The Word for Woman Is Wilderness by Abi Andrews

Author:Abi Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

REGRET IN RATS, ALTRUISM IN BONOBOS

Before casting out I had to begin neatening up all of my frayed edges in order to disengage smoothly. I have told my parents that I am going to volunteer on a community project in an Eskimo village with no phone signal or internet for a few weeks because I do not know how else to put it to them. I sent them a link to a website that organises such excursions to make it more believable.

Then I Skyped Larus to tell him bye for now and to vent some of my pent-up frustration at Stan, but he took things in a very different direction and now I wish I had not at all. He was worrying about how we had not spoken in a while again. Then he got all strange about why he thought that was.

‘Does Sam not approve of our little chats? My girlfriend doesn’t like me talking to you so much either.’

It was the way he said this, like so nail-pickingly nonchalant as to be glaringly pointed. I suppose I realised the conversation was going to go one of two ways from there. I guess part of me had known without wanting to all along that this had been building, like a bird sidling over for crumbs so slowly you don’t even notice until, oh, it is there.

‘Your girlfriend?’

‘Yes, my American girlfriend Jose.’

I involuntarily said that he kept that one quiet.

‘I’m just surprised, that’s all. That we’ve been talking for so long and I didn’t know that about you.’

‘There are lots of things you don’t know about me.’

This made my legs twitch because I did not know what to do with myself. I turned off the webcam so he could not see me flapping my hands. Neither of us said anything for an uncomfortably long time. I was unsure how to navigate my way back out of it, before anything said became an answer I did not want to hear to a question I had not even asked.

‘She finds it strange that I talk so much to a girl young enough to be my daughter.’

Please stop talking. I could not think of anything to say. He waited, then carried on.

‘I explain to her that you’re a very interesting young lady and that I enjoy helping you with your project.’

I want to cry. I try to make light. From here, maybe, I could back-paddle. I ask if she knows I am a friend of Urla’s and pointedly call him Uncle Larus.

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s just weird, don’t you think?’

I don’t dare ask why some more. I tell him I have to go because Stan is on his way through the door. I tried to make it convincing but do not remember what I said. As he hangs up the camera freezes and lingers on his face for three seconds. His left eye, no, right for him, left for me, is half closed where he got caught off guard.

I realised that it

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