THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

CONFESSIONS ON A ROOFTOP - PART V

"I missed the deadline. The letter said reply by '4/3.' It completely escaped my attention they were a British company. I sat on the offer for more than a month – for no good reason at all – I had long decided I would join them, I had made plans around it all. I leisurely posted my response in the second half of March, but by then it was already too late."

Ander felt nauseous. Talking about this still so raw failure made his stomach turn. It made him think of what he could be doing, where he could be in his life and career; but even worse, it reminded him of the nearly-more-unbelievably poor decisions he followed the blunder up with in the weeks after – like deciding to go on holiday with his long time friend Fauster anyway (and spending thousands of dollars in two weeks of excess in the Caribbean during what was meant to be a celebration of professional success); of actually turning down another offer in a mood of spite because its pay differed by some fourteen per-cent per annum from the job he didn't have; of ascribing maybe twenty-five per cent of the blame for his mistakes to D'Misse and her (in his view) antagonistic attitude; of getting offended when, after nine months of unemployment and only then beginning new applications (as was how long his sulking period proved to be), D'Misse suggested he could work for her parents.

One year after appearing to have it all, Ander was attending his perfect-in-hindsight) partner's funeral having sent her into the afterlife feeling pathetic. He was wearing borrowed shoes and a borrowed suit, he needed to leave early to cover an evening shift at an underfunded government office (a tide-me-over work affair), and every evening he was being badgered by his mother – whose bitterness, he diagnosed, was incurable – for being a waste of her child rearing efforts. He had arrived in the pits, and the only way he could see out was to get lost in the most populous country on the planet.

Dehydrationwas setting in; the crowds had died down, the traffic had reduced, and LadyZhao looked like she was already asleep, standing. So they rode a taxi back toher apartment together, Ander's head leaning against the window staring atnothing in particular and feeling sorry for himself.