The Farmer’s Wife’s Dimpled Thighs have been commended – Read it Here

I’ve recently been Shortlisted for the FictionFactory writing competition, and also Commended for the Southport Writer’s Circle short story competition!

The Commended story will be published on the Southport writer’s website (www.swconline.co.uk) very soon, but I’ve put the full entry below so you can have a read. 2024 has been a slow writing year for me so far, and so these accolades are really giving me a poke of motivation.

The tale of the Farmer’s Wife came to me from nowhere, as I was driving my scooter around the dusty roads of Canggu in Bali. Suddenly, there she was – a fully formed character, as large as live; a woman who was masking her grief with anger, who was lamenting an alternative version of life (and who isn’t guilty of that from time to time?), who didn’t fully appreciate the course her life had taken.

However, I understand why this didn’t win 1st place. It didn’t come from the heart as much as the others; my winning stories have been pinnacles of gut-wrenching situations, influenced by my own world. I am not a farmer’s wife; I do not look at old pictures wistfully (not yet, anyway). The old ‘sit at your typewriter and bleed’ adage is a true one, and this is why – more than anything – I’m not worried about AI taking over the writing industry. Because all of the stories I’ve won 1st on have come from the heart; a robot can probably bosh out a flowery ditty, but it can’t rip out guts and examine them in the same way.

Anyway, that is a post for another day.

I hope you enjoy the story.

The Farmer’s Wife and Her Dimpled Thighs

The floorboards seem to rise and go on forever. The trees were slain in 1922; some sort of three-headed mite has claimed them since. My feet have gone numb.

The doorbell sounds. Ben has set it up with a stupid tune. It whines through the air and reminds me why I hate him. I ignore it.

There she is. Pretty prom girl in a black and white dress, holding two of her best friends. Of course, I don’t see them anymore. One’s a lawyer now. The other’s MIA, by which I mean she isn’t on Facebook. I press my thumb against her face, removing her so that I’m the biggest failure in the glossy, disposable-camera rendering.

I pull my thumb away and a layer of sweat, promising my DNA, leaks against the missing girl’s face. She looks scarred and I wipe at the image, restoring her sixteen-year-old glory and flowing dress, the colour of pheasant blood drying on a garage floor.

Ben’s out hunting. That’s what made pheasants come to mind; he’s promised me something fancy tonight, a grouse, perhaps, pheasant, quail, whatever. He’ll pluck it to smithereens and I’ll scrub the garage floor. He’ll stuff globules of fatty butter under pimpled skin while I run rigid rosemary across my palm.

I sit back, stretch my legs out. The first picture was the warm-up, the launch into society, debutante, the first stumble down the stairs, the first fumble in the dark. I move the three girls aside. The blood girl still has a smudged face, which I try and ignore until it becomes too much and I have to turn her over.

Underneath is an article. Cross Country, promising, Rising Star, One to Watch. You saw it here first. County-level, build-her-up ready to smack-her-down, slap-your-lips, this is One to Watch.

She’s grainy but I had good hair that day. I don’t touch her in case my fingers, sweaty, clammy sausage-like things, need-to-lose-some-weight type things, are-there-finger-exercises type things, ruin the evidence.

This is what should have been. Look, I was fit. I had friends. I wore a black and white gown and someone flashed cameras in my face.

The doorbell sounds again, and the same whiny tune splits my head in two. My brain starts leaking out, so I zip my skull back up, holding the resentment like noxious oxygen, poison, swallow-it-down and divorce-isn’t-an-option.

We’re down a country lane, but that doesn’t stop Amazon. They know to leave it on the doorstep – always leave it on the doorstep – the foxes might tear it apart, but chances are the hunt’ll tear them apart first. Banned, my arse. You should see them galloping by, snares and flares and witchy tongues, hollow and gallowed and sallow-faced, pompous little pricks above the law, and who’s gonna fine them in a place like this? No one lives here; no man’s land; countryside and just me, sat here all day, waiting for Ben like a good little wife.

Outside our lone telephone wire rattles and a crow screams that dusk is coming. The cows have borne calves; they stutter around outside, milling down the country lanes, free from ropes. Their mothers lick the trees bare.

I could’ve been a runner. Olympics, one teacher told me. I’m wearing my sweatsuit-fabric shorts and I look at my thighs; oranges have smoother skin.

Reverently, I set the runner aside. She can face the ceiling. I lean back and the beam of the bed slices through my spine. I shift until it’s between knobble and bra strap. The crow caws again and I will it to be quiet. Shut up. I’m having a moment.

I can tell that the delivery driver’s still outside. It doesn’t take much to understand the countryside around here, to know that the crow isn’t just warning about dusk, but warning about strangers too. The crunch of a heel. The loud glare of a protective mother cow; the heifer on the floorboards, no offspring to her name.

I should’ve had kids. I wanted them, all those years ago. Fresh, ripe fruit to sink my teeth into; blood the same colour as mine; fingerprints with identical smudges clutching at my hair, back when it was thick. Little playthings to fill the house with noise, to chomp at the same floorboards as the mites, to splosh into potties and puddles, get-back-here and will-you-just-shut-up. Come-here-and-let-me-eat-that-little-hand.

I’m joking.

Ben didn’t want children. He said it like a disgusting word, like diarrhoea or incest. He never had a childhood, something about rolling big spiky mowers over fresh grass and sticking his arm up a cow, something about not being allowed to dream and inventing songs about freedom, as if he was in the underbelly of a ship. This is his time, he told me. This is his time to finally enjoy life.

The underwire in my left bra cup has shifted in the washing machine and it’s digging into the fleshy space between my ribs.

“Just leave it on the doorstep,” I shriek towards the window, as the incessant noise starts up again, trilling along the gnarled floorboards, creeping up my bare legs, prickling the hairs under my t-shirt tag. I shiver and rub the tag. The little plastic bone is still there, pierced through the polyester. I’d pull it off if I could; I’d ask someone to help me if there was anyone.

What’s in that fleshy space between your ribs? My spleen? If I rupture my spleen, fat chance that the hunt will save me, or Ben. He’ll be the first to let me die, upgrade me for a new model so that he can finally enjoy life. Just like I should’ve.

The next item in my little box, which has a picture of Paris on the outside even though I’ve never been and we can’t take a holiday because of the aforementioned cows and the bloody-needy goats and the less-needy pigs and the chickens-that-can-die-for-all-I-care, is a report card. I might’ve only been eleven, but they already saw it.

It. Her. The double life, the one frolicking in the infinite universe, carefree and thin and running and wearing gowns that drape along newly slain oak, her arms around lawyers and missing girls, her lungs big, big, BIG. My lungs are small, small, small, occupying the tiny space between my fatty spine and my ruptured spleen, used to staying silent all day, gasping a quick breath at the top of the stairs, watching as the farmhands move straw from pens like the sea making a gasp for beachy freedom.

They saw Her on my report card, every glimmer and glare, every piece of Promising – that word again, when I did stop becoming Promising and become Promised? Promised to Ben, to this life that never was, that never started, historically promised and never promising again – and terrible-at-maths, ha ha ha, and destined for great things in English, hooray, and Spunk – are they allowed to say that now? – and Sass and Joker.

I was the Joker; I would’ve torn my face apart to make the class laugh. I laugh now. The description of Her is so delightful that I lose myself, I pretend she lived. That she isn’t a Missing Woman.

If they ring that doorbell one more time, I will murder someone. The spring light has been eaten by the formidable floorboards and the moon is no doubt making a fuss. My child-hating husband with his illegitimate shotgun will be traipsing home soon, no doubt, a dribble of blood on his sleeve, perhaps some innards trailing along behind him, the Pied Piper of throttling and despair, impairing quail and dreams, no matter how quickly they run.

The wedding was beautiful, of course. We had it in the back garden. His family spilt across the aisle looking miserable that they’d been invited, wishing, no doubt, that they could be somewhere inside, somewhere where they weren’t accosted by wasps and the smells of dung. I had a friend come – Tracey, hairdresser, used to do my hair back when I bothered – but I didn’t need a bridesmaid; why would I need a Maid? I’ve got enough time on my hands.

Too much time, if anything. The days stretch on endlessly and they feel like the moment before it rains, which is my least favourite. The moment after it rains is my favourite; the smell is called Petrichor. There isn’t a word for the dangerous scent of a pre-rain atmosphere. Just run-inside-and-hope-for-the-best.

The final item in my little Paris box is a picture of my first boyfriend, Elliott. He’s some sort of chef now, or perhaps a restaurant manager, it’s hard to tell from his pictures. Sometimes he’s in a professional kitchen, all steel appliances, smudges on the walk-in fridge, and sometimes he’s posting restaurant offers, all two-for-one and kids-eat-free. He obviously likes kids; he lets them eat for free.

He’s kept his hair, and his teeth. He looks good. His skin used to be the colour of dust, but now it’s tanned, alive, as if he’s been on holiday. He’d be a good husband. He wouldn’t leave me alone all day; he’d probably insist that I come and work at the restaurant, chatting with customers, running around, patting the backs of well-dressed women. I’d be invited to a Book Club, no doubt.

A mother cow lets out a nasal snort and I sigh. They won’t go away. Why can’t they leave me to die in peace, to replace this woman with what should have been? Let Her haunt me; let Her fill me up until there’s no longer any room for regret.

“Fine, I’m coming,” I roar, surprised that my throat still works so well. The farmhands certainly don’t get much of it, apart from shovel-that-shit and I-hope-its-not-another-girl. I piece Her back together and close the lid, watching the Eiffel Tower as it sways and laughs at me. The telephone wire rattles outside; that’s the internet gone. Facebook will have to wait. Something to look forward to.

I leave the box of everything-that-could-have-been where it is; it’s enough to get to my feet in one piece without having an extension. The house is dark, but I don’t bother with the lights. She follows me down the stairs, laughing at what I have become. I don’t glance at the hallway mirror, but it follows me anyway.

I throw open the door, ready to murder a delivery driver and serve his jowls in a tasty pie, alongside a quail perhaps, but it’s a man and woman and they’re wearing hats and clean white collars. I’ve never seen such a white collar. I look at their collars as they ask to come inside. I think about asking them how they’ve done it, how they’ve kept them so clean, especially in their line of work.

I don’t want them to come in; the kitchen’s a mess. I haven’t cleaned in a decade. Ben stopped caring too. They tell me there’s been an accident, something about a shotgun backfiring or a bullet rebounding, they aren’t sure, and I laugh at them saying they aren’t sure, because it’s such a key thing to be sure about. Why come to my door if you aren’t sure? Go and make sure, and do-some-bloody-work. Dirty those collars, what-are-we-paying-you-for?

They say they are sure, actually, and then I’m seeing the floorboards again, dirtier than upstairs, eaten by three-headed mites, hard, forcing my lungs to grow big, big, BIG: breathe. Ben was my Everything. I was the luckiest woman alive. The floorboards seem to rise and go on forever.