Читать книгу Girls’ Night In - Jessica Adams - Страница 18

Stella Duffy

I have come here to escape. To forget about the love that never was. (Not true of course, but right now, I would prefer the never was.) I can bear never was far more easily than never will again. Less present pain in return for denying earlier pleasure. I am raw and can no longer imagine what the earlier pleasure might have been. It is all hurt, all loss. And still there is no word, no sign, from you. I am melodrama abandonment, but find no enjoyment in my over-the-top. I’ve always placed far too much hope in the possibility of eternal clairvoyance for lovers. The possibility of love for lovers.

Girlfriends and boyfriends and ex-lovers and maybe-lovers and concerned mother smiles have all offered helpful advice. The same helpful advice. I was counselled warm beaches, hot sun, hotter bodies. I was counselled sun and sea and surf and alcohol and illicit drugs if at all possible and beyond that, over and above the hedonism of sinning skin, I was counselled hedonism of the flesh. Let them get in. Anyone, anyflesh, anyman, anywoman. Just let someone in, not too deep, but far enough, fill enough of that aching gap and then you won’t notice it quite so much. The pain, the loss, the yawning void of the full urn on my mantelpiece. (You’d think after almost a year I’d have done something with it, scattered them somewhere, for God’s sake. My friends think it’s time I did something with it. They’re quite possibly right. Their Tightness is why I’m here.)

My friends think it’s high time I did something with you. But I’m still waiting for a sign, a smile, a cool breeze in the middle of the night from a draft-proofed double-glazed window. You promised you’d let me know it was all right. I’m still waiting. How hard can it be for you to break back through? Is your love really so held by traditional physics? Where’s the quantum leap of desire you promised me? I’m looking for miracles and seeing darkness magnified through tears. I’m looking for hope and losing you to black holes.

The obvious correctness of my friends’ and family’s suggestions though, is why I’m here now, why I’m by the sea. Come to find myself again. (They actually meant come to lose you for the first time, come to let you go, though no one had the guts to say so.) I think perhaps I was supposed to try Barbadian lust, Bondi bonding, cruise the cruisers and find one for me. (Maybe not the latter, even my most desperate mates don’t think seventy-year-old rich Americans are my type.) Instead I have chosen Wales. Anglesea. Peninsula insular. Like me. Like I’ve become. I used to be the outgoing one of our pairing, the loud one. There seems little point now. Without my other there is nothing for my shadow to fall against. I find I am undefined.

You found me too loud always. In bed, in bath, in Bath. In hotels especially. Too thin walls letting through my too loud desire. You tried to hush me, shut me up. You tried to shut me. Impossible. I blossomed open, time-lapse photography fast, when I met you. And stayed that way – it’s why daily life scrapes against my open flesh now – I do not know how to close up again. Not since you. You loved to go away, summer killed you in London and you made a motorway maid of me too. We found the finest – and grottiest – hotels in the land, and the so many others. As long as they were within the reach of the sea, or sunshine, or just a running tap if that was all we could manage. You needed water and I needed you. Need you.

At first I thought this was a mistake. There was too much of a sense that you might be round the next corner, hiding in the headway. I kidded myself for a whole half a day that we had arranged for you to meet me later. I do not like to dine alone. It takes no time at all to eat a three-course meal by myself and even the best intentioned kitchen staff cannot maintain the pace when there is no knife-and-fork banter to fill up the clock space necessary for perfectly sautéed meat. You did not come to the table. I offered your glass to Elijah, but he wasn’t thirsty either. I drank it myself instead. I have drunk alone far too many of the bottles I used to share with you. It’s one way to get to sleep. It’s the only way to get to sleep. Which is still infinitely preferable to waking up.

Milos. Cycladian sea island. Circadian rhythms shot to fuck by the fuck shooting through me to you and back again. We are on a tourist boat charting the island circumference. You marvel at my bravery as I dive into cliche-clear waters. I marvel at your bravery as you dive into me. I swim beneath the sea and look up to you, magnified by the depths of sea-through ocean. You are an amplified version and the water might be sea, might be me. My love/lust/lost-in-you tears make you huge. You fill the space of my vision. You fill the space of me.

The first night here it rained seven hours solid. Howling rain pelted by a broken wind against my window. I knew how it felt. I lay awake as I do so often now, waiting for you. Wondering if here you might be able to find me again. I worry that you are lost out there, elemental soul beating against closed doors unable to worm-hole your way through to me. And then too, I worry that there’s nothing to worry about. That there is none of you left. That the reason you have not managed the Cathy/Heathcliff reunion we promised each other is because there is nothing to reunite. I am real, corporeal. You are not. I should hope that your present nothingness is the truth, hope for your sake that you aren’t wandering the darkness trying to find me. Should, don’t. My grief is still selfish enough to deny you a peaceful nothing. I just want to touch you again. (And even when I say that, I know it’s not true. One touch would never be enough. I would keep you with me forever.) Your departure has made a genie-keeper of me. I’d lock you back in that urn quick as kiss you. I’d lock you back in my flesh quick as love you. Love you quick again.

Sydney sunshine. You and I and the antipodean sky, lost in the sharp blue, astounded by the fierceness of the sun, astonished that while it burnt my skin, you burnt my lips more, branded ourselves with each other. My body was made to hold yours. There were wonders to see and you ignored them to look at me. We were not good tourists, I could send home no postcards of the fine sights they offered us, I had no ‘wish you were here’ when I was with you. Your topography was more than enough.

There is a man here, also alone. I think the breakfast waitress would like us to talk to each other. I think she is more interested in the morning ease of having to clear just the one table, than the possibility that this man and I might find conversation possible. We don’t talk, but I do begin to watch him. He eats toast and marmalade, no butter, as you did. But his toast is cut into quarters, eaten carefully, he does not crush a slice in half as you did and finish one piece in three mouthfuls. He seems to have more time than you did. I’d steal it from him if I could, give you his time. Your death has made a murderer of me. The man is slow and deliberate. Every morning he sets out, walks the mud flats of the shallow tide. He has binoculars and telescope. It is a wet summer, he watches shore birds, writes them down in a notebook. At least that’s what I imagine he’s doing – sighting, writing. As if simply seeing is enough. He does not need to touch as well. It’s a skill I would do well to learn.

Hot Paris summer. All the Parisians have left, abandoning their over-heated city to we foolish tourists. You and I are over-heated and weighed down with shopping and crowded by jostling Italian school children. We fight on the Metro, an argument about nothing, escalating to everything. It is not unusual for us to fight and even so, every time we do, I think it means the end. Still I cannot stop myself. Run up the stairs and into the sweltering city and far from you. Will not back down, don’t remember where this began, probably don’t care, and yet am so caught up in the emotion, the wave of your fury and my anger, that I have no way of coming back to you. You come back to me instead, remind me that however much I hate you, you are going nowhere without me. That I can push you away as much as I want, beat you off with my violent words, but you’re not leaving. I glare at you and refuse to admit my relief, my gratitude at your astonishing staying-power. It’s impressive. And I do believe you. Believe I cannot push you away. That night we lay in a hot bed, desultory ceiling fan stirring humid air around our dark-painted room, sticky skin making the slow approach, remembering who we are because we are with each other. And I did believe you when you said I couldn’t send you away. You were right, of course, it wasn’t me who sent you. It was summer.

On the third morning the sun was shining when I awoke. I was surprised by the brighter light through the heavy curtains. Did not understand the faint ease of spirit, tried to banish the half-smile playing with my features, but it wouldn’t leave my face. It was late when I woke, two solo wine bottles conspiring in my hot, heavy slumber. I’d missed breakfast, missed the man with his carefully quartered toast. I dressed without showering first – you’d have been appalled – pulled on yesterday’s tired clothes, dragged my matted hair back into a careless ponytail. There was a new urgency, I didn’t know why or what for, I did know I’d better get out there and use it before my inebriate brain woke up properly and grief lethargy hit again.

The sun was hot on my covered arms, your old jumper that I’ve been wearing half the time for most of a year was not meant for summer, not even British summer. I pulled the sleeves up to my elbows and looked at my pale arms, thin since you. Bony fingers reaching out for a hand to hold. I stopped on the road above the shore and saw the man, his telescope trained on a rock far out, exposed by the low tide, I saw wheeling dots around the rock, no doubt he saw and knew his prey, jotted notes on salt-damp paper, categorized, called and caught. He watched the birds for an hour or so, I watched him for almost as long.

It was peaceful and warm, not enough tourists had lasted the wet week for the remaining few to disturb me over much. Those who had stayed were families with too many small children and too few large bank balances to move on to the next place the sun might be. The shore was blessedly free of hand-holding couples who might have rubbed sea-salt in my fresh wounds. It is close to a year, I know, but the wounds are as fresh as the day you made them, ripping yourself away from my grasp. They stay fresh, I like them that way. I understand them that way.

The man began to pack up his equipment and I quickly moved on, up the hill, beyond the headland where the wind is fresher and cooler. I did not want him to see me watching. He might equate distraction with interest, and I can no longer manage polite conversation. Strangers are not usually equipped to deal with unexpected tears. I never used to cope so well either. Now the salt-flow is my norm. You always preferred sea water to fresh. How nice to know I am still pleasing you. (I would rather not please you.)

Venice. They all said not to go in summer. They were right. Would have been all right if we had been tourists, clammy bodies cramming St Mark’s Square, over-flowing flesh flooding into the Lido overflow. But we were not tourists you and I. I had not travelled to the lagoon to marvel at Tintoretto or applaud the bravery of the Guggenheim collection. Instead I took a hotel room-bound long weekend to marvel at the delicate flesh tones of you, to applaud the priceless modern collection, astonishing bravery of spirit, the audacity and shock that was only you. Your body offered to me on cool white sheets, your self laid out with room service care, the touch and taste of you making a bland white bread of their coffee, biscotti, bruchetta, prosecco, proscutio, prandial-offered prospect. Childhood-myth and long awaited Venice lay before me, open plate, offered wide. I closed the shutters on the grounded visitors of the grand vista, Grand Canal, you were all the view I needed. I toured you that weekend. Unlikely rest weekend away, I went home exhausted and thin. Who could ask for more?

Since then I have been offered another chance to view you, laid out on equally cool white sheets. They said it might have helped. But I wasn’t interested in making it better. They could not make you better, you were my very best, so why bother? I closed the wide eye-shutters on their kind offer. Some sights should remain unseen wonders; wonder-full, awe-full. Awful.

You and I swimming. You have always swum further, faster, deeper than me. I would struggle to keep up, against the current, against the waves, against my grain. I am really a land person, understand dirt, rocks, hills, mountains, prefer my horizon bordered with recognizable jigsaw edge pieces. You like a long straight line of water against the sky, would swim far out until I was left behind, bobbing in the shallows, straining salt-splashed eyes for your return. No change there then. But I always enjoyed the intensity of your enjoyment, happily lay hours on the beach, leathering my skin as you watered your parched soul, several summers of block-buster reading discarded for the better-seller option of reviewing you.

Fifth morning and I found myself watching the man again. This time from my bedroom window, wet day, no sleep, no energy to make the dressed politeness of dining-room breakfast, I sipped already cold tea with UHT milk and couldn’t taste the difference anyway. He walked through the morning drizzle, apparently untouched by the disgruntled irritation of bed and breakfasters all along the coast, their one-week-a-year panic settling and sending out just-suppressed fury, a heavy wave of pissed-off mist lining the damp shore. It seemed though that perhaps this was just what the man wanted. Empty coastline, morning haze, ugly mudflats of low tide exposing the bird breakfast smorgasbord. Like him, you wouldn’t have cared about the weather, might even have welcomed the rain, clearing the sea for your endeavours alone. But you wouldn’t have seen his sights. Your eye would have been trained on the fuzzy horizon, the thin grey line blurred by the cool land and the warm rain. You would have walked right past him, run even, to get into the water, drench your skin in its welcoming cold. But I watched him searching carefully, patiently training his eye on something too far to touch, too wild to get close, yet there. Within his sights. Watching and noting and writing down the real.

And then I found I’d been watching the man for three hours. He’d been watching the birds for three hours. It was almost midday, the clouds began to clear and the beach-bound families re-found their summer resolve – we will play on the beaches, come rain or shine. The shine finally came and so did they, deserting the indoor shopping malls for the outdoor version. The bird man turned away. Clearly needed fewer people for his telescopic foray. It seemed that perhaps no people might suit him better. Made sense to me. And I began to think about what he was looking at, that he seemed to have made it his job to view what was actually there.

When they told me what had happened, it was impossible to believe. Not that I chose not to believe, or couldn’t understand, simply too far-fetched for truth. We’d talked about it. Late-night lover conversations, ‘How will I survive without you?’, ‘You won’t ever have to.’ ‘I’m never leaving you.’ ‘I’m never leaving you.’ ‘If anything ever happens to me I’ll come back.’ ‘Promise?’ ‘Promise.’ But it wasn’t something else that happened to you. Not something outside, beyond our control, no freak accident, creeping disease that took you. They told me that you took yourself, the creeping disease of accidental freak. You should have come to find me, confided in me. You should have cooled yourself swimming in me, but while I could always lose myself in you, soothe myself in you, it seems the reverse was not true. In summer, in London, sweltering city of land-locked people and grid-locked cars, you could find no water-marked horizon to cool yourself, so you swam out into the sky instead. Diving towards a sharp line horizon that could not be real, swimming yourself to the same place.

And it seems I’ve been doing the same. Training my telescopic eye on the not-there. Scanning impossible horizons for a blessed untruth, notebook and pen poised to record the self-created hope.

The next day, a solid night’s sleep for the first time in nearly a year, and again I am up before the sun has made it through the thick morning drizzle. My bags are packed, my room tidied, and I’m on the shore before all the other visitors who have learned to wait until at least five hours of daylight has burnt away the rain. I carry you to the shore as you sometimes tried to carry me. Picking me up and stumbling a few feet to dump me in the water, both of us tumbling in the waves and each other. I carry the full urn and take this chance to look at you, really see what is here, not my dream of you. The truth is that you are ashes. That is all you are. And ashes cannot come back to me.

I can see the bird man, maybe three hundred feet away, his telescope trained on the high cliff to our right. The breakfast waitress told me he had hoped to sight a pair of gannets this week, that someone had told him they had been seen around here recently, staying on too long into summer, a special treat for the watcher. She told me gannets mate for life. It’s a nice idea, but I don’t know much about birds, don’t care much about birds. It turns out the hope of flight was your thing, not mine. The man raises a hand to wave to me, after all, we’ve seen each other every morning, every day, for almost a week now. But I don’t respond. I have a job to do. Something real of my own to view. I have the truth of you to concentrate on.

The water is warmer than I had expected. I walk out to almost waist deep. There is very light rain, a thin horizon of pale grey, the certainty of bright sunshine in another hour or so. I’m training my vision only on what is here, now. I’m holding the urn that is holding you and walking out to do the right thing.