My Lover's Lover

by Maggie O'Farrell

  Sinead nods. The two women embrace.

  ‘So I’ll give you a call, then. OK?’

  Sinead says something Lily can’t hear.

  ‘’Bye,’ the friend calls from the station entrance, ‘see you soon.’

  Sinead watches her go through the ticket barrier, waves, then turns away. She walks fast when she’s on her own, Lily discovers, weaving in and out of the Saturday crowds. She turns unexpectedly and quickly into a bookshop, and Lily leaps through the doorway so fast she almost falls into her.

  The windows are steamed up. Umbrellas stand by the door, dripping pools of rainwater on to the black-tiled floor. Sinead wanders over to the fiction stands, pulls off her gloves, shrugs back her hood and gives her hair a shake, freeing it from the neck of her jacket.

  Lily pushes her way through the groups of bent-necked people. And from somewhere a memory twitches then opens out in front of her – a day trip she took with her parents when they still had her baby brother Mark, before Lily found him in his cot, blue and cold as marble. Her father held him in a papoose on his chest and the family walked through a field of long grass. She doesn’t know where it was exactly, but she can see it all clearly. It must have been a field near a cliff-edge because she remembers the sensation of a steep, sheer drop that she couldn’t see to her left. It was sunny and the grass was washed in yellow-green. She had on open-toed sandals and in her hand was a green plastic dinosaur, which had come in a kit, in two hollow halves. Her father had glued it together, pushing the gummed edges against each other until they set. There was a ridge of bubbled, hard glue along the dinosaur’s back, through its blank-eyed face, through the swell of its belly and along its tail. It was most comfortable to hold it by its upper tail. They all walked through the field, her parent’s voices criss-crossing over Lily’s head, the faraway sea – was there sea? there was definitely sea – throwing pebbles up on to the beach far below them, Mark breathing breathing in his papoose, the soft creases of his nose and mouth pressed to her father’s sternum, and the grass swooshing, sussurating, cleaving open to her steps. Part of her was frightened. The grass came up to her neck. What if she was swallowed up and her parents couldn’t find her again in this endless, rippling green sea? She held up the dinosaur until her arm ached. If she didn’t allow the grass to touch it, everything would be all right. When she looked down, she saw the dense brown roots, clinging to the sods of dried earth, falling open for her, shrinking back at the pressure of her sandal; and in front of her opened a path through the field.

  And this is how it seems again in the bookshop. As if surrounded by a negative magnetic field, people fall away from her, step out of her path. And she carries on walking through them, right up to Sinead.

  She stands near her and breathes in. She can catch her scent – inky, musky, with a hint of hair wax, soap, rain and that perfume. Sinead trails her index finger along the shelf, draws down a book, flicks over the title pages and reads the front page. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

  Lily circles her, stands on the other side of the shelf, peering through the books. Sinead’s eyes flick from side to side on the page. Lily sees her swallow, cough, and swallow again. She rubs the heel of her palm against her head. Lily comes round to Sinead’s side of the shelf, picks up a book, puts it down. Touches the cover of another. ‘Sinead?’ she says.

  She turns, the book still in her hands. She keeps her thumbnail in the page she’d reached. Her eyes scan Lily’s face, moving from her eyes to her mouth, over her hair and back to her eyes. Sinead is taller than Lily. Lily’s brow reaches her shoulder. Her expression is open but perplexed.

  ‘You’re Sinead?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nods, ‘I am.’

  There is a pause. She’s not Irish, after all. Her voice is modulated, accentless, placeless.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sinead shakes her head, ‘I don’t—–’

  ‘No, no. You don’t know me. I mean, we’ve never met. Not properly. Well, we’ve never actually met at all.’

  ‘Oh. So how do you—–’

  ‘My name’s Lily. I’m—–’

  Sinead recoils as if she’s been blasted by cold air. ‘I know exactly who you are.’

  Before Lily can absorb this, Sinead has twisted on her heel and walked off. Very fast. Lily sets off after her.

  ‘Sinead, wait.’

  She turns a corner, Lily pursuing her. Sinead has her hands around her head as if protecting it.

  ‘Please, Sinead. I just want to…’

  ‘What?’ Sinead turns on her suddenly. Lily jumps back, striking the edge of her wrist on a bookstand, Several people turn round and stare at them. Sinead towers over Lily. ‘You just want to what?’ She is crying now, silver tears dripping into the raindrops on her coat. ‘Leave me alone, for God’s sake. What’s wrong with you?’

  That Lily has caused these tears appals her. She feels about in her pocket for a tissue. ‘Don’t cry,’ she says, putting out a hand to touch her sleeve. ‘Please don’t cry.’

  Sinead pulls away from her and for a moment in front of Lily there is just the space where Sinead had been. Lily steps through the door after her into the cold air of the street. Again there is that sensation of Sinead – on the pavement again, sobbing now with uncontrolled, deep, wrenching gasps, sobbing with her hands around her eyes – getting closer to her, not the other way round.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lily says, ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—–’

  Sinead wipes at her wet cheeks with the edges of her fingers. ‘Go away,’ she hisses, ‘leave me alone.’

  Lily stands there, outside the bookshop as Sinead lurches away from her. She watches as she makes her way through the crowd, and even after she can no longer see the shape of that head, she stares at the spot it disappeared from for a long time, just in case it might return.

  He’s back. The lights are on in his room. Lily hurtles up the stairs and into the flat, flinging aside coat, bag and keys, bursting into his room, breathless and loud. ‘She didn’t die, did she?’

  Marcus starts, the wheels on his chair jerking backwards, and looks up from his computer, blinking as if he can’t see her properly. ‘Hello to you too,’ he says, with a nonplussed smile. ‘Who didn’t die?’

  ‘Sinead.’

  His smile shrivels like burning paper. ‘Die?’ He passes his tongue between his lips. ‘No. Of course not.’

  She sighs in exasperation, surprised to find she is close to tears. ‘But you told me she did!’ she screams.

  Marcus stares at her, his face scrunched into itself. ‘No, I didn’t.’ He shakes his head slowly.

  ‘You did!’ She is furious, spitting with outrage. ‘You did! You—–’

  ‘Lily, why would I tell you—–’

  ‘You said…’ She stops, thinks back, fists clenched at her sides.

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You said…you said…’ She grapples with her memory, re-enacting in her mind that moment on the sofa with the glove stretched out beside them. She asked him what happened, and he said…Then she remembers: ‘You said she was no longer with us,’ she shouts, accusing. ‘Those were your exact words. No longer with us.’

  He is still staring at her, disbelieving. Then he clears his throat and crosses his legs. ‘Lily,’ he begins, ‘I may have—–’

  ‘What?’ she demands. ‘You may have what?’

  He shrugs, helpless. ‘I may have used those words but—–’

  ‘You did!’ she insists. ‘You did use them!’

  He holds his hands up, fingers spread, as if calming an excited horse. ‘All right, all right,’ he says, thinking. ‘But I must have used them euphemistically. No one uses that phrase for what it really means any more. I meant it as…a figure of speech. A joke. I never thought—–’

  ‘A joke?’ she yells. ‘A joke? You think this is funny?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not at all. But…’ he sighs ‘…you…we obviously misunderstood each other. I certainly never meant to—
–’

  ‘Well, what did happen, then?’ she demands.

  He seems to shrink a few inches. He looks away from her. His hands move from his keyboard up to his eyes then his forehead. He supports his bowed head, his back bent over like an arthritic man. ‘She…’ Lily waits. He looks out of the window, grips his fingers in his hair, inhales. ‘She…she left.’

  Lily steps forward into the room. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He has to force the words out, as if they choke him. ‘She…just left. She left me.’ He says it as if he’s trying to make himself believe it. ‘God, Lily, I don’t know.’

  ‘But she must have said why. You must know.’

  ‘I don’t, I swear it.’ He tugs at his shirtsleeve. ‘She just…walked out. One morning. Wouldn’t talk about it, and…’

  ‘What?’

  He shrugs. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘But…was there someone else? Did she leave you for—–’

  ‘Lily, please!’ he says sharply. They are silent for a moment, Lily staring at him closely, as if the reason might be inked there on his skin. Eventually, he looks at her again, rubbing his jawline, taking a deep breath like a man about to go under water. ‘Things can change,’ he begins, his hand circling in the air. ‘People move on. And sometimes it’s hard to nail down the reason for it. Sometimes there really isn’t one. I never got a clear idea of why she…why she wanted to go. And I probably never will.’ He stands and comes towards her. ‘That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’ He reaches her and he touches the ends of her hair. His face looks sad and distant for a moment, then he smiles. ‘Now, is there anything else we need to clear up?’

  Lily is silent for a moment, looking up at him. Then she says, ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’

  But later, on the bed, with his head weighing down her shoulder, she thinks about Sinead’s hands as they covered her head, and how the bones and veins and tendons made an intricate latticework beneath the white, pellucid skin.

  At lunchtime, Lily wanders beyond the hinterland of the office. She’s alive, she’s alive and in this city. It makes Lily look differently at the streets she walks through: she could meet her at any moment, catch a glimpse of her, could be walking on paving stones that Sinead walked on last week or yesterday, today, this morning. London feels different all of a sudden – pulsating with a kind of stirring possibility. Street corners she passes every day look unfamiliar. Every dark-haired woman makes Lily’s heart vault in her chest, half in dread, half in hope.

  Back in the Covent Garden bookshop, Lily stands at the bookshelf, plants her feet where she estimates Sinead’s shoes might have have been less than twenty-four hours ago, reaches for the book Sinead had been looking at. Lily opens it, her eyes sliding over the words, and looks up. Repeats the action. Opens the book, looks up at the gap through to the other side of the shelves. Then looks to her right. That’s what she saw. This view is what Sinead saw yesterday – the corridor through to the children’s section, the posters dangling in the air-conditioned draughts, people milling through the tables, the glossy display stand for thrillers. This is all exactly what she saw when I said her name – except with my face in the middle.

  Lily comes out of her room, magazine in hand, heading for the TV. But there is a distinct and recognisable change in the atmosphere — a kind of chilled stasis. She stops dead in her tracks, her teeth rattling against each other, scanning the flat. She can’t believe it, she really can’t.

  Something flits and twitches in the unlit recess beside the front door. Lily treads slowly over the boards, rolling the magazine into a truncheon. She can glimpse a restless, ceaseless motion. Something is moving in the dark.

  She feels for the light switch and snaps it on. Sinead is pacing from the door to the bathroom’s glass wall and back again. When she reaches the wall she does a half-circle, then walks back with stiff, urgent steps to the door. At the door she puts out her hand as if to open it, but hesitates, withdraws it, then turns away and walks to the bathroom. Round and round she goes, as if on tracks. It makes Lily think of a cheetah she saw once in a zoo, circling back and back on itself as it trod the same section of cage, over and over again.

  Lily slams the magazine against the wall. ‘You’re not real!’ she screams. ‘You’re not!’

  Sinead seems to glance her way, falter in her rhythmic steps. She pauses for a moment, poised. Then she turns and walks towards her.

  Lily is crying now, sobs racking up from her chest. She stares at the apparition coming towards her, and batters her face and head with her fists. ‘You’re losing it,’ she whispers to herself, ‘you’re really losing it.’ Sinead is close enough now for Lily to reach out and touch her. Lily starts backwards, hitting her head against the wall. ‘Oh, God,’ she sobs, trapped, ‘please leave me alone, please. You’re not real. I know you’re not. You’re not even dead,’ she yells, ‘so just go away! Please! GO AWAY!’

  When she peels her fingers away from her eyes, Sinead is still there. Lily stares at the face of the woman in front of her. She is talking, fast and insistent. But no sound comes out. Lily watches, transfixed. Sinead’s lips move soundlessly, and she scans Lily’s face, as if anxious for her to understand.

  ‘I can’t hear you!’ Lily sobs. ‘What are you saying?’

  Sinead pauses, glances around them and leans closer, as if she doesn’t want to be overheard. Her mouth is moving even faster, a secret flood of words pouring out. Lily bangs her ears in frustration. There is one word she forms over and over again. Lily watches her lips carefully: don’t, she is saying, don’t.

  ‘Don’t what?’ Lily cries. ‘Don’t what? I don’t understand! I can’t hear you!’

  Then she can stand it no more. With a strange, low cry, she steps sideways and darts past Sinead. Her whole body is shaking and her legs barely hold her. She seizes a chair and slides into it, crying and coughing.

  When she looks round, Sinead is gone. The room feels as it should. Lily sits at the table. She wipes the tear tracks from her face, listens to her breathing slowing down. She knows what she has to do.

  She can’t believe how easy it was. She stands at the crossroads holding the piece of paper, still amazed. All she’d had to do was look in the phone book: and there it was, in black cramped letters on thin, grey paper. She doesn’t know why it shouldn’t have been there, but somehow, when she’d been running her fingers down through the columns of all the other places beginning with ‘uni’, she’d thought there’d be a blank or it would be missed out or it wouldn’t exist. All she’d had to do was dial the number and an efficient-sounding woman answered and told her the address straight off, and the number she should ring for a ‘lecture schedule’. It had been the easiest thing in the world. Two phone calls, a lie to the agents about feeling ill, and here she was.

  Tall, neatly terraced houses surround her, most with a brass plate by the side of the door. To her left is a large bookshop. People mill around the pavements, talking, folders and books clutched in their arms.

  Lily checks her watch and checks the piece of paper. Then reads the street sign again. This is the right place.

  She takes a seat at the back, near the door, sliding into the polished wooden bench. The room is huge, with long tiered benches full of people and, at the bottom, a lectern and a blackboard. Everyone is talking, banging open folders, fiddling with tape-recorders or waving at someone in a different row. The girl next to her is saying to her friend: ‘And he got this squid and chopped it up. Just like that. Lengthways and, you know —’ she gestures, bringing down her hand in a sheer cutting movement ‘— sideways. It got everywhere.’

  Lily experiences a sudden surge of nerves. What is she doing here? All she wants to do is find her and talk to her, but why is she sitting here? She must be mad, thinking she can just walk in here. She should be back at work. She should leave.

  The door next to her opens, and there she is, striding past Lily and down the central steps. She is wearing a grey skirt, s
plit to the thigh, long black boots that zip close to her ankles and a soft, diaphanous sweater with horizonal ribbing. Her hair is up, coiled on her head and speared with what looks like a silver knife. At the front, she lays out her papers then looks up and surveys them all. Lily ducks down.

  ‘Right.’ Sinead announces, and silence falls over the room. ‘Gawain and the Green Knight. If you have the parallel text with you, you might want to open it at page seventy-three.’ A scuffling motion passes over the room like a Mexican wave. ‘Or, for the braver among you, you can follow from page fifty-eight in the original.’

  Lily has nothing – no book, no paper, no pen. What was she thinking of? She must stand out a mile. She looks around, fear crawling up her neck, and inadvertently catches the eye of the girl next to her. She is pretty, with very straight brown hair parted down the middle. She gives Lily a half-smile and pushes her opened book towards her so that it rests on the bench between them.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lily whispers, and the girl smiles and glances back towards Sinead. Lily looks down at the book and sees a sea of incomprehensible words, some that look like English and some with letters that don’t appear in any alphabet she knows. On the page opposite are stacked lines of text – in recognisable English. ‘And I shall stand and take a blow from him, unflinching, provided I have the right to deal him another when I claim it,’ she reads.

  ‘There is no clear evidence as to the identity of the person who is known only as the Gawain Poet,’ Sinead is saying. ‘A number of people believe the Pearl Poet is also the Gawain Poet. Now, I’m not going to speculate here about the whos, whys and wherefores because, to be honest, I don’t really care. It got written. By someone. That’s all. But what I do believe is that the so-called Gawain Poet was a woman. Which might explain why she wanted to remain anonymous, her kind not being taken very seriously in those days. Now,’ she says again and, lifting the book, reads: ‘I declare he was the biggest of men, and the handsomest…for although his torso, back and chest were thick-set, his stomach and waist were attractively slender.’ A stutter of laughter circles the room. ‘What self-respecting bloke is going to write that?’