about last night

I shaded my eyes from the sun as he set down the coffee by the bed and opened the blinds to let the bright London sunshine flood into his apartment. ‘I suppose you have to be getting back to your husband’, he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Staring down into the still swirling coffee I nodded. ‘I know you must miss him, having to come away on your own like this’ he said. ‘yes’ I replied quietly, adding with a girlish grin ‘but you could say there are compensations.’ He smiled. ‘I got a couple of good woe-is-me-I’m-so-lonely blog entries out of it’ I said and his expression became more serious and understanding. ‘Oh, yes of course’ he said. ‘Just one question though Rilly...’ he began. I looked up from my coffee. ‘What’s with the always keeping one foot on the floor deal ? Is that a northern thing?’ 'No, silly’, I said, 'it’s just because my blog only alludes to that kind of thing , in a way that’s just enough to cause a knowing nod from the reader but firmly leaves them at the bedroom door. I have a question too', I said, pulling a pair of knickers out from under the bedclothes. ‘Whose are these?’ 'Oh', he said, 'I had girl with a one track mind over the other night.’ Oh, I said ‘you’re not…’ ‘In her book?’ ‘You are?’ ‘Page 74.’ ‘Crikey’, I said, ‘I think I’d better get dressed now.’ ‘You are dressed’ he said. ‘You told me it was because in the north it’s so cold and damp you have to sleep with all your clothes on or else you’ll get consumption.’ I got out of bed and as I looked at my slightly crumpled self in the mirror I realised that, for want of any original material coming my way in the forseeable future, my hope of getting a sex blog to turn into a companion volume for Strife in the North was just another aspiration that I abandoned when I moved to the north, left behind in my lovely house in Islington along with the light fittings, the carpets, and my dreams, sigh.