The Pause

by John Larkin

  ‘Relax, Declan.’

  ‘Relax? That’s easy for you to say. She doesn’t want to barbecue your testicles and serve them with fried rice.’

  ‘Boiled rice, Declan. Testicles don’t work with fried rice.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  Lisa stops and turns to look at me. ‘Declan. Susanne’s nothing like my mother. Nothing. I’ve told her a couple of our stories and she thinks it’s hilarious. She wants to meet you. In fact, she was going to look you up and take you out for coffee when she was in Sydney next time.’

  By the time we enter the cafe, I’m not hyper-ventilating quite as much. I do a quick scout around, trying to spot Lisa’s aunt and any possible exit points in case Lisa is wrong about the whole aunt-not-being-psycho thing. There’re a few kids from Lisa’s school buying coffees and smoothies, but no one who strikes me as Lisa’s aunt. Certainly no Kraken look-alikes. There’s a flight attendant talking on her mobile in Cantonese.

  ‘There she is,’ says Lisa, gesturing towards the flight attendant, who waves us over.

  No way did she emerge from the same womb that spat out The Kraken.

  Lisa’s aunt hangs up as we are squeezing our way through the tables towards her. She gives Lisa a hug and then looks over at me. She runs her eyes up and down me.

  ‘Susanne,’ says Lisa, ‘this is my friend Declan.’ Lisa’s aunt’s handshake is as warm as The Kraken’s wasn’t.

  ‘Have a seat,’ says Susanne, with a look that lets me know that she knows we’re a little more than friends. ‘So. This is the guy who’s been getting old Joy’s knickers in a twist.’ Susanne’s face lights up. ‘It is an absolute pleasure to meet you, Declan.’

  I look over at Lisa as the penny finally drops. ‘Your mum’s called “Joy”?’

  Lisa’s raised eyebrows tell me everything I need to know. No one need mention the word ‘irony’, though if the people at Webster or Collins were looking for a definition, they could do a lot worse.

  ‘Mum?’ says Susanne. ‘Some mother she turned out to be.’

  Lisa and Susanne share a look. Lisa shakes her head. Something passes between them and although I’m pretty good at subtext, I have no idea what it is.

  We order coffees and engage in small talk for a while. Susanne speaks four languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and English) and is currently learning a fifth (French). She makes me feel like an illiterate baboon. I ask her about her work and she says that although she loves the travel, the work itself is pretty boring and repetitive and also the next bloated businessman who pats her bottom is going to get a jug of nuclear-hot coffee poured onto his lap. Even though the work itself is pretty monotonous, Susanne has made enough money to buy a little apartment in Paris to go with the one her father left her in Hong Kong – out of guilt, she reckons. Lisa and Susanne share another look. I discover that Susanne is taking Lisa to Paris during the next school holidays, which makes me feel a bit upset that she didn’t think to arrange it so that Lisa could visit me in Sydney instead, and also a little green: I wanted to be with her when we first saw Paris, at the start of our motorcycling holiday through Europe. Still, I’m happy for her and it’s better she’s here rather than being smacked by The Kraken’s cane on a regular basis or having her knuckles whacked for hitting the wrong note on the piano.

  Susanne asks me what I want to do with myself after school and I give her a few things from my list, omitting both the Tennyson-quoting commando and the gigolo bits.

  ‘But if you could do anything,’ says Susanne, ‘what would you choose?’

  ‘Seriously,’ I reply, ‘I just want to be with Lisa.’

  Lisa turns her head slightly to the side and gives me a look that liquefies my heart.

  ‘That’s so sweet,’ says Susanne. ‘A little nauseating, but sweet.’

  With the treacle and cheese flowing, Lisa reaches over and grabs my hand. I feel I should pull away but Susanne just smiles and tells us to get a room. It’s clear that Lisa will be okay now that she’s with Susanne.

  ‘I’m sorry about what’s happened to the two of you,’ says Susanne, reaching across the table and holding Lisa’s free hand but looking at me, ‘but I’ve got her now. And I’m not letting her go again.’

  Again?

  Lisa and Susanne share a smile.

  ‘But what if “Joy”’ – I’m forced to put air quote marks around her name because I can’t say it out loud and still expect to be taken seriously – ‘decides she wants Lisa to come back?’

  ‘Well then “Joy”’ – Susanne matches my air quotes – ‘can kiss my arse.’

  ‘But how can you stop her?’ I don’t know much about the law or what sort of extradition rules exist between Australia and Hong Kong, but if The Kraken insists on Lisa’s coming home, short of going into hiding, surely there isn’t much that Susanne and Lisa can do about it. I feel as though I’m missing something crucial.

  ‘I’ll let Lisa explain the details,’ says Susanne. ‘But she is staying with me. At least until she’s finished uni. Then she can make up her own mind. It’s her life, after all, but the next bit is going to be with me.’

  I suddenly realise what Susanne is saying. Lisa is a year behind me at school so she has a full two years to go of high school, then at least three at university. I always assumed that Lisa would eventually come back. After year twelve, maybe. Stay with that aunt of hers on her father’s side. The one she mentioned. The one who loathes The Kraken. Though listening to Susanne it seems as though The Kraken is not exactly short on people who loathe her. But Susanne is saying that’s not going to happen. Lisa is staying in Hong Kong for at least five more years. Whether she realises it or not, Susanne has just ended our relationship and Lisa is smiling at her. I’ve come so effing far, and now this. It’s tearing my heart out. But as much as this sucks – and boy does it suck – I know I’ll get through it this time. I know I’ll be able to ride it out.

  Susanne gives Lisa some money to pay for the coffees. When Lisa heads off to the counter, Susanne leans towards me.

  ‘I want to thank you for what you’ve done for Lisa,’ she says.

  I shrug. ‘I didn’t do anything really. I just liked her. Loved her. Still do.’ I glance over at Lisa, who’s waiting at the counter. She smiles back at me. It’s the sort of smile that makes my pulse quicken. The sort of smile that would have stopped da Vinci from arsing around with half-baked helicopters and break out the paints again.

  ‘We’ve spoken, Declan. Boy have we spoken. You showed her another life. You showed her how to have fun. To be a bit rebellious. She needed that. To stand up to Joy.’

  What? Lisa stood up to The Kraken? I don’t remember that.

  Susanne continues. ‘I tried to stay in touch. Be an influence on her life. But you know Joy. She isn’t exactly the most communicative person in the world. Quite frankly, she’s nuts.’

  I’m only really half-listening to what Susanne is saying as I’m too captivated by Lisa to take my eyes off her. But I suppose Susanne is right. I have had an influence on Lisa. Even if it was only small. And she’s happy now. Happier than when she was with The Kraken, certainly, and I’m partly responsible for that. I may have just lost her, but I helped save her, and I suppose it was worth it.

  ‘And so she goes back to live with that bitch over my dead body.’

  I sigh and Susanne gets it. She understands where I’m coming from.

  ‘Declan. This is the age of technology. You have Skype and FaceTime. Relationships aren’t what they were. Don’t give her up.’

  ‘Isn’t it inevitable?’

  ‘That’s up to you. I had a long-distance relationship for five years. She lived in New York.’

  I’m looking over at Lisa again, who’s paying our bill … did Susanne just say ‘she’?

  ‘She was a flight attendant with British Airways. But she was based in New York.’

  I’m trying hard to be mature, to be her niece’s bookish, intellectual boyfriend, to not imagine Susanne with another wom
an, but she’s not making it easy. If only ‘Joy’ knew of Susanne’s ‘lifestyle’, she’d be turning in her grave at the thought of sending Lisa back here to live under her influence. Okay, ‘Joy’ isn’t dead, worse luck – I haven’t managed to set those pit bulls or bees on her yet – but still.

  ‘It didn’t last, though?’ is the best I can manage.

  ‘She went all hetero on me,’ says Susanne. ‘Went and got married, had kids, white picket fence and everything. Barf! Still, we run into each other occasionally and, you know.’ Susanne smiles enigmatically. ‘Just live for the moment,’ she says quietly. ‘Enjoy the now, because tomorrow might not come.’

  Lisa has to leave for her saxophone lesson because, according to Susanne, having music lessons after school in Hong Kong is the law, apparently. Susanne suggests that the four of us catch up for dinner tonight. I think she’s just being polite but she insists on writing down Mum’s mobile number so that she can arrange it with her.

  A couple of hugs later and they’re gone.

  I should feel miserable because I suppose Lisa and I have sort of just broken up. Because no matter how much Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have enabled couples to stay in touch across the planet, there’s just no substitute for being in the same city, the same room. But I don’t feel miserable. I feel content that Lisa is happy. Besides, breakups, sadness, grief, despair are all a part of life. Unless you know agony, you’ll never truly know joy – and that’s joy with a lowercase ‘j’. And I know that I will never throw myself under the wheels of a train for Lisa. For anyone. Because no matter how low I get (and I will get low again, that’s a given), happiness will always be just beyond the horizon. Just around the corner. Also – and I can’t stress this enough – the thought of Captain Beige discovering my haikus would haunt me across all eternity.

  There’s no doubt about it, having dinner with three stunningly beautiful women is good for the ego. I’m drawing jealous looks from the men in the restaurant and I feel about ten feet tall. Okay, it would probably be better if one of the women wasn’t my mum, another one wasn’t gay and I hadn’t recently broken up (sort of) with the other, but still …

  Susanne and Mum chat like old friends, which means that, although we’ve kind of broken up, for the first time since we’ve been together in Hong Kong, Lisa and I can disappear into our couple bubble. I have never seen Lisa looking more relaxed. More gorgeous. Hong Kong obviously agrees with her. Or maybe it’s just being 4583 miles/7375.63 kilometres/3982.52 nautical miles from The Kraken that’s agreeing with her. It’s certainly doing wonders for me.

  I’m half-listening to Susanne and Mum’s conversation but Lisa keeps putting her hand on my leg, which doesn’t make it easy to concentrate. From what I can gather, Susanne was a bit of a wild child. Apparently she was born after her mother had died (though I can’t quite get my head around that), but after she died, Joy took her mother’s place at the head of the family while the amah (?) took her mother’s place in bed, and the resulting shame that was brought down on the family was enough for Joy and her husband and their two young sprogs to eventually flee to Australia, and good riddance. Susanne was okay at primary school but when she got to high school she fell in with the wrong crowd, or maybe Susanne was the wrong crowd and others fell in with her, and when it happened – whatever it was – Susanne was packed off to live with relatives and attend school in England, while Joy returned briefly to Hong Kong to take care of things and try to keep a lid on the shame. In England, Susanne managed to get her act together and did well enough at school to get into university to study languages. It’s clear that Susanne absolutely despises Joy (and from what I can gather, the feeling is mutual), and yet despite there being four other sisters spread across the globe, Susanne was the one Joy turned to when she wanted to get Lisa off her hands and away from me. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then again, I once saw The Kraken at the supermarket at ten o’clock in the morning wearing canary-yellow PJs and her slippers, so I suppose sense doesn’t really enter into it.

  I turn to Lisa and make it look like I’m kissing her while I whisper in her ear, ‘Did Susanne say she was born after her mother died?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How does that work? Was her mother in a coma or something?’

  ‘Oh, Declan,’ says Lisa, giving me one of those looks that I would happily die for. ‘You really are quite naive at times. “Mother” wasn’t Susanne’s actual mother.’ Lisa continues because I obviously look like a goldfish that’s trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube using telekinesis. ‘“Mother” was the matriarch. Susanne refers to her as “Mother” because everyone else in the family does. Though Susanne never met her.’

  ‘So who’s Susanne’s mother?’

  ‘The amah.’

  I lapse back into looking like a goldfish again. ‘The armour?’

  ‘No. Her mother wasn’t some sort of medieval knight’s attire, you doofus. “Amah” means “maid”, or “servant”.’

  ‘So Susanne’s mum was …’

  ‘A Filipina servant girl, yes.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Quite the scandal,’ says Lisa. ‘After Susanne was born, Joy wanted to ship her and the amah off on a one-way flight back to Manila – or at least she did want to, until the amah, Grace, leapt off a thirty-storey building, which shamed Father into taking Susanne in. Grace killed herself to protect her daughter: she knew that had she gone back to Manila with her daughter, the chances of someone employing a single mum were next to nothing, and the chances of Susanne ending up as a street kid or a prostitute were way too high. Now look at her. And all because of what Grace did. Now that’s real love.’

  As the skeletons in Lisa and Susanne’s family closet come out to play, I am practically speechless. After what happened to Susanne’s mother, I feel kind of guilty. Okay, I’m not supposed to minimise or trivialise what I went through – anxiety and depression are silent killers and do not discriminate – but what I was going through seems like nothing compared to what happened to Susanne’s mum.

  After dinner, Mum has a coffee (big shock there) while Susanne ducks out for about ten minutes. When she comes back she hands something to Lisa in a paper bag and then Susanne and Mum announce that they’re going out clubbing and, since we’re having dinner on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, just down the road from our hotel, they want us to wait in the room until they get back. They’ll be gone about four hours, or so they reckon. Mum also tells me that we’re not allowed to touch the spirits in the minibar but we can help ourselves to the champagne, wine and beer. Lisa and I try to avoid eye contact during what has to be the most awkward conversation of our lives.

  I wrap myself around Lisa as we stroll down Nathan Road towards our hotel. In the lift I pluck up the courage to kiss her and she kisses me right back. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. Certainly one worth sticking around for.

  We exit the lift and walk along the corridor, fingers interlocked, my stomach in knots thinking about where this might lead.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t weird,’ I say to break the tension, thinking back to Susanne and Mum bailing on us.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ says Lisa. ‘Do you know what Susanne gave me in the restaurant?’ She blushes slightly as she says this.

  I shake my head as Lisa opens her bag to reveal a twelve-pack of condoms.

  Now it’s me who’s turning red. ‘We could always blow one of them up and play volleyball.’

  Although I’m holding Lisa’s hand, it’s all become a little awkward and I can feel my hand sweating. Our parents/guardians are out clubbing and pretty much insisting that we have sex and get drunk. It’s like we’re the parents and they’re the irresponsible teenagers. Or maybe this is some sort of high-end reverse psychology. By telling us that it’s okay to have a drink and mess around, they’re hoping we won’t do either. Whatever it is, it’s strange.

  I fumble nervously with the keycard and insert it in the slot. The light flashes green and I push open
the door.

  ‘Wait,’ I say to Lisa as she is about to walk in. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her into the room and lower her gently onto the bed. She weighs almost nothing.

  ‘Oh, Declan.’ She swoons like a fifties movie star. ‘Y’all is just so romantic.’

  ‘Stop speaking like that,’ I laugh. ‘You’re putting me off.’

  ‘Whatever you say, daaaaahling,’ she replies. ‘You’re the maaaaan.’

  I latch the door and slip off my T-shirt. I return to the bed and puff out my chest, tense my stomach and flex my arms.

  ‘Oh my,’ says Lisa as she runs her eyes over my bulging pecs and rippling six-pack. (Hey. This is my road not travelled. I can have all the bulging pecs and rippling six-packs I want.)

  Lisa licks her lips. ‘Come give me some of that sugar, sugar.’

  I crawl onto the bed and advance on Lisa who moves and squirms like a cat. We kiss deeply and passionately and then I make my way down to her sexy, succulent neck, which I love devouring. Her back arches as I pretty much turn into a vampire. I help Lisa remove her top but as I toss it aside I look deep into her eyes and stop. Despite the Southern belle routine, she looks frightened. I smile at her, lay back on the bed and pull her into me so that her head is lying on my chest.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I reply.

  ‘It’s just …’

  ‘I get it.’ Lisa is right. The timing is wrong. The moment contrived. Contrived by Mum and Susanne who, in their own progressive yet clumsy way, are encouraging us to do something that we’re not ready for. No means no and that’s the end of it. And despite her alluring talk and her passionate kisses, the look in Lisa’s eyes just now said ‘no’. I know if we carry on we’ll both regret this moment and when Lisa looks back on our time together, no matter how long, or short, or how imagined it is, I want it to be a beautiful memory. I only want to bring her joy (lowercase) because she’s been through enough.