Staying Alive

No, I am not all right. The moment you’ve left I’m going to surround myself with snapshots, holiday souvenirs, the set of aluminium espresso cups that we bought together in Camden Market (the ones we never used again after the third-degree burn to my bottom lip), my copy of the Complete Seinfeld Scripts which you said would always remind you of me—and will thus always remind me of you—your garlic crusher, the other bra that I didn’t put in the box and several other mementos of our five years, eight months, one week and three days together. Then I will swallow an entire bottle of paracetamol and wash it down with the ouzo we bought in Kos, before dying weeping, broken and about fifty years before my due date.

All of which I manage to condense into a shrug.

She looks at me sorrowfully and says, ‘You need to—’

‘What, get a life?’

‘I wasn’t going to say that. But you do need to do something with yourself.’

I’ve heard this before, though never delivered with such pity. You need to do something with yourself was Megan’s cry throughout the five years, eight months, et cetera of our relationship. Towards the end it was uttered with increasingly desperate shrillness. She had a point. All she wanted was for me to have a dream, a direction, to stop drifting. She wasn’t the only one. I wanted me to stop drifting—still do. But I’ve never been one to take destiny by the scruff of its neck and give it a jolly good shake—or even to tap it on the shoulder and utter a polite ahem. A few years ago I thought my job was The Thing, but it wasn’t long before I realised my heart wasn’t in it. I turn up and go through the motions, but I lack the desire to make anything of it. But what do I possess the desire to do? I’ve asked myself that one enough times. I’ve come up with answers too. Lists of them. In the fond belief that committing something to paper will make it seem more tangible and therefore achievable. I remember my last one, written shortly before Meg left:

1. Pony trek up Andean spine of S America

I should point out that the only horse I’ve ever ridden was pink and had a slot for the fifty-pence piece…But, you know, think Big and all that.

2. Write Bill Bryson-ish book of pony trek (drawing attention to plight of indigenous peoples, threatened tree frogs, etc.)

3. Return Elgin Marbles (NB: check first)

The NB was a reminder to check whether it was Elgin that had stolen them or Elgin that wanted them back. I was pretty sure that Elgin had nicked them, but you know how these things can go pear-shaped for lack of basic groundwork.

4. Buy old bus. Refurb as mobile drug rehab unit (double-decker/make it residential?)

5. Mobile soup kitchen?

6. Mobile potage kitchen? (Sell lobster bisque/vichyssoise to City workers at £7 per portion)

Because it was clearly getting pretty stupid at this point, I took a coffee break. That was when I noticed my kitchen hygiene was slipping below its usual operating theatre standard and wrote:

7. Clean kitchen cupboards

8. Ditto hob

9. Mr Muscle Kitchen Spray

10. Cif Cream (lemon)

11. Flash Wipes

12. Plain digestives

13. Gold Blend (decaf)

I probably needn’t add that items seven to thirteen were made reality within hours, whereas numbers one to six have yet to progress from back-of-an-envelope status.

‘I’m fine, Megan,’ I say now. ‘I’ve got all sorts of things in the pipeline.’

‘I hope so. Just don’t leave them in there too long.’

She turns to go and I ask, ‘Do you want a lift?’

Now, why did you say that, because it’s only going to lead to her asking you…

‘You’ve finally had the car fixed?’

See what I mean?

‘Um…No…But I could call a minicab.’

‘It’s OK. I’ll get the tube.’

I follow her to the front door. She opens it and says, ‘Bye, then. I’ll give you a call if there’s anything else.’ She dips forward clumsily and kisses me on the cheek.

Then she’s gone.

I return to the living room and open a chink in the curtain. I watch her cross the road and walk in the direction of the tube station. But she stops fifty yards away beside a gleaming red Bentley and climbs in.

The woman I was meant to be with.

Megan and Murray.

Mamp;M.

Two little peanuts nestling in their chocolate and candy shells.

Gone forever.

(Unless she comes back for the garlic crusher.)

Now it’s Megan and Sandy.

Mamp;S.

Two items of sensible cotton underwear nestling in a…

It really doesn’t bear thinking about.

And she doesn’t even know that I wanted—want—to marry her.

And that there is a statistically slight (according to Stump, who hardly seems the reliable type) yet distinct possibility that I have a disease that begins with C and has been known to kill people.

I listen to the sound of fireworks fizzing and popping all over South Woodford. It’s as if they’re celebrating the fairy-tale union of Meg ’n’ Sand.

God, this self-pity. Megan was right. I have got to do something with myself.

Well, I can take care of that right now. I start with the magazines, adjusting them so they are once again in perfect alignment with the table’s edge.

9:17 p.m.