#120 OR hollow

These bank holidays are killing me. Two in a row, what do I do with all this empty time? I work anyway, eyeing my overtime spreadsheet with distaste. There's more overtime than regular time. Because if I don't work...what? I prowl the apartment, heavy with silence and motes of dust hanging in beams of sunlight. I'm slowly building more furniture, trying desperately not to think of them while I make it; no use finishing things I can't look at. So I topped the table with a sheet of glass rather than wood. Remembering how she hated the sound glass tables make. Ah, of course. I forgot that things hurt just as much when they have nothing to do with her as when they still carry her perfume.

Places she never went hurt just as much as standing in her childhood bedroom did. And Christ, that hurt. Her Mother asked if I'd like to sleep in there, told me to feel free to take anything I liked, needed. She closed the door and left me standing there, holding a bag, still dressed in my funeral suit, still choked from the memorial service. I slept there, woke frequently, confused and talking in my sleep, dragged my fingers over her things, toys, trophies, posters. Took only one thing; a picture she took of me when we first met, smoke curling in front of the lens, I'm looking down at the counter, serving someone. Not sure why she kept it, pinned to her wardrobe door all those years, on the back she'd written something, unreadable now. No chance to ask her. 

I took the picture, it's in the guest room of course, with everything else I can't stand to touch. Not yet. I left her family with tokens; a necklace of hers, a lock of their hair that her Mother clipped and twisted together at the hospital, photographs of us, a birthday present for them that she had bought early, wrapped and waiting to be posted. There's a similar parcel lurking for me in the guest room, tagged, a card with her writing. Didn't feel much like opening it on my birthday; one hundred and twenty days ago. Don't think I'll feel like celebrating on the 1st of January again. It will always be the day everything was torn apart and tossed up into the air. The day this ache started. The day this hollow settled in my chest. 

I got a phone call on the first, wishing me a happy birthday. I'd just left the hospital, alone, standing on the sidewalk on the verge of a panic attack. Not crying, just stricken, horrified, afraid, what now? What the fuck do I do now? The caller, my oldest friend, told me to ask myself that question every day until I knew. I still don't know any more the 120th time than I did that first time. The temporary answer is - I wait, and see if things improve. But that's not the real answer, that's not enough. 

So I work, and I strip the wallpaper, and build furniture and try to make friends who don't know about this hollow ache in my chest and I wait. But waiting isn't living and it certainly isn't thriving. It's long and it's grey and it's cold and it's so damn lonely that sometimes the ache is worth having because otherwise I might think that this is all there ever can be and ever has been. But the ache tells me there was more. Might be again, someday. 

I keep meaning to say something to you who have been kind enough to follow my blog. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for me to put something like that so I'm just tacking it on here and hoping everyone will forgive me for cobbling things together. I never expected followers, or comments and certainly didn't expect to be mentioned elsewhere. I started writing because I find it hard to talk, not because I thought anyone would enjoy reading about my anguish. It's hard for me to read this blog and I wrote it, so I imagine it must be difficult for anyone to read, let alone comment on. So while it's wholly inappropriate to say that I hope you're enjoying it - because undoubtedly it's not enjoyment you're seeking in my dark corner of the internet - I am grateful that you thought me worth following, and I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for.

#119 OR rice flour

The holidays loomed over us for months, neither of us mentioned it but the prospect of living for four weeks in the first world was daunting. We made a good team, a marriage forged in the damp heat of the jungle. We were married out there, in the gardens of the Embassy by a Consular official, papers double-signed in curving strange letters and English, surrounded by frangipani and bourgainvillea trees, groups of fireflies spinning underneath the branches. We worked together, rarely spent time to ourselves, always pursued by laughing children or inquisitive neighbours; when we weren't at the school I was at the slum and she was working in the village.

That first week she stayed with me I was nervous, worried she'd hate this place I'd fallen in love with. Came back early from school one day, wandering up the path with the same delight as the children I've just released; no school! And even the teacher's delighted. I spied her through the leaves and waited, oppressively hot that day, overcast, humid, sweat trickling down my neck as I try not to make a sound. A group of women squatting together, laughing, joking, one is singing; keeping time for my girl, clutching a pole at least as tall as her, pounding rice flour and water into dough. Flushed and sweating, shirt cast aside, left in a vest top and sampot, catch the glint of her engagement ring on the cord around her neck. Voyeur, sneaking peeks through the plants, listen to them laughing. A new joke, requires a mime, aimed at her and she turns, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. Her eyes are wide, blush creeping across her cheeks, a woman is estimating size with her hands. Shake my head and step out of my hiding place, she catches my eye and laughter erupts around her before sharp orders are barked in Khmer. Behind me Ama is standing four feet tall, steel grey hair, face lined, fists clenched on her hips as she corrals her ladies back to their duties.

Later I look at her again, across the bed, examine the contrasts of our skin, she's still pale, slightly jet-lagged, dark circles under her eyes, white skin and fresh new clothes still smell of Western laundry. I'm dishevilled, unshaven, tanned so dark she didn't recognise me at the airport. Meeting her there my stomach was in knots; already been settled in the village for two months, already tanned, leaner, stronger, dropping Khmer words into English, clothes already sunbleached and tired. My arm lying heavy across her hip, hand on her stomach, calloused skin against hers. Relief washes over me many times in the next few weeks, every time I see her working dough into rice noodles, cooking pork over an open fire, slicking sweat away with the back of her forearm, catching my eye and smiling. Relieved that she's swimming rather than sinking.

A year later we're contemplating four weeks "back home" with unease. This is home. What will we do with running water and electricity? She mentions it first, carrying a vast basket of laundry in lean brown arms. "Washing machine" she declares, dumping the basket at my feet. What? She grins wickedly "all that time I won't have to spend knee-deep in the Seine washing things!"

And this time both of us have changed, our friends meeting us at Charles de Gaulle don't recognise us, her hair longer, down to her waist, mine shaven, both of us so tanned we look Khmer. Can't remember the special way you have to tweak our front door to get it to open. "This is why there are no doors at home" she murmurs, arms around my waist, words muffled by my shirt, draped on me - it's thirty hours since we left the village. At home. She's right, this flat isn't home any more.

Later; feel of the washing machine vibrating the floor, curl against her, press a kiss to the back of her neck, smell of shampoo and detergent seem foreign now after the smell of sweat, ginger and smoke. She closes her arm over mine. "So what were you going to do with this spare time?" A quick glare over her shoulder and she elbows me in the ribs. "Sleep now or I'll take it all to the Seine" she threatens already half asleep as I laugh quietly into the back of her neck.

#117 OR heartsick

I unpacked a little today. It's not laziness keeping me from doing it, at least it's not usually laziness. There's nowhere to put things away yet, only the kitchen is furnished and even though no one comes here it feels too strange to keep everything in kitchen cupboards. Mostly I was like a worker ant; carrying things back and forth between little piles. Storage...here...misc...hers. And a large pile of things which I can't bear to have around me any more but want to keep. The shrink calls that avoidance, I call it self-preservation, not becoming Miss Havisham. We laughed at her character at school, just children, not empathy. Now I can see how it would be so easy, safe to stay cocooned in the past.

Heartsick today, not sure why. Much worse these last few days, a tangible, creaking pain in my chest. Nothing's different, same routine for the last three months. Except I finally unpacked my camera yesterday, stripped the memory card and saved the whole lot to an external hard drive, threw that into the guest room. Needless to say, I didn't go in. Haven't taken any pictures in a while, the camera and I used to be inseperable. Even with the empty memory card I kept flicking through, expecting to come across some of them. I remember the last picture I took as clear as anything; the safrole tree that overhang our house, the backdrop to most of my memories of that place.

I packed slowly. There was a crowd in the middle of the village, conspicuously not watching me. Took me a whole day to clear the house, not because there was a lot of things but because everything I picked up suddenly seemed significant. That cracked green bowl took on a strange symbolism, spoke of every morning that we lived there, the soothing ritual of waking her with tea. The look on her face when I said we should just throw it out after it cracked. We kept it of course, fool for her.

When it was time to leave, I was at a loss. I went out to throw the bags in the truck, the crowd had gone, chased off by a friend. A lotus flower left on the steps. Stricken. Never coming back here, to this place. Pump water for the last time, flakes of rust sticking to damp palms, squeal of rusty metal. Get a can of oil from the truck and fix the pump, leave the can. They're gone and this is what you do? Fix the damn pump? She'd never have let me go without doing it. Take the little green bowl out to the safrole tree, float the lotus flower. Their ashes will be in the Netherlands, I'll be in London, our home is here. This is the best place to leave things. Snap a picture of the tree, not sure why. Look at the last picture on the camera; it's them, of course. She's standing in the river, waist deep, swinging a little girl up into the air, drops of water trailing from kicking feet.

As soon as I turn over the engine there is a rushing of people, banging of doors. Heng is at the front of the group, I've left some things in the school-room, I say; can't meet his eye. He hugs me tightly "we will miss you teacher, the three of you."

Heartsick.

#116 OR chnganj

My next door neighbour is barbecuing tonight. I opened the basement door (ill-advised combination of solvents drove me out into the evening) and the smell of flame-roasted pork got me in the gut. Hands shaking, gripped the door, dishevelled, covered in sawdust, safety glasses on my head, blinking like a mole. His wife is delightful, pregnant, but then I can't avoid every reminder of my old life. Insist I join them for a drink, can't go back inside anyway. Not without a gas mask, idiot. A beer sweats in my fingers, sitting on a wall talking about how lovely the weather is. It's not, less than twenty degrees. The weather back home is thirty. Back home. This is meant to be home now, there's nothing left of home out there. I lost that.

The smell of roasting meat has me confused, torn between memories of open fires on packed earth floors and this ridiculous English garden, all abandoned children's toys, trampolines and flowers. Condensation from the bottle soaks into my jeans, my hands are still shaking. They talk about the basement, they owned it before I moved in and he would like a tour, lame joke about having gassed myself out, they laugh too loud, polite. Feeble sun on the back of my neck, hands clammy, sweating and cold.

Their daughter runs over, about four, dark curls and brown eyes. That's it. Silhouette of the wife, pregnant, turning meat over an open fire with bamboo chopsticks. No, tongs, the chopsticks are the memory. Laughter from two doors down, distorted, can almost pick out Khmer words. Set the bottle down, careful, stand, the daughter is clinging to her Mother's legs, dark eyes peering up at me. Make my excuses and burrow back into the basement, the noxious tang in the air has gone. Back against the closed door, run a cold hand down my face, shaking, glasses crack onto the floor. Sliding down the door, cold concrete floor, rough wood shavings. Sitting, lost in memories, sit there for too long; nearly impossible to unfold cramped muscles, have to drag myself up with the door handle.

Pathetic, weak. Scared off by a family barbecue. But that's the worst kind of memory, not something that happened once but a daily ritual. Cooking meat over an open fire, long chopsticks, the hiss of the grill, face flushed from the heat of the fire cutting through the blanket of humidity. At first we were hopeless, had to be tutored by a barbecue master in the art of not dropping chopsticks into the fire and not burning off the hairs of our hands. She adopts it as her favourite chore of the day, despite the unbearable heat and the fog of smoke. Overjoyed the first time we didn't sacrifice a chopstick to the fire, tin plate of meat, giant smiles. Our tutor comes over, snags a piece, chews thoughtfully, finally she decrees it "nangai, nangai" (okay, okay). Could do better, a solid C at cooking. The smell of charcoal in her hair that night makes me smile.

By the time I get off the floor it's hard to believe I'm here. This happens a lot, the blurring of the line between memory and reality. Some nights I half-wake, lost, smell of her somehow in the room, confused, where are we? Catch myself talking to her and that's when it hits me again that I'm lying alone, grey fingers of dawn easing through the window.

#114 OR stricken

Two days of hangovers in a row. I will never learn. In my defense only one hangover was caused by pathetic solo-drinking in my basement. The other was with people (!) my own age (!!) which required grooming (!!!) and real clothes (!!!!) as opposed to flannel shirts and sad old jeans. The first time I have been out and about on a Friday in, well...years. Sure I'm outside most Friday evenings, at least, some Friday evenings. When I don't sleep at work. But then I'm covered in sawdust and miscellaneous glues and metal shavings, dragging myself through the tramps and feeling out of place amongst the hordes of revellers on the tube. It was rather reassuring to find that I haven't quite forgotten how to talk to people, although I have apparently forgotten how to hold my liquor. Or at least forgotten (or gleefully ignored) the boundary between cheerful blurring, merry swaying and blind drunk. Instead I shot straight on through to embarrassingly pissed which led to an 8am meeting sweating neat whisky and trying not to vomit in pot plants. In fact not puking in the foliage might have been the only thing I achieved that day.

It feels odd though, I did all this at University and left with my degree and a minor in hangover cures (alka-seltzer in vodka was a personal favourite) freshly resolved to forge ahead with other things. Which I did. And now here I am again. Living alone, working too hard and for too long, drinking and making merry with not-really-friends but coming home to an empty bed, empty flat with everything exactly as I left it that morning. And no amount of liquor stops me slipping back into the same old nightmares; still terrifying after 113 nights.

My lack of furniture preys on my mind an awful lot. Not what other people might think; no one comes here, they go straight to the basement because that's inevitably where I am. This enforced emptiness feels impermanent, which I like, gives a false impression that this misery won't last forever. The grief will pass, I know. Soothed by long hours sanding things and working through everything. Buying a full set of furniture wouldn't have the same therapeutic value but this way each new piece is terrifying, represents Progress. Progress which I'm not sure I've made; still wake each night shouting myself hoarse, sweating, tangled and sick, still spend the first half hour of each interminable morning crouched on the bathroom floor retching.

Perhaps this way is better, this starting from scratch. From heaps of lumber stacked against a basement wall, not from an Ikea catalogue. Nothing that she slept in, sat on, lived with, nothing which draws out agonizing memories of her. Just her things, still heaped in the spare room. Going in there is becoming like scaling Everest. Even leaning my forehead on the door, hand resting on the door handle exhausts me. Each night I decide, not tonight. Each night retreating, coffee instead, a few hours work downstairs perhaps. And then it's three am and I'm awake, bolt upright on the basement sofa, throat hoarse, heart pounding, all too soon crouched on the bathroom floor, still dressed in yesterday's clothes.

Of course, the trouble with starting from scratch is that I don't know where to start. It feels as though everything that was anchoring me has gone and now, now I can do anything, go anywhere, be anyone. Except, somehow, I don't get to choose. I get nightmares, flashbacks, nausea, shaking and shivering, insomnia and this unshakeable, unbearable numbness. Mostly I get anger and mostly I aim it at myself.

And of course the problem is that it's not quite nothing, for I am a sentimental old fool. I have one thing, a chair of hers that a very kind gentleman came to view in Paris and offered to pay for and remove. But I was stuck, stricken by the memory of her in that chair, us in that chair. Of holding her in my lap while she cried after her Grandmother's death, of her falling asleep still in her graduation gown, of the way she shyly held up ultrasound pictures for me, of hours nursing ginger tea and crackers, of her giggling and tipsy in my lap all tangled up in me and missing my mouth with her kisses. Couldn't part with it but can't look at it, out of place here in this empty flat. Just one more thing to keep me out of the spare room.

#113 OR voyeurism for amateurs

I spend my life in basements now, the workshop (work) and the...well...workshop (home) both basements, thankfully only one is flanked by a funeral home. Although there are worse things to work next door to. At least the dead are generally quiet. I mostly work with wood at home, started in Cambodia carving an otter as a prize for a school project. They trap them there, skin them and eat them, view them as pests even though they're officially endangered. We used to buy them, $20 per otter and drive them to an otter sanctuary in Tonle Sap. Seven hours in a Jeep with a furious, thrashing otter. Wonderful. So, woodwork. Quiet, calming, it's getting me through. Slowly. But I still look up and expect to see her curled in her chair on the deck, gas lamp on the floor between us. She's sewing, usually, or reading, squinting in the half-light, occasionally uncurling herself and stretching, snapping her joints before settling back, hunched over her work. If I look up too quickly here, at dusk, distracted, should have turned the lights on, illuminated only by the heater. Shadows leap across the sofa and more than once I've smiled at her. Except, of course that there's no one here. Just me. Stabbing a chisel into the workbench and slamming on the lights. Ridiculous. Shaking my head to dislodge the crystal clear image of her, cross-legged, bent towards the light, curls of hair falling around her face, more than once I stopped whatever I was doing to just watch her. 

I stayed late in town one night. Photocopying at an internet cafe. Only an hour from a village with no electricity and no running water I'm able to send emails, photocopy and lounge in air-conditioned hotels. The drive back seems long, I know she won't be sleeping - the soothing sounds of cicadas, creaking trees and chittering bats become something else entirely when you're alone in a house with no locks or glass in the windows. Dark, overcast, can barely see the road through the windshield, pressed up against the steering wheel, seatbelt frayed where too many drivers have done this exact thing before me. No lights as I pull into the village, past midnight, only three hours till the first stirrings of morning rituals. Turn the corner, pull the Jeep out of the way and spot a light, I think. Leave the papers, car unlocked, limp around the deck, long day. Turn the corner and she's curled tight in the chair, gas lamp flickering next to her. Transfixed. Noise of cicadas loud in the quiet night, a halo of mosquitos around the light, oppressive blanket of heat, damp shirt against my back. Quiet steps, leave my cane against the doorframe, looking, haven't seen her since this morning.

She brought breakfast to the school, rice, charred pork, chicken stock, chilli sauce in a tin box, chopsticks nested in the curls of her hair. I'm buried in papers, white skyscrapers line the front of my lopsided desk, she takes my hand, leads me out back. Peace, just for a minute, eating with her, a quiet smile on her face watching the yard busy with children coming and going. We don't speak until she's ready to leave, pinning clean chopsticks back in place. "Tonight?" she asks, I grimace, photocopying, exams, a smile from her "some peace at last!" A lingering kiss, the press of her hand warm against my chest and she's gone, fresh water and a clean shirt left on my desk. I watch her leave, can see the silhouette of her through her white shirt, a gaggle of young girls follow her to the path, stroking her arms and giggling. She doesn't look back but she waves as the path turns out of sight.

On the veranda I watch her. Wish I had words for how she leaves me breathless in this shifting orange light. Wish I could tell her everything, thank her for all this. For leaving her life in a heartbeat and coming here to live so far away from everyone she knows and for doing it so well. She shifts, smiling in her sleep, damp hair wrapped around her throat. I lean on the railing, watch her stir and wake, slowly, not quite shrugging off sleep. Smiling at me, stretching as she unfolds, collar of her shirt slips down and she links her arms around my waist, drop a kiss to her warm skin, salt, soap, her. The chink of her anklet as she stretches up to kiss me, pauses, one hand on my cheek now, studying me. Her eyes narrow, small frown, cocks her head to the side. I wait, almost smiling, know what's coming. Her face clears, she reads me like a book; "I wouldn't be anywhere else."

#112 OR first world problems

This week has been particularly testing. Just the world making sure that I'm so close to cracking under the strain that the creaks and groans can be heard in France. Of course these are all ridiculous first-world problems which means I'm not only stressed, I'm guilt-ridden.

I'm currently serving two masters at work and each is convinced that their project is the most significant and requires the lion's share of my attention. I spend between seven and eight hours per day on each of them, 80% of that time working, 10% listening to them shouting down the phone, 5% drinking coffee, smoking and watching videos of owls and as of this week? 2% up to my waist in the air conditioning system, 1% swearing at the air conditioning and 1% retrieving sensitive glues and varnishes from the funeral home fridges next door. The remaining 1% is of course, reserved for dithering outside the funeral home fridges hoping that I've remembered which one isn't currently occupied. God forbid I choke on noxious fumes before I have time to succumb to heat stroke in this wretched basement. Still, this is England and there's a national holiday soon, rain is undoubtedly imminent. Nothing cheers the spirits more than damp bunting. 

The Bank Manager called, alleged that he's been sending letters which I have ignored. Me? Ignore vital missives stamped URGENT in glaring red letters? Surely he has me confused with some other disorganized cretin who stuffs all mail - junk and otherwise - into a shoebox and keeps it under the bed. He gave me the first appointment of the day to intimidate me. Unfortunately by 9am I've already been awake for five hours and working for four so his little plot failed although he still succeeded in brow-beating me into switching joint accounts into solo ones. On the way out of the bank my lawyer called to let me know that he'd mailed hard copies of my freshly re-drafted will to me and that they have to be signed. So much bloody paperwork. I assumed there would be some, when someone dies things need to be changed, fine, no problem. But I've been awash in a sea of official letters, documents and forms for three months! None quite so impressive as those from the British embassy which were only surpassed in size and weight by the accompanying guide on how to fill them in.

This delightful day was rounded off by group therapy in which I was harangued by a fellow inmate and told to get a girlfriend. Again. Twice she's harassed me on this particular subject, perhaps she thinks if she shouts it at me often enough I'll eventually snap and accept the nearest woman (her)? 

Other highlights of the week include a visit to the Society library; searched thoroughly, stripped of all electronic devices, pens, bags, coats etc and finally thrust, blinking and as naked as a mole rat into the hallowed halls and ushered into the waiting room. My book was delayed, it missed our appointment by thirty minutes, proving that even inanimate objects have more captivating social lives than myself. The accompanying notes to the social butterfly in question were delayed by an hour and a half, finally arriving on their own cart with an honour guard of dust bunnies. And they were in braille. The other copy has been misplaced. At this point it seemed rather as if the Universe was just taking the piss. 

The silver lining to this rather thunderous cloud was the very appealing gentleman trying not to laugh at my misfortune in the library. His card is grey (happy medium between white: boring and black: pretentious) and reads Name, Nefarious Deeds. A card like that combined with a handlebar moustache? That deserves a call, surely. After all, how much worse can things get at this point?

#110 OR left undone

Perhaps what I hate finding the most in the piles of things which are left from our life together, are the things which are obviously unfinished. The things that speak of plans we made, secret plots she'd kept to surprise me. The birthday present she bought me, still wrapped up, can't even bring myself to read the tag (handwritten). Train tickets already booked to Ho Chi Minh City for her birthday because I always forgot in May and came up with something in June. Letters she wrote, addressed to me and her sisters, tied in a bundle with string. Little things she'd picked up, saved, wrapped in tissue paper to take back for her friends. Unlabelled so I can't even figure out who they were meant for, whether they'd bring some comfort to the friend.

At their memorial service I only knew Lena's Mother...and that only from the hospital when it was already far too late. Surrounded by her friends, her photographs, her favourite flowers, their ashes. I didn't know what to say, who to talk to. Her sisters clung to me, only knew me from photographs and letters, heartbroken, had to be to wrap themselves around a man they'd never met. Lotus flowers in bowls of water. Her Mother, barely keeping herself together, much improved since she was silent, pale and fainting in my arms when I told her the news, still a shadow of the woman in my wife's locket. Her Father, stern, unpleasant lurch in my stomach when I realised she had his eyes. One of her sisters could have been her twin, caught her eye as I gripped the podium, white-knuckled, trying to shuffle my thoughts into a speech for these strangers. Unbearable, for a second she seemed to be listening to her own eulogy, attending her own memorial. Couldn't get my thoughts together, spent the night before in the bottom of a bourbon bottle staring at blank speech cards. How could I? How could she be gone? How could I be in this situation? Condensing my wife and daughter into a ten minute speech with their ashes barely five feet away. A serious photo of her, short hair, fresh-faced, pale - school graduation picture chosen by her Father. In the picture I chose she's tanned, older, smiling, wearing Khmer clothes, jewel-colours, hair braided long over her shoulder. As though we knew two different women.

Told myself I wouldn't mention our daughter, that things were hard enough for everyone without going into the full, heart-rending details. A joke broke the ice finally, awkward silence and holding of collective breath until her Father guffawed, inappropriate, wonderful. About her disproportionate love for bacon, her: a Buddhist, vegetarian, non-smoker liked nothing more when hungover than a bacon sandwich and a cigarette.

It was surreal, standing in the middle of a crowded room, surrounded by her friends, family, people I'd never met who all knew my wife before I had a chance. Told me stories about her, hilarious, heart-breaking, delightful stories which sounded so much like her. And wanted stories in return; about our life, about Asia, about why I took her away from them. All of them trying to see me, to get a glimpse of the reason she left them all, went on holiday - promised she'd be back and then...extended the trip, extended the trip and in the end, never made it home. Got married, pregnant, family. I tried to tell stories, accessible ones about teaching and about her work with the children, funny stories about snakes and spiders the size of my hands and about showering in the rain. About working in the sahakhum, about tin huts and rat bites and cholera, about footbaths in disinfectant and funeral pyres. About Khmer weddings and karaoke and rice wine so strong your teeth burned. About the smell of incense and the taste of green tea, the burn of sriracha and the flicker of fireflies under safrole trees.

But none of those stories explain why she tore herself away from her friends and family. They don't and they never will because I don't know why she did. I'm glad, endlessly, unceasingly glad that she did, that she chose me over that throng of kind, welcoming people. But I couldn't answer their questions. I could see myself as they saw me and didn't resent them asking. Hard to read, taciturn, surly on a good day, scruffy, bearded, still lean and tanned and foreign-looking, young man with a cane and a heavy limp. I ask myself too. Asked her, she elbowed me in the ribs, rested her forehead against mine, so close all I could see were brown eyes and kissed me. I thought I knew, then, for a brief moment. But it slipped away, somewhere in the last one hundred and ten days it's just leached out of me along with a lot of other things, most of them comforting. Replacing them with snakes of self-loathing which save themselves for dreams then twist and turn, waking me with hot fresh shame, cold sweat and savage nausea.

#109 OR stable door

Enough memories for now, I'm drowning already, no need to have them lying in wait for me here as well. Although there's nothing I can write, think about or see that doesn't remind me of her. Still, got to start somewhere.

I promised myself I wouldn't make any big decisions this year, fleeting emotions influencing permanent choices can't end well for me. Although I hot-footed it back to London as though my tail was on fire, quit my job, accepted a new one, bought a flat, sold my old family home. After all that, I made the promise and the sound of the stable door slamming shut was heard all over the city. And yet today things became so appalling that I called the specialist and made an appointment to chat about amputating my leg. I'd class that as a reasonably important decision. But at this point it's clearly more crazy to endure all this pain and anger when it's avoidable. You talk about amputation and people look at you wide-eyed like you've shouted an obscenity, but talk about painkillers and physical therapy and chronic pain and they nod sadly, pat your hand, say chin up! Silver lining! Doesn't hurt all the time right? Painkillers make it go away? And I lie but the truth would be...well yeah, it does and no, they don't. They fuzz things up so it still hurts but you just don't care.

It's been five years since the pain started. Three weeks in hospital, muscle death, drug-induced coma, medical jargon, smell of antiseptic. Just met my wife, barely six months together before everything went to hell. (Damn, memories already, almost made it a paragraph.) I broke up with her daily, all tied up in self-loathing, rage and animosity. She came back every day, endured my ranting, crying, watched me twist myself into knots around the pain. And finally when I begged her to leave me, just go, not see me like this...she did. She didn't come back for three months, forced me to piece myself together, find out how to walk, how to carry on. Day she walked back into the apartment she punched me in the arm, called me a rat bastard for making her leave me like that. Told me she'd been sneaking back during the three months, cleaning, leaving food, checking I'd taken my pills. Let me believe I'd done it all.

I guess that's the problem (one of them). During all that heartache I sort of re-made myself, rearranged things. Became harder, she said; harder to read, harder to be around, harder to understand, impossible to make me talk. Said she enjoyed the new peace and quiet (her face if she knew I was blogging, the shock would kill her). But even when I was reforging things she was there, all tangled up in what I became and now without her... I'm trying to pick apart the things which are so choked up with her that I can't bear them being here any more. Simple things, little things, ridiculous things like the way I make tea - even here, a thousand miles away from a decrepit gas burner and cracked green bowls. Licking a spoon, sharpening a knife, the way I hold a pen, way I hook my cane up on a door frame when I don't need it, stupid things that recall bright eyes and a peal of her laughter or an exasperated bark as she hits her head coming through the door. Quick fingers nesting in between my ribs until I give in, she's bent over me on the floor, poking me mercilessly until I pin her, hands above her head, hair spread out on the rough wood, smirking at me, one eyebrow raised, what are ya gonna do now, tough guy? Threats are useless, I'm a sap, a fool for this woman. Kiss her instead, that spot behind her jaw, determined to leave her more undone than I was under her sharp fingers.

One day all of this won't hurt. I'll manage an entire day without thinking of her once, maybe. Whether that will be more or less painful...I don't know.

#108 OR arrivals board

The drive to the airport is long, jolting down dirt roads then tarmac, air shivering in the heat, windows down and dreadful rap playing on the radio. The map is open on the passenger seat, weighed down with a white plastic jug of water. The engine overheats barely an hour into the drive, on a road sandwiched between two national parks. I look around, last time a Krait surprised me, yellow and black slithering across the shimmering tarmac. Pouring water into the tank I'm forced to just sit, contemplate, on the tail of the truck, stretching my leg and listening to the hiss and pop of the cooling engine. There are no cars, not here, just me perched on the tailgate not entirely sure about this forced introspection.

We haven't spoken since I arrived here, kept her flight itinerary pinned to the wall next to a free calendar left by the previous holder of my job. There are small reminders of the previous teacher everywhere, little notes she left on the gas ring telling me to stand back first thing in the morning. She's right, it shoots gouts of flame from a vent in the front. Her chipped and cracked crockery, her instructions for doing laundry with a washboard all saved my skin those first eight weeks.

And now I'm waiting here for another girl to insinuate herself back into my life. I have a ring, on a chain around my neck where it's been for the last month...but I'm not sure how the hell I'm going to ask her. I lay back in the trunk, rough carpet pricking through my thin shirt, hands folded behind my head, looking up through the tinted windows. 

Remember that day so clearly, so desperate to see her again and so suddenly shy and tongue-tied. Ridiculously worried about my appearance, shaving carefully in a broken shard of mirror, washing that morning under the pump; Heng coaxing water from the handle and chattering about how he proposed to his wife. When I'm done he looks up at me "teacher! How could she refuse?" I shake my head, laughing and he grips my hand tight before turning away. My clothes are stacked on a shelf, covered by a mosquito net - learned that early on after a scorpion fell out of a shirt - no fool I. I pick the best of a bad bunch, the last eight weeks of handwashing haven't been kind.

In the arrivals hall I tug at my shirt, twist the bracelets at my wrist and rub a hand through my short hair. Nervous, sweating even in the air conditioning. Examine my hands carefully, the dividing line between tan and pale along the edge of my thumbs is painfully obvious in the flickering fluorescent lights. Look up, think I see her but the crowd presses forward against the barrier, excited chattering in Khmer. I can see over them, just, spot her brown hair, see her stop, backpack resting against her thighs as she wraps her hair into a knot, scanning the crowd, her eyes pass over me without pausing. My heart sinks a little and I make my way forward. She grabs her backpack, the straps tug at her shirt, exposing pale skin at collar and hip. She scans the crowd again and misses me, again. When she sees me I'm behind her, taking her hand "I said no, no taxi!" she snaps and I laugh as she turns and stops, hand pressed flat against my chest. "Oh". I grab her bag, swing it onto my shoulder but she's still standing, one hand on my chest.

"Yes" I look down at her, puzzled. "I will marry you". She tugs the ring on its leather cord out of my shirt and hugs me so tightly I drop the bag, she has to clench her hand over mine to stop my cane clattering after her luggage.

#107 OR silver coins

I remember snapshots of time, like the polaroids I can't pick up off the guest room floor. A picture of a Khmer boy back-flipping off a low wooden bridge; remember her gasping, burying her face in my shoulder until he resurfaced laughing, water running down his face, all white teeth and the bright whites of his eyes. Four of them clustered on the bridge waiting to jump, she gasps each time, horrified, waits for me to squeeze her shoulders, let her know they've bobbed up like ducklings. "Teacher, teacher! Swim!" And a scrawny boy is out of the water, shorts clinging to his skinny legs, water pouring off him and down my arm as he grabs me, drags me up the curve of the bridge. Takes my cane, leans it so carefully against the railing, pulling at my shirt "swim! Swimming!" He's stroking my arm, tugging the tails of my shirt, she's laughing at me from the bank, picking her way down to the water where the boys are flapping their hands at me "teacher! Teacher! Chicken!" Why did I teach them that? Chicken noises until I climb onto the railing, awkward, unsteady, damn leg won't do what I want but the kid behind me has small, cold, reassuring hands on my spine. I look back and he nods, smile so wide my face aches in sympathy.

"Teacher!" He's next to me on the railing, blue paint peeling off underneath my hands, sun hot on the back of my neck. He springs, back arched against the sun and lands with a crack in the river, resurfaces a long minute later and paws the water from his face. She's sitting on a rock, hand over her eyes until she hears him laughing, I can see her feet under the water, silver anklet, bright white V sandal mark flickering beneath the surface. "Like me teacher! Like me!" A back flip? "No way, I'm an old man!" They laugh, splashing, clear a space for me, "now teacher!" I fall more than jump, shock of the water, taste of it, pushing up towards the surface, deeper than I thought, skinny brown legs just visible and those two pale V shapes catch my eye.

Surfacing, wipe the water from my face, four sets of arms grabbing me around the neck and shoulders, under the water again, white flickers at the edge of my vision. Poke my fingers into their ribs until they dart off, quick as otters. Swim over, nowhere near as adept as the boys, run my cold fingers up her ankle, calf, rest there, on my knees in the cold water, looking up at her. Her hand on my cheek is hot, her lips warm, the boys are laughing and splashing us. I dry in the sun on the walk back to the village, the four small otters cavorting in front of us, sound of a silver anklet jingling as she walks.

#104 OR dream songs

It's hard now, to remember what I was like before her. We met when I was 20 (and she 17); I spent longer as an adult with her than I have done without her. We changed a lot, I think everyone does between 18 and 25 or so, which means all the things I thought I knew about myself, simple things, likes and dislikes...they're all tied up with her. Anything I tried, she was sure I could do. 

Even when I found myself straddling the roof ridge of our crappy wooden house, trying to hammer down fresh sheets of corrugated iron in the pouring rain. Half-drowned by the time I came down at 3am, one hour until I had to wake up for school. Dragging myself from bed that morning, cotton sheets twisted around her legs, tendrils of hair curling across her neck, salt tang of her skin and low murmuring before she relinquished her hold on my arm. Outside, humid already, sound of the village waking, a tiny kid hanging from the rusting pump handle, not heavy enough to draw water. I pump the handle for her, wide brown eyes watching me as she splashes her face, her feet, cups her hands and tosses the water at me as she darts into her house, one arm lagging as she drags the bucket behind her. Wash quickly, bare-chested, bare feet, sampot. Fill the bucket, hauling it back up the stairs to light the gas ring, pot of tea. Shaving in a mirror propped in a corner of the veranda. 

Smell of ginger and lemongrass tea draws her from the bed, hair heaped on her head, stretching like a cat in the sunrise. Laughing, poking me in the ribs, sipping tea from a cracked green bowl, twisting away from my questing fingers and lips until she's washed, setting her tea on the steps, brushing her teeth and gazing intently at herself in the shaving mirror. Pack up the books, marked the evening before, and stack of papers. Dislike the feel of paper in the heat and humidity; damp, limp, fragile. Clean shirt, linen trousers, flip flops, already too hot in the first uneasy fingers of dawn. She's finishing her tea on the steps, chattering in Khmer with the girl next door, the advance scout of my escort party to school. Standing, arm wrapped around her waist, brief kiss to the cheek but that's not enough. She holds my cane behind her back, pouting. Tickle her, one hand ready and waiting...catch the falling tea bowl and hold it up, grinning. She tugs my shirt down, tastes of ginger and lemongrass, young girl behind us is laughing "teacher, teacher! On your roof!" I look up. 

Left the damn hammer on the roof.

#101 OR Zero Dark Thirty

Chronic Pain Management Therapy tomorrow. Group therapy, dreadful. I finally caved in to pressure from the long-suffering Doc. Thought it would be good to have somewhere to talk things out; not entirely sure what I was thinking but I'm sticking with it for now. Everyone there is so damn chatty and I know that's the point but I tend more towards a handful of sentences per day. So I go, put off entering the room until the last possible second and linger by the coffee machine sipping scalding plastic cups of terrible coffee (black, red wine too and cigarettes...good thing my teeth are mostly plastic) until the one guy who I have a strange not-friendship with manhandles me into a chair. I feel out of place, sure there is pain, sure it's been there all day every day for the last five years and sure I can't do some of the things I used to enjoy. It just doesn't have the same emotional effect that it used to. Thank God, tangible proof that I've made some progress in the last five years. 

And the rest of the group is so understandably caught up in their pain, but I've come to terms with the physical side of things. It's been weeks since I said anything in that group. Perhaps they all think I'm in terrible, wrenching agony and are respecting my privacy. More likely SF (non-friend) threatened them. One girl has taken it upon herself to Heal me, last week she suggested internet dating. I can just imagine that advert. Widower; recently bereaved seeks similar for long anguished evenings spent nesting in wife's clothes. Has own apartment, currently furnished with a bed, one folding chair and the beginnings of a handmade dining table. Works 18 hours a day 7 days a week and has the plans to start building a boat, no intention of dating until boat is completed. 

What can I say, I'm a catch.

Although the prospect (laughable) of internet dating does raise the question - what the fuck do I do now? This is the longest I've been celibate since I was thirteen! I'm pretty sure it would be like a lifetime movie - 

"Honey what's wrong?"
"Oh nothing, nothing *sob* it's just *anguished life history*" 
*Unfortunate partner, exit stage right* 


People still flirt with me so at least that's proof that I'm not exuding some sort of anti-pheromone. Equally I'm not entirely sure what they expect you to do with those little scraps of paper bearing their phone number. Call? Or is that old-fashioned? A text perhaps "You gave me your number, what the fuck happens now?" Maybe I'll try that, at least it's refreshingly honest. It's too soon, almost indecently so and what I really need in this new-old city are friends. 

How does one propose a friend-date via text? Answers on a postcard. 

100 days OR fireflies on water

I created this blog a while back to write about my life in Cambodia with my wife and soon-to-be daughter. Things didn't quite work out that way in the end and I lost them both in January, 100 days ago. 

In the world I'm a taciturn guy, most days I'd be hard pressed to come up with more than a sentence or two but this has left me feeling as though I'm going to burst. Words seem to well up late at night, fresh bubbles spring up through cracks in the stone and just as quick they've gone, like water disappears into the cracks around an old pump, just drops left behind, catching the light. 

Zero dark thirty is the worst time, midnight until dawn, prowling around the apartment trying not to wake the neighbours and feeling like a caged animal. The days aren't great but it's the cold oppressive hours before light that leave me nested in our shared life; still stuffed in boxes and scattered on the floor of the spare room. Packed in such a hurry that I had no time to label anything, jammed into canvas military bags. Could hear her telling me off for my haphazard packing and for smoking inside the house. Saw her out of the corner of my eye, one hand on the door frame, the other on her hip, wearing my white shirt with her hair knotted high on her head and one critical eyebrow raised. When I turned it was the midwife, four feet tall, rasping sobs and shouting at me in Khmer; what kind of fool was I to let my wife alone in a car? As though I could ever stop her from doing exactly as she pleased. As though the first thought in my mind every time she left the house should have been the many myriad ways in which I could lose my tiny, growing family. Picking up those bags and loading the truck, running to England, not home but just home enough to get me by. Perhaps. 

And now, those wretched bags. Unlabelled, unsorted, random haphazard jumble of objects spilling onto the floor. Realising now that I laid traps for myself, need a pair of dress pants for a meeting with the Boss? Choose a bag, any bag! Each one stuffed with photographs and clothes drowning in her smell still after 100 days in a canvas sack. Her Mother wants a particular necklace of hers back? Sure thing! It's under a stack of polaroid pictures which leave me stunned, breath catching in my chest. Perhaps it's in this bag? No, that's the carved wooden rattle I made when she told me she was pregnant. Maybe this one? Wedding pictures. Christ, I lose hours sitting on that floor in the midst of our life together, all mixed up in three kit bags. 

When the kid woke her with athletics she'd sit on the deck, legs swinging and watch the fireflies, listening to the cicadas and letting the damp, hot air wrap around her. So many nights that I can retrace my next steps easily: to the water jug in the corner, soak the rag I leave there for this and creep after her, draping it across the back of her neck. Remember the taste of wet curls of hair left pressed against the hot skin, sound of cicadas, swirling glint of fireflies, smell of the dying fire, feel of the wood at the back of my legs. On the best nights the first fat drops of rain and slowly the hammering of a downpour on the tin roofs all around us. Jumping off the deck and lifting her down by the waist, soaked to the skin and slowly the village stirs in the pre-dawn darkness to shriek with the children and wash deliciously with warm water and bars of antiseptic soap.