Dear Dad

Nate

‘You’re ... what do you mean you’re not coming?’ Judging from her voice down the phone, Marcie is furious, as well she might be. I’ve just ruined the celebratory mood, given her the worst possible news as far as she’s concerned. All the noise in the background of where she is, sounds merry.  They’ll have broken out the champagne at breakfast, I have no doubt of it.

‘Listen. This is one of the most prestigious industry events of the year. You’re up for the Young Freelance Reporter Award and you ... just...?’

‘I can’t, Marcie.’ I go park myself on the edge of my sofa, my head in my hands. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’ a note of suspicion creeps in. ‘Just, please, don’t tell me that you’re hung over young man, that isn’t going to cut it.’

‘I’m not hung over.’

‘What then?’ There’s a small pause. ‘You’re sick? If you think you’re coming down with something - take a couple of tablets, drink lots of water – but get yourself on the next plane.’

‘I’m not sick.’ I rub at the back of my neck gingerly. ‘I’m just ... not coming.’

‘Of course you are,’ she shoots back. ‘All of the industry press are here.’

I know, I can hear them.

‘Besides, if you weren’t coming,’ she adds roundly, ‘You’d have rung up and let me know about it hours ago.’ 

‘I tried,’ I tell her faintly. ‘I tried to leave the house at six-thirty this morning.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I tried again at eight-thirty. Then ... I went downstairs at eleven o’clock. I thought ... if I could get to the airport by one pm, I’d still be in good time.’

‘I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I croak. ‘I should have brought this up before, I know.  I didn’t say anything sooner because I never imagined it would come to this.’ Her earlier comment about me not having rung her up to give her warning has made my ears go red. I’ve let her down, that’s what she’s saying. It’s about time she knew why.

‘I can’t leave the house, Marcie.’

‘Go on.’

I stick my thumb and forefinger into the corner of my eyes.

‘The fact is,’ I tell her, ‘I have not been able to leave the flat for a good while, now.’

There’s a short pause while I imagine her finding somewhere a little quieter to have this conversation, somewhere a little more private. I hear a door shutting at her end and all the background noise of men and women that surrounded her before, all the sounds of people laughing and talking, having a good time in Paris where I should also be, they disappear.

‘Is it your leg still troubling you?’ More sympathetically, ‘I’m sorry, Nate. I was aware that you needed all those appointments at the hospital for physio and so on, after you returned, but I didn’t know you were still ...’

‘The physio appointments finished a while back. I can walk.’ Pause. ‘This isn’t a physical problem.’

She’s quiet for a moment.

‘It’s not a physical problem?’

‘No.’

‘Then what? Why are you stuck in the flat?’ I can feel Marcie frowning. She doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t. Would I, if it had been her telling me this? Would I have had the faintest inkling of what someone else experiencing this was going through, before it happened to me? 

‘It’s something unexpected that’s happened to me.’ I tell her warily. ‘My GP reckons I have the symptoms of ... um ... post-traumatic stress.’ There.  I said it. I go over and pull up the sash window in my living room, take in a lungful of air.

‘No!’ She comes back with a little disbelieving laugh. ‘How could that happen to you?’ I don’t answer, and she runs on, clearly confused. ‘Well. Why the hell didn’t you mention anything to me before?’

‘Why do you think?’

There’s a silence while she considers this.

‘I’m a twenty-seven-year old war correspondent who’s just admitted he can’t even leave the house,’ I spell out. She knows as well as I do that in many of our colleagues’ eyes, what I’ve just admitted to her could be professional suicide.

‘I see,’ she says after a while. ‘Has this come on because of what happened when you were out on your last assignment with ...?’

‘I don’t know why it’s come on,’ I cut straight across her. ‘I thought it would get better, Marcie.’ I run on, feeling breathless. ‘I kept telling myself this would pass, that it would improve if I just kept my cool. But, it hasn’t improved,’ I confess to her. ‘The truth is, day by day, it’s only got worse.’

‘And you can’t get out?’

‘I ... I get panic attacks every time I try to leave here.’

‘Wow.’ I can almost feel her frown from here. ‘Does anyone know about this?’

I swallow. ‘No.’

‘No one?

‘No one except my GP. They offered counselling, but I couldn’t get out to the appointments.  Please,’ I tell her thickly, turning from the window. ‘I don’t want this getting out. You know what this business is like. It would ruin my career if anyone even ...’

‘How long since you’ve been outside of the flat?’

‘Six weeks.’

‘Six weeks! Good lord. How are you paying your bills, Nate?’

I baulk at that, but I tell her, anyway. 

‘I am not paying my bills. I can’t.’

When she comes back to me now, her voice has changed. She’s not angry anymore. What I’m picking up in her tone now sounds, far more horribly, like pity.

‘It sounds as if what’s happened to you is exactly what happened to that other young guy – what’s his name? The one who used to courier for us?’

My heart sinks into a further pit of despair. She’s likening me to him?

‘You remember - he was a great young reporter, one to note. He covered an earthquake in China for New World Productions one time and got caught up in the aftershocks,’ she enthuses.

‘Of course I remember Eric Bailey. How could I forget him?’ After he came back from China, he was never able to go out into the field again and now she can’t even remember his name.

‘He was eventually able to go out to work again.’ she rallies.

As a courier, not a reporter. 

‘Whereas in my case,’ I remind her quietly, ‘I cannot even do that. I know you mean well but Eric’s story doesn’t exactly fill me with hope,’ I mutter quietly.

It fills me with a whole host of things; despair, horror, a terrible fear laced with an overwhelming sorrow. But it does not fill me with any hope. 

‘It should, Nate,’ she assures me now. ‘Because even though it took a lot of courage for that young man to get back out there again, he did manage it, and so will you. Courage,’ she reminds me softly, ‘is something that you have in spades.’

‘I wish.’ I drum my fingers on the windowsill, impatient for her to go, now. ‘I have no courage left. If I once had any, it’s gone.’

She’s silent for while, considering that.

‘They’re planning to give you the bravery award tonight, you know. For showing the most heroism in the field.’

I close my eyes, not wanting to hear this.

‘Marcie, what kind of hero can’t even leave his flat because he’s terrified he’ll suffer from a panic attack?’ 

‘The kind who’s prepared to go out to the world’s worst war zones to bring the story home; the kind,’ she adds quietly, ‘who’s prepared to risk his own life to save that of a wounded colleague without a second’s thought.’ 

I close my eyes, tightly, clenching my fists. Why did she have to mention Jim Nolan? Why did she have to mention him?

‘I didn’t save Jim though. Did I, Marcie?’

I hear her intake of breath.

‘Is that why you’re being so hard on yourself now?’

‘I didn’t save his life, and when it came down to it, I couldn’t even bring myself to leave the flat long enough to go to his funeral.’

‘Nate,’ she’s aghast. ‘Are you still blaming yourself for the fact that Jim didn’t make it?’

‘What do you ...? I push my hands through my hair, furiously batting back the tears welling in my eyes and throat. Of course I don’t blame myself.

Do I?

‘The awards body don’t see it that way, you know.  They didn’t judge whether you succeeded or you failed in your attempt to save his life. They only saw what you were prepared to do. It’s what all of us here, see. You do have courage, Nate Hardman. More than most. Just remember; even the bravest among us can’t win every battle.’

Marcie has no idea. Even one little trip down to the corner shop would be a victory for me right now.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her thickly. ‘I can’t be there tonight. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get myself going again and I don’t know what else I can do to make this situation better.’

Again, she’s silent for a while, thinking furiously.

‘Let me have a little time to consider this, Nate. Perhaps I can come up with something that’ll help you out?’

‘Sure, take all the time you need,’ I try and make light. ‘One thing’s for sure – right now, I’m not going anywhere.’

Jenna

‘I had it. I had it here a minute ago.’ I shrug my duffle bag down onto the platform and the ticket inspector looks at me wearily. I’ve been searching for over ten minutes already. His colleague behind him, a younger guy more my own age, shoots me a sympathetic glance.

‘I’ve got too many bags with me today, everything I own, in fact’ I give a half-hearted laugh, crouching down to feel around in the zip compartment of my suitcase and my jacket slides out of my arms. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been up since 3 a.m. I’ve just flown in from Sicily and I’m not... quite...’

‘Think that was a call for you just in over the tannoy, sir,’ the younger one slides over and interrupts his boss. There are a lot of announcements, all quite unintelligible, coming in over the tannoy. 

‘Was it?’

‘I can deal with this for you, sir, if you like,’ he offers. To me, as the older guy leaves, he says: ‘It is an offence to travel on the rail without a valid ticket, Miss. Can I ask you to accompany me over to the office?’

‘What office? The ticket office? I haven’t got the money on me for another ticket.’ I feel my face going hot. My bank account – what remains in it – is all in Euros. ‘I did have a ticket,’ I insist. ‘I took it out to show the ticket inspector in the carriage and I remember putting it back in my bag.’ Which one, though...? My eyes are bleary with the last two days. ‘Look,’ I put in a last plea for clemency. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve had to leave where I was in a bit of a hurry last night and right now I barely know where I am, never mind the ticket...’ 

A middle-aged couple walk past us now, staring curiously. I stare back at them. 

‘That happens,’ he agrees, bending alongside me to helpfully pick up my jacket. ‘But regulations say I still need to see a valid ...’

‘Fine!’ my voice goes up a notch. ‘I’ll try taking every single item I own out of all four of these bags, shall I? I’ll do right here on the platform, till I find it.’ I open up the duffle bag and prepare to tip the entire contents out. I did all my packing in something of a hurry yesterday evening. This isn’t going to be pretty. He stares down at the three pairs of black cami knickers and the half-eaten granola bar that fall out first. I shake my bag a bit more vigorously and out falls a bottle of water and my book on the fourth wave of feminism which I still haven’t got round to reading and then, all covered in granola crumbs, my tiny, blue Bertie Bear. 

A little crowd is gathering around us. To the left of me, someone has stopped to record this - the amazing spectacle of the disembowelment of my luggage - on her mobile phone.

‘Um,’ I feel his staying hand on my shoulder. ‘We can sort this out without any need for all that, Miss.’’ His eyes flash at me warningly but now I spy a hint of laughter in there too.

‘You find my predicament amusing?’ I accuse.

‘Not at all.’ 

‘You think it is fair to treat paying customers like this, especially when they’ve just explained that they’ve been up all night and they’re tired and they’re... hungry and they’ve got too many other important matters on their mind?’ I push.

‘Not paying customers,’ he agrees with a smile.

Distracted by his cute dimple, I stop ranting at him and stop shaking my duffle bag because it’s not making me feel any better, witnessing all my possessions tumbling out onto the platform like this.  I turn towards the woman who’s still got her phone pointed at me and maybe it’s something she sees on my face but she puts it away rapidly. 

The ticket Nazi hands me back my jacket which he’s picked up. I watch him now as he retrieves all the rest of my gear as well, shovelling it back efficiently into my duffle bag.

You didn’t need to do that,’ I inform him. ‘I could have done it myself.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he smiles. ‘So these are all your worldly goods? Someone expecting you who can give you a hand out there with these?’

‘My friend will help me when I get to hers,’ I tell him. ‘If she’s in.’ Which she may well not be, because I haven’t had an answer to the text I sent her, yet. 

‘Oh? You might want to ring her and let her know, then. It’s bucketing it down,’ he points out.

‘Damn. Is it raining?’ I am going to get soaked. Everything I own in the world is going to get soaked and I don’t know if Mags is home or if she’ll even have a room free to put me up. And I still haven’t found my ticket.

He neatly pulls the drawstring tight before placing the bag squarely in my arms. ‘All done here, Miss.’

‘You know, maybe you’d be a lot cuter if you weren’t such a jobs-worth,’ I tell him.

‘Maybe you’d be cuter if you weren’t such a fire-cracker,’ he comes straight back. ‘You are however, I have to agree, a paying customer.’

I gawp at him, standing up with what little remains of my dignity. The crowd disperses, a tad disappointed I sense, they’d been hoping for more.

‘Well, about time.’ I tell him frostily. About time he believed me.

He glances significantly towards the pocket of the jacket he’s just handed back to me. ‘Here you go, miss,’ He gives me back my ticket, the little edged clipped off it now to show I have completed my journey.

‘Welcome to Rochester. You be sure and have a nice day, now.’ 

Nate

‘So tell me.’ Marcie’s back. She’s clearly been thinking about my situation overnight. ‘Every time you go outside, what happens?’

I draw in a breath.  ‘Not good.’

‘No,’ she understands. ‘Would you be prepared to show me?’

‘How would I do that?’ 

‘Go outside,’ she suggests.

‘Right now?’

‘Right now. Stay on the phone to me and describe what happens to you when you do it.’ 

I drum my fingers on the arm of my chair, then get up and go look out of the window onto Rochester High Street. It is Saturday afternoon and there’s a fine sheet of rain coming down outside. There is some sort of activity going on because it is the beginning of May and there are rather more people out there now than there were when I attempted - again - to go out this morning.

‘It’s raining.’ 

‘They gave you the bravery award last night. You’re not scared of a bit of rain are you?’

‘It’s not the ...’ She can’t see the face I’m pulling. This is not going to be as easy as she thinks.

‘Show me,’ she says again. Damn, but she’s persistent.

They gave me the bravery award last night. I stare at the phone in my hand. Then I stand up, push my feet into some trainers and slide my house-key into my pocket as if I am properly about to go out.

‘I won’t get very far,’ I warn her.

‘You don’t need to,’ she reassures. ‘I only want to see your reaction.’

Why? Because she thinks she knows me and she’s having trouble squaring the young go-getter guy she admires so much with the frightened man I’ve become? I take the stairs to the ground floor quickly, pull back the bolt with a grimace.

She’s about to find out, isn’t she?

It takes only a moment or two before the feeling of dread descends. I can feel it almost immediately, like a bucket of cold water travelling down my spine.

But, fuck it, I’m on the phone to Marcie.

‘Okay, I’m out,’ I tell her. Outside, with the reluctant sun that’s beginning to shine down onto the wet pavement. I can spy some Morris dancers that have started up a routine on the street and a lot of people are milling about. Already, my chest is tightening. I want to go straight back in and close the door. I want to tell her; forget this, Marcie, I know you mean well but this is not the way. I’m not sure there is any way back from this. I don’t want to become your next courier anyway, please go away. But I don’t say that.

‘I’m downstairs, just outside the flat,’ I tell her. ‘And I’m experiencing a chronic shortness of breath.’

‘Breathe,’ she directs. ‘Talk me through it as if you were talking to camera. As if you were on the front line somewhere.’

The front line? I never feel this scared when I am on the front line with a job to do.  All I’m feeling right now is a desperate desire to get this outing over with. Not to do it at all, in fact.

‘Describe it.’

I rub at my chest, surprised nonetheless to hear myself saying to Marcie;

‘My chest is hurting like hell.  As if I’ve been underwater for too many minutes and my lungs are being squeezed, but I’m going to try and get to Moh’s corner shop.’

‘Good lad,’ she encourages. ‘What’s going through your mind right now?’

‘That I want to go back inside,’ I admit. ‘Being out here feels ... too exposing. It feels as if something bad – something really bad – might be about to happen any minute.’

‘It won’t. Can you see the corner shop, yet?’

I can see it. But I stop, turn around and look back at my flat door.

‘I’m worried I won’t be able to make it back to the flat if I go too far,’ I feel sheepish even admitting this to her. ‘Stupid, I know. It’s just this fear I’ve developed.’ 

‘You feel that,’ she agrees, ‘but how about you describe to me what else you can see right now, as if you were reporting back on it, live?’

Report back, live. Okay, I can do that.

‘There’s a group of yummy mummies coming towards me now, power-pushing their buggies back up the High street,’ I say faintly into the phone.

‘Where have they just come from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re my reporter on the ground, you have to know,’ she snaps back.

‘They’ve ... been watching the Morris dancers performing their traditional First of May rites.’ 

‘Good,’ she says. Then she asks, out of the blue, ‘What else? Are any of them looking at you?’ 

‘A couple of them have just smiled at me,’ I admit. I don’t know why she’s asking me that. Automatically, I shoot the women a pained smile in return.

‘You’re a good-looking guy, Nate.’

‘Thank you.’ I look back at my front door again. ‘I have missed the company of women,’ I admit to her.  Right now, though, I’m not really feeling it.  Right now all I need is the security of my own four walls around me, sick to death as I am, at the sight of them.

‘Anything else?’

‘Like what?’ I’m having trouble concentrating but she’s right, I need to focus. ‘A toddler has just raced past me with his balloon,’ I say slowly. ‘It’s one of those novelty ones with a face on it.’

‘Yes. What colour?’

‘Red.’ Red for danger. Red for blood.

No, no ... red for roses. Red for clown’s noses. Red for strawberry jam in doughnuts ...

I swallow, live from the front line. ‘It’s bumping and rolling along the pavement.’ I watch it warily. ‘I’m concerned now the balloon is going to pop,’ I admit. ‘If it pops, I’m worried that the noise... the noise is going to be difficult for me to cope with.’  I breathe, slowly, deep into my belly. 

‘It won’t pop,’ she reassures. ‘Look around you at the rest of the scene. You’re making your way to the corner shop, remember? You need to get there. Describe it all to me as you go.’

‘I’m passing the arts centre now,’ I hurry past it. ‘The charity shop has lots of yellow clothes in the front window. I’m feeling a little giddy.’

‘Yellow clothes,’ she distracts, ‘...because it’s the spring. Keep going.’ 

‘Yellow clothes because it’s spring,’ I echo back to her into the phone, keeping the narrative going. ‘It’s spring and the flower shop has a dozen buckets of tulips out the front.’ A bicyclist clips past me, riding on the pavement, eliciting an exchange of curses between us. He spooked me with his carelessness just now. Cussing him, I notice the dark, fearful shadow at my back fades a little.

‘Nate,’ Marcie breathes down the line, ‘You okay?’

I’m okay. 

‘I’m here,’ I tell her.  She doesn’t know it but Moh’s corner store is only eight shops down, literally yards from my own front door. I stare at the pavement display of bananas and mushrooms in their tidy little baskets and now I’m aware of another, strangely triumphant feeling sitting alongside the urge to turn tail and head back. 

‘You did it.’ 

‘I did.’ I’ve turned and I’m walking back already. She can’t see how fast.

‘That was well done, Nate.’ Marcie isn’t being facetious. She sounds thoughtful. ‘It makes me feel that the idea I’ve come up with, for you, might work.’

‘Idea?’ My hands are trembling, shoving the key into my flat door so fast I can barely turn it quick enough. At my feet, a pile of letters - brown envelopes mostly - have arrived. Bills that I cannot – and will not, now - be able to pay, stare up at me. But Marcie’s got an idea. ‘What idea?’ 

‘I haven’t completely formulated it, yet,’ she admits. ‘I wanted to see what going outside felt like for you, but I’m going into my office to put something together for you right now. How about I send Hal round to your place with a proposal for this, first thing next week?’

‘Sounds amazing.’ I try and inject a bit of enthusiasm. Whatever she’s planning, if it’s as painful as this short outing just was, I am sure I am not going to like it. Not one little bit. But I do appreciate that she’s doing this. 

‘Let me ... do some talking to people,’ she runs on. ‘Let me think about this. See what I can come up with.’

‘Okay,’ I tell her faintly. I have no idea what Marcie means, what she thinks she might be able to ‘come up with’ that would be of any use to me. ‘Thank you for going out of your way to help me, Marcie.’

‘You’re worth it,’ she comes straight back. ‘I know what not being able to attend last night’s ceremony will have meant to you.’

It meant everything. She can’t know, not truly, how much being there last night would have meant to me. She rings off, and back inside at last, with the door closed, in the safe but too-dark, too cold downstairs hallway, I lean my clenched fist against the heavy wooden door. Why? Why is this happening to me now, of all the times in my life? The fear at my back has lifted but it is replaced by the ever-present loneliness I feel these days. I bend to sweep up all the demand letters in my hands. I still have to find some means of paying these.

Especially this one.  A forlorn groan comes from deep within my chest.

‘God.’ My landlord, Rezza, already made threatening noises when I failed to pay my rent last month and this’ll be the follow-up, no doubt. It’ll take a while for anything to actually happen on that score but I know this is ... the beginning of the end.

Then I look at the envelope a little closer.

To my Dad,  

someone has written in large, childish lettering. I stare at it for a moment, choking back a laugh of relief as I see it is not Rezza after all. It is not even for me! On the back, as I turn it over in my hand, someone has written the words boldly in red;

Please help! 

Jenna

‘My darling,’ in the ten minutes it takes for me to walk down from Rochester station, Mags is already waiting to greet me at the door of her flat. She’s got a large G and T in hand and she’s wearing something flowing in a mustard coloured silk which is getting spotted dark as she stands outside in the rain, looking magnificent. ‘I’m ecstatic to see you back. Truly ecstatic.’ I get a kiss on both cheeks before she pushes me inside, dripping wet, with all my bags. ‘Now tell me, what are you doing back in the UK?’

I give a little shake of my head and she frowns. Then the penny drops.

‘Oh. What’s happened?’

‘Alessandro and I are through.’ I pull off my wet jacket and look at her. ‘We’re done.’ 

Mags makes a whistling noise through her teeth. ‘Why? What about the wedding?’

‘It’s off.’

‘How? I thought you two love-birds were ...’ She’s perplexed. ‘I thought you had finally found what you were looking for, Jenna.’

‘So did I,’ I admit.

‘So what will you do now?’

‘Stop looking,’ I assure her. She’s shaking her head sadly. ‘No, really. It isn’t worth the trouble and it isn’t worth the heartache.’ I shake my head at the proffered Gin and Tonic. ‘Not for me, thanks. If you happen to have any lagers in there ...?’

‘None. I do not stock such items in my larder.’ She ushers me straight through and onto a barstool in her kitchen, plonks herself down beside me, all the folds of her silk garment poufing out. ‘Now. Tell me absolutely everything.’

‘To be honest, I’d rather not.’

‘So - you spend a year getting to understand the foibles of his traditional Sicilian family and then...’ her hands sweep out in a grand ‘all over’ gesture. 

‘And then,’ I echo, shooting her a pained smile.

‘What happened?’

I stare at the ground. ‘If you must know, he cheated on me, Mags.’

Her lip curls in disdain. ‘Why would he do that to you?’

‘Why do they ever?’ I shrug, turning my face away from her, wishing she would change the subject. This is far more difficult for me than she will ever know. ‘Because he could. He turned out to be someone other than who I thought he was.’ Some people are lucky in love but that’s not me. 

‘The prick. Do you want me to kill him for you?’

‘If there is any murdering to be done I will do it myself. But thank you for offering.’

Mags waves her hand and the long sleeves of the kimono-type thing she’s wearing waft dangerously near her G and T. ‘The man has no taste at all, obviously.’

‘Oh, he has good taste,’ I swallow down the lump that has come into my throat. ‘At least he did it with one of the most beautiful women in Sicily.’ 

‘A consolation, I am sure.’

‘A small one. Hello, Marmalade.’ Her old and battered Tom cat has jumped up to sit beside us on the counter and I’m grateful for the distraction. ‘He’s kept his glorious, deep orange colour, hasn’t he?’ 

‘Marmalade,’ Mags shoots me an affectionate look, ‘Just like you.’

‘These days,’ I remind her, ‘my colouring is all the rage.’ 

‘It is. And now, like your fashionable strawberries-and-cream colouring, you are back,’ Magda muses. ‘To stay?’

‘That’s the plan.’ I look around her kitchen with its super-modern appliances, the pale green

juice blender and matching cabinet with its coloured crystal cut glasses, everything chosen with impeccable taste and console myself with the thought that this place isn’t really so bad. I may be starting again from scratch but if I’m living here you could hardly call this slumming it.

‘Rochester’s just a short hop, skip and a jump from London, after all. It could be the perfect base from which to re-launch myself.’

‘It could,’ she’s looking at me thoughtfully. ‘It could possibly. If all the conditions were right.’ 

‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ I glance around at her drinks cabinet again. ‘Are you sure you don’t have any lagers stashed away somewhere?’

She shakes her head which today is a mass of glossy platinum curls.

‘Lagers are not a woman’s drink, Jenna. You should practise being a little more ladylike if you can.’

‘Like you?’ I shoot her a small smile.

‘I do my best. Now, Honey...’ Mags leans in a little closer,

‘I like your shoes,’ I distract her. She wants the details of my split but I haven’t the heart for it today. The shoes are red patent ones, with a Dorothy-esque bow. ‘Do you have any trouble at all, getting them in that size?’

‘None whatsoever.’ She looks down at her feet proudly. ‘I’m only a size ten, which is quite teeny compared to some of the other footwear in my catalogue.’

‘I bet. You do have dainty feet for a man.’

She blinks, ignoring that. I recall that she doesn’t like to be reminded and I mustn’t antagonise. 

‘Look, Mags, you were right about everything, okay?’ I lean on her breakfast bar, head in hand. ‘You were right. I fluffed up big-time in Sicily. Or he did. Whatever way you want to look at it, I’m back in England to stay.’

She nods, her mind going immediately to the practicalities.  ‘You have a job?’

‘Well, no. Not yet. I only found out about Alessandro last week,’ I point out.

‘A place to stay?’

I gulp. Sit up a little straighter. I was hoping that part might have been self-evident. ‘Well, here, Mags. I was thinking to stay here. With you.’

Her heavily made-up eyes seem to widen slightly.

‘For now, at least?’

‘Ah.’ She puts her drink down on the counter; her hand goes to her mouth. ‘My darling,’ she says regretfully. ‘I am so sorry, but no.’

‘No?’ I reach for her vile gin and take a small sip. This day is just getting better, isn’t it? ‘I can’t stay?’

‘I have a guest coming over, next week.’ Her voice drops to almost a whisper. ‘My brother. He’s coming over from Pretoria for six months.’

Six months? Her place is definitely out of the question, then.

‘How is he?’ The gin is leaving a perfumey burning sensation at the back of my throat, God it is foul. I cough. Magda fans her hands in a don’t ask gesture. So I don’t ask. Her brother is a bigoted bore of the highest order, anyway. 

‘You can stay for the night, of course,’ Mags quickly comes back. ‘Maybe even a week, at a pinch and if you don’t mind sleeping on the couch. You’ll soon find a nice little place of your own, though. I imagine you’ll have something of a nest egg put aside, by now?’ 

‘How d’you mean, a nest egg?’ I stare at Mags.

She touches finger to nose in a knowing gesture.

‘Alessandro was a wealthy man, darling.  I only met him once, but I recognise a spender when I see one.’

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘I didn’t let him lavish money on me the way you think.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I didn’t want him to feel that I was bought and paid for, did I?’

She throws her hands in the air in a disbelieving gesture. ‘That’s the trouble with you young romantics, isn’t it? You always think that love will tide you through.’

‘Not anymore,’ I say.

‘Self-sufficiency, I find, is a vastly overrated commodity. Just how,’ she demands, ‘do you imagine I could ever have afforded to buy a flat like this one at the tender age of just twenty-two? Shrewd investments in the stock market?’

Twenty two is pushing it a bit. If she bought this place at that age, she wouldn’t yet be thirty. I reach for my handbag to take out a cigarette and then I remember that I quit them. I quit smoking on the day I left my cheating boyfriend and if I am feeling antsy at all it is not because I am missing him.

‘Oh, well.’ She takes a slug of her gin. ‘You had your chance. Looks like you’re determined to do it the hard way. ‘Have you given any thought to what you’ll be living on?’

I stare at her. I haven’t given it any thought. I’ve only just got here.

‘I imagine I’ll find a job in a tattoo-parlour somewhere, same as I did in Sicily.’

‘It’s just that tattoo-parlour work is a little bit specialist, isn’t it? You won’t just walk into a job doing what you’ve been doing in Catania, up to now.’

‘I might do. I was practically running that place before I left. I was their most in-demand tattooist, and I never lacked for clients at all. In fact,’ I let her know, ‘I even had a waiting list, some weeks.’

‘Over there, you did. The problem is that here, you are unknown, correct?’ She slaps my hand as I’m sneaking it into the peanut-bowl on her counter. ‘Forty calories per peanut. Those are for display purposes only.’

‘I don’t have to worry about calories,’ I remind her.

‘No, you don’t, do you?’ She shots me a disparaging look. ‘Lucky you. You do have to worry about income, though.’

‘Income,’ I mutter. ‘I’ll get a job doing art-work somewhere,’ I tell her assuredly. ‘If not body art then I’ll paint murals for the town hall. Or... I’ll offer henna tattoos in the market place, or face-painting at children’s parties. What? What? Why not?’ Why the faint pity in the way she’s smiling at me now?

‘You artists,’ she rolls her eyes slightly, gives a little shrug. ‘How happy to be you. How must it be to enjoy so much freedom of the imagination, living your life moment-to-moment, so butterfly-like and free?’

‘It’s pretty good,’ I admit. ‘I love my work.’

‘I know,’ she’s regarding me with faint curiosity. ‘I know you do, darling. But how do you gorgeous butterflies cope when the halcyon days of summer are over and all the nasty, boring little bits of life like electricity bills and needing somewhere to live come round?’

‘We...’ I swallow. ‘We come to stay with our lovely friends, people like you, Mags.’

‘And then...’ she shoos the cat off her counter in one swishing movement of her long, elegant sleeve. ‘Then you go get a job doing something sensible to tide you over. Something you were trained in and which you do very well. Something that will net you in a decent income to enable you to set yourself up independently. Because you do, above all, still want your independence,