I live by myself in a good place, the best sort of place a woman like me could imagine. In fact, it’s all I did imagine for years on end. I rent rather than own it, but that’s no hardship. I’ve never felt any particular angst to own property, which is just as well since I live in London, a place where I could no sooner get a mortgage than a giraffe. Owning a home has always felt more like a burden, like an end to things, to me, than it has felt like comfort. I did always dream, though, of renting somewhere beautiful and living alone there – and now I do.
On the days I spend here without anyone else, I wake up at 8.30 and feed my cat. I watch her eat her disgusting, stinky food with satisfaction, glad I’m able to keep another creature beyond myself alive. I make coffee and wander about the flat a bit, wiping surfaces, washing tomato-laden pots. I go for a walk or to the gym, and then I work. I write. I send emails. I complain or speculate about everything I’m doing constantly to my friends. For lunch I blitz the vegetables in the fridge into a soup, or else walk down the road to the pub for a sandwich, and come back and work some more. I gaze adoringly at the cat. It becomes evening and I might drink a glass of wine, sometimes a bottle. I cook dinner and eat it in 13 minutes while watching MasterChef. I read for an hour. I work a bit more. Sometimes I watch a film. This is the life I have designed for myself, the life I never thought I would be so lucky as to have. Then it is time to sleep.
