A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better

by Benjamin Wood

  ‘I’ll look into it for you.’

  Nodding at the window, she said: ‘Do you think you’ll stick around here for a while?’

  ‘At some point I should probably start walking to the subway.’

  She was beaming at me now. ‘No, genius, I was asking if you’ll have to go back home some day. You know, to England. Remember England?’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. Dumb of me.’ I took encouragement from her question. She had an interest in my long-term future—that had to be a sign that she would see me again, if I asked. ‘I guess that all depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Visa, green card, the usual.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But, to be honest, there’s a lot of other stuff. Things I need to work out while I’m here. It was meant to be a fresh start for me, and I’m still not sure if it’s really what I needed.’ This was a conversation we would have another time. We would get to it that August, on a humid Sunday afternoon as we walked laps of Tompkins Square, a featureless blue sky above the trees, a latent sunlight brightening the parapets of buildings far along the seamless strait of Avenue A. I would begin to tell her everything that I am telling you right now. ‘Look, can I get us both another beer? Or do you have somewhere to be?’

  ‘Nowhere better than right here,’ she said. ‘It’s still early in my world. I only come alive at midnight.’ She folded back her sleeve as though to check her watch, but didn’t even glance at it. Time would move at its own rate, and we would let it carry us.

  I’m getting closer to the age my father was that August. It has taken me thirty-three years to find the edge of where I belong, and I’m working my way to the centre. I have needed my mother every day, but I’ve been without her for so long that I’ve outlived her example—I remember her from the perspective of a boy who relied on her for every meal, every piece of clothing on his back, every big decision. There’s no way for me to know whether her attitude towards me might’ve changed as I became an adult, what her temperament might’ve been as she grew into old age. We might’ve fallen out, become estranged. I might’ve disenchanted her the way he did. She might’ve met another man and moved to Kenya, as she’d once dreamed of doing in her teenage diaries. And I wonder all the time if she’d approve of where I live today, the job I have, the company I keep, because there’s a greater part of me that understands I wouldn’t be here now if she were still alive, that I wouldn’t have Alisha in my life or feel this new sense of belonging. I would still be with her back in England, making sure to call her every other night and see her in the holidays, as well-raised men should do.

  I suppose it was expected that I’d reach a point of turbulence eventually, when all the hurt that I’d absorbed and grief that I’d blocked out would manifest itself in my behaviour. My grandmother used to say to me, ‘Daniel, if you need to go and smash up a few car windows, nobody would blame you, but please don’t act like nothing’s happened. I’d rather see you angry than unmoved.’ She brought me up to meet the aspirations that she knew my mother had for me, and never hesitated to appropriate an opinion if it was useful to the cause of rearing me: ‘Think what your mum’d say to you right now, young man. These are her orders, not mine.’ I don’t think she realised how much this helped. It let me channel all my sadness into the pursuit of an achievement that I thought—because I’d been so well reminded of it—was the only thing my mother ever wanted for me.

  For years, I managed to repurpose my anxieties like this, directing all my thoughts into preparing for exams that lay in wait—I was terms ahead of other kids at Chesham Park when I first returned to classes, and surprised my teachers with the waltz I took through all my GCSEs (they knew I was a good student but they anticipated a prolonged adjustment back to ‘normal’ life). After my grandpa died, painlessly, in a still green room full of chrysanthemums at the Chiltern Hospital, I learned that I could disappear into my education and feel justified in shutting out the world. I hid behind the attitude that if I didn’t get the best A-level grades I would disappoint my mother, and was mindful to befriend boys in sixth form whose own parents pressured them into an academic mode. I hid behind the daunting Microeconomic Principles and Quantitative Methods modules at LSE and handled the transition into student halls of residence in London by camping out for long hours in the library (in the second year, I had two part-time jobs). I hid behind three years of work experience in financial services and auditing. I hid behind the ACA examinations. I hid behind my exploration of the job market, taking interview after interview after interview until I was satisfied that I was making the right choice (the one she would’ve made). After I accepted a position in Transactions at the glass Embankment offices of Vaillant Stack Kinnear, there was nothing left to hide behind except the intrinsic need to prove myself to those who’d hired me. And VSK is where I’ve hidden ever since.

  When I look back on this important period of my life, I don’t recall much earnest human interaction: a pretty girl I saw across a seminar room once made my heart capsize before she transferred to a different module; another exhausted intern almost made me cry into his blazer one night by the photocopier just by handing me a stapler; a kind librarian and I shared a pleasant conversation once about her love of Joe Durango novels; a temp I slept with told me that I was the least attentive partner that she’d ever had and so I asked—out loud—how I could improve my performance. Somehow, these years feel like a spell of isolation from reality, a slow tour of the confines of myself in which the landmarks of my history were whited out.

  Head down and work: it’s the only coping strategy I’ve ever had and I’m grateful that it’s kept me upright all this time. I was twenty-four when my grandmother passed away, and I sat on the front row of her church in Bradenham with a hundred funeral mourners bowed in prayer behind me, understanding that I had no family left to tell me how to live, to show me what my standards ought to be. I only had the expectations of my job to measure up to from this point. The partners at VSK would see the hours that I put in, all my conscientiousness, and through their satisfaction with my progress, my mother would be happy.

  And so I gave my every breath to VSK. I sweated through my shirts for them. I skipped meals for them. I went without the social niceties that other people had. My only friends were VSK people; I never saw them anywhere except the office corridors and common areas. Every night, when I got back to my flat in Camden, I opened up my laptop and logged in to my VSK account. I would’ve given them my last remaining pint of blood if a memo had gone out requesting it. I worked through it, I worked through it, I worked through it, as I always had. My commitment didn’t go unseen—by twenty-six, I was made a partner in the M and A department—but I hit that long-expected turbulence soon after.

  Women in the office began looking at me differently. I don’t know if it was my change in status that attracted them, or if the features that my father gave me bedded in around that time and made me into something worth a second glance. Perhaps the shift came from within me: a boost in confidence, a new assurance in my surroundings. Whatever it was, I saw more London bedrooms, hotel ceilings, kitchen floors, than I had ever thought possible. I went to bed with secretaries, PAs, accounts assistants, HR managers, legal team affiliates, finance directors. Their faces still remain in memory even if their names do not. Some I slept with more than once; some I never saw again; some I made unskilful small talk with in front of clients, in the ascending lift, the lobby. I only sought out women who worked at VSK, but I kept them at a distance. It makes me queasy to admit this. Not just because it shames me that I treated people—colleagues—this way, but because I can’t help thinking I was doing it in order to be like him. Or, at least, to gauge how close to being my father I could get if I allowed it.

  One night, I found myself on the twelfth floor of a Radisson hotel with a young intern. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that her name was Nadine. We had got to talking in the office common area that evening, and she had mentioned she was in the last year
of her MSc (I forget which university), undertaking practical experience with the company as part of her degree. I had offered to take her out to dinner, giving no reason other than I hadn’t eaten yet and she looked like she could use a meal that wasn’t made by Dr Oetker. We ate, we drank a little wine, we walked to a hotel, we went up to the room. It really was that simple.

  She sat down on the bed and slipped her shoes off. Leaning back, she smoothed the duvet with her palms, uncrossed her legs. I went and kissed her, feeling her whole body softening beneath me. Her arms stretched out above her head, and I drew up the high hem of her work dress to see her stomach, the sheer waistband of her tights biting the skin. ‘Wait wait wait,’ she said, and rolled sideways. ‘Just give me a minute. I need to—Make us a drink or something, while I go in there?’ She went to the bathroom, zipping her dress off. ‘Don’t be too long,’ I said. No sooner had the door closed, the shower started running. I took off my jacket, my shoes and socks. I fetched two beers from the minibar, drank half of one before I lost my patience. The extractor fan was whirring, clattering. The door was unlocked so I went in. I found her standing naked at the basin, a mess of towels at her feet. She was not surprised to see me, but seemed irritated, as though I had intruded on a private argument she was having with herself. ‘Well, this is hardly fair,’ she said, smirking. ‘Now I’m the only one who’s—’ And I didn’t even wait for her to finish the thought. I strode right in and kissed her, walked her back towards the counter. She unbuttoned my shirt and peeled it off. Her fingers roughed my skin. She breathed into my ear and tongued the lobe, pushing hard against me. I undid my belt and she undid the rest. I don’t know who decided it—if it was me, or her, or both of us at once—but she turned round in a hurry, bent over the empty basin, spread her arms across the strange blue marble and its ink-blot pattern.

  When people ask what prompted me to transfer out of London, I never tell them about this. But I won’t hide anything from you—even my ugliest urges. You need to see the ways that I am like him and the ways that I am not.

  Because as soon as I had put myself inside her, and I felt the knock of her pale buttocks in the shallows of my hips, the rhythm of her hamstrings going smack smack smack against my thighs, I had no mind to stop. She was making stifled sounds of pleasure. Unusual but familiar. I thought, Have I been with this girl before? Have I forgotten her? I paused, pressing my lips against her back. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Don’t stop. I’m not even close.’ When I glanced up, I saw our vague reflections in the fogged-up mirror. And I carried on. She leaned into me, her elbows tucked beneath her chest, one temple to the counter. Her breaths quickened and swelled. I looked up again, to watch myself, what I was doing to her. And I saw the woozy outline of him peering back at me, his expression lurking there, stolid and determined, unforgivable. I stopped so abruptly that it irked her. ‘No no no, come on,’ she said, ‘not now. Keep going.’ She tried to grab my hands and move them to her breasts. But I was spooked and couldn’t carry on. ‘I can’t, I’m done,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Seriously?’ she said. ‘But you were—we were—’

  ‘I think I need to lie down.’

  She dropped her head back to the marble, aggrieved or plain embarrassed. ‘Okay, I guess the bed’s more comfortable anyway,’ she said.

  ‘No, we have to stop. I’m sorry. I’m feeling a bit funny.’

  ‘You mean like something you ate?’

  ‘No, just strange.’

  ‘Okay. I get it.’ Peering back at me, she said: ‘Maybe next time.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing you did wrong.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, Dan. It’s cool. I get it.’

  While she took another shower, I went and sat on the armchair by the window, looking down at the tarred rooftops of the neighbouring buildings. ‘So, do you want me to go?’ she said, emerging from the bathroom in a cotton gown.

  ‘I’d prefer it if you kept me company,’ I said. ‘The room’s been paid for. Might as well use it.’

  ‘As long as I can raid that little fridge.’

  ‘All yours.’

  ‘Are you still feeling funny, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s all right. I’m used to it.’

  She lay on the bed and flicked the television channels, drinking wine from a bottle for one. I drafted emails on my work phone. ‘I don’t have anything to sleep in,’ she said, and took off her robe, slid under the duvet. After a while, the charmless comedy that she was watching and the alcohol made her drowsy, and I ran out of messages to send. My laptop was still at the office. All I had was this very young woman, dozing naked in the space beside me, the long slant of her shoulder flashing with the TV light. And I had their conversations, pinning me awake again. Useless worthless idiot don’t have to explain myself to you I can do what I want why don’t you shut your fucking trap for once always blaming someone else for your mistakes I mean where’s your self-respect you’ve always wanted me to fail there’s nothing you like better than humiliating me god I wish I’d never met you nobody can stand you always whining at me you don’t know you’re fucking born even your own son has no respect for you I never loved you anyway oh yeah and what you going to do about it eh yeah right that’s what I thought all talk.

  My wife’s patience is extraordinary. She knows every dimension of my history, so she accommodates the fits of attitude I throw from time to time over the pettiest of matters without appearing to think less of me. She can differentiate between my fleeting sadness and my chronic gloom, and has the sensitivity to realise that there are moments when I need to talk and moments when I don’t. She understands why there’s a bottle of ‘Sunflowers’ in our bathroom cabinet, and why the Chesham Library’s complete audio edition of The Artifex Appears is locked in the top drawer of the bureau in the hall. How is it possible that she has stuck with me for long enough to see beyond my frailties? The outer coldness, the pretence of toughness, the essential oddness: she has breached each layer of me and seems to love what she has found inside. And I have loved her back in such a shambling and unfathomable way that she must wonder—as I do—how intimately I need to know her mind before I let myself accept that she is not a stand-in for my mother. All my prior relationships with women have been ruined by one sad assumption: that I can fix the problems of my parents’ marriage in my own life, a gesture at a time, a decision at a time, a sexual encounter at a time. Alisha gets this—she figured it all out within a month of being with me—and somehow she’s still here. The forbearance that she has for stupid things I say and do is staggering. Such as when I tell her, ‘Look, I know that you want children of your own some day,’ when what I mean is: ‘Look, I know you’d really love for us to start a family.’

  I have let this issue threaten our marriage for much too long. As I told you before, there’s a fault line under every forward step I try to make. I don’t see how I can ever be responsible for someone else’s childhood until I can resolve the problems of my own. It’s a mindset that Alisha says I’ll overcome with the right help, but I keep resisting her encouragement and sound advice, because she doesn’t understand the weight of blood like mine—I work so hard to carry it around as though it’s nothing.

  We slide into these arguments unexpectedly. A cat goes sprinting down a stoop before us as we walk along the street: it sparks a conversation about cats and why she doesn’t like them, which becomes a conversation about the hissing stray that ran into the house when she was six and lay down in her brother’s crib, which becomes a conversation about her nieces and the special cover that her sister bought to stop cats jumping in her daughters’ stroller, which becomes a conversation about her sister asking her when we’ll have babies of our own. The closer that Alisha and I become—and I don’t believe it’s possible for me to love her any more than I do now—the guiltier I feel that she’s committed herself to someone like me.

  But I am trying to get past my insecurities, for both our sakes.


  Six months ago, we had the worst fight of our married life. Maybe I was trying to nudge her towards leaving me, not because I wanted her to go, but so I could pre-empt the loss of her on my own terms, control it. The day had started with a pleasant enough breakfast: I made a pan of porridge and, as usual, I teased her for the way that she pronounced it, pordge. Afterwards, we sat around my laptop at the kitchen counter, browsing a realtor’s images of studio spaces in Midtown she’d been mulling over, and we Street Viewed the surroundings to gauge their pluses and minuses. I brewed another pot of coffee and we shared the Saturday papers on the couch. In one of the supplements, there was a profile of a famous sculptor who was digging an enormous hole out in the Arizona desert in the name of art—she was enthused by the spread of landscape photographs accompanying the article: ‘Wet-plate collodion,’ she said, holding the pages up to catch the daylight. ‘Every time I see somebody using it this well it makes me want to throw my camera off the fire escape.’ She tried to explain the technicalities to me—a fiddly Victorian process that involved coating a plate in silver nitrate and then exposing it before it dried—but I quickly lost the thread. I said, ‘If it appeals to you so much, why don’t you try it for yourself?’

  ‘I don’t have that sort of time to lose right now. Too much trial and error. It’d take me years to get any good at it.’

  ‘Give yourself a fortnight,’ I said. ‘You’re a fast learner.’

  ‘Ah, Dan, you’re such a sycophant, I love you.’ She threw the magazine at me, laughing. ‘Seriously, it’s taken me this long to figure out the stuff I do already, and I still don’t know the half of it. And besides, we’re talking about handling some pretty nasty chemicals on a daily basis. I couldn’t be around them if we ever started trying or, you know, just thinking of my health in general. The ones I’m using now are bad enough.’