Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

Author:Will Wiles [Wiles, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Literary, Humorous, Family Life, Fiction
ISBN: 9780547953564
Google: ba80jU4pJM4C
Amazon: 0547953569
Publisher: New Harvest
Published: 2012-10-09T05:00:00+00:00

‘Thank you so much for this; you’re a real friend for helping out.’ Oskar’s relief at my agreement to look after his flat had been palpable, an effervescence cutting through his dour mood. ‘I don’t feel comfortable leaving the flat for so long, not with the cats...’ he was momentarily transported elsewhere at the thought of the cats; I wondered how much trouble they could be.

I smiled modestly, enjoying the flattery I was receiving for what seemed to me to be a pretty good deal. ‘I’m happy to help,’ I said. ‘Are you going to see Laura?’

At once, the light vanished from Oskar’s manner like a bulb blowing. ‘Yes,’ he said, sharply.

His sudden reversion to gloom alarmed me. I had missed some subtle cue and fouled up, I thought. I had said something out of place. ‘I’m sorry...’ I began, automatically, not yet certain what I was sorry about.

‘No, no,’ Oskar said, waving his hands and flashing me a pale smile. ‘I am sorry. I will explain. I am going to Los Angeles to be divorced. We are getting divorced.’

For a moment, I didn’t have anything to say. Then: ‘Oskar, that’s terrible, I’m so sorry.’ In fact, my emotions were a logjam. It wasn’t that I was happy to see Laura excised from Oskar’s life. Instead, it was a combination of fellow-feeling for Oskar and the sort of wild, exhilarating interest that comes with something bad happening to a close friend – a mad glee at the opportunity to go on emotional safari in a passionate place for the span of a conversation, and then step back into a milder climate with no lasting implications. These feelings were overlaid with an acute fear that I might not be seen to be reacting in the correct way, and the usual British horror at the possibility that someone might start crying.

‘I do not know if it is terrible,’ Oskar said. ‘It is very sad for me. Of course. But it was too complicated. Her in one country, me in another. And the distance makes life difficult when we are together. We argue. I do not like Los Angeles. It is unruly. And she hates my flat. This I do not understand – you will see, it is a very nice flat. And it is big! Too big for me alone, so I have the cats. And now I discover that it is too big for me but it is too small for two of us. One is lonely and two is crowded. Maybe it is like life.’

‘I’ve never had a long-distance relationship,’ I said, ‘but I know that living together can be difficult.’

‘Difficult!’ Oskar appeared incensed by the word. ‘Yes, I hear this. Why should it be difficult? People say, this is difficult, that is difficult. It is an excuse for failing, for doing something wrong. It is not difficult – it should not be difficult. As long as there are some rules, some agreements, people know how to do things, then everything should be easy.

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