Black Boxes

Black Boxes
Caroline Smailes

‘Aha!’ she cried mockingly, ‘you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.’

Rapunzel—Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

‘The man had not known one happy hour since he had left the children in the forest; the woman, however, was dead. Gretel emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness.’

Hansel and Gretel—Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

From The Project Gutenberg Etext Fairy Tales, by the Grimm Brothers, April, 2001 [Etext #2591]

A Promise.

For my son. Jacob.

For my son. Benjamin.

For my daughter. Poppy Elisabeth.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Excerpt

Dedication

Other books written by Caroline Smailes

Black Box #01

Black Box #02

Black Box #01

BLACK BOXES

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Other books written by Caroline Smailes

In Search of AdamDisraeli Avenue

BLACK BOX # 01
Flight Recorder DO NOT OPEN

[55°01'01.54 N 1°27'28.83 W]

Bedroom. Ana's first floor flat in a Victorian house near the coast of Tynemouth. The room contains a wardrobe, a bed and a bedside table. The walls are red. The duvet cover is red. On the bedside table there is an empty glass and an open pair of scissors. Next to the empty glass there are two white rectangular boxes. One of them once contained sleeping tablets. The other once contained painkillers.

~Are you still there?~

You've ruined the end.

Now I know what's going to happen.

The plot has you coming back to kill me.

A twist in the narrative.

[five second silence]

I had cast you in the role of handsome prince.

How strange that you should turn out to be my killer.

But that's an end.

And now I need to find a beginning.

~Are you there?~

~Will you listen?~

~Do you remember?~

I am remembering when we were courting.

It was always cold.

I'm thinking back to when you wrapped your arm around me as we walked along Tynemouth beach.

I remember you folding me into you.

The image is practically cinematic.

~Do you remember?~

[five second silence]

We wore matching scarves.

I had knitted them and they had holes where I had dropped stitches.

You had laughed at my fumbling attempt.

[sound: a throaty laugh]

I had dropped many stitches.

But you said that you loved them.

~Didn't you?~

That they were perfectly us.

~Do you remember?~

The scarves wrapped around us.

They bound us together.

You could climb up your scarf to mine.

~Do you remember?~

And then you found that knobbly washed-up stick.

And you wrote our names in the sand in those huge perfectly straight lines.

And those lines stood together and made the flawlessly straight letters of our names.

ALEX+ANA.

You said that our names and our lives and everything that we would ever choose to do would be straight.

And I thought that you liked that.

[sound: sniff sniff]

I thought that the neatness and the organisation and the perfectly horizontalness.

Well I thought that you liked that.

[volume: high]

No kinks and no bends.

A perfectly straight route from here to there.

From there to here.

To nowhere else.

And on that day when you wrote our two names into the sand.

Well I didn't realise that one day.

When you wanted.

That you'd wash away the +ANA that was joined to the ALEX.

[sound: sobbing]

[silence]

But your name would never go away.

It grew fainter, but it is still there.

I still see it there.

I can still see ALEX+ANA.

[sound: throat clearing]

You started a new life.

ALEX+SUE.

But I can't write another name.

There are no other names that are perfectly straight and perfectly able to cover ALEX.

[silence]

But you went off.

And you found that new name.

And it had curves in it because you had decided that you preferred curves.

The lines no longer needed to be straight.

You adapted.

You accepted.

You left me here.

You left me.

Trapped.

[silence]

My room is a box.

A black box.

A sometimes ruby red box.

~Is that confusing?~

You trapped me in here.

[voiced: unrecognisable word]

[volume: low]

I have a front.

I have a back.

They are my window and my door.

My door takes me to my children.

My door keeps me from your Pip and my Davie.

Our two children.

~They are your children too.~

~But you know that they are your children too!~

~Am I trying to be too clever?~

The view from my window is ever changing.

I see the sand.

I see the sea.

And that image is my painting mounted in a chipped red window frame.

A sometimes black window frame.

A perfect square.

A perfect painting.

A painting that holds the memories of you and me.

We met as students.

~I know that you remember that.~

We lived in the same halls.

On the same corridor.

And we met in the first week.

You were so quiet.

All the girls wanted to know you.

To know what made you tick.

You were different.

You carried books around with you.

And you read those books.

You had a guitar.

And you could play your guitar.

Your friends were all girls.

You preferred female company.

And although girls flashed their breasts at you and although girls flicked their flowing hair and offered themselves to you.

You never accepted.

You had integrity.

It covered you in a bubble.

It protected you.

~When did it pop?~

~When did the bubble burst?~

~Was it when you selected that girl from that magazine and trimmed her flawless edge?~

I love(d) you.

I used to watch you playing your guitar in the common room.

And I love(d) you.

~Did you realise then?~

We were friends before we were anything else.

We were friends that became something else.

[silence]

But not until our second year

I was chair of the Poetry Society.

You'd come along to listen.

~Did you realise that they were all about you?~

You used to listen.

You never clapped.

And then afterwards you'd always want to walk me home.

Sometimes you'd hold my hand.

And we'd walk in silence.

Words didn't carry meaning for you.

~How many hours did we spend together?~

~How many hours passed in silence?~

And I always preferred your place to mine.

You lived alone.

You preferred it that way.

You liked your own space.

One room—bedroom/lounge/kitchen.

And then a door to your grubby toilet.

Your furniture was shabby.

Your toilet was always grubby.

~No it was filthy!~

But in the corner, just beside the sunken brown armchair.

Your guitar rested against the wall.

But the guitar would wait, as you mixed, rolled and twisted the end of your joint.

Then you'd balance the smooth roll of paper onto your lip and you'd strum.

And you'd sing your sad sad songs.

And the lyrics wouldn't connect with me and with us.

They were of places and experiences that we'd never shared.

But I wanted to recognise myself within your words.

I wanted to hear you recount experiences that we'd shared.

To be singing about a depth of emotion that you had suffered because of me.

And that's why I kept coming back.

~You didn't realise did you?~

I wanted to make you feel something in the hope that you would commemorate me in your words.

Like you had for the Indian Girl.

That you would give me a purpose in being.

Because you stirred me when you sang and you strummed.

You turned something on within me.

You made me want the performer in you.

And I'd wish that you'd sing and strum something that would make my insides explode.

A song to communicate the words that you never spoke to me.

[sound: humming of an unrecognisable tune]

That was before we ever kissed.

I used to think that first kiss was an afterthought.

A something that you never really meant to happen.

That we'd travelled as far as our friendship could go.

And that the only possible next step was a kiss.

A kiss that should never have been.

[five second silence]

But it did.

And we did.

And then Pip did.

And once when I questioned why you sang such sad sad songs about places and times and happenings that I never understood.

You said, I sing them because I like them.

And that, the words don't matter.

That, it's about the way things join together.

How they loop.

How the syllables become beats.

How the beats have to fit.

It was a timing thing with you.

It was a red thing with me.

The view from here is red.

[sound: humming of same now vaguely recognisable tune]

I had short hair when we met.

~Do you remember?~

I spiked it with cheap gel.

That was then.

Now my hair grows long.

If you call out at my window, I will let my hair fall down to you.

I must remember to blink.

My eyes are dry as I stare out of my window.

Red eyes.

I want to dip my fingernails into my eyes and I want to scratch and scratch and scratch my itch.

But I don't.

But I can't.

[sound: fingertips tapping surface]

A memory may flake off and stick under my nail.

And I won't be able to put it back into my eye.

And then I will forget.

And I can't let that happen.

My memories are all that I have.

[sound: sobbing]

So I look out of my window.

[ten second silence]

And I look onto the sand and I don't blink.

And if I stare and stare and stare through the pain.

Then I can see our names.

I see.

ALEX+ANA.

Then I lie flat.

[sound: a body flopping back onto bed]

My back stuck to my red duvet.

My arms and legs a perfectly straight X.

I open myself.

I open all of myself.

Waiting for you to re-enter into my picture.

I know that you'll return.

~Are you there?~

~Can you hear me?~

You're waiting for me to die.

~Are you there?~

You're waiting to see if you've killed me.

[silence]

I am trapped.

I will not leave this black square box.

[sound: pinging of a filament in a light bulb]

When we were students you liked to sing.

I liked to sing too.

You once told me that I had a sweet voice.

~Did you once say that?

I'm not too sure that you did.

I remember one day.

I couldn't tolerate hearing the same sad song over and over.

About the same Indian Girl.

And how she had broken your heart.

So I asked you why you didn't write a new song.

Something about the two of us.

We'd been together for over a year.

~And do you remember what you said to me?~

You said, I can't write about you.

You laughed when you said that.

And you said, the Indian Girl is the only girl that I have ever loved.

That, nothing could compare to her.

I never asked her name.

~Would you even have told me?~

[sound: glass smashing]

[two second silence]

From the beginning we had problems.

Sexual.

~I know that the topic makes you uncomfortable, but I want to talk about it.~

I have to talk about this now.

There won't be another time.

~You've seen to that haven't you?~

We've never spoken about our sexual problems.

~Where to begin?~

You had a problem entering me.

With intimacy.

From the very beginning.

[sound: a loud sigh]

~Yes you did.~

Your erections were laughable.

And the story of our passion failed to have a beginning, middle and end.

~Do you understand what I mean by this?~

~I don't think that you do!~

You weren't erect or you were erect.

Nothing in between.

And it seemed to me that the level of your stiffness had nothing to do with me.

I wasn't involved.

It was an up and down kind of thing.

There was nothing that I could do.

And I tried.

I tried everything.

Everything.

I feel embarrassed.

[voiced: unrecognisable words]

[volume: low]

At what I allowed you to do to me.

~Do you even know that I tried?~

You'd blame the drugs.

You'd praise the drugs.

~Do you remember?~

I know that you're clean now.

That all stopped when I was pregnant.

Everything stopped when I was pregnant.

~But do you remember sex and your joints?~

~Do you remember the potion that they created together?~

The sparks that you lit.

~Do you remember how you could go on and on and on?~

And that there would be no middle.

And that there would be no end.

You would just stop.

Out of exhaustion.

~Or was it boredom?~

But for me it was pain.

~I've never told you this before.~

You see.

You never considered that you were hurting me.

That your constant pounding.

That your sweat-dripping performance hurt me inside.

You see.

I was too dry.

~Yes dry.~

[sound: cackle of laughter]

In all of the waiting and hoping for an erection and in all of the needing to instantly react the moment stiffness emerged.

Well there was no thought for me.

You didn't consider that I needed to be turned on.

That I needed my buttons to be flicked.

So you made my insides red.

And I longed for the end.

I longed for the fucking to finish.

And I would fake.

~You didn't realise that I faked?~

You thought that you were a God.

My moans and arched back were perfectly timed.

I told a story.

I made it all up.

You see.

You weren't a God.

Not in bed.

Not in our bed.

~Do you realise that you were really crap in bed?~

~Has Sue ever mentioned it to you?~

~Does she fake?~

~Are you sure that you could tell?~

You see.

A performance can be too perfect.

I used to wait for the applause.

[sound: sharp clap clap clap]

You should ask Sue if she fakes.

You were the worst of my eighteen.

Congratulations.

I've made you a certificate.

It's hanging in a shell-covered frame.

If I open my eyes.

And if I stare out from my black box, then I can see your framed certificate.

Suspended in the air.

Just above where the tide meets the shore.

[sound: thumping scrape of window frame on wood]

[silence]

~Do you know that I pleasure myself?~

It was a skill that I learned during our time together.

I'd work myself until the tips of my fingers became numb.

I used to think about you when I did it.

I don't now.

Not always.

[silence]

Noun: Masturbation.

The encouragement of one's own genitals.

Etymology: Latin origin.

Perhaps.

Manus being 'hand', and turbare to excite or stir up.

It entered English in the eighteenth century.

Possibly.

It's a nice word.

A nice strong stimulating word.

[sound: a guttural laugh]

Red and white make pink.

The view is not pink.

The view from here is red.

Blink.

Blink.

[silence]

I can count on my right hand the number of times that I have seen your sperm.

Your spunk.

Your come.

I have never tasted it.

~Has Sue?~

[sound: a guttural laugh]

~Do you remember when I asked you if you love(d) me?~

We'd been together for about two years.

And I love(d) you.

I'd always love(d) you.

And I told you.

Over and over.

Sometimes I was overwhelmed with love for you and the words would burst out.

[voiced: [b] sound]

[volume: high]

Voiced bilabial plosive.

I used to be clever.

[voiced: [b] sound]

[volume: high]

Sometimes I was overwhelmed with love for you and the words would burst out.

[voiced: I love you]

[volume: high]

Without restraint.

Highly stressed syllables would gush out without warning.

And I'd hate myself every time that I told you.

Because the silence that came after my words.

The silence that floated from your lips.

It was heavy.

It crashed to the floor and echoed around the room.

And then one day.

Fuelled with vodka and lime.

I asked you if you love(d) me.

~And do you remember what you said?~

~Do you remember what you did?~

You laughed.

[sound: a guttural ho ho ho laugh]

You told me, I will never love you.

You told me, my heart is the size of a pea.

That, it is green and waiting to be mushy.

I never asked you again.

I love(d) you.

It was about that time.

After you described your pea-sized heart.

That was the time when I stopped taking the contraceptive pill.

~I know that I never told you.~

~There didn't seem a point in telling you.~

I stopped taking it because you never came inside me.

You were never capable of coming inside me.

~And how could I talk to you about that?~

I think that was the reason.

[silence]

I have a favour to ask.

If you can hear me.

~Can you hear me?~

It's for the next time that you come here.

And the time after that.

And the time after that.

~Can you bring me a strand of silk?~

I read somewhere that it should be silk.

And I'm supposed to weave it all together and make a ladder.

Perhaps it'd be easier if you just brought a ladder.

~Can you bring a really tall ladder?~

We can use it to climb from my window when we leave to live happily ever after.

[sound: a guttural laugh]

Some memories have holes in them.

Where I have blinked too quickly.

[voiced: blink blink]

[volume: low]

~Ob please stop going on!~

~I stopped taking the pill.~

~And I never told you.~

~It really isn't worth this fuss!~

Everything was going fine between us.

It was fine.

~I wasn't trying to trap you.~

~I know that's what you're thinking!~

~But I wasn't.~

At least I don't think that I was.

Holes.

I have white holes in the memories where my eyelashes have ripped the surface.

[silence]

I really must stop blinking.

[sound: humming, unrecognisable tune]

You didn't love me.

But I love(d) you.

It was simple.

Too simple.

I learned to live with it.

~No that's not true.~

I live(d) in the hope that it would change.

That your pea-sized heart would expand.

And that it would become mushy because of me.

And that all of this would happen before it was too late.

That love for me would grow from your mushy heart.

That it would grow and grow.

Kind of like a leaf.

~Do peas have leaves?~

I can't remember.

[sound: undetectable objects thumping to the floor]

And then it happened.

~You know what I am talking about.~

Perhaps you have forgotten the timing.

The placing.

The implications.

But you must remember.

It shocked us both.

I was in the second year of my PhD, studying the etymology of contemporary slang.

You were in the second year of your PhD in genetic engineering.

We'd been together for three years.

We both had paid teaching hours at the university.

We both had funding.

Money wasn't a problem.

We worked in different faculties.

We lived separately.

We saw each other a few times each week.

We had spare time.

I had days where I never spoke to you.

There was nothing wrong with our relationship.

We were plodding along.

[sound: distant rumbling of low flying aeroplane]

And then one day you came inside me.

[silence]

You ejaculated during sexual intercourse.

The words roll from my tongue.

It was quick.

You were quick.

~Do you remember?~

It shocked you.

It shocked me.

I asked you if it had happened.

I asked, did you?

And you nodded.

[sound: a laugh]

I could tell that you were shocked.

You couldn't find the words.

And I have never told you just how much your sperm excited me.

I have thought about it so many times after that day.

I have thought about it when I was alone.

When I needed a release.

~Yes I mean an orgasm!~

~Of course women need that kind of thing!~

And that thought made a trail of discharge onto my knickers.

I'd push my fingers down and over my soft hair.

I'd push my fingers inside me.

Until they were covered in my own juices.

And then that wetness made it easier for my fingers to work their movements.

And then I'd rub my clitoris.

To stimulate me.

Till I reached my climax.

And afterwards I would lick, suck and taste.

Hoping to experience your sperm.

[sound: sucking]

It's a natural thing.

Female masturbation.

It's a normal sexual act.

Sexual normality.

~What is it to be sexually normal?~

My lines are blurred.

I figure that normality would fall within the centre of your line.

~Is that right?~

And that the line should be Etchasketch straight.

~Is that right?~

~But what is the scale from there to there?~

~And what acts must I pass through from there to there?~

I don't have a ruler.

~How can I pinpoint the exact centre?~

I fear that my estimation may be slightly off.

~Should I use my fingers?~

[sound: unrecognisable sounds, possibly groans]

I had thirty-six hours.

I could have taken the morning-after pill.

I knew where to go and what to say.

The surgery on campus was always well stocked.

I could have gone.

Taken the pill.

Felt nauseous.

Probably thrown up.

And you'd never have known.

You'd probably not even have noticed.

But I didn't go.

i didn't think that there was a need.

I didn't think.

~I did think.~

I didn't think.

~I did think.~

I didn't think. I don't know.

[sound: banging wardrobe door]

~Oh stop shouting!~