Sing Like You Know the Words (55 page)

-What do the parents think about
it?

-Raj says they are fairly
traditional themselves, but nothing like the brother. He said they
seemed pleased that the boy is going through this intense period of
finding his faith; it means he’s not turning his back on his
culture. They expect that the obsessive side will settle down in
time. But Raj says that his parents have never had any idea of what
the boys are really up to, and he should know.

-So, what did he want you to
do?

-I really don’t know. I don’t
know if he knew himself. It was almost like he thought of me as
someone who was official, but someone he could trust. I think in
his mind we’re all just the authorities. The powers that be. No
difference between the police, the screws, the magistrates and the
judges. He feels that he’s let the establishment know by talking to
me. He must really be worried to call me up after all this time,
but I can’t think of anything I should do about it. Perhaps I
should call the police and report an outbreak of religious faith on
the south side of the city.

-Maybe it was just an excuse to
contact you again.

-He did have a thing for me.

-I’m sure they all did

-You don’t have to be quite so
obvious about using the past tense Matt.

-Sorry.

Both of them seemed oddly
discontented today. And the truth was that the restaurant had seen
better days. The menu was tired. The over bright lighting exposed
the sorry decline of the furnishings. Next time, he thought, they
should arrange to meet somewhere else. Memories were all very well,
but there were as many bad as good.

-David won’t ever get the
minister’s job, you know, Patricia told Matthew.

-What makes you say that?

-The moment has passed I think.
He’s not such a good fit to the times any more.

She tasted her drink and made a
face.

-I don’t know why I ordered this
merlot. I hardly like the stuff at all anymore. In fact, I don’t
like this place much. I don’t know why we have to meet here.

-We don’t have to meet at all,
if you’d rather not.

-This town is all wine bars and
fancy shops now, isn’t it? I wonder what is the least amount you
need per year to live here these days. Must be a fortune. Do you
remember when we were all first together here, how cheap everything
was?

-Ugly though. Don’t you think
it’s better now?

-Yes I suppose. I miss something
though, not just my young self. I’d rather be young then than now.
I couldn’t be doing with all that makeup they have to wear now for
one thing, and going to noisy bars where you can’t speak, just to
drink and be looked at. And I wouldn’t have looked good in the
clothes they wear now. Too sexy for me.

-You were very good looking.

-I was pretty enough, in a plain
sort of way. Do you want coffee?

She rested her hand lightly on
his:

-Matt, you’re brooding about
something.

-I think I’m going to chuck my
job

-That’s silly, whatever else
would you do?

-I could… anyway; it’s not for
me, really. It never was. I’m not worldly enough to be a
journalist.

-What a strange thing to
say.

-And I had no business giving
your husband information about Mitchell Walcott. It was a breach of
confidence.

-David will make everything
right.

-Oh, I know, it will be fine.
It’s just, that’s not what you do.

-But that’s not the reason
you’re thinking of leaving.

-No, but what about you?

Patricia fidgeted with her
lighter, feeling the need for a cigarette. She’d started smoking
again after twenty years, how stupid was that? And now it turned
out there was practically nowhere left you were allowed to
smoke.

-I’m thinking I’ll probably
leave David. Don’t panic, it has nothing to do with you, or anyone
else.

-Is it because of his
affair?

-What a curious thing to say.
I’d almost forgotten about that.

-You were hurt at the time.

-I dare say I was, but no, not
that. I’m not such a romantic. I think that in some ways Matthew,
between the two of us, you are more the woman and I am more the
man.

-You work in a male dominated
world I suppose

-Do I? I’m not sure. You know,
there are more women lawyers than men now. Of course the men hold
all the top jobs so in that sense you are right. That was one
reason I almost accepted when they asked me to be a judge, but I
suppose that is one more thing I shall never do now. No regrets
there though, I’d rather stay a nuisance than have the
responsibility for making decisions.

-So what is the problem?

-Does disappointment need a
reason? I don’t know. I suppose there should be more, that’s all.
David still believes he loves me, but he hardly notices I’m there.
I thought having Evelyn would make a difference.

-David adores Evelyn

-I meant a difference in the way
he feels about me. If anything, she gets the attention now and I’m
more surplus to requirements that ever.

-That’s stupid, David needs
you.

-Jane needs you a lot more than
David needs me.

-I need her too.

-Yes I think that is true

Matthew was strangely reluctant
to talk about Jane and Jason with Patricia. He could see that she
felt it. He could ramble on forever about what they had been doing
together, where they had been, what plans they had. Some part of
him was thinking about Jane and the child now. But the tone of what
he would say seemed out of place here. Perhaps he felt a little
guilty about what he knew was his good fortune. Dissatisfaction and
disappointment had always been what brought Patricia and him
together. Somehow it was a betrayal on his part that he had escaped
from them. Even the problems at work were not weighing on him like,
perhaps, they should.

Matthew thought some more.

-You won’t leave David, he
decided.

-You may be right. But you know
what’s funny? When we got married, I was worried that we were too
young. We might grow in different directions and come to despise
each other. But David persuaded me: he said we’d live our lives as
one. We’d always be together and we’d go through the same changes
together. And after, we’d have it all to look back on together.

-I remember I raised similar
concerns about the two of you.

-He told me that. He said it was
none of your business. But even though he’s been absent, one way or
another, for so much of the time, you know he was right. We have
always spent a little time together, and we are still friends. It’s
just the sex. He’s not interested, or he’s got no time for it. It’s
not that I’m getting old, even though that’s true. Looking back, I
think we’ve been that way always. Apart from right at the start. It
was a relief to me in a way, when he fell for that stupid girl. It
showed he was, well, normal. I suppose you knew all about that?

-Yes; he told me everything,
whether I wanted to know or not, and later I found out that he
confessed to you. But it seemed cruel and pointless to let you know
that I knew.

-It hardly matters now, does it?
But back in the beginning, all that concern about whether we would
have anything to say to each other, and the problem turned out to
be not that at all, but something I never even considered.

-Is it a big problem?

-You know I have a practical
nature. I’ve had my lovers. You’ve got your own girl now, so you’re
out of the picture. That’s ancient history. The main thing is; I
have to be discreet. I could never be with someone who wants to run
away with me, and that makes it all a little sad and pathetic. I
manage.

-But you don’t sound content. Is
it guilt?

-Why should I feel guilty? I
want to stay married to my husband, and there’s no other way to do
it. It’s just as I get older, I get more frightened. I’m not so bad
just now, for my age, but you know, gravity wins in the end. What
happens when I can’t find a man who wants to take me to bed? I
can’t imagine how I shall cope.

-That time is years from now.
David will be finished in his work by then. He’ll probably be more,
you know, interested.

-It will come sooner than you
think, Matt. It’s the real curse of women to live longer, but age
younger. Anyway, I wouldn’t want David to change now. The pattern
of our lives is set. It would feel too weird. Maybe even five years
ago: but now, I don’t want him in that way. And I can’t face being
old and alone in this way. It makes me want to scream.

Matthew had no reply for this,
and they sat in silence for a while.

-I can’t stay long. I have a
conference in chambers this afternoon, Patricia said.

-Let’s walk back together. We
should get out of here anyway. The sun is shining outside. We’ll
walk along the river.

Patricia decided she did not
want to finish her wine and summoned the waiter. She paid the bill
with her card. My turn, she smiled.

There was a vacant bench next to
the water, where they sat. The day was cold but bright. The
riverside walk was one of those carefully planned city
environments: all tastefully modern stone harmonized with what they
called heritage features. Over the years the appearance of the
place had improved beyond measure, even if the river was still
dirty. Something besides money had been spent to pay for it though.
Matthew imagined that you could read the cost in the eyes of the
worker drones buzzing between their sanitized locations; office to
wine bar, coffee shop, to flat. He was not immune himself.

Patricia was staring at the
water.

-Something else happened to me
you know. I was going to a church. I was going to meet someone and
tell them something important; it doesn’t matter why. But when I
got there, I couldn’t go inside. And now I feel like I’m never
going back there, like I’m through with all that.

-You’re talking to the wrong
person. You need a priest to help you with loss of faith: or David
maybe.

-Some days I feel like I’ve lost
everything I cared about, and I’m just carrying on for the sake of
it.

-You’ll always have Evelyn, he
said.

-Yes, I’ll always have her.

The words were unspoken, but
Patricia could have confessed that, when Evelyn was a baby, she had
never experienced the emotional attachment that was said to flood
through new mothers. Waiting for that feeling, that never came, had
left her terrified that she was some kind of monster. Now that
Evelyn was talking, reaching an age of reason, her mother had
developed a more genuine affection for her. She looked forward to
her daughter being a young adult and the time they might spend
together. But that was how fathers were supposed to feel.

Maybe she was a kind of monster.
David had spoken to Evelyn from the first days as if she was
already grown up and could understand whatever he was saying, but
he seemed perfectly natural about it. There was never any doubt of
the bond between them. Maybe Patricia would always be the
outsider.

She couldn’t say any of this to
Matthew.

-What about you, Matt. Does it
still bother you? About Evelyn.

-You know how I deal with
things. Mostly I don’t think about it at all.

-There are too many things you
don’t think about and don’t notice.

-These days I notice more. If
you really want to know about it, the situation with Evelyn, well
it broke my heart and for ages I never even knew it. But there´s no
reason for it, and I don´t think of anyone as being to blame. There
came a time when I finally admitted to myself that something inside
me had been snapped, and that I wouldn’t be quite the same
afterwards. Only now I think, maybe it was necessary for something
that had to happen to me. Perhaps I have the kind of heart that has
to be broken before it can be opened.

-That sounds too sad.

-I could be wrong. It’s a rule
of life that other people know you better than you know yourself.
That’s one of the reasons we need friends: to help us see
ourselves.

-You know that David’s always
been your best friend. He helped you in ways you don’t even know
about. He knew you’d be too proud to let him. The two of you should
have each other. Even if you do give up on the job, don’t give up
on the friendship.

-I’ll bear your advice in mind.
But you know I never really wanted to get on. I don’t know if you
were talking about my promotion just now, but the fact is, if I
hadn’t made editor, I wouldn’t be the one having to do the sackings
now

-What sackings?

-The Examiner has new
owners.

-They still need writers, I
suppose.

-Apparently not; or not so many
as you’d think anyway, and they have other titles so jobs can be
consolidated. I’m going to have to manage that. I shall have to
think of myself as a manager.

-But if you weren’t the editor,
it would probably be you getting the push.

-True, but I think I could live
with that more easily.

It was time to go, but it felt
like the end of something. Matthew was groping for words that would
sum up the something, but he could find none.

-When I look back, he said, I
always thought that writing for the paper was only a step on my
way, even though I was too timid even to think about what the next
step might be. I suppose it felt right because it was writing, of a
kind. It was a craft anyway, something that you could take
seriously even after you admitted the limits of it. Afterwards,
well the next steps never turned up, and I decided that the craft
was enough for me. But then somewhere along the line I lost even
that consolation and it became just a job. Now, I go to work, just
like everyone else.

-But everybody is like everyone
else Matt: even David, as it turns out.