Kissing Through a Pane of Glass (12 page)

So, perhaps, that’s where the answer lies. Emotional pain is Nature’s way of ensuring we don’t enjoy life too much, don’t get too attached to it, too fond of it, so that when death comes, as it must, we don’t feel cheated. If this is the case, if all that pain is just to make sure we don’t turn around and start complaining when the grim reaper starts knocking on the door, then I’d prefer a different arrangement.

Give me a disclaimer to sign. Right now. I promise not to get pissed off with anyone when it’s my turn to die. I won’t shout and scream, I won’t get angry, I won’t complain, I won’t ask for my money back. In return, free me from this awful thing called pain. I’ve had enough. I’ve learnt my lesson. I understand: life’s no great shakes, it’s only short, and very soon it will all be over.

See? I really do understand.

Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, was a great disappointment to us after the ease and pleasures of Pushkar. It was a noisy, aggressive city full of rip-off merchants and unfriendly natives. Agra had been a tourist destination for too long, and the locals saw every visitor as a candidate for fleecing. We stayed only long enough to view the main attraction, then departed swiftly on the overnight train to Benares.

But not before the damage had been done. Liana was touched-up no less than three times during our twenty-four-hour stay in this miserable excuse for a city, and on the third occasion she lost her temper so completely, with such vehemence, that I felt sure she was going to attack physically the greasy, pathetic little man who had violated her. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone so angry and upset, and for several hours after the incident, Liana was still visibly shaken.

I tried my best to calm her down, commiserating with her over the offence whilst at the same time trying to keep the whole thing in perspective, but Liana was having none of it; she was furious, and wanted to remain that way. If anyone had dared touch her during the remainder of the day, they’d have been dead meat.

The second-class sleeper was packed for the journey eastwards, and neither of us slept well. Consequently we arrived in Benares the following evening, jaded and tetchy, only to find the autorickshaw drivers giving us as hard a time as their colleagues in Agra had done. We were too tired to fight it, so allowed one particularly disreputable-looking driver to take us to the hotel of his choice. Thankfully, the place was clean and relatively inexpensive, and rarely had a bed looked so inviting. We collapsed into a semi-comatose state at about nine that night and slept right through until ten the next morning.

Although she woke refreshed from her long night’s sleep, Liana was still in a foul mood the following morning. Whether the Agra experience was actually responsible for her change of heart, or merely a catalyst, I could not tell. All I knew was that, suddenly, Liana was sick of India. She’d had enough.

We walked around the town that day. I tried to stay cheerful and optimistic, but this had no effect on her. Scenes that had previously seemed fascinating to Liana were now dismissed as ugly. What had once been lively and electric was now just crowded and dirty. She was fed up with the people, sick of the food. She wanted to go home.

The change in Liana was so dramatic that it caught me completely off guard. I thought, perhaps, that fatigue had coloured her feelings, and tried to suggest that we should just take it easy for a couple of days, but even this idea was shot down in flames. As the day wore on, Liana became more and more miserable; by nightfall she had become quite tearful, and I realised there was only one solution.

We would have to go home.

I slept poorly that night, waking several times. At around five in the morning, I woke for the final time. I knew there was no way I would get back to sleep, so I got out of bed quietly - Liana was still fast asleep - washed swiftly and threw on some clothes.

Out on the street the rickshaw drivers were already gathering in the cold morning darkness, waiting to catch the fresh shoals of travellers that keep them fed. Laxman, a small, elderly Hindu with a roguish, gap-toothed smile, asked me if I wanted to go down to the river; he explained in his broken English that the sun would be rising soon, and that it was a good time to see the Ganges. I knew Liana would be in no mood for sightseeing, so having agreed a price I allowed Laxman to peddle me down to the
ghats
, the stepped banks of the holy river, where I negotiated for a boat and boatman. The sun had yet to appear and despite a cool breeze, wafting across from the river, I was still half asleep, and don’t suppose I conducted the most impressive piece of bargaining.

We set off southwards.
Dhobi wallahs
and a few eager bathers were already on the
ghats
, the former belting all manner of dirt out of the laundry by swinging it against large flat stones, the latter braving the cold, filthy water. My boatman explained that this would be the first of up to five ritual bathes that day. A thick, unappealing scum floated on the surface, beneath which a still, murky green fluid appeared to ferment. The sun, red and cool, lifted above the horizon. A rotting cow carcass drifted by. I wondered what sort of dedication was required to bathe in this water five times a day.

A few other boats glided slowly along the river; an eerie quiet attenuated sound and action. Benares was waking slowly, in much the same way, I suspected, as it had done for thousands of years. At the southernmost
ghat
the boat turned. By the time we reached the northern stretch, the river had sprung to life. Here were scenes of unparalleled fascination. For a few minutes I began to doubt the wisdom of my decision to return home; where else in the world would one ever come across scenes like these?

And it wasn’t just the hordes of men, women and children involved in their daily rituals that appealed. All along the banks of the Ganges stood a collection of innumerable styles of building, heaped up in stacks, all in various stages of decay. The overall appearance was one of unreality, as if someone had constructed a set for some hybrid oriental/medieval/science-fiction movie, with towers, balustrades, balconies, temples, turrets and windowless walls rising resplendently towards the brilliant blue sky, a sublime backdrop of colour and form, before which the extraordinary ritual of mass-bathing was played out with solemnity, abandonment, fastidiousness and great humour.

At Manikarnika
ghat
, the last embers of a cremation smoked spookily as a huge pile of ashes overflowed unceremoniously into the river. Four pallbearers carried a cloth-wrapped body supported on a stretcher down the steps and immersed it in the river. As the stretcher was lifted clear, a bloody torrent poured from the corpse, and my stomach turned as the reddened pool collected ominously on the still surface of the waters. Body and soul were two very distinct concepts here; the bloody, rotting corpse had been just a vehicle, a container, and now that it was empty, it meant nothing. The soul had departed, so the body could be consigned to the flames without a second thought.

I had never seen a dead body up close before, and certainly never witnessed a cremation. Somehow, watching the flesh catch fire, seeing how matter-of-fact this all was to the Hindus, made me realise how pointless and wasteful are the ceremonies we have in the West for despatching our dead. This was surely the more sensible way.

I arrived back at the hotel just as Liana was waking up. I was still confused about her change of heart, but I didn’t tell her about where I’d been or what I’d seen; somehow I knew it would be the wrong thing to do. Instead, I took off my clothes, slid into bed beside her, and kissed her on the nose.

‘Good morning.’

‘Hi. Where have you been?’

‘Just for a walk. How are you feeling?’

‘Lonely.’

‘Lonely?’

‘Mmm. I woke up and you weren’t here.’

‘I’m sorry love; I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.’

Liana put her arms around me and kissed me. ‘I’ll always want you to be there Michael. . .when I wake up. Tell me you’ll always be there.’ There was a plaintive tone to her voice; for a moment I thought she might cry.

‘I promise,’ I said, and spent the rest of the day wondering why I found it so easy to promise the impossible.

Most people seem to possess certain mechanisms - either inherent or acquired - to help protect themselves from severe emotional trauma. In their relationships and interactions with other people they act with a degree of caution, they always hold back - even in close relationships - so that there is a part of themselves that is safe, untouched; something to fall back on when, after the love has gone, they are on their own again.

I was born without such a self-protection mechanism, neither did I acquire it in my youth. Perhaps it was all that love and affection showered on me as a child. Who knows? Either way, it has left me extremely vulnerable, and when I hurt, when I suffer, it seems to take on a quality quite unlike anything other people have experienced. When love turns sour and a relationship looks about to destroy itself under the internal tensions, I become a desperate man. The thought that someone might leave me fills me with dread - a sort of existential horror of being alone - and I would rather suffer any amount of torment than submit to that. Even in the final stages of the break-up, you will see me snatching and clutching at anything and everything like a drowning man clinging to the wreckage.

It is a pathetic sight; a man so desperate not to be on his own that he will demean himself and tolerate words and actions so hurtful that anyone witnessing his behaviour would pronounce him mad. This madness extends into other areas of my life. 0ne way in which it manifests itself is that perennial curse of the insecure, the obsessive neurotic’s
béte noir
; jealousy.

Unlike envy, which I had experienced in one form or another for most of my adolescence, sexual jealousy had eluded me because, of course, I never had anything to be jealous of. Until I met Jo. Going out with an attractive woman can be fraught with danger for someone who has yet to understand the nature of his own obsessive tendencies. On the one hand, I found Jo attractive and sexy, and enjoyed finding her so. On the other hand, Jo’s attraction was not limited solely to myself. Initially I derived a certain proprietorial pleasure from watching other men eye her up and down, wishing they were sleeping with her, but such pleasure was short-lived, and I have my good friend Richard to thank for that.

I had been going out with Jo for about six months when the troubles began. We were lying in bed one night, side by side, holding hands in the aftermath of our lovemaking. It was always a supremely peaceful time; after sex, I always felt clear, becalmed, and would allow my mind to drift wherever it wanted. On this occasion, and for no particular reason, I recalled a story Richard had told me that day concerning one of the Social Science tutors, a scurrilous piece of gossip that I’d found both amusing and intriguing. I began to tell Jo the story, but no sooner had I mentioned Richard’s name than she began to get irritated.

‘What’s up, Jo? What’s the matter?’ I asked, squeezing her hand slightly.

‘Nothing,’ said Jo, the word snapping like a broken rubber band.

‘Come on. Tell me.’

Jo sighed. ‘I’m sick to death of hearing about Richard, that’s all. Honestly Michael, he’s all you ever talk about. It’s Richard this and Richard that... I just don’t think it’s very healthy to be so preoccupied with him.’

‘Healthy?’

‘He’s a bad influence.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’ Jo leant over to the bedside table and turned on the light. I sat up in bed, puzzled and a little shocked by the outburst. Jo never had a bad word for anyone, and she’d certainly never mentioned Richard before in anything other than the most benign of terms.

‘What is this, Jo? You’ve never said anything to me before about it. I had no idea you felt so strongly.’

Jo shrugged. She was evidently feeling very uncomfortable having brought the subject up. ‘I didn’t want to say anything. I know he’s your closest friend, and I didn’t want to upset you. In fact, I wish I hadn’t said anything now.’

‘You should have said something earlier.’ I took her hand again and squeezed it gently, but Jo did not respond. There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence, during which time it dawned on me that Jo’s comments were no mere spontaneous outburst. There was almost certainly more to this than met the eye. I could tell from her expression that something had been left unsaid.

‘Tell me,’ I said at last.

‘Tell you what?’ Jo’s ingenuousness was often appealing, but when she was faking it was just aggravating.