Nothing's Changed

I’m in the cottage, trying to find the documents, and it’s not so sad now – empty and dirty of course, but that doesn’t seem to matter so much. Marnie’s coping. At least I hope she is. I’ll find out soon, when I go.

I’m looking for letters – bills and things. She needs them to open a bank account on the island. “They’re being most unhelpful ..insisting on it …I hate to make you ..would you be a sweetie?”

They aren’t where she said they’d be of course. “The file by the window” …there are fucking millions of files. Her entire life in files, organised, categorised …except it isn’t. This is going to take me ages. I stop a minute; there’s a smell of woodsmoke – faint. Odd, because no-one’s been here for a couple of weeks – at least no-one’s meant to have been here. Is it dust in the air? Or smoke? I wander into the sitting room – low ceilinged, but big, spacious, or at least it would be if it weren’t so full of stuff. I listen; no sound – and I’m just going back into the dining room, to carry on with the search, when I’m suddenly half-back – in that room, that night, and he’s whispering something in my ear…. It keeps happening, ever since - I’ll be in the middle of something mundane, and then I remember, and something happens inside me. I don’t think it was a one-night kind of thing. I don’t know what it was…

It takes a while – and all the papers I find – all the stuff she needs as proof of identity – the council tax bill, the telephone bill ….they all have things scrawled across them “refused to pay” “summons cancelled, have entered into agreement” – she has lovely handwriting. I wonder if she’ll tippex these bits out before she shows them to the bank on the island. She has so many accounts already – all of them overdrawn. I don’t think she really needs another. I feel slightly sorry for the bank.

I didn’t know it would be like that – feel like that. I wonder if he did. Half-drunk – only half-drunk though, in the dark, in that room… I didn’t know it would be like that.

I think I have enough. I put them all into a carrier bag, walk quickly to the door, lock up. Take deep breaths of sunshine. It’s really properly spring now. No question about it.

On the way home I try to work out what I’m going to say – how I’m going to reply to whatever it is – part four, five – I’ve lost count. In one of them –part two maybe? – he wanted to know how I felt about monogamy – I think that was how he put it. I don’t think now’s the time to bring that up. I don’t want him to think this is a threat, because it isn’t – it isn’t at all. Nothing’s changed. I don’t want anything to change. I still want what I wanted last week. It’s still the right thing to do.

Back past the sheep, the new-born lambs, slowly, so I don’t kill anything. Occasionally women with expensive buggies – the ones with the big wheels and silly hideous designs all over them go by. The big house is a destination hotel now – it specialises in catering for young families – yummy mummies and daddies – it’s very upmarket - costs a fortune. I wonder if it would make a difference if they knew what the mad earl used to do there, before he died – all those friends, the helicopter trips in the middle of the night, the special rooms. Marnie told me about them. I bet they don’t put that on their website

Out through the gate, near the big house. Two women in tweed, clutching their National Trust leaflets look at me as I turn the music back up. As if Joy Division’s illegal here. Fuck them. This isn’t a theme park. I turn it up higher and glare at them, spin my wheels on the gravel.

Afterwards - the next morning - in the little art gallery, kissing..I didn’t want it to stop…I don’t think he did either - and then the woman –some volunteer she must have been – coming up and saying brightly “can you tell me how you heard of the gallery?” and we pulled apart, as she’d obviously meant us to, smiled – because we're both too old to do things like this.

When I get home, I email Marnie, tell her I’ve got what she needs and I’ll post it the next day. Then I book my flight. I hope it’ll be warm enough to use the pool – even if it’s really hard work, it won’t matter so much if it’s warm enough to float in the pool

There’s a message: “ I might be able to find a day – not sure yet. Would you….?”

I don’t know where this is going – what it’s going to be – for how long – anything really. But I don’t think it matters right now. So I say yes, I’d love to.

First the island though.