In the form of a text message from my dad:

Am at Ayrton Senna memorial at Imola. Left him Autocar open at Monaco GP report to read.

Can’t concentrate, can only think of you, yet you’re so namelessfaceless that I can’t concentrate on you either. Can’t focus, can’t work out who you are, I just know that you’re there, you’re listening for me, but you don’t know who I am yet, and I don’t know who you are. You’re the one who will know how to make it all go away, you’re the one who will turn this emptiness into a far sweeter longing. You will make me smile again, and assure me that I’m not too old and I don’t have to much emotional baggage. You might even understand, if I dare to explain to you, the darkness and the light that are inseparable in my soul. Then I would know you were right.

You’re the wallpaper at the back of my mind, a watermark through everything I do, even though I don’t know for sure if you meant me in those oblique references you made, and if you did mean me, I don’t know for sure if you meant it in that way. There are so many reasons not to, but I can’t stamp out this longing. Are we both staring at the screen, missing each other, but worried that we’ll be unwanted? This uncertainty…

My Inbox is desolate and empty without your nonsense in it.

Morning light seeped round the curtains, and the air felt cold outside the blankets. Helena had slept in the unaccustomed intimacy of Matthew�s arms, her head tucked into his chest, and her limbs were crying out to be stretched. He stirred as she rolled away from his body, pulling her back into his warmth.

Stay with me, he said quietly.

I don�t think I�ve ever been this comfortable in my entire life, she mumbled, kissing his neck and pulling the sheet up over their shoulders. The bed was as luxurious as a steaming bath, and there was no danger of being disturbed.

I mean it. Stay with me. I won�t let you go. He was reiterating promises he had whispered in the night, that she could have discounted or forgotten, but he had obliterated her cynicism. She wanted to feel like this forever, and it felt as though there was no reason why that could not happen.

This was not a heady, silly feeling that could be described as cloud nine. This was something that she could relate to real things, like the pure cocoa smell when you break a new bar of chocolate; like the softness of heavy, thick silk; like an icy glass of water on a hot day. This was waking up with her colour palette refreshed, and comfort in the knowledge that she was not experiencing it alone.

There�s a fly in our ointment, she remarked. No milk, no bread, no breakfast.

What time is it?

It was after ten. Matthew tore himself out of the bed with great difficulty, committed to providing for her even if it meant going out into the cold, to buy supplies in the village. Helena ran herself a bath when he had gone, and soaked away the delicious bruises that ached beneath her skin. In repose, her face slid automatically into a smile, because she felt good. If Matthew came back quickly, she thought, he could use her hot water to warm up after walking through the snow.

As soon as she emerged from the water, the icy air wrapped itself around her, making her shiver violently and leap for one of the threadbare towels that dangled limply from the hook on the back of the bathroom door. Wrapping one around her damp hair, she made a mental note to replace them with something suitably large and fluffy, and then wandered down the stairs in dressing gown and slippers, seeing everything in the dazzling light of the beautiful and fresh winter morning.

She heaved open the sitting room shutters, revealing the empty grey fireplace, which needed to be cleaned out and restocked, unless of course they were going to go back to bed after breakfast, which was a profoundly appealing concept, and much more appealing than digging ash out of the fireplace in her dressing gown.

There was a rattle at the door, which made Helena think that she should see if she could find a spare key. She paused by the inner door, self-consciously pulling the towel off her head, and then lifted the latch. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew brought in fuel for the fire, and tinkered with the storage heaters, so that they might possibly leap into action later in the night, although Helena remained cynical about that. She made cheese on toast, and compensated for the unremarkable meal with a bottle of wine that she did not remember having bought; it was good, and they drank it too quickly. The empty glasses and plates were abandoned on the carpet beside the long shabby sofa, bait for the mice, Helena joked. Matthew said she should get a cat.

A cat was a very permanent arrangement, an idea anchored in routine and stability. Since leaving Leasdale, Helena had never lived in one place for longer than three years, and the concept was a novel one.

There are always kittens up at the farm, Matthew remarked.

You still live up there, then, with Emma�s parents? Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew returned to school with a new knowledge, something that set him apart from his peers. He felt that he could tell by looking which of his classmates were lying when they bragged about their exploits; and it seemed to be the ones who said little who actually knew what they were talking about: a girl who faltered when a question was addressed to her directly, not lacking information, but opting for privacy; another classmate who exchanged a knowing glance with Matthew, a little raise of one eyebrow, indifference to the speculation of the children around them.

He and his classmates were turning eighteen, applying for universities, staying in town after school so they could drink in pubs; it was not that they could not get served back in the village where everyone knew their ages, but that there were so few establishments that one could not avoid drinking with one�s parents, which would be no fun.

Before the summer, he had had no plan, but trusted the non-decision that he would leave home, get a degree, travel, find a job like everyone else. He never considered the inevitable separation from Helena to be significant, because they would get round it somehow, or they would be reunited at the end of each term. Now his lack of a plan felt like aimlessness, as though he had lost his reason for moving forward.

The post arrived after he had left to catch the bus each day, and without being entirely conscious of it, this lighted a little fire of hope at the back of his mind for the next eight hours, which was damped when he returned home to find that there was nothing from Helena. By the time he went to sleep, an incidental thought process had completed, to remind him that there was always tomorrow. Until she wrote, he could not find out where she was, and it was hard to stick to his resolve to get on with his life without her. He sent off his UCCA form and waited for the university boards to decide his fate. Read the rest of this entry »