Beautiful World, Where Are You(86)

I know you’re upset about Alice, we don’t need to discuss all this now. With a faint crease between her brows she was frowning. But that’s just pushing me away again, she said. He gave a kind of pained smile. I don’t want you to be in my life just because you think I’ll be miserable without you, he said. I like to feel that you like being around me, for your own sake. Absently he was massaging the palm of his hand, under his thumb joint. I never want you to feel obliged to me, he went on. If I’ve ever done anything for

you, it was really for myself, because I’ve wanted to be close to you. And, if I’m honest, I’ve wanted to feel that you needed me, that you couldn’t do without me. Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t think I’m being very clear at all. I mean that you’ve done much more for me, really, than I’ve ever done for you. And I’ve needed you more. I do need you more, a lot more, than you need me. He let out a breath. She was watching him in silence. He went on distractedly, almost as if talking to himself: But maybe I’m saying all the wrong things. I find it very hard to talk like this. Again he exhaled, almost like a sigh, and touched his hand to his brow. She went on watching him, only listening, not speaking. Finally he looked up at her and said: I know you’re scared. And maybe you really meant all those things you said about our friendship, just wanting to be friends, and if you did, I’ll accept that. But I feel maybe it’s possible you said those things, at least in some way, because you wanted me to make the other case.

As if I would come out and say, no, Eileen, it’s you or no one, I can’t be happy without you. Or whatever, whatever you wanted me to say. And maybe even when you’re getting angry at Alice, saying that she doesn’t care about you – I don’t know, maybe it’s the same idea. At some level you want her to say, oh but Eileen, I love you very much, you’re my best friend. But the problem is that you seem to be drawn to people who aren’t very good at giving you those responses. I mean, anyone could have told you –

certainly Felix and myself both knew – that Alice was never going to react that way just now. And maybe it’s the same with me, in a way. If you tell me you don’t want to be with me, I might feel very hurt and humiliated, but I’m not going to start begging and pleading with you. At some level, I actually think you know I won’t. But then you get left with the impression that I don’t love you, or I don’t want you, because you’re not getting this response from me – this response that you basically know you won’t get,

because I’m not the type of person who can give it to you. I don’t know. I’m not excusing myself, and I’m not excusing Alice. I know you think I’m always defending her, and I suppose when I do that I’m really defending myself, to be honest. Because I see myself in her, and I feel sorry for her. I can see her pushing you away, even though she doesn’t want to, and it hurts her. And I know how that feels. Look, if you meant what you said about just wanting to be friends, I understand, really. I’m not an easy person to be with, I know that. But if you think there’s any chance that I could make you happy, I wish you would let me try. Because it’s the only thing I really want to do with my life. She put her arms around his neck then, turning toward him where they sat on the side of the bed, pressing her face to his throat, and she whispered something only he could hear.

When Alice reached the bottom of the staircase a few minutes later, Eileen was coming out onto the landing. By the low light of a lamp in the hallway they saw one another and paused, Eileen at the top of the stairs looking down, Alice looking up, their faces anxious, wary, aggrieved, each like a dim mirror of the other, hanging there pale and suspended as the seconds passed. Then they went to each other, meeting halfway down the stairs, and they embraced, holding one another tightly, their arms clasped hard around each other’s bodies, and then Alice was saying: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and Eileen was saying: Don’t apologise, I’m sorry, I don’t know why we’re fighting. Both of them laughing then, with strange hiccupping laughter, and wiping their faces with their hands, saying: I don’t even know what we’re fighting about. I’m sorry. They sat down then on the staircase, exhausted, Alice one step below Eileen, their backs against the wall. Do you remember in college we had a fight and you wrote me a mean letter, said Eileen. On refill paper. I don’t remember what it said, but I know it wasn’t nice. Alice gave the

hiccupping laugh again weakly. You were my only friend, she said. You had other friends, but I only had you. Eileen took her hand, lacing their fingers together. For a time they sat there on the stairs, not speaking, or speaking absently about things that had happened a long time ago, silly arguments they’d had, people they used to know, things they had laughed about together. Old conversations, repeated many times before. Then quiet again for a little while. I just want everything to be like it was, Eileen said. And for us to be young again and live near each other, and nothing to be different. Alice was smiling sadly. But if things are different, can we still be friends? she asked. Eileen put her arm around Alice’s shoulders. If you weren’t my friend I wouldn’t know who I was, she said. Alice rested her face in Eileen’s arm, closing her eyes. No, she agreed. I wouldn’t know who I was either. And actually for a while I didn’t. Eileen looked down at Alice’s small blonde head, nestled on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Neither did I, she said. Half past two in the morning. Outside, astronomical twilight. Crescent moon hanging low over the dark water. Tide returning now with a faint repeating rush over the sand. Another place, another time.