She blinked twice.
‘Go ahead,’ said Bob.
She swallowed. Fixed her gaze back onto the wall above him. ‘That’s trauma,’ she said. ‘Trauma, not loneliness. Trauma arises when you lose someone you thought you would be spending the rest of your life with. When it was more than an expectation, it was a conviction. Something you based your whole life on. Something that was everything.’ She lowered her gaze to meet his. ‘The trauma is the wound. But the loneliness that comes with it locks you to your trauma. Sometimes there are physical manifestations. Often intolerable pains that follow the spine down toward the stomach.’ She put a hand to her own stomach. ‘You feel you want to disappear, but the body is frozen up, and you become simply incapable of drawing warmth from those around you.’
‘Silent, locked in?’
‘Or raging. Everyone reacts differently. But we often share the feeling that something drastic has to be done. Traumatic memory is circular. Meaning that when something happens that reminds us of a previous trauma it can awaken rage, in this case the rage of abandonment. Everything that has happened before happens again. The whole weight of those previous experiences invades the present. The grief that has up to that point been frozen explodes in a vengeful rage. The violence of trauma is often extreme. People stab in a frenzy, they molest the body, not uncommonly there are elements of sadism.’
Bob nodded slowly. ‘The rage of abandonment.’
‘That’s the technical term.’
‘Thank you.’ He turned the empty glass in his hand. ‘Alice, has it ever...?’ He stopped.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Have you ever felt afraid of me?’
Alice tilted her head. ‘No. But as a psychologist I know that as a rule people overestimate their ability to predict how those closest to them will react, especially if the person concerned has been traumatised. Maybe that’s exactly the mistake I’m making now. Given your sometimes aggressive behaviour, it is definitely not doing things by the book for me to meet you here alone, like this, where all the memories are.’
Bob gave a crooked smile. ‘You mean you should be afraid, but you aren’t?’
She nodded. ‘I’m probably more worried about what you might do to yourself than to me. Tell me...’ Now it was her turn to stop.
‘Yes?’
‘Are things getting better, Bob?’
‘Better? Oh, no question.’ Bob smiled and knew that if he squeezed the glass any harder it would break. ‘I’m over the worst. I accept that life goes on. I remember you saying that the rational mind forgets things it has no use for. That’s true. I can feel how I’m thinking less about both you and Frankie with each day that passes. And you’ll see, they’ll be even better now that I’m getting rid of the house. It’ll be as though none of this—’ he gestured toward the photos on the refrigerator — ‘ever happened. Don’t you think?’ He was smiling so hard the corners of his mouth ached and through the tears her face grew fluid and indistinct. It felt as though his skin was on fire. ‘But then, there’s a part of my brain that isn’t rational and smart, and that can’t forget, even though it knows it should.’
Alice nodded. ‘Maybe we don’t have to forget, Bob. Maybe it’s more about treasuring the good memories and learning to live with the not so good ones. And... carrying on.’ Her hesitation had been brief, but Alice was like a song Bob knew off by heart. He knew at once that that pause, short as it had been, meant something. And suddenly he understood what it was.
‘Carrying on?’ he said. And steeled himself as he waited for what he knew must come. Because of course he’d seen it as soon as he arrived, the way she looked just the way she had done back then.
Alice wrapped her fingers around her teacup and looked down into it.
‘Yes, I’m...’ She seemed to ready herself, then looked up and directly into Bob’s eyes. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Bob nodded and nodded, his head going up and down like that dog on the parcel shelf in the back of his parents’ car.
‘Congratulations,’ he said, his voice thick and hoarse.
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly.
‘No, I really mean it,’ he said. ‘I’m... happy for you.’
‘I know you are.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course,’ she said.
They looked at each other. He smiled. She gave a cautious smile in return.
‘You’ve been dreading giving me the news?’ he asked.
‘A bit,’ she said. ‘So it’s OK?’
‘Yes, it’s OK.’ He thought about it. It really was. More than OK. It felt... yes, like a relief. Alice was pregnant again, and in some strange way it felt as though he now had one life less on his conscience. He’d never thought of it like that before, never realised that he might instinctively react like that to news that could only take her even further away from him.
‘Girl or a boy?’ he asked.
‘We’re going for an ultrasound on Monday. I guess we’ll find out then.’
‘Exciting.’ Bob was still nodding. If he did it much longer his head would probably fall off. ‘Thanks for talking to me, Alice. Thanks for... well, everything really. I’ll be on my way.’
They said goodbye without touching each other. When she shut the door behind him, and he headed out into the chill autumn night, it was as though his step was lighter. But then it was as though a pendulum swung across his chest, across his heart, and for a moment he stood by his car, doubled over in pain. Then the pendulum swung the other way, and he drove off to Motörhead’s idiotically cheerful ‘On Parole’ with the volume up full, singing along as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
39
Fish, October 2016
Betty Jackson locked the door to the ticket booth and was heading for the switches to turn off the lights for the Rialto sign when Mel, the projectionist, came down the steep steps from his projection room. ‘There’s a guy still sitting in the theatre,’ he said, keeping a tight hold of the railing. Mel was only a couple of years younger than her and had recently had a hip replacement.
‘I see,’ said Betty. ‘Didn’t you call down and tell him we’re closing?’
‘Yeah, but I think he’s asleep.’
They entered the theatre together.
She registered that it was the black man in the red hat. She would have shouted his name, but she didn’t know it, had never spoken to him, even though he sat there almost every day, usually staying for several hours. Sometimes he was the only person in the whole theatre. She’d hear him talking on his phone when he was alone, like it was his office. But this time it looked as though he’d fallen asleep, his chin slumped down in his chest and the brim of the hat shading his face.
Betty walked along the row toward him with the projectionist, who had actually offered to go first, like he was some kind of gentleman, right behind her. The man sat with one hand resting on his thick thigh and she put her hand over his and gave it a gentle shake. The hat fell off. Betty exclaimed loudly and backed away, into the projectionist. The man’s eyes were wide open and completely white. Though it wasn’t that that made her jump, her own husband also sometimes slept with his eyes open and his head back. Nor was it the open mouth with the tiny inlaid diamonds glinting in the teeth. It was the hand. It had been as cold as marble.
It had been a more than usually busy afternoon at Bernie’s Bar and a very good evening. Liza had turned down the volume slightly on Little Feat’s ‘Dixie Chicken’ so she could hear what he was saying, the tipsy and rather forlorn-looking elderly man sitting at the bar. He was saying he had driven to the big city from a town named Funkley, four hours’ drive to the north, to attend the NRA gathering the next day.
‘Quite a change for a hayseed like me, this,’ he said with a cautious smile. ‘Funkley’s got five inhabitants. Everyone lives alone, got their own home. It gets kind of lonely. Even though I’m the only man among them.’