space

Rae calls, lost and confused, from Bali and tells me she’s sorry.

She tells me she’s sorry for not being here in London with me. She tells me I was right, that she should have come to England this summer, and she tells me she’s sorry we didn’t get to see Stone Henge and that she hasn’t called me in two weeks. I ask her what she’s doing in Bali and don’t mention that it has been two months.

Rae tells me things went bad shortly after I left and after Russell - Star’s ex from the States - moved into the house she and Sam and Cara were sharing for free as Star’s father is paying the rent. She tells me Russell was a dancer with strong energy and a coach. I have never met Russell but knowing the type of men Star’s attracts - forties, tantra and not interested in closed relationships - I picture Jasmine and her housemates, splain across a circle of floor cushions, oil on the side, Russ moving slowly in for massage.

Rae tells me their relationship started three days after Russell moved in and I calculate five days after I left. Rae and Russell went to the dance, and afterward spent an hour drinking cacao and eye-gazing and agreed to form a relationship container. Rae tells me they decided it would be touch only and no penetration and they shouldn’t have had sex but he’s a taurus and she’s a cancer and it was eclipse season and thus meant to be. This went on, Rae tells me, for a week, until Russ asked her to open their relationship up to Jess. 

Rae tells me she was not upset by that but was annoyed instead he had chosen the following weekend which was when she had planned to brainstorm her retreat. She said the three of them talked about boundaries and primary partners and aftercare and RBDMA etc and after the sex they had a cuddle puddle at Jess’ place which has an amazing view of the moon. Russell told them there are not enough women in the world that can explore their sensuality and together they should host a workshop on conscious polyamory. 

This was during the period Cara met the shaman at Storm’s dinner party and discovered human design and quit her corporate job to become a water therapist. It was also during this period they all thought Sam was pregnant (though she’s celibate and hasn’t slept with anyone in fifteen months) because her menstrual cycle was off from a dark spell from a witch she annoyed by not paying for her coaching services. Rae tells me Cara’s shaman - Urana - is amazing, and that her reading said her purpose was to awaken to divine love. Since the reading, she’s been much clearer about her truth.

Sipping cacao, Rae asks me what I have been doing and what has been happening here, and that she’s sorry again. I tell her about the shows I’ve seen, a Kandinsky exhibition at the Tate and a Cezanne that made me think about life before telephones, that Ben is living off grid and exploring sexuality, Sara [ ], Tauri is in Chelsea with her rich mum and hating it but ‘doing the work’ because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Rae tells me to tell Tauri to make sure she’s using the rose quartz she gave her and is charging it every month at the full moon. She asks if I’m writing, I tell her a little but it's not very good. She tells me she believes in me and I need to believe more in myself.

Last Summer, Rae and I took a workshop together and became lovers. It was the summer I learnt to dance Zouk and play the drum and the summer we swam naked in the waterfall and she told me my breakdown was divine timing. On the rock she told me the world was ending because there wasn’t enough love and her plan was to be a mermaid. She said it’s hard to be sensitive in a world that doesn’t care about pain. That was the summer we went surfing in Timor and had acid on the beach and I read Kerouac for the first time since college. The summer that was warm and free and I thought about my brother a lot.

Rae tells me to sing her a song, right now, on the phone. The room I’m in is quiet. I stroke my shirt. “I can’t right now,” I say. Outside a woman pushes a pram along the street, an empty cup rolls past in the wind. “I should grow mushrooms,” Rae says. 

“Rae”, I say, “Do you think?” but I cut myself off.

She asks me about the summer. She mentions Timor, the waterfall, a dinner I can’t fully remember but that haunts me. I listen in silence.

“Can you hear me?” she’s asking.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Where are you right now?” she asks.

I’m staring at a document on my screen, a list of jobs I don’t want to do but need the money to rent an apartment. A magazine sits on the desk with a cover of a couple holding hands in St. Barts with two words: paradise lost. I say nothing. 

“It’s all perfect” Rae sighs, eventually.

After we hang up, I walk to a cemetery near my house and sit on a bench. Bryan calls me about playing football tonight. I tell him I’ll meet him at the end of the street where the lamppost burns orange at night. “Even if it’s raining?” he asks. “Even if it's raining” I say back. It’s the middle of Autumn, 2014. I am 32.