East Fortune (13 page)

Jack wondered if his appearance with Krystyna was equally absurd. He was already trying to look younger so that it wouldn't seem odd when he was with her. He wore black jeans with deck shoes and pale linen shirts, clothes that had seen better days but had some remaining class in the buttoning and the details. He still had his hair, and it was still dark-brown, but he knew that he had only a few years left in which he could try and pass himself off as being in his early forties.

Perhaps he was enjoying the uncertainty of it all. Krystyna was not a student that he could teach and occasionally tease and cajole; she was not a daughter, like Annie or Kirsty, whose emotions he
could easily read; and she was not yet a friend, known over the years, who understood him well enough to forgive his faults.

After she had showered and changed they prepared supper in the kitchen. Krystyna had brought supplies from a Polish delicatessen and began to make home-made pierogi, combining flour, eggs, sour cream and buttermilk. After a few minutes Jack was dismissed for getting in the way.
Gdzie kucharek sze
ś
ć
, tam nie ma co jesc.
Where there are six cooks there is nothing to eat.

He began to see the house through Krystyna's eyes and was embarrassed by its state of disrepair. There were gaps on the walls where Maggie had taken her favourite paintings, their outlines in dust, the colour of the wall unfaded, the torn wallpaper around the nails like a swathe of fear across his life. He should have tidied it up, redecorated even.

As Krystyna began to knead the dough Jack could see her looking at the collage on the wall. It had been made by the children when they had rented a cottage at Tighnabruaich. He had taken them mackerel fishing. It had been one of his proudest achievements –
thirty-five fish, Dad
– and they had sold them door-to-door.

‘It is funny,' Krystyna said, as she set the dough to rest. ‘No one really knows I am here.'

‘No one?'

‘It is the greatest freedom. You remove yourself from the world and nobody notices. It is like having a holiday from my own life.'

‘What about your friends; or your father?'

‘I do not worry about them. I know they don't worry about me. Do you know where your daughters are now?'

‘Roughly.'

‘I do not believe you.'

‘I know how to get hold of them, put it that way. I think you are far more elusive.'

‘Elusive?'

‘Hard to reach.'

‘People can always call me.'

‘Not when you keep your phone switched off.'

She began to work on the filling for the pierogi, chopping the onions and potatoes, preparing the cheese.

‘Well, perhaps I do not want to be disturbed.'

Jack could not tell if she was flirting or if she always spoke in this way. What did she want from him and was he wrong to try to define it?

They sat out in the garden as they waited for the dough to prove. A flight of swallows swept across the lee of the woodland. Jack thought of Christopher Wren.
Nothing can add beauty to light
. He had once made a list of words to describe the fall into evening:
gloamin'-tide, daylight's gate, crow-time, owl-leet.

He had always been precise about language. When he met people whose names formed sentences he would always stop them.
Philip Wood
– would what?
Angus May
– but then again he might not. He'd even met a Dutchman called
Jan Smoulders.

As they sat reading in the garden Jack tried not to stare at Krystyna's dark bare arms and her exposed midriff. He wanted to avoid looking at the rise and fall of her stomach, the gap at the top of her jeans, the whaleback thong visible when she bent over to pick up her clothes. He noticed that her movements were all about adjustment. Her hair was pushed back, swept round, or twisted in her fingers. Her flip-flops were slipped on and off. She toyed with one of them, letting it half fall from her raised bare foot. Her presence had sent him back to the world of attraction and desire, a world he thought he had left long ago.

‘What are you reading?' Jack asked.

‘Just a story. About love and a lie.'

She held it up so that Jack could see. It was Ian McEwan's
Atonement.

‘I thought it might be something Polish.'

‘I can read English as well as speak it.'

‘I know. I didn't mean to offend you.'

‘You did not. Next year, of course, I will be reading Latin.'

‘You are joking.'

‘Who knows? It depends how good my teacher is.'

‘You'd like to learn?'

‘Why not?' Krystyna asked. ‘But it is getting cold and I must finish the pierogi. Shall we go inside?'

‘If you like.'

Jack normally sat in the garden until it was almost dark. He liked to watch the pace of the light.

Back inside the house Krystyna finished her preparations and then turned on the television, flicking between channels on the remote. The only programme that was not about middle-aged women having a makeover was a flower show. Presenters unused to wearing suits pronounced on nostalgic gardens filled with cottage flowers and low-tech junk – a mangle, a cider press and a rusting tin bath.

‘Does your wife do this work?' Krystyna asked.

‘How do you know?'

‘Your mother told me.'

‘She seems to have told you everything.'

‘It's quite important, don't you think?'

Jack thought back to the disappointment of his parents when Maggie had left; his mother's weakened optimism and his own pedantic response.

‘Is it fatal?' she had asked.

‘Well, I don't think I'm going to die, Mother, but it's definitely over.'

‘Such a pity,' his mother had said. ‘She's a good woman. And the girls …' Her voice had faded away. In the silence Jack assumed that his parents were already thinking that it was his fault.

On the television exhibitors spoke about the importance of foliage and their dream leaf, mahogany and deep-veined. They extolled the virtues of architectural gardens with basalt and limestone, because, Jack heard a man saying, ‘there's no beauty in concrete'.

‘Is it true?' Krystyna asked.

‘Yes. She makes gardens.'

‘We should change channels.'

‘No, it's all right. Let's stay with this.'

‘Why did she go?'

Jack really didn't want to have to explain it all.

‘You do not have to say.'

‘She fell in love, I suppose.'

‘She was not in love with you?'

‘Well, I thought she was…'

‘I'm sorry.'

Jack remembered when Maggie had left him.

‘I tried, Jack. But I just couldn't. We weren't going anywhere, were we?'

Why this need to travel? he had thought. He didn't think they needed to go anywhere.

‘I'm sorry.'

He had considered it enough. They were friends, like Angus and Tessa, he thought. They were comfortable and they never got in each other's way. Wasn't that what happened with most marriages after the lust had gone? When you were too tired to resuscitate passion, the energy drained away.

But Maggie had felt frustrated, living out of town (even though she was the one who had asked for a more rural lifestyle), commuting back into Edinburgh and all over the Borders. She had asked Jack what they were going to do to make their lives more tranquil. She kept using the word ‘tranquil', and Jack had told her that he thought their lives were already quite content.

Maggie kept on. She asked for a sense of purpose and a vision of the future when all the time Jack felt it was hard enough for them to keep what they had. Didn't she understand that he was working as hard as he could just so they could stay where they were?

He thought he had done his best, but Maggie told him that marriage was never constant even when you thought it was. You could sleepwalk for years and then wake up in a place you no longer recognised.

She had met someone, she said. She hadn't meant to fall in love. But it had happened. Guy and she were soulmates. She had never felt anything like it before.

‘What about your children?' Krystyna was asking.

‘Sorry?'

‘Are you listening to me?'

‘Of course. My children.'

It was so long since Jack had explained this. Perhaps he never had.

‘They were angry with her at first and took my side but it's settled down a bit now. Annie's involved in corporate hospitality. Kirsty's training to be a lawyer, the usual kind of thing …' He waved his hand, as if swatting away a bee. He really didn't have the energy.

‘Were you angry yourself?'

‘I find anger rather tiring. Is that very lazy of me?'

‘And you're not lonely?'

‘You get used to it.'

Krystyna smiled.

‘Well, now I can see why I came. It is not for me; it is for you.'

‘Perhaps it is.'

‘Do you see her?' Krystyna asked.

‘Who?'

‘Your wife.'

‘Sometimes. Of course she's not my wife any more.'

‘Will I meet her?'

‘I don't think so. She lives in Bristol. Why?'

‘I don't understand why she left you. It seems a bit random – is that the word?'

‘I don't really know,' Jack said. Perhaps the whole of his life had been ‘random'. It was one of his daughter Kirsty's favourite words.

He could still picture the first ‘Dear John' letter he had ever received. His girlfriend had been called Noelle.
I'm sorry but I love Steve.
And only him
. Even at the time he had thought the underlining unnecessary.

‘You should have more confidence,' Krystyna said, ‘and go out more instead of working all the time.'

Jack thought of the hundred and fifty exam papers he had just finished marking.

‘I like what I do. I need to do it. And I don't have much time to do anything else.'

‘You should make time.'

‘That's probably easier for you to say.'

‘You must not sound as if you have given up.'

‘Perhaps there comes a time when you think you've had enough adventure for one life.'

‘No,' said Krystyna. ‘You must live dangerously. It is the only way.'

Jack was not convinced. The translation on which he was employed continually made clear the argument that intellectual pleasures (which were long-lasting and never cloying) were of far more value than physical satisfaction.

Sed fugitare decet simulacra et pabula amoris
Absterrere sibi atque alio convertere mentem
Et iacere umorem conlectum in corpora quaeque,
Nec retinere, semel conversum unius amore
Et servare sibi curam certumque dolorem
…

Better to run away,
Escape from such illusions, frighten off
Such things as nourish love, and turn the mind
Any where else, disseminate the rank accumulation…

He thought of Krystyna. This was what he wanted to avoid, although their relationship, if that was what it was, didn't feel as bad as
rank accumulation.

He knew that if he wanted to retain the calmness of his former life then he should avoid the distraction of her company. Already he could feel himself slipping, losing concentration. He had to finish his translation over the summer; before next term began.

They returned to the kitchen and ate the pierogi with salad. They tasted better than he had been expecting and he remembered the pancakes he had eaten as a child. He had worried that he was going to have to be polite but when Krystyna asked he told her they were the best pierogi he had ever had.

‘But you have never had them before.'

‘That is also true.'

‘What are you like?' Krystyna asked.

‘That's a Scottish phrase.'

‘I know. Sandy used to sayit. I'm sorry.'

‘No, it's fine.'Jack did not really want to talk about Sandy. But he wondered how much Krystyna was keeping back; the good times, rather than the bad. ‘Would you like some wine?' he asked.

‘No thank you.'

‘I thought you liked wine?'

‘I do but I have stopped. I don't drink any more.'

‘Oh.'

‘I thought it best.'

‘I suppose so. But it's the smoking you should stop.'

‘That is impossible,' Krystyna said, almost too quickly. She was worried that Jack was referring to her pregnancy. Perhaps he had been waiting for her to tell him. ‘Did you ever smoke?' she asked.

‘No.'

‘Did you ever take drugs?'

‘Not really.'

‘What do you mean “not really”?'

Jack remembered the one joint he had had at university. It hardly counted. Krystyna was almost amused, waiting for him to tell his story.

He was about to ask her the same question when his father phoned.

‘Jack. Your mother has only just informed me.'

‘About what?'

‘About what happened: Krystyna and the boy who killed himself. Are you all right?'

‘Yes, Father. What did Mother tell you?'

‘Everything. Well, I assume it's everything. Why didn't you say?'

‘It's complicated.'

‘It doesn't seem complicated at all. It must have been awful. You should have told me about it when you were last here. We went for a walk, remember?'

‘Yes, Father.'

‘You should have stopped me banging on about my own burial and talked about your troubles.'

‘It didn't seem right.'

‘What are you doing about it? Are you talking to someone?'

‘I'm talking to Krystyna.'

‘I mean a professional. These things can affect people for a long time. Talking to that girl may not be enough. She will have her own problems. You might not be good for each other.'

‘I know. But it's all I can cope with at the moment.'

‘You sound very guarded. Is she with you now?'