"We walk north"

Just for a change, we decided to meet in the morning to go swimming in the Lido. Hector kept on about losing weight – said he’d try anything – so we spoke long about the theoretical practise of regular exercise as we walked through the broken up fields near the back of his house. We bumped up against the offer when his mum came home from work. She stood by the kitchen door, picking paint chips off the wall, and suggested it casually. He was surly, warm and closed when his yesses got terser and terser and my enthusiasm faltered. I had my eyes half-shut when I stood up to leave.

His silence when we were walking was built on preoccupation. It wasn’t strained but hung still, unafraid but awkward between us as we slowly swung our things on the long walk up. “Pretty weird, swimming outside in the middle of London”, I said at one point, one eye on an arguing couple on the other side of the road. His irritation was surprising, though mute and wavering. “Mmmm”, was all he had said, but it was pursed and blank and distant and I blanched inwardly, accepted, forgot.

My unease had dampened considerably by the time we got there and I danced into the changing rooms with the funny awkwardness of regular irregularity. We came out of our respective changing rooms at the same time and I caught sight of him standing with his shoulders poised fierce and upright. The rubber realness of his body…..I saw him and felt all of it. The socket punch to our love and closeness, his excruciating self-awareness, the drops of rainfall on his hotdog mouth and on my frizzy hair.