Unwanted Affection and Mixed Abhorrence

          All morning I sat at my desk frantic with anticipation. I finally sent a reply to Annabell last night, carefully crafted to create a perfect blend of capricious curiosity as to her current condition.

            She had not replied.

            I was supposed to be working but could not. Perhaps the wording had been wrong. Perhaps she had wanted more… affection. Maybe I needed to demonstrate my continuing commitment.

            I still had keys to our flat… I thought… and knew I shouldn’t. But I did.

 

*

 

            I slipped quietly in just before six this evening, a little in advance of her return. A few of my things were still about providing the perfect alibi. I was glad to note no sign of others. No new tenant; no new... other. The photos that we’d displayed about the flat were all gone or turned face down. No doubt she didn’t want the reminders of what we’d had.

            She returned a little before seven. She was a little surprised to see me sitting in the living room but no alarmed. She responded to me coolly. I had hoped perhaps for a hug or… something. She established the purpose of my return and accepted it unemotionally.

            “Perhaps we could go for a drink before I leave?” I suggested.

            “Alright,” she said, and my heart skipped a beat, “but it’s not a date, Tom. You do understand that?”

            I kicked my heart back into life. “Of course,” I replied, “I know,” I added, more quietly.

           

*

 

            In the end we decided to have dinner at a local Pizza Express. She spoke exclusively of her job: office politics, successful cases, fascinating points of law. She asked me my views on them occasionally and I responded with forced interest. She did not ask me about my life.

            I tried to switch the conversation several times, in vain. I wanted something more emotional from the meeting. How could we pass from lust and love into passive dissection of a lawyer’s day?

            “Damn, Annabell!” I blurted.

            “What?” She asked, and waited silently.

            “Nothing… I suppose,” I said, after a few moments.

            She paused, sighed slightly and then addressed herself to me, setting herself straight in her chair before she began. “Tom, you’re just worried you’ll never do better than me.” She paused again though from her expression I could see this was not an invitation to reply. “You’re wrong, Tom. You will do better, I know you will.”

There was a flash of kindness in her eyes now, the emotion I so desperately sought. I paused awkwardly, caught between unwanted affection and mixed abhorrence at the presumptions.

She looked about briefly. Dinner was over, we’d paid. It was time to go home.

“You can sleep on the couch Tom.”