Open Water, Caleb Nelson [best summer books txt] 📗

empty spot in front of her. Why are you over there? she’s saying. Come. So you go. Perch on a bare patch of carpet where her legs are trailing and lay your hand on her bare skin. Is this OK? you ask. It is, she says, it is, and so you’re here, you’re drunk, there’s already been a spillage but you mopped it up. She runs a hand over your shorn head, tracing lines. The conversation moves, flows, swoops, boughs, but when he retires to bed, it’s evident you’ve been waiting to be alone.

‘You can’t stay today. The lodger is staying in my room, I gotta sleep with my mum.’

‘I know.’

She twists round and invites you to the sofa, invites herself to lay her head in your lap.

‘Don’t let me fall asleep here.’

Another change of position: she flips her body, so her legs are stretched across your lap, and props her head up on a pillow on the sofa.

‘I have to go to bed soon,’ she says.

And another: she sits up and curls her arms around you, kissing the material over your chest, kissing the exposed skin on your cheek, and you lean in, as does she, but she makes a diversion, and it’s lips grazing cheek once more, and again. You lean closer, brushing her nose, but it’s the same; she mirrors, and somewhere en route, a moment of resistance, or perhaps she is experiencing lucidity in her own mist. You play this game with each other, in which the stakes are far too high, on the sofa, in her kitchen, in her hallway; you wanting to make a journey, she wanting to do the same but making a diversion before the destination.

‘Hey. Are you OK?’

She nods, separating your tangled limbs. ‘I think you should go home.’

You walk home from Deptford to Bellingham. You spend the hour wondering about how you will both recollect this evening. You think about what it means to desire your best friend in this way. You think about holding onto this feeling for so long, holding it down, holding it in, because sometimes it’s easier to hide in your own darkness than to emerge, naked and vulnerable, blinking in your own light. You think about whether she has been doing the same. You think about spillage, and whether this is something that can be mopped up. You think as you walk through the night, wandering familiar streets with these unfamiliar feelings. At some point, the sun begins to break the horizon, and you find yourself in the park, prone on the ground. The grass cool against the heat of your desire, life still against the pace of your racing heart.

14

It’s summer now. You’re working in NikeTown, on Oxford Circus, supplementing your money from photography. It started as a temporary gig, the year before last, meant as a stopgap after graduation. Now, it is a permanent fixture, and you’re clocking in to clock out. You’re clocking in and dreaming your days away. You’re not entirely unhappy here, but herein lies the issue; this job is far too comfortable, and for the most part, considering you and your colleagues are cogs in a giant machine, you’re all treated quite well.

The air conditioning has broken. The enormous windows have been designed to let as much daylight seep in as possible, giving the illusion that one is shopping outside, rather than in walled confines. You’re daydreaming, thinking of spending your days elsewhere. You want to take a plane somewhere, and walk. The previous summer, you did just this, flying to Seville in August, where the heat clutches your whole being, tighter as the day goes on, relenting its grip only after siesta. You would wake early, and walk down to the restaurant underneath the apartment you were staying in, where, despite a decent grip of the language, you would muddle through a ­bleary-­eyed conversation, ordering a tostada and a black coffee. The morning would be spent exploring the outer edges of the city, before returning to your apartment for a nap. You would wake and perch at the tiny desk in your room, writing by hand in a battered black notebook, opening the doors of your balcony wide and letting stray chatter drift towards you in many languages. You might have a snack, and walk some more, turning towards the heart of the city, going to a bar, later, sitting to eat tapas in a restaurant. From here, you would dangle your legs over the edge of the River Guadalquivir, the bank unprotected, one able to take a dip if one so wished. Many others had the same ­idea – the dangling rather than swimming in the ­river – a line of kicking legs, listening to the quiet swish of water lapping back and forth.

It’s summer now, and you’re craving a simpler existence. You want to read. You want to write. You want to meet strangers for dinner, and not refuse another drink at another bar. You want to dance. You want to find yourself in a basement, neck loose, bobbing your head as a group of musicians play, not because they should, but because they must. It’s summer now, and you’re looking forward to worrying less. You’re looking forward to longer nights and shorter days. You’re looking forward to gathering in back gardens and watching meat sputter on an open barbecue. You’re looking forward to laughing so hard your chest hurts and you feel ­light-­headed. You’re looking ­forward to the safety in pleasure. You’re looking forward to forgetting, albeit briefly, the existential dread which plagues you, which tightens your chest, which pains your left side. You’re looking forward to forgetting that, leaving the house, you might not return intact. You’re looking forward to freedom, even if it is short, even if it might not last.

You’re looking forward.

It’s summer now. You’re working. You catch a glimpse of someone else’s rhythm, and think, I know that song. The timeline ­equates – the academic year is finished, so she must be back in ­London – but it doesn’t make you any