She didn't love him. That was clear enough to Geoff; she'd made that absolutely evident. She liked him, she liked his conversation, she liked his body, she liked his technique. He'd felt that way about a dozen women of his intimate acquaintance, and he could barely recall any of their names. Liking wasn't the same as loving. Geoff hadn't really understood the difference until he'd fallen for Petra so hard that he was shattered by the crash.
Loving her meant wanting her physically, needing to be with her, aching to share her life, fearing for her, exulting with her. Geoff had never felt that way about any woman before, and he was damned sorry for himself that Petra had awoken such emotions in him. Unrequited love, he was discovering, was hell. He wasn't eating, he hadn't been able to sleep well, he could barely keep a conversation alive and now he couldn't write either. It made him angry, frustrated and humble all at the same time. It made him far more repentant about the hearts he'd probably broken in the past and the women whose offers of love he'd spurned. At times he felt a compassion so deep for the sadnesses of the world that he wanted to cry and then, realising how maudlin he was becoming, he would grit his teeth, determined to pull himself out of this black hole if it was the last thing on earth he ever did.
And he castigated himself unmercifully for having let Petra know the state of his heart. He cursed the weakness that had let those three small words slip past his lips and out into the air where she could hear them. Geoff knew he was proud, too proud probably, but he couldn't help that pride. He didn't want Petra to feel sorry for him or to be kind to him out of pity. He'd felt that kindness welling in her as they lay naked on the grass, and he'd known he just couldn't bear it. His words about love had almost been forced out of him, but when they were out in the open, he hadn't wanted them dissected and analysed. He knew she was surprised, disbelieving and finally flattered, but he hadn't meant to pander to her ego. The words had come from the depths of his soul, and they were the sort of words that were incomplete by themselves. They were only the half of a whole, they demanded an answer. And the fact that Petra couldn't complete them, couldn't match them in kind had cut Geoff deeply. He had never expected that, when he finally fell in love with a woman, his feelings would be unreciprocated. Somewhere, inside himself, he'd been quite convinced that Petra would say—Oh, but I love you, too. I always have—or some other such romantic nonsense. What a fool he'd been, Geoff thought clenching his teeth, and the knowledge of his own idiocy flayed him.
Geoff tapped out a few words, thought about the ways in which the finished article would be syndicated across North America and tried to get excited about it. But thinking about his career made him more depressed than he already was. He'd once rated his work as the most valuable thing he possessed. Nothing in the world had seemed as important to him as the chance to travel, to interview the global movers and shakers, to be in the middle of events that would change the history of the world. But, like his writing ability, that feeling seemed to have evaporated, leaving him with a dull sense of having seen it all and no longer giving a damn.
A month before he would have sacrificed his other leg and an arm to be back in Beirut but now, if he were honest and faced the facts, Geoff would have to admit that the only place on earth that he wanted to be was with Petra. Some comedown for a war correspondent with an international byline and a reputation for being tough, restless and willing to take any risk that came his way. What was that old axiom? Pride goeth before a fall? Well, he'd been proud, arrogant and haughty. He'd thought women were irrelevant to his life and had used them as if they'd been discardable toys. He'd despised men who were married as conservative, sentimental and domesticated. The higher they are, the harder they fall. Geoff stared at the screen of his word processor and acknowledged his own weakness, his own vulnerability, his own need for love. He had thought he was unique, but he was no different from the rest of the human race. No different, at all.
Petra did her last training swim in her best time ever and came out of the water feeling more confident than she ever had. The lake, which loomed in her imagination like a black and endless expanse of water, took on a new dimension. She imagined herself entering its waters, swimming through its waves, and actually coming out the other side, walking on to the Canadian shore in a moment of triumph. She'd never actually allowed herself to think about the final miles; she'd concentrated on being in the right frame of mind for the start of the swim and developing techniques that would get her through the middle. The end, she suspected, might be the toughest part of all, when she was swimming with every resource depleted except for pure adrenalin.
She glanced up at the cottage and thought about packing for their departure early that evening. She was going back in her Toyota along with Rembrandt while Joe and Sunny would take Jennifer, Renoir and all the luggage. Geoff was taking off on his own after lunch. She wouldn't see him again until the swim which was two nights away. Because of the intensity of her training and the concentration now required of her, Petra had been forced to put thoughts of Geoff aside. His presence made her both miserable and ecstatic at the same time, and those two emotions battling within her threw her off her stride, caused her to falter when she should surge ahead and ruined the smooth regularity of her strokes. The one time she'd let thoughts of Geoff intrude on her training, she'd done so badly that Joe had practically torn his crew-cut out at the roots.
Petra stretched her arms upwards towards the sun, trying to ease the fatigue in her shoulders, and then sat down on her towel on the sand and watched Jennifer race the last lap into shore. Joe had been timing her as well and, although his look was gruff as he glared at the stopwatch, Petra knew that he was pleased with his racer's performance.
'Pretty good, isn't she?' Petra called out to him.
'Not bad,' he muttered and, as Jennifer came out of the water, he repeated it to her, 'Not bad, sweetheart. Not bad at all.'
Jennifer shook out her pigtails. 'Olympic time?' she asked.
'Close enough,' Joe said, 'but don't think you'll be giving up when we go back to Toronto. Two weeks' holiday and then I'll see you at the pool.'
Jennifer wrinkled her nose at him as he marched off and then came to sit down by Petra, flopping down on a towel and looking up at the sky with a pensive face. 'Sometimes, I wonder,' she said. 'I mean, it's really neat to think about winning a gold medal, but I don't know if it's worth it.'
Petra gave Jennifer a look of sympathy. She knew the feeling. 'It's a great achievement.'
'Yeah, but like, what's there afterwards? Just more school and college and… well, life.'
Petra restrained a smile. 'It would open doors to you. An Olympic medal will help you get into college and find jobs. People are impressed by the kind of determination and effort that goes into winning.'
Jennifer's brown eyes were bewildered. 'I guess so.'
'Anyway, you mustn't give up now. You're getting so close.'
'What are you going to do, Petra? After the swim, I mean?'
Petra shrugged and stared out at the lake. 'Go back to teaching.'
'Do you have any boy friends?'
Of all the people in the world that Petra could have a heart-to-heart with, Jennifer was the least likely. 'Nobody right now,' she said.
'What about Geoff?'
'Geoff?' Petra gave her full attention to Jennifer and wondered precisely what vibrations she'd managed to pick up through the smokescreen of emotion and ignorance that filled her adolescent mind. 'What about him?'
'I think he likes you.'
'We're friends.'
'I don't know.' Jennifer gave an envious sigh. 'If he looked at me the way he looks at you with those dreamy blue eyes, I swear I'd faint.'
'We're good friends,' Petra said carefully.
But Jennifer wasn't listening. 'He's like a movie star,' she said. 'Like Robert Redford, you know what I mean? I just wish I were older. I'd go after him in a minute. That's what my sister says, you know.'
Petra was giving Jennifer a look of fascinatio
n. 'No, I don't know. What does she say?'
'She says that there's no point in sitting around and waiting, that a lot of guys want the girl to do the running.'
'Really?'
'Uh-huh. I mean, if I had a choice between Geoff and an Olympic medal, I'd take Geoff any day of the week.'
'Jennifer,' Petra said severely, 'that's not the way to think. You mustn't imagine that you'd give up a goal like the Olympics for a… boy or a date. You have to achieve what you're capable of doing.'
Jennifer gave her the full benefit of a wide-eyed stare. 'You mean, that if you had the choice of marrying a man like Geoff or swimming the lake, you'd choose the lake?'
'Nobody has to make choices like that.'
But Jennifer was caught up in the delight of a romantic and melodramatic situation. She leaned towards Petra. 'But, what would you do?'
'Jennifer, this conversation is silly, really it is.' Petra stood up and shook out her towel. 'Besides, we'd better go back to the cottage. We both have a lot of packing to do.'
Jennifer stood up reluctantly. 'I hate packing.'
'I'll tell you what,' Petra said. 'I'll help you pack as long as you make me one promise.
'What's that?'
'No more talk about quitting—even if Robert Redford comes marching into your life.'
Jennifer gave Petra a small, dimpled smile. 'I guess I shouldn't hold my breath, right?'
'Right.'
But later that evening, as she was driving away from the cottage, the conversation with Jennifer came back into Petra's mind. She knew what Geoff was feeling, but she had tried not to think about it, tried to keep the memories of that night from flooding in on her. But she couldn't always stop them from coming, and they gave a bouyancy to her step and a pink glow to her cheeks. He loved her and the knowledge of that love delighted her beyond anything she'd ever known. She'd spent so many years believing that she was unlikable and unlovable that the knowledge of his feeling for her was like a warm rain falling on the parched desert of her soul. Love wasn't a commodity that Petra had ever thought to possess.
But that knowledge wasn't enough to keep her from feeling, at the same time, deeply unhappy. She knew Geoff was miserable; she could see it in his face, the way he spoke, the extra-awkward limp that afflicted his walk. Her heart went out to him, but even that sympathy could not make her speak. Petra was excited by Geoff and thrilled by the fact that he wanted her, but she simply didn't know if she loved him in return. She didn't know what love was; she couldn't see it, touch it or measure it. She felt like a blind man in the world of the sighted, crippled by her ignorance and her past. One night, just before going to sleep, she had said to herself, 'I love you,' trying out the words, tasting them on her tongue, feeling their roundness in her mouth. But they had felt odd and awkward, and she had realised that she couldn't say them with sincerity and honesty.
But, if nothing else, she was utterly thankful to Geoff that he had been there when she needed him, strong, supportive and understanding. She didn't know how-she could have handled her mother's death alone; until the funeral she hadn't realised how she felt about Sheila. For years, she had simply coped with her mother's illness, her emotions buried under a vast weariness by the demands it made on her. It wasn't until Petra had watched the coffin being lowered into the ground that all the feelings she'd held at arm's length for so long—sadness, anger, frustration, hatred, relief, guilt, grief—had come rushing in upon her in a vast, tumultuous wave. She couldn't deal with them; she didn't know what they meant and she was afraid of the way they battered at her. Crying had helped a bit, but she'd had to talk them out. And Geoff hadn't been shocked by the violence and ugliness of her confession. He hadn't chastised her for not loving her mother enough, for not being loyal, for being relieved at her death. He'd merely held her in his arms, his presence enormously comforting and reassuring.
Petra manoeuvred the car off the rutted, dirt road and out on to the highway, the Toyota seeming to give a sigh of relief as its springs stopped bouncing.
'Okay, Remmie?' she asked, looking into the back seat.
The dog just lifted his head and then put it back down. When it came to long car rides, Rembrandt liked to pass the time snoozing. He'd taken one look at the bags Petra had put in the boot and then settled in for a solid nap.
Petra looked back at the road and tightened her hands on the wheel. Somehow, in her mind, thoughts of Geoff and the swim were all entangled together. When she thought about loving him and wondering what that would mean or feel, she found that she couldn't look beyond the distance of next week and the thirty-two miles in the water and the sixteen or seventeen hours of swimming. It was as if any emotion that she might have was not only buried beneath the weight of that obligation, but also waiting to reveal itself at the end. Jennifer's words came back to her. What would she do if she were given the choice of marrying Geoff or swimming the lake? Petra didn't put the question to herself in such simplistic terms. What was the greater goal, she thought, learning to love Geoff or crossing the lake? Were they separate goals or were they one and the same? Petra couldn't sort it out in her head. All she knew was that in some mysterious way, her feelings about Geoff and the swim were linked together, and the meaning of that connection would not be made clear until it was over.
'Psst? Sunny? Are you asleep?' The mattress on the bed rustled as Sunny shifted position. 'No,' she said, 'how can I be asleep when you're trying to keep me awake?'
'I don't like it,' Joe said. 'I just don't like it.' 'Shhh—you're going to wake everyone up.' 'I've got that uneasy feeling.' 'For heaven's sake, what uneasy feeling?' 'This feeling I have.'
'Now, Joe, since when can I read minds? Especially yours. You've been a mystery to me for thirty-five years.'
'Sunny, it's Petra. I'm worried about Petra.'
'Tch—last time I heard, she was doing great.'
'It's not her physical condition.'
'Then what is it?'
'It's her mental state.'
'She seems ready, Joe. She seems very confident.'
'It's Geoff.'
'Geoff!'
'There's something going on there, and it's affecting her mental state. I can tell.'
'Well, of course, there's something going on there. You'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to notice.'
There was a furious rustle of sheets and blankets. 'All right, Sunny, what are you trying to say? Spill the beans.'
'They're lovers.'
Pause. 'Lovers! Petra and Geoff? Did she tell you that?'
'Of course not.'
'Well, then—how do you know?'
'I can tell, that's how. You should see the way he looks at her, and the way she looks back at him. Heavens, Joe, it's as obvious as the nose on your face.'
Sigh. 'Damn it. Double damn it.'
'Now, Joe, it's good for Petra. She needs a man in her life. Of course, I'm not saying the path of true love is going smooth for her. I sense some tension there, but I think he's crazy about her. You know I wasn't sure a couple of weeks ago that Geoff was the right man for her. I didn't trust him. But now I think she's got him wound up good and tight. He doesn't know what's hit him.'
'He's not doing her swimming any good, I can tell you that.'
'Oh, come on, Joe, you're imagining things.'
'The hell I am. She loses her concentration now and then.'
'Swimming isn't everything, you know.'
There was a short silence and then, 'Blasphemy, woman. I've never heard such blasphemy.'
'Petra needs a man as much as she needs to get across a lake. She's just blossoming, can't you tell?'
'No, I can't. What I can tell is that I've got a swimmer on my hands who might not go the distance because her brain's all mushed up with thoughts of hearts and flowers.'
'Well, Joe McGinnis, is that what you call it?' Sunny asked, and then there were sounds that, to a discerning ear, might have suggested a small affectionate scuffle and several exchanged kisses.
&nbs
p; Finally, when the sounds subsided, Joe's whisper once again filled the small bedroom. 'Still,' he said, his voice unhappy, 'I'm worried about her. It's going to take everything she's got to make it. And every time I get a swimmer who's in the midst of a love affair, I get problems.'
'You can't begrudge Petra some romance, can you?'
'Give a woman a little bit of romance and she can't keep her mind on anything.'
'You were pretty romantic once,' Sunny said slyly.
'Never.'
'Ah! Why, I can remember one afternoon in a park when…'
Joe gave a little laugh. 'Those were the days, weren't they, Sunny?'
She cuddled up to him and felt his arm pull her closer. 'Yes,' she said softly, 'they sure were.'
Geoff sat in one of the pace boats, a hot mug of coffee clenched between his hands, the wind from Lake Ontario lifting his hair. It was a south wind, the best kind Joe had told him, warm and gentle. The lake was at 71 degrees which had the swim team cheering with delight, and the surface of the water was as calm as it was ever going to get. Little ripples splashed against the edge of the boat, making small slapping sounds. Geoff was sharing a boat with Joe and they were part of a four-boat entourage that surrounded Petra as she swam. Geoff couldn't see the other boats very well, illumination by moon and stars only revealed them to him as shadows, but their lights threw beams on the blackness of the water and he could hear the hum of their motors and the occasional voices of their occupants.
Love is a Distant Shore Page 16
