The Decent Thing to Say

            Flashbacks. That’s all I’ve got.

            I was sitting in a bar with Ed. We were talking about speed dating. I was looking for some positive. I started crying. Ed bought me another drink.

            Fields and hedges. We were climbing up a hill, to a church and a graveyard. I remember it… there was a grave up there belonging to Allegra Byron, the poet’s illegitimate daughter. I remember reading the epitaph. Byron used to sit up there as boy, inspired by the church, hidden amongst the trees on top of the hill. We sat there, Ed and I, drinking a bottle of wine. I don’t remember where we got it. Suddenly Ed spoke, calm and reflective:

 

And thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,

Too soon return’d to Earth!

 

            Running down a street without reason. Wild, running for the sake of the wind. Ed shouting something. Suddenly I’m tackled to the ground. Two Asian men with thick beards are lying on the pavement with me. Everyone’s laughing, I’m not concerned.

            Noise. Shouting. I’m in Ed’s bathroom, lying on the floor. Someone’s banging on the door. I get up, open the door and stagger into bed.

 

*

 

            Ed woke me rudely this morning, without compassion.

            “Time to get up Evans!” He often calls me by my surname.

            I stirred with pain, groaned, and pulled the duvet up over my head. Ed ripped it away from me and opened the curtain. Light cut straight into the core of my brain and seared whatever fibres remained.

            “Come on, it’s midday already. And I’ve cooked you bacon.”

            We went down and had breakfast. I ate slowly, allowing the pain of the night before to fade into the pain of the present, and my memory of Annabell. I’d rather have stayed in ignorant agony.

            “What now then?” Asked Ed.

            “I should go home.”

            “She doesn’t want you.”

            Occasionally I really wish Ed would say the decent thing and not simply speak his mind. This is a vain hope. He cannot stand that kind of dissimulation.

            “I must go home anyway. I never told her where I was going. She’ll worry.”

            Ed said nothing.

            “I wish she’d ask me to come home though.”

            “Exactly. Don’t just go running back. Let her worry. Let her wonder where you’ve gone.”

            “Right.” I said, unsure.

            “Stay here, with me, until she calls you.”

            And so I am. It’s late now. She still hasn’t called.