Composite Creatures Caroline Hardaker (smart books to read TXT) 📖

world, a secret society I wasn’t party to, one that sent me further and further from myself like a bullet from a gun.

I sank deeper and deeper into the water. Art’s voice must have had the same effect on Nut, as the soft thump-thump-thump of her nightly pacing above slowed, slowed, and stopped. I could almost sense the air of expectancy weighing down through the ceiling.

While Art was away, I had the weekend left entirely open to do whatever I liked, with whoever I liked. I could embrace the single life again, or I could hide away, re-reading Nut’s manuals and guides for the millionth time. The world – or rather, the house – could be both my oyster and my clamshell.

I’d thought about it all week, what I might do. Time alone was so rare. But now that Art was gone I was already rattling around the place. Mutely I moved from room to room without a single thought in my head, picking up Art’s odd socks and old mugs, moving small relics from shelf to shelf. It was the first time I’d been alone in the house since we’d moved in and I couldn’t focus. Well, obviously I had been on my own briefly before, but it’s not the same when you know someone’s going to walk in the door again at any moment. It’s that that keeps the air electric. It was so stupid; I’d lived on my own for years before this house, and never noticed the air feeling so emaciated.

I made myself a pot of tea on autopilot, sifting in five teaspoons of sugar, and sat with a bowl of muesli at the dining table. I ate slowly, each clunk of spoon on bowl chiming obscenely loud, and sipped at the tea but it made my teeth sting.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I still had all my faculties. Maybe I should have offered to go with Art to the festival, but then again he hadn’t asked me to. Would it have been appropriate? How would that have felt – hearing him talking to the room like that, with authority? What would I have said, if someone had approached me as his fiancée? Or for God’s sake, why hadn’t I arranged to meet Eleanor or Rosa like a normal person? My phone rested in my palm like an alien device. I hadn’t spoken to either of them since the party at New Year, and now it seemed like I just couldn’t remember how to do it or to make it look casual. Also, there’d be so many questions about everything – Art, the programme. I looked down at the engagement ring, still tight around my finger. Was I ready for that? No. No.

How would I have spent a Saturday alone before Art? There weren’t many of them. I always seemed to be joining meals out with co-workers for an endless stream of birthdays, anniversaries, and all the rest. A treat used to be driving to a museum out of town, usually one of those stately homes, half mocked up in period-style with little interpretive panels. Museums to lives, rather than things. I’d have gone with Luke, who planned those trips like a boy writing his Christmas list. When he got really excited, he’d brush back his curly fringe over and over like it annoyed him. It’d flop down again sweetly over his eyes again every time, but he always kept it long. He used to twist those curls and mine together, marvelling at how they held fast even though they coiled in different directions. He couldn’t resist playing with my hair whenever I laid my head on his shoulder, and no matter where we were, the tickling of his fingers on the nape of my neck were far more vivid than history or promises.

And of course, before those days I’d been to museums with friends and with Mum when I was smaller, but it was always better to go on my own. With Aubrey, I was her shadow as she ricocheted from room to room, my eyes only on the things she pointed out. And even with Mum, I was led by the hand from gallery to gallery as she picked out her favourite pieces, pressing a finger against the case to point out a bone, or stitch or fraying feather. Her favourite parts then became my favourite parts.

But that’s not what these places are about. Like how a church should feel, you should lose yourself in the threads of weave. Only on my own could I walk from room to room and really comprehend that these were lives just like mine, once. Every empty glove held a million ghosts, and every portrait spoke to me of the painter, just as much as the painted.

I could have gone to a gallery or museum while Art was away, sure, I could have. But it was different now. How could I lose myself if I couldn’t even feel myself enough to let go?

Around mid-morning I pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and rode my frustration with the Hoover in my hand, then the duster, and then disinfectant and a surprising number of cloths of every colour and texture found beneath the kitchen sink. I had no idea where such a range came from – I certainly hadn’t bought them – but an even deeper root around revealed an even greater host of cleaning tools still in their packets. It was like discovering treasure.

Whenever I had to stop, I filled a glass from the tap, drank my fill, emptied the glass, and washed and dried it immediately. I went through each motion without thinking about all that much, mechanical in both movement and mentality. I used up the entire collection of cloths just from wiping the grime and build-up from the windows. I can’t remember what time I finished, but the light in the house had dimmed, dulling all the shining surfaces with renewed grey lint. It hardly