Say Something

James is cleaning my pool. I’m sitting, chatting while he does, or rather listening to him chat. He waves his hand around my garden, which is actually looking quite nice, though it’s by accident more than design, I do fuck all to it – and says this is the life people aspire to. What you aim for. A bank manager for instance. Well it isn’t what I aspire to, that’s for sure, but I’ve taken it off the market - decided to stay here for another year, see what happens, and in May – this May particularly, it isn’t all that bad, not when the sun shines. I think it might be a disappointment to the neighbours though – I’m fairly sure they were looking forward to someone proper moving in here - someone who will put stripes in their lawn.

Last time I saw him, James said he was thinking of moving back in with his wife – they split up last year, so I ask how that’s going. He stops for a minute, looks at me, and says he doesn’t think he will now - because of her hassling him. I say what a shame – and it is, because I know he loves her – he never stops telling me. He’s circling the pool, moving the tube around underwater, sucking up all the detritus that’s gathered over the winter. He always spins this bit out – you can do it in fifteen minutes, but he makes it last an hour. I don’t mind – I like him – he's very indiscreet about his other clients - tells me all sorts of stories, and makes me laugh. He’s going to write a book about it all one day.

He takes a sip of coke. I’m willing him very hard to start cleaning again, get it over and done with, because I am auctioning things online and one of them is ending in a second - I want to go and watch – it’s the best bit. He sighs, and says I must know how hard he works, and how, when he gets home he just wants to have a drink: a couple of beers …. I start to nod sympathetically, but he goes on talking “…maybe five” he pauses again “….a bottle of wine…” “…perhaps two vodkas… and she won’t have it – won’t leave me alone, always giving me this…” he makes a mouth with his hand, opening and closing the fingers.”

He looks at me. I know he’s waiting for me to agree with him. He has that look on his face – the one you get when you’re convinced that you’ve categorically proved your point beyond all doubt . It’s as if I’ve suddenly become his wife. Then I start laughing – I can’t help it, and he does too. He puts down the tube, takes another sip of coke, and says all he really wants is a peaceful life. So he doesn’t think he can go back. I tell him how sorry I am that he feels that way.

When he’s finished, I go back inside – I have to put things in boxes, send them to odd places. A long time ago I could buy anything I wanted – anything at all. If you think that sounds like fun, actually it isn’t. It doesn’t make anything better and it certainly doesn’t make you happy. I suppose it’s like some people drink, except this has less calories and you don’t fall over. All it does is leave you with a house full of stuff

I’m trying to get rid of it now – it’s mostly pointless, and normally I give things away – there is so much here - but I think I’ve run out of people to give it away to, so the last few days, I’ve been selling things on eBay which is quite a production – the listing and photographing and so on, but it’s also fascinating to see what people will buy.

Yesterday I sold two pairs of expensive exercise shoes – you know the kind where they promise to make your legs toned just by you wearing them? Only they don’t really – no more than face cream will remove wrinkles, or fish oil make you brighter – or a new dress make you happier. It’s all bollocks. One pair I posted to a woman who lives at the foot of Mont Blanc – you would think she could just walk up the mountain a bit each day wouldn’t you?

Anyway, I’ve made nearly two hundred pounds in two days, and that’s quite good. Very economical – except then I bought quite a lot of other things, including a car, so it isn’t exactly balancing out.

It does take my mind off other things though - like Sunday, which fell through. I don’t know when I’ll see him next. We talk – all the time, for hours and hours, sometimes on the phone, sometimes on the computer, and it’s so strange to press a little button, watch him come to life, right there, on my screen. Sometimes I almost forget he isn’t here, and then I have to sit on my hands to remind myself that I can’t reach out and touch his face – it’s just a screen – a cold hard screen. In some ways it’s worse than not talking at all. It makes him feel even further away.

“Say something” he’s trying to adjust the volume

“What do you want me to say?” All the words go out of my head when someone tells me that.

“You know what I want you to say” he’s still smiling, but I know he’s serious – suddenly, and I also know what he wants me to say. I change the subject, and he doesn’t ask again. We talk about something else instead.

Sometimes he calls – late. Maybe slightly drunk. He says he’s never felt like this before – not ever – and that it’s completely distracting – eighty percent of his brain is taken up with it.

“Shall we stop? “ I ask, and he says no, and I don’t think we could right now anyway. I don’t know that there is any good ending for this. I don’t think there can be. Sometimes I think if I were a better person I’d be able to – I don’t know – walk away, not answer the phone. But I’m not. And the thing is, I don’t want to – I want to go on talking to him forever – I could, easily. I don’t want it to stop either
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One more week before Zach arrives, and then another two before Marnie comes back. If she can manage to print her ticket. She keeps sending me anxious emails about it.

I want to start my book before they come – while there’s no one here. I hope I’ll see him too, before then. There’s something I want to say.