Weightless
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‘Have you heard anything about the Zurich flat yet?’ She asked.
‘No. You?’
‘Of course not. You know we’re going to land there with nowhere to live, right?’
‘Where do the homeless sleep in Zurich?’
‘Cartier’s doorway.’
‘Dibs on Louis Vuitton.’ When Fiona first mentioned the Zurich job, just after I split with Mattias, I wasn’t at all sure about going. It was perhaps a bit much to add a six-month foreign assignment into the upheaval. But then I thought, why not? Wasn’t it just the sort of thing one should do when single? Besides, it’s not everybody who got to say she worked for a chocolate factory. Sprüngli, makers of Lindt, needed a confectionary shake-up. I was to become Willamina Wonka. ‘Seriously, though,’ I continued. ‘We’re starting in six weeks. We’ll need to know more soon.’
‘Do you think something’s wrong? What if there isn’t another job?’ She wound a lock of blonde hair through her fingers, a nervous habit.
‘They’ve always come through before,’ I said. ‘There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong.’
She nodded. ‘It’s probably just a snag in the paperwork. I’m being paranoid. You know how geeky I am. I need to work. I’m not like you, with…’ She fluttered her hands. ‘… Creative juices. My juices are wholly employment-related. These assignments sustain me. We will be all right, won’t we?’
‘Of course we will. And don’t be jealous of my juices. I can’t exactly make a living as a musician if the assignment falls through.’
I hoped very much that paperwork was holding things up because I needed the assignment too, though for different reasons than Clare. I had to have breathing room away from the new life I’d created. Zurich would be the pause button, letting me assess the past months from outside the maelstrom. And away from Mattias. At the moment I was going through the motions, carried along pretty much as I’d always been, minus the stable relationship. I had the nagging suspicion that that’s how I ended up sleepwalking through the last decade in the first place. It seemed to happen so gradually that I hadn’t noticed. Like that frog in hot water. If you threw the poor little hopper into a pot of boiling water (not that I’d ever do that!) conventional wisdom said it would jump out. But if you put it into a pot of cold water and turned on the heat, it would eventually boil to death. Had I been a dozy toad? Did I sit in my life, making a small concession here, a minor adjustment of expectations there, never questioning why I was starting to sweat? Surely there were points along the way that should have made me wonder. Maybe the ease alone was a warning sign.
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