Apricot Press

It’s been like this for seven months now. Me up here; him down there. The north south divide a chasm, a no man’s land, a grey area we pass through to get to the other side. Red brick chimneys and grassy verges of the midlands. Then the sea sweeps past the windows and I sit up straighter – I always make sure to get a seat on the left of the train – and watch the water lilt and flow through harbours and bays, welcoming me, once again, to my second home.

*

‘It’s 237 miles between our houses,’ I say down the phone one evening. He finishes work early and answers the phone on his way home.
‘As the crow flies?’ he asks.
‘What?’
‘Is that directly from A to B?’
I check my Google search. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’ll be longer by train.’
I nod, then realise this isn’t a video call and he can’t see me, so I say, ‘Yeah, it would be.’
‘A long way.’
I nod again, then let the conversation flow into the familiar mundanity of what we ate for lunch and the TV shows we’re watching. There’s not much to say as we spoke on the phone two days ago. We end the call and I go to sleep on my single mattress.

*

I knew he lived in Devon when we met, but we weren’t concerned about the geographical distance of our hometowns outside of university, especially so early on. I liked his accent and enjoyed his stories of living by the sea. The distance seemed inconsequential at first, even as we progressed into a real relationship. Then it became something dark and looming.
‘Only a six-hour train journey,’ he said, the first time I was going to visit him over Easter. ‘Not far.’
‘Not far,’ I echoed. Not far. Not far. Not far.

*

There’s always an inescapable intensity to our relationship. We’re intensely apart then intensely together, which makes me cling onto him in those ephemeral weeks we’re together and yearn for that closeness when it’s no longer there.

*

There’s a wounded pigeon in my garden and the first thing I do is call him. He’s on his lunch break and says he only has a few minutes to chat.
‘What shall I do? The poor thing’s careening round in circles.’
‘Just leave it. It’s a wild animal, I’m sure it’ll get better on its own and fly away soon.’
‘Pigeons aren’t wild, are they?’
‘Well, they’re not domesticated. Unless you have them as a pet.’ There’s a static silence down the line, then he says, ‘You’re not considering keeping it as a pet, are you?’
‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t.’ I close my laptop mid search for how to house a pet pigeon.
‘How about you call the RSPCA?’
‘What, so they can take him to a restoration sanctuary where they nurse injured pigeons back to health?’
I do as he says and call the RSPCA who inform me that the best cause for action is to take the pigeon to the vets who will then send him off to a local rehabilitation centre for birds.
‘That’s hilarious,’ I intone, wishing he is here with me to share this joke.
The woman on the other end of the line doesn’t join in, and I realise she’s being serious.

*

The next time he’s staying with me he asks about the pigeon. I haven’t had an update from the vets so assume no news is good news and that the pigeon is recovering.
‘They said he might have had a concussion,’ I tell him over dinner. We’ve gone out to a fancy Italian because we might as well make everything an occasion when we’re together.
‘I wonder if Mr Pigeon has a family.’
‘I don’t know. He had no visitors while he was in my garden.’

‘He could still have a wife and kids.’
‘Don’t make it sadder than it has to be.’ I scoop gelato into my mouth. I should have gone with mint, the white chocolate is too sweet.
‘I’m trying to make it into a love story.’
‘Quite a depressing love story.’
We split the bill and leave the restaurant. We don’t have much to say in the taxi back to mine.

*

‘Are there any animals which have long-distance relationships?’ he asks on the phone a week later.
‘I’ve never thought about it before. I doubt it.’
‘Yeah, animals don’t have the same emotional intelligence to realise someone is coming back. They’d probably just move onto the next animal they see.’
I can’t stop thinking about what he said, and at work I find myself Googling whether any species have known to be in long-distance relationships. I flick between tabs, from press releases, my work Gmail, and an article about how monogamous penguins make long-distance relationships work. It says how faithful and committed penguins are to their lovers. I scroll down as far as I can but the website’s making me pay a subscription of £7 a month to read further.

*

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. We said we’d skip it this year as the timings don’t work for me to go down there or for him to travel up. We’ve got a week pencilled in for March where we’ll either meet halfway or go away somewhere cheap.
He messages me that my card is in the post.
I forgot we said we’d still send cards.
I go onto Funky Pigeon dot com and search for something appropriate. Then I’m distracted by thinking about the pigeon in the rehabilitation centre and forget to check out.
By the time I remember again I’m forced to pay the express delivery so it’ll arrive in time.

*

His love language is physical touch whereas mine is quality time. I don’t know who is worst off, in a long-distanced relationship: the person in need of skin-on-skin contact or the person desperate to experience life together.

*

I tell him about how a woman at work was offered a chance to go over to the sister branch in New Zealand for a year, but she turned it down.
‘Well, that was stupid of her. What a waste of an opportunity.’ It’s late at night and he’s whispering so not to wake his brother in the other room.
‘What if I was offered the job, would you want me to go to the other side of the world for twelve months?’
‘Why, have they offered you the job?’
‘No.’
‘Well then, why does it matter?’
‘I just want to know what you’d say. Do you think our relationship would survive that distance?’
He takes a moment to think about it. ‘I don’t know. Probably not.’
If love is just convenience of time and space then we don’t stand a chance, whether one of us is on the other side of the world or the other end of the country.

*

‘Penguins!’ I seem to shout it at him while we’re walking around the supermarket. We’re in the frozen section and the thought just materialises in my mind.
‘What?’
‘Some penguins are in long-distance relationships. I read an article about it.’
I later went back to the website and paid the £7 a month subscription fee with the intention of cancelling it once I’d finished reading the article. It’s been quite a few weeks since and I’m still meaning to cancel it.
‘So, animals and humans are more similar to each other than we thought,’ he says while reading the dietary information on the back of a box of oven baked chips.
‘Yeah, they should make sure to include that in school textbooks. Opposable thumbs and long-distance relationships.’

Photo credit: Kimny