March 1st
I wake with a start and feel across the bed. You’re not here! I sit up fast when a sputtering sound reaches me. Now I know exactly where you are.
I jog down the corridor and into the kitchen. The car key isn’t here. Of course, you haven’t given up. It’s a furnace outside, the boiling brightness a shock after being indoors for so many days: I gasp, unable to breathe, looking across to where you’ll be. The car door is open and, wrapped again in the sheet-shroud, you’re turning the key in the ignition.
Sputter, sputter, sputter, then the car goes dead.
As I get closer, you stop trying and rest your forehead against the steering wheel. Then you sit back up, frowning at me.
‘Well, you’ve fucked this,’ you say, sweat running down your cheeks.
You leave the key in the ignition and heave yourself out. I’m pleased you can’t go anywhere, but now I’m worried that I can’t either. You wipe sweat from your forehead, then curse as you rest your hand on the hot metal of the car’s roof and stagger away.
‘Here,’ I say, giving you my arm as support.
‘That car’s fucked,’ you say again. ‘You’ve fucked us!’
I shut the car door, leaving the key inside, and we trudge back together to the house. I don’t mind you leaning on me, your weight against mine.
‘What the hell did you do to it anyway?’ you say. ‘Won’t even turn over.’
‘I wanted to get back,’ I remind you.
‘Might as well have killed me the first time!’
I almost drop you in the sand. Even now, I want you to be grateful. Not this. But as you shake your head at me, angry, you look at me for longer: you see me now, even if you don’t exactly like me.