A Line of Blood. Ben McPherson

awake when I come home.

      ‘It’s the industry,’ I say, ‘it’s just what we do. No one’s screwing. Not since the 90s.’

      ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I get that. Did I even say I mind? I don’t mind, Alex.’ But maybe this is my equivalent of out, thinking. Maybe it’s that part of me that’s unreachable to Millicent. Because she minds. I know she minds.

      At half past eight I tried to decide what to do about Millicent’s radio programme. If I left at nine thirty I could hear the end of it, and be in for when Millicent got home. Perhaps I could catch the beginning of it on the download. I could check that Max was safely asleep.

      At ten past nine I explained that I had to go.

      ‘But Gorgeous,’ she said, ‘we’re getting to know each other. Don’t you want us to know each other, Alex?’

      ‘Of course I do, Dee. Of course.’

      ‘That smile of yours,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly beguiling. Your wife is a lucky woman. Can she really not share you with me just a little more? Bit harsh of her, don’t you think?’

      ‘It’s not her,’ I said, ‘it’s me.’

       We’re under such strain.

      I had to be there.

      ‘And after all, Alex,’ said Dee. ‘After all I am technically your employer. Am I not? Because no me, no show.’ She put her right hand on her breastbone, and gave an ironic little pout. I laughed, but her words had a strained quality that told me I would be unwise to leave.

      Over Dee’s fifth glass of wine, and my fifth pint of Flemish, she asked me, ‘So I’m wondering a little about your approach to fidelity, Gorgeous. How absolute is it?’

      ‘It’s very absolute. Absolutely absolute since I met Millicent. Thirteen years so far.’

      ‘And yet you make it sound like some twelve-step programme. Each day a new day in your struggle with the demon pussy. Were you always such a gorgeous absolutist?’

      ‘Maybe not.’

      ‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘You’re going to tell me all about what a naughty boy you used to be.’

      I have a memory of Dee’s hand on my knee, and of five Flemishes becoming eight. I spoke of my lapses as a younger man, and of my regrets. Dee was a good listener, and I was glad to be talking about something that wasn’t the neighbour. She teased, probed and massaged the information from me. I’m certain that I didn’t make a pass at her, nor she at me, but I don’t remember much more than the hand, the smile, and her boundless, limitless breasts. Fecund, fecund, fecund.

      I did not tell Dee that I couldn’t go to the States with her. I had decided that I was going. Did June arrest me? No. Did June caution me? No. Did she politely but firmly ask me not to go? Yes, and I would let June down just as gently. I was going to America.

      I got home at twelve, offended Fab5 by trying to pay him, checked that Max was asleep, and vomited three times into the bath.

      Where was Millicent?

      I sat, scooping chunks from the bath into the toilet. Then I blasted the bath with the shower attachment. The smell grew worse, and I realised I had transformed my gastric fluids into an easily absorbed aerosol suspension, shrouding the bathroom in a delicate mist of puke. But at least the bath looked clean now.

      I lay down fully clothed on the bed, got my phone from my pocket. I dialled her number, got voicemail, was just smart enough to remember not to leave a Flemish-amplified message. I tried to picture her; I missed her; I wanted her body beside me, around me. But the Flemish in my veins kept distorting the signal, sending me Rose’s narrow shoulders and Dee’s endless breasts: I couldn’t find Millicent’s face through the electric fog of shash, ache for her as I might.

      In a small metal box in a drawer on my side of the wardrobe I keep letters from the women in my past: the letters serve as a warning; I read them when I am tempted.

       6

      Max was standing in the bedroom with coffee. He had chosen my favourite mug. He was dressed, he had tucked in his shirt, and he had combed his hair with water.

      ‘Morning, Dad.’

      ‘Morning, Max.’

      ‘I made you some coffee because it’s eight o’clock.’

      ‘Thanks.’ He handed me the cup.

      I sniffed the coffee. It smelled wrong. Boiled. I put the cup down on the bedside table.

      ‘Dad, is it true that Fab5 has a friend called Faecal Dave?’

      ‘No, Max, no, I don’t think that can be true. Can you get me some sugar?’

      ‘You don’t take sugar. And he told me what faecal meant.’

      ‘I’d like some today, please, Max.’

      Max rolled his eyes and went downstairs.

      Two messages on my phone.

      Gorgeous, you were and are the perfect gentleman. Are you as turned on – creatively(!) – as I am?

      DEff xx

      I hadn’t alienated the Talent. That was something.

      Twice I tried to wake you, you beautiful lame-assed drunken fool. And yes, I know we have to speak, and yes, you should call me when you wake up.

      I realised that I was naked, that Millicent must have undressed me, and rolled me and slipped me under the duvet. That’s love, I thought, in that one tiny action: my nakedness is proof of Millicent’s love. I wondered whether she had slept.

      Max came back in with the sugar. I put four spoonfuls into the cup and stirred.

      ‘Want me to open the blind?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘No what, Dad?’

      ‘No thanks, Max. And thank you for making coffee for me.’

      ‘That’s OK. Mum said you might want some.’

      ‘She out?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Say where she was going?’

      ‘No. Do you like the coffee?’

      ‘I love the fact that you made it for me.’

      Max left the room.

      I rang Millicent. She sounded lousy from lack of sleep.

      ‘You get my SMS, Alex?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Meet me at the Swedish?’

      ‘OK.’

      Max and I left the house at the same time and walked the first couple of blocks together. He hugged me when we parted, then set off towards school at a dog-trot.

      The Swedish didn’t make sense in an area like ours. It was all untreated oak and lightbulbs with complicated orange filaments that hovered in front of your eyes. But the coffee was good and they left you alone to drink it. Where else were people like us supposed to go in a place like Crappy?

      Millicent was sitting with her head in her hands, tiny against the vast communal table. I sat down beside her; it seemed at first as if she hadn’t seen me, as if she were somewhere very private; then she sat up, looked me in the eye, and began to speak.

      ‘I need you to understand that I have never and never would betray you, Alex.’

      She hadn’t slept. I could see the blood pulsing in her neck, smell the sourness