Maggie Gee - Where are the Snows

I must get a grip on myself. They were only children. She wasn’t the perfect mother to them.

The trouble is, the appalling thing is, after all these years, after all that she did, the cheating, the lying, using my son — for I’m sure she hardly ever visited him; she was fucking herself silly with that overgrown gigolo, I’m sure they never bothered to look in on Isaac — despite all that, I love her, dammit. I still love her. I still want her back.

If I could have spoken to her, person to person, voice to voice, her real voice, not the dreadful mockery I get from my machines — oh her sensuous, smoky, husky, voice, which grew more wonderful as she got older, though who knows what the last seven years have done — if I could speak to her; if I could see her; I’m sure — I’m not sure, but I half-believe — I don’t dare to believe, but I sense in my heart, my stupid heart, that she’d come back to me. And then I’d give up everything. I’d have to give up everything. My daughter, my home, my peace of mind, dear Mary Brown, my little games with Madonna — I’d give up all of them without a second thought if I could be back with Alexandra.

She is my wife. We should be together. How dare Susy try to keep us apart? Why didn’t she call me straight away? Why did Alexandra withhold her number?

How dare Susy even dream of not telling me! — Protecting me like some aged neurotic who can’t face up to reality. It doesn’t make sense, in any case. Two years ago my daughter was happy enough to tell me Alexandra had written from Brazil, saying she was adopting a baby. With the gigolo, of course. She didn’t protect me from knowing all that (if only I’d killed him, if only it had worked…). And it hurt, it hurt, a brick in the gullet, a sack of lead hanging down from my heart, for I’d wanted so much to give Alex a child.

The gigolo couldn’t do it either, there’s some satisfaction in knowing that. And I’m sure that’s why Alex wanted him. And now he’s failed, she must be bored. She can’t be happy with a teenager. Why would she ring unless she’s unhappy?

Susy must have said something to frighten her away.

She was living in Mexico City. Why would she be there? Too crowded, too dirty, too uncouth for her, it means that no one’s looking after her. I looked after her, it was an honour, I did everything I could to make her happy…

I would go out to look for her, like a shot. Mexico City goes on for ever, but somehow I’d find her, I know I would, my love for her would lead me to her. And the child (I would love her. She would be our child). And the gigolo (I would get rid of him, if Alex hasn’t done that already).

But I can’t do that. I can’t do anything, because she told Susy she was ‘coming to Europe’, and Europe could mean anywhere, couldn’t it? I can’t comb Europe looking for her.

— Toledo. Would she come back to Toledo? She always wanted to return to Toledo, year after year when we were travelling together I would wait for the moment when she’d pronounce its name with a particular emphasis, caressive, loving, slightly softening the ‘T’ and the ‘d’, she’d say ‘It’s spring in Europe — I’d love to be in Toledo in May.’

Such a beautiful city, the city on the hill. Rose-pink, sand-yellow. Beautiful and treacherous, the flesh-coloured city where things first went wrong — and yet, there was such love between us then. We were in Toledo in the warm spring, when there were still springs, not just baking summers, we were in Toledo in the springtime of our lives, and perhaps she would go back to find us again…

Or to Paris, where one day in the Louvre she told me she’d noticed we were getting older, the first time she’d ever considered it; she said it with amazed tenderness, as if that meant we must love each other more, as if that meant we must prepare our bed, the bed where we would lie together, the bed where we could die together…

Could it still happen? Could the lost be found?

Could my broken life be made whole again?

Nothing can happen until I find her, she finds me, we find each other, but I can do nothing to make it happen, the agony is I can do nothing to help.

She could come to me though. She knows where I am. Come, Alexandra. I’m an old man now but I’m waiting for you…

I’ve questioned Susy again and again and she’s almost positive Alex said ‘I’, ‘I’m leaving for Europe’ not ‘We’re leaving for Europe’, she’s coming alone, and that surely means…

Means nothing but torture and despair, means nothing for me but a hell of hope. It matters so much to me, that phone call, but what if it meant nothing at all to her, if she was just bored, or did it on a whim, while riffling through the phone numbers in her phone file…?

And at other times since I’ve known about the phone call I’ve felt nothing but indifferent anger. She wrecked things, she was a wrecker. Now I’ve got a new life and she wants to wreck that…

Besides, she’d be old now, not herself, not the immaculate Alex I dream with. She’d be selfish as before, and blind as before, but no longer beautiful to sweeten the pill… she’d probably have lost her craziness, her wonderful laugh, her pleasure in everything… She wouldn’t be calm, and calming, like Mary, she wouldn’t… care for me.

Mary cares for me, and takes care of me a little, and I of her, and we’re happy, I think. Or we were, before I annoyed her. I would lose all that, if Alexandra came back. She’s a good woman, Mary. She’s good for me. It would hurt her so much if I left her now, though she had to pretend — she’s strong, and proud — that Alex’s phone call didn’t upset her, she wasn’t jealous, I was being absurd — for the first time ever she got cross with me. I know it was really because she loves me. We love each other; a steady fondness; though she’s more passionate than me.

And if something is missing — some spice, some wickedness — there’s always Madonna. Lovely Madonna. Lovely, wicked, feline Madonna, who likes to come round and tease me a little. Madonna and I understand each other. She’s got her Yukio, I’ve got my Mary, but we like to pretend that one day, maybe… I think she’s pretending, at any rate.

You see, I am happy.

I don’t need Alex.

These days are rather a strain for me. I usually like Paris, but now it leaves me cold. I must admit I can’t wait for it all to be over. I think about it all the time, especially now there’s nothing practical to do. So I kick my heels and wait for things to happen.

And if it’s hard for me at the moment, what must it be like for Jessica? My daughter is five days overdue; she’s huge; she can’t sleep a wink with her amazing belly, though at least the baby’s grown too big to kick, he lies in her belly like a giant pea about to burst out of its skin-tight pod. I can’t do that much for her, except for being here, and making sure that everything’s ready. Even my being here sometimes gets on her nerves. She’s so used to being alone. Only Jessica would do this thing alone.

It seems a lifetime ago, though it’s in my lifetime, that single parenthood was all the thing, and there were endless articles in long-ago forgotten newspapers about the single woman’s right to bear a child… but in the last decade people have grown postively shrill about the child’s right to two consenting parents, as if people didn’t ever die, or divorce.

I see both sides, as usual. And I see my daughter, my darling Jessica, who’s done so brilliantly in her career, suddenly start to feel lonely. Suddenly she felt incomplete. She hasn’t told me who the father is. Doesn’t want him to be involved. And she says she’s part of a trend; she says lots of her friends are going to do it, friends with money enough for nannies, friends who don’t want to be dominated by men. She says they call themselves ‘New Feminists’, and I wonder how feminism managed to grow old…