Gravity's Chain

by Alan Goodwin

  ‘There.’ Caroline’s voice contained a heady note of triumph. ‘You read this, Jack. I’m going to get dressed and then I’m going straight out to post it.’

  After reading her letter I let out a long heavy sigh. I don’t think I could have written such words to my most hated enemy. Everything Caroline had said to me was there, plus much, much more. Sister told sister that she’d never loved her and that she’d vowed to take what was most precious to her. That, of course, had proved to be me. Was that all I was to Caroline—a prize with which to wound her sister, or were they just words to ensure there was no chance of reconciliation between them? I didn’t know how much of this was true. I imagined poor Mary reading the words. What had she ever done to deserve this?

  I heard the closing of a drawer and swearing from the space behind the screen where Caroline had gone to get changed. Quickly I grabbed a pen from the table and wrote at the bottom of the page: I’m sorry, Mary. Keep strong. Before Caroline returned I put the pages in the envelope she’d already addressed and sealed the flap.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said without suspicion. She took the envelope and left the flat. I poured another drink and returned to the sofa. I’d committed my crime against Caroline—I’d broken ranks, I’d left a crack. I don’t think I could really have done anything worse. How strange, I’d never thought how Mary might have felt for what I’d done to her, but I felt the pain from what her sister was saying. Was I in some way immune to my own wrongs, but not others’?

  Four years later

  Dear Jack,

  How are you? Well, I hope. Thank you for your last letter. I don’t suppose I’m surprised that you and Caroline are married. When I told Mum and Dad they rolled their eyes in mock wonder but it couldn’t hide their pain. They’re still so confused about the whole thing; they just don’t understand how it has happened. They see no reason for Caroline’s hostility and why she won’t speak to them. For Dad it’s become a principle and I think he would reject her if she ever tried to contact him. But Mum’s different; she thinks about it every day and now she’s missed her daughter’s wedding. I don’t think anything will make up for that loss. Mum deflects the whole thing by blaming you. There will never be much of a welcome for you in the Roberts family I’m afraid, but then I’m sure you wouldn’t ever expect one.

  I have started my first teaching job. It is all a bit scary—28 seven-year-olds and me. Still, I think it’s going OK. The kids are great and there are no complaints so far. I think I made the right choice going into teaching. I feel I have something to offer.

  I saw Mike last week; he avoided talking about you until I raised the subject. He’s still such a politician. Anyway, he said to say hello if I wrote. He is still with Helen and in fact they live together now. Jo is going to spend some time in Sydney on some exchange with her job. She came for a quick drink when I caught up with Mike (he is very good at keeping in contact with everyone). She seemed quite triumphant about hearing you’d married Caroline.

  So you’re in London now. You never said why you left Cambridge. I thought you were on a good thing as a research fellow there—what happened?

  Anyway, I must be off. Write soon. Love,

  Mary

  Dear Mary,

  Thanks for your last letter. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to reply. Now I’ve left Cambridge, I’m working at home and it’s difficult to find the time to write to you undetected. In fact I had just started this letter to you the other day, thinking Caroline was going out, when she returned five minutes later because she’d left her diary in the flat. I must have looked as though I’d been caught having sex with the dog and she came over to see what I was doing. My God, imagine if she found out that we’d been writing to each other—it would be curtains for me. I dread to think how she would react. The other night I had a dream that she found out and opened a drawer where I kept your letters. I woke up just as she was about to pick the letters up. I think the consequences were too much, even for a dream.

  Now for the big news. I’m not sure how you will feel about this, so brace yourself: we’ve decided to return to New Zealand…

  Picked yourself off the floor yet? I know! How about that for a bloody shock. There I was saying that we would never go back to NZ and now…well, I suppose sometimes things never turn out the way we expect them. Christ, we should know that better than anyone. Why? I hear you ask. The truth is we’re finding it hard to make ends meet over here, especially in London. I mean, it’s great here, it’s such a wonderful city, but my God it’s so bloody expensive. I could try and get a job teaching at one of the universities, but Caroline thinks that to work properly I need to have the time by myself and be free of any distractions. I think she’s probably right. The work I’m doing is going so slowly. I feel close to a major breakthrough, but I just seem to spend my time circling without ever being able to nail it down. Once I thought I glimpsed it, but it just slipped away. However, I’m confident that with some really concentrated attention I might crack it, so I suggested we go back and go to the beach house for a while and then I might have the time to get to the heart of my search.

  Enough of me. It was good to hear your news. I’m sure you’ll make a great teacher. It’s funny, you know, I’ve been around universities all my life, but I’ve never taught a class. Sometimes I think how good it would be to just drop all this theoretical nonsense and teach. It is a wonderful thing to be able to help others to learn. It’s really the most important thing a society can do: educate its young, to give them the tools to do whatever they want with their lives. So good on you, I admire you for taking on the responsibility.

  There’s one more thing. I would like to try and broker a peace between Caroline and you and the family. I’m not sure how to go about it, but I’m hoping that the mere fact we’re returning to NZ may make it easier to see if that’s possible. What do you think?

  Love,

  Jack

  Dear Jack,

  Well, I have picked myself off the floor. It has taken me some time to digest this news and work out what it all means.

  I have to admit, my first thoughts were entirely selfish. Did I want to see you? Would you want to see me? What would it be like to see each other again? I know it’s been so many years, but I can never quite forget that the last time we actually saw each other we were lovers and we had a future. Then it was all gone, but there was never any contact between us. I don’t want us to get together again—I know that’s impossible and that you love Caroline—but how do you feel about seeing me? Can we meet? Can we sit down over a coffee and be normal? I would really like that.

  Now I have that off my chest, I guess you’d like to know about Caroline and the family. It’s going to be very difficult, but for their sake I’d like to give it a go, especially for Mum. Dad? I think deep down he’d love to reconcile with Caroline, but he has a real stubborn streak. However, I have one word of warning: Caroline has to be committed. There can’t be a situation where I start this process with them and then she pulls out. If they have their hopes raised and then dashed, I think it would completely devastate them. That would be far worse than what they have at the moment. So please, make sure you can pull this off before we open the can. The worms are wretched and will need such careful handling.

  Let me know how it goes. Good luck.

  Love,

  Mary

  Dear Mary,

  I’ve spoken to Caroline. I got a surprisingly good response. In the past she’s talked about burning all her bridges with you and her parents and never speaking to anyone in the family again. I expected a really hostile argument, but she was calm and reasoned and said we would talk some more when she’d had some time to think about everything. I think it’s easy to be strong about not seeing everyone while she’s over here, but she recognises that it will be very different when we’re in NZ . We’ll talk again soon.

  It was strange to read about us meeting. It’s funny, but with all my thoughts about work and Caroline, it never really
struck me that there would be the opportunity for us to meet. Yes, in answer to your question I would like to meet. I’m not sure how, but I’d like to talk again.

  I’ll contact you when I’ve spoken to Caroline again. So wait to hear from me.

  Love,

  Jack

  Dear Mary,

  I’ve spoken to Caroline many times. She has swung from one extreme to another, cried, got angry and thought as hard as I’ve ever seen her think about anything.

  She’s agreed to meet you and your parents. I’m fairly sure she won’t change her mind. She’d never actually agreed to the meeting until she sat down yesterday and said yes. It’s her decision now. The only stipulation is that I make the arrangements when we arrive in NZ and that it’s in public, say in a restaurant. Don’t ask me why she wants it that way, but I’m not prepared to push it, quite frankly.

  I can’t pretend that this is all going to be easy. I told her that I would make contact with your parents by letter. I don’t think it would be good for her to ever know about our correspondence. Send letters to Dad’s address. It’s only a week before we leave and I don’t want to risk not receiving any letters from you.

  Believe me, Mary, I’m excited about seeing you. Very nervous about Caroline seeing you and the family, but very excited about seeing you again. I keep wondering just what it will be like, what you look like now, what we will say. Life is so full of surprises. Seeing you again will be a very big one.

  See you soon now.

  All my love,

  Jack

  Dearest Jack,

  Welcome home. How strange does that sound? I have to pinch myself to feel that all this is really happening. I remember how I felt when you came home that first time from Cambridge. I don’t want to dwell on the past, but they were electric times for me. I’m not saying I feel the same now. I know it’s so very different, but I can’t help but remember how I felt.

  The date is set for the meeting. The 15th (two weeks, Thursday) at a restaurant called Bowmans in Mt Eden Road. We will be there at 7.30.

  See you in a few days.

  Love,

  Mary

  Jack,

  I knew this would happen, you fucking useless shit. I told you that if expectations were raised we had to go through with it. So what happens? You just don’t show up. As predicted, Mum is devastated, and won’t leave her bedroom. Her greatest hope has been torn from her. Dad just spends time in the garden talking to no one.

  You know, there is this part of me that can’t help but think the two of you planned this. That you thought that there was still a bit more pain you could inflict and this was the way to it. I pray that I’m wrong, I pray that no one could sink that low or hurt anyone that much. But I just can’t rid the thought.

  DO NOT contact me again.

  Mary.

  The grand deception of writing to Mary from London had required a Herculean effort. The letters might have seemed breezy and bright, but that wasn’t a reflection of my mood, which was mostly stormy and dark. I drank to try and remember the mathematical key I’d glimpsed that day in Cambridge and when I failed I drank to try and forget the failure. Large parts of the day resembled bottomless pits and darkness was entering my consciousness. Somehow it had to be avoided. Throw in recreational drugs and the almost totally claustrophobic relationship I lived with Caroline and light seldom seemed to shine in my life. To find time alone and calm myself sufficiently to write to Mary left me exhausted. Often I slept a day and night after a letter.

  I simply didn’t have the energy to raise my pen one more time after the failure to meet. And besides, I had my own betrayal to deal with. Caroline hadn’t only stood up Mary and her family, she’d done it by sleeping with Greg. Bloody Greg, who was old even years before when she’d first knocked around with him. To try healing the wounds, Caroline and I retreated to the bach. Days later she killed herself.

  ELEVEN

  Inevitably I went to see Jo. When I left Dad’s with a brief farewell and the merest of waves, I knew I would give the order to turn the car at the last moment and head for the hospital. Jo lay in a coma, that strange place people occupy when their soul has switched out the light but the body lives on. The need to know if some deep and distant memory of the world had rebooted Jo’s brain was overwhelming. I had spared precious little thought for her over the years, but I knew her feelings for me, so I owed her a visit. I have to admit, this was unusual territory for me. When was the last time I thought of owing anyone anything? I glibly answered such difficult questions by confirming that there were selfish reasons for wanting her to recover. What the fuck would it do for my future if her death were laid at my feet?

  My driver displayed his displeasure at my request to turn the car round just two hundred yards short of the hotel. No doubt he’d been expecting this to be the end of his day. Now he was on his way to Auckland Hospital. When I broke the news he planted his foot on the floor and braked late and hard at the first red light we encountered. He drummed the steering wheel to some imaginary tune as we waited for the lights to change. Another long wait and a drive in the rush-hour traffic was all he had to look forward to for the next few hours. I ignored the flash of rage he gave me in the rear-view mirror.

  I fear hospitals. Whenever I have the misfortune to visit one I walk the corridors with head bowed to avoid all the medical descriptions displayed at every junction. I don’t know what half of the words mean, but I know they mean human misery and pain, despair and death. I feel a need for protection against the emotions haunting the corridors. I need a shield against the echoes of relations’ and friends’ cries and wash of their tears. Of course, I fear hospitals so much because I know one day I’ll be in one with my liver cooked, or because of an overdose, or maybe cancer—shuffling along in slippers and a gown, open at the back, my old arse falling out, but feeling too sick to care. I don’t want to die like that, which is why I think I will. In so many ways I’ve lived a blessed life; I don’t think I’ve enough luck to have a blessed death. One day it will go spectacularly wrong.

  Finally I located the ward sign and found my uncertain way to Jo’s room. She lay perfectly still. The sight of her attached to flashing machines was no great surprise, but it was shocking to actually hear the sound of the ventilator with its slight mechanical pause at the beginning and end of each forced breath. Her eyes were closed, her skin pink and she looked far healthier than the last time I’d seen her. Far more dignified as well, with her body covered and neatly tucked into bed. There were two chairs in the room, one on either side of the bed. The place smelled of cleaner mixed with sterilised equipment. I sat in the low chair closest to the door. Straight in front of me was Jo’s hand, lying flat at her side, an intravenous drip in the wrist. The skin looked dry and old. Her nails were chewed and her forefinger was marked with an angry red hangnail. I reached out and touched her hand; it was warm, which surprised me, as though I’d expected stone instead of flesh. Lightly I held her fingers, my thumb stroking the hangnail, its rough edge rubbing the soft underskin of my thumb.

  Before entering I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t try to recall the two nights we’d spent together, fearing that such thoughts when she was ill were a kind of sacrilege, as bad as spitting on the image of Christ in a church. But seeing Jo made me think, sifting through the fragments looking for a clue that would explain what had happened. I fast-forwarded the sex, the flesh (shit, there was so much flesh) passing without feeling, just as a second porn film in one evening loses any allure. It was the drug taking that I searched my memory for. Each time I glimpsed Jo taking a line of coke I tried to remember the minutes before. Was she taking the stuff because she wanted to, or had I forced her to take more as the three of us attempted walls better left unclimbed? I squeezed Jo’s hand as if that simple act alone might propel my own memory into action and all would suddenly become clear.

  The door behind me opened and I ended my fruitless task. Perhaps given more time I might recall better. Although
it made perfect sense, I hadn’t even considered the visitor might be a nurse. She was of medium height and slim, her face brown from what appeared to be a recent holiday and scarred with little white marks from teenage acne. Before replacing the clipboard at the end of the bed she looked first at Jo’s inanimate body and then at me. It took a moment for her to recognise me, but I knew when it came and she flashed a broad smile.

  ‘Family?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Friend then?’ She had a soft Scottish accent.

  ‘Yes.’ Was that such a lie?

  The nurse started a routine check of the machines that pumped and pulsed to keep Jo alive. She looked at me a couple of times, wondering whether she should say something. This was a conscious moment of embarrassment for her, one I knew well and would usually break by talking. This time I just couldn’t be bothered, other than broaching the mundane.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Same as what exactly?’ She looked puzzled. ‘This is my first visit. I’ve been busy with the show but I came as soon as I heard. We went to school together, you know, but I’ve lost touch with her family, so I have no one to ask. I’ve no idea how she is.’

  ‘Jo’s in a coma.’ There was a pause, but she was going to tell me, despite what the rules might say. ‘I’m afraid there’s been no improvement since she first came in.’ To keep busy, she smoothed out the already smooth sheet.