Thirty Something (Nothing's How We Dreamed It Would Be)

by Filipa Fonseca Silva

  “Yeah, and being an artist is even worse, but that didn’t stop me from going after my dream.”

  “OK, but you were always the courageous type. Not me.”

  Now I notice that during our conversation we’ve been drifting around the garden. I can still hear folk’s voices in the background, but we’re far away enough not to be interrupted. I sit down on the damp lawn. I realize Bé doesn’t want to get her dress wet, so I take off my jumper for her to sit down on. It’s a wonderful night, the sky full of stars. We’ve broken the ice, but I still have a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. All the feelings I’ve tried to silence over the years, all the effort I made to forget her were futile the moment I saw her. I want to grab her, shake her, force her to tell me why she didn’t want me.

  “It’s never too late.”

  “For what?” I ask, surprised.

  “To form a band, to go and work in production, to do a course in sound engineering, something that puts you back in touch with music, who knows.”

  “Bé, I’m thirty-three, you really think I’m going to change careers now?”

  “What’s the problem? What is it with people that they think life’s over when they reach thirty? That’s why I’ve so many friends who get depressed just looking at the number. Maybe it’s too late for you to be an athlete or a footballer, but there’s still lots you can do.”

  “I think the problem is that even though we know that, other generations don’t. The older generation thinks we should marry, have kids, find a job with security. The younger generation thinks we’re a bit past it. What sixteen-year-old kid wants to hear music by a guy who’s old enough to be his father? No one takes you seriously if you’re over thirty and have no track record. Just like they won’t take you seriously if tomorrow you tell them you’re packing it all in to go and live abroad for a year or go off back-packing with your friends.”

  “And why not?”

  “To begin with, because most of those friends you mention are already married with children. And also because they’re consumers who’ve opted for the easy life and wouldn’t dream of sleeping on the floor or hitching a ride.”

  “Now it’s all about boutique hotels and motoring holidays in plush cars, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly. That’s what annoys me most nowadays. People. Friends. The conformity. Fun people that suddenly go out of circulation. They get married, have children, get promoted, have social aspirations, and then they start thinking they can't go to certain places any more, or listen to certain songs, or get drunk. And I find myself at a dinner with ten people and no one to talk to.”

  “The Christmas tree feeling...”

  “You still remember that?” I ask, astonished.

  “Of course I do. I’m here and no one sees me. I want to scream and no one hears me.”

  “Yes, and they’re all so wrapped up in their banal chitchat, most of which is about other people’s lives.”

  “The gossip!” she exclaims, feigning indignation.

  “The gossip.”

  I feel like crying. It’s as if suddenly a person you thought was dead had come back to life. And I’m not just talking about Bé. I’m talking about me. When I’m beside her, things flow, feelings come out without reservations or taboos. Talking to her is like talking to my image in the mirror. Is this what they mean by soul mates? She leans on my shoulder and suddenly it’s as if time has gone backwards. I don’t want to move. I’m afraid this is just a dream and that any movement will wake me up and shatter the moment, just like so many times before. But I don’t need to move. She’s the one who takes my hand.

  “Filipe, I have to tell you something very important.”

  “There’s someone...”

  “No.”

  “You have kids?”

  “No again, don’t be silly, let me speak.”

  “Ah! I know. After so many dalliances and no-ties sexual experiences, as you used to call them, you’ve decided to turn lesbian and to go and live with Pilar.”

  “How did you know?” she asks, intrigued.

  “Because I knew!” I exclaim, jumping to my feet. “I knew this was too good to be true!”

  She’s laughing and laughing as I wave my arms about and bury my head in my hands, wondering why this has to be happening.

  “I was joking,” she says. “Don't be absurd, Pilar is just my friend and gallery person.”

  “You swear?”

  “Definitely! Now seriously, sit down because this is important.”

  I sit down beside her again. She’s kneeling, sitting on her heels, and fidgeting nervously with a flounce of her dress. One side of her face is bathed in moonlight, giving it an almost unreal appearance. How can she be even more beautiful than I remembered her?

  “Well, first of all, I want to apologize for never answering your letter and avoiding you to the point that we lost touch.”

  “What letter?” I ask making out it was something of no importance.

  “The letter where you described my essence better than I could ever have done. The letter that showed me how each of us brought out the best in the other. But I was too young. I thought I was a free spirit, that no one would ever catch me, much less a man. And to be sincere, I thought what I felt for you was only affection.”

  She pauses, looks at the stars for a long moment as if to screw up her courage, and goes on, “When I decided not to reply and to hide that letter, a part of me was imprisoned inside it. I closed my heart to you, but I closed it to myself too.”

  “Thanks for the confession, but that doesn’t change anything now, does it?”

  “No. And that’s why I need you to forgive me.”

  “And why didn’t you look for me when you realized this? My parents are still in the same house, you knew where to find me. Why did you let so much time pass? Why did you wait for chance to bring us together, when it might not have happened?”

  “It wasn’t that long ago that I came to this conclusion. In fact, it was only when I was getting divorced from Manel, about a year ago. I did a retrospective of my love life until then and I noticed I’d never really given myself to anyone. That most of the people I went out with or lived with didn’t make me feel anything special. They were just people I had certain things in common with. And life’s too short to waste it on people who mean nothing to us. That was when I remembered you, your letter, your love, the only real thing I’ve felt in my life. But then I was afraid.”

  “Afraid? Afraid of what?” I ask, desperate.

  “Afraid of finding you married with kids, like everyone else. Afraid you’d have changed, like everyone else. Afraid you wouldn’t remember the letter that it was just a stupid thing you write to your first love. Afraid of...”

  “I’ve never stopped loving you,” I interrupt, taking her face in my hands. “Not for a day, not for a minute. I saw you in every woman I met, so none of them came close to making me happy, making me feel what I felt for you. You can’t imagine the times I wanted to look for you, even at the risk of finding you with some other man. And you can’t imagine the times I regretted not looking for you at the time, when you stopped answering the phone. And you can’t imagine the times I wanted to be talking to you instead of the person I was talking to. Fuck it, Bé!” I shout. “All that time! All that time… Where were you all that time?”

  “Lost,” she answers, her eyes brimming with tears.

  I steal a kiss, a gentle kiss that’s urgent with passion. A kiss that contains all the despair, all the longing, all the things we missed together. Her tears are mixing with mine, which mix with our tongues, which mix with our bodies. I hear voices and laughter somewhere off in the distance, almost in another life. Now I think about it, this whole night, until now, seems to have been another life. We’re in each other arms now, but this time I won’t let her go.

  THE END

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  Sample Chapter from The Strange Year of Vanessa M.

  Here’s the first chapter of my new novel. Available in all book retailers.

  1.

  “Tedium, that’s what I feel, weight that invades my soul and devours my willpower. With every minute that passes, it’s turning into impatience, a gnawing anxiety that constricts my respiration in direct proportion to my accelerating heartbeat. ‘What’s the matter with you’ ‘Nothing.’ ’Why are you sighing then?’ ‘Because I feel like it. Why? Can’t I do that either?’ Just as well he doesn’t answer. After fifteen years of living with me, he’s finally understood there are times when it’s better to keep quiet. Why are you sighing, he asks. He’s got the nerve. He must be completely oblivious of everything that’s going on around him and very self-centred. Maybe it’s because he’s a man. Is life really that much easier for men? Obviously he doesn’t have to worry about cellulite, broken fingernails, hair. As if he wasn’t lucky enough already, being able to take a piss standing up wherever he wants to; he doesn’t have to worry like I do about eyebrows, creams, makeup, laddered stockings, hiding my breasts so I don’t look flighty but not so much that I look a prude. As long as he’s got that just-out-the-shower smell about him, a man with dishevelled hair and unshaven chin is sexy. A woman with dishevelled hair, with no time to wax her legs, is a slattern who ought to be ashamed to show her face in the street, even if she has that fresh-out-the-shower smell about her. So why can’t women start work an hour later than men, for example? That’s what I feel like asking my boss when he gives me that reproachful look whenever I arrive after nine thirty, with his ironic “Good afternoon! Thanks for coming.” What’s the matter with me, he asks. Where do you want me to start, doctor?”

  The analyst looked at his wristwatch and all he said was, “Sorry Vanessa, you’ll have to start at the next session. Our time’s up.”

  “But I…”

  “Now Vanessa, you know the rules. Write down everything you were going to tell me, arrange everything by topic and we’ll talk in our next session.”

  Furious, she grabbed her handbag and coat and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. After almost two months of therapy, she still didn’t understand why they always had to break off the sessions like this. Just when she was beginning to open up. The first twenty minutes hardly count. Does anyone manage to pick up a conversation exactly where they’d left it at the last session? What she felt last week and what she felt now were two different things. She had to think, organize her ideas, pick up her notepad and try to remember everything she’d said last time. Plus she had to try and forget the bad appearance of her analyst. Sweat on his upper lip, fingernails that needed trimming, check blazer shiny at the elbows, and yellow teeth. It wasn’t easy.

  Some help, he was, costing over two hundred euros a month. Just thinking about all she could do with that money made her feel ill. It wouldn’t be so bad if she paid him directly. She could pick a different doctor, a less expensive one, and spend the rest of the money on more interesting stuff… But she didn’t have that option. The judge had been very clear; forty psychotherapy sessions with an analyst selected by the court, after which she was to undergo a test administered by an independent laboratory, which would determine whether she was fit to live in society. And she’d only done eight sessions so far.

  There were days when Vanessa wasn’t sure if the alternative wouldn’t have been better, four months behind bars. Four months is nothing, after all. The tedium would be the same, but with one advantage, she’d be alone. No one to pester her, no domestic chores, no need to wonder what to make for dinner, no need to look for other peoples’ spectacles, and none of the brutality of everyday life.

  Outside, it was raining with a vengeance. Great, she thought, so much for my shoes. She flattened herself against the door of the building to avoid getting wet as she looked for her car keys, which would have been a good idea if it weren’t for the people coming and going through the door all the time. Shoving and elbowing, saying sorry, her hand rummaging in her bag, groping every object in the hope of feeling the metal of the key or the suede of the key fob. Mirror, coin purse, lipstick, tweezers, spectacle case, dark glasses, wallet, mobile phone, pills. The rain soaking through the chamois of her shoes, not just a few splashes, but big dark blotches she’d never be able to cover up. Another shove from another elbow in her ribs and it turns out the key was in her coat pocket.

  It’s funny how there aren’t more road accidents, in cities at least. The car is becoming an expression of all the rage and anguish we accumulate over the course of the day. Our eyes glaze over as we accelerate away from traffic lights we thought would never change. We stamp on the brake with the same fury we’d like to stamp on people who drive us crazy. We honk as if the noise that fills the street was the shout we have to suppress. We think we’re untouchable, invincible in our metal fortresses; where we don’t hear the insults, or smell the smell of other people, where the urban grime can’t infect us.

  Vanessa gripped the steering wheel with the same strength she’d have liked to use on her analyst’s neck. Or her husband’s. Or that stuck-up blonde’s, the one who didn’t even say sorry when her carrier bag hit Vanessa’s legs at the entrance to the analyst’s building, as if she didn’t exist. Bitch!

  She was startled out of her anger by a knocking on her window. A homeless guy. His filthy, bony hands outstretched, the joints of his fingers scarred. That was all she needed. She hated giving money to these people. It was much more convenient to give money to the institutions that gave them a place to sleep or handed out blankets and food. But just then, she remembered her shoes. If the rain did so much damage to a piece of chamois, what did it do to the soul of someone who lived in the streets? She saw a black stain spreading over the man’s body, his coat drenched, rain dripping from his beard. Like her shoes, this guy was beyond repair. She gave him a euro and didn’t care when the car behind her started honking. The traffic light had been green for more than three seconds.

  She drove, not knowing where she was going. On and on, avoiding all the familiar exits. After two hours she was running low on petrol and only then did she realize it wasn’t raining any more. She could turn the windscreen wipers off now. She stopped at the first service station she found, without wondering where she was. It wasn’t even a service station; it was just a petrol pump on a deserted back road. She realized she had fifty-three missed calls on her mobile phone, from her daughter, her daughter’s school, her husband, her analyst, the lawyer, her mother, Diana.

  What the hell, she thought. What’s so bad about being out of reach for a couple of hours? What if she was just in the cinema? Somewhere with no signal? With her phone in silent mode? Was there no way for her just to disappear? Or make other people disappear? Her daughter, her husband… or Diana, especially Diana. As if they’d never existed. Not that she hated them, but sometimes just thinking about them and the routines they stood for left her feeling suffocated. She often thought about what life would be like as an orphan, single, with no kids, being able to do what she wanted, whenever she wanted, with whomever she wanted. Like going to bed with that guy at the end of the bar or even with the ugly guy from the petrol pump. No family lunches, no enormous Christmas gatherings, no summer holidays with the whole house in the back of the car. Spending the money for her daughter’s dental brace on a holiday in Thailand. Staying in pyjamas all day, without even taking a shower. Eating chocolate biscuits on the sofa and not giving a shit about the crumbs. Eating alone. No conversation. Just staring at the wall for minutes on end, without having to hear ‘What’s the matter?’ What would it be like? To be free? Absolutely free?
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  The Strange Year of Vanessa M. by Filipa Fonseca Silva ©2013

  About the author

  Filipa Fonseca Silva was born in Barreiro, Portugal, in 1979. She has a degree in Communication by Universidade Católica, and works as an advertising creative since 2004. She dreams about making the world a greener place and writing memorable stories. “The Strange Year of Vanessa M.” is her second novel. The first one, “Thirty Something – Nothing’s How We Dreamed it Would Be”, was published in 2011 by a major Portuguese Publisher and was widely praised.

  Besides writing, Filipa loves painting, collecting shoes and eating watermelon. She lives in Lisbon with her husband, son and Gucci, the cat.

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