Unless it is in some way connected to that terrible grief that lives deep inside him. The one I accidentally glimpsed when I went back into the restaurant for Rob’s umbrella that first day. When I found him so curled up with pain that he reminded me of a wounded beast. The kind of suffering that is so blind and raw that approach is dangerous and any attempt to help would be suicidal.
I pace the flat incessantly, stopping only to throw a double vodka down my throat. I find myself back at the window looking down at the deserted street, as if in disbelief. We’ve never spent a night apart ever since the first night I spent at his house. After two hours of waiting, I finally admit to myself that he’s not coming back. Not tonight, anyway.
I go and sit dry-eyed in front of the television. I recognize that I’m watching a movie, but beyond that I don’t register anything. All I can see before my eyes is the moment he ripped my chest open with a knife by saying, ‘I just can’t do this anymore.’
Do what? I haven’t pushed or tried to get from him anything that he didn’t want to give. I switch off the TV and put on my CD player. Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ comes on. It grates on my nerves. I switch it off with a grunt. The flat becomes horribly silent.
I rush to fill it with sound. I pick Vangelis. It’s Dom’s favorite. Beautiful, dramatic music fills the air, but for some reason the only thing I want to listen to is ‘Stairway to Heaven’. The wistful longing and mysterious lyrics suit my mood. I listen to Heart’s rendition of the song.
In my condition it seems to me that the arrangement of music is in timeless layers that open up like a flower to reveal a yearning, fragile soul calling for something almost forgotten.
When Heart’s version ends, I move on to Dolly Parton’s. As soon as I’ve listened to her, I put on Led Zepplin’s original version. Then I go back to Heart’s version. Obsessively, I open my laptop and look at street performers singing the song. Again and again I return to Heart’s version. I listen and I listen. As if the solution to my problem is hidden in the song.
But there is no solution.
I am the woman who thought that everything that glitters is gold. The one who was building a stairway to heaven, but, as Dom once told me, my stairway is whispering in the wind.
When dawn breaks in the sky I am still listening to music.
Dom doesn’t call even in the morning.
I go to work, a wreck. I open the door to my office and look at my desk with dread. I hate this temporary job I took last week where I have to field on-line complaints all day about packages that have not arrived, are delayed, lost, or damaged. My job is to calmly absorb their frustration and send them on the relevant department.
The dreary drudgery of it has to be seen to be believed. At least when I was at HMRC I felt I was doing something good. There was always that feeling that I counted for something.
Here, I’m a cog in the wheel.
I truly count for nothing. Perhaps I should have listened to Dom. Perhaps I should have taken his offer of money and waited until I found a better job. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I was too proud. And now I think, Thank God I didn’t take his money.
No matter how bad this job is, at least it pays my bills.
I sit at my desk and jump every time my phone rings. Sometimes I stare at it as if I can metaphysically make him call me. I wait and wait. Until lunchtime, until I can bear it no more. I pick up my phone and call Jake.
‘Hey, Ella,’ he says. His tone is surprised and cautious.
‘Hello, Jake. I … uh … Can I talk to you … um … alone?’
‘Of course,’ he says immediately, and his tone tells me what I suspected. He knows exactly what’s wrong with Dom.
‘Thank you, Jake.’
‘No problem. We’re in the country tonight. Want to come over for dinner? I can send a car.’
‘No, no. No need for that, I’ll borrow a friend’s car. And I won’t disturb you at dinnertime. I’ll come just before that.’
‘All right, see you about six thirty.’
‘That’ll be great. Thank you.’
‘You know how to get to mine, right?’
‘Yes. I’ll see you then.’
‘See you later.’
‘Jake?’
‘Yeah?’