by C F Dunn
By the time the kettle boiled, he had changed into another sweater – V-necked in a soft wool, blue-grey and paler than his T-shirt. It disguised his chest to a certain degree, but accentuated his neck, and even that amount of skin proved difficult to ignore.
“Do you want to hear the rest?” he offered, following me into the living area once I’d made a cup of tea and he’d supplied a bar of chocolate without me needing to ask.
“I think you’d better.”
He raised an eyebrow in query but I busied myself fidgeting about on the sofa until I made myself comfortable. It was quieter in the room, and only then did I realize that the blizzard had dropped. Through the broken window I could just make out the snow still falling steadily, no longer driven by the tireless wind.
Matthew stood to one side of the fireplace, leaning an elbow on the tall shelf that served as a mantle.
“After the accident, you can imagine how difficult we found life for a time. It took several months to stabilize Ellen, and Henry had to bury one daughter while looking after the other. Maggie and her sister had been very close. Maggie didn’t speak for a time afterwards and I’m sure she’s never truly come to terms with what happened. That sort of thing leaves scars.”
“It must do,” I said softly.
“But then Henry met Pat – Patricia – a theatre nurse at the hospital where he worked as a surgeon at the time. They married – he and Monica had divorced by then, of course – and they went on to have Daniel.”
“Who did they name him after?” I asked, although it wasn’t particularly relevant to the story.
“No one. By the time he was born, we were being more cautious about such things.”
“Why?”
Matthew twisted his ring before replying.
“As Henry aged, the physical similarities between us became more apparent. Monica had noticed but she wasn’t the only one. Then when he met Pat, we had to make the decision whether to tell her something… anything. We took more precautions. Henry chose to grow a beard…” I pulled a face unintentionally; he smiled at that.
“It suits him well enough, and it disguises the shape of his face – you’ll see when you meet him…” He halted abruptly when he saw my eyes first widen, then narrow. He held up his hands in recognition of his slip. “I apologize – if you decide to meet him. He also made sure that his son’s name from his second marriage bore no relation to any of those in my family – just in case. Then we also started to alter our relationships.”
I forgot to be cross. “Meaning?”
“Meaning up until then we had always skirted around the subject of who was related to whom. It had been less of an issue in Henry’s youth, but by the time he reached his late twenties or so, we had to come up with something that outsiders would believe. So, he became my brother. Before I married, of course, life had been simpler – I just moved on after five or ten years, depending on circumstances but, as soon as other people became involved…” He rubbed his chin. “Well, as soon as I had a family, it added layers of complication.”
“But Ellen must already have been – no, looked – older than you. How did you manage? Didn’t people notice?”
By my rough reckoning, Ellen must have been in her forties and, with a husband looking so much younger, comments would surely have been made. Ah, rumour, my old friend – never very far away, always just around the corner waiting for an opportunity to inject a little poison.
“Yes, well – that had been a potential issue. Henry became my brother; his son, my nephew; and Ellen, first my older sister, then my mother, then, well… you probably get the idea.”
“That must have been so difficult for you all – and upsetting.”
“Indeed, especially for Ellen – yes, particularly for her.” He became quiet. I filled the space in the silence.
“So now, she’s what… your grandmother? And Daniel and Maggie are your brother and sister. So Henry’s your…”
“My father, yes.”
“And Ellie, Joel and Harry? They can’t be your children, can they?”
“No, they’re Daniel’s – they are my great-grandchildren.”
Matthew followed my movements as I leaned forwards and put the empty mug on the floor; I had a feeling he waited for some big reaction again.
“It makes sense – if you’re trying to protect the family,” I said, thoughtfully. “But wouldn’t it have been easier for Henry to have lived separately? Wouldn’t it have been less noticeable?”
“Probably, but we are a very close family. I did suggest it once… but when you’ve been through a lifetime of being different and sticking together, it’s difficult to live apart. We are… interdependent, I suppose you could say.”
“And when you move, you all move?”
“Yes.”
“But haven’t the younger members of your family asked why? It must have meant taking them away from school, their friends?” I remembered Beth resenting being taken from one Army posting to another, never settled for more than a few years at a time until she went to boarding school, which caused its own issues. Matthew moved away from the fire and sat down in the generous armchair next to the sofa, closer now than he had been all day.
“When the children were little they accepted the situation they were used to – as children do; but when they started to ask questions, then we told them.”
“What did you tell them?”
He rested his elbows on his knees, his head silhouetted against the fire as the light outside faded rapidly, darkening the corners of the room.
“Henry and I told them I am different – that we are different – and that we look after each other as a family. It wasn’t easy; it was important to get the timing right. Pre-puberty seemed more effective than leaving it to when they were straining at the leash and getting rebellious.”
“But even so, it must have been dicey. What would have happened if they didn’t accept the need for secrecy; what then?”
“We’ve been lucky so far; I think moving from place to place has helped make us closer, be more reliant on one another. But we have to be guarded all the time, and that can be difficult, especially for the younger children.”
“You do it very well, though.”
“Obviously not well enough in your case.”
“Perhaps with us the circumstances were different?” I suggested.
He looked at me swiftly. “In what way?”
I stretched out along the length of the sofa in the warmth of the fire. I caught Matthew examining my movements, his lips slightly parted, and I self-consciously drew up my legs and wrapped my arms around my knees.
“I might be wrong, but you seemed to be less guarded with me. I mean, with you… I saw… oh, it doesn’t matter.” I gave up trying to explain, but he wasn’t going to let it go.
“Go on, Emma; what did you see?” His eyes glinted.
I shifted my feet up a little more so that my legs took on the shape of an acute angle, and rested my chin in the cradle made by the gap between my knees.
“I think you weren’t trying quite as hard to hide things from me as you normally would do from others.”
“Mmm.” He considered, his eyes now narrowed.
“Matthew…?” I paused, not sure how to continue.
“Yes?”
“Do you always live in fear of being discovered? Can you ever feel really safe, especially as more and more people know about you? And what about Pat and any other newcomers to the family? They must know about you; do you have an initiation rite, or something?”
To my surprise, he laughed. A laugh with real humour, not the mirthless laughter accompanying scorn, or a bark threatening violence. It came as a welcome sound and, with a wrench, I recognized that I had missed it.
“An ‘initiation rite’ – excellent – I hadn’t thought of that,” he chortled to himself again, then sobered. “No, nothing like that. We learned a lot through our dealings with Monica. Any potential ‘newcomers’ – I like that
, it’s much better than ‘outsiders’ – we have to treat very carefully; we have to vet – I think you might call it.”
“And the fear?”
The smile dropped. “Ah yes, there is always the fear.”
I regarded his even profile, trying to see beyond his physical appearance, beyond our present state, and into the future – if there could be any future for the two of us. If I chose a life of friendship and unfulfilled desire with him until such time as he became free, I would also have to accept an existence built on deception, half-truths and fear.
Matthew continued, “Daniel married Jeanette – Jeannie – although she doesn’t like to be called that. They had Ellie, Joel and Harry…”
“And they’re your great-grandchildren…”
He didn’t reply but remained watchful, waiting.
“Great-grandchildren,” I mused. “Wow. Wow! There are compensations, then, for living the life you do.”
It was his turn to look astounded. “That doesn’t bother you?”
I thought about it. “No, not really; the age thing with you – the age difference – doesn’t worry me that much.”
He shook his head from side to side. “Hmm, I don’t understand you sometimes, Emma. I remember you saying something like that before, but I didn’t think it would apply in reality.”
“The other new members seem to accept it, though, don’t they?”
“They only know part of it – what they need to know. You know it all. In fact, you are the only person who knows it all.”
I felt a thrill course through me before I could stop it, the feeling you get when you know something nobody else does. I knew more even than his wife.
“Ouch!” Cramp tightened my left calf and I jumped up quickly to straighten my leg before it set in, in earnest. I flexed my foot back and forth rapidly.
“I’ve been sitting around too long,” I said, trying to stretch my leg by putting my foot on the arm of the sofa and pushing down, but succeeded in nearly falling over instead.
“Here…” Matthew knelt on the rug and patted the floor next to him. I hopped on the spot and put my foot down, arched in spasm. He took my foot in one hand and my calf in the other, kneading deep into the muscle until my leg began to relax and the pain faded. He continued to massage my calf longer than he needed to, but not as long as I wanted. My pulse rushed ahead of itself, and I pulled my leg away, not sure if I could cope with his closeness.
“Better?”
“Yup. Thanks.”
I couldn’t look at him and he rose to his feet, inches from me, inches too close. Blow it, he knew exactly what he did. He must have been able to see the pulse in my neck at that distance.
“Matthew, I don’t think…”
“What?” He wasn’t touching me, he didn’t need to.
“This isn’t fair.”
“What isn’t fair, Emma?” His voice had taken on the velvet tones of a lover. I gave him a speedy look to see if he mocked me, but he seemed deadly serious. His head bent towards me, so as I lifted mine, I unwittingly brought my lips closer to his. My limbs started to melt. Then I remembered. I jerked back.
“You can’t tell me you are still married and then… then… do this; it’s adulterous.”
I hadn’t meant to upset him – not this time. He stepped swiftly away without another word, turning his back so that I couldn’t see the expression on his face. Passing seconds dragged regret from me.
“Tell me,” he said finally, “if I wasn’t still married, would that make any difference to how you feel about me?”
“Of course, Matthew – you know that.”
“Then it’s not who I am, or what I am, or the lies?”
“It’s never been about who you are, and I can’t say about what you are, but I understand why you didn’t tell me the truth – sort of, anyway. That’s not the problem.” And as I said it, I realized I meant it. What had been an insurmountable difficulty this morning no longer seemed the dilemma it appeared.
But he remained married.
How could we maintain friendship when desire ran so close to the surface that it threatened to break through? If, despite all we had been through over the last twenty-four hours, we felt the pull of intimacy as strongly as before, could we succeed in resisting? True, Ellen could not stop us; Ellen would not know.
But we would.
Echoing my thoughts, his voice strained thin and tight as if reining himself in, he said, “Adultery is something I feel very strongly about… as strongly as you do.” His sweater snagged against his watch and he eased the cuff over the worn case, his fingers on the dial in a brief caress. “Emma, when we first met I told Ellen about you, about how I felt about you.”
My hand shot up to my mouth, my eyes wide. “You told her about me then?”
“Emma, I know that it might seem hard to believe, and goodness only knows why you would believe anything I say now, but I have never betrayed my wife in any way since we first met. I wouldn’t – I haven’t – looked at another woman until I met you. I knew as soon as we met that I was in danger of falling for you, shall we say. I only came to your reception party out of curiosity because of your name. I had no idea – no idea – what the consequences of our meeting might be. I had to make a choice then – we all have to make choices, don’t we?” He gave a bitter-edged smile. “I could have ignored you – but that proved impossible for a number of reasons; or I could have deceived my wife – which I wouldn’t do. Alternatively, I could tell her at the outset, and that seemed the only right thing to do.” He turned around and faced me fully and I chewed my lip, regarding him doubtfully.
“Look, Emma, it might be a strange set-up – yes, all right, it is a strange set-up – but I have always been honest with Ellen…”
“Apart from the lies.”
“I never lied to her.”
Vitriol was still too close to the surface to contain. “Not like you did to me, then.”
He sounded exasperated. “You know why I lied to you; don’t confuse the issue. Many years ago, when we realized she was going to survive but would not be able to live any sort of normal life, she said that if I ever met anyone else – anyone I wanted to be with – she would understand. She wanted me to be happy, Emma; she wants me to have some sort of normality. This is difficult – I’m sorry, I’m not explaining it very well.”
“I get the drift,” I muttered sourly.
“The thing is, I want her to be as happy as she can be for however long she has left – and I know you understand that.”
I thought of my grandmother – wholly dependent on others. I thought of the thin line that separated her from those who found themselves loveless and alone.
“So who’s looking after her now, if you’re here?”
He looked surprised. “I don’t…?”
I thought it self-explanatory. “Well, if you’re here, she can’t be by herself, unless the other members of the family are looking after her.”
“No, Emma. Ellen doesn’t live with us; she’s been in a residential nursing home since the accident. She needs complete nursing care – more than I can give her. I thought you realized,” he said, almost to himself.
I slumped onto the sofa arm. I hadn’t understood. The thought of that poor woman paralysed at such a young age and no longer able to live with her family – with Matthew – knowing that one day, in all likelihood, he would meet someone else and knowing that she would have to give him up. Permission or not, it still felt like adultery.
A match struck in the darkness as Matthew lit the first of the oil lamps and the yellow glow sprang up when the wick caught and flared. He adjusted the flame and it burned steadily as he put it back on the table by the stairs. He walked over to the next one on the kitchen table. As the second flame settled, he ventured tentatively, “I realize this sounds odd, but Ellen would like to meet you.”
“OK, OK.” I stood up abruptly. “That’s enough for one day, I can’t take any more; I’m going to bed.”
“You haven’t eaten,” he protested in alarm.
I took the lamp from the table by the stairs and climbed them in a pool of light.
“I’ll survive.”
CHAPTER
18
Taking Stock
Now you have freely given me leave to love,
What will you do?
Shall I your mirth, or passion move,
When I begin to woo;
Will you torment, or scorn, or love me too?
THOMAS CAREW (1594/5–1639/40)
I didn’t sleep as much as I had hoped. The wind dropped, the sky cleared and the moon – one day short of being full – shone brighter than the sun had all day. I didn’t need the lamp’s yellow light, made dull in comparison. Instead, I wrapped myself in the quilt from the end of the bed, and sat in the rocking chair by the window, watching the surreal shadow play on the landscape below.
The anger and hurt of the past few days, fuelled by deep wounds from my past, had filled me until their clamour drowned out love, leaving no space for hope. I struggled then to find my faith. So intent was I on searching that I had forgotten that I didn’t need to look, because it was already there. There were no easy answers – just as there hadn’t been with Guy – but nor was I alone.
Eventually, having spent several hours grappling with an unquiet mind and finding no rest, by about three in the morning, I gave up. I ran a bath. The moon had shifted so that its brilliance glazed the rooms, and I bathed without the need of any more light than it gave. The hot water came up to my chin, and my face floated above the mercury surface where the moon struck the water at an angle. I lay as still as death so as not to disturb the tranquil plane. I had moved beyond anger; even the hurt of the deception had lost some of its potency in the wake of his disclosure. Amid all the lies, what struck me most at this point was Matthew’s honesty. When I thought about it, I couldn’t remember him lying to me outright. He hadn’t told me the truth, but his dishonesty lay in obfuscation; and even with Ellen, it seemed, it was not so much a case of lying, as not giving her the whole picture.
