Unseasonably Fine

On the twenty-third of September, Melbourne reaches thirty-two degrees.

I am in a cardigan, eating grated cheese from the bag.

The weather app says FEELS LIKE SUMMER, which is a remarkable thing to say to someone who has specifically arranged not to have a body until December.

Eight weeks since surgery. Everything has closed.

Apparently I’m available for use.

•

I chose winter for the operation. There were clinical reasons, but privately I had chosen sleeves. Darkness at five. Permission to decline invitations because outside was unpleasant, without explaining that inside was worse.

September was supposed to be damp.

October, negotiable.

By December, perhaps I could look down without remembering the first dressing coming off.

Instead, the city wakes early and starts taking its clothes off.

•

My wife opens the curtains.

“Beautiful day.”

“Withdraw that.”

She turns, smiling. Black crop top, black knickers, eyeliner already softening.

Then the air conditioner makes a noise and dies.

We watch its green light go out.

She reports it through the building app.

The app congratulates her.

•

At thirty-three, I had become reasonably good at being looked at.

My last boyfriend once complained that I flirted with waitresses.

“You flirted with his sister,” my wife reminds me whenever I tell this story.

She remembers that part fondly.

I liked being wanted. There. An unattractive thing about the attractive woman.

Now I hold my shirt away from my abdomen. The scar is a raised pink seam. I can touch it. I cannot bear the thought of somebody noticing it and deciding what face to make.

My wife keeps saying I’m beautiful, with the frequency of an announcement about an unattended bag.

•

By two, the cardigan is wet under my arms.

I take it off.

Put it on.

Outside, someone suggests a barbecue. My phone offers me an early-summer wardrobe refresh.

There are winter boots beside the door. Yesterday’s soup in the fridge.

I had been participating in this season.

I had supplies.

•

“Pool,” my wife says.

“No.”

She picks up her towel.

Waits.

Puts it down.

Last summer she swam every evening. I used to watch her from our balcony, pretending to read.

Now she sits beside me beneath a stopped fan.

I have made staying miserable into evidence of love, and she is supplying it without being asked.

“Get your towel,” I say.

She doesn’t move.

“Before I become nicer and change my mind.”

•

In the lift, my hair sticks to my neck. I wear the cardigan over my bathers. My wife has kept her coffin earrings on.

Downstairs, everyone has adapted.

Someone has watermelon.

This feels particularly cruel: somebody saw the forecast and bought the appropriate fruit while I was negotiating with a sleeve.

My wife touches my elbow.

“Coming?”

“In a minute.”

She dives.

I had forgotten how quickly she leaves the surface.

•

At the ladder, I cannot undress.

She comes back, breathing hard, plainly happy.

Then sees me.

“It wasn’t supposed to be time yet,” I say.

Her happiness falters.

“Don’t,” I tell her.

“What?”

“Stop enjoying it.”

She waits while I struggle out of the cardigan. A button catches in my hair.

Very seductive. Eastern Europe’s contribution to aquatic leisure.

I leave it crumpled on a chair.

•

The numb patch feels nothing.

Around it, cold arrives.

My shoulders drop before I decide to let them.

“Oh,” I say, almost accusingly.

My wife puts her hand against my waist. I move it a centimetre to where I can feel her.

Across the pool, a woman glances over.

I fold my arm across my stomach.

Then unfold it, because I need it to swim.

•

We do one length.

Halfway back, I roll onto my back. Water closes over my ears.

For several seconds I forget to check who is looking.

Then I remember.

On the chair, my cardigan lies in full sun.

“Another?” my wife asks.

I turn towards the deep end.

I still want the months I was promised.