A Separation(47)

It would be so much better that way. A grandchild, Christopher’s child. The child in which the features of the son would be visible, a resurrection of sorts. Also—the thought built into the fantasy from the start, integral to its allure, Isabella would have admitted it to herself, if to no one else—then the money, not just Christopher’s money but theirs, all their money, would pass to a descendant, someone they could rightly call an heir. There were no other descendants and I was nothing but a dead end, undoubtedly I would marry again (undoubtedly I would).

I did not blame Isabella for making so callous a calculation—I did not blame her, but I believed her to be capable of it—it seemed natural, perhaps I would have felt the same. And I wished that I could say yes. For a brief moment, it was as incomprehensible to me as it was to Isabella: Christopher was gone and there was nothing, no material remnant—which is what children are, in one sense—nothing but a web of emotions, which would fade with time.

I was not pregnant. The money would not pass from blood to blood. Isabella and Mark would disperse their money amongst various charities.

I’m not pregnant, I said.

She nodded, it was as she had expected, it had only been a hope after all. She lowered her head. As I watched, suspicion crept into her eyes—quickly, as if the emotion had already been lurking, as if it were to hand. I could have told her then—the idea had already half come to her, it was a mere suspicion, but the germ of it had sprung, if I wasn’t pregnant, what then had Christopher wanted to tell her?—she would have been upset but perhaps not entirely surprised. It would have been another terrible adjustment, but after the adjustment of death, the idea that her son was no longer alive and in the world, would this secondary adjustment have meant so much, would it have meant anything at all?

I hesitated—the words were simple enough to say, Christopher and I had separated, that is why I did not come to Greece—and yet the words were impossible to say, they were repulsive to me, a truth I could no longer bear to articulate. I would have sooner invented some perpetual fiction, an alternate reality, in fact we had been talking about having a child, Christopher had been hard at work on his book, he had been very close to finishing, as soon as he was finished writing we would start trying in earnest.

Abruptly, she turned away.

It’s terrible to think that Christopher left nothing behind.

There is his work, I said. He was so close to finishing the book. He came to Greece on his own because he needed to concentrate on his writing, he got so much more work done when he was alone.

There is his work, she repeated.

Perhaps we could set up a fund in Christopher’s name.

Isabella sniffed.

A fund for what? I find that I’m tired of foundations and scholarships. They never really commemorate the person. We can talk about this later, Isabella continued after a brief pause. I only wanted you to know that your situation is in no way precarious, I can’t imagine that you earn a great deal of money from your work, but it’s the last thing you should be worrying about, in the current circumstances.

And I saw that contrary to what I had previously imagined, the tie between us would not simply dissolve, that it would persist for some time. There were material things that kept us together, as the bereaved, even without a child. There would be lunches with Isabella and Mark, telephone calls, this money that I was being offered, that was not rightly mine. It formed one link in a chain that would not break, throughout I would be playing the role of the grieving widow. A part I was already playing—the legitimated version of what I was, my grief, my emotions, labeled and adequately contained.

But in reality, my grief was not housed, and it would remain without address. I would be constantly aware of the gap between things as they were and things as they should have been, afraid that it would show its face in my own, in my way of speaking about Christopher, I would be constantly reminded of how inferior my record of love was to a stronger and more ideal love, one that would have sustained the marriage, even in the face of Christopher’s infidelities, a love that could have saved him. I could have been more self-sacrificing, I could have shown the kind of love that Isabella would have expected, that Isabella did expect, to see in the wife of her child.

How many times are we offered the opportunity to rewrite the past and therefore the future, to reconfigure our present personas—a widow rather than a divorcée, faithful rather than faithless? The past is subject to all kinds of revision, it is hardly a stable field, and every alteration in the past dictates an alteration in the future. Even a change in our conception of the past can result in a different future, different to the one we planned.

We stood up not long after. The car will be here in half an hour, Isabella said. And then tomorrow we will drive to Athens and fly back to London, I’ve already booked the tickets. Mark has booked the driver you used yesterday—Stefano, I think his name is. I stopped, it was impossible for Stefano of all people to drive us to the site of Christopher’s death, I placed one hand on her arm.

What is it?

Would you ask Mark to book a different driver?

But why? I thought you had used him before.

I would prefer another driver. He made me—I hesitated, I did not know exactly what to say—uncomfortable.

It was the right thing, a word that said nothing but insinuated much, immediately Isabella was sympathetic, she linked her arm through mine. Yes, of course, she said. It is difficult being a woman on one’s own, men can be such a nuisance. Mark will request another driver. I realized, as soon as she said it, that Stefano would interpret the cancellation as a confirmation of his suspicions, Mark was as he appeared, another xenophobe in his country. Nor could I expect my fabrication—although in some ways it was simply the truth, Stefano did now make me uncomfortable—to dissuade Mark’s own tendencies to prejudice.