?
I love you, he said, a timid voice, that first time. After four pints of deniability. Now it’s with an everyday, pragmatic brusqueness. Love you! When I leave for work. Love you! Before we hang up. And sometimes also, tongue in cheek, je t’aime!
I say it, too, of course. Perhaps that’s all it is? The saying of it, and then the acting it out.
?
Unstructured time is unusual for me. Too much thinking. I don’t know what to make of myself. I have my phone, I should catch up on emails. There’s always more emails. Merrick’s probably firing things over right now. But the train reception is patchy.
And I’d rather sip wine.
?
Back when I bought the flat, the solicitor said I needed a will. After exchange, her colleague in Estates Planning leafed through my binder: statements of assets, accounts, insurance policies – home, health, life. Expressions of wishes. My net worth, at least an attestation to it, lay open on his desk.
Well, he said, sitting back. Aren’t you a clever girl?
I suppose I can understand his bemusement. Why would he expect me to have such a well-presented stack of printouts and photocopies?
In his playful moods, my boyfriend tells me I’ve got lots of money. Much more than him. He says I’m the one per cent.
Well, money is one thing. He has wealth. Tied up in assets in trusts and holding companies with complicated ownership arrangements. Things he pretends to refuse to understand. Compounded over generations. What’s the difference? he asks. I tell him. One of us goes to work at six a.m. each morning. The other sits browsing the papers at the café down the road.
This lawyer, now, my lawyer, in planning my estate, has his colleague, some sort of analyst, produce a cashflow model – future earnings and returns, projected under speculative scenarios. This is a complementary service, included in the estate-planning service, intended as a taster for another service which, the lawyer explains, is quite suitable for a young lady on my financial trajectory.
Wealth management, he smiles.
?
My grandfather brought his drill set. I’d bought two pairs of goggles. He laughed when I held one out for him. We took a photo, both of us dusty and smiling. My new shelves floating behind. He advised on other problems around the flat. My languishing plant – he said to cut the dying palm leaves away. Months later, it’s green and thriving.
?
Swish. The doctor leans forward and speaks soft. She says I’m strong, I’m a fighter. Says she can tell. I can’t just do nothing, that’s – that’s suicide. She tells me to be responsible. Think of my family. Make a choice.
Nothing is a choice.
But I don’t trust myself to say what I mean, so I just say I’m leaving. It’s time to get back to work. I look around for my things, I need to go.
Nothing is a choice.
And death is not a no-op. It has side effects. I think of the cashflows: the immediate-death scenario. It’s the tallest bar in the chart, a grab at money from years to come. A present valuation of me.
It won’t be beautiful – she’s warning now – it isn’t poetry. It won’t be what I imagine. Oh and I do know that, I know but – what do I care of beauty?
Nothing is a choice.
And I want it. I reach for my bag, then stand and turn. Unhook my coat from the door. She stands, too. Her face a creasing expression of concern and disapproval.
Listen, she says.
?
The train lurches forward again and I touch a hand to my chest. No incision, no pound of flesh – just a needle, a pinch. That was it. Then, the politely evasive phone call, the followup scheduled at my earliest convenience. Now they say an operation, weeks of downtime. Adjuvant therapy, after, possibly, radiation or – chemo, even. Make a choice. Untold disruption to my career.
The promotion.
These directives: listen, be quiet, do this, don’t do that. When does it end? And where has it got me? More, and more of the same. I am everything they told me to become. Not enough. A physical destruction, now, to match the mental. Dissect, poison, destroy this new malignant part of me. But there’s always something else: the next demand, the next criticism. This endless complying, attaining, exceeding – why?
?
I don’t know which firm, specifically, the protests were targeting. I was a new grad back then, in crispy Primark shirts and soft M&S trousers. Excited, terrified, eager to work. The guards had cordoned off the building’s entrance with metal barriers. I pressed through the crowds; a mass of sandals, blonde dreadlocks and body odour. Their poster boards and voices jeered from all sides. Arms crossed, I kept my head down and walked quick, focused on the ground ahead. Some shouted as I showed my card. Security lifted aside the barrier to let me through.