Point of departure

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Railway Station. Point of arrival. Point of departure. A transit zone. How light she looked, with just a suitcase she could carry in one hand. Inside that suitcase was a marriage, America, a life of which I knew nothing. Inside that suitcase were doors I had never opened into rooms I wouldn’t recognise. The suitcase was stuffed with letters and an address book and a store card for a shopping mall, and dinner parties I had never been to, and wouldn’t go to now. In that suitcase were invitations from friends and pre-sets on a car radio tuned to stations I had never heard. In that suitcase were bad dreams and secret hopes. The dirty linen was in a special nylon compartment. Her childhood was in there - the awkward child with rough plaits who grew into a beautiful heavy-haired woman, who never quite believed the compliments of the mirror. Her husband was in there, or maybe he was strapped to the side, where you usually keep the lifeboats.

I looked at the suitcase, suddenly heavy, too heavy to carry, and I realised that she could never drag it with her. She was right - it would have to be let go, or taken home and unpacked again.

from The Power Book, by Jeanette Winterson

One of the aspects of the Lover’s plight that’s rarely touched upon is retrospective jealousy, in which he begrudges the Beloved everything and everyone that ever happened to her Before She Met Me – the title of a novel by Julian Barnes on this subject which turned out to be a better idea than it was a book.

Every minute you’re away from me makes me feel robbed, and that includes all the minutes before we knew each other. I’m jealous of the whole world. If I can’t have you, no-one can.