chapter forty-one, Saturday:9thnovember2013 lost
The leaves are turning the countryside aflame with colour. The earth freshly turned by plough a rich gorgeous shiny chocolatey brown, delicious colours. Does everything have to have a food reference? Well it’s me.
My phone in my hand, still no contact. What am I expecting?
The biting wind swirls around our legs, catching my hair up into a hurricane of strands, flicking and snapping around my head. It clears my head in more than one way, inside and out. Cold, the sky is a pale grey almost white, free of white clusters of vapour and clean. I like the feeling of cold. I like the feeling of clean. The leaves have darkened and the wonderful sweet decay of fallen foliage catches in my lungs, comfortable and familiar.
I love England, there's nowhere else on the planet I’d rather be, and Essex is in my heart and my blood. I might travel and marvel, I have seen some sights I can tell you, but won’t. And trust me, nothing beats coming home. The clean taste if the country air and chilled lungs, I am in heaven, the sounds of the horses chomping, the finches on the feeder, the branches whipping in the sharp wind, beauteous.
The horses are furry, they don't care about cold weather so long as there’s room to charge about with carefree abandon ridden or not, plenty of freshly opened hay and mud to roll in. Their manes and tails are shaggy from lack of grooming with neat little beads of dried mud hanging like corn rose decoration. Their breathing is hot dissipating vapour in the air as they snort a hello. I reach for them smelling their mud covered bodies and delight in them sniffing me. I have missed them terribly, it hurts. These horses are my pill. I offer a handful of treats, they grab and go, throwing up hooves full of earth in their speedy escape. They are just playing and showing off, and it all leads to feeling fit and healthy, which is how we all want to feel isn’t it?
George and Harry are my real life, they're the one steady constant that keeps me from heading down a self-destructive path of anxiety and neurosis. They are medicine, and no pill can beat flinging my arms around their strong beautiful necks and giving them a big hug. That they allow this makes me feel they know what it means to me, because horses don't really like being cuddled! No, they don't like it at all.
I have three cats winding through my legs, rubbing their heads on my calves, claiming me and welcoming me home, and suddenly I feel myself again, sadder and thinner, but myself nonetheless. I’ll heal, the creatures will make certain of it.
Someone wants me, Pete calls, we're going out.
“You’re driving him crazy Tharie” Pete tells me sipping her wine, “James says he’s been mental since you left your key for him. Broken James says,” she chews a delicate mouthful of leaves, her eyes bright and animated. “He works and that’s it.” She skewers her salad with a jab from her fork.
I’m trying to eat, “you’ve seen James?” But I just push my food around in the deep curved ceramic, Conran dinner set, very nice indeed. “What else does he say?” I plead for any news, but try not to show it.
Pete puts down her glass, “Daniel has been hitting the gym, working all hours, not eating, hardly sleeping either.” She takes a bite of her salad, “...according to James.”
I haven't called or messaged Daniel once, I’m quite certain it's better that way, think I must have read that advise on Cosmo, when I didn't need the advice, and felt sorry for the girl who did.
I shake my head, “he still sees that woman.” I can’t bring myself to say her name.
“Jess?” But trust my friend will do, she looks at me and smiles.
“Yes, Jessica Stein, beauty Queen.” there I said it, rather spat it.
“James says she’s old news.” She finishes chewing a leaf, “the family thought they would marry eventually, apparently Barbara thinks she’d be the perfect wife for Daniel” enjoying rubbing it in, because that’s what friends do. She’s just trying to help me reach the conclusion everyone else has, get over him. But that’s not quite it is it?
“Wife?” I ask startled by the casual use of the word.
“Yes, but that’s when they split, Daniel didn’t see her that way.” She takes another forkful of Caesar salad, the dressing dripping down her chin, she wipes it daintily with the heavy linen napkin.
“Daniel, supposedly, told his Mum to go to hell when she pressurised them, they think she’s still trying to get them together.” She dabs he delicate lips again with the corner of a napkin. “Yes, they.” She looks at me over a fork full of dripping salad leaves, paused to her mouth.
“They?” I plead with my tone.
“James and Kurt, we went out last night, the four of us, expressly to get drunk and discuss you and Daniel” traitors the lot of you.
I can't hold back the smile, I love it that they are all so concerned about me, and clearly too shallow to think of anything else to talk about. “And, what conclusion did you come to?” I ask, sipping my water, mildly amused be her admission.
Pete just looks at me like she’s sorry, I’ve lost a place in the top six and the rosette. Which let’s face it, hardly ever happens, and if it happened to you, you’d be pissed too. True story.
“Am I so not his kind of people?” I ask sadly, “Barbara likes me I thought?” Not that I care, or I’m trying not to. What would Mum say? She’d say: do what’s in your heart to do, other people, ignore them. “Why would she sabotage us?”
“She loves you,” Pete stabs the air with a bread stick, “just not as a daughter in law.” She crunches into the end. Blimey, I must be a sad case, Pete is eating carbs for me.
“And what does Daniel think about all this?” I take a spoonful of sun blushed tomato soup, not meeting her gaze, wishing the words hadn’t been spoken. And I wince before I even hear her reply.
Pete lifts her eyes to meet mine, finishes chewing for added effect, “he has never been serious about anyone,” she takes a sip of wine, I am deflated to hear that. “Until you Tharie, he is head over heels, and according to James, he is trying his best to help you see that.”
“Pete?” I ask her as we come out of the bistro, “Did you just give that waitress your number?” She is shameless.
“I have to keep my options open don’t I?” As she adjusts her black shiny hair. “Though, James is still my favourite.” she tells me with a wink, “We might go away together again.” She tells me triumphantly. And her phone beeps for attention, and there he is. “It's James,” she mouths to me as she answers, “Hello lovely boy.” Ahhh, Yuk!
We chat about nothing particular walking down Charlotte Street, it's a clear blue sky day, I see Daniels black car idling by the curb, I stop and wonder if he’s sent Stan to check on me or give me a lift, but what I see sends me reeling down and down I’m not sure if I’ll ever crawl out.
Stan is holding the door open for Jess Stein. Looking amazing and polished, wearing a camel and black Victoria Beckham pencil dress showing her figure to its best. With huge Tom Ford shades and a tobacco brown Birkin bag resting casually across her forearm. She pauses when she sees me, looks at me over the top of her huge sunglasses, tilting them down her nose for added dramatic effect, smiles and gets in, speaking to Stan, my Stan, as she does so.
“Isn't that Jess Stein?” Pete asks me, then sees my face, “got it.” Is all she says.
I manage to get myself back to work, not sure how I got there the whole journey erased from my memory.
But I sit in my studio, with my phone in my hand wanting to do some damage, wanting to ask obvious questions, but what I actually do is just cry.
TC: “Mum, dinner? My treat” I’m not asking.
EC: “See you later then, I know when I’ve been summoned” true story.
“It isn't healthy Catharine,” my Mum tells me helping me to more pasta, “you need to eat properly, look how skinny you are.” I do look down at myself, and have to agree, and I do enjoy my Mums cooking, it’s really good.
“Harry and George will be happy about that.” Is all I can think of to say. I'll sleep well tonight.
Against all advice from people who love me I still can’t let it rest, it must be an ailment.
TC: “Saw Jess today” I try subtle.
DP: “Not that again” I fail
TC: “Getting into your car Daniel” that’s right, get it out I tell myself. Do you feel better now? Nope.
DP: “You’re point?” Evasion.
TC: “I have none” give up Tharie, you are defeated. Walk away, make some tea, though even tea has lost its taste, bloody hell, it’s really bad then.
DP: “Where are you?” A bone?
TC: “Studio” should I have told him that? Wasn't I warned against dating someone at work? 'Don't dip your pen in the company ink' wasn't it?
DP: “Wait there” hope? Should I allow myself that? Never expect anything from anyone, then you’ll never be disappointed. My Dad’s advice, sad, but true.
Daniel appears in my doorway, a wall of heat hits me he is so gorgeous, how am I to get over him? He's designed just for me isn't he? I have my coat on and my bag on my shoulder ready to leave for home, my chest tightens, he looks very good, if a little tired.
“Let’s stop this Tharie,” is all he says, running his fingers through his hair looking down at his feet, he sounds tired too.
“OK” is all I can manage, and grazing past him, he doesn't try to stop me, doesn't say another word, I head for the stairs and the sanctuary of the air outside, it’s dark but mild, I head home.
I’ll get tea at the station.