“He only laughed and said—I’m not sure—that I was already monstrously on the way to living for ever, something like that. He was laughing because I had asked him this same question when we were boys. I think I often asked it.
“And this is the way I knew he did not understand me—this man who had been my friend for ever, we were very close. He thought I was looking for glory, for an assured income, perhaps for influence, when these things were froth, luxuries, they didn’t concern me at any point. I swear.
“I needed to be famous to live, simply to fill the space that any normal man would take as his right. I needed to be mistaken for something more than what I was, for fear of disappearing.
“It is so easy to not be. I have seen a whole man stop, you know, many times. The body will move to a place and then fall away, it will go no further and there will not be any more of that person. This whole process can take an instant. I turn away to wipe my eyes, I turn back and you are gone. I reach forward with my hand in this line and I apply a pressure and you are gone. Your breath leaves of its own volition, you no longer have the force even to push it out. I can imagine, if I wish, the dark to be one shade thicker when that day’s evening comes, but this is imagination and not one point more.
“Still I am here, although I am sure I have no natural place on this planet. In your world or mine. I feel constantly precarious and I need the weight of your attention to secure me and allow me to be justified. I cannot just be, I must also do and be seen to do and be heard to do and known to do and then I can live.
“My friend had never felt that way. Often we could seem as close as brothers, but at this point he left me to be completely alone. So, in summation, you understand why your occupation would appeal to me?”
I nodded and Martin smiled, a soft glimmer of happiness he quickly nipped away. His concentration seemed to drift for a moment and then he snapped into focus again and picked up a Biro he’d been fascinated with all day. He turned it in his hands like a treasure or a knife.
Which allows me to say that once he held my hand in exactly that way.
The next thing I remember is his touch of, his respect for my hand. The day he tried to tell me his name.
Behind the house we have a square of shabby grass, hemmed in by a peculiar choice of flowers. Arthur and Liz and Peter and I each have control of one of the available, hostile borders. We hoped this might encourage a healthy competition in displays, or at least a guilty standard of cultivation. It didn’t.
Martin and I walked out to a couple of kitchen chairs he had firmed into our apologetic lawn. He wanted to tell me something in private and, although I felt hot and choked, rather tired, I thought it might do me good to go out in the sun. Caught between the garden wall, the house and two leggy hedges, Martin seemed to feel secure enough to be outside. So we sat, quiet together, while behind us Radio 4 dripped down from Liz’s window and a golf commentary with Arthur’s supplementary remarks grumbled away from the direction of the sitting-room. Full house.
“Well, now I know.”
“Hmff. Sorry, Martin?” He was shading his face with one hand and staring intently at the sky, almost as if he was expecting something.
“Martin?”
“No. Not Martin. But I do know who else.”
“You’re sure?”
“How would I not be sure? A person either knows who they are or does not—the former being the most usual. There is no intermediate position. Other than I must say that my favourite part of my name did arrive first and then the rest. Yes, you could call that intermediate. Yes . . .”
“And?”
“And I know now. Who I am.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” He dropped his arm and closed his eyes, letting the light fall over his head as if it were water, but showed no sign of saying anything more.
“Well, hhafff, Martin, I am glad that you know about yourself, but if you told me then I would know, too. Wouldn’t I?”
“You really don’t know? It didn’t occur to you who I might be? Perhaps something you hadn’t remembered? I did have a certain . . . once. Nothing? My face?”
“I really am sure I would know if we’d met before.”
“You don’t recognise me otherwise?”
“Look, enough is enough. I’m not at my best today, can you just tell me who you are and then we’ll get on because there are things I have to tell you about the house and if you’re a friend of Peter’s—”
“No. I’ve never met Peter. I’ve never met anyone. I am, I am . . . do you think Alexander would suit me?”
“Eh?”
He stood up and I watched him pace and turn on the grass, his hands, the shape of his head,
“Martin, this isn’t a matter of choice, or what suits you. Just tell me, it can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, it’s not bad, it’s beautiful. I can’t think how I couldn’t have recalled it before now. I only, I only . . . You may not understand.” Oddly, quickly he came to the side of my chair and took my hand, just as if it were a weapon or a prize. I jumped slightly.
“Don’t worry, I’m no one that matters. Apparently. I’m no one to be afraid of. I can now be definitive on that point. As far as you’re concerned.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m just fine. Thank you.”
“Oh good, because all of this came to me only this morning and I am so pleased.” He pressed my fingers between his. “So now you will know me. Someone in this world will know me.” Then he dropped my hand, stood neatly in front of me, arms at his sides and weight on his toes. He looked at me as if he would speak but seemed to catch sight of something along the horizon before he could. He lifted his face to meet it with a small expression of gentle surprise and fell straight back, like fallen masonry—a dead weight landing with one leg a little bent.
WHAT I SEE now is Martin’s face, his sleeping face, heavily set in a shallow slope of pillows. The small rise of his chin and the softness beneath his jaw. That’s how I know he will be, at rest in the moment while I have to wait with all my attention on Arthur’s voice.
“He has scars. Fucking horrible scars.”
“Scars?”
“Mm hm. But not from just now, they look old. One down from his shoulder, as if someone just decided to hack him with something, and the other one, in his chest, it’s—I don’t know what. I can’t think of anything that would leave a mark like that. Except some sort of bloody shotgun. He must have had a bad time once. No wonder he’s . . . the way he is.”
I had panicked when Martin collapsed and yelled for help. Arthur was extremely capable, checked for all the airway and circulation things and was very definite that nothing much had happened. I hadn’t seen our Arthur as the first-aiding type, but then Martin had the knack of bringing out unforeseen details in almost anyone.
He had, of course, been less forthcoming with his name. And even that is on its way, incidents are aligning themselves, time is falling into place and soon you will know him very much in the way that I did. Forgive me for the delay. I should be able to tell you who he was without any trouble at all. I don’t know why it makes me so uneasy to think of giving his secret away to you. Perhaps, because we had a certain privacy together, I am a little jealous with him now.
But I can, with a clear conscience, say that Arthur and I carried Martin upstairs after he fell in the garden and then I left them to do man-putting-another-man-to-bed things. Liz had been making a phone call and had missed all but the last of the excitement. So, naturally enough, it was nurse Arthur who brought us the news of Martin’s scars.
“How is he, though? Has he come round?”
“Oh, yes. He was just a bit dozy. I’ll go up and see how he is in a while, but I think he’ll just sleep now. He seemed exhausted. What’s he been doing?”
“How would I know?”
Liz wandered in from the kitchen.
“Would you like a nourishing cup of tea, or whatever it is they have in crises?”
“Yes, than
ks.”
“Mmm. Or hot water. Bad throat.”
Liz leaned in the doorway. “I don’t know. We always end up with them, don’t we? I mean, how long has he been here—nearly a fortnight and he’s either loitering mysteriously or flaking out. I told Jen to talk to him.”
“I was going to but then he passed out. And why is he suddenly my responsibility? I don’t know anything more about him than you do.” It hurt my voice so much to say that, my eyes watered.
“He’s a soldier.”
“What?”
Arthur nodded sagely. “He told me. I was helping him off with his stuff and he noticed me noticing the scars. He was in the army for a bit.”
“Any particular army?”
“Just the army, that’s all he said. Oh, and he wanted to apologise to you, in case he’d given you a fright.”
“Mmm.”
“Nice of him, eh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
Liz sidled out of the line of fire. “I’ll just slip out and make that tea.”
“I don’t mean anything. Except that it’s probably good he thinks you’re his friend. He seems a lonely bugger. He’s obviously got rotten taste, but I suppose if you’re desperate for someone to talk to . . .”
“God, I love living here sometimes, it’s such a nourishing environment for my self-esteem. Oh shit, I am losing my voice, it is really fucking going. Shit.”
“You know you like it here really.”
“That’s what worries me.”
And all of that occupied most of a summer Sunday, making us creep round the house for fear of disturbing the sleeper upstairs as the blue of a long dusk slowly extended into night. Full dark had almost fallen when I went up to check on Martin, see if he wanted anything, say hello. It seemed to me that I should know how he was before I went out to work.
“Yes, come in please.”
The room was as Peter had left it, almost bare. The table lamp filled its corners with shadow and it echoed rather sadly. Martin’s presence was signalled only by a neat pile of clothes on the single chair and even the clothes were Peter’s. Martin himself sat up in bed, bundled into one of Arthur’s pyjama jackets. A little cut close to his ear showed a ferocious red against skin which was almost translucently pale. He always was clumsy at shaving.
“Forgive me for being in this position, it is embarrassing. Perhaps you would like to sit. My clothes you could put on that coffer over there.”
His voice seemed lost in the physics of the room, baffled by bad acoustics.
“So I will talk to you, after my theatricality of this afternoon. For which you have all my apologies.”
“That’s all right.”
I’m sure I said “That’s all right” or something to that effect. It was my intention to be reassuring, a calming influence for the patient, and so I am sure I said reassuring things, but I couldn’t concentrate, not on him. I was distracted by the way he looked.
You see, I would rather not be in a bedroom where someone is lying in bed. I would rather not be near that picture because I know that when I do I will always see my mother, see my father, see most particularly Steven of all those who came after them. They will be there, each one of the people who ever came close, all lying with their hands above the covers and staring up into my face through the depth of the years, through the depth of my life.
I felt myself listen to Martin while my mind saw Steven, Steven who would do anything I asked. I don’t think there are many things more terrible than having someone do that, day after day. It can turn your head.
“Please.”
“Please what? Why are you standing there, what do you want?”
“Please.”
“Steven, no.”
“Please.”
“You know what it would mean if I did it. You know what it would mean. You can’t really need this to happen.”
“I do. Look. I do.”
“Get up.”
“No.”
“All right, then. Very well, very well. Then you stay down. But all the way down, I don’t want to see your face.”
“Jennifer?”
“What now?”
“Thanks.”
Steve was impeccably polite—always ready with a please or a thank you—and all of that happened too often and then happened again. I felt tired. Impossibly tired. First thing, last thing, day-long, night-short weary. Not the appropriate emotion, I know, but the only one I could muster with any kind of consistency.
He would wake me before dawn, clinging.
“I have to go.”
“What?”
“I have to go now.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Three o’clock, four o’clock. I have to go, don’t you understand?”
“No, I . . . Four o’clock in the morning? Couldn’t you go in a while, it’s very early. Do you have to be somewhere?”
“I have to leave. It doesn’t matter when. I have to leave and not come back.”
“At least wait until I’m awake, I don’t know what you’re saying here. Why? I mean, what are you trying to say? Tell me why you want to go. And turn the light on.”
“Why? You know why. You’ve been telling me why. I don’t . . . there’s nothing more I can do for you.”
“Look, turn the fucking light on. What do you mean there’s nothing more you can do for me? Ow, God that’s bright. Now, you’re saying things I’ve never said and it’s the middle of the night and I’m barely awake and that’s no bad thing because I should be sleeping. You know I hate to miss my sleep.”
“Something else I do that doesn’t please you. Well, I won’t disturb you any more. Just let me go now and I’ll get my things later.”
“All right, look . . . tell me what’s really the matter. I’m listening. If that’s what you wanted, you’ve got it. You have my complete attention. Tell me.”
“You know I would do anything for you.”
“I know that. I always know that. You always say that. I would know that in the morning, too. It’s late now, be sensible, please.”
“What else do you want me to do?”
“Nothing else.”
“That’s what I thought. Goodbye, then.”
“Whoa, wait. There’s nothing else just now. There doesn’t always have to be something you have to do. Sometimes we’ll be resting, surely, and being ourselves. Sometimes we can relax.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, undoubtedly. That’s the way I would say it. Will you come to sleep now?”
“I love you.”
“I know you do, you’ve told me. I know.”
Yes, indeedy, I knew. In fact that was everything I could think of, lying in bed and waiting for that other body to lie along next to mine, the dip and the sigh and then the fumbling of that. I could hear myself thinking, “Yes, Steven loves me. Steven loves me, this I know.” I stared at the nothing which in daylight was my room and knew that he would probably never really go. If he loved me this much it was almost certain he would never, ever just go away and leave me be.
Well, what did you think? I gave up sex because that suddenly seemed like a good idea? I woke up one morning, exclaiming, “Hmm, think I’ll be celibate for ever and ever, just to see what it’s like?”
No, you didn’t think that. You didn’t know because I hadn’t told you, that’s all. I should not make assumptions on your behalf.
“Jennifer, you are uncomfortable? Or distracted. I can’t think I am being tedious, because I am not a tedious person. Are you quite well?”
Martin massaged the slightly jowly skin under his jaw with one hand. He grinned with his eyes. I tried to ignore the bed around him, to concentrate.
“I’m sorry, I was thinking of something else. It was rude of me. I did want to know if you were well.”
“I know, I share your interest. So we will both be re
lieved to know that my collapse is very easily explained. If a man does not sleep, he will eventually be forced into (at the very least) a sleeping position. I was afraid to be unconscious. In case it made me go away again. Forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive.”
“I know that also. I never ask to be forgiven unless I have done no wrong. This gives us both the benefit of forgiveness without the inconvenience of harm. But now I do need to talk with you.”
Something in his tone of voice set up a cold little splash of nervous reaction tight under my heart, but I didn’t think about it. I simply saw my chance to get in first with a few important points of my own.
“Talk. I’m listening. But before you say anything, I think you ought to know some stuff I’ve been meaning to tell you—all the things that Liz and Arthur have been asking me to tell you. Martin, your rent is expected and there will be bills to pay and maybe the real Martin will turn up. I don’t know why he hasn’t already. And it’s high time Peter dropped us a line, what if he mentions something he shouldn’t about the man who isn’t you? I mean, I’m sorry, but this is very complicated. Now that you’re starting to remember things, there are—”
Martin was sitting, eyes shut, head forward, all very closed and still, except for the tears. I watched and he cried without any sound other than the snagging rhythm of his breath. He wept and the slow sheen of his weeping quietly covered his face.
If I had said the wrong thing at the wrong time there was no way to unsay it. If I had been insensitive, it was only because I was insensitive. I meant him no harm. I suddenly wanted to say that I meant him no harm.
Slowly, he tipped back his head in the pillows, opened the soft dark of his mouth and let nothing out. I could perhaps have understood him, if he had shouted or spoken or sighed, but he only held still, in a kind of inaccessible, sculptural pain. He was gradually illuminated by the action of the air, a dark shine beginning in his throat and I knew again, freshly, that I had no idea of where he came from, of who or what he was. I waited until I might know what I could do and envied him a little for his passion which reminded me of something I couldn’t quite place. We paused, both silent and together, for some time.
So I Am Glad Page 5