Love is a Distant Shore

by Claire Harrison

  Geoff shook his head. 'Sometimes, I find movies hard to take. The stories are too painful or something. Or maybe I see too much real pain to want to watch it on the screen.'

  'That's odd,' she said musingly, 'I've often felt that way myself.'

  His voice was low, seemingly casual. 'Really?'

  'It's all so phoney, you see. Those people up there or in books. They're artificial and their stories are artificial. The reality is so much worse that no author can imagine…'

  'Can imagine what?'

  The look she now gave him was cool now, less friendly, suspicious. 'Oh, no,' she said, 'not again.'

  Geoff signed. 'Petra, I don't ask you to talk about anything.'

  'But you're dying to analyse me, aren't you? That's what this conversation is all about, isn't it?'

  'Actually,' Geoff said easily, refusing to rise to the bait, 'I hadn't thought about it, but now that you mention it—sure I would. You know, the motive behind the marathon or something like that.'

  'Why can't you accept the fact that I'm just doing it for the challenge? People want to dive to the bottom of the oceans because…'

  'Hold it,' Geoff said. 'I'll agree that there is something intrinsically appealing about challenges like that, but why doesn't everyone take them on?'

  Petra shrugged. 'Because people are different.'

  'Because,' Geoff said, 'certain people have a need to prove something to themselves.'

  'Like what?'

  He paused for a moment, trying to organise his thoughts. 'Perhaps they have to prove to themselves that they're courageous or, if they're doing something truly dangerous, perhaps they're fighting off a fear of death. Sometimes I've wondered if people who set themselves the challenge of conquering a natural obstacle aren't trying to control their environment in some way. I don't know exactly, but it seems too simple to me to say that just because a mountain's there someone will want to climb it.'

  'You're reading too much into it,' Petra said hotly. 'That's the trouble with pop psychologists. They don't know what they're talking about.'

  Geoff refused to get angry. 'And it also strikes me as a… well, self-centred endeavour.'

  Petra was wary. 'What do you mean—self-centred?'

  'Personal challenges don't add to the cause of humanity, do they? They just satisfy the person involved.'

  If Geoff thought that he could further provoke Petra into talking about why she wanted to swim Lake Ontario, he was mistaken. She immediately went on the attack, making the obvious leap from Geoff's abstract discussion to herself. 'I don't know why you're covering this story,' she said coldly. 'You obviously think that marathon swimming is a waste of time.'

  'I never implied that.'

  'I can see the kind of article you're going to write,' she went on, her voice rising. 'You'll trivialise everything I've done, the hard work, the sacrifices, the hours of training. Is that why Allied Press put you on this story? So you could make fun of what Joe and I have done?'

  Geoff sat up straighter, dislodging Renoir from his ankles and the cat leaped down to the floor. He hadn't let Petra's jibes get to him; he had very deliberately remained calm in the face of her growing anger, but now irritation began to seep in as she questioned his professional ability and integrity. 'I came to this with an open mind.'

  'Like hell you did. You didn't want the assignment, you told me that yourself. What you really want to do is be back in Beirut getting shot at and reporting on man's inhumanity to man. That's what you journalists are after, isn't it? Sensationalist stories that invade other people's lives and poke into people's miseries and…'

  That was coming too close to the bone. Petra wasn't the only person who thought that the media capitalised on tragedy and destruction, and Geoff was highly sensitive to such sorts of criticism. His irritation gave way to a barely controlled anger. 'At least,' he said, 'what I've reported on is meaningful.'

  'Meaningful? What's meaningful about being on the outside and looking in? You have your nose pressed up to the window, peering in at events that happen to other people. You don't actually do anything. You just watch.'

  Geoff's jaw was clenched. 'That's enough.'

  But Petra was on a roll now, an angry, outraged roll. 'And you know something else? I've just figured out why you think that what I do is worthless. Because you can't swim more than half a mile without requiring medical aid. Because you're jealous.' Geoff felt the words rather than heard them. They were sharp and pointed. Like knives. Like claws. 'Because you're crippled, that's why, and jealous of me because you can't do what I can!'

  Petra felt the words race out of her mouth at a speed so great that she couldn't call them back, think about them and, at her leisure, decide whether they were true or honest or fair. Instead they rushed out into the faded evening light to give the porch a sudden, horrifying clarity. For the first time, Petra noticed the miniscule hole in one corner of the window screen, the sliver of wicker that was unravelling on the arm of her chair, the pulse beating in Geoff's temple. He had gone quite rigid and there was a whiteness to the grim set of his mouth that let her know that she had gone too far. He didn't look directly at her. He had turned his head away as she had spoken and appeared to be studying the arc of sun that now rimmed the horizon of the lake like a curved gold band.

  Petra stood up and clutched the edge of the wicker chair. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I didn't mean that.' 'Didn't you?' His voice was quiet, controlled. 'No. It was a… thoughtless thing to say.' 'You sound as if you've thought it for a long time.' 'No, no, I haven't. It just popped into my head.' He was silent then, still not looking at her, but his back was so rigid that Petra had the overwhelming urge to touch his shoulder, to stroke the hard muscles below his skin, to soothe away that tension. The urge was so strong that she had to physically clench her hand into a fist to stop it from moving forward. Instead, she used her voice. 'Geoff,' she said. 'I…'

  'And I suppose it's true,' he said, his tone flat and unemotional. 'I hadn't looked deep enough; I hadn't thought… but I should have seen it. Jealous.' He paused and then spoke again, the bitterness sharp in his voice. 'Yes… jealous.'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On the following Wednesday, Renoir disappeared. No one noticed until evening when she didn't return from her day-long hunting trip. Unlike most felines, Renoir was not nocturnal, a screw-up in her instincts that Joe attributed to the way Sunny had fussed over her as a kitten. Sunny, on the other hand, claimed that Renoir was probably not a cat in the true sense but a reincarnation of royalty. For example, Renoir adored olives, shunned cheap cat food for ground-up steak, and always assumed that the best chair in the house belonged to her. But, whether she was cat or queen, her striped black and grey form was always apparent around dinnertime when the food pickings were good and in the later evening when she liked to roam from person to person, bestowing on them, in a regal fashion, the pleasure of her company.

  But on Wednesday night, Renoir didn't appear for dinner and wasn't underfoot that evening when everyone was seated in the central room of the cottage. Petra was mending a pair of shorts, Jennifer was reading a Teen magazine and Geoff appeared to be asleep with his head back on the couch, his foot propped up on an ottoman. The only lively spot in the room was the rummy game going on between Sunny and Joe. They played every night, keeping score on the back of an old grocery bill and totting up the winner at the end of the week. It was a game that involved intense competition and a great deal of verbal sparring.

  'A deuce?' Sunny said with disgust as Joe placed a card on the discard pile. 'Is that the best you can do?'

  'For you, love of my life. It's all for you.'

  Sunny had put on her glasses and was now peering at her hand. Her hair, piled up in its usual untidy bun, was threatening to slip off her head and she'd stuck several combs on various parts of her skull to keep it in place. She sniffed and said, 'You're so generous.'

  'That's what you always tell me.' Joe also wore glasses when he was reading and playing cards. He
rubbed his crew-cut with his hand and then drummed his fingers on the table. 'Come on, sweetheart. You're dawdling.'

  'Dawdling!? Well, I'll dawdle if I want to.'

  'It's against the tournament rules.'

  'Tournament,' Sunny said with a sniff. 'You call this a tournament?'

  At that moment, Geoff lifted his head and Petra lifted hers. Their eyes met, acknowledging a secret amusement at Sunny and Joe's continuing repartee at rummy. Then he put his head back and closed his eyes again. Petra heaved a silent sigh of relief that he was being friendly again. There had been hours since their conversation on the porch two days ago when Geoff would neither look at or talk to her. He hadn't been obtrusive about it, and Petra didn't think anyone else at the cottage noticed his animosity, but she had felt it and knew that it was deserved.

  She had struck out at Geoff blindly and uncaringly and, whether her words had hit home or not, she'd felt guilty ever since. Of course he couldn't swim the way she did. He couldn't walk as fast either or dance the night away or climb trees. For the rest of his life, Geoff would have to limp and Petra, who was in prime condition, her body capable and responsive to whatever she wished to inflict upon it, had unthinkingly thrown her health in his face. It was one of the ugliest things she'd ever done, and she'd hated herself ever since. But there hadn't seemed any way of making the situation better. She couldn't take back the words or try to alter them. She couldn't change the fact that her limbs were sound and Geoff's were not. She had wanted to apologise to him, but the right moment had not presented itself, and Petra had found that she was too shy to seek him out.

  Sunny picked up the deuce, put it in her hand and, after long deliberation, put down a black queen. 'Has anyone,' she asked, 'seen that damn-fool cat?'

  Jennifer looked up from her magazine. 'I haven't seen Renoir since this morning.'

  Joe gave Sunny a look of sneaky triumph. 'I've been looking for this lady,' he said, picking up the queen.

  Sunny gave a groan. 'I thought you were saving kings.'

  'That's for me to know, and you to find out.'

  'Blast.' She stared pensively at her hand and then said, 'It isn't like her to be out after dark.'

  'She's probably heading home right now,' Joe said, 'on a beeline for her bottle of olives.'

  'Or,' Geoff said, 'she has taken to star-gazing and moon-watching.'

  'I'm getting worried,' Sunny said.

  'You should be,' Joe said with a smug satisfaction. 'I've got rummy.'

  But by morning, when Renoir had still not appeared, Sunny was really concerned. She got up at six and, having taken a box of Puss N' Boots Nibbles out of the cupboard, circled the outside of the cottage, shaking the cat food so that the Nibbles rattled inside and calling out, 'Here, Renoir. Come on.' When no cat appeared she looked in and under the cars and then went further into the trees, peering through bushes and looking around logs. Rembrandt followed her around, looking perplexed, his tail giving sporadic wags while his eyes rested on the box of Nibbles. Rembrandt liked cat food almost as much as he liked his Fido Burgers.

  When her searching and calling had failed, Sunny returned to the cottage looking unhappy and distracted. By that time, everyone else had got up and were in the midst of preparing breakfast. They tried to reassure her that Renoir would return by reminding her that cats have nine lives or suggesting that Renoir had met a lover out in the woods.

  'She's never stayed away this long,' Sunny said.

  'Give it another day,' Joe said soothingly. 'If she isn't back by then, we'll beat the bushes for her.'

  'But she could be anywhere,' Sunny said, and they all knew what she meant. There was miles of uninhabited territory around Indian Lake.

  Petra knew how much the animals meant to Sunny and put her hand on the other woman's shoulder. 'I'll take the car after my swim and drive around the lake. Maybe she's just lost.'

  But Sunny was too upset to listen or to watch what she was doing. With an abstracted air, she took one of her homemade loaves of bread down from the breadbox over the wood stove, put it down on the cutting-board, picked up a knife and then, with a slicing motion, almost managed to cut off her left thumb. Blood spurted in a miniature geyser out on to the tablecloth, the bread, the knife and the cutting-board. Sunny made a gasping sound, went absolutely white and abruptly sat down, all the while staring at her hand. The others were frozen for a second, but then Joe and Geoff moved quickly. Joe wrapped a cloth around her thumb, pressing tightly to stop the bleeding while Geoff pushed Sunny's head down towards her knees.

  Petra had taken one glance at the blood, Sunny's waxen face and then rushed into the bathroom to get the first-aid kit which was stored in the cabinet. It was a large blue box with a red cross on the cover and, when it was opened, displayed a wide assortment of bandages, medicines, splints, and needles. One time, Petra had read the manual that came with it and discovered that, with this kit, it was possible not only to set broken bones and bandage cuts but also to assist at a cardiac arrest and deliver babies.

  But when she returned to the kitchen, she found that Joe had decided that their own emergency first-aid equipment wasn't enough. Sunny was resting her head on his shoulder, her eyes were closed and her face was screwed up in pain. Joe, who had gone ashen beneath his tan, was saying, 'I think she's going to need stitches.'

  Geoff had taken hold of Sunny's hand and was holding the makeshift bandage tight against the wound. 'It looks pretty bad.'

  'We'll have to take her in to the hospital.'

  'Yes,' Geoff said. 'I'll go and get the car started.'

  Jennifer, who had watched the entire proceedings with a hand held to her mouth, now jumped up. 'I'll go with you,' she said.

  Sunny opened her eyes and, despite the pain and a pallor that was extreme, tried to joke. 'Think they'll recognise us at the emergency room?' she asked.

  'Why not?' Joe said, tightening his arm around her shoulder. 'We made a big impression last time.'

  No one wanted to remain at the cottage, but Sunny insisted that someone stay in case Renoir returned. So Petra watched the four of them drive out in Joe's big Chevy, gazing at the road until the dust raised by the speeding car disappeared. Then she heaved a sigh and went back into the cottage where she set about cleaning up the kitchen. She thought about Geoff's injury, Renoir's disappearance and now Sunny's accident and wondered whether the summer was jinxed. Not that Petra was superstitious. She never carried lucky pieces or worried about black cats or walking under ladders or thought that Friday the 13th was different from any other day. She didn't believe in ESP or ghosts or a preordained fate.

  No, she never been superstitious, and she realised that she'd grown up believing that life was nothing more than a series of chaotic events that could or could not bring a person happiness. If you were born into the right family, then you were fortunate enough to be successful and content. If, on the other hand, you grew up, as she had done, in half a family with a sick mother and not enough money, then life was going to be rough and difficult. She had always accepted this and understood that she could take nothing for granted. Not good luck or happiness or success. It was, she supposed, one of the reasons why she worked and trained so hard. In her heart, Petra knew that she couldn't trust anyone or anything to help her achieve what she wanted. The burden of success had always fallen completely on her.

  For the first time, Petra began to understand why she was so fiercely independent. Oh, she knew she'd been forced into a solitary role by her mother, and she'd always been shy, but neither of those facts was reason enough to account for an avoidance of personal relationships that verged on the pathological. Petra had turned her back on women friends and ran from men. Except for that regrettable lapse into an affair, she hadn't cultivated any acquaintances. She'd thought her hands-off attitude arose out of pride and self-reliance and shyness but now she saw that fear was another component. If she dared, even for a moment, to let down her guard, Petra might find herself relying on another human being, leaning on
that person, needing and clinging to someone in order to survive. And, deep inside, she was afraid, terrified even, that the person she chose would turn out to be like her mother, another Sheila, another weak link that snapped the minute things got tough.

  Petra wiped off the table and thought sadly of the child she'd been and the lessons she'd learned. They hadn't been nice ones; they hadn't been the ordinary learning experiences of most children. Life had taught her that the world was a jungle in which only the fittest survive and that, in that jungle, love had no meaning, no place and no function. It couldn't feed her, support her or protect her from the harsh realities of economic and familial failure. Petra looked back at herself as a child and saw a little girl carefully picking her way through debris in a terrain that was pitted, barren and ugly. Was it any wonder that she had learned to be aloof and suspicious? Should it come as any surprise that she had no lovers and, apart from Sunny and Joe, no friends either? Or that, inside, she was empty, alone and, despite all the barricades she'd erected around herself, still afraid?

  Looking that deep within herself made Petra feel dizzy and unhappy. It was far preferable, she thought with a wry irony, to skate along the surface of life and ignore the cracking ice below her feet. She finished cleaning up the kitchen and then tried to relax on the porch with a mystery novel and a cup of coffee. But what was preferable wasn't always easy, and Petra found that the mystery novel couldn't absorb her and her coffee tasted flat. So she decided to go for a brisk walk in the morning air, clear her mind and search for Renoir. Picking up the box of Nibbles, she opened the porch door and was just about to step out, when a grey and black form streaked into the cottage, through the main room and then into her bedroom.

  'Well,' she said, putting down the Nibbles and smiling to think how happy Sunny would be. 'So you've decided to come home.'

  But there was no answering sound from the cat and her triangular face with its amber eyes didn't appear in the bedroom doorway. Petra frowned, walked into the main room of the cottage and then noticed the drops of blood on the floor. At first, she thought they must have come from Sunny when she cut her thumb, but then she saw something more ominous. The drops formed a red trail across the floor and over the sill of the doorway. She realised with horror and a sinking heart that the blood came from Renoir.