You Are Here

by David Nicholls

In all her youthful visions of the future, of the job she might have, the city and home she might live in, the friends and family around her, Marnie had never thought that she’d be lonely.

‘The trick is to change the way you think about time. It’s no use thinking in minutes or hours or days, or even generations. You’ve got to adjust the scale, think in terms of millennia. Then everything you see here is temporary, the lakes, rivers, mountains, all in motion, the changes taking place over millions of years. This valley wasn’t always here: it was created, gouged out by a great glacier, because ice is a moving thing, just a couple of feet a day but scouring and chewing away with these great teeth made of stone, snapping off boulders, gnawing into rock in a process we call . . . a process we call?

and while the kindness of a friend was a precious and touching thing, it could also feel like an imposition.

At home he was merely lonely. Stepping outside transformed loneliness to solitude, a far more dignified state because it was his choice.

A low voice, slight accent, a blue fisherman’s jumper, beard and scruffy hair that might all have been home-knitted.

Apparently, there was meant to be beauty in cracks, cracks were how the light gets in

‘The sooner we start,’ she said, ‘the sooner we finish. Let’s get it over with,’ which, he thought, was not the point of walking at all.

He’d not mentioned his complete absence of courage. When he’d realised that violence was inevitable, he’d wondered if perhaps he might summon up some innate fighting ability, unleashed by righteous fury. That’s what happened in films, he thought, to ordinary men forced to defend the thing they loved. But no such power manifested itself, and while there was no shame in being beaten up by five fit young men, he undoubtedly felt shame.

Clearly, he would have to stop seeing Tessa, a rare instance of someone ending a relationship because they were not seeing someone else. He found the prospect of the conversation mortifying, like telling someone you loved the gift then asking for the receipt. While he summoned up the words, they continued to go for dinner, watch films and even discussed going somewhere in August, but nothing really changed or developed, so that you could shuffle the order of their meetings and it would make no difference. It was less a relationship, more a protracted pep-talk, and while he was grateful, it was intolerable to spend time with someone while wishing they were someone else.