Hold My Hand I'm Dying

by John Gordon Davis

  ‘Joe!’ she whispered.

  ‘Hullo, Suzie.’

  ‘Joe!’

  She just stood there with her eyes wide and her wide lips a little apart. She was more beautiful than I remembered her, and she was tanned and summery and well. She was wearing shorts and her legs were long and full and sexy, and I adored her. She stood looking at me and then she cried ‘Joe!’ and her face broke into her wide Suzie smile. She rushed across the threshold. She slammed the door closed behind her and threw her arms round me and hugged me. She leaned back in my arms and looked at me and there was a glisten of tears in her eyes but she was laughing: ‘Oh Joe …’

  Then she let me go and held out her hands. ‘Look at my hands.’ She was trembling. She was grinning and nervous and tearful. Was it nervous withdrawal?

  ‘Oh Joe – I wasn’t expecting you for another month, you said January some time.’

  She laughed jerkily.

  Neither of us knew what to say. A lot seemed to have happened in the year since she had left me in New York.

  ‘Oh darling, it’s so lovely to see you!’ and she kissed me briefly. She saw all the questions in my eyes and she looked away and took my arm gaily, jerkily, and put her hand on the doorknob.

  ‘Come on! You’re in time for Christmas dinner!’

  I resisted.

  ‘What’s the matter, Suzie?’

  ‘Nothing – I’m just all adither, I suppose – and there’re people inside.’ She hesitated, then she turned and kissed me hard and short. Then she stood back and wiped her lipstick from my mouth.

  ‘Come on.’ She smiled kindly.

  The dining-room overlooked the sea and the table was crowded. I was introduced with much jollity. Suzie looked composed and brisk again, but I could tell she was nervous. They were all bubbling with beer and wine and Suzie gave me a tankard and people squeezed up and I sat on a stool next to Suzie. I answered a barrage of bright questions about myself and my trip and everybody tried to make me feel welcome. Suzie looked after my dinner and tankard solicitously. A handsome young man sitting on the other side of Suzie was the life and soul of the party, he was always making jokes, making jokes, and he called her Doll—or was it Darl?—and I wanted to punch him, but I had to be polite.

  ‘Roger’s a barrister too,’ Suzie said, trying to get us talking.

  ‘Oh yes?’ I said, and I thought: I’d love to clean you up in Court, you witty bastard: I suppose your only Court experience is a few dock briefs but you impress Suzie as an all-time Marshall Hall. I put my hand on Suzie’s knee under the table to draw her back to me and get comfort from touching her, but she smiled and me and moved my hand away. They laughed and talked about funny things that had happened in their clique in the last year, and when I touched her hand under the table she squeezed it and smiled brightly at me and then let it go. And I got angry and afraid and jealous, but I had to keep gay. After lunch people lounged around the house drinking brandy and liqueurs bloatedly and at four o’clock they started to go home to freshen up for another party elsewhere that night. When Marshall Hall announced his departure Suzie said: ‘Excuse me’ and she went with him to the front door and was away five minutes. When she came back the other girls tactfully withdrew to the beach.

  I was hurt and jealous and as soon as we were alone, I said: ‘We aren’t going to another bloody party tonight, are we?’

  ‘No. I’ve just cancelled it.’

  ‘You were going with this Roger chap,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  I nodded bitterly. I sat down. ‘Come here, Suzie.’

  She came to me quietly and sat down beside me on the couch and looked very serious. I had so much to say and did not know where to begin. The other people had spoilt it.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ she said.

  I got impatient. ‘Suzie, what’s the story?’

  She looked around for a cigarette and I gave her one of mine. She looked around for matches and got up and walked across the room. I watched her and thought: she’s so goddam beautiful.

  She sat down again and lit her cigarette. She had stopped shaking.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No. Now tell me, Suzie.’

  She took a puff of her cigarette.

  ‘Well. I’m staying here in South Africa, Joe.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I like it. It’s a good country, it’s my country really, I’m an Afrikaans girl really. And it’s booming, I’ve made lots of friends.’

  I hated her living a life apart from mine. She had almost lost her Afrikaans accent in America, but it was there again now. Soft and mellifluous, I loved it; somehow it made me more jealous, that she had changed.

  ‘What about America?’ I demanded. She looked at me steadily and her eyes were opaque, she was not letting me through.

  ‘What about it?’ she said.

  ‘Well, don’t you want to come back to America?’

  ‘What for, Joe?’

  Christ, she was beautiful. Woman, woman, woman. I would beat this Roger irk to a pulp.

  With me.’ I sounded harsh. ‘For me!’

  She looked at me for a long moment and then she shook her head.

  ‘No, Joe.’

  It was outrageous. Suzie – my Suzie who had lived with me and slept with me and woken up in the mornings with me for six years all over the globe – that she no longer wanted me, that she had a new life independent of what I thought and felt about, it was outrageous, unnatural, outrageous, unnatural, un-Suzie.

  ‘Christ, Suzie.’

  She looked at me.

  ‘What, Joe?’

  ‘Married to me! As my wife!’

  She looked at me steadily then she shook her head slowly. Christ it was unthinkable. ‘No, Joe, I won’t come with you.’

  Then Fear. I sat back. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to any more. We’ve drifted apart, now. I don’t need you any more now. I don’t need you any more now, not like I used to. Too many things have happened, Joe.’

  I looked at her and I thought my heart would break.

  ‘I don’t want to marry you any more, Joe. And you don’t want to marry me, either, really. Otherwise you’d have asked me outright, but you didn’t, you only asked when I said I wouldn’t come back with you to America.’

  But I really did want to marry her.

  ‘We’ve drifted apart,’ she said, simply, with a little shrug. ‘I’ve got used to living without you.’

  I got angry.

  ‘Well, I’m bloody well staying right here until you get used to me again, Suzie.’

  She shook her head again. ‘Don’t stay.’

  Jesus.

  ‘Why not?’

  She was not looking at me. She shook her head again. She was very beautiful.

  ‘Because I’m almost free of you and I don’t want to get muddled up and hurt all over again.’

  I was very afraid of the unhappiness.

  ‘Look at me,’ she said, urgently, ‘how well I am, Joe. I’ve put on weight, I’m happy. I’m confident. With you I was always on edge, waiting for the next explosion, wondering why you found me wanting, lacking something.’

  ‘I didn’t find you wanting. You’re intelligent.’

  ‘Why didn’t you marry me then? Oh Joe, don’t be silly, you know we’re two entirely different people.’

  ‘Suzie—’ All that seemed so unimportant now. ‘Suzie, it’s true I was critical of you, that was because I was a dreamer, I was trying to write, I was trying to find myself, I thought I could get above everything by my writing. But now I’m not like that. I’ve written two books and neither has been published and I’ve given up writing and I’ve settled for the ordinary things in life, a good job and so forth. I’ve grown up, Suzie.’

  She gave a gentle little laugh, and put her hand on my arm.

  ‘You’ll never stop dreaming, darling. You know you’ll never stop writing.’ She sounded very mature.

  I sat back.
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  ‘What about this forensic giant Roger?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘You know what.’

  She looked defensive, ‘I like him a lot. He wants to marry me.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yet, anyway. I’m going away for a while, on holiday.’

  ‘To think about it, hey?’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘On a sea cruise.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Just up the east coast to Mombasa and back on the Eden Roc. Three weeks.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next month. End of January.’ She got up. She went to the window and looked at the sea.

  ‘That doesn’t answer the question,’ I said. ‘Are you in love with him?’

  She did not answer immediately, ‘I’m in conspiracy with him,’ she said. ‘He’s divorced. We’re in conspiracy to make each other happy. We do make each other happy. Yes, I do love him, nearly. If somebody makes you happy you love them sooner or later.’

  Christ.

  ‘I don’t make you happy?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, not properly, ordinary happy. And I don’t make you happy either. We make each other happy in bed and we make each other happy when we’re both lonely and insecure in foreign lands. And when one of us is about to leave the other and take off for the wide blue yonder again we think that we’ll never be happy without each other. We make each other happy when we face some sort of crisis and feel insecure. We’re neurotically dependent upon each other. By force of habit I suppose. Our romance has thrived off tragedy. But when we simmer down to secure domesticity, day-to-day existence, we don’t make each other happy. And that’s what life really is: dull, monotonous day-to-day domesticity. Because we’ve got nothing in common, I suppose, not even a child. You’re always struggling for something. I think it’s a soulmate you seek. Well, perhaps I’m just not your soulmate. In fact I know I’m not. In fact I think you feel that I stunt your spiritual growth, I stifle you. Maybe when you find a soulmate you’ll accept day-to-day monotonous domesticity. But you won’t accept it with me, because I’m not your soulmate. But I will accept it, with a man who makes me happy, even if he is not a soulmate to me, because I don’t need a soulmate like you do. A soulmate is very important to you. You’ll never be happy without one. But I’m not like you in that respect. I’m just an ordinary wholesome loving girl who wants ordinary day-to-day happiness. And that’s why I can’t make you happy.’

  ‘Balls,’ I said. ‘You do make me happy. You’re intelligent.’

  ‘Joe-baby – grow up. Don’t you realise yet that you cannot change me or yourself. You always think you can mould me, train my thinking. Well, you can’t. I’ve matured sufficiently in the last year to realise that. You should too, and get your young love off your back.’

  ‘Christ, Suzie, what a dreadful thing to say!’

  ‘It’s true,’ simply.

  I had never felt so lonely and afraid of the future.

  ‘Suzie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you slept with him?’

  She turned her back and looked out of the window.

  ‘You must not torture yourself with such questions any more, Joe. That is jealousy. I think jealousy is what has kept us together for so long, in spite of our differences, and that’s silly.’

  ‘Answer me, Suzie.’

  She shook her head. ‘We have to stop being jealous of each other some time, and now is a good time to start. I haven’t asked you how many girls you slept with in the Orient.’

  Jesus. Suzie sleeping with somebody else!

  ‘If I did it was for money, for lust, like buying a meal. No emotions involved.’

  I strode over to her and grabbed her arm and spun her round.

  ‘Stop mooning out of the window! Now tell me before I give you a good beating.’

  She pried my fingers off her arm and I let her go.

  ‘I should tell you that I have slept with him,’ she said calmly, ‘to destroy my image in your eyes. But, no, I haven’t.’

  Relief.

  I walked back to the couch and sat down.

  ‘Thank God.’ She said nothing. ‘Suzie’—despair, helplessness—‘do you love me?’

  She turned and faced me again. ‘I loved you, Joe. I care very deeply for your wellbeing. I loved you but I realise that it’s fruitless. I am getting over you, I’m over the hump. I don’t want to weaken to you again. I could very easily. I am intensely attracted to you, I could lie down for you right now, but I don’t want to and I won’t.’

  Hope. I could not face the big wide world. I had to stay close to her. Weak.

  ‘Can I stay here tonight? I’ll sleep on the couch. I don’t feel disposed to looking for accommodation today.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘All right.’

  Anger. Outrage again at desertion.

  ‘Christ, how can you say “all right”? I love you, d’you hear. Well, there’s only one way to cope with this situation.’

  I strode over to her and picked her up.

  She kicked. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Taking you upstairs to rape you, woman, you’re mine.’

  ‘Put me down!’

  She kicked the air. She beat my chest with her hands. I carried her from the lounge kicking.

  ‘Beat me, and I’ll drop you on your head.’

  She beat me, and I relaxed my arm and she dropped six inches suddenly and both her arms grabbed around my neck.

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Put me down, Joe! The girls will be coming back from the beach!’ She was still kicking.

  ‘Rape doesn’t take long.’

  I reached the top landing. I was panting. ‘Which is your bedroom in this joint?’

  ‘I won’t tell you—’ still kicking.

  ‘Okay, then I’ll do it in the first room.’

  ‘Down the passage!’ she gasped.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I threw her on the bed and turned and locked the door. She sat on the bed and looked at me sullenly. I put my fingers inside the neckline of her shirt and ripped it open. It tore down to her waist. She grabbed it and I ripped it right off her. She struggled. I spun her shoulders round, gripped the brassiere straps across her back in both hands and snapped it apart. I pushed her back on the bed. Her breasts were white against her tan, and very beautiful. She looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. I sat down beside her heavily.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You should have fought me, then I could have gone ahead and done it, and everything would have been okay.’

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  I put my head on her breast and she put her hands around my neck. ‘Oh Suzie, I love you so.’ She nodded and I could feel her crying.

  ‘It’s no good, though, Joe.’

  After a moment I said: ‘I’ll leave in the morning.’

  She nodded again.

  After a little while I said: ‘I’ve brought you a present.’

  ‘Have you? Thank you. I’ve got one for you too.’

  ‘Thank you, Suzie.’

  ‘What’s mine?’ she said.

  ‘A nightie. And some silk.’

  ‘Oh, lovely! Thank you, darling.’

  ‘You can make a dress out of the silk.’

  ‘Yes, lovely. D’you want to see yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She got up off the bed and padded across to her wardrobe. When she opened it I recognised many of the dresses hanging there. My heart nearly broke. She came back with a package. She put it in my lap and sat down beside me and looked at the package in my lap.

  ‘Open it. Happy Christmas.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, you too.’

  It was a sports shirt.

  ‘It’ll suit you,’ she said.
r />   ‘Yes, thank you.’

  She looked at it in my hands.

  ‘It’s a drip-dry,’ she said dully.

  ‘Oh.’

  She sat on the bed beside me and looked at the shirt. ‘And when you wash it you mustn’t wring it out. Just put it on a hanger and let it drip.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She looked at me. ‘Put it on,’ she said.

  I put it on.

  She looked at it and straightened it across the shoulders. ‘You look nice,’ she said. ‘You can wear it to the party tonight, if you want to go. Do you want to go?’

  ‘Might as well.’

  ‘Yes. You look very nice,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll get your present now,’ I said.

  I woke up early in the morning. I had no hangover but I felt very bad. It was raining and still dark. I went through to the kitchen to brush my teeth so as not to disturb the girls upstairs. I made a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table and drank it and I tried not to think of anything but the open road. I packed my bag and sat in the lounge smoking, waiting for it to get light, but it took a long time. At last it began to turn grey outside but it was the sort of day that would never get very light. Then I went upstairs and scratched on Suzie’s door. She came in a dressing-gown. The room was warm and smelt of Suzie’s scents and things on the dressing-table.

  ‘It’s raining, you can’t go in the rain.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Have you got a raincoat?’

  ‘Yes, plastic job.’

  ‘Wait till breakfast.’

  ‘No, I’ll go now.’

  ‘Come in while I put something on.’

  ‘Don’t come downstairs.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’ll wait downstairs then.’

  I waited at the front door. She came down.

  ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘I don’t want anything.’

  She stretched up and buttoned the top of my raincoat, as if I were leaving for the office. Then she stood back and said: ‘Where’re you going Joe?’

  I said: ‘Rhodesia. Then up Africa to Europe. Then back to America.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Hitch-hike.’

  ‘You can’t hitch-hike up Africa, these days, you’re crazy.’

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Joe, listen to me, this isn’t the old Africa any more. Africa has changed since you left. Listen to me. You’ve been away for three years. I’ve been here a year and we hear more about these things. The Federation is going to be broken up. Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Kenya, they aren’t as peaceful as they used to be. Even Southern Rhodesia isn’t safe outside the towns.’