Ann has picked and pecked at London’s surfaces before; on this trip she’s mingling with its history and its present. A big, old city like London contains multitudes of past tenses with the present perching on top of and alongside the maintained and the decayed. All these people, from all over London, all over the world, crowding together for a spectacle, laying a new decade on the centuries. Back in New Zealand grandeur is in the forests and mountains, inland open spaces and coastlines, not usually involving crowds.
Suzanna interrupts her ruminations, pointing at the river, at the men on the boats, their white suits scattered with lights. The two women lean on the bridge, peering into the blackness of the water.
“You've seen this before.” It’s more of a statement than a question.
“Yes,” says Suzanna, “five times. I've seen every one—in person, not on the BBC—since they moved it from Trafalgar Square.” They stand close together, arms tightly linked. The crowd is counting down and gives a great collective sigh as Big Ben sounds its first chime. Except the sound is too solid to be called a chime Ann is thinking, when the show starts in a rush of silver light and an explosion of gunpowder. A huge AAAHHHH flows with the dark river.
“Happy new year, kiwi girl.”
“Ha …” They are kissing, fireworks are sizzling and crackling, and they separate to watch cascades of light, spiking, bursting out, flowing around the London Eye as though that’s what it’s for. No music, just the percussive sounds of explosions, crack and boom, sizzle and spray, the sky lit up with dazzle and flash, ears assaulted with bangs and deep, pounding explosions. Ann hopes people from the world’s war zones have kept their children away from this, even as she marvels at the splendour. A massive rainbow, a final silver blast, and it’s over.
The surge away from the river begins as soon as the last gunpowder star fades, the last glow evaporates. Sound becomes the rumble and hum of people talking and moving off, like thick water in an enormous pond oozing away from an absence in its centre. The spectacle binding all these people together has ended .
“Did you like that, then?” Suzanna's hand is at her back, guiding her in the right direction. On the way in people were drawing together, now they are all, in their singles and pairs and groups, moving out, following invisible threads leading to somewhere that is home, at least for this night. The long length of Ann’s thread leads her inexorably back to New Zealand. Via Paris. She wants to say this to Suzanna, and ask where her thread leads her but conversation is impossible. Sirens now, the inevitable city sirens.
City sirens calling people onto the rocks of mammon.
Stop it! she tells herself, you're not a poet and you know it.
“Yes, yes, I liked it! It was stunning,” she finally replies. “And so did you, I could see on your face how you loved the whole glorious show.” Not that I was watching you, she nearly adds. They’re almost separated by a man pushing through calling someone's name, so they clasp arms again. As the bridge falls away behind them and the people thin out, Ann thinks of a huge bag of marbles, spilled onto a hard floor, spreading out in all directions.
Back in the small flat, Suzanna heats some mulled wine while Ann warms up in the shower. They barely drink a glass of wine each, Suzanna taking hers into the shower room. All they’re good for is falling into bed and sleep.
It’s dark when Ann wakes. She looks around for a night clock and sees Suzanna lying on her back open-eyed.
“Six fifteen,” she says. “Good morning.” Suzanna’s voice is cheerful but in the moment before she speaks Ann sees something else on her face.
“Hello.” Then she is being kissed and stroked and her body is waking in response and she is kissing and stroking too, and there is nothing else. For a long time there is nothing but sweet sensation, body on body, until a final juddering wave, and both fall back, sated.
“Hello two thousand and ten,” says Ann.
“Hello two thousand and ten,” Suzanna repeats.
“No new year's resolutions.”
“No, no new year's resolutions.”
Last new year's day Ann had woken up with Ex, and a job.
Suzanna turns and pulls Ann into her arms, nuzzling her hair and neck. “I am very, very glad you came into my library and that I got up the courage to speak to you,” she says. Ann makes a move to pull back and look at her face but is held firmly up close. “I am going to get up and make us pancakes with real Canadian maple syrup, and coffee, and you are going to lie here. When we have eaten I will tell you some things. Don't say anything. SSShhhhhhh,” and Suzanna puts a finger on Ann’s mouth.
Then Suzanna is out of bed. “No talking,” she commands again and goes about pouring pancake mix into the bottom of her largest saucepan, grinding coffee, opening the syrup bottle, humming tunelessly.
Ann watches silently. “Rustling up breakfast,” she thinks, and must have dozed off because she opens her eyes to see Suzanna, dressed, with shower-damp hair. Everything is on the small table, including a pile of pancakes and Suzanna is holding up the robe for her to step into.
“This is how you do pancakes my-style,” she says, fitting actions to her words. “A pancake on your plate, lashings of syrup, yoghurt or cream or both, I like both, roll it up and lean over your plate while you eat it to catch the innards dripping out. Expect a sticky chin. And fingers.”
They demolish the pile.
“Yum,” says Ann, tearing more off the roll of paper towels to wipe herself. “Disgusting but yum.” Suzanna is pouring coffee.
“Now,” she says, when she is sitting opposite Ann again, “now I'll answer some of those questions you have been kind enough not to ask. Ready?”
Ann nods.
“My up north,” she says, looking at the table, “is Leeds. My mother and sister live there. My mother has a mental health diagnosis that social services in their wisdom keep changing. She is how she is because of things that have happened in her life. You have no idea.”
She holds up a hand to stop Ann from saying anything.
“My sister, now seventeen, is pregnant. Her first child died of foetal alcohol sickness. Men come and go, emphasis on go. Mother and sister both think lesbians are sick and depraved. I live in London so I can have a life. I go back because if I didn't nothing good would ever happen for them. There is no way to bring the two parts of my life together, and no way I will give up either. You, kiwi girl, are a wonderful fantasy from another world, a world I could never inhabit, any more than you could mine.”
Ann desperately wants to object, to say she could help, she could help it be different. She reaches out and grasps Suzanna's hand on the table.
“Give me your email address,” she says, and “I'll give you …”
“No.” The word is harsh. “This is it babe. Finito. You go back into your good life with your lovely family and your new future, and I will have my life. No what-ifs or maybes.”
“Oh, Suzanna!”
“Don't! Don't you DARE feel sorry for me. I have more than anyone, any single one, of my schoolmates. I didn’t get pregnant. I didn’t get married. Preferring girls saved me and I'm the one who got out. Don't you understand? My life, your life, opposite sides of the world, and I'm not just talking geography.”
All Ann can do is nod. Suzanna stands up. “I can't be here when you go,” she says, “so I'm going to Jac's. You take your time, shower, go back to sleep, whatever, just be gone before I get back. A couple of hours is fine.” She was putting her coat on as she spoke, wrapping a scarf around her neck, pulling on a woollen hat, boots. When she finishes Ann is standing. She runs the few steps and flings her arms around Suzanna, kisses her on the mouth, then stands back.
“Caio babe.” Suzanna stops at the door and looks back over her shoulder.
“Our revels now are over”
she says. “Shakespeare.” And is gone, leaving Ann to deliver her Byronic lines to the empty air.
Fare thee well! And if for ever —
Still for ever, fare thee well.
Ann is as if frozen to the spot. When she starts shivering she walks slowly into the shower, turning it as hot as she can bear. Then she is standing in the same spot, dressed. She feels bereft at being left so suddenly—again—and guilt for her advantaged life, and shame at her own ignorance of lives other than those like hers (not true, a small voice is saying somewhere inside her, but it is a small voice) and angry that the world is unfair. So many emotions she could fly apart and splatter into pieces. Cocooning herself in the duvet, on top of the bed, she’s overwhelmed by the smells of their lovemaking. She makes herself make the bed, calmly, then wash and dry the dishes, wipe the table.
There are some bills on a shelf; she takes one and copies Suzanna's full name and the address, with post code, into her diary.
Out of here, I have to get out of here. Double-checking that she has everything, Ann closes each door behind her quietly. She walks away with her head down, ignoring anyone she passes, though there are few people in the street. New thoughts hit her, some like blows, others more gently. Tell and leave must have been thought through in advance. Whack! Or maybe Suzanna thought of it when she was awake in the early morning. Tap. She doesn't have a single photograph. Slap on the back. It’s impossible for her to go to the library now. Punch on the arm. It has all been a silly, selfish game for Suzanna. Shake of the head, she doesn't believe that. Suzanna really fell for her and is hurt and upset. Rub on the arm.
Am I in love? Not exactly. Like, genuine like, and lust, yes, but not obsessed, intense, must-be-with-you-every-moment in-love. Admitting to herself that she wants to go on seeing Suzanna, make love with her, have fun, until she leaves London, makes her feel selfish, but is true. She wants to leave London with trailing ends, like an email address and hopes of further times together and let them fade, if they must, gradually, not slash off any possibility of anything, ever. Why did Suzanna create such a harsh ending? Like cauterising a wound.
She’s in an unfamiliar street. Somewhere by the park maybe, yes, there are the big trees, so she changes direction and heads back towards Joshua's. Sentimental self-indulgence has no place in Suzanna's life, and she was telling me to harden up and respect that. And Suzanna is right, I have absolutely no idea what whole swathes of people have to do to get by.
Arriving home to an empty house allows Ann to give in to exhaustion. She goes to bed in her clothes and sleeps for a couple of hours, waking to the sounds of people below. Stories and explanations will be expected, she feels like doing a Suzanna and refusing to say anything, but knows she won't. Feeling dissatisfied with herself, inadequate, off the mark, her smugness (surely not?) punctured, reminds her of those difficult teenage years when she felt like an outsider in all the groups she was in fact part of. She has been judged and found wanting. It is kind of true, she had to come to grips with that, never mind feeling sorry for herself. She was an interlude for Suzanna, an interlude that maybe breached something in the other woman, and it behoves her to think of it in that way. An interlude in her sojourn. Like a longer-lasting art event. Oh, shit and botheration, this is getting her nowhere. She jumps out of bed, washes her face, combs her hair, and goes downstairs.
“The day after the night before?” Joshua is jolly. “Happy new year.” She goes around and kisses them all on the cheek and says “Happy new year”.
“Good night?” Joshua again, probing.
“Great!” and she tells them about the fireworks, entertaining the twins with flamboyant gestures.
“We didn't even make it to midnight.” Chloe sounds rueful. “But on the other hand, so far today no nausea. None. The end may be in sight. Of the nausea that is,” she adds quickly.
Late that afternoon Joshua finally manages to get a working skype connection with Shirley and Keith. It fails to engage the children, except when Shirley pokes out her tongue and crosses her eyes, but is a great success with the adults, especially the two couples. Shirley is overcome by how like her brother Joshua is, more than she has seen in any of the photos. They are all so pleased with each other, Ann notices, watching from behind, seeing herself on screen hovering in the background. Good, she tells herself firmly, this is good.
The next four days look bleak and empty. But who knows when she will next be in London, so she makes a plan. The Tate for the Turners one day, another day the Tate Modern again for Miroslaw Balka's box of darkness, which she skipped last time because of the queues and a disinclination for walk-in works, but now the title, “How It Is”, draws her. The royal parks will be a walking day's worth if the rain stays away, Westminster Abbey and St Paul's for an inclement day. Enough shops, already.
“The twins will miss you when you go,” says Chloe, as they all have an early supper together, “so will I.”
“You're much better now, though, aren't you?” She certainly has more energy.
“Uh huh. Another week and you'd see me in fully organised mode if you were still around. Eh, Josh?”
“Ah yes, formidable, you are. The day I see myself on a spreadsheet is the day I —“ and he collapses onto the table, to the delight of Jo and Chris.
“Don't be silly." Chloe flaps a cloth at him.
“Just joking, dear heart, just joking.” Ann suddenly needs to do her emails. She has cooked, so leaves Joshua to clean up while Chloe puts the children to bed.
Oh no, a message from Paula. HOW COULD YOU? the subject line shouts at her. Some well-meaning friend has told her Ann is having an affair in London. Ann can't bear to read the message, dispatches it to the trash. Ignoring her friends for now, she opens an email from her mother.
“Oh dear,” she reads, after a paragraph about how lovely it has been to see them all on the computer, “we had a visit from Paula.” Ann feels a thump in her solar plexus. “She was very upset, and going on about you and some 'black woman' (her words, dear) in London and what did we know about it and how serious was it? Well, your father and I were quite flummoxed. Of course we had to say we didn't know anything, and your father suddenly had something he had to do outside. It was a short visit, but left me a little shaken up. Is there something we should know?”
“Dear Mum and Dad, I'm sorry you had to deal with Paula. I have seen someone a few times, but it's come to a natural end, and there really is nothing to know.” A travesty of an explanation, but it will have to do.
“Dear friends, I am writing one email to you all tonight. 'My librarian,' as some of you call her has gone. Finito. No more. I'm not devastated, but shaken up by the way it ended and what she's made me think about. Character-building for sure. It's too difficult to write any more about it, suffice to say I am not at all sorry my whatever-it-could-be-called with Suzanna happened.” And she goes on to describe the New Year’s Eve fireworks, and her plans for her last days in London.
Paris is sitting in a corner of her mind like an unlit firecracker, ready to burst into excitement some time soon.
Ann goes to the Tate Modern the day before she will leave. There is no queue for How It Is, named, she reads, from a book title by Samuel Beckett, and influenced by the artist's Polish background. Walking into the black interior, engulfed in resonating sounds, is disorienting. There are other people in there, but she can’t see or sense them. The sounds turn into something she hears as a low-pitched rendering of “we are we are we are” over and over. Feeling small, she goes into a crouch, putting out a hand to steady herself and touching a soft, furry wall. The blackness is so complete her eyes have no light to adjust to, she remembers being in an underground cave somewhere, perhaps Rangitoto Isand, and the total blackness when they turned their torches off. Gradually she expands, taking up more of the dense space, standing, spreading out her arms and legs, keeping one hand on that disconcerting wall.
Taking small steps, staying in contact with the furry edge, she continues slowly until she comes to the exit. Her eyes close to slits as they meet the light.
“Awesome,” says a man who came out just ahead of her. “Awesome,” he says again to his companion, “but is it art?” Yes, What It Is is art all right Ann wants to say, and like Suzanna it leaves no wriggle room for sentimentality, what-ifs or might-bes.