I think about it. “I can see how someone could interpret it that way; but it isn’t at all how I meant it.”
“How did you mean it?” He takes a bite of toast — half the slice in one go — and drops another piece of bread in the toaster.
“I don’t know. Funny?”
“Funny ‘ha, ha’ or ‘peculiar’? The distinction is pretty crucial.”
“Both. You met Gum — he was a funny character! My uncle’s speech at the wake was all about his little foibles.”
“Little foibles.” Luke smirks. “I hope you didn’t call them that.”
“Don’t be gross!” I go to kick him, but he’s too far away.
“Seriously, Claire, it is pretty odd. If my sister told me our granddad had done that, I would have said it was weird.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a brother to point stuff out to me, and I’m still fine, aren’t I? It’s not some dark secret I’ve carried with me all these years — it was just a thing that happened. Okay, it was slightly weird maybe — but it’s not like I’m scarred. The moral here is, I should say nothing, ever.”
“Well, at least you learned something,” says Luke, while I crunch still-raw rice grains between gritted teeth.
The principle of the thing
The frothed milk in my latte is — don’t ask me how — so stiff and solid the spoon’s standing up unaided. I know there are worse things going on in the world, but that doesn’t mean I should suffer in silence and drink, or, rather, eat this.
Gym
Personal Trainer Gavin has a cheesy Friday-night vibe — the sort of guy who frequented my teenage weekends. He sings along to the music with impeccable timing when the lyrics are exercise-relevant (pain, directions, journeys, challenges, distances, heat, thresholds, et cetera), and I’d be willing to bet considerable sums that in his leisure time he wears vigorous aftershave and juts his chin to the beat in dark, flashing bars while clutching a whisky and Coke. I like him, his enthusiasm and the by-the-numbers flirting he no doubt employs with all his female clients. He makes me nostalgic for a simpler time.
“Got the day off, then?” he asks, post-warm-up, leading me to the mirrors for some “floor work.” It’s a reasonable question at three p.m. on a Wednesday.
“Yeah,” I say. Then to discourage further probing, “Is this a busy time for you, usually?”
“Nah, weekday afternoons are pretty quiet. We get some new mums in wanting to lose the baby weight, and some of our older members. The young professionals like yourself tend to come early mornings before work. Try a squat for me, Claire.” He guides me down by the shoulders. “Tuck in the tailbone. Lovely.” I try not to flinch as he readjusts my pelvis. “Let’s have ten of those.”
Gavin leans, arms folded, back against the mirror while I hunker down. At the nadir of number six, he twists the knife. “So what is it you do?”
I know in my heart it’s an innocent question, but right at this moment, confronted with my squatting reflection, thighs quaking in ancient translucent Lycra, the answer Well, I’m just searching for my purpose simply isn’t an option. “I actually work in finance,” I say.
“Awesome.” Gavin nods as if this is what he expected — and absurdly, I’m flattered.
—
We finish the session with a treadmill sprint, and Gavin starts to roar above the music. “I want you! To give me! One hundred! Percent!”
Obediently I thumb up the speed control, puffing and clenching my teeth so he’ll think I’ve hit my limit — but there’s no way I’m giving this my all. It’s absolute madness not to hold something back: that’s just basic common sense.
Contact
An engineer is sifting through the multicolored innards of a green metal cabinet on my street. So that’s where all the wires have gone! I hear music, like the strain of a violin, but as I get closer, it turns out to be just one long, mournful note: the dialing tone keeping us all connected.
Co-op
In the local Co-op, I buy some Diet Coke. At the register, I hold up my debit card.
“How will you be paying?” the cashier asks.
“Uh, with this?” I say, waving the card.
“Chip and PIN, or contactless?” he says.
“Contactless.”
He picks up a Kit Kat from a pile next to the till, scans it and sets it next to the can.
“I don’t want that.”
“It’s free. Free Kit Kat when you pay contactless.” He points to a sign that says this verbatim.
“But I don’t want it,” I say, and he winces in disbelief.
“Why wouldn’t you want a free chocolate bar?”
“Because,” I say, “I don’t want it.”
“But why?”
“There is no why. You either want something or you don’t. That’s what want is.” I smell a wave of mint: he’s chewing some gum. He can’t stop shaking his head. “Everyone else has taken it. I’ve scanned it now. Why don’t you give it to your boyfriend?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I say, to throw him off.
It’s going to look bad next time I’m in here with Luke.
Karma
You’d think after all these however-many years I’d have learned to open fizzy drinks at arm’s length, just in case.
Beg to differ
“I’m not saying it’s not a good job; I just wonder if it’s definitely what you had in mind when you quit the old one. The whole point was that you’d spend some time thinking about what you really want to do, and I worry you’re investing a lot of hope in a role that might not be right anyway — just another quick fix — and you’ll end up stuck and frustrated again in a couple of months…”
Luke and I are on our way out and I’ve stopped in the hall to shuffle through months’ worth of junk mail in case I’ve missed something from the blue-plaque people.
“It’s the first thing you saw, essentially by accident, and you applied one minute before the deadline — that doesn’t scream ‘dream job,’ to me. Also, by the way, you’re not going to find anything there. Who doesn’t use email nowadays?”
“Uh, Pizza Palace? Great Wall of China? AAA1Taxi? Domestic Angels? Hollywood Sushi?” I hold up each flyer, then drop them on the floor.
He bends to retrieve one. “Sushi! Let’s have sushi. That’s exactly what I want.”
“And you said I wouldn’t find anything,” I say.
Acceptable
We pass a couple on our street embroiled in a back-bending clinch.
“Is it reasonable to say,” I begin, “that it’s the least attractive couples who are the most intent on flaunting their sex lives?”
“Hm,” says Luke. “I’m not sure it is okay to say things like that.”
“But it’s true. If I can’t say it to you, who can I say it to?”
“Your mum?” Luke suggests.
My mother, if she would only answer the phone, would almost certainly agree with me. Which means Luke is right: I probably shouldn’t be saying it.
Grandma
I phone Grandma to tell her I’m coming to visit. It rings out three times before there’s an answer, and when it comes, the voice is like a cartoon old lady’s, creaky and frail.