by Linus Peters
would. Please, don’t think that because I haven’t
been in touch I don’t care, that I never think about
you, because I do.
So much time has passed. I don’t know where to
begin. You ask me if I’ve found someone new, if
I’m in love with someone else and I love them as much
as I did you? No, Simon, no. I realise now that I
will never love anyone as much as I loved you. You
are right, what we had was so special, and comes
along, not once in a lifetime, but once in only
a few people’s lifetimes.
These days I spend most of my time on My
own. Amsterdam is a wonderful place to walk and
think. The canals take me along them as if they
flow with my thoughts. There’s something about
a city built on water. Rising and falling, spreading
and contracting, like emotions, like feeling, like life.
I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to say. I guess I
need time to get over the shock. The thing I
don’t understand is how on earth you managed to
get hold of my address? Please, write again soon
and let me know.
There is still much love for you,
Frances
I couldn’t believe it. Even allowing for the number of letters I’d sent, to have actually invented the exact address where she lived was nothing short of a miracle. I became so excited, I completely lost it. Running round the flat, in and out of every room, shrieking at the top of my voice, hurdling over the coffee table, leaping from sofa to chair, bouncing up and down on the bed. I’ve found her! I’ve found her! Hey, World! ... I’ve found Frances!
In the end, I couldn’t hold it into myself anymore. The knowledge was just too great, too damn volatile, and if I didn’t lay it off somewhere, I’d simply explode. I had to tell someone. I had to phone Luca.
“You’re kidding?” he exclaimed.
“No! I’ve got the letter here.”
“You sent letters all over the world?”
“Yes! And one of them went to the right address. In Amsterdam.”
“No! Simon, it’s not possible.”
“Luca!” I cried, and promptly read the whole letter to him over the phone.
For a moment there was a pause. He was obviously as shocked as I was. “I can’t believe it,” he eventually said. “Amazing. A million – a billion - to one chance.”
“More than that.”
“Well, in that case, you are meant to be together. God has spoken.”
I laughed, but in truth was thinking exactly the same thing.
“I hope you’ve still got the address?” he asked.
“No---well, yes! I mean, she included it with her letter.”
“Get on the next plane,” he told me.
“Do you think?”
“Yes! Go to her. Now!”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t want to blow it again. Maybe I should wait for her to make a move.”
“Can you?” he asked, in all seriousness.
I just laughed, partly out of excitement, partly out of a degree of hysteria. “I don’t know!”
“It’s just so unbelievable,” he kept saying. “I’ve never heard anything like it. We have to celebrate.”
As generous as ever, he took me out for a meal, though God knows what sort of company I was. I seemed to spend the entire evening in a demented daze, either endlessly repeating myself, or bursting into laughter for no apparent reason. Frances was back in my life. After all this time, she was back. Not a memory, not a dream, not a closed door called yesterday, but new Frances, tomorrow Frances, pray-to-God-and-possibility Frances.
Over and over we discussed what I should do. How I should approach the situation. It was so important. Everything. All the pain, the loneliness, the coursing obsessive insanity that had subjugated me over the last few years would be swept away and forgotten if only I could get this right.
“Luca! I have to be strong.”
“I will help you,” he said, grasping my hand across the table and squeezing as hard as he could. “In Italy we have a saying, ‘Better to live one day as a lion, than a whole lifetime as a lamb’.”
I nodded my head, not exactly sure how that applied to my situation but still feeling he was catching the right mood. “Pride, dignity, respect,” I repeated for the tenth time that evening. “Pride, dignity, respect ... I mustn’t rush her. Give it a couple of days, then reply.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, yes! Give her time to think, then write. Calmly. Sanely ... God, help me to get this right!”
Luca proposed a toast to all of us who rediscover love, that in a world of feckless hearts and ephemeral relationships, remain true to each other. To the mute swan who mates for life. To all creatures that stay together forever. And let no one mention the fact that he’d never managed to make any relationship last more than eight months, and by now Ann Sofie was back in Stockholm nursing, not only patients, but also a broken heart.
“Simon, I am so happy for you,” he said, raising his glass. “I pray with all my heart that this time you and Frances will find the happiness that you deserve.”
I could’ve kissed him. I did kind of make a lunge, so that I half hugged him, half hung onto his arm like some drunken fool. Mind you, I could’ve kissed everyone in that restaurant. In the street, in the whole damn city. I could’ve given all my money to the poor, my bed to the homeless, my job to the unemployed, my blood to those who needed a transfusion but ... but ... not my rejuvenated heart to those awaiting a transplant.
That night, when I got back home, I read the letter through several times again, now beginning to ask myself all sorts of questions. Like, why Amsterdam, for chrissake? She’d never mentioned it to me all the time I’d known her. She had no friends there. Not that I knew. Maybe a job had taken her? But what job? Was she still in graphics? Was the fact that she’d written to me on a computer a sign of some new career? Or had she eventually succumbed to mainstream artwork, conquered her aversion to computers, and accepted the fact that that was just the way it was done thesedays?
And suddenly I started to think about what other changes almost four years might’ve brought. Would she still look the same? Would the girl I’d been seeing and chasing after for so long still exist, or would there be another in her place? Did she still wear black all the time? Had she committed the usual cliché of ‘cutting that man right out of her hair’? Would she have developed new interests, new ambitions, different thoughts? Shit, do I love a flesh and blood woman or one I sealed in a time capsule long ago?
Not that it really mattered. Not one bit. If she’d shaved her head and dyed it yellow, taken up the tuba, mated with a Martian and had his child. It was still Frances, and I would love her no matter what.
Dear Simon,
So many questions. I don’t know where to begin.
Why did I come to Amsterdam? Why not? It’s
close to England, very different, but without any
language problems. I like the atmosphere here.
No, I don’t do graphics anymore. But I have had
to get used to computers. In fact, I’ve got so
used to them, thesedays I don’t think I could
write a letter any other way (I hope you don’t
mind, I tried to make the font look as personal
as possible). Believe it or not, I’m working as a
general ‘dogsbody’ for a small theatre company.
I do everything from publicity (including the posters,
of course), arranging theatres and rehearsal
rooms, selling tickets, to sending out begging
letters to anyone who might give us some
financial assistance. We put on plays in
English, sometimes for schools, sometimes
in small theatres f
or the general public. People
like Brecht, Pirandello, Pinter. I’m sure you’d love
it.
I have got a few friends here. Not many though. I
work really long hours, so my social life and my work
life tend to be the same thing.
‘Have I changed?’ That’s a very difficult one to
answer. I suppose I have. Just living in another
country makes you communicate a little differently.
I think you’d probably notice more than I would.
Any changes I’ve made have been gradual. Maybe
I’ve missed them. You still remember me exactly
as I was.
Simon, I don’t want you to be ‘careful’ when you write
to me. I don’t want you to ‘censor your letters
for nostalgia or any sense of lost love or hurt
feelings’. Say anything you like. To be honest,
the way I’m feeling at the moment, I’d like to hear
it.
Write again soon,
Love
Frances
What could I say? It blew all my strategy, my softly-softly approach, away. Luca urged me to overwhelm her with every romantic thought, every loving memory, all the vocabulary of the heart, I could possibly think of. Now, while she was obviously vulnerable. But it made me feel uneasy. Like someone who’d once been involved in a shooting accident playing with the key to the gun cabinet. Instead I desperately sought for balance, to talk about my feelings, about the past, about us, but also to reassure her that I had it all together now, that I had a future too - with or without her.
Yet soon she made a point of again saying that she didn’t want all this careful measuring and filtering and refining, She wanted the old me. I tell you, it was bizarre. Here I was trying to keep things light and unthreatening, while she was forever urging me to come on stronger. After a while I began to wonder if maybe she was prompting me to help her relive our past. That one of the reasons why she was so able to walk away, not only from me, but from others too, was this ability to wipe her memory, to just press the key and it was gone, and now she needed me to help her retrieve it.
With each letter I took fragments of our history and gave them back to her. Still playing them down, checking for rough edges and smoothing them off, but slowly, and hopefully, creating a situation whereby we both had the same pictures, a similar version, of what had once been our world.
... What do I miss the most? God, what a question.
Our stupid sense of humour maybe? All those things
that we thought were weepingly, pissingly, funny,
and everyone else thought of as childish
(unquestionably rightly). Your sister refusing to let us
sit next to each other in that restaurant on her
birthday because she knew we’d start giggling
over something no one else would understand.
I miss making love, of course. It always felt so natural.
As if we’d been tuned to the same note. Don’t take
it the wrong way, but it almost seemed like something
we could forget. That amongst all the things in a
relationship that can go wrong, that was one area
we’d never have to worry about.
But in all honesty, I don’t think there are the words
for what I miss the most. I miss you and I miss you
not being in my life. I miss not being able to call you
when I want to hear your voice. When I see or
read something I want to talk to you about. I hate
waking up in the middle of the night and not finding
you there. That awful moment when I remember
you’ve gone. But most of all, I miss the knowledge,
the reassurance, that we take each step together. You
and me ... Yes ... That’s what I miss the most ... ‘You
and me’.
I was forever worrying that it was too much, that there would be no reply, but time and time again she came back with an appetite for more. I couldn’t believe it. If I’d known, I would’ve kept copies of all the letters I’d sent. Maybe I should try remembering the addresses now? Writing to Russia and Australia and France, apologising profusely and asking them to return my pain, that I’d finally located its rightful owner.
As it was, I seemed to cover the whole history of our break up, filling in every detail from my side, anything she might’ve missed. Yet it was different now. The situation might still be tenuous, but the renewal of contact meant I was writing in a different manner. There was no longer the tendency to bitterness, for wholesale accusations. My broken heart actually became a source of amusement. I joked with her about how upset I’d been, how badly I’d behaved, at last finding it in me to laugh at myself.
The only thing I couldn’t seem to renew in us, no matter how much I searched for it, was that silly-schmoozing we used to love so much. I attempted to, going off on well remembered tangents, opening myself up to ripostes that I knew even before she came back with them, but it never happened. It was like a part of our courtship ritual she’d forgotten, or maybe she didn’t think it was appropriate any more. Either way, she acted as if I never said a word.
I tried, believe me I tried, but in the end I couldn’t stop myself from bringing up the subject of us meeting. Casually mentioning that maybe I might come to Amsterdam one weekend. I made it sound like something I’d always thought about doing, that I’d be going there anyway and it would be nice to meet up at the same time, but it was a pretence unworthy of the paper it was written on.
It was almost two weeks before I heard from her again. I actually began to think that was it, that I’d blown it and she’d disappeared once more. Then she wrote a rather cool reply, telling me she wasn’t ready for that and didn’t know if she ever would be. Going on to warn me never to consider a surprise visit, that if I did, she’d just run and I’d never hear from her again. And I realised I was going to have to be more patient with her, that she’d just taken a step back from me, and I’d be a fool to attempt to follow.
Nevertheless, I was still a very different and much happier man. Overnight I stopped seeing her everywhere. Stopped being such a pain in the ass. I mean, I had got better as time had gone by, but I’d be the first to admit, I’d still remained vulnerable to the odd black and bloody mood, the occasional alcohol-fuelled depression. Some of those who’d given up on me started to return. I was a human being again, reborn through a modicum of hope. And maybe, for the moment, that was all I should be concentrating on? That for the first time in years I had a measure of balance, of contentment, in my life. Or that is, until the night I invited a few friends round for dinner.
Nothing could’ve seemed more normal. Just a very casual meal (Spaghetti Bolognese, of course) and a flop-out. But really, it was more than that, and I think most of them knew it. I was relaunching myself in society; repaying those who’d stuck by me, making polite overtures to those who I felt guilty about asking too much of.
Luca was there, of course. Clara with a new man. Charlie, though without wife or girlfriend. My old school-friend, Andy, who, during the course of the evening, I realised I probably would’ve lost touch with anyway, whether I’d gone through a bad patch or not. He spent almost the entire evening talking about property values; how much money he’d made out of his last flat, how much he feared he might lose on his present one. And Jill and Ian: old friends from my home town of Bath, who moved up to London about the same time as me, and whose family home and boisterous children had frequently seemed like an oasis of sanity in a soulless single world.
Naturally, Luca teased me about my cooking, telling everyone that in Italy spaghetti was made very differently (one part love, two parts heaven, apparently) but all in all, everyone seemed to be having a relaxed and enjoyable evening. Or until Andy, perhaps dulled by the wine, seemed irresistibly drawn to digging at the patient’s wo
unds to see how well they really had healed.
“Have you ever heard from Frances?” he suddenly asked.
Silence fell like a vacuum had sucked all the sound out of the room, and Clara grunted as if she couldn’t believe anyone could be so insensitive.
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Helluva girl,” he said. “I mean, sorry, diplomatic department drop-out and all that, but she was.”
Despite the fact that I was determined not to say anything about the letters, I couldn’t resist a small act of defiance. “She’s in Amsterdam.”
“Not what I heard,” Andy commented.
“What do you mean?”
“I know Jeremy. Over at Brooke-Hutchinson. He told me she’s in New York.”
“Well, he’s wrong, isn’t he,” I said slightly aggressively.
There was a heavy pause, Andy shrugged to himself, obviously a little surprised by the forbidding nature of my response. Everyone knew the subject had been best avoided, but only Luca exactly how great my dilemma had been. Immediately he was one of several who went into overly polite mode: pouring the wine, moving things along, whilst Jill asked if anyone had seen that very explicit French film she’d seen reviewed on the weekend.
“The English make too much of a storm in a teacup about sex,” Clara said, using an idiom she’d probably learnt that day, but, as often with students of a foreign language, not in quite the right way.
“My dear girl,” said Charlie, “we bloody well invented the act.”
“Yes, but you know how you English are with inventions,” smiled Luca. “It’s always another nation who takes it and makes it better.”
Charlie exploded into laughter, spraying wine everywhere, his bald head intermittently reflecting the light as he rocked back and forth in his chair.
“Bloody I-ti!” he guffawed, wiping his moustache with the back of his hand. “The only possible reason there might be for you being better at sex than us is because we had to break off now and then to fight the odd world war.”
“What can I say?” shrugged Luca. “You want to fight, we want to make love. Which is the more civilised nation?”
On and on it went. Joking. Taunting. Good-natured comments on national differences. All the old stereotypes aired. Luca and Charlie loved to tease each other. Sometimes in the office it would go on for days, like some schoolboy war, rife with foolish pranks. Somewhat predictably, Andy brought up the subject of football; which was a big mistake, Luca’s knowledge of Anglo-Italian meetings being almost second to none. Yet as often, it was someone from one of the smaller fiercer countries of the world who had the final word.