12th May Cont...
I switch off the shower, wrap a towel around my body. The silence is pure. No footsteps, no brush strokes, no kettle boiling or knife scraping on the canvas. What can I hear? Birds singing outside, the soft crumble of waves on the shore, a dog barking in the distance. That's it.
You must have gone, and much as I thought that would be for the best, somehow I am doubled over, staring at the floor, as if life has punctured my stomach and the air has escaped in one thudding note.
'Lilah?' Your voice carries around the bathroom. 'What is it? Did you hurt yourself?'
'I thought you'd gone,' I gasp.
'Gone? Me? Why would I go? It's me and you, it's always going to be me and you now.'
I straighten up, look directly at you and say, 'My name is Elizabeth. I am not Deborah, not Lilah, I'm not an artist or a poet, I don't know what I am.' Tears replace the shower water on my face. I sound broken. In this moment, when I should feel more me than ever before, I can't remember who I was. The footing on my life is lost. I've been running for so long that I haven't had time to grow or heal or any of those things I see other women doing, I am an empty vessel - I am the thing I've been denying.
My eyes are on yours, searching for something, not knowing what it is I need from you.
Your face is like a mask as you say, 'You may not be called Lilah, but you're still my little pet, my partner, my everything. You may not be an artist but you are a poet. How can you say you haven't been growing? That's all you've been doing since I met you. You've grown into your own idea of what a woman should be, what a poet should be. You've learnt how to love in a way most won't understand. You do know who you are, you are mine. The same way I am yours.'
I stare back at you. I have no idea how to respond, all my words float on the ocean of need that I feel for you.
I fall into your arms, holding you closer than skin, and I hear myself saying, 'Say my name...please.'
'Elizabeth,' you say and a sob breaks from my mouth. You lift me, carrying me from the bathroom, back to the bed, repeating over and over again, 'Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, my Elizabeth.'
We lay together on the bed. My tears dry as my head rests on your chest. I listen to the smoke you inhale circling around your lungs and then being expelled back out of your body.
'Mac?'
'Yeah?'
'I'm not Elizabeth anymore. I'm happy being Lilah. Of all the names I've been, and all the lives I've lived, this is my favourite.'
'You going to stay Lilah?' I hear the question under the question. Know you're not just asking me if I'm going to keep this name.
'Yes. I'm going to stay Lilah.'
'Good,' you say, and I hear the smile in your tone. 'Elizabeth doesn't suit you anyway. Now we need to get out of here Lilah.'
'Run?'
'No,' you laugh, 'We need a drink, a change of scenery, something to eat. Change of perspective. Then we can think about wether we run or not. Right now no-one knows who you are. If we run questions will be asked. If we hold our nerve we can move when the time is right.'
I need to know who you work for, I want to ask the question, but somehow it's lodged in my throat.
'Ask me,' you say.
'What?'
'Whatever it is that's running through your mind right now. Ask me.'
'Who do you work for?' I say it so quietly that I wonder if you've heard me.
You take another long, deep drag on your cigarette and say, 'It's complicated.'
I snort at that, and say, 'Of course it's is.'
'No, I mean it. Sometimes I'm not even sure who I work for.'
'But you're not an artist?'
'I am an artist. But being an artist in San Fran doesn't pay the rent.'
I'm quiet for a long time, the other question fighting to come out of my mouth so hard that in the end it explodes, 'Do you have a family?'
You sit up in surprise, lifting my head along with you. We sit on the bed facing each other, your eyes are wide as you say, 'No. I'm not like you. I wasn't born into this, I fell into it. Started earning decent money for the first time in my life, and thought, fuck it. There's no other way I'm going to be able to spend most days painting. I promise you, I'm not from a family, I'm not your enemy.'
I hold my hands up in front of me and say, 'That's not what I meant, Mac.'
'No? What did you mean?'
'I meant, do you have an actual family? Are you married... with kids? Is that where you disappear to? Is that why you can't call me?'
'What,' you splutter, 'No. No, little pet, I don't have a family, I don't have kids. I only have you...and my work...and my art.'
My face breaks into a grin, yours follows it, and then your grin is on my grin, and we're kissing and laughing and rolling around on the bed, like two puppies play fighting. I wrap my legs around your waist and you stand from the bed, lifting me with you, then deposit me back on my feet.
'We're going out. We need to eat, and I would rather die of starvation than eat one more of your damn omelettes.'