The recollection calmed him, and they crossed the road to the square. She didn’t want to break into his mind. Each had their privacy, and she was content to guard hers, thinking that her past life would be uninteresting to him. The loss was hers and nobody else’s, and there was no one to blame for it but herself. As soon as you cut yourself off from the people who were responsible for your loss, any thought of blame becomes ridiculous. The twenty years that had slipped by so emptily filled her with rage, and she stood for a moment unable to move for fear of being sick. After a day of such loving, the wasted years became a devastation of centuries.
‘We’ve both mis-spent our lives,’ she said when they were in the flat. She envied his having discovered a whole new landscape of the past, but knew there was no hope of her doing the same – so became glad for him instead.
He poured a whisky. ‘I suppose nearly everyone thinks so. But they weren’t useless lives. Would you like some?’
She would make herself a pot of tea before going to bed.
‘My life was futile,’ he said, ‘only in so far as you weren’t part of it, but we’ve met now, and I’m able to feel how wonderful it is. It’s bad for my self-esteem to worry about having been unlucky or stupid, or a victim of circumstance. It simply wouldn’t be true, in any case. Life has been good to us in that everything has led to our meeting. We can enjoy it better. It’s more important to think about the future than to worry about having been diminished in any way by the past.’
The fact that neither seemed to know where they were in their lives united them so effectively that the bond was, she felt, doubly painful. She wondered how much he really knew of himself, in spite of what he had discovered about his family. When he’d had time to absorb the information – for what it was finally worth – would they still have anything in common? She wasn’t able to bring these nagging queries into the open, which worried her because he, without difficulty, said whatever was in his mind. Warped by years of marriage, she felt deficient in not trusting someone she loved. The emptiness surrounding their encounter would indicate, if it persisted, that life was hardly worth living. She ought not to think, but to act instead, and do things. Wasn’t to say better than to think? Twenty null years had robbed her of the ability to say and to do out of her own will when with a man. Yet she had acted this morning because no other course was possible, a daring and positive approach which was not easily undone.
A lamp illuminated the open book. ‘I’ve found an alphabet which gives the key to this writing, so it won’t be difficult to get the hang of it. I can exercise my brain – like being back at school, but with the lines going from right to left.’
He was as relaxed as a child with a new toy, as if the imbibing of a different script could change him fundamentally. A spark of mystery gave renewal of life, and put light back into his eyes. ‘It’s like learning a secret language. There’ll be nothing to it when I get a proper start.’
He closed the book. She found it easy to kiss him. ‘Secret from me? I’ll learn it as well. But it’s time to go to bed, unless you intend studying all night.’
‘You’re right.’
She had disturbed him for no reason, when she should have left him peacefully at his task. He had a future, whereas she could see none, having jettisoned hers by leaving George. With George she’d had a perfect future, of calm and predictable days forming a congealed block of years that would go by until disease or old age carried them off hand in hand. Oh yes, there’d been a fine future there right enough. But she had broken free, and now had none at all, which at the moment she felt was the best kind of future to have.
Nor did she want any share of that which Tom might see for himself, preferring to live until a future formed for her – or not, as the case might well be – even if the desolation should become unbearable. And really, who had a future? At forty, as Edward once taunted her, ‘you’re over the hill’. Only the young had a future, and then not for very long. After forty the shutters began to come down. The string that held them could wear through and snap any moment, leaving you in the dark for ever. At such an age you were lucky to have any life at all. Every day was a gift, every month a victory, but she didn’t care, as long as she breathed, and had nerves to her fingertips. She had come back to life by crawling through a tunnel, and was more alive than when she had started the process. ‘Don’t go to bed. Stay at your work.’
He stood. ‘I have all the time I need.’
‘Really?’
He smiled. ‘Life seems as if it’ll go on for ever.’
She took his kisses. They were meaningless. ‘I don’t need to feel that. I hope you do everything you want to do. If so I’ll feel good knowing there’s at least one person I’m acquainted with whose life is working out according to plan.’
She was alarmed at his optimism. He was scared by her lack of it. There were dangers that could affect them both. She drew her hand away. He wondered why, but she could not explain.
‘We need sleep,’ he said. ‘A bit of the old cure-all of oblivion.’
No doubt he was right. She felt sickened and weighed down. ‘I’d like to be in a separate bed, if you don’t mind.’
She fought not to mumble words of apology. Her deepest wish was to be alone. He could stay reading into the night. She found his disappointment unbearable because he knew too well how to conceal it.
‘You have the big bed, then,’ he said, ‘and I’ll use my old room.’
She ached to sleep with him, but it needed too crucial an act to change her mind. It would also break something she did not yet want broken, and extend their intimacy whether he wanted it or not. Things soonest done are never mended.
She fell asleep after the most wracking agony of tears. She was glad he couldn’t hear. He did. He lay awake, trying to read, steeling himself against going in to give comfort. She wanted to be on her own, so to disturb her would be pure self-indulgence on his part. The muffled noise of sobbing made him realize that he was no longer alone in the world, and never would be again, so he wondered whether that was the reason for the sound being so precious, and the reason why he did not go in to comfort her and put an end to it. His last thought was that whatever the reasons, weeping was a bleeding of the spirit. People needed it. He understood perfectly, because he had never been able to do it.
5
She had taken a shower and dressed, and made breakfast. One minute she felt as if the flat was her own home, and the next she seemed like a trespasser waiting for the real owner to come back and say that if she didn’t get out the police would be called. Such an idea made the morning interesting. The weather forecast promised dry, but cold.
She spread butter on the remaining pieces of bread, and set it with a mug of black coffee on a tray. There’d have to be shopping done, unless they ate out again, which would be more pleasant than staying among boxes spilling papers and dust all over the place.
He turned from his book as she opened the door. She was convinced he saw a strange woman. He had not even known someone else was in the flat. Distant noises came from underneath. Or she’d been hired to get his breakfast and clean up afterwards. If she had slept in his bed she would have been a slave from an agency with sex thrown in. Better to be mistaken for a servant than a tart. Wouldn’t that be his word? She didn’t care what anybody took her for.