A Habit of Dying (5 page)

Conscious still of her previous mistake regarding Henry Myers, Lydia first examined the whole book, turning each blank page, being sure that there was nothing on them and even holding them up to the light to see if any impression of some mark or writing remained. A few shreds of white paper fluttered down as she did this, but that aside there was nothing apart from the writing on the last twenty or so pages. In her preferred way, she simply turned these over slowly, absorbing the handwriting, the colours of the ink, the odd entry in pencil, the change in appearance, until she came to the last page. She read once more what she took to be the opening lines, written in a slightly scrawling hand but legible enough. Again the sense of intrusion was upon her; again images of her grandfather and his private intimate thoughts came to her. It occurred to her that what she now had before her might not be true at all, but instead be a fiction, the workings and jottings for some unfinished novel. She read from the beginning again.

It has taken forever to get these first words out of my head onto this page in the old copy book. I have struggled so long and now they are written but none of the words are about what I need to write about. They are written now like this because a woman who I see once a week, an old woman, a volunteer at our local centre, has listened to me breaking into pieces over the last few weeks and the idea of writing out my demons has come up again today. I think she writes some stuff for a local paper and she has said that to start I should just write words, any words, any thoughts that come into my head. I have so many words swirling around they won’t stay still long enough to be written. So this is an exercise, think of it as a piano player warming up before a performance she said. Are there scales for this, should I copy out lines from a book like a schoolboy in detention? Maybe a word list of love and hate and death and destruction, sights and sounds and a word I read the other day, sepulchral, which has a very good form in the mouth when I speak it. Conjunction feeble effortless timeless wisdom anxious westerly brand noxious gases bullet poison envelope powder dimension bread rabbit.

I will start again. I have to get some of this stuff out of my head and on to paper, maybe that way there will be some resolution, some means to an end whatever that may be. Writers tell of the cathartic effects of committing their thoughts to paper don’t they? It is a start, the first words are out there, the rest will surely gush. But the real start, where was that? Was it way back in the mists of my other life, my other times, or, more prosaically, at the clichéd first sight from the window onto the wet footpath beyond the steps up to the house? Yes, it was that moment that sealed the future and all it has brought.

Her figure was trim but not exactly skinny. Short dark hair round a sharp face with a wide mouth. She struggled in the rain to unload her cardboard boxes from the little blue hatchback and lug them up the steps and into the house. Delivering for a friend perhaps, a new tenant? It did not matter, it would never matter, all that mattered was that that glance out the window, that fixed moment in time, had happened. The rest was decided, sealed, locked into the guidance system of life for eternity.

SDI entered my life at that moment and has been right there ever since. She should not have been, she should never have been, but she is. For how much longer I cannot now say because there is an end to this by some means.

Lydia did not know what to make of it. A novel? Notes for a novel? A diary, and if not, then what? Why the almost coded reference? Why not Shirley or Sheilagh? A shorthand perhaps, surely not a nickname. It was written by someone who was used to writing, to dealing with words and that person had a feeling, a passion even, for his subject. On balance, Lydia felt inclined to her notes-for-a-novel idea. She read on for a while until on the third or fourth page it became difficult to read and it seemed that someone else had taken over the writing. She put the book aside and gave what she had read a little more thought. It did not seem likely that it would contain anything of value, and yet she was attracted to it in a way that was hard to justify. Perhaps she would work through the rest of it. It had been written backwards, starting on the last page in the book, and that alone seemed a strange way to make notes for a novel, or to write anything else. In some places so much pressure had been applied that the writing was impressed into the page. Even on closer examination there were passages that she could
hardly make out at all. The writing became more and more illegible as it progressed, so to read it all she would need to become very familiar with the writer, the context, and feel for the words as much as read them. All that would take time, a lot of time. There were more pages than she’d first realised, perhaps thirty or forty. She did not like the thought of having two projects at the same time and for all she knew she had three or four already, all of which stubbornly refused to give up their secrets. So she did what she knew she would do, put the book away in its box and let the questions slip to the back of her mind until a resolution appeared.

Even if the book should turn out to be a cuckoo in the nest of albums there was nothing to be lost by deciphering it. If in doing so some connection emerged then that would be a bonus. Besides which, the albums were hardly a full time occupation, Lydia had done nothing of substance on them for weeks. She set to work typing out the words from the journal. The going was easy enough for the first few pages, as she knew it would be, but the content of what she was transcribing began to disturb her. Like her grandfather’s letters, it brought unsettling thoughts and images to her mind. Of particular worry were the last few lines of the journal, which, being written in the same clear writing of the first few pages, she’d read before starting her task.

But action will cause reaction and something will happen. The leaf will be cast to the forest floor where it will lie anonymously turning to mould. Though a million feet were to walk right by it, none would pause to remark its presence. Even I would not be able to detect it. The future at once looks crystal clear and impenetrable. The calmness of the centre has flowed out to envelop me and all around is light and clarity but the horizon remains black and infinite. This I think is the world without her even though she sleeps a sleep through this last night. Check mate in the game. Mr Punch.

She silently cursed herself for having read the end before she had
read the whole. It had a lyrical quality to it, but it was also dark and sinister. And ‘Mr Punch’? What was that about? Even as she worked on through the first dozen or so entries, she was aware of that final paragraph and resolved to strictly follow the sequence of the writer for the rest of the book. It was certainly more than notes for a novel, perhaps the novel itself. To make the whole thing readable, Lydia added a little punctuation where she felt it was essential, and gave numbers to each section as she detected a change in writing or the colour of the pen, otherwise she was faithful to her source. Where she came to words that defied her attempts at interpretation she left a space or put her best guess in brackets. At length she completed the first dozen or so entries, by far the easiest part of the job. It seemed to her that it would be something more suitable to read from the printed page than the computer screen, so she moved to her comfortable chair with a glass of wine from the previous evening’s bottle. The words were familiar to her, as if she had written them, invented them herself, but nonetheless she began at the beginning, through the strange list of words, the finger exercises, the view from the window, the wide mouthed girl and the odd use of initials to refer to the writer’s wife.

SDI entered my life at that moment and has been right there ever since. She should not have been, she should never have been, but she is. For how much longer I cannot now say because there is an end to this by some means. She has consumed me and devoured me, borne the child that we lost, transformed me and destroyed me. All this by carrying a cardboard box up some steps to her new flat. It doesn’t seem likely or possible now, writing it down in this dead notebook. Surely it was not me who asked her out for a drink on our first accidental meeting on the stairs a couple of days later for it is something I had only ever done that once. Surely I did not ask her again the next day having been turned down the first time in favour of her favourite TV programme? Surely she did not grudgingly accept the offer? Did she not have a boyfriend or a real life that would take precedence? What her reasoning was for accepting the casual offer I have never known.

A drink led of course to another and another. And drinks led to meals out and then meals out led to meals in and meals in led to bed. The sheer
intensity of that first joining of our bodies still tightens my muscles in a spasm of anguish. And all the subsequent couplings, however rare, however good, bad or indifferent the actual experience, they also force a stifled moan at their recollection. It is not that she was unwilling, just that she never seemed fully engaged, never one hundred percent there with me in the little single bed tucked into the corner of her bedroom beside the window. Always it seemed there was a part, sometimes a very tiny part, that was somewhere else, worrying about the marking she needed to do, or paying the rent or cleaning the bath. How I longed, still long, for her to commit completely, to lose herself in love and emotion and sensual arousal. Did she, does she, think that nice girls don’t? I have never asked her, I never dared risk a word that could break the spell.

And then even when we married a few months later I never really knew if she was certain or really wanted to. Of course she said yes, eventually, when I asked her. And in the same breath said she still wanted to go away to a conference in the summer as it had been booked for ages and ages. Why did I not see the whole future there and then? Maybe I did not want to see it, maybe I believed in change, maybe I was in love, maybe I still am. And when we were to sleep together again the day after we agreed to marry, why did I not see the whole of my life stretching forward in every detail with every tiny agony like shards of metal in my eye? Why, when she said that she did not feel like it did I not say, ‘no, but then you never do’? All questions and not a single answer.

And here we are today, a good day as days go, thinking like the rest of the world of signs of spring and life starting up again. Winter being pushed back into memory. We were happy today, a walk round the park in bright sunshine between the showers, once even holding hands briefly till she said it was too uncomfortable to walk like that. Out of synch, always out of synch. It is already better for writing this.

2nd entry

It is late and I cannot get off to sleep. S let me know today that she does not like me seeing her in the shower. This was not news to me. I have known this since the first time I barged in and ever since have always tried to avoid doing so. But today I needed something in the bathroom so went in, carefully averted my eyes. Even without looking I knew that she had turned round in
case I should glimpse her nakedness. And now I cannot sleep for thinking about it, thinking about being denied, refused, excluded. And thinking about whether it is intentional, even malicious, or just unthinking, just how she is.

It is just how she was on our wedding day, just how she was when we took the vows and the registrar said that we were married and that we could kiss if we wished. Just how she was when she accepted my lips and returned them with a pursed peck to satisfy the tiny audience. How I wanted a full public statement of a kiss, a kiss that said ‘I do’ more than the simple words could ever say. And then again later when our friends wanted those happy wedding snaps the kisses were just hollow poses, as meaningless as the photos themselves are now, collected in curling bundles in boxes at the back of wardrobes. Frozen slivers of Kodacolor time telling nothing of past or future.

It was wrong to say that she has never completely given of herself. It feels as if she has never but it is not true. There was once, just once, long ago I think there was a moment, maybe longer, maybe an hour or so when another S, a different, wonderful, free as air S gave herself to me. Knowing that time, feeling that moment right now as if it had just happened only makes the rest all the more excruciating. It was me in the shower and she there with me, fixing her hair or cleaning her teeth. I asked her to pass me some soap or gel or something, half hoping that it might lead to something else but ever mindful that it wouldn’t. Without speaking she came to me and started soaping me down and massaging my body. Surprise and pure pleasure rolled over me in waves. She was getting splashed and I saw that her underwear was getting wet. And she didn’t seem to care. That was what was so exciting, so blissful – she didn’t care. She should have been saying, no I’m half dressed, no, my hair will get messed up, no I have some shopping to do. But she didn’t and it was wonderful that she didn’t. S did not speak and we have neither of us spoken of it since. And it hasn‘t happened again.