A Traitor to Memory

  But what about the blue door, Gideon? you inquire, still reason incarnate. Considering the part that that door has played in your mental processing, would it help if you reflected upon it and wrote about it rather than what you've been told by others?

  No, Dr. Rose. That door—if you will pardon the pun—is closed.

  Still, why not shut your eyes for a few moments and visualise that door again? you recommend. Why not see if you can put it into a context quite apart from Wigmore Hall? As you describe it, it appears to be an exterior door to a house or a flat. Could it be possible that it has nothing to do with Wigmore Hall? Perhaps it's the colour that you might think and write about for a time and not the door itself. Perhaps it's the presence of two locks instead of one. Perhaps it's the lighting fixture above it and the entire idea of what light is used for.

  Freud, Jung, and whoever else occupy the consulting room with us … And yes, yes, yes, Dr. Rose. I am a field ready for the harvest.

  3 November

  Libby's come home. She was gone for three days after our altercation in the square. I heard nothing from her during that time, and the silence from her flat was an accusation, asserting that I'd driven her away through cowardice and monomania. The silence claimed that my monomania was merely a useful shield behind which I could hide so that I didn't have to face my failure with Libby herself, my failure to connect with a human being who had been dropped into my lap by the Almighty for the sole purpose of allowing me to form an attachment to her.

  Here she is, Gideon, the Fates or God or Karma had said to me on that day when I agreed to let the lower ground floor flat to the curly-haired courier who needed a refuge from her husband. Here's your opportunity to resolve what has plagued you since Beth left your life.

  But I had allowed that singular chance for redemption to slip through my fingers. More than that, I had done everything in my power to avoid having that chance in the first place. For what better way to circumvent intimate involvement with a woman than to subvert my career, thereby giving myself an exigent focal point for all my endeavours? No time to talk about our situation, Libby darling. No time to consider the oddity of it. No time to consider why I can hold your naked body, feel your soft breasts against my chest, feel the mound of your pubis pressing against me, and experience nothing save the raging humiliation of experiencing nothing. Indeed, there is no time for anything at all but resolving this plaguing persistent pernicious question regarding my music, Libby.

  Or is the consideration of Libby right now a blind that helps cloud whatever it is that the blue door represents? And how the hell am I to know?

  When Libby returned to Chalcot Square, she didn't bang on my door or phone me. Nor did she announce her presence through the means of either the Suzuki's engine gunning explosively outside or pop music blaring from her flat. The only way I knew that she was back at all was from the sudden sound of the old pipes clanging from within the walls of the building. She was having a bath.

  I gave her forty minutes' leeway once the pipes were silent. Then I went downstairs, outside, and down the steps to her front door. I hesitated before knocking, almost giving up the idea of trying to mend my fences with her. But at the last moment when I thought, To hell with it, which I realise was my way of turning tail and running off, I found that I didn't want to be at odds with Libby. If nothing else, she'd been such a friend. I missed that friendship, and I wanted to make sure I still had it.

  Several knocks were required to get a response from her. Even when she did answer, she asked, “Who is it?” from behind the closed door although she knew very well that I was the only person likely to be calling on her in Chalcot Square. I was patient with this. She's upset with me, I told myself. And, all things considered, that's her right.

  When she opened the door, I said the conventional thing to her. “Hullo. I was worried about you. When you disappeared …”

  “Don't lie,” was her reply, although she didn't say it unkindly. She'd had time to dress, and she was wearing something other than her usual garb: a colourful skirt that dangled to her calves, a black sweater that reached her hips. Her feet were bare, although she had a gold chain round her ankle. She looked quite nice.

  “It's not a lie. When you left, I thought you'd gone to work. When you didn't come back … I didn't know what to think.”

  “Another lie,” she said.

  I persisted, telling myself, The fault is mine. I'll take the punishment. “May I come in?”

  She stepped back from the door in a movement that was not unlike a complete body shrug. I walked into the flat and saw that she'd been assembling a meal for herself. She had it laid out on the coffee table in front of the futon that serves as her sofa, and it was completely unlike her usual fare of take-away Chinese or curry: a grilled chicken breast, broccoli, and a salad of lettuce and tomatoes.

  I said, “You're eating. Sorry. Shall I come back later?” and I hated the formality that I heard in my voice.

  She said, “No problem as long as you don't mind if I eat in front of you.”

  “I don't mind. Do you mind being watched while you eat?”

  “I don't mind.”

  It was a conversational check and counter-check. There were so many things that she and I could talk about and so many things that we were avoiding.

  I said, “I'm sorry about the other day. About what happened. Between us, that is. I'm going through a bad patch just now. Well, obviously, you know that already. But until I see it through, I'm not going to be right for anyone.”

  “Were you before, Gideon?”

  I was confused. “Was I what?”

  “Right for anyone.” She went back to the sofa, tucking her skirt beneath her as she sat, an oddly feminine movement that seemed completely out of character.

  “I don't know how to answer that honestly and be honest with myself,” I said. “I'm supposed to say Yes, I was right in the past and I'll be right again. But the truth of the matter is that I might not have been. Right, that is. I might not ever have been right for anyone, and I might never be. And that's all I know just now.”

  She was drinking water, I saw, not Coke, as had been her preference since I had known her. She had a glass with a slice of lemon floating amid the ice cubes, and she took this up as I was speaking and she watched me over the rim as she drank. “Fair enough,” she said. “Is that what you've come to tell me?”

  “As I said, I was worried about you. We didn't part on good terms. And when you left and didn't return … I suppose I thought you might have … Well, I'm glad you're back. And well. I'm glad you're well.”

  “Why?” she asked. “What did you think I might have done? Jumped into the river or something?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then?”

  I didn't see at the moment that this was the wrong road to be traveling down. Idiotically, I turned into it, assuming it would take us to the destination that I had in mind. I said, “I know your position in London is tenuous, Libby. So I wouldn't blame you for … well, for doing whatever you felt you needed to do to shore it up … Especially since you and I parted badly. But I'm glad you're back. I'm awfully glad. I've missed having you here to talk to.”

  “Gotcha,” she said with a wink, although she didn't smile. “I get it, Gid.”

  “What?”

  She took up her knife and fork and cut into the chicken. Despite the fact that she'd been in England for several years at this point, I noted that she still ate like an American, with that inefficient shifting about of the knife and the fork from one hand to the other. I was dwelling on this fact when she answered me. “You think I've been with Rock, don't you?”

  “I hadn't really … well, you do work for him. And after you and I had that row … I know that it would be only natural to …” I wasn't sure how to complete the thought. She was chewing her chicken slowly, and she was watching me flailing round verbally, perhaps determined not to do a single thing to help me.

  She finally spoke. “W
hat you thought was that I was back with Rock, doing what Rock wants me to do. Fucking him, basically, whenever he wants it. And totally putting up with him fucking everyone else he comes across. Right?”

  “I know he holds the whip hand, Libby, but since you've been gone, I've been thinking that if you consult a solicitor who specialises in immigration law—”

  “Bullshit what you've been thinking,” she scoffed.

  “Listen. If your husband is continuing to threaten you with going to the Home Office, we can—”

  “It is what you think, isn't it?” She set down her fork. “I wasn't with Rock Peters, Gideon. Sure. It's hard for you to believe. I mean, why wouldn't I go running back to some complete asshole, since that's, like, my basic m.o. In fact, why wouldn't I move right in with him and put up with his shit all over again? I've been doing such a totally good job of putting up with yours.”

  “You're still angry, then.” I sighed, frustrated with my inability to communicate with anyone, it seemed. I wanted very much to get us past this, but I didn't know where I wanted to get us to. I couldn't offer Libby what she had blatantly wanted from me for months, and I didn't actually know what else I could offer her that would satisfy, not only at that moment but in the future. But I wanted to offer her something. “Libby, I'm not right,” I said. “You've seen that. You know it. We've not talked about the worst of what's wrong with me, but you know because you've experienced … You've seen … You've been with me … at night.” God, it was excruciating trying to say it outright.

  I hadn't taken a seat when she herself had, so I paced across the sitting room to the kitchen and back again. I was waiting for her to rescue me.

  Have others done that before? you enquire.

  Done … what?

  Rescued you, Gideon. Because, you see, often we wait for what we're used to from people. We develop the expectation that one person will give us what we've traditionally received from others.

  God knows there have been few enough others, Dr. Rose. There was Beth, of course. But she reacted with wounded silence, which is certainly not what I wanted from Libby.

  And from Libby, what was it that you wanted?

  Understanding, I suppose. An acceptance that would make further conversation—and a fuller admission—unnecessary. But what I got was a statement that told me clearly she was going to give me none of that.

  She said, “Life isn't all about you, Gideon.”

  I said, “I'm not implying that it is.”

  She said, “Sure you are. I'm gone for three days and you assume I've totally freaked because we can't get something going between us. You figure I've run back to Rock and he and I are bumping woolies all because of you.”

  “I wouldn't say that you were having relations with him because of me. But you have to admit that you wouldn't have gone to him in the first place if we hadn't … if things had gone differently for us. For you and me.”

  “Jeez. You are, like, deaf as a stone, aren't you? Have you even been listening to me? But then, why would you when we're not discussing you.”

  “That's not fair. And I have been listening.”

  “Yeah? Well, I said I wasn't with Rock. I saw him, sure. I went to work every day, so I saw him. And I could've gotten back with him if I wanted, but I didn't want. And if he wants to phone the Feds—or whoever it is that you guys phone—then he's going to do it and that'll be it: a one-way ticket to San Francisco. And there is, like, absolutely zilch that I can do about it. And that's the story.”

  “There's got to be a compromise. If he wants you as he seems to want you, perhaps you can get some counseling that would enable you to—”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? Or are you just freaked out that I might start wanting something from you?”

  “I'm only trying to suggest a solution to the immigration problem. You don't want to be deported. I don't want you to be deported. Clearly, Rock doesn't want you to be deported, because if he did, he would have done something to alert the authorities—it's the Home Office, by the way—and they would have already come for you.”

  She had cut into her chicken again and she had lifted a forkful of meat to her mouth. But she hadn't taken it. Instead, she held the fork suspended while I spoke, and when I had finished, she laid the fork back onto her plate and stared at me for a good fifteen seconds before saying anything. And then what she said made no sense at all. “Tap dancing,” were her words.

  I said, “What?”

  “Tap dancing, Gideon. That's where I went when I left here. That's what I do. I tap dance. I'm not very good, but it doesn't matter, because I don't, like, do it to be good. I do it because I get hot and sweaty and I have fun and I like the way it makes me feel when I'm done.”

  I said, “Yes. I see,” although I didn't, actually. We were talking about her marriage, we were talking about her status in the UK, we were talking about our own difficulties—at least we were trying to—and what tap dancing had to do with all this was unclear to me.

  “There's this very nice chick at my tap-dancing class, an Indian girl who's taking the class on the sly. She invited me home to meet her family. And that's where I've been. With her. With them. I wasn't with Rock. Didn't even think of going to Rock. What I thought was what would be best for me. And that's what I did, Gid. Just like that.”

  “Yes. Well. I see.” I was a broken record. I could sense her anger, but I didn't know what to do with it.

  “No. You don't see. Everyone in your itty-bitty world lives and dies and breathes for you, and that's the way it's always been. So you figure that what's going on with me is the exact same deal. You can't get it up when we're together and I'm just so totally bummed about it that I rush off to the biggest dickhead in London and do the nasty with him because of you. You think I'm saying, Gid doesn't want me but good old Rock does, and if some total asshole wants me that makes me okay, that makes me real, that makes me really exist.”

  “Libby, I'm not saying any of that.”

  “You don't have to. It's the way you live, so it's the way you think everyone else lives, too. Only in your world, you live for that stupid violin instead of for another person, and if the violin rejects you or something, you don't know who you are any more. And that's what's going on, Gideon. But my life is, like, totally not about you. And yours isn't about your violin.”

  I stood there wondering how we'd reached this point. I couldn't think of a clear response. And in my head all I could hear was Dad saying, This is what comes of knowing Americans, and of all Americans, the worst are Californians. They don't converse. They psychologise.

  I said, “I'm a musician, Libby.”

  “No. You're a person. Like I'm a person.”

  “People don't exist outside what they do.”

  “'Course they do. Most people exist just fine. It's only people who don't have any real insides—people who've never taken the time to find out who they really are—that fall to pieces when stuff doesn't turn out the way they want it to.”

  “You can't know how this … this situation … between us is going to turn out. I've said that I'm in the middle of a bad patch, but I'm coming through it. I'm working at coming through it every day.”

  “You are so not listening to me.” She threw down her fork. She'd not eaten half of her meal, but she carried her plate over to the kitchen, dumped the chicken and broccoli into a plastic bag, and flung that bag into the fridge. “You don't have anything to turn to if your music goes bad. And you think I don't have anything to turn to if you and me or Rock and me or me and anything goes bad either. But I'm not you. I have a life. You're the person who doesn't.”

  “Which is why I'm trying to get my life back. Because until I do, I won't be good for myself or for anyone.”

  “Wrong. No. You never had a life. All you had was the violin. Playing the violin wasn't ever who you are. But you made it who you are and that's why you're nothing right now.”

  Gibberish, I could hear Dad scoffing. Another month in this creatu
re's company and what's left of your mind will turn to porridge. This is what comes of a steady diet of McDonald's, television chat shows, and self-help books.

  With Dad in my head and Libby in front of me, I didn't stand a chance. The only course that seemed open to me was a dignified exit, which I attempted to make, saying, “I think we've said all we need to on the subject. It's safe to say that this is just going to be an area in which we disagree.”

  “Well, let's make sure we only say what's safe,” was Libby's retort. “'Cause if things get, like, too scary for us, we might actually be able to change.”

  I was at the door, but this parting shot of hers was going so far wide of the mark that I had to correct her. I said, “Some people don't need to change, Libby. They might need to understand what's happening to them, but they don't need to change.”

  Before she could answer, I left her. It seemed crucial that I have the last word. Still, as I closed the door behind me—and I did it carefully so as not to betray anything that she might take as an adverse reaction to our conversation—I heard her say, “Yeah. Right, Gideon,” and something scraped viciously across the wooden floor, as if she'd kicked the coffee table.

  4 November

  I am the music. I am the instrument. She sees fault in this. I do not. What I see is the difference between us, that difference which Dad has been attempting to point out from the moment he and Libby met. Libby has never been a professional, and she's not an artist. It's easy for her to say that I am not the violin because she has never known what it is to have a life that is inextricably entwined with an artistic performance. Throughout her life, she's had a series of jobs, work that she's gone to and then left at the end of the day. Artists do not live that sort of life. Assuming that they do or can displays an ignorance which must give one pause to consider.

  To consider what? you want to know.

  To consider the possibilities for us. For Libby and me. Because there for a time, I had thought … Yes. There seemed to be a right-ness in our knowing each other. There seemed to be a distinct advantage in the fact that Libby didn't know who I was, didn't recognise my name when she saw it that day on her courier parcel, didn't appreciate the facts of my career, didn't care whether I played the violin or made kites and sold them in Camden Market. I liked that about her. But now I see that being with someone who understands my life is crucial if I am going to live my life.