it is that he is suffering now,’ she asks.
    The good bit of her prayers is done now.
    What remains is to give thanks for the time there was with the girl-child that He chose to take away from her.
    â€˜I don’t want to say her name today . . .’ she tells Him. She gives thanks for the memories she has polished over the years, kept, like a set of pebbles gathered from a brief beachside walk. The navy-blue eyes seeking her own out and holding them a long while, then, and only then, the slow, gummy smile. The constantly flexing fingers. The grip of that whole hand on her one finger. The fresh-baked smell of the top of her head. The thick but soft hair she was born with, brown (though now she’s beginning almost to think of it as red).