by Matt Shaw
She shifts uneasily in the sofa and I take a little pause to see if she says anything - see if she can defend herself. She doesn’t say anything.
“I think we need a new rule,” I continued.
She didn’t say anything.
If she even listening?
“What do you think?” I ask. A test.
“What new rule?”
Good.
She is listening.
“I think - when I’m in here.... even if you can’t hear me typing... when I’m in here... you need to keep out. Stay out. You want a chat, you want to see me, you want a cuddle... you approach me when I’m not in here. This.... this is my space.”
I pause to give her a chance to speak.
I’m not all bad.
She doesn’t speak.
“What do you think to that new rule?” I asked.
Silence.
We’re not leaving this room until she talks to me.
“I’ll never get to see you, you’re always in here....”
She’s smart.
Smarter than I gave her credit for, at least.
She continued, “When do I get to see you?”
“I thought that was obvious - when I’m not in here... we can talk about whatever you want, when I’m not in here. And, think about it, the less interruptions I get, in here, the quicker I’ll be done. I’ll spend more time outside. At the moment, all this.... all this keeps me in here longer. Do you understand?”
Her eyes are starting to fill with tears.
A smile slowly spread across my mouth. By the time we’re done with this chat - she’ll be an emotional wreck in the other room and I’ll have the peace that I crave.
Gradually I’m wearing her down. Gradually.
Soon everything will be easier.
“Is there anything else?” she asked - too upset to address her own thoughts.
Bonus.
“That’ll be all.” I flash her an insincere smile as she speedily walked past me and out of the room.
The chat with Phil, previous conversations with Rebecca - they all made me realise I’m better off without either of them in my life. Admittedly Rebecca will be harder to shift. We’ve been a part of each other for so long now - I’m not sure how it will work, without her.
Time will tell.
I hear the lounge door close, she’s crying. Barely audible across the hallway and through the thick wooden door but - definitely - she’s crying.
That buys me some peace and quiet.
I close the study door and completely drown out her pathetic little sniffles.
I wonder what will happen to her - when we part company. Will she simply cease to exist without me? Her life is all about me.... without me.... will she just fade into nothing, or find something else to live for?
I can’t let that concern me.
I need to do what’s right for me.
And - this is.
I sit at the typewriter.
Rebecca is right. I don’t leave this room. At least, very rarely I leave this room. And that’s the way it’s going to remain now until my second story is ready to come out.
This is it.
My fingers start dancing across the keys of my keyboard. There’s no steady pace-building here, the fingers move from nothing through to blur within a split second. Everything else in the room fades to black - the white page, quickly becoming full of my words, fills my vision. All I can see now. My mind blocks out everything else. Good reason to...
... Nothing else matters.
Just the words.
* * * * *
I’m in the woods. Our spot, by the lake.
A new dream.
Sort of.
It’s quiet.
There’s no laughter, like normal.
And there’s no tears, like in the last dream I had.
Nothing.
No Phil.
I’m walking through the woods, towards the clearing.
Anger.
Anger?
Definitely new.
Am I half-sleeping? I know this is a dream. Why haven’t I woken up.
Still asleep?
Reach the clearing.
Keep walking.
Towards the lake.
A mist, formed over the lake, is also new.
Pretty.
In a sinister sort of way.
The anger. I feel that?
Concentrate.
I do.
I feel it. The burning anger... wait.... self-loathing.... furious...
It’s coming from me.
Definitely.
I reach the lake.
The water is still. Clear. Peaceful.
Weird.
Is that sweat on my brow? Wipe it off. Yes, sweat.
Weirder.
I don’t sweat during the dreams usually.
It’s not my dream.
It’s his.
It’s not my dream.
It’s not my dream.
It’s not my dream.
Eyes open.
It’s not my dream. It’s not my dream and this isn’t my room.
His study.
His sofa.
I shouldn’t be in here.
Why am I in here?
PART TWO
10.
I watch as my colleague, and friend - Jeremy, shifts through the various papers that are scattered across my large, oak table - muttering ‘interesting’ and ‘I see’ at various pieces he stumbles across.
He holds up a piece of newspaper clipping I pulled from one of the papers, a few months ago, “And the author did this?”
I nodded.
In turn, he nodded in, what could only be described as, ‘approval’.
“I’d love to meet him, Phil.”
“It’s been a couple of days since I’ve been round there....”
“He sounds fascinating.”
“Oh, he’s a character - not one you’d want to spend much time with.”
“A proper author?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“I’d love to meet him.”
I smiled. Never going to happen.
“So how is your book going?” asked Jeremy.
He didn’t care how my book was going.
None of my friends did.
Ever since I released my book, and got some interest in it through various websites, my friends and colleagues rushed to do the same - and better my own attempts. Not so much because they wanted to release a book; more so because they wanted to undermine my own efforts.
Unfortunately, most of them had managed to beat my own efforts - obviously choosing topics which appealed to a wider audience.
Not this time, though.
Not with my second book.
Not with the help of the author.
If I can get him to talk to me, that is.
“Well?” he repeated.
“Well what?”
“The book - how’s it going? They say the second book is the harder.... how’s it going?”
“Very well, thank you.”
A perfect lie.
“I look forward to reading it.”
His perfect lie. He doesn’t care about reading it. He’ll have a quick flick through it and then release another book himself, no doubt. Once again trying to beat my own efforts.
Jeremy continued, “Any chance of a sneak peak?”
I shook my head.
“Ah well,” he said. There’s a pause as he took a sip from the cup of coffee I made him. I can’t believe he’s still drinking it. Surely it must be cold by now. “My own book seems to have taken off.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well done?”
“Thank you. Figures for last month were promising. Kind of begs for a second book to be released....”
Here we go....
He continued, “I might start a second too.”
Bingo.
He can go now. Sitting there, judging me.
Jeremy looked at the time, “Good God, is that the time?”
He always does this - pretends he’s running late for something after I’ve asked him to leave; like he has somewhere better to be.
I can’t resist, “Need to be somewhere?”
“You know how it is - so much to do, so little time...”
“Oh, yes....”
He took another swig from the coffee before he placed the cup on the table, next to the notes we’ve been flicking through, “Coffee’s cold, old chap.”
And, with that, he stood up and walked from the room - closing the door behind him.
As I scooped up the numerous pages of notes, for the book, I kept thinking back to Jeremy saying how much he’d like to meet the author. I know I can’t stop him, it’s not within my power to stop it. It’s not even within my power to see him again, myself - I just hope he’ll see me.... preferably before Jeremy muscles in and gets to talk to him.
Jeremy has a way about him; an unrivaled ability to upset people without really trying. I like to think of myself as quite calm and collect. If I’ve already managed to upset the writer - he definitely will.
Of course - that could just get more from the author in the long-run. But, it could also make him disappear altogether. Refuse to see either of us.
I definitely need to see him before Jeremy does.
But...
Our last chat hardly went well. I’ll swing by and see Rebecca this afternoon - see if she’ll let me see him. I feel quite close to Rebecca so I hope she trusts me enough to know I won’t upset him.
I know, from talking to her, he can give her a hard time and I need to avoid that.
Need to try and keep relations peaceful between all of us....
For the sake of my own book, at least.
Can’t have them close the door on me.
Worse still - close the door on me and leave it open for Jeremy to swan in there.
I shouldn’t have shown him the notes.
Why.
Why did I show him the notes?
Stupid.
When he popped in and asked for a coffee, I should have guessed what he was up to. I should have known he was snooping around to see what I was doing. He always does the same thing, when x amount of time passes where he hasn’t heard from me.... he pops over to check up - see, for himself, what I am doing.
And like an idiot, I always seem to let slip. Always let the cat out of the bag so to speak.
Idiot.
11.
“He’s not here.”
Rebecca looked at me, tired eyes.
Very tired eyes.
I feel worried for her.
I hope, in the long-run, I can help her. Does she need my help? Shouldn’t even ask that. Of course she needs my help. It can’t be easy living with him.
Growing up, with mum and dad - all those years ago - when I got involved with people’s affairs.... my parents would always say things like, “Don’t get involved.”
Now, now I feel as though it’s my job.
It is my job.
I have to help her.
Help her get rid of him.
I look at her, again - she looks tired but... does she want him out of her life?
“How’s he been?” I asked, as I stepped into the room.
“So, so....”
Cagey.
She’s worried.
Worried he’s listening, perhaps? Or worried about my intentions? I don’t know what he has been saying to her, in my absence.
I shouldn’t have left it so long before I came to see them again.
Should have just worked through the first run-in. Got past whatever problem he has with me. Leaving it definitely resulted in backward steps.
And now Rebecca is being even more cagey with me.
Definite backward steps.
We had quite a nice relationship.
She trusted me.
Liked me, even.
Now she isn’t sure.
I sat down on the chair in the corner of the room and looked over to where the picture of the kids was. The picture is still there - minus the frame.
“Did you want me to find a spare frame?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Okay. So how are you?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
She’s lying.
She’s far from ‘good’.
A little bit of an awkward silence passed before Rebecca finally came and sat opposite me.
“I’d really appreciate the time to explain to him....”
“He isn’t home,” she repeated.
“But when he is....”
“I’ll let him know you swung by.”
I smiled at her.
I know full well he’s close by. He’s always close-by.
Listening.
Part of me just wants to ignore Rebecca and call him out but, I fear, it could do more harm than good.
We’d all lose.
Well, all of us apart from Jeremy. No doubt he’d be there to pick up the pieces.
It’s crucial to my reputation this book is a success.
“He doesn’t like it,” said Rebecca.
She wants to talk. Seize the opportunity.
“Like what?” I asked.
“He doesn’t like people coming around - asking questions about his book or what he’s presently writing.... he prefers to just be left alone.”
“What do you think?”
“I think he should talk to people. I think he needs to be heard. I don’t know. Our relationship is definitely under strain since the last story broke.”
I nodded.
He found his voice.
It’s always the same, when someone finds their voice - they want people to hear it. They want people to hear them.
“He isn’t even writing anything at the moment - well, he wasn’t at least...”
“What do you mean?”
“Up to yesterday - he hadn’t written anything. He couldn’t think of another story. Writer’s block..... but, I went in to his study and there was another story on his desk....”
A look of concern flashed across my face, “What’s he writing?”
Rebecca shrugged, “He didn’t let me see it....”
“Do you think he’ll tell me about it?”
“No.”
To the point, I suppose.
“He doesn’t let anyone see his work,” Rebecca continued, “not until it’s ready.... finished....”
“And is it nearly finished?”
Part of me is jealous. It’s been months since his last story came out and now he believes he has another story coming out.... It’s been years since my last book.
Years.
“I don’t know,” said Rebecca. “You need to go.... he can’t see you here. He thinks something is going on between us.”
