How Do I Love Thee? (18 page)

‘You love painting! Why are you so busy all of a sudden?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s a bit hard to have two creative people in one house. We can’t both be dreamy artists,’ Alyssa sighs. ‘Someone has to remember to pay the bills and buy the groceries.’

‘I haven’t seen you smile the whole time I’ve been here,’ Mei-Lin adds.

Alyssa forces a smile.

‘That’s better. Shall we go dancing tonight?’ asks her sister.

Gerard waves and chats to numerous people in the dark and smoky bars that they enter. He introduces her to people and she hears how ‘great’
he
is or how ‘lovely’
she
is and how Gerard has known them for
absolutely ages
. She can’t remember any of their names and feels a pang of jealousy every time they grab Gerard’s shoulder or share a joke. It’s a camaraderie that has taken many such late nights to develop.

‘How come we don’t see much of you?’ one of the women asks.

Alyssa can’t think of anything lighthearted to say in reply.

In the toilets Alyssa’s sister says, ‘Does he take pills every weekend?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘He just offered me some speed,’ says Mei-Lin as she applies her lipstick. ‘I still don’t like him much,’ she adds.

‘Don’t say that! I was thinking of marrying him,’ Alyssa teases.

‘Has he asked you?’

‘No. But I can ask him.’

‘But why? You’re obviously not happy!’

‘I’ve never been happier,’ Alyssa says, ignoring her own frown in the mirror. ‘Marriage would be the only way I could make him listen to all the things I need to say. I’d need some sort of commitment from him. Every time I get close to saying anything negative to him he just gets defensive. Or he goes out.’

‘Exactly! He’s a useless druggo, and you’re too blind to see it!’ says her forthright sister.

‘The trouble is, he can be much more than that,’ Alyssa defends her lover. ‘He needs my stability to allow him to be everything he can be. When he’s calm and not on drugs he is so interesting and creative and he expands my world so much. He’s also kind and romantic. Sometimes he—’

‘But you can’t rescue someone who doesn’t
want
to be rescued. You can do so much better. You deserve better. Everyone else can see that except you.’

‘My problem is that I hate failure. I refuse to fail at this.’ Alyssa concedes.

‘Being the younger sister, I don’t have that problem,’ laughs Mei-Lin.

Back in the bar, a slow song comes on and Gerard finds Alyssa where she is sitting with her sister. He pulls her close and dances with her tucked under his chin.

‘You rescued me,’ he says, looking down at her. ‘I’ve never felt like I belong anywhere until I met you.’

Alyssa feels tears forming in her eyes. Moments like this make all the rest worthwhile. For once they go home together and get into bed at the same time. He makes love to her tenderly and falls asleep in her arms.

‘My rehearsal has been cancelled,’ Gerard says when he rings Alyssa’s work at lunchtime on Tuesday. ‘Shall we go to a movie?’

‘Oh, I would have loved to,’ she says, ‘but I have that planning meeting tonight, remember?’

‘Oh. Well, shall I cook us something yummy then?’

Alyssa beams. ‘That would be lovely! I’ll be home just before nine. Can you wait that long to eat?’

Alyssa stares out the window for a while after the call. It is September and some brave jonquils have stuck up their heads in the garden beds. She ploughs through the pile of
work on her desk then attends the tedious meeting. She skips across the road to the car at 8.45 pm.

There are no lights on when she pulls into her driveway and her good mood evaporates. She realises how tired she is.

She throws down her bag and opens the mail. A medium-sized phone bill and a huge heating bill. She sends an SMS to Gerard to find out where he is. He replies with exactly the message that she expects:
Courthouse. Home at 9.30
.

She takes a deep breath and thinks:
I’m so, so disappointed. And hungry. And tired
.

She kicks off her shoes and begins to get the dinner ingredients ready, then stops.
If I make the dinner then I will just get resentful and we will have a fight
, she thinks.
Best to just go and read a magazine, drink some wine and wait. Then I’ll be relaxed when he comes in.

She opens an art magazine and tries to concentrate. Looks at the clock.
Even if he came home when he said he would
, she thought,
we won’t eat until after ten
.

Getting up and putting her slippers on, she pulls out pesto and sun-dried tomatoes from the fridge and cooks pasta. Waits for him. He isn’t home at 9.45. She decides she might as well salvage some enjoyment from her evening. Serves her own meal, pours herself another red wine and opens the paper.

Gerard finally comes in at ten and walks straight to the saucepan. ‘Smells good,’ he says, and serves himself a bowl. Not that Alyssa would have served his anyway. She is in the middle of an article about a new gallery exhibition. Repeating a mantra to herself:
Don’t say anything. Don’t complain. Don’t even sigh and everything will be all right.

They eat in silence. Alyssa continues to read so she will not make the mistake of saying anything that could be construed as criticism.

After dinner Gerard strips and climbs straight into bed. Alyssa runs some water for the dishes.

‘Don’t do them now!’ he calls. ‘I’ll do them in the morning.’

She stays silent but the resentful voice in her head says:
Sure you will, just like you cooked my dinner
, and she continues squeezing detergent into the water.

Next minute a fully dressed Gerard storms through the kitchen.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks, surprised, turning from the sink, her hands in rubber gloves.

‘You haven’t said a word to me,’ he says, throwing his bag over his shoulder and heading towards the front door. ‘You have to accept me how I am!’ he calls over his left shoulder then disappears into the night.

Alyssa is astounded. He’s right, she hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t said any of the things she wanted to say. Expressed no disappointment. Made no accusations and still she lost him. It wasn’t fair.

This time, she is too tired and too angry to placate him. She thinks back over every aspect of the evening in her mind.
Perhaps I should have joined him at the pub. Maybe I should have just let him cook late or pick up some takeaway. But I was so looking forward to him cooking for me for once … He promised! No, it isn’t me being unreasonable
, she consoles herself as she finishes the dishes and surveys her clean kitchen.
It is him.

Alyssa scoops up Princess and takes her into the bedroom. She is too shocked to cry. She reads back through the diary she kept the last time he left and realises how circular and predictable their interactions have become. ‘He acts and I react. Well, at least I have control over one of those things,’ she tells the attentive kitten.

Alyssa draws a red circle around a date on the calendar. ‘If I am right, this will be about the time that he will collapse in a heap and tell me he can’t live without me,’ she continues. ‘But that’s going to be way too late. I will be enrolled at the School of Art by then and quite likely dating a gorgeous man who will actually appreciate how fabulous I am.’

Alyssa begins a new page in her diary.

He is gone. Again. I’m feeling as though I’ve just taken off a heavy winter coat. I’ll be fine this time. Suddenly the world is full of opportunities. Tomorrow, I’m going to …

The kitten makes purring noises. The woman makes plans.

S
ONNY
W
HITELAW

‘I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise’

Julia Scott had flown combat missions with Commander Robert Burnett during the Gulf War. Three months in the back seat of his F-14 Tomcat had given her a unique insight into his personality. Now, eighteen years later, as he sat beside her in the limousine on the drive from Sydney airport to the HMAS
Penguin
Naval Base at Balmoral, she could taste his incredulity.

‘We appreciate this is a great deal to take in, Commander Burnett,’ said the Minister for Defence, Tom Wilkie. ‘But, perversely, it seems that time is at a premium.’

‘Due respect, sir,’ Burnett replied, his familiar Chuck Yeager drawl a mix of scepticism and respect. ‘Given what y’all have just told me, isn’t that a contradiction in terms?’

The fourth man in the limousine, Vice Admiral Douglas Prado, ran a hand across his bald head, smoothing back hair that had disappeared years earlier. ‘I can assure you, Commander, that Tom is not spinning you some fanciful yarn. The Temporal Project is real, and Commander Scott is the world’s leading authority on the subject.’

On this world, at least, thought Julia. ‘The energy required to travel through time increases exponentially the further we go,’ she said. ‘Twenty years is the maximum operational distance. We’re also restrained by the Grandfather Paradox—’

‘I know that one,’ Burnett interrupted. ‘That’s the weird circular reasoning about going back in time and killing your grandfather before you were born. Right?’

If only it were that simple. ‘Some of the time,’ she replied. ‘No pun intended, Commander.’

The memory of another reaction long ago came unbidden to Julia.

‘Are you out of your goddamned mind? You’re futzing with the future—past, whatever—of an entire planet! And last time I looked, Commander Scott, we only have one planet.’

‘Things have changed a great deal since the last time you looked, Captain Anderson.’

‘
Yeah, well, some things never change. A scientist screwed up and now you want me to fix it.’

‘With all due respect, sir, a politician—your President—screwed up, and if it hadn’t been for a scientist, you’d still be dead. Sir.’

‘Commander Burnett,’ said Admiral Prado, pulling Julia out of her reverie. ‘You’re scheduled to report to HMAS
Penguin
tomorrow morning at 0800.’ Glancing at his watch, he added, ‘Seven hours from now. There you will meet Commander Julia Scott, who will brief you on your assignment to the top secret Temporal Project.’

Burnett’s greying eyebrows twisted in confusion. Addressing Julia, he said, ‘Why not complete my briefing now?’

‘We will,’ she replied, ‘but if your history had not been tampered with, tomorrow morning you and I have not had his conversation.’

Despite the dim light inside the car, she could clearly see Burnett’s gaze hovering between disbelief and comprehension. ‘Good God!’ he blurted. ‘You’re not … from now!’

‘Very good, Commander,’ said Prado. As he spoke, he opened a walnut-panelled drinks cabinet between the seats. ‘It took Tom and I somewhat longer to figure that out. Commander Scott, here, is almost ten years younger than our
Commander Scott. We only learned of this … wrinkle … a few hours ago.’ Holding up a bottle of Perrier, he added, ‘Drink? I believe you take it with a lime twist?’

Nodding dumbly, Burnett examined Julia’s face, searching for clues.

‘Tom?’ The Admiral continued to rummage around the cabinet. ‘Something harder? You’re going to need it.’

‘What do you mean, going to?’ Wilkie was still visibly shaken by Julia’s abrupt materialisation inside their limousine. ‘I needed it an hour ago. You wouldn’t have a cigarette stashed in there, would you?’

‘I’ve got too much blood on my hands already. I’m not going to contribute to your lung cancer.’ Withdrawing a small bottle of OP rum, Prado directed a questioning glance at Julia. ‘Commander?’

‘I’m on assignment, sir.’

The Admiral hesitated a moment before replying. ‘Yes, of course you are.’

‘The Grandfather Paradox prevents time travellers from co-existing with their past selves,’ Julia continued, bringing the conversation back on track. ‘So unless we recruit teenagers as time jumpers, time travel is not normally possible.’

‘What a good idea,’ said Wilkie, accepting his glass from the Admiral. ‘I’ll drink to that.’ His expression soured when
he added, ‘You’re going to try and explain multi-worlds again, aren’t you?’

‘Multiverse, Minister.’

‘Sounds like a crossword solution to “Sonnet”.’

At that moment, Julia could cheerfully have reached across and throttled him. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of Elizabeth Browning.

‘Multiverse,’ Burnett echoed. ‘Isn’t that the quantum physics thing about an infinite number of parallel worlds? Different Earths where dinosaurs never became extinct, the Chicago Cubs won the 2006 World Series, or Hitler won World War II.’

‘That’s right.’ Julia inclined her head in agreement.

‘You’re not only from a different time,’ he said, his eyes widening in comprehension, ‘you’re also from one of those parallel worlds! So if you’re here … where’s our Commander Julia Scott?’

Julia met his stare. Robert Burnett really was a quick study, which is why he’d been assigned to the Temporal Project. Normally, they only recruited dead people. Without volition, she found herself going back to her memories.

‘So you picked me because I’m already dead? Great,’ Anderson quipped. ‘I get to be the first person in history to give more than one life for my country.’

‘No, Captain, not the first.’

He stared at Julia a moment then settled for silence. It would take her years to learn the different nuances of his silences. This one was a grudging acknowledgement.

‘Our Commander Scott,’ the Admiral answered Burnett, forcing Julia to focus on the present, ‘is on the first temporal assignment in the history of our world.’ His lips twisted ruefully. ‘It seems that our time-travel technology is decades behind the times, as it were.’

‘Only on some worlds,’ Julia replied.

Wilkie groaned and, closing his eyes, rubbed his temples.

‘For the sake of clarity,’ she added quickly, ‘let’s call your world Earth One. While your Julia Scott has successfully travelled back in time, she can’t occupy the same world as her younger self, so she was diverted to Earth Two.’