Rokitansky

Chapter Two

TWO

Tori was rudely awoken by the sound of the alarm. She opened her eyes to squint for the source of the offending noise and silenced it. A solitary tear, independent of motive, formed and slid down her cheek. She brushed it away as though it had never been, as though it wasn't one of many. Her head ached with a subtle throb and she could still taste last night's Malbec on her breath. Harry's arm slipped under hers and pulled her to his chest. She felt safe, she felt loved. To the untrained eye Tori's life was a public exhibition of contentment. She lived in a small but perfectly formed home, she had a good job and a loving husband. Everything was just as it should be. Almost.

"We should get up," she whispered.

"Five more minutes, it's Saturday," he mumbled into her ear. She turned to face him and slowly traced the outline of his jaw with her index finger, enjoying the feel of the stubble. It was almost exactly ten years since they had met as students and he hardly looked a day older. Her hand, in contrast, looked like that of an old woman, her skinny, wrinkled fingers wrapped in tight, dry, paper skin. She withdrew it from the foreground and banished it under the sheets for spoiling her view. They had both wanted to be writers back then in their twenties, filled with hope and optimism at that age when you really do believe you can be anyone you want to be. Harry had succeeded in making his dreams a reality. His first book did reasonably well, well enough for him to quit his job as a teacher. The second book was a bit of a flop, but his third, the one he was writing at the moment, was just brilliant. She had read the first draft and she felt sure their money worries would be over once it was published. Her dreams had not come true, not yet. There were other things she wanted more, and one of them needed to earn a regular income. Tori had started writing a novel of her own, but she couldn't finish it; she didn't know the ending. For now, she was a travel writer who rarely left her desk in an office full of strangers in the city.

"There is so much to do," she said, her mind nagging her eyes to stay open.

"Relax, today is going to be fine, everything will be okay, just five more minutes, I'm so tired, okay?" he said, his eyes still closed. She studied him then, watched the way he breathed, felt the warmth of his body wrapped around hers. He was a good man. She could never quite comprehend what she had done to deserve him or why he was here. She was all he ever wanted and less, so much less. She heard her mother's voice interrupt the thoughts in her head, "We are born alone, we die alone, everything in between is just an illusion." The recollection of the words triggered an involuntary shiver. This was not an illusion, this was real. She wasn't alone, she was loved. She permitted her drowsiness to smudge the memory.

"Okay, five more minutes," she said, feeling her body and mind relax once more. She was tired too, so very tired of sleepwalking through life, trying to remember how to breathe without it hurting. Trying to remember how to be. Struggling to silence the thoughts and fears that consumed her. Waiting for answers to questions that could never be asked. Her eyelids, swollen and heavy from the tears she had shed the night before, surrendered themselves shut and she slept again.

Fear crept into the room and into their bed and woke Tori once more. He whispered in her ear and then shook her awake. She sat bolt upright in panic. It felt like she had only rested her eyes for the briefest of moments, but when she snatched her mobile from the bedside table she realised just how late it was. Panic immobilised her limbs as consciousness reminded her why it had been so important to get up early this weekend.

"Fuck!" yelled Tori, throwing off the covers, leaping out of the bed and knocking over the empty wine bottle and glasses from the night before. The glass smashed and she felt a stab of pain in the little toe of her left foot.