The Stranger at the Wedding, page 17
It’s just a nightmare, I tell myself. It never happened. But I have dreamt it so often that I’m not sure any more. What if it is not a dream, but a memory?
I tried to call Tess, to root this scene in reality, but she didn’t pick up. She never does. The last time we spoke, really spoke, was two years ago, around Christmas. She dropped by the house to borrow money. Mark opened the door, but he wasn’t best pleased. When is he ever?
All she ever wants is handouts, he said. You never see her unless she wants something.
That’s not true, I said. But the moment the words left my mouth, I knew them to be false.
I gave her the money and she hasn’t called since.
I tried again to talk to Mark about the recurring dream. Your mind is playing tricks on you, he said. You have always had an overactive imagination. But he knows that is not true, as much as he’d like me to believe it. I’m worried that one of these days I might start to; that his version will become my version, his story my story and that there shall be no other.
27
‘Something’s wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Laura. I can hear a man murmuring in the background.
‘Who’s that?’
Laura is distant, evasive. ‘Who’s what?’
‘That man in your bed.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘Yes, that. Well?’
‘Another story for another time.’
Just hang up, says the voice, clearer now. She know what hour it is?
‘One sec, Annie.’
A commotion breaks out on the other end of the line.
‘Bad time?’
‘No, it’s a great time. I’m just moving into the other room. What’s up?’
‘It’s Mark –’
‘If you tell me you two have broken up already, I want my gift back – toasters don’t come cheap, you know.’
‘I didn’t realise service stations sold toasters.’
Laura giggles. ‘Come on, then. Don’t leave a lady waiting.’
‘Lady?’
‘Oh, shush.’
I can hear movement out on the terrace, where Mark is having his morning coffee. He coughs and turns the pages of a newspaper.
My voice is a whisper. ‘He’s changed.’
‘What do you mean changed? You’ve been married four days. Changed how?’
‘Changed – changed his mind.’
‘About getting married? It’s a bit late for that, An—’
‘About me.’
There’s a silence on the other end of the phone as Laura grapples for a response, any response. She’s not often lost for words.
‘Wh-what makes you say that?’
‘He’s here, but he’s not here. He’s elsewhere. I’ve tried, Laura, I’ve really tried. Tried to get him to see me, to really see me, to notice me. But he’s not interested. It’s like he’s a ball of regrets. He’s no longer Mark, no longer my Mark. I don’t recognise him.’
I can feel the tears prick the corner of my eyes, but I refuse to cry any more. I don’t have the strength.
‘Something was said at the wedding to him, but I don’t know what. How can I answer to a crime I don’t know I’ve committed?’
‘Why don’t you ask him outright?’
‘And say what? We’ve barely spoken and you’ve refused to fuck me for the third night in a row since we got married. Is everything OK, honey?’
‘Well, maybe not exactly that,’ Laura demurs.
‘Well, what, then? I’m all ears.’
‘Annie, listen to me. I’m sure it’s nothing. You’re a newlywed, you’re emotional, and you’re seeing daggers in the dark. We’ll be getting you fitted for a tin hat soon. Besides, all this emotion, all this stress, do you think it might just be a bad case of PMT?’
‘Perhaps. Though it’s not due for another week or two in theory.’
‘In theory?’
‘I’ve not stopped taking the pill …’
‘Ah. So no Capri baby?’
‘Let’s get my husband to love me again, shall we, before we talk babies?’
The absurdity of that statement forces the gathering tears into free-flowing tears of laughter. We laugh together until even the laughter can’t hide the underlying sadness.
‘I love him,’ I say, after a time. ‘I really love him.’
‘I know you do. And he loves you, I’m sure of it. OK?’
‘OK.’
Are you coming back to bed? That distant voice again – it seems familiar.
‘Honey, I’ve got to go. I’ll speak to you soon.’
‘Wait, I—’ But the line goes dead and I am alone once more.
*
The sun sits oppressively high above the hills as a squat yellow bus races down a long road littered with hairpin bends, down to the rocky sea. The wind catches in my lungs and a thrill of adventure ripples through me; I find myself, almost instinctively, placing a hand on Mark’s inner thigh, where it lingers. He does not smile or wrap his arms around my shoulders and pull me in close as he might have done a mere week ago, but neither does he remove the hand from its perch, which is progress, I suppose.
At the bottom of the road, close to the Marina Piccola, but away from the sunbathing masses, a parade of unmanned rowing boats gather, tethered to the shore by thick trusses of rope. Mark hires one and proceeds to row us out from the island, out from the beach clubs full of glamorous women and midday spritzes, out past the luxury yachts adrift in the jewelled sea – and yet not too far, for I can still discern individual towels and loungers, floats and blow-up balls – just enough so that we can look back at Capri’s full splendour, at its promontories and sweeping cliffs, at its rugged beauty. We sit there together in silence as the boat gently lollops in the ocean, washing between the tides. It feels, for the first time, like I am on my honeymoon, albeit a honeymoon for one.
‘To think this was once Emperor Tiberius’ playground,’ I say eventually, half to Mark, half to myself, and more in consternation than awe. ‘The past feels so present here.’
Mark doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure if he is awake beneath his sunglasses. The boat’s rocking has cast a spell over us both.
‘Darling?’ I press, but then regret the word. Had I become my mother? Did Mark think me as cold, as unyielding?
‘Yes.’
‘What are you thinking?’ That awful question that no man wishes to hear.
Mark stirs, pulls himself upright and lifts his straw boater just enough to allow the back of his hand to pass across his clammy forehead. He gazes back to the shore as though considering his escape route.
‘I’m thinking it’s about time I go back to work.’
‘To the hospital?’
‘No, to the coal mine.’ There is irritation in his voice.
He seems to think his own tone too harsh, his speech too rash. And then he seems to think me worthy of opening up to once more, after hours on hours of walled silence.
‘I feel … I feel robbed of my purpose, Annie.’
He removes his sunglasses and clamps an anxious palm to his chest.
‘I look back and I think what have I achieved in the past two years, actually? I thought a new relationship, us, would be enough. But it’s not. I got wrapped up in the dates, in the newness and the excitement – the proposal, the wedding, the prospect of a family. But now … what’s left?’
He looks at me, looks through me, and I feel like something snaps inside, retreats.
‘We’re left,’ I petition.
‘You cannot be my purpose,’ he says flatly. ‘What if, one day—’
‘Mark, I’m not going anywhere.’
‘But—’
I pull him up short. ‘Listen very carefully: I. Am. Not. Going. Anywhere.’
He looks at me, really looks at me, with those little marbles, whose centres are as blue as the sapphire sea. ‘I’ve been promised that before.’
I freeze, feel his words get the better of me. ‘I can’t keep having this same conversation, Mark. Round and around we go.’
‘You’re not listening.’
‘I have done nothing but listen. And I’m sick of it. Sick of trying to be the perfect wife.’
Mark sneers. ‘Perfect?’
‘I didn’t say I was; I said I was trying. Which is more than can be said for you. You’ve barely acknowledged me since the airport.’
He falls silent again.
‘I don’t understand what changed, what changed in you. Talk to me, please.’
Mark sighs. I’m nervous about what he’s going to say, and then he says it, casually and without hesitation. Here it is. The heart of the matter, the root of the root.
‘I spoke with our mystery guest at the reception. Cameron. Or rather, he spoke with me.’
The figure by the car. Of course. He hadn’t left after all.
‘What about?’ I say, but disingenuity has never been my strong suit. There’s only one thing he could have said that Mark does not know, not fully.
‘What really happened to Jessica?’ he says. ‘And this time, the truth, Annie. Nothing else will do.’
28
Six weeks before the wedding, Mark stopped answering my calls again. When he did pick up, he seemed distant, unconcerned with me, with my life.
I’m getting a promotion at work; they’re making me Associate Professor.
That’s good.
They want me to start teaching a class on Greek Mythology.
Myths? But you’re a historian.
Fact and fiction are fast friends … Want to come over?
Maybe tomorrow. I’m tired.
And that was that. I celebrated alone that night: a bubble bath, a Chinese takeaway and a voicemail from a solar panel salesman who was very sorry to have missed me.
I tried to talk with him, with Mark, but he said there was nothing to talk about; he simply closed up in his usual fashion – as men do when they’re forced to contend with complex emotions that extend beyond anger, mild sadness and post-orgasm elation – then showered me in assurances. How could anything be wrong? I’m about to marry the woman I love. But I knew better: it was Hope. Was he ever going to let her go?
I suggested we visit the Richmond Centre, together; if he couldn’t talk to me directly, perhaps it would help to share his grief with strangers, with those who have endured private tragedies too and yet found the strength to share their tragedy with others. It had helped me, I said. It can help you. Mark being Mark, I was expecting more of a struggle, but to my great surprise, he agreed. In the end, I don’t know if he did it for me, or for himself. I don’t suppose it much matters.
*
‘No, it’s fine,’ said Mark, twelve pairs of eyes on him, twelve sympathetic smiles.
‘Are you sure?’ James could sense his hesitancy.
Mark laughed a little nervously. ‘This is not a spectator sport.’
‘No, it’s not. But neither is it a grief auction. There is no prize for the highest bidder.’
There are no prizes at all, said one of the other attendees, to titters and whispers. James waited for these to pass.
‘Over the years, I’ve seen many people walk through those doors and walk out of them again having never said a word. The Richmond Centre is not a space where you have to talk; it’s a space where you can. There is a difference.’
‘Do you have to talk?’ said Mark, irritated.
James didn’t falter. He smiled. ‘I find it helps.’
At that, Mark nodded, caught my eye. A look can say so very much.
‘It’s the not-knowing,’ said Mark finally, just as James seemed poised to move on to another patient, attendee, client – call them, us, what you will.
‘Why she left?’
Mark opened and closed his fists, one at a time.
‘It’s more than that.’
‘How so?’
Mark paused for a moment, collected his thoughts. My heart paused too, skipped a beat, thudded loudly on the next. Blood rushed into my ears.
What are you going to say?
‘Not knowing why she left is one thing … Our relationship is over, I’ve accepted that. But what if it was something I did? What if I’m destined to repeat – ? What if I lose—’
He paused once more and looked up at me. He was scared to lose me, just as I have been – just as I am – scared to lose him.
‘I wish I could talk with her one last time. Tell her I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. I wonder sometimes had I been a better partner, a better husband, whether she would have left. Maybe we were always destined to go our own ways, to find happiness with other people. But maybe not. Maybe things could have been different had I just been more attentive, more understanding, more flexible. The worst thing is, I’ll never know. I have so many questions for which I’ll never have the answers.’
James leant forward, hands on both knees. ‘You want closure.’
Mark nodded and a silence blossomed in the room. James’ words had dried up, Mark’s too. But where they had each lost their voice, I had, unaccountably, found mine.
‘I think we all go through life expecting a Hollywood movie, with a clear beginning, middle and end.’ Faces turned to look at me. ‘But it never quite pans out that way.’
James gestured with his hands, encouraging me to go on.
‘The subplots are convoluted, and more often than not, total dead ends. And don’t get me started on endings. Sometimes they never come, not in the way we want them to, not in the way we expect or need them to. Sometimes things are left undone, things, important things, left unsaid, and scenes unfinished. But I’ve come to learn that’s OK. There is a desire within us all for closure, but sometimes the unfinished is an ending in and of itself.’
Mark looked up at me. He seemed to intuit my meaning, which, admittedly, I’d delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
‘When we don’t get the closure we crave, we feel out of control,’ I added.
James clasped his hands together, as though in prayer, and pressed the tips of his fingers to his lips.
‘And is that how you feel, Annie? Out of control?’
I thought about it, long and hard, so long that the clock on the wall seemed to become my enemy, counting down the seconds, time slipping more than passing. This was not supposed to be about me; this was about Mark.
‘I used to,’ I said eventually. ‘I used to feel powerless. I used to feel that things happened to me, rather than through me, or because of me.’
‘And what changed?’
‘I did.’
‘In what way?’
I started to feel on display, exposed. James the Poacher had laid another one of his traps and I was damned if I was going to get snared. That is … until I looked up at Mark and pictured myself stood before him in just six weeks’ time, sharing my vows, which would begin with an I and end with an us. It would always end with an us.
‘Last time I was here, I told you about a game my sister Karen and I would play at our farmhouse, as kids.’
‘That’s right,’ said James. ‘The rabbits.’
‘The rabbits,’ I repeated. ‘Well, the reason we played that stupid game, the reason we would creep downstairs and try to catch rabbits at night, with our torch, was to bring back Jessica.’
James looked at me blankly, went to speak, stopped himself, regrouped before marching onwards. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘My sister. My other sister. Her nickname was Rabbit. Jessica Rabbit. My mother’s name for her, silly, really. And ever since, when I’ve seen one, a rabbit, I’ve felt close to her, as though she is alive again. So that night – you’ll think me mad – with the incident, and the car …’
‘You’re among friends, Annie.’
‘… the car that collided with the stunned rabbit …’
Mark shifted uneasily in his chair, swallowed hard. I was crying.
‘Well, I went out into the road, and I picked up that injured rabbit, as I wish I could have picked up Jessica, and I carried it inside, back into our home, where it belonged, where she belonged. It was so small, and in so much pain. I carried it to the basement. I fed and watered it. For weeks. The body was a mess, legs crushed, a mass of blood on its fur –’
No one knew quite what to say.
‘And why do you think you did that, Annie?’
I couldn’t answer this truthfully; if I had, Mark might have seen the real me, instead of the me I wanted – I want – him to see.
The truth is, I’d spent all my life thinking it was because I wanted to save that rabbit, nurture it back to life. But it wasn’t that at all. Not if I really think about it. No.
I wanted to punish that rabbit. I wanted to heal it just enough to keep it hovering in absolute pain, in a liminal state, between this world and the next. I wanted to see another living thing suffer the way we had suffered, the way our family had suffered. Suffering should be universal – most religions are founded on the notion – and yet some are forever destined to suffer more than others, some presented with Gordian knot after knot, while others skate through life trouble-free, the world on a string. Every so often that string should be cut.
When I was fourteen, rebellious, foolish, I stuck out my foot as our class marched from the changing rooms into the playground. It was child’s play, nothing else. Having seen the foot too late to correct her path, a classmate tripped over it, went crashing across the ground, face first into the rough, weather-worn tarmac. I’ll always remember the way she looked up at me, blood seeping from her grazed thigh, a look that said, Every sort of wild animal is kinder than you.
That thought has stuck with me ever since. There is a streak of cruelty in me, something feral and unruly that I don’t, won’t, often allow to see the light of day. I suppress it, I dress it in kindness and love and desire and passion, until the cloak conceals the dagger. People will usually see what they want to see. But I’m worried that sooner or later I’ll forget to be kind, to be endearing, to be thoughtful and patient and goodness itself. I’m worried that one day I shall forget to be Annie, the Annie they expect, the Annie they know and love. I’m worried the cloak will slip and everyone will know me for who I really am, for the animal, the monster who takes, only takes. I’m worried all this will be over and the slice of happiness I’ve managed to carve out for myself will be ripped from me, and I’m worried … I’m worried what else I might do to preserve it, to preserve me.
