Gravity's Chain by Alan Goodwin Page A

intervening time between our first words and these were forgotten.
    â€˜Thought I’d go up with Mary, Helen and Mike. Is that OK with you?’
    â€˜Should be.’
    â€˜Thanks.’
    That was that. Holiday fixed. Well nearly: just before we left, Helen and Mike decided they wanted time by themselves, so they packed a tent and headed south. Mary and I travelled north for a week together before the Christmas and wedding onslaught. It was our first time back since the fateful holiday the year before and our golden moment on the beach. The bach was a mythical place for us now, our private Shangrila where dreams came true. The moment we arrived everything in our lives was how it should be. This was a perfect moment of first love. We sat and watched the sun set, casting an orange glow across the bay and sea. All was gentle, even the smallest flick of surf on the beach. It would be hard to think of a more sublime moment.
    â€˜This is amazing.’ Mary propped her legs on the glass coffee table in the middle of the room and sipped a glass of wine. Her body nuzzled into my side and she felt as soft as the picturebefore us, just as I had dreamt of her as I sat in the cold of Mrs Grey’s front room.
    I merely nodded. Even speaking might doom the moment and break my happiness.
    â€˜Can I ask you something, Jack?’
    I managed a grunt, but already I was aware of perfection slipping.
    â€˜Don’t be angry.’
    â€˜I promise.’ I was immediately on my guard. What dangers lurked in this simple request? I felt her body tense.
    â€˜Do you find me…boring?’
    I almost laughed with relief. ‘Of course I don’t. What on earth makes you think like that?’
    â€˜I mean intellectually boring.’ She moved away so she could turn to look at me. ‘It’s just that you are so, well, bloody clever and I’m so average. Do you find it difficult, I mean a strain, to be with me? Do you feel like you have to lower yourself to my standards, to my level?’ She paused and noticed my smile. ‘Jack, I’m serious. Caroline said something to me and it’s kind of freaked me out.’
    â€˜What did she say?’
    â€˜Basically that you’d tire of me and when you did, you’d leave.’
    â€˜Mary, I promise, I don’t find you the least bit boring.’
    â€˜How can I be sure of that, Jack?’
    â€˜I don’t sit here thinking about questions I’d like to ask you or subjects to discuss and then say, “Shit, this is Mary, so there’s no point in asking.” Come on, Mary, it doesn’t work that way. I’m with you because I love you. I’m not looking for an intellectual equal, I’m looking for someone to love.’
    â€˜There, you said it, I’m not your equal—that’s what you think.’ She stood up and walked from the room. Moments later I watched her stride along the beach with the comical waddle of someone trying to walk through sand quickly. She looked like a cartoon character: all movement but no gain.
    She returned an hour later and sat in the chair opposite, one leg lazily dropped across the arm. ‘I think that was our first argument.’
    â€˜I think so.’ I went to her. ‘You know I don’t think like that about you, Mary. Come on, would I be here if that was how I felt about you?’ I smiled thinly at the top of her head as I kissed it. My words sounded cheap and hollow—and they were.
    The holiday passed without further comment on Mary’s intelligence. That night we kissed and made love to heal the wound of our argument and the subject was closed. However, a shadow was cast and although we ignored the darkening when we were together I had no doubt Mary was as aware of it as I was. The near perfection of the return to the bach was broken and could never be mended.
    Mary returned to the maelstrom of wedding arrangements and the plethora of small arguments turned