by Linus Peters
Oh no, my fragile and beautiful love. I won’t ever leave you. And I won’t meet her either.
However, it wasn’t such an easy decision in other moments as it was in that one. I mean, after everything that had happened between us, it seemed almost irrational that now, no matter what my circumstances, I shouldn’t take the opportunity to meet Frances. If only so I could lay her ghost to rest at last. So I could have that opportunity we all sometimes crave, to ask what on earth we’d seen in a former partner.
The following day, I waved Luca into my office, closed the door behind him, and told him what had happened. At first he barely believed me - this seemingly constant parade of bizarre incidents in my life - yet after a while I began to sense that, particularly after the previous evening, the way Juliana had behaved, he felt I owed it to myself to meet Frances.
“It’s just asking for trouble!”
“Simon, she was everything to you. You met Juliana only because she was prepared to be Frances’s substitute.”
“At first! Yes! But now we have something of our own.”
He sighed long and hard. “I can’t help but feel that maybe what you had with Frances was more ‘healthy’.”
I went quiet for a moment, wondering what he’d say if he knew the entire story, about Juliana’s history. “Frances left me,” I eventually reminded him.
“And now she’s back. Anyway, she probably doesn’t want to get back together. Just to see you. Where’s the harm in that?”
“I just don’t think I should.”
The phone rang in his office, and, after waiting a few moments to see if anyone would answer it, he eventually sighed to himself, the burden of being acting manager already becoming tedious, and wandered off.
I fell back in my chair. That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. I’d wanted him to say no, it wasn’t a good idea, that only a madman would consider it. Something positive and forbidding. Now I was even more confused than I’d been before.
Twice I got the number out of my wallet and just stared at it, as if somewhere in its sequence there was a clue, a secret code, as to what I should do. Once I even dialled it, putting the phone down before it went through, not wanting anyone to be able to trace me but for some reason wanting the number fed in and recorded by my phone.
For the rest of the day it was the same story. My dilemma, my impending decision, never leaving me for a moment. Making absolutely adamant and irreversible decisions that I changed my mind about within a matter of seconds. I was perfectly happy with Juliana. Incredibly lucky to have her, in fact. So why would I risk that for something that belonged in the past? On the other hand, surely curiosity alone dictated I should meet Frances? Just the once. To erase any last traces.
I decided to work late at the office. It’s unheard of, of course. Everyone made jokes at my expense. I blamed Charlie’s continuing absence - things that had to be done, extra responsibilities, etc - but the real truth was, I wanted them all to leave so I could be alone with my phone. So I could give full emotional scope to my dilemma.
I phoned Juliana a little after six. Ostensibly to tell her that I was going to be late but, in fact, I think, because I was hoping she’d say something to help me make up my mind, to dismiss the idea once and for all. Five minutes after I put the phone down from her, I picked it up again, not so much choosing a path, as blundering into the undergrowth.
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Oh. I wasn’t sure you’d call.”
“It’s probably not a very good idea,” I told her.
She went quiet for a moment, as if she didn’t want to crowd me, as if to allow me the space to make my own decision. However, I still didn’t know what I wanted to say.
“Do you want to meet?” she said.
“Where?” I asked, as if the location would influence me somehow.
“Do you remember that little Spanish bar we used to go to off Oxford Street?”
“Huh, “ I grunted. “There’s a walk down memory lane.”
“No, I think it’s Hanway Street.”
Despite the situation, and the fact that it wasn’t the greatest joke ever, I chuckled weakly. “When?”
“Tomorrow? After work? Sixish?”
There was another long pause. I could barely bring myself to say it. “This really isn’t a good idea,” I repeated.
“Just for a chat. To catch up.”
I took a deep breath. That sounded innocent enough. “Okay ... I’ll see you there.”
After we rang off, I sat at my desk for a good half-an-hour or more, a sense of foreboding looming up over me like a flock of shadows. Nothing good could come of this. Nothing. So why was I going to go through with it? I should stop now. Call her back and tell her I’ve changed my mind. Close the door, slam it shut, lock it and brick up the entrance. But I knew I couldn’t. I had to see Frances one last time.
As I turned the corner out of Oxford Street, she was waiting outside the bar; balancing on the kerb, flicking with her foot at some leaflet left wet and bedraggled in the gutter, trying to read it. She still wore black, a long loose fitting coat, though her hair was a lot shorter. All day I’d been thinking about this moment, yet I didn’t feel so much nervous as disbelieving. Was it really her? After all this time? And maybe that was why I was so sure this reunion could only end in anticlimax. Surely it was too much time?
I don’t know how she knew I was coming, but ten metres or so away, I realised she was smiling to herself. A shy little smile that eventually rose out of the gutter and was directed at me.
“Hello,” she said.
I stopped and stared into her face, all that big brown universal honesty, that sense, no matter her mood, that she could barely contain her joy, that perfect scar. All so familiar and yet ... who was she?
“I don’t know what to say,” I eventually confessed.
“Well, if someone says ‘hello’, the usual reply is to say something similar back,” she said. “Might seem a bit pointless, but that’s the way it’s done.”
“Okay. Hello,” I said, surprised at how relaxed she seemed.
“Very good,” she teased.
We stood there for a moment, helplessly staring at each other, both embarrassed by exactly what the manner of greeting should be. Eventually we just kind of laughed and grabbed for each other, briefly clumsily hugging. She felt strange. Too short. Our bodies touching in the wrong places, like a puzzle with several wrong pieces.
Not another word was spoken until we got inside and were sitting with our drinks. Even then we struggled, as if there was no right place to begin, like eating a meal at one of those revolving sushi bars. She told me about New York - the sheer size and excitement of it, the bewildering sense of waste, of burning into the night - that she was still employed in graphics, the lure of the dollar finally having persuaded her of the value of computers. So much so, in fact, that the new tricks she’s learnt have helped her land a job in one of the top agencies in London. Meanwhile, I confined myself to Charlie’s illness, Luca, and any mutual friends I might’ve come across over the last few years.
To be honest, I’m not sure either of were registering what the other was saying. It was all too much of a shock. Too much to take in. And anyway, why were we small talking when we knew there was a mountain between us?
She went up to buy another round of drinks, and when she returned, as if the niceties, the preamble, were finally over, directed the conversation onto a more personal channel.
“And who was that who answered the phone the other night?” she asked, partly as if teasing, partly as a real question,
“Juliana.”
“Oh?”
I shrugged, realising I was already slightly playing it down but not knowing why. “We live together.”
Frances nodded. “Nice?”
“Yes.”
She went quiet for a moment, pretending to be absorbed by someone irrationally complaining to the girl behind the bar about the age of the records on the old-fashioned ju
kebox, then gave one of those contemplative little chuckles you know means someone has just marked your dance-card for discussion.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing ... For some reason I just had this urge to put the record straight. Now it seems rather stupid and unnecessary.”
I hesitated for a moment, it crossing my mind that maybe I should just leave that dangling. However, that’s not the way we’re made. “Course it’s not.”
Frances sighed to herself, genuinely seeming to debate whether to go on or not, yet finally took a deep breath. “I ran away, Simon, for no reason other than because that was my habit. That was what I always did. And when you chased after me, when you pursued me the way you did, with all those letters and phone calls, it only seemed to confirm that it was the right decision. That I should run even faster, even further ... It took me a long time to realise that actually I was missing you, that maybe I hadn’t wanted to run at all ... Even then I blamed myself for what I’d done to you, for destroying the person I was missing and leaving a stranger in his place.” She paused for a moment, glancing out the window, taking a sip of her Rioja. “So many times I thought about contacting you, but I just kept seeing that other man. The one I’d created, that I felt so guilty about but still couldn’t bear to be anywhere near. When I finally stopped seeing him, and started remembering you, when I guessed that sad stranger might have faded back inside, well, I thought it would probably be too late. And,” she sighed, “I guess I was right.”
She gave this little reflective smile, as if to say she had no right to have expected anything else.
For a moment I couldn’t speak. The irony was almost risible. “I don’t know what to say,” I told her.
“Nothing you can say. You’ve moved on. I would’ve been surprised if you hadn’t.”
Both of us fell silent. I didn’t know whether to tell her the whole story, what had happened during those intervening years, but in the end I decided that her honesty meant I owed her mine. I told her about the letters, the appearance of Juliana, the pretence, the way it had turned out. Everything.
“God!” she gasped, when I finally finished. “Unbelievable.”
“Try living it,” I told her.
“No wonder you don’t need me anymore.”
I don’t know why, but I baulked a little at that. I only wanted equality, not humiliation. “Sometimes I worry about it. If I did the right thing,” I told her.
She made a face as if to say she understood why, but that maybe that was all part of it. “Must be love,” she said.
I admit it felt a little odd, but there was no hesitation. “Yes. I think it is.”
We stayed there for almost two hours. When I finally followed her out into the street and the last of the day, I felt almost guilty, as if I’d let her down somehow.
“I’m sorry, Simon”, she said, “this was a mistake.”
“No! Course it wasn’t. It’s been great.”
“I just needed to set things straight. That’s all.”
Again we stood facing each other awkwardly, this time not sure how to say our goodbyes. Eventually we hugged once more, old familiar smells now seeming strangely alien. She relaxed her grip, went to pull away, then suddenly grabbed me again, squeezing and squeezing till finally our sun went down.
I watched her walk away until she disappeared into the evening shoppers of Oxford Street, unable to believe what had just happened, that I’d spent the last two hours with Frances. That walk, that straight back, moving away from me, and this time I wasn’t chasing after her. I wasn’t making any attempt to follow her at all. In fact, I turned and headed off in the opposite direction.
That had been Frances that had. After all these years, that had been her. And here I was, casually walking away, untouched, unscathed, and not feeling the slightest degree of pain or discomfort.
I remember the first time I visited Venice. I’d wanted to for so long, studying books, watching films, I can’t tell you how great my excitement and anticipation was. However, when I got there - I have no idea why - I didn’t get it. I sailed along those familiar ornate canals, got lost down endless dreamy back lanes, sat and sipped local vino in picturesque piazzas. I mean, it was beautiful, truly unique, I could see that. But for some reason, I really don’t know what was wrong with me, but personally, I just didn’t get it.
Of course, I made all the right comments. I didn’t want to seem like I was missing something. Nor that there was anything missing in me. I was with this slightly dippy art student, Denise - all pre-Raphaelite curls, heavy eye liner and layers of multi-coloured cottons that smelt of roll-ups. We danced round there like we’d bought a day ticket to Paradise: shrieking and laughing, leaping up on bridges and monuments to have our photos taken, forcing ourselves up onto a self-generated high. Yet deep down I knew I was fraud ... that, in fact, I didn’t get it.
When I got back to England I dreamt about the place every night for a month. I thrilled to every crumb of magnificent marble, every dank drop of flooding sea water, every gathering cruel speck of atmospheric decay. As if Venice had been so overwhelming, my stunned mind had simply had to slow its progress into me. That it had needed extra time to allow it to percolate safely into my consciousness lest I’d be harmed by its overpowering beauty.
When I walked away from Frances that evening, I was utterly confident that was it, that the ghost had finally and truly been laid to rest. I didn’t care if I never ever saw her again. That night I made love to Juliana in such relaxed fashion, it was as if I’d been holding back a tiny percentage of myself all this time. Afterwards we just lay there, so knotted in our embrace we couldn’t unravel ourselves till the morning.
However, as soon as I left the flat, moment by moment, hour by hour, Frances began to flood back into my mind as if I’d developed a leak that I just couldn’t plug.
I recalled details about her I seemingly hadn’t even noticed the day before. The slightly more sophisticated image; similar clothes, yet more expensive. The shorter, and by the look of it, now professionally attended hair. But it was her face that kept coming back to me. The softest hint of wrinkles now at the corner of her eyes, as if she’d finally been awarded her badge for a lifetime of laughter.
I’d felt so comfortable with her. Once the initial nervousness had been dispensed with, once our minds had got up to the speed of events, it had been impossible to believe we hadn’t seen each other for so long. We just slotted back the way it had been, right down to stirring up traces of our old foolish humour, our inane giggling ways.
I managed to get through that day – taking Juliana out to the cinema and a meal; trying to recreate our lovemaking of the previous evening - and most of the following one. However, late in the afternoon, I had to return this Toyota to the main dealers, and on my way back to the tube station, I found myself ducking into a call-box.
I took her number from my wallet, laid it out, then forced myself to stop and think for a moment. I’d made my decision, what was the point of seeing her again? Nevertheless, I took a deep breath, and cursing the stupidity of a third party I know as me, watched as my finger began to press out the numbers.
“Frances?”
“Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“I know.”
“Sorry.”
“Why?”
“I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Oh.”
There was a long pause. We both knew why I’d called. I took a deep breath and put us out of our misery.
“I want to see you again.”
We met for a drink in a pub in Chiswick, not far from where she was living. Just for an hour or so, but enjoyed it so much, felt that so much was left unsaid, we arranged to spend the entire following afternoon together. You remember what I said? About that brief moment when you have a chance to stop yourself doing what you know you shouldn’t? Before you fall to temptation? Somehow we missed it, it was bumped off the programme, and neither of us stopped to ask why.<
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We went for a walk round Kew Gardens - on safari in the greenhouses, attending to polite ceremonies in the shadow of the pagoda - travelling back in time so fast it was a wonder we knew when to hit the brakes. The whole afternoon was spent in this state of natural harmony, as if woven from one piece of thread, one continuous soft and silky strand.
On numerous occasions we stopped and just held each other for several minutes at a time. Standing there motionlessly amongst the trees as if in imitation. Without words, without kisses, in a kind of awed daze. I couldn’t believe how quickly it had happened, how abruptly the last four years, with all their sadness and obsession, even, I suspect, my feelings for Juliana, had become emotional outtakes. And by the time we came to part, we both knew that, whether we wanted this thing or not was no longer the issue. That in the space of a few hours it had surged forward from its place in the past, caught us up, and swept us away again.
“Simon,” she said, as she sat in my car outside her home. “What are we going to do?”
I sighed, knowing the subject had to be raised sometime, but hoping it wouldn’t be just yet. “I don’t know.”
“I’ve never been the third party in a relationship before, and I’m not starting now.”
“I know.”
“Maybe we should stop seeing each other until you know what you want?”
Again I sighed. “I can’t stop seeing you. Please, don’t ask me.”
For a while she sat there, staring at the road ahead, her hand resting in mine. “What do you want?” she asked.
“You,” I answered, without thought or hesitation.
“What about Juliana?”
I didn’t reply, and she turned back to face me.
“I don’t know,” I eventually said.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I repeated.
She went silent again, not wishing to press me any further in that moment. However, when she did finally speak, her voice had lost a lot of its softness. “Well, I won’t do this for long,” she warned. “No matter what our feelings, we have to respect each other. And ourselves.”