by Iain Rowan
"Hi," I said, and then all words were gone. "Uh—can—can I buy you a drink?"
She didn't turn to look at me. She took a long drag on her cigarette, blew a lazy stream of smoke across the bar, then tapped a long red fingernail on the cigarette, sending embers and ash floating gently down.
"You've been watching me, haven't you," she said, and her voice was velvet and dark, her accent speaking of places that I would never see.
"I—sorry. I thought you were someone I knew."
"Did you?"
"No."
She chuckled, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I could smell her perfume, smell her, and I had to struggle with myself not to suck a deep and obvious breath in, drinking the scent of her. It was like being in a greenhouse full of orchids, releasing their night scent to the moon. I felt more drunk than I ever had in my life, and at the same time more sober too.
"I'd still like to buy you a drink though," I said.
"Would you," she said, and she turned her head then to look at me, the ghost of a smile on her lips and my throat tightened and I was hot, and I was cold, and I was hers. She brushed her dark hair back from the side of her face with a casual but deliberate slowness, and the smile came to life and I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything, ever.
"What's your name, watcher?"
"Ben," I said, and that was all because I did not trust myself to say anything more.
She poured herself off the bar stool and stepped close to me and there was no-one else there, no scarred wooden bar, no air that smelt of smoke and beer, no band in the corner, no world at all.
"Maybe next time, Ben," she said, and she reached up with one hand and touched my face, just for a moment, the briefest of moments, her fingertips hot and smooth. Then she walked away and was gone and the whole stale world came crashing back around me, and the barman walked past polishing a glass and someone near me laughed a drunken, stupid laugh and the sax player came in a beat late.
The barman looked at me and shrugged, as if to say better luck next time. I wanted to punch him in the face. Instead, I ordered another beer and a whisky on the side. Another drink followed that one, and another, but no matter how much I drunk I could not drink her from my mind. I staggered home, sour sickness roiling in my belly, and I cursed myself for not going over sooner, for not following her, for being me, for seeing perfection and then losing it again, for everything. I stopped in an alley near my apartment, and even as I retched, hot bile splashing against the wall, there was nothing in my mind but her. That night, it took me hours to fall asleep, and when I did she was there waiting for me, and though I thrashed and turned in sweat-soaked sheets I could smell nothing but her perfume, feel nothing but her touch on my cheek.
The next night, I was back in the bar again. Just in case. I sat in a booth and watched women come and go, insubstantial, pale shades that evaporated in the heat of her memory. One came and sat opposite me, tried to make conversation, but two minutes after she had stormed off I could not even remember what she had looked like, or anything that she had said. I felt a need that stretched its fingers into every nerve of my body, a wanting that was like withdrawal. That night, I did not sleep at all.
The night after that, she came back. She poured herself into a seat in another booth, and this time I did not hesitate. A pulse beat in my temple and I found it hard to get my breath. I felt like I did as a kid when we used to play chicken on the railway lines, and the world was shaking and the horn was blowing and I knew I had to wait one moment, just one more moment.
When I sat down opposite her she looked up, amused.
"Well, well. How do you know I'm not waiting for someone, Ben?"
I shrugged, with a bravado I didn't feel. "Then I'll keep you company until they turn up. It's better than nothing."
"But Ben, what if he's the jealous type? And violent with it? He could walk in, and see you sitting here, sitting opposite me, staring at me with those puppy dog eyes, and who knows what could happen then. Am I worth that, Ben? Am I worth it?"
I didn't care that much about anything else she had said. I was too busy revelling in how my name sounded on her lips. And thinking about how it might sound if she said it in my bed.
"Yes," I said. "You are."
She chuckled, nudged my calf under the table with a bare foot—she must have slipped her shoes off—and I jumped as if I had just received an electric shock.
"I'm Maria," she said. "You make me laugh, Ben."
"That's a good thing," I said. "Laughing's good for you."
"Make me laugh next week, Ben," she said. "Monday. At half past nine. Keep me laughing, and who knows." And she picked up her drink, drained the glass, slipped her shoes back on and slid out of the booth. She stopped then, turned back, smiled a slow smile and then bent down and just brushed her full lips past my cheek, so gently that I could not even be certain that she had. But I had felt the heat of her breath, the stroke of a couple of strands of her hair which had escaped, the smell of her. I was lost.
I was there on the Monday, and then the night after that, and so it started. We would meet once or twice a week, just for a drink, occasionally for dinner. It didn't go any further than that, although my nights were haunted by the possibilities, and a thousand fantasies played in my head. She did not hide the fact that she had someone else, but she did not talk about him much either, and I did not want to know. I only cared about the fact that she was with me. I wanted more, so much more, but I was scared that if I was pushed, I would lose her. For now, just being around her was enough. I felt fulfilled, I felt alive, I felt whole.
When I wasn't with Maria, she was like a disturbance in my vision, something that was always there at the edge of my consciousness. She was in every room I walked into, she lay beside me every night, and any time that I could not spend dreaming of her was a distraction. I lost touch with the few friends I had, because their company, their voices, drove her from my mind and I would not tolerate that. I worked because I had to, but I never had my mind on my work, and my co-workers started to talk about me in low voices when they thought I would not notice, and I wondered how long I would last there.
My life was Maria, Maria was my life.
I had never been so happy, but I did not think of myself as being happy. I was beyond that, I was in a place where my emotions were of little importance. All that mattered was being with her.
Then I noticed her start to change.
~
It was just little things at first, a dozen little things. She seemed distracted, tired. I thought that she was growing bored of me, and when she cancelled an arranged dinner I thought that it was the end of things, but she phoned me that night, and told me in a low voice how she wished she was out with me, but she was just too tired, too worn down. I lay on my couch, cradling the phone, and wanted to listen to her voice forever, but after a few minutes she said that she needed to sleep.
"Maria," I said. "You should get to a doctor. All this tiredness, it's not natural, you're not well."
"I'm not ill," she said in a quiet voice, and then she hung up.
Then the change became visible too. Her posture mirrored the tired slump of her words, and although we always met in the half-light of a bar or restaurant where a thousand imperfections were smoothed away by candlelight, I started to notice the lines around her eyes, the way her neck once perfect and smooth now creased when she dropped her head, the tiny little creases around her lips. She had seemed to age a decade in a week.
We met for a meal in a quiet restaurant on the north bank of the river, and Maria picked at her food, moving it round the plate with little enthusiasm. I tried to make conversation, but her heart wasn't in it, and her answers were brief and did not invite a response. When she lifted her wine glass to her lips her hand shook, making the liquid dance. It was hard to tell, in the shifting shadows of the candlelight, but I thought I could see faint dark marks on the back of her hand, like you see on an old woman.
; "Can I see you tomorrow?" I said, and she shook her head. "The day after then?"
"Ben," she said, in a quiet voice. "I am going to have to stop seeing you."
My world fell apart.
It was a punch to the kidneys, a kick to the balls. My head span, my throat was dry, my hands shook.
"You can't," I croaked.
She shrugged, looked down at the road. "I don't want to, Ben. But I have to."
"But then why? I need you. Whatever it is, if it's something about me, I'll change it, whatever, just say the word. Something I do that you don't like, something I don't do that you want me to, the way I dress, the way I talk, whatever, say it, go on, say it. Anything. Anything." I felt as if I couldn't breathe. I had to will myself to be still, not to let my body shake as if I had the flu. A muscle jumped in my cheek, twitching away to its own mad beat.
"It's not you Ben," she sighed. "It's me. I'm so tired, Ben, so tired all the time, and I feel old and worn and I just don't have the energy. And I don't want you to see me this way. I'm not the woman you met, am I? The woman you saw that night in the bar? She's gone."
"Get to a doctor then for God's sake—there must be something wrong, you need to get it seen to, this isn't right, you shouldn't be like this. Something must be making you this way."
She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "You are more right than you know, Ben."
"So what is it then? Tell me. Come on Maria, tell me. After all the time we've spent together, I deserve to know, and hell, maybe I can help." She shook her head, and we sat in silence, pushing food around our plates.
When we left the restaurant, I said, "Can we walk a little?" and she said, "No. I want to go home."
We stood outside by the kerb of the road, and I said, "Maria," and could not think of anything else to say.
A car came rolling slowly down the street, and before she turned away I saw her in the dip and bounce of the headlights. She looked as she had sounded, older, tired. Then the car was gone, and she turned back.
"It's him," she said, and I knew at once who she meant. "He was fun for a while, but now, he drains me. Takes the life from me. He's sucking me dry, Ben, and I don't think I can take much more of it."
"Leave him," I said, but I knew that was not what she wanted me to say.
She laughed without amusement. "I could leave him. But I don't think that he would leave me."
"Well if you want him to leave you alone, there's restraining orders and injunctions and—" I stopped, thinking of how I sounded. Is this what she wanted? Legal advice? "Look, I'll see him. You know. Put him straight. Scare him off. Tell him if he comes near you I'll...stop him."
Maria leaned over and put her hand on my wrist. Her skin was hot and dry and I felt the blood flow through my body, felt my nerves sing electric. "Ben," she said, and her hot breath was on my neck and I could smell the dark musk of her perfume, and beneath that, her, and I had never been more alive. "So sweet. But I don't think that would be enough." She leant further and I felt her lips touch my neck, the briefest of kisses, and I wanted to shout over and over that she was mine and I was hers, and I would do anything to keep it that way. "I think that we have to not see each other any more. I don't think I can stand it, Ben. I care for you so, but then I have to go back to him."
"You can't," I said, and I found that I could hardly speak, my throat was dry and tight and I could not breathe properly. "You can't leave me, Maria. If you leave me, my life is over." This wasn't a romantic declaration on my part. I was simply stating a fact. If she went, then there was no more for me, there never would be any more for me, so there was no point keeping on through monochrome day after day, each one a reminder of what I no longer had.
"And if I stay with him, so is mine," she whispered.
"Then I'll do it," I said. "I'll do it for you. It's what you want, isn't it? I'll do it."
She leant her head against mine, her soft hair brushing my cheek, and she put her hand upon my thigh, gently making circles with her fingernails.
"Do what, Ben? What will you do for me?"
"I'll kill him," I said, and there it was, as simple as that.
It didn't make me feel bad to say it, and I didn't give it any second thought. It felt natural, right. Should I not feel scared, I thought? Or feel doubt? But then her hand moved on my leg and her mouth slid up towards mine and that night I did not think of anything, or anyone else, and in the morning I lay on crumpled sheets, more tired than I had ever been, as if I had been ill for a very long time, but feeling like I had never felt in my life. I stared up at the ceiling, and smoked, and smelt her on the pillows, and considered the practicalities, as if I were planning on fixing a car or moving some furniture.
She kept her distance for a day or two. I thought of how to do it, but thinking of him made me think of her again and then I lost sight of whatever plan it was I had put together, lost it in dreams of her hair and her eyes and her touch. When she called me on the Friday I had nothing more than some vague ideas that were like bubbles floating in the air, disappearing when touched.
"I hope you're ready," she said. "I can't take any more of this."
"Well—"
"It's killing me, Ben. He's killing me. All I want to do is be with you."
"I—"
"We're going out, tonight. He's taking me for a meal at the Palatine. For a meal, Ben, when anything I put in my mouth tastes like ashes. I'm going to tell him I feel unwell afterward. That I need a walk, fresh air. Follow us."
"But—yes, yes, I will. I don't know though—"
"You'll think of something." Her voice was hard. Then it softened to a purr. "I trust you, Ben. With my soul. That's why I gave myself to you the other night. And why I want to, every night."
I could feel her as if she were there, pressed against me, her words carried physical weight, warmth.
"I'll be there," I croaked, and she chuckled in her throat and hung up.
I sat on my bed, staring at the floor, feeling as if I were in the midst of a fever. The air was dry and did not seem to give me enough breath to take. The world was distant, behind glass. The only thing that was real was the heat in my head, in my hands.
I had left the room and walked five blocks before I even realised that I was out of the house.
~
He was younger than I had expected. I had thought that he would be older. I loathed him from the moment they set foot outside the restaurant, and he placed a hand in the small of her back, ushering her along the pavement as if he owned her. I let them walk a little way, and then I followed, trying to remain calm. There were few passers-by at that time of night, but I did not want to risk anyone seeing me with the hatred on my face that I felt in my heart. He walked with a rolling swagger that made me clench my nails into the palms of my hands until I could feel hot wet blood. He was nothing, he was no-one, he wasn't fit to hold her coat, let alone touch her—I bit down on my tongue in case I shouted out and alarmed him.
She never once looked over her shoulder, but she knew I was there.
She was right. This man would drain her of life, of joy, of everything that made her beautiful. I could see it in her now, in the droop of those elegant shoulders, in the slowness of her step. To allow him to stay with her would be like allowing a maniac to slash at a great painting with a knife. He was killing her. And if he killed her, he would kill me.
It would be self-defence. But more than that, much more than that, it would be defending Maria.
We had walked away from the bustle of restaurants and taxis, and towards the great iron bridge that stretched high across the river. I let them get on to the bridge, and then I followed. I could not see anyone else on foot. The occasional car drove past, its occupants in a bubble, only seeing the road in front of them.
Maria paused, leaning on the railing at the edge of the bridge as if she were going to be sick. He stopped beside her, touching the small of her back again like she was a dog. I quickened my pace. When I was near them, I looked back.
There were no cars now. Nothing but me and Maria, and him and the long drop into the hard black water.
It did not go as easily as I had planned.
As I got near, he turned, watching me, as if he had been waiting for me. I walked past them, but he continued to stare.
"Oh," Maria said in a small voice, and like a thread had pulled at his head he turned back to her, and I sprang towards him, diving for his waist, trying to lift him bodily up and over the railings and down through the endless air into the chill water that would carry him out into the sea and out of her life. But he turned back in time to see me coming and he dodged, and my arms grabbed emptiness.
"No," he said, "No," and what struck me was the lack of surprise in his voice, but then I was at him again, arms flailing, kicking out with my feet. I did not have long before another car would come past. He backed away, bewildered by the ferocity of my attack, but he was blocking punches now, wary, and looking for an opportunity to strike back.
Maria laughed, and she sounded like a baby gurgling at a toy.
He looked away at her, just for one moment, and that was enough. I kicked out at the inside of his knee, and connected. He fell to his knees with an astonished scream, and then I was on him. I grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the metal railings of the bridge, once, twice, three times, each time harder. Then I dropped him, and he fell to the pavement like a sack of nothing.
I looked up at Maria. She smiled at me, and ran her tongue over her lips. She looked as perfect and as beautiful as she had when I had first seen her, and I wanted her more than life itself. The lines had gone, the darkness under her eyes had vanished, and she was perfect again, just like she was on that first night.
"Oh, Ben," she said, and it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. I reached down and heaved the dead thing up to standing, pushed it against the railing so that it flopped over, and was going to ease it over but its own weight took over and it dropped, spinning in the air, and then the water opened up around it and it was gone.