The Chair

An intensive, frenzied three-hour home cleaning and personal preen had stopped abruptly at 2:00, when he was due. Perhaps the chair would be better in the centre of the room, Id thought, so I moved it before settling down on the sofa opposite. But this looked too brash too planned; so I shifted it up against the wall again. The room looked perfect - he would know I had tidied especially for him. I picked up a magazine, had a quick flip through then returned it to the top of the pile, casually, as if I didn't care where or how it landed. 2:03. Flopped down heavily on the old armchair and then each sofa cushion in turn - just to give it that lived-in feel. 2:04. Coffee. Make some coffee. It was then, just as I flicked the switch on the electric kettle, that the doorbell sounded rudely.

It used to have a clear brilliant ring; but this is long gone and in its place is a dull gravely noise, as if someone is swathing it; choking the perfectly pitched notes. It makes me feel deeply uncomfortable - anxious.

I can see the line of his silhouette, distorted through mottled frosted glass. I open the door - sunlight rages, an intense blinding aura around the dark and familiar shape of his body. I can just make out the line of his brow over sunglasses, then the ridge of his nose and his mouth, neutral - expressionless. It is strange, this face; like seeing a film star in person. Each feature has been burnt into my mind in close ups, in pain, in happiness, dirty, angry, perfect, considered. You think you know these actors personally but when you meet them they are different in a subtle, indescribable way. In such a way, despite the intimacy of our past, he looks different too.

'Doorbell isn't sounding too healthy', he says.

No need for hellos, but I suppose were well past that. I move to one side, no need for 'please, come in', he knows my gestures. He removes his sunglasses and heads straight for the living room.

'Kettles on' I say. 'You want a coffee?'

He looks at me with some puzzlement - perhaps suspicion. For a moment I think he doesnt hear me. I'm about to repeat the question when he answers

 'Why not? White. No sugar.'

I want to say good for you, or well done - I'd always gone on about the amount of refined sugar he took in his coffee. I stop myself, and stop just short of saying make yourself at home. As I head into the kitchen he says:

'You moved the TV then.'

'Can't hear you over the kettle,' I shout back, even though I can. Let him scrutinise the flat, take in all the moved furniture, the new photos, the subtraction of one aesthetic and replacement with another.

            'I said youve moved the TV, and I jump, because I hadn't heard him come into the kitchen.

I make a non-committal noise which means 'yes' and 'so what?' and 'I think it looks better' and 'sorry' all at once. He sits at the table.

'You mind?' he asks.

 I shake my head, 'Course not. Take a seat.'

We are quiet as I dump a couple of heaped tablespoons of coffee into the cafetier. I see his reflection in the window but cant tell whether he is staring at me or at the neglected garden beyond. Judging me or judging my garden? I should have closed the blinds. Pour water, stir, push the plunger down until it rests just on top of the coffee. Coffee on coaster on table. Two cups. Two plain white mugs. Not the cups we bought from Greece, or the Virgo mug, or the green one with the ridiculous sunflower - no memories. Just plain, white, neutral no-mans-land mugs.

'Milk?' I say.

'Yes please'.

            We sit, the coffee plunged and poured emits an aroma that mingles with his musky scent and my floral perfume. Our smell - our old Sunday morning coffee-in-the-kitchen smell. We both inhale traces of this other life.

            He looks around the kitchen registering the new clock, that most of the A-Z fridge magnets have gone, that I never got round to sorting out the bin lid, which sits wonky, cocked a little like a 30s gangster's hat. There is an awful photo of Steve and me stuck to the fridge with a "c". I am laughing but Steve is completely serious, deadpan. Out of shot, the old Parisian man taking the photo had counted back 'trois, deux, un' on three shaky fingers. Just as he had reached 'un' Steve pinched my bum. I squealed with laughter but he managed to keep a straight face. Thats what I love about Steve, so spontaneous, so controlled. I should have taken the photo down - it looks ridiculous if you don't know the story.

            'You've cut your hair,' he says, for something to say - he's never been that interested in my hair, and why should he be I suppose.

'Yes,' I smile, 'quite a few times since you left.'

He smiles too. Slightly snorts and nods his head in a sad way, an accepting way perhaps. He has always been a little difficult to read.

'Lets take the coffee through.' I lead the way to the living room.

The chair stands in the corner like a great big green elephant and both of us, for now, pretend we dont see it.

'So what have you been up to?' I ask, sipping the hot black coffee.

'Working at a new site. Just down the road from my mums place. Pretty good really. I can leave the house at 7:20 and get there bang on half past.'

'Still living at your mums then?' It sounds like a criticism but I hadnt meant it to.

'Convenient isn't it?'

'Mmm.'

            'He know I'm here?' he says.

'Course, why wouldn't Steve know?'

Because you hadn't known all those times when Steve was here, I thought. Still, Steve had been a little pissed off by the whole thing. 'Sod the chair' he'd said. 'Leave it outside and someone will have it' but I couldn't. Nor could 'I take it down the skip', 'leave it at a charity shop' or 'shove it for all I care', which were Steve's other suggestions. It just wouldn't be right.

            'I was a little surprised to hear from you.' he says.

'Yes. I wasn't sure you'd still have the same mobile number'

'Ah, no. I do. Can't be assed with all the hassle of changing to be honest. Suits me fine.'

This could be his catchphrase, the words carved into his headstone: 'Couldn't be assed to change', 'Always settled'. We'd argued about the kitchen ('Its too much bloody hassle to change the doors - what is the point it all looks fine to me'), the back garden ('paving is fine, we don't have time to take care of grass and all that crap.'), our love life ('We're alright, why do you want to bother with all that kinky stuff - we're fine.') But fine was never really good enough for me. I preferred great. I preferred bum pinching in Paris to his-and-hers toga wearing god and goddess mugs from Greece; plump and overgrown exotic greenery to a cold hard concrete patio.

            'So,' I say, after some time, 'The chair'. The elephant in the corner.

The chair had belonged to the elderly neighbour and great friend of his mother. When the neighbour died his mother bought the chair as a favour to the neighbours daughter. It was a simple piece of furniture with a wobbly leg. Four long wooden fingers supported a backrest that managed to dig into your back at just the most uncomfortable height. The wood was old and stained, with patches of cracked varnish. The wicker seat was coming unweaved in parts and it sagged into a bowl shape under the weight of forty-odd years worth of sitters.

Never one to waste what could be fixed with a 'bit of elbow grease', she set about restoring the chair. She scavenged a seat from a car boot sale or skip and reupholstered it with segments of an old sage coloured valour curtain. She chipped away all remnants of varnish and painted a careful layer of high gloss forest green that shed found on special offer from "Harvey's Handyman Store". She sanded back this first layer to remove one of two drip marks, and applied a second layer of gloss. She fixed the loose leg into place and attached the new seat to sagging wicker with all-purpose glue. The finished product was unrecognisable. It was green to the point of obscenity - horrific and uncomfortable. But it was the product of a great deal of time and love and it was this that we accepted, along with the green monstrosity, as our housewarming gift some six years ago.

We used to hide the chair under a throw, in the bedroom. In summer it spent a brief spell in the garden. Whenever we knew she was coming we would uncover it and give it pride of place in the living room. But she soon developed a habit of popping by unexpectedly and uninvited, so it became necessary to have the chair on permanent display.

            This morning, the chair was rescued from the attic and is again in pride of place in the living room.

'I had forgotten about the chair until I got your call,' he said. 'You remember the game?'

I do, of course I do. When she visited we would pretend to quarrel over who would get to sit in the special chair. It was a ritual - one of us would go 'bagsy the chair!' and the other would say 'thats not fair, I wanted it'. Back and forth with 'you had it last time' and 'you always get the chair' and his mother would pipe up with 'if you are going to argue about it then I'll take the chair back home with me'. I always prayed she'd one day prove true to her word. Then who ever had bagsied the chair first would honourably relinquish their claim and the other would be forced to spend the whole visit with the wooden back digging into their spine.

            When he left for the final time, last October, he'd taken the rest of his clothes, his CDs and the stereo, the kitchen clock, his acoustic guitar and the fold away set of miniature football goalposts. This was the sum total of all his personal things. It turned out that most of our possessions were actually my possessions - not least of which was the flat itself. We had some joint gifts - the fridge my parents had given us when I bought the flat, the duvet set from Annie and countless other knickknacks, books and CDs. 'Have them all,' he said, avoiding an argument as was his way, 'just chuck what you don't want'.

The break up highlighted not only the inequality of our material contribution to the household but also our emotional contribution to the relationship.

Of course it was me that cheated. I was the baddy in this particular scenario. He left in October and Steve moved in at the beginning of December. The flat was gradually stripped of him and the old 'us' and filled with new knickknacks and books, a different family in the photo frames, a different Sunday morning smell. For Christmas we bought each other a stereo and played our song on repeat until it had fractured and driven out every last remaining guitar sound wave left hanging in the air. We moved the TV, I cut my hair, and we bought a new clock and dug up all the concrete in the garden and laid turf. We went to Paris and laughed and did kinky things. We bought all new mugs together - white - a fresh start.

Before Steve moved in I threw out the Greece cups, chucked the bulk of the A-Z fridge magnets, painted the kitchen cabinets and boxed up all the photo albums, until all that remained of our life was the chair.

'What the hell is this?' Steve had said, 'how many greens do you want on one chair?'

'His mum made it' I said, and Steve insisted we put it up in the attic. And it has sat there until today, the elephant in the attic that blows its trumpet every time me and Steve have a row about washing up or gardening: '...and that f'ing chair! Why don't you get rid of it / take it to the charity shop / just shove it!' (depending on how bad the row is).

            But how can I? How do you take all that time and love and effort and just throw it out - rip it off like a plaster. I have no use for the chair. I don't want the damn chair. I have never loved it not enough to justify the love and dedication that his mother had given it. It has never been right for me, never suited me. And it hurts me to sit on it. But how can I just discard it? So I called him, two days ago, and finally told him to come and pick it up, to take his chair back.

'Listen, I should get going' he says. He puts the mug down on the table, and I move it on to the magazines to stop it leaving marks on the wood. He laughs that same snorty, sad little laugh.

'I forgot about your coaster thing'.

He hoists the chair up. I pick up his sunglasses from the table and slip them into his shirt pocket. I lead the way down the hall, the sun still shining violently through the dappled glass. I open the door.

'Good to see you' he smiles.

'What will you do with it?' I shout after his silhouetted frame.

'The chair? Not sure,' the dark mass shouts back. 'To be honest Ill probably dump it at the tip on my way home.'