by Sue Gee
He dropped her arm, and with tears pouring down her face she turned and leaned up against the wall, by the place where the shepherd’s cloak used to stand, sobbing and sobbing.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry … please go away …’
‘No,’ said Robert. ‘I want to talk to you.’
She washed her face, and he reheated the coffee and found her cigarettes. He left her sitting at the desk, a cigarette in the ashtray beside her, and went out to look for Claire and the boys.
The hens were out, and Claire and the boys were sitting at the table on the upper path, eating grapes in the shade of the vines.
‘Mum’s feeling better,’ he said to Tom. ‘Sorry if I got a bit cross just now.’
Tom didn’t look at him.
‘I thought I’d take her out for a breather,’ he said to Claire. ‘Just to calm things down a bit.’
She didn’t look at him either.
‘Is that okay?’
‘Fine.’
‘Look at me.’
She looked; he kissed her. ‘I shan’t be long.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Jack, pulling bits of grape skin out of his mouth.
‘Just for a walk.’
‘With Frances?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s enough questions now,’ he said. ‘Look after Mummy and mind your own beeswax.’
‘Mum doesn’t need looking after.’
He looked at her, ready to make a joke of it, an easy parental exchange of eyes raised to the heavens, but she was tugging black grapes off a stalk, and there was no exchange.
‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you all later. I expect Jess and Oliver will be back any minute,’ and he left them, sitting in silence, and went back down to the house.
They climbed the steps to the iron gate, where the water poured into the green-tiled tank, and they walked a little way up the road, and then they turned off it, down among the pine and eucalyptus trees. Their feet crunched over the carpet of needles and cones; from a long way away came the sound of sawing.
‘So,’ said Robert, and waited.
Frances said nothing, her hands in the pockets of her skirt. At last, looking straight ahead:
‘I’m in love with another woman, and it’s killing me.’
‘Ah,’ said Robert, and there was a pause. ‘Ah. So that’s what it is. Well, well.’
They walked on; twigs snapped beneath them. ‘You mean you’re having an affair …’
‘Absolutely not. She knows nothing about how I feel.’
‘I see.’ He thought about it, and the events of the holiday, and everything he had wondered about all began to fall into place, click, click, click.
‘Do you mind if I ask – does Claire know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything?’
‘You should never tell anyone everything.’
‘I’m not sure if that’s true. What about Oliver?’
‘Don’t ask too many questions.’
‘Well,’ he said carefully. ‘Do you want to go on? I’m listening.’
‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I’m exhausted. I was up half the night and I banished her. This morning I thought I was better. I’m not. As you saw.’
‘Tell me about her.’
‘It feels like betrayal when I talk about her.’
‘All right then – tell me about you. You’re in a dream, you’re miles away. What are you thinking of? Her?’
‘All the time.’
‘When you say all the time …’
‘I mean all the time.’ They were walking slowly; she said slowly: ‘I mean from the moment I wake till the moment I sleep, and then I dream of her. She is with me every moment of the day, she’s in my bloodstream. I am infected with her – with the way she looks, the way she thinks and talks, with everything about her.’
‘Then you are obsessed,’ said Robert, and he stopped walking.
‘In love.’
‘Obsessed. You are on the brink of madness.’
‘You’re saying that because it’s another woman.’
‘No,’ he said gently, and put out his hand to stop her moving away. ‘I should say just the same if it were a man. No one should take you over in this way.’
‘It was a man, once. It is just how I felt about Oliver.’
‘Dear me.’
She was looking at the ground.
‘Don’t cry again.’
She stopped, and covered her face.
‘Go on, then, cry if you want to – why not? I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’ She shook her head; she pulled her cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one, blowing smoke away from him.
‘Those bloody cigarettes.’
‘I’m allowed to smoke,’ she said, with the ghost of a smile. ‘I am allowed to do that.’
A car climbed the mountain road and slowly rounded the bend. When it was gone it felt quieter than ever, walking in the midday heat and stillness amongst the trees.
If he made noises they heard him, so he didn’t make any, he really tried hard; he just opened the door very slowly and went in, hardly breathing at all. He closed it behind him: click. Then down the steep wooden stairs, with no need to turn on the switch: he knew his way now, and anyway, the grimy window let in light, and you soon got used to it. He stood at the bottom, trying to breathe properly again, because sometimes just holding your breath made you go funny, but he couldn’t breathe properly, not till he’d got past the shape. It was bigger than ever, and under the hat its eyes watched every single movement. He wanted to make a dash for it, but his knees were trembling too hard; he pressed back against the wall and skirted all the way round, not looking at it once.
He’d done it, he’d made it. He was down in the passage, out of sight, opening the cupboard door. He went inside and leaned against the cobwebby wall, and his breath came fast now, panting, and though the wall was cool he was sweating all over, all down the back of his shirt.
He waited; he felt better. He wanted to close the cupboard door behind him, but then it would be completely dark, like it was for the pig, all shut away down there poor thing, with no one to talk to, and its horrible bony pink lid. One day someone would go and open the door to it, and then it would be all right. Now he was going to open the door of his house, and see if the people were dead yet.
He undid the catch at the side, and the front of the house swung towards him. He waited, but nothing happened: no lid, no lifting, no blank feeling. Nothing. He was getting better! Even feeling funny in the sun this morning, it hadn’t lifted once – perhaps it really was going away, shrinking or something. Perhaps by the time they went home it would have gone completely.
Now then. He looked inside. How were they all getting on?
He’d left them downstairs, all lying down round the empty table. Big one, middle one, little one. Someone had moved them, someone had stirred them all up and done things to them; they were scattered all over the floor. Who had interfered? He knew. He picked up the other big one, the one he’d made a few days ago. It had seemed so friendly and nice, but it wasn’t. It touched her, it sought her out. It swore and it shouted, and made her cry. He picked her up, so he had one in each hand; he banged them up and down on the floor, facing each other.
Bang bang bang. Bang bang you’re dead, fifty bullets in your head: who was going to die? Along came the little one: stop it stop it stop it. What could the little one do? Along came the big one, the really great big one, he picked up the middle one and threw her down the stairs. Goosey goosey gander, whither shall you wander, upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber … Here comes a candle to light you to bed, and here comes a chopper –
‘I wish you were dead!’ He was shouting now, he could hear himself, picking up all the pieces and snapping them in little bits, throwing them everywhere, banging the door of the house. He hated all of them, the big one the middle one the little one the little one was pecu
liar the little one was the worst of the lot if it wasn’t for the little one everything would be all right –
‘Tom! Tom, what on earth are you doing?’
Claire was coming quickly across the cellar towards him. He’d upset her too, he was sorry, she was so nice.
‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking for you for ages, it’s lunchtime.’ Making everything ordinary again, making it all better. ‘Goodness, you’ve found a doll’s house – I never knew that was here, let’s have a look.’
‘No,’ he said, backing out of the cupboard. ‘It’s private.’
She looked at him, sweating and pale; she took his hand. ‘Okay. Come and have some lunch now with me and Jack, all right?’
She led him across the floor, past the shape, which did nothing, and up the stairs. She had switched the light on, everything looked ordinary and everyday, as it was meant to look.
‘Where’s Frances?’
‘She’s gone for a walk, remember? She’ll be back soon.’
‘Where’s Oliver?’
‘Down on the river with Jess, still. I expect they’re getting hungry, they’ll be on their way back for lunch, I should think.’
‘If anything happened to you I’d die.’
There. She’d said it. It had taken her almost the whole journey, all the way up past the meadows and round the next bend in the river: field and mountain, field and mountain, so beautiful, so peaceful, rowing almost all the time in silence, but a nice silence, it felt just right, and she could see that he liked it as well. And now, as they came slowly home again, towards the island of fallen branches, she said it, and went on looking at him.
He shook his head in amusement. ‘Come, come.’
‘I mean it. I mean – yesterday. The wolves.’
‘Almost wolves.’
‘Almost wolves. You might’ve got killed.’
‘I might have, but I didn’t.’
‘But if you had – if anything had happened to you – I couldn’t bear it …’
‘Jessica …’
The way he said her name. It felt – oh, how did it feel? She’d never known there were feelings like this in her life.
And then she told him. ‘I love you,’ she said, trembling, because it sounded so extraordinary, after all this time, actually to say it at last. As if everything else had disappeared, as if the only thing in the whole world was the two of them, drifting along on the water, with field and mountain falling away, everything falling away, because nothing else mattered at all. ‘I really love you,’ she said again, and waited.
‘Jessica …’
No one ever said her name like that. It felt as if he were giving it to her.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked him, because she couldn’t bear to wait any longer, she had to hear him say it too.
He didn’t answer.
‘You do love me, don’t you?’
‘Jessica … You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He was speaking slowly, as if he was trying to be kind. He did love her, didn’t he, she couldn’t have imagined it all?
‘What do you mean?’ she asked him, suddenly feeling all cold.
‘I mean … you’re a child. I’m fond of you as a child, do you understand? As a – well, as a daughter.’
‘But …’
She couldn’t bear to look at him.
‘But nothing.’
‘But I thought … We have such nice times together … I thought …’ She began to cry.
‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘And I am sorry. Very sorry.’
She cried and cried. All out there in the middle of the river, which didn’t feel at all now as if it was a special, enchanted place, their place, where nothing else mattered so long as they were together. It just felt like a river.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please don’t cry any more.’ He dug in the pocket of his lovely old trousers and passed her a handkerchief. She blew and blew. ‘Good girl, well done. And now I think we’d better forget all about this, don’t you? Come on, dry your eyes, that’s it, be brave. We’re friends, good friends, aren’t we?’
He was being nicer than he had ever been, she couldn’t bear it, and she gave him back his handkerchief willing him to say it was all a mistake, that of course he loved her really, but he didn’t, he just picked up the paddles again, and began to row. She sat, red-eyed and miserable, listening to the smooth rise and fall of the water; she leaned over the side and splashed her face, because if anyone saw her like this she’d die.
‘Look,’ he said suddenly. ‘Look, quick!’
She raised her head and saw it – a bright, beautiful flash of blue, racing away downriver, brilliant, rare. Then it was gone.
‘Well,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘I think we’re the only ones who’ve seen two kingfishers on this holiday, don’t you?’
‘Three,’ she corrected him. ‘It was two last time, wasn’t it?’
‘So it was, you’re quite right. Well done.’ He smiled again, with affection, and she smiled back at him, trying to be brave. It was nice being friends, but it wasn’t the same.
‘Isn’t all love obsessive?’ said Frances, addressing the air.
‘I don’t think so. Not in my experience.’ He paused, remembering a browse along the bookshelves the morning after Tom had gone sleepwalking and knocked over the shepherd’s cloak. ‘“True love wants what’s best for the other person,”’ he said. ‘“Romantic love wants the other person.” I give you that courtesy of the Reader’s Digest – rather good, isn’t it?’
‘Not bad.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘Except that most of us want both, don’t we? To give and to have.’
‘Yes. Well – I suppose it’s unlikely that the secret of life might be found in the Reader’s Digest.’
‘Most unlikely. Still, you never know.’ She liked Robert: it was impossible not to like him, even if, not an hour ago, she had briefly hated him. Like Claire, generously taking over whenever it was necessary, he had qualities which in the face of her own emotional turbulence felt like rocks to rest on: he was fair, he was honest, he was kind. A good person, she thought, as they went on walking. Simply that.
‘You said you believed in sin,’ she said, smoking again. ‘What made you say that?’
‘Did I? When?’
‘You know you did – surely you must remember. That evening out on the terrace …’
‘There have been many evenings out on the terrace.’
‘Yes, but you remember. When we were all talking – about God, and what we believed in. You said you believed in sin.’
‘Must have had too much to drink.’ He smiled. ‘It’s all right, I do remember now.’ He bent down to pick up a fir cone, fiddling absently with it as they walked. ‘The last person who had too much to drink on this holiday was Oliver, if I remember rightly. Another troubled soul. Do you want to talk to me about Oliver?’
‘No.’
‘Frances. He knows. Doesn’t he? He knows something, any way.’
‘Of course he knows something. If he didn’t know something he’d be a fool, and Oliver is anything but that.’ She dropped her cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with her heel.
‘And you still –’
‘Still what?’ She gave another ghost of a smile, with a quizzical expression which reminded him of no one so much as Oliver. ‘Still love him? Yes. Does that surprise you? I was asking you about sin – does all this sound selfish and wicked? Wanting two people?’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘When you say “want” –’
‘I mean want in my life. Does that equal sin, in your book?’
He was twisting dry petals off the fir cone, flicking them on to the ground as they walked. ‘It seems to me that sin is not so much a Milton word as an Alice word. It means just what you want it to mean, depending on what is troubling you at the time.’
‘What about the absolutes? You said you tried to live by som
e kind of absolutes.’
‘Mmm. I did have a lot to drink. I seem to recall you saying that there’s always an “And yet”. Isn’t there? It seems to me a miracle that any marriage endures without some kind of – what shall we say? Venturing forth? Glances in other directions?’
‘Have you and Claire ventured forth?’
‘Don’t ask too many questions. No, not yet. Not as far as I know, anyway. If we did, I hope we should survive it, that’s all. Without making too many people unhappy. I think love is supposed to make things better, not worse. Is this woman you dream about all the time making things better? Why were you crying when we came back?’
‘Because I miss her – why do you think?’ she asked. ‘Because I cannot bear to think of having to live without her. I can’t tell you how lovely she is, how much I want to be with her. I want to talk to her about everything, for everything to be open between us, and it can’t be. Not in the way I want. She has a family; I have a family. I want more; I know she doesn’t. It’s hard, that’s all.’
They were walking up the slope again; a bullock cart creaked on the road above them.
‘You can’t make somebody love you,’ said Robert.
‘I don’t want to make her love me. I just want to tell her, and for her to accept it. She might not be able to, she might be appalled.’
‘It does sound a fairly modest requirement.’
‘Try living with it.’
He shook his head. ‘Has this ever happened to you before?’ he asked after a while.
She didn’t look at him. ‘Once or twice. Twice, if you must know, but not for a very long time. I never did anything about it, if that’s what you want to know.’
‘But you wanted to.’
‘Not like this. I’m grown up now, it’s different.’
‘And you’re sure,’ he said. ‘You’re sure she doesn’t feel as you do.’
‘Certain.’
‘Then that saves you, doesn’t it? From having to decide.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not quite convinced you really want more, that’s all. If you were to tell her, and she were to turn round and tell you she felt the same – do you really want what you think you want?’
‘Does anyone really want what they think they want?’
