The Affirmation

by Christopher Priest

  A declaration of love was the only common language left, yet it was spoken more by me than by her. The context of our rows made it sound hollow, even to me.

  Tonight’s row had been genuine, albeit trivial in origin. I had promised to keep the evening free to go with her to see some friends for dinner. Unfortunately I had forgotten my promise and bought some tickets for a play I knew she wanted to see. It was my fault, I was absent-minded, I admitted it all, but she blamed me all the same. Her friends could not be telephoned; we had wasted money on the seats. Whichever way we acted something was wrong.

  It was just the start. The impasse led to tension, and this in its turn brought out the deeper differences. I was unloving, took her for granted, the flat was always in a mess, I was moody and withdrawn. She was neurotic and mercurial, slovenly, flirtatious with other men. It all came out, spreading through the room like a damp cloud of recrimination, making us less well defined to each other, colder and further away, more likely to hurt by blundering into places we could only dimly see.

  I was holding her hand, but she was unresponsive and cool. She lay with her face turned away from me, staring into the pillows. She was breathing steadily; the tears were past.

  I kissed the back of her neck. “I do love you, Gracia.”

  “Don’t say that. Not now.”

  “Why not? Isn’t it the only thing that’s still true?”

  “You’re just trying to intimidate me.”

  I grunted with exasperation and moved away from her. Her hand fell limp. I stood up and went to the window.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m just pulling the curtains.”

  “Leave them alone.”

  “I don’t want people looking in.”

  Gracia was careless of curtains. The bedroom was at the front of the house, and although the flat was in the basement the room could be clearly seen from the road. If Gracia went to bed before me she often undressed with the lights on and the curtains open. Once I had walked into the bedroom to find her sitting naked on the bed, drinking coffee and reading a book. Outside, people leaving the pub were walking down the road.

  “You’re a prude, Peter.”

  “I just don’t want people to see us rowing.” I drew the curtains anyway, and returned to the bed. Gracia had sat up, and was lighting a cigarette.

  “What are we going to do?”

  I said: “We’ll do what I suggested half an hour ago. You drive to Dave and Shirley’s, and I’ll go on the Underground to try to change the tickets. I’ll meet you later.”

  “All right.”

  Earlier, the same proposal had been far from all right; it had reduced her to tears. I was trying to cover up my mistake, trying to get out of seeing Dave and Shirley. Now Gracia’s mood had abruptly changed. I was forgiven and soon we would be making love.

  I went into the kitchen and ran a glass of water. It was cold and clear but it tasted flat. I had become used to the sweet Welsh water in Herefordshire, the soft Pennine water in Sheffield; in London it was the Thames, chemically neutralized and endlessly recycled, tasting like an imitation of the real thing. I emptied the glass, rinsed it and left it to drain on the side. The dishes from yesterday’s evening meal were still stacked there, greasy and odorous.

  Gracia’s flat was in a street typical of many inner London suburbs. Some of the houses were privately owned, others were council property. The house we lived in was due for modernization, but until then Camden Council was renting out the flats it contained on short leases at subsidized rents. It was sub-standard housing, but no worse than the expensive privately let flat I had lived in before. On the corner of the street was a take-away kebab house run by Cypriots; a number of bus routes went down the main street, from Kentish Town to King’s Cross; there were two cinemas in Camden Town, one of which showed minority interest films by foreign directors; in Tufnell Park, about a mile away, a Shakespearean theatre company had taken over and converted an old church. These were the principal amenities of the area, and it was being slowly converted from low-grade working-class residential to desirable inner-London middle class. The pseudo-Georgian doors, Banham locks, pinewood kitchen tables and Welsh dressers were arriving in many previously neglected houses, and already a number of craft shops and delicatessens were appearing in the main street to serve this discriminating and affluent group.

  Gracia had come up behind me. She put her arm around my chest, pulling me against her, and she kissed me behind my ear.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she said. “We’ve got time.”

  I resisted her because of the inevitability of it. Gracia was able to use sex for healing, and never really understood that rows were an aphrodisiac to me. I wanted to be alone afterwards, to walk the streets or go for a drink. She knew this because I had explained it, and, by inability to respond, sometimes demonstrated it. She realized now that I was resisting her, and I felt her go taut. Because of that, not wanting to renew the trouble, I turned around and kissed her very quickly, hoping it would be enough.

  Soon we were undressed and in bed, and Gracia, her change of mood now complete, became an expert, sensitive lover. She sucked me until I was ready, then a little longer. We only became explicable to each other in bed. I liked to kiss and caress her breasts: they were small and soft and rolled in my hands. Her nipples were pliant, rarely erecting to my touch. I was loving Gracia, truly, but then I remembered Seri, and suddenly it was wrong.

  Seri in bed beside me, her pale hair folded untidily across her brow, her lips parted, her eyes closed and her breath sweet. We always made love on our side, she with one knee raised, the other tucked beneath me. I liked to kiss and caress her breasts: they were small but firm, filling my hands, the little stud nipples stiff against my palms. Gracia, dark hair tousled on the pillow, unwashed in four days, was holding my head against hers; I was on top of her, trying to roll to the side, breathing her scents. It was wrong and I could not think why. Gracia felt me withdraw; her instinct for my loss of desire was unerring.

  “Peter, don’t stop!”

  She arched her back, thrusting herself against me, then moved suddenly to clasp my penis at the base, jerking it up and down a few times, then leading me to her. I went on, physically capable but emotionally distant. I felt her nails gripping my shoulder blades, and I kept my eyes closed, hair in mouth and nose. I finished, but it was Seri who was there with me, turned to the side so I lay on her leg. Gracia gradually relaxed, still sensing my emotional withdrawal from her, but because she was physically satisfied the tension faded from her too. I pretended she was Gracia, even though she really was, and held her close while she smoked another cigarette.

  Later, when Gracia had driven to Dave and Shirley’s flat in Fulham, I walked down to the Underground station in Kentish Town, and caught a train to the West End. The exchange of tickets was simply done; seats were available for the following night’s performance, and tonight people were waiting for cancellations. Sure that I had at last done the right thing, I caught a second train to Fulham.

  Dave and Shirley were teachers, and they were into whole food. Shirley thought she might be pregnant, and Gracia got drunk and flirted with Dave. We left before midnight.

  That night, while Gracia was asleep, I thought about Seri.

  I had once believed that she and Gracia were complementary to each other, but now the differences between them were becoming obvious. That day in Castleton I had used my knowledge of Seri to try to understand Gracia. But the fallacy in this was the assumption that I had consciously created Seri.

  Remembering the way I had written my manuscript, blending conscious invention with unconscious discovery, I knew that Seri must be more than a fictional analogue of Gracia. She was too real, too complete, too motivated by her own personality. She lived in her own right. Every time I saw her, or spoke to her, I felt this growing in her.

  But so long as Gracia was there, Seri was in the background.

  Sometimes, I would wake in the night to
find Seri in bed with me. She would pretend to be asleep, but my first touch would rouse her. Then she would become, sexually, everything Gracia was not. Lovemaking with Seri was exciting and spontaneous, never predictable. Gracia knew I found her sexually irresistible, and became lazy; Seri took nothing for granted, but found new ways to excite me. Gracia was sexually adept, an expert lover; Seri had innocence and originality. Yet after making love with Seri, when we were fully awake and had the light on, Gracia would sit up to smoke a cigarette, or get out of bed to go to the loo, and I would have to adjust to Seri’s withdrawal.

  During the days, while Gracia was at work, Seri was an occasional companion. She was often in the next room, where I would be aware of her, or she would wait for me in the street outside. When I could get her near me I would talk to her and explain myself. Our excursions were the times when we came closest to each other. Then she would talk to me of the islands: of Ia and Quy, Muriseay, Seevl and Paneron. She had been born on Seevl, had married once, and since then had travelled widely in the islands. Sometimes, we walked together through the boulevards of Jethra, or took a tram ride to the coast, and I would show her the Seignior’s Palace, and the Guards in their exotic, medieval costumes.

  But Seri only came to me when she wanted to, and sometimes I needed more of her.

  Suddenly, Gracia said: “You’re still awake.”

  I waited several seconds before answering. “Yes.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “All sorts of things.”

  “I can’t sleep. I’m too hot.” She sat up and switched on the light. Blinking in the sudden brightness, I waited for her to light a cigarette, which she did. “Peter, it’s not working, is it?”

  “You mean my living here?”

  “Yes, you hate it. Can’t you be honest about it?”

  “I don’t hate it.”

  “Then it’s me. There’s something wrong. Don’t you remember what we agreed in Castleton? If it went wrong again we’d be straight with each other about it?”

  “I am being straight.” I noticed that Seri had unexpectedly appeared, sitting on the end of our bed with her back turned and her head tilted slightly to one side, listening. “I’ve got to adjust to what happened last year. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think so.” She turned her face away, then played with the end of the cigarette in the ashtray, twisting it to make the ash shape into a cone. “Do you ever know what I mean?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Thanks a lot. The rest of the time I just waste my breath?”

  “Don’t start another row, Gracia. Please.”

  “I’m not starting a row. I’m just trying to get through to you. Do you ever listen to what I say? You forget things, you contradict yourself, you look through me as if I’m a pane of glass. You were never like this before.”

  “Yes, all right.”

  It was easier to concur. I wanted to explain, but feared her anger.

  I thought of the times Gracia was at her most difficult, when she was tired after work or something had happened to upset her. When it first happened I had tried to meet her halfway, and offer her something of myself. I wanted her to expend her frustrations so that they became something that united us, rather than divided us, but she put up emotional barriers that I found impassable. She would dismiss me with a petulant gesture, or flare with anger, or retreat from me in some other way. She was extremely neurotic, and although I tried to accept this sometimes it was very difficult.

  When I had first started sleeping with her in London, a few months after Greece, I noticed that she kept a little pot of liquid detergent by the bedside. She told me it was in case she needed to remove her finger rings in the night. (I asked her why she did not take them off before getting into bed, but she said that was supposed to be unlucky.) When I knew her better she explained, half embarrassed, that she sometimes suffered claustrophobia of the extremities. I thought it was a joke, but it was not. When tensions mounted in her she could not wear shoes, rings, gloves. One evening, shortly after Castleton, I came in from the pub and discovered Gracia lying on the bed sobbing. The seam of her blouse, beneath the armpit, was torn apart, and my first thought was that someone must have attacked her in the street. I tried to console her, but she was hysterical. The zip fastener on her boot had jammed, the blouse had torn as she writhed on the bed, the boot was stuck fast on her foot. She had broken her fingernails, smashed a glass. It took me just a few seconds to free the fastener and remove the boot, but by then she had withdrawn completely into herself. For the rest of that evening she walked around the flat barefoot, the torn blouse flapping by her breast. A terror, blank and unapproachable, put silence in her swollen eyes.

  Now Gracia stubbed out her cigarette and pressed herself to me.

  “Peter, I don’t want it like this. We both need it to work.”

  “Then what’s wrong? I’ve tried everything.”

  “I want you to care for me. You’re so distant. Sometimes it’s as if I don’t exist. You act…no, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It does. Go on.”

  Gracia said nothing for several seconds, and the silence spread mistily around us. Then: “Are you seeing someone else?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Gracia, there’s no one. I love you…why should I need someone else?”

  “You act as if you do. You always seem to be dreaming, and when I talk to you what you say comes out as if you’ve rehearsed it with someone else. Do you realize you’re doing that?”

  “Give me an example.”

  “How can I? I don’t take notes. But there’s no spontaneity in you. Everything has been made ready for me. It’s as if you’ve worked me out in your mind, how you think I should be. As long as I do what you expect, I’m reading the script you wrote for me. And then I don’t, because I’m upset or tired, or because I’m me…and you can’t cope with it. It’s not fair, Peter. I can’t just become what you imagine I am.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and slipped my arm around her back and pulled her closer against me. “I didn’t know. I don’t mean to do that. You’re the only person I know, the only one I want to know. I went away last year because of you. There were other reasons, but it was mostly because we’d split up and I was upset. Now I’ve got you back, and everything I do and think is about you. I don’t want anything to go wrong again. Do you believe that?”

  “Yes…but can you show it more?”

  “I’m trying, and I’ll try again. But I’ve got to do it my way, the only way I know.” At the end of the bed I could feel Seri’s weight, pressing down the bedclothes over my feet.

  “Kiss me, Peter.” Gracia drew my hand to her breast, and brought her leg across my thigh. The nervous energy in her was exciting; I responded to it, sensing the same charge in myself. So we made love, and Seri was not there. Afterwards, drifting into sleep, I wanted to tell Gracia about her, explain that Seri was just a part of my orientation around her, remind her of the rapture of islands, but it was too late for that.

  Later there was dawn light beyond the curtains. I was woken by Gracia moving. Her breath was quick. The bed shook as if trembling, and I heard her rings clatter lightly on to the bed side table.

  17

  The next day, while Gracia was at work, I felt listless. There were small cleaning jobs to do around the flat, and I did these with my usual lack of enthusiasm. Seri did not appear, and after I had been to the local pub for lunch, I found my manuscript and went through it, seeking references to Seri in the hope of separating her from Gracia. It seemed to me I was confusing Gracia in my mind; Seri distracted me. In the night I had learned that Gracia was more important than anything.

  But I was tired, and the only tensions eased by sex were physical. Both Gracia and I were unsure of our identities, and in seeking them we were damaging each other. My manuscript was a danger. It contained Seri, but it also contained myself as protagonist. I needed it st
ill, but it drove me inwards.

  Inevitably, Seri appeared. She was real, independent, tanned from the islands.

  “You didn’t help me last night,” I said. “I needed you then, to reassure Gracia of what I am trying to do.”

  Seri said—I was upset and felt lonely. I couldn’t interfere.

  She was remote from me, drifting on the periphery. I said: “But can’t you help me?”

  Seri said—I can be with you, and help restore you to yourself. I can’t say anything to you about Gracia. You’re in love with her, and that excludes me.

  “If you came closer I might be able to love you both. I don’t want to hurt Gracia. What shall I do?”

  Seri said—Let’s go out, Peter.

  I left my manuscript scattered on the bed, and followed her to the streets.

  It was spring in the city, and along the boulevards the cafés had put their tables out beneath the canopies. It was the time I liked best in Jethra, and to leave the flat to enjoy the mild air and sunshine was like a tonic to me. I bought a newspaper. We went to one of the cafés I liked best, situated on the corner of a large, busy intersection. Here there was a tram crossing, and I enjoyed the distinctive clang of the bells, the clatter of the wheels on the crossings and the overhead tracery of the power lines. The pavements were crowded with people, conveying a sense of collective bustle and purpose, yet individually most of them seemed merely to be enjoying the sunshine. Faces were upturned after winter. While Seri ordered some drinks I glanced over the headlines of the newspaper. More troops were to be sent to the south; the early thaw had brought avalanches to the mountain passes, and a patrol of the Border Police had been wiped out; the Seigniory had announced further grain embargoes to the so-called non-aligned states. It was depressing news, discordant with the reality of the Jethran day around me. Seri and I sat in the warm light, watching the passers-by and the trams and the horse traffic, and aware of the people at the other tables. There was a predominance of unaccompanied young women; an intimation of the social effect of the draft.