Hollow Shores by Gary Budden

Author:Gary Budden [Budden, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911585268
Publisher: Dead Ink

XII.

The Hollow Shore

Julie left on Christmas Day. Married for three years, together for five. Upped and left with the gravy and roast potatoes still steaming on our clean new flooring, uneaten evidence of the final argument. What a waste of food.

I drank through Christmas and New Year, taking advantage of the offers on at the local Sainsbury’s. I walked by my local library daily, saw its crumbling walls and raw wounds as machines began the demolition. Galliford Try signs apologised for any inconvenience and announced a new cultural centre, luxury apartments, a new cafe. Crane-necked metal beasts ripped out the building’s innards and exposed them to dusty air.

Sometimes I stopped and chatted with Tom, the loquacious local drunk who sat on a plastic chair opposite the ruins, offering boozy wisdom to passersby. ‘They didn’t listen,’ is what he said most often.

Eventually a new year came and I returned to work. I filled my free time with books, movies, drink and the occasional line. I fumbled with a woman ten years my junior in the gents of a gastropub up Clapton, so new the toilet walls were free of graffiti and sexual innuendo. Life as it was rumbled on.

I sat at home listening to the records Julie never liked, at wall-shaking volume, ignoring the bangs on walls from my neighbours. A pile of unopened envelopes grew on the kitchen table. This flat in East London, we’d signed the lease together, split the rent fifty-fifty, the energy bills, the Plusnet, everything. My job paid me a half-decent wage but I was going out more, missing a day of work here and there, using the credit card for everyday essentials. At night, when I finally fell asleep, I waded through waterlogged saltmarsh, mud-spattered and exhausted, running from a black-clad figure that sighed and moaned like the wind behind me. I woke with a splitting headache, hollowed-out, sweating, my tongue sandpaper dry and tasting of ash. I gulped cold water from the bathroom tap, splashed it over my face, stared at a reflection I didn’t much care for. On insomniac nights, I sat on the sofa we bought together from John Lewis, now stained with beer and smudged grey, watching films I’d downloaded illegally onto a hard drive. Julie left me most of the stuff, the physical objects we purchased, the things we paid dearly for, our accumulated life a list of brand names, furniture, gourmet coffee and organic veg boxes.

I watched English Civil War films, ’70s ghost stories, Satanic rituals performed in England’s ancient forests. I spent hours at the laptop drowning in pornography. Every morning a new arrears notice stared up from the doormat. Once, I tried to phone her, more out of duty than need. That’s what people did in these situations. I heard she was living with a suit who worked in Canary Wharf, weekending at his place in Surrey. She never picked up. I was glad.

By the following winter it was all gone. I was let go when work downsized.

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