Gaps

He always came to my house at 5pm. Never a second before. One day I set an alarm for 5, just to check, and sure enough the doorbell rang at the exact second the alarm went off. It was the only thing so far that was interesting about him.

‘Hi Max,’ I said as I opened the door, on this, the fifth day of seven that we were scheduled to meet, and I was hoping that today would be the day that I could let creativity flow from my pen. The preceding four days had been extraordinary in their mundaneness. Details of houses, jobs, favourite foods. A collection of facts. I really needed something to work with.

‘So, we’re onto chapter 5,’ I said, as we settled into our chairs with mugs of tea. ‘What shall we start with?’

Max put down his cup and smoothed the front of his well-worn checked shirt, fastening some buttons that refused to stay closed.

‘Well, this is the part where I got married,’ he said. ‘To a woman called Helen. She had brown hair that frizzed in the rain and she was allergic to tomatoes, which made life really tricky.’

‘What, the hair or the tomato allergy?,’ I asked.

‘Both,’ he said, his forehead wrinkled. ‘I loved the rain. And tomatoes, as you know, are my favourite food. Perhaps it was doomed from the start.’

I tried not to smile.

‘Was Helen your first love?,’ I asked.

‘I suppose so,’ Max said in his perfunctory way.

‘Should I put that she was the love of your life?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said. ‘Just put that we got married after a few months together. No need to embellish it.’

I slapped my pen down harder than I intended.

‘That’s kind of my job, Max. To make your words sound better. More interesting. No-one will want to read your memoirs otherwise.’

He looked disappointed, which made me feel guilty.

‘Should I make some things up?,’ he asked. ‘Pretend I was a fire-eater in a circus, or a plastic surgeon?’

‘You’re being silly,’ I said, though his expression was earnest. ‘But we obviously have to insert some drama soon. To satisfy the Reader. Besides, I want to feel as if I’ve done you justice.’

‘Hey, Lydia,’ he said, leaning forward, stopping just short of patting my knee. ‘You’re doing a great job. These past five days have really helped me get my thoughts in order. I’m getting somewhere, I can feel it.’

I took up my pen again.

‘So, tell me more about your wife and your life together,’ I said. ‘You know, the highs, the lows…’

Max put his head in his hands.

‘Well the high was the wedding. I didn’t know so many people cared enough about me to come. The low was a year later when she left me for my best friend.’ He laughed, right to the bottom of his belly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wiping away a tear. ‘It’s not funny, is it? It just sounds so tragic. But it’s not, in the grand scheme of things.’

‘Gosh, I’m sorry Max,’ I said, only slightly sorry and hoping he couldn’t tell. Was this the drama I’d been waiting for?

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Not now. I met a woman called Clementine a year later. She was the love of my life. You can write that down if you like.’

‘Was?’

‘Oh, well I meant that she is. Always will be.’ Max had proper tears in his eyes now, and for the first time really opened up to me. It was a ghostwriter’s dream, and I found myself completely carried away by his love story. From the way they met (‘we got splashed by the same bus’) to the way they drifted into a love so complete (‘I wasn’t sure who I was until I met her’), I could picture it like I was watching a film. I could see his beautiful Clementine too, indelibly imprinted into every fibre of him.

‘Why does loving Clémentine make you sad?’, I asked, probably overreaching my remit.

Max looked over towards the window, where a cloud had settled over the waning sun.

‘Because true love always ends, one way or the other,’ he said quietly.

I decided now was a good time to move on, though I couldn’t resist a final question.

‘Does Clémentine like tomatoes?’, I asked.

He laughed. ‘They’re her favourite,’ he said. And the sun reappeared in the room, showing up all the streaks on my windows.

We sat for a moment or two in silence, apart from the constantly creaking pipes in this very old house of mine. He had more to say. Twenty years of doing this told me that.

‘Lydia. The day after tomorrow I’ll be ready,’ he said. ‘To give you what you need, to give the Reader what they need. But tomorrow we’ll just fill in some gaps. Is that ok?’

‘You’re the boss!,’ I said, unfolding my legs and getting out of my chair with a groan. ‘See you at 5?’

‘On the dot,’ he said. ‘I’ll let myself out.’

I watched him walk slowly up the drive and disappear from view.

At 4.55 the next afternoon, I watched him walk back down the drive, coming into sharp focus as he pressed on my doorbell at precisely 5. His shirt buttons were undone as usual, and his long fingers were battling to do them up as I answered the door. He was onto a loser there. Two of them had popped open again before he’d even sat down.

‘It’s gap-filling day,’ I said to Max as we got comfy.

He cringed slightly. ‘Hope this bit isn’t too dull,’ he said.

My father had been a builder. Sometimes, way back when he was helping me renovate my run-down house, he’d make a rare error of measurement, then look at the gap and just shrug. ‘Don’t worry, Lyd,’ he’d say. ‘It’ll fill.’

I told this to Max. I don’t know why, when he was the one who was supposed to be telling me the stories. But it was just so he knew how important the gaps were.

‘The gaps in my house were as important as the rest of it,’ I said. ‘And no, they weren’t tedious. Awkward, annoying and fiddly even, but they had to be filled properly. They couldn’t just be papered over.’

‘Thanks, Lydia,’ he said, ‘for making this easier for me’.

He let go then. Really let go. Of all the little things, the patchwork of details that he’d left out of the first telling earlier in the week. And those gaps really were beautiful. So much so that I completely neglected to write anything down. But I knew I wouldn’t forget. How could you forget bubbles of lemonade going up your nose, the perfection of a ladybird in the palm of your hand, trying to glue together a million pieces of your mum’s best vase, burning cheeks when you were scolded, the smell of rainwater on hot pebbles, the waft of music from the neighbour’s piano, a dead mouse in the back garden, butter melting into hot bread, creaky floorboards, an own goal, salty tears, staying up all night, missing a flight, a streaky orange sunset on a warm summer’s evening? Tiny snippets of pleasure, shame, fear, anger, frustration, sadness, disgust, and beauty that were fleeting but the memory of which lasted a lifetime? And finally the biggest gap of all, the one left by Helen, but perfectly filled by Clementine. Hopelessness to hopefulness.

It was an exhausting couple of hours, riding over the little bumps in the road of his life.

‘Wow,’ I said when I was sure he’d done. ‘What an amazing session.’

‘Really?,’ said Max, his eyes wide.

‘Yep. You know, I’ve worked with politicians, actors, scientists…heard the big stuff. Your life Max, the intricate collection of stories that made you like you are… I’m not sure it’ll be a best-seller, but it’s been by far my favourite ever gig.’ I was playing it down. Most of the time I’d had a huge lump in my throat.

He flushed. ‘It’s not over, Lydia. But tomorrow will be more straightforward. I promise.’ He stood up, more upright than I’d seen him before. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

I was agitated the next day. When there was no sign of Max at 4.55, I started to get jittery, pacing up and down my sitting room, wondering if he’d lost his courage to finish. He said it would be straightforward, but something told me different. Otherwise why write your memoirs at aged 38?

At 5pm the bell rang, even though I hadn’t heard his feet crunching up the drive. I dashed to the door, then opened it calmly.

‘Hi Max,’ I said. ‘Come in.’

He looked pale, cold even. And so tired. I underestimated the impact rummaging through the baggage of your life could have on someone with an ego as small as his. I needed to go gently.

‘I thought we’d start this last session a bit differently,’ I said. I wanted him to feel safe, like I had it all under control, when in reality that sentence had just fallen from my lips.

‘Sit in my seat,’ I said. ‘Just for a second.’

Max frowned at me. He hadn’t said a single word yet. But he did as I asked and I sat opposite in his seat. The lighting was terrible from this angle. He looked ten years older, his eyes dark and expectant.

‘Ask me anything,’ I said. ‘Whatever you like, and I promise to tell the truth.’

He seemed to relax for a second, before the pressure of being put on the spot caught up with him.

‘I…er…oh gosh, Lydia. Why?’

‘Just so I know how it feels to be you, with me prodding you for information you might find difficult to share. Go on, Max. Anything you like.’ I tossed a pen over to him, so he could really get into the role.

‘Well…erm…ok. Here goes. Lydia Watson, do you think I’m a good person?’

It was not the question I’d expected and it threw me. I barely knew him. He’d been a voice down the phone, a crunch on the drive, a ring on the doorbell, a stranger in my living room. I swallowed.

‘Yes,’ I said, though my gut instincts weren’t always right.

‘Do you trust me?’

‘Yes,’ I said. And I did.

‘That’s a relief!,’ he said, jumping up. ‘Let’s swap places. We don’t have long.’

It was a blur, this last session. Max spoke so quickly and had so much to say, even though it was just one day he wanted to tell me about. How it was freezing cold when he woke up, how Clementine had already gone to work, how she’d left his coffee cup on the coffee machine and ironed his lucky checked shirt. ‘Good luck!,’ she’d messaged him. ‘I had a job interview,’ he explained.

‘And then?’, I said, trying to rush him, to distract him from the minute details because we didn’t want to keep the Reader waiting too long. He pretended not to notice.

‘I cleaned my teeth, opened the bathroom window, arranged my slippers neatly.’

‘Then?’

‘Then I put on my shirt and sat on the sofa while I fastened the buttons.’

Gosh, he really was giving me the minutiae.

‘Then?’, I said, slightly louder this time.

‘After two buttons, I stopped,’ he said.

‘Stopped to do what?,’ I asked.

‘Oh, nothing. I just stopped and didn’t start again. Poor Clementine.’ He dropped his head.

I lifted mine, my eyes drawn to the gap in his shirt that was always there. He saw me looking and tried to do up the buttons.

‘This gap, it won’t fill Lydia, despite what your dad said.’ He smiled at me, then looked through the window. After a few seconds he pushed himself to standing.

‘And that’s it, Lydia. That’s how my book ends. With broken hearts.’

My eyes filled with tears.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’d brush those tears away but I can’t.’

It was getting dark outside, the clock on my mantlepiece striking 7.

‘Any more questions,’ he asked, ‘before I go?’

Only a thousand, but I settled for one.

‘Why 5?,’ I asked. ‘Why do you always come at 5?’

‘It’s something about the light,’ he said. ‘The time when you can see me most clearly.’ I’d never had that before. Most of my clients came in the dead of night, as you would expect.

He was fading now, going fuzzy around the edges. I walked towards the door.

‘That was a good final session Max,’ I said, as he stepped out into the dusk. ‘The Reader will love it.’

‘Exactly what I wanted to hear,’ he said. ‘Now close the door. It’s cold outside.’

I could barely see him now, his form just an outline against the fading light. I pushed the door to, ever so slowly closing the gap. It creaked, just like every other door in this old house of mine.