Sample

RELATIONSHIPS

by Lili Hart

When Linda re-entered the living-room, he was standing on top of the polished mahogany table, arms and legs rigid, his face the colour of Morello cherries and panic in his eyes. Theo, the tom, was purring and prowling unconcernedly in circles around her frightened guest. “What on earth is the matter, Martin?,” she cried in consternation. His shyness was so great that he stammered in painful embarrassment that he was allergic to cats.
“Oh, I am so sorry, I did not know. I thought he would be company for you while I prepared a bite to eat for us,” and she took Theo by the thick scruff of his neck and gently lowered him out into the garden. He was certainly an eccentric little man, she thought, but surprisingly interesting company, as she had discovered in these last few months. There was not much he did not know about, be it Literature, Music, the Arts, good wine, good food, even good cooking. He seemed to be entirely self-sufficient and self-contained. People did not go out of their way to make his acquaintance. He was not popular. Being such a loner, at the age of 45 with no wife, no family, not even a girl-friend, made him suspect! He was thought to be snobbish, cold, standoffish, perhaps gay. Yet he seemed perfectly happy, perfectly contented, at harmony with himself.
They had met at a mutual friend’s party, where his inability at cock-tail chatter, his lack of small-talk, had forced him to stand unobtrusively leaning against the wall in nearly total isolation. He had a way of shrinking into himself, of putting up an invisible barrier when anyone attempted to talk to him, which very soon brought the one-sided conversation to an almost abrupt ending. So how come that she had noticed him that evening?
His eyes, that was it she decided. He had particularly fine eyes and she suddenly determined to try to get to know him.
His shyness, his very gaucheness was a challenge to her. She had always liked a challenge, could not resist one in fact, and only difficult men appealed to her. She decided to get to work with him, bring him out of his shell, teach him the art of human relationships.
For the next few months he escorted her everywhere like a faithful spaniel, his eyes full of devotion and, yes, gratitude. Apart from his mother, several years since passed over into an unknown world from where she no longer needed to fret over her introvert son - although he at times still felt her presence hovering anxiously nearby - no-one had ever taken such trouble over him, tried so hard and so genuinely to draw him out, to understand his innermost feelings and emotions. It was a totally new experience and slowly, layer by layer, he felt himself loosening up, felt himself responding, baring his soul. For her part, she dipped into an Aladdin’s cave of hidden and unexpected treasure. His extensive experience in the cultural Arts, the depth of his reading, the accumulation of knowledge he had absorbed over so many lonely years, fascinated her. She was basically a bit of a butterfly, flitting from one nourishing source to another, skimming over the surface of life, gathering a bit here and a bit there on a vast number of subjects. Now she listened to him, spellbound, as he expounded - for once to receptive ears - on the different techniques of the painters whose pictures they studied at various art exhibitions, on the type of canvases, brush-strokes, oils and pigmentation they used, on the content and meaning of the works , on the artists’ backgrounds and family histories, repeating little anecdotes he had heard. “You know, Renoir never received payment for ‘Les Demoiselles d’Anvers’ and was very angry with that family!”
He explained the allegorical subject-matter and the symbolism of Chagall, much of which had hitherto eluded her.
They went to concerts together and he made her understand for the first time, and therefore like, not only Mahler’s First and Second Symphonies, but the later, much more difficult ones as well.
He came alive in front of her eyes, this hitherto withdrawn, quiet little man until he seemed to worship her, to depend on their mutual journey of exploration and delight, and she - who had so far dipped only fleetingly into the nectar of life - found she could not stop drinking at this magic well, could not exist without him.
“Martin, I’ll meet you at the station at lunch-time and we’ll have a snack together, and don’t forget to bring your lounge-suit for our dinner invitation this evening. Oh, and Saturday we are driving out to the Cotswolds to meet up with Jane and Harry at their darling little cottage, they have asked us to stay over the week-end, so bring your overnight things. And for heaven’s sake, do have a hair-cut before you come down!”
There was an ever so slight, odd sensation at the back of Martin’s mind, but he dismissed it. After all it is good to be wanted, something that had not happened to him in a long while.
Two months later the ‘phone rang in her flat, “Is that you, Linda, I am so sorry dear, I can’t make it this week-end, I have to attend a Seminar in the country.”
“But Martin, this is a terribly important date. I am introducing you to the one man who can really get your book off the ground, had you forgotten?” She could not help a note of irritation creeping into her voice - how dare he go somewhere without her? And how could he stand her up at the last minute? After all she had done for him during the past nine months! By dint of strenuous effort she swallowed the harsh words already on the tip of her tongue, “Alright, I’ll make a plausible excuse, so that he won’t be offended and will give us another chance. I’ll think of something! See you Wednesday, bye for now, Darling”.
Two week-ends later and after a successful meeting with the previously cancelled publisher - which he could certainly thank HER for, she thought - she rang and told him she had managed to get tickets at Covent Garden, “Frightfully difficult, my sweet. House completely sold out, but I do have contacts, you know,” she giggled, delighted with herself.
Martin cleared his throat nervously. “Linda, I wish you would have arranged it with me first, it so happens that I am again tied up on that date.” Linda exploded with exasperation, “Really Martin, this is too bad of you, I thought you would be over the moon, your favourite opera too, ‘Boris Gudenov’ , sung by Boris Christoff. You have no idea how I had to pull out all the stops to get these tickets! In future would you kindly advise me of your schedule so that I won’t be put to all this trouble for nothing. I think it most inconsiderate of you!”
“My dear,” Martin mildly interposed, “don’t you think it would have been wiser if you had checked with me before making reservations?
I am truly sorry, I would have loved such an evening, but I simply cannot break my appointment - it is nothing social, Linda, but in connection with my work and would take too long and be too complicated to explain over the telephone. Please forgive me dear, won’t you?” he pleaded. “I’ll reimburse you for any expenses, of course, if you cannot return the tickets, but you did say they were sold out, didn’t you? Someone else will surely be happy to have them.”
This time alarm bells were ringing in his head: M-O-T-H-E-R, they spelt out in strident tones, MOTHER, all over again.  He had passionately loved his mother - and he had hated her. His fun-loving, beautiful mother with her strong sense of humour, her great gift for story-telling, her charming little anecdotes, always, wherever she found herself, the centre of attraction, people thronging around her, hanging on her words, enjoying her amusing bon-mots, telling him how lucky he was to have such an outstanding personality for a mum, envying him for the supposedly happy and hilarious life he led with her. The truth was very different. Right from his birth, after fifteen years of barren marriage, she had worshipped him, but with a love so possessive, so domineering, so obsessive that she it was who had made him into the eccentric, world-shy, secretive and introverted man he was to-day. However, being so dominated and therefore thrown in upon himself, had also, conversely, made him strong, stubborn and self-reliant. He had an inner harmony, an indestructible central core from which he drew constant spiritual strength. He knew his true worth. He owed his mother, he had a deep sense of blood-ties and he also understood the seemingly endless years of maternal frustration, finally being rewarded by the miracle of his birth - after his parents and particularly his mother had given up all expectation, had grown resigned, had abandoned the fight - in Dante’s famous words ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here!’ “Forgive me for my levity, mother,” he thought with a wry grimace.
So, looking back upon his youth, he felt deep sympathy for his mother’s total pre-occupation with himself. However, notwithstanding their empathy, he breathed a heavy, secret sigh of relief when his shackles had finally fallen away, when the prison bars had buckled and he could walk out into the sunshine and be his own master at last. And now it was history repeating herself. The chains had started clanking ominously once more, were coming dangerously closer, ready to enclamp him again. He could not allow that to happen to him twice in a life-time. He was older and wiser now. Linda loved him in the same fashion his mother had done; if he let her, she would engulf him, engorge him until there was nothing left of his identity, he would be as emasculated in his middle-age as he had been as a young man. Apart form his mother, never had he loved as much or been as close to another human being as he did and was to this warm-hearted girl. He would miss her painfully. There would be a huge gap in his life. He would be alone again - but he could respect himself, he would retain his human dignity.
He sighed as he sat down at his desk and pulled out a clean sheet of his elegantly embossed letter-heading. Slowly, sadly, reluctantly he started to write. The mild Spring air this Sunday morning wafted through the open window and gently ruffled his hair. He could breathe freely once more.

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