Nest

A short story

Anna and Steve weren’t unhappy but they weren’t happy either.
Sometimes When Anna spoke, Steve didn’t listen, and sometimes when Steve told Anna about his day, she found herself studying the patterns in the carpet or replaying conversations she’d had with friends.  Sometimes when Anna talked about her mother, Steve would sigh and roll his eyes before she’d even started, and sometimes when Steve made that clicking sound with his jaw, she wanted to cave his fucking head in.

Anna and Steve were fine though. Everyone said so. They were always together, they still held hands when they went to the shops and at gatherings. When the conversation bored them, they would playfully kick each other beneath the table.  ‘Jesus, this is unbearable.’ Steve’s toe would say.
‘I know, right!’ Anna would reply with a poke of her heel.
Their secret language was never discussed, but both understood it well. In public, a hand on the lower back was offered as an apology for matters not to be discussed, and a gentle squeeze of the arm, told the other it was time to leave whatever conversation the couple found themselves trapped in.  Outside they rallied against the world, talking more amongst others than they ever did when they were alone but somehow that tether broke as soon as eyes weren’t on them. At home they were drifting satellites. The distance unfathomable.

---

It was a hot day when Steve told her about the tongue. He was out of the shower and getting dressed. Steve gently pinched the fat of his waistline in the bedroom mirror and frowned until the creases on his forehead were deep and heavy.
Today he felt like he was doing alright though. Not half as bad as some of the people his age.

“Did you see Mary in the paper?” he said, checking his hairline. “I left it on the table.”

Anna hadn’t but when she looked for it on the table, the paper wasn’t there.

“Shit,” Steve sighed. “I must’ve thrown it out.”

He gurned and checked his teeth, inspecting his gums and the inside of his mouth. His jaw clicked and clacked with each movement and when he looked across, Anna was standing in the doorway with a wearied grimace on her face.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

Steve thought she meant the gurning.
“Gum disease,” he said. “We should floss. I was reading about it.”
And his jaw clacked.

“How can you not remember throwing the paper out?”

Steve shrugged. He forgot things. It was no big deal. Busy day at work. Plenty more important things to think about.

“Mary was in the paper,” he said, bringing the conversation back round. “She found a piece of tongue in her beans.”

“Tongue?”

“Yeah, in a tin of baked beans. She poured them out and there was this lump. Police think it’s human.”

“That’s disgusting.”

Steve nodded. “Bet she’ll get a nice payout from that. They have all the luck.”
And he pulled on his trousers.

---

Later that evening Anna was thinking about the tongue. She wondered if there’d been a photo in article. It must’ve only been a bit of tongue, surely. Tongues are huge.  If it was a whole tongue, there wouldn’t be any room for beans.
If Anna found a tongue in her beans, she probably wouldn’t kick up a stink. Certainly not enough to get the papers involved.
Steve would though, he’d go around telling everyone.

It was roasting hot in the flat. The windows were open but no breeze stirred through the city, everything felt sluggish and the air was thick, and treacled. Steve was sat at the side table and had a bag of frozen peas draped across the back of his neck, hunched as he typed on his laptop with a rhythmic stutter that set Anna’s teeth on edge.

“Noises are weird, aren’t they ?” she said, and Steve grunted the way he did when he wasn’t paying attention.

Anna turned her attention back to the open window and the windows beyond. The high rise flats opposite had all its eyes open - Any orifice that could allow ventilation was propped wide, as the creatures within; shirtless and wilting, stifled on against the heat. Sick with sweat.

Anna thought about the tin of beans again.

When she looked back at Steve he was standing on his chair with his head tilted back, staring up at the ceiling.
“Steve!” she snapped. “The peas are soaking into the table cloth!”
And she ran over to put them on kitchen counter.
Steve didn’t seem to notice though. “There’s a hole,” he said, pressing his hands against the ceiling. “Can you see?”

Of course she could see. She’d told him about it at least three times in the last week. Steve was on his toe tips now, peering into the dark crevice above him.
“I can see light,” he said, trying to get closer. “Get me something to stand on.”

Anna told him he was making a fuss about nothing but brought him three of the encyclopedias no one had ever read from the front room, and she watched with a frown as he put his trainers all over them.

“I can see something…,” he strained, pushing his face up against the Artex. “There’s someone up there.”

“Is it the Connells?” she replied. “I think their living room is above ours.”

Steve didn’t respond though, he just squashed his face to the ceiling and let his mouth hang open the way he did when he was concentrating. He seemed to stay like that for almost a minute.

“What is it?” Anna asked. “Is it the Connells? Can you see them?”

Steve stepped down off the books and looked troubled. “You should look yourself,” he said.

So Anna clambered up to take his place. She pressed her hands against the ceiling and peered up at the tiny coin of light above her. She stretched up on her tiptoes and pressed her face against the Artex, until she could see into the room beyond.

“Can you see?” Steve asked.
And she could.

Anna could see everything. She could see the room and the furniture; the sofa and side tables, the plant pots and picture frames. She could even see the TV they got from Argos five years ago and the coffee table with the wobbly leg. She stared down into this little shoebox-world beneath her and felt her pulse quicken. There were people in there: a couple. Not unhappy but not happy either. She saw them shuffling in and out of time, rattling like tiny bobbins about their lives. Sometimes they held hands, connected briefly but they rarely spoke, and when they did, it was often about nothing the other wanted to hear. She watched them move in, put plants on windowsills, buy encyclopedias no one would ever read. She watched as they fought for two days about the Ford Granada Steve had driven into a fence post, and fucked once or twice on the chaise lounge Anna had received as a wedding gift from her mother. These fleeting moments were the highlights of their interactions.
Over time, their energy dissipated and their light faded. Now the couple barely moved. They ate in silence, watching TV whilst staring into their mobile phones. Some days they barely looked at each other. Nothing was said. Their lives; a lottery scratchcard that always showed the same result.
Almost. Not quite.

Anna’s hands fell leaden at her side and by the time she peeled herself away from the hole, her tears were hot and streaked her cheeks.

“Let me see,” Steve said, and she stepped aside without a word as he clambered back onto the chair.

Fourteen years, Anna thought and she stared for a long time at the wet patch the peas had left on the tablecloth. She imagined Mary, pouring out her beans in the morning. The viscous plop of a human tongue sliding out onto her toast.
Foreign bodies in familiar places.

“Do you see it?” she asked, wiping the tears from her face.

But Steve didn’t respond.
He just pressed his face against the plaster.

“Steve?”

All at once, Anna felt terribly alone.
She moved closer and gently squeezed his arm.

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