She doesn’t know what to say. She feels quietly furious with him, while conscious that she has no right to be. What has he ever promised her, after all?
This is where any sensible person pulls together the remnants of their self-respect, announces that they deserve more, and walks off to find someone who can give them a whole self, not snatched lunchtimes and haunted, empty evenings.
I ache, I rattle with supplements, and my grandchildren cannot believe I have ever been anything but prehistoric.
She thinks, briefly, that she has never felt so lonely in her life.
But I realised suddenly, in the midst of that little tableau of insanity, that to have someone out there who understands you, who desires you, who sees you as a better version of yourself is the most astonishing gift. Even if we are not together, to know that, for you, I am that man is a source of sustenance to me.
The Kommandant thought about this, as if my answer had satisfied him. “I once wanted to be a painter. I was no good, of course. I had to confront the truth of the matter very early on.” He fingered the stem of his glass. “I often think that the ability to earn a living by doing the thing one loves must be one of life’s greatest gifts.
You came for a romantic weekend to Paris. In your flip-flops.
We had not mentioned love, but my every nerve ending throbbed with it, and I carried it in a cloud around me, like sea mist.
The conductor stepped up, tapped twice on the rostrum, and a great hush descended. I felt the stillness, the auditorium alive, expectant. Then he brought down his baton and suddenly everything was pure sound. I felt the music like a physical thing; it didn’t just sit in my ears, it flowed through me, around me, made my senses vibrate. It made my skin prickle and my palms dampen. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
And when it came down to it, what was the point in re-examining your sadness all the time anyway?
You were reading my Flannery O’Connor the other day.” He took a sip of his drink. “When I was ill.” “The short stories? I can’t believe you noticed that.” “I couldn’t help but notice. You left the book out on the side. I can’t pick it up.” “Ah.” “So don’t read rubbish. Take the O’Connor stories home. Read them instead.” I.
Beside me Sam had started to shake silently. “Stop them,” he murmured. “I’m going to bust my stitches.
You could only truly reinvent yourself far from home. On trips to see her parents, she still feels a little stifled by all that communal history.
Doesn’t matter how smart you are, how clever, how self-reliant – you can always be bettered by a stupid man with a gun. The.
I thought about the fact that there seemed to be such a high cost to anything a woman chose to do with her life, unless she simply aimed low. But I knew that already, didn’t I? I had come here and it had cost me dear.
My skin grew freckled, my nails bleached, and I began to feel a rare happiness at the simple pleasures of existing here – of walking on a beach, eating unfamiliar foods, swimming in warm, clear water where black fish gazed shyly from under volcanic rocks, or watching the sun sink fiery red into the horizon.
Margaret laughed. “Sure thing. Sorry, Ave. I’ll go and get the tea.” Ave. If Avice had been feeling less awful, she would have corrected her: there was nothing worse than an abbreviated name.
Ellie’s head sinks into her hands, and she weeps for the unknown Boot, for Jennifer, for chances missed and a life wasted. She cries for herself, because nobody will ever love her like he loved Jennifer, and because she suspects that she is spoiling what might have been a perfectly good, if ordinary, life. She cries because she is drunk and in her flat and there are few advantages to living on your own except being able to sob uninhibitedly at will.
What am I meant to do with what’s left?
The morning sagged and decided to last for several years.