THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2013
MORNING
Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’llbe happy if I never have to set foot outside thehouse again. I don’t even miss working. I just wantto remain safe and warm in my haven¹ with Scott,undisturbed.
It helps that it’s dark and cold and the weather isfilthy. It helps that it hasn’t stopped raining forweeks—freezing, driving, bitter rain accompanied bygales howling through the trees, so loud they drownout the sound of the train. I can’t hear it on thetracks, enticing² me, tempting³ me to journeyelsewhere.
Today, I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t wantto run away, I don’t even want to go down theroad. I want to stay here, holed up with myhusband, watching TV and eating ice cream, aftercalling him to come home from work early so wecan have sex in the middle of the afternoon.
I will have to go out later, of course, because it’smy day for Kamal. I’ve been talking to him latelyabout Scott, about all the things I’ve done wrong, myfailure as a wife. Kamal says I have to find a way ofmaking myself happy, I have to stop looking forhappiness elsewhere. It’s true, I do, I know I do, andthen I’m in the moment and I just think, fuck it,life’s too short.
I think about that time when we went on a familyholiday to Santa Margherita in the Easter schoolholidays. I’d just turned fifteen and I met this guy onthe beach, much older than I was—thirties, probably,possibly even early forties—and he invited me to gosailing the next day. Ben was with me and he wasinvited, too, but—ever the protective big brother—hesaid we shouldn’t go because he didn’t trust the guy,he thought he was a sleazy creep. Which, of course,he was. But I was furious, because when were weever going to get the chance to sail around theLigurian Sea on some bloke’s private yacht? Ben toldme we’d have lots of opportunities like that, that ourlives would be full of adventure. In the end we didn’tgo, and that summer Ben lost control of hismotorbike on the A10, and he and I never got to gosailing.
I miss the way we were when we were together,Ben and I. We were fearless.
I’ve told Kamal all about Ben, but we’re gettingcloser to the other stuff now, the truth, the wholetruth—what happened with Mac, the before, the after.
It’s safe with Kamal, he can’t ever tell anyonebecause of patient

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