Craig Sherborne - The Amateur Science of Love

I waited a few minutes, dialled but got nowhere. She must have unplugged the line. This did not put me off. She would have to plug it in eventually. I spread the latest Wheatman edition on the desk and thumbed through it to look occupied, reading headlines aloud as if testing their petty poetry:

Vigourman was washing his cup at the staff sink. He dried it and put it on the tray beside the taps. He whistled a few notes with trills in them as if that would soften his officious mood. He kept whistling all the way up to me, scratching his sideburns. He complained how growing whiskers made a man itch. He leant close, put a hand on my shoulder.

He said, ‘Shouldn’t you go up to the hospital, to see Tilda? Don’t you think that’s your first priority?’

I bent down and rubbed my ankle. ‘My foot hurts.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘I’ve got a call to make.’

I dialled, delaying pushing down on the last digit until Vigourman had retreated. All I reached was the seashell static but pretended I had made contact.

‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Hello.’

I motioned to Vigourman that I’d go with him soon. I bowed my head, closed my eyes and rested that way a minute, stopped my life from anything more happening just yet.

Vigourman dropped me at the hospital.

He said, ‘You’ve come to your senses, I hope.’

Yes, I nodded, an automatic gesture.

‘Good man. That’s the way. Good luck to you in there.’

He turned out of the driveway so slowly it was obvious he was checking for equivocation: my duty was to go directly and beseechingly to Tilda, not duck around the side of the building or hesitate at the glass entrance. I did hesitate but pushed through the front door anyway. It required a barging with my elbow to release the suction of the hinges. The cool inside air puffed my hair pleasantly but put a taste of antiseptic into my breathing. I stepped outside to spit out the taste.

Vigourman stopped his car and wound the window down. I waved to him that I was simply having a good cough and clearing of the senses and would be heading inside in a second. He returned a wave and resumed driving.

The hospital was all shiny lino and scuffed cream walls. The corridor ran left a short way, and a longer distance right. I went right, expecting someone in authority to appear and give directions. The six rooms either side of the corridor had beds in them, neatly made with blue covers. There were no patients.

I dreaded facing Tilda without people present. There would be less of a scene with people near. Tilda would be inclined to curb her fury. The dread put such a weight onto my head and shoulders I had to lean against a wall and double over, hands on knees. What marriage did Tilda and I have now? What future was there for me if I lived cap in hand? What kind of man would accept such a life? The only honourable course of action would be to kill yourself. That would be the only future, suicide.

And with that I stood to attention. I issued myself the following instructions: go to Hobbs’ Timber, Tacks and Twine this instant. Get a length of rope—make sure it’s twice your height. An inch in width should be strong enough to take your heaviness and not slice the skin or snap from tension. Do not engage in conversation with old Jock Hobbs. He might pat his leather belt and scare you away with, ‘What’s this for, the rope?’

Or go to Ringo Point and flush out a snake and stomp on it, taunt it to bite you. A tiger snake, not a red-bellied black. Red-bellied blacks are far less poisonous. Do not fear the pain. Pain is only temporary and then nirvana. Don’t dither, do it. What are you worried about? The other side? You don’t truly believe in God. Yet still you worry. What if death is not just the blackest darkness? What if you wake afterwards into this world’s complicated sequel—long-dead relatives pointing their accusing fingers; or Richard or Alice with ghostly infant faces wishing upon you the sewer life you condemned them to?

Do it, now, kill yourself and then good riddance, you’re gone.

No. I want to be alive. Even if it is only a second-best life. A life that will do. Who’s to say we aren’t all living that way—from Prime Ministers to Vigourmans, we’re all settling for second-best love; we just don’t let it show, we accept our fate in secrecy.

A voice from up the corridor spooked me. ‘May I help you?’

A thin woman, in a white smock a bit baggy for her. I tried to pick if I’d seen her around town. I had, in a just-another-face way. She’d had no presence like she had now in that white uniform. She looked into my eyes as if to challenge. There were deep spokes of skin around her mouth, a smoker’s wheel, made more obvious by her pursing.

I stood up. ‘I’m looking for my wife. My name is…’

‘I know who you are.’

She glanced at the watch on her lapel. ‘Tilda should have finished the little meal I gave her by now. Follow me.’

We went to the end of the corridor and turned right into an alcove where a metal ramp led outdoors. The nurse directed me along it. ‘She’s on the deck. I’ve set her up in a nice spot in the sun. Dr Philpott wants her to rest here for a few days, and I am going to treat her like a queen.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me. I’m doing it for her.’

I couldn’t see Tilda at first. Sun lit the metal railings around the deck too strongly. Leaves from a lattice climber were too transparently green and shimmering. Then my eyes adjusted. She was on a canvas banana chair, dappled in shade, placing the glass of water she was sipping onto a tea trolley beside her.

The blouse she had on—it was the yellow one, the sunflower one from my first sighting of her in London. I’d forgotten we’d kept it. Eight years in a bottom drawer and now its moment had come, given a sentimental airing to re-arouse my love for her, or so I presumed. Her hair was plaited her favourite, stump-tailed way, pulled back tight, very tight. It had the effect of distorting her face, stretching her skin smooth. The nurse must have helped her get the tension. Her makeup was tan-like and shiny.

She raised her chin and smiled, a proud, triumphant show of teeth made to seem whiter by silvery red lipstick.

She said, ‘Some females are doormats. Others can wield a sword. I think I’ve proven I’m the latter.’

Her grinning disgusted me.

‘Come closer,’ she said. ‘I want you to see something. I love Scintilla. I love the people. The people are so kind and compassionate. See these? Delivered first thing this morning.’

She was referring to two cards in her lap. The get-well and greetings sort with Monet-type landscapes on the covers, lots of purple wisteria and blue.

She read, ‘Dear Tilda. My wife and I extend our sincere sympathy and support to you during this tumultuous episode. Signed, Hector Vigourman.’ She shook her head. ‘What a decent and dignified man. If only more men were like him.’

‘Is that so?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘He didn’t appear so decent just before, advising I use prostitutes.’

‘What are you talking about? Why do you want to say dreadful things?’

‘It’s what he said. Go to Melbourne and use prostitutes.’

‘Don’t make up lies to me. I don’t believe anything you say anymore. This town is all I’ve got left and you want to taint it. At least leave me that, while you go off with your Watercook whore. Why aren’t you with her?’

I blinked and lowered my head but made sure I lifted it up immediately so I didn’t look defeated.

Too late. Tilda had noticed: ‘Doesn’t she want you anymore?’

She grinned and read from the other card, ‘You showed him, dear. Signed, the ladies of Scintilla.’ She held the card for me to see. ‘These people understand the pain I’m feeling. A simple card like this and I think: There are good people left in the world. I think: If Colin wants to go off with another woman, then he can go off with another woman. He doesn’t deserve me. I will go off with another man. I will find a better man than he could ever be. I’ve proven how much I can love someone. I am prepared to kill to prove it. That’s how much I can love. Jealousy is proof of love.’

She began to cry. She covered her face with her right, gauntleted hand. Her fingertips were especially red and swollen. She must have done some violence to them at Donna’s.

‘Bastard,’ she said. ‘What a bastard you are. That’s what you’ve made me do, want to kill someone and humiliate myself by admitting to your face it was proof of my love. I bet you listen to me say it and deep in you it gives you pleasure that a woman would fight for you. Bastard.’

‘I don’t take pleasure.’

Tilda looked up at me.

‘I do not take pleasure. I promise.’

But here’s one final Swahili. There was pleasure. To be worth killing for is the supreme vanity. It places value on your life. And in having that pleasure I felt affection for Tilda. I didn’t kid myself that it was more than affection. It wasn’t the same as love. But seeing her reduced to a pathetic state was to see the power I had over her. To be the cause of her misery shamed me, yes, but left me affectionate and gentle. I wanted to heal her. Me loving her was all that could heal her. I wished I could offer her that. I even closed my eyes and willed myself to. I used the first time I saw her, that London moment. I let the memory of it circulate in my mind. I willed to be transported back there in spirit and have the original raw love sweep into my heart. Yet, when I opened my eyes, I only felt affection.