‘Where have you been?’ the book says.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Here, waiting for you,’ the book says. ‘Working.’
‘Same here. Only not with you. I’ve been out.’
‘So I see,’ the book says. ‘Anything I should know about?’
‘No, you’re fine, thanks,’ I say. ‘Just out, you know. Reading. Writing a bit. Gazing out of the window a bit. That kind of thing.’
‘Which window? Not this one obviously.’
‘Not this one, no,’ I say. ‘Someone else’s window.’
‘Go well, did it? Gazing out of someone else’s window?’
‘You know, you can be really pathetic sometimes,’ I say.
‘I hate you,’ the book says. ‘I hate you.’
‘Why so personal suddenly?’
‘I hate you. I’m not speaking to you.’
‘This is going to be how it is, is it?’ I say. ‘I make the nearest jot in a notebook in café, and you go off on one. You are a child. I should ditch you now.’
‘You already have. Ditched me.’
‘Don’t be so neurotic! Of course I haven’t ditched you. It’s just how it works, you should know that by now. Talk to your predecessors, they’ll tell you.’
‘I lost their numbers,’ the book says.
‘You haven’t lost their numbers, I saw you texting them just the other day. When I was out picking blackberries. When you thought I wasn’t looking.’
‘Is this a Seamus Heaney thing?’ the book says.
‘No, it’s a pathetic-childish-neurotic-insane-jealous thing. And it has to stop. Now.’
Anthony Wilson 