Mainly, though, it’s been…lonely. I left Mark because I felt alone even when I was with him, and because I couldn’t keep up the pretence of being one half of a fake-perfect couple. Now I don’t have to pretend – but I’m still lonely. There are only so many beautiful sunsets you can watch in isolation before you start to avoid them; only so many times you can keep a jaunty tone in your voice as you say ‘Yes, just a table for one, please’; only so many photos you can store on your phone when you have nobody to show them to.
I thought, maybe, I just needed time to adjust. I have been in a couple for a long time, and perhaps it was too optimistic to expect to just find my happy place straight away. I suspect that your happy place has to be earned, and I haven’t put my time in yet. It was probably always unlikely that I could just dump my old life and walk right into a new and better one – but I was determined to keep trying.
I had some vague concept of heading for Cornwall, where I’d spent a few holidays as a child. Happy holidays that I remember being full of rock-pooling and falling off surf boards and eating creamy scones. My parents moved to Portugal when I was 23, and although I’ve obviously seen them plenty of times since then, we don’t have that kind of relationship where we keep up daily chats or share the intimate details of everyday life. In fact, I haven’t even told them that I’ve left London, left Mark, left my career. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to worry them – but maybe it’s because I don’t want to get told off by my mum and dad when I’m staring 40 in the face. I’m way too old to be told to sit on the naughty step.
The car, though, had other ideas – it really didn’t want to go to Cornwall. It absolutely hated the idea, and has made its feelings known by simply refusing to drive any further. I’m not a damsel in distress, and know the basics of car care – but this is a flashy modern Mercedes that has more in common with an AI overlord than the Renault Clio I drove when I was younger.
I’ve actually been sleeping in it for the last few nights, so maybe it objected to being turned into an Airbnb on wheels. I’d just had enough of hotels, and of people looking at me with curiosity, and of the conversation issue. The conversation issue has become a bit of a thing with me – I have found myself sitting in hotel bars or pubs or cafés many times in the last few weeks, and sometimes I want to speak to people, to engage in the world around me. Sometimes I want to remain alone and isolated, left with my thoughts.
The problem is that nobody on the outside can tell which mood I’m in from looking, which is fair enough. It never seems to work out right, and I get complete strangers trying to chat to me when I’m feeling silent, and when I’m looking for someone to talk to, everyone else is busy with their own crowd. Because the weather has been so fair, I’d decided there were worse things to do than to recline the seats and just stay in the car instead. It made sense at the time, which is perhaps a worrying thing – my concept of what makes sense is becoming ever more elastic.
Right now, though, as I sit myself down on a patch of grass at the side of the road, nothing makes sense. Without the car’s aircon, I am hot. I am tired. I need a shower. I ran out of water a few miles back, and all I have to eat is a packet of crisps I got as part of a meal deal in some services a few days ago.
As soon as the car showed signs of becoming moody, I pulled away from the busy highway that flows along the county, and turned off at the first opportunity. Now I am stuck on what appears to be a completely abandoned B-road, with no phone signal, in blazing sunshine. It is a very pretty place, for a road – the grassy patch I am draped across is backed by hedgerows in full summer bloom, pink and white flowers tangled into the greenery, the hum of bees in the air. The woodland behind is dense, oaks and hawthorns, the ground carpeted with forget-me-nots and bright pink foxgloves. Probably lots of other things but my spotting skills are rusty after living in London for so long. In parts of London, an especially mouldy abandoned kebab counts as wildlife.
The road runs down the side of a very steep hill, and at the bottom, I can see the sea. It looks amazing, even in my foul mood – sunlight sparkling on a rolling blanket of turquoise. The kind of sea you immediately want to jump into.
“Ha,” I say out loud – this is another thing I’ve noticed I do a lot of these days – “at least if I die out here, I’m spending my last moments somewhere beautiful.”
I don’t really think I’m going to die – I’m a doctor after all; I’d spot the signs. But in this weather, with no water, I am at least running the risk of sunstroke or dehydration, neither of which is a whole lot of fun. I know I’m going to have to get up and walk at some point, find civilisation or at least some phone reception, but right now I don’t have it in me. I will sit for five minutes, first, eat my crisps, and decompress from my angry tyre-kicking tantrum.
As I take a few deep breaths and try to give myself a pep talk, I hear a rustling sound in the hedgerow next to me. I resist the urge to jump up and run – there is unlikely to be anything aggressive in an English hedgerow – and instead stay very still, scanning the roots and branches beside me.
Eventually, I see a face. A very small, very furry, very scared-looking face. At first I’m not at all sure what it actually is – cat, ferret, woodland sprite, a previously undiscovered species of hedgehog. It even looks a bit like E.T. at a glance. I freeze, sensing that any sudden movements I make will scare it away. I see brown eyes peering at me from a fringe of matted fur, and a pink tongue hanging out of its tiny mouth, panting.
It is, I realise, a dog. A very small, very dirty, very worried dog. I haven’t had a dog since I was 15, and that one was an insanely fat black Lab who regularly got scared by its own radioactive farts and loved every living creature it ever met, including cats, squirrels and postmen.
This one looks terrified, and even jumps at the crinkling sound of the crisp bag. I pull one out, and hold it gently in the direction of the furry face. It recoils a little, then the nose starts to twitch, and eventually it makes a swift snatch and grab.
We repeat this action a few more times, and bit by bit, I place the crisps closer to me. By the time I have one resting on my leg, the dog is confident enough to wriggle itself entirely out of the hedgerow, standing and staring at me, eyes flicking between me and the ultra-desirable crisp.
“Yeah, that’s the spirit,” I say gently, patting my knee. “You can do it, boy. Girl. Whatever you are – I don’t feel like we know each other well enough for me to check just yet…”
Step by shaky step, the dog approaches. When it gets close, it stares up at me with baleful eyes, and obviously comes to a decision. It picks the crisp up, and crawls onto my lap, where it curls up in a smelly ball. I lay a very cautious hand on its back, and stroke it. I feel a tremor go through its body, but it stays where it is.
I’m more accustomed to examining human bodies than canine, but once it seems settled, I slowly run my fingers over its body. Beneath all that tangled grey-white fur, I can feel too-sharp ribs, and when I reach its front legs it whimpers.
I mutter some soothing words, and peer at its right paw. I see a thorn embedded in its pad, dried blood around it.
“Ah, you poor thing – what a curse to not have hands, eh?” I say. “Now, this might be scary, but you’ve just got to trust me, okay? It’s better out than in.”
I’ve spent years removing foreign objects from places they’re not supposed to be; some of them you really don’t want to know about. Here, I don’t have gloves or a sterile environment or tweezers, but I still have technique. I keep a firmer hand on its back, and manage to snag the end of the thorn between my nails. I quickly pull it out, making the sad creature yelp, but I give it another crisp straight away to placate it.
Once the crisp is demolished, it licks its paw, and gives a weedy twitch of its tail. For some reason, it’s that twitch that makes me cry – the way this poor, broken creature still has enough hope to try and show some happiness. The way it seems to trust me. The way it is lying here, in my arms, letting me comfort it, one broken creature to another.
I lean down to give its head a quick kiss, immediately regretting it.
“Whoah there!” I say, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “You are one pungent dog! Then again, I’m probably not much better after three nights sleeping in a car and getting baked for the last hour… What do you say, pal, shall we go in search of help? Or at least a bowl of water for you, and an ice cream for me?”
He – my examination has revealed that it is indeed a he – looks up at me, head angled slightly to one side.
“What? You want to do it the other way round? Whatever you say, boy…”
I place him down onto the grass and hoist myself up, brushing leaves off my backside. I have a moment where I wonder if he might just scamper off back into the wood, but he stays at my side as I get my backpack out of the car and gaze down the hill towards the sea.
“Come on then,” I say, striding forward down the side of the road. “It looks nice down there. Maybe there’ll be a hotel with a swanky spa, eh? One for dogs as well, of course. And then maybe we can find out where you came from – someone must be missing you.”
Even as I say it, I wonder if it’s true. I’ve disappeared from my own life with alarming ease. Mark has been in touch about some practical issues, and the agency has said it’ll get me work as soon as I’m ready, but beyond that…nothing. Nobody is missing me at all, and in return I am missing not a soul. Depending on my mood, I see this as either a blessing of liberation or proof that I will die alone surrounded by cats that don’t even like me.
