Читать книгу Unravelled: Life as a Mother - Maria Housden - Страница 20

Tuesday

I HELD THE BURNING MATCH CAREFULLY BETWEEN MY FINGERTIPS, and lit the three white votive candles on the altar. Sitting quietly on one of the straight-backed chairs arranged in a semicircle in the barn’s small chapel, I stared at the large wooden cross hanging from the ceiling and watched the sunrise through the stained glass window. The room was silent except for the occasional sputter of a candle flame and muffled footfalls from the floor above. Already, my third day there, I felt closer to God, not only as an idea but as a presence, a source of guidance that knew, even if I didn’t, who I was and what I needed to do.

I was no longer alone in the barn. The night before, while Mary, Gene and I ate a dinner of homemade bread and warm stew, the sound of tyres on the gravel drive had interrupted the silence. The elderly couple had risen without speaking and gone outside to greet the visitor. I had heard the soft hum of voices, the opening and closing of a door, and footsteps on the stairs. Mary told me later, while the two of us washed the dinner dishes, that she had settled the new arrival, a writer, in a room on the barn’s top floor. The four of us would be eating lunches and dinners together in the dining room, and the silence at meals would continue to be observed.

At the time, I had felt no curiosity about who the new arrival was. Now though, listening to the sounds from above, knowing that they were the footfalls of a writer, I began to wonder. I had always imagined myself a writer, ever since I was 12. But I had imagined myself many other things too, a pioneer woman, a painter, a world traveller, and I hadn’t become any of those things either.

Watching the flames of the candles dance in the gusts of breeze coming in from an open window, I realized that all of those things, like the retreat I had once only imagined, were possibilities, opportunities to be something more, that only needed a breath of attention in order to come alive again. And if that were true, the first thing I wanted was the presence of this writer to inspire me to return to the book about Hannah’s life and death that I had started, and then stopped writing, two years before.

A light, misty rain was falling, damping down the dusty road as I walked towards the mailbox, carrying a stack of postcards I had written to Claude, my sister and my kids. Although I was still missing Will, Margaret and Madelaine terribly, it was comforting to know that the three of them were together. I had grown up loving the fact that I had two younger sisters and a younger brother; I knew from own experience what company and fun siblings could be.

Despite the rain, dragonflies and bees continued to flit and buzz between flowers alongside the road, and ahead in the distance, streaks of sun pierced through patches of grey cloud. My hair was pulled back, caught in a large barrette and covered by a wide-brimmed straw hat. I was wearing a long cotton skirt and leather boots. Holding my head high, I was aware of the length of my stride and the swing of my arms. Smiling, I realized this was how I used to feel when I pretended to be a pioneer woman as a young girl.

Already, after only two nights on my own, I could feel my body unlearning its usual routine, reorienting itself to the track of the sun across the sky, to the rhythm and heat of the summer days. Reaching down, I slid a long blade of grass with its heavily seeded head from the stem of its root, rolled it between my finger and thumb, and inhaled its sweet scent. I felt a heightened sense of awareness, a deeper, more natural relationship with everything around me. Here, although I felt as far from my other life as I could possibly be, I felt much closer to the woman I’d always been.

Walking down the road, I glanced at the words on the postcards I had written to my kids and smiled when I imagined how glad they’d be to receive mail from me. Although I scarcely wanted to admit it, even to myself, I didn’t feel the same way about Claude. I had written to him more from a sense of obligation than of joy. My sense of family, I now realized, was the image of me with my kids. And even though Claude was my husband, my primary interest in him was his role as my children’s father.

I stared ahead of me, into the expanse of the sky, and tried to remember if I had always felt this way. While there had certainly been times in our marriage when I could remember loving Claude as a man, not specifically as a father, lately it seemed our marriage was more about something we were working on than anything about love. For many years, Claude had been telling me he was unhappy with the woman and wife I was. And in trying to become the woman and wife Claude wanted, I had become a caricature of someone else’s idea of myself. I had almost lost touch with the real me.

I also knew that it wasn’t just Claude who was to blame for how far I had drifted. For as long as I could remember, I had believed that to be a good wife, I was supposed to change who I was. I also hated admitting when I was wrong, but hated even more being considered less than perfect by someone else. The quest to be a ‘good’ this or that was something I was all too familiar with. Now, though, I knew that I had to give myself the same permission to be imperfect that I had given Claude, and let go of trying to be someone I wasn’t.

Reaching the end of the lane, where the dirt road met asphalt, I opened the mailbox and kissed each postcard before leaning it against the others inside. The last, Claude’s, I held for a moment longer, wondering where my words would find him, and if, on reading them, he would sense the release of my grip.

Halfway through my lunch, I was watching the chickadees outside the window. After my walk to the mailbox and a latemorning nap in my room, I was filled with a palpable sense of connection with everything in my life, including the tiny birds I was watching, pecking at their seed, the sound of another’s chair scraping across the wood floor, and the slightly bitter taste of rocket in my mouth. I didn’t even glance up when the newcomer sat down in his place, where Mary and Gene had set it, directly across the table from mine. When I finally looked over at him, it was his clear-seeing blue eyes I noticed first.

He was a strong-looking man, about 50-years old, with a kind, laugh-lined face, large, long-fingered hands and silvergrey hair cropped short. He was smiling at me, in a familiar way, as if he were surprised to see me. We gazed into each other without words, filled with a sense of joy and delight. And although I had never met him before, in that single, timeless moment, I felt as if I knew the heart of this man and both my separateness and my connection to him. As surprised as a part of me was to feel such an unexpected rush of recognition, I knew, too, there was no need to try to do or say anything in response; he and I were the reason we were here.

I propped open the door to my room with a large fieldstone and sat in the armchair, breathing deeply, my heart thumping in my chest. Even though the two of us, respecting the retreat centre’s rule about silence at mealtimes, had not yet exchanged a single word, I was hoping he would come.

Picking up my book and putting it down, too many times to count, my mind felt empty and yet too fully engaged to read. Finally, I heard footsteps descending the stairs, then coming louder and closer, rounding the corner. My body was thrumming with aliveness, my eyes looking for his when he stopped at the door of my room.

Seeing him, I instantly felt more sober than excited. The moment felt weighted with importance, and from the look on his face he felt the same way. Neither of us smiled as I gestured to him to come in. As he crossed over the threshold, I chose to remain seated, and studied him while his eyes scanned the room. He was wearing a white linen shirt, blue linen trousers and brown leather clogs. The part of me that was already writing a story between us was relieved to see that he was tall, almost the same height as me. Briefly, he sat on the edge of my bed, then changed his mind and stood.

‘My name is Roger Housden,’ he said finally. I caught my breath at the sound of his voice, momentarily disconcerted by his accent. ‘I’m English,’ he continued, ‘a writer. Two weeks ago, I sold almost everything I had, moved out of the home I shared with a woman I lived with for 13 years, and came to America. I’m here on retreat, finishing my next book. Writing, I find, is solitary work. Because of that, and because I’ve just broken off with a woman I love, I intend to spend this next period of time on my own, thinking about what is next in my life. The last thing I’m looking for is to be involved in another relationship.’

I nodded, my mind trying to take in everything he had said without getting distracted by the conversations that were going on somewhere inside my head. From the first moment, I had known this man was unlike anyone I had ever known. But now, with only a little more information, the quietest part of me wanted to know more, while another felt so intimidated by our obvious differences, it wanted out.