and tantalising moment it was like remembering what it actually felt like to have her mother in the same room.
Not a memory. Not a picture. The actual feeling.
Melissa quickly placed the book back into the grey pouch and zipped it closed. She cleared her throat. She stood at the balcony railing for a short time, taking in the cooler air to temper her breathing and then moved back into the sitting room and set up her laptop on the coffee table.
She clenched her right hand and could feel the nails pressing into her palm. But it was not like the dream, this. The voice of the book made it feel different somehow and Melissa found now that she very much wanted the feeling back. Yes. She was thinking that she could Google the cottage in Cornwall. Find a picture of the kitchen. The tray with the scones and the jam … She typed into the search bar quickly but then the external light on the balcony – visible through the patio doors – suddenly began to flicker. Instantly the internet connection died.
Shit .
Melissa tried quickly to reconnect.
No Wi-Fi detected
She tried to set it up again – fumbling for the apartment information folder and the password. But nothing.
It was gone now. The moment. The frisson. The memory and the scent of the jam.
All of it.
Gone.
15
MAX – 2011
Max left early for his run to put in an extra two k. He set off feeling that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, that he had finally done the right thing and that he was capable of putting things back on track. OK, so he might be lonely for a bit. OK, so he would miss the sex. He was human. He was a guy. But he had been thinking about this for a long time and he felt better. Lighter. Yes. He had absolutely done the right thing.
Fast forward an hour and Max sat staring at his stopwatch at the kitchen table in abject disbelief. He could not possibly have taken that long to do just 5 k. Christ. If it really took him that long, he was going backwards.
Max closed his eyes, feeling the sweat running down his back. Nice one. You are past it. Losing it. Not just your physical fitness but the plot. You have waved goodbye to possibly the only decent woman who is going to give you the time of day, let alone climb into your bed. You are going grey, you are losing fitness, your daughter no longer answers your texts ipso facto you are now one hundred per cent on your fucking lonesome.
For a full ten minutes he sat, numbed by the pendulum of these emotions, staring blankly at the knots in the oak of the wooden floor. He wondered if this was what depression felt like – this ability to sit still for so very long without any inclination to move. Or was this just another symptom of true middle age? The dreaded slide.
For just one moment of panic he considered phoning Sophie and confessing that he had made the most terrible mistake but – no. That, he reflected, would not help either.
The truth was very simple because Max was actually quite a simple soul. He still missed Eleanor…
Even after all these years, he missed simply being with her. He missed all the little and everyday things about their marriage that he had so taken for granted.
Max looked across the room at the large frame which featured a montage of pictures from that other version of himself. Max on his wedding day. Max with Melissa asleep on his chest as a tiny baby. Max in charge of cricket on the beach in Cornwall. He remembered with a pang of discomfort how sometimes in that other hectic life he had both longed for and luxuriated in the small windows of time to himself. His run. His drive in the car to the university.
And now? When your child finally outgrew you and those small windows of solitude got bigger and bigger and bigger?
Fuck you – fate.
Just fuck you.
In the shower, he turned the heat up too high so that his flesh was scalded an alarming red by the time he realised – shit – that he had pushed his luck and would now, on top of everything, be up against it for
Not a memory. Not a picture. The actual feeling.
Melissa quickly placed the book back into the grey pouch and zipped it closed. She cleared her throat. She stood at the balcony railing for a short time, taking in the cooler air to temper her breathing and then moved back into the sitting room and set up her laptop on the coffee table.
She clenched her right hand and could feel the nails pressing into her palm. But it was not like the dream, this. The voice of the book made it feel different somehow and Melissa found now that she very much wanted the feeling back. Yes. She was thinking that she could Google the cottage in Cornwall. Find a picture of the kitchen. The tray with the scones and the jam … She typed into the search bar quickly but then the external light on the balcony – visible through the patio doors – suddenly began to flicker. Instantly the internet connection died.
Shit .
Melissa tried quickly to reconnect.
No Wi-Fi detected
She tried to set it up again – fumbling for the apartment information folder and the password. But nothing.
It was gone now. The moment. The frisson. The memory and the scent of the jam.
All of it.
Gone.
15
MAX – 2011
Max left early for his run to put in an extra two k. He set off feeling that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, that he had finally done the right thing and that he was capable of putting things back on track. OK, so he might be lonely for a bit. OK, so he would miss the sex. He was human. He was a guy. But he had been thinking about this for a long time and he felt better. Lighter. Yes. He had absolutely done the right thing.
Fast forward an hour and Max sat staring at his stopwatch at the kitchen table in abject disbelief. He could not possibly have taken that long to do just 5 k. Christ. If it really took him that long, he was going backwards.
Max closed his eyes, feeling the sweat running down his back. Nice one. You are past it. Losing it. Not just your physical fitness but the plot. You have waved goodbye to possibly the only decent woman who is going to give you the time of day, let alone climb into your bed. You are going grey, you are losing fitness, your daughter no longer answers your texts ipso facto you are now one hundred per cent on your fucking lonesome.
For a full ten minutes he sat, numbed by the pendulum of these emotions, staring blankly at the knots in the oak of the wooden floor. He wondered if this was what depression felt like – this ability to sit still for so very long without any inclination to move. Or was this just another symptom of true middle age? The dreaded slide.
For just one moment of panic he considered phoning Sophie and confessing that he had made the most terrible mistake but – no. That, he reflected, would not help either.
The truth was very simple because Max was actually quite a simple soul. He still missed Eleanor…
Even after all these years, he missed simply being with her. He missed all the little and everyday things about their marriage that he had so taken for granted.
Max looked across the room at the large frame which featured a montage of pictures from that other version of himself. Max on his wedding day. Max with Melissa asleep on his chest as a tiny baby. Max in charge of cricket on the beach in Cornwall. He remembered with a pang of discomfort how sometimes in that other hectic life he had both longed for and luxuriated in the small windows of time to himself. His run. His drive in the car to the university.
And now? When your child finally outgrew you and those small windows of solitude got bigger and bigger and bigger?
Fuck you – fate.
Just fuck you.
In the shower, he turned the heat up too high so that his flesh was scalded an alarming red by the time he realised – shit – that he had pushed his luck and would now, on top of everything, be up against it for
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