How brutal it looks, you marked up like that, all innocent and written on. Soon you will be blown apart. Soon there will be pieces of you scattered across this floor and that, each shaking with the small last bits of breath you have.

But then, love, I will gather you up. I will find every last piece and lay you out as an archaeologist might on dusty digs, by plastic sheets and the brushes to find the skin and body and bone which remain.

I will put you back together; I will stick you with spit and blood, and my sweat and salt. I will build you back again, because I have marked you, and I know how.

She was in a rough clearing with a bushy forest at her back. She could see the city far away and did not know how she came to be out of it; how did she cross the highway, or even get up the drop between her and the bank of lights marking its shape?

Her memory was sluggish, she dragged up the sensation of her hand squeezed tight ‘round a rock, and some rush of light close to her face, a noise beating with it. There was no more than that. Except, maybe a movement of flesh, loving skin: a man, and there a women. She shook her head: this was not a memory she felt she wanted.

It was time to go back. She’d got there, so it was possible, and she made to begin but stopped, aware suddenly of sharp pains in her arms. She twisted them up and saw two lines sliced into each, halfway between the elbow and wrist. These, the quick rushed back, marked a story out. They were open and she licked them without thinking, tasting the iron of her blood and making them clean.

She walked for three days and finally crossed the edge of the city, back from the dead, back from where she had been left, ready to start again. She did not expect, as she turned through the streets, strangely unfamiliar, the small posters on doors and lampposts with her face shown on them and ‘missing’ scrawled beneath. The posters were everywhere and she followed them on. Each had a different image but not one she remembered. He hadn’t dared to take the photos, of course, but kept them imprinted: these were the moments he remembered and he tore them from his brain, pasting each onto to blank paper, scrawling the word and posting it up.

She found him under a bridge; the one where once they had danced: you ought not to have left me like that, she said. And he, wet eyed, waved his arm at the posters and had nothing to say. They fell down after the dropped pages and pens, lay together tangled and squeezing and scared to let go. His arms, she saw, bore her same bloody lines, but marked a different path that ended here, in the same place.

There was little light from the moon, quartered and hidden snug under clouds, but light was coming from somewhere; a white glow from beneath the water, and she began to walk forward fast. It seemed to her that she was being drawn in, that she had only one way to walk; her skirt which had hung tight and heavy around her thighs, ballooned suddenly up past her waist, slowing her, exciting her, and she carried on.

Rib deep now she pulled and twisted out of her skirt. She was close to the glow, and she dove deep towards it, keen to touch the light, to be inside it. Oh! It felt like waking up; it was as though, her lungs tight, she had found a way to breathe something in, something more substantial than air, more nourishing. Globes of light rushed about her, she turned in the force, lost her direction, began to sink.

At that moment, in the hug of the tide, she could have stayed. She could have let the water take the weight, stopped forcing her way through, given in to the slip down, but there was a voice. Someone was calling into the water and right to her.

Her body jolted; a decision of flesh, a spark to her heart and electricity in her limbs. She pushed up, surfacing through the water lid, and dragged in a gasp of that other type of air. Through the wheeze of breath she had managed to take she could make out a tiny figure. She lurched forward, straining her eyes, trying to adjust and make out who it could be. She stopped. There at the water’s edge, waiting for her, was a little boy, and in his hand a shell.

When she reached the shore, half crawling, she stopped at his feet. Rocking onto her side she lay to breathe and the boy pressed the shell into her raised and open hand. He lay down in front of her, his back pushed into the curve she had made. Did you enjoy your swimming? For a moment it was just the sound of his voice, the tone, its chime. She could hardly believe it. Yes, she said, but no more swimming now. They closed their green brown eyes – the colour of lakes his father swam in as a child, or so she’d been told – and slept.

Someone has put a stone in my throat and told me not to cry: Stand close enough to feel but not near enough to touch, and don’t cry. Open your mouth so I can twist the stone. So many of you here and each of you alone.

The colours I knew are washing away, running in rivers down by my feet. Left are muted shades, limp between the lines that separate this thing from that. There is no energy left; the batteries are flat, tight white knuckles begin to give. But they don’t let go; they hold on lightly nonetheless.

If, friend, your dreams may be lighter than the day you wake to: in time imagine yourself away from here. Imagine grass growing fast across these tiles, and the sky rolling glorious and blue out under the rude strip lighting. Imagine the sound of water not far from the bed; your boat knock knocking at the harbour and the wetted wood that will take you there. Imagine the trees growing up around you, and a cool breeze over your skin. Feel her standing next to you, as she stands now, looking out and ahead.

There are a thousand things I wish I could give you.

I fell in love with an artist, new love after loves before. We explored our shape: ran tip over blade, and in the arch and stroke unmade our bodies and turned them and they were rearranged. Locked in stare he opened his mouth, breathed in the air I had inhaled and let out. We made oxygen used a hundred times over taste new in our open fresh mouths.

I nod to the stories behind me: every last thing raised up and down. But this one is my one and my time, and the path swings to my feet from behind me, laid out to beg my new sound.

Each night, back in her tent she would lie with her head out of the canvas door and look at the glacier glowing blue in the night. She wanted to go and touch it but the walks never took them there, and she had been warned away because it was dangerous and she didn’t have the equipment or the experience to go. Her father was concerned about crevasses, knowing her tendency to roam. A crevasses, he told her, was a deep crack in the glacier, and each glacier was home to thousands. They were made as the the glacier slipped slowly over uneven terrain and, though some appeared to be tiny; you could step over many, they went down for miles. It would be a deadly fall were you to stumble. Her father didn’t want her to stumble, not ever really on glacier or life, and she promised she wouldn’t go there and he kissed her and left her to look up at it from her safe distance.

One day a father and his son arrived at the campsite. They were climbers and intended to scale Mont Blanc. The boy’s imagination was caught by the girl and one night when she was lying looking up at the glacier he stopped by her tent, bent towards her face and whispered that he would take her up there.

They woke early the next morning when the sky was still orange blue, and crept away from the campsite. They scambled up the mountain as the morning broke across the day and three hours later, having skidded and slipped and with grazed knees and scratches on their arms, they arrived at the edge of the glacier. Out of breath and laughing she was ready to walk across it. He gave her his boots, which were fitted with toothy crampons and far too big for her, so she wore his socks too and then leaped before he could stop her, onto the ice. And then she stopped, her toe at the first crevasse. Looking down she saw its magnetic distance, no end, no bottom, only sides, only a fall. She hopped over it. And the next. Stretched over the third. As she landed half way across the ice there was a growl from somewhere above her and she could hear the boy shouting her name. Turning away from him she looked up, half laughed as a she saw a small goat running from the glacier, and in its wake, stones and ice tumbling towards her. A moment of silence. And then she turned and ran, leaped over the crevasses and towards the edge where the boy was climbing towards her. The rocks were speeding faster and she stumbled and was shouting and he reached and lifted her off the ice, and they fell backwards onto the stony edge, breathing hard. On top of him, she could hear his heart racing.

Thank you, she said.

Jesus. I thought you were going to die.

I’m here.

****

Years later the girl is no longer a girl but she remembers the glacier. She feels sometimes that she misunderstood what happened and that perhaps she didn’t make one of the crevasses but slipped down. And that she has stayed there, trapped in icy stasis, while around her life went on. When she looks at the people she loves with their families and loves and hopes and houses she knows it could not have been different, because she would always have scrambled from the path, it’s just that when the boy leaves, there’s no one to catch you and you have to get to the edge by yourself.

The man has a silver radio which he listens to most of the time. His lips move when the news talks out and he cranes close, head tilted to the sound of the voice. He likes to listen to orchestras, the strings and the bass and the drums. Often he talks to the squirrels and sometimes he takes off his boots. He stands in the earth of the flower beds and whistles and moves to the tune. Some nights I go out to talk to him, take him some milk and some bread. He tells me stories that make me smile and we smoke and later we drink. One day I guess he will leave me, or the garden, of course, I meant. But at least I have what he told me: that sometimes we must mark out new journeys, though we’ll lose some things that we loved. And lost love can break hearts to pieces, but new love will gather them up.

Are you still on your journey, I ask.

Yes, my darling, I am.

Is your heart broken or mended?

My heart is broken apart.

How long have you been walking?

Nearly a year to the day.

When will your journey be over?

Soon, he said in a murmur, as soon as the next spring has passed.

It is in the space in between that the stories grow, grow like beanstalks, twisting at your skin. And you can let them live there or not she thinks. And she sets her head down and runs.

I pull off my sweater and my hair moves light in the static: lifts, falls chaotic. I slide my left toe under the edge of my right sock, bend and wiggle it off. Next the left.

I pull my fingers through my hair, twist it against the back of my head and secure it in place. I wipe over my eyes, cheeks, chin, throat removing make up, leaving my skin clean and damp. In the mirror I look back at myself, and then turn and walk bare-footed to the bedroom.

I watch your chest rise and fall in the low glow of the lamp and your hand has let go of your book, your index finger moving from the marked spot and the last words you read before sleep came. How loud your head has been. I swear I can hear it now, a dark growl underneath your skin, behind your eyes. Here you sleep finally, trapped in the sheets, between all the things you love and need and are. Here you sleep finally, leaving things and finding things, walking through your dreams. Your body is heavy from your journey, and aching at the prospect of further to go. But I have felt your body electric. I have seen your eyes turn green from blue and heard your laughter delirious and true. I have tasted your happiness, new, unexpected, rattling from inside you and finding a shape and the voice that has been quiet but has always been the essence of you.

I undress, leave my clothes where they fall. I slide against you, wrap my arms around your body, kiss your growling head. You move me in, half sleeping still you murmur: I was dreaming we were in some woods, it was dark and we were scared. I curl deeper over you and you say, with half of you still in the woods and the other touching every part of me: but we made it into a game and it stopped being frightening. We’re safe, I whisper into you. Safe. See?  You can sleep; I’ll come with you. And our skin is clammy as we move through dreaming and run through woods and then run faster and then out and then open and then breathing hard and we are OK. More: we are laughing, and we are elated and we are new.

Part two.

I pull off my sweater and my hair moves light in the static: lifts, falls chaotic. I slide my left toe under the edge of my right sock, bend and wiggle it off. Next the left.

I pull my fingers through my hair, twist it against the back of my head and secure it in place. I wipe over my eyes, cheeks, chin, throat removing make up, leaving my skin clean and damp. In the mirror I look back at myself, and then turn and walk bare-footed to the bedroom.

On the right side of the bed is the space where you slept, and at the tilt of the pillow and the folds of the unmade sheets, I can see the shape you made as you were dreaming. You are sleeping elsewhere. You are dreaming away from me and the happiness and the hurt I bring.

I undress, slide into the place that you had taken. Move my arm up and my leg back; it looks as though I am running. In this position I sleep; in this position I dream of you. As I wonder past trees and over shafts of light as they fall quiet through branches and leaves still clinging tight even as the breeze disturbs them, I can hear your voice: we’re safe, you whisper into me. Safe. See?  You can sleep; I’ll come with you. We walk, our fingers locked together; the moon is getting brighter and the trees are growing further apart. With each step we are lighter. As we pass through darkness our hands grip tighter, and as the wood begins to end, we are moving faster. I love you, we are shouting. I love you! And morning is coming and we are waking and we are beginning again.

The Loyalty Card, friends, is a weird and wonderful thing. If you have read previous posts you will know that I do not have faith of the religious kind, preferring instead to make sense of what I encounter with science and song, love, my friends and my family. It’s not a sure fire thing but then neither’s God, as far as I can work out, so here I remain on an even footing. I do, however, remain faithful to a loyalty card. It’s been a long term monogamous relationship in which, I have just realised, I am a doormat; but a doormat with points and with excellently moisturised skin.

My first Loyalty Card touch point is on the way into work at Caffe Nero. There is one just down from my office and the people who work there are fast and friendly. They remember what you like, can keep seventy thousand orders in their head at once, and they always stamp your loyalty card. I could, at my train station, buy a tea with skimmed milk, which is my preferred morning beverage, for nearly half the price. And I could easily, having skipped that and waited to get to Caffe Nero, hang on a bit longer and make a cup of tea at work. But no one at work stamps my Loyalty Card and that, I feel, is an oversight. There are nine spots on the Cafe Nero card and once it is filled you get your next cup for free. It’s the most ridiculous non saving event ever. If I was sensible about money the options I have already mentioned would be the obvious avenue. But where, friends, where would be the fun in that; where would be the anticipation? I swear I buy the tea for the stamp not because when I sip it I think it’s the best damn tea in London. It’s not. It’s just tea. With the Loyalty Card, however, it is a tiny adventure; it is, somehow, an achievement. And, at any rate, I am comforted by the fact that in the queue is every sort of person: whether they appear to have slid in on the Rich List or from the soup kitchen ’round the corner, each is clutching a Loyalty Card. At least, I think, at least we are all suckers.

Even as I write this I’m beginning to feel a bit bleak about my position. I work in marketing, I know the deal. But I’m a regular woman, too, and it is this part of me that leads me to the behaviour I am about to reveal. I am leading you to the Boots Advantage Card and my slavery to it.

The Boots Advantage Card is the mother of all loyalty cards. It is the thing that has the most impact on any cosmetic or toiletry buying decision I ever make. I will take you through my last shopping spree in Boots. Last week I was sent, as I am regularly sent, a DM of tokens and offers, all generously providing me with lots of extra points each time I spent £40 or £50. Next time you spend £50, it sang, we will give you 350 points FOR FREE. That’s awesome, I thought: that’s £3.50 that I can spend IN BOOTS. I check the expiry date and plan my trip. Obviously this is a stocking up trip so I will be allowed to go mental. And, also, I will HAVE to go mental because I only need a toothbrush and that will not get me to my target spending goal. When I arrive in Boots everything, EVERYTHING is on a three for two offer. I roll up my sleeves and get to work. There’s something pleasing about purchasing in threes. Here is what I buy:

Number 7 skincare products: everything that says it will prevent the inevitable day when my face falls to my knees as my body realises just how much I have drunk, smoked and partied in the comparatively short length of time I have walked on this world.

Shampoo and conditioner: one of the former, two of the latter, and a combination of which will make my hair thick, glossy and under control. My hair is none of these things; these products are essential.

Toothpaste: Three. Fuckit.

Johnson and Johnson moisturising shower gel. Three. I have two in my ever growing stockpile at home. But a stockpile needs stock. I am good at this game.

Johnson and Johnson facewipe cleansery options: superb. I get through these ultra fast. Talking of which;

No 7 make up: I need the bronzing balls, Velvet Kiss lipstick and something else to bring me to three.

Palmers products. I only need the oil but if I buy one more I get the third free. And Palmers – look – gets rid of stretch marks and makes you beautiful. I don’t have stretch marks but I reckon that’s the sort of thing that creeps up on you. Best to be prepared.

Miscellaneous: Optrex (this one will brighten my eyes, ensuring I look beautiful at all times), Touch éclat. Essential: they should make a full body one. Bad Lash Benefit mascara. Essential. Tampax. Never leave Boots without it. Tissues. Lip balm. Black eye liner. I have three in my handbag alone but it feels comforting to know that I will never run out. Vitamins. I will, obviously, only take these for a week but it’s three for two so as long as I find the right place to keep them I am making a saving and, in many ways, STORING health. Well done me.

I heave my basket to the checkout and extract my tokens from my bag. D’you know, I can’t think of anywhere else I would bother with a token, but I am powerless to Boots and, yes, I’m about to get a points hit, a heavenly points hit. The Boots staff are trained for people like me. I have spent well over fifty pounds but, with a careful approach to paying: doing it in chunks, the man helps me use three tokens. That’s, like, nearly a million points. I’m grinning like a fool now. You’ve got £44.79 on your card he tells me. Wicked! I reply, I’m going to buy perfume with it.

My perfume costs £50. In the time it has taken me to accrue £44.79 I have spent three million pounds. I could clearly just have bought it, I’d even have got points. But that is NOT the point. The point is that I want to buy it with my Advantage Card. I want to feel that I can reward my careful purchasing decisions with the prize of perfume. I am a screaming buffoon. I have A level maths, I have a degree, I can tie my own shoe laces. I’m still a blithering fucknut.

As I leave the store I wonder which group my name sits in when Boots curate their mail out. I’ve handed them all the information they need: my favourite products, my determination to reach a spending target. I bet there are women who are offered the same points for a smaller spend. Perhaps I should write to them and beg for mercy, or maybe a tweet will invoke compassion. It won’t, actually; they don’t operate in social spaces which is a shame and missed opportunity for them really: I can think of a million friendly connections, experiences to share and enticing timely offers which would ensure my complete captivity to the brand. Ha! Hear that Boots: I am nearly almost a free woman.

Having cast my eyes over this meandering tale I have realised that the relationship I have described to you is the longest committed relationship I have ever been in, eclipsing even seven years with the writer. Oh no. Smoking. I’ve been smoking for-fucking-ever. It’s OK, though; I bought some cream for that.