S T Vasectomy Clinic - 15

He continued with his walk, through a small patch of beech woods with his head down and his hands in the pockets of his itchy tweed coat. It was mid autumn and the mornings were cool but during the middle of the day summer returned and took over. St John enjoyed the changing colours in the hedgerows, the coppery tones of beech and the vivid carmine dogwoods. In mid winter he admired the soft purples in the sleepy landscape and promised himself that one day he would take up painting and capture it all. He’d be good at it too since he was so good at everything else.

In the early years of their relationship Cece and St John had shared their love of nature. They had enjoyed long hikes together and holidays in the countryside and this mutual admiration for the natural world deepened their bond. For some reason Cece had apparently lost interest in this pastime, she complained about the mud and the weather and became adverse to the mucky unpredictability of the countryside. Instead she spent more and more time in the confines of their expansive garden at The Driffold, brutalising the flowering shrubs and applying an exhausting zero tolerance approach to weeds. 

St John had grown used to taking his walks alone, he came to enjoy spending time without her, lost in his own thoughts and would definitely not welcome her company now. There was something about the physical act of walking which allowed his mind to wander into wild unexplored territories. 

In his wife’s attendance his thoughts would be suppressed by duty and guilt, perceptions of loyalty. Indeed if his imagination did stray outside of safe areas, his body language would betray him and Cece would be quick to detect this and respond by asking him what he was thinking about. Of course he could only respond with something flimsy, “Oh nothing”, and if she attempted to drill into him he would make something up about work but his delivery was always watery and she would know he was lying, thus dividing their relationship further.

By the time he arrived back at the house, Cece had made a start on Sunday dinner, roast lamb for her husband and something healthy for herself; she followed the diet of a Lowland Gorilla, fruits, nuts, roots, spices and herbs. It was a diet that she had initially forced upon herself and then become accustomed too, consequently she found modern processed food disagreeable. She believed this diet would keep her physically youthful and mentally calm and would help prevent weight gain and hair loss, two things she was phobic about. 

The kitchen was full of peelings, open jars and packets. Cece wasn’t there though, she was upstairs in the baby’s room, sitting, frowning and smiling at the same time. St John had half expected her to be up there, he had no way of knowing for sure except for a solid gut feeling which was rarely wrong. He went to the bottom of the staircase, laid his hand on the bannister and looked up, after a few seconds he opened his mouth to shout some meaningless greeting but then tapped the bannister instead and walked away with a deep sigh.

The fire was lit in the sitting room, he sat on the sofa, put his feet up and rifled through the Sunday newspapers hoping for some escapism but he quickly grew tired, for they were filled only with smug nonsense. St John was a realist, he had the ability to see right into the centre of a problem, he couldn’t always provide a solution but he was absolutely honest with himself about the presence of flaws. His mind returned to his family situation, his unhappiness. In his wife he saw a gulf in the mismatch between her expectations and the reality of parenthood. 

He had given the subject a lot of thought and decided that for Cece the prospect of a newborn baby represented an idea rather than a real, living and totally dependent human being. The idea of a pristine new start. Medical school had taught St John that human life is rarely pristine. He worried that the baby might have some health problems, it might have a birth defect or even some large unsightly birthmark. Cece, having not experienced the traumas of pregnancy and labour might view their baby in the same way as a shop bought item, she might want to return it should it have some imperfection.

It was so hard to talk to her these days. Things had gone unsaid for a long time and unsaid words form an impenetrable crust over time which becomes more and more difficult to break. They had reached a stage where the crust weighted them both down and it came between them physically too, in the form of a rough scratchy surface which brushed against them and caused them to cringe when they got too close to each other. 

Cece walked slowly down the stairs, she was dressed in her lycra exercise outfit and looked healthy and impossibly young, especially from behind, she looked no more than thirty. St John sometimes tried to persuade himself that he was still in love with her, occasionally he convinced himself for a few seconds but then her voice, her body language tore the notion up. Lately there was something about the way she smelled too, beyond the perfume and body lotions there was a natural smell, something hormonal which St John detected. It was as if her pH had lowered, she was turning sour, he didn’t like it because it betrayed not only her age and diminishing fertility but also her state of mind, acerbic and unforgiving.

She ignored the presence of her husband in the sitting room, he just caught sight of her small backside twisting in the hallway before she headed straight to the kitchen to check on the lamb in the oven. He heard the blast of air from the fan and cursed her under his breath, “She’s cooked it with that bloody fan on again and dried it out to a bunch of old twine probably.”

‘I think this looks ready St John, do you want to come and carve it?’ She yelled.

He tidied the papers and placed them neatly on the coffee table and walked slowly to the kitchen to join her. ‘Looks dried out,’ he said, grabbing hold of a tea towel and the long carving knife.

‘What’s dried out?’

St John’s eyes widened. ‘Everything’ he laughed, ‘you and the lamb!’ He noticed the furious expression on his wife’s face and quickly added, ‘And me.’

She sensed his mood, dark, unbridled nastiness and she turned her back to him, gathering the components of her dinner onto a tray; salad, fruit, Brazil nuts, turmeric roasted pepper, avocado, a glass of red wine. ‘Your egg’s there, it was a bad peeler, it’s a mess I’m afraid. I’ll see you in the dining room.’

He pushed the boiled egg, what was left of it, whole into his mouth, it was dry inside and littered with shards of crunchy shell, it absorbed all of his saliva, making him feel parched and angry. He banged around in the kitchen, slamming down forks and plates, there was no mint sauce so he headed out to the garden, leaving the patio door ajar, with his cheeks full of crumbled egg white he pulled up a few stems of mint. Back in the kitchen he bludgeoned it with a meat tenderiser and scraped it into a bowl, squirted on some malt vinegar. The smell reminded him of his mother.

The light was so gloomy in the dining room. Cece wasn’t keen to look at her husband while she ate so she hadn’t put on the lamp, candles were no longer appropriate for their relationship, plus she wanted to enjoy what was left of the daylight. She was already eating as St John entered the room with his plate of food. 

‘I see you’ve started without me. Next time I’ll cook it myself, shall I Cece?’

‘You’re quite welcome to. If you think I’m messing about with roast dinner when our baby gets here you’re very much mistaken.’

St John looked very old suddenly and he plonked down at the table. He looks just like an ageing reptile, thought Cece, his thick swarthy complexion which she had adored when he was younger had developed a furrowed, bloodless, almost corpse-like quality and she pitied him, just for a second. The mention of the baby made him feel impossibly tired, listless and choked up with apprehension. It was the way she said, “gets here”, she made it sound as if the baby was being transported through the air like an unstoppable missile and that somebody might shout, ‘incoming’ and it would land in their lives, obliterating known civilisation and changing the landscape of everything.