The Invoice Read Online Free PDF Page B

the
Metro
in the apartment with their crosswords still unsolved.
    Maybe I didn’t take problems seriously enough, and just took everything that was thrown at me without protest. Was I too gullible, too accepting? Should I set higher demands? Would I actually be better off if I was more suspicious, a better negotiator?

I heated up a slice of pizza in the microwave. It was good, but there wasn’t enough of it. Then I sat at the kitchen table for a while, just thinking. The soft, warm summer air had become sticky and suffocating. It was difficult to think clearly, all my thoughts just bounced around. Any sense of true harmony was impossible to achieve. I noticed I was having trouble sitting still. So I phoned again. Even though it was past eight o’clock in the evening.
    “I’ve actually been very anxious,” I said.
    “You have?” Maud said. “When?”
    I pushed my knife and fork together on the plate and suddenly realized I was thirsty. I should have had a drink before I called. I could feel my mouth sticking together with nerves.
    “What?” I said. “How do you mean…?”
    “What days?”
    I gulped a few times.
    “You mean I’m supposed to remember exactly what days—”
    She interrupted me without apologizing. She was fed up of me now. I could tell. “If you want a deduction for anxiety, I need to know the precise times.”
    “I can get a deduction for anxiety?”
    “Provided it can be verified, or you can give us specific dates that can be compared with other activities that aren’t incompatible with poor mental health, then obviously you can set reduced mental well-being against your total E.H. score. What year are we talking about?”
    I nudged the cutlery round the edge of the plate, a bit like the hands of a clock, and did a quick calculation in my head.
    “Er…this year,” I said.
    “Month?”
    I wasn’t used to lying or making things up. My mouth felt even drier, and I got the impression it was audible in my voice. But on some level I felt I had to make the most of any opportunity, and took a chance.
    “January,” I said.
    “Okay, I can’t see any note to that effect,” she said.
    “No, but it’s true.”
    “Mmm…And on a scale of one to five, where one is normal and five incapable of any activity at all?”
    “Well, er…five,” I said.
    I thought it was probably best to exaggerate.
    “Goodness,” she said. “What date?”
    “The first.”
    “The first of January?”
    “Mmm. And the second and third.”
    “Okay. Any other dates?”
    I hesitated for a moment.
    “No, that was about it…” I said.
    “So everything was okay again on the fourth?”
    “Yes, I suppose so…”
    “Suddenly nothing?”
    “Er…yes.”
    I heard her take a sip of coffee or tea. A drink would have been nice.
    “Is this really true?” she said after a brief pause.
    I was a hopeless liar. I knew it. It would have been embarrassing to go on.
    “Well…no,” I said.
    “No,” she said. “I guessed as much. How about you and I agree to stop messing about now? Then we can try to come up with a proper solution to this instead.”
    “Okay,” I said, feeling pathetic. “Sorry.”
    She murmured something. And I got the impression that she didn’t think it was that big an issue. That she was prepared to overlook it, and that she’d probably experienced similar things before.
    “But I do suffer from anxiety,” I said. “Honestly. I can’t remember any specific dates or exactly how bad it was, but…well…I feel really bad sometimes.”
    “Okay…”
    There was a different tone to her voice now. Sympathetic, somehow. A bit like a psychologist, maybe. Perhaps they were trained to sound that way, to keep people calm.
    “I often get anxious about nothing special,” I said.
    “Oh?”
    “And I don’t know why. I get hurt easily, and I’m very sensitive about everything, without any particular reason. In the spring, for instance, when you’d expect to be happy and cheerful. I often feel a