Limbo

I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m in limbo. There are things I can’t talk about. Everything’s wrong at the moment and I don’t know what to do. I think I might have to get out of London. The next two weeks will hold the answer. But anyway, in the meantime, life goes on. Kinda.

So you’ll be wanting to know the answer to Monday’s Bookscan. Yes, you will. Don't be impertinent.

It was Big Ethel!



Hmmm. So recently, I found a box full of old notebooks, full of lots of things I can hardly remember writing, including a short story I was quite pleased with. Here it is here.


Nothing Personal

I waited for over an hour. Twice I saw her arrive and relaxed, a relieved smile breaking out across my face like sunlight. But it wasn’t her. It was merely someone who looked like her. My smile died. My face darkened.

The anger was the thing that really surprised me. While I was waiting, I imagined conversations we would have when she finally arrived. ‘Are you pissed at me?’ she would say. ‘No, I’m not angry at all,’ I would reply. ‘All that matters is that you’re here now.’ And I would stroke her face, and she would kiss my hand. But that conversation never took place. And as I made my way home, alone, I was dizzy with rage. I’d never been stood up before. It stings.

I refuse, however, to take it personally. Even if the warmth and laughter and tactility she’d shown me the week before was fake; even if she only gave me her number and insisted I call her to get rid of me; even if she only made the date with me because she thought that standing me up was the best way to get rid of a misguided, objectionable, persistent fool such as myself; even if all that were true – I would still refuse to take it personally because I know my worth. It’s her loss. Fuck her.

Of course, I should have forgotten all about it, but the anger stayed with me, and despite my fine words, my wounded pride got the better of me. So a couple of days later, I called her, partly to give her a piece of my mind, but still half-hoping to discover a simple explanation.

Thankfully, there was a simple explanation, and now all the anger has gone, and I feel at peace. I’m sad too, of course. Extremely so, because I think we could have been really good together. But then you always think that at the beginning.

Her mum answered the phone. She’d flown over from Ohio when she heard the news. She started crying on the phone, wanted to know who I was. ‘Just a friend,’ I said. ‘She’s dead,’ she said. ‘Laura’s dead.’

I made suitably shocked noises. I was shocked. ‘What happened?’ I eventually asked.

Through muffled sobs, Laura’s mother informed me that her daughter had been beaten to death. On Tuesday evening. As I was waiting and raging, Laura was having the life punched and kicked out of her by her husband, who’d found out about her date. He’d found out about me.

She told me when I met her, during the twenty minutes we spent chatting and plotting, she told me it wasn’t a very good relationship. ‘My husband is selfish,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see it for the longest time, but all he cares about is himself.’ And when I asked her out, she said yes. She said it would be good to spend some time with someone who thought about her for a change.

And now she’s dead and I feel relieved.

I feel relieved because - now I know - it was nothing personal.