by Stella Duffy
We had a drink. One then another. He explained how he found out, the confrontation, the confession. First she told him about us and then, horrible and painful, for me to listen to, and – so he said – for him to explain, about the other lover. And the other. Her one husband and her three lovers. A third drink. There is a peculiar sadness in finding yourself one of many, we are human, we search for the tiny spark of difference. I was the only woman in her selection of lovers, for that I was grateful, a little.
Her latest conquest was a young man, totally besotted, telling all and sundry apparently, not aware of the rules of engagement, the tradition that his attitude ought to have been quiet and careful. The husband was worried for his wife. Worried that other people would realise what she’d been doing, uncover her lies. That they too, would see her for the beautiful whore she was. I said I did not think her a whore, he said we were the ones who paid for her charms. In kind, in love, in our constant waiting for her to return. It was not a financial transaction, but a debt paid was still a debt paid. I began to see his point of view.
I had known about her drug habits, had thought them part of her charm really, a hint of access to a world I had never understood, touching the glamour of oblivion when I touched her. He told me it was worse than that, the new young man fed her habits, enjoyed them with her. He said it was becoming a problem, she only saw me once a month, she was able to make her use look as tidy as I believed it was, but in truth, she was further gone than I realised. Further away than I realised.
He fed me that first night. After all the talking and the tears, took me out to the kitchen and fed me. A mouthful of this, half slice of that. A little more wine, another bite, a sip again, bread, cheese, water, wine, meat, bread, wine, wine, wine, him. Fed me himself. I think now I must have known that would happen. I must have walked into the meeting that night and seen him and known we would fuck. Perhaps I had always known, right back when she first took me to the restaurant and ordered my meal for me and made my choices and fed me his food and paraded me in front of his staff. I was complicit in their married games from the beginning and maybe it was inevitable I would switch sides. Certainly it did not feel as if I made a choice that night. He fed me well, I fucked him well, we were both sick with jealousy and love for her. He was a good lover though, as was she. I am not a French woman, either classic or modern. I do not take an absurdly inflated interest in grooming or diet or accessories – she did, we were her accessories – I am though, inordinately interested in passion. Food and passion. He was skilled in both. Both take careful preparation, he was well planned.
He became my lover, she continued as my lover. She continued with her other lovers. She became increasingly indiscreet as the fervour for her young man increased. As I explained, she did not look like the classic televisual drug addict, the more she played with the young man though, the more he enjoyed her illicit largesse, the wider her mouth, spilling secrets. Eventually her husband decided the time had come. Aux grands maux les grands remèdes. Cliché is so French.
I would come to visit her, tell her I knew about her young lover. We would arrange to meet him. There would be a scene, somewhere public. I would force from her confession of their desire. Then I would reveal I also knew of the other lover. Daoud, the washer of filthy dishes in her husband’s kitchen. She would deny, fight, shout, and finally, worn down by my heartbreak, agree. Admit. Admit in front of the young man, who would not be sober or clean, who would vow to do something about it. And when her body was found, a day or a week later, the mark of suspicion would be ready on his brow.
It was complicated, uncertain, not at all possible to guarantee what would happen. And yet, in the hotel room bed, in his wide arms, with his food in my belly and his kiss in my mouth, I was persuaded it could all work out. If not exactly as planned, then at least go some of the way towards making the potential true. All we really needed was for her to admit and for him to become angry.
I suppose I could have said no. At any time really, I could have taken my jealousy and fury home with me, traveled away from that city and never seen her again, left them to their desire and bitterness and passion. But I agreed with him, it wasn’t fair, she wasn’t fair. One understands the role of spouse, or of mistress, either of these make sense. And a spouse knows there is the chance to be cuckolded, a mistress understands she is not first. But a third lover? A fourth? He was right. She was taking the piss. And besides, after just a short while, I quite liked the idea of having him to myself. He was – is – a very attractive man. If not conventionally so. But then I am not, unlike so many Frenchwoman, a lover of convention.
And it appears the plans of her husband, my lover-chef, have worked. I dressed in the disguise he chose for me, traveled as another woman, hid in this city and drowned another woman. Now she is dead and she is not beautiful, the drowned are not beautiful. I have been here a week. First the police came to speak to Daoud, but he had an alibi, he was washing dishes. Plenty of people saw him doing so. The husband had an alibi – he was working, in the kitchen, talking to his customers, creating art from raw ingredients, feeding the discerning masses. The young man did not have an alibi. He was sitting at home that night, alone, shooting up with the heroin substitute she brought him from her office, using the syringe she brought him from her office. Her husband told the police about her lovers, her drug habits, her hidden life. He did not tell the police how we parceled her up in restaurant waste bags and carried her to his van, more often used for transporting sides of beef and mutton, and we took her to the river and we let her fall. So much is hidden under cover of darkness. And London has more CCTV cameras than any other city in Europe. But not Paris, those ugly cameras spoil the view. I told the police about our relationship. They were surprisingly ready to believe a respected medical professional could behave in such a manner, for them, the addition of lust to substance multiplied readily into disaster. It made it simple too, for them to understand the jealousy of her young lover, his head swimming, his hands holding her beneath the water. Crime passionnel is no longer a defence of course, but I trust his time in prison may help him with his addiction problems. Tout est bien qui finit bien.
I did not have an alibi. But then I was not in France. My passport proves it, the strong security both our countries now pride themselves on proves it. There may have been a middle aged woman in a grey wig and ill-fitting clothes at some point. She may have been in France, in Paris, but she was not noticed.
I miss her, of course, though not too much, I suspect we were nearing the end of our time anyway, everything has its time. And I have my new lover now, he who feeds me so well. Too well almost. It is lucky my own husband and children demand so much energy at home, keeping me busy, I might get fat otherwise. Family is so important, isn’t it?
A Swimmer’s Tale
I HAVE COME HERE to escape. To forget about the love that never was. (Not true of course, but right now, I would prefer the never was.) I can bear never was far more easily than never will again. Less present pain in return for denying earlier pleasure. I am raw and can no longer imagine what the earlier pleasure might have been. It is all hurt, all loss. And still there is no word, no sign, from you. I am melodrama abandonment, but find no enjoyment in my over-the-top. I’ve always placed far too much hope in the possibility of eternal clairvoyance for lovers. The possibility of love for lovers.
Girlfriends and boyfriends and ex-lovers and maybe-lovers and concerned mother smiles have all offered helpful advice. The same helpful advice. I was counselled warm beaches, hot sun, hotter bodies. I was counselled sun and sea and surf and alcohol and illicit drugs if at all possible and beyond that, over and above the hedonism of sinning skin, I was counselled hedonism of the flesh. Let them get in. Anyone, any flesh, any man, any woman. Just let someone in, not too deep, but far enough, fill enough of that aching gap and then you won’t notice it quite so much. The pain, the loss, the yawning void of the full urn on my mantelpiece. (You’d think after almost a year I’d have
done something with it, scattered them somewhere for God’s sake. My friends think it’s time I did something with it. They’re quite possibly right. Their rightness is why I’m here.)
My friends think it’s high time I did something with you. But I’m still waiting for a sign, a smile, a cool breeze in the middle of the night from a draft-proofed double-glazed window. You promised you’d let me know it was all right. I’m still waiting. How hard can it be for you to break back through? Is your love really so held by traditional physics? Where’s the quantum leap of desire you promised me? I’m looking for miracles and seeing darkness magnified through tears. I’m looking for hope and losing you to black holes.
The obvious correctness of my friends’ and family’s suggestions though, is why I’m here now, why I’m by the sea. Come to find myself again. (They actually meant come to lose you for the first time, come to let you go, though no-one had the guts to say so.) I think perhaps I was supposed to try Barbadian lust, Bondi bonding, cruise the cruisers and find one for me. (Maybe not the latter, even my most desperate mates don’t think seventy-year-old rich Americans are my type.) Instead I have chosen Wales. Anglesey. Peninsula insular. Like me. Like I’ve become. I used to be the outgoing one of our pairing, the loud one. There seems little point now. Without my other there is nothing for my shadow to fall against. I find I am undefined.
You found me too loud always. In bed, in bath, in Bath. In hotels especially. Too thin walls letting through my too loud desire. You tried to hush me, shut me up. You tried to shut me. Impossible. I blossomed open, time lapse photography fast, when I met you. And stayed that way – it’s why daily life scrapes against my open flesh now – I do not know how to close up again. Not since you. You loved to go away, summer killed you in London and you made a motorway maid of me too. We found the finest – and grottiest – hotels in the land, and the so many others. As long as they were within the reach of the sea, or sunshine, or just a running tap if that was all we could manage. You needed water and I needed you. Need you.
At first I thought this was a mistake. There was too much of a sense that you might be round the next corner, hiding in the headway. I kidded myself for a whole half a day that we had arranged for you to meet me later. I do not like to dine alone. It takes no time at all to eat a three course meal by myself and even the best intentioned kitchen staff cannot maintain the pace when there is no knife-and-fork banter to fill up the clock space necessary for perfectly sautéed meat. You did not come to the table. I offered your glass to Elijah, but he wasn’t thirsty either. I drank it myself instead. I have drunk alone far too many of the bottles I used to share with you. It’s one way to get to sleep. It’s the only way to get to sleep. Which is still infinitely preferable to waking up.
Milos. Cycladian sea island. Circadian rhythms shot to fuck by the fuck shooting through me to you and back again. We are on a tourist boat charting the island circumference. You marvel at my bravery as I dive into cliché-clear waters. I marvel at your bravery as you dive into me. I swim beneath the sea and look up to you, magnified by the depths of sea-through ocean. You are an amplified version and the water might be sea, might be me. My love/lust/lost-in-you tears make you huge. You fill the space of my vision. You fill the space of me.
The first night here it rained seven hours solid. Howling rain pelted by a broken wind against my window. I knew how it felt. I lay awake as I do so often now, waiting for you. Wondering if here you might be able to find me again. I worry that you are lost out there, elemental soul beating against closed doors unable to worm-hole your way through to me. And then too, I worry that there’s nothing to worry about. That there is none of you left. That the reason you have not managed the Cathy/Heathcliff reunion we promised each other is because there is nothing to reunite. I am real, corporeal. You are not. I should hope that your present nothingness is the truth, hope for your sake that you aren’t wandering the darkness trying to find me. Should, don’t. My grief is still selfish enough to deny you a peaceful nothing. I just want to touch you again. (And even when I say that, I know it’s not true. One touch would never be enough. I would keep you with me forever.) Your departure has made a genie-keeper of me. I’d lock you back in that urn quick as kiss you. I’d lock you back in my flesh quick as love you. Love you quick again.
Sydney sunshine. You and I and the antipodean sky, lost in the sharp blue, astounded by the fierceness of the sun, astonished that while it burnt my skin, you burnt my lips more, branded ourselves with each other. My body was made to hold yours. There were wonders to see and you ignored them to look at me. We were not good tourists, I could send home no postcards of the fine sights they offered us, I had no ‘wish you were here’ when I was with you. Your topography was more than enough.
There is a man here, also alone. I think the breakfast waitress would like us to talk to each other. I think she is more interested in the morning ease of having to clear just the one table, than the possibility that this man and I might find conversation possible. We don’t talk, but I do begin to watch him. He eats toast and marmalade, no butter, as you did. But his toast is cut into quarters, eaten carefully, he does not crush a slice in half as you did and finish one piece in three mouthfuls. He seems to have more time than you did. I’d steal it from him if I could, give you his time. Your death has made a murderer of me. The man is slow and deliberate. Every morning he sets out, walks the mud flats of the shallow tide. He has binoculars and telescope. It is a wet summer, he watches shore birds, writes them down in a notebook. At least that’s what I imagine he’s doing – sighting, writing. As if simply seeing is enough. He does not need to touch as well. It’s a skill I would do well to learn.
Hot Paris summer. All the Parisians have left, abandoning their overheated city to we foolish tourists. You and I are overheated and weighed down with shopping and crowded by jostling Italian school children. We fight on the Metro, an argument about nothing, escalating to everything. It is not unusual for us to fight and even so, every time we do, I think it means the end. Still I cannot stop myself. Run up the stairs and into the sweltering city and far from you. Will not back down, don’t remember where this began, probably don’t care, and yet am so caught up in the emotion, the wave of your fury and my anger, that I have no way of coming back to you. You come back to me instead, remind me that however much I hate you, you are going nowhere without me. That I can push you away as much as I want, beat you off with my violent words, but you’re not leaving. I glare at you and refuse to admit my relief, my gratitude at your astonishing staying-power. It’s impressive. And I do believe you. Believe I cannot push you away. That night we lay in a hot bed, desultory ceiling fan stirring humid air around our dark-painted room, sticky skin making the slow approach, remembering who we are because we are with each other. And I did believe you when you said I couldn’t send you away. You were right of course, it wasn’t me who sent you. It was summer.
On the third morning the sun was shining when I awoke. I was surprised by the brighter light through the heavy curtains. Did not understand the faint ease of spirit, tried to banish the half-smile playing with my features, but it wouldn’t leave my face. It was late when I woke, two solo wine bottles conspiring in my hot, heavy slumber. I’d missed breakfast, missed the man with his carefully quartered toast. I dressed without showering first – you’d have been appalled – pulled on yesterday’s tired clothes, dragged my matted hair back into a careless pony tail. There was a new urgency, I didn’t know why or what for, I did know I’d better get out there and use it before my inebriate brain woke up properly and grief lethargy hit again. The sun was hot on my covered arms, your old jumper that I’ve been wearing half the time for most of a year was not meant for summer, not even British summer. I pulled the sleeves up to my elbows and looked at my pale arms, thin since you. Bony fingers reaching out for a hand to hold. I stopped on the road above the shore and saw the man, his telescope trained on a rock far out, exposed by the low tide, I saw wheeling dots around the rock, n
o doubt he saw and knew his prey, jotted notes on salt-damp paper, categorized, called and caught. He watched the birds for an hour or so, I watched him for almost as long. It was peaceful and warm, not enough tourists had lasted the wet week for the remaining few to disturb me over much. Those who had stayed were families with too many small children and too few large bank balances to move on to the next place the sun might be. The shore was blessedly free of hand-holding couples who might have rubbed sea-salt in my fresh wounds. It is close to a year, I know, but the wounds are as fresh as the day you made them, ripping yourself away from my grasp. They stay fresh, I like them that way. I understand them that way. The man began to pack up his equipment and I quickly moved on, up the hill, beyond the headland where the wind is fresher and cooler. I did not want him to see me watching. He might equate distraction with interest, and I can no longer manage polite conversation. Strangers are not usually equipped to deal with unexpected tears. I did not use to cope so well either. Now the salt-flow is my norm. You always preferred sea water to fresh. How nice to know I am still pleasing you. (I would rather not please you.)
Venice. They all said not to go in summer. They were right. Would have been right if we had been tourists, clammy bodies cramming St Mark’s Square, overflowing flesh flooding into the Lido overflow. But we were not tourists you and I. I had not travelled to the lagoon to marvel at Tintoretto or applaud the bravery of the Guggenheim collection. Instead I took a hotel room-bound long weekend to marvel at the delicate flesh tones of you, to applaud the priceless modern collection, astonishing bravery of spirit, the audacity and shock that was only you. Your body offered to me on cool white sheets, your self laid out with room service care, the touch and taste of you making a bland white bread of their coffee, biscotti, bruchetta, prosecco, proscutio, prandial-offered prospect. Childhood-myth and long awaited Venice lay before me, open plate, offered wide. I closed the shutters on the grounded visitors of the grand vista, Grand Canal, you were all the view I needed. I toured you that weekend. Unlikely rest weekend away, I went home exhausted and thin. Who could ask for more?
