I hold up a finger. "You're forgetting the sexiest one. One to clean the house."
"Ah, yes." Ed nods. "Raphael. Raph when you're feeling frisky. He's definitely the favourite."
On a sigh, I say, "I could do with a Raphael. I wouldn't want to marry him, though. He could come once a week to service the house, service me, then fuck off again."
"True domestic bliss."
I "Amen" him and we settle into a silence that Ed eventually cracks with, "So. Quite a letter."
"Quite a letter," I agree. "I'm thinking World War Two?"
"I'd say so. The Bren gun's a bit of a clue. It wasn't in use until 1930."
"So, it could also be The Spanish Civil War?"
Ed "Hmm"s. "I don't think so. The language like 'ack ack', the careful censorship, the mention of being half a world away, the description of the desert. It's probably North Africa."
I nod. "Either way the sender and the recipient have to be dead."
"Yes."
"Which means discarding the letter in one of your rubbish bins is incredibly disrespectful to both of them. How could anyone willingly throw something as beautiful as that away?"
"I don't know. I really don't."
I think about this for a moment. "Do you have CCTV in the library?"
Ed gives me the sideways eye. "Ye-es. But I'd have to put in a requestwith justificationto head office to have the video reviewed, and identifying who put a letter in a bin would not be considered good cause, I should think."
"You could say it's an important document that needs to be returned to its owner."
"Except its owner threw it in the bin. They'd see through that one pretty quickly."
He's right. Of course he's right. I slump into the lounger and raise my binoculars again. The children are still playing in the sprinkler, and over in the street behind them...I couldn't care less. I lower them again, my heart no longer in it. Instead, I take a large gulp of gin, wanting to prolong the afterglow of the letter.
Thinking I already know the answer, but wanting to hear it from someone who is actually experienced in it, I ask Ed, "Why do people chase love?"
He shifts in his seat. "Connection, companionship, brain chemicals? Because we're told it's an ideal? Because sometimes we can't help ourselves – love happens to us."
"You mean you fall in love without choosing to?" I’ve never been in love. I have no concept of what that pull towards desperate longing feels like, and having seen so much unhappiness in relationships – my own parents’ constant ups and downs, arguments and attempts at trying again – I’ve never wanted to. But now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve missed out on something…exceptional.
Ed's reply is soft. "Yeah."
"See. That's what I don't like about the process. The lack of control over it. If I were to ever do love,if, I would want robust vetting beforehand. Like a long lead-in time in which all foibles and incompatibilities were identified, then I could make an informed decision about whether I wanted to invest any emotion in that person."
"It would save a lot of heartbreak." He doesn't quite say it wistfully, but I know it has to lie behind his words.
Ed has only ever talked about his relationship once after we shared a bottle and a half of semi-decent Chianti on top of this very roof last summer.
I'd rigged a chain of outdoor fairy lights from poles I'd duct taped to the lip of the roof and placed a ball of them in a large glass jar between the sun loungers. It was magical.
He had opened up about the reason for his move to Port Derrum. It was a new start, a place to take some time to recover from the end of his relationship.
As he told me everything, he didn't bother to wipe away the tears on his cheeks, or apologise for them.
I respect a man who's in touch with his emotions and doesn't excuse them.
Afterwards, I turned the fairy lights off and we picked all the constellations we knew. Orion's Belt was the first one on the very short list.
