Cleopatra and Frankenstein

by Coco Mellors

‘Love looks through spectacles that make copper look like gold, poverty like riches, and tears like pearls.”

To delight in another, to be delighted in turn by them, that was what she had always wanted.

“You have her heart,” Frank said, and laughed. “Let me have her body.” “Don’t be vulgar,” said Quentin.

Cleo, my Cleo.

When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.

“It’s just tender,” said Cleo, cupping his cheek with her palm. “He got your tender part, is all.” He bowed his head and pressed his forehead to hers. He was about to tell her that all of him was the tender part when her phone buzzed and she pulled away.

“When was the last time you were with a straight man, I’m talking any straight man, and he said something more interesting than what you were already thinking?”

Fun was fine when you were young, but as you got older it was kindness that counted, kindness that showed up.

“Is that how you feel with Frank?” asked Zoe. “Like someone’s in the hole with you?” Cleo looked out over the unlit buildings. The street below them was quiet and empty. It felt as if they were the only people still awake in the whole city. “Sometimes,” she said. She paused to think some more. “And sometimes … Frank is the hole.”

Then Cleo did something Zoe didn’t expect; she lifted her hand and kissed the center of her palm. Zoe had never been kissed there by anyone. It was so tender, she thought. The tenderest part of her.

Cleo, on the other hand, could feel herself physically shrinking in their presence.

Frank marveled that neither she nor Peter asked a single question about Cleo the entire time. Not about where she lived, how they’d met, who her friends were, what she was painting, or any other facet of her life in New York.

“And you’re smarter than you look,” said the American. “People only ever say that to women,” said Cleo.

“All men leave! We outlive them anyway. I’ve got news for you, baby, in the end it’s always just us.”

I tell Frank my favorite painting is Hans Holbein’s portrait of Thomas Cromwell in the Frick. There’s a patch of carpet in front of it that’s grown bald from the thousands of feet that have stood before it. I tell him I think that’s a good thing to hope for in life, for the carpet to grow thin before you.

I look at Frank. That was the thing about him. He noticed that. He noticed people. It was his gift. Or really, it was the gift he gave you. To be seen.

“I like how you see me.”

He was just drifting into sleep when Jesus knocked over Cleo’s book from the bedside table. “Did you hear that?” said Cleo in the darkness. “Mm,” said Frank. “Sounds like she’s having a grand old time.”

It frightened her how easy it was to fake her own happiness.

That was the real inheritance from her mother, she thought, more defining than any facial feature or mannerism. They both wanted to disappear.

How did a person learn to live? Learn to be happy?

She needed to return to the earth, simple and unadorned.

“You owe yourself the same care you give to others.”

Nothing changes if nothing changes. He was tired of being the affable doormat.

They ate because their parents did not feed them, and it’s how they learned to take care of themselves. They ate because they felt less alone when eating. Because they wanted to feel full, then wanted to feel nothing.

“Why did you do this to yourself?” Cleo murmured something that was barely words. “What?” “You did this to me,” she whispered. He dropped her wrist and stepped back as if struck. He felt struck. “You’re just trying to hurt me.” She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m trying to survive you.”

“Those have to be the saddest words a person can utter.” “What?” “ ‘That’s just who I am.’

“Her name is Dominique,” he said. “We have been on three dates.” “And?” asked Zoe. “She is warm like the sun.”

A girl like Cleo loves forever.”

It struck her that adult life was endlessly harsh and exciting, something to be overwhelmed by again and again, like a wave beating her down as she tried to stand.

“Who knows what you will be? You are still becoming.”

Fondness was warm but not tepid, the color of amber, more affectionate than friendship but less complicated than love. Back during their school days, they’d lie together

“Do you know the word humiliate comes from the Latin root humus, which means ‘earth’? That’s how love is supposed to feel.” “Like hummus?” “Like earth. It grounds you. All this nonsense about love being a drug, making you feel high, that’s not real. It should hold you like the earth.”

“Exactly. Or ‘I love you’ versus …” I stop. So I said it. Accidentally and to illustrate a linguistic point, sure, but I said it. “… I can’t think of a longer way to say that,” I say. “Adore,” says Frank softly. “Cherish.” “Love is better,” I say.

“It is,” he says. “And I do too. Love you, that is.”

“But not for this? You’re not soz for right now, are you?”

“No. Right now I have never been less soz for anything in my life.” And then he kissed me.

“The ferry is really just the public bus with a better view,” I say. “That’s what I love about you,” says Frank. “Cynical even in front of sunsets.”

She had a way of bringing the light into a room with her, like a window being flung open.

It was a relief to live from the inside out at long last.

retreating into the shape of their desires. She thought of Frank’s vow on their wedding day. When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light. Now she had completed that process on her own. She had met the darkest part of herself and created this.

She grew up feeling safe and fiercely loved.” When he looked up, he was surprised to see that Cleo’s eyes had glazed with a thin film of tears. “That sounds nice,” she said quietly. “And you and I didn’t get that, not because we didn’t deserve it, we just got dealt something else. But the people who did get that love, they grew up to be different from us. More secure. Maybe they’re not as shiny or successful as you and I feel we have to be. But it’s not because they’re not interesting. They just don’t feel they have to do the tap dance, you know? They don’t have to prove themselves all the time to be loved. Because they always were.”

“Wherever you’re going is waiting for you?”