Just know, every day, that I’m trying.
74.
Joel—six months after
I’ve got a dodgy back and permanently jarred neck from all my disjointed nights on the sofa. I’ve been sleeping there since Callie left. It’s a small price to pay for not having to lie next to the empty space where, in another life, she should have been.
A week after she moved out, Esther and Gavin came over to pick up her many things. I couldn’t face being there, so I took the dogs (minus Murphy, of course) for a ten-mile hike. When I got back, the flat was empty again. Lifeless, just an echo. Exactly as it was before she moved in.
At first I thought it might help not to be surrounded by her stuff. I hoped the blankness might snuff out the memories. But there were traces of her all over the place. Still are. Hairbands under sofa cushions, in drawers, hooked on doorknobs. Odd socks hidden among my things. The flowerpots on the patio, redundant and weed-filled now. Her favorite work fleece (Esther forgot to take it) still hanging by the front door, filling my hallway with the faint smell of bonfires. Strands of cut reed from her boots against the kitchen kickboards, because I can’t yet bear to sweep them up. Last week, I trod on a stud earring, one half of a pair I’d bought her.
I didn’t even care when it drew blood.
I miss her like she’s been stolen from me. Like I’ve been robbed in the dark of something irreplaceable. Since that night in the restaurant I’ve been unable to walk past the coffee shop, or go anywhere near Waterfen. I can’t even pass the end of the road where the Sicilian pastry shop is. Ifailed to celebrate Christmas, watched back-to-back action films on Valentine’s night. I live from cereal box to cereal box, dog walk to dog walk. Occasionally I surface to check on Tamsin, Amber, and five-month-old Harry, then head back to the flat to carry on staring at four walls.
It’s a good job I have only a hypothetical neighbor to consider. With Danny hardly about, I’m not obliged to care what he might think of me right now. I don’t have to make small talk or pretend to be okay. And, best of all, I don’t have to come up with crap likeIt is what it isandI actually think it’s for the best(which was as much as I could say to my family during those first few weeks).
Dad and Doug, though they liked Callie a lot, seemed unsurprised by our breakup. But Tamsin was devastated. And I’ll never forget the way Amber’s face crumpled when I told her she might not see Auntie Callie again. It felt like the most careless kind of cruelty.
When I got home that night, I sobbed.
•••
One afternoon in early May, I tune in to the sound of my intercom buzzing. For a good ten minutes now I’ve been staring at the patch of floor by the hearth where Murphy used to lie. Conjuring up the warmth of his body against my thigh, the sunlight of Callie’s smile by my side.
It’s the little things that take me down. Like turning my head to speak to her, before remembering she’s gone. Wondering what she might fancy for dinner. Coming across a mug she’s left behind as I boil the kettle for tea. Reliving our best kisses. Those times when just to touch her sent me spinning off into the stratosphere.
And Murphy. How he’d patter around after me, always hopeful of dropped cheese or a handful of words he could understand. Appended to me like a shadow. Gentle as a lamb, unquestionably loyal.
After twenty seconds or so the buzzing stops, only to be replaced by the aggravation of my phone ringing. Glancing at the screen, I’m alarmed to see Warren’s name flash up.
I stretch to peer through a crack in the blinds at the bay window. He’s standing on my goddamn doorstep. Spots me straightaway.
“You can’t stay” is all I say when I open the door. He’s got a suitcase and everything.
“I’m worried about you.”
“I can’t do this right now.”
“You don’t have to do anything. Just let me in, so at least you’re not alone.”
Without warning, that gets me. I break down beneath a torrent of tears, the kind that make your body convulse. So he just holds me and holds me until I can’t cry anymore.
•••
Later he goes out to buy pineapple fritters and chips. It’s the first hot food I’ve had in maybe a fortnight because, honestly, what’s the point when you can ingest cereal by the fistful? We eat off our knees, side by side like old men at the beach. Fingers shiny with fat, lips stinging with vinegar.
“You’ve lost weight,” he remarks. “You look pale too.”
Why do people keep telling me this? As if I didn’t already know, or no longer have access to a functioning mirror.
“When I split up with your mum I postponed my trip for a bit,” Warren says. “Just sat in my bedsit and forgot to eat for a month. Lost touch with friends, got miserable.”
Yeah, and meanwhile she was pregnant with me, I think.Have you ever wondered how she was feeling?
“And then I realized,” he continues. “You know what solves everything? Salt water on your face.”
I stare at him blankly, half wondering what he’s here to try to sell me.
