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Waiting for Julia
by Cally Taylor

It’s dark and a red snake of tail lights winds into the distance. It would almost be beautiful if this wasn’t the M25, if I was closer to Manchester. I want to take a photo and text it to Julia. I want to say, look, when I see beautiful things I think of you. I’m coming. Wait for me. Wait a little bit longer. Have another cup of tea.

The rain’s so heavy my windscreen wipers are squeaking. I can see the road approximately one second in every three. I just have to grip the wheel and hope.

It seemed so romantic at the time, on the beach in Rhodes. Romantic and sandy. There’s a very good reason why you shouldn’t make love on a beach.

“Let’s meet in Manchester in five months time”, Julia said.

“Why?” I said. “Why not meet in London, the week after we get back?”

She smiled, buried her toes in the sand.

“That’s too easy,” she said.

I threw handfuls of sand at her feet, shaped them into a castle, put a pebble on the top.

“Why make life difficult?” I asked.

“Not difficult,” she said. “It’s about hope.”

“I’ve spent a lifetime hoping. It leads to nothing. I’m all out.”

Julia leaned forward and stroked sand from my cheek. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

I pulled her to me, wrapped my arms around her. “Give me your number.”

“No,” she whispered. “Mac’s café, Grey Street, Manchester 7pm on November 12th. Don’t forget.”

We made love again, me repeating the address and the date in my head until my head emptied and I lost myself again. “I’ll be there,” Julia said at the airport. “I’ll be there. Don’t forget.”

I turn on the radio. The presenter’s voice crackles to life. “We’re experiencing tailbacks on the M25 junction 11,” she says in her annoyingly dulcet tones. “Fuck,” I say. I wasn’t going to meet her. I was going to lock Julia in the little box in my head marked ‘Nice memories’ and just get on with life. Thing was, she refused to disappear. She wouldn’t be pushed away. I started to see Julia everywhere, in the reflection of tube train windows, in the street, sitting in the armchair in my living room, smiling at me.

There’s a calendar on my kitchen wall. I hadn’t turned it over since January but I found myself flipping over the pages, searching for November, putting a red ring around the 12th. I started getting up each morning, crossing off the day. I started to feel like a kid again, excitement building in the pit of my stomach, a feeling I didn’t think I’d ever have again. I started to daydream, to let hope wash through me. I started to believe my life could be different. Wait for me, Julia. Wait a bit longer. Have another cup of tea.

END

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