Composite Creatures, Caroline Hardaker [best ebook reader for laptop txt] 📗

poured all of it away, leaving a long cavernous space which seemed somehow larger than the floorplan of the house.

The loft was flanked by two long wooden benches, the kind older kids sit on in school assembly, and these were the only bits of furniture we kept. We discovered beneath the dust that the wood flooring we’d been promised was still in good condition, though deeply scratched. I crawled on hands and knees, cleaning, polishing, and disinfecting it, while Art danced away from the wispy cobwebs following in his backdraught.

When the place was clean, we painted the walls and ceiling a deep plum, and replaced the yellow light in the roof with a daylight bulb. There was a little skylight in the far corner, and I scrubbed at the glass until soft lilac shone through.

With the lights switched off and the water pipes thrumming, the room became a hollow womb, only escapable by the small opening to our first floor. We kept the loft stripped of accessories and anything that could snag or catch, apart from a cardboard box stuffed with a plaid towel, an old chintz bedspread (folded into quarters and pressed into the corner of the loft) and a plastic fruit crate lined by a green fleecy jacket that Art never wore anymore. Finally, we placed an oblong plastic tray in the far corner as instructed, and sprinkled in wooden pellets that smelt of pine. Even after the loft was finished, I took up the paint tins late at night to smooth on further coats of plum, until I was sure that the space was ready for its new occupant.

We’d been in the house for a fortnight. I picked out a dress printed with black willow trees, and painted my face with sophisticated taupes and tan. I reached for my old starling necklace, but instead picked up a chunky silver choker. Already the weight of it pulling at my neck annoyed me, but I kept it on because it matched. In the bedroom mirror I looked like me and not like me. A dream version of me. All grown up, now. I pressed a cold glass of water against my neck to cool the red petals of anxiety blooming up my throat.

Art sidled into the room, already in tweed trousers and a blue paisley shirt, buttoned tightly to his neck.

“I’m excited. Are you?” he whispered, leaning in behind me and pressing his chest against my back.

“Petrified.”

“Maybe this’ll help. Close your eyes.”

His hands squeezed my shoulders and I tipped back my head, bathing in the rhythm of his fingers. After a moment or two he let go, and I swayed in the darkness, all alone.

“Turn around.”

I spun on my heel and reached out my arms to find him again, but Art was gone. When I opened my eyes, he was kneeling on the floor. I knew straightaway what was happening but I was so taken aback that I couldn’t speak. Art laughed, and reached up for my hand. “Don’t worry, it’s alright. Norah, will you?”

I feel ashamed of the way I reacted now. But shocks are exactly that – shocks. Fight or flight. I staggered, knocked off balance. “Art, who told you to do that?”

“No one. This is all me. And you, obviously.”

My left hand wrapped around my now crimson throat. Married? Us? “Arthur and Norah”. We’d already committed to an entwined life until the end, so why did this feel so different? I suppose I thought we’d talk this sort of thing through and decide together, like we had with everything else. I thought I’d said goodbye to spontaneity, and I’d made my peace with that. Now Art had pulled a stick of dynamite and was wiggling a match dangerously close. Good explosion, or bad explosion?

“Is that a yes, wifey? And then we can arrive in the New Year in style?”

What else could I do? I nodded, dumb as a shop mannequin. Art brought my hand up to his face for a kiss, and then retrieved a red box from his pocket. There it was.

“Call me paranoid, but I didn’t want to get this out until I knew you’d say yes.” He pulled open the box and inside sat a gold ring, set with a white stone flecked with scarlet and green. It looked like stained glass.

“It’s a fire opal. You deserve something different to the norm. We’re different.”

Art slipped the ring down to my knuckle, and twisted it side to side to get it past the bone. I looked at my new hand, the nucleus shining like a nugget of sky and the skin around it bulging as if about to explode. It might have been my imagination, but I could swear that my finger was already starting to go numb.

“It’s beautiful.”

And then I started asking myself all the questions. You know the ones. Did I feel different already? Would I have to take his name? Would I be spending my evenings practising my new signature, as Norah McIntyre? And oh God – what would everyone say when I told them? We’d only just moved in, and we’d only known each other for eight months. None of my friends had even met Art yet, and tonight was meant to be the night he’d charm them, ease them into what we were, and introduce them to the new me at the same time. And now I was going to have to tell them that we were engaged, too.

It probably sounds like I wasn’t happy about it. I know, I’m prone to worry. I was happy. Here I was – having just moved in with the wonderful, lovely, talented Art – and already engaged. Before now I’d never even lived with a man, and now I had someone willing to sign on the dotted line and promise himself to me romantically. In truth, I was bent between elation and worry, neither sense completely taking over the other.

Downstairs in the kitchen Art opened up a bottle