Love as a Stranger

by Owen Marshall

  ‘Well, you have. I’ve got bugger all except a son on the other side of the world.’

  ‘And a lovely home, and you’re still working. And you’ve got colleagues.’ She needed to go, but didn’t want to mention this when it would so obviously reinforce his grievance. ‘It’s made all the difference recently,’ she said, ‘having time with you, having a part of life that’s nothing to do with illness. It gets all so complicated, doesn’t it? So you can’t go back, or forward. Anyway, maybe we need to make more time for ourselves. I’m sorry about these people coming today. I’d much rather be with you. If I’d known earlier I would’ve said.’

  ‘There’s stuff we need to sort out,’ he said.

  ‘I know there is, and we will. We’ll find our way through it.’

  ‘Anything’s worth it to be together, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes it is,’ she said, not sure whether she believed it, or should say it, but wishing the present parting at least to go well, and they kissed quickly as they stood up. She caught the slight saltiness on his skin caused by the bright sun, and Hartley had the smell of her clean hair and the perfume she wore. It reminded him of the motel room where they were always close, and which wouldn’t be visited that day.

  AS SHE MADE PLUNGER coffee in the apartment later in the afternoon and spoke loudly enough to carry on a conversation with the Hamilton friends in the living room, she checked her phone: ‘Sorry 2 grump luv u c u soon H.’ Even as she came through to join the others, even as she took pleasure in seeing how Robert was animated by the presence of visitors, she imagined leaving them all, taking a taxi to Titirangi and arriving unexpectedly at Hartley’s home. How the smile would come to his narrow face, how he would hug her as soon as the door was closed, how he would set himself to entertain and beguile her before leading her to the bedroom. She knew he loved her, and that gave a sort of fullness to everything she did, an odd significance to the most ordinary of tasks and routines, an awareness, even as she enjoyed time with her husband and friends, that elsewhere another man was thinking of her, waiting for her, jealous of all others who might be with her. Love is a spotlight in the mundane progress of the world, and those caught in its bright circle are always aware of it, always turning to it.

  And he was thinking of her. In his high living room, amid the fine leather chairs and inlaid tables, the Cappadocian rugs and hand-blown Nelson glass, gathered by dead Irene and dead Madeleine, he was alone, with the television on mute, but flickering colours at the periphery of his vision in an uncomfortable resemblance to the drifting hachures of a migraine. I’ll turn it off, he thought, but stayed put, just turning his head away. He imagined Sarah with Robert, and the friends whose visit had prevented his own time with her. Hartley had seen Robert twice: once when he’d been going to get his hair cut, a second time when Robert and Sarah had been on the lawn seat at the front of the apartments, and Hartley had been spying from his parked car. A big, ungainly man, he’d decided, who had spent a professional life scraping and probing in people’s mouths. Maybe he’d been a bit of a sports star when younger, but he didn’t look it now. Just how bad was the cancer? It was difficult to tell from what Sarah said, for her accounts were sometimes optimistic and sometimes not. Perhaps that was a reflection of the varying medical reports, but he wouldn’t be in Auckland having such drastic treatment if it weren’t touch and go. He might die quite soon, surely, and although Hartley didn’t make a conscious wish for that, no incantations, no scattered runes, he thought how much easier a future would be for Sarah and himself if it happened. What would be a socially acceptable time before Sarah could remarry? A year? And even during that time he could find ways to be with her.

  And if Robert didn’t die soon? Then if she couldn’t bring herself to leave him, at least she must put her husband to the side of her life. It wasn’t easy, but love made it all worthwhile, Hartley was sure of that. You got one chance at the sort of perfect fit they made, and if you let that pass then what was left of life would always be in its shadow.

  The next day was one of his work days at Hastings Hull: there were papers in his study that needed attention, but he stayed on the leather sofa, remembering the afternoon when Sarah had been there with him. So clear the recollection that she was almost a holograph figure, despite the mellow afternoon sun above the bush of the Waitakeres. Hartley turned off the television, and with no distraction went back to the sofa. What pleasure it had been to talk with her of their families and their differing histories, to prepare a meal for her and share it, to make an inconsequential choice of wine that was less so because they were together. And then to join her on the sunlit bed, and on later days on the smaller, more sequestered bed in the Spanish motel. Her head would fall back during their lovemaking, eyelids aflutter; her breasts would slide and tremble in the grapple. And afterwards ease and tenderness and talk again, and the understanding that things of greatest value are freely given in love.

  Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of such togetherness. He was nearly sixty and had at last an opportunity to live in a fashion so much richer than anything he’d known before. Most people weren’t happy, but didn’t admit it to themselves, or anybody else: just kept up a pretence which finally became so accustomed that challenge was not possible.

  Chronologically, most of his life was over, and an account of the times during which he had experienced any transcendence, anything close to exultation, wouldn’t even fill a kid’s notebook.

  Madeleine had a notebook. It was among her most personal things in the small drawer of her dressing table. Because of the suddenness of her death she’d been unable to tidy her life, no opportunity to shape, to hide, instruct, burnish or destroy. That drawer had been the saddest to go through: the jewellery in a soft pouch, the scatter of foreign coins and small batteries, a hair dryer guarantee, a mini-torch, cheque book, spare car key, lip salve, her father’s watch, pills for ailments long forgotten, the instructions for use typed on the faded labels, crumpled tissues — some with lipstick smears, some perhaps once damp with tears. And the compact notebook, a freebie from their accountant.

  It contained no dramatic revelation. Even in communication with herself, Madeleine was constrained. The entries were mainly a record of Kevin’s juvenile progress — first steps, first words, oddities of affectionate behaviour. A muted expression of grief for her mother and father, some apprehensions concerning her health, and criticism concerning her workplace and her colleagues. A record of expenditure and a few lines of unattributed poetry about flowers, birds and spiritual release. References to exotic places, Lake Titicaca, Moldavia and Kashmir, to which she could voyage in imagination, perhaps, without the dangers of actuality. Little of the writing seemed to relate to recent years.

  Hartley had been able to read it all in less than half an hour, sitting on the bed. Only twice in his wife’s jottings was there any reference to him — both inconsequential and in passing.

  They met in the same motel only two days later. The timing wasn’t easy for Sarah, but she wished to show Hartley that seeing each other was important to her also, especially after his disappointment and the tension between them at Magnus. She gave Robert no elaborate excuse for going out. ‘I need some time to myself,’ she told him. ‘I feel cooped up in here when the weather’s good. Maybe I’ll walk to one of the parks, even down to the wharves. I could be a fair while.’

  ‘Go for it,’ he said. ‘I’d like to come, but I don’t feel up to it.’

  ‘You’ll be okay?’

  ‘Absolutely fine.’ Actually he was having a bad day, but wasn’t going to admit that. He disliked people who whined, or were clingy, and was dismayed to recognise those tendencies within himself since his health had packed up. ‘I thought I’d give Donna a ring. Remember it’s this weekend she’s going up to check on our place. I’ll ask her if there’s any mail still going there. Since we had it redirected I reckon some stuff hasn’t come. And I’ll ask her to send up the rest of the family photographs and albums. I
’m sure there’s more in the sunroom cupboards. I’m going to have a real sort-out: something that should have been done ages ago.’

  ‘So what hasn’t been sent on?’

  ‘Nothing from the share group, for example. Nothing from the practice lately either.’

  ‘Right. Anyway, tell her I’ll ring sometime when they’re in Hamilton. I really miss the kids.’

  ‘Maybe we should get a rental and drive down then?’

  ‘Let’s talk about it when I get back,’ she said. Her mind was on other things: the chance to talk with Hartley, to lie with him hand in hand, or with her head on his chest, each of them concentrating on the other and keeping everything else away.

  And later that’s how it was. They shared everything, bounced from the deepest to the most superficial of concerns, spent time in indulgent and trivial disagreement as to the number of times they had been together. Sarah had a passing sense that the small, plain room was a stage set, that she could view them both from a high angle, lying on the bed together and talking the nonsense that lovers talk. Were they the one couple that came regularly there? Did others come and lie and talk and feel themselves the only people in the world, use the small ensuite and the folded towels — white, always white — smile at the Bible set square in the otherwise empty top bedside drawer, watch through the high window the dreamy passage of occasional clouds. ‘Maybe the proprietors keep tabs on us,’ she told Hartley. ‘Maybe they have names for every couple, and fully understand their purposes.’

  ‘They’re jealous, if anything. The woman’s always chewing, and grips the credit card like an assassin. I’ve never seen thicker ankles. Other times it’s the guy who’s there and he always asks me how long I want the unit for, even though he knows the answer. And he wears tartan slippers.’

  ‘They probably call us the geriatric couple,’ Sarah said. She couldn’t imagine any of her woman friends doing what she was, and so people would surely never think it of her. When she was with Hartley she never felt inhibited by her age. They were who they were, and that’s all that mattered.

  ‘Would you like to walk afterwards?’ she asked. ‘Go down to Aotea Square perhaps?’

  ‘Afterwards,’ he said. ‘Afterwards we will. Anywhere you like — afterwards. I want to tell you about the dream I had. We were together on a sort of cruise ship. No, not that so much, ahhh, it was big sometimes and other times quite small. There seemed to be just passengers and no captain or crew. Everyone milled around without purpose and we couldn’t find our cabin. You kept giving me room numbers, but when we’d go there the door wouldn’t open, or the people inside would be pissed off with us. Someone we couldn’t see kept shouting “Man the lifeboats!”, but there weren’t any, and no one was bothered about that. Everyone except us was young, and for some reason I had no shoes on, but was carrying a naked mannequin. Well, it started off naked and then later I noticed it had a sort of jester’s costume.’

  ‘Ah, the symbolism’s pretty easy there, even for an amateur psychologist. The boat is life, and all the rest is evidence of lack of purpose, direction, or security.’

  ‘You’re probably right, but you don’t analyse a dream when you’re actually in it, do you? You just feel bewildered and a kind of anger that things don’t make sense. I wanted to dump the jester, but people kept making a fuss of it.’

  ‘I haven’t got an explanation for the jester. Maybe your alter ego.’

  ‘You must have strange dreams at times, too. Tell me one,’ he said.

  ‘Not very often, and they’re just all nonsense, aren’t they?’

  ‘Come on, tell me one.’

  There was one that had been with her sporadically for years, a dream that morphed in unpredictable ways, but had an essential core. And she told Hartley of it, the only person she’d shared it with apart from Robert. About the strumming noise and sense of desolation that were always the prelude, and the parade of outlandish animals across a barren, plague-coloured landscape. Troops of sullen creatures in some forced migration, at times reptilian and with Jurassic dimension, other times lemming-like hordes pushing inexorably on, yet with futility somehow apparent. Mostly she was just a disquieted onlooker; once or twice there was malice in a rush towards her and she woke calling out and twisting in distress.

  ‘Weird,’ said Hartley. ‘I’ve read about recurring dreams. They must tap into some pretty basic fears and insecurities.’

  ‘There are good dreams, though,’ Sarah said, and although he didn’t reply he squeezed her hand. Both knew they shared the idea that what they had was a dream. You woke from dreams, though, Sarah thought, but she didn’t want to start on that.

  Instead they made love, and from the outside the white building looked just the same: the large, dark number seventeen above the door, the empty, golden-lipped earthenware pot beside it, the thin aluminium rims of the windows, Hartley’s red car between marked lines and shimmering slightly in the sun. Only twice in their meetings had that unit been unavailable, and they had felt a sense of grievance, even though the alternative was much the same. Surely number seventeen was theirs, always quiet and empty in their absence, waiting until they came to take possession.

  ‘It’s only with you that anything I talk about matters,’ Hartley said. He lay on his back and aimed a finger idly at the smoke alarm on the ceiling above the bed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean everything else is just practical, or window dressing, or passing time. Discussion with clients, neighbours, the woman handling vehicle registrations, or the guy coming to fix the security light. Every time I walk past Gillian at our reception desk I ask her how she is, how things are going, and pay no attention to her answer. We know nothing essential about each other, nothing at all. It’s different with you and me. We say what we feel, don’t we? We mean what we say.’

  ‘Well, that’s because we trust each other. Why would you bother telling the truth about your feelings to someone who didn’t care about you?’

  ‘I’ve always been lonely.’ It was only when he said it that Hartley acknowledged it to himself. Yes, he’d been lonely amid the noise and activity of his Southland family, lonely when he came north, still lonely in his marriage and even after his son was born. He’d been lonely all his life and never got used to it, never understood that it was the reason for enduring dissatisfaction, until meeting Sarah.

  ‘I suppose being misunderstood is a form of loneliness,’ she said. But she didn’t want him to start talking about Madeleine, who was vulnerable to criticism because she was dead. ‘Anyway, no loneliness now,’ she said, and put a hand to his cheek. ‘Tell me more about what you’ve been doing at work. Tell me about the world of wicked lawyers. I guess it isn’t really as unscrupulous as on television.’

  ‘It’s just as mercenary, but not as much fun.’

  ‘My father always said keep away from lawyers at all costs.’

  ‘Someone has to be charged for every minute of the working day,’ said Hartley. ‘Lawyers feel uneasy when on their own time: it’s not a natural environment for them unless fees are accruing.’

  ‘So you must be like that, too?’

  ‘I’m a late-comer,’ he said. ‘I’m corrupted, but still able to recognise evil.’ Hartley lay happily, began entertaining her with small parodies of his profession.

  AND IN THE APARTMENT only walking distance away, Robert talked with Donna, cheerfully evading questions about his health and asking her, when in Hamilton, to ensure the lawn and garden man was doing all he claimed. He told her he wanted to complete the photographs and albums now that he was just sitting around most of the time. He told her yet again that he wanted to write names, dates and locations on the backs, otherwise in time the photos wouldn’t mean much to younger members of the family, and Donna patiently accepted the repetition while adding to her grocery list. As Robert felt himself fading in the present, the urge increased to ensure he was established in the past. All of that he shared with his daughter except the last, which was
not a conscious acknowledgement even to himself.

  ‘But how are you in yourself, Dad?’ Donna asked him.

  ‘As good as can be expected,’ he said. ‘It’s going okay. Mr Goosen’s pleased with the way I bounce back after each round of treatment and he’s optimistic, I think, about things long term. I’ve got to know them all there pretty well. We have a few laughs. There’s a nurse who comes from Hamilton.’ That an oncology nurse came from the same city as himself increased his chances of survival not a jot, but it was the sort of trivial connection that somehow humanised the situation in which he found himself, as did talking with Mr Goosen sometimes about dentistry. No one wants to be reduced to a mere walking ailment.

  ‘Your mother’s gone for one of her long walks,’ he told Donna. ‘It’s boring for her here in the apartment. I’m going to suggest we go to the movies: there’s some festival of French films on, and we’ve seen some good ones in the past.’ He liked French films, not because of any sexual explicitness, but because they dealt realistically with life, and the actors looked like people you could stand beside in a shopping queue, rather than superstars. And you soon forgot that you were reading sub-titles.

  ‘She’d enjoy that,’ said Donna.

  SARAH WAS HAVING A WALK; well, she and Hartley had just reached Aotea Square and were sitting in the sun, near the grass. A man in a beanie and faded gabardine coat, despite the heat, lay asleep on one of the wooden benches. An unwashed shimmer seemed to radiate from him. Closer, a young couple lay together on the dry ground, quiet and relaxed with their arms around each other. Hartley wasn’t jealous, since he and Sarah had not long before been in much the same posture and mood. He remembered that in their foreplay she had laughed. Madeleine had never laughed during sex, nor had any of the few other women to whom he’d made love. It had intrigued and delighted him as a sign of her pleasure and his ability to create it, but he made no mention of that, instead talking of the variety of people that surrounded them. Despite some months in Auckland, Sarah was still surprised by the eccentricities on display, and the equanimity with which they were usually regarded.