The Shadow Between Us

by Carol Mason

  ‘Jeez,’ Ned says. I can see him contemplating an effective response and probably realising there isn’t one.

  I pluck at the frayed hem of my shirt. ‘A few weeks later, I just couldn’t accept that there were no consequences for what I’d done, that my life was just meant to . . . resume. So I got in my car and I drove to the police station. I asked to speak to the officer who’d taken my statement at the scene. I told him, “You see, there was already a lot going on in my head that day. My daughter was about to embark on a new phase of her life and I was sad that I felt like I was losing her.”’ I’d always said it’s our children’s job to grow up and leave, and our job to let them go. It had felt, in a way, like a team effort. Her part. My part. But all I could think was, where would my team be when she walked out that door and began her adult life? Who was I without her? ‘I told him I was already a little fragile and then she dropped this bombshell about how she was actually going away for a year!’ I can’t swallow the lump in my throat. ‘I told the officer that we had words and my attention clearly must have not been on my driving. I told him that was why I’d come to the station – to tell him that it absolutely was my fault and it was completely unacceptable that I got to walk away scot-free.’

  His wipes a hand across his mouth again. ‘Man . . . What did they do with that?’

  ‘Well, they listened. They were kind. They gave me a cup of tea. They rang Mark. Mark came and took me home.’ He couldn’t open his mouth in the car. How do you remember silence more than words? ‘We went back to doing what we’d been doing all along – I slunk back to my corner of the sofa and he padded around the house in a bewildered netherworld then shut himself in his office for hours on end.’ And that’s what I remember most about that time – the silence, that sense of being stonewalled, punished – or so it felt at the time.

  ‘I read about survivor’s guilt, blameless guilt,’ I say. ‘I suppose I went searching these online forums and chat rooms to see if there was anyone out there who felt like me or if I was entirely alone . . . It was fascinating to discover there were so many other people who had caused accidents, taken lives. I felt I had a strange kinship with all this somewhat anonymous confessing and baring of souls on the Internet . . . And yet I could never have joined in, put myself out there into the ether of similarly circumstanced strangers. They were different. They walked in similar shoes but not my shoes. It really just confirmed to me that I was entirely alone. And some people had done some pretty terrible things and had bounced back fairly easily. That just made me feel even more hopeless.’

  The tears have dried now. I am surprised how good it is to talk, how I have a new ability to breathe, as though there is now a soft clearing in the forest of my head.

  ‘No one knows why two people can experience the same thing and react so differently,’ he says. ‘The military have done a lot of looking into this. Some of it’s to do with your life experiences, previous trauma, how many stressors there are after the event, and how you’ve been taught to cope – are you someone who shares and seeks help, or do you isolate and avoid? But some of it even lies beyond rationalisation. Generally, though, for soldiers, they’ve said that the person who is able to verbalise his experience is the one who is most likely to manage his moods and eventually make positive steps forward . . .’ He gazes at my upturned hand on my lap and in that instant I feel his heart go out to me. ‘Didn’t they refer you to anyone? You were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. You should have had help.’

  ‘My doctor said that. And Mark. I didn’t understand it. I thought, No, that’s for people who’ve fought wars or plucked dismembered bodies from car wrecks. Not for careless drivers who somehow didn’t manage to see someone crossing a road right in front of them.’ I see objection in his face but don’t give him a chance to speak. ‘The truth is I didn’t think I deserved these resources that would help me feel better. I’m sure, looking back, this is why I pushed friends away too. I didn’t think I deserved anyone’s pity, kindness, anyone’s attempt to make me feel that I wasn’t one hundred per cent responsible.’

  ‘And now?’

  It takes me a moment to work out what he’s asking. I force myself to really think before answering. ‘And now . . . I have to admit I’m tired of all the guilt and pain. It’s just so very relentless and oppressive. There is part of me that would like a tiny little reprieve from it.’

  ‘I’m proud of you,’ he says, which is the very last thing I’m expecting. ‘You’ve said this, and it was hard for you. This is progress even if you might not recognise it.’

  My face must show my scepticism. I can’t remember the last time anyone said they were proud of me. The garden hose episode blazes in my mind – Mark’s shame. The first time I’ve ever felt how very un-proud someone was of me. Until then I would have thought that if there were to be any show of etiquette around grief, it certainly wouldn’t be on the part of the one in mourning. It was a wake-up call.

  ‘You have got to move on, and I think you might be realising this now. You’ve allowed all this to alter how you see yourself, and you’ve got to force the shift back.’

  ‘I thought I was moving on. A little. Since I came here.’ Sarah had stopped being the first thing I thought of in the morning and the last thing before I went to bed. She had ceased to occupy the entire space in between.

  ‘I think you need to start by reframing the way you think about it. For example, instead of saying, “I killed somebody,” you need to start saying, “A woman ran out in front of my car and she died.” You’ve got to do it every time you get a thought about it, until it’s second nature.’

  I ponder this for a moment, trying to exercise an open mind, but my brain is both wired and tired, and refusing.

  ‘Take me, for instance. I ticked every symptoms box for PTSD and yet I constantly asked myself why am I not more messed up from the shit I’ve seen? But I think it’s because I’ve done a good job of compartmentalising it. There’s my civilian life and then there’s my job. I’ve blocked all my emotional responses by blocking my triggers. It doesn’t work for everyone but it’s worked for me . . . Whatever works for you, whether it’s blocking it or talking about it, you’ve got to force quit. You’ve got to forgive yourself because you finally accept there is nothing to forgive. And you’ve got to believe it not because I’m telling you. You’ve got to believe it because you know it’s true.’

  I mull this over. Yes, that last part is the hard part, I must admit.

  He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear that must have fallen out of my pin. ‘Healing is an act of persuasion, Olivia, believe me. There comes a point where you have to decide it’s what you’re going to do because you fully recognise what the alternative is. Do you want the alternative?’

  It’s a rhetorical question. He doesn’t need an answer because he knows that in some place far inside of me I don’t want the alternative. My instinct was to die but I didn’t die, and I realise now that all that’s left is to live, for the living.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ he tells me, after he has made me another hot drink, after we have sat here for a while, all out of tea and conversation. I had just been thinking that I do. ‘What I mean is, if you want you’re more than welcome to stay here tonight. You can take the bedroom. I’m happy on here.’

  I look at his long legs, the foot he’s thrown over his right knee, the patch of fair skin where the top of his slipper ends, imagining myself sleeping in his bed. ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t at all how I expected our evening would go.’ I angle myself to better face him and our knees are almost touching. Did I even pay the bill? I’m not entirely sure. My head is fog again.

  ‘The evening’s gone just fine, Olivia.’ His eyes circle my face slowly. I feel more is coming but he breaks the suspense by looking away.

  After some time where we both must conclude I actually am going to stay the night, he switches on the TV. I sit there with a degree of relief and peace as he surfs through a few channels, his
sleeved arm grazing my bare one; I can feel the smallest of muscle movements fired by each press of his thumb and am hyper-attuned to them. At a channel that has no picture, only sound – the gentle, bluesy riff of Ray LaMontagne’s ‘All the Wild Horses’ – he stops. We stare at a blank screen and listen through a full first verse, Ray’s weathered, captivating voice fading into the background before disappearing altogether. This is replaced by the distant din of street noise wafting in through an open window, soft footfalls across a bare floor.

  And then a woman’s gently coaxing voice asks, ‘Who was she?’

  Someone gives the smallest sigh. A male. ‘She’s the ex-girlfriend of a friend.’

  ‘Is she a model?’ this woman softly teases. They sound like they might be in bed.

  ‘No.’ Another tired sigh. ‘She’s a fashion designer.’

  ‘Does she have a name?’

  It seems like he might not answer, then, ‘Harriet.’

  There’s a weighted pause. ‘You weren’t expecting to see her there, huh?’

  Muffled sound of him getting up and moving around. ‘Yeah. Want some coffee?’ The clap down of cups on a counter top.

  ‘Seems I don’t get this channel,’ Ned says, unnecessarily, while we continue to stare at a black screen and wait to hear what happens next. He glances at me sideways. It’s odd to be so intrigued by words without a picture. Then the woman asks, ‘Did you sleep with her?’

  ‘Leave it. It’s good,’ I tell him, placing my hand on his forearm. I want to hear what the guy’s answer is.

  I am aware of Ned’s gaze lingering on my side profile and then of him looking down at my hand there and seeming to study it curiously. It makes me look at it too.

  And I never actually hear whether the guy slept with his friend’s ex-girlfriend who looks like a model. Because Ned leans in and he kisses me.

  THIRTY

  When I wake up it doesn’t immediately dawn on me where I am. Then it does, and I lie there blinking at the ceiling, last night rolling over me like a slow tidal wave. The touch of his hand at the back of my neck, my head tilting into it, letting myself fall. My eyes close involuntarily to recreate it, and then reopen and tick around his room. To press the memory of him closer I inhale in the gentle secret scent of his sheets, finding myself caught in a spell of deliverance. It’s as though time and everything elemental has shifted, moved on slightly. I am bathed, for the now, in promise and peace.

  After a while I think I should probably snap out of this and get up. The house is silent. Perhaps he is still sleeping. I have no idea of the time, except that daylight has broken. When I sit up I see my jeans and T-shirt are in a heap on the carpet and there’s a shoe peeking out from underneath. I perch on the end of the bed in my bra and pants, orientating myself. Last night, as I was sitting here just like this with my heart raging to a beautiful burst, he knocked on the door. ‘Need a nightshirt?’ I heard him say, after a suspenseful pause. When I said I was fine, he continued to stand there for a beat or two – or perhaps the beating was my anticipation.

  Come in, I was silently chanting.

  My God, don’t come in.

  Then I heard him walking slowly back down the hall.

  Right now I could use the toilet. I pull on my top but don’t bother struggling into the jeans. If he’s still sleeping on the sofa I’ll just come back to bed. Before venturing out I take a quick gander in the cracked mirror of an old-fashioned walnut dresser. My eyelids are fat from tears. There is a band of red across my nose, making my under-eyes appear starkly white, like I’ve tanned with sunglasses on. I do a quick finger-comb of my hair. Not great, but I’ll have to do. I creep out of the room trying to minimise the squeak of the door and listen for breathing sounds coming from the living room, but there is nothing. Going into the bathroom, I quietly slide the stiff lock shut. After I use the toilet, I turn the cold tap on and let the water run until it’s properly cold, then splash my face twenty times, paying particular attention to my eye area. An old trick, but the older I get, the less it works. His toothpaste is lying on the side of the sink – squeezed from the bottom, as all toothpaste tubes should be and Mark’s never are. I squeeze a bit on to my finger and dash it around my teeth, finishing off with a gargle.

  As I’m coming out of the bathroom, he’s coming in the front door. There is an instant where we seem to startle one another. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘. . . I thought you were sleeping.’ He is a glowing picture of health, and so very young. Memories of our kiss wreak havoc with my stomach.

  ‘Sleeping?’ He gives me a playful as if look. ‘Just been for my run.’

  He is wearing navy track pants and a burgundy T-shirt.

  ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’

  He smiles. ‘That was intentional.’

  ‘What time is it?’ I rake fingers through my hair again, think of him pulling away from me, looking into my eyes with such lively keenness in his, and saying, hmm . . .

  ‘6 a.m.’ His eyes go to my stomach, where my top has risen up with the movement of my arms.

  ‘That’s super early to be out running.’ I tuck my left foot behind my right ankle like a bird.

  ‘Force of habit. Mornings are great.’ He seems spellbound as he looks at me. ‘No people.’ Then in one swift, unselfconscious move he reaches a hand round to the back of his neck and tugs off his damp T-shirt. In that second when his face is covered I can’t help but glance at his lean torso. There is a web of scar tissue down his left side, but the rest is healthy skin on a beautiful, fit body. I have a sudden yearning to touch the damaged area, to touch all of him, like I almost did last night but stopped myself. To slip seamlessly into some sort of other deliciously distracting dilemma that we came so close to. ‘Need to get in your room for a change of shirt?’ I ask. I feel like I’ve just emerged from a two-hour massage; my body and mind are loose and free-flowing.

  ‘Nope,’ he says. ‘Got one here.’ He reaches into an airing cupboard. ‘I’m gonna put some coffee on then take a quick shower. Want some?’

  ‘But it’s still the middle of the night.’ I sound flirty.

  ‘6 a.m. Half the day’s over.’ He smiles then slides past me into the kitchen.

  I follow him and stand in the doorway, doing that the bird thing with my legs again. ‘I should probably go. I’m sure you must be getting sick of me by now.’

  He turns, holds my eyes quite deliberately. ‘Never.’ He glances at my legs a second time, and I feel the charge of it right through my lower belly. And then, ‘Eggs will be ten minutes.’

  Back in his bedroom I sit on the side of the bed once more, feeling rather restless and redundant. After a few minutes I hear the shower being turned on, the gush of water on the other side of the wall, its interrupted flow a few seconds later as it hits his body. Rather than just carry on sitting here, I go to the mirror again and try to put my hair into some sort of order, combing it briefly then raking it back into a stumpy ponytail. I’ve some nude lipstick with me so I dab a bit on both cheeks, rub it in until it almost disappears, then put a little on my lips. As I do so I’m aware of the pushing and muting of the water pressure next door, of something being unfinished and something not quite begun. The thought of him on the other side of the wall right there. I just want to stop and place my palm to it.

  When I sit on the end of the bed again, my heart is jumping out of me.

  Nothing happened because something was stopping us.

  We were stopping us.

  I hear the water being switched off. To distract myself, I pull out my phone and power it up. One new message.

  Unbelievably – Mark.

  Where R U?

  I don’t quite know what to make of the question or its timing, or what to really say. It doesn’t sound like there’s any great emergency, so with only the smallest twinge of guilt I shut my phone down and slip it back into my purse.

  By the time I go back through to the kitchen I am slightly nauseous, perhaps because I ate so little last night. He is standing
at the stove with his back to me. A tea towel hangs over his shoulder. There is a weak early sun, and he’s opened the back door a few inches. I don’t know whether it’s him or the fresh air I can smell, but it’s good.

  At the sound of my feet, he glances over his shoulder, smiles. I pull out a chunky chair and sit in the single stream of light. ‘A chef as well as a carpenter. I’m impressed.’

  ‘Chef would be stretching it, but I suppose I’ll never starve.’ He has changed into a white T-shirt. He mustn’t have towelled off thoroughly because where there are transparent patches I can see the musculature of his back through the fine material. ‘Everybody should know how to cook at least basically, is my theory. Or you just end up eating shit your whole life.’

  ‘Some of us feel we’ve had to eat shit our whole lives even though we’re great cooks,’ I say, trying to be amusing. He looks over his shoulder again, snickers.

  ‘Here.’ He puts a plate down in front of me and pours a mug of coffee.

  ‘Very creative.’ I stare at two slices of thick brown toast piled high with scrambled egg and bits of green onion and feta. ‘I’ve never had anyone feed me before.’

  ‘Why not?’ he says rhetorically.

  It makes me think of Mark and his short-lived bread-making craze, his boasts to the neighbours about how he couldn’t think of a better way to start his day – until he could. Ordinarily this might make me smile. But right now I’d be happy enough to open a mental hatchway and let stray thoughts of Mark go sailing right out of it.