Free The Art of Waiting by Christopher Jory

think much, do you? Did you think it was something more than that? Did you really think it could have anything to do with, I don’t know, feelings, any of that old romantic stuff?’
    â€˜No, but I thought perhaps you liked me.’
    â€˜I do like you, you’re very pleasant company, but that’s not important. I do the same with people I don’t like. I just wouldn’t waste my time talking to them afterwards.’
    â€˜But you must like them. At least a bit?’
    â€˜Why? Are those the rules? They’re not the ones I live by. You can’t like everyone, Aldo. In a lot of them there’s nothing much to like. They serve my purposes, then they go.’
    â€˜And aren’t you worried your husband will get to know?’
    â€˜What makes you think he doesn’t know already? And I know for a fact he does the same. He says he has to go to Rome on business, but half the time I’m sure he’s tucked up with some little whore in Trastevere. He doesn’t get away as much now as he used to, with the war and all that, but I’m sure he still takes every opportunity he gets.’
    â€˜What’s the point of it all, then?’
    â€˜The point?’
    â€˜In you being together.’
    â€˜I don’t know. There’s no point, I suppose. It’s certainly not love, that’s for sure. In fact, I’ll tell you a little secret. Remember when you were a kid and at Christmas you believed in la befana , and you were so sure she existed because you found the presents she left for you at the bottom of your bed? And then remember how you felt when you found out none of it was true, that it was all one big lie? Well, here’s a truth for you, Aldo – love’s just the same.’
    â€˜What about the presents, though? They were there. Does it really matter if they weren’t from the person you thought they were from?’
    â€˜Of course it does. The present isn’t really the thing. What they’re really giving you is a piece of themselves. So of course it matters who’s giving it.’
    â€˜Strange you should say that. You don’t seem too fussy who the gifts are from.’
    â€˜Well, they’re not really giving anything, are they? Why should I worry who I get nothing from? It all adds up to nothing.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Just like love, a fairytale, nothing more. We go for a walk in the woods, Aldo, and we find a house made from sweetness and cake, sunlight and air, and we can’t believe our luck and we get carried away and eat so much of the walls that it makes us sick, and then the walls collapse because we’ve eaten them all away and we realise it was never really a house at all. Love doesn’t exist, Aldo, believe me. It’s just something people invent to describe feelings they can’t put into any other category.’
    â€˜Maybe that’s what makes it love? It can’t be described as anything else.’
    â€˜Too clever by half. It’s much simpler than that – it simply doesn’t exist.’
    â€˜Maybe that’s because you don’t want it to?’
    â€˜You’re right, I don’t.’
    â€˜But if you gave it a chance . . .’
    â€˜Why should I give it a chance? I prefer life without it.’
    â€˜But if you prefer life without it, you must have felt it once, I mean, to make the comparison, to know you prefer to be without it.’
    â€˜I didn’t say that.’
    â€˜But it makes sense, you must have . . .’
    â€˜Aldo, you know sometimes you can search so hard for an answer, and then you realise it just isn’t there, that there is no answer, that nothing makes sense. Nothing makes sense, Aldo, nothing makes sense. Remember that, and you’ll always be all right.’ She stretched herself across him again. ‘So shall we try that position again? Or do you want me to show you a better one?’
    It was