Elegance and Innocence (70 page)

It hurts. It tears. I don’t know the nurse who’s holding my hand but I’m breaking hers; crushing it. Breathe, she tells me. Just breathe. And I want to slap her into next Tuesday. I hate her. I hate this. It hurts, it hurts, it HURTS! This … this too shall … fuck!!!! This too shall … damn it! … pass!

Then the monitor’s blinking – the numbers shooting up, 154, 160, 172, up and up they go.

‘The baby’s in distress,’ they say. ‘Don’t push. Stop
pushing,’ the midwife tells me but I can’t … I can’t stop pushing … I have to,
have
to get it out!

‘Stop,’ she tells me again, ‘you have to stop!’ But she doesn’t understand; she doesn’t know that I’m breaking, that I’ll die if I don’t get this out and I can’t, absolutely can’t, stop pushing.

The green numbers are flashing. They’re prodding me, pulling me, injecting something into my leg and all the time I’m shouting, I want it OUT! I really want it out! Oh, God! Make this pass, make this … and they’re pushing me, I’m in an operating theatre, a gas mask over my face, the surgeon’s staring at me, everyone’s moving very quickly and this too shall … this too shall … this too …

I open my eyes.

I feel nothing. Nothing but the constant undertow of sleep pulling me down.

I was doing something. In the middle of something.

Something important.

My lids fall shut again. I force them open.

What was it?

And suddenly I’m not alone.

There’s someone else in the room; a pink little body curled up like a kidney bean, lying in a clear plastic cot by the side of my bed. He’s sleeping, his arms pressed to his chest, and the nurse, the one whose hand I crushed, smiles. Silently, she lifts him and hands him to me.

He’s here in my arms, warm, safe, alive. The pain’s gone.
There’s only him. And he’s perfect; he’s the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the swell of a Verdi chorus, the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon all rolled into one.

A soft little hand reaches out and wraps its tiny fingers round mine.

I wonder if Robbie can see us now.

And this too …

This too shall pass.

– O swallow, swallow

Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour aboile

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe
.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata
.

Shantih shantih shantih

Mr Hastings looks up.

His forehead’s damp with perspiration. He’s staring at me; a question in his eyes. For the first time in months I’ve let him have free rein – not stopped him once. And now he seems distressed; unnerved by the unexpected freedom.

Is it me, or has he skipped a few pages? It didn’t feel quite so long this week or so strident. Could it be that Mr Hastings is mellowing?

The rest of the group are in a stupor, which is to be expected.

I smile back at him, which only seems to disturb him more.

‘Well?’ he asks irritably.

‘Well,’ I answer, crossing my legs. ‘So it goes, eh?’

He blinks at me, appalled.

I’m being flippant. I try again.

‘Mr Hastings … may I call you Gerald?’

‘Yes, yes.’ He waves his hand impatiently.

‘Gerald, why is it that you’re so fond of this poem?’

He frowns.

I sense his indignation building. I head him off at the pass.

‘What I mean is, what is it that you like about it so much? What appeals to you … from a personal point of view?’

And he scowls again, only more intensely this time.

By now the rest of the group have joined us again in mind as well as body. Clive straightens in his chair, Brian loosens his tie, Mrs Patel can’t suppress a yawn. Doris takes a small wooden fan from her handbag, which she waves lightly, seductively, like some character from a Restoration drama, in front of her bosom, a gesture which strikes me to be of almost perverse modesty.

But Mr Hastings is silent.

There’s the slightly tinny sound of water rushing through unseen pipes.

‘Well, it’s long,’ he ventures after a while.

Clive smirks.

‘And you like that?’ I prompt, ignoring Clive.

Mr Hastings straightens defensively. ‘When you’re my age, people don’t often listen to what you’re saying. And then, of course, he has so much to say, Eliot. And he says it in these wonderful ways. There are quotes and references; a whole secret language.’

I nod.

‘And I like’, he continues, ‘that Eliot was a nobody, a bank clerk. A genius without question,’ he adds quickly, ‘but no one knew for the longest time. They just thought he was … ordinary’

‘But he wasn’t,’ Doris affirms, smiling graciously.

And for a moment Mr Hastings is distracted.

I lean back in my chair, contemplating the life of T. S. Eliot, hidden genius, poet, playwright and scholar, showing up for work in his grey flannel suit, hands moving mechanically through piles of paperwork while his brain was beset with images of heroes, hot gammon steak and Hindu payers; an inner world full of the secret longings of ordinary men; if, indeed, ordinary men long to be heroes, eat gammon steak and utter Hindu prayers. Apparently they do.

‘But most of all’ – Mr Hastings folds the worn edition closed on his lap – ‘it’s sad.’

Clive looks up.

Doris stops fanning.

‘My father liked this poem. I don’t think he understood it. But he wanted to be the kind of man who did.’

His eyes meet mine; they have a certain fierceness I’ve grown quite fond of.

Suddenly a smile spreads over his features. ‘I’ve always endeavoured to be the kind of man who reads Eliot.’

‘And what kind of man is that?’ I ask.

‘The kind of man who’s willing to appreciate what he doesn’t understand.’

And he leans back in his chair, satisfied.

Class was over twenty minutes ago; the students are gone. Outside, the cleaning lady’s metal bucket rattles against the mop as she works her way down the hall.

I’m in my coat, ready to go, and have been for some time. But I just can’t seem to pack all my papers and books back into my holdall; I honestly don’t know how I got them all in this morning. The more I push, the more difficult it becomes. I’ve emptied it and restacked them – first sideways and then standing upright …

I step back, breathe and try again.

There must be a way.

I cram them in loosely, lean my full body weight down on them and force them in. The side seams of the holdall creak, but eventually I succeed. And, heaving it over my shoulder (the one that’s nearly an inch lower than the other from lugging this bag around town, day in, day out), I lumber down the hallway.

As I push through the side exit, I’m greeted by a thin,
misty rain. Looking up, I take in the mysterious beauty of this night sky, its moon veiled by a spill of full, dark clouds.

The next thing I know, I’m falling.

I pitch forward, grab the handrail.

The shoulder strap snaps.

And the entire contents of the bag tumble down the steps, landing in a deep black puddle on the uneven cobblestones below.

Shit!

There they all are: my Norton
Anthology of Poetry
, my
Oxford Companion to Literature
, my Chekhov, my Congreve, the red leather John Donne book from the second-hand shop on Charing Cross Road, the Sheridan plays, the War Poets and, worst of all, my
Complete Works of Shakespeare
; the same edition I brought with me all the way from Ohio over fifteen years ago – sopping wet.

‘That’s a lot of books.’

I turn.

Robbie’s leaning against the opposite wall, holding R. Fitzroy’s blue-and-white china teacup, still wearing the ugly orange jumper of eternity.

‘What?’

She takes a sip of tea. ‘I said, that’s an awful lot of books to have to carry around.’

I pick up the sodden Shakespeare. It hangs, dripping, in my hand. I try to shake it out, but the spine, fragile for
some time, gives way. It collapses, pages falling away like leaves. ‘I’ve had it for years,’ I say.

‘Maybe you don’t need it any more. Maybe you don’t need any of them.’

I stand, staring at the puddle.

The rain picks up.

‘But of course I need those books!’ I rub my eyes, irritated and overwhelmed. I’m not in the mood for her tonight. ‘How am I going to teach? By heart?’ Crouching down, I fish out the Chekhov; its pages dissolve beneath my fingers. I drop it back into the black water. ‘Damn!’

‘It wasn’t an accident.’

‘Of course it was!’ I look at her. ‘I tripped!’

‘Evie’ – her voice is clear and still – ‘it wasn’t an accident. I saw it coming. I could’ve moved. But I didn’t.’

Cold rain splashes against the back of my neck, like a cold hand. ‘What are you talking about?’

She turns her face towards the moonlight, water beading like tiny crystals on her fine features. She speaks carefully, fitting the pieces together for the first time. ‘It was freezing. The sky was white. You couldn’t open your mouth without your teeth aching, it was so cold. I’d gone out without a coat. The guy who sells fruit on the corner called out to me, asking me where I left it. I laughed. I told him I was only going to be a minute, just getting some Diet Coke, but I already knew that it didn’t matter if I had a coat or not … I knew I didn’t want to come
back, that the cold wouldn’t affect me.’ She turns to me again. ‘It wasn’t an accident.’

‘But … you said it was … you said …’

‘I know what I said.’ She’s confused now, staring into the china teacup. ‘But it only came back to me a moment ago. Your foot was on the edge of the step, you looked up at the sky, you kept going, but there was nothing there! And it came back …’ Her voice is strained with feeling. ‘I thought I’d been cheated, Evie! All this time, nowhere, stuck! And then, I remembered … I never even bothered to take my coat!’

We stand there, looking at one another.

‘Don’t you see? I made a decision, Evie! I must have!’

The rain falls harder.

She’s very still now. Her thin shoulders have sunk forward; wet hair clings to her face. She’s even paler, her skin’s just a translucent, soft glow. I’ve never seen her so quiet, so calm.

Raindrops fill the cup in her hand; tiny ripples in the warm tea.

‘You never wanted to go to Juilliard, did you?’

I feel as if my heart’s been cracked in two; my innermost secret on the brink of exposure. ‘How do you know that?’

Her voice is gentle. ‘Because there are no accidents. No mistakes. We don’t just fall off the pavement into the abyss, do we? Even if there had been no Jake, you still wouldn’t have gone, would you?’

She waits for me to say something.

I open my mouth. No words come out.

‘You’re not what you think you are.’

I can barely find my voice. ‘And what’s that?’

‘A failure.’

Part of me wants to laugh, from relief. The rest of me wants to cry, for the same reason.

Suddenly the story I’ve built my whole life around comes undone, dissolving like the pages in the books at my feet. Evie, the failed actress, the bad friend, the wayward daughter and cold, unfeeling lover. Evie, who should’ve been somewhere else, doing something else, feeling differently, achieving more; Evie always scrambling to catch up, lagging, still lagging behind …

I close my eyes; tears mingle with the cool drops on my cheeks.

‘But failure is the price you pay … isn’t it? For love.’

There’s no response.

I open them.

‘Robbie!’ My voice echoes. ‘
Robbie
!’

There’s no one there.

I’m alone, holding the broken bag.

R. Fitzroy’s teacup is on the pavement in front of me.

I pick it up.

It’s still warm.

‘Excuse me.’

It’s a woman’s voice, soft, with an Irish lilt.

I turn, looking down the hallway.

She’s about forty, with long dark-brown hair and bright-blue eyes. She’s carrying a stack of books and a large leather handbag, not unlike my former holdall, is slung over her shoulder, bulging with so many papers it has no hope of shutting properly, but neither does it look as if she’s tried. Dressed in an ankle-length black wool dress, of a rather bizarre, asymmetrical design, she’s staring at me with a curious look on her face.

‘Yes?’

She continues to frown at me. ‘Excuse me, but where did you get that teacup?’

I look at the cup in my hand. I obviously can’t tell her the truth … ‘It was outside,’ I say wearily. ‘I found it outside.’

She takes another step towards me. ‘It’s just I’ve been looking for it for months. It belongs to me, I’m sure.’

‘Really?’ It’s clear she thinks I’m lying; that I’ve been hoarding it all this time. ‘And you are?’

‘Rowena Fitzroy,’ she introduces herself. ‘I teach play-writing. What was it doing outside?’

I blink. ‘I guess someone … used it …’ I’m not vindicating myself very effectively. ‘I just popped out to get some fresh air …’ I hand it to her quickly. ‘I’m afraid it’s not very clean.’

Rowena takes the teacup and then smiles; it’s a lovely, genuine smile. I relax. ‘That’s so odd! I normally wouldn’t care so much, it’s just that my daughter gave it to me for
my birthday … it’s a mother thing, there’s something about anything from your child …’

I nod. ‘I have a little boy. I’d rather die than misplace a single glue-encrusted masterpiece.’

And we laugh, in recognition of our common bond.

‘Hey, what happened to your bag?’ She points to the broken holdall, dangling from my arm.

‘Nothing. An …’ It’s on the tip of my tongue to say ‘an accident’, but I stop myself. ‘Nothing. It was always … stressed. I’m sorry about the cup. I really didn’t take it – I’m not that kind of person.’

‘I’m sure,’ she says. ‘Well, lovely to meet you and thank you for salvaging it for me. I’ll have to be more careful in future; I’m afraid I have a bad habit of trusting to people’s better natures. Ellery says I’m mad!’