Still Waters

Eleven

She could feel it happening. The listlessness that crept over her, those evenings when he had neither arrived nor phoned; evenings which previously she would have used productively, reading, preparing work, enjoying the space and time before settling back downstairs at ten to watch whatever was on TV. Northern Exposure. Frasier. ER. Or she would be on the telephone to friends, arranging to meet for a drink, a chat, a movie perhaps. And there were those evenings when she would crawl home from school like someone who had been beaten, those days when for one reason or another the kids had left her exhausted and drained. But all of this was okay, this was what she could handle, it was her life: pleasant, controlled, contained. And she could feel what was happening with Resnick beginning to threaten that in so many ways and, much as she enjoyed being with him, it was hard not to resent him for it.

She recognized the feelings from before; first with Andrew and then with Jim. An Irishman who taught poetry and a musician who taught clarinet, oboe, and bassoon. Andrew aggressively and Jim by default, both men had made her dependent upon them. Not for money, stability; not, exactly, for love. Presence, that’s what it was: need, the need of one person.

Outside a relationship she was fine, living on her own something she had learned, something she had earned the right to do. She had her job, her immediate family, her network of friends, some of whom she had known since university, a few since school. But once a commitment was made, however unclear or uncertain, then no matter how hard she tried to resist it, things began to change.

Hannah smiled to herself wryly, remembering the key she had slipped into Resnick’s pocket-what? — six weeks ago, two months? So casual a gesture, almost insignificant. Now it felt as though she had handed over part of herself, the part that allowed her to stand up straight, on her own two feet and clear-eyed.

She thought about her mother, abandoned in the dust-free suburban home in which she had lived for more than thirty years, Hannah’s room still first left at the top of the stairs. Posters of famine and forgotten pop stars, teddy bears. Her father was living in France with a twenty-nine-year-old writer called Robyn who had just sold her first novel. Robyn with a Y.

“It won’t last, Dad,” she’d told him, cutting into her capricciosa in Pizza Express. “It can’t. She’ll leave you, you know that, don’t you?”

Stupidly happy, her father had sipped his Peroni and smiled. “Of course she will. In time.”

It was three and a half years now, shading up to four. And Hannah? Eighteen months with Andrew, a little over two years with Jim. The way her mother bit her lip heroically when the question of grandchildren came to mind. Birthdays on the calendar, challenging time. Did she really want to make herself vulnerable to all of that again, the disappointment, the pain?

When the doorbell rang, it wasn’t Resnick, forgetting his key, but Jane, lines of sorrow plump around her eyes.

They sat in the kitchen while Hannah made tea, impatient for the kettle to boil; drank it at the table, Jane holding her cup with both hands, steadying it slowly to her mouth. Upstairs in Hannah’s study, they sat in the bay window, Jane with her feet tucked up beneath her in the easy chair, Hannah on a cushion on the floor. Dark spread like a slow bruise across the park.

Three times Jane started to speak and each time she betrayed herself with tears.

Getting lightly to her feet, Hannah touched Jane’s hand, and leaning over from behind the chair, kissed her gently on the head, gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I’ve got some things I should be doing downstairs. I’ll be back up in a while.”

Hannah organized the books and folders she wanted for the next day, wrote a quick card to her mother, rinsed the supper things. She was sorting some clothes, ready for the wash, when the phone rang.

“Charlie …”

Resnick’s voice was muffled, remote; strange to think he was no more than a mile or so away.

“No, I don’t think so, Charlie, not really. Not tonight. It’s just …”

Resnick was quick to assure her she didn’t need to explain.

“Tomorrow, then,” Hannah said. “How about tomorrow? We could get something to eat; a movie, maybe. If you’re feeling up to it.”

Resnick told her he had to be in London, didn’t know what time he would be back.

“Okay, no problem. And look, I’m sorry about tonight.” She made hot chocolate, whisking the milk; upstairs, Jane’s head lolled sideways in the chair and her eyes were closed. Hannah was about to turn around again and go back down when Jane stirred.

“I thought you were asleep,” Hannah said.

“Just for a minute, that’s all.”

“Here.”

Taking the thick white china mug, Jane sipped at it and laughed.

“What?”

“I haven’t had this for years.”

Hannah settled herself back down, cross-legged on the floor. One lamp was burning at the far side of the room, illuminating shelves of books, a segment of table, sanded boards, an orange arc of wall.

“Do you want to phone Alex?” Hannah said. “Tell him where you are.”

“No, I don’t think so. Thanks.”

“We had this row, earlier. Before I went out. Alex had come home and I’d not been there. I mean, he was back sooner than I’d thought, an appointment had been canceled or something, I don’t know, and I’d stopped off in town after school. Just looking round the shops, nothing …” Jane looked across at Hannah and paused. “He’d only been in twenty minutes, half an hour at most.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wasn’t there. He got angry, upset.”

“But why? I mean, what does he expect, for heaven’s sake?”

Shrilly, Jane laughed.

“You to be there at his beck and call? Rush home after school and get his dinner ready for him, warm his slippers by the fire?”

“No. No, it’s not like that. That’s not what it’s about.”

“What then?”

Jane took her time. “It’s to do with …”

“Control, that’s what it’s to do with.”

“He wants to know exactly where I am, what I’m doing, all of the time.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

“Unreasonable.”

“It’s the way it is.”

Hannah sighed. “He’s got to understand, surely, you’ve got a life of your own.”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“According to Alex, we’re married and that’s that. We don’t have lives of our own.”

“Oh, fine …”

“He says that’s the whole point.”

“It’s his point. That’s the trouble. His rules, his timetable.”

“He says it’s the same for him.”

“Except you don’t start climbing up the wall if he’s twenty minutes late getting home.”

“No.”

“So he can come and go as he pleases.”

“But he doesn’t. I always know where he is, what he’s doing, every minute of the day. If he says he’ll be in at five twenty-five, at five twenty-five there he is. So why shouldn’t it be the same with me?”

“Come on, Jane. How many answers do you want? You’re a grown woman doing a difficult job. You’ve got your own friends. Damn it, you married him; it wasn’t an operation joining you both at the hip.”

“Look, Hannah, I know it’s difficult for you to understand …”

“Because I’m not married, you mean?”

“Maybe.”

“Jane, I’m your friend. Married or not, I can see what’s happening to you, how unhappy you are. I’ve got a right to be concerned.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I am grateful. And I don’t know what I’m doing, sitting here defending him.”

“Habit? Duty?”

Jane shook her head. “I really don’t know.”

“Do you still love him?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Hannah leaned close toward her. “Have you thought about leaving him?”

Jane laughed. “Only all the time.”

“And he knows?”

“Not because of anything I’ve said.”

“But you think he does know?”

“He suspects, he must do.”

“And you think that’s why he’s behaving like this?”

Jane stepped to the window, leaned forward until her forehead was pressing against the glass. Small bats cavorted outside, splintering the space between the house and the trees. When she turned back into the room, the ghost of her mouth remained, a blur of breath upon the pane.

“It isn’t only … He’s jealous, that’s part of what this is all about. Just jealous.”

“What of?”

“Oh,” Jane gestured widely. “Anyone. Men. You. Our neighbor across the street. Anyone. It doesn’t really matter.” Slowly, she shook her head. “He thinks I must be having an affair.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Of course it is.”

“Then why?”

“Because … Oh, because … He says it’s why I don’t want him any more. Sexually, I mean.”

“And that’s true? Not wanting him, that’s how you feel?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean …”

“I know. I know.”

Jane came to where Hannah was sitting and reached out her hand. “It’s just a bloody mess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And I don’t know what to do.”

Hannah squeezed her friend’s hand and rested it against her cheek.

“I’m frightened. I really am.”

“You’ll be all right,” Hannah said, encouragingly, and then she realized Jane was starting to shake. “Come on,” she said, levering herself to her feet. “Come on over here and sit down.”

“The light,” Jane said.

“What about it? Is it too bright? I can turn it off.”

“No, I want you to come with me, over to the light.”

She pulled free her cotton top, pushed down the waistband of the skirt, and half-turned away: the bruise shone purple-black in the glow of the lamp, slick and fierce as a man’s fist.