The Light of Amsterdam (10 page)

‘You're
OK
, I'm not drinking any more and there's a couple of smoke alarms I need to fit.'

She stared intently at him as he carefully poured the wine but he was concentrating on what he was doing and didn't look into her eyes. She didn't want him to take the girls home, she wanted him to stay there with her but she had given him the opportunity twice and he'd refused it. She would not try again. So instead she cleared the table and started to make coffee. Anka helped her and suddenly she asked herself would it be such a terrible thing if it was this young woman who knew the proper way to do things and who would have no need or motivation beyond the moment, who would let go again and probably be embarrassed enough afterwards to find a job somewhere else or take a flight home? As she handed her a plate their fingers brushed lightly for a second. Then she suddenly felt as if she might cry and so she excused herself and went to the bathroom where she sat on the toilet and dabbed her eyes with tissue before gradually pulling herself together again. In the mirror she couldn't see anything clearly because everything was fogged and smeared inside her head. She washed her hands and didn't look at her reflection.

The table had been fully cleared and the plates loaded into the dishwasher when she returned. A cup of coffee sat on the table ready for her and she was momentarily irritated that Richard had used assorted mugs that looked ill-matched and ugly.

‘Why didn't you use decent cups?' she asked more sharply than she intended but before he could think of an answer Anka told her that the coffee was very nice and then both girls thanked her for the meal. ‘You're welcome,' she said. ‘It wasn't very much.'

She looked at Anka and for a second their eyes met. It felt that just in this moment everything about each other was known, that all their secrets were laid open – it was what happened sometimes between women – and then they both turned away and the moment closed over once again. Something had been shared but she didn't know what it was or if it could ever prove stronger than whatever personal need pressed against the pale skin of this girl with faded-blue eyes. And what did any of it matter if everyone was still alive and you still had the strength to keep on going? So perhaps these were things that just happened to you along the way like illness and bereavement and you did your best to get over them and struggle on. She just didn't want any mess, no unpleasant and embarrassing residue clinging to them, so if it was to happen let it happen cleanly and quickly and let them both move on and if they might never be exactly where they were before, let them do their best to refind whatever balance it was held them together.

When the girls had finished their coffee he told them that he'd drive them home. She was glad that he didn't offer them any more wine and that he hadn't drunk any more. When he went off to fetch the smoke alarms and his toolbox she looked at the bottle and was momentarily tempted to finish it off after everyone had gone but tried to strengthen her resolution to dedicate herself, if not to abstinence, then at least to moderation. The girls left by the kitchen door to go and fetch their coats. She heard them chatting in Polish as they walked out into the floodlit corridor. Standing at the glass she looked at how the harsh light bleached Anka's hair almost white. For some reason she thought they looked like prisoners making their way back to their cells for the night. She felt sorry for them in their struggle to make a better life. She didn't think she could be as brave, told herself that she had never been brave, so this thing that she was planning to do seemed like it belonged to someone else and she wondered if she would find the strength to see it through.

He came back with his equipment and thanked her for the meal.

‘It was nothing,' she said but stopped herself adding that more warning would have been good because suddenly she realised that one of the things she liked about him was his capacity for generosity and as he started to zip his coat said only, ‘Be careful.'

‘I will. The roads are always full of madmen this time of year and if they don't get you then the traffic cops are hiding in every hedgerow with their hairdriers.' He spoke the words without looking at her but, as he finally pulled the zip close to his chin, met her gaze. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm fine,' she answered, forcing a half-smile.

‘You didn't take too much out of yourself?' and he was studying her more carefully. ‘You need to build it up slowly.'

She answered only by nodding and then, as he stood weighing her up, she pretended to busy herself with the dishes.

‘I'll not be long,' he said.

‘Be as long as you like,' she said without turning round because if she turned round she might ask him not to go at all and then she didn't know what answer he might give.

‘An hour at the most.'

It felt like he was trying too hard, too anxious to gain her permission. And perhaps ultimately that was what it would take – her unspoken but tacit approval. She understood that now. It was what she must do, she told herself. How much would it take out of her? Would it leave some yawning chasm opening up to then flood with hurt and bitterness? She didn't think so. It was the waiting she couldn't bring herself to bear. This was the best way.

‘Come outside a minute,' he said to her as he paused at the door.

‘To see the girls off?' she asked.

‘Just come outside for a second.'

She followed him to the front of the house where the two girls were standing beside the four-wheel drive. Celina was wearing a long scarf that seemed to endlessly spiral round her neck and fingerless gloves in the same colour. They looked as if they had been hand-knitted. Electric light left yellow transfers on the bonnet of the car. Behind the windscreen it looked as if fog was pressing against the glass.

He appeared in the lighted doorway. ‘Stand beside the girls, Marion,' he called and as she did so the three of them looked at each other with confusion. It was as if he was going to take a photograph but she knew that wasn't possible. The wind was beginning to nip her cheeks and she shivered.

‘Da da!' he said loudly, his voice a rising descant of boyish pleasure, and they looked up to see an illuminated Santa Claus climbing the chimney, then endlessly reversing and repeating his journey. The girls clapped their hands and squealed a little. His smile stretched from ear to ear. ‘So what do you think?' he asked and she heard the childish need in his voice as Celina said, ‘Very good,' over and over. Then she started a little as she felt Anka's hand rest on her shoulder.

‘You should go in now,' she told her. ‘You have no coat and the night is cold.'

She nodded and walked towards the lighted doorway. Did it feel like a kindness? Did it feel like a younger woman trying to preserve an older, frailer being? He stood aside to let her pass and although she didn't look at him she knew he wanted her approval but the only word she said was ‘Anka'. She walked on down the hall and then turned to face him. ‘Anka is a nice girl.' He stared at her with the same uncertainty she'd seen a few minutes earlier.

‘Yes, so what do you think?' he asked.

‘Whatever makes you happy,' she answered and then closed the study door behind her.

The computer started up and as she waited she could hear the car driving off. She checked her emails first of all but it was the usual concoction of spam with offers for beauty products, special phone and insurance deals and even someone asking if she was looking for love. She deleted them all and then started searching. It surprised her at first but it shouldn't have because there was nothing it seemed in the world that was not available if you had the money to pay. So the nature of the goods was really neither here nor there. She wondered for a moment about those who fell in love on the internet, puzzled a little about what cybersex might consist of and then looked at the faces scrolling across the screen. The faces were the most important because she had to find the right one and quickly she discarded anything tacky or vulgar. Discretion and decency were what she was looking for but at first it seemed that she must be the only customer for these commodities. And of course, not too young. Now she'd managed to narrow it down to three or four but was constantly changing her mind. She imagined she had the ability to see characters in expression. There was too a variation in price but the cost was not particularly important and would not be the crucial factor in her final choice.

Perhaps it would snow at Christmas. Perhaps her daughter would finally produce a boyfriend when she returned for the holiday. She had all her family presents mostly bought. Many of them online of course. But how would she feel afterwards? After it was done. She would cancel the gym membership. That at least would be a relief. By then he would understand and everything would be all right. Her fingers flicked over the keys. Soon she would shed the burden and everything would be light again. She thought of herself as a young woman with sunburnt knees paddling in the sea with her friends, heard once more their squeals of pleasure as the water plumed against their thighs. Remembered the way the sand seemed to slip away beneath her feet as the waves foamed and burbled between her toes.

Four

Monday morning in the college was similar to Friday afternoon in that the demarcation with the weekend blurred and was vaguely defined and just as at the end of the week the students slipped away, so at its opening there was rarely a full complement before lunchtime. No lectures were ever scheduled for this period and those students who lived in the city were slow of movement and thought, as if unable to fully throw off the legacy of whatever excesses their weekend had enjoyed. Those who had gone home to have their clothes washed and to empty their parents' fridges and wallets drifted back in ones and twos, often carrying their bags, and spent what was left of the morning drinking coffee and listening to anyone who had a story to tell.

It used to be a time he enjoyed, a quiet interlude before the pace quickened. If not a time exactly when he got things done, then at least a period when he was able to potter about, consider the week's possibilities and gird up his loins so to speak. But that of course was before the meetings started, the endless timetabled, minuted meetings of department and faculty that were supposedly designed to transform the once leisurely and gentleman's game of teaching into a professional process complete with measurable outcomes. So targets and evaluation, performance indicators, were the names of the game now and with an inspection looming there was an ever greater intensity of hysteria and policy documents piling up in his in-tray like a snowdrift. He'd only scanned a couple but already they were threatening to avalanche and slide across the surface of his desk.

He supposed the inspection was the reason that Stan Stenson had asked to see him at such an early hour and formally by memo. They went back a long way and had started teaching at the college within a year of each other but, unlike his own career that was successfully built on an inherent lack of ambition, Stan's had grown steadily until he seemed to have responsibility for a whole host of things. He liked Stan but didn't envy him his elevation. In fact he often felt sorry for him as he watched him shuffling paper and knew that whatever was the tide of useless, bureaucratic flotsam and jetsam, it always washed up first on his desk.

He knocked at the open door – he never assumed anything based on their friendship too overtly – and saw his head of department scrawling in red pen over a scree of paper. It was still surprising to see him beardless and short-haired, Stan who once looked like a Belfast Ginsberg and who as a young man thought that the purpose of art was to shock and disturb. As he was wordlessly signalled into the room he couldn't help thinking of Samson with his locks shorn. So there would be no more howls or radical gestures against the Belfast bourgeoisie. It came to all of them in one way or other so he didn't condemn him for signing up but it did allow him to feel a momentary sense of moral superiority until he was forced to admit that his own reluctance was probably due to a natural and self-preserving indolence rather than principle.

‘Come in, Alan, have a seat,' Stan said, throwing his pen down in a dismissive gesture.

‘Doing your head in?' he asked, thinking it was important he established a sympathetic sense of unity against the common enemy. ‘Don't envy you.'

‘Have you read the Dean's proposals about the proposed new modular course?'

‘Haven't reached them yet. It's on my desk.'

‘You need to read it because it affects you: it affects all of us.'

‘In what way?'

‘You need to read it, Alan, before you end up teaching stuff you don't want to in ways you don't want to.'

‘Is that why you wanted to see me, Stan?'

Stan picked up the pen, threw it down again and leaned back in his chair, making it squeak in protest. His eyes blinked and then gazed at him in a fixed way.

‘How's things, Alan?' he asked.

‘What do you mean?' The personal tone was ominous. It felt suddenly as if he was in a doctor's surgery and the second he told the doctor he was hale and hearty he would be confronted with the indisputable and irrevocable revelation of a terminal illness.

‘I mean, how do you feel things are going?'