Doomed love can kill. I knew a man who died because a woman did not love him. Jack was from Brighton, a small man with curly blond hair and bulbous eyes. He always wore a shirt and tie, and worked as wireless operator on the MV Frelon Brun, a tanker. He met her in Rio de Janeiro, and he should not have done that.
It was bar, a drink, a flight of lamplit stairs and a slip. It was him not understanding that they had trade in common. A service. It had nothing to do with love but Jack didn’t know that. He was a young man, it was only his second voyage, the drinks were strong. His hair was admired and the women of Rio are very beautiful.
Maybe it was the heat. When you sail you don’t notice it creeping up on you. You leave the northern waters, the skies lighten, the air smells of spice, not herb. Ripening berries, not leaves. Your eyes water; love is possible for anyone.
Jack met Anna in a bar and she was so willing, so quick and slow. He had never met a woman like her, and thought that she meant it, that she wanted to wrap her bare legs around his waist because she loved him. He told all about her, and I knew what he was talking about, I knew what a woman’s skin did. He was so far from home, and his work kept him in a room all day, listening on the headset to people he had never met and never would. Voices changed by ether, his voice crackling back. He thought so much about his mother and father, and his sister. He wondered if he had chosen the right life; Anna told him that he had, and that he was so good, so kind.
Jack jumped ship and disappeared into Rio, chasing Anna to nowhere, I suppose. It is easy to imagine what happens to a man like him, but difficult to tell. The inevitable is written on some people’s faces. Maybe it is better to dream and die young.
Jack Potter in Rio de Janeiro, standing on a street corner, midnight. Looking up at a window, seeing his love’s silhouette, biting his lip. I don’t know what happened, but this is how I see him. Chasing a woman he could never have, never understanding his folly, dreaming of skin, taking a knife in the side, dying thousands of miles from home with a stranger’s name on his lips. His hair flopped over his eyes, his hand bent back at an unnatural angle. His watch gone. This is how I see him.
I did not let love for Isabel kill me, even after she wrote to tell me about Bernardo Roderada from Sant Feliu de Guixols. She had met him at a party. She didn’t say much but I could see him: handsome, white shirt, partnership in his father’s bar. I could see her: sitting on her balcony, holding a postcard of Sant Feliu in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. A smile on her face. I saw them walking together on Las Ramblas, in the mountains, beside a lake, along the shore. I saw her losing any memory she had of me. I saw their fingers touching.
I was not her type and I would never convince her that I could leave the sea. I was not a slim man with thick hair and a taste for well-tailored clothes. Sometimes I drank too much, and I had melancholy moods. And sometimes we didn’t meet for months. These were the reasons she preferred Bernardo Roderada to me, and they were good reasons too. I couldn’t deny them. Ask any sailor.
I lit the lamps, stoked the fire and cooked eggs. We sat at the kitchen table to eat. The night was clear and sparkled with cold. Elizabeth gave me a sly look and told me that Mrs Bell was sweet on me. ‘She was giving you some looks.’
I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’s not my type.’
‘Maybe you’re hers.’
‘Forget it.’
‘She wants you, Michael. Believe me.’
‘We’re friends, that’s all.’
‘Tell me that when you get back from the cinema. What are you seeing?’
‘Raintown.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘What’s the matter?’ I poured some whisky. ‘Is it that bad?’
‘No, no,’ she said, quietly. ‘I think it’s the best thing I’ve done. It might make me a star again.’
‘Once a star, always a star. You know that. It’s in your face, your eyes.’
‘The camera loves them?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You wouldn’t have said that a few years back. Not if you’d seen me.’
‘What was the problem?’
‘You know…’ She spread her arms, tipped her head back and laughed at the ceiling. ‘End-of-the-line stuff. Some days… some days I wouldn’t even get out of bed. When you’ve seen what could be, then watched what could be disappear… I was a lonely woman for years, Michael. Lonely as hell. That’s why Jacob… why he’s so sickening. He didn’t care, not for years, not until he caught the scent of money. Let me tell you; if Bob Mitchum hadn’t put my name up for Raintown, God knows, I wouldn’t be talking to you now. That man’s one in a million. The movie’s one in a million.’ She cleared her throat with some whisky, and smiled. ‘But hey… I’m not going to say any more about it. You tell me what you think tomorrow. After the credits have run and the lights are up. And I want the truth, no bullshit just to keep me happy. I can tell. I used to know people who never had a bad word for my work. I suppose they didn’t want to upset me, but they didn’t have the sense to understand that not wanting to do that was the worst thing they could do.’
‘Okay.’
One of the lamps flared. I adjusted the flame, and she said, ‘When you go to the movies, do you sit through the credits?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Why?’
She drank. ‘I was thinking that this place is like the credits. The movie’s over but it’s just beginning in your head. You’re seeing it again, but differently, and you can watch it for as long as you like. You’re alone in the cinema, except you’re not. There’s always one other person sitting ten rows away.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I know what I mean, but I don’t know how to explain it. Not yet, anyway.’ She finished her eggs and pushed her plate away.
‘You’re tired.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I wonder how many people will stay to watch the credits tonight.’
‘Who knows?’
‘Who cares?’
I picked up the bottle. ‘Drink?’
‘Sure.’
I poured. ‘Enough?’
She nodded and said, ‘Did you ever have an affair with someone you couldn’t be with? One of those things where you had to sneak around. Catch a look here, a kiss there. An hour in some bar you wouldn’t normally be seen dead in, trying to find the right words. Telling each other if only, and asking why time is so cruel.’
‘I think so.’
‘You either did or didn’t.’
‘I did,’ I said. ‘Once…’
‘Okay…’
‘Why?’
‘Why… Well, did you promise that person that one day, when you were both older, you’d meet again, and you’d take a vacation together, and the past would be forgotten? Some romantic hotel in the mountains and you’d live like you were meant to. No fear. No guilt. No regrets. No wondering if a face you knew was waiting around the next corner. You’d walk for miles and tell each other your secrets but they wouldn’t matter. The time for secrets would be past. You could say exactly what you wanted, when you wanted, how you wanted. You’d be too old to care about anything but her. You’d live like a story you read when you didn’t know better.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You remember, Michael. She was perfect for you, she had a face you could steal, but she had another man waiting for her. And he’d be waiting for you if he knew. Tell me…’
‘What?’
‘What was her husband’s name?’
I shrugged. ‘He was Greek. Piraeus.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was like you said. We used to walk to where the fishing boats were pulled up on the shingle. I told her I was going to buy one of them and we’d sail away in it. We’d find an island, spend our time fishing. But that was a dream. We knew it. Nothing but dreams.’
‘They’re my trade.’
‘You had affairs?’
Now she laughed. ‘I was an affair.’ She drank. ‘And I heard that promise so many times, and I made it too. It never comes true, not the way you expect.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You know what it means,’ she said, and she lit a cigarette. ‘Don’t you?’
I did not deny it. I poured more drink.
‘I don’t think I was ever loved, not since my mother died. Jim tried, but then I didn’t notice. I was so stupid…’
I said, ‘Me too. More than I knew. I thought I loved a woman but I was using her. I didn’t have a clue. Not back then. I was blind.’
‘That was Isabel?’
‘That was Isabel,’ I said, ‘a long time ago,’ and for a second I wanted to say that I wasn’t stupid any more, that I could love and she could believe me, but I kept quiet. I picked up the bottle and poured again in my house.