A Gift of Poison

by Andrea Newman

  Jordan says, ‘Yes, that is a long story.’

  ‘Oh, I expect I’ll tell you all about it some time.’ What she really means is, if you give me another chance.

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  They smile at each other.

  ‘Why did he go back to his first wife? I can’t imagine doing that. Not that either of my ex-wives would have had me back, of course.’

  ‘Well, she’s a very forceful German woman and she just never gave up till she got him. I played into her hands, I suppose. I behaved as if it was still just Sally and me on our own.’

  ‘That’s how I always thought of you,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, of course. That’s how I was when you knew me. And it’s how I am again, except now she’s at Sussex. Funny really, fifteen years on and I’m back in the same place as if I’ve gone round in a circle. Just older. It’s as if I haven’t made any progress at all.’

  ‘You’ve got the house,’ he points out.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got the house.’ She can sense him edging away from her, preparing to leave, and she feels panic. ‘I hope we’re going to keep in touch,’ she says steadily. She’s afraid he may be already regretting their sudden intimacy.

  ‘I expect we will,’ he says, as if it were beyond his control. ‘I’m just not very good with people at the moment. If I ever was.’

  ‘I’m not people, Jordan,’ she says.

  ‘I know. Just… if you can think of me as covered in bandages it may help.’

  ‘Me too,’ she says.

  ‘Well,’ he says, stretching, ‘time I was getting some clothes on.’

  She longs to say, Stay with me, we need each other, let’s spend the day together as well as the night, but she doesn’t. Instead she watches him go upstairs and when he comes back he is dressed for departure and she feels an ache of loneliness beginning. But then he puts his arms round her. They have a big hug and it is suddenly all right again.

  ‘Well,’ he says, looking down at her.

  ‘Yes, quite,’ she says. They smile.

  He says, ‘The thing is, I just don’t have very much left to give anyone at the moment.’

  ‘I know. But I seem to want it anyway. Just so long as you don’t give me any of that sixties’ crap about not getting involved.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He kisses the top of her head. ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Take care.’

  She watches him leave. She goes back upstairs, gets into their sheets that still smell of him and without even blaming herself spends the rest of the day in bed. If I were in hospital, she thinks, they’d say I’m doing as well as can be expected.

  Part Three

  It’s quite a shock when Richard rings the next day. ‘Helen, can I see you?’ he says. He sounds urgent.

  She’s completely overturned by his voice, as if he had risen from the dead. Her mind is still occupied by Jordan and New Year’s Eve, and she is stupefied from excess sleep after spending all day and night in bed. So she feels alert but stunned at the same time, like someone on guard with cotton wool in her ears, or swimming underwater, with the real world muffled and a long way off. ‘Richard?’ she says stupidly. He seems remote to her. She can’t think why he is telephoning.

  ‘Please let me come round,’ he says, as if she were arguing with him. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’ she says. It can only be reconciliation or divorce, she thinks, for what other options are there? And she doesn’t particularly want to discuss either right now, if ever. She feels unfairly caught, at a disadvantage in her dressing-gown: another half hour and she would have left for the studio.

  ‘Can I tell you when I see you?’ he says. ‘It’s hard to do on the phone.’

  ‘Well, I suppose so,’ she says doubtfully. The habits of marriage are hard to break and she is still predisposed to say yes to him. But it feels very odd: it is months since they’ve spoken and all the old anger is rumbling inside her, overlaid with new feelings about Jordan. ‘When d’you want to come?’

  ‘Could I come now?’ he says. ‘I’m at the library and it’s hard to make another excuse for later.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she says. He sounds like a little boy playing truant, and she nearly tells him so.

  ‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ he says and hangs up. Before she can say no, presumably. She gets dressed and makes fresh coffee. He has messed up her nice clean promising day, like a child scribbling on a blank canvas.

  He arrives in forty-five minutes and apologises for the Northern line. She is shocked to see how changed he is: he looks tired and ill and he has lost weight.

  She says, ‘God, you look awful. Isn’t she feeding you? I thought at least she could manage that.’ She frowns at the sound of her own words, the shrewish tone. We really shouldn’t meet, she thinks, if I’m going to be like this.

  He says, ‘Oh, please don’t,’ and she says, ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She pours him some of the coffee she has just made and gives it to him. They sit at the kitchen table where they have so often sat before, where he still looks at home, like a husband. But it’s also where Jordan so recently sat and she has the double image in her mind. He says, ‘Oh Helen, why did we ever break up? I can’t believe the mess I’m in. Inge’s just told me she’s pregnant and I feel so trapped.’

  She’s shocked, not just by the news but also by the obvious fact that he is expecting sympathy. She can tell from the way he looks at her, as he often did after a bad day at work, expecting her to listen and make it all magically better by saying the right thing. And often she had. But now she just says, ‘I don’t think that’s any of my business.’ She’s angry that he wants sympathy from her for a mess of his own making. She thinks quite viciously that it serves him right. She feels disgusted and jealous and she hates him for making her feel like that.

  ‘I had to tell you, that’s all,’ he says hopelessly. ‘She told me on Christmas Eve, it was such a terrible shock. I didn’t want this to happen, I mean I was hoping we could get back together one day, you and I.’

  ‘Oh really?’ she says, astonished. ‘You didn’t bother to tell me that. Look, Richard, you left me last April, we didn’t talk about it, you came and took your things like a burglar, it’s months since we’ve seen each other or even spoken. Why d’you think you can turn up here and tell me Inge’s pregnant but you were hoping we could get back together? Why d’you expect me to be all sympathetic? For God’s sake.’

  He says, ‘Yes, I can see you’re very angry, quite rightly.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ she screams at him, amazing herself. ‘I’m not one of your fucking clients, don’t give me all that understanding shit.’

  He looks quite surprised. He obviously couldn’t see that she was as angry as that. She feels a lot better for her explosion and she pours herself more coffee without offering him any. A small revenge, but it’s a start.

  ‘I should never have gone back to her,’ he says, as if to himself.

  ‘Well, you wanted to punish me, didn’t you?’

  ‘And I’ve only punished myself. Yes, it serves me right. Only now there’s another child to consider.’

  ‘Well, you could have avoided that,’ she says sharply.

  Then a long silence, and she wishes he would leave. She keeps seeing Inge swollen with pregnancy. She thinks what a triumph it must be. She imagines the jubilation. And she suddenly wonders if she will ever see Jordan again. She looks at Richard across the table and thinks how far apart they are.

  He says, ‘I was wrong, I’m sorry. I should never have left you, whatever you did about Sally. I need you, I love you. I can’t bear to live like this.’

  She thinks how recently she would have given anything to hear those words.

  He says, ‘Look, I’ve had time to think – I know I’ve made a dreadful mistake. When I went back to Inge I was angry with you and there didn’t seem anywhere else to go. And I wanted to do right by her and the boys, you know, giv
e it another chance. But if this hadn’t happened I think I’d have left again anyway, sooner or later.’

  ‘It doesn’t just happen, Richard,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t fall from the sky.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  He looks so defeated that in spite of herself she almost feels sorry for him. A sudden sharp twinge of pity, quickly suppressed.

  ‘But we hardly ever, in fact,’ he says, looking embarrassed. ‘I mean I really didn’t want to, we had to go to a therapist and—’

  ‘Shut up,’ she says, ‘please. I don’t want to hear about any of that.’

  ‘Anyway, it means I can’t leave her,’ he says. ‘Not now.’

  ‘So why are you here? D’you want a quick divorce or something? Is that it?’

  ‘No.’ He looks shocked. ‘That’s the last thing I want. I want to see you, be with you. I don’t know how to get through this if I can’t see you.’

  ‘Oh, Richard,’ she says, feeling already heavy with the burden he is trying to share. ‘What a mess.’

  ‘If I could just visit you sometimes,’ he says, pleading. ‘It’s the only way I can bear life with Inge.’

  ‘Visit me?’ she says. ‘How d’you mean? Like when we met? As if none of this had happened? Just wipe out the last ten years?’ The idea makes her feel crazy, as if they have gone back in time, especially after seeing Jordan again: various circles of her past life are returning and orbiting each other, so that she can’t live in the present at all. ‘You mean – for a chat? Or a bit on the side? Is that what you mean?’

  He says, ‘I don’t know what I mean. I’m desperate, I just want you back on any terms at all. Whatever you say.’

  ‘While you live with Inge.’

  ‘Well, I can’t leave her now.’

  ‘Nobody’s asking you to leave her. I’m just amazed you think you can walk in here and ask me to prop you up while you live with her. And I’m supposed to be thrilled because you’d rather be with me. God, Richard.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’ve put it badly. I’ve been lying awake worrying about it but I’m no good at words today. I just know I feel awful and I need you.’

  She’s sick of being needed. It seems as if everyone comes to her and drains her energy, then goes away replenished, giving her nothing. Sally, Elizabeth, even Jordan. And now Richard. Why is she expected to be so strong that she can go on running on empty? Why is she supposed to be able to work and survive without any help?

  ‘Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think,’ she says. ‘You’ve always wanted another child and it may calm her down.’

  ‘But I wanted one with you.’

  His sentimental tone enrages her. ‘What’s the point of telling me that again now? I didn’t want one when we were together, did I? Look, Richard, I was very lonely when you left me. I’ve had to make a huge effort to get adjusted to all this. You’ve just gone from me to her, but I’ve had to learn how to live alone again. Well, I’m used to it now. I don’t want to be upset again, trying to help you with your problems when we’re not together. Why should I? You’re not trying to help me, are you?’

  ‘You won’t let me,’ he says.

  ‘God, you’re not listening. When I needed help you weren’t there, were you? And you’re only here now because you need help.’

  ‘I’m saying I’m sorry,’ he says, as if it were an enormous gift. ‘I’ve made a mistake. I love you.’

  ‘But you’ve got Inge pregnant. That’s a pretty big mistake. That’s a fact. Love’s just a word. It means whatever you want it to mean.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ he says. ‘She tricked me.’

  ‘God, Richard, she did that twenty years ago. Don’t you know what she’s like by now?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I suppose I deserve that. But I was trying to play fair with her.’

  ‘And now you don’t have to? Is that what you mean? And I’m supposed to be thrilled?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say any more,’ he says. ‘You’re so angry with me. I suppose it’s all my fault but…’ His voice trails away.

  ‘You hardly need me to be sorry for you,’ Helen says, feeling spiteful. ‘You’re so bloody sorry for yourself.’

  He looks surprised, as though she has hit him. Immediately she feels guilty, and furious that he can still have that effect on her.

  ‘Oh, look,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re having a bad time with Inge. But it wasn’t perfect with me either. Don’t you remember? Honestly, when you think back, there was an awful lot wrong with our marriage. We expected so much of each other and we were so disappointed when we didn’t get it. Don’t you think?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not till the very end. I thought it was wonderful.’

  ‘Well, so did I at the time, but now looking back I think we were both compromising far too much.’

  He shakes his head. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t see each other as we really are till the end, did we?’ She is thinking of what she said to Jordan about not being a different sort of person after all. ‘And then we didn’t like what we saw. We put each other on pedestals and then we blamed each other for falling off.’

  He says simply, ‘But I love you,’ as if that can make everything all right.

  She feels oppressed; she longs for him to go. And yet there is still a tug at her heart. What is it? His years of helping her bring up Sally, perhaps? Simple gratitude or just time spent together that she can’t wipe out. Time when he stopped her from being lonely. Time when she thought she had made sense of her life.

  She says, ‘Look, I’m not saying we can’t be friends. We can keep in touch, of course. You can ring me when you feel like a chat.’ She means it: she can’t quite let go. And yet at the same time she wishes he’d walk away from her for ever. It would be cleaner. It would be a quick cut, a painful relief.

  He says, ‘Well, I’d better go. It’s a long time to be at the library.’

  ‘Yes.’ She gets up to see him to the door. She feels very tired. He seems to have been with her for hours, but she sees from the clock that only forty minutes have passed.

  ‘I thought I might see Sally,’ he says.

  ‘She’s having a few days with Carey.’

  ‘Oh, of course. How is she?’

  ‘All right. Fine.’

  This gets them to the front door. A dreadful moment: she can see from his movements and the look on his face that he might be going to hug her and she doesn’t want to be touched. She moves away from him. He says abruptly, with sharp suspicion, ‘Have you met someone else?’

  She is furious to be asked but she doesn’t want to lie, although he deserves a lie, and the truth is too intimate to share with him. ‘A new man, you mean?’ she says, fudging the question. ‘No, but I wouldn’t tell you if I had. I don’t think you’ve got any right to ask me that.’

  He goes away without replying. His retreating back looks defeated and weary and she closes the door quickly after him.

  * * *

  All the way back in the tube he tries to contain his disappointment. She had a right to be angry, after all. Perhaps now she’s expressed her anger she will think about what he said. Perhaps they will talk again and it can all be different. Foolish to imagine it could be resolved in one meeting, he tells himself.

  But the thought of her with someone else torments him. A shadowy figure he can’t put a face to, touching her, holding her, making love to her. He can’t bear it. He thinks of her carefully worded answer and he senses, if not a lie, a prevarication. Is it his knowledge of her, after all the shared years, or his probation experience, an instinct that used to tell him when clients were not quite truthful? Someone from her past then? Carey, perhaps? Could she be consoling herself with Carey? Could Carey be taking advantage of the situation to insinuate himself back into her life through the link with Sally?

  He nearly misses his stop and has to elbow his way out at the last moment. When he gets home In
ge looks at him accusingly.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘At the library – I told you.’

  ‘You were so long I came to look for you and you weren’t there.’ Her voice is shaky.

  ‘I went for a walk to clear my head.’

  ‘I wanted you to help me with the shopping.’

  ‘Well, we can do that after lunch.’

  ‘And we could have had a walk together.’

  ‘We can still do that.’

  But he can tell she knows he has lied to her, just as he knows Helen lied to him. He smiles at her reassuringly, at her hurt sad face.

  * * *

  Felix hates living alone. He hasn’t done it since he was twenty-five and he didn’t like it even then. It makes him feel as if he doesn’t exist. At first he is simply in shock, moving into the flat with a couple of suitcases and hourly expecting Elizabeth to phone him to say she’s made a terrible mistake and beg him to come home. But she doesn’t. He fiddles miserably with the final pages of the book, revising them until they seem to be all right, as far as he can tell. His judgment seems to be gone and the book itself has become irrelevant, though previously it was his dearest child. This has never happened before and it terrifies him. He doesn’t like to think what would have happened if Elizabeth had dropped this bomb on him before the book was finished. Even so, he puts off sending it to his publishers. If they don’t like it he will feel suicidal, whereas normally it would never occur to him there could be anything wrong with the book because Elizabeth would have spent many hours telling him in great detail how wonderful it was. He wonders if there is any chance that she might still do that if he asks her to read it, but he supposes not and he lacks the courage to try.