Rebecca Connell - The Art of Losing

She was hurrying away from the lab, almost running as she elbowed her way through the spreading crowd of students. I had to stride to keep her within sight, focusing my eyes on the slight but powerful set of her shoulders in their white shirt, her hair drawn up enticingly from the nape of her neck. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. I followed her through the exit at the back of the English block, leading out on to the backstreets that wound towards the river. She weaved through the streets, never looking back, making me feel like a stalker. I was excited now, willing to play her game. I had guessed by now where she was taking me. Sure enough, she took an abrupt right, and the church loomed in front of us. She unhooked the gate that led to the churchyard and slipped swiftly inside, leaving it off the latch for me. Still she didn’t look back. She padded softly across the grass, slower now, taking her time to choose a spot. At last she came to a halt underneath a low cherry tree, masses of white and pink blossoms exploding across its thread-thin branches and casting a rose-tinged shadow on to the grass beneath. I came up behind her, put my arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck, burying my face in the warm scented sweep of her hair. The touch seemed to flick a switch inside her. She twisted around in my arms and seized my face in her hands, brought her lips violently up against mine. I had thought she would be pliant, beseeching, easy to mould or overcome. Instead, as we kissed, I was shocked to feel the stirring of something strong and defiant, a will that could conquer my own. It was her whose fingers stealthily worked at the buttons of my shirt, her who took my hands and guided them, her who shook her head and pulled me towards her again roughly when I drew back and looked around. I began to speak – concerned someone might stumble upon us, someone might see – but she shook her head, staring at me, and suddenly it didn’t seem important any more. We made love quickly, without ceremony. Her face was pale and transported, her head thrown back against the carpet of blossoms. It couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes, but in those minutes everything changed. If any small cruel part of me had thought that once I had fucked her I could forget about her, it shrivelled and died.

Afterwards she was silent, turning away from me and lying on her side, her skirt still rucked up around her thighs. I ran my fingers through her pale gold hair, carefully unwinding its strands and releasing the scattered cherry blossoms that had tangled their way in among them. It was a few minutes before she rolled on to her stomach and looked up at me, eyes narrowing in the sun.

‘I love you,’ I said, because she seemed to expect me to say something, and because I meant it.

She looked more sad than rapturous, bowing her head towards the grass. ‘I can see that,’ she said. It should have sounded arrogant, but somehow it didn’t. As would often come to be the case with her, I had a feeling that there was a subtext beneath her words which I couldn’t catch, but which would always absolve her. ‘I want you to know that this is the first time I’ve done this,’ she continued.

‘Do you love him?’ I asked. I was prepared for either answer, or for the shaky middle ground of uncertainty. She nodded, and that was fine, because I didn’t believe her. ‘How long have you been married?’

She mumbled something I couldn’t hear, so I asked her again. ‘Six months,’ she said, loudly and clearly this time, as if daring me to show any shock.

Despite myself, I was shocked. In my head I had built up an image of a marriage gone to seed. A teenage Lydia married far too young, a few happy years, then a growing sense of restlessness, the realisation of a decision too quickly and impulsively made. Not a cold-hearted newlywed casting round for some spice outside her life with her dull husband.

As soon as I had thought it, I knew I couldn’t cast Lydia in that role. It would ruin everything. ‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

She sighed, scrambling to sit up and leaning her head back against the tree. ‘I was working in a bookshop when I met him,’ she said. ‘He used to come in and browse the science section almost every day, or so he says, but I don’t remember ever seeing him until he came up to me one day and asked me out. I was flattered, I suppose, even though he wasn’t my usual type. There was still something about him.’ She must have seen the incredulous frown that briefly split my forehead, because she rolled her eyes. ‘Men like you never understand what a woman could see in someone like Martin,’ she said. It felt like a rebuke, and I murmured an apology. ‘But he is attractive, in his way. Anyway, we started seeing each other and it was only a few months later that he asked me to marry him. He was much older than me but that didn’t seem to matter. I couldn’t think of any good reason why I shouldn’t marry him. He made me feel safe and loved. We married at the end of November last year. God, it was a horrible day – cold and pouring with rain. I remember shivering in my wedding dress outside the church. I couldn’t think of anything except how cold I was.’ She trailed off for a moment, recalling. ‘Anyway, we were happy. We moved into a lovely little flat. This job came up a little while ago and I jumped at the chance, because I was tired of the bookshop, and it would mean we would see more of each other, and it seemed convenient.’

I was waiting for the end of the story: some catastrophic turnaround from the gentle domestic bliss that she had outlined. When it was evident that none was coming I cast my mind back over her words, trying to find some clue aside from the doom-laden storm of the wedding day, which hardly seemed a valid reason to embark on an affair.

‘So why?’ I asked finally, when I had found none.

Her face was vacant and puzzled. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I really don’t.’ Throughout her speech she had been confident and self-assured, hard even. Now she looked vulnerable, like a child seeking reassurance and comfort. I kissed her, stroking my hand across the curve of her cheek. She responded, but I could tell that her mind was elsewhere.

‘We should get back,’ she said. ‘It’s almost two. I’ll go first, and then you can follow me in a few minutes.’

‘OK.’ I watched her stand and smooth down her clothes. ‘Will I see you soon?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. I must have looked hurt, because she bent down and gave me a brief, apologetic kiss on the forehead. ‘I mean yes,’ she said. ‘But I have to think this through. I’ll see you in a couple of days.’

She hurried through the churchyard, away from me, sunlight dappling her bare arms and legs, blonde hair glinting in a long rope down her back. I felt exhilarated and angry. I knew that she was wondering whether to give me the brush-off, and it irritated me that she could even consider it; it was so plainly impossible. I knew there was nothing I could do to hasten or influence her decision, and it gave me a sliding, nauseous feeling, as if I were playing a game of chance on which everything I had rode.

Later, in the staffroom, I saw Martin, dialling a number on the staff phone and waiting with an air of pinched concern. Relief broke over his face in waves when she picked up. ‘I was worried,’ I heard him say, and then, ‘Where were you?’ Whatever the lie was, it must have come smoothly, because when he turned away from the phone, he was smiling, a huge weight visibly lifted from his shoulders. In the weeks that followed, I was often ambushed by a brief photographic flash of his face as he had sat waiting at the phone. He had looked hunted, haunted, as if he were steeling himself against a blow from which he might never recover. I think he was imagining that she might be dead.