From the wall above where Carel is seated stares out Greta's dark purple tulip. It is a watercolour that she bought shortly after we got the place. A simple, stark elegant dark flower on a pale background.
"Is your furniture Ikea?" asks Francois, stirring cream in his coffee.
"Is my ex-wife Swedish?"
"So you got everything at Ikea?"
"Every single stick."
"Do you ever miss her?"
"No." and now it is dawning on me for the first time. This is really Greta's apartment. I lived here but under her courtesy. She had somehow aced the funds, how, she never told me. But I have basically paid only the strata fees, which are already high enough. I have been squatting in my ex-wife's home for well over ten years.
"Earth to Chris", says Carl, looking at me intently, though with a shadow of a grin hovering on his lips.
"Something has just occurred to me. This is my wife's, or my ex-wife's condominium. I moved here direct from my father's house. I have never lived in a place i could call my own.,.."
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