Amherst

by William Nicholson

  She’s gazing across the table, but for once her eyes are unseeing, her thoughts elsewhere.

  “I remember,” she said, “sitting at dinner with him, at home, I guess, the house on Triangle Street. He was across the table from me, the way you are now. He wasn’t speaking. And suddenly I got this really strong sensation that a door had closed in him. So I said, ‘Nick, what is it?’ And he said, ‘What’s what?’ And I said, ‘You’re shutting me out.’ And he said, ‘I’m not shutting you out.’ And I said, ‘I feel like I can only get so far with you and no further.’ And he said, ‘How much further do you have to go?’ And I said, ‘All the way.’ And he said, ‘No one goes all the way. There are parts that are unreachable.’ ”

  She shrugs, and spreads her hands in the air.

  “That’s what he believes. He really does. He believes everyone’s alone.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” says Alice.

  “Maybe he is, but it began to get to me. You know he’s kind of antisocial? Maybe you don’t. He doesn’t like parties; he won’t go to them. I have to attend a lot of functions, one, two a week. He just wouldn’t do it. We had a few rows over that. Does that sound petty to you?”

  “No,” says Alice.

  “It got worse. He became more and more like a recluse. You know he loves Emily Dickinson? Have you worked out why?”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to be her. He identifies with her. He wants to be the myth and never be seen and have everyone talk about him. The only trouble is he’s not a genius, and he doesn’t write poetry.”

  She puts her hand to her mouth and shoots Alice a guilty look.

  “I’m being bitchy, aren’t I? You have to stop me.”

  “I don’t want to stop you,” says Alice.

  Everything Peggy is telling her about Nick she’s checking against her own experience of him. Some of it connects. Not all.

  “I get what you say about him wanting to be a recluse. But I haven’t picked up that he thinks he’s a genius or wants to be a myth.”

  “So maybe I’m wrong. All I can tell you is there’s some deep damage there, and he’s not letting anyone in for a look. He’s a wounded beast, and he creeps off to his lair to hide.”

  Alice thinks of how Nick said to her, “We all live our lives in hiding.”

  That connects.

  “In the end I realized, or I thought I realized, Nick doesn’t want to live in the world. He’s more than antisocial, he’s antilife. I’m not antilife. I didn’t want to be sucked down into his lair. I didn’t want a solitary life. It may be shallow, but I like to be among people. I like parties. I like doing things to make the world just that bit better than it might otherwise be. Nick thought all my charities were basically a form of therapy for me. He never believed anything I did was worth the time or money beyond the feeling of worth it gave me. That’s because he doesn’t believe you can make the world any better. He’s a pessimist. He thinks our task is to accept and endure. So we had rows about that, big rows. I said he was ducking his responsibilities; he said I was kidding myself I made any difference. It went down from there. Then one day I said, ‘Are you coming to this dinner?’ I was chair of the governors, I had to make a speech, this was a big night for me. And he said no. He said, ‘That’s your life, not mine.’ So that was it. That’s when I knew it was over.”

  “How did he take that?”

  “I think he was relieved.”

  “And after that,” says Alice, “you stopped having rows and got along just fine?”

  “Of course. Sweet as pie.”

  Alice thinks about Jack. How well they’ve got along since they broke up.

  Peggy says, “Does any of that make sense to you?”

  “Yes,” says Alice. “What you’re telling me is Nick doesn’t know how to love. Or can’t handle it. Or won’t.”

  “You got it.”

  “That’s a bummer.”

  “Not for me,” says Peggy. “I’m out the other side. But you—you’ve gone and fallen for the jerk, haven’t you?”

  Alice nods. She’s no longer blushing, no longer ashamed. They’ve both been in the same war zone.

  “Not what I had planned, I can tell you,” she says.

  “You’ve only had a few days. You’ll get over it.”

  “Of course I will,” says Alice, “but you know what scares me? I’m scared I’ll go through the rest of my life thinking that he was the one that got away. That he was the real thing. That nothing else comes close.”

  “Trust me,” says Peggy, “the guy’s a disaster.”

  She gazes across the table at Alice with concern and sympathy in her eyes.

  “You said he’s most likely gone to his cabin in Vermont,” says Alice.

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Could you tell me where it is?”

  “So you can pay him a visit?”

  “Maybe just one.”

  “Isn’t that like the alcoholic who says, ‘Just one more drink’?”

  “I can’t leave it like this,” says Alice. “He really will turn into a myth.”

  “Keep away,” says Peggy. “I don’t want to be the one who drives you over the cliff.”

  “I’m driving myself,” says Alice. “You can’t make my mistakes for me. I have to make them for myself.”

  A long, intent look. Then Peggy takes a pen out of her bag and a little notebook and writes directions.

  “There’s no address. You go up I-91 into Vermont, turn west onto Route 25, then north onto Kimball Hill Road. Five or six miles, and look out for his truck. It’ll take you three hours, maybe less. You have his cell? His phone’ll be off, but you can try.” She adds the number. “He’s not going to like it. The beast does not like being tracked to its lair.”

  “The beast is going to have to deal with it,” says Alice. “If you start something, you have to finish it.”

  • • •

  But for all her brave words, Alice is afraid. If she goes chasing after Nick, what can she expect from him? They’ve said their good-byes. He owes her nothing. What is there left to say?

  I’m hurting, Nick. Please make the hurting go away.

  She leaves the house, walks up the road to the cemetery, wanting time to think. She sits on the grass by the railings round Emily’s grave, as if being so close will transmit to her some of the poet’s resilience. But the grass is damp and the grave is silent.

  She phones Jack. She’s tapped his name before she can stop to consider the cost. When he picks up, she hears the buzz of voices in the background.

  “Where are you?”

  “Alice?” She can hear him moving away from the noise. “I’m in the pub.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “Yes. Are you okay?”

  “Not really. Nick’s buggered off. I’m feeling a bit blue. I need your advice.”

  “Try me.”

  “Should I go after him?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel terrible. Like it hasn’t properly ended.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, Alice. You do sound low. What a bummer.”

  She hears someone calling to him, a shrill woman’s voice. “Jack! Come back!” She hears Jack say, “Won’t be a mo.”

  “Who was that?”

  “One of my colleagues.”

  “I should let you go.”

  “So where’s he buggered off to?”

  “Somewhere in Vermont. A cabin in the woods.”

  “All by himself?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And you want to show up at his cabin and say what, exactly?”

  “I know. It’s stupid and pointless.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s act three. You want your final act.”

  “Something like that.” She realizes as she speaks that it’s exactly like that. She doesn’t want any particular outcome, just a proper sense that things have run their course. “But thi
s is real life, Jack. It’s not a story.”

  “Stories are real life. If they’re any good.”

  “So you think I should go?”

  “Go, girl. Do it. Act Three: A Cabin in the Woods.”

  She feels herself smiling.

  “You’re kind of brilliant, Jack. How do you always know the right thing to say?”

  “We’ll see about that. Let me know how it goes.”

  “I’ll be home soon. Will you be down in Sussex at all?”

  “Half-term. See you then.”

  Again the distant cry: “Jack! Jack, come back!”

  Over there in England he says, “Coming!” And to Alice in New England, “I’d better go.”

  Alone that evening in her borrowed room Alice does what she swore she would never do. She goes onto Facebook and stalks Jack. She finds a picture he’s posted of a crowd of teachers at the opening of his school. Standing right behind him, one hand touching his shoulder, there’s a young woman with a mass of curly brown hair. She’s smiling too much.

  21

  A thick mist lies over the interstate all the way into Vermont, through Brattleboro and Bellows Falls. As Alice follows the route north into this featureless white world, her courage ebbs away and she tells herself she’s a fool. What does she expect Nick to say? How can there be any other outcome but humiliation? But just past Hanover the mist clears, and she finds herself dazzled by color: reds and purples and oranges splashed with abandon as in a child’s painting, against a backdrop of tawny yellow and dark umber. This is the famous New England fall, in the second week of October, no relation to the tasteful modulations of an English autumn. Her spirits rise. Her speed increases. What does it matter how Nick responds? This is for her. What right has he to sidle away into myth?

  Face the music, Nick. Finish the dance.

  Just before Bradford she takes the junction at Route 25 and drives northwest up the Waits River Road. The blazing woods fall away, and she follows the river through straw-colored farmland. Slow out of the little town of West Topsham, hunting for the right turn into the hills. Back into the trees, the road climbing, the forest closing in: and there it is, Kimball Hill Road.

  These are remote parts. Hard for anyone raised in a crowded little island to credit how empty America can be. Mile follows mile with no visible habitation. Tracks lead off into the trees; there may be dwellings up there, who can tell? The people who choose to live in these woods are not neighborly types.

  She’s down to twenty miles an hour, crawling along the road, afraid to miss her destination. She passes a cabin set back from the road, but it’s closed up, there’s no vehicle pulled alongside. A mile or two on and there’s another cabin, this time with smoke leaking out of the cinder-block chimney. She’s driven by when she looks in the mirror and sees the red Dodge truck parked on the far side.

  A cabin of weathered planks, roofed in shingle, sitting on an apron of dirt up a rise from the road. Behind it, like embracing arms, the woods stand guard. It’s small, surely no more than a single room, with a rain barrel to the side of the narrow door. No light shows in the windows.

  Alice reverses and turns off the road. She half expects the door to open, but there’s no sign of life. She gets out of her car and looks more closely at the red truck. It’s Nick’s, no question. Why hasn’t he heard her arrival? With her engine switched off, the silence is startling. Perhaps he’s asleep.

  She hesitates before the cabin door. Now that she’s here, her presence feels clumsier than she had intended. But what can she say? I happened to be passing by?

  Nothing to be done. She’s not going back now.

  Her knock on the door is unanswered. She looks in at the window. A table strewn with books, some chairs, a kerosene lamp. No one home.

  She tries the door, and it opens. Inside the cabin is suddenly warm, making her realize she’s grown cold. A black-iron wood-burning stove is alight, glowing red through its scorched window. She stands close to it, warming her hands, looking round.

  Just the one room. A basic kitchen at one end, an open gas ring for cooking, a sink. A long table in the middle, with his books spread round the lamp. Shelves on the timber walls. More books. A bed at the far end, covered with a thick rug woven in orange and black. Through the windows nothing but trees.

  No fridge. No TV. No electricity of any kind, as far as she can see. No bathroom. He must wash in the sink. There must be an outhouse of some sort, for a lavatory. Or does he squat in the woods?

  The undignified image makes her laugh, breaking the solemnity of this first encounter. The cabin’s simplicity daunts her. Is it really possible to live this way?

  She checks the books open on the table. Don Quixote, which he was reading when she first saw him in Rao’s Cafe, the bookmark now almost at the end. She hadn’t stopped to think back then, but there’s a clue here. Don Quixote is a fantasist, isn’t he? A romantic. One who invents his life to make it more significant than it actually is. Not that she’s ever read any more than the first chapters.

  That’s what we do with love. Create a story to overlay the passing events of our lives so that a pattern emerges. What was random develops meaning.

  Love as storytelling.

  Austin Dickinson as Don Quixote, Mabel his Dulcinea, the peasant girl he has willed into playing the role of princess of his dreams. So where do the windmills come in? All the great unfeeling world outside the dream, all of reality that denies the dream, there stand the giants against which he must forever set his lance.

  So is Nick just another more recent incarnation? The fantasist who finds that real life disappoints him, and so retreats into a story?

  On the table beside the book there’s a tin tobacco box, worn by much handling. Alice has never seen Nick smoking. A secret vice? She picks up the box and it rattles. She opens it. It’s full of small cream-colored oval pills. So Nick pops pills: another surprise. To get high? To get to sleep at night?

  She tries calling his cell, but an automated voice tells her his number is unavailable. She goes outside and calls his name out loud, feeling foolish, scanning the surrounding trees. No one answers. She thinks of leaving a note, but decides against it.

  So this is how it ends.

  On the drive back she feels increasingly angry with him. It’s taken more courage than she’s admitted to herself to make this journey. Last night she slept badly, agitated by thoughts of seeing him again. And now—nothing. No resolution. He seems able to switch her on and off as he finds convenient, but she can’t switch off.

  As she turns at last into the yard of the house on Triangle Street, she sees that Peggy’s car is gone. A man is standing by the back door, peering through the screen: a small bald man in leather jacket and jeans. When he turns, hearing Alice’s car pull up, she sees the handlebar mustache and recognizes Nick’s friend Luis Silva.

  As she gets out of the car and locates her door key, he hurries to her side.

  “I’m trying to raise Nick,” he says. “He’s not answering his phone.”

  “He’s left,” says Alice. “He’s moved on.”

  Silva looks startled.

  “Is that what he said? Moved on?”

  “He’s gone to his cabin in Vermont.”

  “Oh.”

  This information seems to trouble him. He doesn’t ask Alice what she’s doing here. It seems only polite to explain.

  “He’s been letting me stay in the guest room. Peggy was here, but it looks like she’s out right now.”

  “Did Nick see Peggy before he went?”

  “No.”

  It strikes Alice then for the first time that Nick left on the morning of Peggy’s return. Had he known when she would be coming home?

  “Had you arranged to meet Nick?” she says.

  “Not exactly arranged.”

  But something’s clearly not right.

  “You want to come in for a coffee?”

  He checks his watch.

  “Maybe for a moment.”

/>   He follows Alice into the house. Peggy has left a note on the kitchen table.

  How was the beast? Back late. Peggy.

  Silva reads the note, and makes the connections.

  “The beast? You’ve been to see Nick?”

  “Yes,” says Alice, putting on the coffee. “He wasn’t there.”

  “He didn’t answer the door?”

  “The door wasn’t locked. I went in. All his stuff was there, but no sign of him. I guess he was out walking in the woods.”

  “Fuck,” he says. He sits himself down at the kitchen table and puts his chin in his hands. “He was your lover, I suppose.”

  “I really don’t see—” But catching the expression on his face, she stops. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I hope I’m wrong.”

  “About Nick?”

  “He’s such a fucking fatalist. Sorry.”

  “Don’t mind me. I know he’s a fucking fatalist. What is it you’re afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid he’ll play his Get Out of Jail Free card.”

  Alice brings the coffee to the table, with a carton of reduced-fat milk from the fridge.

  “Black? White? Sugar?”

  “Just black. Thank you so much.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Silva sips at his coffee. The rising steam from the mug glistens on his mustache.

  “Nick’s a lovely man,” he says, “and a much-loved man. But he’s also a fucking idiot. He doesn’t believe in his own right to happiness. Perhaps there’s no such right. Whatever. Nick has to take it one step further. He believes in the inevitability of loss.”

  “Loss of what?”

  “Loss of hope. Loss of love. Loss of meaning. Nick believes we start out with a surplus of vital energy, which is youth, and it’s this energy that gives us the illusion of hope and meaning. Then the energy runs out, and the illusion fades. At some point we discover there is no hope or meaning. Life continues, but without joy. And so the time comes, according to Nick, when the wise man chooses to call it a day.”