by Karen Perry
The silence was interrupted by the chirruping of my phone. The damn thing nearly gave me a heart attack. I fumbled to silence it and saw the caller ID. Spencer. Shit! One way or another, he seemed determined to get me killed. I peeked out through the bushes, but there was no sign of either the man or the woman. Then my phone lit up with a text.
‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
Rich, coming from him. But that thought died as I watched the front door open again. The man stood in the doorway, smoking another cigarette. He had a hood pulled over his head, so I couldn’t make out his features. His shoulders seemed square within his jacket, and he held his body tensely, like a boxer. He finished his cigarette, tossed the butt aside, walked to the car, its engine still running, and sat into the driver’s seat. The woman locked the front door, hurried down the steps and operated the gate. There was no sign of the boy. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or crushed.
I waited until the red taillights had disappeared down the blackened driveway. I gave it a couple of minutes more, just to be sure they were not returning. At first, when I went to move, nothing happened. I thought I had been paralysed. I tried to move again, and this time I managed to slowly crawl from the undergrowth. I was stiff and aching. I stood up carefully. The cold felt like it had seeped into my bones. I took one step and then another. Gradually, sensation returned to my legs. Then I crossed to the house. All the lights were out. I was enveloped in the thick black cloth of darkness you find only deep in the countryside. There was no sound of a television and no voices.
I walked around the house. It was a small, ivy-clad cottage, with maybe two or three bedrooms. I tried peeking through the windows, but all the curtains were pulled. I saw nothing but the pale moonlit outline of my own frightened face.
My feet crunched on the gravel. The gravel yielded and carried me around the cottage. I thought about getting in, wandering about, tiptoeing through someone else’s life. I went to the back door and reached for the handle, and the door creaked open. For a moment I stood stock-still. There was no movement from within the house. I stepped in and felt for a light switch and found one, then flipped it. There was nothing unusual about the kitchen – other than the fact that it looked like a couple had been in the middle of dinner and had left suddenly. Plates with half-finished food lay on the wooden kitchen table. A bottle of wine stood uncorked. Chairs were pulled out.
In a room adjoining the kitchen, a number of canvases leaned against the wall. The first paintings I inspected were bright, garish abstract things. I flicked through the work, which seemed to be a catalogue of fads and fashions in contemporary art. There was nothing real or original in there – that is, until I stumbled upon a large canvas. My breath quickened when I saw it because the thing was, it was one of mine.
I remembered making this painting like I had painted it only yesterday, in fresh and running watercolours, confident, strident strokes full of the vibrant, pulsating light of Tangier. But more important than the context was the subject: it was the first painting I had ever done of Dillon. He must have been only six months old. I had no memory of selling this painting, no recollection of parting with it, and as I contemplated how it had arrived here, at this most unexpected place, something moved within my chest, the shifting of my understanding, and it came to me at once who Dave was.
We had never known him by his first name, if what he went by back then was indeed his name at all. But the low intonation, the self-satisfied inflection – it all spoke of one person. I knew then that it was Garrick, the American in Tangier, the miracle man, the man with a Christmas tree in the desert, the poet, the painter, the dilettante, and that he was living in Ireland, with this woman and Dillon. I felt suddenly weak. My stomach heaved. I was weary, worn and exhausted. I remembered again the photo in Cozimo’s flat: me, Robin, Cozimo, Simo, Garrick and Raul. Cozimo saying, There were things I knew which perhaps I should have told you.
I walked about the house, a dread fear rising within me. Down the hallway I went, tripping into one room and then another. I was a reckless visitor, an intruder really, a shivering man in search of his son. And after all these years, down one dead end and then another, moving through back streets, through alleyways and lanes, through tears, prevarications, bitter arguments, hospital appointments and Christmas dinners, here we were; here I was, walking through a stranger’s house at night.
It did not seem the kind of house Garrick would live in; it had none of his style. Besides: what was he doing in Ireland in the first place?
The last room I came to, at the end of the corridor, was Dillon’s. I just knew it. It was a small, rectangular room. There was no furniture but for a small single bed and a chair in the corner. Some books lay beside the bed. On the floor a box of toys was turned over, and clothes were scattered on the chair. I walked into the room and felt a strange quiver run through my body. I was overcome with exhaustion.
I climbed into the bed and covered myself with the Spider-Man duvet.
The bedroom was flooded with an otherworldly moonlight. I took the gun from my pocket and placed its cold steel beneath my shirt, on my chest. How cold, how comforting. More comforting than I would have imagined. I felt it sink into my skin. I felt it imprint itself, tattooing itself into my being. It was heavy, and with the rising and falling of my chest it seemed to almost become a part of me.
I felt myself drifting. Instead, I took a long drink of whiskey, let it course through my veins. It didn’t give me the energy I wanted. It sent me in the other direction. It sent me to sleep, the deep stone of the gun weighing on my heart. Before I dropped off to sleep, I made one last call to Cozimo. Was he my last friend? The last friend I had in the world? How I missed him then. The phone seemed to ring more slowly than it might have in real time. This didn’t seem to be real time. This was something else.
A woman answered. ‘Yes?’
‘Cozimo?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Harry for Coz.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘He …’
‘Who is this? Is this Maya?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to speak to my friend.’
But I knew it before she even said it. I knew it from the pause on the line – that tiny silence, the blood in my ears rushing in to fill the space.
‘Harry, I’m sorry. Cozimo is gone.’
I couldn’t speak, pushed to the very edge of something dark and consuming.
‘He passed earlier tonight.’
I’m not sure what else she said or what I said. The darkness thickened. My mind was fading or breaking apart, like a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere. Or something, I don’t know. It was all coming apart, reaching an ending. With Cozimo gone, I felt the last vestiges of my happiness in Tangier trickle away. I had never been more estranged from what I thought was my life. Cozimo, dear friend, how could you take your leave of me now?
Outside, the stars shone bright, brighter in the countryside than the city. The silence of the night had a texture to it. I could touch it. I could sink into it. My arms and legs felt like dead weight, and they brought me down gently, gradually, like heavy anchors to the bottom of a dream-sleep sea.
It was strange, though. I knew my son was here. Or did I? I had not seen him. I had no idea what to do. I may have pretended not to have expected this moment, this time, this day, but there was something in me, from day one, from before I had even met Robin, my beloved Robin, something from before that suggested yes, he is here, alive, waiting, ready for me, always.
I sank my head into his pillow and inhaled. I dreamed of Garrick painting my portrait. Keep still, he is telling me. Keep still. Now hold it. I am caught by his gaze, caught in it, held there, suspended, paralysed like some wild animal in a cage – and then I am a panther pacing. Keep still, he warns. At one moment, he is raising the paintbrush; at another, he is pointing a gun. Will he fire? And then suddenly, it is Spencer who is a
iming the gun at me, painting me, and then as quickly it is Dillon, ablaze. He has a deep and serious voice. Not his voice; it’s the voice of a thwarted older man. It is Jim’s voice. And there is Cozimo holding his two hands to me, intoning the words ‘It’s so good to see you.’ The dream spins and whirrs and takes me deeper into the dark and questioning caverns of my mind or some other place I cannot even name.
I emerge, still in sleep, at some other place, some other time. Tangier, of course. Our old bedroom. The curtains are blowing in the breeze. The sky is a burnished blue. The buildings are chipped and flaking, falling apart. The sun loves me here, but the afternoon is not for walking. The afternoon in Tangier can be bedtime. With Robin. Robin, my love. In my arms again. Then. When we made love, I closed my eyes. Open them, she said to me. Brave, brazen Robin. Look into my eyes. Open them. And I did and I would lose myself there. Into the deep oval greyness of her mysterious eyes. And we would move this way and that, shadowing each other, knowing where and how, as if we were following directions, but it was intuitive, it was natural, and then I would move deeper inside her and she would hold me in her gaze, and bite me and twist and turn, and we moved like that, as if we knew every move there was, and still she held me in her gaze, but I could not hold hers, and before our lovemaking ended I would close my eyes and travel, it seemed into another galaxy, travelling at speed through space and time, and Robin would grip me tighter and release me and let out the sigh that said both pleasure but disappointment too, because I had not managed to keep my eyes open. And she would drape her arms over me and chastise me. You didn’t keep them open, she would say, gulping for air, laughing, inhaling the entire world. That’s how it felt back then, but for that one time, the night we made Dillon.
Outside there was rain. I remember the coolness it brought with it, a temporary coolness. That night, I knew we had done something, made something, someone. In those years, we seemed to have all the time in the world to make love. And after Dillon, in Ireland, it had gone, all that sensuousness, all that passion. My dream avoided the dullness of Dublin and tunnelled through to its own Tangier heart, the hot and heavy days when our mouths sought each other out and our tongues were insatiable. It was the kind of intimacy that felt like nourishment. And in the afternoon, lazily out of bed, we drank mint tea, and later in the evening, we left the city for where the roads were lined with trees and sunflowers.
When I woke, I didn’t know where I was. My mouth was parched. I reached for water, but what I noticed was that the gun had shifted from my chest. I did not know where it was. And I must have been sweating. My clothes had stiffened, and I was shivering. And most surprising of all was that when I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked up, above me stood Garrick.
16. Robin
I drove with my foot to the floor, heedless, reckless, a tightness running the length of my body, all the muscles and sinews taut with fear. Already, I knew that I was too late; that somewhere in the snowy stillness of the Wicklow Hills, Harry had got there before me, venturing into an unfamiliar place, opening up the Pandora’s box of my past. I had a flash, then, of his face, pale and shadowy, his voice a hoarse shell of bewilderment. Oh God, I thought, please let it be all right. Please let it not be too late. But in a way I knew that I was beyond all that. For I knew that I would have to tell him.
I thought about how to tell him, how to ease him into understanding. I wanted to say that I remembered it as a series of happenings, a sequence of events. The time we had together was so short. And yet, things grow in memory, don’t they? Small things become magnified, take on a new significance. There was so much intensity.
I wanted to tell him how I found it difficult, all these years later, to put my finger on when it started. There must have been a point at which I made a decision. I realized that. I didn’t fall into it – people don’t, however much they like to protest their innocence in these things. You make a choice. At some point, you get to decide. All of this, I wanted to tell him.
As I drove out of Dublin and saw the jagged rock of the Sugarloaf gleaming white on that cold, snowy morning, I began to imagine how I might explain it to Harry, and all at once I was transported back to another time, another place, when I was a different person, when all of this began.
You won’t want to hear this, Harry. But I know you. You will ask for details, bravely claiming that you want to know, that you need to know. Only I wonder if, deep down, that is true. Can you cope with the sharp pain of such intimacies? Can anyone? You once told me that truth is in the details. We were talking about art – a very safe conversation. This is so much deeper than that. In real life, details can cut you to the quick, wound you beyond all repair.
A crackle on the line. Interference, like thunder in the air.
‘This evening,’ he said. ‘Will you come?’
I twisted the phone’s cord around my finger. I looked around, but the bar was almost empty. There was no one to overhear.
‘Where?’
‘The Mendoubia Gardens. Under the arch. After the call to prayer.’
I drew in my breath. A trickle of sweat ran over my chest. I felt it tracing a path down my breastbone.
‘So, you’ll be there?’
‘I’ll be there.’
All day it had been still and dry. Now a cool breeze was coming in off the ocean. A line of pink clouds hovered above the horizon. I hurried through the tumbling streets of the medina, listening to the noises coming from the windows above me that opened out on to the alleyways: raised voices, the clatter of pots and pans. Cooking smells reached me, fishy and spicy. Close by, the imam had ascended the minaret, and I heard the call to prayer echoing above the roofs.
I reached the Grand Socco and made my way to the gardens. I was there before him and took my place beneath the archway, trying to look casual and inconspicuous. A group of teenage boys were hanging around nearby, whispering and giggling and casting glances in my direction. I pulled my scarf up over my head and tried to look aloof. The blood was thundering in my head.
I moved away from the arch and took a seat on a bench, among the fig trees and dragon trees, and watched for him with a growing sense of anxiety. He arrived just as I was about to give up on him. I saw him entering the gardens, scanning the shaded space, looking for me. He had his hands in his pockets. He sauntered, with a kind of rolling gait. His expression didn’t change when his eyes settled on me, and he sat down next to me.
We didn’t speak. Instead, we sat side by side, watching the comings and goings underneath the archway. I felt one of us should say something, but I was afraid to speak, afraid my voice would emerge as a nervous squeak. Wordlessly, he offered me a cigarette, and I leaned in to his lighter, cupping my hand around his. The touch was brief and electrifying. We drew away from each other. The shadows thrown on the ground grew long as the sun sank behind the buildings. My heart was beating loudly; I was tense with trying to appear casual. I was utterly aware of his breathing next to me. When he reached out and took my hand, it was so startling, I almost recoiled. His hand was large and cool. It held mine loosely, carelessly. A squeeze then, and he leaned towards me, his face so close to mine I could feel his breath along my cheek, along my collarbone.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
He took me through unfamiliar streets. We passed strangers who barely registered us. My cheeks were burning. I was terrified we would meet someone who knew me, who knew you. He held my hand the whole time. His step was longer than mine, and I had to hurry to keep up. Just once, he turned and looked at me, and I managed the briefest of smiles.
At that point, I still had a choice. I had not strayed so far that I couldn’t go back. The most I was guilty of was an error of judgement, a momentary weakness. My infidelity did not go beyond the holding of hands. My mind was flying on ahead, tumbling recklessly into the future, into the next few hours. I allowed myself to be led in that way, without question; I was surrendering to my desires, and to his. I was no innocent. I was not naive. I knew
well what would come next. When he led me up the stairs and into the dim shadowy space of his rooms, I was breathless with expectation. When he pushed the door shut behind him and took hold of me roughly, slamming me against the wall, and I felt the length of his body pressing urgently against mine, I knew that every word spoken, every look exchanged between us from the moment we’d first met, had been leading, inevitably, inexorably, to this.
There was a light on when I got home. I saw it as I reached the return and climbed the last few steps. I stopped at the door, taking one breath and then another, trying to calm myself. My hand went to my hair, and I smoothed it down, arranging it about my shoulders. I touched my neck, the place where it pulsed, where he had fixed his mouth. I touched it as though my fingers could trace the raised outline of a kiss, sweet and savage.
I pushed open the door. The light was too bright; it hurt my eyes, and I turned it off. The room was empty. I put down my bag and crossed the floor to the bedroom. You were passed out, Harry, splayed across the bed, lying over the covers. I made no attempt to move you. When I climbed into bed, you didn’t stir. There was whiskey on your breath. I looked at you through the darkness. Your animated face was at peace.
Yes, there was guilt. It lingered, but it was not enough. I pulled my gaze away from you and turned over on to my side. I think I slept.
The next time, I went straight to his apartment, where he was waiting for me. As soon as we were upstairs, the door closed behind us, he grabbed my arm and spun me around, his face on mine, hungry, greedy. He peeled my T-shirt off, then slid my skirt up my thighs, pushing me back on to the bed. We did not speak. His desire was urgent and tinged with aggression; it veered towards violence. He wrapped his hand in a swatch of my hair and yanked my head back, so that my neck was arched and offered up to him, and he sank his teeth into it. It left a mark that I would have to hide later.