Kissing Through a Pane of Glass (5 page)

Confused, uncertain how to reply, I merely smiled. Wasn’t a liana a climbing plant, one of those things Tarzan used when he went swinging from tree to tree in the jungle? ‘It’s a lovely name,’ I said at last.

The beautiful girl returned the smile, walked across the terrace and sat down beside me.

‘Everyone always says, “Oh, what an unusual name! ” Then they ask me to spell it. It’s so predictable, it drives me mad.’ She paused a moment, and then looked at me quizzically. ‘You must be a different sort of person,’ she said softly. ‘I think I’m going to like you.’

If my life were a film and this event a scene, then at this point something intense and dramatic would have happened. Perhaps the camera angle would have changed to an intimate two-shot; two strangers looking into each other’s eyes. Cut to a close-up as two hands reach towards each other. Fingertips touch. Cut to close-up of Liana’s face, eyes sparkling, lips slightly parted. Music swells in the background. Medium shot now, as his hand tentatively strokes her golden thigh. He eases her dress up to her waist. The music increases in volume - all lush strings and heavy, persistent beats - as the camera draws back and we see the two strangers undressing each other beside the lake...

It was not this way.

We sat side by side, staring out at the blue waters, and talked amiably about our travels. We stayed on the terrace as the sun descended behind the mountains in a blaze of red and gold.

You’re disappointed, right? You think this prosaic and uninteresting. Then let me clarify, let me tell you, at least, what I saw during this time, what was running through my mind.

Externally, it’s true, I was cool, calm and wise; a regular Bodhisattva, in complete control. Internally, I was in turmoil, a mass of confused emotion and restrained passion. Liana sat just a few inches away from me. She sat, like myself, with her back against the wall, then brought her knees up to her chest and clasped her hands around them. She did not look at me, but stared straight ahead, presenting me with that extraordinary profile. Her short, blonde hair took on a russet hue as the sun began to set. Her sky-blue eyes were of the most perfect clarity, and her long, fine lashes seemed spun of some fine gossamer thread.

She took off her sandals, then gathered the folds of her dress up over her knees to expose her legs to the rays of the setting sun. I caught a glimpse of skimpy white cotton underwear, which set off her even tan.

Those legs. Like everything about her, they were perfect. Not a blemish, scar or freckle. No moles, discoloured patches or birthmarks. Her thighs were perfectly smooth, with just a trace of perspiration. This was all too much for me. There was no way of hiding the erection that was straining against my shorts, and rather than draw attention to it by moving, I pretended that it wasn’t there.

Physically I was in extreme discomfort, but I did not so much as shift position to alleviate the situation. I just sat there. Nor did I pretend not to look at her legs, as this also would have looked too obvious. So I stared at them for a while in an amalgam of lust and admiration. In fact, I had so little choice that, had Liana commented on any of this, I would have been unable to refute charges or make amends.

If Liana was disturbed by my evident voyeurism, she did not show it. Every now and then she leant forward a fraction and pulled her shoulders back as if her neck or back were stiff. Other than that, she hardly moved.

But even that simple, guileless movement was enough to send me into a paroxysm. I imagined leaning across to her and running my hand along the inside of her thighs, visualised the moment when my fingertips would settle on the white cotton of her panties. I could feel the tenderness of flesh, the warm, slightly damp feel of skin, the soft curls of hair. I could imagine her lying naked on the floor, arching her back and turning her head from side to side whilst in the throes of orgasm. I could see myself on top of her, supporting my weight on my elbows, thrusting deep inside her...

I know there is a theory that things automatically become beautiful to us if we throw our attention at them, that the reason why something is beautiful is that it draws our attention to it. If so, then Liana was the flame and I the moth - a simile that, perhaps, was rather more accurate than I realised, considering the ultimate fate of so many moths.

Every now and then I would deliberately look away from Liana and cast my attention towards the water, then the palace, then the mountains beyond, then to the setting sun, and further still to the skies.

There are times in our lives when we are sensitive to the undeniable but inexplicable notions of eternity and infinity. The concepts are with us daily, but we can have no intellectual comprehension of them - great minds have been driven over the edge by even attempting such things. However, every now and then we may experience an intuitive sense of the vastness, the greatness of the universe and of ourselves and of the interconnectedness of the two. People who have experienced such things usually refer to the sensation as religious or mystic.

I wouldn’t wish to put a name to whatever it was I felt that afternoon, other than to say it encompassed all these things and more. It was not some ethereal, namby-pamby sensation though; it was solid, earthy, real. It seemed to affect both my body and my mind, and it was both glorious and awesome, and I did not want it to end.

What was going through Liana’s mind all this time I could not say. During the hours that we sat there, right until after the sun had disappeared from sight, I managed somehow to engage in ordinary light conversation. I remember her laughing frequently, so unless she was merely being polite I assumed that my stories were amusing; but, for the life of me, I could not now tell you details of that conversation.

When twilight turned to night, we left the terrace and walked to a nearby restaurant where we drank cold beers and ate very little.

‘Are you okay now?’

‘Yes. Fine. I’m sorry, Michael.’

‘Don’t worry.’ I kissed the top of her head, stroked her hair.

‘When are you leaving?’

‘You know when.’

‘Tell me. Tell me again.’

‘Two weeks.’ I heard her give another little sniff. She hugged me closer to her.

‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘Liana...’

‘Don’t go, Michael.’

‘You know I have no choice. Let’s not talk about it now. I’m not going just yet. We still have some time.’

She nodded, reluctantly, then started to cry again.

It’s always like this when it’s time for me to go. For five months Liana curses me. She screams at me, shouts at me, abuses me. Sometimes it all gets too much for her, and she’ll flail away at my head and chest with clenched fists. She’ll wake me in the middle of the night and accuse me of some heinous, trumped-up crime, and refuse to let me sleep until I admit my guilt. Once every three months she’ll grab a kitchen knife and lock herself in the bathroom and threaten to slash her wrists.

In the final month, before it’s time for me to leave, she becomes more aggressive still. She starts in on my “problem”, brings up incidents from the past - both real and imagined - and accuses me incessantly of infidelity. The fits become more frequent. She talks about how she wants to see me dead, would like to kill me. And then, in the final two weeks, she becomes contrite. Soon she will start begging me to stay.

I can cope with the rest of it; the death wishes, the suicide threats, the hammering fists, the uncontrollable rage. But when she starts to beg, when she literally goes down on her knees, prostrates herself before me, grabs hold of my ankles, promises anything, everything, that’s when I go to pieces.

The rest of the time when Liana isn’t being crazy, she’s as normal, as controlled, as relaxed as any person could be. Our friends adore her; they always have done. Liana is wonderful company; witty, charming, warm. Every man who has met Liana at these times falls in love with her. I am the focus of the most extreme envy. There’s Michael Montrose, they say; he has no proper job, no home, no money. He has a big nose, a weak chin, a straggly beard, and he’s married to the most beautiful woman in the world, a woman who is so evidently crazy about him that she’s prepared to let him wander off around the globe for half the year. That Michael is prepared to leave such a ravishing creature is proof, they say, of only one thing.

He must be mad.

If, as some people claim, we are what we eat, then I invite you to taste a slice of my life, and savour its bittersweet irony.

***

There is really only one reason why I must leave Liana behind. Money. As I have already mentioned, it is not easy making a living as a travel writer. It has taken me the best part of eight years to get to this stage, and frankly, for most of that time I have had to struggle to make ends meet. Even now I make less money than most of my contemporaries. I don’t like to harp on about it, after all, it was my choice; I chose to go into a profession that pays peanuts, and what’s more, pays them in arrears.

Currently I write for six magazines. Whilst officially freelance, I have a sort of implied contract with the editors of four of these magazines, each of whom agree to publish between ten and twelve of my articles a year. The other two will publish occasional pieces, only these articles must be accompanied by photographs or illustrations. None of these agreements are in writing; should any or all of them suddenly decide that they no longer require my pieces, I am - to use the vernacular - well and truly fucked.

Anyone who has ever had any dealings with the publishing world will know that as soon as one enters the waters they turn from warm, inviting pools into shark-infested seas. Or worse, murky, polluted cesspits, which are impervious to light and smell very unpleasant. Remuneration is usually the stumbling block; payment is not made until after publication. Officially, the time period is one month. In practice, it is anything from a few days to a year. As the time between acceptance of the article and its appearance on the shelves of your local newsagent may be of the same order, it can sometimes be as long as two years between when an article is completed and when the cheque floats through the letter box to land on the carpet with an anti-climactic slap.

To compound these problems, I am hopeless at keeping track of my financial affairs. All I know is that, at present, having paid the final month’s rent on the flat and bought my open return ticket to Indonesia, I am broke. Somewhere, in the ethereal twilight zone that exists between several magazine accounting departments and my bank account, there floats two or three thousand pounds that may one day find their way from the former to the latter, or as I see it, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

In the meantime, I cannot count on that money. To all intents and purposes, it exists only in my imagination. Consequently I must seek yet another appointment with Mister Horace Leach, my friendly, anal-retentive bank manager, and make - what Mr Bloodsucker likes to call - “suitable financial arrangements”. He already owns documents, appended with my signature, entitling him to possession of one arm and both legs in the event of my defaulting on payment, and as I have only one good limb left as collateral, securing a loan this time may well prove difficult.

Once again, Mr Leach will urge me to get into something “with greater stability”; after all, as he delights in pointing out, I’m not a “youngster” any more (this from a man who was born middle-aged) and I do have commitments. There is no point my arguing with Leach; there is no way I could make him understand the set of circumstances that have conspired against me to bring me to my present position.

Leach thinks that if you’re a writer, you can write anything. Why don’t I write for television, he says; there must be good money in that? Sure, I want to say; TV is crying out for travel articles; perhaps we could work my last piece on Cairo into next week’s Coronation Street? Of course, I don’t say this, or anything like it. I do not wish to offend Mr Horace Leach, because if I’m lucky, Mr Horace Leach is going to give me some of his precious, middle-class, greatly stable money. So I tell him that I am in the process of doing whatever it is he suggested last time I came a-grovelling: writing Mills & Boon romances, sitcoms, radio plays, television advertisements, backs of cornflake packets.

Yes, it’s demeaning, but I have no choice. I need cash to live on, money for Liana’s fare back to Devon, and must arrange standing order payments to The Sanctuary for the next six months.

At least I won’t have to worry about Liana; she’ll be safe at The Sanctuary, probably safer than I. She will not run the risks of viral infection, malaria, sunstroke and dehydration. She will not have to deal with filthy sheets, diseased water and transport systems that cannot guarantee to get you from A to B without damage to body and/or soul.