catch up eventually, of course, but at a time of its own choosing. Not his.
He realized that he was bent forward over his desk, eyes closed, and that anyone could have looked in. In case they had, and were still there now, he tried to adopt an expression of intense concentration, provoking instead a fleeting amalgam of self-disgust, amusement and despair, which convulsed his shoulders in a kind of emotional hiccup. Great. Now his observer would think he was crying. Tim opened his eyes. There was nobody there. On his desk various invoices craved his attention, but not loudly enough to warrant it. He stood and walked through the staff room to the storage area, and let himself out of the side door.
It was another bright blue day, too windy to be warm. There was something he ought to be doing now, for a moment he couldn’t imagine what, and then decided it was smoking – he should be smoking. This was your alibi when you’d walked out of your office and were standing doing nothing much while work piled up behind you. But his occasional nicotine binges left him sick and hungover, and he wasn’t in the habit of carrying cigarettes. So he stood doing nothing, while the wind rearranged his hair. He yawned suddenly and largely. He hadn’t slept much last night.
His bedroom was at the front of the house, and though it was a quiet neighbourhood, noises from the street carried to him nonetheless, offering a commentary on lives unconnected to his. Last night, he’d heard footsteps – a woman, in heels; their regular click/click providing a rhythm for his insomnia. And as they reached their loudest, directly beneath his window, they stopped, and for half a beat he imagined the next sound he’d hear would be her key in the lock, and that this was Emma come back to him. But Emma wasn’t coming back to him. This is what your life is like now . But he allowed himself to dwell for a second on what would happen if she did; the readjustments that would ensue; the endless explanations to friends and neighbours. The rot that would result from this attempt to repair the irreparably sundered. It wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t coming back. Something rasped on the street below – a match or an inefficient lighter – and the footsteps started again; grew quieter, more distant, disappeared.
He’d somehow dozed off after that, and had the second dream.
The store was part of a complex of large retail outlets – the others sold sporting goods and DIY materials – arranged as an open-ended square around a car park; a probably accidental parody of the quadrangle effect older buildings in the city were famous for. The car park’s level expanse was relieved here and there by strips of greenery intended as chicanes, but which also served as fast-food packaging depositories. Red-and-white-striped cardboard cartons nestled under exhaust-stripped shrubberies like a terrible taste of Christmas-yet-to-come. And the whole complex was just one of a series of such lining this busy road leading west out of the city: a consumer paradise, or possibly hell on earth.
He walked a little, to avoid capture. By the DIY store he paused. Its window-stickers offered unbeatable bargains with a gusto bordering on the desperate. He peered past them to pyramids of paint cans; to racks of tools designed for home improvements. Everything here came with the promise of a future attached. He left, kept walking; found himself tracing the car park perimeter with no real sense of purpose, but at least it was a ready-made route. At the main road he stopped, and thought about the dreams.
Emma had often described her dreams to him, and they had always been – or had seemed in the telling – coherent narratives, with defined beginnings, middles and endings, even if the endings turned out to be that hoary old staple And then I woke up – it was all a dream. But Tim had rarely recounted his, and she’d never, of course, pressed. Dreams are more interesting related
He realized that he was bent forward over his desk, eyes closed, and that anyone could have looked in. In case they had, and were still there now, he tried to adopt an expression of intense concentration, provoking instead a fleeting amalgam of self-disgust, amusement and despair, which convulsed his shoulders in a kind of emotional hiccup. Great. Now his observer would think he was crying. Tim opened his eyes. There was nobody there. On his desk various invoices craved his attention, but not loudly enough to warrant it. He stood and walked through the staff room to the storage area, and let himself out of the side door.
It was another bright blue day, too windy to be warm. There was something he ought to be doing now, for a moment he couldn’t imagine what, and then decided it was smoking – he should be smoking. This was your alibi when you’d walked out of your office and were standing doing nothing much while work piled up behind you. But his occasional nicotine binges left him sick and hungover, and he wasn’t in the habit of carrying cigarettes. So he stood doing nothing, while the wind rearranged his hair. He yawned suddenly and largely. He hadn’t slept much last night.
His bedroom was at the front of the house, and though it was a quiet neighbourhood, noises from the street carried to him nonetheless, offering a commentary on lives unconnected to his. Last night, he’d heard footsteps – a woman, in heels; their regular click/click providing a rhythm for his insomnia. And as they reached their loudest, directly beneath his window, they stopped, and for half a beat he imagined the next sound he’d hear would be her key in the lock, and that this was Emma come back to him. But Emma wasn’t coming back to him. This is what your life is like now . But he allowed himself to dwell for a second on what would happen if she did; the readjustments that would ensue; the endless explanations to friends and neighbours. The rot that would result from this attempt to repair the irreparably sundered. It wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t coming back. Something rasped on the street below – a match or an inefficient lighter – and the footsteps started again; grew quieter, more distant, disappeared.
He’d somehow dozed off after that, and had the second dream.
The store was part of a complex of large retail outlets – the others sold sporting goods and DIY materials – arranged as an open-ended square around a car park; a probably accidental parody of the quadrangle effect older buildings in the city were famous for. The car park’s level expanse was relieved here and there by strips of greenery intended as chicanes, but which also served as fast-food packaging depositories. Red-and-white-striped cardboard cartons nestled under exhaust-stripped shrubberies like a terrible taste of Christmas-yet-to-come. And the whole complex was just one of a series of such lining this busy road leading west out of the city: a consumer paradise, or possibly hell on earth.
He walked a little, to avoid capture. By the DIY store he paused. Its window-stickers offered unbeatable bargains with a gusto bordering on the desperate. He peered past them to pyramids of paint cans; to racks of tools designed for home improvements. Everything here came with the promise of a future attached. He left, kept walking; found himself tracing the car park perimeter with no real sense of purpose, but at least it was a ready-made route. At the main road he stopped, and thought about the dreams.
Emma had often described her dreams to him, and they had always been – or had seemed in the telling – coherent narratives, with defined beginnings, middles and endings, even if the endings turned out to be that hoary old staple And then I woke up – it was all a dream. But Tim had rarely recounted his, and she’d never, of course, pressed. Dreams are more interesting related
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