Five Days Apart by Chris Binchy

Author:Chris Binchy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-05-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

When I woke the following Saturday, I knew from the light on my bedroom wall that it was a day for being outside. I had a shower and went out to get the paper and a coffee. It was only nine o’clock and it was already hot, the street full of older guys that couldn’t sleep any more, all nervous white flesh and shorts and sandals, out buying little treats for their families. Pastries and bagels and chocolate and strawberries. Bringing home breakfasts for the patios and balconies. I had nowhere for that, nowhere to lie around outside, but I could go to the park. I could keep walking into town and buy food and beer and go home, get a rug and something to read, and cycle over, spend the afternoon in the middle of nowhere with no one. There was a pleasure to be had in that, being out there on my own, feeling the sun, smelling the grass. The thought made me happy. I was capable of finding the perfect solution to a day like this on my own.

It didn’t seem true though when Alex rang to ask what I was doing and I told him nothing, that I was around. He was working on an ad for a friend and would be finished by two. I said we could get food and go to the park, as if I had just thought of it. He said it was a great idea and that they would be on for it. Him and her. He’d ring her to check but he thought she’d be keen. If it was okay with me, he said then, hesitating, sensitive just in case, and I said yes, absolutely. Of course.

I didn’t mind. It was better, I thought. It seemed like the kind of thing I should be doing. He went off and called her and then rang back to say they’d meet at my place at half past two.

I was waiting on the steps of my building when she pulled up outside in her car. I stood up when she arrived, but she sounded the horn anyway.

“What are you beeping for?” I asked when I opened the door.

“Saying hello,” she said. “What’s in the bag?”

“Nice things.”

“How long are we going for?”

“What? Is it too much?” She laughed at me.

“It looks like an awful lot.”

I stood there in the open door not knowing what to do, whether to bring some of it back up, but in the end I just threw it all onto the back seat.

“I like to be prepared,” I said. “I don’t understand what’s so attractive about spontaneity, not having enough or not being able to open things or sitting on damp. What’s so great about that? We are ready.”

“What for?”

“For everything,” I said. “Where’s Alex?”

“Alex is going to meet us there,” she said. “He got delayed.” I noticed how she put a distance between herself and his words.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s he going to do, ring us when he gets up there?”

“Yeah.

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