I've Dreamed About Buying A Gun

I told Della about the gun.

"You'd be better off with a dishwasher," she said.

Since he died I've dreamed about buying a gun.

I looked at dishwashers in the Electricity Showroom.

"They're so easy, so convenient," the sales assistant said. With their
soft-opening stay-where you-put-them doors; the inner racks on
soundless rollers.

"They're quiet," the sales assistant said. "And they'll wash your
dishes beautifully while you're asleep. Because there is this button
..." The sales assistant pointed to the button. With a flourish. Like
she'd invented it.

Since he died I've been killing myself. Driving fast without a
seatbelt. Smoking. Drinking gin.

"I can't afford a dishwasher," I said. "I'm saving for a gun. And I
patted my hip where I'd hang a pouch of gunpowder.

"Well," said the assistant. Rubbing palms together. Eyes leaking off to
where a couple where considering fridges.

"I've no need for a dishwasher now," I tell Della. "The amount of
dishes I make." On my own.

Della is on her exercise bike.
"I imagine I am cycling somewhere," she says.

"Where, Della?"

"Oh, anywhere. It's usually hills. Green fields. The country, you
know."

I know the country. Wasn't I brought up there? In the country. In the
village. Didn't I ride the lanes on a real bike? Ride really? It was
the only way to get anywhere. Haven't I wriggled into the earth into
underground dens?

"I know the country," I tell Della. And Della says, "I know you do."
She's doing a counselling course at the University Centre.
She's always telling me about her modules.

His death had been sudden. Unexpected. Premature.

Della is still cycling. She is filmed with sweat.
"You should go on a course. What do you fancy? There are some that are
not TOO taxing. Next term she is doing a new module: Bereavement
Counselling.

"It's a pity you didn't do it last term," I tell her.

"Never mind," says Della. "You'll still be grieving. I can catch up
with you."

I decided to buy a gun but didn't know how to go about it. No Which?
guide. No Which Weapon?

"I've been reading for Bereavement next term," Della says. I'm sure she
has. Della is a good student. I've seen her through the patio door,
cycling to nowhere, a book balanced on the handlebars.

"There are distinct phases," she says, "I can't remember them all, in
order, but I think there's denial and anger."

What about relief?

"I can't remember the other one. Guilt, maybe."

It's a good guess guilt. It could come into anything. And does. But
denial is more interesting.

"I've just read an article on denial," I tell Della.

"Ooh," says Della wiping her upper lip with her wrist sweatband. It
surprises Della that I read anything. Oh you'd be surprised Della.
You'd say Ooooh.

"Yes," I say. "The thirteenth century etymological root is 'saying no
to'."

"So, you're saying no to a death?" Della is thinking. And I'm thinking:
Not that it does you any good. 'No I don't want my
father/mother/partner/child (delete where applicable) to die.' It would
be disastrous for the insurance business.

Della's Peter is in insurance. 'A mere claims clerk' he says but with a
glitter to his eyeballs that makes my skin caterpillar up and down me.
He's a man with delusions. Thinks he's really a spy or double agent;
that each fire damaged curtain or stolen bicycle is code for
International Skulduggery.

"If I owned a gun, Peter," I asked him once, "would my premiums go up?"
But Peter didn't know.

"I shouldn't think so," he blustered. "Anyway how would they know? It
isn't exactly on the form next to smoking, height and weight."

"How can they tell you are a smoker?" I asked. "Do they sniff your
application form? What if it had last been handled by a postal worker
recently back from a fag break in the yard?"

Peter looked uncomfortable. "Do you own a gun?" He asked.

"I'm saving up for one." I told him and Peter invented a job in the
shed that simply had to be done.

Della is still cycling. "I'm heading for the city now," she says.
"Sheffield," she says. "I need something arduous. Sheffield's hard as
cities go."

"Built on seven hills, like Rome," I tell her.

"I'd be better of in Norwich," Della says, breathing hard.

Sheffield, where I might have gone to college if I'd got the grades. I
don't tell Della that.

"For a city," I tell Della, "it's very green. The most parks per capita
in Europe."

"Really?" says Della. People are often surprised.

"And a dry ski slope," I tell her. "Though dry is a misnomer, Della," I
say.

He was such a fit man. So young. His eating moderate. His drinking
recreational. He always drove with care. No mad overtaking.
Della is slowing, puffing.

"Where to now?"

"I'm in Holland," she says. "I go to Holland when I get knackered. It's
good and flat."

Della doesn't have an adjusting knob that makes pedalling harder,
easier, middling. She changes it in her head.

"Are you calling in at Amsterdam?"

"No," she says. "It's all bridges and hash cafes and red light
districts," she says.

I was going to Amsterdam once. With him. Before he died. I didn't want
to. I don't like to travel. I'm lazy, would rather stay at home with
comforts and not have to unpack. I couldn't decide what he wanted to go
for.

"You can hire a bike for fourteen guilders a day," he'd said. I
wouldn't have touched drugs. Then. Walking through red light districts
would have upset me. And I think: so much I have wanted a gun; wanted
to load it like a musket, tamp it down. To shoot.

"They have women in shop windows, naked," I tell Della. "Displayed like
fruit. To buy."

"Oh I know," she says. "Peter went there on a stag weekend once. Of
course he had to go around with the others, although he didn't like
it."

Much. I am thinking of his glittery, deluded, spy-eyeballs zigzagging
across the shop fronts.

Then I have an image of thin red metal folded into mountains and
valleys, concertinaed, shearing. Smoke running up into the air and
petrol, like gin, hurrying across tarmac.

"I've decided not to buy a gun," I say to Della.

"Really?" says Della.

"Yes, I'd like to do a course."

"Really?" says Della. The cycling stops.

"I'll start with something that is not too taxing."

"I know just the thing," says Della. "Just the thing."

(this story was first published in "The Nerve - The 1998 Virago Book of
Writing Women.")