The strap under his shirt at Sunday dinner

He took the strap out of the drawer himself. All I said was: “Under the shirt today.”

Sunday, half past ten, my parents expected us at one. He stood in the bathroom with a toothbrush, I stood in the doorway. The strap is leather, a finger wide, with a small buckle at the back. Not a collar: a collar shows. I ordered this one three years ago to sit under a shirt collar. Button the top button and nothing shows.

He rinsed his mouth, walked past me into the bedroom, took it from the top drawer and buckled it round his neck in front of the mirror. Then the shirt, pale blue, button-down collar, top button done up. I went over, hooked a finger under the collar and checked: the leather lay flat under the fabric, the buckle at the back didn’t stick out.

“You take it off when I say.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

At home he rarely wears it. At home there is the cage, and that is enough. The strap is for the places where I can’t say a word out loud. At my parents’ I can’t.

He drove, and on the way I watched him move his neck a little at every turn. The leather under the collar hadn’t warmed up yet and kept reminding him of itself. In half an hour he would stop noticing it, and that is when it starts to work: not where it rubs, but where he remembers it.

At the table

My mother sat him opposite my father, as always. He behaved as usual: pulled out my chair, poured my water, ate slowly, the way I taught him, the last mouthful staying on his plate until I have finished mine. My mother likes that he doesn’t rush. I watched how he held his back. With the strap on he holds it differently, a little straighter, as if the collar were half a size too small. Nobody but me can see it. That is enough.

My mother asked when we were going to the sea. I said September. He said nothing. Holidays are my decision, and he has known it so long that he needs no hand on his knee for that.

After the soup my father asked:

“You’ve been getting home late lately. Vera told me. Busy at work?”

He didn’t answer straight away. I saw him swallow, and the collar press the leather against his throat.

Vera had said something different. He gets home late on Tuesdays and Thursdays because on Tuesdays and Thursdays he collects my things from the dry cleaner’s, does the shopping from my list and washes the floors before I get in. My father doesn’t need to know that. What my husband needs is for the answer to be chosen by me, not him.

I put my hand on his knee under the table. Once: wait. He picked up his glass, drank, said nothing. My father waited. Twice: speak.

“Projects. It’ll be like this till New Year.”

Even, nothing extra. My father nodded and moved on to the allotment. I took my hand away. My father can’t see the cage under his trousers either, but the cage my husband feels every minute on his own. The strap is for something else: so that when he is asked a question, he doesn’t say the first thing that comes into his head, but waits for my hand.

Over tea my father brought out the brandy and poured him one too. He looked at me. I picked up my cup with both hands, which means no, and he told my father he was driving. My father shrugged and drank both.

The sideboard

My mother called him to help with the main course. He got up, went to the sideboard for the big plates, and from behind I saw him press two fingers to his collar for a second. Not straightening it. Checking. The way you touch the pocket your keys are in.

My mother was saying something about the sauce and he was answering. Hands full of plates, voice ordinary, and his fingers had just been under that collar, and I knew what he had thought about. Me. That I was at the table and saw everything. He turned round with the plates, met my eyes and lowered his first. He does that at home when I say “come here”.

At home he is at my feet, on his knees, with the key to the cage on my neck, and everything is clear without words. Here was someone else’s table, a pressed shirt and my father with his questions. One strip of leather was enough for him to be mine at this table too.

He served me the main course first. My mother second. She noticed and laughed:

“Well brought up.”

“Yes,” I said.

The car

We drove home in silence. He drove, I watched his neck. Under the collar, if you know where to look, the edge of the leather shows, half a shade darker than the fabric. His breathing was even, but at the lights his fingers tightened on the wheel and let go, once, then again. Waiting. In three hours at that table he hadn’t once asked me with his eyes if he could take it off. The strap isn’t there for asking.

That morning I had wondered whether to bother with it: lunch, my parents, nothing was supposed to happen. Then I remembered my father’s question and the brandy and stopped.

In the hall he took off his shoes, hung up my coat and stopped in front of me. He stood still, arms at his sides, chin a little raised for me. I undid the top button, slid my fingers under the collar and found the buckle. The leather was warm, slightly damp, and smelled of him. I unbuckled it. There was a mark on his neck, a narrow pink line where the leather had pressed for three hours. I ran my finger along it. It would be gone by evening. He breathed out as if he had been holding that breath since the soup.

“Thank you.”

I didn’t ask what for. I put the strap in the drawer, the key to the cage stayed on my neck, and I went to put the kettle on. He followed and stood at the stove, in his place.

While the kettle boiled he told me what he had thought at the sideboard. That the first thing that came into his head at my father’s question was “Vera and I have an arrangement”. That the hand on his knee got there before his mouth did.

“That’s what it’s for,” I said.

He nodded and got the cups down.

A reader asked why bother, if the husband is already in a cage. The cage he feels. The strap he remembers. At someone else’s table the second is enough.

• Choose something that can’t be seen: a strap under the collar, a cord, a ring on a chain under a T-shirt.
• He puts it on himself, at your word. Only you take it off. Otherwise it is jewellery.
• Agree on two signals for company: “wait” and “speak”. A hand on the knee is enough.
• Don’t have him wear it at home every day. It works where you can’t say things out loud.
• Take it off yourself, in the hall, before tea. He should get that from your hands.