Postcards From a Stranger (Postcards #1)

by Imogen Clark

I open the door and there stands Brian, short and stocky with hands like shovels and a voice you could grate cheese on.

I screw my guilt deep down inside me where I can’t feel it.

She nods but she doesn’t ask any questions about me, which I find strangely disappointing even though I usually hate talking about myself.

She was already learning that her dreams would often end up in tiny pieces in the dustbin.

She comes to see, though, that her mind was a false friend, sometimes on her side but more often leading her down blind alleys and into dark places where she should never have been.

Of course I don’t know. I have no idea what it feels like to be in love but I nod supportively.

The inevitable pairing off of people seems relentless.

It’s funny how your mind rewrites history with the benefit of hindsight.

Even as I think this, the butterflies inside me grow into dragons that flap their wings so violently that I’m having difficulty breathing and I have to suck in large gasps of air through my mouth.

In the blink of an eye, I make a decision and act on it before I can give myself time to change my mind.

Love is a learned behaviour, I understand. If you’re not shown it then you struggle to demonstrate it to others.

Their love feels like it’s a feather on a beach, leaving no imprint of where it has touched the sand.

It is New Year’s Eve and I have no plans. Again. In years gone by, the lack of a social engagement on what might be considered the biggest night of the year would have sent me into a spiral of fretting about my lack of friends. I’d have convinced myself that everyone was having a much better life than me. Now, though, I know that most of it is hype.

So many fabulous-looking lives are fake. People only share the good parts and skip over the bad.

Most of the time, my single status doesn’t worry me. I don’t really have time for a relationship, what with work and looking after Dad, and I almost never meet anyone that might fit the bill.

Life is short. You should grasp it with both hands and shake it hard.’

I have so much to lose here that I hardly dare begin.

Her face is gaunt and criss-crossed with deep wrinkles. One runs straight down her forehead like a battle scar and she has the puckered lips and wrinkled eyes of a perpetual smoker.

‘Darling little Annie,’ she says, her words dripping with something cold that I can’t quite identify. It is not exactly malice but there’s no tenderness there.

Her animosity sits between us like the bars in a prison.

I start to feel bolder. I can do this. If she wants cold and aloof then she’s got it.

I think about heading straight for the bar, downing a couple of swift gin and tonics to numb whatever it is that I’m feeling, but I don’t want to be among people and run the risk of someone trying to strike up a conversation with me.

Tears prick at my eyes. I bite the inside of my mouth until it hurts to take my mind off the hurt in my heart. As the lift stops at my floor, I can taste the sharp, metallic tang of my own blood.

I cry until snot and tears mingle like snail-trail over my chin.

Even before I look in the mirror I can tell that my eyes are a mess. The skin around them feels wrong, pulled too tight by the puffiness that my tears have left behind.

She is no longer the woman of the night before. The languid self-confidence is gone and she seems to be occupying much less space.

Yet as she sits partly obscured by the potted palm, I see in her a vulnerability that something buried deep inside me recognises. She is protecting herself from harm and I know all about that.

She was good at managing him, on the whole. She’d had to learn.

He had fiery Celtic blood and a quick temper. You should have heard the fights! Boy! We could have sold tickets.

I should just ignore him and let whatever we have going on fizzle out. History shows that my relationships never turn out well. I’m not great at letting people close and, sooner or later, they always discover the hole where my heart should be.

we both sit quietly for a moment, imagining how flawed a perfect life really is.

It’s not until I hear myself say it out loud that I know that this is how I’m feeling.

Her voice is gentle, calm, like submerging yourself into a warm bath.

Anger somehow seems easier to deal with than pain.