AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Marius.”
“Who?”
“Marius,” I said again.
“Oh.” There was a pause. “Marius.”
“Mm.”
The silence extended, like chewing gum pulled from an indifferent mouth.
“Happy Christmas,” I tried.
“What?”
“It’s Christmas Eve?”
A yawn, catlike and unconcerned. “Is it? I lost track.”8
“Did I wake you?”
“I was resting. It’s all right.” Coal didn’t sleep like the rest of us, between set hours. She slept when she was tired and occasionally after sex—if, she told me, the sex deserved it. “What did you want?”
The question made me laugh, though of course I had no answer for it. “I was thinking of you. Wondering how you were doing.”
“I’m doing well.” Impatience coloured her voice. “Because I’m a self-actualised human being responsible for my own happiness. I hope you don’t think this is some kind of relationship?”
I’d somehow forgotten how blunt she was. How little time she had for what she deemed ordinary things. “Why would I think that?” I asked, knowing better than to respond with anything other than equal indifference.
“I don’t know.” Another yawn. “Men go strange when you sleep with them.”
“That was nearly four years ago.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re calling now because?”
My free hand curled over the graffiti-smeared railing and tightened until the cold bit at my bones. “I don’t know, Coal. Because there are relationships between fucking and nothing.”
“Yes”—now her impatience was tipping into irritation—“I’m aware of that. And I like you well enough. You have things to say.”
Had things to say.
“But,” she went on, remorselessly, “we’ve already fucked, and I’m more interested in solo projects at the moment.”
“Right.”
“We don’t have anything to give each other right now.”
“I don’t think I have anything to give anyone.”
A moment of fresh silence. “What are you working on?”
And I realised that this was Coal’s version of a relationship between fucking and nothing. That she did care about me—in her way. It was just that, for Coal, there was art and then there was everything else. “I,” I began. I stared at the icy patchwork of the water. “Nothing.”9
There’d been nothing since our collaboration. It had been the sort of success I shouldn’t have failed to capitalise on, critics throwing around words likeraw,real,captivating. I’d been so determined then, so defiant. Except now it was like looking at something a stranger did, someone who felt things I didn’t. Couldn’t.
