Twice the Speed of Dark

by Lulu Allison

  The next hour passes in easy thought, in observing the workings of this small part of the world – as laid out, at least, for the curious visitor – and making space in it for future her. The great game of travel, the pictures we conjure worth as much as the ones we bring home on our cameras or send to friends’ screens. She drinks her second beer then heads back to the hotel, walking briefly down to the small waves that spill onto the wet sand as the tide recedes. She is bound for a safe bed, to wake up on Christmas Eve, to write or walk, to explore safely. She wonders: if she were to make herself the centre of a star, how many points it would have, if each tip were a town where that certainty is not possible? More destinations than are served by all the planes that leave from the nearby airport. She reminds herself that she is after all a lucky woman.

  Chapter 11

  Even now, it is hard to track the changes that turned a happy start into such misery. I cooked meals in the evenings, read books, played at a kind of romantic idleness that could never be sustained. A pitter – patter life. However much it gratified Ryan in a manner that, at that time, fed my own happiness too, perhaps it was not a state that would have lasted, even without the darker turn the tale would take. I started to get bored; we started to get short of money. I got a job. It was boring. I drifted through a work day. Boredom and tiredness took the shine off cooking elaborate evening meals. Boredom thins the joy of a relationship like tepid water weakens a drink. Maybe it was the onset of boredom that caused such anxiety in Ryan that he feared the way things were changing. Maybe he really did believe I secretly admired the nice but unremarkable Josh, who worked with me and whom we met one evening by chance in town. Maybe he did believe I spent all hours regretting not going to London without him. I did spend minutes, guilty minutes, wondering what I would be doing if I were not wearing my brown uniform dress, tidying the magazine rack, hoping that the evening would be a happy one. But I had not yet come to regret my choice. Love was all. Love was not to be betrayed by regret. Love had not failed me yet.

  But tension became the mark of that love. It was difficult, I thought, to make things work. It was difficult, I thought, for Ryan to be trusting and happy, because, by his own defining, he loved me so much he was afraid he would lose me. I wished I could find a way to make him see that he needn’t fear that. I tried. I shrank and moulded, I mollified and flattered his insecurity. I bent and bowed under it. Look! Look at my contortions and take them for proof. I stopped talking about university as a possibility at any time in the future. I stopped talking about people at work. I did go home and see Mum and Dad, but became cautious about expressing too much of a desire to do even that.

  Other people were dropping away, firstly because other people caused bad moods that implicitly demanded I question my need for others in my life. After a while, he made those demands explicit. Why did I need anyone else? Didn’t I love him enough to be fulfilled? The one exception was going as a couple to visit our families. For some months, the only people I had meaningful interactions with were Ryan’s and my parents. Secretly, after a few months, I attended to the admin necessary to starting my university course once the year had elapsed, should I decide to go, but I kept it to myself, utterly fearful of broaching the subject but unable to let it disappear for good.

  Aside from this one nervy subterfuge, I built a fence around my own activities, delineated my boundaries to reveal myself to him as knowable, quantifiable. I extend this far; you can see all of me. Is that not something you can trust? But it wasn’t enough. Ryan began to draw those fences ever further in, to reduce the scale of me. He became slowly more demanding and more angry. But, you must understand, even though I find it hard myself to understand, this was still sweetened by love. Between bouts of angry misunderstanding he rebuilt the beautiful tent – palace of our love, brought me back to a time when the little flat was a precious refuge, a quiet hub of passion amongst the discord of our dulling daily lives.

  It helped me believe that once Ryan could understand he need have no fear, we would return to an open and joyful existence. Of course, I see now that would never happen. Ryan didn’t want reassurance. He wanted ownership, control. He didn’t want me elevated by his love but reduced to something he could hold in his pocket, a shape worn down inexorably to fit, smothered in his hand.

  I could fit inside his ribs now, through the holes in his shoes. I could thread through his marrow and let it taste the darkness that awaits. I could make him shudder with the sudden intrusion of my presence. I could, I am sure, if I knew how to command myself.

  *

  Next morning Anna goes down to the breakfast room, taking a book. The day is overcast, but the beach is still bright with activity. Glad to be alone, she enjoys the visual company of the other diners – the rangy youths on the beach, the swift and hushed solicitations of waiters and waitresses who revert to ebullient clatter once back through the swing doors to the busy kitchen. There is a couple at another table, a pair of solitary diners, held in mutual silence, in a smaller space than that which she is allowed to occupy, being truly alone. They have no space for a book. Their yawning silence overspills by a lifetime the precise boundaries long settled inside the confined space of coupledom. There are other pairs who seem to enjoy each other. A family who thread the airspace of their table with constant incursions – hands and arms steal and tend and share with each other, young children have faces wiped, glasses held, parents are fed morsels of croissant or unwanted crust by little, clutching hands. She enjoys their gentle drama as she consumes breakfast at a leisurely pace, reading, drinking coffee slowly until it is cold, spinning out the sips, dabbing crumbs one at a time from the plate.

  She makes her way back to her room. It is time to call home. She will text Michael too, to avoid him calling her later. She calls Sophie, who is wrapping presents. Anna tells her about her walk, the beach, about the hotel. She still doesn’t talk about the colossal, ugly thing, the enormous presence, the return of Ryan. Shortly before Anna left for Tenerife, Sophie had, with her gentle care, let Anna know that she had heard Ryan was back. But Sophie knew her friend well and let the words brush past them. Anna said enough to confirm that she knew already, and Sophie said if Anna needed to talk about Ryan she should, she could.

  She might well need to talk about him. But she doesn’t. She can’t. Not yet. She trusts Sophie to understand her reticence, but there have been weeks of dread that other, less careful, people would bring up the news, angle for the illicit, vicarious thrill of her feelings. Having seen so few people, she thankfully avoided such a conversation. That awful encounter has remained horribly private, intimate. It is wrapped round Anna, thin threads tied around her waist, around each thigh above her knee, around her arms, around her thumbs and her toes. There it is, difficult to forget, but secret, discreet. Sophie talks over the tug of the thread, tells her about some disaster involving the turkey and a necessary trip to the other side of town to an unknown butcher. Doubtless Christmas dinner would’ve involved the director’s cut of this story from Brian; indeed, it is possible it will crop up further in the future. She braces herself impatiently in advance. She tells Sophie that she is happy, enjoying her time away. They promise they will talk again soon. Her dear friend – Anna pictures her with an exuberant pile of paper and bags of slightly odd gifts that accumulate as during the weeks leading up to Christmas she adds extras and finds things she likes better. She has a gentle face, eyebrows that express concern however serene her mood. She is one of the nicest people Anna knows.

  Next Anna calls Tony and Simon, leaves a message on their answerphone. She gets a text from Tony a few minutes later with the message ‘Sounds great. Aunty L on the way, can we swap?’ She had forgotten that Simon’s Aunt Laura would also have been a Christmas guest, and once more is glad she is out of the way. She likes Laura, but she is a sour and difficult woman. Tony and Simon are afflicted with a need to challenge her moodiness, resulting in constant attempts to make her happy. Entrenched, lopsided buffoonery ensues, w
ith Laura retreating further and becoming harder to please, forcing them into ever-greater clowning servility. It is the one time Simon ditches his arch hauteur. It is exhausting. She wonders briefly if she is an unsuspecting understudy for the future role of Aunt Laura. Perhaps she is already there, an apprentice, a milkier version.

  She showers and lies on the bed in the hotel towels, generous in both size and thickness. The wind blows; the taut curl of a kite pulls a surfer over a wave, into the air briefly and back onto the slopes of the sea. The sun warms the air from behind the cover of cloud. It’s Christmas Eve. A sigh forms, expanding outwards through her skin. In that stillness, a distant cloud advances, the rumble of unwelcome thought growls nearer. With it, anger rises. She gets up, paces a little round the beds, looks from the balcony over the sea. She pulls the towel off her head angrily. She shakes it out, but it drops, falls, reshaping and opening, to the edge of the sea below. Waves push and pull slowly. It furls and stretches in the water, catching now and then on the wet sand. A secret wish embellishes what she sees, and the black satisfaction of a drowned man flits furtively through Anna’s thoughts.

  She dresses hastily and leaves, snatching up her bag, her purple book and a green fountain pen she bought passing time in the airport. She walks back along the beach, glimpses the white of the towel, looking fat and heavy in the small tug of the waves. She leaves it, enjoying the spite of profligacy, allowing an expensive towel to turn into waste. More miles of thread. The towel, with no purpose, goes softly nowhere in the shallows; the surfers, taut with purpose, zigzag nowhere in the bay.

  The cafe from last night is open. She sits facing towards the sea at one of the tables outside. Fortified with a coffee, in the double shade of cloud and umbrella, with an empty page before her, she chews the end of the green pen. It is smooth, with a tang to the taste, like spectacles. Her teeth skid satisfyingly off the hard plastic. She drinks her coffee. The small handle is irritating, a round hole inside a squarish stub of clay, too small for her fingers to go through; the thick white china of the shallow cup needs better leverage. But the coffee is good. Staring out to sea, focus drifts away so easily. The sensations of now, let them curtain for a moment the restlessness she feels. The warm air, the gentle breeze, the two colours of sea and sky. The rich taste of coffee, the heavy clay weight of the cup. Let them take up all attention.

  She unhooks her gaze from the horizon. Turns back to the tabletop, the page and the pen – helpmeets, decision-making machines. So she hopes. A page is dedicated to rough notes, words, ideas, disordered thoughts, in the hope that in their accidental arrangement, their scuffle on the page will form an answer. The page becomes two, with looping links and twig-piles of scribbled underlines. But order does not arise from the inky melee. She does not know what to do. There is so little path and so much woodland; what paths exist are so rarely used that they lose their footing before she does. She would need a machete to pass.

  *

  There is a little of Christmas’s ubiquitous cheer in the hotel, but Anna spends the days quietly, restfully. She sometimes seems to elicit curiosity, but nobody troubles her. There is a formality, a reserve, about the place that allows her solitude. She is glad she ended up here. In the mornings she goes for a long swim, along the shore these days rather than out far from the reach of land as she used to when younger, when less concerned with monitoring how much energy she had and when it might desert her. The sea is usually warm and steady, though the winds that attract the kitesurfers can kick up a bit of choppiness in the waves. As she changes into dry clothes back in the hotel room, she likes to look from the balcony down the long beach, to work out how far she swam. This morning was longer than usual, further than the smartly kept beachside buildings that host various tourist activities. As far along as a salmon-pink building she manages to pick out from behind a group of large, spiky-leaved plants. The exercise has been restorative. Walking at home kept Anna fit, but the sea swimming is more demanding, bringing a pleasing ache to her shoulders. She feels the hangover-like residue of stress and care being loosened and slowly flushed out by the quiet passage of time spent on her own and by the exercise, the cold of seawater being dissolved by very long hot showers once back in her room.

  Yesterday was warm, the air too calm, too steady, for surfers. After showering, she went out to the same bar for an afternoon coffee and some cake. The place filled quickly, the seasonal party mood drawing people out. She sat alone at her small table until she was asked, first in Spanish, then, as she struggled to respond, in English, if she minded a young couple joining her. As they settled down with a beer each, they chatted with Anna. She learned that they were Karl from Germany and Estela from Spain, and they were there for the kitesurfing, spinning out as many months of all-year summer as they could. She was gratified to hear their stories, glad they showed no interest in her own.

  From her balcony, she can see Karl and Estela now, lugging gear onto the beach. They exchange a cheery wave when they spot Anna. She watches as they lay out and clip and unfold and unpack. Then they are flying across the water. Estela’s brown-and-blond hair flies out behind her. She uses her weight and balance to counteract the pull of the wind. Anna thought that Karl, being larger and stronger, would seem to have the advantage, but watching them, she feels that Estela looks to be more supremely flying with the wind. Her slight frame does not seem to be a disadvantage and adds a beautiful sense of cooperation with the natural forces. Their exciting freedom spills around them, and the gentle outer edges are shared with Anna, watching them contentedly from the balcony.

  After some time, she goes inside and lies on her single bed, with the windows and balcony door wide open. A fierce blade of sun races in, laying a decisive track across a corner of the room. The wind follows gently, stirring the half-open curtains. She lies with her book on her chest, the moustache-shaped end profile curling out from the creased spine. The book is boring. She turns to her tablet and skims the news pages. The heat of scandal caused by the dishonesty of a wealthy and powerful man is fading out. She wonders how to map the consequences of those lies, wonders whether the anxiety of discovery and the temporary fading of power can be deemed fair recompense. But these stories are commonplace; after a few short weeks of prissy public chastity, this same red face will be filling screens once more, self-serving and bombastic as ever.

  She looks for a story about death, death by numbers. It makes her feel anxious, but she looks. Reliably, there has been a bus bomb in a small town. Nine people have been killed. Seven more in a small town whose name she recognises, whose name has appeared on this screen several times, the place of other bombings and other deaths. A small town where raging certainties and howling furies scale the walls and steal into homes. She closes the novel, hefts it towards her suitcase, and reaches for her writing book.

  27 December

  Roadside bomb, seven killed.

  His skin is tanned to the neck and sleeve by long hours of work outdoors. He has thick black hair and eyes fanned by lines, a face crinkled from laughter. Recently he has repaired his relationship with a beloved grown son, become perilously distant with the misunderstandings of a care that became oppressive.

  A man in his thirties with thin hair, long from neglect rather than design. He lives in a small flat, found serviceable and utilitarian, remaining baldly so even after many years of his habitation. He works as a labourer building roads – recently, a viaduct strung taut and agile between distant hills. He feels a beautiful, angelic calm, a deepening of breath, standing on that ribbon of slender grey, beguiled by the enormity of the space that falls away around his feet.

  Carefully made-up and brightly decorated, she is a lively, successful woman of thirty-two, slim and muscular, with curly black hair and colourful clothes. She talks quickly and with animation. She is a jeweller. She stores things for later; she has a small collection of material leftovers – shards of gemstones, scrap-like nuggets of gold, remainders of commissioned pieces – in a small metal box. She c
alls it her tinderbox.

  A bumbling, fat young man, clumsy, large waist, disastrous jeans. The only time he feels himself not forced into fettered retreat is when confronted by frailty in another. It creates a vacuum before him that pulls him inexorably, almost ecstatically, towards them, where he shares his compassion for them, for himself and for all the lost and sad people in the world.

  An exuberant man, wind-and-sun-battered, pell-mell chasing his freedom in the outdoor world. Whenever possible he is outside, blown by wind, caught by rain and sun, quantifying himself joyfully in the geography of the unmade world.

  A gentle old man, a great-grandfather, his white hair as thistledown-soft as the kind air around him. He would define himself as happy, the kind of happiness that exists as a deep and satisfying contentment. He is haunted by the memory of one betrayal, his own, of a fragile woman whom he learned he could never love and abandoned for another.

  A woman, or still a girl, skeins of bark-brown hair, still-river eyes. She still has, at the age of nineteen, her childhood toy, a ragged dog, tucked away safely in her room. A woman or a girl who never had a child herself. A girl, gone from life before she had held life in her arms.