Leftovers

‘I’ll start dinner, or?’ Alex calls after me as I wheel my suitcase into the spare room. I don’t answer. He’ll do it anyway because that was what a good boyfriend would do. His question tag makes me want to punch him. I like him better in German, when there is a wall of words between us. All of our conversations are a translation anyway. I used to correct his English sometimes, trying to be helpful, but he reacted by not talking at all.

I unpack my bag slowly, set the whiskey bottle and a few books I managed to stuff in on the bedside table, then sit down on the bed, lying back and closing my eyes. When I open them again, he’s leaning against the doorframe holding out a glass of wine. If I’d never met him before and this was the first time I’d laid eyes on him, I’d definitely fancy him. So why don’t I seem to now? I sit up and take the glass off him. He comes round the bed, picks up the empty case and puts it on the floor, then sits down next to me and wraps his arm around me. His clothes smell faintly musty.

‘I have missed you.’ Does he mean that or is that just what you’re supposed to say?

‘Me too.’ I take a sip of the wine without looking at him. It sears my throat and hits my stomach like needles. He’s trying to pull me in closer; part of me wants to let him. ‘I’ll help cook.’ I slip off the bed and go to the kitchen, he follows.

I start peeling an onion, tears stinging my eyes so I can barely see what I’m doing with the knife. Alex takes a frying pan down from the shelf I can’t reach and sets it on the hob, turns up the gas and pours in way too much oil. I pretend not to notice. I won’t be able to force down more than a couple of mouthfuls anyway, so what does it matter? I tip the onion into the bubbling oil and get on with chopping a courgette while he stirs. The sizzling fills the silence. This counts as time together, right? We don’t have to be talking.

I hand him the chopping board, he tosses the courgette chunks in with the onion and carries on stirring. I look round for something else to chop. He doesn’t seem to have thought beyond the courgette. The thought of bland rice and fried courgette makes me want to cry. At least I can blame it on the onion. I slump down into the folding chair by the kitchen table, pretending to be looking at the newspaper. A foiled terrorist attack. A debate on same-sex marriage. A supermarket stabbing. The AfD and their election chances. Hopefully he’ll start opining on whatever article he thinks I’m reading and I can just nod along and let him talk for a while. He always starts catastrophising about nuclear war and the climate and the far right and the descent of political discourse into a slanging match. Usually I argue back, semi-deliberately, just to goad him. I say he shouldn’t exaggerate, things aren’t that bad, at least here his Menschenwürde is inviolable and he can stay in his own country without sacrificing his rights to free movement, and he says I’m always making it about me and don’t I realise how small-minded I sound, given that there is a genuine refugee crisis? Everybody makes it about them though. That’s democracy. But today I don’t care. I’d be only too happy to listen to him complain.

Alex wipes the space in front of me with kitchen roll, then puts a laden plate down, way too much as usual. I won’t even eat half of it. He probably won’t say anything, or if he does, I can just lie and say I had a snack at the airport or a big lunch with Dad before I left.

‘Guten Appetit.’ He sits down opposite me, his own plate piled even higher.

‘Danke fürs Kochen.’

‘Ich hoffe, es schmeckt.’

We eat in silence, I pretend to carry on reading the newspaper article as I push bits of limp courgette around my plate.

‘I got a reply from the university today,’ he says.

‘Oh yeah?’ I carry on reading without looking up. ‘What did they say?’

‘Standard rejection. Thank you, but no thank you.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I take a sip of my wine, our eyes meet briefly. ‘You’ll find something. How many more applications have you still got in the pipeline?’

‘Three.’ There’s a grain of rice in his beard. I look down at my plate, suppressing a gag. ‘I probably do not have much possibility with one of them, but maybe the other two.’

Don’t, I scream at him from inside my head. It’s don’t.

‘Where?’ I enquire politely.

‘One here, one in Hamburg.’ He doesn’t look up. He knows I’ll think that’s significant, as if going back to the city where we met might rekindle something that seems to be long since dead. A new start somewhere more exciting could be just what we need, but I know there’s no way he’d move back there again. Why would he? His parents have given him the flat, and they still pay all the running costs. Even though he’s been saying for years that he can’t wait to get away from this place, if we stay together, we’ll be here until we die.

‘If it does not work out there is always the unemployment benefit.’ He shrugs. ‘That’s what you call it, or? Benefit?’ I feel like stabbing him with my fork.

‘Be right back.’ I slip out of my seat and go to the bathroom.

‘Want any more?’ he calls after me. He probably thinks I’m going to throw it all up again anyway. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him I don’t do that any more, he’ll never believe me since I told him about how I used to hide food behind the radiator and Mr Watkins the obese dietician. Now I can always feel him tensing up when I leave the table during a meal. So what if I do throw up? I’ve just been to a funeral. It doesn’t mean a relapse, just releasing a pressure valve. Like having a cheeky cigarette at a party – it’s hardly a slippery slope to twenty a day. But I’m not going to, it isn’t worth it. It might help for a few minutes, but the effect doesn’t last long these days.

I flush the toilet to make it sound like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing in here, run the tap until the water’s freezing and splash it on my face, leaning on the basin to look in the mirror. I should go to bed. I dry my face on the towel, which is hard and coarse. Alex must have forgotten the fabric softener again. I unlock the door, slip back along the hallway, avoiding the squeaky floorboard, and lean against the kitchen doorframe. He’s scraping the leftovers into a Tupperware container that’s obviously too small, trying to pack the greenish, greyish rice down with the back of a wooden spoon.

‘Na, du.’ He looks up.

‘I’m going to bed.’

‘I thought you wanted to watch another Outlander and try your nan’s whiskey?’

‘I’ll wash up in the morning.’

‘It is not that much, I will do it now.’ He runs the tap, puts the plug in the sink. ‘I bought ice cream.’

‘I’m knackered, Al.’

‘Okay, tomorrow then.’ He doesn’t look up from the sink.

‘Well, night then.’ I turn to go, he reaches out to take my hand.

‘Schlaf gut.’ He pulls me towards him, kisses me on the lips. My body melts a little into him. Tears prick my eyes.

‘You too.’ I pull away.

I turn the light off and lie staring up into the darkness, breathing deeply, the knots in my intestines slowly releasing, the pulsing around my right eye growing gradually less intense. I can hear Alex in the sitting room, the TV on. Probably dozing on the sofa. I squash my earplugs in as deep as they’ll go, listening to the whooshing inside my own head. Calm, finally. Quiet. I close my eyes.

My chest is covered in sweat when I wake, tangled in the duvet, the room pitch dark and silent, although my earplugs have fallen out. I always feel cold, except in the middle of the night. My hair is stuck to the edges of my face. I turn my phone over to check the time. Three a.m.

I roll off the bed and ease the door open, listening through the crack for Alex’s snores, emanating with reliable rhythm from behind his bedroom door. I tiptoe along the corridor and close the kitchen door behind me. The fridge sings into the stillness. I’m hungry, hungrier than I’ve ever been. I edge the fridge door open, just wide enough to slip the too-small Tupperware out, guide the door shut so it won’t slam and rattle the glass bottles inside, and listen out for Alex. Still asleep. Easing the lid off the container, I slide a spoon carefully out of the drying rack and skim a layer from the top, shovel it into my mouth, then another, then another. The cold rice falls into my stomach like pebbles, and my guts begin to protest. That’s enough. Another spoonful, then I press the lid back on and shake the box so he won’t notice there’s any missing tomorrow. He’d never notice anyway. Or if he does notice, he won’t say anything.

I slip the box back into the fridge before I can be tempted to devour any more of the contents and go to the bathroom, not being so careful to be quiet in there. Going to the bathroom at night is legitimate. He can’t accuse me of anything in there. I kneel on the floor by the bowl, the smell of Mountain Fresh thinly disguising the ammonia sticking at the back of my throat, the cool of the tiles piercing through my leggings. The temptation terrifies me. I snap the lid down before I can be lured in, placing my head on top of it and letting the slow tears dribble across the bridge of my nose and over my temple into my hair. How could Nana just go and die now, after she’s been so relentlessly healthy all this time? She fooled us into thinking she was immortal.

I sneak back into my room and close the door behind me, wishing I could lock it. I could move the chair or even the desk, prop them against the door. That would only confuse Alex. I don’t want another argument tomorrow. Well, not an argument exactly. Just me being bitchy and him going quiet and leaving the room and ignoring me for the rest of the day. I put my hoodie on, cold again now, and snuggle into the covers. Alex will be awake in three hours and will probably come and get in with me. I lie staring up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time that the plaster is peeling off around the cornicing. Where else can I go? What’s done is done. Que será, será.