by Paul Kelly
Robert left the cafe and she followed.
***
As they walked together along the road, Robert didn’t speak, but Freya noticed that he wasn’t walking entirely straight and had a slight wobble in his step. It was only after a few moments that she realized this gait may be something to do with his MS.
“Do you want to come home with me to my flat?” she asked, daring any rebuke he might make, as she was expecting anything.
“Do you mind if we take a seat in the park, as it is a lovely day?” he asked and Freya was delighted with that suggestion, as it was more than she had ever expected.
“That’s fine,” she replied, “I’m a little tired of walking anyway. I spent some time jogging this morning and I may have gone too far,”
Robert smiled.
“Jogging ... It’s a long time since I did anything like that.” he said and then as they went into the park, they spotted a seat quite near the entrance.
“This is fine,” he said, but if you’d rather. . . “
“No, no, this is fine really, but would you mind if I asked you a question? It’s something that has been bothering me since you told me you had MS.”
Robert looked gravely at her for a few moments.
“That’s something I don’t talk about unless I absolutely have to,” he answered and Freya felt as though she had truly been put in her place.
“It’s not important,” she said softly and folded her hands on her knee, but he continued to speak.
“I’ve had the condition for the past nine years ... if you really want to know. Well that’s when I was officially diagnosed, but I think I had some tell tale signs before that; say about three or four years before.”
“You are doing remarkably well considering,”
“Well there are varying degrees of this thing and I understand mine is not as serious as some. I have known people who have had to have wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.”
“Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to Robert ... May I call you Robert?” Freya asked rather shyly and he nodded.
“I don’t really mind you asking me anything that you think you should know about me, although I find it strange that you should even bother. I’m not worth it.”
Freya shuffled in the park seat. She wanted to touch his hand and tell him that she felt very differently about what he thought of himself.
“I have been thinking since you told me of your condition that perhaps that may have been the reason for your accident,” she said, hesitating in the knowledge that he might be annoyed again at what seemed to be her interference.
Robert smiled again, but his eyes were sad.
“I didn’t want to come round, you know,” he said slowly and Freya looked at him, trying to understand what he meant.
“I don’t understand,” she said and he sighed deeply.
“After the operation where they did things to my head, after the accident ... .I didn’t want to come round. I know that’s selfish as I have serious responsibilities that I must consider, but ...”
“But what, Robert?” she asked.
“I wanted to die,” he said and Freya gasped.
“You can’t mean that surely,” she said and took his hand in hers but he pulled away.
“I did, but I see now it was a selfish thing to want ... It’s just that I was so low.”
“I had thought that perhaps your ... your condition could have made you a little unsteady when you fell in front of that car.”
“You are thinking of how unsteady I am on my feet, aren’t you?”
“Oh! no, not at all, but I have told you I have a friend who has the same condition and she is a little unsteady on her feet, in fact ...”
“Somebody thought she was drunk,” added Robert instantly and she wanted to laugh.
“You’ve guessed it,” she giggled, but I think that is very cruel.”
“Yes, that’s right, but it is laughable if you don’t know, isn’t it?”
Freya was surprised when after that breakthrough he suddenly changed his manner of speaking and became quite abrupt.
“Freya,” he said solemnly and she waited for some grave correction in her demeanor to follow. “Freya, I don’t mind you asking me questions. I have already said that, but please. If I may be so bold. You are a very attractive young lady and . .”
He stopped talking at this point
“And what?” she asked ... “And you can be as bold as you like.”
He smiled again.
“I don’t want to start any relationship ... If you know what I mean. I have had troubles in my relationships before and I don’t want to start something I would regret afterwards.”
“I understand,” she said, but in her heart she was bitterly disappointed. She knew that with each moment that passed, she was beginning to see Robert Peterson in a very different light to anyone she had even known before. She reflected quickly on how she felt when she first met Sammy Boyle but it was nothing like this. Robert was a giant of a man for all he considered himself to be worthless. “I understand perfectly,” she went on and Robert looked away for a moment as she continued to speak “Perhaps I should have told you before that I have been married and am now divorced, so I am not some young thing who imagines that she is in love simply because she is sitting on a park bench with a handsome man.”
Robert looked at Freya with startled eyes.
“I too have been divorced,” he said” and perhaps now you will understand why I am thinking as I do. Actually I have been married and divorced twice, so you will see that I have no intentions of going through all that again.”
Freya was surprised when Robert told her that. He was such a lovely person. She failed to understand how any woman would want to leave him, but then she thought again about Sammy. Everyone thought Sammy Boyle was a lovely person.
“My divorce was partly my fault, “Freya confessed silently, hoping that Robert wouldn’t hear and yet she knew she should tell him. “I wasn’t as worldly as my husband thought I should be and he very soon sought consolation elsewhere ... and he became rather violent too, but I suppose that was partly my fault again.”
“Why do you speak as you do?” Robert interrupted. “No man should ever strike a woman, no matter what she is ... or isn’t, as you seem to infer.”
“I was brought up in a rather strict household and I married when I was nineteen, so I suppose I was too young and too inexperienced for the man I thought I loved, but at that age, you think you know everything there is to know about marriage.”
“I am sorry Freya. I am truly sorry, but my first marriage was something like your own. I was the stupid person in that relationship, but I thought it was the right thing to do, to work hard to make a home and hope for a family.”
“And do you think now that you made a mistake there?” she asked and Robert sighed heavily.
“ I am a professional musician. I teach the violin and I may have been working too many hours for a marriage to work, but my wife then didn’t work at all, although she was a very gifted artist. I just got very weary coming home each evening and there would be no dinner. Not even a sandwich and I wondered what she did all day. Then she fell pregnant. I have a little son. He is nine now; nearly ten, however the relationship could never have lasted. We argued from morning till night and I felt it was impractical to go on that way and we separated.”
“And you married again after that?” enquired Freya, realizing now that Robert was more able to talk about his problem than he was when she first met him.
“Yes. I fell in love with a fellow musician and imagined that life would be perfect with the musical background between us, but I was very wrong. I was only married for about eighteen months when I learned from some of our friends that she had been having affairs for some
considerable time, even before and after our marriage. I should have listened to the people who told me this before I married her, and warned me of her fickle nature, but love is blind ... or so they say.”
Freya was deeply touched when Robert told her his story. She looked into his eyes but he turned away.
“I suppose that is the reason why you don’t want to start another relationship, isn’t it?” she said, hoping that he might not answer her, but he did.
“I will never ever get married again,” he announced as though several people were listening to him. “Never, never again.”
“Did your wives know about your condition?”
Robert looked up into the sky for a few seconds when Freya asked him that question. “I wasn’t diagnosed until after my first divorce,” he said, but I think I had been affected with this thing some time before that. My second wife knew about it, but she told me it didn’t matter and love would conquer all ... We actually lived together for nearly two years before we married ... My God, that was longer than the marriage lasted ... but it DID matter. I was ill for about three weeks after my second marriage and I tried to do everything for myself without troubling my wife, but she wouldn’t have done anything for me anyway. She told me I was drinking too much and that I should get a hold of myself. She went on working in a school teaching the piano to children and it was in this time that she was having her affairs.”
“Affairs, you say, Robert. More than one then?”
Robert laughed and Freya could see his teeth perfectly for the first time.
“Many more than one, my dear lady,” he said and laughed all the more. I must have been naive. She would leave the house at 6.30 am and tell me she was teaching ... and like a fool I believed her. Teaching some guy how to have sex, if he didn’t already know. I learnt later that she had several older men as her clientele.”
Freya touched Robert’s hand, but he quickly withdrew from her.
“Please don’t Freya. You are a very nice girl and I respect you, but I just can’t take a relationship any further than friendship. I am grateful for your friendship and you can dump me any time you want, but as for anything else ... NO, A very firm NO.”
“I understand ... Yes, I understand perfectly,” she replied, but her heart was sorrowful. It wasn’t simply sex she wanted with Robert, as it was totally sex and nothing more with Sammy and she realized that now, but she wanted more than that sort of life where she was only wanted in bed. She saw Robert as a truly kind and generous person and she wanted to share her life with him at any cost ... but would he be prepared for that?
Robert rose from where they were sitting and held out his hand to assist Freya to follow him.
“We could have lunch ... or dinner if you prefer,” he said, “I owe you that for giving up a day’s work for me.”
Freya grinned. She felt happy. It was more than she had anticipated and she would play it by ear and let Robert get his mind clear of everything that disturbed him before she would expect any more What a comparison to Sammy, she thought as they walked out of the park. Sammy had nothing on his mind, but sex. He was happy as long as she was obliging, but if for any reason she couldn’t oblige, he was off to someone else’s bed and Freya knew that. She had learned, by bitter experience that when there is infidelity in a marriage, it was always bound to come out somewhere or other and she had lost many a friend who had sympathized more with Sammy than with her. Tea and sympathy, she thought. Call it what you like, but Sammy knew all about that art, where instead of tea it was whisky ... and sometimes even drugs.
She wished she could take Robert’s arm, or hold his hand at least, but they walked together as two units until they came to a restaurant and Robert opened the door for Freya to go inside before him.
Chapter Six
It was three weeks before Freya met Robert again. She had given him her telephone number and her address, but it made no difference and she concluded that their affair, if you could call it that, was over.
Jenny kept making remarks about the ‘boyfriend’ to find out all she could about the meeting, but Freya had no energy to supply her with any information.
However, it was one afternoon, when Freya was on the evening shift and working on her own, that she saw Robert again. The cafe was quiet and Freya had only half an hour more before she could lock up and go home.
He came into the cafe and sat down and nervously she approached him to take his order. It was almost as though they were strangers again; the way he sat there so lonely looking and staring into space. Would he remember her, she thought as she coughed and startled him.
“Oh! Hello Freya,” he said softly, but that was enough for her as she drew up a chair and sat down beside him.
“Robert, I thought you had forgotten about me,” she said nervously. “I thought,”
“You think too much,” he said and forced a smile.
“Can I get you a coffee?” she asked and he nodded.
“Black with a little sugar as always,” she added and he sat back in the chair with his eyebrows raised.
“You remember?” he asked and Freya nodded enthusiastically ... If only he knew how much she remembered . . .
“I have thought about what you told me many times and wondered how you have got on,” said Freya but Robert didn’t seem to register at first to what she said. It was only after a few seconds that he blinked and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”
“I have wondered how you have been since I saw you last,” she repeated and he shook his head again.
“Please don’t think about it. Why should you have a headache over my troubles,” he concluded but Freya would have none of it.
“But I want to help. I have said that so many times and you must believe me.”
“Freya,” he said softly, “I can offer you nothing. “You must know that. It is not that I want to hold myself in reserve. It is just the way things have made me. I cannot move forward until this matter is cleared in my mind and only yesterday I found that things could be much worse than I thought them to be.”
Freya looked hurt when he said that.
“Worse?” she enquired, “Worse than things were before?”
“Yes ... It may be that I will lose my home if Sarah has her way in the divorce.”
“Sarah ... Is that your wife’s name?
“My second wife’s name. The first was Rita, but we divorced amicably, although I took Cameron to live with me. Cameron is the son I told you I had and who is with me now. He’s quite a young man now; nearly nine He was the child of my first wife. His Name is Cameron. . . I had no children by Sarah, thank God and Cameron never liked her. Strange that he felt that way about her as soon as she came to visit the house, long before we thought of getting married. She was the one who wanted the divorce before I knew anything of how she felt in the marriage. She just left the house to go to school one morning and handed me a letter.”
“A letter . . . Just that. . . how long had you known Sarah before this and did she know about your condition?”
“Yes, I told her about my problem and she understood as far as I could understand. After all she lived with me for two years before we got married.”
Freya found what Robert was telling her, very hard to believe.
“Do you mean she told you what she wanted in a letter without even discussing anything with you by conversation?”
“Yes, that’s how it was done. I thought everything was fine between us. In fact, we made love the night before she walked out .. and what was more hurtful, she left me to go with a much older man who taught at the school where she was teaching music.”
“Did she say that in her letter, Robert?“
“Yes and even worse than that. This old geezer that she left me for is a well known womanis
er. I know him from one of the schools where I teach pupils privately,“
Freya felt so sorry for Robert when he said that as she reflected again on Cameron’s mother, Rita, whom she thought would have had custody of the little boy.
“You were fortunate in being able to keep Cameron with you, are you not? Usually the child goes with the mother,” she said and looked intently into Robert’s eyes.
“I teach music at a public school,” Robert went on, “and when Cameron was younger, I was able to get him into nursery at the school and also into the juniors when he got to be a little older. He is there now as a boarder and I see him every weekend, when he comes to stay at my place. It seemed the most sensible thing for him at the time and besides, Rita was always too busy with her art to think of anything else, but she can see Cameron whenever she likes and does actually come to visit us ... even if it’s not very often. I think the solution suited her and as I have told you, we parted quite amicably.”
“ Robert, I do wish you’d let me help in some way. There are no strings attached. You know that, but I have to tell you now that I think I am in love with you ... in fact I KNOW I am.”
Robert rose up and closed his eyes.
“My God, I never wanted this to happen. You can’t be in love with me Freya. It is kindness because of the person you are and because of the person I am, with my problems ... It is SYMPATHY and I can understand that, but it is not love. How can you think it is?”
“You know that I too have been divorced.” said Freya, ignoring Robert’s protest. “I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Well I can assure you that was not a marriage of love, when at first I thought it was. I have learned much since my divorce two years back after a sad, sad two years of marriage. I can tell you now Robert, I have never been in love until I met you.”
“You mustn’t say that,” he screamed and Freya looked back at him in surprise. She knew it was premature to say such a thing, but she couldn’t help herself and she thought if she assured Robert that she had feelings for him, he might feel better and not worry so much about being so alone. “I don’t believe in love,” he added, “There is no such word in my dictionary. Now if you don’t mind, I think we should call it a day and I have lots to do anyway.”
