Idiopathy

sensible,’ he said weakly.
    No answer.
    ‘A lot of people rush into it,’ he said. ‘And then find it’s too soon.’
    It sounded like she might be picking her teeth.
    ‘I’m not going to roll over just because you want something.’
    ‘A cup of coffee,’ she said. ‘One cup of coffee. Say no.’
    Daniel seemed to be experiencing some difficulty saying no.
    ‘I mean, I
can
,’ he said. ‘Of course I
can
, it’s just a question of whether it’s wise.’
    ‘You’re absolutely right,’ she said. ‘Has to be wise. And hey,’ she added, ‘don’t worry about Nathan, either. He’ll totally understand.’
    ‘Understand what?’
    ‘He’ll totally understand that we just couldn’t get it together for him. You know, he’ll appreciate the difficulties.’
    Giggles waddled into the room, spasmed briefly, then emptied a stomachful of half-digested cat biscuits onto the floor.
    ‘Fuck,’ said Daniel, staring at the mess. ‘Fucking cat.’
    ‘You have a cat?’ said Katherine quickly.
    ‘Yeah, we have a cat. Look, what are you talking about? I’m seeing Nathan. I’m there for him. You can see him if you want. We’re doing everything we can.’
    ‘Don’t you think,’ she said, ‘that after all he’s been through, what he’d really want is to catch up with his friends like the old days without having to go through some bizarre system of visitation rights? Don’t you think he’d like to just come and see us and chat and not have to deal with all of
our
problems, which, compared to his, are pretty fucking insignificant? But don’t worry. He knows you. He knows you can’t set aside your stuff. You’re right. Make him do all the running around. Make him feel like he’s the inconvenience so you can back away from anything that seems difficult.’
    Giggles looked up at Daniel with a slightly sheepish expression, then began tentatively licking the pile of vomit.
    ‘OK,’ Daniel said finally. ‘You win.’
    A pause.
    ‘I win?’
    ‘Yeah, you win.’
    ‘What do I
win
?’
    ‘You just win. We can meet up.’
    Another pause.
    ‘Well don’t do it if you don’t want to.’
    ‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’
    ‘No, seriously. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. Let’s just forget it.’
    ‘No, let’s not forget it. Jesus, Katherine will you stop making everything so difficult?’
    ‘
Me?
’
    He sank his face into his free hand, defeated.
    ‘Let’s have coffee,’ he said lifelessly. ‘It would be great to see you. Where do you want to meet?’
    ‘Well,’ said Katherine. ‘Since you ask …’

    F or several minutes, perhaps even an hour after putting the phone down on Daniel, Katherine was seized by an odd sense of disappointment. Perhaps, she thought, it was the old issue of necessity, of the thing she’d wanted evolving into something that was thrust upon her. But it was more than that, too. It was, she thought, a sense of unwanted completion, even repetition, and it was only after an hour of smoking and cupping a cooling mug of coffee between her palms that she realised exactly what the issue was: she had imagined an exit where in reality there was none. Whatever door had opened through her conversation with Daniel, it led only inwards, back to places that were no longer any use. She’d spent days feeling trapped, imagining a release, but when the release arrived, it brought only a further encounter with finitude, with the limits of what she was prepared to be. She wanted, quite suddenly and sadly, to call Daniel back, to ask him things. They were not even, she thought, things in which she was particularly interested, but in the recounting of them something would be achieved. She wanted to ask him about himself; his job; his girlfriend, and she wanted to ask him not because she really wanted to know but because she wanted him to know that she had asked, to feel that she wanted to know. She’d heard amputees say that they still felt an itch where the limb had been. This was how it felt. An irritation of a familiar emptiness. She picked up her phone and tapped his picture to make the call. He didn’t answer. She briefly debated a voicemail, then hung up, annoyed that now he would see the missed call on his phone and no doubt misinterpret it as either needy or annoying or both. She let herself cry a little, then sort of angered her way out of the gloom by telling herself she could have asked him those things but he hadn’t let her because he was a prick.