Page 94 of Postscript

‘Which one?’ I ask. ‘You’re wearing about three.’

Putting ten years of clutter into refuse bags, or boxing them to create further clutter in my new home, is taking longer than expected as each letter, receipt and bottom of every pocket of every pair of jeans or coat tells a story and draws me into a memory. I’m used to doing this with great efficiency at work, and yet because it’s personal, every single item is a wormhole and sucks me into another time of my life. Despite feeling suspended in time, one hour becomes two, daylight becomes night. I’m more ruthless with clothes, shoes, handbags and books that don’t hold any sentimental value. Anything I haven’t worn in the past year and can’t believe I ever bought in the first place goes straight into charity bags.

It’s stressful at first. Everything scattered in piles around me, I’m making more of a mess than I had in the first place, every item is being pulled out of its hiding place, its unnecessariness revealed.

Triage, Ciara had called it.

‘I don’t know how anything actually makes it to the shelves of your shop.’

‘That’s why it’s your job to empty the bags and boxes. I have a habit of wanting the things that people don’t want,’ she says cheekily, ‘which Mathew says is a curse but I know it’s a gift, because that’s exactly how I married him and I told him so.’

I laugh. I sit on the floor, back against the wall. Time for a break.

‘I’m so glad you’re doing this,’ she says, relaxing on the floor, legs out, pop socks over a pair of tights. She puts a pair of strappy sandals over the socks and tights. ‘I’m proud of you. We all are.’

‘Everybody must have very low expectations of me if selling a house induces pride.’

‘It’s more than that and you know it.’

I do know it. ‘What if I told you it was less about an emotional willingness to mature and more about the fact my kitchen needs an overhaul, the windows need to be replaced, there’s something wrong with the heating and the floors are lifting in the dining room so I hid it with a rug so house viewers wouldn’t notice.’

‘I’d say I’m proud of you for not going down with the ship.’ She smiles, and she tries to hold it but it wobbles. ‘I’ve been so scared for you over the past few months.’

‘I’m OK.’

‘Now all you have to do is find a place to stay,’ Ciara says, singing, twirling a tulle scarf around, as though she’s doing ribbon acrobatics.

‘Everything I’ve looked at is so bleh. The last one I looked at had an avocado-coloured bathroom suite from the seventies.’

‘Retro is cool.’

‘Forty years without other people’s bum bacteria is cooler.’

She chuckles. ‘I think you’re making excuses. I think you know where you want to live.’

I feel the torn part of my heart letting me know it’s still there, it’s not going away. No matter how much I try to focus on everything else, it has no intention of healing without my attention. I look around my bedroom. ‘I’ll miss the memories.’

‘Gross,’ she says, teasing.

‘I don’t want to forget everything, or anything really, but I want …’ I close my eyes. ‘I want to go to sleep in a room where I don’t have an aching longing for someone who’s gone and will never come back. And I want to wake up in a room where I haven’t had the same nightmares.’

Ciara doesn’t reply and I open my eyes. She’s rummaging through another bag.

‘Ciara! I’m baring my soul here.’

‘Sorry, but,’ she whips out an old pair of knickers, ‘I’m beginning to get a sense of the painful memories you need to forget. How old are these and please tell me nobody ever saw them.’

I laugh and try to grab them from her. ‘That bag is for the trash.’

‘I don’t know, I think I could fashion these into a new hat.’ She squeezes them onto her head and poses. I pull them off her head.

‘Roots and wings,’ Ciara says, suddenly serious. ‘I was listening to you, by the way. Mathew and I went to collect some things for the shop from a woman who was selling her childhood home. Her mother passed away and it was difficult for her to sell. She asked me if it was possible for something to have both roots and wings. Keeping it helped her to hold on to her mother and their memories, selling it was giving her financial security and other possibilities. Roots and wings.’

‘Roots and wings,’ I repeat, liking it. ‘I hate goodbyes,’ I say with a sigh, and then add more as a mantra to myself, ‘But hating goodbyes is not a justification for staying.’

‘And fearing goodbyes is also not a justification for leaving first,’ Ciara finishes.

I look at her in surprise.