In the top drawer was a bottle of Guerlain Shalimar. I breathed in the dusky scent of dry roses, vanilla, and some unknown essence. Underneath were a carton of menthol cigarettes, a couple of keys, a tube of hand cream, and a diary we’d been given by Volkswagen. I flipped through the pages. There were lightly penciled names: the post guy, the team manager, a woman in bookkeeping. Sabine gave birthday cards to colleagues; this was evidently how she kept track of the dates.

About to close the drawer, I noticed a brown envelope at the back. Blank, torn open at the top, it contained three blurred Polaroid photographs of a man or a woman, I couldn’t discern which. A Sabine-like figure. Sabine, after a holiday, sunburnt berry-brown. Or Sabine in male fancy dress; the jeans seemed to have a masculine cut, the short-sleeved shirt too. Or perhaps this was the lover who’d stayed with Sabine at a palace in Fez. He or she was moving, or the camera was moving, or both. What was captured was no more than the vaguest impression; a viewer could invent almost anything to fill in the rest.

Footsteps sounded in the stairwell. After they moved on, I opened the lower drawer, which was deeper with folders hung across it. I flipped them back and forth; one felt heavier. Behind copies of news clippings was a square box with Alexander McQueen lettering.

It contained a choker with an oval pendant. On the disc crouched a jewel-encrusted scarab with a tiny skull head. I turned it over in my palm. The back was inscribed: My Sabine.

I fastened the choker under the cerise bow at my neck. The scarab had heft where it sat in the hollow of my clavicle. For the rest of the day, I didn’t take it off. Again and again, I fingered the engraving.

This was how it felt to wear Alexander McQueen.

I didn’t give a fuck what wearing designer jewelry felt like. This was what it felt like to be someone’s Sabine.

My Sabine.

5

While my days were spent copying out sentences about tread depth, my boyfriend’s were spent organizing courses at a community center. Graham wasn’t crazy about his job but had more tolerance for it than I for mine. Often he recounted funny stories about his colleagues and went for after-work drinks. He fitted them in despite (ironically, but successfully) doing a part-time diploma in law.

Although he’d suggested we try studying together, being at his place distracted me. When he wanted to discuss it, I put the discussion off. With his approaching twenty-five, I worried it might lead to the subject of living together. We’d been going out seven months: we liked and were attracted to each other; sex, talk, and intimacy came naturally to us. Obviously, we’d struck it lucky—but the topic stuck like a fish bone in my throat.