had gone off an hour ago and it was cold.
I checked the front door and the back door, turning the lights off as I went around. I pulled the curtains open a little in the front room and as I did so I thought I saw something outside: a shape, a shadow, across the street—next to the house that had been up for sale for months and months. A bulky shape, like a man, standing in the dark space between the front of the house and the garage.
I waited for it to move, for my eyes to adjust to the light and tell me what it was.
It didn’t move and the more I squinted at it the more I seemed to remember that there was a bush there, a tree, something. It just looked strange in the dark.
I closed the living room door and turned on the landing light, heading wearily upstairs. I got myself undressed and put on some pajamas, brushed my teeth. Turned on the light by the bed and pulled back the covers.
That was it, then.
Lying under the duvet, glaringly colorful against the clean white sheet, was a photo.
I stared at it for a moment, my heart beating fast.
It was a printed digital photo, of me. I picked it up, my hand shaking so much that the image was blurred, even though I recognized it and knew exactly what it showed: me, naked, on this very bed, my legs splayed, my face flushed and strands of my hair sticking to my cheek, my eyes looking directly at the camera with a look of pure lust, pure seduction, naked desire.
He’d taken this picture on one of the first weekends we spent together; the same weekend we’d fought against the wind on the beach at Morecambe, the weekend he’d told me he loved me for the first time. We’d been messing around with the camera, taking pictures of each other. We’d had fun with them afterward and he’d let me delete them off the memory card. Clearly not before he’d managed to make a copy.
For a moment I gazed into my own eyes, wondering about the person I’d been then, the person who’d wanted this so much. I looked so happy. I looked as if I was falling in love.
Whoever that person was, it wasn’t me now. I tore the picture into tiny pieces, threw the pieces down the toilet and flushed. The little bits all floated happily to the surface again and danced around like confetti on the wind.
Wednesday 9 January 2008
Caroline was finally back at work today, after a long vacation with her kids. I saw her come in through the open door of my office. I was on the phone at the time; she waved a tanned hand in my direction.
“You’re looking well,” I said, when I went to find her. “Did you have a good time?”
“Fabulous,” she said. She was dressed from head to foot in a selection of autumn colors, from her russet hair to her tan to her evergreen skirt and a jacket the color of a pile of bonfire leaves. “It was hot every day, the kids had fun, I got to read four paperbacks with my feet up by the pool. And I met someone called Paolo.”
“No—really?”
“Yep, he was fabulous too.”
We went down to the canteen, even though she’d barely taken her coat off. “I can’t bear to think how many e-mails I’ve got,” she said. “Has it been horrendous?”
“Not really. I think it’s about to kick off next week, though. The CEO’s coming to talk about the new warehouse.”
Caroline groaned. “I need chocolate.”
We sat with our teas by the window, looking out over an expanse of green landscaped lawn and some colorful shrubs.
“And how was your Christmas?” she said, pulling off a chunk of chocolate muffin.
“It was good, thanks.”
“Spent it with Stuart?”
“I had lunch with him—and his friend Alistair,” I added, before she had a chance to get excited.
“Just lunch?”
“Just lunch.”
She was giving me a long look.
“It all went a bit wrong,” I said.
“Wrong how?”
“I overheard his friend talking to him about me. It just freaked me a bit, that’s all. I left in a bit of a hurry, I think he was offended. I haven’t heard from him since.”
It had been two weeks. I assumed he was at home, going to work every day, but I hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t knocked on my door, or sent any texts. I wasn’t surprised, really, after I ran out on him