I’d been in dreadful pain. Dreadful pain. But things (you know, ahem, ‘things’) improved dramatically when I cut down on the analgesics (those awful sounds – roaring, keening, strangely individuated – slowly abated). So it was almost worth it. And the pain itself was a distraction. A sharpener. A kind of … of motivator of sorts.
Although there was still a strong suggestion of … you know … if I moved my head too quickly … a subtle, golden dusting of … a … an ominous feeling … this dreadful … this wretched … this terrible, all-pervasive atmosphere of yearning, aching need … all these endless legions of … suddenly emerging. That dreadful atmosphere of crushing loneliness!
But it was manageable. Perfectly manageable. With the odd careful adjustment. So long as I kept Mrs Meadows hanging around the place. Which was actually a kind of torment in itself. A kind of punishment in itself. Her slavish adoration. Almost as bad as being loathed by Miss Hahn (I’d even been cruelly abandoned by her voice! Her voice! Even her voice was gone! Which I suppose, if I’m honest about it, was really my voice in the guise of Miss Hahn’s voice. Don’t they sometimes say that loving someone else is actually only another means of loving the self? Don’t they say that?).
Luckily (for me), Mrs Meadows had now acquired a series of notebooks which (when she wasn’t plumping up my pillows and making inedible snacks) she spent every spare moment writing in and poring over. She had developed a theory about the coat. It related to the history of what she called ‘Cyberspace’, which, when I interrogated her about it, she said ‘didn’t really mean anything – at least not in fact, only in fiction’ (she cited William Gibson’s Neuromancer). She said that the coat was like a ‘giant circuit board’ of modern communications theory, that it was at once a coherent whole and a series of completely separate narratives. She said it all depended on how close you were, or how far away. She said it sent out different messages from varying perspectives. On two occasions she called it ‘the ultimate undecidable problem!’ and then laughed, hysterically.
I can’t pretend I really got the joke.
Mrs Meadows planned (with my express permission) to take the coat on a visit to see her friend in San Francisco, to show it to her friend’s husband, who, so far as I could tell, worked for the government. I had agreed to fly with her. Was it only because I feared that unless I kept her close the golden dust would … would envelop me? For good? Or perhaps because I was in a state of ‘deep denial’ about my actual feelings for her (same as I had been with Miss Hahn, remember?)? Or simply because I wouldn’t – couldn’t – in all good conscience, be parted from that infernal coat again.
It was just something I felt I … I needed to do. For Miss Hahn. To try and make it up to her. To undo the casual wrong … to … to care for the stupid coat as I secretly longed to care for … Even if Miss Hahn didn’t know – never knew – I would protect it for her. Guard it for her. For her. Just for her. Not for any of the others. Not for Bran or Kalinda or Brother Prosper or the child. Just for her. Exclusively. Just for Miss Hahn.
It was time for me to move on. My lease of the cottage was almost at an end. And Mrs Barrow had informed me (in no uncertain terms – Mrs Barrow was incapable of uncertainty) that I would need to vacate the place promptly. Miss Hahn had other tenants booked in. A couple that visited the area every year and viewed the cottage as a kind of ‘second home’.
So Mrs Meadows and I (well, Mrs Meadows) booked our flights. And she helped me to pack. And she cooked a strange ham and turkey strudel which tasted of stale spaghetti and deep misgivings.
As for Miss Hahn … Ah. Let’s just say that a natural decency (decency being a virtue that has never come all that naturally to me) had compelled me to keep my distance. I had reached out. I had made my grand gesture of reconciliation. I had given her the photos. That was the thing she’d always wanted – longed for, craved. Not the photos themselves, of course, but the past. Hermetically sealed. Beautifully preserved. Immaculately maintained. In a series of manageable stills.
Sometimes I lay in bed and thought about how she had cried that day. Holding the coat. Embracing the coat. And then I’d ponder on (Oh God, what had possessed me?!) how cruel I’d been about her hair! The hair-clip, which later (I realized (and I won’t bore you with all the interminable details) had been a stupid gift from Mrs Meadows!
A hair-clip! A silly hair-clip! That everything should finally have hung on the fall (or lack!) of Miss Hahn’s fringe! The wearing or not wearing of …! Ridiculous! That something so slight should have …? Petty! So very petty!
Hadn’t it always been this signal lack of feminine guile – of calculation – that had drawn me to Miss Hahn in the first instance? Or drawn me to mock her, more like? To satirize her mercilessly? Because I was such an ignorant fool? So proud? So haughty? So terrified of … of …? Of here? Of here? Of being here, feeling this, this miserable love?
Or was it actually quite insignificant, this tiny ‘slight’? Not important at all? (Although isn’t every parlous scenario in this miserable world – war, genocide, famine – merely a gradual accumulation of tiny slip-ups?)
Was it even about the hair-clip, anyway? Wasn’t it actually about my curious inability to … to accept … to detach … which is also a lethal kind of detachment in itself (from responsibility? From true attachment? From life?)?
Hmmn. Which was it to be, ultimately? Eh? Caring too much so you don’t care at all? Or not caring at all so you care way too much?
Was I being punished? This is something else I found myself dwelling upon. And was Miss Hahn being punished too (by … by herself? By her past? By the child? By … by me?)? Were we all just a tiny part of a much greater scheme? And was the only way to really survive it – pride still marginally intact – simply to give in? As Miss Hahn now seemed so inclined to do?
My health slowly improved, and I was finally (the joy! The inexpressible joy!) able to graduate to sitting in my favourite spot on the broken bench on the back porch. Perched upon a rubber ring (Mrs Meadows’s idea). I would wait for Miss Hahn to appear. On her bike. On the road. On the beach. But she never did. So I would watch the badgers, at dawn, at dusk, crashing around in the borders. Grunting. Instigating a series of pointless – but explosive – arguments between themselves. And sometimes I would sense the child playing on the lawn. Perched among them. Laughing. Or engaged in quiet prayer. But I had no idea why she prayed. Or what she prayed for. Only that (and this I was quite certain of) she prayed for me.