Five weeks

In the narrator's account of her failing marriage, the span of five weeks functions as a precise, obsessive marker of sexual and emotional drought. It is the time that has passed since the last time she and her husband made love, a fact she cannot stop counting and which becomes a source of bitter dispute between them. The number is not merely a neutral duration; it is a wound that she keeps reopening, a measure of how far her husband's desire has receded and how desperately she still craves his touch.

The Dispute Over the Count

The narrator insists it has been five weeks—thirty-five days, eight hundred and forty hours—since they last had sex. Her husband counters that it has been only three weeks, or perhaps he has forgotten a time on the way back from their holiday. She reminds him of the night he returned from being away, when they watched the final episode of a show about men stuck on an island. After an argument, they made love on the sofa, putting down a towel first. She remembers the position and everything. When they finished, they watched the rest of the show and ate chips. She thinks they may have done it again after that, but he denies it, and she does not want to argue. The exchange reveals not only their differing memories but also the way their intimacy has become a matter of record-keeping and negotiation rather than spontaneous connection.

The Failed Attempt at Reconnection

Five weeks later, the narrator makes a deliberate effort to rekindle their sex life. After his post-dinner cigarette, with the smell of food piled up in the sink and the coffee, she goes to find him, one of her shoulders bare. He says he is exhausted, the words coming out as a gargle through his mouthful of smoke. His lips and gums are so thick with tar that she holds her breath to avoid getting a waft of his. She lingers, having waxed, showered, and put on new knickers, hoping he will grab her by the waist, engage in foreplay, or throw her against a wall or onto the sofa like the last time—five weeks ago, not three. But nothing happens. Nothing at all. The rejection sharpens her teeth into blades; she swears at him, gives him the finger, and grows hooves.

The Bathroom Standoff and Its Aftermath

Furious, she goes into the bathroom, closes the door, and throws herself down onto the cold tiles. She sticks her feet in the shower and makes spastic movements, but there is no audience. Her husband needs to use the toilet, and she refuses to open the door—a small revenge, letting him hold it in. He bribes her, promising they will do it after, but she is unmoved. Climbing onto the toilet, she delivers a lengthy existential monologue with philosophical and psychoanalytic touches. When she finishes, he says only, "It's all in your head." That is all he ever says. Eventually she feels sorry for him and leaves the bathroom. He gives her an insipid kiss that does nothing for her. She thinks, "I need a buffalo and all I get is a porcupine." He shoves her away from the door, and she hears him defecate, the sound of his shit dropping into the water.

The Night of Unfulfilled Desire

That night, she waits for him in bed, trying to read, but all she can think about is satiating her body, which is chasing after her, sweating. She tosses the book aside. The baby is twisted up in his sleep, coughing like a worker in a Cuban tobacco factory. She straightens him out and decides to go to sleep. Her husband is still in the bathroom, playing on his phone. She takes off her bra, the underwire hurting, and changes out of her knickers. She scrubs her face clean and slathers on lotion. Afterwards, nothing. At dawn, she is woken by a shrill, trumpet-like scream and a strange whistling sound. The fire in the living room has gone out; blowing on it sends ash flying, including up her nose. She spits, sneezes, has an allergic reaction, and gets nasal blood. She tries to light the fire while the uproar continues outside—men and animals fighting it out, a chicken truck crashed into a car.

The Significance of Five Weeks

The five weeks are not just a count of days but a measure of the narrator's alienation from her husband and her own body. The obsessive counting, the argument over the exact number, and the failed attempt at reconnection all underscore the breakdown of communication and desire in their marriage. The narrator's physical reactions—her sharpened teeth, her hooves, her snake-like coiling—suggest a transformation into something animal, a response to being denied the intimacy she craves. The five weeks also highlight the asymmetry between her husband's complacency and her own desperate need, a gap that will only widen as the novel progresses. The time span becomes a symbol of the emotional and sexual starvation that drives the narrator toward other outlets, including her affair with the radiologist and her eventual breakdown.