Before There Were Angels

by Sarah Mathews

  It wasn’t as if I minded doing the dishes, after all I was British and British men are expected to do things around the house beyond mere helping. ‘Helping around the house’ was considered too half-hearted for ‘new men’ in England even by the time I fled the place. Still, I had got used to Belle’s more traditional American ways of taking charge of the house and not expecting, or even wanting, her man to go all girly and do the dishes, cook the food, and run around with a feather duster in one hand and a vacuum cleaner handle in the other.

  Whatever had happened in our bedroom that night had not happened for the better, I was beginning to conclude. Continual digging and dissociation during sex - I might as well have been with Rafaella. I wanted the old Belle back, not so much because I was dedicated to being a domestic layabout but more because what I had most liked about Belle, beyond my absolute adoration of her, was that she was so peaceful, so devoted to avoiding any level of confrontation. I had undergone an intensive five year course of humiliation and needling at the hands of Rafaella and I did not appreciate even the hint of any of that aspect returning to my life.

  What George was on about, I couldn’t say, but if she was going to campaign against his alcohol consumption, I was sure he was going to have plenty to say sooner or later.

  * * *

  And the atmosphere got a whole lot worse when Stevie returned.

  I was sent to pick him up from SFO as Belle had suddenly scheduled an appointment to talk to some new friend of hers over Skype for the same time as Stevie was landing.

  Stevie was so happy to be back that he even gave me a hug. “Where’s Mom?” he asked.

  “She is at home. There was a phone call she had to make. It’s wonderful to see you, Stevie. I have really missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” he replied to my surprise. It must have been hell out there in Phoenix for him to be quite so enthusiastic to be home.

  “Did your dad take good care of you?”

  “He was OK. He was fine, actually, but I’m glad to be back in San Francisco. The people are weird out there. I can’t deal with them anymore. I’ve only been gone two years but everything seems different now. They are so prejudiced. They don’t like black people, they don’t like Latinos, they don’t like gays. I told them that some of my best friends are gay and they looked at me as if I was about to turn gay too. They were so stupid.”

  We rode down the BART and walked up Haight. I wondered if Genevieve Giraud was going to put in an appearance but she didn’t. When we got to the house, Stevie burst in and gave Belle a huge hug.

  “Oh,” she told her friend over the phone, “Stevie’s back. He looks so handsome. I had forgotten how handsome he was. There again, I am his mother. Mothers always find their sons handsome.”

  Stevie had an expression on his face that said, ‘What??? What planet did this woman come from? Someone has abducted my mother and replaced her with an alien. I want my mom back.’

  I took Stevie to one side. “Sorry, Stevie, I should have warned you. While you were away, your mom had a terrible shock and completely lost her memory for a couple of days. We found her wandering around the park not knowing who she was or where she was. Since then she has been in an odd mood. I am sure it will pass. It must be a bit disorientating to find out that you suddenly don’t know who you are.”

  “What happened?”

  “Rafaella happened. She must have attacked your mom or something so that she ran out of the house and temporarily lost her mind. Rafaella does that to people, I should know. It will all be OK soon, Stevie, don’t worry about it.”

  “Has Rafaella been around a lot?” Stevie asked, concerned.

  “She hasn’t been here for a few days but I am sure she will be back soon enough, crowing probably.”

  “Why?”

  “The last time I saw her she made some predictions that seem to be coming true.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s not go into that, Stevie. Let’s take a deep breath and wait for everything to get back to normal. And be especially nice to George. He doesn’t like the changes either. He has taken to barking around the house.”

  “George? Barking? George never barks.”

  “He does now.”

  “Umm,” said Stevie. “Maybe I was better off in Phoenix after all.”

  * * *

  Sure enough, Rafaella did come back two nights later, and she seemed very pleased with herself. Again she managed to talk to me without waking Belle.

  “What did I tell you, Luke? I’m not the only one who expects you to pull your weight around the house. I warned you that if you didn’t address your issues, any woman is going to get tired of your antisocial behavior sooner or later. You should go and see a psychiatrist before you fuck up your relationship with Belle too. You really have to learn to grow as a man, Luke. Those who don’t understand their history are destined to repeat it.”

  “Thanks for that, Rafaella. I’m sure that Belle will return to the way she was soon. I know that I am not perfect -“ Rafaella chortled, “… but I really don’t mind doing things around the house. It was Belle who used to mind that. Belle and I are just fine, not helped any by you, I have to say, but I am sure that you have not the slightest desire to help us, so nothing changes there.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong,” Rafaella countered. “I don’t want you back. I am delighted that you are with Belle. She can put up with you, until she doesn’t. Go and get yourself sorted out, Luke, before it is too late. I am telling you this as a friend. Belle isn’t going through some temporary crisis, as you seem to think. She is beginning to notice how unsupportive you are of her and wants you to change your ways. You can’t close your eyes and hope all your problems will go away, Luke. You have to address them. I am telling you this for your own sake.”

  I sighed. “You always did, Rafaella, except it always seemed more for your own sake than mine.”

  Rafaella got off the bed. “It’s up to you, Luke. It’s your life. I am encouraging you to examine yourself, to really look into yourself and to realize how you go wrong with women, but you can do what you like. It isn’t my problem. You will carry on exactly as you always have, blind to your faults. Nothing changes with you, Luke. It’s up to you, Luke. Believe it or not, I am only giving you the best advice I can so that you can repair your relationship with Belle, for your sake. Goodbye, Luke. Think about what I have said before it is too late.”

  I slept far less well after that particular conversation. Indeed, I didn’t sleep at all. Was it true that I was this obnoxious human being every woman would tire of? Did I really have profound faults I needed to address? I hadn’t thought so. I had always liked myself well enough and assumed that it was only Rafaella who found me unpalatable, mostly as a cynical strategy all the better to control me. Now Belle was unquestionably going the same way and I really loved Belle and had been ecstatically happy with her. I would do anything to get things back to the way they were.

  Should I see a psychiatrist or a psychologist, or whatever? Was it time to embrace the classic American shrink culture? Were there any shrinks in San Francisco? It was such a laid back city that I doubted they would find much work here. Would I have to fly to the edgier New York? That would be expensive and I really didn’t have the time to spare.

  I would discuss it with Belle when she woke up. In the meantime I would lie there, fidgeting and frustrated, until I could broach the subject with her.

  If that was what she wanted me to do, I would do it. I would do anything. I never wanted my constant arguments and bickering with Rafaella back in my life ever again.

  Belle was the sanest person I had ever met, except perhaps over the last week or so. She would guide me and whatever she asked me to do, I would do.

  Our relationship must be saved at all costs, even if I did have to fly to New York every week. Of course that was absurd. There were bound to be psychologists in San Fran, fun hippy ones. It might even be entertaining to visit one and share some
weed together.

  Chapter 26

  Belle looked shocked when I asked her whether I should see a shrink. “What would you want to do that for?”

  “I think maybe I have issues I need to address.”

  “What issues?”

  “I don’t know really. That is why I may need to see a shrink, to find out.”

  Belle came up to me and kissed me and hugged me tight. “Are you unhappy, Luke?”

  “No, I’m not at all unhappy, Belle. I just don’t think things have been quite right between us recently.”

  She stood back, shocked. “You think there is something wrong with us? I would die without you, Luke. You are the greatest man who ever lived. I worship you. There is nothing wrong with you, nothing at all. You don’t need to change even the slightest bit. Forget about seeing a shrink. Only insane people see shrinks and you are the most balanced man I have ever met. I am sorry, it is probably all my fault. I haven’t been myself recently. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I’ve never been like this before. Well, I might have been sometimes with Robert but I didn’t love Robert. I adore you. I am going to have to pull myself together or I will have to go to see a shrink myself.”

  “Belle, I love you. You are perfect for me. We have wonderful times together. I go to sleep happy and I wake up happy. You are the only girl in the world for me. It is just that you have seemed rather discontented with me recently and I don’t want that to continue. We have everything going for us and I don’t want to mess it up.”

  Belle smiled sadly. “You are not messing anything up, Luke, I am. Sometimes I think I am going mad. It is as if I become a different person and I get bad tempered. It is since Rafaella attacked me and Zack found me in the park. I’ll get better, Luke, I promise you I will. Don’t change anything about you. It is me who has to change. I have to get back to being myself.”

  * * *

  Which was nice in theory and a lot harder to do in practice.

  Stevie was not at all happy. Belle had started interfering in his school work, demanding to know what he was doing and why his grades weren’t better. She was even going into the school to discuss his performance with his teachers.

  In retaliation, Stevie kept threatening to return to Phoenix.

  “Fine,” said Belle, “go back to your father. Let him deal with you, but you know that if you don’t get the grades, you won’t go to college, and if you don’t go to college you will have to suck it up and apply for jobs at McDonalds. It’s up to you, Stevie. You are going to have to work. I was working at your age. You should go out today and get yourself a job, any job. It will teach you a few realities of life. I’m not going to be looking after you when you are eighteen. You won’t be allowed to lie around doing nothing at home, that’s sick. That’s what mass murderers do. I want you out in the world, make your own life, and the time to start planning for that is now, Stevie.”

  “OK, Mom, I hear you.”

  “I hope you do, Stevie. I sincerely hope you do. I don’t care what work you do, whether you become a brain surgeon or sweep the streets, that is up to you. But you are going to work and I would suggest that you get your grades and go to a good college, then you have a choice as to what you do. Just saying.”

  “OK, Mom, I still hear you.”

  “And I love you, Stevie, but I won’t want you around if you won’t work. I don’t want you around when you are eighteen anyway - that would be creepy.”

  That was telling him but I couldn’t disagree with Belle. Nobody wants to have a teenage son lying around playing video games. Contentment is having a lover, lots of friends, and work. Adler didn’t get it wrong.

  At twelve, Stevie was all grown up. It happens a lot later in Europe, nearer when you are twenty-one, twenty-two, but Belle had convinced me it was different in the US, that sane Americans didn’t believe in childhood and cossetting their offspring. Everyone had to work, and at twelve it was about time to start as you meant to carry on.

  I felt sorry for Stevie, though. He had had a lot to deal with over the last couple of years: the breakup of his parents’ marriage, moving to San Francisco, making new friends, the death of his twin brother, and now the freak show around the house confounding all our previous beliefs.

  We were all going to have to change and life would never be quite the same again.

  Chapter 27

  “Luke, have you seen Zack?”

  “Not recently, Stevie, no. Not since he went out and found your mom in the park. He and your mom had a long chat afterwards here in the living room.”

  “I can’t find him anywhere. Do you think he’s gone?”

  “I don’t know. I am sure he is not avoiding you. I don’t know where ghosts go or how we get to see them. Do they deliberately make themselves visible? Is it something we do that allows us to see them? Are they there all the time or only when we can see them? I don’t know.”

  “I need Zack. It’s lonely without him.”

  “Your mom and I are always here for you, Stevie.”

  Stevie didn’t look too convinced. I knew that I wasn’t enough for him. After all, I was just this random stranger his mother had picked up, someone who was perfectly nice to him (I hoped) but not someone he had spent much time with, whom he had come to rely on or who had come to rely on him. I was hoping that Belle was different, and that although she could not fill in entirely for Zack, she would at least be a considerable consolation.

  “Mom has gone crazy,” Stevie said bluntly. “I don’t know what happened to her. She used to be a really great mom, now she is losing it over everything, interfering with everything, picking fights. That’s not Mom.”

  I tried to be conciliatory. “I am sure she will get back to the way she was in time. She has had a terrible shock and that has thrown her off-balance for a while, that is all.”

  “She is acting like a crazy person,” Stevie declared definitively. “I don’t want anything to do with her.”

  “Stevie, you are meant to help out the people you love when they are going through hard times, not to turn you back on them.”

  “I love Mom, I do, but not right now, not like this. She really pisses me off. She embarrasses me. The school is really pissed at me because she is pissed at them. Can’t she leave me alone?”

  “She is probably worried about you, Stevie. And it is true that your school work is becoming more and more important.”

  “She was never worried about that before.”

  “You are getting older.”

  Stevie grimaced. “Zack is lucky, then. He doesn’t have to deal with all this shit and now he never will. It must be good to be dead.”

  This turn in the conversation was certainly morbid but it didn’t really worry me, although perhaps it should have done. Stevie had gone through so much and he was showing signs of not being able to handle any more upsets.

  I looked at George, peacefully lying on the couch, as Old English Sheepdogs are wont to do, sleeping off a hearty gulp of alcohol, I suspected.

  “George doesn’t have to go through any of that either,” I joked.

  “He’s a dog.”

  “Perhaps when you are considering your options, you should consider becoming a dog rather than following in your brother’s footsteps. Look at George, here. He eats everything he likes, he drinks as much as he likes and nothing is expected of him whatsoever.”

  “And he has to lie around here all day because he has nothing better to do.”

  “I’ve never wanted to be a dog personally,” I confessed. “I like being an adult. Yes, you have to work but that makes you feel good about yourself. You are using your skills. Sometimes you are helping people. Then, so long as you earn enough money to pay for it, you can more or less do what you like. Certainly when you start out, you have to do some pretty shitty jobs but hopefully that won’t last forever.”

  “What kind of job do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know, really. I don’t know what you are allowed to do. In England
people your age don’t normally work except to do paper rounds, and there isn’t much call for that around here, I wouldn’t think. Maybe work in a shop? A restaurant? You had better ask your mom. She will have a better idea.”

  “Could I work for you in your company?”

  “If you get your computer skills up, sure you can. My company gives people advice on how to fix their computers and how to use specific programs. I would certainly be willing to train you in some of that but the main thing is to build up your general computer skills in school.”

  George yawned and Stevie followed his lead. Discussing work is rarely as exciting as doing it, unless all parties to the conversation do the same work, and at that moment I suspected that George would be as likely to want to work for my company as Stevie. Stevie was wrestling with the huge transition from childhood to manhood, a very unsettling and sometimes seemingly insuperable task, although so long as you keep stepping forward, you usually get there.

  The same is not true of relationships. Once they get undermined, it is often impossible to repair them. It is like hanging on the end of a rope, knowing that sooner or later, as your hands burn, you are going to have to let go.

  I was hoping that I had not reached that point with Belle, or her with me, but it wasn’t looking promising. Something had happened to her during that trauma and there was no evidence that she was making any progress back to her old self, quite the opposite in fact. She was becoming more and more confrontational. I was seeing it, Stevie was seeing it, even George was seeing it. At least I wasn’t on my own in this observation. It wasn’t my fault that Belle was this way but it was my problem to fix it for all our sakes.

  Should Belle be going to see a psychiatrist? Would some magic pill get her back on track? And how would I ever get her to see one? She would be insulted if I suggested it, resisting and resentful. There again, maybe that was a responsibility I had to take on behalf of us all.

  I wished I could consult with Zack too. Where is a good ghost when you need one?