Golden Hour (26 page)

So is that it? Do people who are different from other people
and find each other and feel good together have to be different to each other too? Is everyone always alone in the end?

I don't want to be one of anything. That's what he says. That's why he likes tools. A hammer does a hammer's job and that's it. A hammer doesn't follow you round the room with wounded eyes. You can put a hammer away in the shed and forget about it until you need it again. Toby likes forgetting about things.

So fuck him.

The brief explosion of energy takes her by surprise. It's accompanied by a bristling chord on the guitar. Through the vibrating air she hears footsteps on the landing. She sees her door handle turn. No knock, no request.

He comes in.

She looks at him in silent amazement. He gives her a smile, shuts the door behind him.

“Okay if I come in?”

“Looks like you just did.”

He sits beside her on the bed, uninvited.

“So here's where I am,” he says. “I'm not really a good person. If I've hurt you or made you angry, you just say so.”

“I don't see why I should bother.”

“Yes, you do.”

Now that he's here and he's giving her his full attention everything that has been distressing her fades away.

“People don't have to say everything,” she says.

“Okay.” He taps her guitar with one forefinger. “You could always sing me one of your songs.”

“No way!”

“Why not?”

“Because you won't like it.”

“Why wouldn't I like your songs? Are they all posing and lies?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then I'll like them.”

It seems so simple when he puts it like that. When he looks at her so directly. More than that: it comes over like a command she can't refuse. Does not choose to refuse. So she arranges her fingers on the strings and starts to strum her very limited sequence of chords. She sings him “It's Over Now.” She sings with a soft voice, and keeps her eyes down on the guitar, never once looking up to see how he's taking it.

“I know it hurts

But it's over now

I know you lost

But it's over now . . .”

She's amazed at herself. She has never sung her songs to anyone, let alone someone she wants so much to approve of her. She does it because he asks her. His is by far the stronger will.

So no longer shy, no longer attempting to protect herself from whatever criticism will come, she sings her song to the end. When it's finished she lets her hand rest on the strings, deadening the last reverberations. She does not look up.

For a long moment he says nothing. Then he reaches out and puts his hand on the guitar.

“That was beautiful,” he says.

She can tell it from his voice, he means what he says. She has pleased him. A sweet blush of relief steals over her.

“It's a great song, Carrie,” he says. “And you sing it wonderfully.”

“Thank you,” she says.

She looks up now and finds his eyes on her. She wants him to say more, to tell her more about her song, because this is the first time her song has ever existed outside herself. Any of her
songs. This is the very beginning. But it must come from him, unasked, or it will be tainted by her need. Enough to see his smile of surprise, and the look in his eyes that searches her face as if to say, Where did that come from?

His hand on her hand.

“You're the first,” she says.

“Then I'm proud,” he says. “I'm honored.”

“Wouldn't you rather be out chasing rabbits?”

“The rabbits have all gone away,” he says. “I have to find something else to play with.”

“And I'll do for now.”

She seems to have fallen into some deep still place where all she can say is what she really feels.

“I told you I'm not a good person,” he says.

“I heard.”

“You don't mind?”

“I'll mind later.”

“That's all right, then,” he says, “because there isn't any later.”

He lifts his hand from her hand, and takes the guitar from her lap and puts it down on the floor. She doesn't move. She wonders if he's going to kiss her now, waiting to see what will happen. He's the one with the will.

He lies down beside her on the bed.

“Lie down,” he says.

She lies down. He takes her in his arms.

“That was a great song,” he says.

“Was it?” she says.

“But you're wrong. It's not over. It's never over.”

“Isn't it?”

“Now,” he says. “Now. Now. Now. Now. Now.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Put that in a song. How now never ends.”

“Maybe I will.”

Now she's lying on her bed with Toby in her arms and it's never going to end.

Andrew is on his own in the flat and outside the long day is ending at last. So long as he's focused on the screen before him there are problems to be solved and he knows what it is he's supposed to be doing. But by the end of the day he's had enough, he's restless, his mouse-hand aches and his arms feel empty. He wants to be swimming in the ocean, beating through great strong waves. He wants to be high up on a mountainside, feeling the blast of wind on his cheeks, stopping for breath and turning to look back and seeing for miles. He wants to strive and to overcome.

Jesus, I need a break. When did I last take a holiday?

He remembers it then, with perfect clarity, the trip he made with Maggie to Bruges. Only two nights away, in March, but they were lucky with the weather. Maggie was so happy walking the streets of the old city. “Look!” she would say, pointing out a gabled roofline or a mullioned window. “Isn't that glorious?” They found their way into a curious treelined square called the Beguinage, lined with terraces of white-fronted steep-roofed houses and occupied by an order of nuns. The nuns were emerging from the church as they arrived, filing down the path between the trees. Andrew read the descriptive panel about the Beguinage aloud. It was founded in the thirteenth century as somewhere for women to live together after they'd lost their
men, to war or disease. Maggie was fascinated by this notion. “Somewhere to live, your own space, friends when you want them.”

Also in Bruges they met the ideal waffle. It became one of those little shared references that are so precious in the life of a couple, that can be named without being explained. The ideal waffle was crisp on the outside, soft within, and light as air in the mouth.

Thinking about Bruges makes Andrew want to cry. He's in a bad way, though he's fighting it. Once he starts crying he'll just fall apart, so he's pushing the temptation away. Also the unanswered question that wraps round him like a cloud, that he doesn't want to see but can't escape, which is: why hasn't she called?

Nothing has happened. They've not had a row. And yet some vital thread has snapped. It must be so, or why doesn't he call her? This is what he longs to do and will not let himself do. To call her would be to exacerbate the very fault in him that causes the problem. If Maggie has stopped wanting him in her life it can only be because he's too easily pleased, too concerned to please her. It seems unfair, being punished for selflessness, but truth to tell Andrew knows it's not selflessness but weakness. He wishes he could behave differently. He longs to be the kind of man who takes command of each social situation with confident ease, knowing always what he wants, allowing the woman in his life to accompany him or not as she chooses. But this is not who he is.

I'm one of life's pleasers. And that's just not sexy.

This is why Andrew, half crying in his unhappiness, forces himself not to phone Maggie. He adores Maggie and would do anything in the world to make her happy. So right now, because he is not a fool, because he does have some self-knowledge, because he adores her, he does not call her.

But all through the long evening spent not calling Maggie life must somehow go on. He tries watching TV, punching channels at random.
Dragons' Den
depresses him with its pathos and its nastiness. A documentary about two gay millionaires longing for babies proves a little too close to home. Though neither gay nor a millionaire, Andrew would love to be a father. He has never dared say this to Maggie, but he does so much want to have babies with her. He'd like a little girl who looks just like Maggie, who he could love without any fear that his love was too much. You're allowed to love your children totally and forever. It's only with grown-ups that it all gets so complicated.

His phone rings. For one heart-stopping moment he thinks it's Maggie, but it turns out to be her friend Jo. Andrew likes Jo, but better still, she's a channel to Maggie.

“Jo!” he says, determined to sound strong and upbeat. “What's doing?”

Jo is in some church hall in Fulham where she's been rehearsing all day.

“So guess who I had lunch with yesterday?” says Jo. “I hear you're going to be a neighbor.”

“That's the plan,” says Andrew. At once he starts saying too much, to hide his fragile condition. “Feels like a good moment to make the break from the city. The lease on this place coming up for renewal, that sort of stuff. A little inheritance coming through. Opens up the odd door.”

He realizes as he's speaking that any moment now he's going to start crying and there's nothing he can do to stop it. He has no idea why this is, maybe it's the sympathetic tone in Jo's voice, or maybe it's hearing his own voice list the reasons that make this the perfect time to take the next step with Maggie. The step on which both of them have come to a standstill.

“So anyway,” he hastens on, trying to outrun himself, “tell me the news in Jo-land.”

Then out of nowhere he starts to sob. He pushes the phone away, he tries to muffle the sounds, but it's no good. He feels the tears streaming down his cheeks. He dabs at his face with his sleeve. He hears tiny squeaks from his phone. He takes deep breaths to regain control. And so, slowly, the wrenching motion passes.

“Sorry about that,” he says.

“Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.” Jo's voice is so kind it's almost more than he can bear. “You in your flat right now?”

“Yes,” he says.

“You got anything to eat?”

“I don't know,” he says. “I haven't thought much about eating.”

“You stay right there,” she says. “I'm coming round. Give me half an hour.”

After that Andrew starts to feel much better. The crying has released something that needed to be released, and knowing Jo is coming round gives the evening a new shape and color. Shameful to admit, but he's not so good on his own. And with Jo he'll be able to talk about Maggie.

Better still, when the doorbell rings barely twenty minutes later, she's carrying two immense slices of pizza and a bottle of red wine.

“I decided to grab a cab,” she says. “This is a mercy dash.”

“Oh, Jo. You're my guardian angel.”

She's so bright and cheerful, she fills the flat with warmth and activity, finding plates and knives and forks and glasses, laying out the pizza and pouring the wine.

“This is not good, Andrew,” she tells him, pressing a full glass into his hand. “You've been neglecting yourself.”

“Oh, Jo. I'm so confused over Maggie. Everything just seems
to have fallen down a hole and I don't know what to do.”

“Drink wine. Eat pizza. Aunty Jo's remedy for confused lovers.”

He eats and he drinks and she's right. He starts to feel much better.

“Tell me what she said to you, Jo. She must have talked about me.”

“Yes, of course,” says Jo. “We had a good long chat. It's all about this moving down to Lewes business. It's come a bit too quickly for her, I think.”

“Oh, God. I should never have done it.”

“It's not that she doesn't want it. But it's like the future is rushing at her too fast, and it gets her a bit panicky. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, of course it does,” says Andrew. “I'm such a fool. It just seemed to be a great idea when the chance came up. I never stopped to think it might be too much for her.”

“Why would you?” says Jo. “You love her.”

“I do, Jo. I want to be nearer to her. I want to be with her all the time. But if that's not what she wants . . .”

He can't say it. That way ends up in the unthinkable.

“She's not sure what she wants,” says Jo. “She needs time.”

“Yes, I see that,” says Andrew. Then he looks up at Jo with such sad eyes. “But I do so wish she was sure.”

“Oh, Andrew!” says Jo. “You're so
nice
!”

“I'm too nice, aren't I? That's what's wrong with me.”

“No one can be too nice. You're lovely.”

“I'm too nice for Maggie. That's why she's not sure.”

“Then she's a stupid little fool,” says Jo.

Andrew looks at Jo across the kitchen table and he feels a surge of gratitude toward her. Her kind face is smiling at him and her full attention is on him in a way that is more than
friendly. He can feel a gentle wistful longing in her, and understands that this longing is for him. This simple awareness does even more than the pizza and the wine to restore his fragile sense of self-worth.

“What do you advise me to do, Jo?”

“Well,” says Jo, “that all depends on what you want.”

“And what Maggie wants.”

“Maggie doesn't know what she wants. She's not sure she's ready for any big moves. She needs time.”

“But what I don't understand is, what's going to change? She can take time, but how's it going to be any different when the time's up? I'll still be me, she'll still be her.”

“Ah, Andrew. You're treading on thin ice.”

“Am I?”