I’m in his house but it’s not his house. It’s always the same that way. I’m here to pick up some things he says I left here 20 years ago.
The things are bizarre, and arranged at random on the cheaply vinylled peach floor of the kitchen. I balk, but attempt to put the items in my tote – a stack of old recipe books with peeling spines, a ceramic dog bowl filled to the brim with water.
He’s living with a woman his own age – older, even. She has cropped grey hair and wears a sweatshirt with a rollneck underneath. They’re watching me, concerned, because I’m getting stressed out about the things I’m meant to take. The items feel familiar but I don’t think they’re mine. Water is seeping from the dog bowl in the bag, making puddles on the floor.
The burden of the things I’m being asked to carry in my tiny tote is ridiculous. Why am I responsible for this? I realise, suddenly, that I’m shouting, screaming, and they are looking at me like I have so many problems. Problems so alien to them, problems so far from being their responsibility.
They are looking at each other now, not without fear. Like I’m the mad one.
* * *
We’re walking now, just him and me, down a winding yellow track. We’re in a David Hosking painting. I can see for miles – rolling pastoral valleys lush and verdant, stripy farmland neat and tidy, deep warm skies – I just can’t see over the hills.
I realise we’re in France. How can he come here when he doesn’t have a passport? How did he get here if he can’t drive? He’s living here but he won’t learn the language: “Why would I, I live in an expat community.”
I’m dressed for the office, in a skirt suit, for some reason. I’ve never worn a skirt suit before. I shuffle down the glossy yellow lanes in my stilettoes.
He’s dressed in his work clothes – white shirt, and a tie with a fat knot that bulges to a triangle. In my teens, the shape of that knot turned my stomach. He hasn’t aged. We are the same age now.
We come to a junction and I point to a golden-yellow road that winds up around a hill and out of sight. “I’m going this way,” I say, and start walking. My tote is empty. He watches, waits.
I know he will follow.