Notebook logic and the thing I almost said

I have read the line four hundred times. Citrusdal receipt. 2026-10-03. Four days ago, which means he was in Citrusdal four days ago, which means either he lives there or he drives through it or he has a reason to be in Citrusdal on a Tuesday and none of those reasons explain why he was standing on a Blackheath sidewalk at eight in the evening with a bandage the colour of old skin and a notebook open in his hand like he had been waiting.

He had not been waiting. He could not have been waiting. Nobody waits for a cobra in a bachelor flat ceiling.

But his hands did not shake when he wrapped it. Mine did and he saw that and he did not look away from it and he wrapped the bandage anyway, not fast, not slow, just steady all the way down like herding something that might bolt. And I took his notebook because I did not know what else to do with the feeling which was — I do not have a word for it. Something close to recognition. Which is worse than I want it to be.

The two cobras are quiet in the rack. I should sleep. Tomorrow is Goodwood and Pieter Viviers's cousin and I know what that means on the surface and I know why I said yes and the reason is not the money. The reason is that I need to be in a place where I have to perform being okay and I need the performance to be complicated enough that I can forget what his handwriting looked like in the dark on the tailgate.

Tannie Elise said something. I keep turning it. I should stop turning it.