10 Enough (2/2)

'Like an animal.'

'Yes, sir, like an animal – cut up and cooked.'

He sat forward with a jolt, uncrossing his ankles. 'Cut . . . up . . . and cooked.'

'Three hundred and fifty seven pieces. Took a whole day to cut. And almost the whole of the next day to cook. Human flesh cooks slowly . . . What I did with the cooked pieces? I gave his pigs a feast . . . His parents? Poor things. They said I should have stopped him from going for a swim at night. I told them I couldn't have stopped him, since I was in pieces all over the floor from his beating, and he had stormed out . . . They had the Ughali River swept for his body . . . I wept up an ocean and drowned myself in the blackness of my mourning . . . They accepted their fate and buried an empty coffin . . . No, they know I can't kill my husband; they had been expecting him to kill me. . .' (then suddenly, as if remembering the pigs) '. . . The sty, I want to sell the sty! b.l.o.o.d.y pigs won't stop weeping at night! I can't sleep!'

* * *

As Ayu listened to the clatter of typing in the outer room – Abigail's fine murdering fingers beating the typewriter's keys furiously – the pieces of the story fell about in his mind, littering his thoughts. He picked up his pen, lit a cigarette and began to put these gory pieces

together on a new page. A new novel! His opening . . .

* * *

He smoked and wrote. She typed and cleaned.

They made odd bits of warm conversation and heated love often.

She did not want anything more; no love, no promises, no colours.

Nothing.

This was enough. This blur.

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