The Light of Amsterdam (8 page)

Before they were married, when he was still courting her, Richard took her out in a rowing boat one Easter Monday in Portrush. He just assumed he could do it, the way he could do everything he put his hand to, and when she laughed at his incompetence, at their first circular motions, he got a little peeved and then embarrassed. His pride was hurt and it made him try even harder until he found the knack. All these years later it felt as if he was punishing her as she pulled at the handle and her seat scuttled forward and a young man told her that she was doing well. He was patronising her with his praise and she longed for the whole initiation to be over so she could find anonymity in a quiet corner.

‘I think that's about everything for the moment,' he said eventually, putting his hand under her elbow as she inelegantly levered herself back to her feet. ‘Is there anything you'd like to ask, anything you want to know about?'

She looked at him and for a second she wanted to ask if there was anything about her at all that he might possibly have found attractive, if during their time together, when he was standing close and touching her arms or shoulders, there was even a moment when he felt aware of her. But behind the bland functionality of his smile she saw an impatience in his eyes and knew that there was somewhere he'd rather be – probably joking with the young girl at reception as she studied her text messages and swapping stories about what they'd done at the weekend. The girl with the blonde hair and the tiny diamond on the side of her nose that shone like a spot of moisture or a snowflake frozen into hardness and who, too, possessed that sense of cold confidence.

After he was gone she looked at herself in the mirror as she sat on a cycling machine and pedalled slowly, never getting any closer to where she wanted to be. She still had the brightness of her eyes, she told herself, and the blessing of good teeth and healthy hair. Tilting her head so that her neck tautened the small fold of flesh under her chin she pedalled a little faster as if the increased speed might slip away some of the pounds that had settled on her hips and which also cushioned the thin hardness of the seat. She tried to look elegant as she pedalled, straightening her back and seeking to maintain a steady rhythm. She hadn't been on a bike since she was a teenager and as she stared at herself in the glass, encouraged by the fixed way those around her did the same, she searched for any sign of that girl she once was.

A group of them had ridden along the coast to Groomsport where one of the girls had a family caravan. It was warm that summer's day and she remembered the red patches on her knees where the sun burnt them. She must have been wearing shorts. Not like these black legging things she had on now that stopped at the ankles and thickened her legs even more. She recalled herself in a series of photographs. The four girls – they always thought of themselves as like the Four Marys out of the
Bunty
– linking arms outside the caravan door, a chorus line about to do a high-stepping dance. But if there were four of them in the photograph who was taking the picture? She didn't know. On the beach, Susan standing on her head with Hilary holding her legs. The Four Marys. Tiptoeing in the sea, squealing at the cold lace of the water embroidering their feet. Lillian dead now from breast cancer; one living in America out of touch except for the Christmas card that had come every year for thirty years with the couple of sentences that told of children's marriages and the birth of grandchildren; one divorced and on her second marriage and still living close by but whose life never seemed to cross her own.

A lot of water under the bridge, a lot of years. Everything getting added on like rings in a tree. Your life getting bigger and heavier with possessions. Growing more branches, spreading more roots. How could it be possible to stay the same and not also become part of that growth, the ever-increasing weight of solidity that made a life established and permanently fixed? Two sons, both in good business careers, a daughter living in France, a home that had more rooms than they could ever use and a business that provided for everything they needed. Her legs were already sore but she cycled on, remembering all those trite sayings that linked pain with gain. And perhaps she deserved the pain for not fighting hard enough to hold on to that young girl. For letting herself go. For not struggling enough. She looked at her hands, the blue veins beginning to rise like flooding rivers, her knuckles creasing into deepening whorls, the two rings that seemed old-fashioned in their clumpy design. He never wanted a wedding ring, always turned his nose up at any idea that a man might wear jewellery. So he never wore a ring and she supposed it made him feel more of a man in just the same way that he would never carry an umbrella or push one of his children's prams in public.

And this present – and she can't even begin to think of it as a present – of a year's membership of this swanky fitness and leisure complex was filled with unanswered questions and once again it confused her that a man who could speak so directly in business continued to be someone unable to express himself openly in other matters. So was he telling her that she'd let herself go and needed to pull herself together? Was this his way of expressing his disappointment? She stopped pedalling and freewheeled through the uncontrolled spin of her thoughts. Time had been kinder to him. Barely heavier than when they got married, with even the grey seeping through his hair giving him a sense of dignity, of gravitas, and it struck her as unfair that a man who loved his food more than she did should be effortlessly able to burn off every calorie that crossed his lips. The energy he put into the garden centre and a round of golf a week seemed enough to keep him trim and fit-looking. A handsome man. He was slowly leaving her behind and at this thought she lowered her eyes from the mirror and started to pedal again. But she had touched something unintentionally with her hand and now it was harder and harder and she was pedalling uphill and in her mind she couldn't believe she was ever going to catch up.

Afterwards the changing room provided an even worse torture. She undressed slowly in the poor privacy of a corner, sheltering half-heartedly behind a towel as if she was on a holiday beach, trying not to look at the young woman who had stepped out from the shower area and with no trace of self-consciousness or embarrassment strutted towards her locker. She was showing off her body and she tried not to give her the satisfaction of letting her see her glances. But she'd already registered enough to know that everything was toned and tight and she had a tan that left the only whiteness on the tips of her breasts as if someone had delicately pressed champagne glasses to them. Let her have three children, she thought, and see then where her firmness goes. Work hard to raise a family and make a business a success and see then how everything slips into softness and unwanted abundance. She waited until the young woman had her back turned and was fully focused on getting dressed before walking quickly to the showers with her towel wrapped round her like a cocktail dress.

As she stood under the water she hoped that she would have gone before she'd finished showering and her heart sank as she realised that this was an experience that Richard would expect her to repeat at least once a week and possibly even more. A man who liked to get value for his money and perhaps he would judge that not only by the frequency of her visits but also by the physical change he saw in her. At first he might enquire if she was enjoying it and then she imagined him asking if it was doing her any good, as if he'd paid for a course of private medical treatment. What would she say? How could she tell him the truth that he had wasted his money, that it was going to cause her nothing but embarrassment to come here? She was not going to change into this young woman who preened and paraded herself in a peacock display of perfection. And then she hurt herself by thinking how pleased he might be if she did.

The water splurged and splashed over her and she held her face close to the shower head as if it might soothe away the burn of that thought. A man who enjoyed women, what enjoyment had he found in her over these last years? Perhaps if she worked really hard on these machines change might be possible and then he might look at her as he did a very long time ago. A lifetime away and she was glad it was so rare now because when it happened it felt no more than a momentary need, like food that had to be taken to prevent dying of starvation, or not much more than an itch that had to be scratched. And she suspected that she played no real part in it any more, so she was only involved because she was there as she always was and she couldn't talk to him about it because she was frightened that if she did they would both use words that might shake whatever scaffolding held together the life they lived. The water was warm and she let it fountain over her hair and down her back as her hands clasped her stomach which felt both empty and full. Soon, she thought, he would cheat on her. With one of the customers perhaps but more likely with one of the Polish girls they now employed in the planting sheds. She believed it hadn't happened yet but wasn't sure and didn't want to think about it. There was the age difference but he was a handsome man who knew how to make people laugh and his money and the employment he provided would sooner or later minimise this difference and, for a little while at least, be no longer important to some lonely and vulnerable girl who cried each night for home. She knew that he cared enough about her to be discreet and not humiliate her, that he would take whatever it was he needed and then return to the normal cycle of his life.

It was the waiting she hated most. It was the waiting she found unkind. If it were possible she would tell him to get it over with and put it behind them. Perhaps she should do it to him first and somehow equalise the pain but the thought was as ridiculous and repugnant to her as making this place part of her life for at least a year. She had no interest in it, no desire left that had much to do with the body, and now thought the world would be a simpler place if it didn't exist, this strange, inexplicable thing that happened between men and women and about which she had no real understanding. Perhaps this was one of her failings and a selfishness on her part that she should have done more to remedy. But who could you talk to about such intimacies, to whom could you reveal the inner life of a marriage? Another generation perhaps, with their internet blogs that laid out the secrets of their lives like so many clothes taken from their wardrobe and spread on the bed for the world to inspect. She could never do it, so whatever happened must only happen inside the privacy of her head.

She turned the water off and listened. There were no other sounds from the changing room except the piped Christmas music and the hum of pipes and spin of extractor fans. Perhaps she would be lucky in this at least and have the place to herself but she sheathed herself tightly in the towel, took a deep and involuntary breath and then walked slowly back to her locker. The young woman had gone, the only traces of her, wet footprints on the tiles and the scent of the perfume that she'd sprayed. So quickly she changed, not caring that little spots of dampness seeped through her blouse and made it look as if she'd just come in from the rain. Then packing her things away she went to the mirror that filled the wall beside the entrance and switched on the hairdrier. She brushed and dried, pushing her hair back into shape, and all the time tried to tell herself that she felt some benefit from the exercise. A mother with a toddler came through from the swimming area, the child shivering a little until he was wrapped in a large white towel that had an image of Spiderman climbing a skyscraper. She rolled him in the towel as if coating him with flour and about to bake him in the oven. Watching them in the mirror made her remember how it was with her own children, sad just for a moment that they were grown up and no longer needed her to hold them in her arms, no longer looked to her for their protection or warmth against the cold. The child was puffing air as if blowing up some invisible balloon and he wore a little red and white swim cap that when taken off revealed a flattened bob of blond hair. She looked at herself again in the mirror and, seeing her face was still red from the heat of the shower, applied a little moisturiser to try and calm it. Perhaps she should think about changing the colour of her hair, nothing too dramatic or risky but something to lighten it or even just add highlights. A change, something unexpected. Too stuck in her ways, too stuck in her comfort zone. That's what they'd say if she was the subject of one of those makeover programmes that were on every channel and every night. They made it look so easy, like a fairy story where magic dust was sprinkled and wishes granted. But she didn't know where or how to start, and more than anything dreaded looking sad and desperate, advertising to the world what insecurities had driven her to an attempted transformation. And anyway she didn't believe in fairy stories and perhaps belief itself was the prerequisite for such miracles.

At the desk on the way out the girl was still studying her mobile phone while Paul was flicking through a collection of
CD
s. They both looked up as she passed and smiled. The girl said, ‘So you survived then,' and her voice was friendly and warm. The light glittered the diamond.

‘See you soon,' Paul said and she answered yes and walked off down the corridor wondering what they were really thinking. The new
CD
was put on and as she pushed the front door open she heard the opening bars of some tune she vaguely recognised but couldn't name.

So this was his birthday present to her. A year's subscription to the leisure complex, a year's opportunity to get herself in shape. And of course a weekend in Amsterdam. It wasn't exactly the best time of year from a business point of view so she was surprised he'd organised it because after the lull of November they had the Christmas trade to deal with – the decorations and lights, the rows and rows of poinsettia plants, the increasingly tacky and Americanised items and of course the trees themselves. Apart from the horrible, gaudy artificial ones there were the real ones, some rootballed for replanting, the rest specially grown in the sustainable woodland they'd planted five years earlier with the help of a grant and which allowed them to supply other outlets as well. Perhaps it was because he was now so confident that the place could be managed by Alex, who had been with them almost from the start, that allowed their absence and she wondered if there might be a possibility of a longer summer holiday for the first time in their marriage. She had always wanted to go to Italy – perhaps a hotel on Lake Garda or a villa somewhere in the countryside.