A Traitor to Memory (98 page)

“You're still angry, then.” I sighed, frustrated with my inability to communicate with anyone, it seemed. I wanted very much to get us past this, but I didn't know where I wanted to get us
to
. I couldn't offer Libby what she had blatantly wanted from me for months, and I didn't actually know what else I could offer her that would satisfy, not only at that moment but in the future. But I wanted to offer her something. “Libby, I'm not right,” I said. “You've seen that. You know it. We've not talked about the worst of what's wrong with me, but you know because you've experienced … You've seen … You've been with me … at night.” God, it was excruciating trying to say it outright.

I hadn't taken a seat when she herself had, so I paced across the sitting room to the kitchen and back again. I was waiting for her to rescue me.

Have others done that before? you enquire.

Done … what?

Rescued you, Gideon. Because, you see, often we wait for what we're used to from people. We develop the expectation that one person will give us what we've traditionally received from others.

God knows there have been few enough others, Dr. Rose. There was Beth, of course. But she reacted with wounded silence, which is certainly not what I wanted from Libby.

And from Libby, what was it that you wanted?

Understanding, I suppose. An acceptance that would make further conversation—and a fuller admission—unnecessary. But what I got was a statement that told me clearly she was going to give me none of that.

She said, “Life isn't all about you, Gideon.”

I said, “I'm not implying that it is.”

She said, “Sure you are. I'm gone for three days and you assume I've totally freaked because we can't get something going between us. You figure I've run back to Rock and he and I are bumping woolies all because of you.”

“I wouldn't say that you were having relations with him because of me. But you have to admit that you wouldn't have gone to him in the first place if we hadn't … if things had gone differently for us. For you and me.”

“Jeez. You are, like, deaf as a stone, aren't you? Have you even been listening to me? But then, why would you when we're not discussing
you
.”

“That's not fair. And I have been listening.”

“Yeah? Well, I said I wasn't with Rock. I saw him, sure. I went to work every day, so I saw him. And I could've gotten back with him if I wanted, but I
didn't
want. And if he wants to phone the Feds—or whoever it is that you guys phone—then he's going to do it and that'll be it: a one-way ticket to San Francisco. And there is, like, absolutely zilch that I can do about it. And that's the story.”

“There's got to be a compromise. If he wants you as he seems to want you, perhaps you can get some counseling that would enable you to—”

“Are you out of your fucking mind? Or are you just freaked out that I might start wanting something from you?”

“I'm only trying to suggest a solution to the immigration problem. You don't want to be deported. I don't want you to be deported. Clearly, Rock doesn't want you to be deported, because if he did, he would have done something to alert the authorities—it's the Home Office, by the way—and they would have already come for you.”

She had cut into her chicken again and she had lifted a forkful of meat to her mouth. But she hadn't taken it. Instead, she held the fork suspended while I spoke, and when I had finished, she laid the fork back onto her plate and stared at me for a good fifteen seconds before saying anything. And then what she said made no sense at all. “Tap dancing,” were her words.

I said, “What?”

“Tap dancing, Gideon. That's where I went when I left here. That's what I do. I tap dance. I'm not very good, but it doesn't matter, because I don't, like,
do
it to be good. I do it because I get hot and sweaty and I have fun and I like the way it makes me feel when I'm done.”

I said, “Yes. I see,” although I didn't, actually. We were talking about her marriage, we were talking about her status in the UK, we were talking about our own difficulties—at least we were trying to—and what tap dancing had to do with all this was unclear to me.

“There's this very nice chick at my tap-dancing class, an Indian girl who's taking the class on the sly. She invited me home to meet her family. And that's where I've been. With her. With them. I wasn't with Rock. Didn't even think of going to Rock. What I thought was what would be best for me. And that's what I did, Gid. Just like that.”

“Yes. Well. I see.” I was a broken record. I could sense her anger, but I didn't know what to do with it.

“No. You don't see. Everyone in your itty-bitty world lives and dies and breathes for you, and that's the way it's always been. So you figure that what's going on with me is the exact same deal.
You
can't get it up when we're together and I'm just so totally
bummed
about it that I rush off to the biggest dickhead in London and do the nasty with him because of
you
. You think I'm saying, Gid doesn't want me but good old Rock does, and if some total asshole
wants
me that makes me okay, that makes me real, that makes me really exist.”

“Libby, I'm not saying any of that.”

“You don't have to. It's the way you live, so it's the way you think everyone else lives, too. Only in your world, you live for that stupid violin instead of for another person, and if the violin
rejects
you or something, you don't know who you are any more. And that's what's going on, Gideon. But my life is, like, totally
not
about you. And yours isn't about your violin.”

I stood there wondering how we'd reached this point. I couldn't think of a clear response. And in my head all I could hear was Dad saying, This is what comes of knowing Americans, and of all Americans, the worst are Californians. They don't converse. They psychologise.

I said, “I'm a musician, Libby.”

“No. You're a person. Like I'm a person.”

“People don't exist outside what they do.”

“'Course they do. Most people exist just fine. It's only people who don't have any real insides—people who've never taken the time to find out who they really
are
—that fall to pieces when stuff doesn't turn out the way they want it to.”

“You can't know how this … this situation … between us is going to turn out. I've said that I'm in the middle of a bad patch, but I'm coming through it. I'm working at coming through it every day.”

“You are
so
not listening to me.” She threw down her fork. She'd not eaten half of her meal, but she carried her plate over to the kitchen, dumped the chicken and broccoli into a plastic bag, and flung that bag into the fridge. “You don't have anything to turn to if your music goes bad. And you think I don't have anything to turn to if you and me or Rock and me or me and
anything
goes bad either. But I'm not you. I have a life. You're the person who doesn't.”

“Which is why I'm trying to get my life back. Because until I do, I won't be good for myself or for anyone.”

“Wrong. No. You never had a life. All you had was the violin. Playing the violin wasn't ever who you are. But you
made
it who you are and that's why you're nothing right now.”

Gibberish, I could hear Dad scoffing. Another month in this creature's company and what's left of your mind will turn to porridge. This is what comes of a steady diet of McDonald's, television chat shows, and self-help books.

With Dad in my head and Libby in front of me, I didn't stand a chance. The only course that seemed open to me was a dignified exit, which I attempted to make, saying, “I think we've said all we need to on the subject. It's safe to say that this is just going to be an area in which we disagree.”

“Well, let's make sure we only say what's safe,” was Libby's retort. “'Cause if things get, like, too
scary
for us, we might actually be able to change.”

I was at the door, but this parting shot of hers was going so far wide of the mark that I had to correct her. I said, “Some people don't need to change, Libby. They might need to understand what's happening to them, but they don't need to change.”

Before she could answer, I left her. It seemed crucial that I have the last word. Still, as I closed the door behind me—and I did it carefully so as not to betray anything that she might take as an adverse reaction to our conversation—I heard her say, “Yeah. Right, Gideon,” and something scraped viciously across the wooden floor, as if she'd kicked the coffee table.

4 November

I am the music. I am the instrument. She sees fault in this. I do not. What I see is the difference between us, that difference which Dad has been attempting to point out from the moment he and Libby met. Libby has never been a professional, and she's not an artist. It's easy for her to say that I am not the violin because she has never known what it is to have a life that is inextricably entwined with an artistic performance. Throughout her life, she's had a series of jobs, work that she's gone to and then left at the end of the day. Artists do not live that sort of life. Assuming that they do or can displays an ignorance which must give one pause to consider.

To consider what? you want to know.

To consider the possibilities for us. For Libby and me. Because there for a time, I had thought … Yes. There seemed to be a right-ness in our knowing each other. There seemed to be a distinct advantage in the fact that Libby didn't know who I was, didn't recognise my name when she saw it that day on her courier parcel, didn't appreciate the facts of my career, didn't care whether I played the violin or made kites and sold them in Camden Market. I liked that about her. But now I see that being with someone who
understands
my life is crucial if I am going to
live
my life.

And that need for understanding was what prompted me to seek out Katie Waddington, the girl from the convent that I remembered sitting in the kitchen in Kensington Square, the most frequent visitor to Katja Wolff.

Katja Wolff was one half of the two KWs, Katie informed me when I tracked her down. Sometimes, she said, when one has a close friendship, one makes the mistake of assuming it will be there forever, unchanging and nurturing. But it rarely is.

It was no big problem to locate Katie Waddington. Nor was it any big surprise to discover that she'd followed a life course similar to what she'd suggested would be her mission two decades earlier. I located her through the telephone directory, and I found her in her clinic in Maida Vale. It's called Harmony of Bodies and Minds, this clinic, and it's a name which I suppose is useful to disguise its main function: sex therapy. They don't come right out and call it sex therapy, because who would have the nerve to engage in it if that were the case? Instead, they call it “relationship therapy,” and an inability to take part in the sexual act itself is called “relationship dysfunction.”

“You'd be astonished to know how many people have problems with sex,” Katie informed me in a fashion that sounded personally friendly and professionally reassuring. “We get at least three referrals every day. Some are due to medical problems—diabetes, heart conditions, post-operative trauma. That sort of thing. But for every client with a medical problem, there are nine or ten with psychological troubles. I suppose that's not surprising, really, given our national obsession with sex and the pretence we maintain that sex
isn't
our national obsession. One only has to look at the tabloids and the glossies to know the level of interest everyone has in sex. I'm surprised not to find more people in therapy struggling with all this. God knows I've never encountered anyone without
some
sort of issue with sex. The healthy ones are those who deal with it.”