Yeah, it’s a relief, I say, as Charles places a cup of green tea down in front of me.
He sits down next to me, sips his tea. Now that you’re fully recovered, I suppose you’ll be heading back home?
I think about Mia, and how Mia is, ugh, Tanner’s now.
I think about my joblessness and my high level of broke-ness.
I think about my homelessness.
And I say, Actually, I was thinking about staying here and maybe doing some more work with you. If that was okay by you, of course.
He raises an eyebrow. What about your girlfriend?
Yeah, I say, burning my tongue on the tea. I don’t think that’s gonna work out, unfortunately.
Ah, he says, that is a shame. I’m sorry to hear that.
Yeah, I say. It is what it is, I guess.
Well, as they say, her loss is my gain, he says, smiling his wide smile and clinking his cup against mine.
This time, I have my tripod set up, on account of me wanting hard evidence that this other me out there is real, and not some figment of my fucked-up, cabin-fevered existence over the last six weeks or so.
Like, see-it-with-your-eyes-on-photographic-paper-you-can-hold-up-to-your-face-and-examine type of evidence. With a magnifying glass, if you have to.
The thing with telephoto lenses, is they are big. Really big. So if you attach one to your camera, you have to use a tripod to make sure you don’t get any blurry shots – especially with low light and slow shutter speeds. If you have a tripod, you should really use a shutter-release cable too, just to minimize any shake from pressing the shutter button.
I look in the direction of the window, and again, it takes me a while to find.
When I do, he’s there.
I get a smack of adrenaline, just like when I’m on the street and I capture a stranger’s image when I’m a metre from their face.
It’s the same as yesterday, he’s sat at his desk, reading his book, with the lamp on. Still as anything.
I press the shutter release, wind the film on, press the shutter release, wind the film on.
And I sit back in the chair, and I watch the silhouette in the window, and I fall asleep.
T
HIRTY
-S
IX
I wake up, alone.
My leg feels small, and light.
It feels cold.
It feels like it can breathe.
I open my eyes, and I’m outside, in my recliner, on the terrace of the penthouse, on account of me falling asleep at my stakeout spot.
I yawn a wide yawn, look through my camera. But he’s not in his room right now.
And then I remember that I’m not an invalid anymore, that I can actually walk now, that I can get out onto those streets down there.
This is me, munching on some you tiao, a few doors down from the building’s entrance.
Waiting for him to come out.
It’s 6:30 am on Tuesday, so if I’m on my game, I should be able to catch him walking out the door on his way to work.
If he works, that is.
The building itself is nothing special. An off-white block on a street of off-white blocks.
Scooters buzz drunkenly up and down the street.
Above, a lady is hanging her washing out to dry on her balcony railings.
I guess Taipei is like London in that way: multimillion-pound projects plonked right in front of your old, run-down buildings.
This is me, munching, keeping an eye on the door. I’ve been here ten minutes or so, and no one has come out yet.
