Paul Theroux - My Secret History

She had not replied to me. I said, “Aren’t you glad? Didn’t you miss me?”

We sat smoking among the ruins of the meal and two empty wine bottles.

Jenny spoke very deliberately when she was being truthful. In her measured way, choosing her words, she said, “It was so awful when you went. It was such an emptiness. I was so desperately lonely that I pretended to myself that you were dead.”

She saw from my face that I was horrified and could not hide it.

“That was the only way I could manage to live from day to day.”

I said, “The only way I could manage was by imagining that you missed me terribly. That you were waiting for me.”

She said nothing, and I gathered from her silence that she had not been waiting. For a moment, it crossed my mind, as it had during that phone call from Siberia, that I might have died — been blown up in Vietnam, or poisoned in Burma, or frozen in Siberia — and it would have made no difference.

“Don’t frown, Andy, please, I am glad you’re back. I had forgotten what a good cook you are, and Jack is a different boy — he really missed you. He used to go all quiet, and I knew he was thinking of you.”

“Bedtime,” I said, looking at the clock. It was ten minutes to twelve.

We made love that night and other nights — not passionately but with a sort of insistence on my part. I kept wondering whether she would resist or refuse. She didn’t resist, but neither did she take much pleasure in it. Yet that was not strange. After such a long separation we were still not used to each other.

She worked at a branch of Drummond’s Bank off Ludgate Circus. She was supervisor in the Foreign Exchange Department in a district of London where money was constantly being changed. Her pay was good — she earned more than I did — and her position was equivalent, on the bank’s scale, to assistant manager. Her hours meant that we had needed a so-called mother’s help. Before I had left there had been a girl in the back bedroom — Betty, from Bradford.

“What happened to Big Betty?” I asked soon after I arrived back.

“She left before Christmas. She’s doing a diploma in education. She said she wants to work with handicapped children. ‘Brain-damaged yoongsters’ is what she called them.”

“I can take Jack to school from now on. Then we’ll have the house to ourselves.”

“I was hoping you’d take him. We still have Mrs T. cleaning three mornings a week, so you won’t have to do the dusting.”

“I wouldn’t mind doing the dusting!”

“You’re so domestic all of a sudden.”

“Yes. Because I had a feeling sometimes on that damned trip that I’d never get out alive. That I’d be in some horrible place like Afghanistan or Siberia and wouldn’t be able to leave. I used to think — what if I die? What a long expensive road to travel, and all that trouble, just to die.”

“You’re home, Andy. Don’t look so worried.”

“I did nothing but worry. I got very superstitious. I was afraid you wouldn’t be here when I got back.”

She kissed me. She said, “It’s wonderful to have you back.”

I looked closely at her face and then she turned away.

After all that dislocation, and the uncertainties of travel, it was paradise to be in this quiet, terraced house in a London back street. People said it was the dreariest part of south London. I was a stranger there, but I felt at home: it was life, and I was happy. I spent the day doing small things, taking Jack to school, and then making his lunch and giving him a nap; afterwards we went for a walk, and shopped, bought food for dinner, and I cooked. In between, when I had a quiet moment, I looked over my notes. I was daunted by them — the strange handwriting, the bizarre-sounding place-names. There were four large notebooks, about five hundred pages, filled with my writing. There was too much of it. I wanted to do something with it, but what? I imagined the book, but I had never written that sort of book. I was afraid to begin.

It was a relief to have household chores to do. They kept me from thinking; they were brainless and tiring; they were just what I needed. Little Jack seemed to me a perfect child, and I knew that he was glad I was home. He had a serious face, very pale from the English winter and perfectly smooth. He had small beautiful hands and deep brown eyes that were so expressive I did all I could to please him. I gave him treats, bought him chocolate at the corner shop, and cakes at Broomfield’s for tea; I watched television with him, holding him on my lap. When he was at school I missed him so much that sometimes I went early to meet him, and loitered until he appeared.

“What do you want for lunch?”

“Paste sandwiches, and sausage rolls”—he had already acquired a London accent—“and, Dad, can we have jelly — the kind they have at birthday parties?”

It delighted me that I could make him happy by being with him and offering him these simple things.

I said, “I missed you when I was away.”

“But you’re home now,” he said, encouraging me.

“And I’m not going away again.”

“That’s good, because we have to go for our walks and sail my new boat.”

I had bought him a toy sailboat that we floated on the pond at Crystal Palace. It was a large muddy park, with gardens, and great stretches to run about in. The pond was in a glade, and we always brought stale bread for the ducks. After these outings, which left Jack with a pink nose and cold hands, we took the 73 bus back to Catford.

We watched television — the children’s programs, Blue Peter, Crackerjack , and Doctor Who . I thought there was nothing better in the world than to sit with my small warm son on my lap, watching these simple-minded programs. His laughter made me hold him tighter. Why had I ever gone away?

All morning, when he was at school, I longed to see him. If for some reason I had to go out I rushed back to be with him. And he never disappointed me — he was always eager to see me.

The weekends seemed blissful — the bliss of a routine — shopping at the supermarket in Sydenham on Saturday morning, then home for lunch, and doing odd jobs in the afternoon. Jenny always made dinner on Saturday night. We seldom went out. We talked of going skiing — some year, for sure, when Jack was older. The best part of Saturday was going to bed early and making love. On Sundays we drove into the Kent countryside or went to a museum. I carried the boy on my shoulder.

I never asked what was coming. This was what I wanted — a happy home. The anxieties I had felt in travel were in the past. In returning home I became the person I really was. Travel was another life I had left behind.

Jenny said, “How’s your book coming along?”

A book had been my whole reason for that ordeal. I had not started it, but I said, “Fine.”

“What do you do all day?”

“I write, I play with Jack, I smoke, I watch children’s programs on television.”

“Do you have a deadline for the book?”

“Sort of,” I said. “The contract says ‘spring ’74.’ ”

“That’s soon,” she said. “Three or four months. You don’t seem worried!”

The trip had almost broken me; so what would a book do? My secret was that there was no book — none that I cared to write. For the moment, I wanted nothing more than this — the little family in the little house in a corner of a dark city. I was safe.

“What happens if you don’t deliver on time?” Jenny asked. “Do the publishers get their money back?”

“I spent it,” I said. “But even so, I think I’ll get extra time.”

And I thought: What if she knew the truth — that I had not done anything, that the book was a fiction, that in an average day with his crayons Jack wrote more than I did?