In the living room, my dress and heels were posed in the middle of the floor like a still life. The shoes were standing side by side, as if in a shop window, and the dress was in a crumpled heap behind them. The effect was quite dramatic. It looked as if the occupant of those clothes had simply vanished, like Murakami’s elephant, leaving the shoes in situ while the dress fell artlessly to the floor. I didn’t move them yet. I sat on the sofa, smoked a cigarette, and tried to think about the things I should do to get through the day. It seemed a monumental task.
It sounds crazy, but in the end I had to imagine that my body was some kind of pet – a small, delicate animal that had been delivered into my care for the next ten hours. This allowed me to make a simple to-do list:
Feed the animal.
Give the animal a wash.
Take her for a walk.
Clean her cage.
Give her some treats.
I knew that number three was especially important, since I wanted nothing more than to stay in the flat in my dressing gown all day. As for the others, well, I hadn’t eaten a bite since the restaurant, and I hadn’t showered either. I had no idea what the treats would be yet, but I thought that I ought to reward myself for the other achievements on the list. Beck had said I should be kind to myself.
Food had to come first, otherwise there was a reasonable chance I’d fall over in the shower. I needed sugar and protein and carbohydrate, so I fed myself a bowl of muesli with yoghurt and honey. Then I carried the laundry basket through to the shower room and dumped its contents in the washing machine.
Our washing machine lived in the shower room. This wasn’t our innovation: it lived there when we moved in. There wasn’t enough room for a bath because the room was an irregular L-shape, but the washing machine just about fitted in one corner; and since there was no place for it in the kitchen, this wasn’t such a stupid arrangement, although it did make sitting on the toilet quite claustrophobic. The only real advantage to the washing machine’s location was that you could strip in the shower room and throw your clothes directly into the cylinder. We only needed a very small laundry basket.
I like my showers scalding hot so that they seem to burn off the dirt like a chemical peel. But there seemed to be some sort of problem with the water pressure today. The weak trickle that dripped from the hose was barely lukewarm. I emerged from the shower feeing not much cleaner than when I’d stepped in.
Once I started tidying the flat, I couldn’t stop. I cleaned manically, like a 1950s housewife. I had it in my head that if I managed to get everything spotless, it would be like resetting the clock, creating a blank canvas for the rest of the working week. And Beck would be pleased with me. He’d get home and see that I hadn’t wasted my day crying on the sofa.
I needed music while I worked, to fill the empty space. A broad mixture of dance, rock and pop confronted me – two collections that had merged when Beck and I moved in together to create one sprawling entity with multiple personalities. Today, my eyes were inevitably drawn to the darker and more despondent of those personalities – Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Radiohead’s Kid A, the Cure, Morrissey, Nick Cave – but I resisted the temptation to wallow. At the same time, I couldn’t cope with anything too positive or energetic, which would have felt like a bitter sham. Instead, I compromised, and picked out a handful of albums that straddled the upbeat/downbeat divide: PJ Harvey’s Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Moby’s 18, Infected Mushroom’s Vicious Delicious.
I mopped and hoovered, wiped the surfaces in the kitchen, cleaned the hob, emptied the bins and ashtray, hung out the laundry on the airer, scrubbed the shower, lit a couple of scented candles to make the place smell nice.
By lunchtime, I’d run out of obvious things to do, so I started on the less obvious. I polished the mirrors, descaled the kettle, cleaned the tops of the kitchen cabinets. Then I decided that I’d wash all our bedding – duvet, pillows, mattress protector, the works. This was perfect because I couldn’t do it in the flat. I’d have to go to the launderette down the road, which would also get me out in the fresh air for a bit. I thought that I would take the bedding to the launderette, load it into the washer, walk to the Co-op to buy some cottage cheese – for the tryptophan – return to the flat to get my laptop, go back to the launderette to transfer the washing to the dryer, go to the coffee shop for a double espresso and a piece of cake (my treat), then spend an hour people-watching and checking my emails until the dryer had finished its cycle. Then I’d only have to kill a couple more hours until Beck got home, and the day would almost be done.
Someone was following me. I knew it before I’d got fifty metres down the road. The sensation of being watched, of being stalked, was overwhelming. The problem was there was no way I could confirm what I knew, not with the sort of irrefutable evidence that would convince anyone else. Both my arms were bear-hugging the black bin bag that held our duvet and pillows. I had poor peripheral vision and couldn’t turn round fast enough to catch my pursuer in the act. All I got was the occasional glimpse out of the corner of my eye, a figure in grey. I couldn’t even work out what sex it was.
I thought my best bet would be to pretend I hadn’t noticed anything, to act like nothing was wrong. Then when I got to the launderette, I could set the bin bag down on one of the machines, turn straight back out the door, and confront whoever it was in the safety of the busy street.
This I attempted to do.
When I stepped out of the door, there was no one there – or no one doing anything remotely out of the ordinary. A mother pushing a buggy, people at the bus stop, the usual shoppers and workers on their lunch breaks.
I felt ridiculous.
I went back inside and started loading my bedding into one of the machines.
Checking my emails turned out to be a surprisingly nervy exercise. Buried amid the usual junk – Viagra and phishing scams and penis extensions – was an email from Miranda Frost, and another from Jess at the Observer. I clicked on the former with some trepidation.
To: abbywilliams1847@hotmail.co.uk
From: miranda@mirandafrostpoetry.co.uk
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2013, 11:03 AM
Subject: (No Subject)
Bravo, Miss Williams
My editor tells me that I’m currently number one on Amazon’s poetry bestsellers list (another oxymoron I’m sure you’ll appreciate). We’re in danger of hitting five figures. I think I may have underestimated you. Turns out the cliché is true: any publicity is good publicity. Who’d have thought it?
I trust your career is likewise flourishing.
MF
P.S. Do you like cats?
I stared at the email for about ten minutes, as if it were a cryptic crossword clue, then hit reply.
To: miranda@mirandafrostpoetry.co.uk
From: abbywilliams1847@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013, 2:40 PM
Subject: RE: (No Subject)
I like cats very much. They’re much easier than people.
AW
It took me a long time to write this because my mind felt like it was full of treacle. But after rereading the message three times, I was at least satisfied that I’d written two coherent sentences.
Jess’s email was more complicated still.
To: abbywilliams1847@hotmail.co.uk
From: jessica.pearle@observer.co.uk
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013, 10:13 AM
Subject: More, please!
Abby
I’ll get straight to the point. Have you been looking at the online responses to your articles? We’ve had several hundred, with more coming in all the time. If you haven’t looked, just be warned: a fair proportion of them are hostile. But I’m sure you’ll appreciate the bigger picture. A lot of people are reading you.