Victoria Williams: 0186

Congratulations on your marriage. That ring will placate her, for a while. A little ice in a marriage is no bad thing. Get it into your head that water is an apt metaphor. The ground around here is sodden you’ll notice. There’s a spring. And the women on the land have access to a dark reservoir of simmering rage. Don’t watch for waves. Think of a plunge pool of unfathomable depth, in which the grievances of many years are still sinking with no sign yet of the bottom. A flat, still surface; a silent threat. Picture this, and watch for it in their eyes. That’s a warning. And listen for a low rumbling, and the rattling of the windows and doors. Over the years I’ve seen these events clear many shelves of their breakables; a purge of any attempt of mine to settle in. And so I live as I do – as you will do – in this old house, sleeping in a succession of rooms that are never mine, my belongings packed away in yet another.