Running to Stand Still

by J Theron

  “You broke his heart.”

  “It was never my intention,” Danielle replied simply.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  Danielle was momentarily speechless as she gaped at Michael. She could not remember ever having a conversation of this nature. “That’s none of your business, Michael! Why are you doing this?”

  “Did you sleep with him?” he asked more forcefully.

  “I never slept with him! I have never slept with anyone!” She was unable to control her temper because her experience, or lack thereof, had been a point of contention between her and her fiancé for a long time.

  “You’re being an asshole. I’m done here. Take me home. This conversation is over!” Danielle jumped up and pushed past Michael to reach the door. She noticed a few curious glances their way and she took solace in the fact that they most probably did not understand what she was saying.

  “Danni, wait!” Michael reached her as she ran onto the pavement in front of the pub. He grabbed her elbow and spun her around. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. There has been a lot of bad blood between Thomas and I and it all started with you. I guess I still feel resentful about that. I never thought a girl would come between me and my brother.” He looked genuinely contrite and she immediately felt guilty for her outburst.

  “Are you blaming me for your bad relationship with your brother?” Danielle had to swallow hard not to burst into tears. Michael slowly pulled her towards him and hugged her.

  “Never,” he said as he kissed the top of her head. “You were an angel. We were two brothers in love with the same girl. It was always going to end in disaster.”

  He held her tight and she felt as if the world stopped spinning. She had to get away from him. She pushed him away with more force than she intended and took a few steps back, unable to catch her breath.

  “You were in love with me?” she asked breathlessly.

  He looked at her and did not answer for a long time. When he started speaking his voice was soft, filled with emotion. “Desperately. Since the moment I saw you on the beach eleven years ago, sitting under that ridiculous sun umbrella in the dark.”

  Danielle could not believe what she was hearing. How desperately she wanted to hear those words ten years ago! She tried to make sense of the thoughts swirling around in her head. Michael did not move and she became aware of a thick current of sexual awareness between them, it was as if she was being pulled towards him by some magnetic force. She had only ever experienced it once with a man, only he wasn’t a man then, but a boy, and he was standing in front of her now. The silence between them stretched and she had to force herself to speak.

  “I want to go back to my hotel. I can’t face your friends tonight,” she whispered.

  Michael did not respond at first then nodded. “Okay. I’ll walk you back.”

  He started walking in the direction of the hotel, keeping a safe distance. He did not speak and she welcomed the silence. When they reached the hotel he stopped and turned towards her.

  “Lucienne is leaving for Paris tomorrow. She’ll be gone for a few days. I will have some free time and it would be nice if we could spend it together. I haven’t had any contact with people from home for a very long time and seeing you has brought back so many memories. I would like to take you sightseeing and show you all my favourite places. I have an exhibition coming up, but I’m ahead of schedule which means I can take some time off to spend it with you.”

  He took her hand and kissed her knuckles before pulling her close for a hug. He held her tight and kissed her cheek before letting her go. There was nothing sexual about the gesture but she felt her cheek tingle where his lips touched her skin.

  “I would like that very much. I’m sorry our evening didn’t go as planned.” Danielle could not hide the disappointment in her voice.

  “I’m sorry for turning into a Neanderthal the moment I sat down with my beer.” Michael frowned as he gazed into her eyes.

  She could not suppress her smile. “So where are we going tomorrow?”

  “Mm. It’s a surprise. Be ready at seven tomorrow morning and wear comfortable shoes. And a bikini.” Michael sounded mysterious. Danielle smiled as she walked to her room. She liked surprises.

  Michael was waiting for her the next morning when she entered the lobby. Danielle wondered absentmindedly if all artists were as punctual as Michael. He led her outside while they waited for the valet to bring his car around. She could not contain her surprise when a silver Aston Martin stopped in front of them. The valet got out and handed the keys to Michael.

  “You have the same car as James Bond,” she exclaimed. She immediately felt like an idiot and wanted to slap her palm against her forehead for making such an inane statement. He laughed and did not seem to mind.

  “I have always been a James Bond fan! I have a bit of a thing for Danielle, I mean Daniel Craig.” He winked at her as he held the door open.

  Danielle decided to ignore him because he was obviously teasing her. The car had that intoxicating new car smell and as Michael started the engine, U2 started playing on the radio. It took her only a second to recognise that it was the album The Joshua Tree. She knew he was obsessed with that album when they were teenagers and he listened to it over and over again. A rush of memories suddenly spilled over her like an avalanche and she struggled to breathe normally.

  “Still a U2 fan, Mike?”

  Michael frowned. “Yes Dan. You still have a thing for Nina Simone?”

  “Nina and red wine helped me through all my break-ups. I never had it quite as bad as she did and that was good!”

  Michael laughed and Danielle felt the tension lift a bit. He reached for the radio and turned the volume up. She realised it was With or Without You. She tried not to think of the first six months after “the kiss” when she listened to that song twenty times a day.

  She mourned for a year after he left to go back to the army and her family was acutely worried because she had no appetite and lost so much weight. She ignored Thomas for almost the whole year and only started speaking to him again because he simply would not take no for an answer. A tense silence settled in the car and Danielle was racking her brain to find a safe topic of conversation when Running to Stand Still started playing on the radio.

  “Did you know this song is about a heroin addicted couple living in Dublin’s Ballymun flats? The seven towers in the song refer to a group of seven high rise residential blocks in Ballymun. The song is about feeling helpless and frustrated. Running to Stand Still is for anyone who feels trapped in an impossible situation with no light at the end of the tunnel.” She realised she was babbling and abruptly stopped speaking.

  Michael glanced at her and he had a slight smile on his face. “I didn’t know that. Since when are you so well informed about U2?”

  “Since I met you,” she said and watched him surreptitiously as she spoke.

  He did not take his eyes off the road and did not respond to her last statement. She silently vowed to keep her mouth shut before she made a bigger idiot of herself. They drove in silence for ten minutes and she pretended to look out the car window at the landscape as it sped by.

  “When are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked after a while, hoping it was a safe subject.

  He deliberately ignored her question. “Why did you come to France by yourself? What happened in Cape Town?”

  Danielle did not want to talk about it, but she suspected he would keep asking. “I’ve been offered a residency in cardiothoracic surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital. We are talking about the unit where Professor Christiaan Barnard did the first heart transplant. It is an enormous opportunity but if I take it I will essentially have no life for the next five years while I do my training. Jonathan wants to get married as soon as possible and I don’t know if I can do both. He wants a wife and kids. Not a surgeon who works ninety hours a week.”

  “Surely he understands that your ambition to be a heart surgeon is p
art of who you are. You would not be Danielle without it. Why would he want to change that? Change you?”

  “He feels that he should be the one working and I can do some part time GP work while I raise the kids.” She could not hide the resentment in her voice.

  “What does Jonathan do for a living?” he asked, not betraying his thoughts. His tone was completely neutral.

  “He’s a lawyer. He’s a friend of Thomas actually. They met in law school.”

  Michael smiled. “Now isn’t that ironic. Maybe I should have stuck with law. I might have had a better chance with you.”

  Danielle chuckled. “Maybe, maybe not…”

  Michael glanced at her and then his smile faded. “Whatever you do, don’t let other people dictate your life. If you truly want to be a surgeon, and you give it up for him, you will resent him for the rest of your life.”

  “I know.” Danielle was staring at the landscape not really taking anything in. “Do you mind if we talk about something else? Tell me where we’re going.”

  “I hope you love sailing as much as you used too, Danni. We’re almost there.”

  She was momentarily speechless as the Mediterranean came into view and with it the spectacular town of Cassis. Danielle was excited when she realised that Michael had a sloop that lay in the harbour in Cassis. The weather was perfect for sailing and the boat cut through the azure water of the Mediterranean before they anchored the boat in one of the secluded calanques, or narrow limestone inlets that plunge into the Mediterranean and connects Marseille to Cassis. They swam in the ocean and had lunch on the deck of the sloop.

  They were sitting on a blanket on the deck when he produced a big basket of food and it reminded her of the time they ate seafood on the beach. She was astonished when he opened the basket and one of the dishes was escargot. “I can’t believe you remembered!”

  Michael studied her face and his blue eyes seemed to stare straight into her soul. Her breath caught as he replied, “I remember everything about you, Danielle.”

  “Pity it’s not alikreukel,” she grinned.

  “My favourite dish!” He was smiling as he leaned back on the blanket and she had to concentrate not to gape at his rippling abdominal muscles. He was only wearing his boardshorts and she was considering asking him to put his T-shirt on. She had a hard time forming coherent thoughts when he was near and shirtless.

  “Tell me about your fiancé, Danni?”

  “Why do you want to talk about Jonathan?” Danielle was not sure she liked the direction the conversation was taking.

  Michael shrugged. “I’m curious about the man who stole your heart. He must be one hell of a guy if you want to spend the rest of your life with him.”

  She hesitated before answering. She did not feel comfortable discussing Jonathan with Michael but did not know how to refuse without sounding petulant. “He’s a lawyer, as you know, and he’s a good friend of Thomas.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve already said that. How did you meet?” he asked.

  She sighed in resignation. “I guess I should start with the guy I dated before Jonathan to tell the whole story.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “How many guys did you date?”

  She kicked his foot. “Don’t be an idiot, Mike.”

  He grinned. “Sorry, I’ll keep quiet now, promise.”

  “About six months before I met Jonathan I started dating a guy in my class in medical school. He wasn’t particularly good looking, but he had a certain charisma that was incredibly sexy. I don’t know, I guess I was bored and I agreed when he asked me on a date. He really pursued me relentlessly. In the beginning I wasn’t too keen but slowly the tide turned. He would say little things like ‘don’t wear those jeans, they make you look fat’ or ‘I don’t feel like kissing you today because kissing is like cake, it’s nice but I don’t always feel like having it’.”

  “Come on Danni, please don’t tell me you fell for shit like that?”

  “I was young, and I didn’t see it for what it was until it was too late. He gradually eroded away all my self-confidence until I was completely dependent on him and then he dumped me because he said I became too clingy. I almost quit medical school because seeing him in class everyday killed me. He would come up to me and make some derogatory comment about my hair or clothes. It was emotional abuse and I fell for it.”

  Michael looked angry. “Guys can be real fuckheads.”

  Danielle sighed. “I was depressed, I guess. I started to wear too much make-up, lost too much weight and completely changed my hair. My friends tried to help me, but I just couldn’t get over him. In retrospect, I realised I wasn’t mourning him, but the loss of my self-confidence. I started partying real hard, my grades started to slip and I became a real hard-ass. I wasn’t with him for long but it changed me irrevocably. I decided I would never let a man do that to me again. Anyway, one evening I went to a frat party with a few of my girlfriends and we were drinking this punch that was prepared by my best friend. She ‘accidently’ emptied two bottles of vodka in the punch but neglected to inform us of her little mishap. Needless to say we were sloshed after thirty minutes of arriving at the party.”

  He watched her intently. “Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Don’t you know that rule number one for frat parties is do not get drunk?”

  “I know, but I was in my rebel phase. I was standing in the corner when a tall blond guy walked up to me and asked me to dance. I was seeing two of him, but I thought what the hell! He was twirling me around and I lost my balance and skid under the drinks table, landing flat on my back. He had to get on his knees to drag me out because I was too drunk to get up.”

  Michael frowned. “I hope he didn’t try anything.”

  She smiled. “No he didn’t, Dad. He took me home and left like a good boy after he was sure that I wasn’t going to die of alcohol poisoning. Imagine my surprise when he rang my doorbell a few days later and asked me if I would join him for the weekend at his family’s beach house in Hermanus. He assured me we would not be alone and his friends would join us as well, which turned out to be two friends, his best friend Jimmy and his friend’s girlfriend Carmen.”

  “Ah, he had a plan. Two couples. Very innovative. I’m impressed with his ingenuity.”

  “I wasn’t impressed. The house only had two bedrooms with one double bed in each room. I insisted on sharing a room with Carmen which pissed off Jimmy! Jonathan found it amusing and we ended up having a fantastic weekend. We went surfing and diving and I kicked his ass in pool in the local pub. We were together after that. He somehow managed to convince me that not all guys were assholes.”

  “And now you are engaged,” he said softly.

  “I am…” Danielle replied breathlessly. She was captivated by his blue eyes before she averted her gaze and stared at the horizon. The gentle swell of the ocean lulled her and she lay back on the blanket, mesmerised by the beauty of her surroundings and the company of the man sitting next to her.

  “Do you love him, Danielle? Is this the guy you want to spend forever with? Have children with?”

  “The answer is yes,” she said with more conviction than she felt.

  “Why don’t I believe you?” he asked.

  “I’m not trying to convince you,” she replied.

  “No. Not me. I think you’re trying to convince yourself. That is why you’re here, in France.”

  “Please don’t presume to know me and what I think. We’re strangers. We knew each other a very long time ago when we were children,” Danielle said, unable to mask the frustration in her voice.

  Michael shook his head. “There you are mistaken again. I know you. Better than your fiancé who professes to love you.”

  She did not reply. She did not know how to respond to that.

  “We have to return before it gets dark,” he said as he rose from the blanket.

  “I know. Thank you for this amazing day,” Danielle said eventually.

  Michael nodded as he busied h
imself with the boat, seemingly deep in thought. The boat trip back to Cassis was uneventful and they were both silent during the drive back to Avignon.

  Danielle was exhausted when she arrived at her hotel that night and was lying in her bed when her cell phone vibrated. She was surprised to see it was a message from Michael.

  Be ready at nine. Bring something warm. M

  Okay. Do I have a choice? D

  No. Go to sleep now.

  She rolled her eyes and decided not to answer him. He knew she did not like being told what to do. She decided to call Jonathan and he answered on the second ring.

  “Hey sweetheart. I was hoping you would call me. I miss you.” He sounded lonely and had a slight accusatory note in his voice.

  To say he was not impressed with her insistence on her trip was an understatement, but her mind was made up and in the end he backed down. He wanted to come with her, but she refused and now she could not help but wonder why she was so adamant. Initially she thought it was to clear her head and decide about her future, but now she wondered if subconsciously she had ulterior motives.

  “I ran into an old friend. Thomas’s brother.”

  “Wow! The artist? I thought he lived in Paris.”

  “So did I. He moved to Avignon two years ago.” Danielle struggled to keep her voice nonchalant.

  “It’s a small world. I’m playing golf with Thomas tomorrow. I bet he will be surprised to hear that you saw his brother.”

  “Jonathan, don’t mention it okay. They don’t exactly get along and I think it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.” Danielle instantly regretted telling Jonathan about Michael but she felt guilty for some bizarre reason and had hoped that telling Jonathan about Michael would make her feel better.

  “You’re right. He hardly ever mentions his brother. Do you know why they don’t get along?” He sounded curious.

  “It’s a long story. Maybe I will tell you sometime. I have to go. These international calls on my cell will bankrupt me. I love you. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Okay. I love you,” Jonathan replied.