The Only Story

by Julian Barnes

  On further thought, he decided that the unlikeliest part of his counterfactual was that Martha would ever have considered him a potential husband.

  * * *

  —

  Did he feel regret at what he always thought of as his “handing back” of Susan? No: the proper word for that might be guilt; or its sharper colleague, remorse. But there was also an inevitability to it, which lent the action a different moral colouring. He found that he simply couldn’t go on. He couldn’t save her, and so he had to save himself. It was as simple as that.

  No, of course it wasn’t; it was much more complicated. He could have gone on, both fooling and torturing himself. He could have gone on, calming her down and reassuring her even when her mind and memory ran in three-minute loops, from fresh surprise at his presence, even though he’d been sitting in the same chair for two hours, via rebuke for his nonexistent absence, through to alarm and panic, which he would quieten with soft talk and gentle memories that she would pretend to agree with even though she’d long ago drunk those memories clean out of her head. No, he could have gone on, acting as an emotional home help, watching over her progressive disintegration. But he would have had to be a masochist. And by that time he had made the most terrifying discovery of his life, one which probably cast a shadow over all his subsequent relationships: the realization that love, even the most ardent and the most sincere, can, given the correct assault, curdle into a mixture of pity and anger. His love had gone, had been driven out, month by month, year by year. But what shocked him was that the emotions which replaced it were just as violent as the love which had previously stood in his heart. And so his life and his heart were just as agitated as before, except that she was no longer able to assuage his heart. And that, finally, was when he had to hand her back.

  He wrote a joint letter to Martha and Clara. He didn’t go into emotional detail. He merely explained that he was obliged to travel on business for an extended period—perhaps several years—and would obviously not be able to take Susan with him. He would be leaving in three months, which he hoped would be enough time for them to make the appropriate arrangements. If, at some future point, it became necessary to put her into some kind of residential care, he would do what he could to help; though at present he was not in a position to contribute.

  And most of this was true.

  * * *

  —

  There was one visit he was obliged to make before going abroad. Was he dreading it or looking forward to it? Both, probably. It was five o’clock by the time he rang the bell, answered this time not by a counterpoint of yapping but by a single, distant bark. When Joan opened the door, there was a placid, elderly golden retriever beside her. She looked so foggy-eyed that it might as well have been a guide dog, he thought.

  It was winter; Joan wore a tracksuit with a few cigarette burns on the bosom, and a pair of Russian house socks in which she padded along as softly as her dog. The sitting room mixed woodsmoke with cigarette smoke. The chairs were the same, but older; their occupants were the same, but older. The retriever, which answered to the name of Sibyl, panted from the journey to the front door and back.

  “The yappers all died on me,” Joan said. “Don’t ever have dogs, Paul. They die on you, and then there comes a point when you don’t know whether to get one last one or not. One for the road. So here we are, Sibyl and me. Either I’ll die and break her heart or she’ll die and break mine. Not much of a choice, is it? The gin’s over there. Help yourself.”

  He did so, choosing the least filthy of the tumblers.

  “So how are you keeping, Joan?”

  “As you can see. Pretty much the same, except older, drunker, lonelier. How about you?”

  “I’m thirty. I’m going abroad for a few years. Work. I’ve handed Susan back.”

  “Like a parcel? It’s a bit fucking late, isn’t it? Taking her back to the shop and asking for a refund?”

  “It’s not like that.” He realised he might have some difficulty explaining to one drunk woman why he was leaving another.

  “So how exactly is it?”

  “It’s like this. I tried to save her, I failed. I tried to stop her drinking, I failed. I don’t blame her, it’s way beyond that. And I remember what you told me back then—that she was more likely to get hurt than me. But I can’t take it anymore. I can’t face another ten days of it, let alone another ten years. So Martha’s going to look after her. Clara refused, which surprised me. I said that…if they needed to put her into a home at some point, I might be able to help. In the future. If I do well and make some money.”

  “You’ve certainly got it all worked out.”

  “It’s self-protection, Joan. I couldn’t take anymore.”

  “Girlfriend?” she asked, lighting another cigarette.

  “I’m not that heartless.”

  “Well, finding another woman can bring an exceptional clarity of mind to a man all of a sudden. Remembering my own distant experiences of cock and cunt.”

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, Joan.”

  “Your sympathy is about half a century too late, young man.”

  “I mean it,” he said.

  “And how do you think Martha will cope? Better than you? Worse? About the same?”

  “I’ve no idea. And in a way I don’t care. I don’t care, otherwise I’ll be dragged back into it all.”

  “It’s not a question of getting dragged back. You’re still in it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You’re still in it. You’ll always be in it. No, not literally. But in your heart. Nothing ever ends, not if it’s gone that deep. You’ll always be walking wounded. That’s the only choice, after a while. Walking wounded, or dead. Don’t you agree?”

  He looked across, but she wasn’t addressing him. She was addressing Sibyl, and patting her soft head. He didn’t know what to say, because he didn’t know if he believed her or not.

  “Do you still cheat at the crossword?”

  “You cheeky little bugger. But that’s nothing new, is it?” He smiled at her.

  He’d always liked Joan.

  “And shut the door on your way out. I don’t like to get up too many times in the course of a day.”

  He knew not to do anything like embrace her, so merely nodded, smiled and started to leave.

  “Send a wreath when the time comes,” she called after him.

  He didn’t know if she meant for her, or for Susan. Maybe even for Sibyl. Did dogs get wreaths? Another thing he didn’t know.

  * * *

  —

  What he didn’t—or couldn’t—tell Joan was his terrifying discovery that love, by some ruthless, almost chemical process, could resolve itself into pity and anger. The anger wasn’t at Susan, but at whatever it was that had obliterated her. But even so, anger. And anger in a man caused him disgust. So now, along with pity and anger, he had self-disgust to deal with as well. And this was part of his shame.

  * * *

  —

  He worked in a number of countries. He was in his thirties, then forties, perfectly presentable (as his mother would have put it), as well as solvent and not obviously mad. This was enough for him to find the sexual companionship, the social life, the daily warmth he needed—until he moved on to the next job, the next country, the next social circle, the next few years of being agreeable to and with new people, some of whom he might see in later years, some not. It was what he wanted; more to the point, it was all he felt able to sustain.

  To some, his way of life might have sounded selfish, even parasitical. But he also took thought for others. He tried not to mislead, to exaggerate what was emotionally available. He didn’t linger by jewellers’ windows or go simperingly silent at photos of babies; nor did he claim he was looking to settle down, either with this person or indeed in this country. And�
�though it was a trait he didn’t immediately identify—he was generally attracted to women who were…how to put it? Sturdy, independent and not obviously fucked-up. Women who had their own lives, who might enjoy his solid but passing presence as much as he did theirs. Women who wouldn’t get too hurt when he moved on, and who wouldn’t inflict too much pain if they were the first to jump.

  He thought of this psychological pattern, this emotional strategy, as being honest and considerate, as well as necessary. He neither pretended nor offered more than he could deliver. Though of course, when he laid it all out like this, he saw that some might regard it as pure egotism. He also couldn’t decide if his policy of moving on—from place to place, woman to woman—was courageous in admitting his own limitations, or cowardly in accepting them.

  Nor did his new theory of living always work. Some women gave him thoughtful presents—and that scared him. Others, over the years, had called him a typical Englishman, a tightass, a cold fish; also, heartless and manipulative—though he believed his was the least manipulative approach to relationships that he knew. Still, it made some women cross with him. And on the rare occasions when he had tried to explain his life, his prehistory and the long-term state of his heart, the accusations sometimes became more pointed, and he was treated as if he had some infectious disease to which he should have admitted between the first and second dates.

  But that was the nature of relationships: there always seemed to be an imbalance of one sort or another. And it was fine to plan an emotional strategy, but another thing when the ground opened up in front of you, and your defending troops toppled into a ravine which hadn’t been marked on the map until a few seconds previously. And so there had been Maria, that gentle, calm Spanish woman who suddenly began making suicide threats, who wanted this, who wanted that. But he hadn’t offered to be the father of her children—or anybody else’s; nor did he intend to convert to Catholicism, even if that would have pleased her supposedly dying mother.

  And then—since misunderstanding is democratically distributed—there had been Kimberly, from Nashville, who had so instantly fulfilled all his unwritten requirements—from laughing him into bed on the second date to embodying the very spirit of freehearted independence—that instead of quietly congratulating himself on his luck he had as near as dammit fallen smack into love with her. And at first she had rebuffed him with references to personal space and to “keeping things light.” Yet this only made him the more desperate for her to move into his house that very afternoon, and he’d done stuff with flowers way beyond what he normally did, and found himself gazing at racks of diamond rings, and even dreaming of that perfect hideaway—perhaps an old trapper’s shack (with full modern comforts, of course) up some tree-shadowed lane. He had offered marriage, and she had replied, “Paul, it doesn’t work like that.” When, in his delirium, she had patted his arm and said the kind of stuff he’d said to Maria, he heard himself accusing her of being selfish and manipulative and a cold fish and a typical American woman—whatever he meant by that, as she was the first American woman he’d dated. So she ditched him by fax, and he got punitively drunk to the point of sudden rationality, when he fell into silly laughter, and a sense of the absurdity of all human dealings, and felt a sudden call for the monastic life, while also entertaining fantasies of Kimberly dressed as a nun and them having joyfully blasphemous sex, whereupon he booked two tickets for an early-morning flight to Mexico, but naturally overslept and the message on his answering machine when he woke was not from Kimberly but from the airline company telling him of his missed flight. Somehow he had got into work that day and gave a comic account of his misfortunes, which made his colleagues laugh, and made himself laugh, so that this lighter, distorted fiction swiftly took over from what had actually happened. And in later years he had silently thanked Kimberly for being smarter than he was—emotionally smarter. He had imagined that he’d learned a lot of emotional lessons from being with Susan. But maybe they were only emotional lessons about being with her.

  * * *

  —

  He kept up with his men-friends when home on leave, or between jobs, over drinks or dinners which felt like sudden jerks of fast-forwarding. Some of them had turned into unremitting furrow-dwellers, and these were the ones who reminisced most sentimentally about the old days. Some were now on to second wives and stepchildren. One had turned gay, after all these years, having suddenly started noticing the napes of young men’s necks. For a few, time brought no alteration. Bernard, red-faced and white-bearded, would give him a nudge, a head-toss and an overloud “Look at the arse on that,” as a woman walked past their restaurant table. Bernard had been saying the same at twenty-five, though back then with an inaccurate American accent. Perhaps it was useful still to be reminded that some men mistook boorishness for honesty. Just as others mistook primness for virtue.

  These intermittent friends were of different vintages: of the Fancy Boys, only Eric remained in his life. They were companionable for the necessary hours, and alcohol dissolved any distance between them. But in the way of things—or rather, in his way of things—he tended to remember mainly the phrases that either presumed or grated.

  “Still in the game, eh, Paul?”

  “Footloose and fancy-free?”

  “Not found Miss Right yet? Or should I say Señorita Rita?”

  “Do you think you’ll ever settle down?”

  “A pity you haven’t had kids. You’d have made a good father.”

  “Never too late. Never say die, old chum.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget: sperm degrades as we knock on.”

  “Don’t you long for that little cottage with a blazing log fire and grandchildren on the knee?”

  “He can’t have grandchildren without having children first.”

  “You’d be amazed what medical science can do nowadays.”

  His occasional reappearances made some pleased with how their lives had turned out, and others, if not envious, a little restless. Then, in his fifties, he came home, moved to Somerset, and invested some of his savings.

  “What gave you the idea of cheese?”

  “Bad dreams for the rest of your life, old chum.”

  “Maybe there’s a little dairymaid involved?”

  “And look at the arse on that.”

  “Well, at least we’ll be seeing more of you now.”

  But there was no dairymaid involved; and strangely, he didn’t end up seeing more of his intermittent friends. Somerset could turn out to be as distant as Valparaiso or Tennessee, if you wanted things that way. And perhaps he chose to remember their heavy joshing because it helped keep them at bay just as he had kept his women friends at bay. Though now some were keeping themselves at bay, having reached the age when illness arrives. There were emails about prostate cancer, and back operations, and that little bit of heart trouble which maybe wasn’t such good news. Vitamin pills and statins were consumed, while the World Service kept them company in their sleeplessness. And soon, no doubt, the funeral years would begin.

  * * *

  —

  He remembered a friend he’d had, a lifetime back, at law college. Alan something. They hadn’t kept up, for one reason or another. Alan had spent seven years training to be a vet, but on qualifying had immediately switched to the law.

  One day, he’d asked his friend why he’d thrown up his first career so abruptly. Had he suddenly decided he didn’t like animals? Was it the prospective hours? No, said Alan, none of that. He’d always thought it would be a good, purposeful job, helping to cure sick farmstock, bringing them either to safe birth or pain-free death, working outdoors, meeting all sorts of people. And it would have been all that, he knew. But what had finally put him off was a kind of squeamishness. He explained that if you spent several hours of the day with your arm up the backside of a cow, you couldn’t help breathing in the animal’s noxious exhalations. A
nd that once they were inside you, they would inevitably seek to come back out again.

  That was as far as Alan had gone. But he had naturally imagined Alan in bed with a girlfriend, and all going well between them, until some catastrophic buildup of cow gas hurtles from him, and the girl jumps from the bed, rushes for her clothes and is never seen again. Or perhaps this hadn’t happened, but Alan couldn’t bear to think of how it might be, if he was with someone he loved.

  What had become of Alan? He had no idea. But Alan’s story had stayed with him ever since. Because once you had been through certain things, their presence inside you never really disappeared. The cow gas would out, in one direction or another. Then you just had to live with the consequences until it dispersed. And yes, it had caused more than one girlfriend to run for her clothes, not just Anna. And no, at those times, he had not been much of a stoic.

  * * *

  —

  In his youth, hot with pride at his love for Susan, he had been competitive, as all young men are. My cock is bigger than yours; my heart is bigger than yours. Young bucks boasting of their girlfriends’ attributes. Whereas his boast had been: look how much more transgressive my relationship is than yours. And then, as well: look at the strength of my feelings for her, and hers for me. Which was what counted, obviously, because the strength of feeling governed the degree of happiness, didn’t it? That had seemed blindingly logical to him at the time.