The Sky is Changing (11 page)

They left together. On the way out she saw the blonde man sunk to the floor, sleeping. People were stepping over him like he wasn't there. In the cold November air, their breath formed white clouds.

“I'm starving,” Claire said, suddenly feeling ravenous. Following the blinking light of the TV tower, they walked towards Alexanderplatz. Enzo knew a kebab place, “the best in town,” he promised. The square was empty, except for a lonely drunk, kicking an empty beer can as he staggered along. At the kebab stand they both watched with hungry eyes the knife slicing the brown meat. Claire could feel the heat from the grill on her face. In that very moment she knew she would spend the night with Enzo. A consoling thought, and she knew he knew it too. Glances, miniseconds of movements, the way he removed a breadcrumb from her lips, all that was just a confirmation of their mutual agreement. There was no need to talk, no words were required, and she was surprised how straightforward and uncomplicated things between humans could be.

Enzo lived in Wedding. She had never been there before, but she heard it was a shithole. It was the last S-Bahn stop and they were the only passengers in the carriage. He took her face in his hands and opened her mouth with his tongue. From the corner of her eye she could see their reflection in the window opposite. She saw a kissing couple who could have been together forever.

He lived in a huge loft in an industrial no-man's-land. In a gentlemanly manner he took her hand to walk over old railway tracks covered in weeds to get to the factory-like concrete building. He lived in one room, big enough to bicycle from one side to the other – his studio and living place in one. Claire couldn't take her eyes off a big photograph of three naked women in high heels. They were walking towards her with a fearless expression, as if there was nothing in the whole world that could hold them back.

“Helmut Newton,” Enzo shouted from the other end, where he was cutting up a lime for two gin and tonics. “He is my hero.”

It was right there, in front of Helmut Newton's three woman where Claire circled to the floor. She heard his steps coming closer. Good leather shoes, she had noticed earlier. Excellent taste, she thought. She looked up and saw the top of his head. It looked like his head was part of her body, completely embedded between her legs. His tongue flicked between her labium, then he kissed her clitoris, caressing it and sucking it gently. ‘Why not,' she thought, and closed her eyes. ‘Why not'.

The next day she called Miss Clarke, telling her she had a bout of flu. It felt like truancy. She just couldn't face going to training, let alone on stage. Maybe it was because she wasn't supposed to be there that she walked along Kurfürstendamm in such a pleasantly relaxed mood, like a stranger, someone who just happened to be in Berlin for a short visit.

She looked at the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church with the snapped-off steeple. A family from England was standing there looking at the bombed facade. The father explained to his two young children what had happened there 65 years before. They looked at him as if to say, why should we care what happened such a long time ago? Claire could tell they just resented every minute of this excursion through Berlin.

“65 years is nothing,” the father said into their bland faces. “If you consider the age of the planet, it has only just happened. In relation to the universe a lifetime is absolutely nothing.” Claire was tempted to add, “And you two little shits are just two more farts on this planet – although you think you are so much more than that.”

Claire stood there feeling sorry for the father, who was smart enough not to put his kids in one of those stupid tour buses for tourists, where a man on a microphone with a heavy German accent would bury them in names and dates. He had actually bothered and made a real effort to give his impervious brood an idea of Berlin's past. For a moment she wanted to hug him for his worthy attempt and to tell him that the intellectual decline of the next generation really wasn't his fault.

Later that day she lost herself at the KaDeWe. In the dim light of changing rooms, trying on more and more clothes, it was like building a bird's nest in the little cubbyhole, a perfect hiding place. Time stood still. Far away her colleagues were sweating away, stretching their limbs.

Enzo left a voicemail on her mobile phone but she didn't reply. It had been a perfect encounter; there was nothing to add to it. Getting to know each other would almost certainly just turn a good memory into a bad one. This way Enzo would forever stay a perfect image, a moment frozen in time and, unlike her previous relationships, with no story and drama to ruin it.

It was already dark when Claire walked towards her house. For a little while she just stood there, on the opposite pavement, looking up at their window, a square of light. She put down her bags and realised she had bought almost all the clothes for Anne. For a short moment she saw her slim silhouette in the window frame, a scurrying shadow, and at that moment she knew; she was about to leave too. She had bought farewell presents.

The news that she was going to quit her job at the Berlin Staatsballett spread through her family like wildfire. Her parents called a crisis meeting in their home in Grunewald. Even Karl was there; he was now considered part of the family, with the expectation that he would soon propose to Anne.

It turned out to be the most unpleasant dinner Claire could possibly have imagined, and it ended with her leaving in tears, slamming the door behind her. No one seemed to understand or accept her decision. Her mother called her selfish and accused her of being completely blind, quitting such a prestigious place as the Berlin Staatsballett without an equal offer at another company. Her father couldn't believe she wanted to go to London. “What is my daughter going to London for? Why can't you go to a nice place like Paris, an elegant city at least, where we have friends?”

Most disappointing was Anne, calling her stubborn and immature. Only Karl seemed to understand, adding, “Sometimes you have to take risks in life.” But Anne looked at him fiercely, clearly saying ‘shut up!' and, not wanting to lose his recent rise in the family hierarchy, that's exactly what he did.

Later that evening, her uncle from Toulouse called, trying to talk some sense into her. “Think of your parents, all they have invested, the excruciatingly high fees for ballet school.”

It took all her strength to stumble the words into the receiver. “Yes, but I am not some sort of investment. I think I am allowed to do what I want with my life.”

Maybe she was just following a centrifugal force. She would have to find a new place, a life without Anne, a life without the limelight of the stage. She would go to a new city and learn other moves, other rhythms. Meet people with different names, talking in a different language. She was running on high adrenalin, keen to get out of the flat before Anne. She managed to get everything organised within two weeks. All she could feel when she took off from Tegel airport into the clouded German sky was the excitement and fear of going on an adventure.

*

Miss Zelda looked at her with a faint smile. Her disappointment was palpable. “I hope you will be strong enough for this, Claire. Some people say IVF is the most gruelling experience.”

Claire swallowed. It was as if she had betrayed her, moving on to ‘mainstream' medicine. In Miss Zelda's eyes she was a failure. Slowly shaking her head, she closed her file. “Good luck,” she said, and opened the door.

This time Claire didn't look at the photos. All the smiling mothers were hanging there on the wall like trophies. Supposedly the evidence of Miss Zelda's success. But she wasn't part of it. At the reception Claire paid her last bill. The receptionist swiped her credit card with a bored expression. She tried not to think about the amount of money they had spent on all the alternative treatments in the last few months. But more than the waste of time and money, she felt robbed emotionally. It was as if she had let Miss Zelda down – especially as she had seemed so optimistic at first, seeing her as one of her hopefuls. Of course every patient who left without being pregnant was ultimately bad for the reputation of the clinic. It was a business, after all, and the babymakers of London were in fierce competition.

Only a few days earlier the most successful IVF clinics had been listed in
The Times
. Anthony didn't hesitate and made an appointment with the clinic with the highest success rate.

“If it doesn't work, at least we know we've tried everything we could.” He was right, but it was little comfort.

Claire went to Paul for the last time. Her little ritual had come to an end. This time the cafe was almost empty. Chewing a French Danish, she contemplated the term ‘unexplained infertility'. What a strange name for a medical condition. How was it possible to do all those incredible things – flying to the moon, searching the depths of the ocean for new species, but not explain what the hell was wrong with her, not being able to do the most basic thing in life, to conceive and reproduce? Once her body had been her friend, a reliable source of pleasure and pride. Now it had turned into her biggest enemy. Above everything, she was angry. Why was her body letting her down like that? It had a problem that didn't even have a proper name! Unexplained. What a scam. She had done everything: massages, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, stuffing herself with healthy food. Still her body was defiant. She would almost have preferred to have some terrible medical condition that would explain why she couldn't conceive. At least she'd have an answer, something that would be much easier to accept. Carrying a womb in her body appeared just pointless. Especially as everywhere around her was nothing but mindless procreation.

Claire put the lock of the scooter into the compartement under the seat. Since the incident with the children she had bought a new chain, one that was heavier and more difficult to cut. A day after the near-accident someone had scratched the word ‘cunt' into the white paint of her scooter. It was just petty vandalism, but it still made her look over her shoulder as she parked it.

On Euston Road she noticed the Gothic red-brick facade of St. Pancras hidden behind scaffolding; many buildings in the area had been cleared for demolition work. Cranes were slowly moving their long necks, like giant birds picking at the earth. They were working to improve the Channel Tunnel rail link – soon people could get to Paris in just two hours. The whole neighbourhood was a vast building site, rapidly morphing into a modern shiny complex. It had always amazed her, how good London was at transforming itself, seamless and silent. Very much unlike Berlin, where they had made a great fuss about Potsdamer Platz, proud of the never-ending building site.

She stopped at the crossroads by King's Cross Station. There was the tree behind the railing where poems and photos had been posted after 7/7. Only a few weeks ago the little square around this tree had been a memorial. She wondered why there was no plaque with the names of the victims, nothing that remembered the events of 7/7. Historical events were shared with more people then ever before, but at the same time they seemed to be forgotten quicker. The tree was lost, fading in its setting. King's Cross had moved on, a new act had begun and the tree had become irrelevant; like an old useless prop that had been overlooked and left on stage by mistake.

A young couple were kissing just in front of the railings, on the same spot where she and Anthony had joined the queue to lay down flowers. What had happened on this spot a hundred years ago? The whole city was littered with the scars of history. Every now and then the present was colliding with the past, like when they were digging out the tunnel for the high-speed train and stumbled upon old graves and scattered bones.

Claire drove up Pentonville Road, thinking of the layers of forgotten history beneath her, forgotten lives, the remnants of generations past. Every society leaves its mark on the surface of the city, creating a new layer, just like a growth ring. What would they leave? High-speed trains, silently rushing under sea level, sleek designed buildings of glass and new, light materials. And in the midst of this had been those young men walking around in trainers and FitnessFirst rucksacks, fiddling with pay-as-you-go phones, while their young, clueless hearts were brimming with dark, old crusted hatred.

Claire was taken aback when Nora slung her arms around her. She stepped back instinctively, as if showing affection openly in front of her mother was somehow inappropriate. But Mrs Ross smiled. She didn't seem to mind that her daughter liked her.

On this particular day Claire was too absent-minded to notice Nora gliding into the water with no hesitation. Only when she saw her swimming in front of her did she realise that Nora had finally conquered her worst fear. It had happened almost behind her back, by accident, just when she hadn't been expecting it. Claire clapped her hands, told her what a brave girl she was. Nora did it again, swam the whole length of the pool, back and forth. She wanted to please Claire, show her that she was a good girl.

Claire looked at Nora with a sense of achievement; she was kicking her legs confidently, swimming in even strokes without any muddle or panic. Suddenly it looked so easy, but she had only reached this level because Claire hadn't insisted and because they had actually left the pool and done other things. Now the pool was not a vast ocean where she could drown. She knew she could just swim to the ladder and get out. Claire liked to believe she had given her something for life, the realisation that fear didn't necessarily mean the end of something – it could just as well be the starting point.

After the class, Claire handed over the certificate to Mrs Ross with a robotic motion. Her job was done; now she would have to let Nora go.

At first she didn't understand what Mrs Ross was saying. “You know, Nora doesn't warm to people easily.” Claire nodded; she realised that. “She likes you a lot. It would be just one day a week.” Miss Ross looked at her, waiting for an answer.