Turn Us Again (40 page)

I hear her footfalls descending the stairs. I can hardly breathe, I am so shocked. It doesn't make sense. What is the point of living with people, investing in people, growing to love people? What is the point, if, when they do something wrong — very wrong, in a fit of passion — then the entire relationship is over? My Jenny, who loves me so much. It doesn't make sense. A dreadful thought occurs to me, and I rush to the window and yank it open, calling after Jenny's retreating figure in the street. “What's happened to Susan? Are you living with Susan?”

Jenny turns around. “We were in a hotel together, but I've just found a little bachelor apartment which I can afford. Susan hasn't quite decided whether she's going to rent an apartment here or ask Dave to find one near him. Don't worry, her experience with you taught her that she needs to live independently, hard though that is.”

Thank God for small favours. “Where?” I shout at her receding back. “Won't you tell me where you will be living? Please Jenny!”

I can just catch her reply, dwindling into the distance. “I'll be in touch.”

THIRTY-THREE

E
very day I get up, swallow coffee and cigarettes, lug myself to work. The days drag by.

“Come on Gab, get over it,” encourages a colleague, slapping my unresponsive back. “Plenty of other fishes in the sea.”

But I invested in this fishie. This is the fishie I love.

I have written her emails, but she hasn't replied. My last email said that I understood I must wait quietly for her to get in touch as she promised.

I don't care about anything. The scene of my downfall replays in my head again and again. It all happened so quickly. Fundamentally, I am a good person. There's a lot of compassion and love in me, and I gave Jenny so much joy. Then I lost it for one split second, and somehow that was more significant than years of joy. If I can't get that, if I fail to grasp that basic understanding of how the world works and how others think, then what? Does it really mean I'm like my father, who created misery instead of happiness? Is it just that violence is completely impermissible in our society, and that's just a rule that I need to memorize? Because I don't get it, I don't fucking get it. I was really angry, she was saying awful things, it wasn't a hard hit. It's not completely clear to me why that's so bad that you have to destroy a relationship that took years to build.

It's a whole way of perceiving and relating to the world
.

I lie in my bed after my frozen dinner, night after night. All my energy seems to have gone. I have never been depressed before, and I can't believe how awful it is.
It's a whole way of perceiving and relating to the world
.

I twist and turn, trying to reach some type of clarity. Night after night. Sometimes I smoke a joint, in the hopes that it will lead me to greater insights. But usually I just lie there, thinking, striving. And gradually, slowly, I begin to see the way forward.

I need to step out of my own perspective. It's so hard to do. I need to try and understand what Jenny is thinking. It would be so much easier if she would sit down and talk to me, explain. But as she pointed out, it can't depend on that. I have to do this alone.

What is Jenny's point of view? Does she really see me as a man teetering on the edge of abusive potential? There has never been the slightest vestige of fear, of that I am certain. Not like with my parents. So why did she leave me? Because it is an unacceptable thing to do. As my mother wrote about that first hit:
Before, I felt I was giving him tit for tat. He yelled, and I ignored him. But After, you don't have that choice; it has been taken from you…I am afraid… A woman and child alone.

Jenny doesn't feel like that, because she is a childless, modern woman. She can just up and leave. But that is irrelevant. My future behaviour can't depend on the fact that she can leave me. Physical violence reduces one to bestiality. If you cannot control urges like that, you are no better than an animal. Surely that is the very essence of the difference between people and animals — our ability to think, our struggles towards a greater good, whether that be in the form of God or our own inner progress as individuals. I have been absurd, examining every detail of our fight to justify my actions. It has nothing to do with who said what.

I begin to tremble. I feel that I am on the verge of understanding something important. I rummage in the drawer beside my bed for a pen and paper. I must write to Jenny. I must somehow convey to her that thread of understanding which has opened in my brain. It has nothing to do with who said what. My pen races across the page. Real relationships do involve fights and arguments, but lines that are acceptable to both parties must be understood and respected. Simply, the line must be drawn at physical violence, especially when there is a discrepancy in power, because of physical strength. It's unacceptable to use violence to reinforce your power in a civilized society. Of course it is. I see it so clearly now.

My pen stops. I read what I have written, feverishly. Have I succeeded in conveying my epiphany to Jenny? I will send this letter as it stands, so she can trace my thoughts. So she can see how I was finally able to understand her point of view, truly feel that I have done wrong and make the choice never, ever, to do it again.

Then there will be nothing left to do but wait.

How stupid of man, to spurn the very essence of his life so long as he feels it is securely in his grasp. To stop only when he has lost it.

There is one more person I must write to as well.

My father.

It is amazing how hard it is to get up sometimes. I lie with my eyes closed for a few minutes when I wake up in the mornings feeling like I'll never be able to climb out of this valley of despair — I don't have the strength to clamber up to the rim. Life is unbelievably empty when there's only work. I did try and go out with a few friends, but who the hell would want to be with someone like me? I bring them down, ruin their fun, and now it's become boring. The saying really is true: laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone. I hold onto the fact that Jenny said she'd be in touch, and somehow the days go by. Thoughts of my father come often. All anger is gone as I imagine him utterly alone in his little house.

As I am.

Mentally, I have made a promise to write to him and imagine myself doing it several times a day. Jenny is always looking over my shoulder in these daydreams, her hand resting on my neck, transmitting approbation and love. I need her to be there. I will keep my promise when she keeps hers.

So I put it off, but I pray every day, sending positive, loving vibes over the ocean, visualizing my father's face surrounded by a halo of light. Protecting him, preserving him from Skulking Death until he receives the absolution he needs from me. He is just another human being, struggling like the rest of us. How we do fuck up our own lives.

Most evenings I weep. I have never wept, and it feels strange to me. Self-consciousness intrudes even though there's nobody there. But afterwards I feel comforted.

It is during one of these endless evenings that the long-awaited knock at the door comes. Immediately, I know who it is, and my whole body starts to tremble. I can hardly walk to the door, fumble with the lock, resist the urge to bash the door because I can't get it open fast enough. What can I do, it is my nature. The trick is to know that and control the urges.

Finally, the door creaks open. Jenny's beloved face.

“My God Gabriel, you look like shit.” Her expression morphs from aloof detachment to concern. I stand back to let her in.

“Have you been sick?”

“Depressed.”

“You've lost weight.”

“You look great.”

In the kitchen, I put on the kettle to make tea while Jenny perches on one of the stools that lean against the countertop. There is silence for a minute or two.

“So,” says Jenny, who could never bear silence.

“So,” I reply. I hope she doesn't think I'm being uncommunicative or unhelpful. This is simply one conversation I can't direct, unless the insistent, passionate prayer of “please, please, please, please, please” exerts some supernatural influence over the course of events.

“I got your emails. It seems to me that you finally got it.”

“Yes, that's true. I understood that it wasn't about…”

Jenny holds up her hand, and I stumble into silence. “Your emails pretty much said it all, Gab.”

So you know where I'm coming from. Where are you coming from? I set the tea before her and open up a packet of chocolate-covered digestives. They are Jenny's favourite, and I bought them ages ago in anticipation of this very day. I sit on the stool next to her, hardly breathing, veering between exultation that she is here, sitting beside me, and fear, as though I'm on trial and the judge is about to pronounce my sentence.

Jenny sips her tea. “I can tell you are feeling remorse and that you have been struggling to understand things from my point of view, which is great. You really do look exhausted, Gab.” Jen reaches out and pushes a strand of hair off my forehead. My heart leaps in hope at her touch.

“However,” she continues, her voice business-like once more, “it's typical to feel remorse, that's a natural part of the cycle that revolves back to violence.”

“Jen, I really don't think that I'm in a cycle jumping from violence to remorse. We've been together for years and I hit you once. You rightly left me and I realized that even if you are in a towering rage, it is still crossing an inviolable line to use physical violence against another person. There's no question that it will never happen again.”

Jenny shoots me an indecipherable look. “Say that again without generalizing.”

“What?”

“Use the word ‘I.' Even if
I
am in a towering rage…”

“Even if I am in a towering rage I will never hit you again.”

“Yes. Thank you. You've got to understand with your whole being that I will leave without any possibility of reconciliation if anything like this ever happens again.”

My heart leaps: she will leave if it happens again. She is coming back to me.

“I don't care what the reason is,” Jen continues. “If I fuck another man, you still aren't going to hit me. Is that clear?”

Her language shocks me, because it is so rare. I strive to lighten the heaviness of the atmosphere. “What, even if you fuck two other men?”

“This isn't funny.”

“What about if you hit me?”

“I won't. And if I did, you would be justified in leaving me as well, but not in hitting me back.”

My face is split in two, like a jack-o'-lantern. I lean forward and brush my lips against her cheek. Smell her.

She moves back, gives me a little push. “No Gab.”

“No what?”

“Don't touch me yet, I haven't finished.”

Not yet. Let her finish. Imagine what you are going to do when she has finished. You will bury your face between her legs and never come out.

“We're not going to be living together.”

My heart constricts. I raise incredulous eyes to her face.

She touches my cheek and smiles sadly. “Don't look so stricken, Gab. I can't stand how sad you look. We have to do this for us, for our future. Because our relationship is worth it. I can't just jump back into your life as though nothing has happened. We must live apart for a while, go back to dating while you address this issue. You need to go into counseling. It's essential that you talk to somebody about these things, about your father. I really think — this business with your father — well you know what I think. It's all part of the same picture. You don't really talk to anybody apart from me, and this is one issue where I can't help you alone. If you want we can do it together as a couple.”

I nod, relief flooding my soul. She is coming back to me. One day. Soon.

I get on my knees and put my head in her lap. After a few minutes, I can feel her hand resting lightly on my head.

“Turn us again, oh God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”

I have been saved.

Dear Father,

The unfairness of my reaction has tormented me ever since I left England. I can only justify myself by saying that I was shocked by the contents of my mother's manuscript, and needed time to come to terms with it.

Since returning to Canada, life has demonstrated how incapable I am of judging anybody else. We are all flawed. I have behaved in a self-righteous, blind manner with my father, whom I love. Please forgive me.

I have already booked my plane ticket back to England. I will stay for as long as you want me.

Love

Gabriel

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank first and foremost my mother, whose story this is, and who gave many hours to recount it (thoroughly enjoying herself in the process!). My sisters for their excellent feedback, and especially Tessa, who has supported me for years and encouraged me to keep at it. Thank you Lindsay Brown for your consistent support and feedback. Thanks to Nate Crawford, for recommending that I send my manuscript to Roseway. Thanks to the Social Justice Beacon people; without their prize I might never have been published. Thanks to my editors, Linda Little and Brenda Conroy, for making the book that much better, and to my publisher Beverley Rach for letting me know about the existence of the Beacon Award and guiding me through all the hurdles of this novel experience. Last but not least, thanks to my husband Eli Elias, for the pleasure and pride he has shown at this result of my “hobby.”