ELIZABETH COLEMAN

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Shivers

Her friend tells her she has listened to him. He is very compartmentalised. He knows what the problem is. He knows how to fix it. He always gets what he wants. He blames his ex for his predicament and it would be hard to trust again, but he knows he can do it – it’d be utterly foolish to refuse his offer, and he knows she definitely is no fool. He could arrange everything. Then he had said, ‘I need you to tell me if I should bugger off and leave her alone, maybe I’ve messed up her life now. Let’s face it, I don‘t really know how a woman thinks.’

Her friend says finding him a bit of crumpet might be a solution, a distraction, but she says, ‘No-no! Wait . . . I might have a plan.’

Her friend says, ‘How radical?’

‘Quite . . . but not bad-bad radical.’

Her friend says, ‘Shivers.’

She sighs, ‘I’m at the airport. Alone, not sure if it’s arrivals or departures.’

Her friend says, ‘But I’m here.’

They drink their coffee in silence; silence is strange company.

Her friend says, ‘You always feel sorry for people.’

And, ‘We are all needy.’

He walks in and she glows.

‘Hi,’ he says and they touch.

Her friend leaves.

He always gets what he wants.

The man and the boy are sad for a few days but the microwave comes into its own. The man does Sudoku and pays a woman for two hours’ housework a week. The boy squeezes his spots, buys a white rat called Sebastian which he keeps caged in his room, trains it to take pineapple lumps from between his lips but when the cat gets it he turns to Bebo.

She tells her friend that she must be a terrible person.

Her friend says, ‘Well, just look at that. This morning’s frost has almost melted.’

 

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