Exciting Times(9)

As he talked, I attended partly to what he was saying and partly to questions such as why I blew him when he did things like say he’d be away for three weeks which showed he didn’t need me; whether I packed for him specifically between blowing him and being bought things so I wouldn’t feel him buying me things was directly because I’d blown him; whether, conversely, I did things like pack for him because I was worried he wouldn’t buy me things just because I’d blown him and I’d then be forced to confront how little blowing him meant by the only metric he used to show affection; whether the latter was especially bleak because that meant packing for him was worth more than blowing him and I was honestly not that good at packing; and how on earth I emerged from all this convinced I was the powerful one.

I said: ‘So iPhones are Veblen goods and bread isn’t.’

‘Exactly. Well, bread’s a Giffen good. What will you do while I’m gone? I can look up museums.’

‘I’m not a child. I’ll do that myself.’

‘Just offering.’

‘Can I come with you?’ I said, ironically.

‘I’m busy,’ Julian said, ironically. ‘It wouldn’t be fair on you.’

It’s never fair, I thought – sincerely. If it were fair then you wouldn’t spend so much money on me. The idea came to me fully formed in words before I remembered to be startled by it.

‘I know you don’t want me to go.’

When he said that, I wanted to go to his potentially matrimonial wine rack, choose his jammiest Cabernet Sauvignon, open it tenderly, and empty it over his MacBook. I didn’t. He’d buy a new laptop tomorrow, be pleased with the improved touch bar, and deny to my face that I had done that thing with the wine until a point in some future argument where he suddenly needed evidence I was crazy. None of this would address why his comment had upset me.

‘Ava, are you all right?’ he said.

‘I’m fine.’

I despised him. Not wanting him to go was an emotion produced by me, not him. He’d witnessed me having and failing to smother a feeling, and said he’d noticed – and he profited, not me. This showed how public-school boys coat-tailed on stolen labour. He receivedly pronunciated his defalcatory fricatives and he took his time doing it, because he could, because he and his vampire class would live forever off lives leeched in their factories and ultimately everywhere else, too, at – smaller words? – some degree of abstraction. My wanting to cry was a reflection mainly of my social conscience.

He opened the window and lit a cigarette.

‘Let’s talk about something else,’ I said.

Julian concurred. ‘Tokyo?’

‘Sure. Do you know Japanese?

‘Not a word.’

‘Konnichiwa,’ I offered.

‘Great, now I’ve got one word.’

‘It’s actually two. In Japanese. “Konnichi”, and then “wa”.’

‘Ava, are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Listen, I really do like you quite a lot.’

‘You, too,’ I said. Which made no sense – surely ‘You, too’ meant I thought he also liked himself a lot – but he didn’t mind.

That night I spent longer than usual pretending not to want him in ways that made it obvious I did. It wasn’t as much fun as I usually found it, or as satisfying as I knew slicing a machete through a row of his shirts would be, but I enjoyed the clarity of the exercise. There was something Shakespearean about imperious men going down on you: the mighty have fallen.

When we’d finished I borrowed one of his famous casual jumpers and he told me he liked how my ears stuck out. He said it made me look attentive. I asked did he mean I looked like I had good hearing, and he said no, not that exactly, but it made me seem alert.

‘In Victorian times,’ I said, ‘women cut off a lock of hair and gave it to men to keep.’

‘I don’t want your hair.’

‘I’m just describing the practice.’

‘Right. Good description. I still don’t want your hair.’

‘Do you want something else of mine?’

‘I’ve got your texts,’ he said. ‘They probably say more about you than your hair. And I want that jumper back.’

‘I prefer you in a suit,’ I said.

He didn’t sympathise enough with my politics to understand how embarrassing or personal a confession this was.





7

December

When Julian and I said goodbye at the airport, I made myself walk away first. I looked up at the steel beams, felt for my suitcase, then remembered I hadn’t brought one because I wasn’t the one leaving.

In the two months I’d been in the flat, my impression had been that he was hardly around. It turned out he’d been home quite a lot and we often had sex, and I didn’t like the sudden withdrawal of these conditions. I didn’t want to eat. It felt unnecessary doing it by myself. Alone in the flat, I texted him, but he replied hours later or not at all. I took to calling instead. I felt he could tell from my voice that I was in his bed and wearing his shirt.

At the end of his first week away, I asked on the phone about Japan. He said it was cleaner than Hong Kong, adding that he supposed I read more when he was away.