by Frank Tallis
‘Yes, yes—it’s going to end badly.’
‘What if this happens again? What if you see her in a shop or in a bar? What will you do?’
‘I’ll turn around and walk the other way.’
‘Will you? Or will you think, this is odd, and conclude that fate is drawing you together again for a purpose?’
He nodded—a rare instance of acquiescence. But there would have to be many more instances of insight, otherwise, I feared, Paul might end up swapping his penthouse for a prison cell.
The word ‘romantic’ is extraordinarily rich and complex, because it represents many beliefs and ideas about love that have accumulated and blended together over a period of a thousand years. The concept of romance is so much a part of our cultural heritage that we accept its implicit assumptions without question. In plays, operas, films and novels, anything—if it is done for love—is acceptable.
Today, Islam is frequently characterised as an exporter of hate; however, in actuality, the Islamic world’s most successful export is love. Our concept of romance has a Middle Eastern pedigree. The Arab Bedouin composed a form of poetry that contained several motifs now familiar to a global readership: an idealised lover, thwarted passions and melancholic yearning. Building on this tradition, eleventh-century Islamic authors wrote large-scale epic romances. The dissemination of Islamic love stories across Europe followed the Moorish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Presumably, these stories were told and retold by travellers who had crossed the Pyrenees and in due course they were cannibalised by the itinerant entertainers of medieval France. Thereafter, the chivalric songs and verses of the troubadours provided the foundation for home-grown courtly adventures featuring radiant queens and ‘beautiful ladies without mercy’ whose remoteness inflamed knightly passions. During the Renaissance, poets such as Petrarch and Dante took the theme of idealisation to new and ecstatic heights. The word ‘romance’ was infused with further meanings in the late eighteenth century, when romanticism—a movement that valued violent passions over cold reason—found its initial impetus in a story of doomed love by Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther. This slim volume, which ends with the protagonist committing suicide, was massively influential and forged a strong link in the popular imagination between love and death. Numerous imitators glorified the misery of rejected lovers in poems that depicted young men setting off across winter landscapes with suicidal intent.
The fundamental problem with the notion of romantic love is that it is based on a misunderstanding. Early Islamic romances were allegorical and dramatised the soul’s longing for God. They were never intended to be taken literally. By confusing spiritual and earthly goals, Western authors imported a raft of unrealistic expectations into courtship and marriage. How can a mortal woman ever live up to the romantic ideal of eternal beauty? How can an imperfect human being deliver perfect love? Is it really the case that there is only one person (like a singular deity) with whom true love is possible? Sex, however pleasurable, is not heavenly communion. Fate (or the hand of God) does not bring people together, there are only random occurrences. Obstacles to love have no significance; they do not appear in order to test and intensify love. There is no divine plan.
Romantic love makes impossible demands and quickly falls apart, after which its wretched, disappointed devotees are offered the cruel consolation of a freezing landscape and a pistol. The romantic world view is rooted in literatures that construe love—particularly young love—as nascent tragedy. As such, it is a potentially dangerous body of ideas. To be romantic is, for the most part, an unhappy, hallucinatory experience. Romantic love promises one thing, but delivers another.
The trappings and accessories of romantic love have now been successfully monetised. On Valentine’s Day we celebrate romance with cards, bouquets and candle-lit meals, and presents of chocolates and lingerie tastefully packaged in red ribbons and love-heart gift-wrap. But what are we celebrating, exactly?
The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan—a pupil of de Clérambault and something of an intellectual playboy—asserted that one of the most significant milestones in psychological development occurs when an infant sees him- or herself in a mirror for the first time. Self-recognition is followed by the disconcerting realisation that what others see of our exterior form does not correspond with our more vital, fluid and authentic inner world. All mature adults must accept that they are essentially unknowable—and that they will never know the one they love. Even when we kiss there is distance; it is a distance that cannot be bridged by romantic love and must be respected if a relationship is to succeed. The real metric by which we can gauge the authenticity of love is not how close we want to be, how merged and intermingled, but how far we can stand apart and still be together.
‘Did anything happen in your childhood that made you especially aware of death?’
Paul’s expression was neutral. ‘No. Nothing.’
‘A death in the family?’ He shook his head. ‘The death of someone at school?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Pets…’
‘We didn’t keep pets.’ He raised his hands and let them fall. ‘It’s just the way I am—there’s no accounting for it really. When I was a kid, the thought of dying terrified me. I used to get this horrible feeling in my stomach—dread, I suppose. Now it’s more to do with pointlessness. If we’re all going to die, what’s the point of anything?’
‘Some people think the exact opposite. It’s precisely because things are transient that they have greater value.’
‘Really? Not me.’
We discussed how pursuing perfect love gave him purpose and temporary relief from existential angst. He was interested in these ideas and listened intently. I suggested that if he could accept death with greater equanimity he might feel less compelled to seek solace in romantic idealism.
It is natural to fear death; however, for some people this fear becomes so intense and troublesome that they can’t enjoy life. When this happens, the condition attracts medical appellations such as ‘death anxiety’ and ‘thanatophobia’. There are a number of arguments that can be employed to help people with death anxiety. They aren’t always effective, but when they do work, patients experience a change of perspective and the idea of death becomes less alien and strange.
We are more intimate with oblivion than is generally acknowledged. Every night there are discontinuities in our existence during dreamless sleep. Moreover, we forget things every day, so in a sense, we are constantly dissolving into nothingness. Recognising that our nativity was preceded by aeons of oblivion can, for some individuals, turn ‘the great unknown’ into ‘more of the same’. The chemical constituents of our bodies were assembled by exploding stars at an inconceivably distant point in the past, and these constituents continue to exist, in some shape or form, after our death. We are woven into the fabric of the universe—and will always be. There is also a kind of afterlife in procreation, making cultural contributions, leaving legacies or simply being remembered by those who survive us. By merely existing, we influence an expanding web of cause and effect relationships that will continue indefinitely.
Freud claimed that none of us really believe in our own death. Although this is probably true when we are young, it undoubtedly becomes less true as we grow older. Paul had reached a point in his life where he could no longer deny his own mortality. I suspect that if Imogen hadn’t appeared, then any attractive woman would have been cast in the same role. His love had much more to do with what he wanted her to be, rather than what she actually was.
‘I’m not sure life is worth living without her.’
I asked him directly about whether he was having suicidal ideas.
‘I’ve thought about ending it all, but only in an abstract way. I mean, I haven’t considered how I’d do it.’
‘You said life isn’t worth living without her…’
‘Yes. That’s what it feels like.’ He became tearful and I was curiously reassured by this. Suicide
risk is more frequently associated with emotional numbing. It’s as though suicidal patients are too sad to cry. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he continued. ‘I want to live—but I want to live with her.’
Paul was excavating romanticism all the way down to its spiritual foundations. Imogen had become his everything, and the light in her eyes emanated from the scented gardens and fountained courtyards of a Middle Eastern paradise.
Week after week, Paul came to my consulting room to express his longing. Sometimes, I would simply listen, and at other times (particularly if he was looking stronger) I would point out how his unhappiness was being maintained by a belief system full of contradictions and dysfunctional assumptions. A few hairline cracks began to spread across Imogen’s idealised image. Paul was prepared to admit that she wasn’t always very reliable.
‘When people are consistently late, what might that mean?’
‘Perhaps they’re busy.’
‘Are all busy people consistently late?’
‘No.’
‘So what else might it mean?’
‘They could be disorganised.’
Sometimes I had to abandon Socratic questioning. ‘Or maybe they just think their time is more important than yours?’
‘You think she was selfish…’
I let the last word resonate before I spoke again.
On my way to work I crossed a park full of colourful flowers. The season had changed.
Paul was looking better.
‘Are you ready to start dating again?’
‘Not yet. But soon…’
‘And what are the chances of you meeting someone else—someone who you can love again?’
He linked his fingers and bowed his head—an attitude that suggested prayer. ‘The honest answer is I don’t know. It might happen.’
At least he was admitting the possibility of life after Imogen.
Paul scratched the back of his neck. ‘I’ve decided to work abroad. An opportunity has come up—in the States.’
‘That’s rather sudden.’
‘Not really. I’ve been thinking about going to America for a while now.’
His announcement made me feel uncomfortable. ‘Are you sure that you haven’t made this decision because of Imogen?’
‘I thought it might be the right thing to do… make a new start.’
‘Actually, I was thinking that maybe you don’t trust yourself.’
‘I’m not going to pay her any more surprise visits.’
‘You certainly won’t if you’re living in America.’
My remark was perhaps a little too pointed.
I saw Paul for another two sessions. We reviewed our key insights and discussed whether or not he should continue seeing another therapist in Chicago. ‘I’ll see how I feel,’ he said. ‘And take it from there.’ He shook my hand, thanked me for my help and said, ‘It’s odd—this. I’ve told you so much. You know so much about me and I know almost nothing about you.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Presumably… you’ve been in love?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
We both laughed—and then he left.
Letting go of patients is a peculiar thing. For me, those last moments are always accompanied by a very particular sadness.
A year or so after our final session I received a letter from Paul. The content was pleasant and good humoured although somewhat superficial. He had come across one of my novels and enjoyed it. His career was flourishing, the business environment in America being generally more favourable for venture capitalists. As I read the letter, I became increasingly aware of my own expectancy. I read faster in order to get to the paragraph where he would tell me that he was happy and in a new relationship. But there was no such paragraph. Rather foolishly, I turned the sheet over and scanned both sides again. I found nothing to dispel my disappointment.
How ironic, that I should want a happy ending: lovers walking off into a sunset to the sound of a thousand soaring violins. How absurd that I should harbour a desire for Paul’s life to reflect the formulas of romantic fiction. I folded the letter, slid it back into the envelope and put it away in my desk. The power of romance should never be underestimated.
Chapter 6
The American Evangelist
Sins of the flesh
In my mid-twenties, I left London with my wife and six-month-old son to live in a remote village in the north of England. My wife and I had met at a further-education college when we were sixteen and seventeen, respectively. We both came from working-class backgrounds and neither of us had been offered much in the way of guidance. Although I gained a few qualifications at college, I didn’t apply to go to university. No one in my family had ever been to university—my mother and father completed their compulsory education at fourteen and left school at the earliest opportunity. University was something other people did. Luckily, I had been taught to play the piano by a relative and I was able to earn a modest income giving piano lessons to children.
I couldn’t get any pupils in the village because there was no demand. I entertained the idea of becoming a writer but this was completely unrealistic at the time. My wife had no plans other than to do some occasional bar work in the nearest market town. We were living on benefits and we had, in effect, dropped out. Why had we chosen to live this way? I could advance some reasons that might elicit sympathy, but the truth of the matter is that we were immature, irresponsible and stupid.
One day was much like the next. The sun came up and the sun went down. We couldn’t afford books but a mobile library occasionally visited the village. I read, listened to the radio and went for walks—pushing my son in his buggy.
In spite of our impecunious circumstances my wife and I were happy. The decision to leave London had been a joint one—our thinking strongly influenced by the fashionable escapism of the time. We were (it goes without saying) inexcusably naïve.
The principal attraction of the village was its romantic and austere location. Out of my kitchen window, I could see stone dwellings protected by an amphitheatre of higher ground. And beyond the village, in all directions, there were rugged fells, fields, rivers, ruined castles and moorland. It was a very evocative landscape, steeped in Arthurian legend. One of the local ruins was called the Dolorous Tower.
Behind our cottage was a hill surmounted by an eleventh-century church. It was a striking building. The bell tower had a parapet with distinctive pinnacles. For generations, the church had been associated with a folktale that I found darkly appealing. Originally, the villagers had wanted to build their church at the foot of the hill, but every night, when the labourers had gone home, the stones and timbers were mysteriously transported to the summit. All agreed that this was the Devil’s work, his purpose being to force the villagers to build their place of worship in an inaccessible location. The Devil proved to be an indefatigable adversary and in due course the villagers conceded defeat. It was an unusual conclusion to a folktale. Folktales are instructive and the Devil is usually outwitted, evil is overcome and good prevails. This story, however, had no reassuring moral. Satan was triumphant.
The church was damp and cold, and the air inside imbued with the mildewy fragrance of rotting missals. I would climb the hill, let myself in and play the ancient, wheezing harmonium. It was quite eerie, sitting alone in that church, and against my better judgement I frequently found myself looking over my shoulder—disturbed by imaginings. Eventually, I discovered an Edwardian history of the village and read that the hill had been inhabited long before the eleventh century. It was the site of pagan sacrifices prior to the arrival of Christianity.
As usual, I was attracted to the sinister—the legends, the strangeness—and it hadn’t escaped my notice that my situation was a cliché favoured by horror writers. A young couple go to live in an isolated location, foolishly cutting themselves off from friends and family. They have a small child—a staple of the genre—usually introduced to underscore
human frailty and magnify the sense of threat. I don’t believe in the supernatural, nor in premonitions, but life imitates art, and all the indications were that something bad was about to happen. I should have read the chapter headings. I should have seen where the story was going.
Rachel was a single parent with two children, Sabina, aged five, and Sean, aged eight months. She had separated from her Austrian husband and had returned to England in order to live near her parents, Bill and Ursula, who had retired and moved to the village two years earlier. Rachel lived with her younger sister, Sonia. Their brother, Warren—a late addition to the family—was eighteen, and lived with his parents.
My wife and I got to know Rachel and Sonia quite well. We all had a lot of time on our hands and were constantly paying each other social calls. We talked, watched the children playing on the floor, smoked cigarettes and drank tea.
It soon became evident that Rachel and Sonia were deeply dissatisfied. Rachel missed living in Austria. She had grown very fond of the Austrian way of life—skiing, pastries and coffee houses—and now she felt trapped and bored. When her marriage broke down she had had no other option but to return to England—to grey skies, chores and childcare.
Sonia’s circumstances were different to her sister’s but also unhappy. She had been having an affair with a married man called Henry for several years. Henry had promised to leave his wife when his children were older; however, he wasn’t prepared to commit himself to a precise date. He owned a moderately successful haulage business and lived some 60 miles away in a coastal town. Occasionally he would appear in a smart convertible and take Sonia out for the day. Bill and Ursula didn’t approve of this arrangement—they were devout Christians—but Sonia didn’t care. She was in love.
Rachel and Sonia found it difficult to understand why my wife and I had chosen to exchange life in London for the village. To them our decision was incomprehensible.
