The Cold - Section 3

Anna spent the few days after the aborted card-game asking me what was wrong, and having received no satisfactory answer, spent the following few days rarely talking to me. I barely spoke to Becky either, though that was because we both agreed to save our catching-up until we met in person. The communication we did have was purely logistical; we had arranged to meet at a bar in the town roughly equal distance away from each of us. We had booked rooms – separate – in a hotel, as neither of us fancied having to leave too early. Too much time had passed, and we were both seemingly willing to spend a decent amount of time together. I looked forward to it, though my pleasure was soured by the fact that I had elected to keep the meeting from Anna. She would not understand the idea of my needing to go and see a female friend, and I did not fancy having to explain why I was so keen to see this person I, in reality, hardly knew. Instead I told her I was visiting a cousin in the air force, who had a rare weekend’s leave and who wished to see his family. This seemed to appease her limited curiosity, though the deceit left me decidedly uneasy.

I found myself on a train rocketing through the countryside, taking me to what felt like home, such was the eager anticipation I felt for seeing Becky once more. The sun, whilst still quite high, was obscured from view behind a prominent hill, and was casting a red halo around the green of the grass. The effect was enchanting and reminded me at once of Becky’s flaming hair framing her emerald eyes. I bridled. The train was at the base of a valley, and out of either set of windows all that could be seen was moorland stretching out and then climbing to the heavens. It was, undeniably, a beautiful view, but I could not give it the consideration it deserved. My thoughts were centered primarily on Becky, though considerations of Anna did occasionally crop up. I pushed them to the back of my mind and focuses on happier memories and ideas.

Having alighted the train and checked into the hotel, I found myself with an hour to spare before the agreed meeting time. Not feeling too adventurous, I decided to simply arrive early; I could tolerate the judgement of strangers as a solitary afternoon drinker, particularly as any of them who stayed around would see who I had been waiting for and surely be silently approving. What’s more, I knew I would probably benefit from a couple of drinks, nervous as I was. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was nervous about – I was sure the meeting would be pleasant enough, and I held no expectations. Nevertheless, a few gin and tonics later, I was feeling significantly more at ease.

The bar was nice enough, if a little busy. My concerns about being judged as a lone drinker were duly unfounded, as over half of the crowd were themselves alone. It struck me as strange that whilst drink paved the way for many a social interaction, so many people could find themselves alone in a crowded room. Of the bar staff, there was a girl who was obviously, and amusingly, new to the job. Her uniform managed to be blacker than that of the other staff, and crisper too. One customer ordered a large round of drinks and was presented with something almost completely different; he took it well enough so as to not get the bar-girl into trouble, and returned to his table to deliver the drinks to his confused friends. The ensuing burst of laughter caused the girl to blush crimson. I felt sorry for her, not least because her colleagues were all at least ten years older than her; I seriously doubted that she would, by any stretch, enjoy her time here. I was at the bar myself, waiting to be served by either a middle-aged veteran or the nubile new girl, when Becky walked in.

A vague worry that time and memory had warped her into something she was not was instantly dispelled; she was as beautiful as I had been picturing her. Maybe more so. The American sun had kissed her, and she was golden. She genuinely did have a most singular colouring – no one else with her hair had skin capable of going that colour. Her eyes caught mine immediately and her lips smiled and her eyes glimmered. Mine returned the favour, I’m sure. I had time to order two gin and tonics before she was upon me, arms around my neck and a promising kiss on each cheek.
“Tom!” she beamed. “It’s so great to see you.”
“You too,” I replied. “You look fantastic. What a tan!”
Neither of us had stopped smiling. As we began to greet one another properly, I was interrupted by the delivery of the drinks. We took them and found a table outside where we could enjoy the swan song of the day’s sun.
Once seated, she said, “I wasn’t sure we’d ever see each other again, you know.”
“I know. I’m glad we have though. When I asked you, I couldn’t really decide why I hadn’t done it sooner. I wish I had.”
“So do I, Tom. I would’ve asked myself, but was basically waiting for you to sort yourself out. I couldn’t be bothered with you if you were going to be weird again. But I guess you must be ready now.”
If it had come from anyone but her it would have seemed forward and critical a thing to say, but I accepted it. The fact that it was true made it a more palatable pill to swallow; I had been weird last time.
“No weirdness, I promise. Now tell me about America!”
And so she did. I heard all about her and a few friends from university, doing Route 66. She had even attended a genuine frat party, and mocked it relentlessly. It was a plan my friends and I had once held as well, as have countless others I suppose. I admired her for actually carrying it out, and envied the experience; it sounded amazing. In her hammiest American accent she mocked those who had complimented her accent, decrying it as the most uninspired and repetitive remark imaginable after only a few days in the states. When she asked of my own travelling experience, I told her about the 3 months I had spent back-packing around Europe: almost mugged by a prostitute in Prague, assaulted in Amsterdam, and bailed out of jail in Berlin. She took delight in each story, and I relished reliving them. She had never explored the continent, and I’d never ventured outside it, but our shared travelling stories made us feel a little closer. At least, that was my experience of the situation.

Having had my fill of gin and tonic, we had shared a couple of bottles of wine by this point. The sun was setting and cast an ethereal haze over our surroundings, but her eyes still glistened, seemingly their own light source.
“Do you want any more to drink?” I asked, largely indifferent to the response.
“It’s my turn,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ll get us another bottle. I’m getting water this time too, though. Do you want some?”
I nodded in agreement and found myself, once more, tracking her with my eyes as she snaked her way through the crowd and to the bar. Mesmerising.

Once she returned, she moved the conversation along.
“So, have you met anybody? You seem to be a little more settled in yourself.”
“No.” I lied. “I do feel better in myself actually, I wasn’t saying no to that part. But no I haven’t met anybody.” I lied again. I was worried she would see through me, but I reminded myself that however it felt, she didn’t actually know me that well; certainly not well enough to have discerned any ‘tell’ I may have for when I lie. She betrayed no sign of doubting me. “How about you, found yourself a man yet?” I asked.
“Likewise no,” she said, playfully sighing in mock dismay. “I’ll die sad and alone at this rate.”
“Ahh, me too,” I said. With that, she placed her hands on top of mine on the table and smiled.
Over the third and final bottle of wine we made further conversation, whilst our hands played teasingly on the table-top. Once we had finished we decided it was time to get back. We stood to leave, arm in arm, and it was with great pride that I escorted her through the bar and out onto the street.

The route back to the hotel took us along a canal, and at one point Becky stopped me at a pile of stones and we skimmed them across the surface of the water. She was better at it than me, and could get them a fair distance before they disappeared, sinking into the depths. I protested that she had picked the best and the flattest, and she giggled before moving to be right in front of me, with her hands now in my back pockets. I needed no invitation, and kissed her there on the bank. Time stood still, and it was as though we had always been, and would always be, together.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said.

And so we did, and both went up to her room.
 
We woke together with joy, her arms over my chest and her head on my shoulder. Penance for three bottles of wine was announcing itself as a pain in my head, but it was only the beginning and I was too happy to particularly mind. I lifted her arms carefully off me and went to fetch us some water, and when I returned to the bed I was greeted with a kiss.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling.
“Morning.”

We lay in bed a little while, kissing, before we decided to descend and enjoy some breakfast. As we walked down the stairs, I couldn’t remember a time I had felt this happy. Becky gave every outward impression of feeling the same way, and her face lit up even more when I pressed my hand into the small of her back. My heart sank as soon as we reached the foyer. It was Anna.
She was giving my name to the receptionist, who was clearly a little frustrated.

“I told you madame, I rang the room and there was no answer.”
“There must be some mistake, try again.”
I tried to whisk Becky through the foyer and into the room where breakfast was served without being seen, but she cried out my name when I pushed her, and this, naturally, drew Anna’s attention.
“Tom!” Anna yelled, running over with a smile on her face. The smile quickly left her as she saw who I was with and the sheepish look on my face. “Who is this, Tom?”
The plea was so pitiful that I didn’t know what to say. I looked down at the ground and offered no response. Anna probably assumed I was avoiding her glare, but truthfully I was as worried about Becky as her, if not more so.
“Where’s your cousin Jason, Tom? Where’s your family?” begged Anna.
“What’s she talking about, Tom? Who is this?” said Becky, with a nervous pain to her voice.
“Oh God,” was all I could manage to say. Guilt was choking me and preventing anything else from coming out of my throat.

To Anna’s credit, realisation of the truth of the matter dawned on her much more quickly than I would have imagined. She called me a bastard, and slapped me across the face, and walked off down the foyer. I turned to Becky, who was crying, and as soon as I began to speak received a second slap, harder this time, and across the other cheek. She too turned to leave. I gathered myself for a few moments, but couldn’t find the resolve to determine a sensible course of action. I set off to follow them out of the hotel, and once I found myself on the street I saw Anna going in one direction, and Becky off in the other. I was torn.
 
I had been following her down the street for ten minutes. She wasn’t rushing; I wasn’t struggling to catch up with her. I was still deciding what it was I wanted, and needed, to say. I’d kept her in my eye-line the whole time and granted myself time to think. Part of me couldn’t fight the temptation to blame Anna for this. She wasn’t supposed to be there, and she wasn’t supposed to see us. But she had been there, and she had seen us.

The street was unnaturally busy, and teemed with seemingly endless faces. It was a crisp morning, without a cloud in the sky, and the sun was enormous. The skin on my face was still stinging and must have been scarlet. I managed to forgive them each the slap, and, begrudgingly, accepted that I may have deserved it. I wasn’t sure which of the two I had wronged more, though I was concerned chiefly with how Becky would react. Anna was more malleable, and I could bring her round if I wished it. But Becky was something else – Becky was more of a free-thinker, which meant that the danger in this situation was genuinely that I risked losing her for good. I couldn’t bare thinking about it.

With a more concrete idea forming of how I needed to address the situation, I sped up a little so as to gain on her. I felt somewhat predatory, stalking her down this crowded street. Letting the sensation take hold of me, I pounced and landed a hand on her shoulder and span her round to face me.

“Get off me!” she said, and I briefly thought I was about to be struck once more, but her anger had seemingly turned to self-pity and misery, as tears welled up in her eyes.
“Listen, Anna, I can explain,” I began.
“Explain! Explain! Just what the hell are you doing out here, Tom?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing…” I said instinctively, though I grew to regret it.
“You were going to ask me! You’ve got a nerve. I came out here because you told me you were out visiting your family, and you told me the name of the hotel, and because I thought it was perhaps about time I met somebody involved in your life who isn’t David. I came out here because we’ve been seeing each other for months and I thought things were going great, and I wanted to take the next step. I came out here, Tom, because I thought I loved you. And I find out you’ve lied to me and came out here to sleep with some tart.”
“She isn’t a tart, and I didn’t come out here intending to sleep…”
“Don’t even tell me!” she interrupted. “I don’t want to know the details. You’re not denying it and that’s all I needed to know. At least you aren’t lying anymore,” she spat, and turned away, setting off once more down the street.

I was in shock. I hadn’t expected this response; perhaps she wasn’t as weak and malleable as I imagined. Ironically, this was the most attractive side of Anna’s personality I had seen to date. She was at last commanding a bit of respect. As well as shock, though, I felt unquantifiable pity. Not pity for the way she was feeling now. I didn’t feel pity that she was hurt, or angry, or betrayed. I pitied the fact that she thought she loved me. That she was capable of applying so strong and noble a label to so shallow and empty a relationship cemented for me what I had long known – we were people from entirely different worlds who should never have gotten involved.

After another, shorter, chase I once again placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder. This time she just stopped in her tracks and didn’t turn to face me. I could feel her body rising and falling violently, moved by tears, and I placed my arms around her and held her.
“Why did you do it, Tom?”
“I don’t know. I basically forced myself into this relationship when I knew I wasn’t ready, and this is what’s happened. I was trying my best, but I’ve just messed everything up. I am genuinely sorry.”
She wrestled herself free from me, but still didn’t turn around.
“Will you at least look at me?” I begged.
“I can’t. I’m scared I might forgive you, and I don’t want to. Will you promise me something?”
“What is it?”
“Never talk to me again.”
To this day I’m not entirely sure why I bothered, but I protested. “Come on, surely we can still be…”
“No Tom, no we can’t. I want you to promise! Never again.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want,” I said. Silence. She was no longer crying, but she was also not turning around, or talking. It dawned on me that she was still waiting, so I said, “I promise.”
And with that, she walked away.
 
I’d stood still, rooted to the spot, for longer than I care to admit. I hadn’t anticipated feeling anything when Anna walked away. Feeling as bad as I did was certainly a surprise. It was the strange looks of passers-by, who frowned suspiciously at my forlorn look as they navigated around me, which brought me back to the moment: brought me back to myself. That had gone much worse than I had imagined. Hopefully things would go a little more smoothly when it was time for me to try and explain myself to Becky, though I doubted it.

Roaming the streets was the simplest way I could think of to pass the time without committing myself to action. I feared it going badly, so sought simply to delay. I bought a pack of cigarettes to calm my nerves, but in my haste had forgotten to buy a lighter. I approached somebody else smoking and asked to borrow theirs; he looked decidedly put out by the whole affair, and it made me feel uncomfortable about asking anybody else. So, to avoid having to ask what was, admittedly, quite a small favour of a stranger, I sat myself on a bench and proceeded to chain-smoke the entire pack, using the dying embers of each cigarette to light the next. I was exhaling slowly and allowing the smoke to curl and rise before my eyes; ghostly apparitions, taunting me by taking the form of Becky and then collapsing into nothing within the blink of an eye. Parents walking their children guided them away from me, protectively. Evidently I looked suspicious. It took me the best part of an hour, and my throat hurt once I had finished, so I decided to stop scaring people and to go and buy a drink.

Having returned to my relentless wandering of the streets of this lonely town, I completely disengaged my brain and allowed my feet to determine my path. So it was that I found myself pacing down the bank of the canal which had seen a much happier me just one day earlier, without even realising where I was. Recognition of my surroundings hit me only a few moments before I spotted Becky, sat with her knees up to her chest at the very edge of the canal, skimming stones. I took vague encouragement from the fact that she’d returned to this spot to think, rather than simply leaving town.

I didn’t know what I was going to say to her, and I had stopped walking. Yet again, somebody walking their dog gave me such a funny look that I couldn’t help but wonder how much of my mental anguish had manifested itself in my expression – I concluded I must look at least almost as bad as I felt, to have drawn such unwanted and cold attention throughout the day. I was so lost in these thoughts that I didn’t notice Becky had stood up and was now staring at me, silently. It was only when she spoke that I became aware, once more, of my surroundings and my situation.
“You took your time,” she began. “I’ve been here for hours.”
“Sorry.”
“For what?”
“Well, I meant for taking so long, but I guess I’m sorry for everything else, too.”
She looked surprisingly well, and composed. Perhaps she wasn’t as hurt or angry as I’d been imagining. And she was here – that had to count for something.
“I’m sorry too,” she said, taking me by surprise. I walked closer and put my arms around her, assuring her she had nothing to be sorry for. She stayed perfectly still; never was there a more one-sided embrace.
“How long have you been together?”
“A few months,” I said hesitantly. “But she means nothing to me Becky. I swear it!”
“That isn’t really the point Tom.” With that, she took a step back, distancing herself from me.
“I know. After I screwed things up with you I really regretted it. I kind of forced myself to be with someone, almost to make up for it. But I didn’t ever really like Anna and I should have called it off ages ago. Well, I should never actually have started it… Have you never been in a relationship when you knew you shouldn’t be?”
“No. That’s the point, Tom. I don’t do this – what I’ve done with you. I don’t normally like people, which means I don’t get involved. I thought you were special. I thought we were special.”
“We were! We are. We could be.”
“No we can’t. I’m not even particularly angry at you. I just feel like a fool – like I’ve made a huge mistake and now it won’t go away.”
“Do you want me to go away?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You aren’t the mistake; that’s not what I was saying. Trusting you was the mistake. Liking you was the mistake. That’s what won’t go away.” She was looking down at her feet whilst speaking, turning them gently into the dust of the bank until a small cloud had risen and obscured her feet from view. I couldn’t resist taking solace in her claim that liking me wouldn’t go away. There was hope yet.
“I won’t stop liking you either, Becky. I don’t think it’ll ever go away.”
“Oh don’t try turning it on and being nice. We’re obviously through. How could I ever trust you now? That’s what makes it so hard though – I want to, but know that I can’t, and never will be able to. You’ve ruined it, and it’ll stay with me forever.”
I could have argued with her, and insisted that the way I’d treated Anna was irrelevant to how I would treat her, and that I felt totally differently for her and would do nothing to hurt her. I could have, but I didn’t. It wasn’t that I was sure it wouldn’t work – part of me, to this day, still thinks I may have managed it. The reason I didn’t argue with her was that, ultimately, she was right.
“This may seem self-centred, Becky, and I really don’t mean it to, but it might be even worse for me. I agree that we could have worked, and it won’t ever leave me either. I’ve also got to deal with the fact that this is my fault. That’s the hardest part. I know that in a minute I’m going to have to say goodbye and walk away from you, and I know that my heart is going to break with every step I take. I’m going to walk away from the one person who can make me happy, and it is all my fault. At least you don’t have to deal with that.”

Tears mixed with the dust which had once again settled at Becky’s feet. I kissed her on the forehead, turned around, and walked away.

 
I left her there.

People since have asked me why. ‘What were you thinking?’ is what I was, almost invariably, asked by those I told about it. I never told them the actual answer, but I was thinking about something Becky had said to me the first time we’d met. As I’d walked away from her, leaving her crying at the canal-side where we’d shared a kiss, that conversation from the hotel bar almost a year earlier was playing itself out in my head.

“Rochester isn’t the romantic hero he could have been… In fact, by the time you finish the book, I’m not so sure you’ll even like him all that much anymore.”

That’s what she’d said to me, and as I hadn’t finished the book at that point, I didn’t query her on it. I’d trusted her – even at that early stage – enough to accept that what she was saying must have been true. It had somewhat tarnished my enjoyment of the book, and during the closing few chapters I’d kept waiting for things to go wrong for Jane and Rochester – waiting for the thing which would make me not much like him anymore. The happy ending took me by surprise, as I’d been biased against it through hearsay. When I had finished, as far as I was concerned he was the romantic hero I’d been expecting – passionate, dedicated, sincere. What’s more, I did still like him. I envied the relationship and knew that if my life could be even a pale imitation of theirs, I’d be happy. Several days after finishing the book were spent pondering what Becky had possibly meant by what she said. When I could think of no satisfactory answer, I pushed it out of my mind.

The question presented itself again, as I have said, as I walked away from her that day. It dawned on me that what Becky had disliked about Rochester had been his deceit of Jane. I didn’t doubt, and I’m sure Becky didn’t either, that he loved her. But he did lie to her. Whilst I had given it little thought, and had forgiven him, I realised that day that Becky clearly had not. Just as she could not trust me, however much she wanted to, she felt that Jane should not have trusted him, however much she longed to.
I could think of no argument to dissuade her. As I sat in the waiting room of the train station to leave and return home, I thought long and hard about this aborted relationship, and concluded that it was nobody’s fault but my own.

I was not the romantic hero I could have been. What’s more, I wasn’t even sure I liked myself all that much anymore.