She's Gone

Marnie had this collection of books – diaries, address books – mostly big black ones, covered in that stamped leather they do at Liberty – one for each house – London, the country, the villa – and then a couple in which she wrote other things – I was never quite sure what – and most of the time, she just spread them out at the end of my kitchen table that she sort of took over. I didn’t mind that at all; when I brought her coffee, or a glass of wine or something, I’d just gently push them to one side. It was her way of being organised – or rather, clutching at being organised, because she wasn’t at all – she wrote and wrote and wrote – each time she did anything, spoke to anyone – but it never made sense afterwards – what she’d written. No phone number, no email address, no name that ever she took down was accurate. She could never remember a date.

Quite often – and this got worse too, the nearer she came to leaving – she’d look up at me and say ‘I’m not going mad am I? Not losing my marbles?” Of course I told her she wasn’t. I’d say “No way. It’s because you’re stressed, that’s all” – because it might have been that. I know stress can make you forgetful - muddle things, get stuff wrong. But I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t.

One of the hardest things was not treating her like an idiot, or a child. It was so difficult sometimes though. Why couldn’t she do up her own seatbelt? Why? After a month of sitting in the same car seat you’d have thought she’d have worked it out, no? But she never did – and every time we went somewhere – every fucking time - I would have to wait while she stabbed and fumbled around with it, and then the bloody car would start bleeping – it’s Japanese so it does that – and then she would get stressed and start saying “fuck fuck fuck” and so we’d be rolling down my street – five miles an hour, going fuck bleep fuck bleep until I wouldn’t be able to stand it any longer and I’d have to put the brake on and do it for her. Then she’d apologise the whole of the rest of the way into town, and I’d feel bad that she was apologising.

The first time after she left - five minutes after dropping her at the station – it felt like a great big heavy load had dropped away from me – as if I’d suddenly lost half my body weight. As I pulled away from the car park, no-one said fuck and it was wonderful.

At home, I didn’t do anything for a while. I couldn’t – I just put my bag down and stood there, in the hall, listening to the silence, breathing in slowly, deeply – smiling, stretching - everything – my whole body - thinking about the things that had gone - the drinking, the sleeping pills, the falling out of bed, the getting stuck in the bath, the tears, the leaving candles burning – all night – the mess, the crumbs, the shit all over the place, the constant constant talk.

She’s putting a brave face on it. This is the first time she’s lived alone – in her whole life – and she was dreading it before she left – you could tell. She did go – reluctantly but she did it – and I didn’t ask her to stay – I just couldn’t – it would have been the end of me. There’s so much I want to do and I couldn’t do any of it while she was here.

She still has ridiculous, unfeasible plans. Coming back to the cottage in the high summer: how can she do that when she can’t drive and it’s three miles to the nearest pubic road? And finding a new man – only she says she doesn’t want anyone over sixty “in case they’re infirm.” She says he’ll have to be a millionaire too. He’ll need to be to bale her out. She has the most enormous debts and absolutely no idea how to live frugally. I hope she finds someone and charms the pants off him.

So anyway, she’s gone – and I don’t mind the emails. There are only one or two each day and they’re quite funny. She tells me in each one to get my arse over there soon. She’s worked out how to underline words for emphasis, and she does it frequently. I reply to them all – I say “have you found your millionaire yet Marnie? You’ve been there three days now, surely you’ve spotted at least one or two” – and I say I’m just waiting for Wednesday, and if he hasn’t answered my question by then, I’ll book a flight.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking – about Marnie, and, about getting older myself too, how it’ll be. I don’t think it would have helped her one bit – if she’d had money, or if she’d been cautious all her life, or saved, or anything like that. I don’t think any amount of sensible houses and comfortable pensions would make any difference to how she is now. I don’t think she should regret one minute of her mad happy sad over the top life. Just like I don’t regret walking away myself – from all sorts of things. I haven’t got a clue what’s going to happen – even tomorrow. There’s so much I want to do, and I think I’m just going to make a point of doing it, and enjoying it all while I can – like Marnie.