Read Midnight All Day for Free Online

I stand there. Her shoes are on the floor, her perfume, necklace, and pens on the bedside table. I pull the sweater over my head. It is tight and the sleeves are too short. I put the gloves on, and wiggle my fingers. I lay them on the bed. I take a pair of scissors from her washbag in the bathroom and cut the middle ringer fromone of the gloves. I replace the severed digit in its original position.
    As I bump along the farm track which leads up to the main road, I get out of the car, look down at the hotel on the edge of the sea and consider going back. I hate separations and finality. I am too good at putting up with things, that is my problem.
    London seems to be made only of hard materials and the dust that cannot settle on it; everything is angular, particularly the people. I go to my parents’ house and lie in bed; after a few days I leave for Los Angeles. There I am just another young actor, but at least one with a job. When I return to London we all leave the flat and I get my own place for the first time.
    *
    I have come to like going out for coffee early, with my son in his pushchair, while my wife sleeps. Often I meet other men whose wives need sleep, and at eight o’clock on Sunday morning we have chocolate milkshakes in McDonalds, the only place open in the dismal High Street. We talk about our children, and complain about our women. After, I go to the park, usually alone, in order to be with the boy away from my wife. She and I have quite different ideas about bringing him up; she will not see how important those differences can be to our son. Peaceful moments at home are rare.
    It is in the park that I see Florence for the first time since our ‘holiday’. She seems to flash past me, as she flashed past the window in the train, nine years ago. For a moment I considerletting her fall back into my memory, but I am too curious for that. ‘Florence! Florence!’ I call, again, until she turns.
    She tells me she has been thinking of me and expecting us to meet, after seeing one of my films on television.
    ‘I have followed your career, Rob,’ she says, as we look one another over.
    She calls her son and he stands with her; she takes his hand. She and Archie have bought a house on the other side of the park.
    ‘I even came to the plays. I know it’s not possible, but I wondered if you ever glimpsed me, from the stage.’
    ‘No. But I did wonder if you took an interest.’
    ‘How could I not?’
    I laugh and ask, ‘How am I?’
    ‘Better, now you do less. You probably know – you don’t mind me telling you this?’
    I shake my head. ‘You know me,’ I say.
    ‘You were an intense actor. You left yourself nowhere to go. I like you still.’ She hesitates. ‘Stiller, I mean.’
    She looks the same but as if a layer of healthy fat has been scraped from her face, revealing the stitching beneath. There is even less of her; she seems a little frail, or fragile. She has always been delicate, but now she moves cautiously.
    As we talk I recollect having let her down, but am unable to recall the details. She was active in my mind for the months after our ‘holiday’, but I found the memory to be less tenacious after relating the story to a friend as a tale of a youngman’s foolishness and misfortune. When he laughed I forgot – there is nothing as forgiving as a joke.
    However, I have often wished for Florence’s advice and support, particularly when the press took a fascinated interest in me, and started to write untrue stories. In the past few years I have played good parts and been praised and well paid. However, my sense of myself has not caught up with the alteration. I have been keeping myself down, and pushing happiness away. ‘Success hasn’t changed you,’ people tell me, as if it were a compliment.
    When we say goodbye, Florence tells me when she will next be in the park. ‘Please come,’ she says. At home I write down the time and date, pushing the note under a pile of papers.
    She and I are