I liked. All I knew was which cleaning materials I liked, which washing powder was best. Even the soap confused me. Should I buy the one we always used? Did I actually like it? I didn’t know anymore. I could feel my throat swelling with tears and knew I had to get out of there. I hurried around the store, throwing things into the cart. The only criteria was that I hadn’t had it at home. If it looked familiar, I didn’t want it.
There was a woman in the supermarket who was buying cushions and blankets; she looked like she had good taste so I watched her and just bought what she did. This was a tip my mother had passed on to me. Not that she did it herself, of course, but she told me my taste was a bit odd. Unreliable, she said. She told me the best thing to do was to copy someone else who seemed to know what she was doing.
As soon as I was home, I unpacked my shopping. Already I knew I’d made some bad decisions. I didn’t care; I stuffed the cupboards and the fridge full of food. I threw the cushions and blankets onto the sofa, scattered a couple of magazines on the coffee table, and placed a plant from the florist’s shop downstairs on the windowsill.
When I’d finished I realized the room was arranged just as ours had been at home. It was like a poor man’s version of our living room. I stood for a while, unable to decide what to do. Tom had always been the one who decided how the living room would look. I knew I had to change things around; it would bring back too many memories otherwise, so I dragged the sofa into another position and put the table and chairs by the window. The furniture was heavy and I was hot and sweating by the time I finished, but I didn’t stop until it didn’t resemble home at all.
I hadn’t bought alcohol. At home we’d have wine delivered from the local wine merchant and Tom would stock up the drinks cupboard with whiskey and gin and liqueurs. I don’t think he’d had a day without a drink in all the time I’d known him. Usually I’d join him, to blur the edges of my life. I didn’t want anything like that here, though. I’d drunk enough at the hotel to last me a good while. I didn’t want to drink myself into a stupor now. Not now. I’d escaped that life. I needed to be wide-awake for my new life.
I packed up all the empty bags and packaging and went out to the alley at the back of the shops where all the bins were kept. I found mine with my flat number painted on it and was just about to open it when something brushed past me. I screamed, thinking of mice and rats and foxes.
When I stepped back from the bin and looked around I saw a cat was hiding between two bins, watching me. It had a coat of matted black fur and as I turned toward it, it ran down the alley to where a bin had overflowed. It started to scratch and pull at a bag of food there and I realized it was starving.
I thought of the cat that Fiona and I had had when we were growing up and how spoiled and loved he was. “Haven’t you got a home to go to?” I asked gently. I stooped to see whether it wore a collar. It didn’t, just a scratch on its ear that looked as though it wasn’t healing properly. “Are you hungry?”
Slowly it came toward me and sniffed. I held my hand out and felt its tongue flick out to lick me. It turned then and started to root in the bag of rubbish, found a piece of meat, and shot away into its place between the bins to eat it. I watched for a while, wanting to stroke its fur, to give it food and water, but I shook myself. It was clearly living on the streets.
Reluctantly I left it alone but when I went for a walk that evening, I found the cat in the street, roaming around, sniffing in the gutters for food. On