The Honeymoon, page 10
She nodded again. “But you’re an American?”
“That’s right.”
“The accent’s difficult to detect.”
“Actually, I’ve spent a good part of my life here, or in Europe.”
“How’s that?” she asked.
I glanced at Annie. I thought she would have supplied Sasha with all those details, but apparently she had told her very little about me.
“His mother travels all over Europe,” said Annie. “She’s working on a book.”
“Oh?”
“A guide book and she travels for research,” said Annie.
“She never stops travelling,” I said.
“Annie would like that. When she was little, Annie said she was going to join the Navy. She wanted to see the world.”
“Did she?” I asked.
“Yes she did.”
After tea, the three of us walked out her drive and then along a narrow road. We had to walk in a single line, Sasha in front and me in back, pressed up against the hedges to avoid the cars whizzing past. I thought of Timothy. After a few moments we turned into a break in the hedge about the width of a single car, where we could all walk together. Annie and Sasha linked arms and I carried the picnic supper they had prepared. We followed the two troughs of flattened grass on either side of a flowering median until the pass opened into a large field. At the end of the field flowed the gentle river on which canal boats floated slowly past and brought with them the smell of cooking meat and sometimes music.
As we sat, the air seemed to be floating horizontally with its collection of petals, insects and pollen. I remember picking tiny leaves from my sandwich. The evening was so still I could hear Annie and her sister chewing. They chatted away on many different subjects, about people I didn’t know, or things that had happened long ago. They recommended books to one another with varying degrees of imperative. Sasha would name a title, the author and then put both hands on her chest. “This book,” she would say and shake her head as if she could no longer risk speaking for fear of bursting into tears. I thought they both sounded overblown and a little silly. I may have let this show. At one point, Sasha turned to me and said, “you’re not a reader, then? Some people just aren’t, I suppose.”
“No. I guess not. Not like you two.” I watched Annie’s head where it lay in Sasha’s lap and felt slightly jealous. We sat in silence until Annie or Sasha sighed and commented how lovely everything looked. Even the cold bottle of white wine that Sasha had provided failed to inspire a sustained three-way conversation. Finally, I resorted to the most tired of commonplaces and asked Sasha about her work. Sasha worked for the council as a home-care nurse. I imagine she spent her time making reassuring cups of tea, puffing up pillows, and stealing pensioner’s cigarettes. On that first visit, after we had all complimented the scenery numerous times, the conversation turned to politics. Sasha was very down on Margaret Thatcher and her attempts to privatize everything. I didn’t know much about it. I had no strong opinions on the subject one way or the other. Sasha was talking about the hideous repercussions for the country and, perhaps, for nursing in particular. I am not confrontational. I can’t have been listening very closely, for, had I realized how strongly she felt about it, I would have kept my mouth shut. “I don’t know why everyone gets so upset about Thatcher,” I said off-hand. “All round, she seems to be making England a nicer place to live . . . .” I have very little interest in politics and get most of my information from the headlines or conversations I have with those who are more informed. I may have been quoting Theo, but he would have said something like, “a damned nicer place to live,” but I can’t carry off that sort of talk.
Annie and Sasha glared at me. Annie looked disapproving while Sasha was obviously very angry. She twice raised her hands in front of her face before clapping them together ceremoniously. She shook her head as if to clear her vision. “I don’t think you have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, Gordon.”
I had no idea what to say. “You really don’t,” added Annie, nodding sadly.
“She may have made it a nicer place to live for you and your mother who, as far as I can make out, don’t work, but for the rest of us, she happens to be making it very difficult indeed.”
There was a long cool silence as the river trickled past. Sasha’s anger seemed slowly to subside, as poor Annie made polite chat. I resented Sasha’s self-righteousness, especially over something I cared so little about. I could hardly have explained that to her, however; it would only have made things much worse.
We stayed out by the river until almost dark. That was always my favorite part of the picnics. As the sun went down, the tame English landscape was transformed. The ball of fire in the black trees, the tan grass and wispy sky—Dorset suddenly looked like Kenya.
As we rested in the guest bedroom before dinner, Annie reprimanded me further. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Gordon,” she said. “Especially with people who do.” This is sound advice that I am happy to pass along. I might add, do not say anything at all if you feel, as I have felt for the majority of my life, an inability to feel passionately about public things. But that was how I was raised. Maureen had no politics except to judge things on aesthetic terms. I suppose it is a condition that might be attributed to being an expatriate, but I don’t think so. I think the majority of people have trouble feeling passionately about things. I would venture that loneliness and boredom are the most common emotions. What about abandonment? You might ask. What about betrayal? What about love?
After dinner, the three of us sat around the table smoking and finishing a bottle of wine. I was trying to repair the damage I had done with Sasha at the riverbank. I made repeated efforts at conversation, mostly unsuccessful. I even made an apology, which she accepted graciously. The whole experience was exhausting and it was getting late. I decided to leave the two of them together to catch up without my interference. I rose from the table, thanked Sasha for her bland cooking and kissed Annie goodnight.
Annie and Sasha sat up late chatting at the little kitchen table. I could hear them whispering from where I lay in the guest bed. I tried to sleep, but just when I began to drift off one of them laughed and the other made a shushing sound. As it got later I began to wonder what they could possibly be talking about for so long. I then made a decision I am now ashamed of. I very gently peeled back the sheets and stepped onto the cold floor. I moved gingerly toward the door and after another moment’s pause, pushed it partially open. A small band of light from the candles fell across my shoulder and I could hear their voices more clearly.
“He’s an idiot,” said Annie.
When I heard her say that, I felt sick. I had been lying there worrying that they had been talking about me and now I was sure: I, obviously, was the idiot.
Sasha laughed. “You’ve always loved each other. Since you were kids.”
“He had his chance,” continued Annie.
“He loves you,” said Sasha. “He calls and tells me. He’s pathetic, actually.”
“He tells me as well and I don’t care . . . Besides . . . Now I’ve got Gordon. He loves me and I would like to be happy and I . . . .” She stopped in mid-sentence. “What is it?” Silence. And then it suddenly occurred to me: I’ve been seen.
“Gordon?” called Sasha.
I said nothing. Irrationally, I froze (I may even have closed my eyes like the child I remember myself being) and hoped I was invisible.
“Gordon?” Sasha called out again. For what could have been a full thirty seconds, there was only overwhelming, deadly silence.
“He’s asleep,” said Annie finally.
The relief I felt at that moment has never been matched in my life. She had not seen me. It was not me she had called an idiot. Someone else, but it didn’t matter because she had me. I could not have been happier. I thought nothing of what Sasha had said about them loving each other since they were children. Everyone has their moments of conviction; that’s how I think of it; not as stupidity or denial, as it may seem, but as conviction: an overwhelming desire to believe in something.
I pushed open the door and yawned wildly. A delicious feeling of exhilaration pushed at the back of my eyes. I must have never seemed so awake. “What?” I asked groggily. “Were you calling?”
“I thought you were in the room,” said Sasha.
“In the guestroom,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder.
“No, in here,” she said coldly. Her hair was now down around her shoulders and she looked even older than she had that afternoon.
“No,” I said. “I heard you calling and got out of bed. Did you need something?”
“No, darling,” said Annie. “Go back to sleep. I’m coming now.”
I turned and walked back into the room. I was wide-awake when Annie came in. She disrobed quietly thinking I had gone back to sleep. When she lay down beside me, I rolled over to her and began to kiss her.
Sasha and I exchanged an icy handshake at the station. She glared at me as Annie hung around her neck. Her distrust of me had been confirmed by what she thought she had seen the night before. That look she gave me at the station was the moment she wanted to make it clear that she didn’t care for me and it wasn’t lost on me. I knew it each time we came to visit and Annie knew it as well.
Annie and I sat in the train compartment watching the landscape turn slowly gray the closer we got to London. “What did you two talk about so late?” I asked.
Annie shrugged. “Just catching up.”
I don’t know why Sasha is so bitter. Annie told me a story about her sister’s early devotion to some depressive boy with whom she had gotten herself pregnant. The baby was terminated. Annie claimed that Sasha wanted to keep it, but this may have been wishful thinking on her part; Annie disapproved of abortion. The boy is probably at least fifteen years older than I am, so I should probably not refer to him as a boy, but this has always been the way I’ve thought of him: that is, sympathetically. He felt that he wasn’t making enough money to begin a family. Apparently, it hadn’t been Sasha’s first termination.
With the baby, unbeknownst to Sasha and her lover, went their fondness for one another. They hung around for a while, kicking at the emptiness between them. The real difficulty, according to Annie, was that they still vaguely recognized one another as the people they had loved. Like recognizing a childhood friend in a station somewhere and finding, upon shaking hands and inquiring into one another’s lives that you don’t like each other at all. Annie said that Sasha still thought about this young man.
“How can you stand her?” I asked.
“She’s my sister. We didn’t have a mother. We’re very close.” She shook her head, turned and looked determinedly out the window. I don’t understand that sort of blind family loyalty.
Annie was silent for a time. I stroked the back of her head but she kept moving away. “Sasha doesn’t approve of you either. When you stand in the room she’s not sure you’re really there.” Annie laughed unconvincingly and a small drop of saliva appeared on the glass like a fleck of rain.
* * *
The moment when I realized my feeling for Annie came as we wound our way back into London. I had wandered down the train to find us something to eat. The snack car had run out of almost every item on the menu. The steward was totally uninterested in serving me. He dragged his hand over each sandwich as I pointed through the dirty glass and I had to point out the two cans of lemonade, one after the other, in the fridge. As it was Sunday, the train was free of students and quiet. I studied each of the sleeping or reading passengers as I passed the cabins on the way back to ours and decided that there was no woman on the train as attractive as Annie.
When I finally made it back to our compartment, I found Annie asleep. She had let her hair fall across one eye and the skin on her cheek creased slightly where she rested her face against the seat cushion. I glanced tentatively at the large man with swollen forearms and scrubbed skin sharing our compartment. He never looked away from the window or changed the angry expression with which he watched the passing landscape. I put our snacks down on the small white plastic table marked with grey initials. Someone had shakily scratched another Annie’s name. I dragged my finger over the letters and the crushed heart the artist had added beside her name.
As soon as I sat down next to Annie, she switched positions and laid her head in my lap. I was content watching the houses standing in their little gardens. They seemed startled, as if the train had interrupted them in an act of privacy. I was happy thinking of the people inside having something to eat or watching television. As we passed one house, joined in an endless series to others exactly like it, I saw a young woman squeeze a full-sized double mattress through her window. It snapped open in the air and landed soundlessly on the patio. She leaned out and looked down at it and then we sped past out of sight. I once read that moments like these define modern human existence. The world passes at such a rate it is almost impossible to know anything for certain. For every action witnessed, any number of details or gestures go unseen that make it impossible to decide what an action really means. Was the house on fire? Was she a prisoner in need of a soft landing for her escape? Had she discovered a betrayal that had taken place on that disgusting mattress? Or, did the mattress simply need getting rid of and why bother carrying it down the stairs? I was concerned by the possibilities. It is far more reassuring to imagine simple lives passing behind darkened windows. I was content with this thought until I looked down at Annie again. This was the moment I have alluded to. She had fallen into a deeper asleep; her skin had slackened, vibrating partially from the motion of the train. Her lips were parted, her eyes held effortlessly closed. She was truly asleep and I was horrified. The usual competence and energy in her face, the privacy, was nowhere to be found. I hardly recognized her. I could see into her open mouth, her crooked teeth, the velvet ribbon of tongue and the dark, cave entrance of her throat. I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the thought that everything would not be all right. Terrible things could happen to such a face, I decided. I put my hands around her chin and her forehead and tried to hold her still, but it didn’t help. I had to wake her.
She blinked and looked up at me without recognition and then only slowly, she began to look awake. “What is it?” she asked, glancing up at the window.
The man sitting across was now watching us. When I returned his gaze he frowned and looked out again. “What is it?” she repeated. “What’s the matter?” She looked up at me with alarm.
“You looked so . . .” I paused. I didn’t know how to say it. I felt really very emotional. “I don’t want anything terrible to happen to you.” The man looked at us again and let out a small, incredulous chuckle. Annie reached up and awkwardly cupped my chin in her palm.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She was being kind, although she seemed irritated to have been woken. She moved her hand back and forth over the stubble on my jaw until her grip slowly slackened as she drifted back to sleep. I shook her once more and she emerged again with that same expression of underwater horror. “What?” she asked.
“I’d like to marry you,” I stuttered and glanced up at the man sitting across from us. His hairless eyebrows rose above his pink face.
She looked at me for a long moment. Her face did not change from one second to the next and then she put her small hard hands on the back of my neck. She smiled, but suddenly tears bubbled up and overwhelmed her expression. They were tears of joy, she explained, but she looked miserable. She pulled my head towards her and kissed me. I cannot be sure if it was my breathing or perhaps Annie’s, but I think the man might have let out a sigh before turning back to the window, to the landscape that had been replaced by the first dreary neighborhoods of the city.
“Do not be a fatalist,” said Maureen when I told her this story. “Your father is a fatalist, it’s simple-minded.” Although she did not say so, it is also un-American.
I had called to tell her that Annie and I were engaged. Maureen wanted to know if I was in love with Annie and I said that I was. She asked me how I knew and I recounted the story, exactly as I just have. She said I had it all wrong: “Love,” she told me, “is not fear of what you might lose.”
“Have you never felt that you had something that it would just kill you to give up?” I asked.
“Oh, Gordon,” she said. “You’ve never felt that strongly about anything. Not even as a child. You’ve always been quite self-sufficient. If I’ve done anything for you, I think that might be it.”
Twelve
Annie, you will remember, was engaged before we met, to the hairdresser, the Heathcliff on the side of the hill. His name is Graham. They grew up in the same house of flats and played together as children. I’ve never met him. I saw him just that once when he dropped Annie off at work and shook his great mane. We used to see his motor bike parked in front of Annie’s father’s place when he was there visiting his mother. When I asked about him, she said that he had been understanding when she broke off the engagement. On a few occasions, she thought he might have been following her. Once, we had to duck into a fast-food restaurant in Leicester Square from where she could watch until she was sure it wasn’t him. He turned up at the deli once. Annie asked him firmly but kindly to leave. One of the middle-aged men who worked beside her behind the counter had escorted him out onto the street. And there were numerous hangups on the machine that I attributed to Heathcliff.
“Why?” I wanted to know. “Why, or how could you become engaged to someone else? Did you love him?”
We sat together on the sofa watching the lower-halves of people passing on the pavement outside.
“There is a religion, and don’t ask me which one, because I don’t remember, but there’s a religion where they believe that everyone has a ray of light leading from us up to heaven.” Annie lifted an imaginary hat from her head and held it at arms’ length above her. “It’s just a flimsy narrow ray of light, but when you marry someone, when you intertwine your lives . . . When you fall in love . . . Your two rays join and become a bigger one.” The hat grew in her hands to about the width of her shoulders. “Your connection to heaven is bigger, you see?”
