My House Is Falling Down
Page 19
Evening is upon us. I’m tired. It’s so episodic, this business of remembering. It comes in waves, how I got from there to here, but the things I do remember – every so often they hit me with such violence that I am floored, a casualty of my own recollections. Unexpected love is like a blow to the head with a blunt instrument. It can come from any direction and with a degree of force well beyond the ordinary: if only, like a cyclone, it were forecast, we might be prepared – but it never is, and we rarely are. That people so willingly condemn one another for being susceptible to it perplexes me.
Angus was the perfect pool, far-reaching and still, inviting me to dive in and break the surface, beneath which I would find relief from the heat he produced in me. Just as cool waters bid the fevered, his invitation held the same sublime promise.
My memories of him in those early weeks are all defined by size: by the imposition of his height; his long limbs, strong and nonchalant; his steady hands. But also, they’re defined by the magnitude of my longing for him. I thought he might have become scaled down, in time, by being mine. He never did. Familiarity never reduced him. I wish it had.
What I remember and what I don’t: some of it is pin-sharp and some so opaque that I think I may lose my mind – not to the business of remembering but the effort of trying to make sense of it all. I know what has happened is real but my memories can still assume the qualities of dreams. Perhaps they are safer that way, at one remove. Images swim across my mind, like passion’s drift: I kneel before Angus in the mirror, his hands in my hair. We watch each other in the glass.
Now, I know it is not events that leave their marks but our sense of them, those primitive recollections of how we applied ourselves to one another: the tang of skin or the spike of a fingernail as it brushed the spine. It is not where we went or what we did that remains but what it felt like and what that meant. I can taste Angus still. He catches in my throat.
People say things happen for a reason. I don’t believe that. I think we’re random organisms, just molecules bumping into each other in a universe whose further laws we may never come to understand. Here we are, sandwiched meaninglessly between birth and death. There is chaos and there is free will, and as far as I can see, that is about it. We justify our desires with rationale, which is understandable, but it isn’t science and it isn’t fate: it might at best be romance, that prodigious contaminant of better judgement. I could tell myself that Angus and I were meant to be but if that were true then just about everything else is meant to be, too, and I simply don’t buy that. I think we are all accidents waiting to happen. It doesn’t mean we have no choices. When you are involved in a collision with someone it is up to you what happens next. It is possible to smile and walk away. Numbers do not need to be exchanged. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar.
As for any outcome, it is as insufficient as it is incontestable. What I have with Mark is overcast: I love Angus still, as he loves me. The light has faded, somewhat. I do not know if it will ever be all right.
We circle the field, not saying much. Before we climb the gate back into the yard, we stop and contemplate the view from outside the house, looking in. We do this occasionally – stand here in the chill, gazing at our glowing daughters, oblivious on the warm, blind side of glass. Lights are on in the windows top right and bottom left, and from them an amber luminescence emanates, beguiling in its suggestion of warmth. It is a sight that used to arouse intense yearning in me and the evocation of fairy tales in which the cold, hungry traveller chances upon a house in a clearing just when he or she needs it most. It promises sanctuary and hope, and therein lies its romantic power.
As Mark always says of our home, it’s exactly the kind of place you would want to be if you weren’t lucky enough to live here already.
He kicks at the fire. It is still burning but with less vigour now. He deems it safe enough to leave.
Acknowledgements
Love and thanks to my beloved family, Andrew, Clare, Jane and Celia St George, for the encouragement, humour and healthy derision that has kept me going during this absurdly long-haul project.
Mary Loudon was born in November 1966. She is the author of four non-fiction books: Relative Stranger: A Sister’s Life After Death, Secrets & Lives: Middle England Revealed, Revelations: The Clergy Questioned and Unveiled: Nuns Talking. Her books have been published in ten countries. Mary has won four writer’s prizes, been shortlisted for the MIND Book of the Year award, and longlisted for the Richard and Judy Book of the Year award. An experienced public speaker and broadcaster, she has made over 200 radio and TV appearances, and been a judge for the Whitbread and Costa Book Awards. My House is Falling Down is her first novel.
www.maryloudon.com
Relative Stranger: A Sister’s Life After Death
Secrets & Lives: Middle England Revealed
Revelations: The Clergy Questioned
Unveiled: Nuns Talking
First published 2019 by Picador
This electronic edition first published 2019 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5290-0490-8
Copyright © Mary Loudon 2019
Cover design: Mel Four / Picador art department
Photograph © Ryan Ahern / Stocksy
The right of Mary Loudon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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