Melissa Kite’s inventory of life (the ex-boyfriends’ possessions they left behind)

Emmylou Harris and the McGarrigle sisters wrote a song called ‘All I left Behind’. My version is called ‘All They Left Behind’ and is a sort of inventory of my life, according to the items left in my flat when relationships have ended. Tea cups from Tim, a coffee bean grinder from Jim, T-shirts from Francesco, and a goose-down pillow from Ed. It doesn’t scan very well, but I’m sure Emmylou could make something of it.

Some might call it sad that my romantic history comes down to the reverse of a wedding list. But actually, it’s not that sad. The bean grinder is terrific, although, to be strictly accurate, Jim didn’t really leave it. He came to pick his stuff up and I hid it. I knew he would dump a load of things I didn’t want and take the only item that was useful so, in a fit of pique, I put the grinder in the boot of my car that day and drove off to work with it. I hadn’t exactly stolen it, I had just forgotten to tell him it was in the Peugeot 206. Don’t judge me. I left the Gaggia machine. What more did he want?

And I was right about him dumping a load of difficult items he couldn’t be bothered to shift. He left an awful breadmaker, which baked horrible smelling bread that made me feel sick, and an enormous tropical fish tank full of fish. The last of those fish only just died of natural causes quite recently. They lived for nearly ten years after we split up and I tended their every need through some misplaced sense of guilt.