I remembered the promises we’d made to each other, me and Sarah and Simon, and I wondered if I’d been naive to think we could keep them.
I remembered how easily we used to talk, endlessly, making plans, deciding where we’d be in one and two and three years’ time, and I don’t remember mentioning this.
I had the appointment card on the table, the letter with the confirmation of results, and all I wanted to do was tell her about it, talk it over, like we would have done before.
I wanted to talk about why it was making me so scared, why there was a breathless panic fluttering up into my throat.
Sarah you’re not going to believe this, I wanted to say, or Sarah can I tell you something?
I wanted her to say oh calm down why don’t you, the way she did when I used to get worked up about deadlines and exams.
To say look no one’s dying here, we’re not talking about open-heart surgery, it’s normal, it’s a thing that happens.
I wanted her to give me some perspective, to say things out loud and make them seem a little more ordinary.
But I didn’t say anything, I just said oh I had a postcard from Peru, from someone called Rob, I said I couldn’t remember who he was.
She said you must do, he was that guy from over the road, he tried skating down that hill in the park, don’t you remember?
I smiled and said oh yes, and she said remember how no one went to help him because we were all laughing so much, and I laughed and held my hand to my mouth because it still seemed unfair to find it so funny, the way he went sprawling to the floor, arms flung out for balance, bellyflopping across the tarmac.
I said and remember how he had no skin on his arms for the rest of the summer, just those long grey scabs?
And she said I know I know, laughing, she said I can’t believe you’d forgotten, and I could picture the way she screwed her eyes up when she laughed.
We talked about other people, saying do you remember when, and how funny was that, and I wonder what happened to.
We talked about the medicine girl next door, the boy in Rob’s house who thought he could play the guitar, the good-looking boy down the road with the sketchpad.
We talked about the people at number seventeen, Alison who got her tongue pierced, and Chris, and the boy with the ring in his eyebrow but we couldn’t remember his name.
I tried to remember what it was like to be near so many people who knew me.
She said what’s Rob doing in Peru anyway, and I said I don’t know I think he’s saving the children or something.
Do you think he’s taken his skateboard she said, and I laughed and then remembered the way his hair got in his eyes when he was trying to pull off tricks.
The way his jeans always got scuffed under the heels of his trainers.
I thought about him being all those thousands of miles away, and I wondered how long the postcard had taken to reach me.
I read it again, looking at the long looping letters, trying to imagine the slow slur of his voice.
Things are going massively here it said, I’m having an ace time.
It said I’m not really homesick, but I’m missing decent cups of tea, it said you could write to me sometime.
I looked at the front of the card, at the pictures of Peru, smiling women in traditional dress, mountains, monkeys in fruit trees.
She said hello are you still there?
I said do you ever think about it, I mean, that last day.
She didn’t say anything for a moment, I heard a television in the background and I wondered where she was, if she was with anyone.
She said I try not to, it’s weird, you know, I’d rather forget about it.
It seems like a long time ago now she said.
I said I know but I can’t get it out of my head.
It keeps coming back I said, just recently, I don’t know why.
She was quiet, and I waited for her to say something.
I straightened the flowers in the vase on the table, pulled out the dead leaves.
I watched the traffic lights changing in the street outside.
She said what I always remember is the way everything carried on afterwards.
There were still buses going past on the main road she said, and some of the people on them turned to look for a moment but some of them didn’t even notice.
I wanted everything to stop she said, even if it was only for a little while.
There was nothing about it on the news she said, I knew there wouldn’t be but it didn’t seem right.
It just kind of happened and passed she said, and then we left and there was nothing to prove it had happened at all.
I said, you know, it’s the noise I can’t forget.
I still have dreams about it sometimes I said.
The way it echoed off the houses, and, oh, it just, I said.
And then we stopped talking and I could hear her breathing.
She said actually can we talk about something else now.
I said yes, sorry, it’s just I’ve been thinking, you know, lately, and she said well it’s a long time ago.
She said so anyway are you seeing anyone at the moment, and we talked about recent possibilities and failures, comparing notes.
And she said look my dinner’s nearly ready I’d better go.
I said oh sorry I didn’t realise, you’re eating late aren’t you and she said oh I do these days and we both said I’ll speak to you soon then bye.
I didn’t say who are you eating with are you eating on your own.
I sat there for a long time, after I put the phone down, the letter and the appointment card on the table, unmentioned.
I don’t know why I didn’t say anything to her about it, I don’t understand how I became fearful and closed off like this.
I sat there, watching the flowers quivering each time a lorry went past, feeling the tremble echo along the bones of my spine.
I saw the moon appearing, low and white over the park by the river.
I remembered the time Simon had called me through to his room, saying look out of the window, a dark night and the moon was bright and crisp away to the left, a thin crescent like a clipped fingernail.
And
