by Freya North
‘Thea – we can't let this go. It's too good – we must be able to find a way.’ Saul was standing close behind her. ‘Our lives were sorted – our future was all mapped out. It was brilliant.’
‘It was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ Thea said hoarsely.
‘Well, don't let it go!’ Saul exclaimed gently, as if to a simpleton.
‘Easy for you to say!’ Thea balked, rushing through the French windows into her mother's garden. Saul followed her. ‘Fuck off and leave me alone, can't you!’ she hissed.
‘Excuse me, but it was you who invited me here,’ Saul corrected. ‘Why was that, Thea? Why summons me?’ She couldn't answer and she didn't want to say I don't know. ‘We can work through this,’ Saul said, ‘we must be able to. We were the strongest couple I know – we were the envy of so many. We had everything.’
‘I loved you enough to spend the rest of my life with you,’ Thea said sadly, ‘and now I face a precarious time on my own. At the age of thirty-bloody-three. When I should be feeling settled and calm.’ She took a petulant kick at her mother's Impatiens.
‘For Christ's sake, Thea,’ Saul said, ‘you're answering all your questions and doubts. That's precisely what we are, that's precisely why we should try and sort it – we're now at an age where we don't have the luxury of our twenties, of all that over-wrought drama and game playing and emotional self-indulgence. Perhaps there isn't time to split up. Long, drawn-out conflicts are a waste of time. It's all semantics. Let's get on with life. Let's get through this. Let's sort it out. Let's get on with growing up and growing old.’
‘I don't want to get old with you,’ Thea stamped.
‘Why not?’ Saul asked. ‘Why not, Thea? What have I done?’
His words hung in the air like laundry on a line. He'd asked her outright, he'd put himself on the line. He was hanging his dirty washing out in the open – possibly for her to tear down and hurl back at him. He was laying himself bare. It's your chance, Thea. Insult him, blame him, shame him, curse him, listen to him, forgive him.
‘I never doubted it. I never doubted you,’ she said flatly, ‘but now I do and that's the end of the story. That's the close of our fairy tale. We didn't live happily ever after. The End. Deal with it.’
‘You sound horrible,’ Saul frowned.
‘You're the horrible one,’ Thea shouted and she bolted through the house and out.
Traversing the ribs of Wootton Bourne, Thea initially stomped fast, muttering insults under her breath. Soon, her pace slowed and she reflected on what had been said. Saul was completely right. They were a brilliant couple, they were at an age where such a sound union should be valued, snapped up and for ever treasured. But she knew too that she wasn't hastily throwing it out like the tantrum she'd just had. Over the last few weeks, through Kiki, through Richard Stonehill, through Alice, through the rawness of her own desolation, through a naked need to face fact, Thea had gradually accepted that Saul's particular take on what was morally acceptable grossly conflicted with her own deeply revered ethics. She was satisfied that she'd come to terms with her own limitations as well as those she perceived to be Saul's. Ultimately, it was not so much the fact that she knew what Saul was capable of; it was that she finally knew what she was incapable of. Unconditional love.
I can't do it. I'm not that generous, that liberated, that laid back. I used to feel that being in love was enough, but now I know that it isn't. There actually needs to be more to love than love itself.
She knew unequivocally what she believed in and what she needed and she was adamant that, for her, moral compatibility was a fundamental requirement.
She looked behind her. There was no one there. She realized she'd been expecting him to follow. Had he packed up and left? Without them getting to the heart of the matter? She returned at a brisk pace.
‘Everything changed,’ Thea explains, coming in to find Saul sitting exhausted on the stairs. ‘It wasn't right. I couldn't do it.’
‘Then why the fuck drag me up from London?’ Saul sighs. ‘It wasn't to go bird-watching on the Ridgeway.’
Thea fidgets and shrugs and tries to look at him and can't.
‘Do you realize this is the first time ever that you and I have actually had a full-blown fight?’ Saul says. ‘That's why all of this is so stupid.’
‘I'm sorry, Saul,’ Thea whispers, ‘it's not you, it's me.’
‘I know, Thea,’ Saul announces in a hollow voice. He lets it hang. He could be simply acknowledging that yes he knows it's her, not him. But then he turns it into a noose by which he may well hang himself. ‘I mean, I know, Thea, I know that you know.’ He nods to himself. Thea's eyes flick over to his and are caught, like a startled doe in car headlights. ‘I know that you know,’ Saul says quietly, hating it that Thea looks so appalled, so terrified. ‘I know that you saw me. All right?’
It is Saul's final bid. He is standing tall, his honesty a sword which, depending on Thea's reaction, he will either fall upon or brandish like Excalibur. Saul watches as she slowly hauls her gaze away from the middle distance, where it's been fixed for loaded minutes, back to him. He must meet it, he tells himself; he mustn't flinch from it.
When Thea finally looks at him, he is winded by the hurt and trauma which striate her face. When Thea finally looks at him, all she sees is Saul. Good old Saul. The same Saul. Her old Saul. And then she alights on the greatest, most tragic irony – that looking into the heart of undeniable truth really does mean that all hope is lost.
It is simply Saul himself standing before her. The unmistakable reality is out. She'd have to love him for who he is. But the reality is, she knows she can't. It's asking too much. It's demanding too substantial a compromise.
‘I'm sorry, babe, I'm sorry. It must have half killed you,’ Saul says, visibly racked by his awareness of her pain. ‘It meant nothing – please, please believe me. It's just the stupid boy-bit in me.’
‘I don't want a stupid boy,’ Thea says quietly, ‘I want a nice man.’
‘I am a nice man,’ Saul says with conviction.
‘Nice men do not do that.’
Saul sighs. ‘Look, we could discuss the psychology behind this – and the facts and statistics that clearly define just what nice men do,’ he says evenly, ‘but I don't think that's the point. The only point is if you feel there's an inkling of hope we can make our relationship work in the face of this. If I swear it won't happen again – and with or without you, I doubt it will – would you believe me? Can you trust me? Could you remember how you used to love me? Should we try going to Relate or some other counselling?’
‘I don't want to workshop the fact that you pay for sex!’ Thea protests in a whisper. ‘I'm not prepared to hear your gory details just so you can assuage your guilt!’
‘Thea, I know you're hurting,’ Saul tells her, ‘I know I caused it but I know I can be the antidote.’
‘No, Saul – you can't,’ Thea's voice fragments, ‘as much as you'd like to be – and I'm sure your self-belief is honest and good in intent – but you can't make me feel better because you made me feel this wretched in the first place.’
‘I didn't mean to,’ Saul says firmly.
‘Well, directly or indirectly you have,’ Thea says levelly.
‘But I love you, Thea,’ Saul says. ‘Surely such roots form a basis for survival, for growth?’
‘Saul,’ Thea says, ‘that's what you want. You love me. You want us to work through this. You want to make me feel better, feel safe with you. You want us to live happily ever after. But I'm not that strong a person to forgive and forget. And I'm not like you – my morals are different.’
‘That's where therapy might come in,’ Saul suggests.
‘Oh, shut up about sodding therapy,’ Thea says. ‘You read too many magazines. My heart is broken, my dreams are smashed, my trust is decimated and my hope is shattered. It's going to take more than an agony aunt or psycho-babble Superglue to fix it.’
‘I devote my life to
building you up again,’ Saul declares.
‘But Saul,’ says Thea, though she knows it may well be the last word on the matter, the last thing she says to him, ‘I don't love you enough to let you.’ They stare at each other in horror. ‘I'm sorry – the weakness is mine,’ Thea admits, ‘my love is not unconditional. I don't love you as much as you love me. We are not compatible. I'm a girl who's always believed in knights in shining armour, in fairy tales, in good old-fashioned fidelity, in swans mating for life, in lovey-dovey monogamy. Amor Vincit Omnia.’ Thea paused. ‘But I've come to see that actually love doesn't conquer all,’ she says, ‘not for me. Not now.’
They slump over each other in the hallway of Gloria Luckmore's pristine house, Saul and Thea. Like two boxers in the fifteenth round, bruised and bloodied, exhausted brains addled with the battering of their first, last, fight. Nobody won, both lost. They look a mess, they really do. You flinch from the sight of them. But given time, the scars will heal and gradually fade. Ask Thea about that.
Friends
‘It's weird,’ Alice remarked, handing Thea her olive stone because she couldn't see where else to put it, ‘I know you don't own this place – but actually, it's much more you than your old flat.’
‘It's funny,’ Thea agreed, delicately spitting an olive stone into her hand, alongside Alice's, ‘but I'd have to agree. I thought I'd miss the Gothick quirkiness; I thought I needed my little slice of Lewis Carroll Living; I thought I'd find the ordered layout here boring; but over the last couple of months I've actually grown to love it – it's bright but quiet. I like having the long hallway and the feeling of flow, a sense of space. There might be a flat two floors above coming up for sale – the same size as this but positioned on the other side – with an even better view.’
‘Would you buy it?’ Alice asked, popping another olive into her mouth and racing ahead with a thought that she and Mark could assist Thea financially.
‘Maybe, if I can afford it,’ Thea said, knowing she probably could because Mark and Alice would happily help.
‘I'd buy you an olive bowl as a house-warming present!’ Alice said, tipping another two stones into Thea's hand.
‘Hold on, let me grab a saucer from the kitchen,’ Thea said.
Alice followed her. ‘Come for dinner on Saturday night!’
Thea wiped her herby, oily hands on her jeans and raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh God, you're not going to try and set me up, are you?’
‘I'm thinking of having all my hair chopped off,’ said Alice, making a glaring attempt to change the subject.
‘It's too soon, Alice,’ Thea said quietly.
‘I've been growing it for four years!’ Alice objected.
‘I'm not talking about your hair,’ said Thea.
‘I know,’ Alice replied with quiet insistence, ‘but perhaps I'm allowed to be your judge, Thea. It was ages ago – back in the spring. Now it's practically autumn.’
‘It's not even September for another two days!’ Thea objected. ‘Next you'll be telling me you've been married for five years.’
‘Well, I have, in a manner of speaking,’ Alice retorted, having a grin at her own expense. ‘It'll be three years this year, so I can indeed say the year after next I'll have been married five years.’
‘Look, please,’ Thea said, opening bread sticks and a tub of houmous, ‘I just don't feel ready. And I don't want to analyse it any more. I'm not living in the past. I'm not mourning. I'm fine, now. I just don't fancy having to decide whether I fancy someone or not just yet. I'm not in the mood.’
‘It's only Mark's cousin anyway,’ Alice said. ‘Harmless. Practically family.’
‘The American one?’ Thea asked.
‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘one of them.’
‘Not the one at your wedding who then emailed me, by which time I was already with Saul?’
‘No, a different cousin. Mark has about sixty-seven of them.’ Alice paused. ‘Have you heard from him, from Saul?’ After weeks when Saul had been Thea's only topic of conversation, there had followed the more recent weeks when his name hadn't been mentioned.
‘No,’ said Thea evenly, ‘no.’
‘When did you take off your ring?’
‘After the last phone call. Four or five weeks ago.’
‘What have you done with it?’
‘I've put it in my odds-and-sods drawer.’
‘Odd sod indeed.’
They munched on vine leaves thoughtfully. ‘You'll be proud of me,’ Thea said. ‘I even bought the Observer today for the first time in ages and found I could skim through Barefaced Bloke's column with no need to read between the lines.’
‘He still freelances for Adam,’ Alice admitted, ‘but I don't speak to him directly and I haven't seen him. He sends me his work as simple attachments.’
‘A simple attachment was the pinnacle of my hopes and dreams,’ Thea said, a sad glaze to her eyes suddenly dulling the ease of their afternoon. ‘It's still bloody scary, Alice.’
‘I know,’ said Alice, giving Thea's leg a comforting squeeze, ‘but someone or other said we don't have dreams unless we have the power to fulfil them.’
‘Someone else said love is a grave mental illness,’ Thea rejoined, ‘Plato, I think.’
‘Yes, but while you're waiting for the right man to come along, you can have plenty of fun with the wrong ones,’ Alice said, ‘according to Cher.’
‘I'm not entirely sure that Cher and Plato equate on the philosophy stakes,’ Thea remarked, ‘and I'm not waiting for Mr Anyone, anyway.’
‘Well, Woody Allen is arguably the Plato of our age and he says that love may well be the answer but sex raises some good questions while you're waiting for the answer.’
‘Alice!’ Thea chastised. ‘Stop it with the American rent-a-quote, would you? I'm not looking for love and I'm not in need of sex and I'm not questioning anything – I'm just getting on with things.’
‘So just come eat with us Saturday, huh?’ said Alice. ‘A girl's gotta eat.’
‘Why are you talking in an American accent?’
‘I don't know.’
‘You have to promise me you're not match-making,’ Thea warned her.
‘Cross my heart, hope to die, bla bla,’ said Alice, thinking a little white lie never hurt anyone. ‘Come on, I'll help you clear the lunch stuff away. Then I'd better go and help Mark pack. Poor bloke having to fly to Hong Kong on August bank holiday. Oh well, at least he's only going for three nights this time.’
Thea awoke in the small hours with a start. She sat bolt upright in bed with her heart racing at the sense and suddenness of the idea that had woken her. She glanced at the clock. It was just gone four in the morning. She dressed. She rummaged in her odds-and-sods drawer and then she left her flat and drove to Hampstead. She sat outside Alice's house for a while, wondering how best to wake her. She wanted her P.I.C. but she needed her in good humour, not grumpy and shocked. If Thea rang the doorbell, or called her by phone, Alice might panic that something had happened to Mark who was currently en route to Hong Kong. For an hour she sat in her car, fingering the nap of the dark blue velvet box. She sent Alice a text.
r u awake? txxxxxxxx
No reply. She sent another.
r u awake for a chat? Txxxxxxxxx
No response. She sent another.
r u awake? am in my car outside your house … txxxxx
Thea saw the curtains at Alice's bedroom window ripple. Then she saw one side flung back as bed-headed Alice peered out. Thea leapt from her car and waved. The curtains closed. Thea made her way to Alice's front door.
‘Thea, it's fucking six o'clock!’ Alice bleared. ‘What's going on?’
‘It's my ring,’ Thea told her. ‘I know what to do with it and I want to do it right now. With you. Get dressed.’
‘Don't be stupid – I'm going back to bed. You go and shape your idea in the living room and I'll see you in a couple of hours. It's a bank bloody holiday – I don't have to get up at all.’
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‘No, Alice – no!’ Thea said. ‘Now. Get dressed. It won't take long. You can have a lie-in later.’
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Alice said, padding away stroppily to do as she was told.
Thea and Alice drive to Primrose Hill. It's deserted apart from a couple of insomniac dog-owners, or perhaps it's the dogs, taking each other for a walk.
‘I can't believe you're making me do this,’ Alice says though actually, now she's dressed and in the fresh air, she's alert and feeling quite affable.
At the top of Primrose Hill, in the dawn of August bank holiday Monday, Thea and Alice take a seat on one of the benches with a view. Alice gazes at the ghostly panorama of London. The design of the rubbish bins on Primrose Hill echo the shape of Canary Wharf. Everything seems a little unreal, distorted.
Thea opens the small, navy velvet box. She removes the ring and lays it in the palm of her hand, offering it to Alice to inspect. Alice takes it and looks it over thoroughly, reads the Yeats inscription silently. She puts it back in Thea's out-stretched hand.
‘I didn't want to throw it away,’ Thea says quietly, seemingly to the ring itself, ‘because I don't want to rubbish what I had with Saul. I didn't want to bury it because that seems negative – vindictive, almost. But I don't want to keep it. I need to do the right thing by it. I just want to let it go – just let it all go.’
Thea stands and then, with a competent throw, launches the ring as high as she can. She turns away. She doesn't need to see where it lands, she's pleased that she's released it to a place, a time, sacred to when she and Saul were very very happy. Now she's spread their dreams under other people's feet. She hopes they'll tread softly. She faces Alice who has tears in her eyes.
‘Ready?’ Alice asks, linking arms with her.
‘Yup,’ says Thea, leading the way.
‘The thing is, I do really want to love again,’ Thea said a little later over a Starbucks latte and supposedly healthy muffin despite its monstrous proportions. ‘I'm very good at it. But I don't want to just yet – do you see? I have to have faith in my own time frame. I've done the mourning and the grieving and the anger and the desolation. I had that frightening but thankfully brief period of denouncing all men as bastards and condemning love as ridiculous. Now I'm back on an even keel but I don't want to force my passage through.’
