Her Fearful Symmetry (35 page)

“Valentina?” Robert said. “Tell me. Why is it, whenever I lay a hand on you, you seem to shrink away?”

“What do you mean?” she replied. “I don’t.”

“Not always. But you did, just then, when we saw the foxes.”

“I guess.” They left the Meadow and came back to the path. Valentina said, “It just seemed-weird. Disrespectful.”

“Because we’re in the cemetery?” asked Robert.

“I don’t know…when I’m dead I want people to make love on my grave on a regular basis. It will remind me of happier times.”

“But would you do it on someone else’s grave? Elspeth’s?”

“No-not unless I was with Elspeth. However that would work. Maybe if we were both dead,” he said.

“I wonder if dead people have sex.”

“Perhaps that would depend on whether you ended up in heaven or hell.”

Valentina laughed. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”

Robert pinched her bum and she shrieked. “All the boring
Joy of Sex
-type sex in hell and all the good naughty sex in heaven,” he offered.

“That seems upside down, somehow.”

“There’s your American Puritanism showing; why shouldn’t heaven consist of all the great pleasures? Eating, drinking, making love: if it’s all so wrong, why do we have to do it to stay alive and propagate the species? No, I think heaven will consist of nonstop bacchanalia. Down in hell they’ll be worrying about STDs and premature ejaculation. Anyway,” Robert continued with a sly sidewise look at Valentina’s cool profile, “if you don’t watch out you’ll have to go to a special, fenced-off area where they keep all the virgins.”

“In heaven or hell?”

He shook his head. “I’m really not sure. You ought not to chance it.”

“I’d better get busy.”

“I wish you would.” He halted in the path. They were near the little turning that led to the Rossettis. Valentina stopped a few feet away when she realised that Robert wasn’t walking with her. She held his gaze for a moment and then looked down in confusion.

“You don’t mean-here?” Valentina’s voice was hardly audible.

“No,” Robert said. “As you said earlier, that would be disrespectful. And I imagine Jessica would have me arrested if she ever found out. Lord, she doesn’t even like it when the visitors wear shorts.”

“I think she’d just fire you.”

“That would be worse. What on earth would I do with myself? I’d have to get a proper job.” He began to walk again, and she fell in beside him. “Valentina, do you like it when I talk to you that way?”

She said nothing.

“You invite it, and then you seem upset. I’m not…no one has dealt with me this way…at least not since I was in the sixth form. I guess the problem is the age difference.” He sighed. “Although most of the girls I knew then couldn’t wait to get shagged. It was a glorious era.”

Valentina shook her head. “It’s not about shagging.” She hesitated, both at the unfamiliar slang and at what she was trying to say. “It’s about Julia.”

Robert gave her a look of pure surprise. “What could this possibly have to do with Julia?”

Valentina said, “We’ve always done everything together, everything important…”

“But you’re constantly telling me how much you want to do things on your own.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just afraid.”

“Okay. That’s understandable.”

“No, it’s stupid,” said Valentina. “I wish I could leave her.”

“You’re not
married
to her. You can do what you like.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t.” They walked on in silence and then Robert said, “Wait-I have to collect the rakes.” He ran back up the path, leaving Valentina standing in a patch of sun.
It’s nice here,
she thought.
If I were Elspeth I’d rather be here than stuck in the flat.
Robert reappeared, rakes and bag in hand. She watched him trotting toward her.
Do I love him? I think so. Then why not…?
But it was impossible. She sighed.
I have to get away from Julia.
Robert slowed as he came up to her. “Shall we have tea in the office?”

“Sure,” she said, and they walked back to the chapels together in mutual perplexity.

Julia wanted to frolic in the beautiful weather, but she didn’t feel like going out alone and Valentina had run off somewhere with Robert. So she took herself upstairs, determined to inflict her mood on Martin.

“Hello, my dear,” he said, when she appeared in his stuffy, darkened office. “Just give me a minute or two, I’m almost finished with this. Will you make us some tea?”

Julia marched into the kitchen and began making tea. Usually she enjoyed laying out the cups and saucers, boiling the water, all the soothing habitual motions that added up to tea, but today she had no patience. She piled everything onto the tray willy-nilly and brought it back to Martin’s office.

“Thank you, Julia. Let’s put it here on the desk, and pull up a chair for you. There, that’s cosy.”

She plopped onto the chair. “Don’t you ever get tired of sitting in the dark?”

“No,” he said pleasantly.

“Why do you have newspaper taped over the windows?”

“Our decorator recommended it.” Martin smiled.

“Yeah, right.”

Martin poured the tea. “You seem a bit put out, Miss Poole.”

“Oh-Valentina’s out somewhere with Robert.”

He handed her the teacup. “And why is that a problem?”

“Well, she’s dating him.”

Martin raised his eyebrows. “Is she? That’s interesting. He seems old for someone her age.”

Julia said, “If you weren’t married would you date me?”

Martin was so startled by the question that he didn’t answer.

Julia said, “I guess that’s a no, huh?”

“Julia-”

She put her teacup down, leaned over and kissed him. After she did this Martin sat quite still, deeply confused. “You shouldn’t do that,” he finally said. “I’m a married man.”

Julia got up and walked around one of Martin’s smaller piles of boxes. “Marijke’s in Amsterdam.”

“Nonetheless, I’m married to her.” He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief.

Julia circled the boxes again. “But she left you.”

Martin indicated the towers of boxes, the windows. “She didn’t like to live this way. And I don’t blame her.”

Julia nodded. She felt it wouldn’t be polite to agree too emphatically.

The words flew out of Martin’s mouth despite himself: “You’re very attractive, Julia.” She stood still and looked at him, dubious. “But I love Marijke, and no one else will do.”

Julia resumed circling. “What exactly-how does that feel?” Martin didn’t answer and she tried to clarify. “I’ve never been in love. With a boy.”

Martin stood up and ran his hands over his face. His eyes were tired and he had an urge to shave. It wasn’t a compulsion, just a feeling of untidiness and five o’clock shadow. He glanced at the computer; it was almost four. It was time, would have been time for him to shower if Marijke were coming home after work. He could wait a little while. Julia thought,
He isn’t going to answer
and felt relieved. Martin said, “It feels as though part of my self has detached and gone to Amsterdam, where it-she-is waiting for me. Do you know about phantom-limb syndrome?” Julia nodded. “There’s pain where she ought to be. It’s feeding the other pain, the thing that makes me wash and count and all that. So her absence is stopping me from going to find her. Do you see?”

“But wouldn’t you feel much better if you went and found her?”

“I’m sure I would. Yes. Of course, I would be very happy.” He looked anxious, as though Julia were about to propel him outdoors.

“So?”

“Julia, you don’t understand.”

“You didn’t answer my question. I asked you about being in love. You said what it was like when your wife went away.”

Martin sat down again.
How young she is. When we were that young we invented the world, no one could tell us a thing.
Julia stood with her hands clenched, as though she wanted to pound an answer out of him. “Being in love is…anxious,” he said. “Wanting to please, worrying that she will see me as I really am. But wanting to be known. That is…you’re naked, moaning in the dark, no dignity at all…I wanted her to see me and to love me even though she knew everything I am, and I knew her. Now she’s gone, and my knowledge is incomplete. So all day I imagine what she is doing, what she says and who she talks to, how she looks. I try to supply the missing hours, and it gets harder as they pile up, all the time she’s been gone. I have to imagine. I don’t know, really. I don’t know any more.” He sat with his head lowered into his chest, and his words became almost inaudible. Julia thought,
He feels for his wife what I feel about Valentina.
This frightened her. What she felt about Valentina was insane, broken, involuntary. Julia suddenly hated Marijke.
Why did she leave him here, sitting in his chair with his shoulders shaking?
She thought of her dad.
Does he feel this way about Mom?
She could not imagine her dad on his own. She walked over to where Martin sat, his eyes closed, head down. She stood behind him, leaned over him and put her arms around his shoulders, rested her cheek against the back of his head. Martin stiffened, then slowly crossed his arms and laid his hands over Julia’s. He thought of Theo, tried to remember the last time Theo had embraced him.

“Sorry,” Julia whispered.

“No, no,” Martin replied. Julia released him. Martin stood up, walked out of the office. Julia heard him blowing his nose several rooms away. He came back and did his odd sideways movement through the door, sat down in his chair again.

Julia smiled. “You left the room without doing that.”

“Did I? Oh dear.” Martin felt momentarily consternated, but the feeling faded.
I should remedy that,
he thought, but the underlying urge was not there.

Julia did a little shimmy, looked at him. “You seem better these days. Not as freaked out as usual.”

“Do I?”

“You do. I wouldn’t go so far as to say you seem
normal,
but you aren’t jumping up every ten seconds to wash something.”

“It must be the vitamins,” he said.

“You never know,” Julia replied. There was something in Martin’s voice that made her wonder.

“I’ve been working on standing on the landing,” he told her.

“Martin, that’s great! Will you show me?”

“Erm, I haven’t actually managed it yet. But I’ve been practising.”

“We’ll have to give you extra vitamins.”

“Yes, I think that might be a good idea.”

Julia sat down again. “So if you can go outside, will you go to Amsterdam?”

“Yes.”

“And then I won’t see you any more?”

“Then you can come to Amsterdam and visit us.” He began to tell her about Amsterdam. Julia listened and thought,
It could happen.
She was simultaneously excited and worried: if Martin got better, would he become boring?

She interrupted him. “Will you let me take the newspaper off your windows?”

Martin considered. No inner voice rose to forbid it, but he hesitated. “Perhaps just a few windows? Just-to try it.”

Julia jumped up and darted around the boxes that obstructed her access to the office windows. She began to rip down the newspaper and tape. Light flooded the room. Martin stood blinking, looking out at trees and sky.
My goodness, it’s spring again.
Julia coughed in the dust she had stirred up. When the coughing subsided she said, “Well?”

Martin nodded. “Very nice.”

“Can I do more?”

“More windows?” He wasn’t sure. “Let me adjust to-sunlight-first. Perhaps in a few days you can do some more.” Martin walked to within a few feet of the windows. “What glorious weather,” he said. His heart was pounding. The world seemed to press itself upon him. Julia said something but he did not hear.

“Martin?”
Ohmigod.
Julia grabbed him by the shoulders and propelled him towards his chair. He was covered in sweat; his breath was laboured. “Martin?” He held up one hand to forestall questions and sat down abruptly. A few minutes later he said, “It’s only a panic attack.” He continued to sit with his eyes closed and an inward expression on his face.

Julia said, “What can I do?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Sit with me.”

She sat and waited with him. Soon Martin sighed and said, “Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it?” He patted his face with a handkerchief.

“I’m sorry.” Nothing she did today was right.

“Please don’t be. Here, let’s move our chairs and sit in the sun.”

“But-?”

“It will be fine. We’ll stay away from the windows.” They moved their chairs.

Julia said, “I keep thinking I understand, but I don’t.”

“I don’t understand it myself, why should you?” Martin said. “That’s what madness is, isn’t it? All the wheels fly off the bus and things don’t make sense any more. Or rather, they do, but it’s not a kind of sense anyone else can understand.”

“But you were getting better,” she said, near tears.

“Oh, I’m much better. Trust me.” Martin stretched out his legs and let the sun cover him.
Soon it will be summer.
He thought of Amsterdam in summer, the narrow canal houses basking in their allotment of northern sun, Marijke tanned and agile, laughing at his Dutch accent; it was a long time ago, but summer was coming again. He reached out and offered Julia his hand. She took it, and they sat side by side in the light, looking out at the spring day from a safe distance.

V
ALENTINA HAD brought her sewing machine to London, but she hadn’t laid a finger on it since that first day when they’d arranged all their belongings in the flat. It sat in the guest room and reproached her whenever she happened to notice it. The sewing machine had started to feature in her dreams, needy and neglected, like a pet she’d forgotten to feed.