After the Fall (24 page)

CARY
•

I didn’t sleep well in Italy. Maybe it was jet lag, though I’d never suffered from it before. Our hotels were comfortable and quiet, so it couldn’t have been that. Admittedly, though, something about being in a hotel makes me uneasy. How can you fully relax knowing that others have a key to your room?

Of course, there were other things on my mind as well. Had Kate slept with Luke? Really slept, I mean—I had to accept that they’d made love. Somehow, though, sleep was more intimate. A surrender, borne out of trust or abandon or exhaustion. Had his lovemaking worn her out? Had they lain in each other’s arms? What did they talk about afterward? I disciplined myself not to think about it during the day, but at night, when my defenses were down, and the insomnia kicked in …

Kate, however, slept. Every night, without fail, and it bothered me. Was she taking the tablets she had used on the plane? Was she tired from our sightseeing? Could her conscience be that clear? Questions followed one another like conga dancers. At the worst moments, when it was three a.m. and it seemed everyone in the world was asleep except me, I even had my doubts about the whole reconciliation. I didn’t actively wish her pain, but she slept so soundly! I needed to see that she was hurting, or felt some remorse—anything but this anesthesia.

Then again, if she had tossed and turned maybe I would have worried that she was missing Luke, or wondering if staying with me had been the right decision. At least while drugged she wasn’t reconsidering. And no matter how long I lay awake worrying about Kate, each morning would still dawn the same as the one before it, and the one before that. We were together, and that was all that mattered. I told myself that everything else would pass.

LUKE
•

So I moved. Tim didn’t want me, Cressida didn’t want me and Kate was gone, so I left for Boston. No point in half measures. Moved, in fact, before Cress’s own departure date—just walked into the office, told them I could go, and had a time and a ticket just two weeks later. I’d hoped for New York, but not surprisingly others had had the same idea. Instead, the company offered Boston or Seattle. I opted for the former—I liked that it had history, plus I’d watched my share of
Cheers
. Then, too, I have to admit that somewhere deep in my subconscious I’d also calculated that it was on the same side of the map as Michigan. Maybe Cress would soften away from the scene of the crime, need me to come over and change a lightbulb or dig her out one day…. It wasn’t until I’d been there a month that I found out she was still back in Melbourne after all. Tim called to tell me, embarrassed for us both. Oh, whatever. Tim and his dingy apartment were behind me now; Cress was trapped in her family home, nursing her dear papa. I should be glad I hadn’t had to get involved in any of that.

Meanwhile Boston was opening up to me like a ripe, juicy mango, like a showgirl at one of the gentlemen’s clubs on Lagrange, near the Common. I visited one once or twice when I was at a loose end, but it only made me feel as dirty as the city’s begrimed sidewalks. I hadn’t realized how clean Australia was when I lived there. Even the Charles River, which sparkled blue from my office window, was littered with beer cans and used condoms up close, its surface smeared with a film of sunscreen and boat grease throughout the warmer months. Then there were the sidewalks themselves, littered with dog droppings and drunks, devoid of anything so quaint as a nature strip. Still, that was the price of living in the city. For all its filth I didn’t miss the suburbs, loved having the bars and the clubs and the restaurants at hand, no lawn to mow, no gutters to clear. Settling in was easy. I walked everywhere, made friends, saw the sights. Work was no more demanding than it had been in Melbourne. And Melbourne seemed a long, long way away.

KATE
•

The robbery shook me up. My first instinct was to run, to get back to the hotel as quickly as I could and slam the door shut behind me. By the time I was once more in the tourist area, though, I had forced myself to reconsider.
Don’t overreact
, I told myself,
don’t let this beat you
. I’d already survived worse than the theft of a watch.

So I went to St. Mark’s, drawn by the safety of the crowds pushing through the carved portals into the building. Cary and I had already visited the church on our first evening in Venice, just before midnight. Mass was being said and the sanctuary was dark, lit only by candles. The floor, shaped by years of water lapping at its underside, dipped and crested under my feet, causing me to reach out for Cary without even thinking about it. Despite my avowed atheism I was enchanted. I’m not sure what I was hoping for when I entered it the second time—probably to be similarly distracted, to be soothed by someone else’s faith. But Venice had been ruined for me that morning, and so was St. Mark’s. Tourists oozed over every surface like an oil spill, obscuring the mosaics, soiling the columns with their greasy hands. The uneven floor that had charmed me on our previous visit now seemed dangerous, unstable—proof that everything was flimsy, even this great house of God. All the gilt and the gold were just garish, overdone as a disco in daylight. I escaped to the balcony, but the famous horses were covered for restoration, every available surface swathed in mesh and spikes in an attempt to deter pigeons.

Leaning against the balustrade I looked down at where my watch had been and felt bereft. Against the rest of my tanned arm the newly exposed skin appeared ashen, shocked. Panic swelled inside me and I gripped the rail hard, suddenly afraid I would cry. Then, through my smarting eyes, I saw Cary in the piazza below. It was crowded and I don’t know how I spotted him—he doesn’t stand out like Luke. Yet there he was, taking a photo for a family on vacation, pulling faces to make the smallest boy smile. Nothing was ever too much trouble for Cary. He would have been happy to be asked. As I looked on, it occurred to me that as smoothly as the thief had removed my watch she could easily have taken my engagement ring too. For the first time in months I lifted my hand to study the blue-green globe intact on my fourth finger, then turned and ran down into the square.

CARY
•

Things began to improve in Venice, where we made love for the first time since I’d learned of Kate’s affair. My libido had been one of the casualties of that ghastly discovery, though initially that was hardly an issue. But as the months lurched on I began to yearn to touch her again. Not so much for the sex as to connect somehow, to be somewhere that only the two of us existed. By the time we left for Europe, though, we hadn’t even resumed sharing a bed, never mind anything else. Once there, all our rooms were doubles, but something else held me back: the fear of a rebuff, or even worse, a pained acceptance. I couldn’t bear the idea of her enduring me, tolerating my attentions, couldn’t bear that she might fake something she didn’t feel or, conversely, not even bother with that. Every night I would steel myself to approach her, my body homesick for the old silk of her skin, the habit of her mouth; every night she would fall asleep while I was still in the bathroom, or simply turn her back to me before I had even had the chance to frame the question.

In the end it was her decision. It had to be, didn’t it? Kate had always set the agenda. One afternoon she suddenly sought me out in St. Mark’s Square, tugging my sleeve and whispering, “Now.” It wasn’t a command or a question, and I couldn’t say what prompted it. We hadn’t even spent much of that day together—she’d gone shopping while I’d done my own thing. I don’t know, maybe she even missed me. I kissed her then, suddenly as shy as in that feed shed more than seven years before. Something made me leave my eyes open, and the look on her face was that of a child at the local pool who has just stepped gingerly off the high board for the first time ever. She clung to me as if she were falling.

Later, at the hotel, it was good. There were no fireworks, but no shocks either. Our bodies remembered what to do and turned to each other like old friends, delighting in their reacquaintance. Afterward I slept soundly, then awoke feeling revived for the first time in months. The best way to describe it is that it was like eating Vegemite toast again after weeks of rich foreign food and complicated sauces—good and satisfying and familiar. I’ve always loved Vegemite toast.

KATE
•

At first all I could think about was Luke. How he used to touch me, how he would have looked into my eyes and said my name if it had been him I was in bed with. I expected it to be terrible. Well, maybe not terrible so much as disappointing, bland, like fish paste after you’ve developed a taste for caviar. A little bit later I found myself thinking about my watch, about things lost and found again. It occurred to me briefly that Cary had been robbed too, and of so much more than jewelry. I wondered fleetingly how he could bear the pain. Then I must have stopped thinking about anything—Cary, Luke, caviar, Venice. I was disoriented when I opened my eyes afterward. I guess I even enjoyed it, though not in a way that would have had the people in the next room complaining. Mainly I was glad that it was over, that we’d survived it without inflicting further damage on each other.

I was more relaxed with Cary after that. We’d done the deed; he’d seen me naked; it didn’t have to keep feeling like one long first date. Though it was another week before we tried again, things loosened up a little. We spent less time sightseeing, more time asleep or lingering over robust espressos in one of the tiny bars dotting every street. He made me laugh at dinner, pointing out the honeymooners and surmising how well things were going by what they’d ordered. Then he would request scallops and
zuppa di cozze
for our own table, the seafood arriving with the scent of the ocean, fresh from the Venetian lagoon. He noticed my watch was missing and bought me another. More impressively, he made a complaint to the city police, drafting his report into the early hours one morning by painstakingly cobbling together sentences from our meager phrase book.

And he never rubbed my nose in it. There were no long discussions of my infidelity, no accusing glances or betrayed expressions. Just Cary, on vacation, enthusiastic and interested and attentive. Sarah had told me once about a girlfriend of hers whose husband had had an affair. She took him back and they went on with the marriage, but he was never allowed to forget his lapse. The affronted wife was always bringing it up in front of their friends or upbraiding him for his sins whenever she was drunk. She even made him wear a pager so he could be contacted at all times. By contrast, we didn’t talk about it at all. I wondered sometimes if Cary was suffering from a kind of posttraumatic amnesia, if he had blocked it out completely, removed the offending memories as neatly as a surgeon cutting away cancerous tissue. He’s a scientist; I wouldn’t put it past him. The topic just never came up. But at least we were talking again, which was more than we did before we left.

CRESSIDA
•

Of course, in the end my conscience got the better of me. Dr. Whyte was sorry to inform me that the fellowship couldn’t be delayed, only declined. On the bright side, though, there was every reason to expect I would be successful again should I reapply next year. My father, he added, as if I didn’t know, was a highly respected man, and everyone in the field had great hopes for his recovery, et cetera, et cetera. Even the hospital in Michigan was accommodating, and invited me to get back in touch if my plans changed. It was almost too easy, reversing in minutes all the plans that had taken months to set in place. Had they ever really been destined to come true?

So that was that, all I had ever wanted gone at once: fellowship, marriage, the support of friends or family. For a crazy instant, surveying the ruins, I had the urge to call Luke, to run back to his side. Why, I’m not sure—so I was at least left with something, maybe, even if it was only the devil I knew. He’d always been good at standing up to my family, making sure he got his way. For a second I was tempted enough to lift the phone. Then reality intervened and I replaced the receiver. I already had enough problems.

LUKE
•

There’s a girl at work who likes me. Well, not at work but through work, and
like
isn’t what it’s really about. I’ve a fine antenna for such things, something that never atrophied during my scant few years of marriage. I don’t suppose I gave it a chance, but like that reputedly durable cycling ability I wonder if such a sense ever really goes away. I can see myself at eighty, in a nursing home, knowing full well which of the female residents—or nurses, if I’m lucky—fancies me and which will be more of a challenge. People say you lose interest in that sort of thing as you get older, but I can’t imagine a life without sex in it somewhere, even if it is just thinking about it.

Mind you, I hadn’t done more than think about it since I’d moved to Boston. Maybe it was because everyone I met was from work, and it’s dangerous to get involved there, or maybe it was that I didn’t have the energy for the hunt after the upheavals of moving and divorce. Still, think about it I did: the way Kate writhed when I cupped her buttocks; Cress’s small sigh as she let herself go. Some mornings I would wake up sure I was with one of them; most nights I went to sleep wishing I were.

Memories, however, can take you only so far, and as winter tightened its hold on the city I needed more than those for warmth. So I guess I was ripe for the picking when the PA of a client started flirting with me over the phone. We’d never even met, but she must have liked my accent or something…. Pretty soon I was making up reasons to call her boss and hoping I wouldn’t get straight through. We’d talk about her roommate, my new car, what she was wearing that day. This went on for a few weeks, with our conversations becoming less and less professional. “Would you like to hold?” she’d ask, and I’d say with a leer, “Hold what?” Pretty juvenile really, but it was as much as I was getting.

The adolescent nature of our exchanges was explained when I finally met her at a pitch to the client. As I came into the conference room there was a voice I recognized but a girl I didn’t, and for a second I struggled to reconcile the two. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, twenty at the most. Theoretically I was old enough to be her father, or at least to know better than to date teenagers. She was pretty, though, in that airbrushed North American way, and throughout the meeting I kept catching her looking at me when she should have been taking notes. Once I’m sure I saw her lick her lips.

As soon as we wound up she was by my side.

“So how do you like Boston?” she asked.

“It’s certainly different,” I replied, damning with faint praise and wondering if she would be sophisticated enough to take offense. She just laughed.

“You’ll love it once you get to know it better.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, knowing where this was heading, daring her to take it there.

“Yeah,” she replied, with more confidence than someone of her age should have. “Why don’t I show you some spots that only the locals know about?”

I’d been in Boston going on four months by this time, but that was no reason to turn down such a generous invitation. There were always new spots to be seen.