Love as a Stranger

by Owen Marshall

  They were quiet for a time, watching each other, searching in their minds like debaters for persuasive argument, or rebuttal.

  ‘If we stopped the sex,’ she said, ‘we could still have everything else, just like we did before. We could be friends and see a lot of each other. You could come round as often as you liked. You’d actually like Robert, I think, when you got to know him.’ She didn’t believe it, and what relevance did it have anyway?

  None at all, conveyed Hartley’s slight and bitter smile. ‘So I would call round and sit with a hard-on while we all talked about politics, or gardening. Yeah, right.’

  ‘I’m just saying that a lot of what we enjoy sharing isn’t about sex. We’re not just two people on heat. I don’t think that’s even what brought us together — not for me anyway.’

  ‘Love’s all or nothing, though,’ said Hartley in exasperation. ‘And if it isn’t everything then it’s not love. Jesus, Sarah, you know that.’

  ‘Love, love, it means anything you like, doesn’t it. It’s hopeless talking about it. If you have to talk about it then you’ve already lost it.’ She said it with a flare of vehemence that matched his own, and left them for the moment at the end of words.

  Then he stood up and came beside her, cupped his hands over her hair and laid his head on his hands. ‘Ah, Jesus,’ he said brokenly. ‘I can’t bear it. Let’s leave it for now and go to bed.’

  So they did. It was the first time with Hartley that she would rather not have made love, though the feeling wasn’t unfamiliar to her. It had happened many times with Robert during their marriage. There was physical pleasure enough, and the understanding of Hartley’s need to have that acceptance of him, but she acknowledged to herself without dispute that she wouldn’t leave Robert, that she wouldn’t go off in search of a different life, or a different self. And with that realisation came a subtle change to the way she must think of what they did with their bodies. Even as Hartley tongued her breast, and felt between her thighs, as she saw tears on his eyelashes, and heard the urgency with which he repeated her name, she knew that, with the decision not to leave Robert, this became just an affair, with the furtiveness and blind-alley conclusion that affairs have, and not some once-in-a-lifetime meeting of souls for which all else should be sacrificed.

  She couldn’t tell him, though, not lying enclosed within his arms while he talked excitedly of how they would find a way to be together, and how essential that was. ‘We just need more time,’ he said. ‘There’s an answer to everything.’ He smoothed the hair back from her forehead, then relaxed on the pillow, and using both hands in a synchronised action wiped sweat and tears from beneath his eyes with his fingers. ‘Ah, Christ, but we’ll work through it,’ he said. ‘We’ll work through it because we love each other.’

  ‘No one must be hurt,’ she said, yet knowing it was already too late for that. She’d never been in such a situation before, and felt a sense of constriction, a sense of unavoidable advance towards pain and confusion. As he talked of new beginnings she grew fearful of an approaching end. She looked at the brightly coloured fishing boats clustered in frames on the walls, and through the frosted glass of the motel’s sliding door was the golden blur of the pot that stood beside it. Hartley kissed her, laughed, shook her bare shoulder tenderly, even as she experienced the appalling sadness that can accompany authentic love.

  ‘I’ll never let you go,’ he said.

  LATER, WHEN BACK IN the apartment, and sitting with Robert to watch the news on television, Sarah felt an almost overwhelming sense of isolation. Who could she turn to? Hartley and Robert were her confidants, yet both were denied to her, one because she must break with him, the other because he would be injured by disclosure. A threesome — in which she was on her own.

  There had been no previous affairs, not because she hadn’t been the target for such intentions, but that her life had been full, her career challenging, her marriage and family as happy as those she saw about her. When she knew Robert was carrying on with a woman in his dental practice, she’d been tempted to respond to Malcolm Fryer, a scientist from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Malcolm had been seconded to DOC for six months to observe the New Zealand success in establishing predator-free environments for endangered species. Sarah was his principal liaison in the department and he made it plain to her that he hoped there would be a relationship in more than just professional matters.

  ‘We’ve gotten quite close, haven’t we, Sarah?’ he’d said to her on the way back from one of their trips to Kapiti Island. They were standing side by side on the launch, hands on the rail because of the choppy sea, and watching the coast of the North Island come closer. ‘We could have a bit of fun together without anything serious,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’ He was completely at ease and appeared to consider it a quite normal proposition, even though he’d been several times for meals with Sarah and Robert, during which he talked of his wife and young family in Vancouver. He’d accepted Robert’s offer to take him to a rugby game.

  Malcolm had been attractive enough in a gangly, boyish way, and good company, but Sarah thought that to fuck with him just because she knew her husband was doing that with someone else wasn’t a sensible reaction.

  ‘That’s fine, absolutely fine, Sarah,’ Malcolm had said when she told him she wasn’t interested. ‘I just had to ask. A man has needs, you know, and I really like you a lot.’ They had continued to enjoy working together, he had come again to her home, and after his return to America they had emailed occasionally before the exchange lapsed. Neither of them made mention again of the proposition on the lurching launch with grey sky and gulls overhead, but there was no awkwardness.

  Thinking back on Malcolm, and several other similar situations, she had the rather odd feeling that they should provide moral capital if she confessed to Robert her affair with Hartley. All those times I was loyal, she could say, and he couldn’t argue the same. All those times to put on the scales against this one lapse in special circumstances. But she knew it didn’t work that way.

  Earthquakes were on the news, and Robert had a coughing fit. It worried her. The coughing seemed to come at his low points during the treatment. ‘We need to get something for that,’ she said. ‘I’ll go in tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Robert. ‘It comes and goes. You know, one of the things I’ve learnt is that it’s bloody boring to be sick. I’m bloody sick of being sick. Tomorrow we’ll get out and do something together. I want you to choose a special place. I want us to be happy.’

  ‘Here’s a great one,’ said Robert. He was at the table again with his photographs and albums. He wasn’t feeling so good and was still in his dressing gown, although the sun was high in the sky. Sarah sat down with him, aware of her own slight disassociation. Until his illness, he’d never been much concerned with records and mementoes of the past, but retrospection had gained on him. He was unshaven, unwashed, and the grey bristles lay in the creases of his face and neck, the skin pouched beneath his eyes, the pores of his nose were accentuated. He was sixty-five years old. He was a sick, ageing man and it showed. Sarah couldn’t help but make a comparison with Hartley: younger, healthier, eager, slim and agile despite his grey hair.

  ‘So where’s this great one, then?’ Sarah said, and put her hand on Robert’s shoulder. He hadn’t always been that way, and there was more to him than appearance.

  It was a photograph of the three of them on the wharf at Queenstown before they had taken a boat ride on the lake. Donna, only seven or eight, stood grinning, with her arms open as if to embrace the world. Some passer-by must have kindly snapped the picture, because the three of them had travelled there alone. Robert had almost forgotten how skinny his daughter had been then, and her smile was gap-toothed. His younger self and Sarah’s looked out quite unselfconsciously — a tall, athletic man in short sleeves, and the woman relaxed, also smiling, and surely too young to be the mother.

  He remembered the trip. Donna had just recovered fr
om chicken pox, and he’d recently bought his way into the dental practice in Wellington. Their whole life then seemed an assumption of happiness and increasing achievement. What car did he have then he wondered, and decided it was the white Ford Cortina. They had spent time in Wanaka and Arrowtown, too, following their fellow tourists from one activity and restaurant to the next. On the third night they spent in the Queenstown motel there had been a thunderstorm at dawn, and Donna had come running and climbed into their bed for comfort. The three had sat snuggled together watching the lightning, the rapid, barrelling dark clouds and first light rising behind.

  ‘Remember the thunder that night?’ he said, and Sarah did so, immediately.

  ‘She’d just had chicken pox,’ she said. ‘We bought her those sandals in Wanaka because it was so hot.’

  ‘There’s others here of the same trip.’

  ‘Well we used to get more developed then. Now most of them just get left on the computer.’

  ‘I’ll get everything sorted and identified in time,’ he said. It was as if a completed jigsaw of his past might provide security for the future. Robert wasn’t a vain man, but looking at the photo he saw that he’d been good-looking enough, and married to an attractive woman. The thought pleased him. ‘You look damn good,’ he said.

  ‘A long time ago,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you need to get cleaned up and dressed. It’s about lunchtime.’

  ‘I will soon. I feel a bit queasy. I’ll take it easy for a bit.’ He took it easy all the time now, but neither of them chose to point that out.

  ‘We can have a later lunch,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Here’s another goodie.’ He had a more recent group picture of six of them dressed up for the hospice charity ball. Professional people, slightly complacent in the nature of their relaxation, their dress, their support of a worthy cause. ‘Wallace always goes up on his toes a bit for photos so he looks taller,’ said Robert. ‘See.’ He held it up. ‘It’s the same in every one he’s in. That was a great night.’

  Sarah felt a sudden return of impatience. Robert so often engrossed with the past now as an evasion of existing reality, indulging in sentimentality that hadn’t been part of his personality. ‘I don’t really care,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ He was taken aback.

  ‘All this concern about the albums. Nothing’s more boring than other people’s photos. I wish you’d remember that when visitors come. Don’t you think there’s more important stuff to deal with?’

  ‘What stuff? Jesus, Sarah, I don’t want to sit around talking about radiation and chemo all day.’

  Sarah regretted what she’d said, knowing that her reaction had more to do with Hartley and herself than Robert, or his photos. ‘No, I suppose I mean we should try to make the most of now. Look ahead even,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all one life, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. It is a good one of the group,’ and she took the photograph as a form of apology, talked about their friends who looked out of it, while still not caring about them. They were no help to her in what she faced. ‘Those charity balls were great fun,’ she said.

  ‘Wallace isn’t so good now himself, he says.’ There was no satisfaction in Robert’s voice.

  When in the kitchen to prepare lunch, she checked her cell phone and found three texts from Hartley pressing for a meeting, or a reply at least. In the first weeks his messages had given her a frisson of excitement and pleasure, the feeling that she had a depth to her life apart from the dutiful surface presented, but now the intimacy threatened to become constriction. ‘Bsy txt latr’, she sent, but she didn’t, despite knowing that silence was no solution, and when she and Robert were having cold ham and salad Hartley rang.

  ‘I’ve been waiting to hear from you,’ he said. ‘Is anything the matter?’ Never before had he phoned, except when he was sure she was by herself. Robert continued his slow chewing, but raised his eyebrows in mild enquiry. He hoped it was Donna. Again Sarah noticed his slumped posture, even as she felt a sudden flash of fear and anger at Hartley’s voice.

  ‘I don’t think we’re interested,’ she said. ‘We’re only renting. We’re not permanent residents here.’

  ‘Call when you can then,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Thank you, though.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting, as always,’ he said.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Robert didn’t ask, but she felt she had to say something. ‘Some insulation people. They always call at mealtimes, don’t they.’ She could feel a tremor in her hands, and wondered if her face was flushed.

  ‘I’m glad we got all that over and done with at home. Double-glazing is something we should perhaps consider, though.’

  ‘Are you feeling any better? You haven’t eaten much.’

  ‘I might lie down for a bit,’ he said.

  He took off his slippers, stood meekly while she peeled off the white and blue striped bed cover, and then he lay down with a small, wordless noise of relief. Sarah was saddened by his vulnerability. They held each other’s gaze for a moment as he lay quietly.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to be okay. It’s just one of the down days,’ he said.

  ‘Sleep if you can,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a walk. Not far. Later I’m going to get a new battery for my watch.’

  At the apartment gates she looked for Hartley’s car, and was relieved not to see it. She went far enough from the entrance to be out of view even if Robert happened to go into the living room, then walked down an alley that led to a loading bay and a row of trash bins with a neat stack of orange traffic cones at one end. As she waited, cell phone in hand, for Hartley to answer her call, she thought how distasteful it was at her age to be in such a place and making a surreptitious call to someone she was screwing on the side. She forced herself to think of it that way for once, rather than as another price for love.

  ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she told him, her voice quiet, yet taut with anger. ‘God, we were sitting side by side and you ring. Didn’t you think how it might be for me? I’ve told you how awkward even texts can be, and you just call, at lunchtime, too. For God’s sake.’

  ‘Well, you hadn’t answered my texts. I thought something must be wrong, that’s all. I worry about you. Can we meet later?’

  ‘No, I have to go out. I answer texts when I can. You know that. All this hassle, it’s starting to get to me. I make what time I can for us, but you keep pushing. It’s getting to me. It’s spoiling everything.’

  ‘What’s more important than us?’ he said. ‘You said we come first.’

  ‘I never said that. You can’t say I said that.’ She noticed for the first time that there was a large Polynesian man sitting on a stool in the shadow of the loading bay doors. He was smoking, watching her with calm curiosity.

  ‘We’ve got to be first. There’s no other way.’

  ‘Please don’t ring again like that,’ Sarah said, stooping, turning away from the smoking man.

  ‘I’ll text then,’ Hartley said, ‘but you need to reply. I think of you all the time, so surely you owe me that much.’

  ‘Don’t ring again. I’ve got to go. Bye,’ and she finished before he could reply, made her way back to the street. Careful, she told herself: she had to be careful now or things could go wrong. She felt herself oddly distanced from the people about her, and those passing seemed to make a point of looking away, as if aware of her distress and not wishing to share it. Everything of the visible world seemed to be hollowed out, fragile as blown glass, as if one clumsy move would shatter everything.

  Hartley had taken the call at the supermarket. He sat in his car in the parking area, with his purchases in three plastic bags on the back seat. He didn’t regret calling Sarah, even though it had upset her. Decisions had to be made, otherwise when Robert’s treatment ended he and Sarah would go back to Hamilton, and Hartley would be finished. Even if things were meant to be, they didn’t happen without full commitment to achievement
. It came to him that he needed to talk to Robert, see what he was up against. He’d glimpsed him briefly twice before, but everything he knew, apart from those brief physical sightings, had come from Sarah, and all in her husband’s favour and from concern for his infirmity. Of overt criticism there was none, but she couldn’t really love him. No. If she still loved him she wouldn’t be coming to the white Spanish motel, taking off her clothes with such freedom.

  So he drove until he was close to the apartments, then walked to the real-estate office from which he could see the entrance of her building without being obvious. He was about to give up when he saw her come out to meet the taxi just drawn up. She would’ve been at the big third-floor window watching for it. To see her was enough to cause a rush of possessiveness and tenderness within him, an inclination to call out to her before the car door closed, to tell her that she was not just another solitary woman past turning heads, but someone watched over and loved. Someone known intimately and cherished by another.

  Instead, Hartley walked past the lawn plot and seats, into the apartment block, checked the names on the letterboxes, took the stairs rather than the lift and rang at the door of number 3B. Maybe Robert would be asleep, maybe watching television and unable to hear the bell, or ignoring it. He’d always been keen on sport, and as his participation had lessened the viewing had increased. He did hear, and chose to come to the door. Hartley was surprised by the physical vigour Robert summoned to meet him. A big man, but starting to cave in on himself, shoulders and head trending to a centre, a face, once more substantial, slipping a little from the features. Hartley knew his age, but had it not been for the cancer, Robert would have retained considerable presence.

  ‘Robert?’ Hartley said. Robert nodded, still holding the door with one hand. ‘I’m Colin Olders from the outpatients service unit of the hospital. I’m calling to see if there’s anything we can do to help. I understand you’re up here only during the period of your treatment. We have information services, and some activity and transport resources. I don’t know if you would find these things helpful, but I could run over some of them if you have time.’