‘Ah. Yes.’ Comprehension arrives as I look at the roll-ups mixed in with normal butts in the ashtray. ‘Sometimes.’
With this Kim pulls a Frisbee from under his chair. It overflows with dangerous-looking green-brown foliage.
‘I don’t usually share, man, but as you’re new.’
Kim rolls, no tobacco added, and we smoke.
And now I lie in my bed crying, listening to men singing out across the rooftops, welcoming me to the first full day of my new life. Men who may never have met, yet their voices interweave with the others to harmonise as though members of the same choir; which I guess they are. The voices stop and the silence is sudden.
I am lying with my head to the mosquito-netted open window. There must be a hole in it somewhere as a small lump on my thigh asks to be scratched. From where I lie I can see the top of a wall and a thin strip of sky. Day arrives quickly. The room changes from dark to light as the night is edged out. When the arrival of day is complete, I’m surrounded by varying off-white shades of the walls and floor tiles. I look at my watch: quarter past six. I’ve had maybe six hours’ sleep. I try to recall the conversation with Kim, but nothing comes. A moment of life lost to magical foliage.
I wonder why Laura hasn’t made an appearance yet and then push the thought aside. I get off the bed and busy myself with finding my pants. My bed cover is in a ball on the floor. The sheet I was lying on is damp with my sweat. Something small and bloodthirsty buzzes by my ear, close enough to make my spine shiver. This place is hot. And I want a cigarette. That is a morning need I haven’t had for a while. I must have smoked everything to hand last night. The nicotine needs topping up. Re-infected already. Easier to catch than a cold.
I pull on dirty clothes that stick to my body like gritty cling film and leave the room.
The lounge stinks of overflowing ashtray and a sweet smell of burnt exotic plants. Kim has left a packet of Indonesian cigarettes on the table. I accept my re-addiction and take one. There’s a lighter down the back of the chair. I go out the front door. A small tiled garden, hemmed in by a white wall and black metal gate, separates the house from the small and traffic-free road. The sun has risen quickly and the sky is white-blue. Lines of silver sunlight pour between the leaves and branches of a tree that holds yellow-green fruit. Mango, maybe. I pick one, roll it over in my hands and take a bite. Whatever it is, it isn’t ripe. I spit it out, put the cigarette in my mouth and light it. The taste of clove and bonfires. I’m not keen on clove, it ruins apple pies, but the bonfire is OK. It sets fire to my lungs and the coughing rattles the dope hangover out of my head.
‘Keep it fucking down, man. Fuuck.’
The voice comes from the window behind me. Kim must be in there somewhere behind the mosquito mesh. There’s still more coughing to come so I open the gate and step onto the street where I let it out. I look at the cigarette.
‘You evil bastard.’
Putting it back in my mouth, the cloves do their job. The back of my throat is numbing and the cough rolls over and goes to sleep.
Noise is still dormant in this street of white walls and small houses and trees. It is a cul-de-sac that stops at a wall to my right. The sun is already blanching my face and the air is stuffy. Sweat bubbles up on my forehead. I’m going to like this heat. It’s going to bake me into something new. I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun. New Me is going to be brown and sun-bleached and blond-haired and careless. He’s going to smoke and drink and argue and live and Laura will not have anything to say on the matter. Nothing.
—Nothing?
—Nothing.
—Well that’s not nice, she says, ignoring the fact that she’s dead.
—Sorry, but me and you were one. We were one and you’ve gone. What does that leave? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to be?
—I don’t know.
—Exactly. So be quiet. Please.
I open my eyes before she can say more, go back in the house, pull a towel and bag of toiletries from my backpack, take a pee, shower under cold water, dry myself, put on a pair of pants, smoke another of Kim’s cigarettes, go back to my bed, lie down, watch a pale-green lizard no bigger than my little finger crawl across the ceiling. I sweat, sleep, wake up, sweat some more, sleep some more, wake up, tell Laura to be quiet and go back to sleep, sweat, go back to sleep.
She dies. Nothing is linear, everything is flat. Nothing continues in perfect expectation and succession; there is no beginning, middle or end.
She dies, and the moment that lies nearest to this amongst the countless moments laid out like photos on a bed is the bus stop, the farewell. I pick the photo up and turn it so the whole moment is made clear. Studying it, I see that a little gathering of hair has come out from behind her ear and hangs against her cheek. The scent of the sea and fish and chips is being blown from the seafront down through the streets to here. A little white speck of cotton is caught on an eyelash. I remove it with my thumb. She smiles, but there is awkwardness between us that feels alien. She turns away and checks the timetable on the post again. Around us people walk by, unaware of the importance of this moment. Cars carrying families with picnics and buckets and spades roll up and down the street sniffing out parking spaces. At her feet is a suitcase with a shoulder bag sat on its top. In the top of the bag a passport, tissues and her camera taunt me. She is wearing cut-off jeans with straggly white threads hanging over the tops of her calves. A thin ivory cotton top shows a half-moon of her back with lightly tanned skin pulled tight over vertebrae and delicate shoulder blades. My hand goes there. The backs of my fingers stroke gently down between them. She turns and throws her arms around me. Like a fly-trap I close around her.
‘Tell me not to go,’ she says into my ear.
‘Don’t go,’ I say into her hair, breathing in the scent of fruit and bottled freshness.
‘I have to.’ She puts her nose to my neck and I hear her breathe in.
‘You smell like shit. I’ll miss it.’
Through wispy hairs that tickle my face I see the white National Express coach waiting at a set of lights down the road, waiting to come and destroy me.
‘Don’t go,’ I say again. ‘I mean it.’
‘I’ll be back. It’s not exactly far. And you go enjoy yourself too. Go find yourself somewhere.’
‘I don’t need to. I’m happy with me. I’m happy here, with you.’
‘Well, no doubt you’ll sneak a visit out to see me, even if I say you can’t. You lovesick puppy.’ She holds me tight to her, arms reaching far around my back.
This will probably happen. I can’t believe I’m letting her go. I will have to see her somehow. I will have to. After more than three years together, I can’t understand how I’ll go for so long without seeing her, listening to her, watching her.
The lights have changed to green and the bus is moving towards us. My hands pull at the base of her back, pull her nearer.
‘I guess that means you can see my bus.’
‘No. It means I’ve got a boner.’
‘Sicko.’ Her hands grab my buttocks and her nails dig in. She grabs a piece of my neck with her teeth and pulls.
‘Ow. Hurts.’
She releases.
‘Don’t forget me.’ She leans back in my arms and locks my eyes with hers. ‘Do not forget me. I’m doing this for me, but I love you. And I am not leaving you. You’re just a yappy puppy going into kennels and I’ll be back for you soon.’
I howl at the approaching bus.
‘Calm down, Rover.’
‘Nine months isn’t soon.’
‘Nine