He wrote a book. It was a minor hit.
Nothing major. It got a handful of good reviews. It dealt with a defining
moment in his life. This defining moment had to do with things falling apart.
It was a roman à clef,
which was irrelevant in the great scheme of things, seeing as he was a nobody. A
minor hit. The names, as they say, had been changed. He didn’t want to hurt
anyone, he wasn’t that type of person. In any case, the names weren’t
important, it was the facts, the event. He hadn’t written the book to examine
other people’s motives. He had written it to understand the past, to understand
how the past had affected the way his life had turned out. Ailsa had read it.
Of course she had. He’d made sure of that. Ailsa had inspired it. She had
reappeared in his life, one of those twists of Internet fate, and he had found
himself thinking of her and their relationship, which had lasted a few months
and been over for decades. Inevitably, he had found himself thinking of the
event. He began to write more and more, which was good, until it became
one-track, monotonous; an obsession. He wrote about it till he wrote it out of
himself. Catharsis. A fictionalised account. His book. But Ailsa wasn’t
fictional. She was real. She existed. She wasn’t a figment of his imagination,
like the past, or his version of it.
In the past, they had gone their separate ways. They were
just kids. Maybe not kids, but they were young, that was the point. It’s all
relative. It was years ago. When he left, he meant it, as far away from
Scotland as he could get for a hundred and twenty quid. A one-way ticket, the
big gesture, fuck yez, I’m off. It was her idea to meet up after all this time.
He would never have suggested it; he had got her to read the book, anything
else would have been pushing his luck. Things happen in life, things that
define you. Things that make you buy a one-way ticket to the limit of what’s in
your pocket. She’d been there at the defining moment. She hadn’t just been
there in the sense that she’d been around, that she’d been his girlfriend. She
had actually been present when the event took place, the pair of them sitting
in his tiny room, a shirt hanging from the atmospheric curtain rail and a box
of Bold under the wash hand basin. The minutiae. She was part of it. She had
been at the address. That’s what the policemen had said when they showed up,
talking into their radios, they were at the address. Okay, he had her on a
pedestal. You carry things, you can feel the weight of them slowing you down.
That’s the thing about thoughts – you try not to think them, but they follow
you around, like shadows, growing darker the more light you shine on them.
He agreed to see her. He had reached the point where he
couldn’t help himself. So much for catharsis. He wanted to see her so badly
that he lied to his wife, on an international scale, which wasn’t as difficult
as he’d imagined. He had business back home, he told her. She didn’t ask for
details. They were due a break from each other. The place where he lived had
become no less foreign over the years. He had no friends. Apart from his wife. She
was his only friend. It was his choice. They shared everything. But this, now,
this secret, was something he didn’t want to share. Not with her. It was
something between him and Ailsa, no one else. It was as if he was playing a
game, scanning the ground ahead, left, right and centre. There was a line that
marked a boundary. He imagined it as thick and white, like a line on a tennis
court. But this was no game. There were no rules, although there would be
losers, eventually. He knew this. He also knew that no matter how hard he
looked, he would never find the line, because the line was invisible, and he’d
already crossed it.
It took five minutes to book the flights. He found a
reasonably priced guest house in the West End, Haymarket. En suite, naturally,
he was a man who liked his privacy.
He arrived very late in the evening,
almost midnight, but they let him in. Despite the hour, or maybe because of it,
he shaved. Staring at himself in the mirror, after he’d finished. He’d always
had wrinkles, even as a young man, but now his eyes wore hoods of skin at the
sides, as if he had grown tired of something, or someone. He twisted the tap till
steam covered the glass.
He woke up sweating. He had dreamed
of the mirror, and the face in it. He dressed quickly. He had to get out of the
room. Edinburgh, this part of it, smelled of beer. Hops. As it always had. He purchased
a bottle of his wife’s favourite perfume in Jenners. He could have got it
cheaper on the way back, at Duty Free, but he didn’t mind paying full price. She
was worth it. She deserved it.
He walked around the gardens, but knew he was just avoiding
things. Back in the room he turned on the Internet. Ailsa hadn’t given him her
mobile number. She liked her privacy, too. There was an email from her – the
location of their rendezvous. They were to meet in a pub. He didn’t recognise
the name, but it was in the Grassmarket. Edinburgh, full of markets, full of
people selling things. The years move on, pubs close down and are replaced by
other pubs. They were to meet in a pub. She was telling him she wanted to spend
the evening getting stewed. Together, getting stewed. He found the idea
appealing. Encouraging.
He had been ready for hours. He
couldn’t sit still, he ended up fidgeting, pacing the floor. He felt stubble on
his face. He braced himself for another shave. He cut himself, quite badly. He
looked at his watch. He needed to give the cut time to heal. Balsam – he had
forgotten to pack it, he should have got some in Jenners while he was there. It
was an oversight, his own fault, like the cut. He checked his email, a towel
pressed to his throat. Ailsa was just leaving home.
She was already there, sitting at a
small table in the corner. Her eyes were on the door when he walked through it.
She hesitated, then smiled. She hadn’t changed at all. He crossed the floor to
her, the carpet like water. She reached for him. He would have embraced her,
but she kissed him on the mouth. His confusion was already total.
‘Ailsa,’ he said.
‘You’ve gone all grey,’ she said. He felt her fingers stroke
his hair.
A mirror was set in the wall behind the table, reflecting
light from the fixture in the ceiling. It blinded him for a second. ‘It would
have been nice to see you before I turned into an old man,’ he said. ‘A bit
late, eh?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It suits you.’
He wanted to ask how much time they had, but thought better
of it. At least she had come on her own. He had imagined she might bring her
husband along.
She was still smiling. ‘God, I feel nervous,’ she said.
‘That makes two of us,’ he said. ‘What are you drinking?’
She put a hand over her glass. A wedding ring and an
engagement ring, he noticed. A double crust of diamonds. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.
He ordered a whisky and told the barman to bring it to the
table. It was no big deal. The place was empty. He wanted to make the most of
his time with her. Standing alone at a bar waiting for someone to pour him a
drink would have been
‘Tell me about your wife,’ she said.
The small talk was over quickly. He made sure of that.
‘I’ll have that drink now,’ she said. He gestured to the
barman: a glass of wine. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Your book.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘It’s raised lots of questions for me.’
He had been expecting this. He had everything worked out.
Every permutation. You can’t put people into stories then invite them to read
those stories without getting some kind of reaction.
‘I’ve got a terrible memory,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m
beginning to think I’m losing it.’
‘How do you mean, Ailsa?’ he said.
The barman placed a glass on the table.
‘Thank you,’ said Ailsa. She insisted on paying. She waited till
he was back behind the bar, till they were alone. ‘It was really sad in parts,’
she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Your book,’ she said. ‘It was really sad in parts.’ She
attempted another smile. ‘I’m not much of a literary critic.’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘ “Really sad” works for me.’
‘But it’s got me thinking,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a terrible
memory.’
He placed a finger under his collar; there was an itch. He
decided not to scratch in case he opened the scab.
‘I remember some things,’ she said. ‘Like how you always
wore that green sports jacket.’
‘I threw it out years ago,’ he said, but she wasn’t
listening.
‘I remember we went to the theatre a couple of times.’
For someone with a bad memory, she could certainly remember
some things. Details. Her minutiae. After twenty years. Trivia.
She took a long drink of wine. ‘Forgive me for asking this,’
she said, ‘but is your mother still alive?’
He looked right into her eyes. They were green. He could
have sworn they were brown. There were a few wrinkles at the edges, though not
as many as there might have been. Not as many as some people had. For a moment
he thought she was teasing him, but the smile had disappeared. She was...her
lips were trembling.
‘My mother died years ago, Ailsa,’ he said. ‘When...’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s my memory, you see.’
Why was she doing this?
‘There’s these huge gaps...’
Surely she wasn’t serious?
‘Ailsa,’ he said. He wanted to look into her eyes again, but
they were fixed on the table.
Why was she doing this?
‘Some things are just a total blank,’ she said.
He had written his book to try to understand his past. Ailsa
had inspired it. He had wanted her to read it to show her that he still
remembered something they had shared, to thank her for being there when he
needed someone, really needed someone. A homage. The result of an obsession.
She wasn’t teasing him, he could see
My God, he thought. What if she doesn’t remember?
Where does that leave me?
Her silence. An invisible line, one he hadn’t crossed yet.
It wasn’t a game.
She couldn’t remember being in his room when they came
pounding on his door, shouting his name, talking into their radios, saying his
mother’s name. How could she not remember? It was part of the reason he had
She had buried it. But how could she do that? She didn’t
want to remember. She had buried it, like something dead, like his mother, like
something worse than dead, like something dirty, like rubbish. One person’s
defining moment is another person’s toxic waste. Her eyes were fixed on the
fuck that she was shaking, terrified, he could see it. She had called him a
bastard once, all those years ago. He had tasted blood in his mouth, his own
blood. He had deserved it. Hurt begets harm. He was a different person then. A
boy. He was a man now. He didn’t want to hurt people. He never had. He didn’t
want to hurt her. She didn’t want to be reminded. Certain things
should...certain things should not...certain things never happened, for some
people. He was different now, he wasn’t the person he had been, but some things
were the same.
This wasn’t about his book.
It never had been.
This wasn’t fiction, it was poetry. It was real.
It is real.
It is happening now.
A shadow. Someone sits down. It isn’t the barman.
‘Hi, toots. Are you ready?’
‘This is my husband,’ says Ailsa.
‘I’m Michael,’ says the man, her husband, the winner.
Testosterone Nemesis in a two-piece suit. ‘You must be...’
I turn to Ailsa. It would have been nice to hear her say my
name; she hasn’t used it once since I came in. Maybe that is something else she
has forgotten.
‘Ailsa’s told me all about you,’ says Michael.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m sure she has.’ I imagine my wife. She is
at my side. I would ask her, my only friend, to sit with us, but there is no
room at the table. How did she find me here? How did she know the address? Perhaps
she has come to help me, at this moment when I really need someone. We are in
Edinburgh, in the Grassmarket, but no one is buying what I want to sell. It is
another defining moment. Life is full of them. Her face wears no expression. She
deserves better. She deserves better than this. I reach out, but her image
fades quickly as she turns away from the failed deceit.
I think of perfume, with hope verging on desperation.
Everyone is standing. Hands are shaken. It is over. Again.
Suddenly. Nothing has been said. I feel my mouth being kissed, then Ailsa is
gone. She is gone, with her husband, into the future, hand in hand, where they
will be happy. I am on my own. Alone with the stained glassware. I have to lean
on something. I catch the light reflecting off the mirror. I stand there like
that, I don’t know how long, staring into the light till it blinds me, till I
feel the heat inside my eyes, inside my head, forcing myself to stare into the
light, the exquisite pain, wishing the memories gone, cremated, willing them to
burn till they leave no trace, no pain, no shadows at all, till all that’s left
is me, the player, the loser, the nobody swaying awkwardly in the corner of
this bar, two thousand miles from home, from my real home, from the place where
I belong.
© 2012
This story is taken from the collection A Man's Hands - link at the side of the page.
