Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Morning
The heat is building. It’s barely half past eight and already the day is close, the
air heavy with moisture. I could wish for a storm, but the sky is an insolent
blank, pale, watery blue. I wipe away the sweat on my top lip. I wish I’d
remembered to buy a bottle of water.
I can’t see Jason and Jess this morning, and my sense of disappointment is
acute. Silly, I know. I scrutinize the house, but there’s nothing to see. The
curtains are open downstairs but the French doors are closed, sunlight reflecting
off the glass. The sash window upstairs is closed, too. Jason may be away
working. He’s a doctor, I think, probably for one of those overseas organizations.
He’s constantly on call, a bag packed on top of the wardrobe; there’s an
earthquake in Iran or a tsunami in Asia and he drops everything, he grabs his bag
and he’s at Heathrow within a matter of hours, ready to fly out and save lives.
Jess, with her bold prints and her Converse trainers and her beauty, her
attitude, works in the fashion industry. Or perhaps in the music business, or in
advertising – she might be a stylist or a photographer. She’s a good painter, too,
plenty of artistic flair. I can see her now, in the spare room upstairs, music
blaring, window open, a brush in her hand, an enormous canvas leaning against
the wall. She’ll be there until midnight; Jason knows not to bother her when
she’s working.
I can’t really see her, of course. I don’t know if she paints, or whether Jason
has a great laugh, or whether Jess has beautiful cheekbones. I can’t see her bone
structure from here and I’ve never heard Jason’s voice. I’ve never seen them up
close, they didn’t live at that house when I lived down the road. They moved in
after I left two years ago, I don’t know when exactly. I suppose I started noticing
them about a year ago, and gradually, as the months went past, they became
important to me.
I don’t know their names either, so I had to name them myself. Jason, because
he’s handsome in a British film star kind of way, not a Depp or a Pitt, but a Firth,
or a Jason Isaacs. And Jess just goes with Jason, and it goes with her. It fits her,
pretty and carefree as she is. They’re a match, they’re a set. They’re happy, I can
tell. They’re what I used to be, they’re Tom and me, five years ago. They’re
what I lost, they’re everything I want to be.
Evening
My shirt, uncomfortably tight, buttons straining across my chest, is pit stained,
damp patches clammy beneath my arms. My eyes and throat itch. This evening I
don’t want the journey to stretch out; I long to get home, to undress and get into
the shower, to be where no one can look at me.
I look at the man in the seat opposite mine. He is about my age, early to midthirties,
with dark hair, greying at the temples. Sallow skin. He’s wearing a suit,
but he’s taken the jacket off and slung it on the seat next to him. He has a
MacBook, paper thin, open in front of him. He’s a slow typist. He’s wearing a
silver watch with a large face on his right wrist – it looks expensive, a Breitling
maybe. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek. Perhaps he’s nervous. Or just
thinking deeply. Writing an important email to a colleague at the office in New
York, or a carefully worded break-up message to his girlfriend. He looks up
suddenly and meets my eye; his glance travels over me, over the little bottle of
wine on the table in front of me. He looks away. There’s something about the set
of his mouth which suggests distaste. He finds me distasteful.
I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some
way. It’s not just that I’ve put on weight, or that my face is puffy from the
drinking and the lack of sleep; it’s as if people can see the damage written all
over me, they can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move.
One night last week, when I left my room to get myself a glass of water, I
overheard Cathy talking to Damien, her boyfriend, in the living room. I stood in
the hallway and listened. ‘She’s lonely,’ Cathy was saying, ‘I really worry about
her. It doesn’t help, her being alone all the time.’ Then she said, ‘Isn’t there
someone from work, maybe, or the rugby club?’ and Damien said, ‘For Rachel?
Not being funny, Cath, but I’m not sure I know anyone that desperate.’
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