Twelve. Vanessa Jones

He says he does it to calm himself down. I remember the first time he took me to his parents’ house he swerved down the tiny country lanes as though he were the only person likely to be using them. He turned to me at ninety miles-an-hour and said, ‘At least if we die we’ll die together,’ which I didn’t find exactly relaxing. But then, I’m not friends with Edward that I might relax. I’m friends with him for lots of other reasons which I’ve suddenly completely forgotten. I’m not in the mood to deal with his mood, I’m fighting one of my own. Beyond this light summer evening, beyond this lovely walk, beyond this beautiful park and the friend that I love, it’s August, and winter ahead.

      I surrender. Edward always does this and I always put up with it; I’ve stood on a sweating train for an hour to get here and at least he could be slightly pleased to see me; if I did to him what he constantly does to me our friendship would be over in five minutes; and whereabouts along the line did we agree that he was allowed to be a crotchety old git and I patient till he’d got over it? I feel like making a big gesture, I feel like telling him to stop the car and getting out without explanation, I feel like going home and never seeing him again. But I can’t, I won’t, I don’t, and this makes me crosser. My throat starts to throb and tears fill the backs of my eyes. I sometimes think it’s this pain in my neck and not the pain from anything else which makes me start crying – it’s unbearable and tears the only way to clear it. I can’t cry though, I can’t cry with Edward here in the front with me – nothing’s happened. Nothing unusual. This is the way he always is for the first five minutes, and nothing’s happened today to warrant this bad temper. Nothing unusual. But it’s like this mood is always lurking, like it’s easy to give into, like once I’ve crossed the line it’s such a job to send away.

      We park the car in our usual place with the hill out in front of us. It’s seven o’clock and the summer light has brought out the punters. They play with their dogs, they play with their children, they even play with balls (I’ve never understood the attraction), they lie on their backs and they look at the sky with their fingers knotted in the hair of the one they love. Little boys fly kites and float model boats on the water. Why is this fun? I’d rather be the kite, I’d rather be the boat. ‘My God,’ I say ‘there’s even someone doing Yoga.’

      ‘There’s a hint of scorn in your voice.’

      ‘No there isn’t.’

      ‘There is – scorn and envy.’

      ‘I’m not envious.’

      ‘Are you in sparring mode this evening?’ he says, joking, but I take it badly, ‘Because if you are I don’t need to remind you who always wins.’

      I hate Edward. I hate him tonight. He’s smug and we always do what he wants to do. We’ll begin our walk as usual in the Louisa Plantation and then he’ll make me march up that hill – which is agony but I never complain – and we won’t be allowed to stop at the top to look at the view but we’ll have to run down the other side, and then continue for another half an hour at least before returning to his car, where he’ll put my life in danger all the way back to his flat, where he’ll neglect to offer me tea.

      I love Edward though, I’ll love him always, and how else would I have any of our walks, which are usually perfect? how else would I have him? I’m not really cross about any of these things – so what is it that I’m cross about? Somewhere I’m laughing at myself sulking but what makes me sulk more is that I just wish one part of me would win, would be it, would be me.

      No one remembers who Louisa was, but her garden is a tropical paradise of waxy leaves and stupidly beautiful flowers, and you can’t hear the traffic from here. As we go in Edward says, ‘It’s all just going over. We should have come two weeks ago. Never mind.’

      ‘Never mind?’

      ‘I rather like it like this. Everything fermenting on its stalk.’

      ‘I’d have preferred it spectacular and two weeks ago.’

      ‘But there’s something so decadent – don’t you think? – about it, and I like the smell.’

      ‘Of rotting flowers?’

      ‘Perhaps I was a maggot in a former life,’ and then, ‘What’s that?’

      ‘I’m not playing.’

      ‘Only cos you don’t know.’

      ‘I do know.’

      ‘What is it then?’

      ‘An iris.’

      ‘No, it’s a gladioli. Come on, we’re going to our bench.’

      I wonder with how many others of his friends Edward refers to this as ‘our bench’. I’m trying not to. Admittedly not that hard. It looks onto a pond from which you get a double dose of colour – first on the bank, then reflected in the water. He sits down. He never sits up straight. He says, ‘You’re right, it would have been spectacular two weeks ago.’

      I say, ‘A garden takes such a lot of work and it’s all over so quickly. Bud bloom rot, it slightly freaks me out.’

      ‘Yes. But then it starts all over again.’

      ‘I know. It’s a wonder nature doesn’t get bored.’

      ‘Like you, you mean?’

      I say, ‘I spent all last winter looking forward to summer, and now it’s August, and I’m going to spend all next winter doing the same.’

      ‘Well I’m sure you’re going to be doing other things as well. Let’s not get too dramatic.’

      ‘You know how when you’re a child, time seems to go really slowly? I’ve always wondered why that is. I mean, surely time should go more quickly then, when everything’s new and exciting, and slowly now when everything’s predictable and the same.’

      ‘I said that to you.’

      ‘No you didn’t.’

      ‘I said that to you the last time I was bored.’

      ‘Well, you should be flattered that I think it’s worth repeating.’

      ‘Yes – and here’s something else for you that’s worth repeating: Boredom is one thing that time doesn’t heal. You can get bored of being miserable or bored of longing for something that you can’t have, but you can’t get bored of being bored.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘So spur yourself into action. Make some effort, Lily. Do something.’

      ‘Like what? Anything I do will only be a temporary measure. Everything’s a temporary measure and that’s what’s depressing.’

      ‘Well, get used to it,’ he says, ‘You’re in for the duration.’

      No doubt I’ve missed the point he’s making, but our conversation has made up my mind. I get home, I find the piece of paper and I do it immediately. When I tell him who I am Colin says, ‘I didn’t think you’d call.’

      I say, ‘Neither did I.’

      ‘I don’t blame you,’ he says, ‘you must have thought I was a nutter.’

      ‘You still could be,’ I say.

      He says, ‘The thing is, I was in the same carriage as you a few days before. I never thought I’d see you again – and when I did …’

      ‘How bizarre,’ I say.

      ‘Yes,’ he laughs, ‘how bizarre.’

      It’s always a little unnerving when someone’s shared a moment with you of which you’re unaware. Once from the top deck of a bus stuck in traffic I saw Josh ambling along the pavement. He’d become one of a multitude of strangers making their way to various destinations, and, not aware that he was being watched, was showing himself to me so carelessly, so entirely, it felt rude to be observing –