Yellowcake

They had taken to playing backgammon. The long evenings had yawned without something to do, and so far it hadn’t led to any outright rows. Her play was aggressive and she took his pieces at every opportunity, leaving herself exposed. He was cautious, building up ranks in his home quarter and waiting for the chance to trap her piece behind them.

They drank expensive Malbec they had bought from the Fulham Road Wine Centre after long and clever conversations with the staff there. The record player span with The Clash, David Bowie, Siouxie and the Banshees, taking them back to that first flat in Camden, piled high with the drying washing of seven people: jeans all mixed up together. It reminded them of their swaying embrace on the balcony overlooking the Regent’s Canal as they smoked Silk Cuts and whispered plans; gave them a soundtrack fitting for the dirty walls of the single bathroom.

In their new house the walls were just the right colour. ‘Yellowcake’. They had laughed in the paint shop. He had told her that yellowcake is used to make uranium ore.

Tonight she sat on the rug barefoot with legs folded to one side. Candlelight glanced off her heavy rings and her lipstick merged her mouth into the shadows. He sat upright on the sofa, his knees held together in pressed chinos. He frowned over the game. She couldn’t see his eyes.

‘Did you know that jumping a piece across the board after an opening roll of six and a five is called The Lovers’ Leap?’ she said.

It was peaceful in the country. The children were happy weren’t they? Even if their parents’ days had become marked by the plugging-in and unplugging of their phones; the filling up of the petrol tank; the cycle of washing, hanging up the washing, folding up the washing.

‘I offer to the double the game,’ she said.

He wouldn’t accept.

They played a few rounds, drank some more wine, sat back. She stretched out her feet and toes and arched her back, chest open to the ceiling. He let himself be swallowed by the sofa.

‘Did you remember to call Joanne about the car boot sale?’ she asked.

It was after he had gone to bed that she took the backgammon piece in her hand, held it against the wall, and scraped it downwards, taking chunks of Yellowcaked plaster with it. She stared at the dust spiralling gently into a pile at her feet. Then she turned off the sitting room light and went upstairs.