Push Hands

by Michael Graeme

  Sally tried not to untangle his words, tried not to register the insult, whether one had been implied or not, but drew comfort at least from his magnanimous tone. She pulled up a chair and sat down, then ventured to touch his hand but Phil drew gently away from her.

  "No Sal," he said.

  "What?"

  That she'd tried to touch him had been enough to remind him how much of his life he'd spent wanting her, and feeling guilty on account of that want, and feeling lonely on account of it too. And she didn't want him because - let's be honest - the woman she really was simply didn't want him. The woman she really was was Sally, if you're following me, while the woman he thought she was was actually Caroline.

  Yes. It was the last great deception. It was Caroline he'd gone on desiring and wanting and all those other things that men who remain stupid romantics all their lives fail to grow out of. Sometimes a woman can sense the Caroline being projected onto herself and make an accommodation - sometimes she cannot, and sometimes, after a while, she just plain refuses because all she really wants to be is herself - and who can blame her? And if the man's lucky, and he wakes up, what you're left with is a man and woman facing each other across a table one morning and seeing each other for the first time, even though they've already known each other for decades and believed they'd known each other very well.

  He wondered what it would be like doing push-hands with her. There'd most likely be nothing there, he thought - no sense of presence at all, and it would be like doing it alone - because that's the way it always was with Carolines. But now? Now that he could see Sally - really see her - could he not get to know her again? That way everything they'd built would not have been for nothing, and the kids would still have their parents under the same roof and though they were no longer in love and could not bear to touch one another any more, they could at least be civil and pretend everything was all right. Was that not the way these things usually went?

  "I'm glad you've come home," he said.

  "You are?"

  "Yes. You should stay. Don't go back to your dad's house - that's throwing away everything you've got here. This is your house, your place. It's never going to be perfect, but nothing ever is in life is it? But you've worked hard for it and it's where the kids feel they most belong."

  "All right,… " Actually, she'd been thinking exactly the same thing for days now, and that's why she'd come home - well that and the peculiar feeling that Emmeline Parker didn't like her very much. Sally smiled. That was good, wasn't it? Except,… where did Penny Barnes fit into all of this? And why was Phil still fumbling with his keys?

  Chapter 36

  Phil sat out on the deck of the Summer house while the orchard lay bare all round him. It was damp and cold - the trees gaunt in their nakedness. He would be moving in with Penny, then. That's what he'd told Sally. He was off to meet her, he'd said, practice a little Tai Chi, then go round to her place and hopefully sort things out along those lines. No, they weren't lovers, never had been - just friends - but they were both in a similar fix now, through no fault of their own and it just seemed a good idea to test things out, so to speak. So yes, he was going - and even if it didn't work out with Penny, he didn't think it would be right to try to patch things up - I mean between him and Sal. The damage was done - maybe they'd been finished for a long time and this was just nature's way of giving them the final shove they needed. He was sorry and he hoped he and Sally could be friends,… better for the children that way, and she could rest assured that he would always do his best for her and the children - but no he could not live with her any more.

  Had he really said all of that? Yes, he thought, he really had, but he felt no warm and noble glow - just the cold biting around his ankles. There was also the funny feeling that he'd burnt his last bridge at a time of life when the only really important thing was having somewhere warm to put his feet up, and a decent bed to sleep in. It was also getting on for eleven o'clock - and Penny hadn't showed up, though they'd arranged to meet at nine. Half an hour ago he'd driven round to her place, but her car hadn't been there, so he'd come back - still no Penny - and he was beginning to feel that Caroline had tricked him yet again.

  Another half an hour passed and he decided to practice on his own, if only to stop himself looking at his watch every thirty seconds. But then the gate went and in she came, looking cosy in a big sweater, but even Phil could tell she'd been crying and that could only be bad. She flashed him a brave smile but there were words in it he couldn't decipher - more words than she could bring herself to speak.

  "I'm late," she said.

  "Only a couple of hours."

  "You waited though."

  "Well, yes,… but another few days and I'd've been off."

  Was that another smile? Almost, but quickly reined in, he thought - there was something wrong: reality catching up with both of them, dragging its claws, opening the wounds they'd always known it was bound to inflict upon them sooner or later. She approached slowly, then with a graceful sway, dropped into a defensive stance, closed her eyes, waved her hands like clouds, took another step and offered him her wrists.

  "Do Push Hands with me?"

  David! She had seen David! Damn him! What did that mean? What would she do? Could Phil not just ask her outright if things were still okay between them? No - too direct, and, strangely, still none of his business. Perhaps he could ask if they'd be going round to her place afterwards - then he'd know for sure how things lay if only by her expression. Or could he not tell already? Be with me, Penny: exchange me for your children. What would he choose? Well, all right - he'd chosen,… but,…

  He came to her slowly, his heart leaping. He was desperate to read her, but her eyes remained closed, her arms braced, ready to receive him. He gave her his wrist, then cupped her elbow with his free hand. They leaned into each other, found their centre and made a few tentative orbits.

  Then Phil was flying backwards. She'd pushed him, pushed him hard, but when he looked she was still standing as before, eyes closed, arms ready.

  "Again," she said.

  Same thing,… a few gentle orbits, then Phil found his hand trapped in an excruciating lock while Penny lowered him to his knees. "Arghh!!! Steady on."

  "Shut up, you big softie. Do it again."

  He understood her now, he thought, and brought himself to bear once more. His gentleness had not always pleased her. You could be gentle with something because you loved the feel of it and it was simply your nature to be gentle, or you could be gentle because you weren't sure if you wanted something or not and were afraid of waking it up because it was your nature to be a coward. Penny wanted someone to push against, someone who wanted to push against her,… and mean it!

  "Can you mean it Phil?"

  They locked arms again and, when he concentrated, really concentrated, he could feel the locks coming, because her energy, though admirable, made her sometimes a little easy to outguess. He could also feel the push before she was even aware of pushing him, so he pushed back, but she was ready for him, directing his energy easily into the orbit of their arms, the orbit of their centre. So he explored her wrists again, her hands, tried to judge the puzzle of their overlapping in order to time the locks correctly without getting trapped himself but still she was ready, checking him at every turn - calm but focused, her concentration so intense now he could feel it like a warm glow radiating from her chest. So he went for her leg, twisted in and brought her gently down across his lap.

  She gasped. The grass was wet and she felt as if he'd sat her in a puddle. Then she laughed. That was better! She'd definitely felt him that time. "You cheated!"

  No, he thought. Once things became real, there were no rules: you simply had to make things up as you went along. They were not cheaters - others could say or think what they bloody well liked but as far as he was concerned, in a world full of liars he and Penny were the only true things in it. He helped her to her feet, and made ready once more, but she turned away revealing a
big wet patch on her bottom.

  "Just give me a minute," she laughed.

  "Sure. Sorry Pen,… are you okay?"

  She flashed him a smile and he tried but completely failed to ignore her magnificent behind, her trousers soaked and clinging, the outline of her pants plain as day. Then she gave it a playful slap, and she liked the way he looked at her when she slapped it, poor man, his eyes lost in the wobble of her cellulite. It was time, she thought, time they tried a different kind of push and shove.

  "I'd better go home and change," she said, then added gently: "Come with me?"

  "Sure, Pen."

  And as they walked out of the orchard, she said: "It must be about a month now."

  He nodded. "It's about a month, yes."

  "I'm not really going home just to get changed - you do understand that don't you?"

  "Of course. I'm not completely dense."

  "And how do you,… feel?"

  Feel? Like a teenager. That would be it then, he thought. But he was also thinking he didn't much care for that bare mattress on the floor of Penny's bedroom, and as soon as he could bring it up he'd suggest they got themselves a proper bed to sleep in. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

  "I feel okay," he said.

  And for the first time in a long time, he realised his ears weren't ringing any more.

  From the same author on Feedbooks

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  "Perhaps we don't need food,... or water," he said. "Only when it pleases us."

  He looked around then at the land and he felt a chill. What manner of place was this? And what manner of being had he become?

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  The Enigma that was Carla Sinclair (2004) A short story by Michael Graeme (a 45 minute read):

  I was not completely unhinged. She was just a computer program, a crude simulation - at best a never ending animated cartoon with only one character and no story line. But she was "something",... a hobby I suppose you might say. Other young men had hobbies, equally obscure, though perhaps more socially inclusive. They collected camera gear, they went fishing, raced cars or drank themselves stupid. Me? I coded in my bedroom. Same thing? Well, not quite. You see, while other people's hobbies took them out of themselves, mine enabled me to climb deeper inside.

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  Lively Custard (2004) Short Story - a 25 minute read: Rogue trees are popping up all over the little town of Frinton-cum-Hardy and the residents have begun speaking in metaphors so mixed and mangled, poor Armitage, connoisseur of all things bookish, finds he no longer understands his mother tongue. And if all that isn't enough his young protege, Jenny, from the Books Galore Emporeum is having "uncle trouble"!

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  The Choices (2006) A fifteen minute read:

  I am sitting here in the lounge-bar of the McKinley Arms Hotel, by the shores of Loch Lomond, and I am staring out into the twilight at my choices. I have been this way before many times and I always seem to go wrong at this point, so you must forgive what must seem like fastidious caution, but I simply have to get it right this time!

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  The Man Who Could Not Forget (2008) A Short Story by Michael Graeme (a fifteen minute read):

  ...I have a problem with my memory. It isn't that it ever fails me - quite the opposite in fact. Indeed, my recall of events from all but the earliest years of my life is truly photographic, so there was little doubt in my mind the woman before me now was the one who had stolen the book....

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  Joshua is navigating his eco-boat, The Mattie Rat along a dark and stinking stretch of the old canal through Monkton - a city overwhelmed by gangs and gun toting Militias. Joshua's seen it all before: urban decay, corruption and the death of hope. Living on the water, and with no need for money, he's usually able to slip unnoticed through these town stretches and into the green beyond. But when he's tricked into picking up a pair of enigmatic hitchers, Joshua knows there's going to be trouble in Monkton. In spite of his best efforts, the wily old Waterman is about to become an accomplice in the biggest magical stunt of all time. And if the world no longer believes in magic, well, it only has itself to blame.

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  Crystal Says (2009) A twenty minute read: So, I'm standing in this crop circle, down in Wiltshire, England, and there's a girl dangling a crystal from the end of a chain. She's very pretty, so I'm thinking I'll have to find a way of overlooking the fact she's probably also some kind of crank if I want to take advantage of the situation here,...

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  In the absence of any other alternatives, I know which of the two I prefer,... but what if there was a third alternative?

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  The author joins in with the doom and gloom and predicts the end of the world, but as you might expect, there's an upside to every situation.

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  "Don't be afraid," she said. "Look into my eyes once more."

  * * *

  The Road From Langholm
Avenue (2010) A story of unrequited love, of unexpected love, of love lost, and found again. With divorce and redundancy looming, our hero, Tom, is left facing middle age with the feeling that he made a wrong turn somewhere in his past. Then, as if things aren't bad enough he's inexplicably haunted by memories of Rachel, a girl he had a crush on at school. With emotions bubbling up to the surface he realises the old business with Rachel has never really been forgotten and that before he can find a way through his crisis, he's going to have to journey back in search of his deepest past. Tom sets out to find Rachel and, regardless of her circumstances, do the one thing he couldn't bring himself to do a quarter of a century ago: ask her on a date. But things don't quite go according to plan. Tom discovers a lot can change in twenty five years, but that some things remain exactly the same. And when it comes to the business of unrequited love, even those closest to him are not immune.

  This is a full length novel - complete and free to read. It is not a teaser or a taster.

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