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(what you sow)
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I was too impatient for hesitation this time. Half a night's tossing, standing barefoot in the kitchen, pale glow from the slit of the fridge lighting my toes. There was almost no Chardonnay left, but enough for three mouthfuls. The flavour curled on my tongue.
V didn't come.
The next day, from the Gallery: Cabernet Sauvignon, 1984. Bordeaux, 1969 and 1991. Chenin Blanc, 1899; Riesling, 1983; Zinfandel, White, 1978; Sauvignon Blanc; Pinot Noir; Merlot; Fume Blanc; Chardonnay again. Excessive, yes, and a crime to abuse on my indifference, but I didn't care. A glass in the morning, and another dose in the evening. When one didn't work, I tried another bottle the next day, as if it actually mattered. Only the promise of a throbbing hangover deterred me from downing more; I told myself I could control myself that much, at least.
The scent of wine seemed to pervade my whole apartment, curled around the edges of my mind. Light and rich and unmistakable as sweet blood – aged in oak, aged in flesh, what did it matter? I couldn't sleep, I couldn't write, I couldn't, couldn't , couldn't. I cursed, I argued with the air, I paced and waited and got drunk from anger and wild laughter, from the heady cocktail of resentment and damned longing. How dare you, get out, come back. You bastard, bastard, why can't you ever leave me alone? When I wrote, the writings came in surges, in splashes of spider-ink desperation that ended abruptly, mid-sentence. It was like the old times again, except this time the hurt came duller, and it was me who was waiting.
Somewhere in the second week, my door started shaking. The bottles clinked together prettily when I shoved them in the cupboard, the guilty echo of thirty pieces of silver. I let Dominic in before he could break down my door.
"So you aren't dead," he greeted me, without waiting for my excuses. His voice was even and mild, as if it was just a social call. "I haven't seen you in the papers for over a week. You disconnected your phone. Stevenson said you haven't been in the office since the Thursday before last. You aren't sick. Did I miss anything?"
"Please don't yell," I sighed. I led him in and he followed.
"I'm not yelling," Dominic clipped, dangerously pleasant. The stylized Vs on his coat sleeve were nearly darkened over by mud and rain; he must have come straight off the job. And V would be everywhere, wouldn't he? He was right about damned symbols, people--
I blinked up, surprised. Dominic was very close suddenly, his fingers nearly bruising my forearm. He looked, I realized dully, very tired.
"I've been very worried, Evey," he said quietly. "It's been a rough day, so don't tell me you were sick. Talk to me. Please. What's wrong? Why are you hiding?"
"I'm not," I said instantly, stung. "Why would I be hiding? You know me better than that."
He smiled crookedly. "I know. I was just checking to see how bad it was. You haven't been reading up on the news, have you?"
His tone caught at me. A chill flickered at the base of my spine.
"No. What happened?"
Dominic took out a crumpled newspaper article from his coat as if he'd expected this. And it was such a banal thing: smudged newspaper, a man in a coat heavy with rain and dripping dark drops on the floorboards, but the quiescence of everything – his breathing, the triteness of this familiarity, the unremarkable slate walls of my apartment, as if I'd never seen them before – caught up in one dizzying rush and suddenly the idea of ghosts and V seemed very far away. For the first time since V's visit, everything abruptly seemed sharply etched, as if the lines of reality had been blurred by his presence before.
Dominic passed me the paper. Something was tightening in my stomach even before the headlines screamed at me.
"They've post-phoned it till four months from now," someone was saying, but it sounded distant. It sounded unreal. "It's starting all over again."