by Clare Tanner
Do you think I should feel guilty?
Clare Tanner
Copyright 2011 Clare Tanner
Do you think I should feel guilty?
“Do you think I should feel guilty?”
I am almost thinking aloud as I give voice to the anxiety that has been inching its way through my brain like a tropical parasite. Only I could waste time on guilt instead of concentrating on the perfection of my surroundings. I am lying face down on the warm, silky sand, my toes literally touching the gently lapping waters of the Indian Ocean. The man who I know I will spend the rest of my life with lazily opens one eye, runs his abrasive sand-covered hand down my back, and observes, shrewdly as ever:
“Chrissie, look forward, not back. Guilt is a negative emotion, and it can make you do the wrong thing. If you’ve lived well and made the right decisions, you should never allow it space in your mind.”
Having solved the problem, in his mind, he lies back down. It all seems so easy. I wish I could banish its insistent and pleading voice as convincingly as he can.
* * *
The source of my anxiety started last Christmas. It was Boxing Day morning, 26th December 2004, and Paul and I were packing for the holiday of a lifetime. We were both very excited, although I was apprehensive as well. I’d always had a fear of the sea, a dread of the creatures and the limb-wrapping plants in its murky depths, and a terror of those crashing waves and where they might drag me. Paul, always the rational man, felt that I needed to confront my phobia. Easy for him. The whole point about phobias is that they aren’t rational. However stupid you know you’re being, you can’t stop yourself from running away from the solution. But the holiday brochures made the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean look much more inviting than the cold, mean depths of the North Sea. Even I began to feel convinced, and it would be great to escape from cold, wet Britain for even a small part of the winter. So I swallowed my fear, and we spent our savings on a two week holiday in Sri Lanka. I secretly hoped that he would take the opportunity during the holiday to ask me to marry him. Why else would he want to splash out on such an expensive holiday?
* * *
“Chrissie, you don’t need half that stuff. We’ll be in shorts and tee-shirts the whole time.”
“Well, I don’t know. It pays to be prepared. Anyway what about New Year’s…?”
“Shh! Did you hear that?”
“What?” I said, annoyed that he had interrupted me, as ever. What I had to say never seemed to be important enough to him.
“On the radio. Quiet for a minute.” He was insistent.
“Look, I don’t care about the news. Let’s forget it for now. It’ll still be here when we get back.”
“Don’t be selfish. You’ll care about this, anyway. They said something about an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, and I heard them mention Sri Lanka.”
That certainly shut me up.
They didn’t say much more about it on the News at the time, so we carried on packing, but our spirits weren’t quite so light. Excitement suddenly didn’t seem quite so appropriate. We watched the lunchtime news, and it sounded bad, but the details were still quite sketchy, so we phoned the Tour Operator. It soon became clear that we wouldn’t be going on this particular holiday. Our hotel, on the beach near Galle, had been taken out by a twenty foot wave, and there was nothing left. We phoned around frantically to try to salvage something in the form of another holiday, but half the country seemed to be doing the same. We were out of luck.
This momentous event, which began with a crack in the ocean bed and devastated half a continent, caused a less dramatic but equally destructive schism in our own small world. Paul was angry and disappointed at the disruption to our orderly plans. I soon forgot our tiny personal loss in the face of the devastation suffered by so many. I felt like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. I couldn’t drag myself away from the television coverage of this terrible catastrophe. With every news broadcast, it seemed to get worse. I felt sorry for the tourists who had been caught up in it, but my real sympathies lay with the local populations of all the countries affected. If they were lucky enough to survive, they couldn’t be rescued by plane and taken back to somewhere else that was still trundling along in a state of normality. I wanted to send off our remaining savings as a donation to the Disaster Fund. Paul wouldn’t hear of it.
That was when the plan began to form in my head. I looked around at our tidy flat, with all our carefully chosen and well-dusted possessions, and I felt empty and ashamed. What right had we to carry on as if nothing had changed, when millions of people had literally lost the roof over their heads and the ground beneath their feet? We spent a rather miserable New Year, not knowing what to say to each other. Once we were back at work, our paths continued to diverge. Paul put time and effort into chasing the insurance company for compensation, and looking through piles of brochures for an alternative holiday in the future. I heard through news reports that people were going out to the disaster area to see what they could do to help, and I talked to my boss about taking unpaid leave. To my surprise, he was very supportive, and even offered to pay me part of my salary.
I broke the news to Paul, and his reaction made me even more determined to go.
“You’re joking, aren’t you? Well, don’t expect me to come with you. I’ve got better things to do.”
“I’m not expecting you to come. I know how you feel about the whole thing.”
“You’ll never manage without me out there. You’re too timid. And how do you expect to help people devastated by a tsunami when you’re scared of the sea? It’s pathetic. It’s almost funny.”
This was too much for me. “You don’t know what you’re capable of until you try.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but his disdain offended me deeply. How could this be love? Love supports, control deflates. I was beginning to see the difference.
“Yeah? I bet you bottle out at the airport.” With his face contorted, he turned away from me. Looking back now, I can see that he was scared, scared of losing me, scared of the differences between us which were suddenly becoming apparent. But, at the time, all I felt was hurt, hurt for me and hurt for countless others unknown. How could he turn his back on us all? The worm of doubt had entered our relationship.