Mary Costello - The China Factory

‘Hey… Shh, what’s wrong?’ He took her hand and kissed it, and at his touch the guilt flared up inside her. ‘Sometimes, I think… something isn’t here anymore,’ he whispered. ‘Something’s been taken. It frightens me.’ Then he kissed her eyelids. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

She shook her head and smiled. ‘Nothing, honest.’ Then he rose and turned to go. He bent down and took her bare feet in his hands and kissed them. ‘See?’ he said brightly. ‘See how much I love you?’

Things shifted on the plane then. She became hyper alert to every change in tone, every late mail or small absence. She thought he removed himself sometimes. She could not bear to think of him as a husband, as deeply married. She feared running out of things to say and strove to draw out the intimacy. But the effort showed. She became moody, began to pick and prod. She accused him of remoteness.

Me, remote? he countered in a blaze of anger that shocked her. Her curtness sometimes, he wrote, pierced him to the bone, and she was frosty, like so many European women. Cold Northern Women , he wrote in cruel capitals. You’re ice-bucket cold sometimes. And you have a sharpness that can pierce. Do you know this? Are you even aware of this?

When was I cold? When did I pierce you? she demanded, in a tumble of rage and hurt and fear. I have never said such cruel things to you, never once… And I am tired of this… this affair of the mind. And don’t think it’s less! That the damage and the betrayal and the guilt is less than the other? Is that what you think? Because it’s not, it’s worse. Do you think we’ll go untouched, unpunished, you and I? Do you think we are immune? Do you? Is that what you think? And where’s your code now?

A rift opened, and their quarrel turned into a battle which left her profoundly shaken. Back and forth they traded hurts, damage heaped on damage. The astral plane fell silent for days. Each nightfall she became overwrought. His loss impoverished her. In the mornings she looked out at the trees and found a new calm. She got a taste of how it would feel to be clear of him. He had become an interruption in her life, a vexation. She would always be waiting for signs of the end, of him casting about for a new love. She would shed him and it would be an ease. Come the winter he would have faded out, and she would survive, she would endure. People don’t die of love anymore, she thought. She could not die of love for a man she had never met. Could she?

Please, please come back to me… Are you not glad that I found you?

She read his plea at dawn. She crept back to bed. Adam lay on his belly and from the borders of sleep he reached out and drew her to him and whispered the familiar words and declarations he’d whispered every morning for years.

She climbed out of bed again and sat before the screen. She typed a word. Refound . She closed her eyes. She knew there would be nothing worse than losing him.

And so, somehow, a difficult passage had been managed. She walked around the house and out into the streets again, in glorious bounty, thinking, I am loved, I am the beloved . She felt his approach in unexpected moments: brushing off Adam in the kitchen, driving through the city at night, walking by the seashore. She had a longing to use ampler words, my love, my darling . At the water’s edge she stood and waited, longing to detect something of him, some return, a sign, an echo carried back in the hum of the universe.

It might have continued like this, this strange courtly kind of love. Or the talk and the dreams might have petered out and given way to a new tranquility. And the desire, too, in time might have burned itself out for want of consummation. But then he hurled a lightning bolt down onto her screen one night.

I have to come to Dublin again. I didn’t know if I should tell you. Then I thought… We might pass each other in the street; I might walk by a café with you inside the window, oblivious, like in Doctor Zhivago… And I thought what a great tragedy that would be. But I don’t know what to say now… except: Do you want to meet?

*

She rode the commuter train into the city on a bright morning in mid-August. Small suburban back gardens shot past. Across from her a youth with a pale feminine face listened to his iPod, his long legs crossed and hidden under him so that she imagined him ending in a mermaid’s tail.

She saw him first, standing directly under Bewley’s clock. He wore a black jacket and his bag was slung over his shoulder, like he said it would be. She came down the street from Stephen’s Green and he turned and the sun came out and fell on his face and she saw it was the astral man. He put his arms out and embraced her. She felt herself stiffen and shy at his touch. She could not look at him. She glanced around the street, thinking that Adam was watching.

‘It’s so good to see you. You look lovely. I’m so happy you came… I was so afraid you’d get cold feet…’ His accent was strange in this place. ‘How are you? Are you okay?… Please, say something…’ He stood back from her.

She felt his eyes scorch her, from head to toe. ‘How was the flight?’

‘Good. Good. I like night flying. I got a couple of hours’ sleep on the plane. But tell me… how are you? This is strange, isn’t it? This is really strange… but nice too. Isn’t this nice? What will we do? Would you like to get coffee or lunch or something? Do you want to sit down? I do! I need to sit down. Are you glad you came? Are you glad we’re here?’

Stop talking , she longed to say. Why can’t you stop talking?

They started up the street. She thought walking would quell him. A boy on roller skates came weaving towards them. He swerved close and she moved aside and bumped lightly against the astral man’s shoulder. He placed a hand on her back and muttered ‘Lunatic!’ after the boy. She smiled at the word, and he gasped ‘Aha!’ His delight was contagious and she felt herself blush. ‘I thought I’d lost you there for a while,’ he said. ‘You looked scared, as if I might be about to shoot you or something.’

All the time she felt his hand on her back.

He stopped and turned to her and touched the ends of her hair. He brought his forehead close to hers. He was whispering something but the racket inside her head and on the street drowned out his words. She pulled away and walked on.

‘Please, aren’t you going to talk to me? I’ve come all this way…’

‘I thought you came for work.’

‘Work came second. I came for you.’

They entered the Green and walked under the trees. Men in suits crossed the park on their lunch breaks. Teenagers, joggers, mothers with buggies went hurriedly by. She scanned each passing face. They sat on a bench, side by side, almost touching. A pigeon hopped on the path at their feet, pecking crumbs. The sun dipped behind a cloud. He put a hand on hers. She closed her eyes at the touch.

‘I cannot stay long,’ she said impassively.

He withdrew his hand. His jaw clenched, a muscle rippled. Her heart was pounding. If she touched him, if she as much as put a hand on his, there would be no going back.

‘All morning I walked these streets,’ he said, ‘counting the minutes until you came.’

‘I dreamt of you again last night,’ she said. She tried to look at him and smiled. ‘I have to stop dreaming of you.’ His gaze settled on her. She let herself look into his eyes and for a few seconds felt herself incline towards him, like she was falling into him. She turned her head then and looked to the pond where ducks were gliding by. On the far side a small boy held out bread. ‘I dreamt I had come to meet you, like this, now… But we were on a country road. Your hair was wet, as if you’d swum to me. You were looking around for shelter but the trees were bare and the sky was grey and you could not speak… The world was empty except for us. It wasn’t real.’