The Connoisseur

Chapter 36 - Ride it Out

She cried.  Of course she did.  It was only natural. 

She spent the next few days in a spiral of weeping and grief at the sudden, stark end of the adventure.  He was gone, and history with him.  She neither felt regret nor consolation.  The tears were an automated response, a necessary result of the swirl of emotions in her head.  They were a chemical reaction, and she knew it.  Wait till it burns out, she told herself.  Ride out the storm – then you can think.

Buzz – a text.  Julie.

Hi Sophe.  Where r u?  We r at the kings head, can’t drink all this vino ourselves.  You ok?

How few words could she get away with in reply? 

Fine.  Bit ill.  Enjoy your night :)

Six and a smiley – that would do.

The next morning she left the house at eight to avoid Julie.  Her flatmate would probably be sleeping off a hangover until noon, but still.  Play it safe.  Avoid friends at all costs.  Only speak to lecturers, tutors, computer analysis programs.  Ride it out.

A few days later she got her exam timetable.  She was sat at her desk revising – bedroom door firmly closed – when she glanced across at the depths of the periodic table.  Suddenly, a whole scenario appeared in her head – Saint Petersburg in 1869, Mendeleev lecturing on his new table of elements, Alexander beside her in the stalls.  Then they’d go to a restaurant, then a theatre, then for a night-time walk through the snows by the river – of course the snows, this was a Russian dream, there had to be snows – before retiring to a hotel suite with the lights dimmed and the bed warmed...

She cried again.  She turned her music up so Julie wouldn’t hear.  Ride it out.

She went out to the cinema with her friends a few days later, nearly a week after her last meeting with Alexander.  Her isolation couldn’t last, but the storm could.

“And that afro!” said Roz in the restaurant afterwards.  “Seriously, how did he wear that thing for the whole movie?  The shoot must have been hilarious.”

“The things one does for art,” said Adam.

“You need to grow yourself one,” said Julie.  “You could do it with your hair, if you left it long enough.  Next play you’re in, insist that your character has an afro.”

“Totally going to be Macbeth,” said Adam, and everyone fell about laughing.  Even Sophia did.  She laughed when others did, she drank when others did, she didn’t listen to them, and she wished that they would all just be quiet.  Her mind alternated between sighing and screaming.  Just go away, she thought.  Shut up.  I don’t care.

Ride it out, Sophe.  Ride it out.

*

It faded, as it had to.  Of course the memory of him clawed at her mind – of him, not of their adventures, but of him – but it didn’t make her break down or hide away any more.  She was numb to it.  She continued her work, revised for her exams, prepared for her life, her career.  It was hers to decide, whatever a visitor from the future might say.

I made the right choice, she thought.  To abandon her family and friends for him, and for adventure – no.  She remembered sitting in the pub at Christmas, nearly six months ago now, telling people she was unsure about her future.  She’d wondered if normal life could ever seem fulfilling again, when she had the chance to dream forever, and to share the dream with a man she might love.  It seemed strange now.  Of course real life meant more to her than that.