Читать книгу The Map of Us - Jules Preston - Страница 27

We bought the three-seater sofa from a local secondhand furniture centre. It was hidden under a nest of tables and a glass-fronted display cabinet full of dog hair. It cost £55. I paid for it, and Matt said he would pay for his half when he got a full-time job. He had a full-time job for a while, but he didn’t pay me back. We were still 92% in love back then, so I didn’t mind that much. I minded when it suited me though. I used it against him sometimes. His unpaid half of the sofa had some value in a petty argument.

‘You still haven’t given me the money for your half of the sofa,’ I’d say.

‘Well I’ll sit on the floor then!’ he would say.

Then he would sit on the floor for about five minutes until he thought I’d calmed down. Then he would sneak back onto the sofa and hope that I hadn’t noticed. I noticed. It was a victory of sorts.

The three-seater sofa was dusty pink. It was tired-looking. Grumpy even. The zips on the cushion covers were all broken. The arms were covered in coffee stains. At least that’s what we hoped they were. It only had three casters. They were an unusual size that no one stocked anymore. We used a copy of ‘Elementary Statistics and the Role of Randomness’ to stop it from rocking backwards.

Matt liked to sleep on it in the afternoon when he was considering his future. He considered his future a lot. With his eyes closed. Gently snoring. He also got to sleep on it when our arguments weren’t quite so petty. He didn’t seem to mind. Matt and the grumpy pink sofa had some sort of connection that I didn’t fully understand. I had never slept on the sofa. Why should I? I paid for the double bed as well.