Authors: Peter Robinson
The effort of letting him down gently and hiding her feelings and her disability from him at the same time was proving too much. She wished he would just leave. When he bent down to comfort her,
she felt herself freeze. The reaction surprised her; it was something she’d never done before. And it came from deep inside; it was completely involuntary, like a twitch or a reflex action.
Galen felt it, too, and he backed off, looking wounded.
‘I understand,’ he said stiffly. ‘At least, I’ll try.’ He patted her hand. ‘Let’s just leave it be for now, okay? Plenty of time to think about our
future later on, when you’re fully recovered.’
Kirsten nodded and wiped the tears away with the backs of her hands. Galen passed her a Kleenex.
‘Is there anything you want,’ he asked, ‘anything at all I can bring you?’
‘No, not really.’
A book?’
‘I’ve not felt much like reading. I can’t seem to concentrate. But thank you very much. You’d better go, Galen, go back home and take care of your mother. I’m glad
you came. I know I don’t seem it, but honestly I am.’
He looked disappointed, as if he had been summarily dismissed. Kirsten knew she hadn’t managed to sound very convincing. Her breasts ached and she felt close to tears again. He took hold
of her hand, with that little-boy-lost expression on his face, and didn’t seem to want to let go.
‘I’ll come again,’ he said. ‘I promise. I’ll be up here for a couple of days sorting things out, anyway.’
All right. But I’m tired now.’
He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. She caught the toothpaste smell on his breath. He must have brushed his teeth on the train, she thought, or as soon as he got to the
hospital.
When he left, she gave in and let the tears fall. There just seemed to be no future. Certainly there would be no life for him with her. If he was lucky, they would drift apart and he would go to
Toronto in September. He might even meet someone else.
Kirsten had no idea what her full recovery would feel like, or even if such a thing were possible. The doctor hadn’t sounded very hopeful about reconstructive surgery. Presumably, she
would feel fine on the outside, though the scars would remain and have to be covered up. Was she just supposed to get used to her new state, put her past behind her and get on with life? Go to
Toronto with Galen, even?
He would be very understanding about her disability, at least for a while. Perhaps he would even marry her out of love and pity, and as time went on she would considerately turn a blind eye to
the bits on the side he needed to give him what she could no longer supply. She would be grateful just because he was self-sacrificing enough to love a cripple.
No. It didn’t sound right. Such a life could never be,
should
never be. Without really telling him why, she would have to ease Galen out of her life for his own good.
The depression was on her, in her, a kind of numbing fatalism that would admit no light, no comfort. She couldn’t imagine it ever ending, things getting back to normal. Already the
carefree, cheerful young graduate who had stepped out of Oastler Hall, enjoyed the warm air and scanned the night sky for the moon as she sat on the stone lion was gone. Utterly. Irredeemably.
And who or what was going to take her place? Kirsten wondered. She felt vague and disturbing forces moving inside her, like flitting shadows in places so deep and dark she had not known they
existed. And she felt powerless to do anything about them, just as she had when Galen had tried to hold her and she’d frozen on him. She was no longer in control.
But it was more, even, than that. She knew she only controlled enough of herself to give the comforting illusion of being in command. At best, like most people, she could control certain aspects
of her behaviour. It was mostly a matter of manners, like not burping at the dinner table. But her habits and mannerisms shouldn’t change so dramatically unless she made a great conscious
effort to alter them. She surely wouldn’t just wake up one morning and no longer bite her nails under stress or stop blushing when she overheard someone talking about her. No more than Galen
could stop his shoulders slumping when he didn’t get what he wanted, or Sarah sucking on her upper lip with deceptive calm before responding sharply to a remark that had offended her.
Yet that seemed to be just what had happened. What Kirsten had done when Galen had reached for her – before she had even had time to think about it – was something that had never
been in her repertoire of responses. It was her habit always to return the embrace of a friend or a loved one. But that part of her – the part, perhaps, that responded to affection and love
– was gone now, changed. She no longer recognized herself.
It would be typical of the doctors, she thought, to put it down to what had happened to her. It’s like, they would say, touching a hot coal and flinching the next time the hand nears
another. Once bitten, twice shy. Conditioning. One of Pavlov’s dogs. Naturally, they would go on, anyone who has suffered and survived such a vicious attack is bound to react with suspicion
when another man, however familiar, approaches her in any intimate way.
Well, maybe they were right. Perhaps it would pass in time. Animals and humans who are used to being ill-treated often strike out at first when someone finally offers them love, but in time they
come to accept it and trust those who give it. Surely she, too, could re-learn the right responses? But Kirsten wasn’t convinced. For some reason, she believed that this new instinctive and
frightening reaction to her lover’s concern was only the beginning, that there were other changes going on, other powers at work, and that she had no control over any of them.
What was she going to become? All she could do was wait and see. Even then, she realized, she would probably be none the wiser, for she would have shed her old self and would have nothing left
to compare the new one with. After all, she wondered, does a butterfly remember the caterpillar it used to be?
MARTHA
Martha found a pizza place to eat in that evening. Oddly enough, instead of giving her butterflies in her stomach, nervousness was making her hungry. Upstairs was a takeaway,
where busy white-jacketed cooks prepared orders, but downstairs was a tiny cellar restaurant with only four tables, each bearing a red-checked tablecloth and a candle burning inside a dark orange
glass. Very Italian. Martha was the only person in the place. The whitewashed stone walls arched over to form the curved ceiling, and the way the candles cast shadows over the ribbing and contours
made the place look like a white cave or the inside of that whale Martha had imagined herself entering the first time she passed under the jawbone on West Cliff.
The menu offered little choice: pizza with tomato sauce, with mushrooms or with prawns. When the young waitress came, Martha settled for mushrooms.
‘What’s the wine?’ she asked.
‘We’ve got white or red.’
‘Yes, but what kind is it?’
The waitress shrugged. ‘Medium.’
‘What does that mean? Is it dry or sweet?’
‘Medium.’
Either she hadn’t a clue, or she was clearly taking no chances on offending anyone. Martha sighed. ‘All right, I’ll have a glass of red.’ She hoped it was dry, whatever
the quality.
She lit a cigarette and settled to wait. It was chilly in the cellar, despite the warm evening outside, and she put her quilted jacket over her shoulders. She had used it as a headrest during
her afternoon on the beach, and when she lifted it, a few trapped grains of sand fell on the tablecloth. She swept them onto the stone floor, wincing at their gritty feel against her
fingertips.
She had read until the incoming tide had driven her away from the beach, then she had gone back to the guesthouse for a bath. She had got sweaty sitting in the sun all afternoon with her jeans
on and her shirt buttoned up to the neck. After that, feeling restless and edgy, she had gone walking nowhere in particular for a couple of hours, until hunger had driven her in search of somewhere
to eat.
While she waited for her pizza, she rummaged in her holdall for the smooth, hard paperweight for the umpteenth time that day. Yes, it was still there. She needed to touch it, her talisman, to
bolster her resolve.
At last the waitress returned with a small, thin-crusted pizza and a glass of wine. It was dry: some kind of cheap and ordinary Chianti, but at least drinkable. The pizza was barely edible. The
crust was like tough cardboard, and about six slices of canned mushroom lay on top of a watery spread of tomato sauce – completely lacking in spicing or herbal ingredients – that
dribbled over the edge when she cut into it. Still, it wasn’t fish and chips; she had that, at least, to be grateful for.
She ate as much as she could manage, and soon found herself getting full. A young couple came in, looked around the cavern suspiciously, and took a corner table in the shadows. They held hands
and made eyes at one another in the candlelight. Martha felt sick. She ordered a cappuccino, wondering how that would turn out, and lit another cigarette. She still had time to kill.
The cappuccino turned out to be half a cup of Nescafé with what tasted like condensed milk, all churned up by a steam machine and dusted with a few grains of chocolate. The lovers talked
in whispers, occasionally laughing and stroking one another’s bare arms on the tablecloth.
Martha could stand it no longer. She demanded the bill rather snappily as the waitress was dashing off with the couple’s order. It was still a good ten minutes before it arrived. Not
bothering to leave a tip, Martha took the slip of paper upstairs and paid a sullen young man, who actually did look Italian, at the till.
Outside, it was already getting dark; the narrow channels of water left in the harbour rocked and twisted the strings of red and yellow lights in their oily mirror. It was almost nine
o’clock, and the tide was well on its way out.
The man called Jack had left the pub at a quarter to ten the previous evening. Though the whole scene had the appearance of a ritual to Martha, she couldn’t be sure he would leave at
exactly the same time again, or even if he’d be in the pub. For one thing, the darts game – part of the ritual – might last longer. What was even worse was that he might leave
with his friend. Still, Martha planned simply to follow him, if she could, and find out where he lived. Even if he didn’t leave alone, he was bound to go home eventually.
It was her intention to lean against the iron railing close to the pub, near the jawbone at the top of West Cliff, and wait for him to come out. She would take note of which way he walked and
would follow. She had thought of going inside the Lucky Fisherman again, alone this time, but that would only draw attention to her. He might even talk to her and try to pick her up, then everybody
would see them. That was too dangerous to be worth the risk.
If she got there for nine-thirty, she would probably be all right. He would hardly leave before then. More likely later than earlier. That left her time for a quick nip to calm her nerves. She
went into the first pub she saw, a bustling tourist place, and ordered a double whisky. She drank it slowly so it wouldn’t go straight to her head. The last thing she needed was to get drunk.
But the cardboard pizza should be enough to soak up anything that came along in the next hour or so.
At quarter past nine, when she could wait no longer, she set off for the Lucky Fisherman. It was dark by then, and the town’s usual illuminations were all on. It took her five minutes to
reach her waiting place. Once there, she leaned forward on the railing and looked over first at St Mary’s, basking in its sandy light directly opposite, then to her left, out to sea beyond
the pincer-like piers, where all was dark. She could see the thin white line of waves breaking on the sand.
She looked at her watch. Nine-thirty-five. It seemed to be taking for ever. Time for a cigarette. No one but the occasional courting couple ambled by. They would pause for a moment, arm in arm,
look out to sea by Captain Cook’s statue, perhaps kiss, and then walk around the corner by the white hotels along North Terrace. A strong fishy smell drifted up from the harbour. Martha
remembered it was Thursday evening. The fishing boats would be coming in tomorrow.
Nine-forty-six. He was late. Must be having trouble getting that last double twenty or whatever it was he needed. She pictured him carrying his empty glass over to the bar and saying,
‘Well, that’s my limit for tonight. See you tomorrow, Bobby.’ Yes, he
would
be there! He had actually said so, she remembered: ‘See you
tomorrow,
Bobby.’
And Bobby would say, ‘Night, Jack,’ as usual. Any moment he would be walking out of that door. Martha was hardly breathing; her chest felt tight with excitement and apprehension. She
ground out the cigarette and glanced over at the pub.
At ten o’clock, it happened. The door rattled open and one man –
her
man – walked out in his dark jersey and baggy jeans. She stayed where she was, as if rooted to the
spot, her hands frozen to the railing. She must try to look like a casual tourist, she told herself, just admiring the night-time view: St Mary’s, the abbey ruin, the lights reflected in the
harbour. A slight breeze ruffled her hair and brushed along her cheek like cold fingers.
He was walking in her direction, towards the Cook statue. She turned her head to watch him coming. How it happened, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was just the sudden movement, or maybe the
light from a street lamp had caught her face as she turned. But he saw her. She could have sworn that he smiled and his eyes glittered more than usual. He started walking towards her.
She felt pure terror, as if her very bone marrow had turned to ice. He walked up beside her and rested his hands on the railing too.
‘Hello,’ he said, in that familiar, hoarse voice. ‘Lovely night, isn’t it?’
Martha could hardly catch her breath. She was shaking so much that she had to clutch the railings tight to stay on her feet. But she had to go through with it. It was too late to back off now.
She turned to face him.