Short Story - THE GATE by John Wheatley

 

She was awakened by the sound of the gate banging in the yard at the back, below. There was a filtering of thin light at the curtain, but it wasn`t time to get up yet. Her body was still heavy with tiredness, her eyes drowsy, laden with sleep. Only the sound of the gate, now banging again, made her aware of what had wakened her.

As she listened, it came again, a sharp metallic clack, and then, after a few seconds, a double knock, as if in a wayward gust of wind. At the same time, from somewhere down the alley, a dog barked.

She closed her eyes in annoyance and then opened them again. It must have been Paul who`d left it off the latch coming in through the yard last night on his way back from the pub. She heard his breathing now, not quite a snore, but the deep steady regular breathing of untroubled sleep; and she felt his back against hers.

The mattress dipped in the middle, causing, with his greater weight, a permanent slope on her side. When she got into bed at night, she tried to perch on the edge, where the mattress was supported by the bed-stead, just to have her own space, but it was impossible to stay like that all night. Whenever she tried to adjust her position, to be more comfortable, or when she moved in her sleep, she was drawn towards the middle, into his space, his territory.

Arriving back from the pub, he had wanted to watch the football, so she went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and to tidy a few things away.

“I want to be up early, tomorrow,” he called through. “Going fishing with Eric.”

“Right. What time?”

“Half seven.”

When she went back through, he was asleep in the armchair, but she knew if she changed the channel, it would wake him up, so she watched the last ten minutes of the football alone.

“I`ll get up then,” he said, at last.

“Right. I`ll not be long.”

The thing about Paul was that he`d somehow managed to slip into married life as if into a comfortable pair of slippers. He hadn`t changed any of his habits at all. Darts on Tuesdays, football training on Thursday, fishing on Sunday morning, and so on. Nor was it just the things he did with the lads; the way he had his food, his clothes, the way he set out his things in the bathroom: it was as if everything had to fall into a familiar pattern, a routine.

His mother had come round, one morning, for a cup of tea. “He always likes a cooked breakfast,” she said. “He`s like his dad in that respect, says it gets him off to a good start. And his Sunday dinner, but don`t give him lamb, he doesn`t like fatty meat.”

His mother was a jolly woman, bright and chirpy, but there was no doubt she was setting out a stall. She wondered if he`d been complaining. “No, course he hasn`t, love,” she replied, “but you know what men are like, they`re all fuss-pots!”

“You should speak up for yourself,” her own mother said. “You`re too soft.”

Perhaps she was right.

“Anyway,” her mother added, “I don`t know what you were expecting, it`s not all church bells and confetti, you know.”

She hadn`t expected that. The truth was she didn`t know what she`d expected, except that it wasn`t this.

It was not the obvious thing that bothered her. either. That at least was definite. She knew, now, how to tell the nights when it would happen, just as she knew, when his eyes became fierce with satisfaction, his face set in a kind of sneer, that it would soon be over. It happened. It didn`t last long. She was used to it now. It didn’t matter.

But it would be nice to have one night, one whole night when she could go to sleep without the feeling of setting her body against the shelving backward draw of the bed they shared.

For a time, the gate seemed to have stopped banging. How long had she been awake listening? Five minutes, ten, half an hour? She waited. For a while she heard only the wind, and a slight familiar rumbling of the sash-window in its casing. And then, just when she thought the gate must have become lodged, there came again the hard din of the metal hasp rapping against the fastening.

She sighed, and then edged quietly out of the bed.

Downstairs, the house was shadowy and silent. She went quickly into the kitchen, slipped on a pair of shoes, and took down her raincoat from behind the kitchen door. Then, almost as if she expected him to have followed her, she turned suddenly, and stood still, listening.

There was no sound. She looked across the empty kitchen back towards the foot of the stairs, and became aware, as she stood listening for his steps, of the mirror on the opposite wall, and of her own reflection, captured in an attitude of stealth.

Then she heard the gate banging again, out in the yard, much nearer now, and louder. She slipped on her coat, pulled it round her and unfastened the back door.

Outside, she glanced up at the surrounding windows. They were all curtained, silent, asleep. She went quickly down the yard, and closing the gate, pushed the bolt into place.

The wind was noisy above, in the wires and around the chimneys and roof-tops, but below, its currents were soft and mothy like warm breath. The dawn light was faintly tinged with yellow. She leaned for a moment against the gate and looked down the alley. In the distance, above the last line of houses on the hillside, where the moor started, the sky was deepening to orange, like an ominous dawn sun-set.

She looked again at the near houses, with their windows, as if she expected to catch someone`s eyes watching her, wondering what she was doing out there in the yard, standing there at this time of the morning. She ought to go in, of course, but it was pleasant, somehow, to be out in the yard, in the strange early morning light, on her own. She did not want to go back into the house yet.

Standing by the gate, with the wind picking out strands of her loose hair, she allowed herself to realise how deeply she yearned to escape and be free of him, free to be herself again. It wasn`t his fault. He hadn`t changed. He was strong enough not to change, and she couldn`t blame him, but what she now knew, what she had really learned was how impossible it was for one person ever to love another, and how foolish it had always been to think one could.

She looked again down the alley, over the roof-tops, towards the moor, where the sky was changing and darkening. The other thing, of course, was that running away, like love, was impossible and foolish. A daydream. Even if she had the courage, which she did not, there would be nowhere to go, no self to run back to.

From along the alley, in the other direction, came the sound of footsteps. She turned quickly and saw Eric, with his fishing-basket slung over his shoulder. She stepped back from the gate, intending to slip quickly into the house, but it was too late. He had already seen her.

“Is he up, then?”

“He wasn`t expecting you yet,” she said, reaching a hand to draw her coat closed at the neck.

 “No, I`m early,” said Eric folding his arms along the gate.  “It doesn`t look so good. Be raining soon. Thought we might get an hour in before it sets in.”

“He`s not up yet. I just came out to fasten the gate.” 

Eric nodded and grinned. “Happen he`s fond of his pillow,” he said, with a laugh.  She saw his glance move quickly to where she was holding her coat closed. Then their eyes met, and she understood the covert sly intention of his look. She wanted to blush and turn away, but she he held his look, coldly, and without flinching.

“Are you going to give him a shout, then?”

“He`s not been so well,” she said. “Bit of a cold. I think he`ll have to give it a miss today.”

Eric nodded. “Aye, all right,” he said at last. “Tell him I called anyroad. I`ll see him in the week if he`s fit.”

“I`ll tell him.”

She watched him move away from the gate, and on down the alley, and then she went back inside.

In the kitchen, she took off her coat, and turning, looked across the room, in the dim half-light, to the mirror on the opposite wall.

The reflection gave her back not herself but the strange woman whose body Paul came seeking, at night, in his own time, to heft, strange-eyed with greedy almost hostile desire, until his lust broke suddenly. She looked coldly and steadily at the woman in the reflection, until their eyes met. Then, slowly, she began to recognise herself.

“He said it was going to rain, anyway.”

“You should have given me a shout.”

“You forgot to lock the gate last night. You must have been tired. I thought you might like a lie-in.”

She sat on the bed beside him, leaning over. “You can still go after him if you want to catch him up.”

He did not answer.

When his hand touched her haunch, she sat up, and lifting her nightdress over her head, allowing him to look at her for a moment with his furtive little boy`s eyes, then slipped back into bed beside him, pulling the covers round to complete the warmth.

She knew what power she had to change him, undermine him if need be.

She intended to use it.