I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Sixty-Three

Valentines came and went, Alex left a box of chocolates for me on the top step with a note: 'You're still my sweetheart, sweetheart. And there is no acceptable reason to be chocolateless.' I smiled and wished I had got something for her. I hadn't because 1) it would have required leaving the house and 2) I didn't want to appear needy. I wondered if she'd received anything from Professor Holbrook.

At the end of February the short list for the Eighth was announced. I'd made it. Simon sent the biggest honking bunch of flowers I'd ever seen, along with a bottle of wine. I took the bottle over to the house one evening-I wasn't interested in drinking at the time-with the plan to give it to Alex. She'd appreciate it much more than I. All of the windows in the kitchen were ablaze and I could see the island in the middle of the room, the pots hanging from the rack above it gleamed. Then Geoffrey came into view with a glass in his hand, as I was standing in the dark and he was in the light I knew he couldn't see me so I just stood there, watching him laugh and say something. Alex must have been in the other room.

I returned to my house, feeling as though I were watching myself from far away. I watched myself walk up the path for a bit and then followed along at some distance. I was inside before I watched myself enter the kitchen and saw myself shut the door and lock it. I put the bottle of wine on the table and went upstairs and got into bed fully clothed. I didn't feel anything, though I was aware that I should have thought something snippy like, "Didn't take her long, did it?" It had no conviction, though and I realised I never believed she had truly been with me in the first place. Certainly there had been moments when I had thought she was mine, if only a tiny bit, but I hadn't thought it was anything permanent. Still, I hadn't expected to see Professor Holbrook in the kitchen.

I thought she'd spend some time alone-being at least a bit upset. I suppose I hadn't meant as much to her as she'd meant to me. That wasn't so difficult to understand. She'd been my first...everything really and she'd had loads of relationships so it couldn't have been as profound to her as it had been for me. I lay there in the dark, figuring this would be the start of a horrible bout of depression and feeling curiously disconnected from the thing. So that's what loving someone got me. I wasn't even certain I did love her. What was it anyway? A particular lightness in the chest? A commitment to be there no matter what? I'd said I loved her because that was what you were supposed to say, but there was nothing within me that was shouting, "This! This is what it is!"

I remained in bed for several days, only getting up to let Clem out and back in. Changing clothes, having a bath or eating seemed too much effort. I considered sleeping on the sofa in the living room so I wouldn't have to go as far to let Clem outside. I don't know how long I continued in that way, several days or more than a week, but eventually I heard a knock at the door downstairs. I didn't think I could get out of bed, but the knocking became more and more insistent and then forceful. I rolled out of bed and dragged downstairs. When I rounded the living room to the kitchen I saw Alex's panicked face through the curtains and thought someone had died.

I pulled open the door, 'What's wrong?'

'Where were you? I've been banging away for nearly ten minutes, Catherine.'

'I was having a lie-down.' She stared at me with a frightened look on her face and I asked a little irritably, 'What?'

She asked quietly, 'Are you all right?'

I shrugged, 'I'm fine.'

'You don't look fine. Have you been eating?'

'Did you really come over here to ask me that?'

'No, I came to say that Simon's being ringing you and you haven't responded so he phoned me.'

I looked over at the answerphone and there were several messages on it, I'd cut the ringer off. I returned my attention to her, feeling drugged, 'Oh. What did he want?'