Chapter Text
“If I had my way, you’d have a birthday every week. And you’d choose to spend them all with me.”
Happy birthday you - Jay Jay Pistolet
--
Sirius Black walks alone through the Shambles Market. There is a strange, hazy glow to the day and he feels content, fulfilled, warmed from the inside out like something good is going to happen.
Vendors holler at whoever will listen. There’s a little shop that sells whole, dead foxes, deprived of their innards and turned into gruesome stoles. They’re slung over Victorian hat stands in some sort of attempt at a macabre display and Sirius swallows, the squeamish side of him taking over for a moment as he surveys the glassy eyes of a particularly large specimen. He’s reminded of the huge male who half-resides in his sorry excuse for a garden; the fox he has accidentally kept going over the last couple of years because he’s not great at fully disposing of pizza boxes and takeaway cartons; the fox whose patchy fur suggests he might have mange, and who has gained a taste for the mega-hot vindaloo from Vialli’s Eastern Promise as a direct result of being around Sirius for too long.
He feels good, despite the grizzly sight of the foxes. Jeremy is coming home from a work trip tonight and Sirius intends to spring a surprise upon him; the good sort, hopefully. They have been going out for almost three years now, and Sirius is intent on spoiling his man the only way he knows how. Sexily.
He’s bought one of those candy thongs and about six different sorts of flavoured lube. And alright, it might not be the classiest, but he is a man with a plan. He’s going to cover himself in all sorts of edible treats and drape himself attractively, delectably over Jeremy’s breakfast bar so that he comes home and devours him like he used to do when they first got together.
He passes a tiny little supermarket and dips inside to procure a late addition of some squirty cream and strawberries, though he’s starting to worry that things might get just a bit messy.
Jeremy is due home at seven. So that gives him two whole hours; shedloads of time. He knows he’s sporting a shit-eating grin as he gets closer to Jeremy’s plush flat with the incredible espresso machine that Sirius covets enough to know its exact worth, but not enough that he would entertain the idea of moving in so that he can use it freely, much as Jeremy has dropped increasingly unsubtle hints.
He walks up the steps to the flat, stomach jolting as he spots a lone magpie on the threshold. One for sorrow, he thinks to himself and scours the vicinity for a second bird to undo the damage, but to no avail.
He shrugs and opens the door, shucks off his shoes on the off-white hall carpet because Jeremy doesn’t like to bring in dirt from the outside, and dons some rather nice slippers that aren’t his but may as well be. The two of them are practically married, after all.
He walks into the kitchen with his bags of supplies, suppressing the urge to giggle diabolically at how perfectly it’s all coming together. He smells Jeremy’s cologne before he sees him, sitting at the table, head in hands. He doesn’t look up even though Sirius’s entrance has been on the loud and jangly side of flamboyant.
Sirius stops in his tracks, slippers squeaking against the shiny laminate floor. “Jeremy,” he says, sensing that something is definitely wrong.
Jeremy doesn’t look up. All that’s visible of him from the neck up is a cloud of dark hair and Sirius’s stomach slops around uncomfortably, or- well anatomy has never been his strong suit but there’s some odd stuff going on in the general vicinity of his torso, and he doesn’t like it one bit.
“Jez.”
The man sitting before him does lift his head, eventually. When he does, his eyes are rimmed-red and his skin mottled and grey. His hair is as perfectly coiffed as usual but it looks like he hasn’t washed it in a couple of days, which is pretty much unheard of. Jeremy is the cleanest guy he knows.
“Hi Sirius,” he says in a low, hoarse voice, staring blankly ahead.
“What’s wrong?” Sirius rushes to sit in the chair closest to him, pulls it into the table and it makes a loud, jarring noise as it scrapes over the kitchen floor.
Jeremy’s face creases up, and then he is crying; great big, heaving sobs that seem to pain him. And that’s when Sirius really starts to worry because Jeremy never cries. Come to think of it, he hasn’t cried once in all the time they’ve been together; not that Sirius knows of.
“Babe, come on, what is it?” He thinks of Jeremy’s mother who has been in and out of hospital for a few months, but she’s meant to be getting better, isn’t she? He slides a hand into Jeremy’s hair, soothing his fingers over his scalp, and as Jeremy leans into the touch, he wonders whether something awful has happened. “Is it Linda? Is something wrong?”
“No,” Jeremy says quickly, pulling away. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s something else. Something to do with you and me.”
Sirius feels a jolt in the pit of his stomach and he briefly thinks he’s going to throw up. “Don’t-” he says, just as Jeremy’s words spill out: “I think I have to break up with you.”
There is a heavy, oppressive silence. The only noise is the ticking of the clock that hangs above the fridge, a clock that Sirius bought because he thought it would suit the decor and might stop him being late on the mornings he sleeps over (it hasn’t). Jeremy had been so pleased with it.
He doesn’t say anything. Nobody says anything. Sirius’s vision starts to cloud at the edges. He angles his elbow on the table, rests his head on his hand and breathes out slowly.
“I-” he begins, but Jeremy cuts over him.
“This isn’t a spontaneous thing.” He looks Sirius in the eye for the first time and he looks torn up, brittle, even a little bit tortured. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I’ve held off because... well, because I am pitifully in love with you, actually. Which tends to make these things quite a lot harder.”
Sirius reaches out for his hand. “Please don’t do this,” he says, because that’s all he can choke out through the fog of shock that seems to smother both of them and the cosy little world Sirius thought he could rely on. The world that has been jerked out from underneath him, quite without his permission.
Jeremy lets his hand sit in Sirius’s hold for a moment, then pulls it back. “The thing is,” he croaks after a while. “You have never said it back.”
“What?” Sirius asks, slow on the uptake.
“You’ve never told me that you love me.”
“Sorry, what?”
A pained expression crosses Jeremy’s face and Sirius can feel his buttocks clenching, dreading what’s about to come out of those nice, sensible lips of his.
“We don’t live together, Sirius. We’ve been together nearly three years and you’ve never said I love you. Don’t you think that’s a massive red flag?”
Sirius is helpless. He can’t do anything but gaze at Jeremy, mouth open like an especially stupid goldfish.
“Are you going to say it?” Jeremy asks after the longest, most overtly awkward pause in history. “Will you tell me you love me now? To save our relationship? And because you mean it?”
Sirius tries, he does. He tries to move his lips so that they say the words, but all that comes out is a limp little croak and Jeremy laughs coldly. “Yeah, I thought not,” he says, squeezing his eyes closed. “Fuck. I don’t mean to sound heartless,” he adds, “and I know this has come as a shock to you, but could you get out of my home, please?”
Sirius thinks he’s joking, for a millisecond, before he takes in Jeremy’s grave expression. “You can’t mean that,” he says eventually. “I’m... I’m still wearing your slippers.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but he doesn’t know what else will express his sheer reluctance to leave.
“I do.” Jeremy looks right at him, eyes lined with dark blue bags that make him look as though he hasn’t slept in weeks. He’s completely, heart stoppingly beautiful, even in his distress, and Sirius doesn’t love him, but he wants to, so much. “I do mean it, Sirius. I’m not the type to mess you around, you know that.”
Sirius does know that. And it makes everything so much worse. For starters, he’s not been dumped since puberty, not since Reena Twist told him he was too afraid of commitment and made him take off the friendship bracelet she’d made him to signify their eternal bond. Perhaps she was first in a long line but Sirius suspects that the issue there was more that he was... well, gay.
Sirius takes a moment to gather himself. He clutches at his bag of sexy treats and bites on his lower lip. “Why are you doing this?” he asks, and his voice sounds horribly affected by the dreadful, catastrophic turn of events. “What did I do wrong?”
Jeremy huffs out a laugh and runs a hand through his hair. “There is a part of me that feels like you must be joking,” he says flatly. “But you’re an intelligent man, Sirius. Can you honestly think of nothing?”
Sirius stares at him blankly. “No?” he says, half in a question.
Jeremy; lovely, long-suffering Jeremy lets out a long breath. “Yes, well that doesn’t surprise me, actually. There’s a big part of me that hopes you’ll figure it out. And there’s another, much pettier part that hopes you will just stay ignorant and die alone.”
Sirius scrunches his face up. “Ouch.”
“Yes, well,” Jeremy says again, twisting his hand about dismissively in the air between them. “I’m a bit upset. But the thing is, babe,” and the use of the nickname makes everything feel a little bit sharper. “I don’t really want you to die alone. What I would have liked most would be for you to wake up out of your weird little trance and realise that you didn’t want to die alone; preferably that you wanted to die with me instead. Or at least see out the next five years together and commit to doing that properly.” He sighs, eyes glistening. “But I know that’s not reality. I’ve finally figured it out. And my dented, fragile ego won’t put up with another assault, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” Sirius says uselessly.
Jeremy scratches at his eyebrow, upset giving way to irritation. “Can you leave? Will you go now, please?”
Sirius turns to him, sighs slowly out through his nose and clutches his (now very seedy) bag of goodies. “I can’t believe it,” he sighs, though he’s half-anticipated something like this for a while, in truth. Because lovely, sensible, caring Jeremy has never felt like a perfect match. Not really.
“Just go.” Jeremy stands up. His cheek is all pink from the imprint of his hand and Sirius wants him to declare that it was all a misunderstanding and take him to his bed. “Just go,” he repeats instead.
And Sirius does.
--
He doesn’t cry. And maybe that’s the first sign that this wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to him. He gets home and wallows, eats a whole pack of egg custards with a side of squirty cream, thinks about Jeremy and his deliciously taut body that he’ll never get to devour again, never get to cuddle up to in the cold winter months. He thinks about his kindness, his dry sense of humour and the way he couldn’t pronounce the word ‘anemone’. And still, he doesn’t cry.
He rings James. “Oh good, it’s you. You will never guess what Harry just did. He blew a fucking raspberry. It was adorable. Hang on, shall we facetime and see if we can get him to do it again?”
“Jeremy broke up with me,” Sirius announces to a stunned silence. A deep shame wells up inside him as he says the words aloud.
“Want to come over and make a pillow fort in the lounge?” James asks eventually. “I’ll pop out and get some black forest gateau, yeah? And there is an honest-to-god vat of wine that Lily bought for Christmas. But we can get another one.”
“I’ve already got my jacket on,” Sirius says truthfully. He steps outside and wonders when it became late summer. Some of the leaves are already starting to turn, and he feels ill-prepared for the autumn they herald. A black cat crosses his path despite his best efforts to shoo him away. It’s probably alright, though. How much worse can things get?
James greets him at the door with a great big glass of golden wine and a spoon. He pulls him into a colossal hug. It’s late afternoon but he’s home. After they’d had Harry and James had completed his two weeks’ paternity leave, he tried to go back to work and ended up crying at his desk before the end of day one. He and Lily decided that the best thing all round was for him to take a career break. She would continue working full time and he would stay at home for the time being. James is the happiest he’s ever been and Lily has managed to retain her sanity.
“Have you been crying?” Sirius asks when he manages to wriggle free.
James looks at him as if deciding whether to lie. He lands on: “I might have had a little weep, yes. I really liked Jeremy.”
“Yes, I know,” Sirius grunts.
“No, I mean I really liked Jeremy.”
“Well, he’s single now if you want to swoop in and make your move.” Sirius bitterly takes a sip of his wine and pulls a blanket over himself, hoping, on some level, that if he snuggles into it enough, it will swallow him up and he’ll be jettisoned into some sort of alternate reality where he has a boyfriend again and isn’t on his best friend’s sofa lamenting the state of his loveless, twenty-nine-year-old existence.
“Oh, sod off. I just meant that he was good for you; good to you. And I’m going to miss him.”
“Me too,” Sirius sighs. “I genuinely miss him already.”
James makes a noise to indicate that he understands. “Did he give you a reason?”
“Yeah, and it was brutal. He said I don’t love him,” Sirius explains. “He dumped me because I don’t love him.”
“You don’t?” James asks, visibly surprised.
Sirius chews on a hang nail. “No. I don’t think I do.”
“Oh, right,” he nods. “Well, that sucks. Think he might change his mind?”
“Nope.” Sirius pops the ‘p’ for extra effect. “And it’s not like I could even argue. The guy’s right. I’ve been stringing him along for years.”
“That isn’t how I see it. I think you treated him well, at least from the outside looking in. It’s not really your fault if there was an imbalance in affections.”
“Suppose,” Sirius huffs. “I’m glad you think that, anyway. This is making me question everything about it. I thought we were doing really well. I was going to surprise him with a sexy weekend and then he was just... just sitting there and he was so sad and it was my fault. It feels awful. I liked making him feel great. I never wanted this. It’s brutal, James.”
He sits and pouts, resolutely turns his head away from James’s sympathetic nods, head bobbing away like a dog on a dashboard.
The front door opens and closes again and in walks Remus, still dressed for work in a loose-fitting suit and tortoise shell glasses, looking, as always, as though he could have been plucked right out of Brideshead Revisited. Sometimes, the man even wears braces instead of a belt. Sirius loves the way he dresses; it’s fun and timeless and suits him and his abnormally tall frame so very well. Today, his mousy, curly hair is all in disarray from the wind and rain and the tip of his nose has turned slightly pink. The scar he got from falling off his bike as a young boy runs from his forehead, slicing his eyebrow in half, right down to the top of his lip. When they were younger, it was red and so alarming that people used to stop him in the street, but the years have faded it to a pale, shiny white, just slightly raised from the rest of his skin. His face would be unique and interesting without it, all big features and solemnity, but with it, he’s a pretty unforgettable thing to look at. He has a maroon leather satchel and an umbrella with a carved duck’s head for a handle.
His presence softens everything, somehow, as it has a tendency to do; files down all the jagged edges of Sirius’s wretched day, and even James’s relentless nodding feels a bit less grating somehow.
“I was called and I came,” he says. His voice is a low, soothing thing that makes everything sound profound, even though he’s just as prone to talking rubbish as the rest of them. He walks over to Sirius, pats him stiffly on the shoulder and Sirius can’t help but laugh at how awkward he is, even after all these years. He hands his wine glass out to Remus who takes a grateful sip and places his bag down on the lounge carpet. “Although I’m a little disappointed. It appears I was lured here under false pretences. I was promised pillow forts.”
“Pillow fort, singular,” James corrects. “And we’ll get there. We’re just greasing up the principal fort builder in light of his freshly broken little heart.”
Remus takes his jacket off, slings it over the arm of the sofa, undoes the buttons on his shirt and rolls the sleeves up to the elbow to reveal slender wrists, the vintage Swiss wristwatch Sirius bought him a couple of years ago, downy brown hairs bleached blonder by the sun.
Sirius takes a sip. “It doesn’t feel that broken, actually. Just bashed around a bit.”
“In light of his bashed up little heart then,” James nods. “Help yourself to wine, Remus. Sirius was just getting to the cathartic part of the evening.”
Sirius sighs, brooding and injured. “I thought we were perfect together. He had a really great penis. And I’ve got a really great arse. It was a match made in heaven, I thought.”
“Profound,” Remus nods.
“And he was good company,” Sirius adds. “I liked being with him; honestly, he taught me loads. He introduced me to spatchcock chicken and peace lilies and house music.”
“And edging,” James adds, smirking, bringing a previous conversation back to the present.
“Oh yes, and that,” Sirius nods, straight-faced. “I liked that very much.”
James laughs. “Oh, mate. I’m sure you can do it by yourself.”
“You can,” Remus says wistfully, running a hand through his slightly soggy locks. “But in my experience, the end result is just not quite as good.” He looks up, seems to realise that he’s said that aloud and his cheeks break into a slow, crawling blush.
Sirius, unable to hide his interest, stares at Remus. Remus who apparently has sex and is into edging. Remus who does that to himself when he’s alone at night. Remus whose flushed cheeks are weirdly fascinating. Sirius realises he needs to make a joke; do what’s expected of him. “You kinky bastard,” he laughs, and he hopes it sounds casual. Casual and not too curious. “Ugh, I am going to miss relationship sex. It’s so bloody nice. No hooking up. No seedy bars. Just one man and his really great knob. No unpleasant surprises.”
“I think we should be looking on the bright side here,” James decides. “I mean, you were in a monogamous relationship for three whole years.”
“Two years, two-hundred and fifty-three days,”
“Exactly! None of us thought you’d do it. But not only did you have it in you to remain faithful, it wasn’t even you who broke it off!”
“I thought you had it in you,” Remus corrects. “Or at least, I thought you might.”
“Cheers, Remus,” Sirius grumbles. “Now where’s this wine? And where is my grandson?”
“Godson,” Remus and James say in unison.
“If you were his grandfather, that would make you my dad.”
“Or Lily’s,” Remus points out helpfully.
“Ugh. Will you cease and desist?” Sirius moans. “I am in a loveless shack of despair and I got the word wrong. Sue me. And I meant it about the wine, by the way. Sweet Jesus, won’t someone fetch the bottle post hence!”
Remus sighs and trudges out to the kitchen. He returns with the huge bottle in hand, plonks it down on the table and slumps back down onto the sofa a little grumpily. “I am only doing your bidding because you are sad. Tomorrow, you are to resume full responsibility for your daytime drinking.”
Sirius huffs. “It’s five-thirty. I think we have swaggered into respectable evening territory. All I need now is-”
Lily walks into the room with a sleepy baby Harry on her hip. “We did accidental napping,” she explains, rubbing at her eye. “He’s going to be a little terror tonight, now.”
“That makes two of us,” Sirius says with a wicked grin.
Lily rolls her eyes and perches on the arm of the sofa next to him. “I hear you have some unpleasant news, Sirius. Sorry to hear about Jeremy. I liked him a lot.”
Sirius nods, because he knows all too well how much his group of friends liked his first proper boyfriend. Thinking about it, the only person who never got particularly close to him was Remus, but Sirius thinks that’s probably because they are both pretty shy and so never found an opportune moment to realise that they are united by a love of vintage maps and garibaldi biscuits. Regardless, Jeremy was a popular addition, and now they’ve all lost him, all because Sirius is dead inside like a lump of old coal that will probably never learn how to burn.
He reaches out for Harry whom Lily deposits onto his lap. Harry gabbles away happily, grabbing at Sirius’s shoulder-length hair as if it’s a matter of great interest. Sirius kisses his head and sighs. “You know, I think I am dead inside like a lump of old coal that will probably never learn how to burn,” he announces. Remus and Lily exchange concerned glances.
“What nonsense,” James huffs. “Besides, coal was alive once, wasn’t it? All you need is that right person to come along and light you, then you’ll burn for days.” He looks at Lily and his face does something soft and nauseating. “Burn forever, if you’re really lucky.”
“Vom,” Sirius says profoundly. “Can I have some comfort gateau please?”
“Not while you’ve got Harry,” Lily chips in. “He’ll stick his hands in your cherries and smear them all over the sofa and it won’t be you who has to clean it all up.”
“Isn’t that James’s job?” Sirius laughs. “You’re the one bringing home the bacon, Lils. Surely James can do a bit of de-caking of the sofa when the need arises?”
“He can,” she smiles. “And he’s very good at it. But I feel that it’s my duty to try and minimise the number of times in a day he has to get his little vacuum cleaner out.”
“Yes,” Sirius nods, bobbing his knee up and down so that Harry makes muted, pleased whirring noises. “We don’t want him getting that out any more than is strictly necessary.” He looks around the room. “Something feels wrong. Who’s missing?”
“Peter and Marlene,” Remus points out. “We thought you might welcome not having too many witnesses to your state of distress.”
“Not distress,” Sirius says, much more chipper than he feels. “Rebirth. Like a magnificent phoenix... or something.”
“Oh yes,” Remus says, looking him right in the eye. “Rebirth.”
Sirius’s phone rings and his breathing turns shallow as he sees the number. He takes a deep, unsatisfying breath and musters the courage to answer. “Hello?”
“Hello, Sirius, it’s Meg calling from Sunnyside.”
He gulps. “Hi Meg. Is there- how is he?”
“Weak,” she says. “But in good spirits. He’s been asking for you. Think you’ll be up to a visit soon, pet?”
Remus looks at him, brow furrowed and severe. He can only hear one side of the conversation but he’s the only one in the group who will understand the probable context.
“I...” Sirius starts, then doesn’t know how to finish. “Yes, alright. Okay.”
“I know it’s not easy, love,” Meg presses gently. “Come when you can. And remind me when I see you, I can give you some pamphlets and stuff that might help a bit, give you some options for people to talk to.”
“Great,” he says, not meaning it. “I’ll see you... yeah, probably in a couple of days, Meg.”
“Okay, Sirius. He’ll be so pleased to see you.”
“Yeah,” Sirius nods, though she obviously can’t see him. “Yes, thank you.”
Remus corners him in the kitchen not long afterwards. “How is he?” he asks, towering over him as he tries to slice the gateau with trembling hands.
Sirius looks up at him and shakes his head. Remus nods, leans against the counter and watches as Sirius mucks up the execution. After a short while, he tuts and moves over to where Sirius is, places his hand over his and steadies it, helps him to slice right through to the plate.
“I can come,” Remus says, sliding a slice of gooey cake onto a saucer and handing Sirius a spoon. “I can visit with you, if it would help.”
Sirius could cry. Now, he could cry, because it’s all too much. The breakup, the hospice, Remus, firm and steady beside him, doing everything he can to help.
“Do you want me to?” Remus adds, resuming his place against the counter. “I could pick you up and drive you. And I’ll stay out in the foyer if it would help. Whatever you need, Sirius.”
Sirius nods. The lump in his throat threatens to win out against his urge to keep it all bottled up, somewhere deep and clenching in his chest.
“Saturday?” Remus probes gently. “I think you’ll feel better once it’s done.”
Sirius keeps nodding. “Where did you put the wine, Rem? I really think I need more of the wine.”
Remus opens the fridge, hands Sirius the gargantuan bottle, then watches as he pours himself a glass, hands a little steadier now. “There you go,” he says soothingly, like a farmer trying to coax a foal into feeding from its mother. “There we are.”
--
Antônia is Sirius’s Work Friend. Technically, he is her superior, but they try not to talk about it too much because they get along like gangbusters, enrich the other’s day, and they don’t want to make it feel awkward. She has a lot of hair. It’s curly and dark and she mostly wears it in a bun on the top of her head. She is in competition with her sister to see who can get away with wearing the maddest earrings to work; today, it’s two plasticky hot dogs that dangle from her lobes. She is Brazilian, smart as a whip, loves strategic board games and drinking too much iced tea. She tells jokes that don’t have punchlines and spends at least thirty percent of the day showing Sirius pictures of her rescue greyhounds, Bert and Ernie.
Antônia is very good at the cultured side of journalism. She knows every show that needs to be seen, every exhibition, every ridge in the rich texture of the city. Sirius goes along when she tells him he must, though most of it goes over his head.
“Why did I move to Britain?” she asks, making a typically dramatic entrance and shedding multiple layers of clashing, patterned clothing. “Your weather is a travesty. And your people are so dreary. Why are so many men called Dave? Do you not have more names? And I also hate the fact that there are cobbles fucking everywhere. Do you know the last time I wore heels, Sirius?”
“Marta’s wedding,” Sirius says without looking up. “Yes, I know. I was there and you mention it about three times a week.”
“I have this pair of boots. They’re pink suede and they’re tacky and delicious. I’m going to have to move to France or something just so I get to actually wear them this century.”
“The French have cobbles too,” Sirius chips in. “So I’m not sure that will help. Do you think there’s any mileage in a feature all about the rise of Middle Eastern coffee shops? I don’t think I have it in me to write about road works again.”
“I’d read it,” Antônia decides. “Habibi does the best latte in York, hands down.”
“I know. And their swar as-sitt is the sole reason I am stuck at half a stone above my target weight.”
“Aww. I like your little belly. You’d be too hot otherwise and I wouldn’t be able to sit next to you in case people thought I was your charity case.”
“You are every bit as outrageously gorgeous as I am,” he points out sincerely.
“Yes, yes. But I’d still like you to keep the seven pounds please.”
He smiles at her, easily, genuinely. “Alright. Let’s get bento for lunch then.”
“Yes, very good,” she says in a mildly placatory manner. “So there’s this event,” she tells him, switching into that tone of voice that means he’ll need some convincing. “It’s some sort of contemporary dance thing. My friend Anya is in it and I need someone to come with me so I can get drunk enough that I think it’s good and can tell her so with a straight face afterwards.”
“Sure,” he says, resigned.
“Want to bring Jeremy?” she asks.
“Nope. He dumped me.”
A dribble of iced tea drips out of her open mouth as she stares at him, aghast. “Sorry, what? He was completely head over heels in love with you.”
He clears his throat. “Yeah.”
“That’s a shame, I really liked him. He had such good taste in opera.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Sirius huffs, frustrated. “Everybody loved dear old Saint Jeremy. Everyone, it seems, except me.”
“Oh, never mind. Plenty more sharks in the tank. I have quite a hot neighbour if you want me to set you up. I think he’s German. He tried to tell me once but I was distracted by the fact that he has a Burmese python called Cedric and got all excited.”
“Not for now, thanks. I’m still playing the part of the grieving widow quite nicely. Would also rather not get nibbled to death by a snake in my sleep.”
She nods. “Well at least things aren’t too messy. You didn’t live together. No children. No ring. It must feel like a fairly clean split.”
He sighs. “Yes. A bit too clean. I think it’s a sign that I didn’t really let him into my life like I should have done. A split should be messy, shouldn’t it? If you’ve done it right, there should be shared friendship groups and things you bought together, pets to work out custody of. But there’s none of that; just a box of my stuff that he sent to me by courier. That’s it. Done. Like it never happened. Nothing shared between us except a Christmas gift from his mother.”
She tilts her head. “What was the gift?”
“A pair of brogues. In Jeremy’s size. On reflection, I think she had maybe forgotten about me and just whacked my name on the label to save face.”
She laughs, turns to her computer and begins to type, signalling that their conversation is over in that abrupt way that he usually appreciates but today leaves him wanting. He breathes out, types his password in and starts to read up on Syrian pastries. He lasts only a few minutes before he nips out to get one, and a latte for Antônia.
The half stone will stay for now, then.