Page 27 of What It's Like in Words
He said that the turtle looked more like a walkie-talkie and the whale looked more like a cat. I asked what he thought the one on the sand looked like, and he said: A scrotum.
All right, honey. Let’s get in the water!
I had a blue-and-green-striped kikoi tied to my bikini straps that I was nervous to take off. He had only seen me naked in the half light, and in the bleached day, he would see every dimple and stretch mark and scar. It’s not like he could leave if he didn’t like what he saw—we were here for the week—but, still, I didn’t want him to reallyseeme. We left our towels on the sand, and I let him walk in front of me to the water. We waded in until we could float. I gaspedas the water kissed my stomach, but the sensation didn’t faze him. He pulled me to him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He asked me if there were jellyfish. I told him that there were Portuguese men-of-war, and his whole body tightened.
Not this time of year, though…
I pressed my mouth to his shoulder; his skin tasted like sun cream. There were new bars and hotels on the shoreline. Turtle Bay must have been less developed in the nineties. Or maybe that was just how I remembered it; the way that those four years existed in my mind a private, unedited paradise.
Just don’t focus on it.
I asked if he fancied that local restaurant that Louise had suggested in her email. I wanted him to try maharagwe and mchicha. And apparently the coastal lot all eat this boiled soupy fish with sima? He made a face and said it sounded vile. I bit his neck, and he laughed.
He told me that I didn’t seem like someone who had grown up abroad. I asked what someone who had grown up abroad should seem like, and he said: Ruth?
Ruth’s different. She’s a proper international kid.
Army?
The opposite! Her parents are artists. Her dad’s a photographer and her mum’s a painter. Ruth spent the first ten years of her life in different countries. Her dad is Norwegian—
Ruth’s Norwegian?
I nodded. Colombian heritage—her dad was adopted. But Ruth was born in Norway. Her mum is half Scottish, so they lived in Glasgow for a while. And Canada for a year when her dad was doing a feature on indigenous communities.
Jesus.
Yeah. She’s been everywhere, but Kenya always felt like home to me.
How very colonial of you.
Talking about Ruth made me feel better. I could breathe easier with her name on my tongue. Then he asked about my dad’s work, but I didn’t know much about it. He asked what our life was like. I told him we were in Muthaiga and that we had a security man on the gate and a driver.
Did you have, like, a cook and staff?
We had an mpishi and yaya. That’s a cook and a nanny. And a house girl.
He made a noise like he wanted to continue the conversation, but it felt as if he was asking questions as research for a book and I didn’t want to think of my life like that. I dropped back and skimmed my arms over the water like I was making a snow angel. I just needed to connect… to find my breath… to be present. But he unhooked my legs, plunging me backward. The salt burned my nose. Stripped my throat.
You just waterboarded me!
I dived and yanked his trunks. He splashed me. I splashed him. And I was, to anyone watching from the new, unfamiliar buildings on the coastline, happy.
All right, I want a beer.
After swimming until our feet were pale and bloated, we heaved onto the sand as if coming off a moving walkway. As we walked to our towels, beads of water glistened on his calves. He had a triangle of hair on his lower back, and his shoulder blades were already tinged pink. I thought back to our first meeting; I never could have predicted who we would be to each other.
Oi, I said. Watch those trunks…
He turned to look over his shoulder, glanced left and right like a child crossing the street, and pulled down his trunks. I screamed, but he swung his hips so that his penis slapped against his thighs.
This may have been the place where I had my last family holiday, but it was also the place where we were having our first. Amy said that a holiday was a great test for a couple. I would take the trip howI took the relationship, moment by moment, fight by flight. It was only day one; it would get easier. Like having an old dream, unsettling at first, but then you realize that all it is, all it was, was a dream.
DAY 2
I woke not knowing where I was, and then I heard the waves. The breeze driving them blew through the window, and we inhaled seawater from our bed. He was sprawled, one leg under and one leg over the sheet. His face was crumpled, lips crushed on the cotton. I slipped through the netting so as not to wake him, and went through to the living room where the glass table still had on it our wineglasses and Scrabble board from after the restaurant. Already the holiday was starting to feel like it belonged to us and not to the past. I put the kettle on and walked onto the patio. I fished some insects from the pool and watched the boats on the horizon. My stomach felt full from last night’s spinach and grains, but it was settling,Iwas settling.
Why didn’t you wake me?
