Mark Lee - The Canal House

November turned into December and there were short, cold days with an overcast sky. Ice appeared on the surface of the canal and the sea gulls and swans paced back and forth on the frozen surface like children locked out of their playground. Five days before Christmas, snow began falling, the white flakes clinging to the cables and covering the decks of the narrow boats.

Safe and warm in the Canal House, I realized that I had never really been alone. I had lived in dormitories in college and then shared several flats with friends. In the relief camps someone was always coming into your tent and the clinics were crowded with patients.

But there were enough rooms in the house to keep us from each other for long sections of the day. Daniel would be reading in the bedroom while I sat in the kitchen; then I would go downstairs to take a long, decadent bath while Daniel climbed upstairs to fix the washing machine. When I was with him, making love, there were moments so intense that both past and future melted away. But it was those hours when we weren’t together that I fell in love with Daniel, remembering his honesty and intelligence, the way he listened to me and concentrated on my words. It gave me pleasure to sit alone and know that he was near me, in the house. And our love appeared slowly, like a plant growing or the sunlight changing or the warmth from a fire touching your skin.

All this was our life at the Canal House, but the whole time we stayed there both of us knew the same unspoken truth. Hiding behind the brick walls was only a truce in the battle, a temporary respite, and somehow, in some way, it would have to end.

A FEW DAYS before Christmas, Daniel was pouring his second cup of coffee. “I was thinking about Nicky,” he said. “Maybe we could invite him over for dinner on Christmas day.”

“I’d love to see him. You think he’s in town?”

“If he is, he’ll be staying at the Ruskin. It’s a small hotel over by the British Museum.”

Daniel dialed a number and seconds later he was talking to Nicky. “Yes. We’re both in London. We’ve been here the whole time. Can I interest you in a Christmas dinner? No figgy pudding unless you want one.” Daniel smiled and turned to me. “Mr. Bettencourt wants the complete Tiny Tim feast, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Tell him we’ll see what we can do.”

We decided to roast a goose and make a pudding. On Christmas morning I put on makeup for the first time since leaving Westgate. Nicky arrived at two o’clock with three bottles of French wine. He immediately pulled out his camera and took a photograph. It made me feel like Daniel and I were an established couple and this was where we had lived for years.

We drank one of the bottles right away, then gave him a tour of the house. Anyone else would have asked about Richard and Westgate Castle, but Nicky never mentioned the weekend party. Nicky was a good friend, someone who would never judge you, but I could feel him watching Daniel and me. He noticed everything—how we touched each other, what we talked about, the books scattered everywhere. When we returned to the kitchen, Daniel started to carve the roast goose while I stirred up the gravy. Nicky stood by the refrigerator and took a second photograph.

After dinner, we pulled Christmas crackers and put on paper crowns. Nicky told us how Newsweek had insisted that he photograph an American actress starring in a big-budget action movie that was being shot outside of London. Nicky imitated everyone: the young woman, her unctuous personal manager, the harried West Indian makeup lady, and an Oxbridge type working as a publicist. The American actress was wearing a vial of her boyfriend’s blood around her neck and she refused to take it off during the photo shoot. Nicky reenacted the entire screaming argument in different voices and I laughed so hard that I spilled my wine.

Daniel realized that we didn’t have any brandy to set the pudding on fire. He went out into the city looking for a bottle while Nicky and I washed the dishes. “This is a comfortable place,” Nicky said.

“We think so. Of course, Amy could come back at any time.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“Not really. Just a postcard.”

Nicky picked up a serving platter and began to dry it. “Two men have been following me whenever I leave the hotel. They’re private detectives or something like that. I guess Richard hired them.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

He nodded. “It’s an older Asian man with a bad comb-over and a younger Brit with a squashed nose. They sit in a blue Ford Cortina parked down the street from my hotel. Whenever I come outside, one of them tags along.”

“I’m sorry, Nicky. I don’t know why you have to be involved with this.”

“But I enjoy it. It’s fun.” Nicky smiled and I actually believed him. “I have a pretty boring life in London and this makes things a lot more interesting. Besides, these guys are amateurs. If I want to lose them, I just sneak out the back of my hotel. You probably shouldn’t tell Daniel about this. If he sees one of these guys, he might get mad and start something.”

Daniel bought a bottle of brandy at a Pakistani grocery store. He poured some on the pudding and it flamed up in the dark room. Everything was lovely until we opened a third bottle of wine and Nicky mentioned his recent trip to Kosovo. Suddenly Daniel was very intense, asking about the fighting between the Albanian guerrillas and the Serb militia. He knew the names of obscure political leaders and the commanders of the special police units. He knew who had massacred Muslims in Bosnia and where the killers had been hiding for the last few years. It annoyed him that the Newsweek correspondent working with Nicky had refused to leave Priština to travel through the countryside. “Yes, it’s dangerous. But so what? That’s part of the job. If you don’t want to do it, then go back to Washington and write articles about the budget.”

When the bottle was empty, Nicky called a radio taxi and ambled out the door. I closed the door and turned to Daniel. “Let’s forget about the dirty dishes,” I said. We took the candles downstairs and made love in the shadowy light. I felt a greater urgency that night, pulling Daniel closer, as if I could push away the conversation about the war. I wanted it to be just the two of us again, quiet and together, lying beneath the quilt.

The air was cold and our breath came out in puffs of white. Frost made a spidery pattern on the bedroom window. “It sounded like you wanted to go to Kosovo,” I said.

“I was curious. That’s all.”

“You sure?”

He sat up and smiled. “This is where you are, Julia. Why would I want to leave?”

OVER THE NEXT few months we saw Nicky whenever he was in London. With most people, he played the role of a cynical photographer, but I started to see how vulnerable Nicky was and how carefully he protected himself from being hurt. Once he offered to show me his favorite exhibits at the British Museum and I took the bus over to his hotel. His room was a small and dreary place. Cardboard coffee cups and candy wrappers littered the little table near the sink.

“Height of luxury, as you can see,” Nicky said. “My regular room, at the Ritz, is being cleaned.”

“Where are your cameras?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t keep them here. They’re at a camera shop.” He then described his photography equipment in great detail, as if this implied a more settled life.

Nicky had spent so much time wandering around the museum that he could have hired himself out as a guide. We saw the Sutton Hoo treasures first, and then Nicky led me into an Egyptian exhibit and stopped beside a stone sarcophagus.

“You two seem happy.”

“Very much so.”