I made the best of my situation and occupied the day very gently with breakfast and lunch, tidying over carefully between them.
I stood and looked out of the window as the street dimmed down and its lights lit up.
After that I couldn’t be interested in eating again. For a while I sat and watched an irregular area in the carpet until I couldn’t see it at all and had to switch a lamp on.
The phone didn’t ring and no letters came which was hardly unnatural for Christmas Eve, but left the day feeling very unbroken. I shortened the evening by going to bed.
The following morning, Peter came home.
“I MEAN, the poor fuck, you’re meant to pick up hitchers and get a good story out of them, but he wasn’t expecting that. He wasn’t expecting me.”
Peter laughed and seemed much older and much younger. You might say he had suddenly grown into his face. Also he had cultivated a fawnish moustache; a full, soft and very European-looking moustache.
“Oh, you don’t know how lucky you are. I think I talked all the way from Newcastle to the exit for Great Western Road. He got the worst of it and this is just what’s left. All over the country, there are people talking too much about Romania. Sorry. I must be really boring.”
“No.”
Three hours solid he’d been speaking, ever since he’d arrived, with only a break for coffee and a very long bath. I was toying with the idea of stabbing him in the throat, even though it beat staring at the carpet and I’d always liked Pete very much and, goodness knows, respected what he was doing. But I was discovering I’d liked him because he was quiet.
“I suppose you were looking forward to a quiet couple of days on your own.”
That wasn’t intentional, it just happened that way. I was thinking of how quiet he was and then he started talking about quietness. I smiled and his eyes rested on my face without seeing it at all. I don’t know if he was really seeing anything.
“I used to love it here for that. The quietness. Away from the road, just the odd kid, the odd wean. They’re all odd round here, aren’t they. To be truthful, I’d kind of forgotten you didn’t go away for Christmas. Well, I’d forgotten it was Christmas. Christmas Day—I knew the time of year. I’ve seen the Christmas decorations of all nations on the way back, but I’ve lost a day somewhere. D’you know?”
Peter had clattered his key in the lock while I washed up after a sandwich and a bowl of soup. I’d made the soup more for the work it would generate than out of any appetite and was looking forward to staring out of the window. I had already cleaned the cobwebs from most of the ceiling corners with a duster on a stick and rubbed the layer of black from the top of the skirting boards. Such excitement.
And I hadn’t wanted it to be him. You understand? I had not in any way wanted to suddenly hear someone coming into my house and discover that it was Peter. I wanted to turn my head and lay down whatever I had been doing and walk into the hall and see someone else. Not fucking Peter. I had thought, in the way that really very sane people can, that I would get what I expected, who I expected. All I had to do was expect it powerfully enough.
Instead, I got Peter, bless him, a very good man, recently returned from doing admirable humanitarian work in Romania and deserving of a warm welcome and every courtesy. Except that I wanted him to fuck off. I wanted him to fuck off and leave me in my big house on my own, waiting for something I wasn’t sure of. No, I was sure, I was absolutely, overly specifically sure and certain of what and whom I hoped to see.
My efforts at being polite to Peter were managing to reduce my conversation to the level of the absent-minded grunt. I had a relationship once where that happened quite quickly, but that was because I didn’t really like the man involved at all. I think we lasted two months. It felt like lifetimes.
“Bucharest, we were there for quite a while. You wouldn’t believe . . . they said it used to be a fashion capital. Paris, New York, Rome, Bucharest. Sometimes I tried to imagine models and photographers in the streets, doing an outdoor shoot. Thing is, I could imagine it. Everything there is an outdoor shoot.
“It’s crazy. Sometimes, if you couldn’t hear—you know, voices and noises and that—if you tried not to hear anything, you could walk a bit seeing nothing but all-right-looking buildings and everything okay and you’d think it was anywhere. It used to be anywhere. The people all used to live there as if it was anywhere. They must have gone to the shops, run about with their kids, talked about models, communism, I don’t know. Maybe it would have been like here. The people aren’t much different. Pretty much the same fucking weather.”
I nodded, because nodding took less effort than grunting.
“I mean, it’s different. Like having money-changers come up and hassle you. Bucharest, they’ve got the worst money-changers, though. Real fucking macho bastards, try to slip these big rolls of notes on you with fuck knows what kind of shite in them. I mean, you feel sorry for them. It’s pathetic—they’re trying to act like gangsters while the whole country’s melting around them and nobody gives a fuck. Nobody cares if they make however many dollars’ profit they’re trying for—nobody coming in and screwing things up, nobody with an army, with an aid budget, any kind of fucking budget.
“The same all over, though, isn’t it? I was thinking that. We all stand about or whatever, doing our stuff and thinking it’s really significant and everyone with any . . . what . . . influence . . . could care less. Then again, a sniper could take any one of them out and they’d be pretty non-significant pretty fast. We wouldn’t care. Fuck, I don’t know. I’m thinking too fast, or something, but I can’t really stop it yet. I think I’ve been not thinking too long, or something.”
“Yes.”
“Not that it’s bad. You weren’t getting shot at, or anything. It was just different kinds of people dying. I couldn’t believe it, how easy it is to die. People would pass through, or you’d hear stories, this one woman had been somewhere really heavy in Bosnia— and she was a tiny wee woman, too, nothing to look at—she was talking about hearing a sort of ‘pop’ away off in the distance and that was a gun, or there would be just a wee thump next to you, a thud, and that was a bullet. Nothing dramatic. Too fast to think about. I couldn’t have been in among that. I couldn’t. Looking after kids, that’s all I wanted to do. Make sure there are new people coming along. Hope they don’t want to shoot anybody.”
I wanted to make another cup of tea, but I couldn’t shake off his attention to move up and out of my chair.
“Coming back . . . you’re mainly glad to be leaving. Miss people. Yes, you miss people, but you’re coming home. I rang my mum from somewhere, somewhere near Hanover I think, does that sound right? The van got lost for a while and that would really have freaked me out, but I didn’t care, nobody cared, we all kept riding, going to sleep, singing songs. I can sing offensive or incredibly sad songs in five languages, I should learn some before I go back, not let the side down.”
Something tripped in his memory, I could see it coming down in his eyes. His mouth parted slightly and he rubbed his knuckles across his forehead while his eyes closed. He was used to having his private moments in company now, didn’t rush the pause before he started up again.
“Anyway—I phoned Maw and said I’d be back for something like Christmas and I was glad about that. And things look terrific over there . . . Europe, it’s so . . . there are bad patches, yes, but . . . once you’re over the North Sea. Do you know how bad this country looks, smells? For what we’re supposed to be? For what we think we are? You wouldn’t believe the crappy little dribbles of money we send out to anywhere that actually needs it over there. Oh, we get it right sometimes, but, shit, the fuckups. They think we’re crazy. Nothing personal, they’re sorry for you when you’re there—they like Scots but they’re sorry for us. And they have . . . their opinion of Britain is . . . interesting. Do you think the Empire was like that? You think? Have we always gone abroad to majorly screw up? Is that what we’re for?
&nb
sp; “The least they think is that we’re crazy. Over here, we’ve got no idea. No idea. Oh, God.”
“What, what’s the matter?”
He flapped his arms around his head in what turned out to be a yawn and for an instant or two I thought he might be about to confide some particularly harsh reality he’d brought back with him. But it was all right, he just wanted to go to bed, suddenly completely tired. Like a child.
“Do you mind?”
“No, not a bit.”
“Where can I sleep?”
“In your room, there’s nobody there.”
“Aw, sorry. I thought Martin would be fine, but then it turned out he got somewhere closer to his work. You got somebody else, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we did. We got another Martin, but he’s away.”
“Would he mind, if I kipped down there? I’ll head for my mother’s in the morning. I just needed a break before I saw her. Then I’ll be back over there next week.”
“So soon?”
“I’d rather have it like that, really.” He began to shamble towards the door, tugging off a sweatshirt as he went.
“You wouldn’t like to put some washing in, while you’re here? I could probably get it dried by maybe lunchtime tomorrow.”
“Naw. That’s what mothers are for. Another Martin, eh? Very ingenious.” He closed the door, having given me a look which led me to believe that he and good old Art had been in a more extensive and speculative correspondence than I had imagined.
True to his word, Pete left slightly after lunchtime, having spent the morning trying to get an Indian takeaway sent round. He’d woken up with a sudden urge for a traditional Glasgow chicken tikka masala and was disappointed by the available response.
“I’d started to dream about curry. Still, never mind. Seeya. And give my best to Art. Oh, and Liz, of course.”
“Of course. Need anything for the journey?”
He slung up his backpack, jogging his knees, and looked puzzled. “No, what would I need?”
“I don’t know, Pete. I really can’t think, now that you ask. You keep in touch now.”
“Mm hm.” He was already concentrating on the journey, the best hitching strategy. Maybe he was further ahead than that, thinking himself back inside the hospital with the quiet children and the flat earth yard where they used to hose the madmen clean.
I went back to the kitchen and checked how many tins of soup we’d got.
Now let me tell you something. I used to be sad sometimes when I was a child and if I had the peace to sit and cry. A point would come in the hot indulgence of it all when the crying continued although the sadness did not. I would listen to the unhappy noises I was making, feel sorry for myself and join in the weeping again. I could drift up, free of the feeling beneath the action, pretty much at will and then slope down again.
In my clear-headed moments I would consider how depressing the whole situation might seem to a calm observer and how pointless it all actually was if there was nobody to see, to be affected. Nothing was truly happening here. I wanted to be so sad that something could be made of it. I thought of someone overhearing me and coming to help, or, on one of my highflown days, that my miserableness would imprint on the house, on time, and that this section of my life would remain behind me like a sad ghost. I was probably a tedious, horrible child.
I mention all this because I have only once been at the opposite end of such an arrangement. Once and once only, standing outside a closed door and hearing the sounds of someone else’s pain, I have hesitated and hesitated and hesitated until the force of gently setting my hand down to close it around the doorknob seemed to rock. I thought I might fall. I was there to be affected, a voice not far away and sobbing in at itself because there was no help it can think of that will come.
It was the 27th of January, safely over the boundary and into a fairly New Year. All aboard for ’94. The nation had recently heard that the author of its government’s new moral policy was, in fact, a faded—and unelected—romantic novelist. This was patently untrue from the outset, happy endings of any kind being nowhere in evidence.
There were gales and a cold snap was threatened in changeable skies where the full moon hovered like a watermark on the day.
It was time for me to go home. Steve had come back to the station and a civilised frost was maintained between us, but on that particular shift we had not even met. I had the feeling he was taking steps to avoid me and was not offended, only relieved. All was calm.
I headed home, looking forward to a pot of tea, toast if there was any bread left, a nice sleep.
When did I know something was different at the house?
I’m not sure. I would say that when I opened the front door the smell of the hallway had changed. I remember I felt a prickling sensation along my arms and across my back. It crossed my mind that we could have had burglars, but there was no sign of any disturbance. There was no sign of anything until I stopped moving and my breathing settled. Then I heard the sound from upstairs.
The bathroom door was locked. It did not give to pressure and the noise did not stop.
“Arthur? Is that you?”
No change.
“Liz?”
It couldn’t have been Liz, it was a man’s crying, the sounds of a crying man.
“Arthur?” I knocked on the door and there was silence. “Arthur? This isn’t Arthur, is it. Please, is this you? If you can say— it’s you. Isn’t it you? Martin? No . . . Savinien? I haven’t forgotten. What’s wrong? Please. IS IT YOU?”
I remember what happened at this point because it seemed all to be extremely slow and so it has been very easy to keep hold of. Nevertheless, some of the images are out of sequence, some clear, some very unfocused, and this leads me to believe that I quickly became too involved, too much a part of the proceedings, to be of any use either to myself or to the other individual concerned. This happened even though I wanted very much to be of use, believe me. I haven’t often wanted anything more.
Someone came softly to the door and drew the bolt free. I heard them move away and then pause, stand, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t anything. I could not do anything.
At some point I must have moved into a kind of concentration, because the tug of the doorknob against my hand sent a shudder the length of my spine and I probably made a noise.
“Jennifer?”
“Yes. Yes? Is it—”
“You are holding the door. Let go, please.”
I did as I was told. Of course, I knew the voice, had no thought that I was mistaken. Savinien was there. It would be possible to see him, to touch, to shake hands, hold hands, I didn’t know—it was confusing to think so much in so little time. And I already knew there was something not right. I could hear something new when he spoke. His words seemed small, dry and, as he swung the door away from me, I could hear a shiver in his breath.
Now I wanted to look at him and couldn’t.
What I could see, I didn’t understand. There was a dark heap of what I presumed were clothes in the middle of the floor. The bath was empty but lined with a thick, dull stain. The sink was also stained and there was something like a brown dust everywhere. I disturbed a little of the layer with my feet as I stepped over the threshold and realised that it was hair. The floor was covered in hair.
“Do not come any further. I would talk to you from here.”
“What?”
He had closed himself into the space between the door and the wall.
“I truly had hoped it would be you . . . the first to come home. But I was wrong with the time. You are too soon.”
“No, it’s all right. It doesn’t matter. I’m here, there’s no one else. Look, is there something wrong? Do you want something?”
“This all should have been ended . . . finished. I wanted to be clean . . . to . . .”
His words fragmented and I found myself pressing against the wood of the door.
“No!” The word broke against the hard r
oom, and I pulled back.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to . . . I won’t do anything. I’m just here. Do you feel? I’m here. Do you feel? That’s all, I just want you to know where I am.” A pause and then a return of pressure against my shoulder, maybe two inches of pine between us.
“Thank you.”
“Fine, and now I know where you are, too. That’s all. We’re getting on all right. Where did you go to? It was a long time.”
It became very difficult to speak. I had to swallow and blink more than usual.
“I . . . this is not important now. I was never far. Uh. No, I never was so terribly far away. I couldn’t . . . sometimes I imagined I might see you, that I had seen . . . Oh.” There was an exhalation and another movement. “Jennifer, I have the impression very clearly to have wasted two lives. Now this is two lives gone.”
I pushed in harder. “No. No, I’m sure—”
“Help me!”
I listened to what must have been his hand, rising to muffle the rest of his sentence.
“Just help me, I’m sorry, just help me. Please.”
“But tell me, tell me what can I do. What is it!”
“I should go. I should not have come.”
“No. You’ll be okay here. You will.”
For a time we both lost all we could imagine to say. Then.
“Did you?” I could hardly hear him.
“Wha—”
“Did you?”
“I, uh . . . I, yes.” I was trying to get it right, I was trying very hard to get it right, but I didn’t know what he meant.
“Did you? Think of me.”
“Yes.”
“And I thought of you.”
I listened while he said that and there was no change in me I could notice—my throat felt clear, my eyes perfectly usual. I didn’t feel any different, but I was crying, fully crying. I looked out at the suddenly unfocused door and found myself weeping against my will—no, not even that—in the absence of my own will. I was just struck with it—tears, wet face, running nose and ultimately not enough breath.
So I Am Glad Page 14