The Codes of Love

by Hannah Persaud

  Beyond the man beside her she can see a silvery dash of clouds through the tiny gap in his blind that he has all but closed. Why do people choose window seats if they’re going to block the view? She sighs loudly but no one notices and she adjusts her position, uncrossing her legs. So much for a romantic break – at this rate they’ll be lucky to exchange three words. What frustrates her the most is that he hasn’t even noticed how angry she is. The plane drops suddenly. She grips the armrests and closes her eyes. Turbulence. In the early days Ryan would hold her hand for the whole flight. Now he doesn’t look up from his paper, though he must know how scared she is. She is angry at herself for needing his reassurance. She’s a grown woman, for God’s sake, not a child. What difference does a hand squeeze make anyway? It’s not going to stop the engine conking out or a terrorist from hijacking the cockpit.

  She wishes Adeline were here. They’d drink vodka, not caring who was watching, and giggle at the man beside her with his hairy thigh encroaching onto her seat and his bare feet in his flip-flops with toes that sprout out over the ends like potatoes, twisted and deformed. Who wears shorts and flip-flops in February? She’s been so looking forward to this trip with Ryan, but the mere thought of attempting to make conversation with him exhausts her and she considers the possibility that the weekend was a mistake, for revisiting somewhere from their past that preserves such perfect memories can surely be nothing but a disappointment. They should have gone somewhere different, somewhere new, then it wouldn’t have mattered, but here runs the risk of ruining their Venice permanently. Nostalgia is not immutable to alteration by the present. She glances at Ryan, still ensconced in his paper. He’s been different recently, more distant. She’d hoped that this time alone would reconnect them, but her frustration hovers just below the surface and she knows how these things go. When she gets back she’ll contact Adeline; she hasn’t seen her since their night out and she’s keen to present a better and less drunken version of herself. She’s nervous about the things she can’t remember and the missing journey home. She’d like Adeline’s opinion on Leo, too.

  Her ears ache and she swallows hard, yawns behind her hand. Paper finished, Ryan turns to her.

  ‘What?’ she says, her ears popping.

  ‘Do you want some water?’ He holds out the bottle. She shakes her head. ‘I know you’d like something stronger.’ He winks, pushing his hand over hers. ‘Won’t be long.’

  The airport is heaving even now, off season, but on the water taxi she relaxes. She loves it here. They came for a weekend long ago. They’d spent most of it in bed, emerging aching and giddy in the evenings to sip wine on the terraces and wander hand in hand around the squares. Hard to believe how far they’ve come from then. Climbing onto shore, Ryan reaches for her hand.

  It’s silly to be surprised that it’s changed after twenty years. The jostling streets squeeze her along narrow paths, and canals that in her memories flowed uninterrupted now clamour with water taxis and drivers campaigning for business. It’s hard to see the water between the hulls and when she does find it, dipping her finger in, it’s not the clear green that she remembers. In the privacy of their ground-floor hotel room the footfall of tourists clatters endlessly the other side of the wall. Venice is sinking and she can feel it, those two to four millimetres a year accumulating slowly but surely. In the time since she was last here it has dropped six centimetres further into the water, a depth the length of her index finger; the depth of the pile of documents that her superior, Professor Dean, dumped unceremoniously onto her desk yesterday, asking her to explain. The ‘evidence’ that Leo has presented.

  How she wishes she had scrawled her name and Ryan’s into the wall of the canal beneath the stone lip where they sat years ago sipping Limonata, skin stained with sweat and sun, arms entwined. Their names, engraved in the rock that would one day be submerged. She’s getting sentimental in her old age.

  ‘Penny for them?’ Ryan asks, stirring his mojito. They are back in their favourite spot, once a traditional trattoria, now a restaurant proclaiming fusion food. She’ll tell him now, about Leo, and he’ll understand. A misunderstanding, she’ll say, and he’ll nod and reassure her, distracting her thoughts from an inquiry, an investigation. He’ll put Leo’s claims in perspective, the tantrums of a student with a crush. Leo’s energy would be better spent on Chaucer. She won’t mention the night that she saw him when she was out with Adeline. There’s no need to introduce doubt.

  ‘It’s just …’ Emily says. Next to them a woman clatters the feet of her chair against the stones.

  ‘Yes?’ Ryan says, and she sees years of smiling and squinting embedded in the lines around his eyes.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ she says.

  ‘What is it?’ He reaches for her hand and rubs his finger over her wedding ring. She hates it when he does that. In the distance a siren screeches through the glow of the evening. What if it’s an attack, organised or lone, a sharp nugget of hate buried in the heart of a moment that just happens to be now?

  His phone beeps loudly and Ryan withdraws his hand. She averts her eyes, refusing to be the wife who complains about him checking. He presses something and puts it back into his pocket.

  ‘On silent now. What were you saying?’ But the moment is lost to the waitress who delivers their starters and by the time they are alone again, Emily has decided not to mention it, not to ruin their trip away.

  They end the evening at Casinò di Venezia, the elegance of the building suspended above the water, Juliet balconies beckoning customers in. Laughter trickles through open windows, the sound of the wealthy and the hopeful blending with the croupiers. Inside she feels out of place; a masked ball in one of the rooms has overflowed to the tables, a movie set into which she has walked unannounced. Ryan exudes confidence and she’s glad to have his hand behind her left elbow, whispering into her ear: roulette, poker, blackjack. She enjoys roulette the most and it’s here at the table they find themselves now, choosing their numbers. The croupier is half her age and ravishing in a fitted dress with a plunging neckline, soft creamy skin exposed and a hint of her nipples through the cloth as she bends to the table. Emily feels underdressed and struggles to keep her eyes away, but Ryan seems unimpressed, focusing instead on calculating odds and advising her not to choose the numbers she has already chosen. Emily watches him and considers how well he has aged with his dark, silver-flecked hair. Distinguished. She sees how other women perform their invisible dance around him, never touching. She feels an urge to own him here, in front of them. He’s mine, she wants to say, for now at least.

  They lose, though not much. They don’t exceed their £50 allowance for an evening. It’s always been this way, though they could afford ten times this now. ‘Spending should never be proportional to your income, otherwise you’ll never accumulate wealth,’ Ryan has always insisted. He’s right of course, about this and so many other things.

  Back in their room he undresses her, each strap and button a deliberate display of care; his lips soft against her skin. His hands are gentle and assured. Afterwards, lying in bed in the dark, his left hand cups her breast as if it is part of his own body. His breath slows.

  A dark shadow forms at the back of her thoughts and she awakes uneasy. The bright Venetian light of the morning that ricochets off the water can’t burn it away.

  They’ve only been back home a few days but already Venice feels like months ago. She finds herself daydreaming of moving there. A tiny apartment would do, just large enough for a desk and a bed, a bathroom. Perhaps overlooking the water. She longs for a life undictated by deadlines and appointments.

  Back from her early bike ride and drinking her third cup of coffee of the morning, she frowns. She is lecturing on ‘The Writer’s Voice’ tomorrow, and it has struck her that for too long she has fallen into a voice that does not fit. Polishing your voice and making it unique is the most important thing about becoming a writer, she types into her slideshow. It’s the only thing that defi
nes you on the page. When you are practising the craft of writing, being comfortable with your voice is as important as being comfortable in the coat that you wear all winter; as important as choosing a partner. Be careful when your voice is not yet formed, that the wrong one does not lead you astray. Wait for it to come. It’ll be worth it.

  She wonders if she would have been happier alone. She was never the maternal type. When she was pregnant it felt like her body had been taken over. But the stability Ryan offered her was solid: a future. He is a good man. She could have given him the commitment that he craved. But at what cost? A love story that slipped into the inevitable quagmire of deceit and, potentially, divorce? In spite of his complaints about their arrangement, they’ve managed to preserve a crispness to their marriage that others have lost. Virtually everyone they know is divorced. They’ve had no need to lie to one another, no need to cheat. Theirs is an open canvas that they’ve invented. Lately she wonders about his late evenings working and his nights away. More than normal, for sure. Work is dividing them and she longs for their time back, away from distractions. Away from this mess with Leo.

  The telephone rings and she moves from her desk beside the window, trying to hear where the sound is coming from. The problem with cordless phones is they’re always getting lost. Through the kitchen and into the lounge she finds it wedged behind a cushion. It’s Professor Dean, asking her to come in as a matter of urgency. His voice is stripped of warmth. It’s not convenient, she’s so much to do, but his statement was not a question.

  The boys are at college and Ryan is in Plymouth. Another new-build, overlooking the sea. He sends her photos of the boats in the harbour and the glass palace that he is building. Gone are the days she would have joined him there, fantasising that it was theirs. Jamming her phone into her handbag, she locks up the house, takes her car from the garage. The traffic will be awful and she should take the Tube, but the thought of being crammed up against strangers is just too much. Too many times she’s had to claw her way to the door of the Tube and escape the underground, ejecting herself into random London streets, gulping at air.

  Crawling through the traffic she winds the window down and imagines she is on her way to lunch somewhere, or the theatre. Pedestrians wait to cross the road, droves of suits swarming to the cafés and the restaurants, seeking temporary respite from their shuttered offices. Behind her a taxi honks as she drives slowly past Tavistock Gardens. She glares at the driver in her rear-view mirror and loses him as she turns left into Tavistock Square. As she drives up Gower Street, University College comes into sight. She remembers her interview here seven years ago, in the height of summer. She’d walked the last few stops, desperate to escape the sweating Tube. Her shoes were new and rubbed, and the blisters on her feet had leaked serum and plasma into her tights, which later dried and crusted. By the time she got to the interview the pain of standing through her presentation was excruciating. She’d soaked her feet in the bath afterwards and even then she’d had to cut the denier from around her skin before ripping the last shreds from her feet. Still, she’d got the job, heading up their creative writing programme.

  It’s her dream job. She can’t believe that she is being hauled over the coals now by a student. And all because she cared. Parked and half an hour early, she considers texting Ryan, but that’s not fair. He’s working and it was her choice to keep this from him. It would be selfish to spring it on him now, to catch him unawares. Reaching for her briefcase, she checks herself in the mirror, rubs her lipstick off with a tissue.

  The corridors smell of disinfectant and are quiet, most students in lectures or in the library. She wishes she were there now, curled up in corner with a book with the hum of the water cooler in the background. She heads to Professor Dean’s office. She is tempted to text Leo and vent her anger, but she knows this would be a mistake; everything from now on is just accumulating evidence. As she raises her hand to knock on the door, she is aware of her vulnerability; she knows what the papers inside suggest. It is her fault to have let this go as far as it has.

  Eight hours later, as the sun sinks into a winter evening, Emily pours herself a glass of wine. She sits in her armchair, looking out onto the garden, the perpetual smog of the city smudging the horizon. She has considered going for a bike ride to ease the tension, but her cycling shoes are still wet from this morning. Wine will do instead, and with the second glass she considers asking Ryan to come home. He could be at the door within four hours if he left now. In their rooms the sound of the boys on their phones seeps down the stairs; their busy social lives put hers to shame. She should have made more effort with her friends, could have joined a drama group or a choir perhaps, met more people. Then she wouldn’t need to be alone right now. She sends a text to Adeline. Meet up soon? She places the phone on the table where she can see it.

  Glass three and everything is a little less sharp. She feels better. She won’t call Ryan, it’s not fair to disturb him, he’ll be back in three days and she’ll tell him over dinner. He’ll be calm and will put things in perspective.

  By the second bottle she has become maudlin. Some food may have been a good idea. Ryan isn’t answering his mobile. She types in the phone number of his hotel room clumsily, repeatedly hitting the 6 instead of the 3. When the line finally starts to ring into his room 240 miles away, she holds her breath, knowing that as soon as she hears his voice the tears will start to flow. But he doesn’t answer and she rings again. It’s late to be out, gone 11 p.m., and she knows how he likes his sleep while he’s away. She dials the switchboard of reception; perhaps she’s got the wrong extension. No, they inform her, that is correct for room 121, but there is a mistake of a different kind. There is no record of a Ryan Bradshaw staying there at all.

  When she hangs up the room is charged with all the things she wants to say but hasn’t. Her phone beeps and she checks the message from Adeline. Is everything okay? I had a bad feeling. Emily replies. Not really, tell you next time I see you. How good it is to have someone understand you. She knew they had a connection. Emily feels cheerier despite the fact that the fridge is bare, the restaurants shut hours ago, and her stomach is threatening to eat itself. She stumbles to bed leaving the blinds open, forgetting to lock the doors.

  Rules of an open marriage #11:

  Don’t take each other for granted

  Wales, Saturday 16 July, 2016

  This time they travel together in his MPV; he’s no wish to travel in her leaky car through the Welsh rain. There’s no chance for Ada to be late, leaving him waiting at the cottage. He picks her up in the morning where she is waiting by Streatham station, rucksack in hand. The journey takes four hours. The holidaymakers of the summer are not coming here and the roads are relatively clear.

  ‘How was your holiday?’ she asks.

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ he says. With Tom’s GCSEs and Sam’s A-levels cutting their school year short, they’d seized the opportunity to take a family holiday before the masses. It was a disaster, not least because all he could think about was Ada.

  ‘How were the boys’ exams?’

  ‘Fine, I think. They’re just happy they’re off for the summer now.’ He pauses and there’s an uncomfortable silence. It never feels right to talk about the boys with Ada.

  To pass time they play I spy and compete with riddles.

  ‘My turn.’ Ada sits with one foot on her seat and the other resting on the dashboard. He’d like to ask her to move it, as it is partially blocking the wing mirror, not to mention the dusty marks it’s leaving on the car.

  ‘A man is in a locked room. There are no vents and no windows. There is nothing in the room except a bed, a piano and a calendar,’ she says.

  ‘Can he play the piano?’ Ryan asks.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ she replies. ‘Don’t go off topic.’

  ‘It could have everything to do with it,’ Ryan replies, overtaking a lorry. ‘His musical gift could be his salvation, salvaging his mind as
his body diminishes. They do that all the time in films.’

  ‘Do you have to do that?’ she asks as he swings back into the central lane.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Drive in the middle. You shouldn’t hog the middle lane, it’s for overtaking.’ He snatches a look at her sideways.

  ‘Are you seriously giving me driving tips?’ he asks.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my driving.’ She grins. ‘Anyway, how does he do it?’

  ‘Do what? You haven’t told me what I have to figure out yet.’

  ‘The man is in the locked room, with no vents and no windows. How does he escape?’

  ‘With only a bed, a calendar and a guitar. Was that it?’

  ‘Not a guitar, a piano.’

  ‘Crucial detail I presume?’

  ‘Well, yes, actually they’re quite different: piano, guitar, guitar, piano …’

  ‘Okay, with a bed, a calendar and a piano.’

  ‘Yes. Do you need a clue?’

  ‘Give me a chance.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Ten minutes later he’s still thinking.

  ‘Come on, this should be easy,’ she wheedles. ‘I’m putting you on a timer now: you have sixty seconds. ‘