by S. L. Grey
“How are you doing, Mark?”
I turn awkwardly to Lindi, who’s now blocking any escape route.
“Fine, thanks, and you?” I say, hoping that she’ll leave it there.
But she doesn’t. “No, I mean really. It’s such a terrible thing that happened to you and your wonderful family.” She’s never even met Steph or Hayden—of course I would never bring them here.
“Thanks. We’re okay.” I don’t want this conversation. My wonderful families and terrible things seem to go together. Just imagine how Lindi would be acting if she knew about my first family. She’s just being kind, but when she probes like this, I feel cornered and snappish, and I don’t want to be rude to one of my few friends here.
“I want you to be okay,” she says.
“Mmm, thanks,” I say again, and pointedly turn back to the sink, where my container is full and overflowing pathetically down the drain.
Finally, Lindi gets the hint and moves away.
Trailing down the corridor to Classroom C12, my water bottle in hand, I realize how hunched I’ve become. I straighten my back and level my shoulders, girding myself for the soul-sucking onslaught of the Level 1 General Literature class. I stride in with a sad, forced “Good morning!” dripping with false cheer. There’s only the slightest dip in the volume of conversation as I set up the keywords on the projector. When I start talking, most of the kids look at me with some variation of loathing and distaste, as if I’m the sand in their Vaseline. It’s war poetry today, but it could be anything. I used to be interested in this stuff when I was young—I had better teachers than myself, I suppose—but I can’t conceive of a way to engage these students, who stare at me, fuming like angry customers who aren’t getting what they paid for. I become aware of the drone in my voice, and the more I talk, the more anxious I become.
Somehow, at last, it’s ten o’clock. When I get back to my office, I check my emails, ignoring the departmental circulars and clicking open a message from Steph. After all this time, my mood still bumps up every time I see her name in my in-box.
Hi Mark,
Didn’t tell you this morning because I wanted to surprise you, but just to let you know that I put in a request for a house swap. Here are the details of the place that responded—they sound v cool and French!
Mom and Dad are happy to lend us the money for the air tickets—so no excuses!
I know you secretly love the idea and you’ll come around—we’ll all have fun and it will be good for us.
I love you,
S
I’m surprised by a quick rush of indignation. How could she do this when I’ve already said no? But I can sense the rot in our marriage caused by this fucking break-in and I know I’ve got to make an extra effort to be positive. I can see how hard Steph’s trying—and, besides, she still knows she’ll win me over with that “I love you.”
I swivel my chair around and stare out the window at the block work of rooftop air conditioners and silvering in the back lots and the mountain beyond them, looming massive in a hot, clear sky. Paris…She knows me—I’ve always wanted to go. I can’t blame Steph that we’re in such a dire financial position.
Turning back to the screen, I click on the link she sent. It looks like one of those classic Parisian buildings on a narrow road with a little tree-lined square at the end. The suburb sounds pleasant, apparently close to all the attractions but quiet, near Montmartre, where the artists lived and there’s that big white church.
In a different life, it would be a great idea. But not this life, not now. Even if we could accept money from Steph’s parents to go jaunting overseas, hauling Hayden through a foreign city wouldn’t be as romantic as it sounds. Wheeling a docile little French girl in a pram through the Parisian parks sounds like fun, but we both know how Hayden gets when she needs to pee, when she’s hungry, when she’s tired, when she’s hot, when she’s cold—and not just Hayden. That’s natural for any toddler. Steph’s not being realistic.
Clicking to the house swappers’ profile, I see a buff young couple called the Petits who have put some tourist links into their property description. I read through a list of literary walks in Paris, and before I realize it, twenty minutes have passed. Just imagine strolling the same cobbles as Hemingway and Gauguin and Monet and Balzac and Foucault—and Woody Allen. It wouldn’t be quite the same as strolling the prefab indoor cobbles, circa 2008, of the Canal Walk mall. Steph chose well—I have always wanted to go, and I’ve just thought of a way I can make the trip work.
I pick up the phone and dial Steph’s parents. I’m relieved when Rina answers; Jan and I don’t get along—he’s only five years older than me and doesn’t trust me with his daughter, despite the fact that I’ve always treated her with love and respect. As a father of daughters, though, I understand where he’s coming from—I’d hate me too.
—
“How could you, Mark?”
That was quick. I’ve only just come back with my daily grande from the coffee shop downstairs. Rina must have called Steph straightaway.
“I wanted to surprise you back. I thought you’d be—”
“I’m calling Mom now. I’m telling her—”
“Hang on, Steph. Think about it.” I stand up and close my office door, but I’ll still have to keep my voice very low to avoid being heard through the cardboard walls. “If you think about it for one minute, you’d know that taking Hayden to Paris with us would be a bad idea. She’d hate it.”
“You’re so distant with her sometimes, Mark. It makes me wonder if—”
“Don’t start. Please, honey. You know how I feel.” Because I do love Hayden, everything she represents to me. Because even though it was an accident—I assumed Steph was on the Pill and she assumed I’d had the chop—I’ll never forget that feeling when Steph told me she was pregnant. My pure joy took me by surprise as much as it did Steph. For a change, my feelings bypassed my doubts and it took me a while to understand why I was so happy. I was so in love with Steph, the world seemed to glow around her. She was my second chance—one I thought I’d never get and one I certainly didn’t deserve—and the gift of a baby felt like part of my redemption. Of course, the idea of a new baby was smothered with guilt and sadness, but it did help to think just how much Zoë would have loved a sister.
“It’s so hard for you to say it, isn’t it? That you love Hayden.”
I think of how different the two girls are. Zoë, fair-haired and always sparkly and game for a challenge, just like her mother; and dark little Hayden, whiny, needy, prone to nightmares. I wonder just how much of that darkness I’ve instilled in her. I was a different man when Zoë was born, with the joyful confidence that would have encouraged a little girl to explore, but with Hayden…Still, it all means that when Hayden has one of her magic moments, it cuts like a knife through all the shit. I do love her, but I won’t rise to Steph’s taunt to be glib, so I plow on. “Your parents want to see Hayden, and Hayden loves it at their place. It’s the perfect plan. And, besides, because she’s turned two, she’d pay full price for her air ticket if we took her to France. We’re saving your parents that.”
She pauses, and I can tell she’s started to hear me. “You should have discussed it with me first.”
“You never would have agreed.”
“To abandoning my daughter so that we can go on holiday? You’re right, I wouldn’t.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, fuck it. I don’t want to go anymore. You thought it was a stupid idea. I don’t know why you’re suddenly so—”
“The tickets are nonrefundable.”
“You already bought tickets? What—”
“Well, your mother did. She didn’t want you to end up not going. She thinks it’s a good idea for us both—for us all. And I agree. Hayden will love her break as much as we will.”
“I don’t want to go without her, Mark.”
“You wanted this trip, Steph. I know you did. And Rina convinced me just how much we ne
ed it.” It’s not fair to blame Rina, I know, but she really was supportive. “Think about it like this: it’ll be the honeymoon we never had.”
“You’re an arsehole,” she says, but her tone isn’t very angry. She’ll come around.
Chapter 4
Steph
I still feel a kernel of guilt—and resentment—when I think back on how easily Mark manipulated me into leaving Hayden behind.
Yeah, I’ll admit, a treacherous part of me relished the thought of shedding the daily routine for a few days, sleeping late and visiting restaurants and museums without a toddler in tow. But still the thought burned: Why don’t you really want our daughter to come with us, Mark? It wasn’t as if he was ever cold with her exactly, but since the home invasion, I couldn’t help but feel that a distance had crept into his relationship with her.
I suppose I was also swayed by Mark’s U-turn about the trip. The anticipation of it seemed to awaken something inside him, something that had lain dormant since the night those fuckers invaded our home. I let him take over the arrangements and chat to the Petits—he would read out the most hilarious of their obviously Google-translated messages to me in bed every evening—and he threw himself into making plans: booking visa appointments, downloading maps, trawling TripAdvisor for budget restaurant recommendations. I was desperate not to do or say anything that would dampen his mood; even the house appeared to take on a lighter atmosphere, as if it knew it would soon be hosting a fresh pair of inhabitants who weren’t such downers. Slot, slot, slot, everything fell into place seamlessly. The visa interviews went without a hitch, and Mark would be able to squeeze in a week’s leave just before the semester started in mid-February.
She may not have been my favorite person, but Carla also came to the party, offering to liaise with the Petits and hand over the keys when they arrived. A couple of days before we were due to leave, she showed up at the house and thrust a plastic garment bag into my arms. I unzipped it to reveal a chocolate-colored cashmere coat. “You can borrow it,” she said. “It should fit you; it’s a couple of sizes too big for me.” Sting in the tail or not, I was grateful for the thought. The coat was beautiful.
I still have it.
But as the days bled away and the departure date neared, I became anxious. I spent two full days frantically preparing the house and typing out pages of instructions for everything from the alarm system to the dishwasher. The day before we left, I bought milk, butter, bread, bacon, and fresh coffee for the Petits—the kind of expensive fair-trade stuff I’d never have dreamed of buying for Mark and me. I splurged on new sheets, pillowcases, and towels. I scrubbed walls, bleached the bathroom, and tidied drawers, trying not to think about the sinister, gloved fingers that had rooted through their contents during the break-in. The floors gleamed and every room was filled with the scent of cedar oil. I was overcompensating, hoping that an immaculate interior would make up for the rowdy student neighbors, the wailing of the homeless people who lived under the highway bridge, and the welded bars on the windows, which hadn’t been featured in the photos I’d uploaded to the house swap site. It’s ironic now—actually, tragic—but all I could think was: What if the Petits complain that we misrepresented the house?
My parents collected Hayden the morning we were due to leave, and as I helped strap her into her car seat, I was filled with the certainty that I would never see her again. I had to will myself not to scream at my parents to stop as they pulled away.
Mark put an arm around me as the car disappeared around the corner. “She’ll be fine, Steph.”
“Yeah.”
I was being irrational. I knew I was. Nothing was going to happen to Hayden. Collectively, Mark and I had been through more than our fair share of hardship: Zoë’s death, Hayden’s chronic colic, the break-in—surely we were due a run of good luck? To take the edge off, I downed two of the Urbanol tablets the doctor had given me for anxiety after the attack—the visit to the doctor and the tranquilizers were my little secret; knowing about them would only have upset Mark—and, numbed by the meds, I helped Mark pack. I had to remember that the trip was for him as well. It’ll be the honeymoon we never had. Things had moved so quickly after we met, we hadn’t managed to find the time for that sort of romantic gesture.
I first saw Mark on my second day working part-time in the UCT English Department office. A roommate had helped me get the job; I was struggling to pay my rent after moving to Cape Town to do an English honors degree. Xoliswa, the department secretary, and I were about to go to lunch when a man with a rumpled Robert Downey Jr. face and creased trousers blundered into the office to use the printer. I offered to help him and he smiled at me—a warm just-for-you smile.
“Who’s that?” I asked Xoliswa the second he was out of earshot.
“Mark. English lecturer. Nice guy.”
“And?” I waited for Xoliswa to fill me in. None of the faculty who drifted onto our radar escaped without a gossipy footnote from her: the senior lecturer who wasn’t allowed to have female students in his room without leaving the door open; the tutor who was sleeping with the very married professor of linguistics; the closeted academic who still lived with his mother. Everyone in the department had a scandalous backstory, and she knew them all.
“And what?”
“Come on, Xoliswa. Spill.”
She sighed. “I heard his daughter died.”
“Oh. Oh God.”
“Yes. Very sad. She was seven or something. Destroyed his marriage.”
“How did she die?”
“I don’t know.” She clucked her tongue. I couldn’t tell if she was aggrieved that she didn’t know the details or felt bad for Mark.
Over the next few days, I found myself keeping an eye out for him, casting around in the cafeteria queue and the department’s corridors (I’d learned that he had a temporary office on the top floor). I daydreamed about him; imagined him strolling into the office, where we’d strike up a conversation that would lead to drinks, maybe even dinner. It sounds stalkerish now, but I googled him, scoured the Web for reviews of his academic work, searched for him on Facebook. I tried to pin down why he’d struck a chord in me. Was it the sadness he must carry around? I wasn’t melancholic; I had no edge, no tragic backstory, no grand passion, no heartbreak. My two previous relationships had ended amicably. I thought of myself as boring, level-headed, in control. I was the designated driver, the caretaker. Ms. Reliable.
I next ran into him at a book launch that was being held at a store in town—one of the department heads was launching a tome on Derrida or something and attendance was mandatory. My heart hitched when I saw him in the store’s basement collecting a glass of red wine from the makeshift bar. Ignoring the knots of people chatting and laughing too loudly, he wandered over to the poetry section. He was drinking his wine too quickly.
After only a moment’s hesitation, I made my excuses to Xoliswa, who gave me a knowing glance, and then I approached him, although I’d never been that brazen before. “Hi.”
It was obvious that he was struggling to place me, and I fought to hide my disappointment. In my fantasy, I’d filled his head as much as he filled mine. He gave me a rueful grin. “Are you one of my students?”
“No. I work in the office.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.” He gave an embarrassed laugh.
A woman wearing too much jewelry and what looked to be a kimono (Carla, of course) glided up to us. “Mark, there you are. Come and meet Abdul. He’s a big fan.”
Mark tried to introduce me—which was awkward enough as he didn’t yet know my name—but Carla whisked him away before he could finish his sentence. I don’t think she was simply being rude. She was perceptive; she must have sensed that something had sparked between us.
During the Q&A, I found a seat at the back of the room, a few rows behind him. He turned to look at me once, as if he could feel my eyes on his back, and gave me a small smile. I made excuses to stay behind while Xoliswa and my friends headed off to
Long Street for drinks, but it was hopeless; Mark was sucked into a Carla-clique and I didn’t have the nerve to insert myself into the group. After spending far too much money on books I didn’t need or want, I left. But my car, the battered Fiat I’d inherited from Mom, was no longer in its parking spot. Stomach hollow, and hoping against hope that I’d misremembered where I’d parked it, I ran up and down the road, scouring side streets. It was gone. I washed up next to a small group of strangers smoking outside the bookshop.
I stood there for more than a minute, my car keys hanging uselessly in my hand.
Someone touched my arm. “Hello again.”
It was Mark. I looked at him and burst into tears.
He took me to the police station to make a statement and then gave me a lift home. We sat in the car outside my house talking for hours. Nothing was off-limits that night. I told him about my childhood, about my fear that I wasn’t good enough to be a writer, which was all that I’d ever wanted to be, and he told me about his wife’s long illness and his divorce. It was the only time that he spoke frankly to me about Zoë. About his guilt, his pain, his struggle to live with the loss and the resentment of a world that just carried on as if nothing had happened. I know now that he opened up to me only because at that stage we were little more than strangers. After that he would mention Zoë only if prompted, but she was there, unspoken, unseen, in our lives, every second of every day.
Two days after that we slept together for the first time. Three weeks after that I moved in with him. In another two months I would be pregnant.
—
Both of us were lighter the second we stepped onto the plane, and I remember thinking, We’re safe; they can’t get us here. Neither of us slept: we spent the journey drinking too many gin and tonics and talking about what we’d see, where we’d go—I fantasized about strolling along the Champs-Élysées, buying a chic French outfit for Hayden—our plans to sleep late and eat out. We arrived at the train station at Charles de Gaulle exhausted but upbeat. Not even the shivery first sense of the icy winter air or the unexpectedly depressing view from the train window—the cluster of sagging shacks that clung to the side of the train tracks, the bad graffiti, the utilitarian buildings—brought me down. At the first stop, a burly man clutching a microphone and dragging a speaker on a cart clambered on board. He burbled something in French and pressed a button on the speaker, and a synthesized backing track to “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” blared through the train. I gave Mark a sideways glance as the man began to sing. His voice wasn’t bad, but he was having difficulty pronouncing the words—especially “sorry”—and appeared to be making the lyrics up as he went along. Mark leaned toward me, grinned, and whispered, “I’m sowwy, Steph.”
