Jess Moody

peel

Snow huddled heavy on the windowpanes, gifting the room with a sense of strangers gathering; peering in. Inside, only myself, and the year, the chair, and the small feast I kept for you.

In the grey room, I sat behind the isolation of lank, uncorked curls. No point in looking up, or out. We had no outside lights, no candle on the sill. Let the forest keep the night hours to itself, and the flurries fall unwatched. I waited for the searching arc of your headlights. Refused to let myself unravel. You would come. You daren’t refuse. You never had.

I held the orange, compared its colour to the hearth. The fruit had a brightness the embers lacked, and so I placed it, carefully, back on the chipped plate. The plate then ringing on the stone floor. Untucked legs. Standing, my joints popped in anticipation of the cracks of fresh wood. Coins of cold through holed socks. Darn, no one said, with a smile.

I piled on one log, then another; two gently posed limbs, crossed on the ash. I took the soft, yellowed newspaper, scrunched it down to the size of a heart. Nestled it between the logs, and watched it unfurl in flame. Leaning down, a draft found the small of my back; a rare and wanted touch. A frozen moment, the panic of your absence. Then the retreat back to the chair, the plate, the orange. As the wood began to catch, I began to peel.

The uncut nail of my right thumb marked a deep jagged moon. The skin spat juice, filling the air with the smell of miracles: summer brought to cold, mornings brought to night, the promise of spicing, of warm woollen stockings, and fingers wriggling deep with delight.

You should have reached the bridge by now. The unmarked road. If not for the snowstorm, I should have heard the engine groan for purchase on the incline, or stutter at the fork. Resistance on the wind.

I applied pressure. Levered up the rind, revealed the truth of white splintering pith. Soft skeleton tendrils held in a sun made heavy and honeyed. You would have spent the week wrapping your treasures too. A bow around a gift, tinsel on a tree, a flannel belt around the robe of a small, sleepy body. You would have marked the labels with love, and kissed the crown of a head, the freshly washed hair with its silk-scent of hope. But tomorrow’s unwrappings were not for you to see. For you were on your way here, and for you I would have an orange.

I teased the skin away in a careful, broad, circling strip. Controlled. Like the brushing out of a knot, the scraping of hide. The way you could tear patterned paper off the roll without a blade, trusting just the steadiness of your hand, and the sharpness of the fold.

The curled peel dropped to the floor, no glance at the shape of its landing, its bellied-up auguries. We knew that names were another covering. Chosen, and worn, and chosen again. The flames burned bright now, yellow tongues choking the fireback black, up to the throat.

I plucked out the stiffer poles of the fruit, and eased it undone. Took in the symmetry of a whole becoming its parts. Each segment made a last quiet gasp as it made itself its own portion. Turned, laid down flat to spoon each other, the pieces formed an endless circle on the plate. I stripped stray white fronds, let them fall, webs to cradle the dust on the floor.

The shadows in the room jumped, tried to outrun the cut of a white light, the slice of the beams. You were here.

It took longer than it should for you to reach the door. You must have been sitting at the wheel again. With your choices. With ours. On this night of all nights, what it must be to walk away, to fight through the storm, up the trail hidden beneath the trees, through the cold, to the old door of this forgetting place.

I waited within the walls. Tried not to judge you, hate you, fear you.

The fruit warmed. Cells plump and soft.

You did not knock. No need. This space was no more mine than yours. Or yours because it was mine. A shudder of air, a slam, and a stomp of snow. You shook off your thick outerwear. Hung your life on a hook, a puddle already forming at your feet. Your hair frizzed at your forehead where flakes had found their way under your hood, the blast of a few furious seconds up the path.

You walked past me, across the old stones to the grate.

I put the plate on the ground beside the pile of peel, and joined you at the fireside. You flinched, just a little, at the sight of me in the glow. Perhaps I should have taken more care of myself. But it had been a year of being unseen, my face alone in the cracked mirror, my sole footprints on the flagstones, my hands holding the hot clay cup, my eyes blinking quiet steam.

The face you wore was a better one. It had been cared for. Loved. It had suffered small fluttering kisses on its nose, heard promises murmured into the fuzz of its earlobes. It had laughed ‘I love yous’ over its lips.

‘Are you ready?’ I asked. The croak of disuse on my tongue.

‘We are never ready,’ you said, but gently. We kept our warmth here, in our way.

I waited for you to begin. Quietly, steadily, you spoke of what you must. The necessities – the rest could be worked out, gaps filled in, paths found.

The car needed a service. Our old headmistress died. The new shower had a trick to it. We shopped at the smaller supermarket now, and took our own bags. He did not get the promotion, but was happy enough. There had been no repeat of the incident. You were undecided about the neighbours at No 7: the man stared too hard and glinting, but the woman seemed kind. She’d brought over windfall for Hallowe’en, which you’d baked with cinnamon, and served with thick burping custard. You voted how we have always voted, to no avail. The world still burned, or drowned, or both. The library books were due for renewal. The beech had fallen, but its death allowed the sunset into the kitchen each afternoon. You had taken to spending more time there. You put ginger in baked men, and with lemongrass in hot pans. Our father’s tests were clear. You had buried our daughter’s fingers deep in the flour, and taught her the patience of the crumb. There were texts again, but you did not respond, no matter how pleading. The presents were under the tree, the stockings on the ends of the beds. Dinner would be at the in-laws. You had bought him a compass and arranged an inscription; you told me what it said, and explained the joke. Yes, he was sleeping. Yes, a dose in his drink, as usual. No other way to explain the absence, the hours needed for the drive.

I nodded, and watched the flames, yellow coiling gleefully through the memory of a tree.

You took the rings off your fourth finger and laid them on the empty mantelpiece.

We undressed. Side by side, facing the fire where we could, hungry for the too-fierce flush.

We each started at the base of the neck, the nub of the third vertebra. My skin was greased and dirtied – yours newly bathed. In went our thumbs, deep, certain. We arched our wrists, elbows up, awkwardly, and pulled enough space for our fingertips to take purchase. Then the slow peel, up and round the jawline, the slide over the skull, and the ungainly wriggle out over the shoulders. The clean, warm weight fell, freeing bones and tendons to breathe easy. Ribbed muscles clenched against the shock of air. The earthy metal of blood-rich organs held snug. We uncurled our toes. Stepped neatly out of our skins.

I stepped left, you stepped right. Slowly, we put on the other’s discarded self.  An embrace, of sorts. When done, we took turns to look away, masses of hair lifted up to expose the neck. The other pinched smooth the final seam like soft pastry; dimples of closure, and care.

Never, not once, did I look you in the eye.

Your clothes were still warm inside, but dampness seeped over the cuffs and hems. I put the rings on my finger. Lifted my new hands, and smelt the scents of a fuller home, happy tasks, and popcorn, and butter. You brought yours up to cover your face, tight, holding in your breath, the shudder.

‘It’s ready for you,’ I said.

You uncovered. Blinked. Nodded.

‘Thank you.’

You shuffled to the chair. Eased down. Knelt over and retrieved the plate. Sat the orange clock in your lap.

I walked to the door. Took the coat, the hat, the scarf. Placed a gloved hand on the door handle, and turned back to you.

‘Until next year,’ I said, thirsty, and thankful.

You slipped a segment in your mouth. Closed your eyes. Chewed. Nodded, just once.

I opened the door, and the logs burned on.

Jess Moody is a Wulfrunian based in London, UK. She likes her words and worlds a little weird. www.jmoodywriter.com. Tweets @jesskamoody (she/her)