Page 17

December 30th

I don’t have a hangover, not a terrible one anyway. It’s the first thing I notice when I wake. That, and the calm. I’ve sleptwell.My second thought is that there is someone in my bed. I sit up quickly, pulling the covers around me. This doesn’t happen. No one ever stays over.

‘Nick?’ I say.

‘You remembered.’ He bows his head, sits up and smiles slowly. His eyes—grey-blue, not vivid enough—are laughing at me. ‘But what were you calling me last night? Another name, your ex?’

I’m naked, and I’m cold. I have nothing at all to say to him. There is also a strange light in the room, as if it is already mid-morning. Have I slept in?

‘You stayed,’ I say, like an idiot.

‘I did.’

He doesn’t ask if that’s okay.

‘Shouldn’t you be at…? Shouldn’t you?’ I can’t remember where Nick works. In this strange daylight, he doesn’t look like you, notenoughlike you.

He laughs. ‘Look out the window, Kate.’

Everything is white, more like the moon than Barkingside.We’re in a clean, blank page. Or endless bedsheets. I can’t see a single person. No cars, no foxes, no birds. You aren’t anywhere, and it is all so quiet. A new world.

I scrunch my face as I remember: last night, what I did… with Nick.

Not you. Never you.

I shake my head to drive away the images.

‘Snow day,’ Nick says. ‘Bedday.’ He reaches over and wraps his arms gently around my waist, which is almost nice, the feeling of his skin against mine. ‘Is this the day we finally spend some time with each other?’

My body goes tense, and even though I breathe deeply, I can’t relax like I did last night. This soft, quiet morning unsettles me, it’s different. Can I reciprocate, wrap my arms around Nick? I touch his wrist, trace his veins with my fingertips. I’d forgotten about the tattoos on his arms—a woman with thick, wavy hair and big lips, which looks comically old-fashioned but is probably ironically cool. You have no tattoos; you believe in different kinds of images. You always said that the only art worth anything was made directly from the land, about the land—wasthe land. You’d never paint a woman who wasn’t me onto your skin.

‘I need to go to work,’ I whisper.

‘You can’t. Didn’t you see outside?’

I stare at him: so, I haven’t told him I work from home. I find my coat on the floor, wrap it around me and walk to the bathroom. I don’t feel as sick as I usually do after one of these nights. At the toilet, I don’t throw up. But I feel tender. What had I asked him to do to me last night? Who had I been? I press my forehead against the toilet roll and remember.

Tie me up, I said. Take off my tights, knot them round the bed posts.

He was hesitant, but I insisted.

He did it for me.

I angle my mouth and bite the paper, use it to stop my scream. But no scream comes. I feel calm again.Weird.I haven’t felt this calm for years. Not drunk. Not exactly numb. And I can remember what happened, most of it. Nick kissed me in the alley, then took me back here to fuck, but it was you doing it too. You were rough, but I asked you to be. I straddled you and rode you as furiously as if I were erasing a stain. And it felt good.

But it wasn’t you.

I spit the toilet roll out.

Mum’s right: I should see Rhiannon. Finding you in a crowd is one thing, imagining a whole night with you, believing it…

And now Nick is in my bed, propped against the pillows as if he is waiting for breakfast. Does this mean he thinks he’s my boyfriend now? Is he?

He’s still grinning at me when I come back, practically bouncing like Tigger. ‘So, what shall we do today?’

You would never bounce. You’d be more like Eeyore.

‘I told you, I have to work.’