Page 18 of Pictures of Him

‘It’s great that you came. I appreciate it. The more friendly faces the better.’

Liv and I stand beneath the tree looking at each other while I light a cigarette and exhale the first jet of smoke. I am going to ask her about Catherine. I know it, she knows it, and the question sits between us, letters forming in the ether.

‘How is she?’ I say eventually, and Liv nods, once, twice, before she answers.

‘I’m so sorry to do this to you, Lucian, especially at your mother’s funeral. But that’s the reason I’m here.’

Now

They like to measure my improvements here, inch by inch, or is it millimetre by millimetre? Since talking is not an option and they’ve all come to accept that, there’s a new campaign to make me respond in other ways. Eyes are good, a nod is brilliant. I haven’t managed one of those yet. Greg says, threateningly it seems to me, that I will be going home soon.

‘It will help so much if you can communicate with your children in some way. Don’t you want that, Catherine?’

Underlying message: shit, selfish mother, and this guy is meant to be a shrink.

Here is what they don’t understand. Not talking is much harder than talking. The effort required to never respond is immense; it sucks up all my energy, which is exactly what I want. I know what they are thinking: wilful, stubborn, obstinate (though they couch it in different terms: traumatised, damaged, mute). And in a way they are right. I don’t talk because I want to stay with you and that matters to me more than anything. I want to go back to where I left off, another beginning, the promise of a new start, flesh against flesh, your hand in mine.

Today Sam and Liv visit together, and though they have been told, constantly, that I understand every word they say, they seem to have forgotten.

I’d like to be left alone. I’d like them to leave so that I can get back to thinking about you, but their conversation seeps through my dream world, grit upon snow.

‘I do think you’re amazing. The way you’ve stuck by her.’

‘Well, of course. She’s my wife.’

Always with Sam now this edge of fury. And when Liv says nothing, all this anger, months and months of it – Sam’s frustration at me not speaking, his devastation at the loss of his wife, his children’s mother – just seems to erupt out of him.

‘For fuck’s sake don’t pity me, Liv. At least spare me that. I know what you’re thinking. Why does he bother to come when she’s in love with someone else? It was you who set them up together again after all this time, wasn’t it? Don’t you think you should bear some responsibility for that? Trying to play fucking God. And look where that got you.’

Sam rages right out of the room, visitor’s chair squealing across lino, Liv collapsing, head bent right over her knees, crying, crying. And not responding to Liv, my dearest, darling friend, not reaching forward to put a hand on her shoulder, not finding the words to say ‘It’s not your fault’ will be my toughest challenge yet.

Fifteen years earlier

After the monthly editorial meeting, we always went for drinks at the Criterion, a crusty old pub that was popular with students, who wore these things like a badge of honour – the hottest curry, the dingiest pub, the cheapest cup of coffee in town. The editor was a tall, thin Jarvis Cocker type, without the glasses or the charisma. He seemed to exist in a permanent kind of simmering rage, furious about injustices big and small, even the fining system at the library. Privately Liv and I called him Angry Jeff. I didn’t enjoy these drinks much but I always went for at least one, partly out of politeness, partly to keep my eye on the prize, an editorship before my second year was out.

I was halfway through my drink, plotting my departure, when the door opened and you came in with your friends. I knew all their names: Jack, Harry, Rachel, Alexa. My heart cartwheeled and I looked down quickly at my drink. I’d been avoiding you ever since our lunch by the sea without really knowing why, working in my room instead of the library, even missing the weekly Milton tutorial. I couldn’t have explained the need to avoid you, only that the thought of bumping into you unexpectedly pumpedme up, as it did right now, with an overwhelming surge of adrenalin.

‘What on earth are that lot doing in here?’ asked Angry Jeff.

‘They’ll leave when they realise they don’t sell champagne or Chablis,’ said Melanie, a second-year history student whom I was beginning to like.

But you didn’t leave. You sat down in the opposite corner of the room, the glossy girls an incongruous sight with their highlighted hair and their cashmere scarves and glinting gold watches.

I kept my focus in a narrow gaze, head movements restricted from my drink to my table of earnest friends, so I didn’t see you approach.

‘I’ve been looking for you.’

I tried to be casual.

‘I’ve been studying in my room. Less distracting than the library.’

‘And the tutorial?’

‘I overslept.’

You rolled your eyes, irritated.

‘I don’t think so. You’re not the oversleeping type.’

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