VII.  Ce n'est qu'un au revoir
 
 
1986
 
 
He's seen her cry before.  It's not something that happens frequently 
but he's spent enough time with her that it was bound to happen on 
occasion so, yes, he's seen her cry before.  
 
He's seen it in things like screwing her face up into a constipated 
expression on her face, keeping it all in by sheer force of will so 
that he wouldn't see the pressure getting to her.  
 
Or leaving the room during a sad film so that he won't laugh at her 
when the floodgates open.  She never cries at the obvious ones, Love 
Story or The Way We Were, but show her anything with cut-glass vowels 
from the 1930s, black and white on the cusp of the Technicolor 
revolution, and she's teaching the weeping willow how to cry.  He's 
always found it more bizarre and troubling than endearing.
 
The time her brother's wife went into labour too soon.  He stayed at 
the office with her, because her brother didn't 
want everyone descending on the hospital and they couldn't think of 
anywhere else to be.  He tried to type because she told him to do 
something useful.  She paced the floor - not that there had been much 
floor space in the meagre headquarters.  He remembers her knocking 
into things, and wanting to take her by the shoulders and stop her, 
knowing that in that mood she would throw him into the wall.  She 
leant over his desk to use the phone every few minutes.  Her parents 
were both at the hospital, blaming each other.  The doctors passed on 
sombre messages; the hospital chaplain muttered inane consolations 
that did not console.  It's the only time to date he's ever known her 
to pray.  She asked him in a quiet voice, embarrassed, to do the same 
- covering the bases, she called it.  
 
The baby began to breathe on her own two minutes after she was 
christened.  Aunt and niece started to cry at the same time.  He was 
permitted to hold only one of them. 
 
Twice or three times - no more - he's made her come so hard she's 
sobbed.  She never admits to it after.  The memory brings on a quaint 
and uniquely masculine blend of faint guilt and inordinate pride.
 
Usually there's a fairly straightforward pattern.  If her tears are 
related to hurt and anger, she is blatant, facing him down with her 
cloudy eyes.  However, if it is fear of something yet to come that 
lays her low, the anger turns in on herself and she hides away.  She 
feels there is no shame in being a victim but to be a volunteer is 
unacceptable.  He thinks of her as neither, but she does not see 
herself in his terms.
 
This time it starts innocuously enough.  They've slept in worse motel 
rooms: there is a browning patch on the ceiling and the sprinkling of 
dust does not do the chambermaids any great credit, but there is no 
smell other than the festering remains of their carry-out meals 
they've been living on since they got here.
 
Their room's on the sunny side of the building and there's a chink 
between the curtains which aren't quite big enough for the window.  
He can live with it: night falls early this time of year.  
 
It's early to mid-evening, already pitch black outside and not much 
lighter in their room, with the electric light off because the 
flickering bulb triggers her migraines and his short fuse.  There's 
mood lighting from a scented candle she was unimpressed to receive as 
a late gift from him for her last birthday.  He isn't sure what the 
scent of the flower on the box is, but he thinks the leftover food 
smells better.
 
They have nothing in particular to do: they've done the advance work 
and the candidate will parade into town tomorrow.  They've already 
made love and they're long past doing it more than once a night.  To 
tell the truth, which they didn't, it wasn't particularly good. 
 
He wishes they hadn't set a precedent of sharing a room when they 
have to take these trips.  The first few weeks, like anyone, he got 
caught up in the heat and the stomach somersaults, the tints of 
rose.  The first few weeks with her, he didn't want to let go.  
 
It seems inconceivable now, how he could have shepherded her to the 
shower with an arm clamped about her middle, or refused to relinquish 
her hand even as she was on the phone, calling in sick and pleading 
the need to spend the day in bed.  How he pinned her to the kitchen 
counter and made her stay, even though she only mocked as he 
demonstrated his bachelor's cooking skills. (The dishes were 
unidentifiable, but at least her pots and pans were getting an 
airing.  Her own culinary talents lay in the collection of a long 
list of home delivery numbers.)
 
Nobody sustains that for long, and it was a particularly far stretch 
for him.  Coming from an extensive family didn't make him any less 
desirous of his own living space.  And that was okay, for a while.  
She didn't seem to object to the transition from him demanding her 
constant presence to telling her to give him some peace and quiet.  
Truth be told, his pride is dented by the extent of her own time she 
seems to want.
 
But these periods of temporary cohabitation leave him claustrophobic 
in the extreme.  He cannot think freely when there is another in the 
room, especially when that other gives him the queasy sensation that 
she knows what he's thinking more often than she's without a clue.
 
There's a book on his lap, where she would once have sat, and her 
legs are curled under her as she sits on the bed with her neck craned 
back to watch the wall-mounted television.  Goodbye Mr. Chips is on, 
the 1969 version for which she insists Peter O'Toole was robbed of 
the Academy Award.  It's got nothing on the 1939 original, she 
declares several times through loud sniffles.  It's just that it 
reminds her of the black and white version, that's the only reason 
she's crying.  Really.
 
"Whatever," he tells her.  
 
She tries to smother her sobs with a pillow.  There's nowhere to hide 
in the motel - she has no choice but to do her crying in front of 
him.  It hardly matters.  He is immersed in Alexandre Dumas père (he 
has a guilty weakness for ripping yarns of heroes and villains; she 
hasn't yet discerned which he fancies himself as).
 
It annoys him to be distracted by her attempts to explain herself.  
"It's just that, you know, he's devoted his entire life to that 
place.  And he doesn't have anything else.  And he still doesn't get 
the job.  Do they seriously think anyone else could do it better?"
 
Does she think he cares?
 
"And sure, they give in eventually but it's only because of the war 
and he must know they didn't really want him..."
 
He supposes she must really be talking - with her tone and her wild 
hands - about something else, but he is in the mood for a story where 
there is nothing but white paper between the lines.  
 
"And then he *dies*!"
 
He doesn't want a subtextual relationship.  He didn't want a 
relationship period, until she read him poetry.  He has never had a 
taste for lengthy poems.  Brevity is the soul of wit.
 
"Does it have to end that way?"
 
There is a break in the weeping.  He is still staring at the page 
but, irritatingly, his concentration is broken to the extent that he 
notices her voice is growing even heavier.
 
She continues, "I guess everything ends that way." 
 
He sighs.  There is no avoiding being dragged into this 
conversation.  This is why he hates living with someone : so many 
decisions are taken out of his hands, right down to when to speak.  
 
"If you're concerned about me dying, I can assure you that by the 
time I go anywhere, you'll be delighted to be rid of me."
 
The line falls thuddingly flat and echoes in the stuffy room.
 
She pulls herself upright.  He closes his eyes and feels her gaze 
through his eyelids.  She snorts and wipes her nose with the back of 
her hand, a gesture ill-fitting with the sudden solemnity that has 
fallen across the night.
 
She says his name.  He tries not to hear it and, more importantly, 
not to hear the nuances in her voice.
 
He has always relished conflict in theory, art and politics a good 
deal more than in his personal relations.  It takes too much out of a 
person.  It will get worse as he gets older.
 
He hears his name again, tries to drown it out with hers.  
 
It works momentarily.  She hesitates before persisting; it's a common 
trait with her and he hates it, the hesitation more than the 
persistence.
 
"You're getting tired of this, aren't you?" she presses.
 
His face is still half-hidden in the book.  His speech is low and 
fast, designed to be scarcely audible.
 
"You know I'm not wild about sharing a room."
 
It's never been said before but, yes, she knows.
 
"You know what I mean."
 
"You're the one who's crying."
 
His tone is ugly.  He can fool himself it will be easier if she takes 
the blame.
 
"I'm crying at the movie, Toby."  
 
But she isn't, any more.  Neither of them has noticed that her eyes 
are now dry, if bloodshot.
 
The television flickers away in the background, disregarded now save 
for its contribution to the atmospheric lighting.
 
"Did you ever make up your mind?" she asks suddenly.
 
He frowns, lowering the book from his face.
 
"You told me once that you'd need to get to know me better to find 
out whether you liked me or not.  You never did say, and it seemed 
obvious that you did.  Right now, I don't know."
 
He screws up his eyes, balls his fists.  "CJ."  Grits his teeth.  
 
He knew this was coming - in fact, he thought he'd be the one to do 
it.  It should be easier to respond to her kiss-off than to initiate 
it.  It isn't.
 
He doesn't know what to say.  He's neither fighting for her nor 
helping this process along.  Thwarted, he tells the truth.
 
"Yes."
 
"Yes?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Yes *what*?"
 
"Yes, I made my mind up.  Right now, I made my mind up.  Yes, I like 
you."
 
They say the 'but' in unison.
 
"That doesn't make for happily ever after," he finishes.  Rather, it 
*should* be enough of a finish.
 
But, after all his lover is a woman.
 
She begins to gabble, a stream of amateur analysis that he considers 
abject nonsense.  He reacts to every word anyway.
 
She says: he understands, she wants this to be done honestly and 
openly.  She didn't want it to be a case of the morning after the 
election night before, she never hears from him again.  
 
(His face whitens under the golden glow of the candle, because it was 
by no means a plan but the thought has crossed his mind, and how in 
the world does she know?  It will be a relief, when this night is 
over, to reclaim his freedom of thought.)
 
He doesn't have to get an unlisted phone number, she says through a 
hiccup which, against all odds, manages to be wry.
 
They both knew it was coming, she continues.  There's no need for a 
war.  They get enough of that at work.  If they air this properly, 
between them, now, there's no reason they can't still be friends.
 
He doesn't call many people 'friend', and of those he has slept with 
none.  They not only have to be rather special in their own rights, 
but also to possess some quite remarkable powers of tolerance to be 
able not to merely endure him but to care for him.  
 
The first category was never a problem.  He cannot deny that he is 
curiously touched when it occurs to him that she also falls into the 
second.
 
He stands her beside the select few friends he hasn't lost to ill-
temper and indifference (on his side) or treachery (on theirs) and 
realises for the first time that she is a keeper.
 
It's but a fleeting thought, however, in the context of the night and 
serves only to make him resent her the more for making this 
necessary.  
 
"I-"  
 
She's trying, really trying, but either the words aren't there or 
there are too many of them for her to catch the ones she needs.  He 
isn't trying.
 
It's bad timing, she suggests.  It isn't, but he agrees in an 
attempt to get this over with.  Doesn't work.
 
She's too young for something this complicated, she tries.  (She is 
too young.  She's too young, and he's too much older than his body.)
 
She suggests (it occurs to him that her list of reasons is like 
hearing the phone book recited) that he's too passionate about other 
things to devote energy to something this intense.  He hasn't the 
patience.   
 
He nods absently at it all.
 
She doesn't want to say goodbye to him, but it can't go on like 
this.  Agreed.  They'll be good as friends.  He thinks she sounds a 
little desperate.  It doesn't become her.
 
"You don't like feeling reliant on someone," she says.  Damn right.
 
"You know I have the capacity to get to you.  You don't like that."  
 
He wants, very badly, for her to stop talking.
 
"You don't know how to deal with your feelings and you take it out on 
me.  Then you feel guilty, and that makes you resent me for making 
you feel like that."
 
He turns the full force of his glare on her but she has experienced 
it so often the black magic has worn off.
 
He growls softly, "I don't know where you get this stuff."
 
She carries on as if she hasn't heard.  "I don't like it either, to 
be honest.  All that energy spent trying to prove my independence and 
I wind up going to work for my boyfriend." 
 
"You work for the candidate."  The pedant in her life.
 
"It doesn't matter."  Absently she plumps the pillows she was 
substituting for handkerchiefs.  "It's not the work that's the 
problem, is it?"
 
He wonders.  If not for too-small motel rooms and too-long days 
together, hour upon hour, quarrelling over the wording of a press 
release... well, he wonders.
 
"It's for the best," he says suddenly.
 
She flinches.  He feels curiously distant, anaesthetised, wanting 
only to be away from this.  He doesn't relish death scenes any more 
than she does.
 
As if she's read his mind again: "I wish we didn't have to finish the 
campaign."
 
She looks numb too, for all the tears still drying on her cheeks 
and water stains on her blouse.  She's picking at the corners of the 
pillows and staring at the gap in the curtains, through which the 
blackness is pouring in.
 
"It's a losing race anyway," she mutters, still talking about the 
campaign?  "What's more, I'm not even sure he *deserves* to win."
 
Is that a dig at him?  He got her the job.  Or is it a compliment, 
meaning she only took it to be with him?
 
He is staring once again at the words on the pages before him.  They 
have suddenly become dry, drained of their colour and adventure.  
Sometimes he wonders if words mean as much as he thinks they do.
 
He doesn't glance up but he can tell she is looking.
 
"You'll pick a winner yet," she says.  "So will I."
 
It's an empty promise.  He already did.
 
 
*