Somewhere Beyond Reproach by Tim Jeal Page B

fastened my attention. I wondered if I would have time to go to the lavatory before Dinah came. I decided not. Instead I started to walk up and down in front of the fire to try and appease my nerves. In the far corner of the room there was a radio. I switched it on. Some classical music. I could not recognise the composer. After a time I turned it off. The silence seemed more noticeable than it had been before. I heard a key in the front door. She must have walked quietly. I wondered why I had not heard her steps on the path. I raised the paper and pretended to read. Then I decided this was too obvious. I would obviously have heard the door opening. I got up and with my back to the window waited for her to come into the room. How many windows did the path have, were the drainpipes crazy-paved? How long was she in that hall? A few seconds. My hand was on the table next to her photograph. I was dropping a Daily Telegraph, running out into the street. No the door had to be opened first. Mrs Lisle said: ‘You have to lift it under the letterbox.’ Africa. Andrew.
    ‘Dinah.’
    ‘Well I did come.’ Her voice, quite the same. Calm, restrained.
    Me wanting to say: I’ve waited so long, I’ve remembered so much. Nothing without you is anything. All these years everything has been nothing. My mind is the room that was yours. I have listed the furniture in my head. I can remember your every word. Dinah is love. I love Dinah. Dinah is me in my brain wanting to be you. I …
    ‘I thought Andrew was coming.’ My voice level, reasonable, real, genuinely surprised. I haven’t looked at her yet. My eyes moved across the carpet. Her feet … Not bare this time, no padded silk dressing gown that almost covers the ankles. I am not sitting in a deep cane-bottomed chair. So neat in her light brown shoes with three darker brown leather bands over the toes. White lace-patterned stockings. Her legs the same. The skirts were longer then. She is sitting down, delicately crossing her knees.
    ‘I should have been more honest in my letter. I wasn’t thinking about Andrew. I didn’t want to have to see you.’ She was looking at me. ‘Very cowardly.’
    I sensed the slight flicker of her self-deprecating smile.
    ‘Why are you here then?’
    ‘Your letter.’
    She was wearing a light grey suit edged with darker grey. Her white shirt was fastened at the neck by a brooch with a large black stone. Her face a pale oval framed by her long black hair. The street lamps came on. The room was almost dark. A car passed. I watched her get up and walk over to the light switch. I was still standing in the same place. The lights were on. I said quietly:
    ‘You’ve come because I forced you to. You’ve come to tell me to leave you alone. To tell me that that is the only way to forgive.’ Madness. I heard the stiltedness of my words. She probably didn’t remember that there was anything to forgive. The jilted normally heal, however deep the wound. A matter of time and off with the plaster. All gone. Nobody would ever know. Or like me they could try the plastic surgery of a different place. The cutting out of the affected area. It was only a dream. You’ll soon forget about the nasty things. Medically an interesting specimen: the only emotional haemophiliac known to be living.
    ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Her voice so soothing and reasonable. My legs did not want to move. My spine seemed made of something soft. Do not touch. I do not exist. Somehow the tall sides of a chair rise on each side of me. I am seated.
    ‘I didn’t come to tell you anything except that Andrew can’t come this evening. He’s got a temperature.’ Her voice so calm as she tells this obvious lie.
    Gradually my limbs harden. My pride lives again slowly. I will not be pitied with lying kindness. She has been seated too long now to get up and leave after a brief cruel-to -be-kind manifesto. Somehow, I do not deserve it, I have survived.
    ‘So you decided to come out with me