Human Remains

best we could.
    I thought about killing myself a lot, even before Graham left. There were times when I wanted nothing more than death, because afterwards it would be pain-free, but I couldn’t do it when Graham was still with me. What if he found me? And he would hate me for giving up, when he had put so much hard work into keeping me going.
    Once he had gone, though, I had no reason to carry on living, no one who cared about me enough to bother whether I lived or died, but I was afraid to do anything about it. I was afraid of getting it wrong, and ending up in even more pain than I was now. And, despite the copious amounts of medication I was prescribed, it was hard for me to save up enough tablets to be able to do the job properly. But I thought about it, I fantasised about it, I dreamed of death the way previously I’d dreamed of the pain leaving me, and the way before that I’d dreamed of gardens and children and weekends away. Death was my elusive lover, treasured and longed for and jealously guarded, and always distant. Always out of reach.
    And my life, such a waste. Such a ruin of everything that was good, everything ripped from me, leaving this void, this chasm of pain and grief.
    Who knew that it could all be so simple? I just needed someone to talk to, after all. Someone who understood how close I was to that point, and who told me it was OK to think of things like that. Everyone should have the right to decide when they’ve had enough. Why should I have spent years and years going through this hell, when leaving it was so beautifully straightforward?

Colin
     
     
    I was at Vaughn’s house at exactly half-past seven this evening, grasping a tissue-paper-wrapped bottle of white wine. It had been half-price in the supermarket, reduced from an amount that I would consider to be extravagant to one that was acceptable; the likelihood was that Vaughn would think I’d spent more on it than I had.
    ‘Colin!’ he said, opening the door to me. He shook me warmly by the hand, which I found very strange. I’m not used to physical contact from Vaughn Bradstock. I’ve known him for nearly four years and I can’t remember the last time I actually had to touch him. If, indeed, I ever have.
    He stood aside to let me in, and I took my coat off in the hallway and handed over the bottle. His house is surprisingly large, and decorated very much according to the current trend for laminate flooring and neutral coloured walls. What do you call that colour? Mushroom? Taupe? It’s hideous, anyway, like the colour of the water once you’ve finished rinsing your watercolour paintbrush a hundred times. And he has one of those dreadful vases full of twigs in the corner of the room – twigs, sticking out of a perfectly functional ceramic umbrella stand. Why people wish to follow fashions in this way I shall never fully comprehend.
    ‘Come through,’ Vaughn was saying cheerfully. ‘Come and meet Audrey.’
    I was also surprised to see he was wearing jeans, and a shirt that I thought might have been designer. He looked so much younger than when we meet at lunchtimes, the tired old shirt and tie, the top button always undone. I’ve always assumed he has ten years at least on me, but now I’m not quite so sure.
    The living room was open, with a high ceiling and painted in another one of those terrible contemporary colours that is going to date so badly in a few years. What was this one? Wheat? Cornbread? Double Gloucester?
    I was so busy looking at the decor and at the generic artwork on the walls that I didn’t even notice the woman who’d come through from the kitchen, until Vaughn gave a subtle cough and said, in words with a curious inflection that implied adoration, ‘Colin – this is Audrey.’
    I turned away from the abstract swirls of chocolate and mocha and held out a hand automatically to shake hers. She took my hand with a smile but also pulled herself up to my height and kissed me on both cheeks, which took me embarrassingly by surprise. I may even have flinched, pulled away a little. I’m so unused to this, this social contact. I felt ashamed to be there. And it was
Vaughn
, for Christ’s sake, not even anyone of any consequence. I felt my cheeks flush and for a moment I couldn’t bring myself to look at her in case she noticed my discomfort.
    It mattered not in any case, for she had disappeared back into the kitchen, having said a few words I’d barely taken in – nice to see you, thank you for