The A-Z of Us by Jim Keeble Page A

coffee, but I haven’t the energy. I sit in the downstairs window – my new spy-hole, wrapping the cashmere blanket around me, and make a firm decision not to move for several hours.
    I am the outsider who gazes out at the world as it turns, never interacting. The crazy old spinster whom children will point to as they hurry past the dark foreboding house that schoolyard whispers say is haunted. But I don’t care. Not any more.
    I stare into the empty street. The windows of number 22 are dark. I wonder if the hooded coat is in fact the thin man, Raj’s layabout, walking his prize terrier before returning to an early morning yoga meditation session. Ororgy. It comforts me slightly to think that we are the only two people awake. I need to believe that I am not alone.
    But the person and the terrier do not reappear.
    Ian clunks downstairs at 8.30 a.m. like a one-legged pantomime pirate, carrying Raj’s DVD player. He yawns and smiles, weakly. I know he’s got up early to be with me. Ian hates the mornings.
    â€˜Shall I make some tea, then?’
    We sit without exchanging more than single words until the teapot is empty. The large clock I found at a retro stall in Camden Market ticks inexorably towards 9 a.m. For a moment, I think about ripping it from the wall.
    I can’t go to work, even though we’re approaching the project deadline. I feel helpless, empty, drained. It’s as if I’ve been holding out, being strong, until Ian arrived. He has enabled me to let it all go. I wonder, not for the first time, why I’ve always needed the company of men more than women. My mother still chastises me for not having any real ‘girlfriends’, as if this deficit is indicative of some shortcoming in the way Susan Cook raised her daughter. I know my mother was always a little jealous of my closeness to my father. But this doesn’t stop me worrying, wondering whether my lack of female friends is due to an insecurity about myself that makes me unable to show the vulnerability which everyone tells me is the necessary bond for close female – female relationships.
    I like Ian because he’s uncomplicated. Even though I cried my eyes out in front of him last night, I know, as a man, he won’t store up this knowledge of my weakness and use it against me at some point in the future. Not like some women would. Not like Sophie at the office.
    I can’t call. I think about asking Ian to call, but he would have to explain who he is and that would give the evil Sophie-monster too much ammunition. I just want to cover my head with the blanket and remain like that for a very long time. I hear my mother’s voice, admonishing me, telling me there are people in the world far worse off than myself, but this only serves to expand and consolidate my misery.
    â€˜I’m not going to work,’ I say gruffly.
    â€˜Definitely not,’ Ian replies, cheerfully. ‘Take a mental health day.’
    We sit in silence, whilst children pass by, screeching their way to school.
    â€˜This is strange, isn’t it, Gem?’
    â€˜What? That kids around here sound like they’ve had speedballs for breakfast?’
    He smiles at my poor joke. I know ‘what’. The strange thing is, it doesn’t feel strange. It’s like being back at college, that mixture of cheerful apathy and vague anxiousness, knowing there are things to be done, but coming up with no pressing reason to do them.
    The clock ticks. I glance at him, noticing a couple of grey hairs at his temples. He hasn’t shaved recently. He looks older than I remember – Brosnan in
Remington Steele
. I don’t want Ian to get too old (
Die Another Day
Brosnan). It means I’m next.
    â€˜What are you going to do about your career?’ I ask suddenly, my tone deeper and more strict.
    â€˜Jesus, Gem, it’s only nine o’clock.’
    â€˜You love your travel writing.’
    He shifts slightly,