boxes of paper everywhere, notes in your sharp scribble covering sheets and sheets of it. Beside the desk, the waste-paper basket is full of crumpled, abandoned balled-up paper. I think about reading some of the words, but my brain doesn’t have room for them – all the hurt and empty space fills it. Instead I just stare at it all for a minute or two before turning away.
Our old bookshelf still stands in the corner; badly drawn flowers covering the sides in felt tip, their brightness faded with too many years passed. I can still remember drawing them, sharp and clear. Mine are small tight squiggles on stalks and Penny’s have big green leaves and huge petals. Make from that what you will. It’s not rocket science.
Dusty children’s books still sit in a raggedy heap on the shelves. I wonder why you haven’t boxed them up or given them to a charity. Maybe you were planning to, but all the writing on those screwed up pieces of paper got in the way. You are like Paul in that way. Obsessive about things.
I pick up a large white hardback. Some of the shiny spine has been ripped away exposing the thin cream-coloured mulchy cardboard underneath. I look at the front and the bright picture rings bells in my head. Thiswas a loved book. Maybe that’s why you haven’t packed them away yet. Maybe these books keep us with you even when we’re far away. Talismans. Unlike our mother, you love us better as children than as babies.
I rub the thick seventies paper between my fingers, memories of smell and taste and sound filling my head - here and just out of reach – and I flick to the first story. It’s a fairy tale of course: a princess and her equally beautiful partner dance across a glittering ballroom beneath an ornate title, leaving no question about the ending. I don’t remember it ever spoiling my enjoyment of the stories. I still believed in happy endings back then. Even after Mum left, a little sparkle still lived inside me. Children recover well from things like that, don’t they? The picture sends a hum through me and the book feels familiar. On the next page the story starts to tell itself and I wonder how many years have passed since it’s had that chance. The letters are large and black and tug at my insides.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess in a faraway land
.
My hand trembles. I feel as if my skin is shaking itself free from my flesh and then the pages blur. I used to love these stories. I hug the book tight and lean against the window, huge sobs escaping from my hollow chest. I slide to the floor, the windowsill banging hard into my spine. I don’t care. The pain is outside of me. I am empty. I am nothing. I can’t hold it together anymore, pills or no pills. There is too much darkness at the edgeof my vision and I’m tired of fighting it. The drift has me. The drift has always had me. I was just too stupid to know. My eyes glaze and the book slips from my hand.
There was this girl, you see.
And there was this man.
And for a while, all was well.
*
I go to London when I’m twenty. Everyone has left home and I feel like the world is passing me by and taking opportunities with it. That’s what Penny tells me anyway, carrying me along with her excitement and glow and the rush of her words in the phone. She loves London. I’ll love it too. She has no doubt about this and before I can breathe properly I’ve packed my suitcase and I’m on the train, eyes wide and twitchy like a rabbit, a bundle of nerves and excitement.
Penny has a little flat in East Ham and she’s right. I do love it. We laugh a lot in those first two months, spending our evenings drinking cheap wine and smoking Benson & Hedges. I’m temping in an office, answering phones and typing letters; she is selling expensive make-up in Selfridges. She is very good at it, selling things. Customers like to buy from people with the glow, as if they think that personal shine will come with the product. It doesn’t, of course. If
Our old bookshelf still stands in the corner; badly drawn flowers covering the sides in felt tip, their brightness faded with too many years passed. I can still remember drawing them, sharp and clear. Mine are small tight squiggles on stalks and Penny’s have big green leaves and huge petals. Make from that what you will. It’s not rocket science.
Dusty children’s books still sit in a raggedy heap on the shelves. I wonder why you haven’t boxed them up or given them to a charity. Maybe you were planning to, but all the writing on those screwed up pieces of paper got in the way. You are like Paul in that way. Obsessive about things.
I pick up a large white hardback. Some of the shiny spine has been ripped away exposing the thin cream-coloured mulchy cardboard underneath. I look at the front and the bright picture rings bells in my head. Thiswas a loved book. Maybe that’s why you haven’t packed them away yet. Maybe these books keep us with you even when we’re far away. Talismans. Unlike our mother, you love us better as children than as babies.
I rub the thick seventies paper between my fingers, memories of smell and taste and sound filling my head - here and just out of reach – and I flick to the first story. It’s a fairy tale of course: a princess and her equally beautiful partner dance across a glittering ballroom beneath an ornate title, leaving no question about the ending. I don’t remember it ever spoiling my enjoyment of the stories. I still believed in happy endings back then. Even after Mum left, a little sparkle still lived inside me. Children recover well from things like that, don’t they? The picture sends a hum through me and the book feels familiar. On the next page the story starts to tell itself and I wonder how many years have passed since it’s had that chance. The letters are large and black and tug at my insides.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess in a faraway land
.
My hand trembles. I feel as if my skin is shaking itself free from my flesh and then the pages blur. I used to love these stories. I hug the book tight and lean against the window, huge sobs escaping from my hollow chest. I slide to the floor, the windowsill banging hard into my spine. I don’t care. The pain is outside of me. I am empty. I am nothing. I can’t hold it together anymore, pills or no pills. There is too much darkness at the edgeof my vision and I’m tired of fighting it. The drift has me. The drift has always had me. I was just too stupid to know. My eyes glaze and the book slips from my hand.
There was this girl, you see.
And there was this man.
And for a while, all was well.
*
I go to London when I’m twenty. Everyone has left home and I feel like the world is passing me by and taking opportunities with it. That’s what Penny tells me anyway, carrying me along with her excitement and glow and the rush of her words in the phone. She loves London. I’ll love it too. She has no doubt about this and before I can breathe properly I’ve packed my suitcase and I’m on the train, eyes wide and twitchy like a rabbit, a bundle of nerves and excitement.
Penny has a little flat in East Ham and she’s right. I do love it. We laugh a lot in those first two months, spending our evenings drinking cheap wine and smoking Benson & Hedges. I’m temping in an office, answering phones and typing letters; she is selling expensive make-up in Selfridges. She is very good at it, selling things. Customers like to buy from people with the glow, as if they think that personal shine will come with the product. It doesn’t, of course. If
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