by Adale Geras
‘I’d really, really love it if she could. She’s going to get dead jealous if I’m one and she isn’t and I won’t be able to talk to her about it and then what’ll happen? Also,’ Isis was quick to continue, sensing Zannah’s hesitation, ‘it’ll mean I’ve got someone to talk to and play with at the wedding. And at the rehearsals. And we can go to our fittings together. For our dresses.’
‘I see you’ve got it all worked out.’ Zannah got up. ‘Well, I’ll think about it, okay? You lie down now and go to sleep. We’ll discuss it another time. I’ll have to consult Adrian, of course.’
‘Right. But don’t think for too long,’ said Isis and Zannah couldn’t help noticing that a frown appeared on her daughter’s face when Adrian was mentioned. It was natural, she supposed, to object in some way to another man in her mother’s life and Isis had been very good most of the time. Just occasionally, though, Zannah got the impression that Adrian was not her daughter’s favourite person. She’ll come round when we’re all living together, she told herself. She hardly knows him. Not properly.
‘Night night, pet,’ she said, and kissed Isis on the forehead. ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite.’
Zannah switched off the light as she left the room and the butterflies on the wall became a thousand black shapes against the pale background. Two bridesmaids! Would it work? Maybe it was a small price to pay for Isis to be happy.
Thursday
It hadn’t been in the least difficult to get away. Joss sat alone in the café at the British Library and the delicious-looking carrot cake, which she’d ordered and started to eat because she was feeling faint, might as well have been made of cardboard. Her hand trembled as she took each forkful and the coffee she’d begun by enjoying had now turned cold and rather bitter. She’d chosen to meet Gray here. It was convenient for Euston, and one of her favourite places in the world. Where should a librarian meet people if not in a library? She liked the idea of being surrounded by books, and it also occurred to her after she’d suggested it in an email to Gray that in the whole of London this would be the one place Maureen would never think of visiting. She also doubted that it was much frequented by figures of the medical establishment who knew him.
Bob was in the middle of marking exam papers and had barely looked up when she’d announced, on Monday morning, that she had to go to London to see her editor. All that stuff, as he put it, by which he meant anything to do with the world of publishing, went straight past him. Joss could practically see her words flying through the air and out of the window. Her writing career up to this point had meant nothing to him. He was always happy when she had a poem appearing in a magazine and would turn the pages reverently and sometimes even read what she’d written, but then he’d hand it back to her and forget about it. Now that she was putting together her first collection, he’d no more take an interest in the day-to-day business of its publication than spend hours discussing the merits of a skirt she’d bought, or her latest shade of lipstick. Very nice, darling pretty well summed up his reaction to the daily traffic of her life. She’d felt a low-level resentment about this for years, though never enough to make a fuss about it. She wasn’t quite sure whether Bob was a little suspicious about this trip, but if he did wonder about it, he made a good job of hiding his concern. Her emphasis on meeting her editor would most likely have persuaded him that this was a poetry outing and nothing to do with him.
One of the things she loved best about Gray was the way he took what she wrote seriously. He would point out particular things he liked in each poem; ask about anything he didn’t understand, offer praise in words that no one else had ever used about her work: I learned it by heart because I wanted it to be part of me, Lydia, he’d written, after reading the latest. She hugged that sentence to her for days and now … now there was a chance that she’d never again have someone who would speak to her on that level. Who would offer suggestions which were completely unmixed with envy, or flattery, or anything but love and intelligence and above all, a deep understanding of what she was trying to do, trying to say. She, for her part, wrote to him at length about his poems, which she loved, and not only because she loved him. Who would nag him into submitting them to magazines, if she didn’t? Now that she’d met Maureen she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to learn that she’d never read one of her husband’s poems in her life. Doing without this mutual support, the interchange which brought them so close to one another would be almost the worst of it. The deprivation. The loneliness.
She’d told Gray eleven o’clock. Her meeting with Mal in Bloomsbury was at two. She had arranged to spend the night with Zannah, Em and Isis, and when her emotions threatened to get the better of her, she envisaged the lovely time they’d have together. Em was going to cook a special meal and Joss longmaed to be with them all. Something to look forward to, she thought. Something not to lose sight of if things became difficult, as they were almost bound to.
She glanced at her watch. Gray was almost pathologically punctual and would be here in a minute. She only knew this because he’d told her. I know almost nothing about him from my own experience, she reflected. She’d deliberately arrived much earlier than the appointed time. She wanted to be sitting down, ready, her hair brushed and her lipstick on, looking what Em called, now that she was on so many fashion shoots for her firm, ‘pulled together’. She’d spent most of Wednesday fretting about what to wear, like a teenager on her first date. Pathetic! She rejected anything that screamed provincial librarian, which ruled out suits, neat dresses and court shoes. But she didn’t want to appear like a mad, middle-aged poet of the dirndl-skirt-and-peasant-blouse variety either. In the end, she settled for a pair of black trousers and a red silk shirt. She had a cashmere cardigan in her enormous red leather bag, which was what Americans called a ‘tote’ and quite big enough for an overnight stay.
She saw him approaching before he caught sight of her. She registered his height, his grace, his puzzled expression as he looked round the café. When he saw her, he lifted his hand in a gesture of delight and moved quickly to the table. The first few words, the haveyoubeenwaitinglong and the I’lljustgetmyselfacupofcoffee passed in a blur and Joss was relieved to have a few seconds to get her breath back and compose herself while he went to the counter. When he was sitting in front of her, not even two feet away and with his hand inches from hers, she took a deep breath. ‘One of us has to say something, Gray. You look very well.’
‘Lydia. I can’t believe I’m here, sitting with you. I’ve imagined this so often … seeing you again. Talking to you.’
Joss looked down at the dregs of her coffee, then into his eyes. She could hear the beating of her own heart in her ears and was almost overcome with a longing to get up from her chair, fling her arms around Gray and hold him to her. She knew exactly how it would be, his warmth. The taste of him on her mouth. There was no coffee left, but she lifted the cup to her lips anyway, just for something to do. He’d been suffering, that was clear. There were purple bags under his eyes and he looked exhausted, drained. Or maybe it was just middle age and she looked just as bad. As though he was reading her thoughts, he said, ‘You’re beautiful, Lydia. Exactly as I remember you.’
‘Gray, this is the last time I’m doing something like this. Meeting you, I mean. After Zannah and Adrian’s engagement lunch, I wanted never to see you again. It’s not just us now, it’s them. I’m not going to spoil my daughter’s wedding. Her life.’
Gray made a face as if he had been presented with something horrible to eat: a sort of disgusted twist of his mouth. It was gone almost before it appeared and someone less observant than Joss might have missed it. She wondered what it had meant. She said, ‘Don’t you approve of the marriage? Adrian seems very pleasant, and he’s very successful at his job, isn’t he?’
‘I suppose so. I’ve had a problem with him from when he was a baby. It was natural that he’d be jealous, I suppose. I was a rival for his mother’s love. Lydia, I don’t want to talk about A
drian. Or Zannah. I want to talk about you. Me too, if you like, but mostly you. Please tell me you don’t mean it. About not seeing me.’
‘I do. I don’t want to see you again, Gray. Never. I’m … ’ Joss felt the blood draining from her face. ‘I’m going to put you and everything we’ve had together out of my mind. It’s going to be difficult, but I am. I’m not going to answer your emails. I’m not going to open any letters. I’m going to throw the phone away. Really.’
‘But why? How can you? How hcan you possibly?’
‘Because now that I know the truth, I can’t bear it. You were right. I hate to admit it, but you were. Ever since I realized what you’d done, after I’d got over it a bit: being hurt at the lies you’d been telling, I began to see that maybe you were right. It’s been almost unbearable for the last few days, thinking about you and her. I’ve met her, Gray. I’ve spoken to her. I can’t get some things out of my head, D’you understand?’
Gray didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he reached forward and took Joss’s hand across the table. ‘Of course I do. It’s been hell for more than two years. I calculated that it was worth suffering, just to be in touch with you somehow. Anyhow. I don’t care how we’re connected as long as we are. I can’t bear the thought of life without you, Lydia.’
‘Melodramatic, Gray. You’re surely not going to throw yourself off the nearest bridge, are you?’
‘No, I wouldn’t do that. But my love for you will have nowhere to go and it’ll eat me up from inside.’
‘It’s the same for me. You haven’t got a monopoly on suffering, you know.’
‘You’ve got your children. Your granddaughter. More grandchildren to come. You’ll hardly miss me.’
‘That’s not fair, Gray. You know – or maybe you don’t – that I will. You’ve been at the centre of my thoughts, my imagination, my … everything really. Don’t you understand?’
‘Then let’s go on. Please. Like before. We never hurt anyone, did we? It’s been a private thing between us. Why shouldn’t we go on?’
Joss lifted her eyes. ‘We can’t. I … I had to tell Bob something and I said that it had been one night. I made light of it, Gray. And I had to tell him it was over. I had to, because now … well, we’re going to be related. There will be family occasions. The wedding. Birthday parties. Christmases. All sorts of days when we’d have to meet and be friendly. I can’t do that. I couldn’t survive such things myself and I certainly couldn’t look Maureen in the face ever again if I was still seeing you. As things stand, I’m not going to be there on most of those family occasions. I’ll make some excuse. There are plenty of families where the two sides never meet. Thousands of them. We hardly ever need to set eyes on one another again after the wedding.’
‘What about the wedding though? Zannah wants all the stops pulled out, doesn’t she? Everyone’ll have to be there for that. We’ll have to see one another then.’
‘I’m already dreading the whole thing. I feel faint when I think of it. Isn’t that a lovely thing to say about a day that means so much to Zannah? Oh, God, Gray, I hate myself. I hate … all this. I hate the fact that you’re going back tonight to your house. Her house. Your house with her. I’d never, never have let it happen if I’d known you were married.’
‘Are you saying you wouldn’t have fallen in love with me?’
Joss considered. ‘No, not that. What I mean is, I’d have fallen in love with you and kept quiet about it. I’d never have spent that night with you, and I’d never have written thousands and thousands of words to you. I wouldn’t have sat up for hours talking on the phone in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t have had the dreams I’ve been having since I met you. I’d have put you out of my mind and into a box labelled Married man. Do not touch and got on with other things.’
Gray smiled. ‘So I was right after all, wasn’t I, to lie to you? How do you think I’ve been feeling, imagining you with Bob? Not that I knew who he was, of course. You’re very good at disguises. Jesus, Lydia, you didn’t even tell me your real name but I don’t mind. I like having my own name for you. All we have is a whole lot of emails.’
Joss thought of the way she felt when she opened her laptop every night and found his words waiting for her, like flowers growing and blooming, beautiful in the dark. His messages had given her nothing but pleasure, and now she was in danger of losing them.
‘What if we wrote less often?’ Gray was saying as she came to herself again.
‘No, it’s got to be a clean break. That’s what I need, Gray. The only thing that’s going to work.’
‘You can do that?’
‘I’m going to try. It’ll hurt. I won’t deny it. Of course it will. I’m used to you.’ Before she could stop them, tears filled her eyes, and she stared down at her hands as she continued. ‘I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. I wasn’t going to cry.’
‘Let’s get out of here, Lydia, and go for a walk.’
‘I can’t. I have to meet my editor soon. I told him I’d be there at … ’ She glanced at her watch. There was over an hour till she had to leave, but she didn’t know how much longer she could bear to sit in front of Gray and not throw herself into his arms. She lied. ‘At one. I’m sorry. I have to go now. All we’re going to do if we sit here is go round and round in circles.’
‘You could tell me what you’ve been doing.’
‘You know exactly what I’ve been doing every day, Gray. There’s nothing, nothing you don’t know about me. Nothing I haven’t told you. And I find I don’t want to hear about your life any longer. D’you see? I don’t want to hear what you’ve been doing with Maureen. I don’t want to know what your house is like. I don’t want to think of you in bed with her and I can’t stop myself. She’s beautiful, Gray, and I can’t stand it. That’s the truth. I want to go and never never see you again. It’s … I can’t … ’
Joss stood up and grabbed the red bag. She started to walk out of the café and Gray followed her down the wide steps and out of the building. In the forecourt, he caught up with her. ‘Lydia, please. Stop for a moment. Say goodbye at least.’
She paused, and before she knew what was happening, Gray’s arms were around her. The tears came then. He held her close to him for a long time. She could feel the material of his jacket under her cheek. Every time she breathed, she could smell his fragrance and it made her want to howl with pain. She pulled herself away and said, tears still pouring down her cheeks, ‘I’m sorry, Gray. I can’t do this. You make me weep and then I look a fright. What’s Mal going to think?’ She could hear her voice wobbling as she tried to strike a more light-hearted note.
‘Let me kiss you,’ Gray said, very softly, and turned her face up to his.
Joss let him kiss her, and then her own mouth opened under his and she drank him in. I have to remember this, she was thinking. This is all I’m ever going to have of him. I must keep this for ever. She knew her hands on his back were clawing at him, wanting to pull him so close to her that he became part of her own body. This is what an electric shock is like, she told herself, as she felt herself shaking in his arms. We mustn’t, she thought. We can’t do this any more. She pulled herself away and said, ‘Goodbye, Gray. I’m leaving.’
She walked away from him with her shoulders thrown back and her head held high. Let him not know how much I hurt, she thought. Let him think I’m okay. By the time she’d walked a few hundred yards up Euston Road, she could no longer see for the tears, which seemed unstoppable. She went into a phone booth, one of the old kind you could step into and be private. She took a hankie from her bag, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. Then she dialled her editor’s number.
‘Mal? I’ve been delayed, I’m afraid. Can I come in at about four? Thanks.’
She left the phone booth and started to walk without knowing where she was going. Maybe by four o’clock she’d have recovered sufficiently to speak. Maybe the outward signs of her unhappiness would be under control. What would she do now? She
felt like an amputee. Looking down, she let one foot follow the other. She stared at the pavement, at her shoes, without seeing anything. The silver mobile phone in her bag was making the noise that indicated a text message had been sent to it. I should have given it back to Gray, she thought. Like a ring. Like a love token. She wondered whether she ought to send it to him, but how could she do that? What if Maureen found it? Could she send it to the hospital? I’ll throw it away, she decided. I’ll throw it into a drain and it’ll go down to the sewers. She scrabbled in her bag and brought it out to the light. I won’t read his message, she thought. I won’t.
The message said: Know that I will always love you, Lydia and she started crying all over again. She stood over a drain and nearly, very nearly, pushed the phone through the grating. I can’t, she thought. I can’t do it. She put the little silver rectangle back into her bag and went on walking.
JULY/AUGUST
Friday
Two days after Adrian had asked her to marry him, Zannah bought a notebook in the British Museum shop. Its shiny black cover printed with a pattern of roses and leaves; its very pale pink pages and the matching ribbon to mark a page were irresistible. It became her wedding notebook almost before she’d paid for it. She carried it with her always in a large handbag which fulfilled, according to Emily, much the same function as the shell of a snail: it was Zannah’s home, in portable form. It was – Em’s words again – beyond tidy. Zannah could always put her hand on anything she needed and there were no disgusting scraps of tissue or biscuit crumbs down there in the silky folds of the lining. Makeup lived in a pretty zip-up bag, made of silvery plastic. Pens and pencils rested in a little case, also silver. The novel she was reading was always in there too, with a proper bookmark to indicate where she’d got to. Cinema tickets, torn envelopes, empty crisp packets were nowhere to be seen. The wedding notebook lay beside whatever she happened to be reading, the two volumes propping one another up and keeping one another’s covers unbent. The notebook was a treasure trove of ideas, cuttings neatly stuck in, lists, and doodles of flowers, dresses, decorations and anything else that Zannah felt she had to remember. Em was the only person who understood how she felt about notebooks: how every single one she’d ever bought made her feel dizzy with possibilities. This one, she’d confessed to her sister, had practically shouted at her from across the shop floor.