Overlapping Lives Page 7

  ‘Yes,’ said Paula and told the story about Mike’s impetuous action. ‘Men do seem culpable in so many of our lives, and we seem to end up feeling guilty and not knowing how to forgive them.’ Sally told her how Melanie and she had become physically close. Their encounters had been healing in an unexpected way and allowed her to start thinking about how to reconnect with the opposite sex. It dawned on Paula that she had not contemplated a new relationship since Mike had walked out. She realised that at the moment she could not face the idea. That was another dysfunction which she had not foreseen. She looked miserable despite the wine and sun and the empathetic company. Melanie reached out again and spontaneously laid her hand on Paula’s arm.

  ‘We need to do something to stop you feeling so sad. We must find you a Matthew. He only knows how to be kind, don’t you, my love? Isn’t there an equation for forgiving?’

  ‘Kindness is all too rare. People should not be surprised when they encounter it but they often are,’ mused Matthew. ‘I think there are some biblical equations involving sevens and seventy times seven. I’m not sure how helpful that is, though. My feeling is that forgiving is a complex process. No one really knows how to do it or even what it really is. Like compassion, it also lacks a definition apart from in a religious context, but usually it’s recognisable when you see it. Acceptance is another process which might be more achievable. It has an existential root. If something bad happens, like Paula’s scar, which actually I think is rather distinctive as opposed to disfiguring, it has a potential to be absorbed into a narrative. It can start to belong, become a part of an identity and be contextualised. The person who did the wounding becomes peripheral and, in some ways, irrelevant. The vicar was right this morning: revenge is poisonous. If anything, it validates the malefactor and diminishes the avenger. Of course, our girls in prison provide the countervailing argument. But those sorts of extremes may provide the exception to the rules which most people adhere to.’ There was a pause while the girls reflected on Matthew’s homily.

  ‘I still think it’s necessary to find something like a panacea, something which will exorcise the memory and the anger,’ Paula said quietly. ‘Perhaps a way to share the awfulness of the moment and the misery which ensues; something like telling the bees about grief. They take away the metaphorical sting, paradoxically. Or maybe talk to a river. I used to think rivers had souls. Actually, I think I still do. I remember announcing the idea on a school trip. We were sitting by a river somewhere in Wales, watching the movement of the water in one of those fast-flowing mountain streams, before it becomes a river. They have a kind of immortality; “Men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever”, that was Tennyson, I think. The movement gives the stream a character and a voice – a thing you could share memories with and they would be swept away and infinitely diluted somewhere downstream, which is where we’re all going eventually. The school people thought I was barmy at the time, but I’m not so sure.’ She turned to Matthew. ‘I like the idea of a distinctive scar rather than a disfiguring one. Perhaps I can start to think about it differently. Up to now I’ve thought of myself as disfigured. How could anyone think of me as anything else?’ Matthew looked squarely at Paula.

  ‘From where I’m sitting, your face is beautiful, Paula. There’s no other word for it.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ chorused Sally and Melanie at once and laughed at their synchronous reaction. Melanie reached over to Paula again and took her face in her hands. She ran a finger gently over the scar.

  ‘It even feels nice. It’s perfectly smooth. You really do have a lovely face, Paula. You’ve got to believe that.’ Melanie sat back. Paula was overwhelmed by the attention and the fathoms of kindness of the strangers she had met only hours ago. Tears stung in her eyes and overflowed onto her eyelids. She covered her face and sobbed briefly, feeling her pent-up anger melt away. Smiling through the tears, she looked at her new friends.

  ‘Maybe I’m doing this all wrong. I’ve just realised that’s the first time I’ve wept.’

  ‘Poor you.’ Melanie stood up, sat down again next to Paula and wrapped her arms around her. ‘You need someone to hug you.’

  ‘I know I do. But that’s another problem. I don’t think I could bear physical contact with a man at present. It’s the mental distortion of things I normally take for granted which I can’t get used to. I used to like men, probably more than was good for me, but now I hate them all, except for Matthew, of course. I need to learn how to trust the opposite sex again.’ Paula smiled at her companions. ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Take Melanie home and cuddle her for an afternoon,’ suggested Sally and laughed. Then she looked serious. ‘That’s what we did. She doesn’t look very cuddly but appearances can deceive. After we’d done it a few times Melanie went off and fell in love with a giant and lost her virginity. It cured me of all the bad feelings I had after my time with the man who Julie killed, bless her. It’s like therapy; it restores something, the need for intimacy, I think, which gets taken away by bad experiences with men.’

  ‘Not sure Matthew would loan me.’ Melanie looked at Sally. ‘Why don’t you take Paula home? You’re really nice to cuddle.’ She turned to Paula. ‘Sally’s like a therapist in bed.’ Paula was not sure what to make of this disinhibited banter. She could not be certain if they were serious. To her relief Matthew interrupted.

  ‘It’s time for more drinks. I suspect this is not the kind of solution Paula has been contemplating. I’ll get us another bottle.’ He disappeared into the pub. Sally leant forward, looking intently at Paula, her forget-me-not eyes bright in the sunshine.

  ‘Come home with me later and we can see if it helps. There’s nothing to lose. If it doesn’t work we’ll have to think of something else. My boyfriend’s away this weekend so I’m at a loose end.’ A sense of excitement slowly filled Paula. It had never occurred to her that intimacy with another woman might help. Sally’s eyes were inviting.

  ‘Let me have another glass of wine before I say yes.’ Paula needed time. They drained the bottle and had another. Inconsequential, wine-induced chatter passed the afternoon. Her new friends discovered that Paula ran a florist’s shop in Belsize Park, selling extravagant flower arrangements to the North London middle classes, who seemed to attach disproportionate value to flowers. Melanie and Sally related more of their shared stories while Matthew looked on benignly.

  Eventually, it was time to leave. No one had mentioned Sally’s therapeutic properties again. None of them was quite sober. Sally linked her arm through Paula’s as they left the pub.

  ‘You’re coming home with me, my love,’ announced Sally. Paula did not resist.

  Much later Paula returned to her flat in Belsize Park feeling relaxed and renewed. She had spent the evening with no clothes on, with Sally, on Sally’s bed. The experience had been gentle, intimate and blissfully sensual. Very much like therapy, Paula thought. She was sure it helped to resurrect her desire to connect with people again, including men. No longer did she feel the need to find a way to forgive; the events seemed to coalesce in her narrative. Something had happened and something else had helped to make her feel less brutalised. Her disfigured self had become just a part of the story.

  The recollection of her evening spent in contact with Sally’s perfect skin stayed in Paula’s mind. It had been a revelation to find intimacy with another woman so extraordinarily pleasurable. She wondered about where her sexuality lay on the spectrum of possible preferences. The sense that what she had always taken for granted was perhaps less embedded in her perception of herself than she had assumed, was unsettling and exciting.

  Paula had an assistant called Catherine who helped in the shop on weekdays. They worked closely together creating beautiful effects with flowers. A few months ago Catherine had explained that her weekends were preoccupied with her new boyfriend who had a house in the country and she could no longer help on Saturdays. Paula had
seen him collect Catherine on Friday evenings from the pavement outside the florist’s shop and spirit her away until Monday morning. This had come as a surprise to Paula who knew that Catherine had been gay since her teen years. Her long-term girlfriend had left her some months ago and somehow Catherine had rediscovered her heterosexual self. Catherine would have some insight into how sexuality worked; Paula needed to decide what she really was, or whether it was possible to be somewhere in the middle. She was enthralled by the uncertainty and the possibilities it created.

  Between the wrapping and arranging of the flowers, Paula told Catherine about her weekend encounters and how it had all helped to make her feel better, how her relationship with her scar had changed. Catherine was fascinated by the story.

  ‘I don’t think assumptions about it can ever be quite safe,’ Catherine reflected. ‘After my partner left I felt pretty despairing: lost, full of self-doubt. Meeting Ben by chance was amazing. It wasn’t so much sexual attraction as a growing longing to be in his company. To be honest it was a slow process but I found I could trust him, despite him being a banker.’ She smiled at Paula, her eyes large behind the thick-framed spectacles she always wore. ‘We didn’t sleep together until last Christmas. But I don’t think either of us feels that sex is that important. It’s there if we want it, but it’s more the possibility of intimacy being on tap which matters. Contact with each other’s skin seems to create the chemistry which binds us together. But people are like chameleons; you know, Ben’s wife left him for another woman after years of marriage. They’re living in lesbian bliss somewhere.’

  Paula felt bemused. So much had happened in a short space of time. Her perception of herself had been undermined. She began to wonder if, despite the numerous men she had slept with during the years since her teens, she was in reality naïve. Being in love was not something Paula considered important and she knew she had not loved her lovers. Catherine had mentioned trust, which was more important; Paula began to wonder if she had trusted any of the boyfriends who had beguiled her over the years. She knew she trusted Catherine which was why she so readily told her about the weekend, seeking her wisdom.

  ‘And one more thing,’ added Catherine, ‘Ben’s my lover now but I still like women. I know being injured like you were is horrible but that scar of yours is special. I’ve fancied you from the moment I first saw it.’ She removed the spectacles and smiled her wide, attractive smile. Paula smiled back, feeling the colour rush to her face, and then concentrated hard on her flower arrangement.

  Ben and Catherine

  The National Gallery was pleasingly uncluttered. Ben had seen a preview of the Veronese exhibition and assumed it was open. At the reception counter a condescending woman, with an Italian accent, informed him that it did not open until tomorrow, but the German Renaissance exhibition, entitled Strange Beauty, in the Sainsbury Wing, was still on. He bought a ticket and was persuaded, by another Italian-accented helper at the entrance to the exhibition, to spend three pounds on an electronic commentary device.

  The disembodied, female voice of an expert on German Renaissance masters told Ben what he was looking at through ill-fitting earphones, which seemed unnecessary, as he could see what was in the lugubrious frames. She also told him about the provenance of the pictures, which was more interesting. One had been in the possession of Hitler; no one knew how it had come into his possession. Another had masqueraded as a Durer, to attract more value, until the true colours were exposed by a restorer.

  Ben spent as little time as his guide would permit looking at the depictions of crucifixion scenes. He had always found these obsessive images repulsive. Their prurient representation of human suffering reflected an atavistic sadism. He had to acknowledge the perspicacious observations of his guide that, despite the subject matter of the pictures, the quality of the colouring was often beautiful. The guide led him on to the Durer engravings which she wanted him to look at close up. So he did. The intense, studied detail of the engravings was intricate, almost photographic in quality.

  The encouragement of the guide, to inspect these engravings from a few inches from the surface of the picture, prevented him from noticing that someone else was trying to do the same thing. He stepped back, conscious of a sense of sharing personal space that was not quite comfortable. The person with whom he was sharing the space was a woman wearing large, dark-framed spectacles. Her pale, brown hair was drawn tightly back into a short, flat ponytail held by a tortoiseshell grip. She wore a small, colourful rucksack, with a pattern which reminded Ben of a Cath Kidston decoration and was carrying a black carrier bag with National Gallery printed in large letters on the outside. The gallery shop had tempted her before the exhibition. Surely, thought Ben, the exhibition comes first and then you go and buy something, not the other way round. Her face was pleasing and pretty. He looked at her, but she was intent on the examination of the engraving in front of them. She would not catch his eye.

  Ben moved on to the next frame and pressed the number of the exhibit into the recorder. The guide filled his head with more erudite detail, but he was distracted by the ponytailed woman who hovered close to him again, fingering her ponytail over her right shoulder. She refocused again, through her large spectacles, like headlights, on the image about which Ben was being instructed. He made space for her. She did not acknowledge him but moved closer. Their faces formed an equilateral triangle with the surface of the picture, inches apart. She seemed indifferent to the sharing of their space. Ben continued his scrutiny of the picture, and discretely, of her. She had a straight nose and a wide mouth. There were faint, shallow scars on her cheeks from a long-ago adolescent skin eruption and lines at the corners of her eyes. She might be forty, he guessed. Her attention seemed absorbed by the picture in front of them, studiously not acknowledging Ben’s closeness to her, or hers to him. She made him wonder about the unpredictability of human behaviour, how people had different sensitivity to space. Did women have a less nuanced sense of personal proximity than men? Did they buy a souvenir and then look at the exhibition?

  Emerging into a brighter room, away from the focused light and deep shadow of the exhibition rooms, Ben realised that he had arrived at the end of the German Renaissance. He returned his guide to the smiling Italian at the entrance to the exhibition. His inscrutable companion was nowhere to be seen.

  Ben wandered up the stairs to the café, bought a frothy coffee in a thick, white cup, found a table and tried to recollect some of the erudite instruction of the electronic guide. His erstwhile companion intruded on his thoughts. He wondered why she had been so persistently close to him. So close, he could barely avoid touching her.

  The froth lay in a discoloured layer at the bottom of Ben’s cup. He left the café and found his way out into the bright clamour of Trafalgar Square. A demonstration was dispersing. The usual top-heavy police presence hung around the expanse of pavement in front of the gallery. The street artists concentrated on entertaining the curious public, oblivious to the turmoil around them. He walked quickly up the Charing Cross Road and weaved his way through dawdling crowds into Leicester Square tube station.

  Ben watched the cables attached to the side of the Northern line tunnel race by. He could not decide on the significance of his close encounter among the strangely beautiful images of the German Renaissance. Her presence was very real in the impersonal tube carriage. The chance of seeing her again was equally unreal. Coincidence is always pleasing and so is the context of events, thought Ben. The reason he was in the exhibition was because he had been misinformed about what he had intended to see at the gallery. Had the woman looked at the exhibition before she visited the shop, they would not have been examining the Durer engravings at the same time. But that did not explain why she stood, concentrating on the pictures, so close to him that he could smell her faint, feminine perfume. It seemed that he had been invisible to her. Or were they more like two honey-seeking insects, hovering by chance at
the same nectar source, neutered by the strange beauty they sought, then parting on their separate quests?

  Coincidences rarely happen in isolation. Ben was distracted from the hypnotic cables suspended on the tunnel wall by the sense that he was being watched. He looked at the people sitting opposite but they were all absorbed in books and tablets. Returning his gaze to the racing cables, where the reflection of the person in the neighbouring seat was superimposed, he realised that his neighbour had established eye contact with his reflection. He turned to his right and there was his intrusive companion from the gallery holding on to the colourful backpack on her lap. She had removed her spectacles to focus on things more distant than the Durer pictures had been. Her wide mouth smiling, she turned to him, which made her face instantly attractive.

  ‘I saw you in the gallery,’ she said. ‘You were looking at me. I didn’t want to be distracted in the exhibition so I followed you when you came out of the café.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I think you were more interested in me than the German Renaissance.’

  ‘You certainly added to the aesthetic experience,’ he acknowledged. ‘The Durers have an unintended way of bringing people close together. I tried to catch your eye but you wouldn’t acknowledge my existence.’

  ‘No, not in the gallery. But I did notice you. I need to get back to my flat. I’m supposed to write a critique of the exhibition for a course I’m doing in art history. If I don’t write it immediately I’ll forget the impressions I formed in the gallery. Where are you going?’ Ben was supposed to disembark at Euston but they had already moved on to Mornington Crescent. They seemed to have been drawn together more powerfully than even the unintended effect of the pictures in the gallery had achieved. It would have been churlish to make excuses.

  ‘Back home to Buckinghamshire. I live in the country. But having met you, and missed Euston, I’ll go on to Belsize Park. I need to do a spot of shopping; then I’ll have to go back to Euston and get the mainline. Will I be part of the critique?’