Forever Young

by Steven Carroll

  In the middle of the following week Trix is ready to close up the flat before finally leaving. She has spent days putting things in boxes after all, for it seemed too sad to walk out and leave everything behind as it was, as if encouraging the place to believe that the old life would one day be resumed. Furthermore, the thought of walking back into the flat when she returns and being met by the museum of the old life was too sad to be contemplated. So Trix has spent days sorting things into boxes — those things like books, rugs and ornaments that can most easily be moved. She has even taken the paintings and posters down from the walls, so that the flat, with its shrouded furniture, now has the kind of spare anonymity she sought. A place that could be lived in by just anybody. A place that was once a home becomes a sort of bare outline waiting to be coloured in by others.

  There is one last poster left to be taken down from the wall. A woman lies helpless on the ground. Violence defines the scene. Across the poster is the scrawled slogan: ‘Rape is a political act’. And it is at this point that Love goes to work again. Its fees are owing, and Love always collects. The scene and the poster will now always be synonymous with the night that Old Times came to visit, the night that Old Times sat down in that very armchair, and, once Trix had gone to bed, fed Beth a pack of lies because Old Times knew full well that Beth was ready to believe a pack of lies. That’s Old Times for you. And the more Trix stares at the poster, the more the anger that for the last week has been soothed by sorrow rises again. There are those who walk away and forget. Those whose whole lives are a succession of leavings and forgettings. Over and over again. Airbrushing the past.

  Exploding with anger she tears the poster from the wall, almost ripping it, then rolls it up and seals it with an elastic band. Trix then sits on the arm of a shrouded armchair, her shaking frame slowly calming down, and looks about the anonymous room, asking herself just how far anger will go. When she posted the handkerchief a week earlier, there was an irresistible logic to the process. She was, after all, returning it. This, she knows, is different. But there is also a similar sense of destiny and logic. For if anybody deserves to have this poster now, if anybody has earned this poster, it is Old Times. And she now calls him Old Times whenever she thinks of him because she can’t bear the sound of his name. More than the sound of his name, she can’t bear to name him. For to name him, to call him ‘Peter’, is to confer a certain familiarity, even intimacy, on the connection. Like being on first-name terms with your torturer. It is both absurd and a betrayal of Love. No, he will not be Peter. He will be Old Times and have the same kind of anonymity that the room now has.

  And what she called anger, she now sees as Love. What she is about to do is an act of Love. Love has fallen upon her and she will do Love’s work. Who else will? If she doesn’t, nobody will —and Old Times will simply walk away and forget. Airbrushing the past, yet again. Yes, she will do Love’s work and Love has one more task to complete. For Love in all its ferocity has been stirred, its fees are still owing, and Love always collects.

  Later in the day, the poster posted, Trix takes one last tour of the flat. And she knows there is a sort of morbidity to it, but a necessary morbidity all the same. She is, she knows, saying farewell. And if you don’t say your farewells properly at the time when farewells are required, you will later regret that you didn’t. So this is a necessary farewell, and it takes her from the lounge room to the bedroom and the spare room that served as a study. And throughout the farewell it is not only the ghost of Beth that is about, and whom she sees looking up from her work and smiling, but the ghost of herself as well. There they were, and there they will stay. Farewelled and abandoned. The ‘them’ that was ‘us’.

  The present is always receding into the past, and the past, soon enough, into the distant past. And the distant past eventually too distant to be remembered properly. And all that living that they did will survive only in the form of a few photographic images about which those who haven’t even been born yet will one day ask, who was that? And it is then, with that thought, that the finality of the farewell and the weight of loss, which until then Love had borne, become too much to support, and the frame that is Trix, the frame that had borne the weight of loss without really noticing because it was busy doing things, suddenly gives way and sinks to the floor.

  She is a spring, a gushing spring of tears. And the spring does not run dry. And the tears don’t stop. Who knew she had so many in her? Drops as heavy as summer rain splash onto her chest and turn her T-shirt to a deep shady blue. She has cried before over the last few weeks. But not like this. This time she really does feel that she could sob up her heart. That Love is not only wrenching from her these sobs as heavy as rain, but also the very heart that once went out unconditionally to this slightly doddery, abstracted middle-aged woman with the look of a mature Marguerite Duras whom she met at a dull publisher’s party, and who became her constant reference point throughout the years that followed, when distance was measured by her proximity, or lack of it. The reference point that she knew, in her heart of hearts, was the home she’d finally come to. And that very heart that she gave unconditionally she could now sob onto her lap because she can surely have no further use of it. Home was here, but home has acquired a spare anonymous look as though just anybody could have lived here — and her reference point is gone.

  But all tears end. The heart stays on. And springs, however endless, will dry. And she doesn’t know how long she’s been on the floor, but when the storm clears she sits in utter stillness. Calm, even rested. And it is a lighter Trix who eventually rises, splashes the evidence of tears away and rinses the face that she will now take out into the street.

  She drops her suitcase on the outside doormat, her carry bag strung over her shoulder, and pauses for a moment before pulling the door of the flat shut. For, as much as she may return to either sell or occupy the place again, the Trix who returns will be a different Trix and this place, whenever she looks upon it again, will be transformed by that difference. And so she lingers before pulling the door shut.

  In the taxi to the airport she gazes at all the familiar places — not just the public ones but the private ones. She allows her exhausted frame to sink into the seat and her exhausted head to lean back and rest while gazing at the passing scene. Soon the city gives way to that vaguely European countryside that surrounds it. And she feels as if she is travelling, and it is a good feeling. And she is. Back to the place in which she grew up and which she once called home and which will take her in once more, because it has to.

  They are close to the election and Peter, his work finished in the capital for the day, has just arrived home. His Friday evening arrivals are nearly always in darkness, but today he is early, and as he walks up the hallway to the kitchen in the late-afternoon light he has that feeling of being freed from relentless routine. Of skipping off from school early. But the feeling evaporates the moment he opens the kitchen door and sees his wife sitting at the table, a puzzled, even inquisitorial, look on her face.

  She holds a tea cup in one hand and points to a poster, flat on the table, with the other.

  ‘This arrived today.’

  The moment he looks at it he recognises it and, in that instant, also remembers the handkerchief — passing it to Beth and Beth passing it back — and knows exactly what is going on. But his face shows none of this. He simply stares at it, as if seeing it for the first time.

  ‘What is it?’ Kate asks.

  ‘It’s a poster.’

  ‘Yes, but what is it?’

  ‘Who sent it?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s no return address.’

  ‘A note?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s an old poster,’ he says, casually picking it up and examining it. ‘Don’t you remember them?’

  ‘Of course I do, but what is it doing here?’

  He shakes his head, releasing the poster as he does.

 
‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  He ignores the question. ‘This is somebody’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘If it’s a joke, somebody’s got an odd sense of humour.’

  ‘What else could it be?’

  ‘I’ve had time to think about that. I’ve been looking at it and I’ve concluded a few things. The handkerchief and the poster were sent by the same person. Same handwriting. And it’s not a joke.’ She shifts in her seat, and an impatient, can-we-dispense-with-the-silly-games tone enters her voice. ‘What’s more, it assumes one of us knows what it all means. And it’s not me. So,’ and she turns to him, her face hard, shaking her finger at the poster, ‘what is this?’

  As he stares at her he reads, in her face, the obvious conclusion. The conclusion she would reach. You’ve had an affair, haven’t you? You had an affair, and now the affair is over. And this is what happens when affairs end. Somebody gets nasty.

  It is then that she repeats herself. ‘What is this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Peter!’

  Her voice echoes about the kitchen. ‘I don’t.’

  She stares directly into his eyes and holds them.

  ‘Oh, yes you do. Yes, you bloody well do! Don’t go dragging your grubby little lipsticked handkerchiefs into this house! And don’t fucking well lie to me!’

  She hardly ever swears, and the effect is thunderous. Still, he shakes his head.

  ‘I’m not responsible for every oddball who sends oddball things in the post.’

  They fall silent, neither looking at the other. He can not, of course, tell her what is happening. Somebody else might, but not Peter. So he doesn’t tell her that, yes, he knows what the two objects mean and he knows what the story they tell is. No, not an affair. That could possibly be explained. But not this. Not at the moment. For it is the story of an experiment born of a stalled career and a talent for, even a delight in, the thrill of game-play: an experiment in manufacturing truth. Of throwing out into the world not so much a lie as a fiction, of watching the blinkered mill horse grind fiction into fact and turn it into the white powder of news. And, for a few weeks, that is exactly what happened. And he, Peter, the author, sat back and watched, god-like, from a distance. For a time, the experiment was a success. Then it all went wrong, because the mill horse was older, more troubled and more fragile than he realised. And events very quickly reached the point where he could no longer control them and all that was left for him to do was walk away, as if the experiment never existed.

  Somebody else might tell all of that to his wife, but not Peter. For someone’s death is at the end of the tale. And death is more final than the end of any affair. And to bring all this up is to bring into plain view a Peter that his wife never knew existed, one with a degree of duplicity and cunning well beyond that of any average, bumbling adulterer. And so he shakes his head. He is not responsible, he says once more, for every oddball who gets it into his or her head to send oddball things in the post.

  She shakes her head, eyes staring directly at him.

  ‘No, there’s sense in this.’

  ‘Why?’ he says, trying to smile casually.

  ‘Because there is!’

  Once again, the last syllable echoes about the kitchen and she rises abruptly from her chair and walks to the window, staring out at the garden.

  He looks at her, then back at the poster lying on the table.

  ‘What shall we do with it?’

  She says nothing for a moment, only stares out the window, then speaks without turning.

  ‘We could put it up on the wall.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bound to be a conversation piece.’ She continues staring out the window. No point looking into his eyes, she may well have concluded, because there’s nothing to look into. ‘There’s a space over there that’s made for it,’ she says, pointing to one of the kitchen walls. ‘There’s almost a touch of destiny to that, don’t you think?’

  He says nothing, staring from the poster to the wall, and imagining it there every morning. She continues, not waiting for an answer to her question. ‘I think it would lighten the wall up. A little bit of controversy among the peasant chairs. Nothing like a political statement to stir things up.’

  And with that she goes out to the garden shed and comes back with a hammer and tacks. Taking the poster, she hammers it to the wall for which it was destined, then steps back admiringly.

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’ She turns to him, smiling coldly. ‘Don’t you think?’

  She glances at the clock and, with no further comment, leaves the room to collect the children from school. And when she is gone, when he has the room and, indeed, the entire house to himself, his first impulse is to tear the thing down from the wall. But, of course, he can’t. He has pronounced it oddball. Somebody’s idea of a joke. In short, of no significance. And to tear it down, as he would dearly love to do, would be to pronounce it a matter of significance after all. Significant enough to be torn down. For to tear it down, which she may well be expecting him to do — the whole business of pinning it up to the wall being an exercise in getting to the truth of the matter; that there is a story here, and he, Peter, knows what it is — would be to admit as much, and amount, more or less, to an admission of guilt. And, of course, talk would follow. And he doesn’t want that.

  It is still there today as it was the day before and the day before that. Up there on the wall. And it looks set to stay, after entering the house like some stranger come in off the street with an intriguing tale. For the poster has taken up residence on the wall and as much as you might choose to ignore it, you can’t. Not Peter, nor anybody else who enters the kitchen.

  Is this how it happens? Is this how our inventions turn back on us? An experiment in manufacturing the truth, a joke, a serious game, if you like, goes wrong because serious games do get serious, except we never look beyond the game when we start it — and the very idea of truth itself suddenly starts to look shaky, and all those truths you take for granted start to shake too. Is this how it happens?

  Another man might simply tell his wife what happened, and all would be well. But not Peter. Besides, would all be well and as it was before? For in unveiling the truth of the matter, he once again recognises, he would also be unveiling a shady side of himself; worse than shady, a portrait of himself that she may not recognise or may even be disgusted by. A portrait of someone capable of things she hadn’t thought were in him. A portrait of Peter that renders him, at best, a shady puzzle; at worst, somebody she doesn’t know and has never known — inevitably posing all sorts of awkward questions, leading to answers, leading to questions, leading to … until everything gets messy.

  Is this how it happens? Is this how our inventions turn back on us — and how the house starts to shake? And once the house starts to shake, does it eventually come tumbling down? For something has been lost, something subtracted from the structure that the structure badly needs if it is to stay up. And it is not love, for the house can stand without love. Or desire, or laughter. The house can stand well enough without all of them. No, something else is gone. Something more basic than that, the loss of which is there to be read in her eyes when she looks at him, imagining grubby little affairs and motel liaisons and heaven only knows what else; there to be heard when she speaks the short, sharp sentences that she now offers as conversation, saying the necessary things that need to be said. But only those things that need to be said. And all accompanied with the look that says: You know, and you’re not telling. The look that says: Don’t call this somebody’s idea of a joke. When, all the time, it was a sort of joke. The joke that failed to laugh.

  And this is what happens. This is how it all turns back on us, like Frankenstein’s creaking monster. Yes, something is gone — that collection of necessary assumptions upon which the house sits. For it is the foundation of trust that has been taken away, and the house now sits on questions.

  The house can well st
and without love, desire, laughter and all the rest of it. But not without the foundation of trust. And not just the house, but everything. The bridge that crosses the river and joins the two halves of the city will not be crossed, because it might fall down. The train will not travel because none will board it in case it crashes. And none will ride the fairground ferris wheel because it might topple over. No, take away the foundation of trust and you take away the very centre of things. The cornerstone itself. Not just of home, but everything: the city out there, the house on Capital Hill, the whole bloody world. And Peter is reminded of this every day when he looks up at the poster.

  The French kitchen is still the French kitchen, the colours still glow in the morning sun. But they don’t glitter. Not now. Not today.

  In spite of all this, if Peter trusts anything right now, he trusts that this awkward moment will pass. Time will do its work the way time always does. Hours will collapse into days and days into weeks. Questions, once urgent, will lose their urgency. The present will recede like the view from a rear-vision mirror into a half-remembered past, before being completely forgotten or re-invented by time. A past will emerge, airbrushed of its awkwardness. Until, one day, they will all wake to a world where none of this happened. Or may as well not have.

  If there is one thing Peter trusts right now, it is this. And when it all comes to pass, when the past is forgotten or has been re-invented by time, somebody will look up at the kitchen wall one day and ask what that ugly thing is doing there and the poster will come down. And when that happens they will all walk away, the poster on the wall will be replaced and, in time, there will be nothing left to remember and nothing will have happened.