a heated argument

It is hot, and humid. There is a slight breeze coming through the
open window; my curtains wave half-heartedly.

It is dark, but the light-blue of the earlier day has not yet faded
behind the rooftops; chimneys and television aerials are silhouetted
against it. A car is parked opposite, in darkness except for the metal
hubcaps reflecting the orange of the streetlight. The street feels
claustrophobic. The terraced houses have no front gardens; cars are
parked on either side of the road, half on the pavement.

The house opposite has its curtains almost closed, lights glowing
behind them, windows wide open to the hot night. A record is playing,
Bach, and I can hear them clearing the dining table. They have had
guests to dinner; they said goodbye earlier, merrily, the family
standing on the street and waving as the car pulled away. Now a
satisfied calm lingers over the house.

I can hear an occasional engine on a distant road, and a train pulling
itself lazily along the tracks. Now footsteps, as a lone woman walks
past my window, and voices talking in a nearby house. Somebody's front
door opens and closes. A little way down the road two cats are
fighting, hissing at each other, trading quiet insults. The people next
door are watching a film on television. Two characters with thick
American accents are arguing.

I am working, supposed to be working, but I'm not concentrating, drawn
instead to the darkness outside my window and the mysteries of
strangers' lives just beyond it. I wonder where you are now, which
country you are in. If you were here I imagine we would be sitting
comfortably in this hot silence, you in the easy chair in the corner,
reading a book, me pretending to write this paper while really
listening in on the conversation floating down the street. A stifled
laugh from you as the dialogue reaches our window would tell me that
you were eavesdropping too. My co-conspirator.

Somewhere, tucked inside a bundle of papers, I have a postcard that you
sent when you first went away. On it there was a picture of the Arc de
Triomphe but the postmark said Florence, Italy. You said, "It's hot
here. People wave their arms around when they talk. Soon I will start
writing, but first! I must learn how to drink coffee." You didn't sign
it. There was a black streak where the ink had smudged at the bottom. I
haven't looked at it in a while, but I remember it dropped through my
letterbox this time last year, on a hot day like this one. I read it in
the kitchen, leaning against the new wooden cabinets, with the kettle
boiling and the morning sun filtering through the blinds. I turned it
over a few times, re-reading, before I pinned it on the wall next to a
shopping list and a calendar. It was eight months before I took it
down.

I can see you now at some pavement cafe with a glass of wine, your
jacket slung over the back of your chair. You have probably grown your
hair, maybe some stubble, and you will be waving a cigarette as you
talk to your friends, who are all male. They are laughing as you
recount a story - telling them about the time that you and I walked
into a private engagement party at the Oasis Bar by mistake, when you
fooled half the guests into believing that you were the groom's best
friend, and we had to escape when you were found out, half-drunk on
free alcohol. Your cigarette is burning unnoticed as you talk, but you
are keeping one eye on the people walking by. The tourists are heavy
with too much pasta and too much sun but they are still clutching their
cameras, determined to see one more sight before the day's end. The
city's young are dressed in bright costumes, on their way to celebrate
the night - you are just too old to join their party now, and have the
grace to recognise it. Instead you satisfy yourself with what you feel
are more sophisticated pleasures: fine wine, expensive shoes, and
coffee, the taste of which you could never stand before, but which you
have acquired over the past year.

Life is not so exotic in this cosy corner of England, but then I've
never had your dramatic flair. I have painted the walls in this room
since you were last here, in a shade of blue that I love, that you
would probably detest. I have put in a patio at the end of the garden,
and a wooden bench that catches the afternoon sun, although I am
wishing now that it had more shade. My collection of books has grown,
my hair is shorter. They are only subtle changes, but things are
different. I like to think I'm different. I don't feel like crying any
more when I think about you.

There are some things I said to you that I would like to take back.
There was that phone call you made, just a couple of weeks after the
postcard. You were at a payphone and shouting that it was raining, that
you were getting drenched, and you were drunk, I think, or you sounded
drunk. I could hardly hear you. It made me angry that I couldn't talk
to you - first the card, with no information, then this telephone call
- and you sounded so pleased with everything, life, your surroundings,
yourself. Things were really moving for you, you told me, and I was
jealous because I wasn't moving anything. We bickered. Then we argued;
the neighbours must have heard me, as I sometimes hear raised voices
filter through the walls. I battered you with insults and told you not
to call again. You didn't.

When I put the phone down I realised that it was raining here, too. We
had one of those summer storms that sometimes break on hot nights, and
I remember sitting at this window watching the rain sliding down the
glass.

I enjoyed feeling bitter for a while. I wallowed in it, imagining
things I would say to you if I saw you again, things I hadn't said
properly the first time. But now I wish I hadn't said them at all. It
would have been nice to think we might have stayed in touch, enjoyed
each other's company, especially on a night like this one. We would
perhaps have gone to sneak into the Botanic Gardens, over the fence by
that gap in the hedge that you showed me, just to dance in the
sprinklers and cool off. I would never dare to do it with anybody
else.

Perhaps it's just as well you're not here. Sometimes you exhausted me.
It was exhiliarating, to begin with, but it isn't the wild nights spent
chasing adventures that I miss. It's the pockets of easy quiet that we
shared, the things you didn't say, the way you didn't say them. The
sound of a door opening, somewhere else in the house, or finding your
reading glasses next to a book, upturned, spine cracked, pages splayed
outwards marking your place. I would like you to have seen the man who
just cycled past this window on a squeaky bicycle, steering with one
hand and dangling an empty bird cage from the other. I would like to
hear what you would have to say about him.

The lights in the downstairs windows of the house opposite have just
been turned out, and I can see shadows moving behind the curtains
upstairs. Two people walk past, a man and a woman, their voices too
quiet for me to make out their words. They are sharing a bag of chips
and a faint smell of vinegar drifts up to me. I hear next door's
grandfather clock chiming softly; it's midnight.

If I knew where you were I would write you a postcard. I would buy
something with a tacky picture, a Union Jack maybe, or a black
rectangle: View Of The City At Night. I would say: "It's hot here.
Nothing changes; everything is different. Send me some coffee
beans."