On Not Learning Portuguese
There was rarely anything spontaneous about her spontaneity. Calculations were required; an evaluation of her underwear (black, matching, Kevlar), how the act might be taken (open-minded and appealing or deranged and desperate). In retrospect, it felt a little forced and ill-judged, and perhaps Michael felt it, too, because the rest of the morning passed uneventfully, in the sense that neither of them got undressed again.
And yet she felt sure that something was happening. Here it was, the curiosity she thought she’d lost, and she wanted to know everything about him and tell him everything, or almost everything, so much so that she’d checked the map last night for other railway lines across their path. There was a station in Kirkby Stephen, they’d be there on Wednesday, another in Northallerton, if she held out until Friday.
I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back for … There was no honest way to finish the sentence. No human would miss her, and no pet would suffer; her cactus would abide in its zombie state; she’d miss no meeting, skip no dates, disappoint no one whatsoever. There was work, of course, but she still had the weekend if she did twelve-hour days. It would be nice to use a familiar toilet but her most pressing commitment was to an open packet of feta that would need to be eaten by Thursday, and she couldn’t let her decisions be swayed by half a block of brined cheese. The fact remained: if she blinked off the face of the earth, no one in London would notice for several weeks, and it was this absence of a reason to leave that was the greatest reason to stay. Only Michael would miss her.
Was that true? Each approach he made came paired with a nervous withdrawal, like someone returning to a sputtering firework. Was her company a pleasant surprise or was she the party guest who won’t go home? If only there was something humans could do, a system of mutually comprehended sounds and gestures to express thoughts and feelings. She remembered a short story she’d read as a kid, by Roald Dahl, about a machine that can pick up the screams of trees and roses when they’re cut, and maybe that was what honest, direct communication would be like: the mowing of a lawn, too much to bear. In the absence of straight talk, they’d have to persevere with irony, hints and double meanings; the brush of a hand, looks and smiles and wrestling in their underwear. Jane Austen stuff.
Thankfully, there was natural beauty to distract them, waving its arms, shouting, ‘Over here! Look at me!’ The peaks were all around them now, outlined sharply against each other, like old-fashioned theatre flats. They walked a ridge, still a climb but not too arduous, the ground easy-going, short, tough grass like office carpet, until they were standing at a viewpoint, a rocky crown, toothed like battlements, the kind of place you might go to summon dragons.
‘This is it. Kidsty Pike. Nearly eight hundred metres,’ he said, breathless, ‘our highest point.’ Her train left Penrith at 18.23.
‘Incredible,’ she said, hoping this would cover it, and thought that if the Sainsbury’s at Euston was closed, she’d go to the Tesco near Brockwell Park, open until midnight. ‘Back there is Helvellyn,’ he was saying, ‘the valley where we came from.’ She’d get milk and eggs and bread, toilet roll, some soup to microwave. ‘That’s Rampsgill Head, that’s High Street, that’s Place Fell …’ And now he was naming things, pikes and gables and edges, and she allowed herself to watch him. He was not unappealing like this. Even when the content was dull, its conveyance had a kind of animation that was not unattractive, and there it was again, the double negative. If she saw it in a manuscript, she’d query it. A note in the margin: just use ‘attractive’.
‘You okay?’ he said.
‘Just, you know, taking it in. It’s very attractive.’
‘And it’s literally all downhill from here. Well, except for the Pennines. At least you’re saved that.’
‘Thank God. So. Where now?’
‘Down there to Haweswater, along the river, over the fields in time for your train. We should head off. You okay?’
‘Fine. Just suddenly, I’m running for a train again.’
‘Plenty of time. No need to run.’ And they began the descent, the gentle slope turning into a clamber down through rocks like a derelict staircase, so that it was hard to talk, to retrieve the intimacy they’d had yesterday, time falling away until they began to skirt the shores of another lake.
‘Except it’s a reservoir.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Artificial. There was a lake here but much smaller and there was a village, Mardale Green, which the army blew up, a pub, a church. They dug up the bodies and moved them, then flooded it all. When the water’s low, you can see the remains. The village, not the bodies. A drowned village.’
‘That’s creepy.’
‘I mean cities need water, so you’ve got to have reservoirs but they’re not the same. No natural shores or beaches, just tidemarks. The water levels go up and down so plants don’t grow in the same way.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Say if it’s too personal. It is quite personal, the most personal really.’
‘Okay. Go on.’
‘Why didn’t you have kids?’
The question landed as the path narrowed and she could no longer see his expression. ‘I’m sorry if it’s annoying. When people ask me, I get annoyed. There’s nothing that’s less someone else’s business, so I’ve probably annoyed you too, but we started talking about it and didn’t finish.’
‘No, I don’t mind.’
‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘let me …’ The path was opening up again and she ran to his side. ‘Go on.’
‘Okay. Well. We did want to. I don’t think we ever needed to talk about it, just took it for granted, and the years went by and it didn’t happen, and by the time we found out what was wrong … I’m going to have to talk about my sperm here, there’s no way round it.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘It seemed I had a low sperm count, plus low motility, so we tried to address that and it didn’t work and we were about to go to the next stage. You know, catch one in a jar. Things got in the way. She needed a break, time apart, to think. And that’s where we are. Or were. She moved out eighteen months ago now.’
‘And how do you feel about it?’
‘Not being a father?’
‘So far.’
‘So far. I don’t know. I’m pretty sad, if I’m honest, but it’s tangled up with sadness about the marriage going wrong and other things and it’s, well, it’s a tangle.’
‘A tangle. I understand. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Do you get annoyed, when people ask?’
He thought for a moment. ‘I think what annoys me more is pity. And caution. You sense this embarrassment with parents. You know, “Don’t mention the kids, hide them in the cupboard”, like they’re expecting you to burst into tears. Either that or they’re all over them. I mean, I love Cleo—’
‘I love her too but—’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do. I get that all the time, or I used to, when I used to see my friends and their babies, the way they’d look at me, like “Sorry about this, but isn’t she gorgeous?” Little pinched, rueful smiles. “You can hold her but you mustn’t abduct her.”’
‘And I understand the dilemma, they want to celebrate what they’ve got—’
‘They’re only being sensitive.’
‘But the sensitivity is insensitive.’
‘You don’t want it to be taboo.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you want to talk about it either.’
‘And it makes it hard. For everyone.’
‘It does,’ he said. ‘It does.’ She was talking too much and resolved to listen but the next thing he said was ‘How do you feel about it?’
‘Being child-free?’
‘So far.’
‘Well, I’m thirty-eight, so I suppose if I’m quick … But I don’t know. There’s the obvious problem, but even if I was dating, a single woman in her late thirties must be in want of a child. I’m just a giant walking red flag.’
‘I’m sure that needn’t always be the case.’
‘You don’t think so? I could see the fear in Conrad’s eyes, revving his engine. Can you rev an electric car? Anyway, you’d have to have the conversation, wouldn’t you? It’s hard to keep it light with that in the air, and there’s always this assumption …’ She stopped for a moment, took a breath. ‘Sometimes I feel sad, sometimes I feel I ought to be sadder. I wanted it, still do sometimes, but it’s not all I want. I mean there are definitely – stupid word – triggers and I’ll feel this … surge of, not regret exactly, just something here, a squeeze,’ and she placed one hand at the top of her chest. ‘But it’s an ache, not a pain, and I don’t stare into playgrounds, I don’t fondle baby shoes, I just wonder about it. Sometimes you’ll see someone with their kid and there’ll be some little gesture, a hand on a face, a moment of connection and I think, Well, I’d have liked that, it must feel nice, shame that probably won’t happen now. But then I see some little brat screaming on the bus and I think, Well, maybe not. Maybe I’m good.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘I always liked the idea of carrying a kid on my shoulders. I know that sounds strange …’
‘No, I understand.’
‘… but the way they sit up there, the fit, like a saddle. Just always seemed comfortable.’
‘Shall I get on to your shoulders, Michael?’
‘Maybe later.’
‘I don’t mean to be facetious …’
‘It’s fine.’
‘… but I don’t feel simply sad. I’m fucking angry too, that I wasted so much time on the wrong person. Soon as we got married, he did everything he could to avoid it, everything. What was that about? Or when friends used to say or imply that they were jealous, lucky you, all that freedom, all that sleep, that kind of thing? “You can have a lie-in, Marnie, you can be hung-over all the time, you can smoke crack, no one gives a fuck.” It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it”, travelling the world or out every night, there’s a kind of tyranny in that too, that life has to be full, like your life’s a hole that you have to keep filling, a leaky bucket, and not just fulfilled but seen to be fulfilled. “You don’t have kids, why can’t you speak Portuguese?” Do I have to have hobbies and projects and lovers? Do I have to excel? Can’t I just be happy, or unhappy, just mess about and read and waste time and be unfulfilled by myself?’
‘You could take up hiking,’ he said.
‘Maybe that’s the answer. Hiking and Portuguese.’ They walked on a little. ‘I used to have more friends. And I liked them a lot and I think they liked me.’
‘I’m sure they did.’
‘Maybe, but then they all went off and got these very particular lives, my male friends too, and I started to feel as if I was the one who was alone. Like in a gang, you’ve got the clever one, the wild one, the funny one, and the one who’s alone, just that, only that. The one without. No one wants to be defined by the thing you don’t have, whether it’s a kid or a partner, and people are obsessed, especially people in a relationship. You’ll be out somewhere and people you’ve barely met will ask you, “Are you seeing someone? Do you want to? Are you on dating apps, sex apps?” Oh, they love asking that, married men especially, living vicariously. “Do you have sex with strangers? Pass the olives.” It’s very … intrusive. Part of me understands, you’re getting to know someone and it’s either that or “What do you do for a living?” But it does get … exhausting.’
‘Of course, you know the solution.’
‘Never, ever go outside. Yes, I’ve been trying it but that doesn’t work either. It’s a cycle, isn’t it, a trap? You’re not with someone, so best not be with anyone.’
‘You get lonely.’
‘There it is. The forbidden word, you get lonely,’ she said and thought, My God, I’ve said it out loud.
‘I know that feeling,’ he said, ‘quite well,’ and they walked on.
She worried that she had asked him the question and answered it herself so she resolved to stay quiet so that he might speak. Instead, he made bland remarks about the view, birds, trees, polite but artificially bright, as if they’d had an argument rather than whatever that had been. When the silence got too much, she said, ‘I’ve got that last-day-of-the-holiday feeling. You’re still away but you might as well be at home.’
‘I know what you mean.’ The lake, too, was coming to an end, squared off by a brutish grey barrier, like the wall of a prison, conifers peering over the top. ‘Want to see something interesting?’
‘I worry when you say that, because it’s often quite dull.’
‘This,’ he said, pointing to the wall, ‘is the world’s very first hollow concrete buttress dam.’
‘I present to the jury exhibit A.’
‘Look at it! It’s magnificent.’
‘It’s certainly a lot of concrete.’
‘You’re like my year-tens. You can be very cruel.’
‘I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s the best – again?’
‘Hollow concrete buttress …’
‘Concrete buttress dam in the world.’ Another silence, then she said, ‘Of course, if we’d had kids, we probably wouldn’t get to see things like this.’
There was a moment before he laughed. ‘Do you want to take a photograph of it?’ he said.
‘No, a photo won’t get the magic. Unless …’ She was reaching for her phone and it occurred to her how intimate, how significant it was, to take someone’s photograph for the first time and add them to your library, like a book that you’ve read or at least started reading. Why else use the word ‘library’? The morning embrace, the nude wrestling, now the photograph. The order was off but the point remained: she wanted to see his face when he wasn’t around. ‘Stay there. Smile.’
‘But if I stand here you won’t get the dam.’
‘Look this way.’ She took the photo. ‘And now …’ She stood next to him, fumbling with the screen, his arm across her shoulders as stiff as a milkmaid’s yoke, the camera too close, the image too fish-eyed to flatter either of them but too late to abandon now. ‘Okay. Say, I don’t know … “buttress”.’
‘Buttress.’
They peered at the photograph. ‘Well, at least we’ve got clothes on. Shall I delete that now or send it to you to delete?’
‘I’m not deleting it,’ he said. ‘That’s my screensaver.’
‘Except I don’t have your number.’
They exchanged numbers. ‘Is there a landline?’ he asked.
‘Yes, West Dulwich two five two. Why d’you need my landline, Nana?’
‘What’s wrong with landlines?’
‘So you can send me a telegram?’
‘Oh, what – so you’re too cool and metropolitan to use a landline?’
They walked on. A village, a river, one field, then another, the Lakes long gone now, the change in landscape so abrupt that it was like stepping from the kitchen to the living room. Their destination, the town of Shap, was in sight when he said, ‘Tomorrow’s limestone country. A completely different terrain, easier-going, Westmorland then the Eden Valley. It’s going to be really lovely, the day after too, crossing into the Dales, much softer and greener.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, if you can bear it, you could call your taxi-driver, miss this train and get one in Kirkby Stephen or even Northallerton. A day, a couple of days more. Only if you want to. Give it some thought,’ he said.