Читать книгу Slow Provocation - Pam Stavropoulos - Страница 8

2

Footfalls on the bare boards of the floor. Dust specks dance in shafts of sunlight. And unexpectedly, a feeling of excitement which won’t be rationalised.

This is the house in which –

`As you can see, it’s been well-maintained’.

Well-maintained.

I like that. In its outward appearance the house probably mirrored its occupants.

The truths which couldn’t be told. The hairline fracture which would have grown (wouldn’t it?) into an abyss. But the parquet floor had always been polished. And the garden (which her grandfather had tended; it is sadly neglected now) had been immaculate.

`If you look out this window, you can see the remains of the orchard. The original lemon tree’s still there’.

The lemon tree. Beautiful, bitter, and emblematic of so much. She recalled faded photos of her grandparents standing under the lemon tree. Her mother had told of gathering its fruit. Many years later, her uncle Alex had cried under that lemon tree. Or so someone had said.

She couldn’t remember who. As none of the family had been big on disclosure, that information must have been imparted in an uncharacteristically lax moment. Poor uncle Alex, who had a breakdown. `But’, her cousin Bette had said elliptically at their meeting six months ago, `there were others’.

Which others? What others?

She knew it was useless to ask. Had felt fortunate to be the recipient of that much. Chinks of light in the darkness. Clues but not keys.

`The previous owners were gardeners too. But it’s been a long time’.

He is nice, this estate agent. Particularly as he doesn’t have to be. She hadn’t pretended to be a prospective buyer. He is giving her half an hour before the genuine one arrives.

`Real’, `genuine’. What do they really mean? Doesn’t she, the granddaughter of previous occupants, have a legitimate claim as well? He must have thought so too. And she appreciates it.

`See the detail on that mantelpiece?

Impeccable craftsmanship. That’s been looked after as well’.

Well-maintained again. There is no getting away from it. The need to preserve. The material, the memory. But at what cost? She is surprised by the intensity of her responses. At what cost?

He is tangibly sympathetic though. There are many signs of the human being beneath the jobspeak. Every profession has its own parlance. Its own (she hesitates to articulate the word, even to herself) its own `discourse’.

And mine was more jargon-laden than most. Funny how academia had seemed to yield so little after promising so much. But then that had to say something about her, didn’t it? And the inflated expectations with which she had invested it. The flight into intellect. No, she couldn’t now deny that she’d been running.

`And when did the previous occupants buy the house?’

`I think it was around the late 1950s’.

Yes, that would be right. After Grandpa died, when Mum married Dad. And when Grandma went to live with Aunt Nora (which hadn’t worked out at all) prior to entering the facility. How had Grandma felt about moving to the nursing home? Standard wisdom is that elderly people hate living away from family. Was this true in her case? Particularly as living with her daughter (which had apparently been Aunt Nora’s idea) had turned out to be untenable (for what reason?) Years before, as a young woman, she’d been the only one of her siblings (who included four sisters) to move to the city.

Comment from cousin Robert – `Something tells me Grandma was different’.

`Did you want to look at the bedrooms? My client will be arriving in a few minutes, I’m afraid’.

`Of course. I’m sorry’.

Four good-sized bedrooms. She recognises the one with the inbuilt glass mirrored wardrobe. Which had belonged to her mother and which faced the lemon tree. As a child, she’d been fascinated by the photograph of that wardrobe; by the way it refracted so many angles. She remembers, and can almost see, the heavy bedcovers. And the pink afghan rug.

`Thanks very much for this. I really appreciate it’.

`No problem’.

A quick glance into the mint green bathroom, which looks so cool she is tempted to enter it.

Another look at the kitchen and dining area on the way out.

`Are you staying up here long?’

`Just a couple of days. Too much of a city slicker I guess’.

She has spoken unthinkingly. His eyes flicker a little and she reaches for a diversion.

`Could I grab a glass of water? I’m certainly not used to a country summer’.

`Help yourself’.

Shiny tumblers, of the kind she remembers from visits to her aunt. They are lined up along the window-sill. And are vivid colours – purple, fuchsia, gold. Too vivid to have been overlooked when packing (a gift to the new owners?)

`I might even join you’.

She has a ridiculous urge, when they have filled their cups from the tap, to click them together. To propose some kind of toast. And catches a further glimpse behind the professional mantle when he glances at her before lifting his tumbler – purple, it catches the light – to his lips. He is wearing braces of the kind her grandfather might have worn fifty years earlier. Likely standing in that very spot.

Whisky and soda? Gin and tonic? And would her grandfather have moved towards Grandma and placed his hand beneath her clothing? Pulled her toward the bedroom or even onto the linoleum floor? For she knew their relationship had been tempestuous. The agent is looking at her as if such isn’t beyond the realm of possibility in their case.

As it may not be. For she suddenly feels it might not be inappropriate to couple with a stranger on the floor of her late grandparents’ house. Some moments of pleasure, of forgiveness. Benediction even. For all she knew, they may have approved (and where had her previous restraint left her?)

But footsteps sound outside. There is the muted thud of the door knocker. It is the `genuine’buyer, and the moment is lost.

`Well thank you again’.

The gold tumbler dazzles as she places it in the sink.

`My pleasure’.

It could have been.

______________________________________

But how could she meaningfully access the period of her grandparents? When it so predates hers and when so few of the principals are still alive? And why, in any case, might it be important to try?

For much of her life she’d lived as if without forebears (didn’t most kids do that?) What of the distant past could possibly be of interest to her immediate present? Yet she also knew that didn’t quite wash. That she’d long intuited things which hadn’t been spoken about. That she had wanted (needed?) to know more. Things which had directly affected her upbringing. And – who knows? – her seemingly conscious adult choices.

It is interesting how few things in her life seem to have been the product of choice. She’d once chanced on a book (was it chance?) that had confirmed the feelings she’d been so adept at rationalising.

The point at which we believe ourselves to be most in control of our life paths (so said the book) is the point at which we are most conforming to prior and largely unrecognised patterns.

Memory of reading those words is enough to re-experience the frisson they had generated. As her `life path’ at the time had reached what seemed to be a dead-end, she had been in little position to argue (when argument had been her forte; it was another sign of things gone awry). Her primary relationship in tatters, a young baby to care for, her job increasingly difficult to sustain. How had all that come about?

Logically and mechanistically, the course could be charted. But a deeper logic also seemed to be operative. Could she deny, as she had then wanted to, that the specifics of family background — most of which were unknown to her — had played a significant role?

That had been three years ago. She’d recovered (some of!) her scepticism. And is unprepared to see family history as the source of present predicaments. Maybe she is now veering towards some kind of equilibrium. To a realistic reading, if such is possible, of the different faces of time. In any case, it now seems naive arrogance to dismiss the contemporary impacts of how forebears had lived (and if she had previously wanted to, from what had she been trying to get away?)

The air is still heavy with summer. Flowers are rich in their colour, and the ever-present sound of cicadas is a muted shriek.

She orders iced coffee in a cafe. And wishes she’d planned her trip better to see more than her grandparents’ former home. As far as she is aware, most of her mother’s family has left the region.

But here are her previous limits again, staring her in the face. As far as she is aware. Relaxing conscious control is still a hard thing to do. Maybe, at this moment in the cafe, she is sitting across the table from a distant relative. In her near somnolent state (she is certainly unused to this heat!) she can almost see materialise before her the outline of a man (or is it a woman?) in period dress. The eyes have an edge of familiarity; the half-smile (or is it a grimace?) an air of self-mockery she has seen before. And a fragment of song lyric comes back to her (Wings, isn’t it?) Brother Michael, Auntie Gin – open the door and let them in. She does want to. Now she does. And dreams that night — in the starched cleanliness of a rural guest house — of ghostly figures joined in complicity. Yet who are eager to include her in their conversation.

____________________________________

`OK. This exercise may seem familiar, even if you haven’t done it before. I want your first reaction – your first, mind – to the words I say’.

`Jesus, Damien. I thought that kind of stuff went out with Rorschach tests’.

`Well, they’re still around too, though less common than they used to be’.

`They’d want to be’.

`Stop stalling. Sibling’.

`What?’

`That’s your first word - `sibling’. What does it connote? And don’t think, feel!’

`Cinderella, I guess. Ugly step-sisters’.

Shocks herself somewhat with that (where is her feminism? Is intellect a mere overlay after all?)

`Love’.

`Hate’.

`Baby’.

`Bunting’.

`Fish’.

`Fish?! Um – tropical’.

`Pride’.

`Fall. How am I doing, Doc? Just as well I know you. I wouldn’t be doing this with someone I didn’t’.

`Maybe that’s part of your problematic. Trust’.

Slipped that one in.

`Earned’.

`Right’.

`Sometimes’.

`Caution’.

`Fear’.

He had glanced up at that point. And she had felt disconcerted. How long was this going to go on? And how revealing could quick responses to general cues possibly be?

`Conformist’.

`Dead’.

Mutual laughter. They were both surprised this time by the vehemence with which she had uttered the word. She was taken aback all round.

`End of session?’

`End of session’.

They had had coffee after her late class, and after his last client. She remembers how they were almost the only people in the servery (which was unusual). And of how the staff had kept glancing across at them, likely hoping they’d leave so they could go home.

`So what’s the verdict?’

He had smiled patiently, as he tore the paper from his sugar serve and poured it into his cup.

`Come on, Holly. You know there’s no `verdict’ as such. And even if there were, you’d be rightly wary of subscribing to it. One of your responses even indicated as much. Actually, more than one as I recall’.

She had been reminded again of why she liked him. Her reservations about trust didn’t seem to apply to him (and yet that was intuition again, so how did the `earning’ of trust apply?)

`Yes, but – I want your views. Else why do the exercise at all?’

`Views one thing. Verdict another’.

He was right of course. Yet his literalmindedness jarred a little as well. It reminded her of the limits of their friendship. In a sense, he was the perfect person for this; they were both distant and close. And he had psychology credentials.

`Well, for what it’s worth, we’ve mentioned one already. You don’t seem to trust easily. Your responses were also divided between common pairings. As in love/hate, pride/fall, with a bias toward the negative. And unexpected ones- like conformist/dead and tropical fish!’

He had seemed to wait for her comment. But she had been unable to formulate one.

`Baby bunting’ might seem a predictable pairing. But it actually isn’t in this exercise. And then there are the more ambiguous ones. Like caution/fear. That could suggest both your fear, and your dismissal of the need for it (as in `cautious people are fearful people’). Your conformist/dead response perhaps implies the latter. `Cinderella’ and `ugly stepsister’ are unusual for `sibling’.

They had both laughed.

`All in all, it’s a mixed picture which emerges’.

She had checked her disappointment (was she the archetypal non-believer who nevertheless longed to commit?)

`So nothing clear-cut?’

He had looked surprised again.

`Did you expect there to be?’

______________________________________

Her belated attempts to connect with what she’d cut off from.

One emotional cut-off always leads to another. So said the book that had impressed her prior to enrolling in the counselling course.

It had been impossible to meet her father emotionally. She knew of no one with whom he had had a close relationship. Or sustained emotional contact at all. There never seemed to be anyone home in him. Now there is unexpected pain in that. Before it had just been the way it was.

`Dad! Can you read me a story? Dad?’

`What?’

The head slowly raised, as if with great effort. The eyes that lacked any kind of spark.

`It’s OK’.

It wasn’t of course (how could it have been?) But that wasn’t recognised then. It was as if her father had always been like that, rather than what he had become. Striking to ponder the possible discrepancy now. And still hard to accept that her (non)relationship with her father had affected other relationships she was – or wasn’t – to have.

Her feminism had come relatively late. But is underlined now, such as it is, as she rummages through the country phone directory. Most of her great-aunts and female cousins would have lost their names to their husbands (as they had initially assumed their fathers’ in any case). All the women in the family had married. And while they’d apparently stayed in the area, their female descendants would be hard to track now. It is likely, of course, that the family name is recalled locally. Possibly she need only wander into one of the older stores to garner some leads.

And is just considering this option when the estate agent appears again. He has spotted her in the cafe, and saunters across to chat.

`Acclimatising to the heat, then?’

He is difficult to read. Which is not unattractive to her. He could be genuinely solicitous, slightly mocking, or completely neutral (well perhaps not the latter, as he has elected to stop and speak).

`You weren’t long with your buyer’.

She feels herself ease back slightly in her chair. And he moves deftly to the one opposite, as if taking his cue.

`He wasn’t really interested. Or may have been, but couldn’t follow through financially’.

`Can I help you?’

The waitress is at his elbow. And seems newly attentive to this particular customer. He glances at the nearly finished iced coffee.

`I’ll have what she’s having. And she’ll probably have another’.

Her peal of laughter surprises her (more selfdiscovery! And how long had it been since she’d laughed so spontaneously?)

His eyes glimmer like quartz, they are as blue as his braces.

`We do have access to movies up here, you know’.

She feels like a kid on a movie-set herself. But when they finish their coffees, it is adult impulses which accept the overture he makes to her. She detects a slightly more assured edge to his movements (or is that her own construction? As a child, and understandably in light of what she had lacked, she’d looked for things that weren’t there).

Back at the guesthouse he is hard and lean. Slim herself, she feels positively curvaceous beneath him. It is strangely gratifying to see his navy trousers, pale blue business shirt, and those braces looped neatly over the back of a chair.

Almost as gratifying as feeling him inside her. His movements are seamless without being formulaic; it’s like being in the hands of a polished tour guide. Sensing his desire to be the overt giver, she resists the impulse to reciprocate fully. And is affirmed psychologically too by his quiet attentiveness. In physicality as in conversation.

Tells him afterwards — and this, too, seems strangely appropriate — some abbreviated details of what she has learned of her family history. Of how her maternal grandmother had apparently had a sexual relationship before meeting her grandfather. And of how Grandpa never forgave her for it. Her aunt Lena, never one for hyperbole, had said `it went through their lives’.

That was something she hadn’t known before. One of the many things that hadn’t been talked about. After the conversation with her aunt, it was also unclear whether Grandma had really loved any of her children. More sobering, that one. And another test for her feminism.

She tells him that too. And her unanticipated lover (had Grandma had lovers after marriage?) absorbs the confidence as unquestioningly as he had imbibed her body.

`Perhaps’, he remarks shortly (and as before, she is uncertain of the meaning of his inflection) `she preferred the practice to the product’.

A striking response which strikes her as singularly apposite.

The book which had so impressed her claimed that dimensions of the personalities of forebears recur in other family members. Including transgenerationally. In what ways was she like her grandmother? A woman who, from the snippets she had been able to glean, had eluded the societal and familial expectations with which she had grown up.

`I have another hour before my next client’.

`Well we can use it’.

She supposes she is a client of sorts herself. Tests out the idea in her mind. And surprises herself, yet again, by not finding it distasteful. The thought and question come unbidden.

There is so much I don’t know about myself. Why have I been so determined not to know?

Two images present to her, their juxtaposition unsettling and even surreal.

One is of garments thrown carelessly on a bed, still bearing the imprint of their wearer. The sleeve from which a forearm has emerged remains open and inviting. The second is of the chameleon she had seen on a video with Jack during a visit to the National Museum. She hadn’t realised until that visit that a chameleon is a reptile; had used the term unthinkingly to describe people (and sometimes herself). She had been fascinated by the apparently rough texture of actual chameleons; by their amazing colours. And by their mating habits.

The male voice-over had informed that male chameleons wind one of their legs over the female during intercourse, to stimulate the ovaries. Extraordinary! And for all that it was doubtless instinctual, a seemingly tender gesture.

How much tenderness has she received, and also given, in her lifetime? And realises — again with surprise — that she is experiencing some in the company of this newly met man. She thinks of Shaun, with whom she had long (but in some ways perhaps not) been intimate. Another face and body from the past loom to consciousness, but she pushes them away.