There was a mirror above the sink. The face that stared back at me was pale and drawn. The eyes had a haunted look to them.
Robin, I said to myself. What on earth have you done?
* * *
I
left the tea bag on the draining board, my hand shaking. Get a grip, I told myself sternly. The tea made, I took it with me to the armchair drawn up to the window, and I sat down and stared out at the frozen garden, feeling the mug warm between my hands. The memory had rattled me. Why had it come to me now? And in its wake, I felt unsettled, deflated, my energy draining away, leaving me in a lethargy of discontent. One memory followed another. They tumbled up from the past, demanding recognition. I sipped my tea and allowed my mind to wander.
I thought of that first pregnancy, the craziness of it. Stumbling and lurching from month to month, my mind struggling to catch up with the changes sweeping through my body. Harry had accepted it far more quickly and easily than I had. He had jumped at the possibility of a baby—pounced on it. From the very start of my pregnancy with Dillon, Harry was there, ambushing me with his eager anticipation, his hunger for it. And yet, last night, when I’d told him my news, he had not been like that at all. Instead he had grown still and silent. He had stared at the table in front of him for the longest time, and I had felt the reluctance coming off him in waves. What was it he had said?
“I can’t believe it.”
Now, sitting in my armchair by the window, the mug of tea cooling in my hands, those words came back to me and I felt the chill echo of them in that silent room. I considered again what that reluctance might mean. I told myself that it was the suddenness of the news, coming on a day that had been difficult for him, what with moving out of his studio and all the complex emotions that entailed. I told myself that after Dillon, even good news brought on a strange mix of feelings. I told myself that given time and space, he would come around to the idea.
And I knew from experience that it was best not to push it. Better to let these things lie. He was a man with a particular vulnerability. I knew the signs. Funny, the things you learn about yourself when a tragedy takes over your life. Who would have thought that I would turn out to be the strong one, while Harry fell to pieces.
A creak of floorboards overhead alerted me to his rising. I sat there listening to his movements in the bedroom, a pause before the groan of the door, and then the sound of him coming down the stairs.
“Jesus, you look terrible,” I said as he emerged from the hallway, a greenish tinge to his skin, his eyes bleary and bloodshot. He was holding himself carefully, as if every movement threatened the delicate balance of his hangover and it was a great effort to keep himself from veering over the precipice.
“Tea,” he croaked, his voice hoarse from a dozen cigarettes. “I feel like something’s died in my mouth.”
“Kettle’s just boiled.”
I watched him there, pouring hot water into a mug, and I had the thought that the years might have fallen away and we could be students again. From where I was sitting, he seemed the same tall, somewhat gangly youth, with that unruly dark hair, the square set of his shoulders, a skittish energy running the length of his long, taut body. But I wasn’t eighteen anymore and he wasn’t twenty. He tossed the tea bag and spoon into the sink and grimaced as his mouth met with the lip of the cup. Then he came and sat down opposite me, giving out a great sigh as he did so, running a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes, and I remembered how agitated he had been the night before, his eyes darting around the room, unable to settle. He has cold blue eyes, like shallow water touched by sunlight. One iris is flecked with an amber flame. Last night they had seemed very bright, but now, in the cold light of morning, they looked dull and ringed with fatigue.
He leaned forward, putting his mug on the floor by his feet, then straightened up, taking his cigarettes from his pocket.
“Harry,” I said, watching him put one to his mouth, a wry smile starting on my lips. “Haven’t you forgotten something?”
He looked up, puzzled. And then he saw my amusement, and the confusion cleared from his face.
“Christ. The baby! I’d forgotten.”
He shook his head and laughed, returning the cigarette to its pack, and then sat there, a little stunned, as if processing anew the information, and all the while I looked on, willing him to be pleased, willing him to show some indication that he could be happy about this.
And then he ran a hand through his hair and said, “A baby. I still don’t believe it,” and the smile broke out on his face—a grin that sliced through the hangover and the tiredness and the tension—and this time the words seemed to have a different meaning. It seemed, in fact, that what he meant was that he couldn’t believe his luck. That after all we had gone through, to be given a second chance, the gift of this new little life—it seemed too much to grasp.
I felt an answering jump of excitement inside.
“You’re not angry, are you, Harry?”
“Angry? No! Of course not. Why would I be? I’m a little surprised, that’s all, but not angry. Not in the least.”
“You’re sure?”
“Robin, it’s great news. I’m thrilled. I swear.”
He said it and smiled and reached for my hand, and we sat like that for a moment, and I believed he was pleased. I really did.
“So how are you feeling? Any nausea? Any sickness?”
“No, nothing at all. I feel absolutely fine—great, in fact.”
“Lucky you,” he said, referring to his hangover.
For a while we talked about the pregnancy, picking up our conversation from last night. We discussed what hospital should we go to, what kind of care we wanted, when I should tell them at work, what we would do once the baby was born.
“We’ll have to do something about this place,” he said, casting his eyes about the room as if noticing for the first time the snaking cables, the holes in the walls, the whole shambolic array of projects started and stalled.
“Jesus, where to begin,” he added.
“If we can just work out the more pressing things that need to happen, and focus on them.”
“Right. Well, you’d better make a list.”
“Me?”
“You are the architect, sweetheart,” he remarked, not unkindly, and yet I felt a slight sting in his words.
My decision to study architecture after returning from Tangier had not rested easily with Harry. I had tried to explain to him my need for something stable, something dependable in my life, in my career, and while on one level he seemed to understand, I’d always felt that a part of him resented me for my change of heart. It was as if he perceived some kind of accusation in my decision to abandon my art for the safety of a profession, while he continued with his. The truth was, I had needed, more than anything, to put Tangier behind me. To create a life utterly different from what we’d had there. I needed to forget. And while I had set about constructing my new existence, Harry had clung to what he had of the past. In his cold studio in Spencer’s basement, he’d persisted with his paintings of Tangier as if the world around him did not exist. It seemed, sometimes, as if he had never really left Morocco at all.
But that was not worth bringing up, particularly that morning, when he seemed focused on our future. So we talked about insulation and heating, about bathrooms and plumbing, about getting our bedroom in order so that we might make room for a cot.
“A cot,” he said as he finished his tea, giving his head a baffled shake. “That’s something I didn’t think I’d ever have to consider again. Can’t we just put the kid in a drawer?”
I took his empty mug from him and said, “Why don’t I get you some aspirin. Your hangover looks like it’s going to linger.”
“Thanks, babe. I’ll just nip out for a smoke.”
I went to the sink and left his mug there. Then I fished in the cupboard for a pint glass, and as I was filling it with water, I looked up and caught sight of him outside in the garden. He was drawing deeply on his cigarette; then he breathed out a plume of smoke into the cold morning air. And what he did next was this: He took the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it on the snow. He stood perfectly still with his head bent, as if staring at the butt on the ground. Then he closed his eyes and brought both hands up to cover his face. His bent neck, the slump of his shoulders, his face hiding in those cupped hands. Something about it made me go cold. It was a gesture of despair.
* * *
“Freezing
out there.”
He closed the back door behind him and stood there shivering.
I found the packets in the cupboard. The tablets plinked as they hit the water, and I handed him the glass and he swallowed down the contents with a groan, as though the effort had drained him of any last scrap of energy.
I put my hand against his brow and felt the heat there despite the enveloping cold. Then I leaned in and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my body against his, needing to feel close to him to dispel the despair that still clung to him.
“I know something that’s good for a hangover,” I said slowly, and when I drew back, he met my smile with a broad grin of his own.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I reached up and kissed him then, slowly, savoring the taste of him, sour with alcohol and cigarettes, but I didn’t care. My desire for him licked like a flame inside me.
And so it was not until later, when we lay against each other in our bed, naked and exhausted, a quiet contentment falling over us like a happy sigh, that I remembered our phone call of the previous day.
“Harry?” I said, watching the strand of my hair that he was idly spiraling around his finger.
“Hmm?”
“You never did tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Yesterday, on the phone, you said something had happened.”
“What’s that?”
“Remember? When you rang to ask me to come and meet you? You said something had happened. But you never said what it was.”
“Didn’t I?”
“No.”
“I thought I did.”
“So?”
He stopped playing with my hair and rubbed a finger in his eye, frown lines puckering his brow.
“I bumped into someone.”
“Who?”
“Eh, Tanya—that girl from the Sitric Gallery. The one with all the freckles. Do you remember her?”
“Vaguely. And?”
“And we got talking and I told her about the stuff I’ve been working on…”
“And—?”
“And she sounded interested.”
I pushed myself up onto my elbows to look at him.
“Do you think they might give you a show?”
He saw my eager expression and let out a burst of laughter.
“Look at you, counting your unhatched chickens.”
“Seriously, Harry. Do you think they might?”
His laughter died away, and he gave me a slow, hazy smile.
“They might. They just might.”
Then he pulled me back down to him and we lay in silence for a minute, both of us considering the possibilities.
“Harry?”
“Go to sleep, baby.”
I felt the weight of his arm slung over my hip and the tickle of his rough chin nestling into my neck.
“We’re so lucky, Harry.”
His body lay cupped around mine, so I couldn’t read his expression.
“Yes,” he said slowly, before drifting away to sleep. “Yes, we are.”
CHAPTER FIVE
HARRY
The
first time we met Cozimo, he had been knocked over by a passing bicycle on one of the narrow alleys of the medina. His straw hat lay beside his outstretched body. He didn’t holler or seem inconvenienced in any way. Staring blankly upward as if considering his predicament, he was humming something to himself. When I bent down to see if he was all right, he looked up at me and said, “It’s not like I’ve been drinking.”
I reached my arm down and he grabbed it and I lifted him up. Robin handed him his hat.
“Your health,” he said, reaching into his waistcoat. He took a swift slug from a small silver flask before blurting out that he was “much obliged.” But as he turned to walk away, he fell to the ground like a deck of cards. “Perhaps,” he said, never losing his decorum, “you could call me a taxi or an ambulance, even.” He was very polite, always polite.
We went with him to the hospital, much to his surprise. It was Robin’s idea. The hospital was small and unclean. Robin spoke good French and told a nurse how we had found the man. By this stage, Cozimo was somewhat delirious and speaking—or, rather, slurring—in a number of different languages and at one stage humming and what can only be described as chirruping in a language resembling Arabic.
That night we left him sedated and cheerful. When we returned to see him the next day, he was garrulous and appreciative. Robin asked if there was anything we could do for him.
“There is one thing,” he said.
“Anything,” she said, taking a shine to him or feeling sorry for him or some mixture of the two.
“Can you check on the shop?”
The shop was his bookstore. Robin, of course, said yes. She is always talking to strangers and saying yes. She doesn’t know how to say no. Generous to a fault.
He handed us the keys and a scrap of paper with the address. “It’s in a state, but it’ll be good to know it is still standing.”
We took off in a taxi and found ourselves traveling through a network of narrow streets until the car stopped and the driver pointed. “You walk now,” he said, and we did and found the old building tilting at the end of a small laneway. We let ourselves in—into the ramshackle old bookstore, into Cozimo’s life, and into, without knowing it at the time, what would become our home for the next four years. You see, one upshot of Robin’s generous spirit was that Cozimo offered us, by the time he was leaving hospital, a place to stay. “It’s my pleasure. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“We can’t,” Robin said.
“You visited me every day.”
And that was the start of our time in Tangier, something that began as a dream and ended a nightmare. I can’t tell you everything that happened there. I can give you an idea, a sense of what the place was like—that’s all. I’d go mad if I had to delve into all the details again. It’s strange, because I remember it now as if it were someone else’s life. To put it simply: we had wanted to come to Tangier because of the light.