Sing Like You Know the Words (43 page)

But Tim looked as dejected as a
dog that has been kicked.

-I can’t come here again. You’ve
got too much nice stuff. I’d steal the spoons if I needed the cash
for … you know.

-You can´t scare me like that
love. There´s not much here worth stealing. Matt. Brenda is going
without her coat. It’s on the bed upstairs. Get after her. She’s
just upset Tim. She’s got three kids you know; that’s why she
worries.

When Matthew returned, the mood
was calm again. He had no idea what they had talked about, but it
seemed that the women in his life had a knack of dealing with
stressful situations. Tim stayed a while longer: when he went home,
he thanked them and sounded like he meant it.

Outside the house, David and
Matthew shook hands on parting. The habit was new to them, and
Matthew was not sure what it meant; advancing middle age probably.
He paused.

-You know, whatever mum said
about immigration, I´ve never seen her treat one person different
to another. She’s not a racist.

-You don’t have to apologize for
her.

-Maybe it’s us. We grew up when
there first started to be blacks and Asians around. There was all
that casual racism, remember; the TV comedians and the jokes you
heard at school. It was supposed to be harmless, just a bit of fun.
We laughed at the time and we´re still feeling guilty about it. It
was easier to know where you stood in the seventies, with the
National Front idiots around. But now, I see there are real
problems, and I don’t trust myself to think about them, even in my
own head. I just don´t think about it.

David shook his head. Same old
Matthew; paralysed by self doubt even in his own thoughts. There
was nothing you could do with him. As for Tim, there was no point
in hoping for much. Sometimes he´d seemed like his old self,
especially when he was angry. The rest of the time it was as if he
was on medication, struggling to keep up with the conversation.
David supposed that his mind would soon be gone if his body did not
collapse first.

Chapter Eleven

Amy and Matthew had been
together for three years when she told him that the bank had
offered her a secondment in Canada, and she was thinking of
accepting it.

-Great, we should go online and
start looking for a house.

-It’s only for twelve months
Matt, it´s not permanent.

-But then how are we going to
manage?

-I was thinking I´d go out there
on my own, rent somewhere with space for when you visit. The bank
pays for a few trips during the year. I’ll be back before you
know.

Matthew said nothing for a
moment. Amy felt as if an invisible liquid presence had entered the
room and changed the temperature of the air that separated
them.

-How much do you want this
love?

Amy decided that the thing in
the room was one of those monsters from childhood that grow in
power if you admit they are there; so she answered in a bright,
straightforward voice.

-More than I thought I would.
It’s kind of a big deal at the bank, you understand. It’s like, do
this and you´ll be considered for bigger and better things. Turn it
down and that´s the ceiling right there.

-That’s not very fair.

-But that’s the way it is.
There´s a lot of people they could have offered; and they´d all
have jumped at it. Maybe it´s a test of commitment as well.
Especially for a woman: they´re convinced we´ll all run off and
have babies if the job get´s tough. But anyway, it´s actually
something I´d like to do. The only thing that’s stopping me is to
know how you feel.

-I never realized the job meant
so much to you.

-Maybe I didn’t realize either.
It’s all very sudden. I mean, I honestly didn’t go looking for
this; it came to me. But it is a big thing.

-Okay, well, we can’t be apart
for a year, so I’ll give my notice at the paper. Probably a good
thing for me to move on anyway.

-That’s just silly Matt. You’re
talking about something that is a big part of your life. It would
be like asking you to cut an arm off. I couldn’t let you come with
me, knowing that you´d done that. I’d rather not go myself.

-It´s only a job at a newspaper.
You´re what matters in my life.

-But it’s more than a job.

-How can you know that? We never
talk about it.

Amy sighed.

-We talk about more than you
realize Matt. We just do it in small ways that you don’t notice. I
know that the paper means a lot to you.

-But then what do we do? I can’t
ask you to give up the chance and stay here. You can´t ask me to
give up work and come with you.

-It’s only for twelve months.
There’s holidays and visits like I said. We can get through it. It
will pass before you know.

-Of course it will. Sorry, I was
being unreasonable

But when she’d gone and he was
living on his own, Matthew admitted to David how he really
felt.

-I can’t live this way anymore,
he said. On my own all the time. Not when Amy and I were so close
for so long.

David told him he sounded like a
spoilt kid.

-Look at all the time I´m away.
It´s life, unless you want a little woman to follow you around. And
don’t talk about the two of you in the past tense, she’s coming
back.

-I feel like she’s never coming
back, and that even if she does nothing will be the same.

-Why shouldn´t it be the same? I
wish you could hear yourself. You’d laugh.

-I know I´m being ridiculous. I
can’t explain it, except to say that it´s not just about feeling
lonely. It´s that I know that if we were to never see each other
again, it wouldn’t mean the same to Amy as it would mean to me

-That’s your old craziness
coming out again. I warn you, if it takes proper hold, I´ll have to
beat it out of you. When you´re like this you´re no use to Amy or
anyone else. You don´t need to plan your personal life three moves
in advance, responding to things that aren´t going to happen,
unless you make them happen.

The twelve months passed quickly
enough, and Matt flew out to see Amy twice on the bank´s ticket.
Afterwards everything seemed to be fine. If Amy noticed any
difference in Matthew when she returned, she thought it best not to
comment on it.

But though he tried to pretend
that nothing had changed, Matthew was different. He couldn´t even
speak to Amy about it: it was David who heard his confession.

-I thought about her all the
time she was away, every day, until eventually I knew what the
problem was. There´s nothing in me to inspire the kind of feeling
that Amy says she has for me. Either she´s mistaken about her
feelings, or else her feelings have nothing to do with me as I
really am. I’m nothing special, you know that. I´m in a trap. I
have to believe either that she’s in love with the feeling of being
in love for its own sake, or else that she sees more in me than
there really is. Either way I´m living a lie. One day she’ll see me
for who I am and that will be the end.

-Why should Amy trick herself
into caring about you?

-But that´s what she´s done. And
you have to understand. I love her. She deserves the best there is.
I don’t want her to be tricked into falling in love with someone,
even if it’s me

-You need professional help my
friend. You should fall on your knees and give thanks that this
girl loves a moron like you; which she clearly does; not waste your
time wondering why. What gives you the right to think that you know
what she´s thinking better than she does? That takes a special kind
of arrogance, Matthew. You say I manipulate people, but you’ve gone
beyond me: you’re ready to tell them that what they believe they´re
thinking is not what is in their minds at all.

-Be serious.

-I’m being deadly serious Matt.
And one more thing. I know you will think this comes from a closet
catholic, so you won’t like to hear it, but it’s true anyway. If
you walk around feeling that you have to deserve your happiness, or
else it can’t be genuine, then you’ll never be happy. Ever. I
shouldn’t put it this way for you, but it’s a question of grace.
Grace that is bestowed on you when good things come your way and
grace that you must find accept them. If we only received what we
had deserved, the world would be in flames.

Matthew refused to be persuaded.
He´d got an idea in his head that he clung onto stubbornly even if
it threatened to annihilate him. Amy could see clearly that he was
in pain, but there was nothing she could do to get him to talk it
through. They were caught by the notion they had always shared,
that true feelings could only bloom in the dark secret places of
the heart. If you exposed them to sunlight and prodded them about,
you were left with a handful of dead petals. Even so, Amy had her
direct way of speaking.

-I feel as if we’ve spoiled
something, and we might never get it back, she told him. I wish I’d
never seen Toronto.

-You had to go love, and you’ve
not spoiled anything. I just have some stupid, pointless feelings
that I have to work through. Everything will be alright, it will
pass. It’s just taking me a while, and that’s my own fault. There’s
no reason to spoil your time brooding over it.

-Maybe we should do something
about it instead of talking. We could get married.

-You were the one who said no to
that.

-I remember

-So why would you suggest it
now?

-Does it matter? Do I have to be
able to explain it?

-I don’t know. It’s a nice
thought, but now isn´t the time. We should talk about it later.

In fact it was already too late.
Amy´s next overseas trip was only a three months posting, barely
more than an extended business trip; but when she returned from
Mexico, Matthew told her that he´d met someone else and that it was
over for them.

***

Amy had known that something was
badly wrong from the moment they held each other in the arrivals
hall of the airport, but to hear from his own mouth that Matthew
had been with another woman sent a wave crashing over Amy´s life
that demolished the defences she´d been able to put up against
hearing bad news and destroyed everything. She didn’t scream or cry
and she stayed polite; a little too polite. The screaming and
wailing was going on inside; where some small but precious part of
her was twisting up and blackening, dying a horrible private
death.

-Someone younger and prettier, I
suppose.

-No: she’s closer to my own age,
seven years older than you. She’s got a kid.

-Is that supposed to make me
feel better?

-The boy´s handicapped. He’s
twelve I think, but he seems younger..

-What is wrong with him?

-I don’t know what they call it.
He needs a lot of help though. It’s hard on Jane.

-Do you think you´ll be able to
provide... Jane, with the help she needs?

-I haven’t really thought about
it

-Well you need to.

-Amy, this is really
uncomfortable for us both. I know you don’t want to talk about
someone else’s family just now.

-You’ve been through this kind
of thing before. I expect you know how it works.

-Yes I’ve split up with girls
before, and you’ve never reproached me about it or asked me
anything about them, and I´ve always been grateful for that. But
this situation is different anyway. This is a situation I never,
ever wanted to happen.

-It seems that you´re the one
who is making it happen.

-Because it just has to be this
way. What can I say? I spent so many years not wanting to be
responsible for anything or anyone and then I met you. You’re
perfect. You’ve been everything to me. You are everything to me
still, except that I could never believe you needed me, as much as
I need you. If I died tomorrow, you’d be sad, but you’d cope. Life
would go on. I admire that about you Amy, I really do; your
self-possession is beautiful: and you never ask for anything for
yourself. But you woke something in me that I didn’t think I had;
some hunger, but it’s more than that, to be needed, not just
wanted. And now I have that hunger, I can’t shake it off.

-What you´ve just said is so
full of crap that I can´t even begin to answer you. I suppose you
think that Jane needs you more than I do?

-I believe she does.

-I hope you know it. You need to
do more than believe. God help you if you don’t. You’re a person
who can change what he believes overnight. I know how weak you can
be Matthew. It never changed how I felt about you. I know that you
think that because I don’t talk about what passes between us, it
means I don’t understand. You feel unworthy of what we have, in
some stupid part of you that I can’t get through to. If I could
talk to you about it I would, but there are some things you can’t
talk about without causing damage. Once you´ve spoken, it’s already
too late.

-Don’t be angry

-I’m not angry. I’m sad. You‘ve
hurt me with what you´re doing and more with how you are doing it.
I know that men sometimes sleep with other women to escape from the
relationship they´re in, but you didn’t need to do that to us. You
could have just told me how you felt. And if I thought that you had
only started to see this woman as a way to get away from me, and
that you didn’t even love her; if I heard afterwards that you´d run
away, after letting her believe that you would be there for her and
her poor son; then I would begin to hate you. I’m sorry to have to
use that word.

Matthew knew that if Amy had
fought against him, if she’d refused to accept that it was over
between them, or even if she’d only broken down in front of him;
there would have been no way for him to walk out. He didn’t have
that much strength. But she was too proud and in any case, the
damage was done. Amy shed the rest of her tears in private. Within
a week she´d found somewhere temporary to stay and moved her things
out, but that night Matthew left her in the flat, not knowing where
he should go. Oakland Ridge seemed like the only place.