He shoots me a look and a smile that says ‘make me a latte would you?’ and I will, because that’s always my job now for some reason. We’ve got this new machine, it’s like we live in a coffee shop. I’ve bought some hazelnut syrup, to add some definition to our flat whites. And some sprinkles to lightly dust over our cappuccinos and cortados. It’s all very middle class. We’re Cameron’s children, you’d wince.
I don’t move a muscle. If he wants a coffee he can ask, like a normal person would. He looks away again. But even though his eyes are down he knows I’m looking. I can tell. His face lit by his screen. Smiling so smugly it’s practically demonic. Cross-legged like I am, as if each other’s reflection. He’s silently trying to get a rise out of me.
‘Coffee, please, ducky,’ his look says.
He can tickle me by barely moving a muscle. Make me giggle with the way he sits or the rise of a single eyebrow. He can clear his throat and it feels like a jab in the ribs. A soft hum can be a gentle hug. That’s how close we are. We send each other our thoughts by the smallest vibrations.
He’s found a new way to make me laugh. He uses this stupid voice he’s been practising. I can tell when he’s going to do it. I see the thought drop in. Then I see him smile when he’s about to do it. I see right through him. He looks up now to give me the full force of it. Here it comes.
‘You tapping avay your leetle thoughts, huh? Using zee leetle grey cells?’
I smirk, despite myself. Cheeky bastard.
‘I am zinking about the brown mark, above your elbow, on the back of your arm.’
He’s decided it’s time to stop for a moment, for one of our micro chats. A tiny ellipsis before we dive back into our worries and fears. A wry smile envelops my face.
‘My birthmark?’
‘Yez. Your mole.’
‘My… freckle.’
‘Your tea stain. Yes.’
He’s dropped the voice now. He’s got serious. Or as close as he gets anyway.
In the silence, his eyes wander over me.
‘I was just thinking about how it’s like a small button. I’ve always thought of it like that. Then I remembered I had a dream where I could press it and it would make you lose your memory. What do you think about that?’
I pause, breathe in through my nose and consider this. ‘I think you’re a very strange individual.’
‘Interesting you should say that. Very interesting,’ he says. Nodding, narrowing his eyes and archly taking me in as if he’s some sort of Buddha-Yoda, enlightening me with his abstract bullshit. He strokes my ankle, then makes to go back to his work.
‘Did you then?’ I say.
‘Did I what?’ he says.
‘Did you press it?’
‘It was just a funny dream. I thought I’d tell you.’
‘You pressed it! And now you’re being evasive,’ I say, throwing my shoe at him. It’s meant to be playful but I hit him in the head quite hard.
‘Ow! Oh God. Oh, my God. My eye. I think it’s going to have to come out,’ he says, overreacting wildly in search of a laugh. Which somehow he gets out of me.
‘Oh, my God. Tell me what happened next in your lame old dream?’
‘It’s not a lame old dream. It’s a nice dream,’ he says.
I hum to myself. Then breathe audibly. Rolling a bowling ball of disdain between us.
‘It’s not a nice dream. Is it? It’s not lovely, is it? It’s actually quite horrible.’
‘I think “horrible” is a tad extreme, honeybear,’ he says. This is one in a line of creative love names he’s taken to calling me. He uses them because we’re not the kind of people who would use them.
‘Well, I only say that because it’s a controlling, manipulative, latently sexist dream, in which I am essentially a doll-like creature to be played with at your whim. But, now I say it out loud, maybe you’re right, maybe that’s fine.’
His face contorts in thought. Then pauses. Then gives me a look like he’s about to cut through this whole conversation with something utterly brilliant. A real showstopper.
‘Don’t let anyone else’s dreams control you, Lily. For you are the master of your dreams,’ he mumbles with a degree of earnestness.
The room cringes.
‘Wow, that’s great, Aid. You should put that in front of some clipart of a sunset and whack it on the Internet. People love that sort of shit.’
‘Well, laugh it up, Lil. But your reaction to all this is very telling. You care too much about weird signifiers of what you are to others. You are the master of your fate and your–’
‘Yep, got it. Don’t worry, I’m fine as I am. But, thanks for the pop psychology, Pops.’
I’m irked but it soon turns to flirtation. It always does in the end.
‘That’s OK, honey… badger,’ he says.
He absorbs my mocking. It’s one of the many things I like about him. His discretion. His lightness of touch. He’s self-effacing and utterly pretentious at the same time. And somehow I’m still intrigued as to how exactly he does it. It’s a puzzle. The sort of thing that keeps a relationship going. He glances back at his screen again. Six, eight, ten taps.
‘Oh, one more thing. What happened when you pushed the button?’
‘Ah. Hmm,’ he mutters. ‘Dunno. As soon as I pressed it, I woke up.’
Without formal ending, Aiden’s eyes fall onto his computer. I am to consider this conversational cul-de-sac over, as we segue seamlessly back to our own worlds. Then he peers up over his device and smiles at me for a second. Full beam. All of him there, without any side. Then he disappears behind it again. And the tap-tapping goes on.
As I look at him, I see the binoculars sitting at his side and I get up and grab them in an instant and see what I can catch. I’m limiting myself to two sightings a day; I don’t want to get obsessive. You know how I get. That’s why I’m writing to you above anybody else. Because you know me, what I’m like. I fancy seeing one more bird while there’s still a little light. A wood pigeon or a goldfinch. Just a little one. You know. Just for a bit of fun.
BT – Cyanistes caeruleus – Grassland – Magic-hour sunlight, still, 18 degrees – 10 flock – Bright yellow breast, black chest line, male – 12 cm, perhaps – Excitable, jerky hops and aphid swoops.
I’ve never been creative. I’m more a facts and figures type. My oeuvre is no great loss to the artistic world. I’m the only person I know that literally cannot paint. Not on a canvas, or wall, nothing. You may say this isn’t a thing, but it is. Even when I started painting the flat Aiden would say ‘long, smooth strokes’ and I’d try to do it but somehow I couldn’t and he ended up doing the whole room himself, telling me to ‘just watch and make funny comments to keep me going’.
Hey, you know what? This is creative. Ha, Aiden, ha! This will be my project that will lift me from the partial doldrums. Maybe engage my heart a little as well as my graph paper head.
But I think what he really wants to know is, when I’m going to get back to my book. I know this because he said it today. He said:
‘When are you going to get back to your