Free Cathexis by Josie Clay Page A

roll up and down in one continuous oscillation, correlating my heart. At the nadirs, Nancy inexorably retreating, at the zeniths, the posts stanchioned a gathering of hope. I made one of my deals; if I counted 21 posts before they were obscured by trees or a tunnel, I would get the mortgage, the flat and Nancy. I counted 18 before an oncoming train chopped my game into a flicker book.
     
    Remy was embroiled in a furious row with the upstairs neighbour over her predilection for dropping nappies and food waste into our garden, rather than the bin. Placing a guilty kebab on the wooden industrial cable reel that served as a coffee table (Nica flared her nostrils, gathering food information), I left a note: 'I'll call you x' and slid past the gesticulating pair, swinging two black sacks that contained my belongings into Fritz's cab.
     
    As I headed down Seven Sisters Road, the propelled kebab in my mind's eye, tumbling down the woodchip, leaving a gory shock of chilli sauce and heartbreak.
     
    When I'd broached the subject of moving out, Remy had viewed it as a positive step, no doubt clutching at straws that I might miss her. My mewling conscience assuaged by viewing Remy in parallax, already a distant body rotating in the aubergine gloom, well out of my orbit. Nancy's magnetic pull was too strong to bother resisting; every atom in my being iron filings.
     
    After I'd parked in the gravel driveway outside 'The Limes' I phoned Nancy's landline. If she answered, it meant that everything was going to be just fine, if she didn't, it meant that she was out; I always brokered favourable deals.
     
    “Hi, this is Nancy and Todor, please leave a message”. That was my punishment for fixing the odds. A stark reminder her life was entwined with another.
     
     
    The flat vacant, the estate agent had handed me the keys with a wink.
     
    “So you can measure up for curtains” he said. How funny, me, curtains.
     
    When I'd got the knack of the three locks and shouldered the door, the bed and kitchen appliances were gone except an archaic cooker called a 'Creda Cavalier'. My offer had been accepted and Evelyn inferred the mortgage was in the bag , so I didn't feel it was tempting fate to start making the flat habitable. All that was lacking was Nancy's money.
     
    Dragging acres, it seemed, of piss-drenched carpet, lino and disintegrating hardboard to Fritz's flat bed, I swabbed and scrubbed and dismantled the cupboard and iron maiden affair, working with zealous adrenalin. With every floorboard I scrubbed and each new task ticked off my list, I thought of Nancy and imagined my viability as an option increasing. If I managed to deep clean the bathroom by 10.30am, her bottom would be parked on the 'Dudley Diplomat' toilet at some point tomorrow evening. That afternoon, I went to Ikea and bought the last three quarter sized mattress in the world from bargain corner, along with a set of bedding and white linen, a starter cookery kit, plates, cutlery, mugs, glasses, towels, candles and some scatter cushions in lieu of furniture. I surveyed my world – clean, minimal and kind of sexy.
     
    'Can you come this evening? x” I texted.
     
    'No, Todor is out tonight'.
     
    'When then? I miss you x”.
     
    I sat on the 'Dudley Diplomat', expelling a great deal of converted red wine. M8 in the bed/living room, flicking buttons on the elderly ghetto blaster she had given me as a house warming present.
     
    “You can rewind but you can't fast forward” she said as 'Homeloving Man' by Andy Williams tweeted from the integral plastic waffles. “Oh, while you were on the Dudley Diplomat, M8, your phone beeped”, handing it to me.
     
    'Tomorrow 6.30'.
     
    “She's coming, M8” I said through clenched teeth. M8's eyebrows arched in suggestion and intrigue.
     
    I cried off work that afternoon to prepare. Nancy maintained that English people were dirty so I gave the space another going over, constructing elaborate winning deals as I went,