Remember Me

by Liz Byrski

  ‘I had to talk to you, to explain—I have to tell you … ‘A pause again.

  ‘The letter,’ I say. ‘You wrote me that letter—I never knew why…’ my voice trails away.

  ‘I know, I want to tell you—I want to explain.’

  Panic surges, do I want to know? For thirty-seven years I have preserved my memories. What is he about to do? I have to let him know that he is on sacred ground.

  ‘Lost love is always the most precious,’ I venture.

  There is silence again—has he heard me? Has he understood what I am telling him?

  ‘Precious, yes,’ he says and now his voice has a tremor. ‘I wondered if you would remember.’

  ‘I remember.’

  Irene and Neil are talking, they are setting out the welcoming meal Irene had prepared for us.

  ‘Look,’ I say. ‘I just got here ten minutes ago. It’s a couple of years since I saw Irene and I’ve hardly spoken to her since I walked in the door. Could we talk again—perhaps later tonight? It’s not that I don’t want to—it just seems so discourteous.’

  ‘Of course, yes of course,’ he says. ‘Eleven perhaps—shall I call again at eleven?’

  ‘That would be perfect.’

  Silence.

  ‘I want to see you,’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I called Australia but you had already left for Portugal to see your son. When do you go home? I could fly to Perth, it takes twenty hours from San Francisco.’

  So he has worked that out.

  ‘You would come to Australia? I’ll be back at the end of January.’

  ‘You sound the same, your voice—it always captivated me—’

  ‘I am not the same,’ I say quickly, terrified suddenly of what I had been, of the slender teenager he remembers. ‘I’m not eighteen any more. I’m fifty-four, I have two sons, I’m a grandmother.’

  ‘A grandmother!’

  ‘Yes. And you?’

  ‘No. Just my daughter—and also now a son, thirty-four.’

  ‘You were married again?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘Me too. Do you look the same?’

  ‘I lost some hair!’

  ‘You didn’t have a lot to lose,’ I say and his laugh rings out genuine, spontaneous. So he can still laugh at himself.

  ‘Liz—it’s so wonderful to talk to you,’ he says, his voice beginning to break. ‘I can hardly believe I’ve found you at last.’

  ‘It’s magic,’ I say. ‘Magic’

  ‘So I’ll call at eleven,’ he says. ‘You will take my call?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll be waiting for you.’

  ***

  Just before eleven I take the cordless phone to Irene’s spare bedroom and sit, the duvet tucked around me, waiting for his call. The weight of memory is a physical pain. His voice is in my head, his words, his laughter. Why has he called, why has he searched for me? He once took away the future, can I trust him now not to rob me of the past?

  I see his face above me as we lay on his bed in Bobby’s house. I see him turn and call to me on the beach, his hand outstretched to catch mine as I run towards him, to pull me to him as we head for the shelter of the pier. Tears threaten but I force them down. I will not cry. I must know what he wants, why he called. After all these years is he simply tidying up his life, am I part of an exercise in emotional housekeeping? All those years ago as the hurt and anger subsided I let myself believe that his love had been real—will he take it away again? I am at the edge of a black hole. He can drag me back from the brink into the splendour of the galaxy, or tip me over the edge into the darkness.

  Thirty-seven years and he still has it in his power to change everything, the past, the future, the nature of memory. Did he love me? Is there the slightest possible chance that he does still love me? What does he want?

  ‘I barely know where to begin,’ he says and his voice enfolds me as though he has thrown a soft shawl around my shoulders. ‘I was such a fool I was so in love with you and so vulnerable. You had this incredible power over me, you had the power to destroy me. And when your letter came I thought you were trying to tell me something—I was afraid. I’m getting old, I had to find you, I wanted to explain.’

  Part Three

  Explanation

  6

  San Francisco, July Nineteen Sixty-two

  Late one July afternoon he jumps from the bus and begins the walk home along the quiet street. The shadows are lengthening, the glare of the afternoon sun has faded. He passes small timber-framed houses with white stucco walls, neat gardens ablaze with scarlet geraniums and purple bougainvillea. Ahead of him another man walks home from work, shirtsleeves rolled back, jacket slung over his shoulder. This man turns in at a gate and a woman steps out to greet him, she smiles and the man bends to kiss her; putting his arm around her waist, they walk together into the house.

  Jealousy stabs him as he walks on, he wants his love waiting there for him, running out to greet him. He wants the taste of her lips as he walks in the door, the smell of her hair as he buries his face in it, the promise of her warm body pressed against his. He hates the separation, he wants her there beside him all the time, but the best he can hope for today is a letter, and his step quickens at the prospect.

  He has been lucky. Within a few days of his return to San Francisco he found a job; a good job and a light comfortable room in one of these pretty houses. A room that catches the southern sunshine; a room with a window looking out over gently rolling hills scattered with cracker box homes. He can use the kitchen as if it were his own, cook his own meals, live cheaply, sit at the table each evening and write his letters to England. He doesn’t go out much these days, company doesn’t interest him any more. He is focused on his dreams of the future, on saving money for the day they can marry and he can bring her back to California as his wife. It is love that has sustained him through these lonely weeks, the memories of the times they spent together, the haunting tenderness of her kisses and their still unconsummated passion for each other.

  He has yearned always for romantic love. When his marriage failed he thought he had discovered love again, this time in New York. He was cautious initially but she swore her love for him, but as he gained confidence and drew closer she began to edge away, gradually at first, until she was gone. She had fled from the burden of his love to return to her home in England and he followed her, hoping to change her mind or at least to shift the emotional paralysis he felt without her.

  He pauses at the kerb, waiting for a car to pass so he can cross the street, remembering Melanie, who was once so powerfully present in his consciousness, and is now a rapidly fading memory. The street is clear but he forgets to cross and stands there, leaning against a lamppost, thinking of the moment when he knew that Melanie would no longer haunt him. Thinking of the damp winter afternoon when he walked into the living room at his London lodgings and saw Liz who would change everything.

  Their eyes met and he could feel her skin, almost taste her. The desire that shot through him like a heat wave was more spiritual than sexual. In the instant that he saw her and wanted her, he simultaneously felt her so far beyond his reach that he dismissed it as impossible. He was suspended in time and space. She was a young and beautiful girl but he saw a goddess. Her smile, her posture, the sound of her voice slipped under his skin and while he knew he could never have her, he recognised instantly that somehow she had set him free from the ghost of Melanie. He thought he spoke and she answered, or perhaps he just looked at her and she turned away to speak to Joan. He thought she must be in her early twenties and everything about her seemed to belong in another realm. In every sense he felt her so far above him that he did not even consider that she could be interested in him. But when she got up to leave and walked past him to get her coat he jumped up, grabbed his own jacket and slipped alongside her into the back seat of Jock’s car.

  They sat on opposite sides of the car and during the drive to the station he discovered tha
t she was only seventeen. Unreachable woman, forbidden girl—he took another emotional leap backwards to a safe distance. When they parked outside the station he got out of the car and fetched her shopping from the boot. She was hugging Joan and when she turned to him he was struck by the realisation that he might never see her again. In seconds she would disappear into the crowded station. He ached to let her know his feelings, but respect and courtesy demanded the most sensitive form of expression. Instinctively he took her hand and bowing slightly raised it to his lips. The gesture personified respect and admiration; it embraced his concern for her feelings, as well as his longing to be close to her. He raised his eyes to hers and for a moment she held his gaze and then with a smile she turned and walked away. He knew she would forget him but the encounter had liberated him, it had signalled the beginning of healing.

  A couple of weeks later he was reading the paper at the kitchen table, while his landlady wrote her Christmas cards.

  ‘You remember Liz,’ Joan said, pushing the card towards him. ‘Why don’t you put a note on her card.’

  He put down the paper and paused a moment—remembering, then he picked up the pen and wrote briskly, ‘Merry Christmas, Karl,’ and pushed the card back across the table. Even when she sent him a letter in reply he thought her simply charming and well mannered.

  ‘A full page letter in response to three words on a Christmas card,’ Joan laughed. ‘She fancies you Karl.’

  He shook his head. His landlady clearly did not appreciate good manners and fine sentiments. This girl was right off limits; the letter was simply the polite response of a young woman to an older man.

  One Saturday afternoon in January he went to a concert, and with the music of Mozart still in his head he strolled home up Northumberland Crescent as the early dusk cast its shadows. He contemplated calling a friend, or seeing if Frank, one of the other lodgers, fancied a beer at the pub. As he unlocked the front door he could hear squeals from Jenny and Angus in the bath. Joan—her voice more high pitched and her Welsh accent more pronounced when she was annoyed—was shouting at them to stop splashing. From the living room there was a mumble of male voices, and the low tones of a jazz piano came from the record player in Frank’s room. So Frank was home, the beer might be a good idea.

  He ran up the stairs and as he strode into the kitchen he found himself face to face with her again. Was it imagination or did her expression change when she saw him? Did she go from boredom to pleasure, from anxiety to relief, or was that a simple flash of pure joy that transformed her features? She opened her mouth to speak and then stopped; flushing deeply she folded a tea towel and hung it on the rail.

  I wondered where you were,’ she said, as though she had been expecting him, waiting for him. 1 thought I might have missed you.’

  She stood still a little nervous, looking at him with eyes in which he thought he might drown.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you again. I didn’t know you’d be here,’ he said, feeling hopelessly inadequate. ‘Thank you for the letter.’

  They stared at each other in a silence broken finally by Jenny running naked and dripping from the bathroom dragging a towel.

  ‘Mummy says dry me Wiz.’

  He watched as she bent to wrap the towel around the child’s sleek, damp body.

  ‘Karl!’ Jock exclaimed behind him. ‘You’re back! D’you fancy a drink at the pub, we’ve got a babysitter.’

  The Prospect of Whitby was packed with Saturday night drinkers. She sat on a bench seat and he stood alongside her, his hand on the back of the seat. Around them in the crush couples were laughing, talking, touching, kissing; there seemed to be a lot of people kissing. From the other side of the table Joan was speaking to him, but the noise of the crowd and the music from the jukebox killed her words. A man with a tray of glasses bumped against him, someone else squeezed past on the way to the bar. He moved closer to the edge of her seat and his hand brushed her shoulder. So many people seemed to be kissing. She looked up at him and as their eyes met he felt they were together as one in the midst of the noisy crowd.

  Her face was still turned towards him and he thought he could perhaps risk just one kiss.

  He thinks of it now, standing here on this San Francisco street where the smell of cooking wafts from a nearby kitchen window and children’s voices float up from a garage where they are tossing a ball.

  He knows he will never forget that kiss, the taste of her lips, the way she stood up and moved towards him, and how he drew her away from the seat, away from Joan’s horrified gaze. She leaned back and he placed his hands against the wall where she was leaning and, enclosing her in their arc, he kissed her again and again. Her mouth clung to his, he felt her body moulding against him, her breasts warm against his chest. That moment is engraved forever in his memory, that night when he knew he had found what he had searched for, what he wanted for the rest of his life.

  The following day as he walked with her in the park, his fear surfaced, he reeled at the prospect of love again, felt drained by the force of its memories. He told her about the past, warned her of his defences, told her he was not sure that he could risk it all again. But even as he spoke he felt that they were meant to be together, it seemed inevitable. He felt the tears in his eyes as he held her and desire flooded him as he kissed her again. He knew he had skated out onto the thin ice, but he was helpless against the pull of his yearning for love.

  That night when she was gone, Joan delivered him a lecture.

  ‘How could you Karl? Haven’t you got any self-control? You must know you’re attractive to women. Liz is so young and you were just taking advantage of her.’

  But his worst sin, it seemed, was that he had allowed this innocent girl to see his tears, and so taken advantage of her tender heart.

  ‘That’s so manipulative,’ Joan continued. ‘Why do you have to start burdening her with all your problems? She’s too young for you, she needs someone her own age.’

  The other lodgers watched in amazement, drifting off to bed as Joan continued to expand her complaints, finally telling him that the next day he had better find somewhere else to live. As he packed his bags he was haunted by a sense of betrayal. Why had she told this woman what had passed between them? He began to think he had made a big mistake. He was an intensely private person and to have his emotions laid out in public was more than just disconcerting. Maybe she did not understand discretion—privacy. His fears grew and by the following weekend he had decided to end it. He would keep his promise to spend the weekend at her home but he would find a way to tell her, that it could go no further. He would free himself before he got too involved.

  On Saturday morning he caught the train from Victoria and as it laboured noisily through the cuttings of sooty South London houses and drab back yards, out into the Sussex countryside, he rehearsed how and when he would tell her. She had promised to meet him at Three Bridges Station and when the train creaked to a halt he pulled his bag from the overhead rack and stepped down onto the platform confident of his ability to beat a courteous but total retreat. But as she walked towards him he saw in her eye a glow of love and belonging so intense that he knew there was no turning back and his plans for retreat evaporated. She walked towards him and he sensed her longing, as intense as his own. He took her arm and together they walked out of the station and into the sunshine.

  ***

  At last he crosses the street and walks the final block home. His heart lifts as he takes the letter from the box and runs up the steps and into his room. Dropping his jacket on the bed he sinks into a chair and slits open the envelope. He lives for these letters, they paint a landscape of love in which he can lose himself, but today especially he needed to hear from her, today he needs this letter as reassurance. For several days he has struggled with the distress caused by her previous letter. She has started to learn judo and his nights and days have been haunted by her description of being overpowered by her judo instructor. He hasn’t been able to rid himsel
f of the images of her pinned to the floor by this faceless man. He is tormented by the thought that she must feel the same thrill of sexual excitement as she has told him she feels when he traps her against a wall in the arc of his arms to kiss her, as he did that first night. His possessiveness seems to know no bounds, he is confused and he sways back and forth between hurt and anger, but most of all he is frightened. Frightened of getting hurt again, frightened by his own vulnerability, and frightened to confess his fear.

  Her words start to soothe him, she writes of her home and the places he knows, the changing season, simple things she has been doing and of her devotion to him. The tension starts to ease, the muscles unlock. He sighs with pleasure and sinking further into his chair he turns to the next page. But suddenly he stiffens, his whole system has sprung into alert as the words lodge in his mind. Why is she telling him, without the slightest disapproval, about this woman whose behaviour he despises, this woman whom he has seen offering her kisses to any man while her husband watches silently from the corner of the room. He throws down the letter jumping to his feet, hands in his pockets he paces the room as the fear surges up to consume him.

  He is back with Melanie in a nightclub, low lights, soft music He leans across and touches her arm, asking her to dance with him, but she moves her arm away and shakes her head, watching the dancers merging in the pools of soft light on the dance floor. Minutes later another man stops beside her chair, offers her his hand and she takes it, moving onto the floor and into this stranger’s arms. The hurt and jealously overwhelm him, he knows he should walk out there and then but he stays. Months later, when she leaves him forever, he curses himself for not ending it that night; for not leaving before the emotional price had risen so high.