Boot-camp
Cleo had been appalled. ‘I just think it’s terrible, to get so far then give up!’
‘Why?’ said Michael. ‘You thought the whole thing was ridiculous.’
‘But you were so keen!’
‘The weather was really horrible.’
‘No such thing as bad weather!’
‘And also, it just seemed a bit … futile.’
‘I can’t believe it’s you saying this. Why didn’t you just lie to me?’
‘What if you’d asked for a photo?’
‘I wasn’t going to ask fora photo. Just tell me you did it. Lie!’
‘But then I’d be cheating myself.’
‘I’d rather you cheated yourself than left me hanging like this. I was going to talk about it in assembly. What lesson will that teach them now? “Here’s Mr Bradshaw, with a wonderful story about chickening out.”’
He laughed. ‘I didn’t chicken out!’
‘Obviously. You’ve got to go back and finish it.’
‘Let’s forget about it, shall we?’
But the subject came up again in May, at a party where he was introduced to Tessa, or ‘the famous Tessa’, as Cleo called her. The portrait he’d imagined was not nearly flattering enough. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the walk,’ she said.
‘The walk that he abandoned,’ said Cleo, leaving.
‘Well, it’s nice to meet you now,’ he replied, summoning up the gambits he’d prepared in the spring. ‘I hear you’re a triathlete.’
This was the first time he’d allowed himself to be out in company since his return and he still felt shaky and self-conscious, capable only of the most basic conversation, asking questions at regular intervals, like a machine that launches tennis balls. But as he left the party he heard footsteps on the path behind him and Tessa was there, asking for his phone number. He grinned – a grin rather than a smile – and when she asked why, he said it was because no one had ever asked for his phone number before, though this was not quite true. ‘And this is my landline,’ he said, and smiled again.
The relationship with Tessa began a week later, continued for two months and ended without regret or anger. It was, while it lasted, extremely outdoorsy, kayaking, sea swimming, long bike rides, though she was less keen on walking, preferring to run. Cleo called these dates ‘boot-camp’, and he did sometimes feel as if he was in training for something undetermined, life in general, perhaps. If he’d been asked to sum up the relationship in one word, it would have been ‘rigorous’, but he felt better, happier, certainly fitter, and a large part of this was down to sex, which was rigorous too, with a good mix of cardio and strength work.
When they weren’t out of breath, they talked. He began to feel a little more eloquent, as if conversation was another skill he was training for, though every now and then he’d find himself telling a story or making a joke he recognised from his week with Marnie and he’d feel guilty. The jokes and stories rarely landed anyway. They did not make each other laugh, but perhaps too much emphasis was placed on that sort of thing.
Or perhaps not. The fact was that he thought of Marnie often, nights usually, sometimes first thing, and missed her very much. He missed her jokes, of course, and her conversation, the way she’d take a remark and play with it, examine it, hold it up to the light. He missed her face, which he would sometimes look at in his one terrible photograph, using his thumbs to crop out his own gormlessness, placing her at the centre of the frame. Surprisingly, he missed the feel of her, moments of physical sensation, arms touching along their length, his hand on her lower back or under the swell of her breast, all as potent as the sensations you have in a dream, with the same lingering disappointment, too, at waking too soon. Teenage really, the stuff of his pupils’ lives yet apparently now his own, the thoughts and feelings so persistent and surprising to him that he was forced to ask the question, not ‘Am I in love with her?’ but ‘Could I be in love with her?’ The answer to the second question, he decided, was unquestionably yes, and he felt it with such conviction that it became the answer to the first question too.
Clearly, he would have to stop seeing Tessa, a rare instance of someone ending a relationship because they were not seeing someone else. He found the prospect of the conversation mortifying, like telling someone you loved the gift then asking for the receipt. While he summoned up the words, they continued to go for dinner, watch films and even discussed going somewhere in August, but nothing really changed or developed, so that you could shuffle the order of their meetings and it would make no difference. It was less a relationship, more a protracted pep-talk, and while he was grateful, it was intolerable to spend time with someone while wishing they were someone else. At the end of an exhausting, mud-spattered weekend, he saw his chance but Tessa, the superior athlete, saw it first. ‘Michael,’ she said, ‘you’re a lovely guy but I’m not sure this is going anywhere.’ Dropped from the squad, he conceded and said goodbye, and went home to shower and rest.
Home. An offer was made on the house by a nice young family, and accepted, and Michael was obliged to try to conjure up a life without Natasha’s influence. A home divided into two makes something less than half a home and he would have to think about new furniture, new plates and pictures on the wall, new holidays and habits. He would need a new watch, though he would put the old one away with care. For the moment, he discussed the practicalities with Natasha, first by text and then, in September, over the phone and he found that he was able to do this perfectly well, without anger or recrimination. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘About to burst,’ said Natasha. ‘Huge, nauseous. But I’m fine. You?’
He was fine too. In the past, this had been another way of saying Leave me alone, but he was surprised to find that it was true, and while he could still recall his grief at the end of their relationship, it was an emotion that belonged to someone else. For now, he was not happy but not unhappy, content in all but one respect. Even so, he did not want to be there when Natasha came to take her stuff away. Thankfully, they found a time that corresponded with the autumn geography trip, which this year, at Michael’s suggestion – at his insistence – would be a little different.