The Sea & Us

by Catherine de Saint Phalle

‘Yeah.’

  ‘Me too, Harold.’

  In the back of my mind, I notice that it’s also the first time she’s called me by my name. We don’t add anything else and, after a while, I get up to leave the room. But by leaving it’s as if I say a thousand things. As if I hold her in my arms. As if it’s not too late. As if Marylou were also there during those black nights, shaking her head at what was happening so silently, so furtively, so gently and lovingly, as if she were frowning a limit and knowing a territory was being unduly broached and explored in the darkness of childhood.

  That’s when she lifts her hand.

  ‘I’ve never told you my Korean name, have I?’

  My eyes widen.

  ‘No.’

  That’s when I know what her Korean name will be – even my toes and the skin under my heels know it and have known it all along.

  ‘It’s Iseul.’

  There’s a silence between us.

  ‘I never use it. But I like it. It means “dew”, would you believe?’

  She smiles at me then and I can see her as a child and I realise that I can never tell her about her grandfather, a grandfather who has hovered and protected her from a distance, and who befriended me in a leap of faith, in the hope that I would do something for her. It doesn’t bother me to know that he probably first contacted me because he saw me with his Iseul. It doesn’t bother me that his friendship was begotten by his love for his granddaughter, his need to have her safeguarded by proxy. Alongside that need, our friendship became a friendship in its own right. I can’t betray him to her, after seeing how desperate he was for her not to know about him – as if his whole life depended on it, as if some Korean equilibrium could be disrupted forever.

  I think of Sung-ki, of Sung-ki in Seoul, without her again. And desperate to know where she is. I’ll have to find a way to tell him that she’s okay as soon as possible.

  Marylou’s blast of information has me grabbing the door tight, so my expression doesn’t change when I answer: ‘Dew is one of my favourite things.’

  It’s a bit lame, but it’s the best I can do. I turn to leave the room, and when I look back round one last time she doesn’t move, but I feel I’m taking her with me. As far back as I can remember, I’ve never felt like this. I realise this walking across the landing to my own four walls, going back to my as yet unpainted room, my bed, my books. That’s when I decide to paint it too – for when she comes to see me, for when she’s no more the visited but the visitor, for when she can really walk about. And that will be soon.

  I have no other thoughts apart from these, which move silently inside me while I change and get ready to go to the workshop, where my moon jar is waiting for me – a moon jar of my own.

  16

  Conrad Schumann

  THESE DAYS THE Sea & Us feels like a barge. Though I’ve never been on one, I imagine it’s the same feeling of drifting immobility, of time passing in a different way.

  Marylou’s the one who has transformed the place into a barge, maybe because she seems to have accepted her convalescence. There’s no more talk of jobs or money or future arrangements. She gets dressed and reads all day in her chair, or quietly looks out onto the street – just as we want her to, just as those women in English novels do, sitting and reading by the window after a severe illness or a broken heart. Are they in Jane Austen or Emily Brontë or George Eliot? Probably in all three. In any case, transient and accepting, they’re characters who fill you with peace and safety, keeping the future and everything that is pressing to happen at bay, safely, just behind the window. It’s a lull, a momentary paradise, where all is as it should be – for a while, and even if it’s not for a long while, they endow the present with a touch of eternity.

  This morning I have a package waiting for me at the post office. For different reasons, I can’t imagine Sung-ki or Ha-yoon sending me anything. It has me worried. It feels like a trap, a snare. Although that is impossible, because they don’t have my address. I even wonder: Could it be from Libĕna? I walk slowly. My moon jar is a work in progress and anything could shatter it. It’s big and hesitant, milky and moonlike. I have planned every facet of it, yet at the same time it escapes me completely.

  On the street I stride past faces I’m starting to faintly recognise, and who are starting to faintly recognise me. A rather large lady with placid yet wilful features, who, I swear, must powder her face white, reminding you of a character in the Japanese Noh theatre; a beautiful blonde swaying in the warm wind, straight from Norway or Denmark with that plain expression that never looks surprised, that healthy skin, those glowing eyes that present a blonde shield to the world, and Ben, hot on her footsteps.

  He’s on his skateboard, which leaps into his hand of its own accord as soon as he sees me, but not without a regretful glance at the retreating Scandinavian.

  ‘Ben! Where have you disappeared to?’

  ‘Been away for a bit – to New Zealand, to see my old Da. He was sick.’

  ‘Is he okay now?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s better. Not quite the same as before, but that’s fine in my book. I actually like him more now. Would you believe it?’

  He smiles, sadly and thoughtfully – and it suits him somehow, as if he were finding his measure.

  ‘Ben, why don’t you come and see us?’

  ‘Us?’

  I realise with a jerk that I’ve become an ‘us’. The street feels white, as if the sun has lost its yellow peel and some white molten core is glowing down onto the footpath. Us? What’s going on? I cough.

  ‘Err, I mean, come and see Verity and Marylou. They’re stuck at home.’

  Again, I’ve used a strange word. Home. It also makes me notice that I haven’t used it in eighteen years. However much I thought I hated Liběna, her house must have been a home. Then I realise that my hate for her just isn’t there in the same way anymore. It’s more like a habit, but it’s lost its sting. And that’s probably since I spoke to Marylou about her. Whatever the case, something fishy is going on. But Ben doesn’t seem to notice these outlandish words, and simply nods.

  ‘Sure, dude. When?’

  ‘Well, why don’t you pop over now? I’ve got to go to the post office first. But you could come with me and then we could mosey on back to The Sea & Us. Are you free?’

  I’m careful this time. No more ‘home’, no more ‘us’.

  ‘Yep. Is she still as beautiful?’

  I nod – perfunctorily, I notice.

  We step into the post office and I collect a cardboard tube addressed to me in a clear elfin script. I prise off the cap in the street and recognise the poster of The Reefer, by Andrew Wyeth, and the photo of the German soldier, Conrad Schumann, jumping to the West over the first barbed wire of the Berlin Wall in 1961. They were in my room in Seoul. I can’t understand who sent them. I walk frowning down the street.

  ‘You right, ole mate?’

  ‘Yeah. I just don’t get who sent me these.’

  ‘Maybe there’s a note inside.’

  ‘The posters are quite big. I won’t unroll them here.’

  Suddenly I’m happy to see Ben, and I slam my palm on his shoulder blade. I didn’t mean to do it so hard and I look at him with concern. He grins at me.

  ‘Did you think something was stuck in my throat?’

  ‘Sorry, Ben. I’ve forgotten how to pat people on the back, somehow.’

  He slaps me hard on my back to make me feel better.

  ‘How’s Marylou? Is she staying for a while?’

  ‘Well, she’s had a bit of an accident. She’s recovering.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Ben looks worried – he’s someone whose face flushes with compassion as another person might blush. We amble on and I continue wondering again who sent me my posters. Could it have been Ha-yoon? How could she have got my address in Australia? She never asked me for one. And in any case, I didn’t have it then. Theories piece themselves together in my head. I can still see her as she stood in front of me f
or the last time. She didn’t know we’d never meet again, but she put her hands on either side of my face. It was a valedictory gesture, a kind of blessing. After what you have been for me, after what I have been for you, after what we have done, take it all away from me, from Do-yun, from Seoul, close the door, sweep the threshold, empty the grate, gather the ashes, gather all the words, put the plates away, don’t leave anything behind, just go.

  I could hear this in her silence. That was the worst – her acceptance of it, of what had been, of what was ending. How I had loved her serenity and how I hated it then. But I was done with begging. She would never have left her husband for me, her old, wonderful husband. She was forty but she looked younger, much younger than I would ever look. And what did that mean? I had no idea. All I knew was that Ha-yoon was a type so rare you hardly ever meet them, but when you do, you recognise them immediately. They’re the sirens, the ones Ulysses got tied to his mast for, the ones you’ll have sex with but never know, the ones you’ll ponder but never fathom. They’re more real than you or me, they’re all you are missing in your life. Maybe I was thinking this because I hated her right then, with a deep, sexual hate. I hated her nakedness withdrawn, her legs, her skin, her shoulders, her hands. I wanted them and hated her for taking them away – when I was the one to walk out, to rip our contract to shreds. But I hate her no more.

  ‘She’ll be right, old mate, don’t worry.’

  And I realise that Ben is mistaken. I smile, but the thing twists on my face into a wry, lopsided travesty.

  ‘She’s a good stick.’

  ‘The beauty? A good stick?’

  But before either of us can figure out what we’re on about, I push the door of The Sea & Us and the bell tinkles. There’s no one in the shop and I go and knock on Verity’s open door. She calls out and I pop my head in.

  ‘Verity, how about a cup of tea or a beer with Ben and me? I’ll just run up and see if Marylou is game too. We could go next door to the Quarry if you want.’

  Verity, without answering me, pulls her door open and beckons Ben in. I leave them together, climb the stairs and knock on Marylou’s door.

  ‘Marylou?’

  She’s standing in front of the window in her jeans. Verity has lent her a white jumper and probably other stuff. She looks like Snow White. Ben’s going to have a heart attack.

  ‘Hello, Myshkin. Did you get your package?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s The Reefer and the Conrad Schumann I had in my room in Seoul. I can’t figure out who sent them to me.’

  ‘I did. You gave them to me when you left. Don’t you remember? On my last day there I packed them, gave your address to the soup vendor with some cash and he promised to post them. You had emailed me your address by then. I couldn’t bear to leave them behind.’

  ‘I miss that soup vendor. Well, it’s nice to see them again, but they’re yours anyway, Marylou. By the way, Ben’s downstairs. Do you want to meet him? He’s a lovely guy. My only friend here apart from Verity.’

  She nods slowly, almost studiously. It comes to me that Marylou has probably never been in the habit of meeting new people offhandedly for coffees, lunches or casual dinners.

  ‘Shall we see them downstairs or ask them both to come up here?’

  She doesn’t answer and just follows me, as if this were outside her purview. We wade down the stairs.

  When we reach the ground floor, Verity’s door is wide open and the shop is closed. She and Ben are ensconced in her kitchen. I knock all the same and Verity calls out, so I take Marylou’s hand and walk in towards them.

  Ben rises to his feet and I can see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. Verity is sprawled in her chair, and raises her arm to invite Marylou to sit beside her.

  There’s a pot of decaf on the table and honey and biscuits. I notice the mellowness and warmth of the wood. I touch it, as I do every time. Verity once told me it was blackbutt. Maybe I could have a dabble at wooden pots sometime.

  ‘Marylou, this is Ben. He’s studying how to make stained-glass windows, or is about to. Are you, by the way, Ben? I’ve been meaning to ask.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve started. I’m working with this old guy who’s teaching me everything from the ground up. I think I’ve found my thing.’

  His smile, as reassuring as a lighthouse, beams around the table. I can feel Marylou relax.

  ‘And what do you do, Marylou?’

  There’s a silence. She rises out of it like a lily.

  ‘I was a prostitute in Seoul,’ she says.

  As I look at her face, she reminds me of Conrad Schumann, jumping over that barbed wire in the nick of time, two days after it was first erected. I’ve always been fascinated by this figure, as if he were leaping out of life in the very midst of it. I don’t look at Verity and Ben. But I sit there with Marylou, with every bit of her. She who, I realise, I love desperately.

  She doesn’t move after her answer. She sits there quietly.

  Verity sighs. ‘Well, I must say they were lucky fellows over there in Seoul.’ And she pours some more coffee for everyone. Ben raises his cup to Marylou and smiles, with that shy, all-embracing glow.

  ‘Why don’t you come to the workshop, Marylou? I’ll tell this fellow Harold here how to get there and he can bring you.’

  She nods.

  ‘I’d like that, Ben.’

  He turns to Verity.

  ‘I’d love you to come too, Verity.’

  Something seems to have happened to time. People bang on the shop window, but we don’t hear them.

  17

  Happiness

  FOR A WHILE there, we are happy. Days bleach into each other. Marylou starts going out. She spends some of her money on a few clothes, necessities, a new SIM card, flowers for Verity and honey for me. She wanders off with Verity. Ben drops in regularly. We have meals a few times in Verity’s lair. I go to the workshop every day to work on my moon jar. Poor Bernard is badly affected by Marylou and abruptly turns away whenever he sees her, as if her very existence stings him. Marylou takes him in her stride and eventually he forgets about her looks and treats her much like Verity. Marylou and I also wander into coffee shops. She smiles serenely, and it feels as if we could be building a life for ourselves, like a tide building a beach with broken seashells.

  This morning we’re sitting in El Mirage. She looks around her and I realise that, for all her reading, the world is a new place for her. The lovely girl comes sidling up with her honey-coloured hair and laughing eyes.

  ‘What are you having, guys?’

  We order and Marylou smiles. I ask the girl’s name and tell her ours. Some instinct tells me this could be good for Marylou.

  ‘My name’s Sabrina. You know, like the old film with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn. My mother loved it.’

  Marylou chips in.

  ‘I get a kick out of old movies. I think I saw too many of them for my own good. That and reading people like Dr Seuss long after I should have stopped.’

  ‘Do you like Jane Austen?’ Sabrina whispers, swivelling her hip towards us as if she were recommending something on the menu.

  Marylou chuckles, like the kid she should still partly be.

  ‘I love her. She’s Robin Hood in petticoats. But getting back to Sabrina, I also loved that film.’

  I look at her, sensing how tentative she is with the world of ordinary encounters, film stars, coffee in coffee shops, walks down the street, shopping with a friend. Verity has told me how Marylou does these things slowly, wonderingly. ‘A bit like someone waking from a long sleep,’ she said. Sometimes Verity and I look at each other and measure how much Marylou has been lifted from the world, taken …

  Sabrina grins.

  ‘Shame I don’t look like Sabrina in the least. Tough luck.’

  Marylou shakes her head thoroughly.

  ‘You must look like some other actress.’

  ‘Yeah, one with freckles and big tits.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

&nbs
p; Sabrina bends forward.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind looking like you, for a start.’

  Marylou laughs.

  ‘You stick to your lovely freckles, Simonetta Vespucci.’

  ‘Wasn’t she Botticelli’s model?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘Thanks, Marylou. You’ve just made my day. Funny you say that, because I’ve just read a book about Botticelli.’

  I chip in too.

  ‘Painter’s lives wake you up, don’t they? They get straight to what’s itching them.’

  Marylou touches my sleeve. I can feel her fingers through the material as if they understand what I mean too. Sabrina smiles.

  ‘That’s true.’

  Marylou asks Sabrina if she has read the French biographer Henri Perruchot’s books on painters. She doesn’t ask me because she’s already put me onto him. Sabrina shakes her head, but grabs her pencil to write down his name. Soon they’re talking books. They discover that they both love Carson McCullers. I let slip that we’re neighbours. Sabrina dashes off guiltily, but not before having exchanged phone numbers with Marylou, who turns around and smiles at me.

  ‘Good job I bought myself a SIM card.’

  ‘I like your new Australian number. Very dashing, old chum.’

  She leans forward, holding my hands in hers. We sit like that for a few minutes and the whole café quietens down around us, or at least to my ears. Her hands hold mine with a warm strength you wouldn’t think them capable of.

  ‘I’m sorry I blurted that out the other day. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe I wanted to be all here, not just some new part of me.’

  ‘You were fine, Marylou. Whatever you say is fine by me, and I’m sure it’s fine for Ben and Verity too.’

  ‘Did Verity …’

  ‘Verity didn’t say a word about it. She just loves you to bits.’

  She bends her head at this.

  ‘Marlowe, do you remember our conversation the other day?’

  ‘Every word of it.’

  ‘I remember every word of it too. It helped. I never imagined that simply having another person know about this stuff could change things so much. I also noticed there was something about the way you spoke of Liběna. It kept on coming back to me. It was so dreamlike.’