Alan Goodwin - Gravity's Chain

Now I have that off my chest, I guess you’d like to know about Caroline and the family. It’s going to be very difficult, but for their sake I’d like to give it a go, especially for Mum. Dad? I think deep down he’d love to reconcile with Caroline, but he has a real stubborn streak. However, I have one word of warning: Caroline has to be committed. There can’t be a situation where I start this process with them and then she pulls out. If they have their hopes raised and then dashed, I think it would completely devastate them. That would be far worse than what they have at the moment. So please, make sure you can pull this off before we open the can. The worms are wretched and will need such careful handling.

Let me know how it goes. Good luck.

Dear Mary,

I’ve spoken to Caroline. I got a surprisingly good response. In the past she’s talked about burning all her bridges with you and her parents and never speaking to anyone in the family again. I expected a really hostile argument, but she was calm and reasoned and said we would talk some more when she’d had some time to think about everything. I think it’s easy to be strong about not seeing everyone while she’s over here, but she recognises that it will be very different when we’re in NZ . We’ll talk again soon.

It was strange to read about us meeting. It’s funny, but with all my thoughts about work and Caroline, it never really struck me that there would be the opportunity for us to meet. Yes, in answer to your question I would like to meet. I’m not sure how, but I’d like to talk again.

I’ll contact you when I’ve spoken to Caroline again. So wait to hear from me.

Dear Mary,

I’ve spoken to Caroline many times. She has swung from one extreme to another, cried, got angry and thought as hard as I’ve ever seen her think about anything.

She’s agreed to meet you and your parents. I’m fairly sure she won’t change her mind. She’d never actually agreed to the meeting until she sat down yesterday and said yes. It’s her decision now. The only stipulation is that I make the arrangements when we arrive in NZ and that it’s in public, say in a restaurant. Don’t ask me why she wants it that way, but I’m not prepared to push it, quite frankly.

I can’t pretend that this is all going to be easy. I told her that I would make contact with your parents by letter. I don’t think it would be good for her to ever know about our correspondence. Send letters to Dad’s address. It’s only a week before we leave and I don’t want to risk not receiving any letters from you.

Believe me, Mary, I’m excited about seeing you. Very nervous about Caroline seeing you and the family, but very excited about seeing you again. I keep wondering just what it will be like, what you look like now, what we will say. Life is so full of surprises. Seeing you again will be a very big one.

See you soon now.

Dearest Jack,

Welcome home. How strange does that sound? I have to pinch myself to feel that all this is really happening. I remember how I felt when you came home that first time from Cambridge. I don’t want to dwell on the past, but they were electric times for me. I’m not saying I feel the same now. I know it’s so very different, but I can’t help but remember how I felt.

The date is set for the meeting. The 15th (two weeks, Thursday) at a restaurant called Bowmans in Mt Eden Road. We will be there at 7.30.

See you in a few days.

Jack,

I knew this would happen, you fucking useless shit. I told you that if expectations were raised we had to go through with it. So what happens? You just don’t show up. As predicted, Mum is devastated, and won’t leave her bedroom. Her greatest hope has been torn from her. Dad just spends time in the garden talking to no one.

You know, there is this part of me that can’t help but think the two of you planned this. That you thought that there was still a bit more pain you could inflict and this was the way to it. I pray that I’m wrong, I pray that no one could sink that low or hurt anyone that much. But I just can’t rid the thought.

DO NOT contact me again.

The grand deception of writing to Mary from London had required a Herculean effort. The letters might have seemed breezy and bright, but that wasn’t a reflection of my mood, which was mostly stormy and dark. I drank to try and remember the mathematical key I’d glimpsed that day in Cambridge and when I failed I drank to try and forget the failure. Large parts of the day resembled bottomless pits and darkness was entering my consciousness. Somehow it had to be avoided. Throw in recreational drugs and the almost totally claustrophobic relationship I lived with Caroline and light seldom seemed to shine in my life. To find time alone and calm myself sufficiently to write to Mary left me exhausted. Often I slept a day and night after a letter.

I simply didn’t have the energy to raise my pen one more time after the failure to meet. And besides, I had my own betrayal to deal with. Caroline hadn’t only stood up Mary and her family, she’d done it by sleeping with Greg. Bloody Greg, who was old even years before when she’d first knocked around with him. To try healing the wounds, Caroline and I retreated to the bach. Days later she killed herself.

I nevitably I went to see Jo. When I left Dad’s with a brief farewell and the merest of waves, I knew I would give the order to turn the car at the last moment and head for the hospital. Jo lay in a coma, that strange place people occupy when their soul has switched out the light but the body lives on. The need to know if some deep and distant memory of the world had rebooted Jo’s brain was overwhelming. I had spared precious little thought for her over the years, but I knew her feelings for me, so I owed her a visit. I have to admit, this was unusual territory for me. When was the last time I thought of owing anyone anything? I glibly answered such difficult questions by confirming that there were selfish reasons for wanting her to recover. What the fuck would it do for my future if her death were laid at my feet?

My driver displayed his displeasure at my request to turn the car round just two hundred yards short of the hotel. No doubt he’d been expecting this to be the end of his day. Now he was on his way to Auckland Hospital. When I broke the news he planted his foot on the floor and braked late and hard at the first red light we encountered. He drummed the steering wheel to some imaginary tune as we waited for the lights to change. Another long wait and a drive in the rush-hour traffic was all he had to look forward to for the next few hours. I ignored the flash of rage he gave me in the rear-view mirror.

I fear hospitals. Whenever I have the misfortune to visit one I walk the corridors with head bowed to avoid all the medical descriptions displayed at every junction. I don’t know what half of the words mean, but I know they mean human misery and pain, despair and death. I feel a need for protection against the emotions haunting the corridors. I need a shield against the echoes of relations’ and friends’ cries and wash of their tears. Of course, I fear hospitals so much because I know one day I’ll be in one with my liver cooked, or because of an overdose, or maybe cancer—shuffling along in slippers and a gown, open at the back, my old arse falling out, but feeling too sick to care. I don’t want to die like that, which is why I think I will. In so many ways I’ve lived a blessed life; I don’t think I’ve enough luck to have a blessed death. One day it will go spectacularly wrong.

Finally I located the ward sign and found my uncertain way to Jo’s room. She lay perfectly still. The sight of her attached to flashing machines was no great surprise, but it was shocking to actually hear the sound of the ventilator with its slight mechanical pause at the beginning and end of each forced breath. Her eyes were closed, her skin pink and she looked far healthier than the last time I’d seen her. Far more dignified as well, with her body covered and neatly tucked into bed. There were two chairs in the room, one on either side of the bed. The place smelled of cleaner mixed with sterilised equipment. I sat in the low chair closest to the door. Straight in front of me was Jo’s hand, lying flat at her side, an intravenous drip in the wrist. The skin looked dry and old. Her nails were chewed and her forefinger was marked with an angry red hangnail. I reached out and touched her hand; it was warm, which surprised me, as though I’d expected stone instead of flesh. Lightly I held her fingers, my thumb stroking the hangnail, its rough edge rubbing the soft underskin of my thumb.