Sat in my living-room, dressed and primed to venture out of doors, I was waiting.
Again.
She? Well, she was leaving.
Finally.
However, in truly typical style, she wasn’t doing it nearly fast enough for requirements. The match, the Cup Final, had already started and my status as a vindictive neutral made it imperative I get to The Bear & Staff ‘tout suite’ to enjoy it from the bottom of several pint glasses.
Bad enough I was making her leave though; I at least had to be here while she did it.
Which I admit hadn’t been my first instinct; that had been to avoid this entirely; leave instructions, then leave for the day.
In the end I’d been just a little too scared to do that. Scared that lonely tears (on her part) might turn to destructive rage. Scared that she’d still be here on my return, thinking that there must be some misunderstanding that could be resolved. Scared that I’d recant, call up and beg her to stay. Not too much chance of that last one, but best to cover all bases, yes?
So I’d concluded that the best way to get past these fears was to overwhelm them with something else, and I’d turned to my dad’s old favourite emotion; anger. Because these days, nothing made me angrier than being in the same room as her.
I squirmed with impatience on the La-Z-Boy.
On the screen, forced into dimness by the blazing sunlight from the windows behind it, City had started livelier, trying to stun their way towards an early goal. Admirable, but I was sure it would just rouse the deadliness in Liverpool. She made noises with suitcases. I looked up to find her, astonishingly, finished and ready to go.
Honestly, I’ve become too accustomed to my cousin Gladys’s attempts at packing: long, drawn-out, bewildering affairs birthed in a chaos universe. As such, the strength it took not to smile with delight at her efficiency was Herculean. Such an act would trigger the madness though, and doubtless lead to further delays. I flicked off the TV and dropped the remote instead. She handed me a folder.
“You were hiding this in my suitcase,” she said. I looked down at the black PVC binder. Miz.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I didn’t read it,” she said.
I didn’t care. Her opinion of my writing would never be important, but I frowned so she’d be confused by how I felt about that. I hadn’t actually looked at the thing in months, which was annoying, so the frown became genuine.
No matter. Now was not the time. I mentally flipped onto automatic and the same old platitudes of how ‘we’ll keep in touch’ and ‘still remain friends’, but ‘if either of us ever needed anything…’ all came trotting out, shiny and brazenly unashamed to be on parade again.
She accepted them, gave a couple back, though it was clear tears were queuing for departure right then and there. I seethed a little inside. It was all so unnecessary. Perhaps next time she’d wait to be asked to move in, rather than just colonise critical space in someone else’s flat. We’d probably be fairly content right now if she hadn’t been so emotionally aggressive.
Women, eh? If there wasn’t progress, there wasn’t anything apparently.
I left her at the doorstep, going the long way round to The Bear and Staff just so I didn’t have to walk some of the way with her.
And that’s how it ended. Painless. By virtue of it all having been shed in the preceding months. Now it was merely cathartic. Or it would’ve been if I hadn’t been busy quaffing beer the rest of the afternoon.
Caius and Newpy, the pair of reprobates Fate had decided to slot me between for the duration of my sentence here on Earth, were first to hear of the departure over the first ale. They were stoically predictable;
“Good riddance,” and “Thought you were gonna havta shoot your way out of that one!” intoned respectively.
Cat, when he came home, was much more enthusiastic. He found me watching highlights of the game I’d seen live that afternoon.
I spied his studied approach into the lounge, then the pause as whiskers twitched to an unexpected depletion of a particular scent, and the ensuing race as he circled the place to verify his suspicions. He still wasn’t buying it, and decided to come and ask me straight. Two paws on the arm of the La-Z-BoyTM, questioning eyes and a bobbing head. I smiled at him; Yes, she’s really gone. He brought the other legs up without apparent effort and began settling down in my lap with a sort of ‘That’s alright then’ in his manner. He didn’t like sitting with me when I was drunk but clearly felt the need to congratulate me on my disposal efforts.
I realised it was actually Sunday, and I was going to have to iron a shirt at some point. There had been some benefits to her invasion after all. Cat was nudging at the folder in my lap with a taupe nose. On the screen, all the pundits agreed Liverpool had probably edged the game and deserved the trophy in the end. The apparently adult feline sitting on me was now batting at the corner of the black PVC folder with one paw just as a kitten would. The Miz folder, I realised. I’d been sitting on it at one point. He was probably right; I was betraying myself by not working on the damn thing. Betraying the dream.
So I ruined his game and opened it…
…ah yes. I’d had wildly high ambitions at one time. The point where I’d left off still had the feel of an impassable ravine. I looked at the cat. He was wondering when I’d leave the damn chair to him and sod off. Charming.
Not then, naturally, but in the days to come I did begin to make an effort with the writing again. I suppose it was a vain hope that doing so would stir something in me.
But it didn’t. And I was still waiting.