shower, defiant, squeaky-clean and tiny, my towel piled
high around her hair.
In the end I stopped resisting – resigned myself to
sharing it – I left it for her neatly folded every day.
It wasn’t so bad, Ava.
She used expensive hair masks that made the
towel smell really good – I kind of hoped my hair might
get some residue.
Is that pathetic, Ava?
I think that was her magic – her residue, her glorious
dregs –
see,
just as you were at your wits’ end with her,
she’d throw you something – an old designer jumper
with a moth hole at the cuff, a nearly finished bottle of
Chanel toner, a book she’d read, a ticket to an exhibition,
film, or play she couldn’t make.
She did do one thing, Ava, that I found insane –
she never used her key.
She’d always ring the doorbell – whatever time of
day or night, she’d expect to be let in.
Really! As though we were her butlers.
Even this, though, wasn’t quite enough to spark a
mutiny.
I asked her – why – once, having stumbled
out of bed at 3 am to let her in.
It’s cold, my hands are numb, she said
and floated past me, disappeared into the bunting.
I guess I was quite lonely there.
I worked and read and worked and read, and stared up
at that Artex ceiling feeling mad – my phone buzzing with
messages from my boss like:
Valentines on Sunday, dress in red AND SEXY for your
shift, I want us to be matching XoXo.
That Valentine’s night, a regular at the restaurant
handed me his card. A cosmetic doctor –
it’s easy to get rid of freckles these days, he said,
we just use a little laser.
Oh Ava,
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
