by Anna Raverat
Katie came back into the room followed by a large black cat. I looked at the cat padding along at her feet and noticed that Katie’s toenails were painted cherry red and that her feet were soft and smooth. I was conscious of my own feet, dry and rough like Parmesan rind, but also aware that Carl was attracted to me despite this.
As we were leaving, Carl picked up the cat, Molly, and cuddled her while he gave Katie precise instructions on how to care for her. He spent ages saying goodbye to Molly, and this may have been wishful thinking, but it struck me that Carl seemed to prefer his cat to his girlfriend.
We were walking past Cardiff Castle after the first meeting of this Welsh trip and Carl said, Let’s go in. We wandered around the Roman wall and battlement walk and the rooms open to the public. I admired the painted walls and ceilings, losing myself in the faded murals of courtiers, kings and queens. I was aware of him being around without feeling the pressure of having him next to me, looking at the same things. It was the first time I had been with Carl in such a relaxed way and the more we looked round the castle the more comfortable I felt with how things were between us: it seemed to me that we’d at last managed to move past the attraction to become friends. I’m short-sighted like this with weather too: if the sun is shining when I leave the house, I somehow think the sun will shine all day and I don’t take an umbrella even if the forecast is rain.
The picture of Johnny leaving me remains clear in my memory not just because he reminded me of Heathcliff but also a sense I have that it was staged. I don’t mean he set up the whole thing, I don’t think he was waiting in the car, engine running, until I walked around the corner into our street before he drove away, because although he might have guessed I’d try and head him off at the next street, he couldn’t have known it. His distress was genuine, and he really did leave me, at least for a few months. I think that he was probably at home, drinking beer, wondering whether I was with Carl, because I was late and he knew about Carl at that point, and getting angrier and angrier until he decided to just pack up and leave. And so he would have loaded the car quickly, which explains why he left things behind, and when he came to get into the car, he was halfway through another beer and because of adrenalin and the effect of the beer he’d already drunk, either he didn’t notice the bottle in his hand or he thought, Fuck it. I don’t think any of this was planned. The staged moment came when I was at the open window, trying to talk to him as he was waiting for a space in the traffic: it was the way he swigged the beer before pulling out onto the main road, as if to draw my attention to the dark brown bottle with its red and white label, as if he were saying, Look what you’ve done to me. I may be wrong, but this is how it seems.
There have been lots of times when I have acted a part too. I remember once making love with Johnny when I was no longer attracted to him – I thought that if I went through the motions then the wanting might come back, but it didn’t; it was awkward and sad all the way through. I had accepted by then that my involvement with Carl was a wrong against Johnny, although I still hoped to get past that. What I didn’t know was how acting out feelings for Johnny that I didn’t feel any more was another kind of betrayal. Or maybe it was the same kind, but felt worse.
Johnny found a heart-shaped stone on a cold beach. It was smooth and flat and grey and fitted easily in the palm of his hand. He bored a hole at the top, threaded it onto a dark blue ribbon and gave it to me as a pendant. Although I saw the sweetness of his gesture, I only wore it once or twice, and that was to please him. It wasn’t just that the pendant didn’t match my idea of what looked good; it was also that I didn’t want to hang a stone around my neck.
In the gift shop at Cardiff Castle, Carl bought a Welsh love spoon for Katie, and a teaspoon-sized one for Molly. I was encouraged, thinking that if Carl was comfortable buying gifts for Katie in front of me, then things were settled between us. I bought a postcard of the castle to send to Johnny but I didn’t buy him a Welsh love spoon because I didn’t like them, and in the end I didn’t send the postcard because I thought it might give him the impression I was having too much fun for a business trip.
I was being careful about how Johnny saw this trip to Wales and now I remember why: it was because of one night when I showed him a jacket the same as Carl’s in a shop window. At the mention of Carl’s name Johnny withdrew, and stayed quiet for the rest of the walk home. I didn’t ask him what was wrong, because I didn’t want to hear it, but as we were getting ready for bed in our tiny bathroom, Johnny said: Is there anything you want to tell me? I was sitting on the loo taking off my make-up and he was about to brush his teeth and he stopped and asked me this question, looking at me hard, as if he wanted to search inside me and fish out the truth for himself. The tap was running but he didn’t turn it off to save water, as he would normally, perhaps because it had taken all his energy to ask that question and now he was focusing all his attention on my answer and didn’t notice the running tap. I was wiping my eye with a cotton wool pad and this allowed me to squint up at him without showing my whole face and fake a grimace that was meant to convey: What are you talking about? But Johnny waited, and the tap was pouring water into the sink and down the plughole, and still he waited until I couldn’t stand the running water any longer and I stood up and turned off the tap and said, No! And then I said again, more quietly, more kindly, more convincingly, No.
A pattern developed to our days in Wales: we had a meeting in the morning, visited the local castle, drove on to the next meeting and then to the B&B. We shared the driving and in the car we talked; about work, my sister, his younger brother, his mum, we also talked a bit about Johnny and Katie, but never about us.
One of the castles we visited was a sprawling ruin of pale grey stone some distance from the nearest town. At first we thought we were the only ones there but then we came across a man in a green jacket and a woman in a red anorak sitting on segments of newspaper inside one of the castle walls, drinking something hot from a thermos flask. Although they looked up at us they didn’t say hello and neither did we. Apart from this couple and a few black wire litterbins, there was no indication this was a tourist attraction. The other castles had entrance fees, gravel paths, roped-off areas and teashops, but this one was raw. It was like coming across a mountain after days of travel through tame pastures.
At one corner of the castle walls, near where the tea-drinkers were seated, stood a tower, about forty feet high, intact except for the roof. I walked towards it leaving Carl to do his own thing. There was a narrow doorway and no signs claiming danger or instructing not to touch, so I went into the tower and saw a stone staircase leading to a high window, about thirty feet up. The staircase must have been built for tourists because it looked solid and new, and I could see a wooden platform below the window, purpose-made to admire the view. At the top I looked out. It wasn’t, actually, a great view because the window wasn’t high enough to see over the tops of the trees to the countryside beyond.
I heard scraping first, then hard breathing and a few little grunts as if great effort was being made, and it occurred to me that perhaps the man in the green jacket and the woman in the red anorak were having sex below, but then a hand gripped the stone windowsill, the other hand came over, and Carl’s head and shoulders appeared. He climbed the last little bit and swung himself in through the window onto the wooden platform. I remember the rising and falling of his chest and his blue T-shirt dark with sweat. He stood catching his breath, looking at me with intent. I felt dizzy for a second, as if I might fall, but the vertigo was not because of Carl’s climb up the outside of the tower or because the platform was small and it seemed a long way down; this was a feeling I’d had before with him. There was a delicious thrill of danger in it, there was fear of falling, there was the desire to fall. But my fear of letting go was greater.
The flat opposite has been wrapped in plastic, completely covered in whitish opaque sheets like a dead body. I think they will demolish it soon. I hope it doesn’t take long.
I don’t miss my old place but sometimes I forget where I am, imagine I am there again. By writing down what happened, telling even the most difficult parts that I have never told before, I am hoping to be released from the pressure of this story, hoping to shake it off or out of me, to stop it crowding my mind, pushing all the way to the front and all the way to the sides so that there is no space. Yesterday in a busy station I saw a man coming towards me who looked enough like Carl that I put my head down, spun around and walked away fast. When I was sure I would be out of his range, I turned, breathed, and looked for him in the flow of people. Then I remembered that the man could not have been Carl because Carl is dead.
Eight
Today is incredibly sunny and windy. A biggish tuft of dry moss is scooting about on the empty terrace. A full ten days have gone by since I last wrote anything. I am waiting for them to tear down the flat opposite – waiting is not an adequate distraction. I’ve been to the pool a couple of times to take my mind off it. Yesterday I swam behind a man doing very fast freestyle, his out-breath rushed back towards me like bubbles in champagne.
A scene from the aftermath of the affair, but before I was hospitalized: I am on the floor in the corner of my tiny kitchen with my back against the humming fridge, cramming dry cereal from the box straight into my mouth, each pale flake a crater from the moon, bubbled-up and blistered-looking, my mouth dry as it crunches the flakes and turns them into moon-dust which scrapes and scratches my throat as I shovel in more and more and Good! because I deserve it.
You can’t tell everything at the same time. I tried but I couldn’t make it work. I thought I had to tell everything to answer the questions. This is what the people in the hospital told me, and I believed them. I found it impossible. Everything mangled together: this was my sense of it. But they insisted, and I could see why.
One problem with telling the whole truth is that it takes such a long time. The ‘whole’ deadens the ‘truth’. All the little side stories creep up and sneak in. Boring little facts crush the truth out of the story. The more I tried to tell everything, the more I seemed to get away from the quick of it. I felt this straight away, but I ignored my instinct.
And I think, but I don’t know for sure, that the wordless back of the mind feeling is where truth lives. It’s a push-you-pull-me zone (I know but I don’t want to know) – way too spacious. I need to introduce boundaries so that I can start somewhere and finish somewhere else. There has to be some structure to pull me through the fog.
I met my next boyfriend at the hospital, on the roof, smoking. He was sitting on a breeze block with his back to me. I knew he was a doctor by his white coat, and I could tell from the side of his face that he was terribly handsome. I felt myself blush as I asked him for a cigarette and wished I was wearing something other than pyjamas. He stood up. He said: What are . . . How did you get up here? I tell him, he relaxes. He is taller than Johnny, much taller than Carl and he has dark, short hair. There is conspiracy between us already because we are where we shouldn’t be, doing what we shouldn’t do and we especially shouldn’t be doing it because he is a doctor and I am a patient. We are on different sides. Despite this, or because of it, or both, he is attracted to me, I can tell by the way he looks at me a second longer than required, it’s a reflex, he can’t hide it, also he drops his shoulders just a little, opens his chest slightly.
Going out with this doctor was a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. He shouldn’t have asked me and I shouldn’t have said yes, but he did, I did, and there we are, or were. We saw each other for a couple of years. It didn’t work, but that’s another story. I say it was a bad idea, but actually the first six months were wonderful. I knew I was raiding my internal drug supply but the high got me over some of the worst bits and anyway, he was a doctor, he could get me more. And I don’t want to sound cold, but here was a handsome man who wanted me and I wanted him and though it didn’t last, and it wasn’t love, we had our moments.
Because I haven’t lived here long, each time I go out, to the pool, or the tube, or to walk along the canal, I am struck by how different North is to West. It’s a whole new tone and texture.
The frenzy of sun and wind continued all day. The moss-ball blowing back and forth was getting on my nerves so I decided to remove it. To do this I had to drag my desk back from the doors and find the key. The black tarmac was hot under my feet, I expected the moss to be silky but it was brittle and crumbly. I dropped it off the side. The terrace feels much bigger when you are outside. In between here and the church I spied a small courtyard with lots of different sized containers, a round flowerbed in the middle, a white wisteria in flower (I wish I could smell it) and honeysuckle climbing the walls.
Nine
I’m not sure about all of the questions, but I know one of the answers: sex. There was one business trip, quite early on, where Carl and I ended up in bed together. We didn’t, in fact, have sex but we were in bed together, and we may as well have done because afterwards it made no difference. It made no difference to the fact that we were now on a new level, one from which there was no turning back, and it made no difference to Johnny when I eventually told him – he was just as hurt and angry.
Carl orchestrated the whole thing. One morning, I kissed Johnny goodbye while he was in the bathroom, and stepped out of our front door to Carl, who was waiting for me right outside in the work car, engine running, music playing. There was a long drive and a full day of meetings or presentations, about which I remember nothing. Knowing that it was going to be too late and too far to travel back home, Carl had arranged for us to stay at the house of a friend of his, who I also knew vaguely through work. This friend had one spare room with a double bed in it, which I was to have. Carl was going to sleep on the sofa. We drank a great deal of red wine with this friend. Sometime after we all went to bed, Carl knocked on the door and said he was cold on the sofa and could he please just sleep in the bed. At least I think that’s how it happened. We spent the night on separate sides of the bed, I slept; Carl slept. I woke early to find him very close to me, I was lying on my back and he was on his side, I could feel his breath, his arm and erection touching me. He was still asleep. I want to blame Carl, I do blame him, but of course it was not all his fault. On this May morning for example, in the bed in his friend’s house, it was me that woke him with a kiss.
I didn’t want to leave Carl after we’d spent this night together: I felt close to him and the sexual tension was cranked up high. And so I didn’t see Johnny until evening. He’d been expecting me home for lunch. He knew I’d been on a business trip with Carl, and he must have been suspicious when I said I’d be back late. Johnny and I were going to a party and he wasn’t pleased when I called to say I would meet him there. He tried to read me when we reunited, I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want him to see my face. The party was dark, loud and crowded, which gave me some cover but the feeling that there was something wrong spiked every exchange, coded every movement. It was as though we’d gone for dinner at our favourite restaurant and found the white tablecloth spread over the candlestick and glasses, wine bottle and water jug, transforming the familiar into a miniature mountain range, and we were sitting at this table, refusing to acknowledge the strange landscape between us.
Alongside my attraction to Carl, there was my love for Johnny. But my love for Johnny was dying because I was putting all my attention into Carl and the only energy I spared Johnny was to hold him at bay.
The first time I had sex with Carl, Johnny had left me only the night before. I last saw him in the silver car, drinking his beer and driving away. I was shocked to see him go and spent a miserable night, but I was also a little relieved; at least we didn’t have to keep pretending. The next day Carl and I had another long drive (sometimes I think none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for work taking us all over the country). It was decided to stay somewhere en route, to avoid the morning rush hour and reach our destination on time. The real reason was that we inte
nded to spend the night together.
The town where Carl and I went also happened to be the town in which my grandmother lived. The streets were so familiar. I had been going to Peterborough three or four times a year for my whole life. My sister and I call it Peter-boring. My grandmother was eighty-eight and her philosophy about presents was this: if I can’t read it, eat it or put it in the bath, I don’t want it. So we would take fruit and cake and biscuits and eat together on her big squashy sofa. I was close to her and it was strange being in that town and not going to visit her.
The hotel was on a long narrow road near the train station. There were several hotels along the road; I can’t remember how we chose this one. Asking for a double felt unnatural. There was none of the secret elation of the time we’d shared a hotel room before. The whole journey had been awkward. I couldn’t stop comparing Carl to Johnny: the way Carl gripped the steering wheel with one hand at the top of the wheel, where Johnny held it loosely with both hands at the bottom; the way Carl avoided making eye contact with me as he walked back to the car after paying for petrol, where Johnny would have smiled in through the window. Because of this constant comparing, Johnny was more present on this journey than the other times I had been with Carl when I had shut Johnny out of my mind.