The first time I saw you again was in the supermarket when you ran back to fetch a bunch of semi-green bananas. You said once that you chose those ones because they would keep for longer, but you always ate them before they turned yellow.
       You were dressed that day in your unofficial uniform: jeans and a navy blue hoody with sleeves down to the knuckles. You wore the hoody in places where it didn't matter what you looked like, because it was old and baggy and hung shapelessly over your slender frame. You wore it when you painted the piece for your A level art exam. I can still instantaneously recall that painting now. I used to look up to the art block window everyday as I was leaving the school grounds so that I could catch a glimpse of it. It was of a person sleeping in a dimly lit room, the profile lit by a shard of light that fell across the bed through the curtains. The colours were muted, neither warm nor cold, but appropriately lethargic and peaceful. You said you hated it. From the moment you created it you nurtured a sense of detestation of it. How I tried to make you see the glory of that painting. How I pleaded and pleaded that you accept its brilliance. But you were a perfectionist. In some ways as unstable as I was. It wasn't modesty that made you uncomfortable about your work. It was a misplaced shame. And it was shame that made you only slip on the hoody when carrying out routinely chores. But you see, I never told you how damn beautiful you looked in it. Like when you tucked a stray loop of hair behind your ear (as you did while choosing those bananas) and only the two fingers holding the strand could be seen from out of your sleeve. Or the way you fiddled absent-mindedly with the bits of string that tightened the hood whenever you were having a deeply meaningful conversation with someone. I missed being the conversationee with whom you spoke. Perhaps I might have said something if you hadn't hooked a raw green banana stalk onto your fingers...but who am I kidding. If I'd said something, there was always the danger that you might respond. So I stayed by the royal galas and watched you. Then you were gone. With the banana swinging slightly in time with your hasty steps. I was not close enough to smell that glimpse of your passing presence, but I knew the scent so well that I felt it anyway. You never wore perfume. You made a rule of it never to buy 'expensive bottles of chemical water'. But your smell was one more comforting and lingering than any of those. You were the smell of a woman stepping out of the shower, little pearls of water soaking into your dressing gown. The edge sweeping behind you as you glided down the stairs. Yes, you were the sweet smell of freshness and warmth. The arms to which a little boy would run when he had fallen and grazed his knee. Except that you had no little boy. Not then at least. Not when I knew you. I suppose it must have changed by then though. And I knew I could still try to find out. Supermarkets have a knack for repeatedly throwing people onto each other's paths in one outing. So I waited around. Half an eye drifting over soya milk, yoghurt, eggs, cereal or whatever else I was supposedly buying. The other one and a half eyes looking out for any sign of you. And sure enough I saw you, standing in front of an end-of-aisle shelving unit, a look of intense concentration carved on your face. I'd seen that look before when I'd filmed a school orchestral concert and directed a camera at you while you furiously hacked away at the cello. I'd been standing on a chair to operate the camera with the highest viewpoint, and pinpointing a cellist from my angle had almost made me fall off. I did a severe wobble and a series of curses exploded in my headphones, but I was glad to have captured your moment. I hoped I could show it to you some day, but I guess that day never came. Instead I was reduced to watching you from a metre down the loo roll aisle as you tentatively squeezed a bag of 'squishy crawlies' which I later saw to be rubbery pompom spiders for kids' birthday parties.
       I felt your smile arriving long before it formed. I saw the corners of your mouth lifting furtively and the creases on either cheek appearing like elongated dimples. You didn't like your smile. You said it lacked character. But I swore to you that it was a beautiful smile, because it reflected your character. Then you'd gone on to tell me about my own smile. You commented on how much you liked the creases that developed at the corner of my eyes when I smiled. You said they reminded you of a fusion of joker and wise old man, someone too deep to fully comprehend but empathetic enough for it not to matter. So I'd smiled for you, but you said that it only happened when I was really properly smiling. When I found something funny or joyful. I would have smiled a thousand proper smiles for you then, in the midst of andrex and washing up liquid, if only I knew how. But just seeing you in the supermarket that day...God I missed you so much. If only I'd loved you less, I wouldn't have sent you away to protect you from the sickness that was wringing my heart. Leaving you made me die. Holding onto you might have saved me. But it would have put a scar on your heart too. And nothing would be worth that.
       God bless bananas, for reminding us of the treasured memories that haunt us.