You are going to blame me: I can feel it. Despite the fact that I only gave them what they wanted. That it also happened to be what I wanted is incidental. Thanks to me, they have lived more fully than I, but nevertheless you are going to blame me, because it turned out badly. As if endings were all that mattered.
On the day of Gemma’s abortion, David abandoned all pretence of working and sat about my flat consuming martinis by the pint. I envied him for being able to find such an easy relief for tension, and at someone else’s expense. We were both very anxious and reproached one another like parents.
‘Why aren’t you with her?’
‘She wouldn’t have me. It was you she wanted.’
‘I couldn’t face it.’
‘She shouldn’t be there alone.’
‘She shouldn’t be there at all.’
Deadlock. I had to admit he was consistent, at least. I wondered how much guilt he actually felt: had he rationalised it all or was he now busy swamping it all in drink? I studied him: it was strange to consider what fevered emotions he had aroused – in me, in Gemma, once upon a time (presumably) in Catherine. It was not one of his good days: he was looking ordinary.
‘We could have been happy,’ he said. ‘You should have left us alone.’
I began to protest my innocence but he cut me short.
‘We didn’t stand a chance with you breathing down our necks, poisoning everything. You never wanted me to have her, did you, not for myself. Only for you. I had to do it for you.’
He helped himself liberally to martini. I said nothing. Time passed slowly. I wondered what stage Gemma had reached by now. Was it all over?
‘You never meant us to be happy,’ he went on at last; he seemed to need this alcoholic monologue. ‘You’re not interested in happiness, are you? You can’t be happy so why should anyone else? If she’d gone away with me you’d have lost her, wouldn’t you?’
Well, it was one way of looking at it. He was obviously hell-bent on blaming me for everything. I decided to maintain a dignified silence. Never argue with a drunk.
‘She did love me,’ he said presently, emphatically, as though I had denied it. ‘You don’t believe me but she did.’
He seemed in considerable distress, but I had to remember he was an actor. It was easy to forget that, since he was not a very good one and worked so seldom, but it remained a fact and could mean that he was acting now. He was also considerably drunk.
I sat and watched him as one might an invalid: warily, with concerned detachment, alert for signs of recovery or deterioration.
‘She must love him very much,’ he said suddenly, ‘to do this for him. I don’t think I can bear it.’ And he started to cry. I gazed at him with fascinated horror. I could not comfort him because the same thought had occurred to me; I felt he was right.
He sobbed for a while as though his heart would break, as though he had a heart to break. Then he seized the telephone.
‘I’ve got to talk to her,’ he said in a frenzy.
‘You can’t ring up somebody at a hospital,’ I said, wondering if he was entirely sane.
He ignored me, dialling. And looked at me through his angry tears as if I were the one who was mad.
Then all became clear. He said, ‘Cathy, I can’t bear it, you’ve got to forgive me, we can try again, it’ll be different this time, I promise, Cathy, please listen, don’t leave me, Cathy.’
He went on and on. There was far more that I don’t recall precisely because it was so repetitive. I listened in amazement: it was like having Heathcliff in my living-room during one of his bad patches. Catherine’s answers must have been brief and to the point, or else he would not let her speak at all, for his monologue seemed almost uninterrupted. It was all begging and pleading and sobbing, all wild promises and unlikely resolutions, a dreadful exhibition totally lacking in dignity and punctuated by her name, incessantly repeated like a church bell tolling or a dog howling in the distance. On one level it seemed impossible that Gemma should be having an abortion while he behaved like this, yet on another it made perfect sense. I longed to go and listen to Catherine’s answers, however monosyllabic, on the bedroom extension, but reckoned that while David in his present state would probably not notice, my chances of picking up the receiver undetected by Catherine were nil. So I remained where I was and surveyed the wreck before my eyes. Crying had made him very ugly.
Eventually Catherine must have said something final or he must have run out of energy, for he suddenly put down the receiver in mid-sentence, buried his head in his hands for a moment, then jumped up, looking green in the face, and went off to be sick in my bathroom. I could hear the dreadful retching sounds from where I sat. When he came back he looked at me with loathing, said he hoped I was satisfied, and slammed out of the flat.
I stayed where I was for some time after he had gone. The silence was miraculous. I wondered if I might even be losing my taste for drama, but decided it was the extreme vulgarity of the scene which had distressed me. I did not realise how well off I was at that moment. Later, when I went casually into the bathroom, I found myself obliged to clear up vomit.
Gemma, who had some excuse for melodrama, was totally silent. She sat in the car like a little ghost, not saying a word; hugging herself and rocking gently to and fro. She alarmed me. If I spoke to her she would answer, but that was all.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it awful?’
‘No. They were all very kind.’
The hospital and my flat were not far apart, but it seemed the longest, slowest drive I had ever undertaken. The traffic was dense and all the lights were against us. Every time we stopped, crowds of people in summer clothes crossed the road in front of us; it was a hot day. But Gemma, I noticed, was shivering. Her silence created appalling tension in the car: it was like a cold thick fog through which I had to slice in order to breathe. I would have preferred tears, anger, hysteria. Anything.
‘Soon be home,’ I said cheerily.
‘Yes.’
‘I expect you’d like to rest and have some tea.’
‘Thank you.’
She was so remote from me it did not seem possible I had known her all her life. I could not think what to say to her; I searched my mind like a phrase book, finding only stilted formalities, all irrelevant to the situation.
‘Try not to worry. You’ll feel better soon.’
‘Yes.’
I gave up and concentrated on driving. Unused to Gemma’s car, I found the gears a little awkward. Gemma spoke only once of her own accord. As we drew up outside the flat she said with an obvious effort:
‘Is he here?’
I said, embarrassed, ‘No, he left early.’
I felt I had failed her utterly. The one thing she wanted I could not provide. She got out of the car in silence, but her disappointment was heavy in the air and she moved stiffly, like an old woman. I felt I ought to be careful of her, apart from wanting to touch and comfort her; I put my arm round her shoulders, very tentatively, but she shrugged it away.
Inside, she lay on the sofa like an obedient child, sick on a summer’s day. I wrapped her up in blankets and she shivered, while outside the sun shone. I made tea for her and began explaining it was just as well David had gone; it would have been too emotional for them to meet today, too exhausting. I tried to make it sound as if David had been considerate, thinking only of her welfare, while we both knew that he had deprived her of the one thing she needed: his presence. She listened till I ran out of insincere, well-meant words, then she said politely:
‘Could you leave me alone, please.’
I went and sat in my study like an outcast. I thought how far we had come, looking back like a traveller at the bumpy, dusty road behind. I could not see the path ahead. I felt very old. I felt I had run out of ingenuity.
At four she came and tapped on the door and said she was leaving. She had made up her face with care, for Christopher and the children, I supposed; she looked nearly normal. I tried to get over my feeling of exclusion; I asked if she was fit to drive and should I come with her. She said she was supposed to have someone with her but she preferred to be alone. I said I was worried about her and asked her to ring me as soon as she got home.
‘They’ll think it odd,’ she said.
‘You can pretend you’ve forgotten something.’
‘I’m tired of telling lies. Anyway, if I don’t turn up, they’ll ring you.’ She gathered up her things. ‘But I’ll be all right. You needn’t worry.’
I could not reach her: she had passed beyond my control. It was very disturbing.
She said like a polite guest going home from a party, ‘Thank you for everything. I’ll pay back the loan as soon as I can.’
‘Please forget it.’ I felt suddenly desperate. ‘Let me come with you.’
‘No. Really not.’
I saw her out reluctantly. At the door she paused and said abruptly, ‘D’you think he’ll ever forgive me? Because if he doesn’t, I’ll have nothing to live for.’
‘I shouldn’t expect him back if I were you.’ Catherine’s voice was crisp on the phone and she had perversely chosen the early morning to ring: a time when I scarcely knew who I was, so how could I be expected to recognise her and make sense of what she said.
‘What? Why not?’ I tugged off my mask and blinked at the daylight.
‘He’s gone to Birmingham. He thinks they’re going to write him into that serial, the one he did a week in. They’ve built up his part or something. God knows. Anyway, it’s work. I think you’d better find yourself another cleaner.’
‘But he can’t…’ I heard myself spluttering with indignation. ‘He can’t just disappear like that.’
‘You must be joking.’ There was a certain grim satisfaction in her voice. ‘He’s renowned for it.’
‘But what about you and the children?’
‘Oh, he’ll be down at weekends, I expect.’ She sounded as if the pattern was boringly familiar.
‘But the other day – when he rang you from here – he was so upset.’
‘Oh, that.’ A long pause. ‘Yes. He always is.’
I tried to gather my wits. ‘Look, I don’t think you understand my position. What do I tell Gemma?’
‘Tell her it’s over. She probably knows anyway.’
I was shocked. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’
‘Then he’s got to tell her himself.’
‘Why? He’ll only make it worse. I’m sure you could do it much better.’
‘But she’s had the abortion, she’s very upset, all she wants is to see him, she rings me up every day to ask if he’s here’
‘Mr Kyle, I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem. I told you what would happen and it has. You wouldn’t stop it when you had the chance. There’s really nothing I can do.’
‘Can’t you make him write to her?’
‘I can’t make him do anything. Besides, he’s very bad at letters.’
‘But if you ask him. If you explain. He listens to you.’
‘He hangs on to me. It’s not the same thing. Look, I’ll have to go. My little girl’s being sick.’
It was a bizarre time for me. Everything had happened quickly but most of it behind my back. Off-stage. From being the producer, I was no longer even a member of the audience. Gemma’s telephone calls afflicted me like a hair shirt. Every day: ‘Is he there? Have you seen him? Are you expecting him?’ She sounded like a wraith; I found myself picturing Giselle. I could not manage to deliver the coup de grâce; I could not quite believe it was necessary. At any moment I expected David to materialise. Love affairs did not end like this – did they? So abruptly, so haphazardly? No one could leave his mistress on the day of an abortion and disappear to Birmingham. People telephoned; they wrote letters. So I temporised: I said no, he was not here, I had not seen him, but I was expecting him – he was bound to turn up sooner or later. Meanwhile, my life seemed to have come to a standstill: from seeing all three of them, I saw no one.
Gemma apologised each time she rang up, which made me feel worse. She was so polite. ‘I’m sorry to keep doing this but I must speak to David.’ I longed to magic him out of thin air. After a week or ten days she became hysterical, sobbing down the phone, ‘I can’t bear it, you’ve got to find him, you’ve got to.’ She was like an addict demanding a fix. Naked embarrassing pain like a raw bleeding wound was on the other end of my phone. I could not bear to tell her he had gone to Birmingham; it seemed so callous. I said perhaps he was ill.
‘Look,’ Catherine said briskly at eight am, to my horror and disbelief, ‘you’ve got to stop this. She’s outside my flat every day.’
The telephone calls had ceased; I had gratefully assumed resignation. I said faintly, out of the bowels of sleep, ‘What do you mean?’
The voice was irritable. ‘Oh God, surely you know. She drives here every day. She sits outside in her car. She walks up and down. She cries.’
‘Gemma?’ I was stupid with sleep.
‘Who else? She’s small and dark and pretty, right? And she drives a Renault. Well, she’s been here every day for a week. I can’t stand it. You’ve got to stop her.’
I began to wake up. ‘How can I stop her?’
‘Tell her it’s over, for God’s sake. Get her off my back. I can’t stand these bloody women and their emotions on my doorstep.’
I had never heard her express so much feeling before.
‘Get your wretched husband to tell her,’ I said. ‘That’s all she wants.’
‘He’s in Birmingham. Haven’t you told her that?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not my job. And it’s not your job either. Does David always get you to do his dirty work for him?’
‘Usually. When something’s over he wants to forget it ever happened so he just cuts out. Anyway, I think he’s got a girl in Birmingham.’
I was silent, trying to force my brain into some sort of working order.
‘Are you still there?’ she demanded sharply.
‘If she went to Birmingham,’ I said, ‘would he see her?’
‘I suppose she could picket the studio. But he won’t be pleasant if she does see him, believe me. When he’s finished with someone he turns very nasty. I don’t think he likes being reminded of the mess he’s made. She’s really much better off not seeing him, honestly. It’ll only make an even worse ending.’
I was still thinking. I wanted to gratify Gemma’s wish, even wrongly; I needed to be powerful enough to do that. I also could not quite believe that a meeting would not melt David’s heart, if he had one. Surely he could not look at Gemma and feel nothing?
‘What about weekends?’ I said. ‘You told me he’d be home at weekends.’
Catherine said quickly, ‘But she can’t get away at weekends, can she?’
‘No, not easily. But if she could – would you get him to see her? And that would be the end of it.’ Or a new start?
Catherine sighed. ‘No, he’s in Brighton at weekends.’
‘Are you protecting him?’
‘Why should I?’ She sounded weary.
‘Is he hiding in Brighton?’
‘No, he’s visiting his mother.’ She had put on a patient voice as if talking to an idiot. ‘The children are staying with her.’
‘In Brighton?’
‘That’s where she lives.’
‘But I thought she was dead.’
‘I told you he has fantasies.’
Gemma came to see me. She went and shut herself in the spare room for a long time like a pilgrim; she came out pale and distressed but somehow uplifted.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I was afraid to come but it does help – it does make me feel a little nearer him. Where is he? You know, don’t you? You must tell me. Please. I can’t bear it. Please tell me.’
‘His wife rang up,’ I said gently, ‘to say he’s giving up his job here. He’s in Birmingham, he’s got a TV part. He’s going to be there for months and he’s not home at weekends.’
She was silent.
I said, ‘My love, you’ve got to stop going to his flat. You won’t see him there and you’re only upsetting his wife.’
To my surprise she said, ‘Perhaps if I upset her enough she’ll let me see him. I wrote him a letter but I don’t think she sent it on. I know he’d have answered if he got it. I’ll have to write to the studio. You see, he’s afraid. He thinks I’m going to be bitter and make a scene. But I won’t. I just want him to forgive me. Then we can start again.’
She settled herself on the sofa and stared at me with large, imploring eyes, begging me to agree with her.
‘I know he loves Cathy and I love Chris. But that’s all right. It doesn’t affect how we feel about each other. We just got too greedy, that’s all. We thought we could have everything. But we couldn’t.’ She paused. ‘Well, we’ve paid for that.’
‘You mean you have.’
‘No, both of us. He was terribly upset. You saw him.’
I did not know what to say.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘you haven’t always seen him at his best. But when we’re alone together he’s lovely to me. Really.’
I remembered when she had said much the same thing about Christopher.
‘Then why hasn’t he been in touch?’ I felt callous in the extreme but I could not bear to let her go on constructing false hopes.
‘He’s hurt and angry. He feels guilty. Look, I understand all that. I can make it all right. And he’s working. It’s only two weeks and a bit.’
Silence. I marvelled at the generosity of women. But the self-deception was alarming.
‘If you saw him,’ I said, ‘and you found it was over… Could you face that?’
Her face changed. ‘But it isn’t over.’
‘But if it was.’
‘No, really.’ There was absolute terror in her eyes. ‘You don’t understand. He really does love me. That’s why he was so upset. What I did – it was like his mother rejecting him all over again. That’s why I’ve got to see him – to tell him I understand.’
‘His mother’s alive and well,’ I said, hating myself, ‘and living in Brighton.’
She frowned as if I were talking a foreign language.
‘He lied to you,’ I said.
She said calmly, ‘I expect he felt as if she was dead when she rejected him. It’s the same thing.’
I gave up. Now I was reminded of Madam Butterfly finding excuses for Pinkerton.
‘I’ve got to see him,’ she said, with almost religious fervour. ‘I can make everything all right again. I know I can.’
Perhaps she too was clinging to a belief in the magic powers of sight and touch. For myself, I felt as the newspapers say in times of disaster at sea or down a mine or on a mountain: hopes were fading. There would be no survivors. I smiled at Gemma and poured her a large drink. It was all I could do at present. Too soon for talk of getting over it, of meeting someone else, of forgetting. The only real cure, but she did not yet want to be cured.
She said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t finish the typing. But it’s such a sad story. I can’t face it.’
David wrote:
‘Dear Professor,
Sorry I won’t be coming back but I’m going to be up here for six months at least and I’ve really had cleaning people’s flats anyway.
Could you tell her I won’t be back. I got her letter. Cathy sent it on with the rest of my mail. I won’t have Cathy hounded like this, it really is intolerable, you’ve got to stop her going round there and making a nuisance of herself. Tell her she’s better off without me or something – you’re supposed to be clever, you should know what to say. I could never feel the same about her anyway after what she did so there’d be no point in meeting. Tell her that if you like. Just get her to stop annoying Cathy.
I’ll send your keys back as soon as I can. I put them in a safe place when I packed and now I can’t find them.
Yours,
David
P.S. I’ve never worked so hard in my life before. The series goes out three times a week. It’s like being back in rep.’
A sombre piece of work, I thought: as heartless as Catherine had predicted. How well she knew him. So that was what marriage did for people: made them experts on each other. Two details interested me: his use of the word ‘intolerable’ in defence of Catherine, and his avoidance of Gemma’s name. Neither gave me hope for the future.
It’s easy to be wise after the event; we all know that. I can feel you preparing to condemn me because I made the wrong decision. But at the time I gave it careful thought and I could not see what else to do. I wanted Gemma to have her heart’s desire and I wanted Catherine to stop ringing me at eight am. All right, I could take the telephone off the hook, a detail, but I did not want to be rejected by Catherine, and I needed Gemma and David to meet again. Life was in danger of becoming both empty and unpleasant. Even Christopher had taken to ringing up to ask if it was really necessary for Gemma to come up to town every day to do my typing, it meant the au pair didn’t get enough free time, and would the poem be finished soon?
What would you have done? Not now, with hindsight, but then? What would you have done in my position? Having got this far, I felt I had to see the matter through.
I telephoned David. He was always out or busy. I left messages. He didn’t ring back. Finally I telephoned and said I was his agent. He came on the line instantly.
‘I want you to see Gemma,’ I said. No point in preamble: he might hang up.
‘Oh, Christ, it’s you.’ He sounded furious but also, to my surprise, exhausted. ‘They said it was my agent. Look, I’m rehearsing, for God’s sake.’
I sensed I did not have much time.
‘I’ll give you fifty pounds to see her,’ I said swiftly. Bribery always seemed to me a better bet than threats, particularly when time is limited. Appeal to his baser nature as quickly as possible.
‘You must be joking,’ he said, exactly like Catherine.
I had had qualms about fixing Gemma’s price: it seemed a little crude. But haggling would be cruder still and now was not a time to waver.
‘All right, a hundred.’
‘Christ.’ There was an exhalation of breath and a long silence. ‘You do realise I don’t want to see her at all.’
‘Why else do you think I’m offering you money?’
Another long silence. ‘Look, it won’t do any good. It’s over.’
‘She wants to see you,’ I said. ‘It’s up to you what you say. At least it will stop her bothering your wife and bothering me and bothering you – she won’t believe it’s over unless you tell her yourself.’
‘I could write her a letter,’ he said craftily. ‘Aren’t you wasting your money?’
‘No, because I don’t believe you’d write. And anyway, she doesn’t want a letter, she wants to see you.’
‘God, women are crazy.’ More silence. ‘A hundred, you said.’
‘Yes.’ I paused, then added quickly, ‘And don’t try to push me up, that’s all I can afford.’
I heard him lighting a cigarette. ‘Oh, the hell with it. Tell her I’ll see her on Friday. About lunchtime. And remember it was your idea. Cash, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
Well, it may not seem very romantic to you, and indeed it wasn’t, but it cheered Gemma up; she became positively radiant, in fact, and said there, now did I see, it was going to be all right, he had only needed time. Time is money, I might have said, nastily, but of course I didn’t.
Catherine too cheered up; she was so relieved not to see Gemma’s car like a sentry outside her front door every morning. I was the hero of the hour and allowed to sleep late, as befits a hero: the sleep of the just.
Friday of course loomed large in my calculations now. It might be the beginning of a Brave New World; it might on the other hand be Custer’s Last Stand. There was a lot at stake and I ought to be prepared, whether for victory or defeat. I got a hundred pounds out of the bank, in twenties, so as not to make a bulky envelope, addressed it to David and left it prominently on the hall table. I gave Gemma keys and told her I was going away for the weekend. Then I settled down to wait.
The week dragged its feet; then Friday was upon me suddenly, nastily, at an early hour. Even I could not sleep through its implications. I scuttled through my bath and breakfast routine for, who could tell, Gemma might arrive early. I was back in my room, locked in, shored up with coffee, the papers, biscuits, fruit, cheese, wine, the tape recorder, the camera, all that was necessary for a fateful meeting, by eleven o’clock. And just as well: at eleven thirty she arrived.
The compromises that life forces upon us. I would have given… well, not anything, but a great deal to be with her in those moments, to share her anticipation, to comfort and encourage her. But I could not do that and be in my bedroom, away for the weekend, at the same time. No wonder the theme of the doppelgänger is so popular. Obviously we all long for a dual personality. To be in two places at once: the summit of human ambition.
Looking back now, with your censure at my shoulder, however well you disguise it, I cannot easily describe that day. A lot of it was plainly boring, though it seems insensitive to say so. Gemma arrived and I could only guess at what she was doing. She made coffee. She played records. She certainly spent a great deal of time in the kitchen and the living-room. This is the disadvantage of conspiracy on the grand scale: it does not permit you to engage in trivia simultaneously. I should have liked to be with Gemma, drinking coffee and choosing records, reassuring her. I think I sensed the chance might not come again. Life is not rich with such opportunities.
I am not sure when I began to worry. Let alone when she began to worry. One o’clock, a reasonable hour for lunch, came and went. I had no way of knowing if she had brought food to prepare or ready cooked; equally I could not tell what David considered to be ‘about lunchtime’. She was in and out of the spare room, turning back the bedspread, brushing her hair, spraying herself with scent; she looked lovely but anxious. Extremely anxious, now that I think about it. I nibbled at my refreshments and got my equipment ready. The time dragged.
About two I began to think in terms of delayed trains and broken-down cars. Of accidents and sudden death. Gemma must have thought so too, for she made two telephone calls. I did not dare pick up the extension but I assumed she was ringing the studio to check and ringing her home to say she would be late. The time crawled by. I longed to go out and comfort her but I had imprisoned myself as surely as if I were chained to the bed. I read a little. I longed for a cigar to calm my nerves but of course dared not risk the smell of smoke. She came back into the spare room and sat on a corner of the bed, rocking to and fro. She did not cry. She picked up a corner of the bedspread, put it between her teeth and bit on it. I wanted to hug her. Then she lay down on the bed, her face turned away from me. After about ten minutes she got up again, smoothed the place she had lain in, and went out of the room.
I waited. It was all I could do. But I did it fearfully. I ate and drank a little, but without enjoyment. Fear began to drip into my soul like water from a faulty tap, slowly at first, and then with gathering momentum. I could not formulate the fear for some time, or rather I could but I dared not, in case I made it come to pass. There was a very precise comer in my mind which I avoided turning for a long time and yet when I finally rounded it, I seemed to have got there abruptly.
David was not coming. It was after three o’clock. He had found something more amusing to do – he had got drunk and passed out – he had been drugged or killed or arrested – was lying dead or injured in a ditch – he was out of reach of the telephone. Or he had simply never intended to come at all, in the first place. Perhaps a hundred pounds was not enough. I had sealed Gemma’s fate by being thrifty. Or else he felt that this was the simplest, cruellest and most absolute way of expressing rejection that he could devise, involving no effort on his part and ensuring maximum impact on Gemma.
Now more than ever I longed to break from my prison of a room to share her agony, but there was no way I could do so without exposing the entire deception. What happened next still shames me a little, though I maintain it was human and understandable. Fear is very tiring. Waiting and hoping and finally giving in to despair consumes a lot of energy. I fell asleep.
It was dark when I woke. Darkness in August meant it was quite late. I lay on the bed straining my ears for sounds. But Gemma must have gone home; she could not explain such a protracted absence. I was in a dreadful dilemma. If she should still be there, by some mischance, all would, as they say, be revealed. But she could not be. Surely it was impossible. I longed to believe she had gone, her ordeal over; even more I longed to urinate, and I really preferred to do so in the bathroom: chamber pots are so sordid. This pressing need helped to convince me that Gemma had gone, but trying still to be cautious, I eased my way out of the room with the minimum of sound and crept to the front door. After all, she too might have slept, though her state of anxiety made it unlikely. The entire flat was in darkness; I peered at my watch, but it had stopped. In the hall I scooped up David’s envelope (it was an ill wind, etc.) and put it in my pocket, then I opened and slammed the door as if, abandoning my weekend plans, I had just come home. Filled with anticipatory delight at the prospect of relieving myself, I advanced to the bathroom and switched on the light. There was blood everywhere.
Afterwards, when I had time to calm down and think, I did allow myself some small congratulation on not losing my head. The temptation to panic, as I took in the shock of all that sticky red like spilt paint on the white bathroom fittings, was very great. It was so extremely vivid and so copiously distributed: my bathroom looked like a slaughterhouse. Tracing the flow, after I had absorbed the initial shock and realised what it meant, and finding Gemma in the sitting-room nearly made me keel over. But I am proud to say I did not waste time examining or trying to revive her; I picked up the phone instantly and demanded an ambulance. Even while I was doing that, I found myself thinking that this was a nightmare that could not possibly be happening to me.
Waiting for the ambulance was the next worst part. It did not take long but it seemed forever. I did not want to stay in the room with her – and yet I could not leave her alone. It seemed so discourteous. Similarly, I did not want to look at her but I could not look away.
She looked very dead. I felt myself beginning to cry as I watched her; I felt I was keeping vigil beside a corpse. I told myself there was a chance, she was young and strong and healthy. But she felt so cold when I touched her cheek. And there was no question of investigating her wrists: I was not prepared to probe for a pulse amongst all that wet redness.
After being alone with her for a few minutes it occurred to me I would have to ring Christopher. It seemed an intrusion, reminding me that her life belonged to him. Till then I had been alone with my love.
On the way to the hospital, beside her in the ambulance while the experts did what they had been trained to do, I reflected soberly that I had killed her, as surely as if I had aimed a gun at her head or her heart. And yet – and yet who could have expected her to take it all so seriously? Criseyde had not committed suicide, as far as we knew. I had only been trying to let her live more fully – all right, as well as exploiting my own desires, all right. Have it your own way. Whatever I say, you will no doubt malign me. But I had truly intended to expand her life as well as enrich my own. She had no right to opt out of the scheme: it was well-intentioned. I had never imagined she could be so dramatic.
The ambulance man was distressed by my tears; he patted my shoulder. Perhaps he thought we were lovers. I hoped so.
At the hospital, impelled by a sense of urgency and the savage parting from Gemma, in which everyone around me seemed to consider I was superfluous, I gathered up my flimsy courage and telephoned Christopher. I had not done so before partly out of cowardice, partly because I did not know which hospital the ambulance would take us to. Now I had no excuse left. As I walked down the corridor it seemed odd to me that people with less urgent tasks could pass me casually, as if the world had not just ended.
Christopher took it well. He did not question me. I had been dreading what to say, but in the end it was simple; in fact I had no choice. I told him there had been an accident at my flat; I told him which hospital Gemma and I were in. Then I forced myself to say:
‘She cut her wrists.’ I had to prepare him. ‘I found her when I came in.’
I could hear his shock in the silence, but when he spoke he was very much the doctor, all emotion under control.
‘How bad is she?’
I said honestly, ‘I don’t know.’
He said, ‘I’ll be there right away.’
Now you might think, once we all knew she was going to be all right, that they would be grateful to me. I hope it has not escaped your notice that if I had not been concealed in my room (for my own purposes, all right, I grant you that) Gemma would have bled to death. My being there saved her life. A superbly ironic justification of my behaviour, in my opinion. Well, Christopher could not know all that, of course, but even with the facts as he saw them, that I had come home unexpectedly to find Gemma in the process of bleeding to death… even that should have been enough to evoke a little gratitude. Instead, I found myself banned from the hospital: doctors and nurses ranged against me, Christopher using his professional influence, no doubt; they say these people always stick together. I was not allowed in.
I simply could not believe it and went time and time again with flowers and gifts but I was turned away. Finally I came face to face with Christopher and Beatrice outside the building, just getting out of a car: at the sight of me Christopher turned white and Beatrice purple. (Well, you know what I mean: they both changed colour dramatically in opposite directions). In clipped tones like the hero of a wartime morale-raising film about the RAF, Christopher at his most pompous informed me that Gemma had told him ‘everything’, that he regarded it all as my fault and he had forgiven her on condition she never saw or spoke to me again. I was too outraged to speak: grief and rage and disbelief all chased round inside me. My silence gave him strength: he went on about my being a pernicious influence (his exact words) on Gemma all her life and that statement (perhaps because of its suggestion of associated blame by implication) set Beatrice off. She started to cry, there in the hospital courtyard, uncontrollable tears, as if they had been welling up for centuries, while Christopher and I stood and watched her in helpless amazement.
‘You’re evil,’ she sobbed, pointing at me like a pantomime witch, ‘evil,’ and tears streamed down her ugly face. ‘You’re thoroughly evil.’
I found her ugliness more offensive than her words but I could not accuse her of that at this late date, so I said, reasonably enough, that she was not only monotonous but inaccurate. There was an element of evil in all of us. Myself, perhaps I had a more developed gift: an evil streak, you might say. But I am a modest man; I would not claim more than that.
I thought, for a moment, that Christopher was going to hit me. But physical violence was against his code of ethics. Instead he fell back on the respectable violence of words. ‘Stay away from Gemma,’ he said, for all the world like a Western hero now, ‘or I’ll kill you.’
I began to laugh at the idea, but Beatrice played her master stroke. Still howling, and indescribably ugly, she took a step towards me and shrieked (oh God how I remember these words): ‘Your mind’s as deformed as your body.’
I felt myself pale and step back from her. No one in the family ever refers to my appearance: it is an unwritten rule. The specialists did their best, it was not enough, and there is an end of the matter. I have had to learn to live with it, and most people I meet pretend not to notice. But Beatrice, with her bitch-instinct, had struck home. I was dumb with shock. I turned away.
And where should I turn for comfort but to Catherine? But she was elusive, not answering the telephone. Finally, I presented myself at the flat; God knows I had nowhere else to go. She seemed surprised to see me, saying, ‘Oh, it’s you,’ in a tone so neutral as to be positively unwelcoming. She let me in, though, into the tiny cluttered room; her children, both girls, were playing on the floor with bits of material. They looked up incuriously. It was the first time I had seen them. They were dark and pretty like David but with an air of detachment like Catherine, far beyond their years. They looked away and went on playing; I could not charm them.
Catherine sat down in a rocking-chair and resumed stitching some pale suede that looked like a pouch.
‘What made you come?’ she asked, as if I were acting under some compulsion.
I said, ‘You weren’t answering the telephone.’
‘No. I didn’t feel sociable. I’ve never understood why people feel compelled to answer a phone just because it’s ringing. If I don’t want to talk I don’t pick it up.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
She looked up at me like one of her children and smiled politely. ‘Well, you’re here now,’ She said.
I began to tell her what had happened; I was inhibited by the presence of the two little girls on the floor, although they did not look up again. They reminded me of Asian children, quiet and self-absorbed, with adult gravity and composure that were both attractive and unnerving.
She said, sensing my inhibition, ‘It’s all right, they’re not listening. Grown-up talk bores them.’
I finished telling her about Gemma. She said, ‘I shouldn’t tell him all that, if I were you. He hates being blamed for anything. It always has to be someone else’s fault.’
‘But it’s entirely his fault. She only did it because he didn’t turn up. And she’d have died if I hadn’t come home early. I saved her life and now her wretched husband won’t even let me see her.’
She smiled faintly. ‘Yes. It’s an unfair world.’
‘Don’t you even care?’
She put down her stitching. ‘I don’t feel anything. I thought I explained that to you months ago. I simply don’t have feelings any more.’
I said, ‘What did David do to you?’ and the younger child said ‘Daddy,’ without looking up or pausing in her game.
Catherine said, ‘Yes, darling,’ to the child, and to me: ‘Nothing. Why do you think he’s so powerful? I did it all myself. I let him hurt me for a while and then I decided to stop.’ She paused and added thoughtfully, ‘It’s an awe-inspiring sight when you take away the magic from someone and watch them crumble. You’d better do that with your niece if you really can’t get her back.’
I heard myself saying, ‘She was all I had.’
‘Yes, I know, it’s awful. But you’ll get used to it. I was like Gemma once, can you imagine? All that emotion. Oh, come on, cheer up. Let me give you a drink. It’s gin for you, isn’t it?’ She got up and fetched ice from the kitchen; she poured me an enormous gin and tonic, and half a tumbler of neat whisky for herself. She went to a lot of trouble cutting up lemons for me.
‘It’s been very interesting this time,’ she went on brightly. ‘All that stuff about Troilus and Criseyde, and you masterminding everything. Quite a change from all those heartbroken husbands and fathers I usually get, begging me to call him off as if he was a dog I could put on a lead.’
‘It’s a game, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You’re both playing some kind of game.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s the way we live. I wouldn’t call it a game myself, but you can if you like. Anyway, what were you up to?’
I said with dignity, ‘I was trying to be creative.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ She smiled. ‘That makes all the difference. You know, it used to worry me, I thought maybe I’d end up like you, wanting other people to have the feelings I can’t have, wanting them to do all the loving and suffering for me. I was afraid it was the next stage. But I don’t think it is. I think I can stay numb for ever. I’m like a fly in amber. Or a specimen in a bottle.’ She giggled. ‘I’m preserved in formaldehyde.’
I said, ‘But he’s doing it all for you, isn’t he?’
She frowned. ‘Oh no, not you too. Don’t you start analysing me. I get enough of that from my doctor. It’s very boring, let me tell you. People don’t realise how boring it is.’
I said quickly, to make amends, ‘Have lunch with me next week.’
‘How can I?’
I thought she meant the children. ‘Next month then. When they’re back at school. To show you’ve forgiven me.’
She took a large draught of scotch and stared at me, very straight, with a look of surprise.
‘But it’s over. There’s no point in our meeting now it’s over.’
Panic. Panic and terror, like the end of the world and nowhere to hide.
‘Why not?’ Such a normal voice. So calm. Where did I learn to dissemble as well as that?
‘Because they were our only link. Surely you see that?’
I shook my head. I was suddenly afraid my composure would slip. I might be going to cry and I did not trust my voice.
‘It’s always the same,’ she said patiently. ‘I get to know whoever it is – it completes the circle – and I like intrigue. But once the affair is over… what’s the point? What would we talk about?’
I cleared my throat and said, ‘Ourselves. Each other.’
She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t work. You can’t have me just because you’ve lost her. Besides, I’ll be too busy. This girl in Birmingham, she’s bound to have a husband or a father. Sooner or later I’ll be hearing from him. And I don’t have that much spare time, not with the children and my doctor and a part-time job.’
She looked at me, perfectly serious and pleasant. Everything about her was beige today – her hair, her clothes, and her smooth unlined face with the good bones that would last her a lifetime. My eyes clouded over, blurring what I saw.
‘I hate to hurry you,’ she said gently, ‘but David will be home soon.’
‘Daddy,’ said the child again.
‘Yes, Susie, Daddy’s coming home for the weekend.’ She smiled at me. ‘And he’d hate to find you here. He doesn’t like bits of his life overlapping. He really has a thing about it.’
I finished my drink; I needed it badly. I could not believe I would never see her again, yet that was clearly what she was telling me. I could not explain why she had become so important, but it must have been written all over my face that she had.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s not as bad as that. We’re nonplayers, both of us. We’d be no good to each other, we’ve opted out.’
I followed her blindly into the hall. At the door she paused and said sympathetically, as if I had an illness, ‘Did you want to make love to me – is that why you’re upset?’
I shook my head.
‘If the children weren’t here you could have done. I wouldn’t mind. Just to say goodbye. It doesn’t mean anything.’
I said, ‘I only wish I could.’
‘If I was a boy?’
‘No. It’s all over. All of it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said gravely. ‘It was obviously important to you.’
I got home to find David systematically smashing up the spare room, as if trying to erase a memory. I could not think what the noise was when I entered the flat, and the shock when I saw him was considerable. He was breaking ornaments, ripping sheets and overturning furniture. When he saw me he said with a kind of snarl like the villain in a bad melodrama, ‘Stay away from my wife, you cunt,’ and went on destroying things, but in a very methodical way, very much as he had cleaned the flat, as if following a system. The destruction was punctuated with more snarling remarks. ‘You’ve been to the flat, haven’t you?’ A vase crashed. ‘I saw your car.’ A lamp overturned. ‘You’ve got a fucking nerve. Well, I’m going to teach you a lesson.’ A stool went flying. ‘You don’t go near my home and my wife, is that clear?’
I feared for the mirror (both the discovery and the expense) so I put myself between him and it and said, ‘Gemma cut her wrists for you, you bastard,’ more to distract him than anything else. ‘She tried to kill herself and I saved her life.’ I think he must have known already (perhaps she had contacted him) or else he simply didn’t care, because his face didn’t change. He tried to push me aside but I stood my ground, thinking of Gemma’s wrists and Christopher’s revenge and what the mirror had cost, and I said, ‘You bastard, if you’d turned up she wouldn’t have done it, where the hell were you?’ and he hit me in the mouth.
It wasn’t a hard blow but it shifted my plate uncomfortably and it frightened me. I ran into the bedroom to pick up the phone, but he was after me at once and I only got as far as the first nine. He hit me again and this time he got my glasses: they tugged at my ears as they came off and I heard the scrunch of glass. I shut my eyes tight in case of splinters and hoped they were lodged painfully in his fist, but he hit me again, in the stomach this time, and it hurt very much. I doubled up and I couldn’t get my breath. He said, ‘God, you’re pathetic. You’re just a worn-out queer with a limp prick, aren’t you? So get out of people’s lives.’ He struck me a light sharp blow to the chin, almost playful, as if to straighten me up. ‘Answer me. You’re a closet queen… and you can’t get it up… that’s right isn’t it?’ He was playing with me now, hitting me often but without force, just enough to knock me off balance while he abused and humiliated me. I had seen boxers behave like this in the ring; I knew what to expect.
He was enjoying himself and there was nothing I could do: if I hit him back he might become really angry and kill me. Besides, I had a sense of sacrifice, of expiation. If I suffered a little, it might make up for everything; they might all come back and love each other again and I wouldn’t be alone forever.
But without my glasses I couldn’t see very well and we were all over the room as he went on hitting me and insulting me and I went on moving away. I dodged one blow and that made him angry so he hit me much harder next time and I stumbled. Losing my balance, I reached out blindly, clutching at anything to save myself from falling, and realised too late I had got hold of the tapestry. It gave, and we fell to the floor together.
I shall never understand. There was a moment’s total silence while I lay under the tapestry gasping for breath and picturing David looking through the mirror into the other room. In a moment he would begin to kill me. He would beat or kick me to death; there was no way of saving myself. No one would hear if I shouted; these old flats were solidly built and soundproof. That had been a selling-point when I bought mine. I was so frightened and so sure of imminent death I am ashamed to say I actually wet myself. Terror flooded my entire body and overflowed.
What I heard next I can still hardly believe. Laughter. After a full minute’s total silence, he began to laugh. It was an explosion. Exaggerated, theatrical laughter – but genuine. He sounded as if he was releasing the tension of years. He laughed and laughed, while I lay disbelieving my ears.
‘Well, you crafty bugger.’ He laughed some more. ‘You cunning old sod.’ More laughter. ‘Christ, that explains everything. Oh, for God’s sake, get up. Don’t lie there cowering. I’m not going to hit you again. You’re an old man. Yes, I’m ashamed of myself. What more d’you want me to say?’
But I did not move. I was embarrassed to face him, rumpled and bruised with all dignity gone, my glasses smashed and my teeth askew, and I did not think there was anything we could usefully say to each other. Besides, I felt safer where I lay, under the protective shroud of tapestry.
After a while, when he realised I was not going to get up, he said, ‘Oh, all right, have it your own way,’ and he flung my keys down; I heard them tinkle as they hit the carpet alongside my ear. He didn’t stay to chat or persuade me to come out of hiding, he left; really left, striding along the corridor and slamming the front door behind him. I waited a minutes to recover, playing it safe, and then I emerged like a mole, blinking in the sunlight. I made my way cautiously down the hall, but he was not there, not lurking to spring out, pounce on me or punch me; nor to laugh again and perhaps put his arm round me. I was alone.
Afterwards I could only think it was his vanity that had made him laugh. Like a true actor, he was flattered that I had gone to so much trouble to see him perform.
Gemma wrote:
‘Dearest Uncle Alex,
Chris doesn’t know I’m writing because I promised I wouldn’t, but I have to say a proper goodbye to you. If I keep my promise not to see you or speak to you or write to you ever again, I think it’s all right to send you one letter, just to say goodbye.
I am so sorry. I love you. I can’t make Chris understand and I have to put him first, after what’s happened and all the terrible things I’ve done, but I know you did your best for me, the way you saw it, and I let you, so that must have been the way I saw it too. I can’t be really sorry it happened. There were awful bits of course but if I had to choose and have none of it or all of it, then I’d have to choose all of it.
I still love David but I know he doesn’t love me any more and I also know I’ll get over him one day although it seems ages away, like being grown up when you’re a child. Chris has been wonderful, so understanding and forgiving. He doesn’t know about the abortion – although sometimes I think he does because of the way he looks at me or things he says. He goes on about me making sacrifices for him and him being privileged and funny things like that, and the other day he said would I like us to adopt a baby. But I don’t know, it doesn’t prove anything. He may just be trying to take my mind off it all. All I told him was I had an affair with someone I met, in your flat, and when it was over I wanted to die.
Of course I know you were sort of the bad influence he says you were, but then I always knew that, right from way back when you used to keep me up late when Mummy was out. That’s what made you fun and made me specially want to see you. Everyone doesn’t have a wicked uncle and it did annoy Mummy so. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you but I’ll have to. It makes me cry just to think about it but I don’t want to write you a crying sort of letter. I seem to have done a lot of crying lately but I expect I’ll stop soon, Chris says it’s my hormones. Does that mean he knows about the abortion?
I don’t know how to stop this letter. How can I say thank you to you for making me – helping me – what’s the word? – have an affair with someone who always loved his wife more than me, and have an abortion when I really wanted a baby? And yet that is what I’m saying. I knew what you were doing and I knew your motives weren’t all good but whose are? I don’t feel Chris understands at all but I can’t talk to him about it he feels so injured and of course he’s right. I have injured him.
I am so upset I can’t see you again. It’s like being walled up alive. Chris is so sure you’d get me into bad ways again. Right now I feel too exhausted to think of it but I know what he means. At the same time it’s rather unflattering to think that he doesn’t imagine I could get into bad ways without help.
I feel very old. As if I’d been on a long journey or in prison or studying a foreign language. I feel I’ve learnt something because of you and now I can’t use it, the rest of my life will just be marking time. But I can’t do anything else because of the children, and Chris being so marvellous. I’ve got to keep my promise.
Please Uncle Alex remember I love you however wicked you are, I can’t bear to think of you lonely and miserable without me, the way I’m going to be without you. It’s something about childhood, isn’t it, that you and I remember, I don’t know what but they didn’t share it and that’s why they’re jealous.
David’s wife wrote me an awfully nice letter. I was so surprised. I can see why he loves her so much. She’s lucky. If only she’d love him back and then he might be happy again.
Please take care of yourself and remember me even though we’re not in touch. I wish I could say I’m glad to be alive. I know you meant well saving me but I do wish I was dead and I know I’ll never have the courage to do it again. I really meant it that time and I wish you hadn’t come home. I’d like to be with David and have our baby – or else be peacefully dead. But instead I have to be with Chris and the children. I suppose I’ll get used to it.
Cheer up and don’t let them bully you. Remember I’m glad you made it happen and it was worth it.
Love, love and more love,
Gemma
P.S. You’re not really wicked. I don’t care what they say. Only a little bit. And I love you anyway, so there.
P.P.S. I’ve done a banker’s order of £10 a month till the loan’s paid off. Please take it or I shan’t feel comfortable. XXX G.’
I went to Birmingham to see David and his latest love. She was an actress called Emma Johnston and she did remind me of Gemma, although I’d been hoping she wouldn’t. She was small and dark and pretty, soft as a kitten, playful and nervous; she watched David while he talked, as though he were God, and she smiled a lot. She was about twenty-four. He said they were in love and she had transformed his life. He listed her unique qualities. The papers described him and Cathy as estranged. He went up to London every weekend to see the children.
I went to see Catherine in Kentish Town. She opened the door wearing a strange multi-coloured jumper and skirt that looked home-knitted as if to use up assorted left-over wool. Her face was blank, her voice expressionless. I thought she looked tired and I wanted to take her in my arms but I did not dare.
She wouldn’t ask me in, claiming she had someone with her. She said everything was exactly the same, David would never leave her. ‘He needs me to despise him and I do.’ The actress was a new fancy, just the same as the old ones, surely I hadn’t forgotten the pattern? Estranged was a word only newspapers used.
So Diomedes left Criseyde and Troilus took her back. A happy ending, would you call that, or a worse tragedy than the original?
When Pandarus says he hates Criseyde, what are we meant to think? I take it to mean that he identified totally with Troilus. That deserting his friend, his brother, was deserting them both and doubling his failure in love. No wonder he hated Criseyde. Through her body he had pledged his word and she proved faithless. The shame was his also.
I shall never forgive Gemma for leaving me. It serves her right that she is condemned to a lifetime of Christian forgiveness. Life without her is intolerable for me, but I live. Alas, I live. And I have lost David and Catherine also.
Without Gemma my days are as if technicolor had not yet been invented. I am bored. And the pain in what passes for my heart makes me want to scream and cry.
I have another reason to hate Criseyde, which Pandarus never had. Removing bloodstains from carpets and upholstery is very difficult and expensive. She was inconsiderate. That must mean she plans to come back. She could not do that to my flat and disappear for ever. You cannot leave your blood on someone’s floor and sofa and vanish from his life. She must come back one day, although it is a long time now since I saw her and when I write she doesn’t answer; when I ring she apologises and hangs up. I am an old man but one day I shall surely pick up the telephone or answer the door and it will be she. I cannot endure to believe otherwise.
They say that Hell is a sense of loss. How God must be laughing at me.