Exciting Times(66)

It came out before I’d finished forming the thought. We pretended I hadn’t said it.

Two weeks left, then I’d be thousands of miles from her.

*

My PMI table took hours to do. For the weighting, I gave something very important a ‘3’, moderately important a ‘2’, and trivial a ‘1’.

When I added the columns, it was a draw.





49

I packed Julian’s shirts with just the bedside lamp on. They’d become so familiar that I took artistic pride in noting different cuts and textures. The COS one had a white rectangular label inside. He said he thought I liked that shirt more than he did.

‘Just the label,’ I said. ‘It’s a nice label. And the cotton smells fresh. What one are you wearing now?’

He couldn’t remember. I put my hand on his neck and said let’s have it off and see.

‘You’re acting strangely,’ he said.

I said: ‘I thought you liked that about me.’

He said I was tired and that he’d finish packing himself. I stood up to go back to my room when he added: ‘There’s something I should thank you for.’

‘What?’

‘There used to be a picture of me and Kat on the mantelpiece. I took it out of the frame before you came over the first time.’

‘The Dublin picture is better,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘I haven’t seen the other one, but I know I’m right.’

‘You are.’

‘We can take it to Frankfurt.’

‘Thanks. Let’s.’

‘I just printed it off the Internet.’

‘Ava.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘And thanks. Thanks for everything.’

He opened the window, lit a cigarette, leaned out, and said: ‘Are you sure you want to come?’

I said: ‘Yes.’

‘I’m not sure you’ve thought about it properly.’

‘I’m an adult,’ I said.

In my room I tidied my drawers. I started with scarves: a few from markets, silk from Mam, and the one Edith gave me for my birthday. They were all too light for Frankfurt. Julian would buy me one, though the fun of that had deflated since I’d realised he did it to fill voids he’d never confide to me. I typed ‘how long does it’ into the browser on my phone. Autofill offered: ‘take to get over someone’. Algorithms learned quickly.

The room was cold. I tugged on a polo neck and my head got stuck in it. I laughed, then wondered if this was to check I still knew how to.

Not seeing the harm in drafting one last piece of autofiction, I opened a thread with Edith and tapped out: i wish i’d been ready sooner, but i’m ready now. you’ve changed my life. i’ll always remember that. i understand if you never want to speak to me again. it will break my heart if we can’t be together. but you miss out on too much trying to keep it safe. julian can never hurt me as much as you did when you threatened to break up with me – not because he wouldn’t, but because he can’t. because there’s nothing at stake. there is with you, and i’m done being a coward. it’s hard to say how i feel but I thought: I’m an adult.

I hit the back arrow and scrolled through other threads for someone to talk to. Joan, last text: please stay behind tomorrow & help sort boxes. Tom, last text: free to call tomorrow? – sent by me, no response. Julian, last message: will you be home soon? – also sent by me, also no response.

Three dots flashed under Edith’s name. She was typing.

My legs were dangling off the bed. I locked my knees to keep them still and laid the phone on my lap, inching it into place like a time bomb. I looked ahead at the framed London pictures, then back at my thighs, with finicky turns of my chin – up to buildings, down to dots.

Maybe she’d seen them under my name first.

Edith could have noticed me typing just now, or at any point before. Through all my screeds, all my work and reworking, she might have seen the animation.

Dot, dot, dot.

I knew Edith was typing and seeing words form on her side, but they weren’t there on mine, which made them subjunctive: wish or feeling, less than fact. Ellipsis meant absence, nothing in the bell jar, no proof – not a specimen. The dots waved like trills on Chopin’s staves, turn them how you will.

She could be typing anything. And she’d caught me, too.

The prospect should have horrified me. The texts I’d drafted in our thread were only some of the total, and all the drafts together only showed a fraction of how frequently I thought about her, and I’d composed a few a day. Edith might have caught me every time for all I knew.

But if she saw the dots, it meant she was watching.

Also, I wanted her to know.

I mouthed it and laughed, properly this time, free of the polo neck. I love Edith and I want her to know.

I rang. The dial tone beeped like dots put to music.





50

In my last week at the flat, I rang to get the tap fixed. The landlord’s agent listed spurious damages to take from the deposit. I signed. From Julian’s instructions I learned the cleaning lady’s name was Lea and that I was to buy her flowers. ‘Maybe see you again,’ she said, and I said: ‘Maybe.’ Packing went quickly. Most of what Julian owned had fitted in his suitcase, and I’d cleared out Edith’s things some time ago.