My Buried Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

always seems a day out of date, especially in summer, when flies cloud the sweet produce and the smell of vegetables can make your stomach heave. I bite. The apple is as I’d expected, strong and sweet. It cracks against my teeth and juice squirts onto my chin.
    As I turn to go inside and pay, a man exits the shop. We smack into each other, my cheek colliding with his shoulder. The apple tumbles from my hands, rolls onto the road and is obliterated by a passing car. Juice sprays itself in a foot radius around the black wet patch on the melting tarmac.
    I open my mouth to shout at the man who almost dropped his two large paper carrier bags on impact. New Yorkers always shout first, breathing in the maxim with the toxic city air – always blame the other person, never yourself, and never apologise. Before I have time to articulate a syllable, the bags are lowered and an apologetic smile is replaced with the surprise of recognition.
    ‘Hello! Jameson no ice, right?’
    The barman from the evening of the funeral. Sean, I’d heard someone call to him. Sean, without his beer-stained white shirt and bartender’s black trousers, with the same longish hair and a smile that appears to be aimed right at me. He doesn’t seem to mind that I see him looking me up and down, that lazy once-over that a man twice his age wouldn’t possess the confidence to perform. I wonder what he sees. I touch my hair. Still tied back.
    I lower my eyes. A car, its owner frustrated with the immobility of the traffic, honks its horn behind me, the sound cutting the air between us. Others follow suit, the cacophony rendering conversation impossible. Such impatient drivers, such intolerance. Everyone racing to go nowhere. It’s as bad as New York. The distraction gives me a moment to gather myself.
    He looks good. In another life I would have allowed him to take my hand over the bar, draw me into the vortex of chemistry. I fight the impulse of attraction. I have no space in my overcrowded head for dwelling on an attractive man. I have the house to sort out, my return to New York to organise, my life to get back on track.
    And yet I’m lonely. It’s been a while since Isaac. I’ve needed the space I’ve created around me, but I’ve been too good at shunning people, too exacting in my desire to be left alone. Once, hesitation would not have crossed my mind. Men have been the easiest way around the black spots in my head, and I’ve willingly given myself over to them. Glancing at Sean in the midst of the car-horn-induced fracas, I wonder how he would feel against me, how warm his skin might be. His lips are full, flaking slightly. I push his shirt up in my mind, place my mouth on him.
    ‘So?’ He regards me. His shirt is fraying faintly at the collar. It’s old, denim, and open to the waist. He wears a white vest underneath, and his jeans are low on his hips. Definitely fifteen years younger. At least. He has the flat stomach of a boy and the undentable confidence to show it off in ribbed white cotton. His arms are strong around the paper bags of groceries, but it’s his hands that grab most of my attention, large, capable hands, with clean nails and smooth skin.
    I blink. ‘What?’
    ‘Are you on for getting some coffee? You look like you need one.’
    ‘I’ve been running,’ I begin, by way of explaining my appearance.
    ‘Relax. It’s cool. I like the dishevelled look. Not too many can get away with it.’ He nods at the café. ‘Coming?’
    I have to say no. It’s too soon. Sure, I want coffee, and maybe him, but I also need to be careful. ‘Okay.’

    The café is housed in what had always been O’Brien’s butcher’s shop. In the place of skinned carcasses, displays of chops and sawdust on the floor are clean, sleek lines and an industrial-sized espresso machine. The smell of coffee beans is powerful, but more than that, the pull of the man holding the door for me weakens my resolve to stay away. I fill a glass with water from the