The Girl Before(46)

“What was wrong with that one?” I asked him one time.

“Nothing. It’s a good discipline, to throw away things you like but don’t necessarily need. And a picture—any picture—left in view becomes invisible to the eye within minutes.”

Once, that would have seemed a strange, even faintly comic thing to say. But I’m coming to understand him better now. And to some extent, I agree. So many things about this way of life that once seemed onerous are now habitual. These days I slip my shoes off when I enter One Folgate Street’s little hallway without a second thought. I arrange my spices in alphabetical order, just as he likes them, and find it no great hardship to put each one back in its rightful place after use. I fold my shirts and trousers according to the precise method of a Japanese guru who has written several books on the subject. Knowing Edward finds it hard to sleep if I use the bathroom after him, in case a towel has been left haphazardly on the floor, I spread them out after every shower and come back to deal with them when they’re dry. Cups and plates are washed, dried, and put away within minutes of being used. Everything has its allotted space, and anything that can’t be found such a place is probably redundant and should be jettisoned in any case. Our life together has acquired an efficient, calm serenity; a series of quiet domestic rituals, soothing in and of themselves.



There are compromises on his part, too. There are no bookshelves in the house, but he tolerates a neat stack of hardbacks in the bedroom, so long as the edges are perfectly aligned and the construction four-square. Only when the pile begins to tilt does he start frowning at it as he dresses.

“Too high?”

“Perhaps a little, yes.”

I still can’t bring myself to throw books away, not even for recycling, but the charity shop on Hendon High Street is grateful for these pristine, almost unthumbed gifts.

Edward rarely reads for pleasure. Once, I asked him why, and he said it was to do with the words on facing pages not being symmetrical.

“Is that a joke? I can never tell when you’re joking.”

“Perhaps ten percent of a joke.”

Sometimes when he sketches he talks, or rather thinks out loud, and those are the most precious times of all. He doesn’t like to be pressed about his past, but neither does he shy from it when it comes up in conversation. His mother was a disorganized, chaotic woman, I learn; not exactly an alcoholic, not exactly addicted to prescription pills—another child might have had Edward’s childhood and come out completely normal, but some sensitivity or contrary streak determined him down a different path. I talk in turn about my own parents, their relentless high standards: the hard-to-impress father who exhorted me by corporate email to try harder, do better, win more prizes; the habits of conscientiousness and diligence that have stayed with me all my life. We’re complementary, we decide: We could neither of us settle for a partner who was happy being average.

Now he finishes his sketch, studies it for a few moments, then turns the page without tearing it out.

“Am I a keeper this time?”



“For the time being.”

“Edward…” I say.

“Jane?”

“Some of the things we did in bed last night made me feel uncomfortable.”

He lines up another sketch, squinting at my legs over the point of the pencil. “You seemed to enjoy them at the time,” he says at last.

“In the heat of the moment, perhaps. But afterward…I just wouldn’t want that kind of thing to become a regular feature, that’s all.”

He starts to draw, the pencil sweeping effortlessly across the page. “Why deny yourself something that gives you pleasure?”

“One can dislike something, even if doing it is a momentary indulgence. If it feels wrong. You of all people should understand that.”

The pencil’s soft back-and-forth doesn’t hesitate, like the stylus of a seismograph on a calm, earthquake-free day. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Jane.”

“Rough stuff.”

“Go on.”

“Basically, anything that causes bruising. Force, restraint, skin marks, or hair pulling, ditto. And while we’re on the subject, you might as well know that I don’t like the taste of come and anal is a complete no-no.”

The pencil stops. “Are you making rules for me?”

“I suppose I am, yes. Boundaries, anyway. It goes two ways, of course,” I add. “Anything you want to say to me, feel free.”

“Only that you’re a very remarkable woman.” He returns to his sketch. “Even if one of your ears is a little bigger than the other.”

“Did she go along with it?”

“Who?”

“Emma.” I know this is dangerous territory but I can’t help myself.

“Go along with it,” he repeats. “An interesting way of putting it. But I never discuss my previous partners. You know that.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You can take it any way you like. So long as you stop tapping your foot like that.”

—



In my art history degree course, we did a module on palimpsests—medieval sheets of parchment so costly that, once the text was no longer needed, the sheets were simply scraped clean and reused, leaving the old writing faintly visible through the new. Later, Renaissance artists used the word pentimenti, repentances, to describe mistakes or alterations that were covered with new paint, only to be revealed years or even centuries later as the paint thinned with time, leaving both the original and the revision on view.