Memory of Love (9781101603024) (19 page)

22.

I slept restlessly and woke early. During that darkest hour of the late night, the hour the Chinese call the liver hour, when death seems close and life precarious, I had lain awake.

I had thought about Ika. I tried to look at myself objectively. Had I used him? Was he simply a tool for me to give my soul peace? Redeem myself? Could I ever isolate my feelings for Ika from my past? See him as he was, see
his
true needs, not my own?

I cared for him. I loved him. But the ‘I' was the person shaped by the life that had been mine.

Perhaps I should abandon my attempt at being allowed to care for him?

But the grim, grey hour passed, and I fell asleep again.

When I woke, it was raining. Strangely, it felt comforting. Energising. I got out of bed and went into the kitchen.

To my surprise Ika was sitting at the table. I had not heard him arrive, but he was a master at moving soundlessly.

He had set the table for two, with mugs and plates, butter and jam. As I sat down he leapt over to the bench and popped two slices of bread into the toaster.

Then he sat down again.

If I had thought it possible, I would have thought that he looked expectant.

‘What a great beginning to the day,' I said. ‘But where is George? Does he know you're here?'

Ika nodded.

I looked at the clock. It was half past six.

The toast jumped out of the toaster and Ika dashed over to collect it. Then he picked up the kettle. I watched anxiously as he held it with both his hands and balanced it back to the table and put it down.

‘Can I start?'

He nodded.

He watched while I buttered a piece of toast. He had the look of a concerned cook, waiting to hear the verdict of a guest.

‘Wonderful,' I said. ‘To have someone cook you breakfast is the best.'

Then he finally served himself and we ate in silence for a moment.

‘What do you think about this house?' I asked after a little while.

‘Good,' he said.

‘It needs cleaning, don't you think?'

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘The only tidy place is your room.'

No comment.

‘I'm going to have a go at it today. Try and get some order in our house.'

Our house.

Some days start out well, and only get better. Just as we had finished clearing the table, George arrived. When I told him I planned to start cleaning up my house he offered to help. I watched them, Ika and George, where they stood close to each other, looking back at me with an expression of anticipation. So I accepted the offer and put them to work.

It rained until midday, then the sun broke through the clouds. We took a break and sat down to have lunch on the deck. The sun glistened on the water where it had collected in drops and pools. Everything felt hopeful.

There was even less in my barren pantry now, but I managed to cook an omelette with tomatoes and potatoes. We were hungry, all three, I think, and we savoured the simple food.

We lugged out heaps of rubbish. Even though I had cleared some things in order to make a room for Ika, I had not made an effort to discard much. I had just shifted my rubbish around. But now it went. The heap behind the house grew, and George promised to get his van later and take it all to the dump.

Then we began the cleaning. George vacuumed, I mopped and Ika dusted. We worked swiftly, and it felt surprisingly satisfying. Shortly after four, we seemed to be finished.

Everything looked different. My home had gained a different persona. Or perhaps it was my perspective that had changed. It felt like removing a garment that you have worn for ages just to keep warm, and discovering that it is beautiful. I walked through the rooms and it felt as if I were seeing them for the first time. In my bedroom I spotted the magazine, still sitting on my bedside table. I walked over and put it in a drawer. I wondered if Ika or George had seen it.

‘I liked it as it was,' George said. ‘But even things that are naturally beautiful are even more so when clean and tidy. What do you say, Ika?' He put his hand on Ika's head, as if it were the most natural thing to do. To my surprise, Ika made no attempt to withdraw. He allowed George's hand to pat him and tousle his hair.

I looked at George but I saw no sign of his having realised how extraordinary this was.

‘I think we should go for a swim,' he said.

Good idea, we all thought, and I went to collect some towels.

George went to his car and returned with two body-boards. They looked brand new.

It had been a long time since I had swum in the ocean. Although the sea was present in practically all my activities, at least as a background, I almost never swam in it. Here, it wasn't recommended to swim alone. Rips and unpredictable waves made it too risky – you were supposed to have company.

I had never felt lonely before, but as I stood there on the beach watching George and Ika throw themselves into the waves on their boards, I realised for the first time how lonely I had been. So lonely I had stopped swimming. My aloneness had never bothered me; I hadn't even been aware of it. But now it overwhelmed me. The awareness washed over me with painful sharpness and deep grief. Now that I had company.

And that was how it had been with the love of my life. Not until I experienced love did I realise what I had been living without. I had lived without love for so very long, never aware of its absence. Never once missing it. Unless the restlessness that pushed me to divorce my husband could be regarded as an unconscious stirring. A blind step away from something unsatisfactory, but with no clear direction.

When it was all over, I could have answered Michael's impossible question.

It is at the point of transition that awareness is created. The step into another state changes everything. As long as I was living in a state of ignorance, I had functioned. But I had not lived.

As I stood clutching the towels I knew I could not give up this. I could never accept being alone again.

Then I let go of the towels and ran towards the sea.

We had dinner at George's house that evening.

‘I'm not a great cook, not like you, but I have a full pantry,' he said when we parted. He took Ika with him and they drove off.

I went inside for a shower. Wrapped in my towel, I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down on the deck.

I stroked my arms. I realised it was no longer a young woman's skin. Strange, I thought, how you live inside your body and take for granted that it will forever be the same. And it is, yet it is not. All that I was, was carried inside my body, yet it had little resemblance to the body of the girl or the woman who featured in my memories. The little girl walking with her hand in her grandfather's. That was me. The distraught girl on the ferry to Stockholm. The girl shivering in her wet and bloodied nightgown – that was me too.

The woman with the easy laughter, she was also me.

I turned the wine glass in my hands and stared out over the sea. And I saw all the different pictures. All the different versions of me. And I felt such tenderness. They all belonged to me, and I had a space for each and every one. They were all me. I was all of them. The sum of them.

I went and got the magazine and put it in front of me.

She looked at me with the same intensity.

I let my finger follow the features of her face.

It looked as if she had just turned her head, as if someone had called her name. Called it lovingly. Her wet hair had been caught just as it was being flicked back, sweeping around her head and filling the air with glittering droplets. She was looking over her shoulder, a look filled with laughter. Such an easy, natural laughter, and it seemed to embrace every part of her, fill all the space around her.

She was me.

When they return, it's time for lunch. He fries bacon and scrambles eggs, and from where she sits watching, the smell is heavenly. They sit in their low deckchairs and eat slowly. It is as if they are trying to draw out every moment. The beer is lukewarm by now, but it is still another perfect meal.

She knows he has a meeting scheduled with an elderly local man who has agreed to be interviewed. And photographed. She is curious to see how he works, but she has a feeling that this is something he wants to do on his own, so she suggests that he go without her. She has things to do. Whatever they may be. How can she bear to be away from him for even a few minutes?

She knows she was right, for he nods. And smiles. And says he won't be long. He takes the car and drives off.

The sense of loneliness is terrible. How can this be? She is a thirty-six-year-old woman, used to living without company. Used to managing herself and her time efficiently. But here she sits and can't think what to do. She just waits. She is helplessly exposed to something she can't control, can't understand. Something that makes her behave utterly senselessly.

It is his birthday, and she has nothing to give him. She sits on the ground by the entrance to the tent, her arms around her knees, thinking. Then she crawls inside and pulls out her backpack, opens it and digs around until she finds what she is looking for. The CD she bought in Singapore. Bill Evans. She had recognised the cover when she spotted it in a store, and had thought of Brian. It was an old recording, one of Brian's favourites that had become hers too. Or perhaps it was the whole thing, the entire situation, not just the music, that she had come to love so much. To sit in Brian's lap, listening to the soft music, not talking at all, evening after evening during that early time. Their special song had become ‘Peace Piece', the third to last. They had played it so often the record was worn and often skipped. It was as if this music had become the fragile cord that kept her attached to life. And slowly, slowly, to this music, she had begun to live again.

It is the right gift today.

She takes his little pocket-knife and goes for a walk to cut some flax. In Auckland she had seen little baskets woven out of the tall sharp
Phormium
leaves. They grow in abundance and she finds what she needs quickly. The sky is high and clear and completely empty. No godwits today. Perhaps they have left. But she finds a couple of small feathers and picks them up. She doesn't know if they are godwit feathers but she likes to think they are. Just like on the first day, her walk turns out to be much longer than she intended. It is as if this landscape sucks her in completely. Makes her forget time and space.

Herself.

When finally she gets back she sits down on the ground and begins the work. It is harder than she thought. The leaves are sharp and stiff. She splices them into narrow strips and rubs them to try and make them a little softer and easier to work. Then she lays the strips on the ground and begins to plait them. She has imagined a small flat folder for the CD and the result is not far off. She sticks the CD into the folder and closes it with one of the feathers. She has just finished when she hears the car, and pops the gift into her backpack.