The Earring

By Janet Baldey

It’s just a cheap enamel earring.   An orange flower on a thin chain, but it’s pretty and when it had its mate, it was her favourite.   The second her eyes open it’s the first things she sees, glowing like polished copper against the grey morning light and looking lonely, hanging on a hook all by itself.  A sole earring is no use to anyone of course, and she should throw it out but she can’t bring herself to do that.   To her, it’s a symbol.  It reminds her of the joy of love and the pain of loss but also of hope and when that goes perhaps despair will take its place.

         It was a leaden, late January Wednesday, outside, the clouds spat rain and the windows were decorated with pearly beads.   But it was cosy in his bed, where they’d spent most of the afternoon.  Underneath the duvet she’d melted into him, her troubles forgotten, lost in the release only he could give her.  At last, all passion spent, he’d lifted his body and kneeled beside her.  His face was flushed, his eyes were tender and her heart throbbed with happiness as he grinned and winked.

         ‘Tea Madam?’

 With one swift movement he jumped out of bed,  his pale buttocks gleaming as he padded out of the bedroom door and ran, stark naked, down the stairs.  With a sigh, she stretched like a cat, luxuriating as she listened to him talking to himself.  It was a habit of his and she knew he was already composing phrases inside his head.

 

         As she dressed, she wondered where they’d spend the evening.  It always varied. If he had a deadline, they’d both write, he, on his article and she, on her novel.   Separate but together, they would compare notes afterwards, reading their work out loud.   If feeling flush, he might take her out for a meal.  The White Horse was their favourite and maybe their special table would be free.   Tucked into an alcove it was both secluded and with a wide view of the restaurant so they could see without being seen.  Or maybe, they’d go to another pub where, upstairs in a room watched over by skeletons, they’d mingle with like minded friends.     

It was only later, back home and getting ready for bed that she noticed her earring was missing.   With a small hiss of annoyance she searched her clothes and then the floor but all she found was dust.   She cast her mind back, she couldn’t quite remember but was sure she’d been wearing both of them when they’d made love earlier on.    

The next day, she sent him a message.   ‘Lost my earring – is it with you?’   

‘Got it’ was the reply ‘It’s by the side of my bed.   You’re going to have to come and get it!’      

The bald type was no disguise and innuendo shone through the words.     

   But soon afterwards, her circumstances changed and their magic Wednesdays vanished like sun vaporised morning mist.  Now, they could manage only a few snatched meetings, unsatisfying to both and she sensed a rift widening. She knew his reputation.  He’d made no secret of it and on first counting up the numbers, she’d gasped.  

‘My god!  You go through women like a knife through butter – I didn’t realise you were such a love rat!’ 

‘I’m not.  Not really. I’m more of a love hamster.’  

 She’d laughed then, but at the time she hadn’t realised that hamsters have such very sharp teeth.   As the years passed she’d grown complacent, thinking that each one strengthened their bond, but ever so gradually, the text messages dwindled.   At last, goaded by insecurity, she asked the question. 

‘Do you want to end it?’   She was certain of the answer.  It would be, as it had been so many times before,     

‘Oh, God…no.’     

Instead, he sat slumped in his chair, staring at the floor and afterwards, she wished for a knife to cut out her tongue. 

‘You do, don’t you?’       

The brittle silence that followed was broken by a harsh sound coming from her own throat.     

‘Is there someone else?’ 

‘No’, he muttered, ‘no, there isn’t’.  Rising, he took her in his arms and held her as tears rained down her face. 

         Just before he left, she went into the bedroom and fished out a sweater from inside a drawer.

‘Before you go, you might as well take this. And don’t forget my earring?’
        

He looked at her and for a moment his face went blank.    

‘Do I have to?  I’ll miss it.  It looks good hanging beside my bed.  Let me keep it.  I’ll buy you another pair.’     

Her heart leaped but she didn’t let it show, instead she hardened her voice.

‘Why on earth would you want it?   As a trophy?’           

‘No…no.  Never…..  I promise.’        

She stared at him, not knowing whether to believe. She remembered occasions when she’d come across a necklace, a lipstick and yet another earring that she’d found down the side of his sofa.         

‘Must be my daughter’s.’ He’d said airily when she commented on them.      

She never got her earring back, or its replacement, and over the weeks felt comforted.   She liked to think of it hanging from his lampshade, light reflecting its tangerine shadow on his wall.   Most of all, she liked to think it was a part of her and if he wanted that, maybe he might want the rest one day.

But then summer came and heat shrivelled her hope.  She learned that he’d lied.  All along, there had been another woman, an acquaintance of hers.  One free to spend more time with him.  One who gloated of her conquest, not thinking to spare her feelings.  One who thought that her heartbreak at seven lost years as a stupid pettiness.  A widow, she said ‘I’ve suffered, so why shouldn’t you?’  That was her logic. A woman she used to like but now realises is as sweet as a snake hiding amongst bluebells. 

But this woman has a lot to learn.   She thinks she knows the truth but she has only scratched the surface.  It takes seven years to delve deep. Why, she probably believes it when he tells her she is the love of his life.             

People can only take so much.  Little by little fragile layers of dried tears are sealing the wound in her heart.  And as love creeps out of the window, realisation crawls through the door. In the days when they told each other everything, she learned of his childhood and suddenly everything is clear.   The fault doesn’t lie with her.  Its roots go deeper. All his life his affairs have been a quest for the love that should have been his birthright. 

Understanding that, she’s ready to ask for her earring again and when it arrives, not openly but pushed through her letterbox in stealth, she’ll marry it with its mate, lock it in a box and throw the past away.

        

Copyright Janet Baldey