Twice the Speed of Dark

by Lulu Allison

  I am furious with that now, his easy sidestep, his table – turning. I was angry then, but frightened too of a slide back into anger. He asked, hurt, why I had to spoil things, as he gestured to his valiant efforts, the brown paper bag with the foil containers, the bottle he had just opened. I had thought the food and wine might be the opening gambit of a peace offering, a trust – gift before healing negotiations. I had hoped that reconciliation after a difficult conversation would follow. But they were a lure, a bribe to turn me in the opposite direction. The harms he made so weightless, so easy to toss aside like litter, they were anvil weights to me, awkward burdens that I didn’t know how to put down. Under their weight, silence consolidated its hold on me. That is how it happened. I see it now. I let fear and hope bind me.

  I am undoing that binding. As tight and inescapable as it felt then, it is no match for me now. I redeem hope and discard fear. I pull it off me as I unravel. And I make a choice, I think, about the ravelling. I remake myself with the tale told true. In the harsh cost of this undoing, there is at least that gift.

  We were lifted, yes, back into the realms of promise and light, by Ryan’s determination and my hope. Until some weeks later when he hit me again. Anyone can make a mistake, and be sorry, oh so very, very sorry. Pleadingly sorry, and in such misery that, to spare him, I let rational, systematic thoughts overtake instinctive ones. I quietly led my fear out of the back door then sat, measured, in the front room and heard his confession, his reparation, bent to the floor beside me so that he looked up into my darkened eye.

  Was it necessary to accept that anyone can do it twice? I hadn’t yet found the reasoning to make such a choice.

  But I did find it. My heart sinks at a memory of a profound and subtle shame that rings through this blackness, rings through the substance of me now. I feel the shame of her, the girl I was then. Now, I feel only compassion for that girl. I am not ashamed of the choices I made. I made them for love and hope. There is a mistake in that, but there is no shame. The malevolent cocoon of our relationship had taken me away from those that could help me; confusion and the chaos of a terrible new uncertainty had taken me away from myself. How I longed for Mel, my oldest and best friend. I longed for Mum, longed to lean into that spare frame and be pulled in by her protective arms. How I longed to call my dad to come and pick me up. But I did not know how I could subject Ryan, for whom my love had not yet vanished, to their disgust and approbation. I did not know how I could bear their faces, the concern, anger, sorrow, when I told them what had happened.

  I know that Mel and Dad have seen each other since I died. Both of them have moved away, but they are able to live with the past, unlike Mum, who is held captive. Shut in and shutting out. I have been with Mel and Dad sometimes. They became caring friends to each other in their shared love for me, after I died. They warm each other, tell each other well – worn memories. I hear them and remake myself in their telling. I wish only that Mum would be with them too. I wish for her she could be. I wish I had not been the cause of breaking her. I wish with all my resounding fury that I could make Ryan pay for all that he killed, for it wasn’t only me.

  But I must find the rest and tell the whole. For it did not end with a bruise, else I would not be here. How did I manage to believe in a future after this? How did I come to accept that the love, the bountiful backwash of his violence, would not be once more stamped out?

  This is how. Grazed hope was soothed by precious reserves of healing care, the emptying bottle tipped onto cotton wool and wiped gently to ease the pain. Shattered hope was bandaged with dreams already made. Hope, that great self-healer, bandaged and strengthened, for a while at least, itself. Because once more, he pleaded, he worshipped and cherished. I had learned well how to believe in that, had learned how to turn it into hope. I was given an enormous power, the power to end all hope of his happiness, all meaning in his life. And subtly, within the bestowal of that power, I was made culpable for my own harm. Only because he loved me so much did he lose his self-control, a result of the terrible fear he had of losing me. I was still so young; I had not learned how much a human heart can weather. I had not yet learned the ways we make ourselves robust.

  I understand now how that undid me. He took me away from myself; he laid the burden of harm at my feet. I was weakened enough to take its weight in my own tired arms, on my own aching shoulders. For peace.

  So we made a new pattern for our lives. He was loving, attentive and cheerful, but he was also watchful and wary, alert for the slightest betrayal of this newly decreed harmony. A harmony in which he played the role of perfect boyfriend. He was flawless if allowed to be blameless, admirable. I became aware that to do other than embrace this act was a betrayal. He sensed a betrayal in me if I did not appear content with his display. In my disheartened state, I didn’t have the strength to insist, to demand we do things my way. And, being far from knowing what my way was, I was unable to resist the passivity that, truthfully, was the only thing Ryan’s bullying required. I was tired out by my shock and sorrow. More than anything, I wanted some peace, to regain myself, return to myself after the shocking battery of his unexpected violence. At least precious peace was abundantly available in the cocooning embrace of passive compliance. It took a long time for me to understand how consuming and exhausting my constant and minute reading of the conditions had become.

  I was young enough to believe in part that I made him this way, that he loved me so much and I disappointed him so profoundly, communicated so badly, loved him so inadequately, that his rage was inevitable. Oh, I was young. How I long to meet that young woman, see her in the mirror, reflected in a pool, passing in a dream. Reach across and take that self-blame away from her.

  In this tangled blackness, though I am whiskered out like a stain in the dark, I start to see all, know all. I just can’t hold myself together enough to be. Though knowledge is a comfort; at least I know I have myself as ally, I did all along. I did not love myself so poorly as I had thought, but I lost sight of self – love. If only I had known it then. How I wish I could go back and tell her that she did none of it. He did it all. How I wish I could go back and say that there wasno way for her to put him right, no way for her to make their love whole and harmless again. No door to unlock that she would ever reach, no key to find that she would ever uncover. No secret she would ever divine, no trick she would ever learn or language she would understand. These were all things for him to find. Not her. Poor child made to feel the weight of her own undoing. That is perhaps the most damaging assault of all. For it is the blow that knocks the self away, out of reach.

  Longer fragments of my story catch hold and eventually coalesce. The threads plait or weave in sections, begin to make a fabric. I take more of my story with me, and hope that it grows into a cloak to wrap around myself for protection in the limitless unknown. For now, it is company at least. I understood much of it in the last few weeks on Earth. I began to find myself. I began to untangle myself. I believe I would have found the way to make myself safe. And to end the humiliation that only I would feel.

  It is a strange force, humiliation, undermining in such a destructive manner. I felt diminished by Ryan in a way that imprisoned me. Shame was an alloy in the metal bands binding the strong box that Ryan locked around me. Shame, humiliation, pity. These subjective injuries have such insinuating craft, and such brute strength. So many ways to attack, to inhabit, to compromise. Like wily viruses that can find a hook-hold in any host. These subtle hurts work tirelessly, conditioning for the material blows of flesh, of fists and boots.

  Yet they are powerless in the face of self-worked magic. If I am not ashamed, Ryan cannot shame me. It is I who decides if I am humiliated. That is what I began to learn. This learning worked like crumbs on the forest floor, leading me back to myself. A thread, played out, catching myself back again with a soft hook, pulling myself in.

  I had found enough of myself to make good on a second kind of self-admonishment – first I felt shame he
had hurt me at all, then I felt it that I had let him. I had allowed it to become a part of my life. The extraordinary became the commonplace. We are primed to accept the catastrophic single failing, the first act of a redemptive tragedy. How much more difficult it is, I found, to deal with once grubby from overuse.

  So he shamed me, and I, in response, shamed myself. He put a taint, a blush, a rash on me. I looked in a mirror and burned it into my bones. For only I could take it below the skin. Once there, it became a disease for both of us. We were both diseased, but only my body was marked by the pathogen.

  Ryan veered between contemptuous aggression and contrite adoration. After an episode of violence, he worked so hard to restore my precious elevation. He claimed his extravagant love for me in the rage he said I drove him to. He claimed only love so great could inspire him to such fury. He claimed, in short, my responsibility for the harm he did me. As I sickened under his violence, he looked on me and saw the symptoms of his own disease. He stopped asking me to forgive him, because he did not wish to feel responsibility for his rage. For Ryan, all could be repaired by the easy steps of time, the distance measured in the mere minutes that followed his dark anger.

  The phases of his violence did not end because he chose to restrain himself or to love me better. It ended because a few punches and the odd kick satisfied the need he had to hurt me. He let himself be free to do what would be done. I should have had, any person should have, more fear of someone who allows no limitation to their own desires. But we find ourselves playing strange games. We rationalise the parts, make a sense of them as best we can. We say to ourselves that this game of chess will continue to function; this hunk of dry bread, this old tin of paint, they are much like the pieces. I will move them as if they are, we will proceed. And we do proceed, moving strange pieces and mastering difficult new rules that are only discernible in actions we must somehow learn by trial and error. So bent are we on trying to apply what was once rational to what no longer is, we do not give ourselves enough space, enough clean air in our lungs to say that we will no longer play.

  What a waste. All of it a stupid, terrible waste. My father weeping in the company of tan brogue boots, as lonely as my mother, silent and cold as stone a few feet away. Ryan learning new ways of being, suffering from the fear of violence he found so easy to ignore just a few months before. Me, exiled to the darkness, ridden by all the waves that curse and course, spinning along channels of endless night.

  Chapter 13

  Anna’s phone pings, a message from Sophie, checking she is having a good time. Anna, having just returned from breakfast, is sitting in the morning shade of her balcony, reading. She replies to Sophie’s message saying it is warm, quiet, the sun is shining and she is very content. Sophie asks for a picture. Somewhat self-consciously, Anna struggles to take a picture of herself with the clear sky and sea in the background. The best effort catches most of her face, with a photo smile for her friend. She sends it off, then hastily deletes all of the pictures. A few minutes later, she chuckles at the response, a picture of Sophie grimacing in the rain with her hood up, pointing at her windscreen to show the parking ticket. Anna feels a surge of gratitude that she decided to leave. The steady warmth, the peace, all help to soothe. She checks herself, cautions against too much blinkered contentment, for she knows that nothing has changed. But sitting calmly in warm shade is preferable to the curtained winter retreat of skulking indoors at home. She thought that simply not being at home, away from any possible contact with Ryan, would be enough, but the benefits are more positive than that.

  She thinks about the evening ahead. She is flattered to have been asked to meet Stefan, Karl and Estela again, to tag onto their group of friends. They are an interesting trio. She hadn’t expected new connections to be part of her stay. She wonders why they have been so friendly, thinking that perhaps, being alone, she is an oddity, or they pity her. She doesn’t mind if either is true as the result was a happy evening, and she is looking forward to seeing them again.

  As the evening slides in, Anna goes down to the hotel bar. She finds a chair, a deep square of black leather, orders a gin and tonic and a toasted sandwich. There is the usual standard jazz playing, heavy on the inoffensive piano, sticky and sweet like the cocktails lavishly described on the elegant, embossed menu cards standing in a slotted chunk of polished steel on each table. She watches the lights down the bay switching on as the sky darkens. A sparkling chain of brightness lapping at the sea’s edge. She orders a second gin and tonic as she eats her sandwich. The evening has a formal quality, couples dressed up and gleaming. Solicitous elegance performed as dues to the location. Except for the couple who don’t speak to each other over breakfast – they apparently don’t speak to each other over aperitifs and olives either. At least they’re consistent. The piano tinkles away, irritating and inoffensive. She finishes her quick meal and leaves for more interesting company.

  The bar is busier than usual; people stand, filling the floor. She spots her new friends sitting at one of the tables, makes her way over and is offered a chair and a beer by Karl, who heads to the bar. There are two new people, an Australian couple who have been staying, friends of Stefan’s. She is glad she is not the only reason for dragging the conversation into English. They tell her it is their last night before they leave tomorrow for London. Karl comes back with drinks; the atmosphere is happy and lively. The band set up and begin to play acoustic guitar, gentle enough to work as background music so they are able to stay at the table and chat. The evening spins on happily. Soon Stefan’s friends leave – early flight, time for bed. She hugs them goodbye, the warmth of the evening forging acts of friendship; they talk of future days in London where they will be for some weeks, but it is mainly for form. Stefan gets up and walks them to the door for more sincere goodbyes.

  The tempo and energy of the music builds, luring some dancers onto the floor. Stefan comes back followed by a waiter with fresh bottles for all. Karl laughs and points out a friend of theirs who is dancing against the wall, looking perilously like it is only the wall that is stopping him from falling over. The conversation continues more gaily, more laughter, she is giving them a cruel description of the unspeaking couple, they all laugh. She is thoroughly enjoying herself, free of her own story, untainted.

  But she is hit by an unwelcome intrusion, sensing that if elsewhere joy is tainted, then here too a polluted seam must course or creep through somewhere, somewhere. And on cue, bitterness rises from her stomach, passes her heart which shudders at the contact, coats her breath with an oily film. The strings round her limbs and her fingers and toes shrink, pull their reminding into her flesh. She sits back, holding onto her bag, then, to disguise her embarrassment at being so taken in such tenderly new company, gets up, rather roughly pushing past Estela, and gaudily offers another drink all round. She spins out the recovery by going to the loo, sits as long as she can without declaring some kind of difficulty, dabs her face with cold water and goes to the bar, clutching her purse, clenching her jaw.

  When she returns to the table, she is briskly cheerful, and if this strikes a false note they are unfamiliar enough with each other that it passes unremarked. Conversations carry on gaily; she joins in, working hard at maintaining her showroom smile. Round the edge of her thoughts flits Ryan, Ryan in a new life, maybe with a wife and baby. She thinks of Stefan with his grandchildren. She is jealous of him. She feels a spike, a hit in the bloodstream. The bitter dose provided by intrusive thoughts of Ryan has leaked outward, contaminated everything. She wrestles her thoughts, exerting ungainly, aggressive control, then forces herself to smile, to brightly face the world as defined by this table, this bar, this fresh beer. She is getting drunk.

  And drunker still. Some brandy. They are having fun, they are doing joy. In a real way, in a false way that disguises its counter. Two weighted ends of an iron bar that spins, fast enough and blurred enough by the beer to blend unclear. Look, she is laughing, she is doing joy. Weights shift inside of he
r, and balance becomes something that demands attention, something that she can get right or wrong in that moment. She is partially failing, almost succeeding. Heat slides across her; perception slows, lags behind movement. She feels ghastly. She’s lost the thread, the knack of being part of this group, and she longs to be alone, cooled and weighted down. She gets up abruptly and heads for the door. She doesn’t think she stumbles but can’t be sure. The dark of the sea beckons her, the cool oblivion of darkness. Not death – or maybe death? The iron bar still spins, though now there is misery at one end and despair at the other. She presses across to the wet sand, not in a straight line but in a purposeful, determined one, sinks to the cool ground, sits still, sits still. The darkness before her provides a welcome simplification. Cold flat sand underneath her, dark water and sky before. There is momentary relief in this simplification of sensation, the heaving of drunkenness stilled somewhat. And then, there, on that broad stage, spacious, wide and open, she cannot hold on any longer, and like horses, thoughts gallop out of her. She cannot halt them, bridles slide through her feeble hands and they are free. She weeps, she cries. There is too much space. She has lost control. She is unable to stand, to reign in, to capture. So she sits still and she feels it all.

  A hand touches her shoulder. It is Estela, gentle and concerned. She explains that she came to find Anna because she left her bag in the bar. Estela tries to talk to Anna, tries to get Anna to talk to her. She wants to know what is wrong, but Anna does not speak. She can’t. Estela has sunk down next to her on the sand, gently placing an arm across Anna’s shoulders. That slim arm is so tender, and hurts Anna so much. She turns to her and cries, loudly and extremely, into Estela’s shoulder, shakes her head to all of her words. She cannot assuage Estela’s alarm, can’t even find the beginning of her own. Sobs squeeze her ribs, stamp down on her sternum, mug her breath. The bones of her hands twist over themselves like small animals in acid torment.