Reconcilable Differences
finale
by Mrs. Eyre
She sat by the fire, feeling as though she were waiting to see the dentist. He brought her drink and a cigarette which he lit for her and took his place on the other side of the fire and waited. The beer was too cold and did nothing to calm his nerves. She smoked the cigarette right down, lit another.“I should quit.”
“My father has strong views about cigarettes and frozen toilet waste.”
“What?”
Luka shook his head. “Never mind. Another time.” If there ever was another time. “So.”
“So. I need you to just listen to me and not interrupt. I haven’t thought this out, it probably won’t be clear, but don’t stop me because I’m going to need the momentum to get me through. I’m not real good at this.”
“Whatever you want.”
“ I – like I said, this has been some year for me. Busiest year of my life I think. I’ve never worked so hard, worked through so much stuff. Hard. I’ve had t o step out from behind all of the things I’ve used to put between me and - - - well, between me and my life. I daren’t think about how much energy I’ve wasted fighting people off. When I wasn’t doing that I was looking at next week, next year, never looking a where I am right now. I can’t change the past and I can’t shape the future, so there was me off the hook. It’s bullshit. But it kinda works. And chop your life up into pieces, keep them apart, deal with your life in bleeding chunks. It does, it seems to work, but it’s still - - - dismembered. Should I start again? I don’t think this is making any sense.”
“Go on.”
“I did it with my - - - with relationships. You know that. I settled. All along, every time, I settled for second best. I was Richard’s wife but never his friend. I was your - your lover, but we were never friends either. And I was Carter’s friend, but I should never - - - well, you know. But see, I can’t do both, they’re like separate things that I can’t join up. You I thought I could take care of, that would be easy, I knew all about that. But you didn’t let me and then there I was, sleeping with you, waking up with you and I didn’t have a damned clue what else I should be doing.”
“Abby – “
“No. No. Don’t. “
She paused here, lit another cigarette. This was not going to end well.
“The thing is, I’m an addict, Luka. Drink, failure, misery. Old friends, and they never let you down, they don’t change, they’re always there for you and they don’t ask anything from you except that you keep them company. You tried, I know you did. Tried to get your hands back on the ropes, to make a change. I didn’t understand any of it, I didn’t understand you. That night, at Rosa’s, I saw it then, saw what your life had been and what I’d done. And what I said about why I didn’t tell you about the drinking, that was true, and it wasn’t fair, because it wasn’t really about you at all. It was just a chance to be someone else, someone who didn’t drink.. You never looked at me and saw someone who drank, so I didn’t drink. But it wasn’t me. You were never really with me”
“Abby – “
“You promised! Shut up. When I saw that maybe you were starting to wake up, I was scared, because if you woke up you’d see it was me and then I’d have to BE me. I didn’t want to be me, I’ve never wanted to be me. A drink’s great for making you feel like someone you’re not. Do you see?”
”I see.”
“But now I feel like I have a choice. You know, you can grow out of friends. I think maybe I grew out of my old friends. You’re a good friend Luka.”
Oh God. Oh no, no, no.
“I’ve always thought, you know, if … if I could get away from mom, from home, if I could be married, if I could get a divorce, if I could be a doctor, if I could have you, or Carter, if I could take a drink, if I could leave the drink, then I’d be happy. I think maybe I’ve run out of ifs.” She paused. “Can I get some more water?”
“I’ll get it.” Luka actually wanted to walk out there and then because he had a terrible feeling that he knew where this was going. Instead he filled her glass and resumed his seat.
“I don’t want to - - - settle any more, I can’t waste any more time on second best. You told me, the day after I showed up at your place, that you loved me. You said you’d love me whether I drank or not because it was up to you. I need to know what you meant by that because I think you’re more than a friend to me, I want to be more than a friend to you, and I’ve thought lately maybe you want that too, because, well, friendship’s a fine thing, but it’s not what I want from you, not now, and it’s killing me. And I think I could maybe try now if you’ll - - - help me, I need you to help me, and we could help each other and I know I told you to shut up, but what I need, what I really need just right this minute is for you to say something because if you don’t I think I’m just going to die.”
Was that it, was that what he’d been waiting for, dropped into a tangle of garbled words, tripped over and almost lost amongst everything else? He was staggered by her honesty, her bravery, and now, when he needed it most, his English deserted him. He started to speak, but she interrupted.
“You have to speak English, Luka.”
“I’m sorry. I was wondering, while I was away - - - I was thinking, if you wanted, maybe we could - - - go out sometime.” A silence.
“You mean like a date?” He looked up at her now, catching her gaze for the first time, saw the understanding in her eyes.
“That’s sort of what I was thinking.” Another silence as she digested this.
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow works” he said.
“I get off at seven.”
Neither of them moved.
“Are you - - - hungry now?” she asked eventually.
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
~~~~~~
Blue.
The shirt was blue. Abby knew she didn’t own a shirt that colour, but she knew a man who did and she knew too how it came to be on her bedroom floor.
“Wash or dry?” he asked.
“Dry”.
They’d eaten dinner in virtual silence, punch drunk. It seemed they’d made their declarations and didn’t know what to do next. Luka knew what his father would advise, but he wasn’t Ivica and felt as though he were treading on thin ice, that the whole thing might fall through beneath his feet at any moment.
“I should get a dishwasher.”
“You appear to have one” he remarked, glancing down at her. It occurred to Abby then that it was true that happiness was where you looked for it. Standing with a dish cloth in one hand and a plate in the other, the smell of detergent and chicken and, standing so close to her, of Luka, she realized that she was, at this moment as happy as she could remember being, except that she wished very much that he would kiss her. Which was OK because at the moment she thought it he did just that. He caught her sharp intake of breath and hesitated.
“No?”
“Yes.”
His kiss was tender, gentle, unassuming, as much a question as a statement. And not at all what she wanted, no, not at all. She let the plate fall to the floor with a clatter and, bringing her arms up around his neck, she opened her mouth to him. Whatever he had intended the kiss to be it soon lost all hope of being anything but erotic. Abby took a step back, and then another, leading him into the apartment. He adjusted his hold on her and lifted her, so that now she bent her head to him, and like this he carried her into her bedroom where he removed first her clothes and then his own and took her, simply, directly. It seemed to Abby that every nerve in her body had been fine tuned for precisely this moment and she came almost immediately and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and in the end did both while he rested his head in the curve of her neck and spoke her name, over and over and over. And when they grew cold she moved to pull the quilt around them and she told him then that she loved him, and he told her that he knew.
She knew that he was awake; the warmth of his hand on her hip, of his breath on her neck made her smile. She ached from unaccustomed exertion and her smiled widened a little as she remembered last night. Luka would have to be careful of the shards of crockery which still littered the kitchen when he got up to make coffee, as she knew he would. But not yet, oh, no, not yet. They had such a very great deal of catching up to do. And when he pulled her close and brushed the hair from her face she opened her eyes and welcomed him home.
It seemed to Luka that he had slept forever. A glance at the clock disabused him of this notion. He’d had all of three hours sleep. Abby’s clock, Abby’s night stand, Abby’s bedroom, Abby’s bed. And Abby, curled away from him, hair in total disarray. And no wonder, he thought, remembering the night.
They’d returned in the night to the language they’d always found easiest, when words had been dangerous things to snare and betray them. But if before their bed had staged Beckett, as perplexing as it was intriguing, punctuated by the disquieting pauses of their daily interaction, last night had been Shakespeare; measured, complex, engrossing; tender, ferocious, moving and terrifying by turns. Familiar and endlessly new; barely a word, a line, a scene out of place. And now he pulled her close and brushed the hair back from her face and saw the welcome in her eyes. Encore.
What do you think, Sweetheart?
There was no answer; there never was.
Luka smiled. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need one.
THE END.