Maggie Gee - Where are the Snows

I sent Benjamin away. Only two days ago. It was quite easy, after all that had happened. We were ashamed to look at each other: unable to comfort each other. He protested very little, but he hated me, silently, I felt his hatred as I said we should part. I knew he had begun to blame me for what we had done to the child. Perhaps he still loved me — he had passionate feelings, I could feel the force of them contorting his brows and clenching his fists as he packed to go, as he slammed the doors and banged the cases, though I was too numb to wince or quail — perhaps he still loved me, if love means hatred. I hadn’t loved him for years and years, so I should have managed to feel a little pity, but he seemed irrelevant, that’s all. I tried to be kind; I think I thanked him; he brushed me away, furious.

Now I’m alone I can see him better. There were good things about him that weren’t imaginary — his tenderness, his sense of humour, a practicality Chris lacked — but I didn’t want him for those reasons. I wanted him to be a son and a father, a son for me, a father for my baby. I asked him to promise eternal youth. Instead we aged and failed together.

He hardly painted in the years with me. You see, I don’t make people happy, I’m not good for them, I can’t encourage them.

There are women who are good for people. Mary Brown was good for people. She had a good marriage and good children. I suppose she has them still; they turned out well, thanks to Mary. Matthew and Dan and Jessica. I could have had Matthew if I’d beckoned, but something stopped me, I don’t know quite what. She wrote so kindly after I miscarried, even though I believe she knew about the abortion I had all those years ago; I think Chris told her at a drunken party; I know he was desperate to talk to someone; when he didn’t deny telling her, I slapped his face, the only time I ever slapped a man, my sense of betrayal was so great.

Or perhaps it was guilt, guilt, guilt, I’ve always denied that I feel guilt, yes I am guilty, god, I’m guilty, what have I done, what have I done? — I am sure she listened, and comforted him.

Perhaps she would listen to me now. I’m nearer home than I’ve been for three years. I came to Paris because it isn’t foreign, it’s safe and cool and civilised, I suppose I knew it was time to go home… but not home, of course. I could never do that. I haven’t a home. But sometimes I wish — Other women are home-makers. Mary was. I bet they still live there, I bet that nothing has happened to the Browns, I bet they stayed there quiet as mice while Christopher and I lived our great adventure…

How can I still fool myself? — while Christopher and I were wrecking our lives.

If I could only talk to Mary. If I had the courage to pick up the phone I don’t think she’d refuse me. She was a good friend…

The terrible crying begins again. A lifetime ago, a lifetime has gone, my life has slipped away through the gap since I saw her, all the loved things have slipped away, youth, Christopher, Anna Maria, Isaac and the baby who was never born. I was thirty-five; now I’m approaching sixty. It can’t have happened, it can’t be true. Other people grow old, not Alexandra…

There are sirens blaring in the street below. Quick, have a look… but I can see nothing. I hear them, though. I always hear them. Whenever things go wrong, the sirens come, the sirens from the millennium, and the terrible sequence begins again, what have I done, what have I done …

At least Anna Maria didn’t die.

Once it is done it can never be changed. Once they are gone they can never come back. But they live in your brain. They infect your brain…

— The truth is, Christopher killed someone. In the year 2000 we killed someone.

Poor Mary. I saw her yesterday. I didn’t know whether to go round or not and then I thought sod it, she’s so often been there when terrible things have happened to me, I’ll go just so’s she knows I care — I went round after school and rang the bell, Jessica answered, we kissed each other, we hadn’t kissed since we were little girls, then I followed her into their front room and Mary sat there, unrecognisable, puffy and red from hours of weeping, as if she’d been beaten up or run down by a car, and she tried to stand up to say hallo and couldn’t.

I hate funerals. The hymns make me bawl whether I cared about the person or not, crying for myself I suppose, and the fact that we’re all going to die in the end. I always feel icy cold at funerals, no matter how many clothes I wear. And I feel lonely. Which is silly, except in Isaac’s case of course, because he was my friend and my brother, and losing him made a difference to my life. But I always feel lonely, even when it’s just an uncle or aunt I haven’t seen for years… And this is Matthew. He’s always been there.

I started to explain that to Phil at school. He comes in twice a week to do gym with the children; it’s a mixture of dancing and wrestling, which they love. He’s very easy with them, and easy to talk to. Odd that he’s so relaxed, I used to think, when he’s really a marathon runner, which takes so much concentration and will to win. But he says no; you have to go with the pain, relax into the pain of it.

Phil said, ‘When is the funeral?’

‘Monday morning. I get nervous in advance, I know there’s still the weekend to go…’

‘I’ll come with you. My training partner’s sprained his ankle, I’ll give myself a morning off.’

I was so surprised I nearly spilled one of the beakers of dilute orange juice we were drinking with the children. Did people go with one to funerals? People who didn’t know the dead?

‘Well…’

‘Then you won’t feel lonely, at any rate. I’d love to come with you. Don’t say no.’

I looked into his frank grey eyes, with the nest of laughter lines all round, his weather-beaten, lightly-tanned face, his smiling lips, slightly cracked from the sun, and thought how comforting he was; the children loved him; I said, ‘Yes. Thanks, Phil. You’re a friend.’

Now I’m a bit embarrassed that he’s coming. I’m bound to cry, whether he’s there or not, and he’ll see me crying and hopeless, with eye makeup all down my cheeks, whereas at school he sees me cool, calm and collected, in charge of things, a rock for the children. It’s lovely when someone thinks you’re calm.

And Jessica and Dan will wonder who he is. And Madonna will tease me afterwards. (I suppose she’s coming to the funeral — Matthew was very fond of her, but when I asked her last night she said she was working, though she never gets to work before lunchtime on Mondays. Perhaps she doesn’t want to upset Dan, or make his wife jealous — Anne’s rather plain and enormously pregnant.)

Phil’s been round to the house a couple of times, once with some newspapers for a papier maché model I was doing for the kids, once because he was training nearby, and he took me for a pint at my local. I don’t know why I didn’t ask him in. Maybe because Madonna was there.

Is it that I’m ashamed of him? He’s completely unaware of what he looks like. He usually has old tracksuit bottoms, non-matching top, and that weird hair — his hair is the texture of a scrubbing brush, so no wonder he just lets it stick out of his head, he must have despaired of doing anything about it. But he’s got a lovely humorous face. Looks older than he is because of all the weather. In any case given that he’s not my boyfriend, why should I bother to feel ashamed?

I’m glad there’ll be someone to turn up with. You’re never quite sure that Madonna will show, or if she’ll be late, or get the day wrong. Whereas if Phil says he’ll be there, he will.