Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love

by Marianne Cronin

I do get bumped into a lot, particularly by men in suits who have conducted an assessment and found themselves to be the most important creatures on the crust of the earth,

Lines around my eyes, around my mouth from smiling. I hope to make them deeper if I have the chance.

anger is the jacket that fear wears to keep from shaking.”

It creeps up on you, dressing like an old person. First you eschew the things that make you cold—the thin jumpers, the short-sleeved shirts—then it’s comfort, and out go the shoes that pinch or don’t support your arches, the smart trousers that are too tight, and then you don’t want endless buttons because that’s a lot of faff for your fingers and soon, before you know it, you’re heading, hands outstretched like a zombie, for the sand-colored section of Marks & Spencer’s Very Old Menswear Department for the quarter-zip camel jumper.

“Honestly. Eddie and I have no idea about fashion.” I take undisclosed umbrage at this. My style is becoming electric. My cheetah shirt, my red cords, my new glasses courtesy of Ms. Minogue. I am evolving. I don’t disagree with Marjie, though. I will let my style speak for itself.

The fancy blue eggcup is going to look entirely out of place among the chipped bowls, the corporate mugs, and the wonky salad spinners of the kitchenware shelf. Let me tell you something, the eggcup says. I do not belong here, in this . . . this . . . jumble sale for peasants. I was important, once. Sorry, old boy, I think as I place a price sticker for £1 on his bottom. One pound?! he demands. One English pound? I am worth hundreds. There were ten of us, my brothers and I. Matching comrades in arms, serving breakfast to great men and their wives. Oh, the eggs I have held. And whom I have held them for, let me tell you! Ho ho! Does Lord Braithwaite of Carmarthen mean anything to you? It doesn’t, sadly. But I decide to rescue him from the misery of his fate. I bring him with me back to the till and empty our plastic container of paper clips into him. He looks rather grand as a paper clip holder.

He’s wearing his gold spectacles low, looking at me from over the top of the newspaper he’s reading. He must have only just woken up because he’s wearing his nightcap still (when did people stop wearing hats to bed? I wonder; I love nothing more than a hat opportunity).

“Suddenly, it seems so huge,” I tell her. My mouth is dry. “Looking for love. What am I doing?” “It’s not as big as it seems,” Bella says. “It isn’t?” “Love is really just two people who can’t keep away from each other.”

“Why do you put up with it?” Eddie asks, his back still to her, and it could sound like an accusation but from Eddie it is gentle. Like a request for the center piece of a puzzle that makes no sense without it.

Someone in the crowd raises a hand and the tour guide gestures to him. How quickly we all become schoolchildren again when the conditions are right.

do you remember what you said the night i left for oxford? you said that two things can be true. “you’ll be far away and i’ll still love you” well, that is true now. except it’s you who’s far away so two things are true: it is the end. and it is the beginning i have to say goodbye and i’ll never go anywhere without you

She thinks for a moment. “I imagine you and Bella are friends because you couldn’t not be friends.” She’s right, of course. And I realize that Bella’s definition of love will have to be expanded to include friendship. Because friendship is just two people who can’t keep away from each other.

“When Jake died, I wanted to burn the world down.” “Understandable.” “But it was too hard to do, so I just burned my life down instead.”

Why do we spend so much money on flowers for the dead but barely ever buy them for the living?