Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

‘Oh, dear.’

‘You’re telling me. Then I lost it. I told her I loved her. I do love her, Chris. And I thought that if I told her that, and really meant it, she’d have to say she loved me. But she didn’t. She just went completely still. She didn’t say what she thought about me. She just said that it’d be best if we didn’t see each other any more.’

Duncan took a sip of his water.

‘I couldn’t bear the thought of that. I only have two more weeks in New York; I want to be with Lenka for that whole time. So I told her we should keep seeing each other and forget about the future for now. But she wouldn’t have any of it. I kept telling her, but she wouldn’t listen. In the end she more or less threw me out.’

‘And you went drinking?’

‘I couldn’t believe what had happened. I still can’t. We have something very special, she and I. She’s the most marvellous person I’ve ever met. I’m not going to meet anyone else like her again, am I?’ He looked at Chris, demanding an answer.

‘Lenka is unique,’ said Chris carefully.

‘Of course she is,’ said Duncan. ‘One moment, I think we’re going to live our lives together, and the next...’

‘It must have been tough.’

‘It was. It is. Oh, God.’ To Chris’s embarrassment, tears began to run down Duncan’s face. Chris had no idea what to say. Lenka knew her own mind, and if she had called it off, it was off. Duncan would just have to get over it. But that would be no easy matter, Chris knew.

‘When you feel up to it, we’ll go for a walk in the park. We can talk about it,’ said Chris.

‘That would be good,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ll be up in a minute.’

Chris went through to the living room. Ian was reading the Sunday New York Times .

‘What’s up with him?’ Ian said, his eyes on the paper.

‘Lenka chucked him.’

‘I knew she was out of his league.’ He put down the paper and groaned. ‘I’m not sure I can face the moaning. It’s going to be pretty bad.’

It was pretty bad. Duncan was inconsolable. He didn’t sleep. He drank Ian’s whisky late into the night, and when he’d finished that, went out and bought some of his own. He called Lenka at odd times during the day and night, until she stopped answering the phone. He was an embarrassment in class, conspicuously moping in front of her, and refusing to tell anyone what was wrong. Some of the other trainees were worried and asked Chris and Ian what was the matter with him. Chris and Ian felt they had to deny any knowledge of Duncan’s problems, something Ian found easier to do than Chris.

Chris tried to be as sympathetic as he could, but even he was exasperated by Duncan. The programme was hotting up. The final exam would be a four-hour test on Capital Markets, and everyone knew that Waldern wouldn’t make it easy. The whole class revised hard, with the exception of Duncan. This worried Chris. Duncan was in forty-first position, only five above the dreaded bottom quartile, and the Capital Markets exam had a large weighting. When Chris and Ian were sweating away in the evening, Duncan was either out in a bar somewhere or, even worse, in his room with a bottle of whisky.

The study group still met regularly at Eric and Alex’s apartment, but Duncan never showed. Although the others were worried about him, they were glad to avoid his poor humour. Lenka still came. She seemed a little more subdued than normal, but otherwise she seemed to be in much better shape than Duncan.

Chris was leaving a session early, the Thursday evening following the break up, when Lenka rushed out to catch him up. They walked down Columbus Avenue together.

‘How’s Duncan?’ she asked.

‘Not good.’

‘Oh.’ They walked on in silence. Then Lenka spoke. ‘I like him, you know. And I’m worried about him. You will look after him, won’t you?’

‘I’m trying,’ said Chris. ‘But it’s difficult.’

‘The problem is that if I try to be nice to him myself, it only encourages him. I need him to know that it’s finished. We must make a clean break. Otherwise, he’ll be hurt much more later on. Do you understand?’

‘I think so.’ Chris didn’t want to take sides, so he was trying to be as non-committal as possible. But he thought that Lenka was probably right; with Duncan, a ‘maybe’ would be fatal.

‘I didn’t mislead him, you know,’ said Lenka. ‘We were just having fun. I didn’t think it was particularly serious; I thought we both understood that. Then, when he said he wanted to give up his job to live with me, I realized he saw our relationship very differently from me. So I ended it. It would have been wrong to let it go on.’

‘Couldn’t you see Duncan was head over heels in love with you?’

Lenka sighed. ‘No. I always have this problem with men. I start a relationship with a nice man, we have fun, and then one day they go serious on me. I thought that Duncan would be different; after all, the training programme is finite. It should have had a built-in break-up date. But Duncan won’t accept that.’

‘So what’s wrong with a serious relationship, anyway?’

‘I had one. In Prague. We were engaged to be married. He was a medical student, and I loved him. But after the Velvet Revolution, when I had the opportunity to get out of our boring country and see the world, he wouldn’t let me.’

‘Wouldn’t let you? How could he stop you?’

‘He had a fixed idea of our relationship. Czech women get married much younger than Western European or American women. His idea was that we would get married, he would qualify as a doctor, and I would follow him wherever the job took him. Just like my mother did with my father. You know he is a doctor?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Well, I thought I had two choices. I could experience the new life of the West, or I could be a boring Czech wife and mother at twenty-five. It was a difficult decision, I did love Karel, but in the end there was only one choice that was the right one for me. Go to the United States.’

‘And since then?’

‘The last thing I need now is a serious relationship.’

‘Why?’ asked Chris. That’s all a lot of people are looking for.’

Lenka thought carefully before answering. ‘I guess I don’t know who I really am, or who I want to be. It’s hard for you to imagine what Czechoslovakia was like under the Communists. America is so different; and most of the differences I like. I know I’m changing, but I don’t quite know how. I won’t become an American, even if I live here for a while. I will always be Czech, and one day I will go back to my country and do something for it, perhaps using the skills I’m learning here.’

‘I see.’

‘So, I’m totally unsuited to a long-term commitment with Duncan or anyone else for that matter. For one thing, Duncan wouldn’t know who it was he was committed to.’ Lenka bit her lip. ‘I know I’ve hurt Duncan, and I didn’t mean to. But I hurt Karel, and myself, so much more. I don’t want to do that again.’

‘I understand,’ said Chris.

‘Do you?’ asked Lenka, looking at him closely. ‘Do you really?’

‘I think so.’

‘Can you make Duncan understand that?’

Chris paused. ‘I don’t know. Probably not. Duncan is not very rational at the moment.’

‘You can say that again. I tried to talk to him again a couple of nights ago and I still got nowhere. But this can’t go on. He’s acting as if we’re married and I’ve run off with another man. He calls me at any time in the day or night, he makes a fool of himself in front of me in class. He follows me. He sends me letters I never read. He whispers things to me about how his life isn’t worth living. I have to make him realize it’s over.’