by Zaza, Agatha
By keeping their relationship away from everyone except a select few, it meant that they rarely talked about how they met. He knew Ovidia had told it in fragments to her family, always keeping them in the dark of the eventual outcome of that day — as if it was a brief encounter of no consequence. Edmund had told no one at all.
He remembered it had been a Saturday — a busy end of a race in Bushy Park with the early-spring foliage waking up after winter, the weak rays of the sun keeping the rain away. He’d run his first ten-kilometre race and decided it was his last. His left ankle was throbbing, and he felt ill. It had been part of his new regime: less alcohol and no cigarettes, more exercise and better food. Then he’d noticed a separate clutch of runners trickling in, wearing different colour tee-shirts, seeming to have nothing to do with the event he’d attended. He’d been too far off to read their signs, and he’d had no interest in whatever it was they were doing.
He’d never told Ovidia about how, that morning, he’d been sitting on a park bench, raging at his loneliness, berating himself for having no one in his life, and imagining spending the rest of his life alone. He’d never told Ovidia of the conflict that reigned: settle for a woman who was not the love of his life or wait for a woman who he would love unequivocally but, until then, be alone.
He’d been on that bench since the race ended, watching life go on around him. Everyone was in his or her own world or a shared one — celebrations, disappointments, ambivalence, pain. People had talked, embraced, laughed. He’d felt as if a great gulf existed between him and the rest of the world and had been afraid that there, in front of them all, he’d cry.
At that time, his life seemed to revolve around Jasper. His brother’s misery permeated every aspect of Edmund’s existence — tearful calls in the middle of the night, lost employment, unpaid bills, the way Jasper seemed thinner and sicklier each time they met. Their parents couldn’t understand it when Edmund said Jasper needed time. Even his parents, who had always been loving and supporting, faltered in his esteem.
‘Is there no one else to take care of him?’ His mother had said once when Edmund had arrived to deposit Jasper for a few days, just to make sure someone was watching Jasper while he was away. She’d been unable to hide her exasperation, still convinced that Jasper’s condition was not as awful as it seemed. Witnessing his mother’s continual denial had made it harder and harder to excite himself at the prospect of spending time in their company.
His mother had taken to baking and flipping through cookbooks, especially those that her librarian convinced her were on trend. She’d packed Jasper plastic lunchboxes of baked goods, of home-pureed hummus and frozen butternut soups declaring, ‘You just need the right food to tempt you.’
Edmund could tell she didn’t believe that herself. When she’d asked him to look at her computer that was constantly requesting updates, he’d scrolled through her history: hyperthyroidism, TB, AIDS, wasting, anorexia, traumatic stress. But in Edmund’s presence, she’d hummed and smiled more than usual. The music she’d made was tuneless, nothing he could identify or recall. ‘You’ll snap out of it soon,’ she’d said to Jasper.
‘How long is this supposed to continue?’ His father had at least had the wherewithal to address, in a near shout, his frustrations to Edmund and not Jasper. ‘He needs to grow up, that’s what he needs to do. It’s been nearly a year.’ He’d slapped his fist onto the arm of his chair. ‘The boy’s a ghost. The neighbours asked if he’s got cancer. Cancer? What am I supposed to say to that? “No, he’s heartbroken”? Makes a mockery out of people with real problems.’
Edmund had just rested his head against his fingers and lay back in the sofa, wishing that he could be allowed to rest.
But his father had jabbed his shoulder unpleasantly and uncharacteristically. His tension evident in that act. ‘Sorry,’ he’d apologised. ‘I know it’s not your fault.’
‘I’m trying to get him to talk to someone, even if it’s just a GP.’
‘No way. He’ll be sectioned.’ His father’s voice rose again. ‘Are you looking at him? He looks like a headcase.’
‘Dad, he is a headcase. He’s had some kind of a breakdown.’ Edmund had shrugged after his father recoiled at the word breakdown. ‘And there’s nothing else I can do to help him.’
‘Well, someone has to do something, because I’m about to crack,’ his father had hissed in a loud whisper.
It was painful to see his brother fading, withdrawing even further from his life than he’d had before. Edmund couldn’t think of a strategy to help him. Instead, he’d guessed as he went along, taking him to their parents’, dropping in on him at home at random hours, taking him out to lunch, and, whenever possible, trying to pretend everything was all right. Sometimes, he’d wanted to shout pull yourself together, but he knew it wasn’t as simple as that.
He’d made an appointment to see a therapist himself. But when the time came, he’d had a meeting organised, and his PA called to cancel.
Meanwhile, Jasper’s pain was seeping into Edmund’s life in another insidious way as well. An underlying disquiet that he’d been feeling for years had come to a head. He was at that point where something had to happen. Though he’d imagined that he’d find someone at some stage in his life, Edmund had been content with his bachelor lifestyle. He’d savoured the solitude at the end of a work day, travelling unencumbered by other people, and being able to spend time with his parents and his brother. But finding himself mired in the greatest crisis of his adult life, he’d found his solitude metamorphosed into loneliness. He’d become conscious of the relationships around him, old school friends toasting wedding anniversaries, fathers with children, and aged couples on park benches all sharing moments of intimacy. He’d begun to turn down invitations to social events at the prospect of having to go on his own.
He fought his loneliness. Telling himself that it was just for now — as soon as Jasper was all right, his world would right itself. Then his phone would ring, and he’d hesitate: it was either his family or his work.
His phone’s contacts list had its share of women’s numbers — women he called for company. However, scrolling through the list iterated the superficiality of his relationships with those women. He’d find himself at dinner with yet another woman in a champagne-coloured shift dress with a diamond bracelet and matching necklace, and he’d be desperate to see behind her veneer. He’d look for clues in the what she said, in slips of the tongue and in mobiles left momentarily unattended.
That morning at Bushy Park, Edmund had been steeling himself to stand and then find his car when he’d recognised Ovidia. He’d seen her talking to herself and realised something was wrong. Seeing her, he’d been surprised at his ambivalence towards her. He’d expected to hate her more. Perhaps it was because she’d looked helpless and pathetic as she stumbled. Perhaps because he’d been tired of the fallout she caused. He’d decided he had to check she was all right.
When Ovidia told her version of that morning, it was much more carefree and romantic: two strangers and a funny little event that changed their lives. His memory of that morning was of finding a woman who’d overexerted herself physically and mentally. She’d become separated from those who should have noticed her distress and should have been taking care of her. Both he and Ovidia had been alone.
Four years on, he still hadn’t started smoking again and he’d kept his weight constant. But now, he was nearly fifty. His muscle tone was slackening, and, though the scale flashed the same number week after week, he could feel his clothes were a little tighter. Ovidia, on the other hand, had become a resolute runner, occasionally tackling fifty-mile runs. She ran six days a week and, at forty-two, was fit and frequently mistaken for being much younger than she was.
After she’d hit him, only hard enough to make him flinch, she’d vomited on his shoes, and he’d turned her over to make sure she didn’t choke. He’d waited for a moment and then helped her up, steering her to a bench and watching her recover. Ovid
ia had struggled to sit up and then gave up and lay on the bench with her feet on the ground and had covered her eyes in the crook of her arm. He could see her silhouette through her leggings and shirt, the nipples of her small breasts, her stomach flat and muscular. He’d turned away, not wanting to stare. He’d felt embarrassed at the immediate sexual attraction he’d felt for her.
‘I fell in love on a park bench,’ Ovidia explained, glancing at Edmund. ‘He sat with me, held my water bottle, and then sent me home in a cab. I got home and slept for twelve hours,’ she said. ‘When I woke up, there was a message on my phone saying, “Let me know when you’re back from outer space”.’
‘And did you?’ Holly asked after Ovidia paused.
Edmund’s gaze stopped at Anne, who, when her eyes made contact with his, gently, seemingly unconscious of her act, brushed John’s hand from her lap.
‘No, I was like, “No, I don’t want to get involved with anyone”. But then I looked on Facebook and there he was, poking me. And I thought, who still pokes these days? But I should talk — I’m lousy at Facebook. He asked me how I was with an emoji of an ambulance, and I thought, funny, he didn’t seem like an emoji sort of guy. So, I was joking, and I said, “If you want to see me, you’ll have to come to my place with food. My legs are aching, and I’m not walking anywhere.” And he showed up after an hour with this huge salad for me and pizza for himself.’
‘I thought you’d be into healthy eating,’ Edmund interjected.
‘I’ll skip the next bit,’ Ovidia bit her lip, as Jasper shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘That was a great week though, remember?’ She turned to Edmund as she asked.
Edmund didn’t need to reply. He remembered every bit of it. Sitting there as Ovidia told their story, pleasant memories flooded back. He recalled feeling a mix of euphoria and terror as he knocked on her door. She’d limped back to the sofa, complaining that her muscles in her legs had seized. He remembered the knot that tightened in his stomach as he watched, and later, as the two of them lay on her carpet, trying to decide what he was supposed to do.
Sex had been almost funny, both of them suffering with various pains from their morning runs, him laughing aloud at her, ‘No, you. I can’t get on my knees, they hurt like hell.’
‘It ended with you losing your job.’ She poked Edmund in the chest with an index finger.
‘End of story,’ Edmund said as he caught the tip of her finger.
‘All right then.’
Ovidia and he were flirting. Something they hadn’t done for a long time, and somehow it didn’t feel inappropriate. Edmund felt his heartbeat accelerating, and he looked in her eyes as if no one was watching, his heart rendered to pieces as he thought of the end of their relationship.
‘No,’ Holly hooted. ‘What happened, Ovidia?’
Edmund was jolted back to where he sat, to his audience listening to him and Ovidia recounting an edited version of how they met, with every inconvenient and unpleasant conversation and event neatly excised from the tale. Ovidia left out the parts where they sat contemplating each other, she telling anecdotes, because she was not one for silence, and he analysing every scenario and every possible outcome of what they were doing in his mind. In Ovidia’s retelling, there’d be no mention of how he battled within himself, of the times he caught the image of himself in a mirror on the wall and turned to Ovidia and said, ‘I can’t do this.’
‘I showed up at work a week later,’ Edmund said, ‘and told my director — “I’m so sorry, but I have no excuse and no explanation for where I’ve been.” She was livid. She’d even reported me missing. She’d roasted my poor PA until she cried. When I finally showed up, she screamed at me with the whole office listening.’
Edmund’s colleagues had stopped in their tracks, cups of coffee in hand, mid-conversation. They’d smiled apologetically to their clients or simply ogled at the scene. From their glass enclosures or from open-plan desks, they’d watched. The director was the one person with any seniority over him and the two had worked together for years — but were not friends. She was authoritative and tall enough to stand eye to eye with Edmund.
‘I called the police! You could have just bloody answered your phone!’ she’d shouted. ‘Fired? No, I’m going to have you hanged, drawn, and quartered!’ His director had spun around and marched into her glass office, and, in full view of everyone, sunk her face in her hands and screamed into them. Edmund left these details of her distress out of his story — that she’d told him later that she’d thought he was dead, and she’d told him of her embarrassment at being mocked by a board member for having acted like ‘such a woman’.
His guests stopped laughing.
He, too, had made it sound simple and fun. He’d felt a shame upon his director’s reaction, acknowledging that his decisions had already hurt someone. The shame had been fleeting and had been quickly replaced with the euphoria of his newfound relationship.
‘You didn’t go to work for a week because you were together?’ Anne inadvertently glanced at John. ‘No details, please, but where were you?’
‘My flat,’ Ovidia replied.
‘For a week?’ Holly asked.
‘Discovering the joys of …’ Edmund began.
‘No need for details, please,’ John interrupted.
‘… pot noodles and powdered mash potatoes,’ Edmund finished. ‘I discovered the one person in this world who makes bulk purchases of dehydrated foods. Then we flew to Paris — much better food — and, God, did she have an appetite after that run.’
Edmund felt as if he’d said too much. But then again, he reminded himself this was their story, and it was a hell of a lot more fun than meeting at a D-lister do.
‘It didn’t occur to you to call in sick or something?’ Jasper demanded.
Edmund had woken up that Monday in Paris. He’d never skipped work without it being planned or without a real reason before. He loved his work, and his effort and dedication resulted in affluence, which he also enjoyed. Not showing up at work would lower his esteem among his colleagues, he worried. He’d imagined he could catch a morning flight and make an excuse.
Then what? he’d thought.
He’d padded to the hotel bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. The eyes that looked back at him were brighter, and, though he hadn’t known it, he was smiling. Two towels were carelessly slung over the towel heater, and Ovidia’s make-up had conquered most of the available counter space. Two toothbrushes stood in the glasses and his travel-size tube of toothpaste had been squeezed almost empty.
He had been happy. But it couldn’t last. He was a realist and knew they would wake up to the reality of their situation. In the meantime, he’d decided, he was going to spend every minute that he could with her.
‘No. I just said to hell with it and had the time of my life,’ Edmund replied to Jasper’s question. In reality, he’d worried — about his reputation, his job, and what it was he was getting himself into. But each time he came down to earth, something happened to raise him back into the clouds: Ovidia in a place called Le Musée de Disco trying on orange platforms with a drag queen fawning over her orange and pink polyester blouse, the view over the Seine with a glass of wine after telling Jasper that he was on an emergency trip to Paris and that Jasper would just have to cope until he got back.
He’d revelled in a week of being able to pretend that his life was perfect — and it was — with Ovidia. When they’d returned to London, they’d both assumed it was all over, briefly. He’d went to his home and she to hers. However, as he’d scrolled through unread texts from his brother and parents, he’d realised that they had survived his absence. No miracles had occurred, Jasper wasn’t inexplicably cured, but he was still holding on. The worst had not happened.
He’d sat alone in his flat and realised he didn’t dread calling them back. Yes, he’d dawdled, making a cup of tea, emptying his case, and making a note of things he needed in the fridge. But when he did, he’d discovered he had a new-
found strength: he’d told his father that, whether he liked it or not, Jasper would see someone, and he’d firmly told his mother that her newest pizza recipe was not going to sort out Jasper’s insides. He’d listened to his brother, nodding, reassuring Jasper that they would get through this crisis together.
He and Ovidia could have stopped there, no one would have ever known. Their week would have remained in nothing but the hundreds of photos they’d taken. But he’d dialled her number. He loved her, he’d told himself, and he was allowed to love her.
His director had held his escapade against him for weeks, repeating that his madness was company money forgone. He’d heard her muttering to her assistant that what annoyed her most was that someone who had been exemplary in his behaviour for years had turned out to be a fool, and that it must be because of a woman or man.
‘Drugs?’ her assistant had suggested, but the director had shaken her head and returned to her office.
Edmund had almost told his brother everything once. He’d stood outside a restaurant on a cool day a couple of months earlier in a light jacket that hadn’t been warm enough. He’d scratched his head as he waited to meet Jasper, chasing an itch that refused to remain still. He’d scratched behind his ears, the top of his head, and at the base of his neck over and over again.