by Linus Peters
The only saving grace of this situation is that, over the years, Jill has seen the need to appoint herself the arbiter of whether he’s being boring or not. On this particular occasion, she let him go on until he began to tell us about this man in France who planted his way right across the length and breadth of the country. That were it not for him, the entire European weather patterns would have been irreversibly changed, crops would have failed, countries brought to their knees, the balance of the world horribly altered to the benefit of those races who stood for everything we didn’t - and all this down to one man, a horse, and a cart-load of saplings - then told him to shut up.
“It’s true!” he told her.
“I doubt it,” she replied.
“Well .. partly true,” he said, with a mischievous smile.
Jill shook her head at Frances, again invoking the suburban female conspiracy, and I found myself peacefully aligned with no one.
“Do you think you two will ever have kids?” Ian asked, after a brief pause.
“Ian!” Jill protested.
“What?”
“They’ve only just got back together.”
“Presumably they like each other then, don’t they,” he commented, rather obviously.
Frances chuckled, her usual effervescing croak, having a fair idea what my reaction would be.
And yet, just for the briefest of moments, I hesitated; feeling this urge to shock, to show her how things were different now. “Maybe,” I answered.
There was a loud chorus of surprised cooing and jeering, and Jill broke into such a smile, you would’ve thought I’d just proposed.
“Who knows!” I cried, a touch irritably, putting a stop to the conversation before it gained any further momentum.
Yet later, alone in the car, on the way back to London, I felt – as I had all afternoon - that things had been left unsaid. I just didn’t know what they were..
“Sometimes ... I almost envy them,” I ventured, interrupting a long and slightly dreamy lapse in the conversation.
Frances hesitated for a moment, taking a few seconds to catch up. “Really?”
“Seems kind of comforting.”
“I think that was the best of it,” she commented.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
There was another pause.
Frances sniggered. “I can’t see you with kids.”
I smiled, not sure what I wanted to say and ending up saying nothing.
“Too much competition,” she teased.
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, my brains, your looks – who’d do that to anyone?”
“I was thinking of the other way round.”
“Really?”
When we got back to her place, she invited me in. Not to the house, you understand - I don’t think I’ve spent more than a few minutes in any of the rooms downstairs – but straight up to her bedroom.
Please, don’t take me to the Race Relations Board, don’t accuse me of some kind of inverted prejudice, but I do get so turned on by her colour. To look down our copulating bodies and see those two shapely brown legs stretching out either side of mine, cleaved by white - as if I’m some kind of anaemic sickly creature inserting myself into her so I can suck out life and colour - is something I can only glimpse for a moment rather than risk premature ejaculation. Though the odd thing is, she says exactly the same thing about me: how much she prefers my body, the delicate beauty of all that pale skin. I guess it’s a just matter of what you’re not used to, but frankly, the thought of anyone finding this pallid mass of lard a turn-on, especially over something that looks so much healthier, that the average white holidaymaker spends endless uncomfortable hours trying to emulate, is, frankly, way beyond my understanding.
We made love once, quickly, urgently, finishing in a matter of minutes, then just lay there; laughing, kissing, playing, till eventually we were ready to go again. This time I lingered endlessly over her. Those almost black nipples that protrude further and firmer than any pair I’ve ever known, that sleek soft orb of an ass, the way her pubic hair collects in tight little curls. I know this body. I know it so well. I know what it likes, how it responds, its taste on my tongue. And I wanted to make love to it in a way I never had before, and I knew why. Something about our earlier conversation had aroused me to a point where all I could think about was what we could potentially create between us, and Frances responded in such a manner, I suspect she was thinking the same thing. Further and further we went. Occasionally fast and furious, mindlessly pounding each other, but most of the time so slow, so intense, it was as if we were coaxing our senses into taking us up to the next level, where we could finally throw away every inhibition, every doubt, every last scrap of caution.
I‘ve never enjoyed making love more, and yes, I admit it, so many times I thought about wrenching that damn condom off my dick and throwing it away, of filling her with all the life I had, and hang the consequences. But I didn’t. Of course.
I guess it was about eleven thirty or so when I got home. It had been a sublime weekend, but I was so tired, I couldn’t wait to get to bed. As usual there was nowhere to park outside the flat, and I started to drive up and down a couple of side streets looking for a space. It was when I turned around and approached from the opposite direction that I first saw her. Sitting on the wall of the house opposite, her blonde hair looking almost white in the street light, her face just a dark shadowy void. Oh God, Juliana.
I drove by on my way back to a spot I hadn’t been sure about getting into earlier. Finding it still vacant, that with a lot of too-ing and fro-ing, a vote of thanks to the inventor of power steering, I could just about fit in.
Slowly and deliberately I got out of the car, lingering over securing it, making sure the central locking was working, that all the doors and boot were properly closed, then reluctantly beginning the fifty or sixty yard walk back to my home, now feeling, not so much tired, as prematurely drained.
I didn’t say a word, just walked up and stood in front of her. She looked terrible. Even in the street light I could see how pale and puffy her face was, the huge circles under her eyes, this kind of pinched and strained look, as if someone had been tugging and pulling at the skin of her face every day for the last few weeks.
I waited for her to speak, but she didn’t even raise her eyes from the ground.
“What do you want?” I eventually asked.
“I dropped off a letter to you,” she said, in a near-whisper, still her head bowed. “I haven’t been able to leave since.”
“Juliana!” I groaned despairingly, any aggression I felt, any annoyance, over what she’d done in the pub, gone in a moment.
“That’s my home!” she cried, finally looking up, voicing a thought that had obviously been with her ever since she’d arrived
I sighed, not knowing how to react, watching her casually brush her tears away, as if she’d got very used to that of late.
“I thought you would’ve gone back to Amsterdam.” I said.
“No.”
“Where are you living?”
“In a bed and breakfast. Not far away.”
It didn’t exactly make me feel comfortable but I refused to ask her where it was. An old couple walked by, exercising their golden labrador, their silence one of absolute awareness.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Just for few minutes. I’m cold.”
“Go home then,” I said, the words hard, my tone a lot softer.
She went quiet for a moment. There was something a little slow, a little dazed about her, and I wondered if she was on tranquillisers.
“I’m sorry about what happened in the pub,” she said.
“So am I,” I replied, my cracked rib still tender.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
I shook my head, finding it so hard to relate that raging animal who’d attacked me to this broken butterfly I saw before
me.
“Please, let me come in,” she asked.
“No.”
She began to cry again, this time from much deeper inside. “I love you!” she wailed, grabbing hold of my hand.
“Juliana! ... It’s no use!” I sighed, pulling away.
“Please!” she begged, again grabbing hold of my hand.
There are none more ruthless than the lover confronted by those who stand between them and their love. And seemingly none more pathetic than those doing the standing. Again I tugged my hand free, loathing myself for doing it.
“I’m sorry, but it’s over,” I told her. “You have to accept that.”
Yet again she seized my hand, and this time I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. She was in so much pain it almost hurt to be near her. Hanging onto me, refusing to let go, and suddenly I saw the awful irony of this situation. That I was the one who’d gone round for years, broken-hearted, crying out to anyone who’d listen, who might take away my pain. Yet now, now that I was confronted by someone else in the same state, who I’d actually reduced to that condition, God help me, I didn’t really care. Or not as much as I should.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I love Frances. I think I’ve always loved Frances.”
Again tears flowed, not just from her eyes, but building up throughout her entire convulsing body, like she was shaking them out of her.
I waited for her to subside a little, then tried to move away. “I have to go.”
She didn’t say a word, just increased the pressure of her grip on my hand. The old couple returned with their labrador, this time openly staring, the woman muttering something once they were by, looking back, obviously thinking about intervening, but her husband pulled her away. Again I tried to prise myself free, but Juliana refused to budge.
“No!” she shouted.
“Juliana!”
“I love you!” she said, as if to remind me of all those times she’d said it, how regular and great her investment had been.
“I’m sorry. I really am. But you have to accept this. For everyone’s sake.”
With that I finally wrenched my hand free, immediately turning away, trying not to make it obvious, but actually covering the distance to my front door as rapidly as I possibly could.
“Simon!” she called after me. “Simon, please!”
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t bear to. There was a hand-written letter on the front mat that I ignored until I was sure the door was firmly closed and locked.
Once upstairs, I didn’t turn the light on, stepping over to the window in the dark, peering out round the side of the curtain. She was still there, sitting on the wall, and even from where I was, I could see she was still crying. I watched for a while, feeling such a cruel bastard, then forced myself to go to the kitchen, at the back of the building, where she couldn’t see the light go on.
Five minutes later I went to take another look. Then another five. And ten more after that. Still she hadn’t moved. I was so tempted to go back out, but knew it could only make matters worse. She looked so pathetic. So forlorn, so fragile, and again I found myself wondering whether it was in her to commit suicide. In the end, dismissing the idea, telling myself she wouldn’t, that no one had the right to hold that over another person.
Twenty minutes or so later, with me still in the kitchen, thumbing distractedly through the dregs of the Sunday supplements, the intercom buzzer went. I sighed, knowing it had to be her. A few seconds later it went again. And again. This time for much longer. In the next quarter of an hour she must’ve pressed it thirty times. Mostly just for few seconds, but occasionally for a minute or more. I was beginning to feel like I was under siege. Yet I forced myself to pretend it wasn’t happening, to just go on with my normal routine: washing up a few dishes, going to the bathroom to clean my teeth and retiring to bed.
Eventually one of the silences between buzzes stretched on for a while and I began to hope she’d gone. I got up and went to look out, checking up and down the street and finding it empty, feeling so wretched yet relieved, too.
Juliana, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. But, please, leave me alone. Go back to Amsterdam and leave us in peace.
Dear Simon,
You have no idea how much I wish English
was my first language. I know you say I speak it as
well as you do, but it isn’t true. I cannot tell you what
I’m really thinking, the way I want to, not in your
bloody English. All I can say is that there is a pain with
me twenty fours a day, that I can’t stop crying, that I
can’t stop thinking about you.
I wish to God I never pretended to be Frances. The
number of times I wanted to stop. But I thought it was
what you wanted. I mean, when we first met, why did
you call me her name? Why didn’t you ask me who I
really was? Sometimes I think you were just looking
for anyone who was stupid enough to help you keep
the memory of her alive. But, Simon, don’t you see?
How this relationship began is not important. The main
thing is that no one will ever love you the way I do. Not
your wonderful Frances. Nor anyone else. We were
meant to be together. It wasn’t a coincidence that, out
of all the addresses it could’ve gone to, your letter came
to me.
I want to phone you, but the two occasions I have,
Frances has answered. Have you any idea how that
makes me feel? To phone, what, until recently, was
my home, and for another woman to answer?
So now I’m back to writing you letters. Letters that once
hid so much from you, and now do the same. Simon,
can we meet? There are so many things I have to tell
you. I’ll do anything, I promise you. Be whatever you
want, say whatever you want, just as long as we can
be together.
No matter what you say or do, I will never give up
on us. Never.
All my love forever,
Juliana
And now, I guess, we may not have come full circle, but certainly 240 degrees. Now I’m the one receiving pained letters, begging requests to come back, and from the person I once thought was Frances. Over the next week or so, I received several more. All hand-delivered and in more or less the same vein. And do you know what I did? Do you know how I treated the words and phrases she’d probably agonised over - some that were almost identical to those I’d used for Frances? The first few letters I read, but after that, I just skimmed them to see if there was anything new, then threw them in the garbage. Even though it occurred to me as I did so that once Frances must’ve done the same, and how hurt I would’ve been if I’d known. If love teaches us nothing else, it should make us more philosophical.
It did concern me that she was living nearby. I found myself looking for B&Bs, wondering if it was where she lived. It even went through my mind to move. But it seemed like a lot of trouble for a situation that couldn’t last for long. And sure enough, a few weeks later, the whole thing got turned around again when Frances decided she would move in after all.
Actually, as so often happens with these things, she didn’t so much decide, as circumstances decided for her. She’d been house-sitting for these friends in the States. When they made a sudden and unexpected return, she had to find somewhere else to live urgently, and well, ‘a temporary arrangement’ was eventually accepted as a permanent one. She was going to move in at some point, why bother moving out, only to move back in again later?
Thankfully, I was able to get hold of an MPV to test, and thoroughly scrutinised its practicality and load-carrying ability by transporting her things from Chiswick to Crouch End. Not that there was a great deal of them. To my surprise, the major items were her computer, scanner, and all that stuff. She set them up
in a corner of the sitting room. Pretty impressive they looked too - and, of course, ‘looking’ was about all I had in mind to do.
However, when trying to sound as if I wasn’t still entirely hopeless with such things, I casually mentioned Charlie’s new lap-top doing nothing in the office, that I could use it if I wanted, Frances insisted I brought it home, that she would teach me how to use it, that finally I would be dragged, yawning and complaining, into the 21st Century.
It took several days of such rhetoric, of being reminded of how I was possibly the only journalist on the planet who didn’t know how to use a computer, that Charlie was possibly the only boss who would accept such a situation, before I finally gave in and brought the damn thing home. There then followed a couple of very frustrating evenings where she attempted to demonstrate to me what a modern computer is capable of, whilst I attempted to demonstrate to her what an old-fashioned stubborn male is incapable of. Yet in the end, surprise-surprise, I did become just that little bit interested. I mean, did you know there were games? Not killing and kick-assing kid’s stuff, but good old-fashioned ones. I spent hour after hour playing Solitaire, the irony of such an ancient form of entertainment being played on a computer rather appealing to me. Yet the trade-off was, I did finally realise that, if I really put my mind to it, I could perhaps make my life a little bit easier. And that’s something I’m always interested in.
I don’t know how I let Luca manipulate me into doing these things, but one morning he came into my office to tell me he was driving out to Charlie’s for lunch and did I fancy coming along? I mean, I was a little surprised. Charlie appeared to have gone out of his way to discourage any face-to-face contact since coming out of hospital. Nevertheless, I was really excited at the prospect of seeing him. It was only on the way over that Luca admitted we hadn’t actually been invited.
“What do you mean?” I asked, swivelling on the polished leather seats of his old much-loved, but frequently heavily abused, Mark Two Jag.