Lip Service
by William Orr-Ewing.
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Richard sat alone at the back of a café, studying his reflection in the window opposite. ‘My lips look like a worm’, he thought to himself, ‘the two halves of a dead little worm.’ He tried to remove the dry skin that curled on his lips in tiny commas; he ruffled his hair to make it look fun and carefree.
‘C’mon,’ he said to himself, encouragingly.
Soon she arrived, full of smiles, and laid a brown tartan scarf on the table. Richard rose to hug her as she sat down.
‘Luce…’ he smiled.
‘Oh Rich,’ she giggled, standing again and planting a warm peck on his cheek.
Richard let out a laugh that sounded like a sigh. He motioned over to the counter. ‘Coffee?’
Lucy nodded her head enthusiastically. ‘Yes please.’
At the queue, Richard stood rocking backwards and forwards and looked back at her. She had removed a pair of brown gloves, and her fragile, porcelain hands peaked out from the sleeves of a soft, caramel jumper that needed tying at the waist. Her hands looked white and wintry.
Was it just the cosiness of a café on a winter’s evening or did she look like a student already? There seemed a new sophistication in the way she cupped her hands and blew warm air into them. He imagined her with an open file on her hunched-up knees; with coffee-stained papers spread messily on the table; with an enigmatic, bespectacled young man, talking about poetry. He lowered his head at the thought, and picked glumly at his lips. His eyes had drifted lazily out of focus. When they sharpened, he saw her looking at him: intently at first, then with a quizzical smile. He smiled back before he was jolted by the voice of the woman behind the counter. He ordered two coffees and a small jug of milk.
They sat facing each other on two low chairs. Lucy’s eyes looked at him expectantly, and made him pause. Richard tested the water.
‘You must be so excited’ he said, unconvincingly.
Lucy smiled weakly, showing her dimples, ‘I am. I am. But it’s such a long way away, Rich.’
Richard frowned. ‘London to Oxford…’ he said, ‘only a few hours…’
She cast her eyes so low, ‘I’m not sure if I want to leave yet…’
Then she raised her head and looked at Richard. She shifted in her seat, opening her body a little to him, inviting some action on his part. He in turn seemed primed like a spring, as if all the nerves in his body were straining – to take her hand, to reach for her knee – but that something was pinning him down. He moved forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He opened his mouth as if to speak, stopped himself, then shifted back into his chair.
‘So how’s Camilla gonna cope without you?’ he asked, wide-eyed with a small laugh. She sighed.
He had digressed. From that moment, conversation was quite easy really. They found themselves talking unthreateningly, on topics ranging far and wide. He asked her about her preparations for university, he told her stories about the people at his temporary job, he discussed mutual friends. And she…well if charm, as her mother so often reminded her, was only the ability to listen – and to do so appreciatively – then Lucy possessed great amounts of it. She asked interested questions of her own; she laughed at all Richard’s jokes (it was one of those laughs that start silently, with just a nodding of the head and shoulders, but it broke into the sweetest of giggles); she showed – when appropriate – friendly sympathy to his stories.
Only once did this state of affairs seem in danger, when Richard stopped in the middle of a story to tell her that he had finally read The Bell Jar. Their timid souls had both picked out the same line: the one expressing the desire to hide – warm, curled up and safe – between the lines of a favourite book. At that moment she was leant on her knees, and she looked up to find his eyes. She twitched her button nose; it was a habit which made people describe her as ‘mousy’. They paused, smiling at the coincidence, and both – again – seemed on the point of saying something more. But the chance slipped away.
***
Slowly then, as evening began to show itself through the window, a hint of weariness seemed to emerge on Lucy’s face. Richard sensed it but no matter how much enthusiasm he mustered, or affection he implied, what could he do to rectify it? She had made up her mind. She yawned, and Richard admired – perhaps, he thought, for the last time – her pink, perfectly clean kitten’s mouth that lay beyond her lips. It gave him butterflies, and he picked again at his lips. Now or never, he thought.
Just as the words were forming in his head, Lucy got a phone call. She looked at the screen and answered,
‘Yes – giggle – yes. Uh…um…’ she said, frowning, raising her eyes to Richard, ‘it’s okay. Yes. Yes. I’ll tell you later, okay? Okay. Lots of love Cam…’ She put the phone back in her bag and turned to Richard. ‘Rich, I think I’ve gotta go. I said I’d meet Camilla.’ She added, shrugging in explanation: ‘She wants to go out tonight. Sort of a send off…’
‘No, wait,’ Richard said, too eagerly. He held his expression still, biting his lower lip. ‘C’mon, one more drink,’ he said, holding up his index finger, ‘as a send off…’
He looked back at her again from the queue, this time with his heart thudding in his chest. He picked his lips more intently, more violently.
When he returned, she looked even more resigned. She was fidgety and drank her coffee swiftly in long sips. Richard couldn’t begin; the little half phrases in his head sounded foolish, inappropriate. He became aware of the silence.
‘So where do you reckon you’ll go tonight?’ She took a glug of her drink, shrugged, and murmured something about following Camilla. She was nearing the end of her drink, and it became like an hourglass to him: every time she put it down, his time with her ebbed further away.
As she drank, Richard started to nibble – more and more – at his lip. Feeling a small patch of dead skin still there, he picked at it too. With the smallest fragment of skin, square in shape, between his thumb and forefinger, he gave a more forceful jerk. He felt a fleeting jab but it barely registered now. He certainly didn’t notice – as Lucy did – the red rip he had made right across his lower lip.
The blood seeped out slowly at first. But it grew, and amassed in a pool in the very centre of his lip, before breaking out along the entire right side of his mouth. Overflowing the ridge of his lip, a small but distinct dribble of blood the rich crimson colour of melted wax cascaded in a straight constant line towards his chin as if down the spine of a candle. Here it pooled again, just for a moment, on the mound. Then, as though with determined effort, the blood rose and flowed on. It quavered, for a fraction of a second, right on the bottom of Richard’s chin, catching majestically the harsh beam of the café’s bright lights, then dropped, the shape of a near-perfect teardrop, into the jug of milk. It was only at this moment that Richard became aware of the wet sensation around his lips, and he stared – puzzled –, his heart beating, into the jug.
Like that first dash of cream into black coffee, the deep crimson red of the blood began to swirl upward and blend with the whiteness of the milk. For a moment it resembled exactly the red Viennese twirl on those white Italian sweets, before fading to the blank white of the milk.
Richard raised his wide eyes to Lucy. She was staring at the jug herself but when she noticed Richard’s attention, she lowered her eyes. Richard looked straight at her; he narrowed his eyes occasionally but did not avert them once. He made no effort to wipe away the blood which still teemed like red beads of sweat from his lower lip. After ten long seconds, Lucy gave up and raised her hazel eyes cautiously.
‘Richard?’
In one swift movement, Richard pushed off towards Camilla and pressed his lips forcibly, awkwardly onto hers. Camilla pulled back frightened, her lips an even more vibrant red and her chin and neck smeared messily with blood. They stood looking at each other, Richard’s shoulders still heaving. Lucy looked like a panicked ivory doll. But slowly her smile returned, and then she started her laugh – just her silent nodding of the head, which broke into the sweetest of giggles. She picked up her scarf and used it to wipe Richard’s mouth clean. Then she gave it to him, and he – in turn – cleaned her.
©2005 By William Orr-Ewing